A BUNCH OF THINGS

A Screech of Gulls...

a Murder of Crows or a Parliament of Owls. I've always wondered who decided these creative collective nouns of animal species? You have to admit that some of them are remarkably perfect & self explanatory.

Here are a few of my favorites:
Implausibility of Gnus,
Dazzle of Zebras,
Scold of Jays,
Romp of Otters,
Charm of Hummingbirds,
Shiver of Sharks,
Cloud of Bats,
Pitying of Doves,
Array of Hedgehogs,
Unkindness of Ravens,
Exaltation of Skylarks,
Wake of Vultures,
Crash of Rhinos,
Parliament of Owls,
Ostentation of Peacocks,
Knot of Toads,
Flamboyance of Flamingos,
Tower of Giraffe,
Bloat of Hippopotamuses,
Prickle of Porcupines,
Gaze of Raccoons.

It would be fun to design a few collective nouns for various groups of Humans such as
a Plankwalk of Tea-Partiers,
a Spitball of Fox Newscasters,
a Brick of Black Bloc Protesters,
a Pustule of Paparazzi,
a Cocking of Gun Nuts,
a Lynch of Birthers,
a Weekend of Creationists,
an Ejaculation of Santorumites,
a Philandering of Gingrichists,
a Shifting of Obama supporters,
a Bewilderment of Ron Paulists,
a Capitulation of Romney supporters,
a Delusion of Michele Bachmannites,
an Absconding of Wall Streeters,
an Interruption of Telemarketers,
a Grandlarceny of CEOs,
a Spill of Big Oil Execs,
a Ransom of Lobbyists,
a Gist of Reporters,


You get the idea. Do you have some ideas or suggestions to add to the list?   

TWO PATHS!?

I always wondered aboot a particular line in Led Zeppelin's Stairway to Heaven,  a sprinkling from the May Queen? Apparently it's "spring clean"!

DOH! 

"Two Paths On The Wrong Track" was taken at dusk in Woodridge, Manitoba

Some dude on Yahoonswers wrote:

"Plant was deeply into Lord of the Rings at this time, so the May Queen was probably Galadriel, like the lines "all that glittered around her was gold", Lothlorien having golden leaves.
Frodo and his bunch reached there in spring, and were on a mission to "clean out" the world of Sauron."

EMOTIONS CARRIED
THE EYES HAVE IT
circa March 06


The basic shape of my eyes is the result of combining the DNA of my parents..

but there is much more to this than meets the eye.



My Father's eyes sparkled with curiousity

  

My Mother's eyes scrutinized

How I see the world is partially the byproduct of observing how they viewed the world.

Likewise, how I look at things will affect how my children will examine their universe.

If I could pluck up the courage, I would shape my caterpillars (thanks Dad) with the hope of looking as dashing as Tyrone Power...whatever.

People take notice of your perceptions.

Sometimes people see what they want to see.

Do you let them see the real you?

Do you try to see what they see?

Are you taking a hard look at Life?

THE WEDIUM IS THE MESSAGE


Above all else I am an incurable Coherentist.

My insatiable curiousity compels me to assemble a manageable cosmology.
I want to understand as much of the Who, What, When, Where, Why and HOW I am who Iam..
and why the world around me and everyone in it, is the way IT IS!

I started Blogging because I realised that this medium is amazing. Although I am limited by my brain and all of it's inherited pre & post conditioning, I want to find my Oasis of Homeostasis; a workable balance of unrelated thingamabobs..Coherentism.

And I want it all funnelled into neat and tidy little packages with a ribbon on top...
but I am also very aware that I am an insufferable hodge-podgerist prone to smush ideas and factoids together even if they don't fit.

The fact that YOU are reading this means that you have voluntarily engaged in becoming part of this experience via the Next Wave. This Tofflerian-McLuhanian Matrix known as the Global Village.
We are out here networking because the old model of Hierarchies failed miserably. Blind faith in leaders is no longer acceptable because it doesn't work.

The Information Revolution has levelled the playing field and now any of us can have access to most of the information that our trusted Leaders once used to dominate us.

Why should those grossly over-compensated leaders reap all the rewards when we were doing all the work?

We keep the ball rolling not them.
Enough of that bullsh*t!

