I would say that it is very likely I would have no idea what an inukshuk was if it wasn’t for this commercial. Maybe they told us in school one time, but I sure don’t remember it. This commercial on the other hand can not be forgotten. I’m pretty sure this commercial was designed by Canadologists to maximize its ability to bore into the minds of the public. And for this, I love this Heritage Moment.

What we’ve got here is a wounded RCMP officer and some Inuit people, right. They’re taking a break or something and the Inuit, as they are wont to do, start building an inukshuk. RCMP Johnny says to himself “I’ve always wondered what those things were about” and he goes to check it out. The woman doesn’t even need to be asked, though. She knows that people all the time be thinking about inukshuks, so as soon as he gets there she has another guy (her son maybe) translate the purpose of the thing: “Now the People will know we were here.”

And is our only great quotable line from this one. But it’s a great one. They even have to bring it back mere seconds later to close out the piece. It probably wasn’t written that way. I’m pretty sure it just had to happen that way because the line was so quotable. So while it only gives us one line, it’s so well done, I give big points for it. Of the Heritage Moments I’ve reviewed so far, only the Superman can honestly trump this one, because it has both quality and quantity.

But meanwhile, we’ve got the hidden non-educational bit of the story. What is the deal here? How did this RCMPoliceman get hurt? Just a simple slip and fall on an icy rock? Was he attacked by Americans trying to get to the Yukon? Did he sprain his ankle giving a roundhouse kick to the a wendigo? We don’t know. It raises questions and I, for one, would enjoy seeing the tale of these people (a family, probably) helping this guy get wherever they’re going. A television show really ought to have sprung from this.

For doing its job super well and giving us tantalizing hints at a story at the same time, this one gets Five out of Six Pieces of PDR’s Reviewing System Cake.

When I was in New York last year, I saw an inukshuk on display at the United Nations building. I’m no nationalist, but that moment made me feel connected to Canada even more than finding a Tim Hortons in a pizza hut did.

Okay, I don’t have to be in work as early as usual today, so I’ve got some time, let’s see what I can post about.

Earlier this month, Loius C. K. put out his most recent comedy special exclusively online skipping the whole television network thing. Even though I can’t even so much afford things really these days he’s only asking five bucks (American, I assume, but didn’t notice), so I figured it was probably possible for me to spend five bucks without it killing me (the jury is still out though). Anyway, I got the special and now I’m talking about it on my website. He remains to entertain me. Any comedy show that begins with pointing out that the audience is a large enough sampling of people that someone there is bound to be dead by the holidays is up my alley. I’m giving it Four out of Six Pieces of PDR’s Reviewing System Cake. It’s not the best of his specials that I have seen, but it is still great. And it is cheap. Keep that in mind anyone wanting some entertainment.

Haiku!

The owl was not there.
But then, who was saying “Hoo”?
And where was the owl?

Apart from that, not much else is going on. As I say, I am soon going to work. I spent much of today trying to work on things I’d like to get done before the New Year rolls around (so it looks like I got more done this year). Mostly I’m trying to finish the Hover Head story I mentioned I’d be starting around this time last year. I did indeed start it in the early bits of 2011, but then my focus shifted more to the SecGov Robots and I let this one drag out. Either way, it shall be done by Monday I am certain, and then I won’t have to worry about it any more. And all of you may continue not caring.

Anyway, not I have to get ready to go to work.

I had a dream I was back in New York last week. It was pretty sweet. So anyway, here’s some more memories of my trip there in November:

Around Central Park, some guy came up to me and told me he was selling a CD he’d made. I figured, hey, I could give that to Marq, I could. He’s the type of guy what would be interested in music stuff some random guy came up with (Kiiip meanwhile got a keychain with a sexy fireman). Anyway, here is what the album cover looked like:

So anyway, I paid five or seven bucks (I don’t remember which) and that was that. Eventually I came home and since I didn’t see Marq for like a month after my return, the CD just sat on my filing cabinet innocently. Then, when I finally do see him and give it to him, he tries it and finds out that it is way blank. It’s a blank CD. Guy is totally just scamming folk into buying a blank CD.

It’s a brilliant scheme, really. Buy a stack of CDs, throw some album cover on there and tell people you made some music. But what really makes it work is the bizarre and even confusing level of detail. The fact that he threw a twitter address on there? That’s awesome. The adorable little kid holding something (a cucumber?) and apparently having been awarded second place in some event (cucumber championship?) is also pleasing because of how nonsensical it was. And the fact it is labelled “Part 2” (or is that Part 0.2?). It is so much detail for a completely pointless cover. You could get as much of an effect with an album cover consisting of white text on a black background, probably, but this guy went above and beyond.

I can even forgive “alot” being one word and “N” being used for “and”. The whole money-grubbing theme of the title, which I had considered unfortunate at first, makes perfect sense as part of the scam. Basically, I’m saying, this being a scam is probably a far better present for Marq than an actual CD would have been.

The only drawback I can see is that maybe he will make people less trusting of actual people trying to sell actual music they’ve actually made. But y’know what? Screw those guys. They should stop trying to live their dream and get jobs that will help society. Like selling neckties or something.

