Pope on a Rope

The Pope announced his retirement around 7:00 a.m. EST yesterday morning. I didn’t find out until 11 p.m. PST that night. I’d been on facebook and several other websites that day, and I didn’t really notice anything. I think cracked.com linked an article about Popes, but I thought that was in response to an upcoming semi-historical movie about a female Pope. I think I was watching the Daily Show with John Stewart and they were talking about it, but I assumed it was a comedy bit, so I had to hit up huffintonpost.com, which immediately takes me to huffingtonpost.ca, being that I’m in Canada. It wasn’t even the top news story when I checked. The headline was about Nuclear testing in North Korea. So in the course of less than a day, the biggest news story went from being front page, to being pushed back. The article in question didn’t even make it immediately clear that the Pope had announced his retirement. Instead, being the Canadian version, it went with a slap-dash article about how a Quebec Arch-Bishop was one of the top three picks for bookies to succeed him. That was the same general article that ran in the Province this morning as well.

That’s the kind of journalism I hate. I hate localized news. If there’s a major, global news story, I don’t want to be told how it affects me. Frankly, hearing that a Canadian might be considered for the Papacy isn’t even news. Every Catholic bishop and archbishop in the world are possible candidates and the decision making process is supposedly based on divine intervention. Is there even anything special about a Canadian being made Pope? Who is an Archbishop more loyal to: his country, or his religion? The current Pope’s country of origin only comes into play when people try to connect him with Nazism, since he was German during WWII. By that same logic, every German and Austrian are Nazis. It’s racist, quite frankly. In the end, having a Pope from your country might mean he visits your country more often. Other than that, it’s bragging rights. Hey Brazil: Fuck you. The Pope’s Canadian.

One of the surprising things to learn from this news was that a large number of the Catholics in attendance didn’t speak Latin, and so couldn’t understand the Pope when he announced his succession. I always imagined that would be a prerequisite for their jobs. Latin and the Catholic Church are sort of synonymous. At this point, I’m starting to think that I could be the next Pope. I did buy that Humble Bundle, and give most of my contribution to charity.

What I took away from the actual reporting is that the news expects you to already know the backstory to every story. In the world of twitter, you should know all the detail of a story before it even goes to air, let alone print. If you spent a busy day at work, or a relaxing day at the beach where for whatever reason you weren’t constantly checking in with news and social sites, you’re going to find yourself at a lost. WWIII could be fought and won in the time you’re away from your i-device, and everyone will have moved on to the latest celebrity nip-slip (hopefully Katy Perry). Meanwhile, you’ll be scratching your head and wondering why your house is now a smoking crater with a North Korean missile in it. Then you’ll go back to image-searching Katy Perry’s breasts. The media expects you to have a low attention span, and yet they’re expecting you to pick up on every little thing along the way as they blast out new stories. I’m only just learning about the Harlem Shuffle, and it’s already passe.

Wii U Complaints

Since my stepson got a Wii U for Christmas, I barely played it. He has three brand spanking new games for it: Scribblenaut Unlimited, New Super Mario Bros U, and Nintendo Land. They’re all fine titles, but he barely even plays them too. At age 7, he’s more interested in the console for Netflix and Youtube. Even then, he’s running into issues.

About twice now, the Wii U has hard crashed doing relatively simple things. My 20 month old, while pounding wildly on the tablet has caused it to hard-lock, but he was just in the home men screen, My stepson has hard-locked it while on youtube. The Wii U froze and wouldn’t respond to the tablet controls, or even the power button on the console itself. I had to UNPLUG IT and plug it back in both times. I’m sure there’s another way around, but that would involve flipping through a manual the size of a novel.

My stepson’s also complaining about the load-times of youtube videos. He has a leas three bars of internet connectivity, but he says it takes minutes to load his Pokemon videos.

Personally, he’s more interest in Pokemon White 2, whereas I’m back into Halo 4. Nintendo Land is fun, but we only have the tablet. The game is trying to get us to get extra controllers and hop on multiplayer, and I’m not into it, even though I have a $5 gift certificate to Best Buy and a basic controller is $19. I’m not even interested in putting in the tiny dollar value into getting a new controller. That’s sad, and it say something.

