My Home is my Homey

I'm in the process of moving to Grande Prairie, so before I pack everything and start throwing most of my stuff I thought I would say goodbye to the excellent house I've been privileged to live in for the past 6 or so months.

Yes, I realize you can see the camera, just ignore that for now.

I happened into it when I moved back to Brandon after a two month radio stint in Cranbrook, BC. Here's a picture of one my personal greatest moments of all time.


If you don't see me in the photo it's because I cleverly disguised myself as a giant bee.

So I moved back to Brandon after finding this house on eBrandon.com. I moved in with Brandon's premiere musician/student-who-works-for-The-Quill, and the rest is history.


Goodbye ridiculously cold staircase! I always enjoyed nearly wiping out on you when you were even the slightest bit damp. In the coldest weather you were sure to be only a few degrees warmer than the outside.

Goodbye old-timey wooden frame window. Remember that time you were cracked and then JM Limoges went pretty much right through you and then proceeded to yell at my roommate? That sure was fun! And you only cost $60 to fix too.

I'll definitely miss you Giant Living Room. You're so gigantic that I could only photograph half you! You sure did have some sweet floors and wallpaper. Not only that, but you were furnished to look like someone's grandmother's house. Good times!

You sure were a kooky bathroom! Remember that door you have that you couldn't actually close? And remember how you had see-through shower curtains, and that bathroom door that was also deceptively transparent? We sure did have some good times with that one. Not to mention that wacky floor you have. I don't know how you did it, but it was f*cking cool!

Who could forget the tiny kitchen? Man that thing was tiny. That oldschool stove didn't work very well either. Oh well, you had ample cupboard space and that cool counter for my coffee maker. Also, you had convenient access to the...

...Back porch! Good for smoking and storing of empty beer bottles. This photo doesn't do justice to the massive stack of empties I had in here just a week ago. You couldn't even see that window, or much of the floor either for that matter.

You radiators get special mention too. I've never lived in a house so old that it actually had steam radiators. This one sometimes actually sprays water. It was like a free sprinkler you could enjoy at any time.

I don't even know what the fuck this thing is.

Goodbye Noisy Bedroom Ceiling Fan! I didn't like you very much because you were so noisy, but you were always an efficient lighting source.

See you later Celtic Poster! This was a leftover from my old roommate. This thing was pretty cool to look at, and it had lots of purdy colours!

So that's pretty much it. If anyone wants anything from my house chances are you'll be able to do some sweet dumpster diving in the alley of the 400-block of 12th street.

image courtesy of: planebuzz.com

Smoking cigarettes and watching Captain Kangaroo

Its time for a public service announcement.

Yup, you saw it here. Be black and your kids will have a better life. Na, just kidding! The message is pretty obvious: don't smoke around your children. Anyone who has been by my house has most likely been introduced to this particular piece of literature. That and a picture of two cats doing it.

I found this particular gem in a dusty folder a few summers ago when I happened to have nothing better to do than clean the Melita Town Office's filing cabinets. This was just one of a few really cool finds. I'll have to show off a few of the other things later, but right now let's discuss whats going on here.

This is an anti-smoking brochure from 1977 published by the Canadian Lung Association. According to what I can find online, 1977 was a mixed year for the people who fight big tobacco companies. Finland passed major anti smoking laws that year, and the anti-smoking movement was on the rise. But meanwhile, scientists proved connections between pregnant mothers smoking and unhealthy newborn babies to be inconclusive.
Being that this brochure is from 1977, you have to wonder what influences from around the globe and the media factored in on the decision to design the brochure the way it is. Some of my friends have called it 'Semi-racist propaganda.' I can see where they're getting that, but its not really there unless you're looking for it. That said, it's pretty obvious that the white family DOES smoke, while the black one DOES NOT.

What is the reason for this?

One idea I wish to explore is the prevalence of smoking in the media. From 1950 to 1960, the number of incidences of smoking in movies was around ten times per hour. That means every hour in a movie there were ten scenes of people smoking. This doesn't sound like much, but if you do the math, that's like one smoke every six minutes!

The level of people smoking in movies dropped down to their lowest levels between 1975-1985 averaging about 6.7 cigarettes an hour at their lowest.

