Come sit for a spell

I was thinking -- I like to cultivate the impression that I am a well-rounded individual. I'm a theatre major who knows what Avogadro's number is, I can rattle off five Coen Brothers movies or the starting five for the Miami Heat, and I know both what the T in James T. Kirk stands for and what it's like to have kissed a girl. I mean, I tend to steer clear of politics, but if I was thrown into a random cocktail party and told to mingle, I could probably hold up my end of the conversation.

However, I wouldn't be surprised if, given a large enough sample size, certain patterns started to appear. Like, with all of these posts, I assume it would become apparent that I talk about some things more than others. For example, I haven't personally done the math, but those handy label thingies over to the right indicate that basketball and lacrosse pop up sorta frequently. And, if I just cast my mind back to the most recent missive, I have a hunch a couple more representative topics popped up -- namely, when I got all excited about a Rubik's cube giveaway, and when I discussed the prospect of people disrobing at a concert. If I had to guess, I'd say my oeuvre would skew heavily towards promoting the geeky and the people gettin' nekkid -- full frontal nerdity, if you will. (By the way, I'd love to take responsibility for coining that phrase, but no, I can remember Ben Seaver using it in an episode of Growing Pains around 20 years ago. Side note: I feel old.)

I bring this up because an event has come to my attention that seamlessly combines these two -- heck, if you allow 'competition' to be the umbrella my sports posts fall under, then I've hit the trifecta. Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you -- a strip spelling bee.

Yep, that's correct, basically a strip poker game, only instead of cards, the contestants spell things. The very concept leaves me nigh-speechless. The other thing that I can hardly wrap my head around is that it is happening in Toronto, and in less than 48 hours from now, and that tickets to attend and observe this phenomenon are $10, well within my price range.

You understand, I have to go to this. It's not really an option not to. I mean, it's like if someone told you that they found a show where a monkey had been dressed up like a pirate and was going to be punching a cow -- you'd have to go. It's just non-negotiable. However -- this is where I discovered a touch of latent homophobia in myself. The shindig in question takes place at Buddies in Bad Times Theatre, which has left me unsure as to the gender representation of the contestants. It's not the fact that I might be in for a night of all-male spellin'-and-strippin' that worries me, so much as the thought of looking like a single man who paid for the privilege of sitting by himself to watch a bunch of dudes get naked. I could take a deep breath and get over that, but if anybody here is interested in coming as my back-up, I'd feel a little more comfortable, all the more so if that person or persons possesses more ovaries than I do.

I would also whole-heartedly support any acquaintance who feels the urge to participate. You know, strictly for altruistic reasons.

What comes to light

So, I had my email sorta hacked into recently -- some nefarious decepticon-type entity managed to send a message from my account to the first fifty names in my address book. In light of this, some things have occurred to me.


1. Of the first fifty names in my address book, 15 bounced back to me immediately because the account in question was no longer active, probably 6-8 more were merely duplicate addresses that I had for people, 4 or 5 were people I either haven't emailed directly in years or only have them in my contacts because I reply-alled to some other email, and the first 50 addresses only get me up to the D's. Perhaps it's time for me to do some Hotmail spring cleaning.

2. Not often does someone get to send his dad, his sister, his brother's girlfriend, his ex-girlfriend and a couple of ex-co-workers a link to an ad for a Viagara-like medication. And usually when it does happen, it's the basis of a reality show that airs on Showcase on Friday nights.

3. And really, if I possessed the awesome ability to hack into Hotmail, I highly doubt the best use I could come up with for this talent would be the further propagation of spam. Seriously, if it's money you're looking for, start scanning emails for credit card numbers, or advertise for a legitimate product. Conversely, if you're just enamored with the thrill of getting away with stuff (as depicted in immortal cinematic masterpieces like Sneakers and Hackers), then send everybody in a given contact list a generic suicide note. That'd get people talking.

Milestone, sorta

Well, sweet gravy biscuits, the almighty search engine has finally found me. It's still a long shot that somebody will accidentally trip over this thing, but I guess just in case there's a rash of people Googling "Pops Mensah-Bonsu", "How to Look Good Naked" and "nostril-snorting angry", I should probably start adhering to a more rigourous posting schedule. I'll work on that.

By the way -- I just discovered that you need to use all three of the quoted search terms above in order to whittle your search down to my page and my page alone. If you omit the "nostril-snorting angry" bit, there are two other page options that pop up. Vast though the internet may be, I would not have expected that.

Public Service Announcement

So, recently a strange confluence of events led to me catching up with an old acquaintance of mine, late night TV. (Of course, by 'acquaintance', I more likely mean 'near-all-consuming-passion-of-yore', but we'll let that slide.) I've known enough artsy-type folks in my day that occasionally, I'll see some commercial and realize, "Hey, I used to work with her," or, "Isn't that the guy who drywalled my basement?" Once, I actually saw a guy I went to high school with win a chugging contest on some sort of low budget CityTV Beer-lympics, which was a bizarre blast from the past. However, it appears I'm making a demographic switch, as this time my little jolt of familiarity happened as I swung by some Kwality Reality Programming.

