2012: It’s (Not) The End Of The World As We Know It, So I Feel Fine….

Hi folks!

Thanks for making 2011 another record setting year for Serenity Now… The SDC Blogs. Lots of new developments in readership, product reviews, and writing gigs with media outlets have been fun and welcomed. Looking forward to what the next 365 days will bring!

I thought it appropriate to repost an old blog on the old 2012 end-of-the-world hype, which no one is too worried about anymore. It was originally post for a site that is now defunct, so it’s a good opportunity to get it back in circulation. Enjoy!

-SDC
Follow @davecunning Follow @CunningAthletix

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Isn’t it great when Hollywood, and other media outlets, inspire panic in people by suggesting in a film or other propoganda that the world is going to end in the very near future? Isn’t it also interesting how much material on the topic becomes purchasable in various formats immediately after the report catches fire?

Contrary to suggestions of the 2009 straight-to-dvd blockbuster, Here’s why 2012 will simply be another year in history, and you can take a break from building your refuge tunnel to the center of the earth:

1) The Mayans did indeed have a calendar that ends on 2012. However, just like any other calendar, all you have to do is start it from the beginning again. Their calendar begins from a time Mayans identified as a point of creation, and then counted forward in units of “tun”. Similar to the way we sequentially write 10, then 20, 30, etc., Mayans change the names after 20 units. 20 tun equals 1 k’atun; 20 k’atun equals 1 b’ak’tun; then piktun, kalabtun, k’inchiltun, and so on. On December 21, 2012, the 13th b’ak’tun cycle will end, and then the 14th will begin. After the completion of 20 b’ak’tun’s, the first cycle of 20 piktun’s will begin October 13, 4772, and so on, and so forth. So if the Mayans already had names for all this, why would they/why should we think the world was ending?

2) There’s no planet or celestial body named “Nibiru” (or anything else) that is on a collision course for earth. NASA’s got plenty of instruments in space, like the Spitzer and Hubble telescopes, that would have relayed a message about a planet on an intercept course by now. NASA launched a spacecraft named Voyager 1 in 1977 (yes, there’s a Voyager 2 as well) that is just now in the process of leaving our solar system. So if it took us 33+ years to get something out of our solar system, don’t you think we’d know about something coming towards us by now? The odds of something that size getting to us through our galaxy in one piece (the Milky Way is filled with much larger and dangerous things like larger planets and asteroid fields) is extremely slim. Besides, if something we actually coming, The US or some other country would put up some sort of missle defence system, or we’d just deal with it ala Armageddon style, right?

3) The earth is subject to solar activity ALL THE TIME, and is able to deal with flares and such due to its magnetic field and atmosphere, which deflect harm. The earth’s magnetic field does reverse polarity once and a while (approximately every 400,000 years), but the effect takes several thousand years to complete, and would not interrupt the earth’s rotation or point of axis.

4) Planetary alignments also happen ALL THE TIME. They’re called “eclipses”, and chances are, you’ve heard of, or maybe even seen them. Even if all the planets in the solar system aligned (which they won’t), it wouldn’t be cataclysmic. It might be cold for a few hours or so, but that’d be about it until the sun started hitting us directly again. The earth isn’t going to flood, the oceans won’t boil, Hawaii won’t burn down, and the continents aren’t going to crash into each other.

So there’s the scientific explanation of why 2012 will hold nothing to worry about except for living your life. I’m a Christian, and my personal beliefs are to the tune of what Jesus said himself in the Bible,

“No one knows of the hour of the final days, not even the angels in heaven, except for God alone. The Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.” (Matthew 24:36, 44)

In other words, none of our fancy methods of determining the end of the earth will be accurate, as it will happen in an incalculable way; no calendars, no psychic or prophetic predictions, it’ll just happen. According to scientific theories, we’ve got a few billion years yet (but no pinpointed time), so don’t pack up or quit your job just yet. Until then, go live and enjoy your life! I’ll do my best to keep you afloat of other catastrophic cosmic events that are of no consequence to your, and everyone else’s, existence.

Happy 2012!

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Merry Christmas!! A Song by The Fire, & A Christmas Conspiracy.

Merry Christmas everyone!  I wanted to get one Christmas blog in this season.  So here it is.