But the whole point is moot because the number of real-life people smoking is at its lowest level ever. I also can't say with any good authority that it wasn't black people smoking, but if you watch classic movies you'll definitely see a lot of dapper young white men and women puffing away.

This is true especially when you compare it to the 50s when everybody wore hats and smoked. One of those things doesn't really happen anymore, so its not inconceivable that the other one might go out of fashion too.

If its not movies that influenced this pamphlet, then what? It couldn't be radio, since smoking is hard to glamorize in a purely auditory way *cough* *hack* *cough* Hard to imagine why. So that leaves television. If you think about it, how many black families on TV in 1977 smoked, and how many white families smoked?

White:

I Love Lucy (1951-1957) - Was sponsored by Phillip Morris, Ricky loved smoking

The Flintstones (1960-1966) - Fred and Barney were Winstons Cigarettes men

The Addams Family (1964-1966) - Brought to you by Dutch Master Cigars

Black:

None (I'm not sure how many Black families were on TV when smoking could still be allowed)

And the final ad for smokes on American television was 1971, January 1st right after Johnny Carson. So if advertising ended then, and so did pretty much most of the smoking in sitcoms, how did a brochure from 1977 decide to make such a stark contrast between smoking and non-smoking?

Thus far my research has been inconclusive. I can't find any shows newer than 1970 that contain smoking. The Jeffersons certainly didn't smoke, what about the folks from All in the Family? Or Three's Company? Or Laverne and Shirley? They didn't either apparently. I would gladly welcome anyone with open arms who can give me evidence to the contrary.

Perhaps in the end I'm reaching for a conclusion that simply isn't there. It could be the marketers for the Canadian Lung Association were hoping to appeal to black families, or maybe simply catch the attention of potential readers. Racial divisions in Canada were much greater in 1977 than they are in 2008. Right now as of the last cencus, Black Canadians represent %2.5 of our nation's total population; That's nearly 800,000 people.

If you'll look at this chart, you'll notice that between 1971 and 1981, the black population jumps by 205,100 people. Between this period the brochure in question was printed. Is this an attempt by the Canadian government to normalize the appearance of all these dark coloured people?

Take it from me, there are communities that exist in Canada with people who are just as bigoted and racist as some people were forty years ago. So I wouldn't find it hard to believe that the government might take some proactive action to try and normalize blacks into what was at the time a predominately white society. (This despite the fact that we all like to say Canada is a mosaic of cultures).

But nonetheless, the message still stands. Don't smoke with your baby on your lap. Babies don't really enjoy smoking all that much. Although it does look like little Jenny on mommy's lap is reaching for a puff of somebody's dart.

You can see the entire brochure here at my flikr page.

Video of the Week

The Killers - Don't Shoot Me Santa

Hoochies and Hounds

Last week's post dealt with the environment and choices we make about bettering our world.

This week I'm going to cover an even bigger issue.

Here's a picture of kitty cat!


Looks like this little guy got himself into daddy's sleep-time pills!

Uh-oh, Somebody was up to no good

Aaaawwww, puppies!

Okay, so by now you're probably thinking to yourself "Jake, these animals are really cute, by why are you showing me this?"

Well you see, the real reason I'm talking about this is to discuss how much chicks love animals. Its wild! I hang out with a lot of ladies and whenever a dog goes walking by or they see some kittens they start cooing and go all crazy. It's seriously an inch short of making them melt in a manner similar to the murder of the Wicked Witch from The Wizard of Oz.

Dogs and kittens obviously exude some sort of "Love me" pheromone that drives women wild.

I encourage any man to stop reading this blog post right now and show the pictures above to a lady. Seriously, go do it right now, return to reading after you observe the results.


...


Okay guys, how did it go? By now you should have melted the hearts of many ladies. So what I propose we do is harness this pheromone and use it in some dubious manner. I haven't thought that far into the plan, but I'm sure we can do something with this power. In the meantime though...

Video of the Week

Washington - Brad Neely

What a Wonderful World

I've just finished 'The World Without Us' by Alan Weisman, and boy can I tell you, I am surprised that my wrists have not been sliced to ribbons.

image courtesy of: theworldsbestever.com

Good book though.

