Ah... the fun with mail never ends

What would we do for fun without Canada Post? Watch old John Candy movies again and again?

The Phantom Coupon Mailer strikes again:





The coupons this time: Tampax tampons, Always Fresh femenine hygeine products and Clover Leaf tuna.

I'm not sure if that's some kind of theme or not.

Bad FWG throws a tizzy

Welcome to Ontario. We're morons.

Okay. Heres what we need to do. Besides changing the border welcome signs to the above phrase, We need to turn all the Ontario DriveTest Centres into IQ-test Centres. We need to test everyone's IQ. Everyone! The smart people receive (or keep) their drivers license. The stupid people get made into slaves for the smart people - or - get turned into dog food.

The problem - of course, will be then trying to re-staff all the test centres after their personnel have been auctioned off or processed - as the case may be.

Yes, I'm a little pissed off right now. I went to the DriveTest centre today. I paid my $85. I passed the vision test with flying colours. Hoo haw. One down. Two to go.

Off to the written-test area. They gave me two tests. One for identifying street signs and one multiple-choice questionnaire. Each test had 20 questions. You need 16 correct on each to pass. I aced the visual street sign one. The other quiz was rather an adventure. It went basically like this:


1. You are stopped at a two-way stop sign and traffic is busy in front of you. You should:

A) Watch for traffic from all directions and proceed only when safe to do so.
B) Shift into reverse, scream at the top of your lungs and proceed backward.
C) Use your cell phone to call the House of Parliament Leader of the Opposition and tell him you think Prime Minister Harper’s doing a bang-up job.
D) Speed into the intersection and do a bang-up job.


2. You come to a red light. A police officer is directing traffic and signals you to proceed through the intersection. You should:

A) Proceed through the intersection.
B) Roll down the window and explain to the officer that red means stop.
C) Roll down the window and yell "Pigs go home!"
D) Accellerate and run down the police officer.


3. As the holder of a G2 license you must not drive:

A) On a divided highway or with any amount of alcohol in your blood.
B) With any amount of alcohol in your blood or without a fully licensed driver accompanying you.
C) Between the hours of 11PM and 6AM or without a fully licensed driver with 2 or more years experience.
D) On a 400 series highway or without a fully licensed driver with 2 or more years experience.
E) On a 400 series highway or with more than .08% blood alcohol volume.
F) With more than .05% blood alcohol volume, or between the hours of 11:30PM and 5:30AM or without a fully licensed driver.
G) On a divided highway or with more than .08% blood alcohol volume or during the hours of darkness.
H) On a 400 series highway or between the hours of 11PM and 6AM or without a fully licensed driver with 4 or more years of experience.
I) On a divided highway or with any amount of alcohol in your blood or during the hours of darkness or without a fully licensed driver with 4 or more years experience.


4. Traffic signals are indicating a red light and a green arrow pointing left. You may:

A) Tune your radio dial to the next station to the left.
B) Grab the left breast of your passenger and yell, “Drink milk for health!”
C) Proceed left through the intersection.
D) Point your automobile Eastward and say a prayer to Allah. Proceed only when Allah instructs you to.


5. You are driving on a rural highway outside of any town. There are no posted limits. You should:

A) Close your eyes and accelerate until you hit something.
B) Drive at a safe speed, no more than 60 KPH.
C) Turn into the nearest farmer’s field. Light a rag on fire and stuff it into your gas tank.
D) Pretend you are Luke Duke and your cell phone is a CB radio. Shout “Come in Crazy Cooter! Where are you at?”


