For your enjoyal...

Since so many people missed it, I thought I'd post this pic of myself with a beard. For health reasons, I was forced to grow out my beard, and what you see here represents about two weeks growth. Thankfully I was able to shave it off shortly thereafter. It was the most annoying, itchy thing ever and I have no idea how some people (like my dad), can walk around with one every day. I doubt very much that I will ever grow it out again.

I love this picture however. I think my super-glam friend Alanna and I look like student radicals from a militant Basque terrorist cell, circa 1972. Very smooth.

Spend less when we have more

AAAaargh!!!! I would personally like to throttle the necks of every single person who voted for Stephen Harper and his Conservative Party of Jerks.

Why, why, why would you cut one billion dollars in government spending when you had a freakin thirteen billion dollar surplus!! It just doesn’t make sense. You make cuts when you don’t have enough money, not when you have too much! —I! Hate! Stephen! Harper!

Of course all of the cuts go to lefty-loosey-hippy things like museums, First Nations, conservation and adult literacy. I don’t know about you, but I think illiteracy costs our society a lot more than the 6.7 million that was being spent on that programme. And tourism, whose advertising funding is being cut, actually generates billions of dollars for our economy. Why would you cut funding to something that is making you money? It makes no sense! Conservatives make no sense!

Although all of the cuts are upsetting, none more so that cuts eliminating the Court Challenges Programme which assisted advocacy groups in funding court cases which they would be otherwise unable to fund; notably, but not limited to, the case which brought equal marriage before the Supreme Court. Also cut is the Law Commission of Canada. How convenient for the Conservatives that they would cut funding to two agencies which fought for the rights of the little people against bad government and big business.

This is so clearly and transparently an attention-getting scheme for the idiot hicks in 905 and Alberta that everyone involved should be flogged with copies of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal People. “Hey- lets all be knob-wads and cut the programmes that the bad-ol Liberals created because we’re Conservatives and the Liberals suck.” Could you be more infantile?

Hey Stephen– If you want to appeal to a broad range of voters and win a majority in the impending election, you should know that cuts to social programmes don’t exactly appeal to anyone except the people who would have already voted for you anyway.

–I find Mr Harper’s offensive actions an attack on humanitarian values and an attempt to make us more like George W’s lapdogs. I can’t wait for the day when I can say “Good-bye to bad rubbish!” Pwpth!! I spit on you, Stephen Harper!

(Toronto Star article here)

That time of year again

The autumn sitting of Parliament is just around the corner, and with it is Stephen DonkeyFacedJerkKnob Harper’s promise to revisit the equal marriage debate so that he can pander to conservative redneck hicks in Alberta and be a kowtowing lackey for his best bud George W.

Now, he is doing this even though
1) Parliament has already decided this issue.
2) Legal experts have said that backtracking on this human rights issue is constitutionally impossible.
3) A growing and clear majority of people are opposed to reopening this issue. People who initially opposed equal marriage are now opposed to debating this issue all over again (maybe because several years of debating and royal-commissioning have already taken place).

God, talk about flogging a dead horse Steve! I am very temped to process Stephen Harper straight through to the “Dead To Me” section, but I will differ to correct procedure and first announce that Stephen Harper, you’re officially On Notice!

Now, hopefully it will be the last time I ever have I ever have to entreat you to email your MPs and remind them Canada is a nation of hippy granola pinko commie leftwingers who love bilingual cereal boxes and cheap prescription drugs and believe that everyone should do whatever they want; take a bear to church, read a book with your feet, change your name to Goobleglob, or even, saints preserve us, get married to whomever you want to!

Contact your MP through this handy

Next Stop: Togo!

mm

As of yesterday, when I booked and paid for my plane ticket, I am on my way to Togo and Ghana at the end of October for ten days. I am so excited! It should be totally awesome!

For those of you darling readers from my Japan social circle; I lived one year with a lovely girl from Vermont named Katie who is currently now working for the Peace Corps in Togo. So after two years being hounded by my other roommate at the time, Jennifer (whom some of you may have met when she came to visit me in Tokyo), I am finally on board for this African expedition! All systems set to go. Or is that all systems set Togo! Hahahaha, I’m so witty.

I have had a tonne of fun trying to extract information about visas from lovely West African consular workers in Ottawa.