Now, it was a show on the W network, and I only caught the last few seconds, and I didn't know the person in question all that well, so I wasn't really sure if it was who I thought it was. It was kind of intriguing, though, so a little bit of internet research was called for, at which point I could confirm that yes, I have met someone (and I'm not naming names, but someone I know might have dated her) who is featured on this season of Stuck on the women's network.

However -- all that is kinda irrelevant, it's just the roundabout way of telling you that when you Google stuck womens network, the second link that pops up starts off with the words "How to Look Good Naked." I don't know about you, but I usually click on links like that, and in this case it led me to info about a show where:

In each episode our host will teach women how to embrace their curves, love their lives and learn how to best show off the figures they have. We will guide them through their negative body issues and help them demystify their ideas of perfection. Each week through styling, beauty tips, and direction from our style experts, we will lead a woman on an extraordinary journey to loving herself again.

Not only that, the pooh-bahs who make this fine telly-vision show are looking for participants! "Well, ho-lee smokes," I thinks to meself, "They're looking for women. I know some women. That's like synergy! I need to tell people about this!"

So, uh, yeah. If anybody here has a latent desire to use the power of semi-scripted television to work out some self-esteem issues, I fully support you in that endeavour. Obviously, the chance to see my friends in their pixelated birthday suits is completely beside the point.


W Network, How To Look Good Naked

Application

Start with a bang

So -- this post originally began life when I tried to comment on Empty the Bench, but there was apparently some sort of technical glitch. Since I had already done the work, I figured, what the heck, might as well make a blog and post it my own damn self.

And, just to be clear, this post will contain approximately 1472% more racial epithets than I might use in the next ten years of posting. Just one of those days, I guess. (You should really read that Empty the Bench link if you want this to make sense -- the gist is, an NBA commentator used a racial slur and nobody seemed to really mind.)

Full disclosure -- I'm Caucasian, Canadian, and a 33 year old male. When I discuss slurs, it's through a ludicrously sheltered lens, so I apologize in advance for any inadvertent offence.

So -- I don't really have a strong feeling one way or the other on this issue. I'd probably like to be more offended -- you know, a slur is a slur no matter what, and they should all be treated with similar disdain. Honestly, I'd be okay with any excuse for a short respite from Rick Kamla's shtick, but for some reason this particular word didn't push any of my buttons. I get that it has some historically bad connotations, but so do 'gay' and 'queer', and those have been claimed and become pretty acceptable when the speaker isn't using them maliciously. I'm also allowed to use Frenchman or Irishman, so I could legitimately see myself letting Chinaman slip into my vocabulary in this context. I would absolutely apologize if I realized someone had been offended, and knowing now that it would cause a fuss, hell no would I ever use it on National TV -- but if I had, I would still think an apology offered in good faith would be sufficient reparations.

And, just because I have too much free time on my hands, I tried an experiment. I went to Google and searched combinations of prominent athletes' names with the, uh, appropriate slur. (You know, quote-unquote appropriate. Moving on.) It's ridiculously unscientific and fraught with logical holes, but I just kinda wanted to get a feel for what slurs might be more prevalent, and I figured number of Google hits might do the trick.

(And this is where the post gets NSFW-ish, no graphics, but words that might trip your IT guy's alarm bells. Proceed with caution.)

"Yi Jianlian" chinaman -- 4190 pages
"Yao Ming" chinaman -- 4460
"Yao Ming" chink -- 15700
"Ichiro Suzuki" chinaman -- 793
"Ichiro Suzuki" "jap" -- 1750
"Rik Smits" dutchman -- 8400
"Tony Parker" frenchman -- 6690
"Michael Jordan" nigger -- 34300
"LeBron James" nigger -- 20200
"Kobe Bryant" nigger -- 31800
"Jason Kidd" nigger -- 4510
"Shane Battier" nigger -- 411
"Larry Bird" honky -- 1930
"Dirk Nowitzki" kraut -- 790
"Martin Gortat" polack -- 7870
"Andrei Kirilenko" commie -- 313
"Pau Gasol" spic -- 115
"Andrea Bargnani" wop -- 1160
"John Amaechi" fag -- 5010
"Michael Beasley" addict -- 11500
"Delonte West" nutcase -- 1570
"Ron Artest" "batshit crazy" -- 3390

*"jap" is in quotes because Google returns results for Japan/Japanese otherwise.

So yeah. I think the n-word can probably still be considered the gold standard in this area. Judging by the 3-to-1 ratio of 'ch*nk' to 'ch*naman' to describe Yao Ming, it looks like Kamla didn't exactly let rip the average internet lone gunman's go-to insult for Asians, either. I guess, I'd be inclined to believe someone who didn't realize the severity of the word ch*naman when they were talking about a man with a Chinese passport. Just my opinion.