I thought my readers might like this

I'm on the "conservative" side for a Canadian (libertarian really, but we don't have that option here, so "conservative" will do), but I've gotta say that the American government is nuts. How long is this silliness going to go on?

Rory & Hughie: Goodbye, Mrs. Berry

Steve as Hughie
Mr. Austin as Rory

Only in Name of Town Withheld

MICHAEL: Mom, guess what? I'm an aboriginal.

ME: You're a -- what?

MICHAEL: An aboriginal. A person who doesn't eat meat.

ME: A vegetarian?

MICHAEL: Yeah, a vegetarian.

ME: Are you sure? Vegetarians don't eat hot dogs or hamburgers. They eat salad and vegetables.

MICHAEL: I don't like salad, but I'll eat lettuce.

ME: So I guess you're going to start eating eggs, then.

MICHAEL: No, I don't like eggs. Wait, is there meat in an Egg McMuffin?

ME: Yeah, there's ham in it. But that's OK. You could give me your ham and you could eat the egg.

MICHAEL: *looks distraught* Maybe I could just eat bread.

Of course, I can't let this pass

Mika Brzezinski: My new hero.

Dear Glen,

Can I have the key to the camper? I looked in the window and it is really cool inside. I think it would be a fun place to go. And I would always be good, always. You should come over and play with me in the camper.

From Michael

For the Rebecca Eckler haters

I am guessing (hoping?) that the new visitors are here because they feel the same way I do about that vapid twit. This link will take you to all of my Ickler posts. I'll leave this at the top of the blog for the next few days.

Regular readers: please go on to the next post.

The woes of Paris Hilton, as told to Larry King

1. She has claustrophobia, so she should NOT have to be in jail. It would have been way better for her to be at home even though the judge said she had to go to jail. She was locked in a cell for three and a half weeks and it was a horrible experience.

2. She feels really bad for her neighbours, because there were photographers at her house when she was brought back to court. Also, people know where she lives now!

3. She got a bad deal, because she did not know that she wasn't allowed to drive when her license was suspended. Next time she's drunk, she will definitely call a limo instead of driving. But she does not feel like she's a criminal.

4. She didn't want to cause a media circus when she checked into jail. That's why she went to an awards show right before she turned herself in.

5. People are spreading lies that she lost weight in jail. They make up crazy stories and she is baffled. She doesn't correct the lies because if she did, people would talk about it even more.

6. There is one thing she'd like to change about herself: She wants her voice to be lower. (Is this woman for real???)

7. She has ADD and takes medication for that. She has never taken other drugs, and Mothers Against Drunk Driving is wrong, wrong, wrong. She is a good example for children now because she's been to jail.

8. She does not take any money from her family. She works really hard. She is like any other girl and a good person.

9. She's always been religious but she wasn't able to bring her Bible into jail. She reads the Bible all the time, but doesn't have a favourite passage and could not think of any Bible stories.

10. Being strip-searched is the most embarrassing thing ever, because you have to get naked in front of someone you don't even know. (HAHAHAHAHAHA. I swear I'm not making this up.)

Counter-Spin

I need to address a vicious rumour that is going around, namely that I hate David Hasselhoff.

I understand how this got started. I do make fun of him a lot. But I don't hate him. I actually love him.

David Hasselhoff is my Sanjaya. I can't wait to see what he's going to do next. I'm not so keen on his newer stuff, because he's now in on the joke, but I adore his older stuff, especially anything from overseas. I love that thrill of excitement that comes from discovering something really deliciously awful on YouTube.

If you come here through Technorati (and I know some of you weirdos do -- don't think I don't see your searches for "Rebecca Eckler" and "Clay Aiken"), you will see that Technorati has electronically determined what this blog is about. It looks like this:
This isn't exactly the order I would have used to list these topics, but I suppose computers are not perfect.

In any case, I do not hate David Hasselhoff. As a show of my respect, I offer my favourite video ever. We all owe him a debt of gratitude.

Sicko, Part 2

I’ve seen most of Michael Moore’s latest movie. It’s one of his better ones, complete with laugh-out-loud narration like “His anti-Americanism was too much for me”.

The thing to remember when watching his movies is that they are not documentaries. They are propaganda disguised as journalism. As long as you understand that, you’ll be fine.

