This one's for you, Steve

In yet another example of the the poor judgment and character of our new business manager, he's recently mentioned that he regrets the death of my former personal blog, Severely Biased. What the hell were they thinking hiring him, anyway?

At any rate, he'll no doubt be pleased (albeit for an extremely short time, I'd hope) to learn that the ol' web log has been replaced. My previous Prime Directive ("The more interesting a topic would be to readers, the less appropriate it is to post it"), however, remains in effect, so you shouldn't bother reading it or anything. Unless you're Steve. Weirdo.

This is the one...

Chloe ski
Originally uploaded by Hobs.

...with Ross' head bobbing behind it. To the left.

ROSS!!!1111!!!!

Ross wakeboard
Originally uploaded by Hobs.

Yep

Figured it out

Chloe wakeboard
Originally uploaded by Hobs.

Fuck, is all I can say. I better get something from both Chloé and Ross for this.

So this is why she's not around

Returns from Kelowna, where our beloved news editor and our beloved Ross Moroz are enjoying some fun in the sun and the water. If you look closely at one of the pictures, you can see Ross' head bobbing up and down not too far behind Chloé: apparently, he was quite sure she was going to biff, and decided to stay in the water to act as a ready response team, but instead spent the better part of twelve minutes floating in Lake Okanagan, presumably serving as sexy bait for the infamous Ogopogo.

But, yeah, from all of us here still stuck in Edmonton, I can only say one thing to Ross and Chloé: I hope you get a really bad case of swimmer's itch. Like, really bad.

Edit: Okay, so I can't figure out how to post pictures at all (and yes, I've tried the blogger "upload pictures" thing. Anyone know how to get this to fucking work?

Thievery Corporation

Yeah, so Iris totally stole my thunder, but Matt and I sure did find a bag full o' stealing tools yesterday night. Of particular interest to me were the bolt cutters and mini-crowbar (in retrospect, I kind of regret not pilfering that from the bag and keeping it for myself, but that's probalby some kind of crime or something), but the bag also included gloves, a black hat, a black mask, a pen-knife, an X-acto knife, what were presumably bike-lock keys, and assorted small tools like wire strippers, needlenose pliers and some small screwdrivers (which I really should have kept, considering).

I turned the lot into the police, where the guy informed me that these were "breaking and entering tools." Well, thanks for the tip, Detective Moustache, I never would have figured that on my own.

Anyway, as some of you may know, I had a bicycle stolen a little while ago, so it came up amongst us that this was some sort of karmic retribution for that, which promted the following exchange, which is going to go in the quote book as soon as I get back to the office:

Matt: I guess it was just good karma.

Me: Yeah, still, if this was the guy who stole my bike, I'd rather hit him in the face with the bolt cutters.

Matt: I think that would ruin the good karma.

Me: But he's a thief.

Matt: Still, it can't be good karma to hit someone in the face with bolt cutters.

The EPS is the most retarded law enforcement agency in the world

For years, we have complained that the EPS is basically a roving brigade of retards. Though it sounds harsh, this is actually based on solid facts.

Evidence #1: Not admitting that there’s a serial killer on the loose in the city even though everyone and their autistic dog have pieced together the facts and came to that conclusion years ago.

Evidence #2: “The Overtime Affair” which I don’t want to go into the trouble of explaining. But trust me when I say that the EPS’s utter incompetence was demonstrated at that event.

And now, as if we need more evidence for their stupidity, some fucker of a cop gave me a ticket last night when I was out on Whyte. Now you may ask, what kind of ticket is this? Did I run naked along Whyte after a rousing game of hot nuts and got a ticket for indecent exposure? No. Did I end up in a bar fight after a rousing game of hot nights and got a ticket for drunken misconduct? No. Did I smoke pot in an alley behind Whyte and got fined? No. Did I jaywalk? NO!!!!

I (and by I, I meant “Fresh and I”) got a ticket for crossing the street, at a proper intersection, when there were 15 seconds left on the blinking-hand countdown, which, when you think of it, is the most retarded way to get a ticket. Frankly, I’d rather get a ticket for any of the aforementioned activities--well, except jaywalking, because that’s pretty retarded too-–than the ticket that I got. We tried to talk out of it, as we were both quite sober by then. But the cop cited the “new zero tolerance” rule, which, frankly, I think is in place to stop some variant of the Canada Day riot rather than to discourage able-bodied people from crossing the street when they knew they had time.

And to add insult to the injury, earlier before we set out for the Strat, Berry and Fresh found a backpack full of bolt cutter, mask, gloves, bike lock keys, small screwdrivers and stuff in their backyard. This shit obviously belongs to a bike thief. It goes without saying that we’re spooked enough that we called the police. But when we called the police, they said that the station is only open from 8-to-8 and they were busy that night. Come back tomorrow during office hours.

