I think I might have a superhuman ability to lose nail clippers. I even wrote a post about it a few hours ago including a haiku about how I can’t find them even though I own two pairs. But then I lost that post too. Superhuman, see?

I will not attempt to recreate the haiku, I am afraid. I could never recapture the moment and to attempt would just cheapen us all.

In other news, as my Halloween-time trip to NYC approaches, it becomes ever more apparent how much money I don’t have. I’m not going to not take the trip, obviously. But I am going to be suffering afterward (and a bit beforeward if I want to have money to spend…).

Such is the way of things.

I was just browsing the Onion, as is my wont, and I got a message saying I’d used up my monthly allowance of five pages and that I had to subscribe to keep reading. Naturally, with this being the Onion, I assumed it was kidding, but no. Apparently non-American readers are now being expected to pay for seeing the Onion website.

Now, don’t get me wrong, as a loyal fan of the Onion for more than a decade I am willing to pay them for entertaining me. The makers of the Onion very much deserve to be paid well for entertaining us every week and I do doubt this is just some greedy whim of theirs, they probably need the additional income because they aren’t making enough off of advertising and stuff. I own six of their books (I own Our Dumb Century twice even) and have many times over the years paid for print editions of the paper, but those are things I can buy when I have the money around. I don’t plan on paying for a subscription to the website so, Onion, I’m afraid I won’t be seeing as much as you anymore. You will be missed.

Half of this Canadian Propaganda Commercial is about a child freezing to death! Canada!

This one depicts a town that has too many sick people and not enough space to save them, right? So they all work together to make a hospital that provides its services for free. That’s nice. Although this Heritage Minute has none of the extreme quotability that I love for things for, it is about one of my favorite things about Canada, the free healthcare. That’s important in a country where kids freeze to death on a regular basis.

I also like the two guys who point out that since they’re the best builders in town, they can build a hospital. Of this, I approve. These aren’t two guys saying “we can build this hospital cheaper than anyone else in town,” because that would be insane. Who would want to live in a society where hospitals, or anything for that matter, was built by the people who can do it the cheapest? But anyway, I think I’m going to try to turn “We built the best barn, so we’ll build the hospital!” into something I can work into discussions. Hey, if I can fit “Oh Sire, until the end of time” into everyday conversation on a regular basis, I can do this.

But because that quote is not yet at the forefront of our culture, I can only give this one Three out of Six Pieces of PDR’s Reviewing System Cake. It’s a rare case where I actually like the thing the Heritage Minute is about more than I like the Heritage Minute itself.

I feel like I should be commenting on recent events in the world. There was this big wedding in England that everyone cared about and then forgot once Osama bin Laden got killed and also some kind of election in that country that borders the Nation of Patrick D Ryall on all sides.

On the former, I have to say that PDR is just not a big fan of weddings. I like the idea of marriages, but the whole big wedding to start them generally just annoys me. Now, I’ve had a good time at some wedding receptions, certainly, but the ritual, the ceremony, is usually boring to me. So seeing this blown up to royal levels in England, and then covered with fervor by the local newses (I only get one news channel, people. I need variety or I miss out on everything) made it even worse.

The night before the wedding we put a flyer into the newspaper at which I work that advertised plates with an image of Prince Whichever and his ladyfriend who were getting married. If even one person saw that flyer and thought “Oh, that looks nice, I should get that,” then I apologize for not sabotaging it before it could get to you. That plate was a waste of your money.

Similarly dominating the news, and more likely to have actual effects on the world I think, is the death of the most wanted terrorist. Perhaps my favorite aspect of this whole thing was a small blurb that was in last night’s paper that, if I may paraphrase from memory, went something like “some construction worker who had flown to Afghanistan to find bin Laden himself claims that his presence scared the terrorist leader out of the mountains to the city where he was found. The construction worker now wants millions of dollars for his services.” Possibly there is more legitimacy to the guy’s claim than the small article went into, but I would like to make it clear that my presence in this apartment totally kept Osama from being here. I’d be happy to settle for just a single million.

Haiku!

Rocketship captain.
Please don’t forget your loved ones
as you soar through space.

As for the Canadian election: Pretty much nobody I know was happy with the result so… sucks for pretty much everybody I know. But rest assured, the leadership of the Nation of PDR remains dedicated to maintaining peaceful relations with Canada while simultaneously trying to bring down the current form of society as a whole.

That’s it. Go away.

10) It would benefit the economy. Creating jobs is a popular sentiment. And PDR’s Butler is a job.
9) Since I do not feel I am myself better than servants, we would have a strong bond of equality between us. This means the butler would enjoy serving me as much as I enjoy being served.
8) It would be educational. I would learn more about butlers. And that would benefit everyone, probably.
7) It would expand my horizons. The butler could introduce me to new kinds of cookies that he knows that I’ve never tried.
6) If I had a butler, people would think I am better off than I actually am and that would lead them to treat me as if I were a rich dude. That would make it much easier for me to become rich.
5) He would be able to give me more reasons to have a butler. Butlers know all about reasons to have butlers.
4) Butlers have connections. A butler could hook me up with a chauffeur and a chef and a maid and so on.
3) I could talk to him about Brontosaurs. Butlers love that!
2) It would prevent terrorists from saying I don’t have a butler. We’re supposed to be opposing the terrorists right?
1) I’m incompetent at most tasks. If I had a butler to do these tasks, he would do those tasks better than I do and therefore the world would be a better place.

So, if any governments want to pitch in and pay for someone to be my butler, let me know.

In other news, I found the note I left for myself that March 25th is International Robot Day according to me. I totally forgot to celebrate it this year. This will not happen again.