Ever notice how it's the little things in life that amuse us so much? More to the point, ever notice how it's the silly little idiocies in life that amuse us more than anything else? Well, this is not as much ''the little blog that could'' as it is ''the blog that enjoys going up the down escalator in your local mall.'' Will it have anything of real importance? No, probably not. But enjoy the ride never the less!

 

Anime is truly becoming mainstream. Otaku now have their own travel book:

TOKYO (AP) - Fans of Japanese animation can now plan a vacation around their obsession with the help of a new guide called Cruising the Anime City (Stone Bridge Press) by Patrick Macias and Tomohiro Machiyama.

The paperback, filled with colourful pictures of anime characters and photos of stars, stores and merchandise, is a guide to shopping, hangouts and cafes where visitors can steep themselves in all things anime. The Akihabara Oriental Comic Theater - close to Suehirocho Station on the Ginza Line - screens nothing but anime. A chapter in the book on "cosplay" - which means "costume play" - lists cafes where beautiful actresses portray Sailor Moon and other characters. Or you can gamble your yen away at slot machine and video arcades where the games include dialogue spoken by anime actors.

The book also takes you to some of the real landmarks that appear in cartoons and movies, such as Tokyo Tower, a favourite location for launching (or averting) a movie-made apocalypse. Also on the list of must-sees are the six-storey toy display at the Bandai Museum in the suburb of Matsuo; and Taco che, an emporium for Japanese comics and related media.

The absurdly long link can be found here:

http://travelcanada.sympatico.msn.ca/Home/ContentPosting.aspx?contentid=05309ffe40f74385af21a
28d3f81c061&show=True&number=5&showbyline=False&subtitle=&detect=&abc=abc


In other news, Mel would like to contribute to Today's Lesson, that being: when you're about to brush your teeth, make absolutely sure beforehand that the blueish substance on your toothbrush is in fact toothpaste, and not the similar looking, blue-coloured handsoap. Yeah, you only wish I was making this one up....



posted by Phillip at 5:59 AM

 

In a word, or in this case two: spam scams. They're not just for Nigerian bankers anymore, as this latest heartfelt missive from the UK directly to my Inbox proves. Grab your bag of popcorn, sit back, and try not to spit kernels out at the screen as you bear witness to some of the funniest idiocies and horrible grammar I've seen in a while:

Good day



I am Tony Fred Williams i am 14 years old i live in London

(UK) before my father die, now i live with my mother in

Scotland. my father is from London (UK) and my mother is

from Scotland. my late father Mr. Fred Williams was an

engineer in London (UK) before he die in a car accident

last year July 9th 2003. he left $50M (Fifty Million

Dollars) in his account before he die. The $50M is in

(First union national bank-na London Uk) i have been trying

to collect the money from (first union national bank-na

london Uk) but the Md Ceo told me to go and look for some

body that is old enough to help me collect the money.



I could have told my mother to assist me to collect the

$50M for me but my mother and father has devourse before my

father die and my father told me to not have anything to do



with my mother i dont even want her to know because what my

father told me before he die was not a lie, now that i stay

with my mother in Scottland she don?t even have time for me



all she do is to take hard drugs and to bring men to the

house to sleep with and she also hite me all the time. i

don?t want to have anything to do with her.I just want some

body that is old enough and honest to help me collect the

$50m from the bank as i am to young to take care of $50M.

Please i need your help if you can assist me to collect the

$50M from the bank i will give you 30% and take 70%. I have

the affidavite of claims that makes me the indeed bonified

next of kin to my late father Mr. Fred Williams which i

have show it to the bank . he told me to look for some body

that is old enough so that he can send the $50m to the

person in 24 hours. If you can help me i will give you the

user name and pass word of my father account and the web

site of the bank so you can access the $50million on net

before you will contact the MD CEO of First Union national

bank.if you can help me i will contact the MD ceo and tell

him that i have find some one who want to help me collect

the $50M. and i will give you is contact so that you can

contact him to enable him send the $50M to your provided

account in 24 hours after you have acceess the $50m on the

First union national bank web site.Please help me. I will

be waiting for your urgent reply so that i can give you the

contact of the bank and send you the last statement of

account of my late father and i will also send you my

picture and my birth certificate. Please on your next email

to me so reply me on my private

email:(tonyfred23@faithmail.com)







Best Regards



Tony Fred Williams. 

I'm not sure what amuses me more. The blatant disregard for legal and testamental prodcures, or how everything is written in the present tense. (ie, my father die last year, you snicker as you read this.) I think it's spam like this that creates cynics in us all. Though admittedly, there has been the remote temptation to write something along the lines of:

TO: Tony Fred Williams
FROM: Chaos, H. lordship
SUBJECT: You're a tit.