6. To graduate from a G1 license to a G2 license you must:

A) Wait the required time.
B) Pass a G2 written test.
C) Pass the G1 road test.
D) Pay the required fee.
E) Wait the required time and pass a G2 written test.
F) Wait the required time and pass the G1 road test.
G) Blow the Minister of Finance.
H) Wait the required time and pay the required fee.
I) Pass a G2 written test and the G1 road test.
J) Pass a G2 written test and pay the required fee.
K) Pass the G1 road test and pay the required fee.
L) Pass the G1 road test and blow the Minister of Finance.
M) Wait the required time, Pass a G2 written test and the G1 road test.
N) Wait the required time, Pass a G2 written test and blow the Minister of Finance.
O) Wait the required time, pass the G1 road test and pay the required fee.
P) Wait the required time, pass a G2 written test, pass the G1 road test, pay the required fee, wish upon a star and blow the Minister of Finance.
Q) Find a gold ticket in a chocolate bar.
R) All of the above.


7. [etc...]


Every question was either brain-dead obvious or completely irrelevant. There were at least five questions that had neither to do with my ability to drive safely or by the rules of the road. I took wild guesses at these and hoped I'd get at least one or two correct and therefore pass. I marched up to the girlatthedesk.

"You know I really resent having to answer all these questions about G1 and G2 regulations!" I said. "They're completely irrelevant. I was never a G1 or G2 driver! I've had my G license for 20 years! They never had G1 or G2 back then. How could I possibly know this stuff and why should I? They have nothing to do with my performance on the road!"

"Because," said girlatthedesk, calmly and quietly, "If you fail your road test, you may be demoted to a G1."

"I see. That's good that nobody told me that until now. That's good that they didn't waste any of this nice blank white space on the form, telling me about that. Much better that I don't find out until it's too late. Thank you. I feel much better now."

Girlatthedesk marked my tests. I got 20 on the street signs, 15 on the questionnaire. I'd guessed wrong on all the irrelevant G1-G2 procedural crap. I failed.

You're then expected to wait in line for forever and a day, pay another $10 and try again. I had no time for that, having to get back to work. I stormed away fuming and plotting to barge into my constituency office and tear a new one into my member of provincial parliament.

I got to work still fuming over the injustice.

"You know what?" I barked. "I'll just take the test again and then steal $10 worth of property from the province of Ontario! Then we'll be even. But what to steal?"

"How about a street sign?" said Queue-master, my office buddy. "I'd pay $20 for a street sign with my name on it!" (No - there's no Queue-master Street that I know of. She's referring to her real name - on her birth certificate - to which there are certainly matching street signs.)

But first off - I could only charge her ten to be ethical. Secondly - I'm not much of a smash-and-grab kind of guy. I don't have the nerts for that sort of thing. Although... I do have a yellow pick-up truck. Perhaps if I bring a hard-hat and a ladder and a couple traffic cones I'd look like an official public worker and no one would bat an eye...

Hmm. No. I still don't have the nerts.

Bad FWG makes a phone call

“Hello. I’d like to book a drivers test please.”

“Okay. Do you have your credit card handy?”

“Um. Why? How much is it?”

“Seventy five dollars.”

“Wow. That’s a lot of money. Alright. I got my credit card”

“Can I have your license number please?”

“I just punched it into the phone. You don’t see it?”

“I need it again.”

[tells her]

“Your name please?”

[tells her]

“And your address please.”

[ditto]

“Postal code?”

[blah-blah]

“Okay. Uh – But did you pass your knowledge and vision tests?”

“I’m sorry? My what?”

“Oh. You weren’t required to take a knowledge test or vision test?”

“No.”

“Are you sure? Do you have your letter handy?”

“I have a form. There’s a box that says Test Required and there’s an X in the box. A capital X. It doesn’t say Three Tests Required.”

“You didn’t get a letter with your form?”

“No. They didn’t send a letter.”

“They should have.”

“I guess they messed up. Does this mean I get a discount?”

“I’m afraid not. Okay. I’m checking your file and I see that you do indeed require vision and knowledge tests. It’s a good thing we found out. They wouldn’t have let you take the road test and then you’d have to re-book. And I see you have an April 30 deadline. That could have been bad.”

“I see.”

