30 January 2007

Japanese for Half-Assed People V

Hisashiburi: 久しぶり: (hee-sa-shii-bu-riiii): adv. After a long time

You say 'hisashiburi' as you would 'long time no see' — only that 'long time no see' makes you sound like a neo-maxi-zoom-dweebie, whereas hisashiburi ends with that same endearing, high-pitched squealy "iiiiii" that makes Japanese so kawaii and fun.

Example:

Jimmy Hoffa: "Hisashiburi!"
Gladys Hoffa: "Where the hell have you been?"

24 January 2007

Chimo

Those of you who have read Douglas Copeland's Souvenir of Canada will recognise this word. For those of you who haven't, you should –but in the mean time I'll explain. In the 1970s with the Olympics and Expo, draft-dodgers, Trudeau, bilingual cereal boxes and kicking Soviet hockey ass, Canada-mania reached new, dizzying heights. We were hot hot hot, and we needed a word that was cool. A Canadian word. And that word was "chimo."

Ostensibly, this came from an Innuktitut word meaning “bellbottoms are awesome,” Chimo failed to catch on, and with it, Canada missed its big chance to make a linguistic mark on the world.

I say the time is ripe to bring back “chimo” and kick off another phase Canadia-mania; with all our subversive gay weddings, unlocked doors, nationally-subsidised medicinal marijuana programmes and lesbian witches for abortion, who wouldn’t want to be Canadian these days?

Canada is so chimo!

So let’s all do our part, dialectise ourselves and create a chimo Canadian patois. If we keep it up, soon we’ll be as colourful as our Aussie cousins with all their ‘crikey’ and ‘flaming galahs.’

Go chimo!

23 January 2007

Amazing Race No-Stars

.!!#?*$!?#*!?!#!$?.

W.T.F!!!!!! No Hippies? I am sooooo upset right now I can't believe it! The Hippies were the best racers of all time ever! As if anyone cares the slightest iota about seeing pasty-faced lame-os Rob and Amber schlep their over-exposed, reality asses around the world all over again. Yuck!

Blah, phwpt! I spit on you Amazing Race All Stars. You are dead to me!

How can you even pretend to be an all-stars edition when you lack the biggest stars of them all?!

Ugh. I don't even want to watch it now.

17 January 2007

A Streetcar Named Displeasure

While I appreciate the aesthetic pleasantry of streetcars, I hate pretty much everything else about them. From the jerky, lurching ride to the simply terrible on time performance records, there’s a lot not to love. Quite frankly I can not imagine a worse form of transportation (except perhaps harnessing a team of blind monkeys to pull me down the street on a sled).

Streetcars are eternally getting stuck in traffic, so then they get all bunched up, which means there are more people waiting for the next car, it takes longer to load all the people who’ve been waiting, then the cars get slowed down even more, then there’s even more people waiting, even longer loading; it’s a ridiculous cycle of inefficiency.

It also drives me crazy that when stopped behind traffic at a red light, streetcars have to wait for the light to turn green, then move ahead the few meters to the stop to let people on/off, and by the time everyone is on the light has gone back to red. It would be so much better if the streetcar stop was after the intersection (I know that’s never going to happen because of traffic-flow issues, but it would improve the passenger experience by, oh, a million-billion times). I once waited at Yonge Street on the Dundas car while the light cycled through three times waiting for everyone to get on; the light changed back to red, then more people came off the subway and the light change back to red again, then more people came again!! Aaaargh!

I live for the day when I no longer have to deal with the crowded-front/empty-back and every other obnoxious hassle that is TTC streetcars.

Oh yeah, and it costs almost three dollars to ride!

Streetcars: Ask anyone, I’m the biggest advocate of public transit there is; if it were up to me, private cars would be illegal. But my love affair ended the minute I had to depend on you everyday to get to work. You are ineffective and inefficient. There’s no real hope for change, you are officially “Dead to Me.”
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(Please note, none of the above applies to the Spadina streetcar, which by virtue of having its own right-of-way, is actually fantastic. All streetcars should have their own right-of-way, but they don’t, so they suck).

13 January 2007

Tiki Hula Luau


Thanks to everyone who came out and made 'my special day' one of the best birthdays *ever*! From the champagne breakfast and the Chinatown ice-cream cake to the Hula Luau that one person even said was "the best party they'd ever been to in Toronto," the whole day was simply amazing. The party was so tiki-tastic that it even had pre-party buzz going on other blogs.


I owe all this amazing fabulousness to you, all my super-sugoi fantastic friends! Thank you all so much for reminding me of the reason I moved back to Toronto. You guys are so awesome, and rock so hard, I'm getting a bit teary with appreciation for how wonderful you all are. I love you guys! Mwah!

They Got Ping-Pong

Looks as though I'm not the only one down on China right now. The Toronto Star seems to think they're a bunch of no-goodniks too.
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Does this call for a drop down to the ranks of "Dead to Me"?
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Article here.

12 January 2007

stuff + cats = awesome!