So here we are. Information is and always has been the most powerful form of currency on the planet. We are attempting to attain control over our lives..something no other generation has ever accomplished.
We want to think and make decisions for ourselves..and the old Matrix doesn't like it.

However, we all may just end up becoming cyber-cogs in some huge global melting pot of presumed universal ideals.

Fellow Canuck Marshall McLuhan coined the term Global Village back in the 60's.

"McLuhan wrote that the visual, individualistic print culture would soon be brought to an end by what he called "electronic interdependence":
when electronic media replace visual culture with aural/oral culture.

In this new age, humankind will move from individualism and fragmentation to a collective identity, with a "tribal base." McLuhan's coinage for this new social organization is the global village.

The idea that technology has no per se moral bent -- it is a tool that profoundly shapes an individual's and, by extension, a society's self-conception and realizationMcLuhan proposed that media themselves, not the content they carry, should be the focus of study –-
popularly quoted as "the medium is the message."

Ok let's look at his tetrad theory about how each medium inter-reacts.

Wiki uses the Radio example.
Radio was supposedly going to kill newspapers.

Radio is a sound medium that amplified the importance of voice and music. Radio relied on limiting the importance of print and visuals.

The next logical step was a morphing of the two into Television...which in turn gave birth to the Personal Computer which puts every person in charge of operating their own Radio/Tv/Newspaper or Magazine that offers both audio and visual aspects...
and all with a level of immediacy and intimacy that none of the other mediums can compete with.

Advertisers are jumping off those old Media like rats on a sinking ship. Conglomporations and Advertisers already know this and they are desperately trying to control the Internet. They want to be back in the driver's seat.

The Conglomporations want to control and pillage the global village.

The Internetted Computer is why we are seeing the BIG Newspapers start to falter, CD sales dwindle, Broadcast Tv fading, the Book market is next.
Video killed the Radio Star but the PC will kill them all...to some extent yet to be determined.

Where does that leave us?

McLuhan's collective global village is still in it's infancy and it is choking on cliches and archetypes.

We can still lump Blogs into categories but I've noticed that most of you can express yourselves in multiple ways.

We don't need to box ourselves in but we do because we've been trained to think that way.

Now we can interact with individuals anywhere in the world anytime.
We are the ME in MEdium.
Welcome to the WEDIUM Neo.
WE are the message and the messengers.

Like it or not it is on! Right now cyberstars are recreating the successful aspects of the previous mediums but as we figure out how to do more out here, this too will change. Imagine a world with 6 Billion Stations?

Have you noticed that the number of Celebrities seems to be growing exponentially out here? There was a finite number of Movie Stars when I was a kid back in the 60s..now I couldn't possibly name or keep track of all of them.

We finally realised that there are millions of incredibly talented people out here...not just a handful like our previous generations were led to believe. Millions.

There is more information out here than we can handle...too many Blogs, too many Twitterers..remember we can only handle about 150 relationships.

So the rest of all this crap out here is going to gel and morph and become some sort of collective conscience. Big Brother meets the Matrix at the cyber water cooler. Physical borders will blur and our global village will become a part of our reality...as real as the real world.


Now do you want the Red Pill and see how deep Carroll's Alicinian rabbit-hole goes?

Or the Blue Pill:
the story ends, you wake up, and you believe whatever you want to believe.

PARENTS SAY THE DARNDEST THINGS

Do you still make use of those obscure phrases that your Parents would inadvertently toss your way during moments of utter exasperation?

There were a few lines which made reference to people with whom I was unacquainted?

When confronted with these exclamatory releases I would automatically just stand there looking innocent, perplexed, and yet somehow unconditionally repentant.

like this..

"Oh For Pete's sake!"?

"For The Love Of Mike"?

"Jezuz H. Christ or Murphy"?

Can you recall any of those bizarre eponymosities ?

When you find yourself in a pinch, do you use them?

Be honest!

BOWDLERDASH!

by Lord Tennisanyone

My Word! As many of you know I was Charlie Darwin's closest confidente and companion during his search for the origin of our species.

We shared a plethora of interests and I loved him dearly, although not with the same sort of ravenous lust and undying affection that I held for our fellow naturalist, the vivacious Penelope Pinkbitz.




Here is the last known photograph of Penelope taken whilst she was off collecting birds. I can be seen in the background on my way to collect her for a spot of lunch.

