So, right before work yesterday I took the time to fill out the Canadian Census thing. As you all should know, I declared myself an independent nation years ago, but have continued on as a Canadian citizen as well for the sake of good relations. I expected this might lead to some problems with the government questionnaire, but only once did it even come close to being complicated:

“Is there anyone listed above who is a government representative of another country (for example, embassy or high commission)?”

Well, I’ve never really gotten around to figuring out how the government of Patrick D Ryall works, so I was able to honestly answer “no” to that.

It went on to not ask me any questions about my ethnicity (though it did make me feel bad for not having learned a second language yet). And I also never got a question about my religion. I was totally hoping to name my belief system so that maybe we’d be moving towards its acceptance as a belief system instead of just being the rantings of one lonely idiot.

Anyway, at work it was explained to me that what I filled out was probably just the mandatory short form census and that the optional long one would have covered all that. Oh well. Next time.

But hey, I took the option to have my answers revealed 92 years from now! Fame is coming my way!

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.

As I said, I am starting a tradition wherein I will order my year’s supply of when John Swartzwelder’s latest book is released. This year that is the Fifty Foot Detective, which has recently become orderable on Amazon. So I have ordered this latest chapter of Frank Burly absurdity and alongside it some other books including Towing Jehova, (a book which I first heard about in my childhood on Prisoners of Gravity (a Canadian show about sci-fi). but I could never remember what it was called until I realized the Internet could probably tell me) and A Man of the People (For years I thought Chinua Achebe had only written four novels and that I’d read them all, but then it turns out I plumb forgot about this one). I love books and it makes me happy to have some coming my way. Hooray!

I wonder if I could ride a unicycle. I try to imagine it in my head, without ever having been on one, and I can’t really tell if it should be hard or not. Someday I’ll have to try.

Haiku!

Women with lasers
protect the moon from vikings.
We thank you, ladies.

It is International Women’s Day, I guess. I’ll just get it out into the record that even though the the Nation of PDR has a 0% female population, it supports the rights of women everywhere and we strive to maintain good relations with them. In the meantime, I bring you a classic PDR story that I honestly thought was already on the Book of PDR: The Reason Women Were Allowed To Vote.

Last year I accidentally started a tradition I will continue this year. To cut down on how much I spend on books, I will only put in one order online for books a year and that occasion will occur when John Swartzwelder puts out his newest novel. Well, it turns out that this time is coming soon because I am now seeing the announcement that “The Fifty Foot Detective” a new Frank Burly novel, is due out sometime this Spring. The absurd and gloriously stupid adventures of Frank Burly are good, but now that I’ve ties it to my only book-ordering event of the year, it will be like a holiday. I am already trying to make a list of books to order so that on the very day the Fifty Foot Detective hits Amazon, I am going to declare it National Bookorderin’ Day in the Nation of PDR.

In less happy news, I feel like I should also mention that Dwayne McDuffie died this week. He was the first comic writer I ever sent an email to with this magic Internet thing and he was nice enough to answer it and everything. It’s a shame he died so young, while he was still contributing so much because now we’ll never know what else he may have given to comics and animation.