Or else that's just me ranting. Don't pay it any attention.

Today's Lesson: (which is more for Chance than anyone) it is counterproductive to suddenly be standing right where my foot is about to land as I step out of the shower. You will get stepped on, and I will probably break my neck, and then who's going to feed you...once you've feasted on my corpse and all that fun Poe-filled stuff?




posted by Phillip at 10:39 AM

 


No, seriously. According to this news article from CTV....

Seasonal misery peaks today: U.K. researcher
CTV.ca News Staff

For people having a hard time facing the world today, there's now quantifiable reason to believe you're not alone. According to a British expert in the seasonal ebb and flow of peoples' moods, Jan. 24 is typically "the most depressing day" of the year -- and in 2005 it's even worse because it falls on a Monday.

The University of Cardiff's Dr. Cliff Arnall singled out today based on a complex calculation of six mood-affecting factors. Arnall starts with the season's combination of shortened days and poor weather (W), and adds the post-Christmas financial burden of debt (D) minus monthly salary (d). Then, he factors that with a combination of time since Christmas (T), the time since new year's resolutions were abandoned (Q), and divides that by the product of low motivation (M) and the feeling of needing to take action (NA).

In sum, the formula looks like: [W + (D-d)] x TQ/M x NA

And when Arnall crunched the numbers, they added up to Britons' worst day of the year. And the equation would seem to apply to Canada as well, where winter often brings with it a blanket of depression that's been dubbed seasonal affective disorder, or SAD. More severe than a run-of-the-mill seasonal low, SAD is characterized by often debilitating depression. Short of escaping wintry climes for someplace sunny, sufferers can seek phototherapy -- in which they sit in front of a bright lightbox -- or turn to antidepressant drugs. Experts says moderate physical activity, however, can be enough to lift people out of a mild case of the winter blahs.

And already I'm inclined to agree with them. So far this morning, I woke up to Kitchener-Waterloo snow instead of warm Maui beaches, I didn't win a million dollars, and there were no throngs of worshippers bowing and scraping to me on the lawn in front of our building. Truly, this is indeed a terrible, horrible, no-good very-bad day!

In the meantime, I'm amused at how there is a seemingly mathematical formula for depression. It makes me wonder if there is in fact a mathematical formula for explaining why people can be idiots, and customers can be dicks. Let's see...many of the customers (C) any of us love to hate are rude. We shall classify this as (R). So to begin we have:

C = R

But as we all know, rudeness is an ever-changing variable, contingent on multiple factors including: arrogance to the nth degree (A)nth; and how bad a day they're having, which must be expressed naturally in a negative integer, -(D).

We must also take into account the fact that in some people, human DNA holds some problematic genes that naturally contribute to people's ignorance or idiocy. It's human nature to be rude, beligerant and destructive. To touch briefly on philosophy, in an ideal world there would be no service industries, as everyone would willingly place themselves in a serving position that only better elevates humanity as a whole.

But alas, we all have this destructive capacity to some degree. Naturally, we must combine this weakness with an individual's varying degree of arrogance, as one tends to exaserbate the other. The equation for rude customers then becomes:

C = (-D) * [(A)nth + (Gen)nth]

As customers, like all of us, have our bad days, this can be more simply expressed in terms of personality. How would you describe the personality of someone snapping at you? Rude? Cranky? Irritable? Consider all these and other descriptions that pop into your head, however. They are all symptoms of this bad day, not the cause itself. What is the leading cause of people having bad days, you ask. The answer is: stress. People are overly stressed and exhausted. In a word, they are haggard (H). So we can simplify -(D) in this fashion:

-(D) = H

Let's also not overlook the flaw in our own human genetics. Originally we wrote it as (Gen)nth, where genetics to a certain degree can contribute to some people being just plain rude. How can we simplify this to make it easier for the common person to understand? Well, consider: how many times have you encountered a thoroughly rude individual, and exclaimed, "What a tit!"

All right, admittedly you'd be more inclined to hear that in Britain, but work with me on this. Some people are simply stupid tits (T), no way around it. Or, if you're of the Canadian calibre, they're simply an idiot (I). There is no better explanation, and in truth no other explanation. In which case:

(Gen)nth = I/T

How else can we simplify this equation? Arrogance to the nth degree is also more commonly known as a superiority complex. In which case:

(A)nth = S

So when all is said and done, you wind up with C = (S)(H)(I)(T). Which would subsequently imply that rude customers are simply full of shit. Yeah, that was a longwinded delivery for a ridiculous punchline. Thank you and good night.


You Must Read: the Bunny. http://www.frozenreality.co.uk/comic/bunny/index.php


posted by Phillip at 8:22 AM