That was the last time that I ever laid my eyes, or hands, on Pinkbitz.

I never saw my belusted Penelope again.

That very afternoon Charlie and I became separated during a misadventure whilst collecting scientificky specimens in the Galapogos, wherein we were inexplicably subjected to an ignominious assault from an enraged carcharodon carcharias.

I was lost at sea.

The currents carried me to the Antarctic where my frozen head was chipped from the ice and I was subsequently brought back to life....

through the miracle of cryogenics, in a laboratory next to that insufferable Walt Disney fellow.

Needless to say I am now here in the present and Mr. Coppens and I are comparing notes and trying to ascertain if any discernable progress has been made by our species.

Today's observation is on the pervasive usage of a certain word that I found myself continuously using whilst trapped beside Mr. Disney for several decades.

f*ck.

Certainly we used the F word back in the 1800's but perhaps a little review is in order.

Now when Charlie could no longer stomach the blood and gore of Medical School his old man sent him off to be a Parson.

As fortune would have it, Charlie was chosen for the unpaid position of gentleman’s companion by the aptly named Robert FitzRoy, the captain of the HMS Beagle.

Ever been to Sea?

It should come as no surprise that once you get into a boat and sail away from polite society, that even a freshly trained Theology student will start using the F word. Surely the exhuberance of youth was in effect, but we had all had enough of being told how to conduct our linguistic exchanges by the likes of insufferable expurgationists such as Thomas F*cking Bowdler.

It is the fault of Bowdler and his ilk that cursing remains an indicator of Class Distinction...

although truth be told it is mainly enforced by the Middle Class and largely ignored by those above and below.

For example, in moments of astonishment or admonishment, Her Majesty will only dare utter, "Oh My Heavens" or "intercourse the Penguin"...

whereas a completely common person will blurt out, "Oh My God!" or "F*ck Off!"..

an American would say, "O Ma Gawd!" or "F*ck Hawff!"...

and Bloggers here in cyberspace simply type in "OMG!" or "FO!"

Imagine Bowdler having the bloody nerve to edit the works of Shakespeare in order to make them more appropriate for the ears of women and children. Penelope, who was an ardent feminist, referred to Bowdler as that f*cking arsehole.

Where was I? Oh yes, the F word.

Mr. Coppens and I do enjoy going to the Pictures and I have become painfully aware that the F word is now de rigeur in Cinematic scripts...

as it is out here in the blogosphere.

You may have noticed how frequently many of my fellow British Bloggers bandy about the F word in the comment section as if there was no tomorrow...

they even use the dreaded C word..

and they use it more often than even that darling Jodie Foster does in all of her Movies.

In my day, Bowdler and many others, decided that any persons found liberally sprinkling their social intercourse with F*cks, were to be instantly recognised as loathesome, unrefined, characters, devoid of suitable articulatory abilities and vocabulary.

There was to be little doubt that such pedestrian potty-talk eminated exclusively from the mouths of lower class idiots who had been spawned amongst the great unwashed. Commoners.

This had also happened in America where those insufferable Puritans were equally adamant about enforcing this Orwellian, lexiconian, edict on the others..

including the witches that they burned and the savages that they expropriated and killed.

Well I'm afraid that I have exhausted your patience and my powers of concentration are quickly fading.

I simply wanted to elucidate upon this matter since the world is changed by the very power of words.

Since the F word may very well be the most flexible word in the Dictionary (noun/adjective/verb tr & intr/interjection you name it) it is certainly worth noting that it is still trying to shake off the stigmatism of vulgarity and class distinction attached to it Centuries ago.

Bowdlerdash!

JST SHU'T ME NW!

Today my randumb thought involves a frank discussion on the future of langwidge. Now I have already established that Inglitch won the war because it shamelessly adopts any foreign words that it fancies and makes it part of the lexicon. If you don't believe me ..well fine..be that way.

I became convinced that someday all words would become Anglysch wyrds after reading THE STORY OF ENGLISH.

The battle for a truly universal langwich that all Earthlings can share is not quite over.