“Now these tests are on a walk-up basis. You just go to a DriveTest centre and wait in line. Now where do you live?”

“Streetsville as I mentioned.”

“Where’s that?”

“It’s part of Mississauga.”

“Okay. There’s no Mississauga locations.”

“Go figure – it’s only the sixth biggest city in the country.”

“We have… Oakville, Brampton, Etobicoke…”

“What’s the Etobicoke address?”

“5555 Eglinton Avenue West.”

“Perfect. That’ll do. Is there a charge for these tests?”

“Ten dollars.”

“Great. We’re up to eighty-five bucks now plus the hundred I had to send plus the original six-hundred in fines. You guys are doing alright for yourselves. Very good. Maybe you can afford a Mississauga location soon.”

“Maybe. By the way – you’ll want to get to the centre well before they close at five. You’ll want to book your road test as soon as you pass the other tests.”

“Thank you.”

“How do you pronounce your name?”

[tells her]

“Is that French?”

“Why? Do I get a discount if I’m French?”

“No. Sorry. I just find it really interesting. I’ve never heard of it before.”

“What about Natives? Do Natives get a discount? I think I’m one sixteenth Native."

“No. Nobody gets a discount.”

"Or maybe one part in thirty-two, I'm not sure."

"I've heard of Landry, of course, and Legault. Maybe someone got married and had a joint name and then had the hyphen removed."

“Actually it’s a very common name in Ottawa.”

“Oh, really?”

“Yeah. Ottawa Valley. It’s like Smith up there.”

“Is that right? That’s interesting!”

“Mm. This isn’t one of those five-minute dates is it?”

“Ha ha. No. Okay, so be sure to get this done quickly and then book your road test immediately. They’re already booked ‘til mid-April so there’s no time to lose.”

“Right. Will do.”

“It’s a good thing I checked your file, eh? Otherwise…”

“For sure. Yeah. Thanks. You really saved my Charlie Browns.”

“You’re welcome. Bye now.”

“Bye.”

I think she wants me. She knows that guys who get speeding tickets are cool.

Ground Control to Sylvie... Come in Sylvie...

Those gobslobbering Reliance people won't give up.

Well neither will I.

FWG is a bad boy. Bad bad. No cookie.

No, this isn't a confession regarding a St-Paddy's celebration on the weekend and all kinds of boozing and whoring around in Toronto and pawing gorgeous strangers and slipping green food coloring into peoples' drinks unsolicited and stumbling home after 3AM and waking up at noon with an outrageous brain-splitting headache. No sir. There is no evidence that anything like that ever happened. And any testamonial comments to the contrary shall not be archived on this web page because I control the master delete button! So there.

No, this is about my driving habits and my struggles with the cat-detector man in the big black impala with dark sunglasses and a Klingon ray gun.

It seems I was supposed to attend a court proceeding that I requested back in March of 2006 that was scheduled for December and that I somehow forgot all about by the time December rolled around (seven months later).

Oops.

Apparently they consider you guilty when you don't show up for your trial date. How about that? Who knew? Okay, to cut a long story short, this is the latest development:

I received an official document from the Ministry of Transportation Licensing and Control Branch that clearly demonstrates that they are in control of my license and if I want to keep the banana boat in operation I must pass a drivers test.

Hmmph. I feel like pointing out to them that it should be called a driving test, not a drivers test. There's no question whether or not I'm a driver - I got a stack of citations to prove it.

I haven't been road tested in twenty years so - Wait, let me re-phrase that. I haven't taken a drivers exam in twenty years so if anyone has any advice on how to not fail such an exam - I'm all ears.

Now excuse me please. It's Advil time again.

'Ta-Da!' campaign launch

Say "Ta-da!" ta-day.

It's not just for magicians - or breakfast - anymore.

Show your support. Order your free self-adhesive TA-DA Spleen bumper decal. It is gamma-titanium-hexa-jupiterite coated and guaranteed to withstand average Canadian winter conditions for at least two days and six minutes.

