Celebrity Smackdown continued

This is a continuation of a previous series of posts of the same title posted on October 5th.

Her story is long and meandering, but in summery she is going to Africa to look at starving people. This one actually got through her defenses, and was posted... victory!

Dearest Chantal, I can relate to your need to go to Africa. Whenever I see those donation programs on tv about starving children my heart literally bursts out of my chest and lunges across the room with great sickening flops towards the TV set in a vein attempt to help them. Needless to say I never watch those shows anymore, as it hurts a lot and I have to be quick in grabbing hold of the slippery bugger and reattaching everything.
But this is not about me, its about the kids, the ones who matter. I was reading your post when I was struck with an idea, why not go to Africa yourself? I think it would really help out your opinion polls (which have been suffering do to that blueberry pie scandal) and it would cheer up those little kiddies to hear your soulful wailing with acoustic accompaniment, I know it works for me! Anyway, give it some thought, good luck with everything, and remember that it isn't the destination that matters... it's the journey.

DG

Posted by Doug Glassman on Friday, October 05, 2007 at 10:05
[Reply to this]

Poetic License to Kill

Man walks down the street,

In his flip flops and baseball cap.

His shorts are swell and his shirt is striped,

He knows it will be a good day.

A cell phone rings to the tune of “Sweet home Alabama”

“That must be brad”, he thinks.

“HEY DUDE, YEAH I WAS SOOO DRUNK!”

HAHAHAHAHAHA he laughs.

Doesn’t see the band of baboons waiting for him at the corner,

And walks directly into their midst.

The circle closes,

“Hold on bro… ok dudes, what’s the deal-e-o here-“

Shrieking and hooting, a single scream, and a sickening crunch,

Furry arms reach in and down and come back with hunks of flesh and intestine.

Blood splatter and a pair of perfectly good flip flops are all that’s left.

Twelve happy baboons continue with their day.

The END

Hockey is So Cool

The raccoonist headquarters are located in downtown Ottawa - home of noble and respectable things such as BeaverTail pastries and hockey pride.

Because of this, the raccoonists have decided to contribute to the recent hockey mania that abounds amid hockey playoff season and the very exciting Senators versus Ducks rivalry by adding a sports column to our already awesome blog. Our sports commentary will naturally outshine that of all the current newscasters and sports writers...so prepare yourselves Sens fans! Things just got way more hockey-y around here, as the raccoons have donned their jerseys and hockey hats. Also, we are waving sticks around in the air. (That's something you sports guys do, right?)
Oh, and we're drunk.
Anyway, here's the breakdown on the super exciting game last night (game ummmm three) in the series:

So Burt Murpheyson grabbed the puck and smashed his stick into the net. Then a bunch of guys playing on the back line hurled a shot into the goalfield, followed by a very exciting block and serve by the star player (and town hottie) Barney Binkers. The crowds went crazy, and the half-time whistle blew, just as the goal-master announced, "Nobody likes a shut-out!" Amen to that, eh? Heff Skateston did some swishy stuff on the ice with his stick and then slid and stopped really fast and made that screechy sound. Then he head-butted Murpheyson and stole his stick and threw it to O'Connor. So then things got back to skating around for a while, and in the end there was some really great stick stuff and some pretty decent puck chucking. And aside from the shut-out, it was a real lip-biter of a game. Too bad about Bingo Jefferstein missing that basket shot! I think we're all a little sick about that one.

Stay tuned for more riveting sports updates live, as the exciting hockey finals continue.
GO SENS GO!

Raccoonism Public Forum

Civic discussion is essential for the health of a community. To this end, Raccoonism will be hosting public debates about current issues.


One of the most pressing issues of our day is what is and isn't cool. People have vastly different views on coolness. One of the greatest divides exists between grumpy old men and hip young vandals. Today's debate presents these two viewpoints:


Graffiti Isn’t Cool by Randal Warner

On my way to Church last Sunday, I noticed several mail boxes had been spray painted with the letters “FP.” I discussed this matter with my bridge club on Tuesday and Agnus McLarby told me that there was similar graffiti near her house as well, so it seems as though the Glebe has been covered end to end with this garbage. So many young people have grown up without having any responsibilities, they feel entitled to spend all their time going to parties, vandalizing other people’s things, and smoking drugs. If anyone knows who FP is, please tell him that graffiti isn’t cool and he should be ashamed of himself for vandalizing taxpayers’ property.

Graffiti is Totally Cool by FP

Writing graffiti and taggin is totally sick, yo! Nothin’s more rad than laying down tags with my Boyz! Last Saturday we did some mad taggin’… we must have bombed the whole Glebe, yo. Me, Matty J and my boy K-Ron got jobs testing X-Box games, so things are pretty chill and we have coin for rusto and markers. Plus, K-Ron got sponsored for his BMX riding so he gets comped with all sorts of cool shit. Taggin’s sweet, but we do other cool stuff too. Most nights we spend a few hours doing tricks on our boards and smoke a couple of dubbies before we start taggin. We do that shit for a few hours then we hit a club around 2 and find some honeys to bring back to our crib. I’m not saying we do this every night… we’re usually pretty burnt by Sunday, so Monday and Tuesday we just chill. But yeah, graffiti’s SO cool.

World of Games

The Raccoonists enjoy games, and in particular we enjoy games which concievably have no end or winner, and are played purely for their own sake and the enjoyment of the players. We also like interesting things being done with urban spaces. Recently in the neighborhood of some figures of the Raccoonist movement some children had produced this hopscotch game which winds around an entire residential block. The game is composed of a little over 2000 squares and ends with a slight overlap with the game's first few squares. This game is potentially a hopscotch loop where one turn can go on forever if its players ignore the traditional rules of hopscotch (which, as well all know, is a pretty boring game under normal circumstances).