Um, like the best site on the internet *ever* (after this one of course). Stuffonmycat.com is for people who like to take stuff and put it on top of their cat and then take pictures and send them in. Cats are so amazing — you could never get a dog to co-operate and do these kind of crazy shenanigans. Cats are like the best animals *ever* — except of course for sea otters, which are so cute they make me kind of dizzy.
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06 January 2007

They Got the Red Book, They Got the New Look

Remember back in the day when everyone hated on the Soviet Union and got upset when they used their superior gymnastic technology to beat us in the Olympics? Then they self-destructed and it was America 's turn to be top-dog obnoxious bully. Well ladies and gentlemen, I'm calling it right now and you heard it here first: the 21st century's super-power super-villain is the People's Republic of China .

They snuck up on us with their cheap running shoe factories and delicious hoisin sauce and now they're well on their way to overtaking our rowdy southern neighbours for the title of "The Superpower You Love to Hate" — at least America has an elected government to keep up the checks and balances.

Let's review the evidence of China 's newfound jerkyness: Let's start with Taiwan. Taiwan is its own country, end of story. Why does China even care so much — Taiwan has no resources and little historical significance to the mainland. Could it perhaps be their bloated ego and over-inflated sense of self importance? Taiwan has been trying to resolve this ridiculous aberration of diplomacy for the past twenty years, but is scared youknowwhatless by China's huge army and threats of immediate attack.

Tibet — hmmn, how to put it nicely? China's invasion of Tibet in 1950 blows, and their continued efforts to destroy Tibetan culture and suppress self-determination blows even harder! Hey PRC: Get the hell out of Tibet! It does not belong to you except in your own delusional mind. Your thinly-veiled attempt to erase Tibetan identity by promoting mass Han Chinese migration and wrapping it in a pale veneer of 'economic development' is disgusting and smacks of cultural genocide. — Hoo-wee, Tintin, getting a bit hot under the collar there. Moving right along...

Human rights; at the moment, China only has terrible human rights for its own citizens, but how long before it tries to push its brand of commie management on everyone else (à la present global-capitalist American hegemony)? From Tian'anmen to Falun Gong and prison labour, China 's human rights record is boo-urns.

The whole problem is that no one wants to take China to task for its meanie-badness because they don't want to piss off the world's biggest market. So pretty much everyone just turns a blind eye and looks the other way, pretending everything is fine, when really China is executing and torturing people left, right and centre. Any place that, for example, harvests organs from political prisoners deserves a whole heap of sanctions and international condemnation instead of a tsk-tsk-tsk and ineffectual finger-wagging. The PRC's authoritarian, un-elected government certainly makes all these problems worse.

Clearly the People's Republic of China should go in the 'Dead to Me' section, but it has a special place in my heart and I just can't bring myself to do it — there are simply far too many things I love; chopsticks, propaganda art, the Temple of Heaven, dragons, pirated DVDs, spicy crispy ginger pork. I'll have to content myself with 'On Notice,' but be warned China; you better stop resting on your Moo-shu laurels and get your act together before I'm forced to drop you down to 'Dead to Me' with Pope Eggs Benedict.

All that being said however, Americans are still a bunch of bat-crazy mo-fos ↓↓↓.

04 January 2007

Perez Hilton: Yey or Ney?

Perez Hilton is in "beeg traable for moose and squirell" now that everyone is suing him for a zillion dollars. It would seem that, among other things, some celebs are unhappy at being chased out of the closet.

Do celebrities, by virtue of being public figures, give up their right to privacy? While I think celebrities do deserve privacy, I'm conflicted on this topic however, when it comes to outing. There are two reasons for this; the first is visibility. When I was young, if I'd had gay role models to look up to other than Mr Humphries and Svend Robinson, I'd probably have ended up a lot less weird than I am now. If high school has taught me anything, it's that three-quarters of all boys in drama class are homos. It would therefore stand to reason that you couldn't swing a last-season Prada bag in Hollywood without hitting a poofy bender. But instead we have a dearth of fey fairy princesses and a cavalcade of rumours (which are all true). What ever happened to strength in numbers? C'mon, homo solidarity people!

The second reason is that I don't really understand why being gay is considered something "private." I mean, being Jewish or Black isn't considered "private," so why is being gay? Is it perhaps because we're somehow ashamed, and want to keep it hidden and secret?

I know there is the whole issue of gay actors being able to get good roles, but really, haven't we moved beyond that already? Aren't all the closeted actors the ones perpetuating this stereotype more than anyone else? And even if that were that case, I'll be *so* upset if Jake Gyllenhal isn't able to make 17 million dollars a movie anymore and won't be able to ride his diamond-encrusted albino elephant to the money factory. Boo-hoo-hoo! Time to gather up your cajones and come out boys. I know it took a long time to get there, but Black actors now play roles that don't have anything to do with being Black; I think studio execs would come around pretty quickly when they realise that, holy crap, everyone in Hollywood is a raging homo.

In early anticipation of National Coming Out Day (11 October), the following people are gay:
Leonardo DiCaprio
Hayden Christensen
Jessica Alba
Tom Cruise (woops! How did he get in there?)
Ricky Martin
Jake Gyllenhaal
Maggie Gyllenhaal
Lance Armstrong
Jimmy Fallon
Elijah Wood
Sherlock Holmes
Sally Struthers
Lunchlady Doris
Mary Queen of Scots
Jeff Probst
Helen Keller

Okay– so some of those people probably aren't gay (yeah, they're air-quote "bisexual"). The point is I fully support Perez Hilton's stated goal of outing everyone in Hollywood. Who's with me?