Back in college, a few friends and I took a closer look at the classic Christmas song, “Walking In A Winter Wonderland”.  Why this particular song came to our attention, I really don’t know; but then again, if you’ve been reading this blog for any amount of time, you’ve probably asked yourself that same question about the majority of the content on this blog :)  

Anyways… so when I was young, I remember singing this song and not thinking twice about it; but now after revisiting it in my later years, I might think twice about having my future kids belt this one out in public.   It’s got a nice ring to it and all, but the lyrics may be a little more “adult” than you realize, or depending on how far down the conspiracy rabbit hole you prefer to venture.  Let’s look at the song a little closer, together, so I can show you what I mean:

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Sleigh bells ring, are you listening, [Bells... a calling card, perhaps?]

In the lane, snow is glistening [The lane... some sort of secret meeting spot?]

A beautiful sight,

We’re happy tonight. [Why so happy?? More on this next stanza...]

Walking in a winter wonderland.

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Gone away is the bluebird, [ok, birds fly south for winter, that makes sense. But....]

Here to stay is a new bird [...who is this new bird?? He’s supposed to be at the bottom of the continent by now... apparently he’s here “to stay”... has the bluebird been replaced?? Or does the new bird only come calling when the bluebird is away on business for the winter months??]

He sings a love song, [Love songs? At Christmas? Fishy...]

As we go along,

Walking in a winter wonderland.

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In the meadow we can build a snowman,

Then pretend that he is Parson Brown [A “Parson” is a member of the church with the authority to marry people. Why are they pretending, and why Parson Brown in particular? Do these two have something up their sleeves? Is this a “dry-run” of sorts?]

He’ll say: Are you married?

We’ll say: No man, [In the words of Elaine Benes, they're "just havin' a good time"]

But you can do the job

When you’re in town. [The job?? Is that what she’s calling whatever it is that the new bird does with her while he’s in town and “bluebird” is gone?? Or are the two “birds” planning on a secret Vegas style hitching via their friend, the real life Parson Brown??]

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Later on, we’ll conspire, [con•spire –verb: to agree together, esp. secretly, to do something wrong, evil, or illegal; to plan or agree on (a crime or harmful act) together in secret]

As we dream by the fire

To face unafraid,

The plans that we’ve made, [what plans have you made that would require you to state you’re not afraid of them?? What is the risk/reward ratio of monetary payoff to jail-time in said made plans?]

Walking in a winter wonderland.

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In the meadow we can build a snowman,

And pretend that he’s a circus clown

We’ll have lots of fun with mister snowman,

Until the other kids knock him down.

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When it snows, ain’t it thrilling,

Though your nose gets a chilling

We’ll frolic and play, the Eskimo way, [and how exactly do the Eskimo Inuit frolic and play? Nose kissing naked in one sleeping bag to keep warm?? I think this one puts us over the open interpretation line...]

Walking in a winter wonderland.

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Haha, I don’t entirely hope I’ve ruined a Christmas classic for you, but I do hope I’ve encouraged you to think twice, or at least re-examine from time to time, the lyrics that you may mindlessly blurt about, just because they sound good, and others are doing it too.

Merry Christmas everyone!! Enjoy the Christmas music by the fire!

2010 Stanley Cup Playoff Final Thoughts, and the DCC Champion Declared!

First off, congratulations to the Chicago Blackhawks on winning the Stanley-Freaking-Cup (as though they all are collectively reading this blog and saying, “hey thanks man”), and to Rich Abney of Kelowna for winning the 1^st Quadrennial SDC Blogs’ Double Championship Challenge!  Along with his prize, Rich receives 4 years of bragging rights.  Keeeerr-rap (doubly for runner up Ryley Herzog, who will be hearing about it at Chevy’s Source for Sports for the next four years J).  It was looking like Ryley and the Flyers had a chance of pulling one over on all of us with that Bruins/Habs massacre, but alas…

What a great playoffs overall.  Complete with a standard Canucks exit,  Pronger’s puck stealing/Carcillo antagonism vs Byfuglien/everyone, Joe Thornton and San Jose’s meltdown, Pronger vs. Burish chirps, awesome NHL “History Will Be Made/No Words” commercials and CBC video montages, 3^rd string goalies becoming starters and fading out 1^st stringers while fading in huge contracts next year (see: Rask, Halak, Niemi, Leighton, etc), Keith losing 7 TEETH mid-game and continuing, Crosby and Ovechkin eliminated early by an underdog, Hossa rescinding his Cup curse, Vince Vaughn, the rejuvenation of hockey in Chicago and the end of the longest running championship drought, a mullet and a mystery OT Cup winning goal (and a Crosby-Olympic-Golden-Goal-esque one at that) by Kane, a prophetic mural, the Conn Smythe and yet another championship for overshadowed (until now) Jonathan Toews; hard to find anything bad to say about that guy.