Anyway, while I’m on the topic of my trip, I remembered something else that occurred while I was in New York. It goes a little something like a this:

I was at FAO Schwartz (the toy store where Big danced on a big keyboard) and I saw massive Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups for sale. Like, huge. When I picked it up, it was heavier than a hardcover phone book. It was two cups, each the size of one of those frozen chicken pies they have at the grocery store. So, I saw these and I was like “I’m buying that thing and I’m going to eat it with my mouth!” so I took it and when I got to the register I was told it would cost like TWENTY-FIVE Dollars!!! (!) Now, I ask you. What is the real scam here, that guy selling the fake album, or candy so prohibitively expensive that it makes any hatred that poor countries feel toward us entirely justified?

Anyway, I still bought it of course. The day that I got it, one of them was the only thing I ate, it filled me so much. It was deliciously disgusting. If you ever want to cure someone of a Reese addiction, force them to eat one of those. By the end of that first cup, I never wanted to eat another item of food in my life. With the second cup I took my time and it lasted a couple more days and didn’t make me hate myself as much. So twenty-five bucks is one expensive candy, but it did last three days. Weigh the options and see which is more important to you. I think I can only give Giant Reese’s Cups Three out of Six Pieces of PDR’s Reviewing System Cake, because that’s about a perfect representation of their balance between horrible and wonderful.

It may seem hard to believe, but once upon a time there was something called black people. For a while black people were having a pretty rough time in America. White people there were pretty rude to them. It was so bad that some of them thought “Hey, we oughtta go to Canada! Things might be a bit better off there.” But some white people in America decided they’d rather the black people didn’t leave, so the black people had to do it secretively.

This particular “Canada Sure Is Great” Commercial plays up how some black people actually preferred Canada over a country where they were slaves! Wow! If that’s not impressive, what is? Okay, sure, if you want to be technical (and I never do), it isn’t about how they liked Canada better, it’s about how Canada offered them their freedom and some Canadians actually worked to help them get there, and even I have to admit, that is the sort of thing that should be celebrated, I guess.

As for the actual plot, this one is about Liza, a recent smugglee into Canada, who is worried that her father is running late and she pessimistically assumes he has been captured even as her brother offers hard scientific rebuttals like “He’s our Pa, he’ll be here!” Anyway, just as Liza gets so fed up that she apparently plans to run into America and kick Every Ass until she finds her Pa, he turns up, hidden in a church pew or something, none the worse for wear and everybody is happy! A pretty simplistic story, meant more to show the emotional turmoil of the fleeing slaves, rather than give any specific historic details.

A few minor things: I love how Liza is out the door before the White Lady even seems to realize she’s run off. It’s like “No more prayin’!” *Liza runs away* *Three Full Seconds Pass* “Liza!” and I love it. Liza’s brother and the way he nervously plays with his hat for basically the whole commercial, meanwhile, is really endearing to me. Finally (and most inanely), there’s something about the way Pa crawls out of his hiding place that seems awkward to me. I can’t really explain it, I don’t think. It just looks uncomfortable the way he’s using his lower arm to pull himself out instead of exiting upper arm first, coming almost face down, and then he can push himself into a standing position. I mean, I’ve never spent a long period of time in a hollowed out pew that I can remember, so I don’t know how I’d actually behave in the situation (and I guess he needs to be in that position to see Liza first), but it just doesn’t look right to me. Clearly this is such a bizarre and trivial comment, I’ve not let it affect my final scoring at all.

This one isn’t great for fun quotes. Shouting “Pa ain’t gonna make it!” could, with some effort, be used for fun, but there’s nothing that sticks in the brain and begs to be spouted incessantly. I can only give out Three And A Half out of Six Pieces of PDR’s Reviewing System Cake for this one, I think. In related news, I will probably never be able to hear the term “Underground Railroad” without my mind first visualizing a literal railway system hidden in tunnels from the States to Canada. Little Me made his mind up that that is what it was, and my mind just won’t let it go.

Canada hates the Illiterates. Canada has been at war with the people of Illitria for decades and shows no sign of slowing its genocidal rage. Or something. Whatever.

Anyway, this time we’ve got a confrontation between this one teacher and the school trustees who don’t like how she is teaching the kids to read. This one guy is really upset, so the teacher asks him to read something (“It is from the Bible.”) that his kid had read. But the guy is shamed into admitting he can’t read. One of his fellow trustees is just gleefully pleased about it too. “Why don’t you just READ it then?” he says, just totally sarcasming his ass off. We never really get to see what happens next, because they all turn into a painting, but if they hadn’t I guess we’re expected to assume that he was shown his place and learned to respect the opinions of others who know more about the subject at hand than he does. The other possibility is that he was so embarrassed that he ended up lashing out at everyone in a hateful, and possibly violent, outburst.

For that matter, we’re never told what the teaching methods the trustees had a problem with either. For all I know, that teacher could be a horrible one and the trustees could have been fully justified. “If they read a word incorrectly, I stab their hands so they associate it with pain. When the read a word correctly, I administer the cocaine!” We don’t know. This commercial could be a tragedy.

Four and a Half out of Six Pieces of PDR’s Reviewing System Cake. This Heritage Minute does feel pretty iconic as far as my opinion of the Heritage Minutes is concerned. “Both of you know I cannot read a word” is a good quotable line, though I can’t think of a million places to use it in everyday life. Unless two people are asking you to read something I guess…