I bet you'd forgotten about this

And now that it's back in your mind, you won't be able to get it out (especially the first two songs) until at least Saturday. Which, coincidentally, is the next time I'll be online.

--Ryan

P.S. Everybody do the Michigan raaaaaaaag.
Everybody loves the Michigan raaaaaaag.

Remind me to show you the time I destroyed several centuries' contributions to the English language

Remember back when Jim Davis went insane?

Well he's at it again today. Observe.



And since there's not much actual content to this post, I'll throw in proof that baked goods make for good humour:



--Ryan

Paper wars

(I really need to start writing more. I keep coming up with new ideas, I think I've got a backlog of about twenty by now.)

Backstory: I sometimes start work before I would normally be awake. On these days, I need an alarm clock to help me wake up. I like to set the alarm clock to thelocal all-news radio station, so I can go into worked well-versed in...erm, rarely anything the least bit interesting.

This is particularly bad on Sundays, and especially when it comes to the business report - all the stock markets close on weekends, no major CEOs will be announcing anything, it's hard to come up with business news twice an hour.

So this past Sunday, at 7:26 AM, Mike Eppel was talking about toilet paper.

In 1997, Kimberley-Clark (makers of Kleenex, Huggies, and other paper products) merged the Scott Paper Company. However, the Canadian Competition Bureau ruled that the transaction would create a company too powerful, and forced Scott Paper Limited to remain the Canadian producers of Scott products. (In 2006, Scott Paper Limited changed its name to Kruger Products, which is what it will be referred to as for the rest of this post.)

Kruger was given the rights to use the original Scott names for only ten years - so, in 2004 (ahead of schedule), Cottonelle became Cashmere and ScottTowels became SpongeTowels.

Now, Kimberley-Clark has control over the original names once again, and is releasing new products in Canada under those names. (Apparently Wal-Mart is one of the stores selling them.)

So if you're at the store, and see Cottonelle toilet paper - it's not what you think it is.

--Ryan

Alternate title for this post: Cottonelle, Cottonelle, calling Cottonelle, Cottonelle, Cottonelle, Batman.

A nose for news?

(Ironically enough, I was originally planning to write about the non-news - even by sports standards - of the Blue Jays firing one of their beer vendors.)

Click here! It will take you to a test of your 'News IQ' - twelve questions about relatively current news items. It's an American test, so the focus is on American news (and international news that got big play in the States.)

I scored 10/12, which considering I only *knew* eight (the others were 50/50 guesses at best), is a great score.

Unfortunately, the site seems to think it's a *really* great score, as I did better than 83% of surveyed Americans. Considering I try to avoid all but the biggest American political stories, I think this backs up the 'worrying lack of news awareness' people far smarter than I have deduced.

When I was in my first year of journalism school, the profs decided to give all the students "news quizzes". There weren't any trick questions, and as long as you read the front page of a newspaper or watched the first five minutes of television news (etc.), you'd do fine. Most people complained that the first few quizzes were too hard, so bonus marks were handed out liberally. I'm not entirely sure what point I'm trying to illustrate here, but if you can't answer "What happened last week at Dawson College in Montreal?" (the week after two people were killed in a shooting there), maybe journalism isn't really the right career for you.

And maybe Americans should pay more attention to the news, and less to what Miley Cyrus is doing. (Although Steven Page getting arrested for cocaine posession is, of course, completely different.) Or maybe the quiz just asked some stupid questions.

--Ryan

The Fix is in!

(Not only is it a horrible pun, it's a horrible pun that a sportswriter used several years ago and I'm copying here!)

It was announced yesterday that Paul Fixter is the new assistant coach/GM of the Kitchener Rangers. Ordinarily, the news of a new assistant would go completely unnoticed among all but the most diehard Ranger fans - and certainly unmentioned on this blog.

However, Paul Fixter is my cousin. Or more accurately, my mom's cousin, but that description makes us sound like fairly distant relatives, and since my mom's extended family is very close, 'cousin' seems like a better fit.