This has been a paid announcement from the Ta-Da! Advocacy Coalition. Supporting, celebrating and promoting the phrase "ta-da!" since 2007. Now 2 members strong. For more information mail TDAC: 9th Avebue & 17th Street, Ybor City, FLA.

Movie: 300

300 is all about the visuals. It seems that 99.9 % of thought, time, effort and expense went into the videography – which apparently is not a word, according to my spellchecker. But I’ll use it because I’m sleepy and my vocabulary is sluggish today. Every single scene – and I mean every single still is dedicated to being an intense canvas of visual artwork, rich, dramatic and perfectly composed. Every landscape is majestic, every facial expression wrought with intensity, every thrust and parry an iconic pose. Never a hair is random or out of place. The result, I found, though intriguing for a while, became a massive over-stimulus that tired me out. If you recall the film The Cell – with the virtual reality environment - this had a somewhat similar feel, with much toggling back and forth between ultra-slow-motion and ultra-fast-motion. All footage was graded to extreme blue-on blue or dark metallic tints.

The dialogue, besides being entirely stupid – and people, it really was stupid. I just can’t stress how stupid, no matter who the speaker – fit this whole heightened-reality framework. Or rather – heightened unreality if I may. Every exchange was supercharged – like this:

“Our arrows shall blot out the sky!”

“Then we shall fight in the shade!”

The story was simple. A retelling of the tale of 300 Spartan soldiers who, against insurmountable odds, hampered hundreds of thousands of invading Persian slaves/warriors in effort to save Greece from conquer. It was embellished of course and – as I could have predicted – blasphemed with modern-day values and modern-day clichés. The kind of snide ignorant shit-stain Hollywood rarely fails to leave on any work historical (given this is more a mythology than history).

The horridness of all this constant heightened unreality is twofold. One – it services the attention deficit disorder that infects our entire population in this virtual day and age (please don’t even talk about this as being a childhood issue – please – don’t be so naïve)! And two – it leaves the viewer completely disconnected from the story. You can’t possibly fall into the story and feel like you’re there and feel compassion for the heroes. And this is a serious no-no at the FWG School of Good Storytelling. The viewer is held at a distance – thus, as the climax unfolds there is no jeopardy. I was entirely unconcerned whether the ‘heroes’ prevailed or fell. What should have been heart-wrenching became a mild curiosity. This was inevitable.

So if you’re one of the A.D.D. inflicted youth-oriented adults that dominate the 18-49 age group – you might just find this flick worthwhile for its stunning visuals! I can’t recommend it on any other level.

For a much more hip dissertation, internet cool kid Eeeeekkk offers this view.

Noodles & Goggles

Don't ask me why I called them Goggles and Noodles. It was the first thing off the top of my head.

FWG's idea of funny

Sometimes I get stupid little ideas that crack me up and I have no idea if normal people would think it funny or not. So I'll make little comics or comic strips for my own amusement. I did this one today. Perhaps I'll reveal some more. Who knows.

And yes - the hand is too small and hardly looks like a hand. It's tough - drawing cartoon hands. That's why I told the Cap'n to keep his other hand below the table.

Movie: The Wild Blue Yonder

What...??

In...??

Hell...??

...possessed Werner Herzog to commit this atrocity??

I'm flabbergasted. Outraged. Dumbfounded even.

I guess it had to happen. Finally a so-called film that does for pure unintentional stupidity what Pink Flamingos (that deviant celluloid monstrosity for which Waters, Divine and every other perpetrator involved - right down to the hairdressers and caterers - deserve no less than a firing squad) did for pure intentional stupidity.

In fact these two cinematic perversions make Death Wish, Die Hard 2 and Crash look like Oscar candidates!

Sound remarkable? Are you tempted to rush out and rent this just to see how monumentally awful it really is? Don't. No need. I can deliver the entire experience in a few short paragraphs. It was that simple.

