Journalistic Standards

I want to open a journalism school. There’d be teachers and whatever to teach the stuff that needs to be taught, but I would be in charge of the final exam. I’d make up a new story about a whale and then the students would have to do an article about it. Any student who uses the phrase “Whale of a tale” would be failed and punched.

Haiku!

I need a new leg.
My old leg was eaten up.
It was delicious.

If evolution is real, why can’t sharks walk? They get tons of experience points from killing people all the time, obviously one of the sharks would have got legs when it levels up by now. Therefore, I have disproved evolution.

Television Show Stuff

So, I have seen articles in the newspapers that lead me to indicate that the Simpsons will be drawing to an end. This is an event which has been a long time coming, but will still be of note because back in my formative years that was The Show for PDR. For more than a decade that was the show that taught me how to realize stupidity in the world around me and laugh at it. I own the DVDs of those first ten seasons or so and I never tire of rewatching them. Sure, I stopped relating to the show eventually, but with a decade-long run of amusing me, I can’t complain. So now that it is wrapping up… wait, what’s that? Oh, the article says there could still be two or three years? What is with this show? Stop it already.

For the record the first article I saw on the topic had a headline telling viewers now to “have a cow” so I am going to choose to believe that they have had that headline ready for about twenty years and were just waiting for the opportunity to use it.

I have also seen articles on the Internet telling me that a new season of Arrested Development is going to happen. That right there, is awesome times news.

Potentially Maybe

There was an article in the paper not last night but the one before that described something as “possibly suspicious.” What the chunks does that mean? How can something be suspicious, possibly? That’s what suspicious is! Consarnit!

Anyway, it annoyed me, so I wrote about it, but I haven’t much to say just now. As you were.

PDR Comments on Recent Events

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.

June 2010

I find the month of June 2010 guilty of the following:

  • One count of my partner who does all the work I don’t want to do being on vacation for a month, leaving me with twice the work to do and the only person at work I can have a real conversation with gone.
  • One count of a staff member just not showing up any more leaving us shorthanded by one for the duration of the month.
  • One count of a staff member injuring herself with a box cutter leaving us shorthanded by another one for the duration of the month.
  • Two counts of staff members losing family members causing us to be further shorthanded, in one case for a week and in the other for the duration of the month.
  • Four counts of machinery literally breaking.
  • Three counts of my supposed second in command leaving early without letting me know and leaving me with extra work that I had to rush through so I could be done in time to catch my ride.
  • Two counts of my supposed second in command calling in to say he won’t be coming to work for reasons deemed suspicious.
  • One count of me not getting done in time to catch my ride.
  • One count of the paper being delayed hours to wait for the results of a hockey game. (Fact: Anyone who cared about that game and for some reason hadn’t watched it on television or caught the results on the news or on the Internet or from friends should really just not bother)
  • Untold counts of me spending hours trying to get to sleep but unable because of heat or noise from outside.
  • Eight counts of me finally being asleep and then being awakened by some external stimuli (In one case it was a cannon salute for the Queen. Am I the only one who thinks maybe she’s been around the world enough that a cannon salute isn’t going to impress her much?)
  • One count of being called into work when I had already been awake for twenty-one hours.
  • Three counts of me crashing an sleeping for ten or more hours at a time, eating up an entire day of time spent not working.
  • Two counts of having to postpone Father’s Day dinner because of work.
  • Two counts of having to cancel blood donation appointments because of work.
  • Three counts of having to turn down Hanging Out With Friends time because of work.
  • One count of ruining a shirt on a jagged metal bit at work.
  • Two counts of ruining pants beyond the point of wearability (and for me that point means they are quite damaged.
  • One count of me injuring my finger in such a way that blood came out from under the fingernail.
  • One count of a long scratch on the back of my neck from the corner of a machine I was reaching under.
  • One count of not having access to the Internet on my only day off during one week.
  • One count of the twenty-four hour gas station I used to stop for juice when I had to walk from work apparently not being open twenty-four hours any more.
  • One count of locking myself out of my apartment.
  • One count of the truck I was in nearly being hit by a drunk driver (or if not drunk, just a very bad driver).
  • At least three counts of papercuts (those are just the ones that occurred after I decided to keep a list of annoyances).
  • One count of being a month with so many annoyances I decided to keep a list.

Now, I fully admit that the vast majority of these are quite minor and several were obviously much worse for other people than me, but the fact it was all condensed into one four-week span really made June 2010 a month that I will not miss in the least. It joins the year 2006 in Times PDR Mostly Didn’t Enjoy. But hey, it is all over now.