Documentaries are supposed to have a coherent message, and they do need to tell a story. They can even blatantly lobby for a particular political action, and I won’t complain. But they don’t leave out important details that could make the viewer come to the opposite conclusion. They don’t stage scenes for the purpose of leaving a false impression. And they don’t string technically-true sentences together in a way that implies something incorrect.

It's too bad, because reforming health care is something I could really get behind. I don't think our system is great, but the American system isn't working either. I'd like to watch a film like this and be inspired to change the world. Unfortunately, I spent the time thinking that Mr. Moore could have put his energy into making a real documentary that would have had the same message and been more effective (but less shocking).

I really can’t speak for the European countries featured in the movie, although I’ve decided that if even half of it is true, I definitely want to move to France. I can tell you a few facts about Canada, though:

• Mr. Moore follows an American across the border, where she lies to the border guard and then lies to the admin staff at two medical clinics so she can see a doctor “for free”. Here’s the thing: It’s not really free to see a doctor here. Provinces and territories issue health cards to residents. Each card has a number used for billing. If you go to an Ontario clinic with an Alberta health card, the government of Ontario will send a bill to Alberta, thanks to something called “reciprocal billing”. If your home province doesn’t have a reciprocal billing arrangement with the province you’re visiting, you will pay the full cost of your care and send your receipts to your provincial government so they can reimburse you. We do not provide free health care to international tourists. The poor woman who crossed the border is going to get a bill.
  
• It wasn’t shown on film, but I can’t imagine that this woman would have been able to see a doctor that day unless it was a special drop-in clinic. I usually have to wait at least three weeks to get an appointment with a GP. I’ve seen a neurologist once in the past seven years. (I have epilepsy.)
  
• I would like Mr. Moore to tell me which ER sees patients within 20 minutes, because I plan to start going there.
  
• We do indeed think it’s a good idea to buy travel insurance when visiting the United States.
  
• Although he spends a lot of time talking about free medicine in Europe, there are no free medical supplies in Canada. If you have a chronic illness, you better hope you have insurance. Clinic visits are nothing compared to the cost of medicine.
  
• Our doctors work for the government, live very well and provide excellent care.

More ritual humiliation

I am NOT on a diet. I started the SELF Challenge with the Princess today.

The SELF Challenge, as I discovered, requires me to write down every calorie I consume and document all of my exercise, then post it on the Internet, presumably so that other people can mock me.

I'm not used to counting calories, but so far today I have eaten 1150 of them. About a third of this came from my daily chai, which I guess I need to make into a weekly treat. I asked the barista how many calories were in the chai, and she made a face and asked if I really wanted to know. This was a bad sign.

But I am NOT on a diet. I am, at least in theory, against diets. While I insist that I'm not on a diet, I have been trying to be a bit healthier. No more candy when I get upset. Walks or bike rides in the evening. This has been going on for three weeks, since I realised that unless I made a conscious effort, we would eat barbecued hamburgers for supper every night. But I am NOT on a diet. I am the Princess's online workout buddy.

Me = Loser

I am cackling with glee right now. And I hesitate to tell you why, because you will all laugh at me.

However, this blog is really just an opportunity to embarrass myself on a grand scale, so here goes. Click over to my 9-5 website. Look! Look! There next to What's New! It's an RSS feed! An honest-to-goodness RSS feed! And I did it myself!

What, you guys aren't impressed? I'll have you know that NOBODY ELSE in the NWT government has one of those. This is cutting-edge stuff, at least for us.

Can't...breathe...must...stop...laughing...

UPDATED JULY 11: This post is suddenly very popular. The full list of Ickler links is here. You may want to start with the post that explains why I hate her.

UPDATED AGAIN JULY 12: I started to feel bad for Eckler (yes, it's true), so I pulled down the text that used to be here. I have replaced it with a summary of the post.

My American readers are wondering who Rebecca Eckler is and why anyone would hate her so much.

I linked to Ickler's blog in the post below this one. She's the Canadian writer who is suing Judd Apatow for ripping off her totally original book about getting pregnant. She used to freelance for the Globe & Mail, but it appears that they've dumped her.