The two new obstacles to overcome are:

txtf*kgmsg

and this

TXTF*MSG

These days anyone under 30 seems to rely on this mode of transporting ideas and thoughts. My guess is that it is fast and the Internet Generation has an attention span that can be measured in nanoseconds. My cohorts in the Baby Boom may have thought that they had perfected Instant Gratification,

but GEN-NEXT puts us all to shame.

So now Engulash Teachers have the ominous task of attempting to instill all of those hard and fast Grandma-tical Rules, which all seem to have exceptions anyway, to a bunch of disheveled zombies who are not-so-secretly staring down at tiny screens and literally twiddling they're thumbs...

"wht r u doing?"

"nthng wht r u doing?"

"ths z so fkn lame"

"jst shu't me nw"

"LOL duh!"

"wnt 2 dtch nxt cls?"

"duh"

There are rumors of new computer keyboards being introduced with only 16 characters to choose from..

jst shu't me nw!

The other obvious threat is the arrival of the next, emerging, SuperPOWER, and it's unavoidable injection of those improbably, beautiful, Chinese characters, which they use in lieu of actual words.

Many people under thirty already have these characters tattoo'd on their shamelessly over exposed bodies. Most of them think that these exquisite squiggles translate as something profound like, "Harmony over Adversity".

My guess is that they actually translate as "Eat At Chows!" or "Kick Me!".

These new assaults on the Mother of all Langwidgaz will take a while to sort out, and I will have mercifully expired long before this matter is resolved.

For those of you young enough to remain and witness the carnage..

gd

fkg

*

w tht.

*supposedly means luck

WHAT IF ONE DAY
= 8.6 Million Years?
This is an older post that I wanted to rewrite and then thought meh?
















Since nobody that I know of can really grasp the concept of one million years we need to transfer to units of time that we can recognise, a LIFESCALE such as this hastily, scribbled, graph above that you can click on...as if that will help?

OK, pretend that it is midnight on January 1st.
ONE SECOND=100 Years

DECEMBER 31 (Yesterday)
11:59:59 p.m. (1900s) I was born less than a half second ago just after the computer and nuclear weapons

11:59:58 (1800s) 2 seconds ago you could shake hands with Charles Darwin, Abe Lincoln and Karl (not Groucho) Marx

11:59:57 (1700s) Napoleon Bonapetite wants to rule the world and Ben Franklin invents the lightning rod & the Constitution

11:59:56 (1600s) great play Shakespeare or whoever wrote all of his stuff,

11:59:55 (1500s) Henry the 8th redefines the messy divorce and
Copernicus flips the universe around

11:59:54 (1400s) Six seconds ago America is rediscovered by Europeans who are unaware that Asians walked across and had been there for atleast three minutes!
Johann (not Steve) Gutenberg invents the printing press and the original renaissance man, Leonardo (not Di Caprio) Da Vinci invents pretty much everything except the internet, which of course Al Gore did back at 11:59:59.

We're now way back to 11:59:10 (3,000 BC)
some 50 seconds ago people started rewriting, I mean recording history.

ONE MINUTE=6,000 Yrs
DECEMBER 31st
11:58 about 2 minutes ago Civilisation began where it will probably end, in Mesopotamia 10,000 BC
11:53 Homo Sapiens reach present form of arrested development hurrah!
11:35 25 minutes ago Homo Sapiens began leaving our universal mother, Mitochondrial Eve in Africa to conquer the Earth.


ONE HOUR=360,000 Years
and it's still only DECEMBER 31st

10:40 pm Homo Escapeons start using fire and some of our oldest ancestors like erectus popped up at 8:53 pm and habilis hobbled around 1 pm.



Well, that's the end of DAY ONE/8.6 Million Years ago, so today is only DECEMBER 30



ONE WEEK=60.5 Million Years
DECEMBER 24th It was not a very merry christmas eve for the Dinosaurs because they all died today, poor things had only been here since Dec 6th. Mammals have been scurrying about underfoot since Dec 8th getting ready to replace dinosaurs.
NOVEMBER... we can see reptiles, amphibians, insects, plants and fish introduced. A very busy month for life on Earth.
OCTOBER... crustaceans and starfish rule the world.
SEPTEMBER... we're down to jellyfish and then just algae and protozoa.


JANUARY 1st One Year Ago...we're back to viral life.
The Earth cooled down about 4 months earlier in SEPTEMBER and the Sun has been around since JULY *btw The Sun is estimated to fizzle out in another year and a half from when you started. The Galaxy has been around for about two years and the Big Bang banged two years before that.