He's been to the NHL, a city made of chocolate, and the Mexican border, but I think that coaching in his hometown, for the team he grew up watching, is going to be his most enjoyable experience (and biggest challenge) of all.

Congratulations, Paul.

(Also, to anyone who thought I was an insufferable hockey fan before - I'm actually going to WATCH Kitchener games this year.)

--Ryan

Behavioural analysis of people in 1974

Lest you think this is a one-off joke, I should mention that the Internet has finally realized its awesome potential - there is now a website (GraphJam) dedicated solely to mathematical charts and graphs of pop culture memes. A great time waster!

--Ryan

Thank you David Suzuki, but our princess is in another castle!

Apparently clotheslines are "in" in Ontario. Or so says David Suzuki, anyhow. While that may be true, this is one trend I simply cannot get behind.

During the summer months, I live in a neighbourhood where flying a clothesline runs contrary to local by-laws. The rest of the year (ignoring the fact that a clothesline is unusable during the winter), I wouldn't trust my clothes not to get stolen.

While Dan would likely point out that I seem to hang the majority of my clothes in my bedroom to try, rather than use the dryer, I don't do it out of any environmental well-wishing. It's hard enough to find clothes that fit my lanky frame in the first place - adding in the shrinkage caused by dryers is one more headache (and a lot of slightly-too-small clothes) more than I need.

Any environmentalism on my part is done for purely convenient (or selfish) reasons.

--Ryan

Mid-year report card

Back in January, I made some New Years' Resolutions. Since 2008 is now slightly more than half over, I thought I'd take a look at them and see how many I've lived up to.

My initial resolutions:

1) Keep a running diary of my life.
2) Watch more CBC.
3) Be friendlier.
4) Figure out how the sink in my bedroom keeps attracting hair, despite it not being hooked up to any water, and thus never used.
5) Learn the Charleston.

The running diary sort of fizzled out in mid-April. I'm not entirely sure why, I think it might have been the change in surroundings from school-year home to summer home. It had become a part of my nightly routine in Brantford, but wasn't such a part of the routine here, so I forgot about it, got a few days behind, and dropped it for good.

'Watch more CBC' referred specifically to the news, and I've been doing a decent job of that. I watched the National once or twice a week during the school year, and it's less now, but I'm watching less television on the whole now than I did then. One for two.

Be friendlier? That's a hard one to quantify. I'm definitely talking to new people more often, as well as people who I might have ignored in similar situations in the past. I guess I'll count it.

Haven't gotten anywhere on the last two yet, but the year is young, and they're one-time things.

So the only abject failure on the list is #1, and that's the one which had the least benefit to me anyhow. Not too shabby.

--Ryan

We're number one! We're number one!

So with Tuesday being Canada Day, ir provided a great opportunity for us to think about our international reputation.

We have snow. And ice. And hockey. And curling. And beer. And French people. And that's about it.

But did you know that Canada leads the world in per capita consumption of fruit juice?

For that matter, did you know that statistics are kept on per capita consumption of fruit juice? I didn't.

--Ryan

It's Canada Day, up Canada way

141 years ago today, the British colonies of Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia banded together to form the Dominion of Canada. This anniversary is generally celebrated with fireworks.

Since fireworks kind of lose their lustre in still picture form, I thought I'd give you the next best thing - a trip through my Youtube favourites, showcasing videos pertinent to this country!

We start off with a good one. A bunch of singers, many of whom are Canadian, sing one of Canada's greatest rock anthems, and then Canada's national anthem.

Let's move on to one of our most eloquent politicians of all time, giving one of his best-remembered quotes.

And just for good measure, the other end of the spectrum.

I like political satire. I like Newfie accents. That might explain why I like this video.

This one would just be the accents.

Here's one of Canada's greatest comedians/game show hosts.

And finally, a live performance from the best Canadian band you've never heard of unless you read this blog, or know somebody with awesome taste in music.