Of course we found out later that all the cops in the area is too busy giving out ticket to people crossing the street when the blinking hand is on!!!! So busy that they can’t come and investigate a backpack full of stuff that’s used to commit real criminal offences. What a bunch of cocksuckers! I’m totally going to fight this in court.

So the lesson I learned last night is that the EPS is the most retarded law enforcement agency in the world and that I’m totally going to stop crossing the street when the blinking hand comes on … when there’s a cop around.

A somewhat belated update

I suppose someone should have done this some time ago, but what the hey--it's time for everyone to hear about how our slo-pitch team is doing.

All right, we had our first game of the new season, uh, a while ago. Like, early July-ish. I don't remember the exact date (which probably doesn't bode well for an actual game re-cap, but whatever). The important thing to note is that we had a full compliment of 16 people, a full five (or six, maybe) of whom were girls--in other words, not only enough for not having a phantom out, but enough to also play football, if we so chose (we didn't, though in retrospect, it probably would have been the wiser choice).

Anyway, the game started solidly enough, with Domincan import Graham "El Presidente" Lettner doing a solid job of pitching, supported by some near-error-free fielding. All that changed once we had to bat, though. Our top-of-the-order magic sort of continued, mostly in the sense that the first two people got out, possibly both on strikeouts (no small feat when the ball is being lobbed at you), Ross got on base, I drove him home (fuck yeah, bitch), Kris Berezanski moved me to third, then, in one of the most intelligent moves I've seen to date, he lead off and was called out--there's no crying in baseball, and there's no stealing in slo-pitch, apparently. Anyway, that would be the end of our scoring for this particular game.

The rest of the game is sort of a blur of five-run innings on the other team's part, and 1-2-3 innings on our part. Also, when you have 16 people, particulalry 16 people who hit as "well" as we do, you tend not to get many at-bats. I think, sadly, some people might have only got one. Yeah, anyway, we got our faces slaughtered apart, but it was a moral victory.

The most-recent game, taking place this Tuesday, fared a bit better. Though I ratcheted up my fielding errors exponentially, there was some solid pitching, and we actually sort of learned how to hit, especially given that we drove in something like nine runs. Granted, we allowed about 20, but we actually had one inning where we scored the maximum of five, which I'm pretty sure is a first. Also, the other team was clearly a bunch of real baseball players masquerading in the shitty league so they don't get their asses kicked by the other real baseball players, so fie on them.

Anyway, our next game is Sunday at seven. My prediction: our first legitimate win. No, wait, fuck that--my guarantee: our first legitimate win. Don't miss it.

Difficult. But God.

So says the opinion section today.

Anyway, the unrelated point of this pointless post concerns the NHL's new CBA. As we all know, the near-unanimous consensus is that the owners totally annihilated the players in the negotiations, and unlike most things that are believed near-unanimously, this is true. But earlier today, the players ratified the agreement with nearly 90 per cent voting in favour. Tomorrow, the owners meet in New York to vote on the deal.

Wouldn't it be hilarious if they voted against it?

Harry Potter and the Adorable Penguins

Here are quotes from this week’s Onion and last week’s New York Times. Guess which is which.

“Report: Unreleased Harry Potter Book More Secure Than U.S. Train”

and

"At each of Amazon.com's five order-fulfillment centers, for example, the books are kept in a restricted area that workers need a special pass to enter, where they are watched by security guards and are not allowed to carry anything in or out."

The Onion can hit suprisingly close to the truth sometimes. I can't believe Scholastic goes through all this trouble in order to prevent some 12 year-old from reading the book ahead of time and then spoil the ending in her livejournal.

And since most of you care little about Harry Potter, I offer you something else ... Penguins! Adorable!

This is where we work

Google Maps has upped the resolution of half of Edmonton, and it happens to be the half that campus falls on, as you can see above.

The border between the high- and low-resolution parts of town actually falls right around the west hashmarks at Commonwealth Stadium. See the difference for yourself.

I Quit

Well, this is the final straw: after some deliberation, we've ended up with a complete jackass as our new business manager. Say goodbye to the good times, boys and girls: we're all going to be working for free by the time January comes around, if there's a paper left at all. All I can say is that the hiring committee better have fact-checked his resumé, because he's been known to not be, shall we say, forthcoming.

In all seriousness, though, welcome aboard, Steve. Though, I mean, really, what choice did we have?

If there's a hell, Vince McMahon is going there

It's been awhile since I've complained about wrestling here, and I think it's time. Don't worry, I'll keep it short.