The Stanley Cup is just simply awesome.  Winning it is an un-top-able feat (no, not even Dilbert’s Topper could); truly the most difficult trophy to win in sports, by all accounts of comparison of every other sports’ playoff formats.  In no other sports are you required to win 16 games and not lose more than 3 per series to secure final victory.  And when you do accomplish said task, an achievement-appropriate sized trophy awaits you; also the biggest in all sports.  Often described as the lightest 34 pounds you’ll ever lift over your head, most dreamers will never have the opportunity to find out what that really means.  From the first moment video cameras show the Cup in the building to well after it gets lifted over the captain’s head, I get perma-chills and goosebumps every year.   

Justin Bourne did as good a job as anyone could on describing what winning the Cup means here.

I had one idea about something to change in the playoffs though.  You see, it’s always better to win the Cup at home, in front of your own fans.  The Wachovia Center in Philadelphia was dead silent when Patrick Kane scored to win, and rightfully so.  How much better would that moment looked on TV if the Madhouse on Madison had the chance to chant “Chelsea Dagger” alongside Toews’ Cup hoisting?

So here’s my idea: for sure in the Cup final, and perhaps in the previous series’, once a team has won three games, the remaining games should be played at that team’s home rink; unless the other team wins 3, in which case the series would shift to that team’s rink.  It might play havoc with some arena scheduling, but I think it’d make for a better winning atmosphere.  Your thoughts???

Well, that’s it for hockey for a while.  Cripes (I’m sure the female readers out there are breathing a sigh of relief).  No, I won’t watch baseball in the meantime.  Trying reeeeallly hard to give the World Cup and soccer a chance…. but can someone score a goal or two already?  90 +minutes and 0-0 draws are not helping the cause.  It seems too exciting of a tournament to have play that boring, doesn’t it?

If you’re looking for a hockey fix over the summer, why not check out the Hockey Greats Fantasy Camp in Kelowna this summer?? check out www.bournevents.com for more info!

How To Save $5000 in College / My Hatred of Reading & Love for Writing.

It’s a marvel that I’ve even gotten myself into writing. 

I truly enjoy creating stories in the written format, especially in blogs.  Writing whatever I want, without having to adhere to providing “research”, or “structure” in addition to other guidelines imposed by a professor is a phenomenal feeling.  After all these years, I can finally use all the slang, jargon, fragments, run-on sentences, and general Format Guide rule-breaking I want.  Peer proof-readers can go fly a kite; I edit my own stuff now.  No more shall my writing have its content value be equal to its formatting correctness, and have my grade be brought down because I couldn’t follow simple directions outlined in a readily available and accessible guide a professor had their T.A. mark my paper, and look for formatting errors above substance.  No more shall my writing have red pen ink rivalling the amount of black printer ink on my papers (mostly due to the fact that you can’t shouldn’t be writing on a screen.  If one of my old prof’s gets cheeky and prints a copy of this, marks it up with red pen, and sends it to me, remember, I likely know where you live, if you’re still teaching at the same school).

I only ever had one teacher ever think I was anything above average at writing.  My 9^th grade English teacher, Mrs. Thompson, at Mount Boucherie Secondary School, gave me the only English award and English “A” that I ever received in my entire secondary and post-secondary career.  So in the unlikely event that she’s reading this, thanks for believing in me, Mrs. Thompson.  I have always, really, appreciated that.

So, all that to say, me in writing is amazing, mostly because I hate hate HATE writing’s necessary and evil equivalent: reading.  Oh, how I loathe thee, reading.   