Anyways, we admire the endurance and imagination of the creators and players of this version of hopscotch. Kudos

now heres some pictures of the game

Raccoonist Psycholinguistics

Raccoonists are experts in psycholinguists. To a member, we are intimately familiar with Noam Chomsky's theories about propaganda in the media. So when a we see a news item, we don't see it at face value, we deconstruct it.

Today, American president George Bush hosted Malaria Awareness day. http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/nation/ny-usbush0426,0,3612823.story?coll=ny-leadnationalnews-headlines

Pay special attention to the video.

Why did the most powerful man in the free world make himself look completely ridiculous in public? Did he think to himself "Michael Moore is going to make a few more movies about how bad I am, so I'd better make sure there are some funny videos for him to put in." Plausible, but unlikely.

The true reason is the same reason why someone who's committed a crime intentionally acts crazy. They can avoid being held accountable for their crime if they lack the mental capacity to understand it. If George Bush is too stupid to have orchestrated all the crimes his administration has committed, then he can't be held accountable for them. No one really believes he decided to invade Iraq, because videos like this convince us that he's too stupid to know where Iraq is. They pulled off the same scheme with Ronald Reagan; as long as people think he's an affable moron, they don't hold him accountable for his crimes.

Every time someone makes a joke about how stupid George Bush is, they are unwittingly helping with the master plan to avoid responsibility. Even his harshest critics call him incompetent, rather than evil.

He may not be a genius, but he knew what he was doing. He's a bad man who's done terrible things for the worst reasons, and all the videos of him acting like an idiot won't change that.

Heed the Call

A Raccoonist(s?) had recently applied for a Bike Courier job with Ottawa's alleged largest employer of bicycle couriers, Quick Messenger Services (or is it Quick Buisness Services? Both phrases appear as corperate names on their website). Anyways, for the interview I spoke with the pudgy, bland-faced quick-talkin' hardnosed stereotype of a small time buisnessman who apparently acts as president of the company. This chump offered absolutely no incentive to become a bike courier, and major incentive for ridiculing him and his system in blogpost form.

Firstly, Wikipedia's article on bike couriers describes a common romantic perspective of the job amongst people and this perspective is what gives a difficult and dangerous job its popularity. There are no shortage of bike couriers. I...no..my unnamed Raccoonist associate fell prey to this romantic notion and chose to apply.

assumptions about bike couriering 1) - they are well paid for what is clearly a physically demanding, and potentially dangerous vocation. - this is false - at Quick Messenger Service we are self employed, independant contractors - now the joker who interviewed me tried to make it sound like this was great because they wouldn't take anything off my paycheque (things like income tax, and UI) - obviously what he thought sounded like a little extra spice to get our Raccoonist into the job sounded extremely disadvantageous to our hero and we're clearly 'independant contractors' so he wouldn't have to pay us a wage. Quick Messenger couriers are paid out of commission on the packages they deliver, which means embarassing and vulgar competition with other couriers over packages to make what could amount to less than living expenses. President said I would be making between 1,000 and 1,200 a month which is about minimum wage, for an extremely demanding job - he also spoke of the right couriers have to deduce from income tax the cost of lunch and other expenses, he spoke of this as though its something he's providing to his workers although this was in fact the result of a hard won legal battle fought by Toronto Bike Couriers in 1998. Anyways I'm not an idiot, I know that what I deduct from taxes isn't up to him.

Assumption 2) the job gives a great deal of freedom to those with the true grit to work at it. - well, being a bike courier might require some kind of grit, true or otherwise, but freedom is not a significant part of the job. Sure, you get to bike around and that can FEEL like freedom at certain moments but its a full time job, 8am to 5pm of constant biking to deliver stupid packages to people with the pressure on to continue in perpetuity because theres no hourly wage. Self Employed Independant Contractor my ass!

Assumption 3) there is some system in place to assist someone who is injured....because its dangerous - no, not with Quick Messenger Service. Couriers are self-employed and therefore have no one to rely on for help except themselves if they're hurt. So therefore there is pressure to work during a time of injury, otherwise the inevitably dire financial situation of a bike courier could unravel with the time missed. Of course when I asked the stupid president what happens when someone gets hurt he replied around the question in two immensely transparant ways. A) he said something like "well...knock wood, lets hope it doesn't happen." (lets hope knocking wood saves lives first, I have a feeling it doesn't) and B) he invented a hypothetical situation which was fairly mild in its severity - a courier hurts his leg but its not so bad that he doesn't miss any work...good for him. At this point in the interview the Raccoonist felt pretty sure that the guy was an insufferable dickweed and he was not going to work for him, so he didn't persue an argument where the hypothetical situation was significantly worse for the rider.

Assumption 4) aside from my bicycle, necessary equipment would be provided. Err...this isn't really an assumption because I figured I had to provide my own bag BUT get this, for every pay period (every two weeks) $48 is deducted by the company because they forcibly rent each courier a pager device. So from already small monthly earnings almost $100 is extorted for something that our Raccoonist would not have any use for outside of work. This is again a byproduct of the Independant Contractor scam, where because the courier is an outsider to the company, they cannot just be given company equipment but rather borrow it at a cost which amounts to a significant personal detriment. And this aside from the fact that the couriers work full time for them and because they're a couriering company, actually do the work central to the company's buisness scheme.

Anyways, anything written here is the result of experience with Quick Messenger Service, maybe there's some other service hiring bike couriers in Ottawa that's really great. Something has to account for why I see "rebellious" punk types acting in this position of exagerrated servitude.

If this is "just the way it is" for bike couriers then fine, be a bike courier, we don't care but we're not going along with it.