Ready? Here we go.

We get some NASA file footage. About a half minute of a stationary view of the rear top portion of the space shuttle surrounded by black space. And then a good forty five minutes of footage at an astronaut training facility featuring a simulated space vehicle environment submerged in a big swimming pool in which astronaut trainees - dressed in shorts and socked feet - do all sorts of utterly banal things in a semi-weightless environment while not talking. In fact there's no audio at all to this footage.

Got that so far? Now add another 45 minutes of borrowed footage - again no audio - of a scuba diver swimming around below the antarctic ice and poking at the barren sea floor. Make sure this footage is all underexposed and graded yellowy so that you get the feel he's swimming around in a giant never-been-cleaned toilet bowl and finally feel nauseous enough to put your half-eaten supper aside.

Now borrow three brief clips - black and white - from the earliest days of moving pictures. We need a clip of a rickety bi-plane landing in rough fashion, one of a man jumping in front of an antique truck on a cobblestone road followed by the same man, unharmed, smoking a cigarette and smiling. And one clip of an American politician - secretary of defense perhaps - talking about the possibility that aircraft may one day become a military tool.

You okay with all this? We're just about done! Stay with me. I promise the punchlines are coming!

Now we hire four actors and film a couple scenes for ourselves. We need a perfectly ugly actor. Ah yes. Brad Dourif who was Wormtongue in Lord of the Rings - Two Towers. He will play the alien from a planet 2000 light years away in the galaxy Andromeda. We dress him to look like a Midwestern farmer. We film him in front of an abandoned column-ringed building at a dusty crossroads somewhere in Buttcheek New Mexico by the look of it and also in the middle of a nearby junk yard in front of a couple decrepit ruinous mobile homes. All he does is narrate the film from these two spots and only occasionally. Dialogue is rare.

The other three actors are pure no-talents who play mathematicians/rocket scientists despite their looking like members of the 4H club. We film them in their garages and basements with a whiteboard and a whiteboard marker - or at their dining room table with a laptop.

For special effects we have a watermelon filmed in the infrared spectrum with a little dry ice or something going on. This will be passed off as a watermelon-shaped planet. Did I mention this is a sci-fi movie?

Okay. That's it for the visuals. Still with me?

The soundtrack is an endless stream of chanting that sounds African except very dreary. Perhaps it's African funeral music. Over that we lay endless unbearable droning violin. We expect theatres to drape the seats in plastic sheets because viewers eardrums will surely bleed profusely.

Now the story.

The astronaut trainees, we claim to be astronauts on the Galileo mission (the probe NASA sent to Uranus, Saturn and Jupiter - if I correctly recall) only now it is a manned mission and our gang is looking for a new planet for humans to inhabit because the Roswel crash, unknown to the public, unleashed deadly unearthly microbes into our atmosphere. Not finding the outer planets to be inhabitable the astronauts decide to take a jaunt out to Andromeda country. Um - just never mind the lights from the training facility pouring into the windows of the 'spacecraft' that is supposedly rushing through black space. Remember - it's just pretend.

The old clips? Well. The bi-plane landing was actually the first alien of Wormtongue's clan to arrive. Yes. That's right. On a bi-plane. The smoker was an alien who tried to commit suicide. And the Defense Secretary or whoever - was an alien who became Defense Secretary. Or whatever.

As coincidence would have it. Our Galileo peeps happen upon the same planet that Wormtongue and his clan came from!

Now - brace yourself for this. The antarctic seawater - we shall pretend - is cooled helium, the atmosphere of this planet in the galaxy Andromeda. The ice is the extent of the planet's atmosphere and is frozen because it's sun is dying. We're talking an extraordinarily thin atmosphere on this planet. No 8-storey buildings allowed! The scuba diver - your regular earthling garden variety scuba diver - is presented as an astronaut. Mm-hmm. Oh - one more thing - and you really need to be sitting down for this: Antarctic jellyfish and cut-up fruit are staged as the semi-intelligent wildlife of this distant planet.