A writer requires other people to read what he’s written, so it’s an interesting paradox that my labour beckons the very enemy I’ve fought to resist; only now it comes from a mass audience (more than 2 people could be called a mass, right?).  It’s not that I’m no good at reading; my cognitive system is capable of decoding symbols for the intention of deriving and/or constructing meaning just fine.  Silent or aloud reading; no problem.  I just don’t find it fun.  I have no idea how a people can pick up fictitious stories, involve themselves on an emotional level over a lengthy amount of time, and then repeat the process upon completion.  Isn’t that exactly what you do when you watch a TV show or movie, only in a fraction of the time?  Oooo, I had to create the images in my mind instead of seeing them with my eyes on a screen…big deal.  I can watch TV faster than you can read books, any day.  In the age of convenience and info-on-demand, getting the exact same information quickly (TV) rather than slowly (books), is a no-brainer.   If I want to stimulate my imagination, I’ll draw a picture.  Isn’t your imagination’s engagement from books only limited to the author’s vague and open-ended descriptions anyways?  I really feel there’s better ways to get that part of your brain going, if that’s that side of  the argument is for.   If I’m going to read anything, it’s going to be something not made-up (non-fiction).  A good autobiography by someone I like usually works (see: Bret Hart, Mick Foley, Wayne Gretzky, etc), or else something tangible like astronomy, history, or current events will arouse my interest. 

School never helped either.  When you don’t enjoy reading to begin with, being forced to read with the threat of assignment failure if you don’t, is probably the worst thing a non-reader could encounter.  Reading became work, and work isn’t fun.   Once you’ve had to develop the ability to “skim”, you know you’re too far gone.  If you have to skim a book for information, that automatically means the 95% of the book you did not draw information from belongs straight in the trash, does it not?   Obnoxiously large textbooks, research, citing sources, and extended visits to the libra…..zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

The other problem with forced, educational reading is the absurd prices they make you pay to obtain the books that you are required to derive information from.  My first encounter with this screw-job was at Okanagan University College in Kelowna, BC, while enrolled in the Fine Arts program.  I had to take a course called “Visual Forum”, that required me to purchase a 2-inch thick, $200 textbook (that’s $100 per inch, for you math students).  “Well, they said I need it, right?” said the naive freshman that I was, after freshly receiving my parents’ hard-saved college tuition money that was supporting my first year.  A semester later, I swear to you, I passed the class without doing anymore than removing the plastic covering from that book.  I went to return the squandered capital to the bookstore, who denied me and sent me to the used bookstore, who then told me they would consign the book at around a ¼ of my original purchase price.  Upon haggling with the same story I just told you, I found there was no way I was getting that $200 back.  I put that book up for consignment, and to this day, have not seen the money for it.  Reading was dead to me.  I told myself, “Never again.”

The continuance of my post-secondary education was dependant on student loans.  Though some people like to believe their loans being deposited in their bank account is somehow the equivalent of winning the lottery, I was well aware that I would have to repay every dime eventually (National Student Loans likes to remind me of this every month now).  So my college years carved some financial responsibility out of me.  As you’re now aware of my personal vendetta against costly required/unnecessary reading material, textbooks were first on my chopping block.  I vowed never to let the man put the screws to me again, and in 4 years of college, I never spent another dime on a textbook.  Seriously.

 Many people amass a bookshelf’s worth of textbooks after their college days.  Such a display usually at least creates the illusion that you had or currently have some level of intelligence.  My bookshelf is nearly bare; beyond the elementary school book-fair books that my parents bought for me that are still as unread as they were 20 years ago.  Make your own jokes, but read the rest of this post, and then tell me who’s smarter out of 2 people with the same degree;  the one with or without a pile of books collecting dust on a shelf that he’ll never read or use ever again? So if you share some of the same sentiments that I do, you may want to pay attention to the next few things.  Here’s how I did it:

1)      Some people aren’t that great in social interactions, which is fine.  But if you have the necessary social skills that are required to make friends with other humanoids, then you’ll likely be able to do so with some fellow students who have already taken the classes you are enrolled in, and be able to borrow their old textbooks, as they’ve probably found them to be quite useless outside of the class.  Just don’t be-friend people only on this basis, most people find this to be “shallow”.