GHANA
ME: I'm not sure what I should put in the 'references' section of the visa application form.
GHANIAN EMBASSY LADY: You put down the hotel you staying in and one person you know in Ghana.
ME: Okay, but I don't know anyone in Ghana.
GEL: (incredulous) You don't know anyone in Ghana!?
ME: Um, no.
GEL: (sharp suck of air).
ME: ...
GEL: Well, just the hotel is fine then.
ME: Only one reference is okay?
GEL: Yes. No problem.

TOGO
ME: Hi. I'm phoning to find out if tourist visas for Togo are available at the border with Ghana.
TOGO EMBASSY STAFF: What!?
ME: Are visas for tourists available at the border with Ghana?
TES: I really don't know...
ME: ...
TES: ...
ME: Uh, is there someone in the consular section I could speak to?
TES: Oh mon dieu!
(put on hold)
TES#2: Yes?
ME: Are tourist visas available at the border with Ghana?
TES#2: One moment.
(on hold again)
TES#1: It's do-able.
ME: So visas are available at the border?
TES#1: Yes. You can do it.
ME: Thank you.

And of course my favourite; phoning the Bénin embassy:

ME: (ring, ring, ring!)
BENIN EMBASSY RECEPTIONIST: Hello.
ME: Um, is this the Embassy of Benin?
BER: Yes.
ME: Could you please fax me a visa application form?
BER: You're going to get it from the internet. benin.ca.
ME: ...Uh, okay--
BER: Goodbye. (click)


I’m not even exactly sure what the point of a visa is anyway. They seem pretty lackadaisical about the whole process and I highly doubt that anyone ever looks at the forms ever again. For example, why do they need to know the address of my employer, ? They should just call it “Tourist Tax Grab” and say “Give us 70$ to come to our country” and save everyone all the paperwork. I’d be fine with that – way less headaches.

Visa hassles or not, I am totally stoaked! Africa won't know what hit it!

Blame Canada!

Is it just me, or is this new pope (aside from being a Nazi), waaay worse than old JP? It seems like he's turning up the rhetoric to level ten.

See this Toronto Star article, here, where he says that Canada is going to hell for being a bunch of pot-smoking hippies with all our seal-clubbing, aborting and sinful fag weddings. I especially like the part where he says that Canada's commitment to justice and peace means that people's rights have been extended "too far." Uh -hello- how can people possibly have "too many" rights?! It's preposterous!

He's saying things that don't even make sense: "I encourage you to demonstrate that our Christian faith, far from being an impediment to dialogue, is a bridge." What kind of bridge are we talking about here Ratzinger? A bridge to take us from ignorance to oppression, that spans the river of human rights and freedoms perhaps? If there's one thing the papacy can do well, it's to be an impediment.

I also love how he's trying to meddle in that whole darned separation-of-church-and-state thing by "calling on bishops to use their influence with politicians by urging them to consider religious values when making decisions, not just public opinion polls and social trends."

All right – That's it! À la Colbert Report; Pope Benedict XVI, you're officially on notice!

I would like to formally commemorate our papal going-to-hell-ness with a clip of Robin Williams singing Blame Canada from the 2000 Oscar show. Hi-larious!

It's a Lacroix Sweetie!

It's official!

....I am a label whore! This was confirmed by my most recent trip to New York where I went crazy-shopping at Century 21 (not the realtors but a designer discount warehouse). There was plenty of nice shirts, for example, but all I was looking at was the label on the collar. It's not a Lacroix? --Fugetaboudit.

This is all terribly superficial and shallow of me, I know, but pretty things are so pretty! I mean, what is the point of ugly things cluttering up your life? Isn't it better to have fewer, really beautiful things? I guess beautiful things don't necessarily have to be Dior things, but.... --oh Gawd I'm vapid, shallow gay stereotype aren't I? I might as well just change my name to Bryce and get pec implants.

I should just accept my fate; shiny on the outside and hollow on the inside. Oh well, there are worse things to be; axe murder springs to mind for example. I bet Lizzy Borden would have been a lot less angry if she had a Miu Miu ostrich-skin corset to slip into. And she would have been really, really hot! And we all know that beautiful people are always happy (except for Claus von Bülow; and he was German, so that doesn't count).

I say: Long Live Labels! (My new personal motto; Regina Labelis, I'm getting it embroidered into the lining of all my jackets as we speak)

As an addendum, I'm in the middle of watching the final season of Queer As Folk --Awesome!