I picked out Scibblenauts Unlimited, but the game is a breeze to play through. I’m worried a monster session would kill it off, so I’ve been picking at it like leftover Christmas goodies.

New Super Mario Bros U is the same as all the Mario games we have on 3DS/DS/Super Nintendo. Those games are the best of the bunch. The other Wii U games we could get are already out on the 360, which we also have and are loyal to, and cheaper. For instance, I got Arkham City for $20 on sale, but it’d cost $49-$59 for the new “Armoured” Wii U version. Then with games like Assassin’s Creed 3, I’d worry if the same downloadable content would make it to Wii U.

Leftover Pennies

My mother taught me this simple rhyme: “Find a penny, pick it up/and all that day you’ll have good luck.” I’ll assume that this was true back when a penny was considered a legitimate and enduring currency. Now, the penny has been retired, and I wonder, “What will they do with all the pennies?” Literally, billions of pennies, once considered hard currency. Do they keep them in a vault? Do they recycle them? Who the hell is counting all these pennies?
As you know, it’s virtually impossible to get rid of pennies. They’re in your couch cushions, they’re under your fridge, they’re in the carpet at the back of the closet. They’re the roaches of currency. I find it’s almost impossible to go a whole day without spotting a lone penny on the sidewalk or a parking lot. It’s not even worth it to pick it up, really, even though I’m half-Scottish.
That’s what I think this whole thing is about, really. I think there’s a vault somewhere, and it’s filled to the brim with pennies. And every morning, Jim Flaherty gets on his one-piece striped swimsuit and dives into it like he’s Scrooge McDuck.

Pictured: Fiscal responsibility.
True story: I swallowed a penny once, mistaking it for candy. My dad still has it. It’s not a pretty penny.
How could you even tell how many pennies there are? Wikipedia says there’s 35 billion pennies, and they’re all being melted down. Perhaps, to make this American penny:

Pictured: The smallest amount of money billionaire Bruce Wayne can think of.
Sadly, one day my grandchildren will be born into a world without pennies. They’ll look at a penny the way they would look at a Spanish dubloon, if a Spanish dubloon was worthless.
What will happen to the piggy-banks of the future without pennies? What will happen to that satisfying clink-clink when you shake them, without all those pennies bulking it up? My parents still play cards for pennies with their friends, and now they think they’ll have to change to nickles, which are next on the chopping block.
Personally, I use debit for everything. I’m amazed if I open my wallet and find paper money in there. I even phased out my wallet in favour of a band called TGHT I helped kickstart.
Meanwhile, other people have so little respect for the penny they’re using it for decoration, like these people:

The sad thing is, this isn’t even close to the most expensive tile you can get.
What should you do with your pennies? Personally, I'd like to drill a hole in one and wear it on a necklace for good luck, like they do with Japanese Yen.

Canada Phases Out Penny

Canada is finally phasing out Penny.

After years of obsolesce, it was finally decided to do away with her entirely. A number of factors contributed to her decline. Some say it was the death of Dr.Claw to lung cancer in the late 90’s that first signalled the end, followed shortly thereafter by the death of her long-time side-kick Brain to old age.

Pictured: Brian the cartoon dog, not Brain the cartoon dog.
As she went to college, she grew apart from “Uncle” Gadget, who became the Governor of California Since then, she joined Apple, only to be promptly fired, rehired, then fired again. During her tenure, however, it’s believed she helped developed the iPad based on her own computer book, but was never credited for it by Steve Jobs, himself once a M.A.D. Agent.
Desperate for recognition, a now adult Penny used her sex appeal to promote a reality show and line of women’s perfume, bolstered by a widely-viewed unauthorized sex tape with Magilla the Gorilla, titled, "Inspect-Her Gadget: Penny for a Pound/Pounding Penny." She had frequent run-ins with the law, mostly due to her constant interference with police investigations and computer hacking, as well as drunk driving with Lindsay Lohan.
After Heath Ledger was found dead in her home due to an accidental overdose of prescription medicine, she fled from the limelight into total obscurity. No one has seen her in two year, and the Canadian government has declared her legally dead.