2)      This is by far the payload of advice on this topic, so if you pay attention to only one thing in this whole post, let this be it.  To thwart your enemy, sometimes you have to march right through the gates of hell, and enter the dwelling place of the beast itself.  That’s right, you’re going to have to go to the library.  As soon as you get your Course Outline, find your required texts, and take that list to your school’s book repository.  You’re likely going to find every single one of those books on file.  As long as you have a library card, and don’t have outstanding fines, simply sign out every book you need for the term.  If something’s not available, reserve it, and hold out until it comes back in (now that I’ve made this information public, you may want to hurry, as others may have caught on before you).  Once you get the books, keep renewing them all semester.  You’re home-free.  It’s a proven, effective, corner-cutting method.  You’re welcome.  “Genius” comments are welcome at the bottom of this post. 

So there you have it, a tale of woe that comes full circle and presents you with invaluable information.  Learn from my mistakes.  Use this information to stick the screws right back to the people holding the drill.  Take away some lessons from your college experience that have nothing to do with the classroom, besides where you can buy the cheapest ramen noodles.

CFL Popularily Primer, Horse Happiness, and the Male Pink Perversion.

Is it possible that the CFL could gain more popularity if they simply built stadiums that allowed fans to sit closer to the field, like in the NFL and NCAA? Why does the CFL make its attendees sit 50 feet away from all points of the field? You can nearly get field-side seats for American games; and the atmosphere shows its appreciation. Don’t CFL games look rather poorly attended on TV, comparatively?

Canada (left), US (right)

 

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 How happy are horses to be out of the common workforce? If horses are able to communicate with each other the way we are, I’m sure the elder horses have been passing down stories for years to the young ones about how they used to have to haul EVERYTHING ALL THE TIME until cars were invented. Oh, and they also had to fight in wars (well, carry people into some sort of big fracas the horses didn’t understand the meaning of, and maybe die for some reason). And take people everywhere. We still make them run as fast as they can in a circle so that people can make money off them, and trot people around in carriages and trail rides from time to time, but I’m sure the reduction in labour over the last 60 years has been more than acceptable.

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 Boys wear blue, girls wear pink. Everybody knows this. For some reason, some “men” recently got this strange notion in their head that it’s ok for them to be wearing pink. For every guy challenging the status quo by telling people their shirt was “salmon” colored, there were another two drinking dark ale, making fun of them. And so they danced.

Somewhere along the lines, it got really popular to support Breast Cancer research by wearing those loopy little ribbons, adorned with the color pink. An incredibly aggressive promotional push led to pink clothing, pink sports jerseys, pink sports equipment, and everything else you can think of lambasted pink all in the good name of supporting and funding research for the cure of Breast Cancer (please don’t get me wrong, I am in full support of curing the disease).

This has led to a loophole in the equilibrium of gender coloring. Now, all those male fuchsia flirters trying to be edgy are able to hide from masculine scorn behind what has become an immunity idol of wearing the color most commonly associated with femininity; pink. Who in their right mind is going to make fun of someone supporting cancer research?

The only male I can give a non-cancer-related-wearing-pink free-pass to is Bret “Hitman” Hart, who did just fine with it, always wearing an equal amount of black with pink.

Spelling Bees, Button-Mashers, and the Mennonite Dress Code Dilemma.

Follow @davecunning  Follow @CunningAthletix

This is going to be the oldest sounding thing I’ve written, but regardless, the kids of today are going to unbelievably smart when they get to an age where they’re able to contribute to society.  That or, they’ll just keep being good at computers and video games.

My 3 year old niece and my 5 year old nephew know how to navigate the internet, and are showing me the how to beat levels on Super Mario Galaxy for Nintendo Wii. The other day I got beat in PS2 NHL ’08 Shootout by my friend Colin ( http://go-team-burritt.blogspot.com/ )’s 3 year old son (What kind of a controller uses shapes for button designations, anyways?  Screw you, Sony.).

Back in the day, adults were in awe of our generation.  In second grade, we

this machine taught me that typing f-u-n-d got you free money in SimCity.

started learning to type on computerized keyboards and we were the lab rats used to figure out the first generation of black and white Mac computers.  Unfortunately for them, we spent more time figuring out SimCity and SimAnt than we did figuring out the things we were supposed to be doing, which I still can’t remember what they were.

Around the same time, I began my domination of the original Nintendo Entertainment System, which still is relatively uncontended.  Mario Brothers (all incarnations), Mega Man, Ninja Turtles, Batman, and plenty others fell to my

all kinds of awesome.

conquering fist and button-mashing thumbs in my basement.  But these young whippersnappers of today I tell ya, they’re getting good, and they’re getting good early.  I better start shopping for a strata.