So the Earth started two years ago in SEPTEMBER
and homo sapiens appeared in the last minutes of DECEMBER
There have been mass extinctions on December 7, 9, 24, and 28!

So I'd say that we are way overdue for the next Extinction Level Event!

Whether a natural or manmade catastrophe finally terminates our lease, you can bet your assets that there won't be any people around to watch the Sun implode a year and a half from now.

I hope this helps.

DELTA OSCAR NOVEMBER NOVEMBER..

Come IN..

Do you read me?

Below is the NATO > phonetic alphabet <

It was adopted over 50 years ago to ensure uniform intelligibility of voice signals. Slang uses include euphemisms for swear words like Whiskey Tango Foxtrot.

Unfortunately nowadays many people are unfamiliar with African tribes ZULU or Canadian Provinces QUEBEC?

People! We need to update these obscurities.

I tried using terms that I find in my comment section but the first word that comes to your mind is prolly the best....

OLD NEW

Alpha Asshat

Bravo Bupkes

Charlie Crap

Delta Dumbass

Echo Estrogen

Foxtrot Fercockt

Golf Goober

Hotel Hornymones

India Idiot

Juliet Jerk

Kilo Kvetch

Lima Lame-o

Mike MILF

November Ninny

Oscar Oye yoy yoy!

Papa Plotz

Quebec Quickie

Romeo Retard

Sierra Schmendrick

Tango Tough Titties

Uniform Urinal

Victor Vagiant

Whiskey WhatEVER

X-Ray Xcruciating

Yankee You Suck

Zulu Zeitgeist

got any ideas...send me a secret message...

FRIENDSHIP TRUISMS

You can pick your friends
You can pick your nose
But you can't pick your friend's nose
Just their brains!

Do you have any other words of wisdom regarding the subject?
Here are some more friendship quotes

WHAT THE ?

Ten Points if you guessed Dawn/Key/Ho/Taye (Diggs) !

Want to see some unbefrickinlievably uber-cool photoshopping?

Check THIS out.

AN AWFULLY AWFUL INTERJECTION ABOUT ERROR CONDITIONING

Have you ever noticed that the root word in LIFE is IF?

Or that for the vast majority of us, DEATH usually has a lot to do with what we EAT...

and most people equate having the big “O” with the word LOVE?

Not that this has anything to do with what I just said but AW is the root word of YAWN.

I recently discovered that when the mouth is gaping and deep drafting cool air, also know as pandiculation, it increases cerebral blood flow to draw heat from the brain. I call it Error Conditioning.

Now AW is a common interjection or part of speech that is capable of standing alone. AW usually expresses emotion and it deserves some attention.

Oh sure a YAWN can simply be an unconscious display of Tiredness or Psychological Decompression, but have you ever considered how Awfully Awften we are full of AW when we YAWN?

A YAWN can express..
Apathy or Boredom (WhAWt-ev-er)
ok bad example HA HA HA..I should have stuck with the IF in LIFE..
OK how about Anger or Dismay (AW F*CK!)
Apprehension or Remorse (AW sh*t!),
Tenderness or Pleasure (AW-W-W-W)
Disbelief or Wonder (AWesome Dude)

Name one person, place, or thing, that most people are wild about, but you think is AWFUL or makes you YAWN..

MOOT POINT

Back in the 90s I had a crazy idea to try and develop a cartoon strip. Actually I have a personal letter from Lynn Johnstone (For Better Or Worse) who was kind enough to reply to my inquiry. I have a stack of rejection letters from Syndicates who dismissed many of my other ideas for a strip. I never did submit this Moot Point.

My characters were anthropomorphic
Whales,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Cetaceans
Sharks
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shark
Pinnipeds,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinnipeds
and Sirenians.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sirenia.

The basic premise was that some guy is marooned on an island known as Moot Point. After months of isolation he begins to lose hope that he will ever be rescued. His fragile grip on reality soon gives way to a fantasy world.

He reconstructs the world that he knew by replacing human stereotypes with the sea creatures that surround his Island prison.