Cooking is Bullshit

We bought a special microwave tray and cutter for the express purpose of making homemade potato chips and it’s bullshit. The tray isn’t very large. If you were going to make the equivalent of a bag of chips, it would take about eight passes through the microwave. A single tray serving isn’t enough to feed one person.

The 3-4 minutes suggestion (depending on your wattage) is bullshit too. There’s literally no setting or time in which it takes less than four minutes to cook them without them ending up limp and soggy like you on your wedding night. Cooking them longer to make them crispier makes them burn. So you either have charcoal chips, or limp-dick chips.

You’re not supposed to use oil, or salt either, because it’s healthier that way, so they still taste like an Irishman after. Potato chips don’t taste like potato chips unless they’re greased to hell.

Long story short, the house smells like burnt potatoes. Sweet potatoes, actually.

Superbowl Blackout

The Superbowl Blackout proved one thing: and that’s that people will watch anything. For over twenty minutes, all action during the Superbowl ground to a halt because the power went off. The level of excitement wasn’t any less than it was watching confused officials and coaches scream into their cellphones and headsets than it was during the actual plays. The Superbowl is the most drawn-out game outside of playing chess by mail. They actually tally how many time-outs each team has on screen. The commercials and the half-time show are considered as big a draw as the game itself. Watching people do nothing for twenty-four minutes or-so while five dudes in suits talk about how nothing is going on and replaying the clips they’ve already re-played isn’t much different than watching the game.

So what’s the draw? What’s the excitement, other than being told to be excited? Sports fans are only ever interest in their home teams, so why is there such a huge draw for the final game after all other teams have been eliminated?

The Art of Acting

1: Arnold Schwarzenegger.

The last movie Arnie starred in before becoming, “The Governator,” was Terminator 3, in which he stole the wardrobe of a gay stripper, and told people, “Talk to the hand.”

Now he’s starring in, “The Last Stand,” and a paternal lawsuit, one would assume. Looking at this movie, it’s clear that it was written with Andy Griffith in mind. Think about it: a Sheriff well past his prime trying to defend a small town against gun-wielding dudes in black ski masks. The movie was supposed to be a gritty “Andy Griffith Show,” reboot, as was this video:

2: Ben Aflek

As of the time I wrote this blog, Ben Aflek has not won an Oscar for “Argo,” (which sounds suspiciously like “Fargo.”). If he does, I’ll be forced to admit, much like Butters in South Park, that Ben Aflek is a more than decent actor/director. This comes after such atrocities as, “Jersey Girl,” “Gigli,” and, “Daredevil.” Which is the worst of three? I’ll let you decide. (It’s “Gigli). To his credit, Ben Aflek is more than willing to poke fun at himself, as evidenced by numerous appearances on SNL and Kevin Smith movies. There was a time when Matt Damon was considered the superior actor in the duo that created “Good Will Hunting.” Now Matt Damon is mainly famous for being the superior Bourne to “The Bourne Supremacy,” and not marrying an actress, unlike Ben.

3: Liam Neeson

Liam Neeson is the only action star I have to admit to myself I can never hope to take in a fight. Deep down, I feel like I could best Jackie Chan, Vin Diesel, Jean Claude Van Damme, Tony Jaa, and whoever the hell else you want to throw in there in a fight. Literally anyone who’s been in an action movie, no matter how lame. Arnie? Ben? I’d use one like a bat to knock out the other. Liam Neeson? I’d piss my pants and lay down and die while crying hysterically, hoping that would spare me.

The man is scary. Like deep-down scary, scary. Imagine if Heath Ledger’s Joker were real and out to kill you. He’d be simultaneously be trying to kill you, and wanting you to kill him. Liam comes across as a man with nothing left to lose. He’s only making movies to keep the feelings of despair and loss away, and you can see it in his creased eyes. Even if you beat him, you’d only be beating yourself in the process. It’d be like fighting a manifestation of an Elder God. Just run, mother fucker. You can’t win a losing war.