As if the Muhammed Hassan and Daivari "characters" weren't offensive enough already, on last night's Smackdown Hassan called out a gang of masked terrorists to take out the Undertaker in something disturbingly resembling a Nick Berg-style assault. So just in case there was any doubt that this young Arab-American man with legitimate (if whiny) complaints could possibly be anything but a terrorist, WWE has come to the rescue to assure that, yes, our stereotypes are correct.

Who wants to bet that the secret Eddie is hanging over Rey's head is that Rey is gay, at which point Rey will instantly become the heel and Eddie the face? Seriously, at this point I wouldn't put anything past them. At this point I'm basically watching the shows just to see if they can possibly get worse than the last one. And they always manage to find a way.

A team project

For some reason, the Gateway is listed at Wikipedia. As you can see if you click the link, the article is currently a stub, but thankfully we can edit and expand it. So the project is thus: go to Wikipedia and expand that article with all the juiciest, dirtiest gossip about fellow Gateway people and the paper itself that you can find/make up. Or, alternately, you could contribute information about the history and operations of the Gateway. It's up to you, really.

Googling!

Because I'm bored and waiting for my parents to pick me up for Sunday dinner, I decided to Google all the editors' names. Below are the results, in no particular order. If I get bored later, I will add more categories, the first of which will be "How many pages/hits (whichever is lower) until we find the person we're looking for" and also maybe one on who or what most hits are related to. (*Note: edited to include one of said categories.)

Anyway, enjoy. And send me some cocaine or something, to spice up my life.

Daniel Kaszor - 596
Top Hit: Blogger User Profile for Daniel Kaszor
Actually the person we're looking for: yes, you freakin' nerd
Most hits are related to: Either movie reviews Dan did, particularly Taxi, or shout-outs on people's blogs. Nerd.

Tim Peppin - 9620
Top Hit: National Assembly for Wales local government, of which Tim Peppin is presumably a member
Actually the person we're looking for: no, though it might explain why he hasn't been around this summer
Most hits are related to: A fairly diverse mix of the world's Tim Peppins, though the guy from Wales seems to pop up a lot--almost as much as Tim's articles on pot popped up. Better hope your employers are marijuana-friendly Tim, because that particular opinion is sticking with you for a while, methinks

Jake Troughton - 5720
Top Hit: 1998 Season-ending standings for something called magmacom "rfbrule"
Actually the person we're looking for: Possibly. The pages underneath indicate that a certain Jake Troughton entered online pools involving CFL standings, and since we all know Jake loves his CFL, those are probably him, meaning this could be a similar kind of CFL-related standing thing.
Most hits are related to: Various articles Jake has written that were picked up by CUP papers. Bor-ing.

Chloe Fedio - 72
Top Hit: Gateway news article by Chloe Fedio
Actually the person we're looking for: yes, with extra points for it being a Gateway article.
Most hits are related to: Various articles Chloe has written that were picked up by CUP papers. In conclusion, newsies=the most boring people in the world.

Chris O'Leary - 266 000
Top Hit: Marie Kerr and Chris O'Leary Skateparks in Palmdale, California
Actually the person we're looking for: Chris better hope not--I hate skaters
Most hits are related to: It seems to go in spurts: at first, it's an author named Chris O'Leary, then an artist or something, then an extreme athlete, then a regular athlete. In other words, no central theme.

Mike Larocque - 47 000
Top Hit: "Mike's Place," the blog of a cook/"technical geek" living in Calgary
Actually the person we're looking for: no, but probably the closest miss
Most hits are related to: Mostly just various Mikes of the world, but there is an awful lot of computer-related things. Also, apparently there was a Mike Larocque who played the Sidetrack a while back. Hot diggity!

Iris Tse - 80 100
Top Hit: "Salt of the Earth," an aidscamp project, which Iris Tse volunteered for
Actually the person we're looking for: no, but this Iris was from Hong Kong, like our Iris. Also a worse dresser, but she was volunteering in Africa
Most hits are related to: A fair amount are actually articles Iris wrote, but it seems as though the majority are actually about companies listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange (or "TSE") that have something to do with irises, which is pretty funny

Matt Frehner - 574
Top Hit: "21 000 Words," the Gateway's year-end photo review
Actually the person we're looking for: Yes, and kudos again for it being a Gateway site
Most hits are related to: photos credited to Matt Frehner, usually in CUP papers.

David Berry - 4 640 000
Top Hit: "The Old Dave Barry Blog," the former blog (dead for more than a year and three months) of the Miami Herald columnist. Fuck Google and their misspellings
Actually the person we're looking for: fuck no. I'm changing my name.
Most hits are related to: Actually, after the first, nothing to do with Dave Barry at all. It's pretty much a rogue's gallery of David Berry's, from an author to an artist to university profs to some guy who worked on Cocoon. (also, yes, I made my host of aliases sound better, but I wrote it, so fuck off).