What he finds so distressing is that even in his make-believe realm the same problems arise. The members of the powerful Military-Industrial Complex take advantage of the Everyman and nothing ever changes…it’s the old Plus Ça Change Plus C'est La Même Chose thingamabob.

Anyway I tried to develop the cast by matching (whenever possible) human stereotypes with species from their corner of the world. For instance, Eco Boto is an Amazon River Dolphin, whichis an endangered species so she is an Environmentalist.

Her neighbours are the Rasta Manatee, a Jamaican Sprinter who is a Manatee, and Hector Exportador who is a Mexican Industrialist and a Humpback Whale.

You get the idea.

The cast included:

Some EUROPEANS
Rene Sauce: Artiste (Bottlenose)
Ann Archivist: Punker Poet (Blue Shark)
Sir Sinjin Tsktsk: Judge (Walrus)
Doktor Kopfzerbrechen: Scientist (Hammerhead)
Colonel Natasha Nyetsky: Diplomat/Spy (Beluga)
Thor Eunichornson: Explorer (Narwhal)

NORTH AMERICANS
General Mo B. Duckancover: Military (Sperm Whale)
Fad Tastic: Actor/Surfer (Gray Whale)
Finny Doojour: Celebrity/Brand (Common Dolphin)
Frantch Ice: Rapper/Pro Athlete (Orca)
Krilly Bob Bluechip: Gazillionaire (Blue Whale)
Tewkster: Comedian (Northern Fur Sea Lion)
Herschell Hitmacher: Producer (Tiger Shark)

SOUTH & CENTRAL AMERICANS
Rasta Manatee: Olympic Sprinter (Manatee)
Eco Boto: Environmentalista (Amazon River Dolphin)
Hector Exportador: Exporter (Humpback Whale)

ASIANS
Bill Yen: Electronics/Real Estate (Bowhead Whale)
Khan Fu Zhing: International Banker (Yangtze River Dolphin)
Guru Vee: Motivational Speaker (Indus River Dolphin)
Bling Ling: Cosmetics (Spinner Dolphin)
Rikki Techie Tavi: Computer Whiz (Ganges River Shark)

AUSTRALIANS
‘Papa’ Ratsy: Reporter @ Shock Newz (Great White Shark)
Donna Wallabingbangaroo: Super Model (Spinner Dolphin)
Drew Bong: Surfer (Dugong)

AFRICANS
Dr. Albo Akimbo: Doctor (Pilot Whale)
Akaei 47 (Zambezi River Shark)

There is a good reason that most cartoonists use Cats and Dogs. Humans are familiar with them. Few people could tell the difference between a Right Whale and a Bowhead. Of course since the advent of animated feature films such as The Little Mermaid, Shark Tale, and Nemo, that this isn’t as much of a problem.

My stumbling block has always been do I soften the sarcasm, and wrap it all up in a bow for children...do I go for adults and disguise it as a Kid’s show like the Simpsons…Or do I just go for it and go for the full Fritz the Cat adult audience or does the whole idea have any merit? I-dunno?

Either way I was overwhelmed by the amount of work involved and to be honest by the spectre of Political Correctness...I wasn't sure that I could avoid being seen as a raving xenophobic racist even though the end product was to expose basic human flaws as a universal problem.

We Humans all want the same things out of life but some of us, regardless of our location or appearance, are prepared to trample over others to get what we want and I just wanted to make fun of how ridiculous we are by holding up a mirror and thinly disguising all of the generic personality types.

About a month ago I considered doing it as a Blogtoon and drawing out panels or maybe even just using the character’s faces as avatars and giving them an ongoing dialogue in a comment section.
meh..

I just wanted them to see the light of day in case I never get another chance. They will probably sit in a drawer beside all of my other goofy ideas for another ten years.

The more things change,the more they stay the same.

What projects do you have on the backburner?

FIVE IDEAS THAT MY PUBLISHER HATED

This past Monday I presented several awesome ideas to my Publisher. The object of my visit was to get a huge cash advance so that I could sit on my ass and write the Great-Canadian-Novel or whatever.

#1 POLAR MAN

My initial thought was to cash in on the huge success of the documentary Grizzly Man. Grizzly Man was the true story of Timothy Treadwell who lived unarmed with Alaskan Grizzly Bears for over a decade before inevitably being devoured by one of them.