It was lent to me by a friend who I happened to be chatting with while I was drunk one evening. She happened to remember that I said something about how wonderful it would be to read this book she owned and brought it over at least 2 months later. It really made my day when she lent it to me. But that point is irrelevant. If I wanted to talk about things that made me happy this post would include more pictures of kittens.

image courtesy of: kitten-pictures.com

It basically discusses what, in theory, would happen to Earth if humans all just disappeared one day. Within a week the city of New York would be flooded, the Panama Canal would collapse, and in time huge explosions from oil refineries would erupt. It would be chaos! In ten thousand years the Earth might return to it's state of pre-human rape....almost.



What I really took away from this book is that humans screwed the world up and plastic is a bad bad thing. In today's modern age we couldn't do without it in some way shape or form, but its really nasty stuff. That fact is nothing new though, but nothing on the planet eats it, and even if you think it finally broke down and disappeared you're wrong, it just broke down to a point where microorganisms have to deal with it. Maybe some day we'll breed plastic eating bacteria, which we are in sore need of, to clean up the oceans. Did you know that there is a spot in the Pacific Ocean where all the plastic refuse just floats and collects? Its disgusting and really really depressing.

Also, forget about the coral reefs. They're fucked. End of story.



I don't really believe in most recycling, especially plastic, because we burn more fuels breaking it down and trying to reuse it than we do making new plastic. But bear in mind there are three parts to recycling: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. The first two are by far the best thing you could do. If you reduce how much waste you make, there's that much less going into landfills. If you reuse you take even more trash out of the system (now though, old plastic containers give you cancer, we all suspected it, scientists now are just confirming it). But recycling is not a viable plan. I think we should change gears and repurpose the plastic or something. Rather than break a substance down and remanufacture it, there's got to be something simpler we can do with it.



But anyway, this book was fantastic and gave me a good idea of what kind of world Earth would become if most of all the humans died off. Best of all, like a good book should, it really got me thinking about my actions as a human, how humans could make a better world together, and how we really fucked the planet up big time.

I rate this book:

9/10

I recommend this book for anyone who has ever wondered what the world might really be like without us. It's also a great book for your uptight environmentalist and/or lame PETA friends who you can never figure out what to get for Christmas.

image courtesy of: kentuckyfriedcruelty.com

video of the week: Rebel meets Rebel - Nothin' to Lose

Forget the MP3 Player!

Well gang, I have discovered something amazing: When you update your software they sometimes have new and wonderful things for you to use!

In particular, I'm walking about updating Winamp. For those not in the know, Winamp is a program which plays music and video. Simple enough right? Well, it always has these updates all the freaking time, and I hate having to keep updating it. I put off the most recent update for a good two months and just recently had an extra five minutes to do some work on my PC.

During the updates it asked if I was interested in 'Winamp Remote.' I wasn't, but because I'm a nice guy I figured I'd have a look since the computer took time out of its busy schedule to ask me.

image courtesy of: winamp.com

What Winamp Remote basically is is a webpage that connects to your computer at home where you can upload music from your computer. Then any computer, PS3, or Wii you go to can access that music and play it! It's sort of like Internet Radio for one person, or a free MP3 player. I think you can get it on your cell phone as well. I was sold instantly, this is a fantastic bit of software that I think anyone who loves listening to music would really appreciate.

Winamp Remote effectively solves my problem of being without an MP3 player. I'm a big fan of always listening to music. I would watch TV and movies with music playing if I could handle the auditory assault. The real ingenious thing about Winamp Remote is that the computer you stream your music to doesn't even have to have Winamp installed. As I type I'm actually streaming to Windows Media Player which was already installed on my work computer. Also, now I don't have to physically transport this data to my work's hard drive (something I'm not supposed to do).

The only thing I'm worried about is if the Feds are perhaps watching the data stream and bust into my house shouting, "Jake Hammell, you're under arrest for piracy of music!" Lots of guns will probably be pulled out and badges flashed. It will likely look a little like this:

image courtesy of: 353review.com

The real problem there is that now its winter out, so after a sexy intense gunfight, I won't make a speedy getaway on my luxurious pirate schooner because all the ports are frozen up. I'll have escape out my secret underground tunnel, but that poses a lot of problems because the Chinese Triads have been smuggling liquor down there and some gang violence has erupted. Things could be a little cluttered up. I'll have to work out the details later.