People - I couldn't make this stuff up if I tried.

I had to watch the special feature monologue by writer/director Werner Herzog trusting he would offer some explanation for this egregious theft of people's time.

"I've always had a passion for science," he says. Which is why he's made a complete mockery of it I guess - for instance, turning the circular/ovular planetary orbits into a goofy two-dimensional labyrinth pattern.

"I call this a science fiction fantasy," he says, and then confesses the unbelievable: "Actually, I've only ever seen a couple science fiction movies." Yeah, no kidding, dude. It shows. "I saw one of the Star Wars movies and the Kubrick film - Space Odyssey. Oh and a couple episodes of - I think it's called - Star Trek? Is that right? With Doctor Spock? With the big ears? I thought that show was rather silly."

WHOA!! Hold the phone, Weiner Hotdog! Or whatever your name is! You don't get to call Star Trek silly! I get to call it silly if I want but YOU do not! YOU filmed a floating half lemon and called it a gentle but sad wildlife creature from the planet Wild-Blue-Yonder! You took the cake on silly! You don't get to call anyone else silly EVER again, you demented senile dumb-ass freak! You imbecile! You... you... That's it! I want you jailed for this disgrace. I want you restrained for life from ever touching a movie camera again! And I want your head on a platter, you... you... twit!

I'm out!

FWG's nugget o' wisdom #44

A good wine cellar is much like a good basketball team. No whites.

This has been an original nugget o' wisdom from the brain of Fantasy Writer Guy. Do not use nuggets o' wisdom if you are pregnant or may be pregnant. Do not take orally. Do not take while bed-sitting, bagging, growing your hair for peace or banging Yoko Ono.

A compendium of Steve-o

More random quotes from the roommate. People with any decency or self-respect may wish to skip this post. For us degenerates - keep in mind that text in italics were sang, not spoken.



1.
Oh say can you see
That the Oilers are shitty
What so proudly they suck
Why do people like them so much?

2.
You know what the best part of waking up is? It’s Folgers in your cup, dammit.

3.
Peanut butter and marmalade. Peanut butter and marmalade. Peana-peana butta-butta peanabutta marma-marma peada-bu-bu-ma-ma-butta-peana-ma-ma… [Editor’s note: I’m sorry. I can’t go on with this one.]

4.
You know where that show ‘Bananas in Pajamas’ came from? Some guy woke up with a woody and his daughter said “What’s that?” and he said “Oh, that’s just a banana in my pajamas” and she told all her friends and angry parents were calling him up saying “What the hell’s this I’m hearing about this pajama banana business!” and he said “Oh! Oh – it’s just a TV show I’m working on!” so then he had to make the TV show. I’ll bet you anything that’s exactly what happened.

5.
When you go to the deli, ask if they have any special diet kielbasa. Just say, “Hey, do you have any kielbasa that won’t go to my hips but will go to my wang instead? I want it to be huge. I want to hear a thud when I whip it out. I want something that’ll cripple your mother. I want to shoot brick walls down. You got something like that? You want to check in the back maybe?

6.
Jimmy cracked corn and I don’t care,
Jimmy cracked corn and I don’t care,
Jimmy cracked corn and I don’t care,
I’ll kick him in the nuts.

7.
Okay, How did these tampons get in my shopping basket?

8.
Jimmy likes porn and I don’t care,
Jimmy likes porn and I don’t care,
Jimmy likes porn and I don’t care,
As long as he keeps his little hands off my fetish collection.

9.
Roll it around on your tongue and tell me – how sour is my cream?

10.
Don’t ever walk into a silversmith’s shop with a jar full of silverfish and ask him to melt them down and make a ring for you. They just look at you funny.


The preceding sentiments are not necessarily shared. Period.