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Ok, so you’re Amish.  Maybe you’re Mennonite.  Perhaps you just simply feel and believe that showing the skin on your arms below the elbow, and neck is

pass the curds and way please, Gertrude.

unacceptable.  Fine, you’re entitled to your belief set, whatever it may be.  But just because you’ve decided to a strict 17^th century dress code style, does it automatically mean that your clothes and their style are stuck there too? Is a long sleeve t-shirt and jeans out of the question?  Are you locked into the bonnet-black dress-white apron look?  If it’s a matter of not supporting off-shore sweatshop manufacturing or something of the likes, that’s respectable.  But I’m sure there have been a few updates in sewing patterns that could pass as acceptable.

Also, why does it seem that the women in these societies seem to be more bound to these rules than the men?  I have a few Mennonite friends that I hope I am not offending by any of this; I simply want to pose a few questions that I do not know the answers to.  Please excuse my naivity and ignorance.

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I don’t think the format of today’s spelling bees are a fair way to determine a

That's Phonics with a P-H, homie.

spelling champion.  The contenders should not all have to spell different words.  If finalist 1 gets “tetrahydrozoline” wrong, and finalist 2 gets “schematics” correct, what has that proven?

In my spelling bee, all contestants would be locked in individual sound-proof booths until it was their turn (the claustrophobic need not enter the contest).  One by one, each player would spell the same word, and then return to their enclosures, until they were eliminated by their mistakes, and a legit winner was eventually crowned.  If ESPN and TSN are going to continue to cut out actual sports that deserve airtime for things like spelling bees and dog-shows, then they need to amp up the legitimacy.

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Bad Press, Jackass: The Kanye West and Taylor Swift Swindle.

Since September 13, the most talked about entertainment news story has been the drama of Kanye West interrupting Taylor Swift’s acceptance speech at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards. While hearing the same repeated sentiments of what a sorry excuse for a human being Kayne is, I decided to do a little deeper research into the matter. Without a doubt, it was a dickard move, on Kanye’s part. However, while doing a little digging, there are a few small nuggets of information that I haven’t heard brought to the public’s attention. Let me present a couple of different angles on the incident that you may not have considered.

Kanye West raps and produces under the Roc-A-Fella Records (founded by Jay-Z) label, which is owned by Def Jam Records, which is in turn owned by Universal Music Group. Taylor Swift makes music for Big Machine Records, which has its records distributed by the same Universal Music Group. Intrinsically, Kanye West are “label-mates.”

While I don’t put controversy schemes past Kanye, don’t write off Swift as the innocent victim quite yet, this isn’t her first encounter with hip-hop. She collaborated with rapper T-Pain on a remix of her own song at the CMT Music Awards in June 2009, called “Thug Story.” [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L52emsayp1o ] T-Pain has appeared on more than one song with Kanye, collaborating on songs like “Good Life” (which won a Grammy in 2007), and “Go Hard” (2008). I doubt very much that Kanye hadn’t heard of Taylor Swift before this night. T-Pain raps for Jive Records, who are owned by Sony Music Entertainment, who also happen to house Beyonce via Columbia Records. More on her later…

Everyone talked about how that night at the MVA’s was Taylor Swift’s “moment”, but lets be honest, she only won “Best FEMALE Video”, not “Video of the Year” (which is open to BOTH genders). I mean, sure it’s an accomplishment, but it’s not like she was taking home the award of the night by at any rate. And when did the trophies from an MTV Awards show become so career-altering anyways?

Beyonce “saved face” after Kanye proclaimed her as the deserving winner of the award; and had Taylor come on stage and say her thank-you’s during Beyonce’s own acceptance speech; a classy move [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OOIOanr3JOo ].  Oddly, Beyonce and Swift seemed to be wearing the same dress.   Anyone who knows much about music gossip knows that Beyonce is (allegedly) married to Kanye West’s boss, Jay-Z, who just so happens to have just released and touring with his latest album, “Blueprint 3.” Also, Kanye did produce Beyonce’s 2003 album “Dangerously in Love,” as well as 6 Jay-Z albums. Coincidence?