Other than that though, Winamp Remote is an excellent program. If you have a good internet connection at home and don't mind leaving your computer on, Winamp Remote is a program I would recommend to anyone. The overall score of Winamp Remote:

8/10

Pro: No more uploading and downloading of your music to an MP3 player, just tell the program where to look for the files, build a playlist, and go. In less than 5 minutes you can listen to your music anywhere with a PS3, Wii, PC, and possibly a Cellular Phone.

Con: I think this may really increase your chances of getting busted by the feds if you download music illegally, but I can't confirm that, my paranoia strikes deep. Also, if you have a poor internet connection you're likely to get quite frustrated with it when it won't play your music.

video of the week
Said the Whale
This City's a Mess

Choke On It

image courtesy of tapenoisediary.wordpress.com

I wrapped up the book Choke by Chuck Palahniuk early last night and I have to say that I was really under-impressed. But before I delve into that, let's cover a little history on Palahniuk.

Chuck Palahniuk first hit fame after publishing a short story that would later be expanded into the novel Fight Club. That was in 1996, twelve years later have seen Palahniuk publish eight more novels since, and a new one scheduled to be released some time in the spring of 2009.

Chuck Palahniuk

image courtesy of www.randomhouse.com

Choke, his fourth novel published in 2001, became Palahniuk's first New York Times best seller and was adapted into a film which debuted September 2008 to mixed reviews. I certainly haven't seen it yet, but when it comes out on DVD I think it'll be a definite rent.

Now on to the review. From start to finish I was pretty disappointed with the book. Going into it was't really sure what I was expecting. The little tidbit about it on the back of the book made it sound quite interesting. Also, it was recommended to me by a person I chatted with in the bar one night. I don't how we got onto the topic, but we started discussing Chuck Palahniuk and at the time the only Palahniuk I'd read was Fight Club. So he said I should definitely check out "Snuff" and "Choke." 

When I went to the bookstore and they only had Snuff which wasn't what I wanted to buy first. Snuff just came out this year, which made me want to purchase Choke just for author continuity. But, the situation being what it was, and me really needing a new book to read, I picked up Snuff.

I loved Snuff ! It was great! The novel unfolded fantastically, and had humour, drama, tear-jerking-sadness, uplifting moments, redemption, suffering, it was all there. Plus, it was a story unlike any other I've read. I don't know any other author who could take the idea of a porn star trying to break the world record of the most people banged in a row and make into such a literary work of art.

Choke has an equally intriguing plot, it's about a man (Victor Mancini) whose sick and dying mother is racking up hospital bills, bills that Victor can't pay. So he resorts to grifting folks by choking in restaurants, having a good samaritan save his life, and having that same samaritan send him money to pay for fictional bills so he can pay for his mother's medical bills.

Did I mention Victors also a sex addict? Yeah, there's that, and his mother is an old insane criminal too.

Now, all of this is well and good. But for some reason the whole thing just didn't work for me. I found Victor Mancini's problems to be trite, and that he whines too much. I know that the book deals in depth with Victor's problems and the reasons for why he acts the way he does, but when I find a character to be whiney, there's chances are slim that I'm going to start thinking otherwise. Also, the way Victor deals with his issues is just nonsensical. He just makes poor life choices (something I think we've all been guilty for at one time or another.) all the time. You think you might pick up on the issue after a while.

Another reason I was maybe a little disappointed was because I was expecting something more like Fight Club or Snuff, both of which are books that start right close to the end of the story, and sort of recap what happened up until that point and then wrap things up with a bang. In that sense, Choke is completely different from either of those two. It follows a present day storyline with a twenty-something Victor and has flashbacks to his past. This is cool, it even had the big bang surprise ending, but I can't explain why it did nothing for me. 

There's not much else I can say about this book. It fell flat. Maybe I just didn't get it. I'll have to re-read the book sometime and put aside my Palahniuk expectations. To give this book a final rating, I'll place it as:

5/10

Based on my review of the book, I say pass this one up and go check out Snuff instead, but if you're looking for a different read, this is one you'll want to borrow from a friend or check out of the library. Not something to purchase.

Jeremy Fisher - Cigarette