My version, POLAR MAN, is a fictional account of Bartholomew Stankevickius. He was a brave soul who was inspired to replicate Treadwell’s success getting back to Nature albeit not as part of the food chain…anyway, Stankevickious, his friends called him Stanky, went to live unarmed amongst the Polar Bears who congregate right here in Northern Manitoba. The Polar Bears congregate in large numbers near Churchill while they wait for the Pack Ice to form.

Unfortunately Stanky was unaware that Polar Bears are the largest, most ferocious, terrestrial, carnivore on the planet. They are totally predictable and will attack and eat anything, anywhere, anytime. Unfortunately he entered his Igloo with a bag of Big Macs from the McDonalds in town. The first Bear to reach him was only 3 miles away. Instead of surviving for 13 summers like Treadwell, Stanky only survived for 13 minutes.

My publisher just sort of stared at me and lit a cigarette.
I said, “Well I guess it is more of a short story!”

#2 THE FANTASTIC MOTH-A-MATHIC DIET

My next great idea was for creating a ‘scientificky’ 100% All Natural Diet Book for the popular ‘Self Help’ section.

I recently discovered the easiest way in the universe to count calories. Grizzly Bears in Yellowstone National Park, (again with the bears) climb up into the alpine meadows at the end of autumn to stuff themselves silly with Moths. It is the final item on their menu before hibernating.

“Fascinating Donn, so where is this going?” she asked.

Here is the kicker. The nutritional value of each Moth is exactly one calorie! ONE CALORIE!
You and I know how hard it is to keep track of your daily caloric intake? What if you just ate Moths?
“You do the Moth ”,
I said in a hilarious outbreak of tomfoolery.

There was an uncomfortable pause that was broken by a distant ((cough)) that came from somewhere down the hallway.

#3 THE NON ILLUSTRATED KAMA SUTRA

Next up, my superb idea for producing a non-illustrated edition of the Kama Sutra.

My publisher suggested, with a hint of irony, that people only bought the Kama Sutra to leer at the pictures. She informed me that the Chiropractic Association of America was releasing a special edition of the Kama Sutra just in time for the holidays.

I suddenly caved and suggested perhaps watering down the original risqué, exotic, illustrations of Olympic level acrobatic feats of ‘contortionist coupling’ using those wooden model thingamabobs that they use in the muscle relaxant commercials.

My publisher stared at me for a few minutes and then started fiddling with her stapler so I dropped a bomb on her.

#4 FARIQ AND ZAHANE

I thought that it would be a huge success in places like Afghanistan, and Iran, where gay and lesbian children have been saddled with few choices other than the homophobic/pro-hetero classics like Dick & Jane.

“You and I both know that they are totally cool about being gay in the Middle East. On the evening News you always see those young men prancing around the burning rubble with their arms around each other.”

My publisher then tried to explain that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had just recently enlightened an audience of American University students with the fact that there simply aren’t any Homosexuals in Iran. This time she just came right out and said that it was the worst idea that she had heard in her 37 years in the business.

Sheesh Kapeesh!

#5 CRAPBOOKING

Finally I had to pull out the big guns and laid out my plan for developing a gigantic coffee table sized book that capitalized on the Scrapbooking craze. Instead of Scrapbooking this is CRAP-Booking!

I told my publisher that the average Human Earthling lives for 67 years and that it would be “totally cool” if the book actually weighed 67 pounds and cost $67. For that they receive 24,455 blank pages. One for each miserable, tortured, day of their tedious, meaningless, unfulfilling Life. Think of all the fun that they will have cutting, pasting, and documenting all of the crap that they put up with!

You might not believe this but I had a little brainstorm at that very instant and I just blurted out,
“Hey we could call it DEAR F@#$*N DIARY!”

My publisher reached for the bottle that she keeps in the left hand drawer. She rolled her eyes and took a big swig right out of the bottle..which was quite impressive considering that it was only 9:15 on a Monday morning. Her head slowly slumped down on to her desk and she started mumbling something to the effect that people in Botswana would only need a $39 version and that Swedes would need to shell out $79.

To which I replied, “Cool, yeah Whatever?”

I stared at her for several moments until the whimpering turned into more of a wailing noise and then I began to slowly back away and whispered, "Listen, I've got another thing that I have to be at so I'll see you next week".

AVATARAMA