I thought Jay would have been cursing the day that he ever let Kanye West out of the production studio and into the public eye when he heard about the incident at the VMA’s. But while Donald Trump called for a boycott of all things Kanye West, every musician and every news show on TV and radio wrote off Kanye and labeled him as an alcoholic and spotlight nympho, and even The President of the F’n United States of America, Barack Obama, called ‘Ye “a jackass” [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=078BGtKNL1o ], Jigga stepped up to defend Kanye, saying, “He didn’t kill anybody…” agreeing that the outburst was “inappropriate at the time.” He also added Kanye’s “just a super-passionate person… Of course it was rude because it was (Taylor’s) moment but that’s the way he really felt…..I think it was rude but the way they’re treating him… He’s on the cover of every paper…He didn’t kill anybody. No one got harmed.” [http://www.mtv.ca/vma/2009/article.jhtml?id=20490] The only other person I know who has mentioned anything in Kanye’s defence is my friend, Andy Smith, over at “Smithy Blogs,” who wrote this blog http://tinyurl.com/smithkanyeblog that you can read on your own time.

Kanye has since apologized publicly numerous times, and Swift “eventually” accepted the “sorry.” So, how long, would you say, will we have to wait for the duets and album collaborations and guest apperances between them? My guess is that Universal and Sony Music are way ahead of us. In a time where record companies are losing piles of money in CD sales, learning how to profit off of digital downloads, and throwing lawsuits at people who download illegally, is it that crazy to think that two record companies would thrust a few very marketable individuals into the spotlight to generate an enormous media buzz to, in turn, boost sales? Bad press for Kanye, good press for Swift; and everyone’s talking and writing about them both. No press is bad press, right?

Kanye is a jackass though.

Smelly People Beware: The Conundrum Of The Scent-Free Zone.

What exactly are my obligations when I encounter a “Scent-Free” zone?  I understand the notion: some people may have an allergic and/or some sort of reaction to the chemicals that are included some scented products.  Ok, that’s fair.  No one wants to be responsible for another person’s hives or seizures, normally.  Additionally, no one wants to have to attend to a person who is suffering said reaction, whether they are trained and properly equipped to do so or not.  I get that part.  But what am I supposed to do once I enter this “zone” smelling like…well…anything?

Whether you’re wearing cologne, deodorant, hair products, or recently laundered clothes (freshly washed clothes are a scent as distinct as anything), everyone smells like something.  If you washed your hair, it smells like your shampoo.  If you washed your body, it smells like your soap.  Your hands smell like whatever you touch.  Your feet…just smell. If you’re a young male who has hopes of fulfilling the empty promises claimed by body-sprays of becoming an attractive female magnet, you may be doused head to toe in Axe.  Even if you neglected to apply your clear blue Old Spice that morning, you’re going to be emitting your natural body scent or some kind (in this scenario, likely a foul one).

So when I encounter a place that has such a warning posted (usually hospitals, or medical centers of some orientation), am I then supposed to leave, go home, wash off everything that smells, and then return?  Do I have to make a new appointment if I can’t make it back in time for the current one?  Will they give me a new one if there’s an opening later in the day? Am I supposed to note that place of business, and subsequently every other establishment in the city with the same set of rules?  Should I have a notebook of which to refer to before I get up in the morning to make sure I don’t put anything that smells in case I am going to a scent-free building on that day? What if I forget, and then show up at a known scent-free zone? Will they still admit me? Should I declare my current scents at the front desk?  As you can see, these zones create a vortex of important unanswered questions.

My suggestion is this: they need to put up some sort of scoreboard in the building that everyone can see, instead of the signs.  This board would indicate how many people are currently occupying the building space that have a scent-related condition.  These people would be required to make themselves known upon entering the scent-free zone.  The tally would be placed on the board, and then all who enter would know for sure if it were clear to enter if they had applied any sort of scent prior to arriving.  This would also act as a fail-safe to the weary and prepared person, who had perhaps not utilized and form of scent in hopes of not unintentionally provoking any outbreaks anywhere he went that day, but had packed a bag of deodorant, cologne, or other products that he could later administer when he knew the coast was clear.  It wouldn’t be any sort of prejudice profiling, it would simply allow non-scent reactors to help themselves and scent-reactors go about their days together, happy and healthily.  It can’t miss.

It’s either my idea, or put them all in glass boxes like we do to the smokers now.  I think my method is a little more humane, don’t you?

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