Ickler has an unusual talent for turning her readers into tightly-wound balls of seething fury. She started writing for the National Post about ten years ago, and I used to read her columns, thinking that she was a satirist. Nobody could be that shamelessly self-absorbed. It had to be a joke.

I was wrong. Ickler's real, and she's still around. It got worse after she had a baby. Narcissism is always distasteful, but it's hard to describe the feeling I get from seeing it in a person who is responsible for a small child. I want to call Child Protective Services. She calls her daughter The Dictator, apparently without irony.

The Canadian media, for reasons I cannot fathom, have decided that Ickler is the voice of young moms in Canada. This is even worse than when they thought she was the voice of young women in Canada. Back then, I could at least imagine that perhaps she spoke for really dumb women in Toronto.

Here is a sample of her writing. She has deleted this post from her blog, but the wonder of the Internet is that these things never really go away. You might want to have a bucket nearby as you read this.
______________________________________

UPDATED: I have removed the text of Ickler’s original post, complete with its lousy grammar and bad spelling. In its place, I offer the following summary:

Ickler’s feeling really good about herself, because she almost never spends a whole day and night alone with her child. Usually, one of her two nannies is around, or her in-laws take the child at night. But now everyone is leaving, and it’s just Ickler and her daughter. Everyone is worried that Ickler will not be OK alone for 24 hours – they keep suggesting that they could change their plans and stay to help her out.

Ickler’s offended at the thought, but acknowledges that the nanny makes life a lot easier, because she:

1. Puts suntan lotion on the baby
2. Changes her diapers
3. Gives her a bath every night
4. Feeds her all her meals.

Ickler suddenly realizes that there IS a lot of work involved in taking care of a baby. She wakes up one morning to discover a note on her door: Her child woke up hungry and needed a bottle. Ickler doesn’t sleep nearby, of course, so she didn’t know about it. Even after she figures this out, she still sleeps in the next day.

Ickler has watched the nanny feed the baby and knows it can take up to an hour. However, she doesn’t have that type of patience, so she makes pancakes, turns the TV on and “shove(s) the pancakes in her mouth without her even noticing”. It only takes ten minutes.

They head off to the country club, where Ickler is careful to note that membership costs more than $100,000. Fortunately, the baby pool is set up so that Ickler doesn’t actually have to go in the water.

Then they go shopping and out for supper. Ickler asks her readers if she should buy a Coach bag.

Ickler’s really proud of herself, because her child didn’t cry once the entire day. Then she backtracks and admits that there was indeed some crying, but, as she says, “I don’t why (sic) everyone is so worried that I can’t take care of my child all by myself”. In fact, she thinks she might kind of like being a mother, and “might even have to get more involved in it”.

I Finally Figure Out Why I Hate Rebecca Eckler

It is becase I am jealos!!! Totally jealos, because she is a yummier mummy then me!!! I am like not really even a writer, and she is like totally a freelancer who gets tons off book deals and lots of love from the guy at Maclean's!!! Gaa!

I am doing my best though. Today I am having a relly rough day, because my son is not here, which is good because he is SO ANNOYING and always asks me to help him with his homework, but I found a tank top in my pajayma darwer and I put it on and I already feel a bit better. Although not as good as Eckler, who I call Ickler just because I am totally jealos that she looks better in tank tops then me. So now al I have to do is sit here in my tank top and listen to my favortie CD from The Pretenders, that I listen to because none of you fuckers is as cool as me!!! I am on the cutting edge, assholes!

So lik I said today is a really rough day. I totally had to sweep and mop the floor, and I even unloaded the dishwasher even though I was thinking that if I relaly want to be more like Ickler I need to get a housekeeper and a few nannies so I can just hang out at expnsive stores all day long and drink nonfat soylattes. It was such a huge drain that I totaly had to lie down when I was done but that didnt stop me from thinking that i am rellay a huge loser and NOT a good writer at all and that is another reason I am jealous. I probably could not get a book deal even if I sletp with the head of a pulbishing company!!! Gaa!

And another thing, I totally LOVE my child even though I sometimes secretly think he is a huge embarasment, like when he always pretends he is a Jedi even though everyone knows that is SO 2005. I cringe in horor and hope that nobody can tell we're together and that's why when we're at the playgroudn I let him run and play wile I do yoga over on the side in my tank top. I am not as good as Ickler though and that is another reason I am jelous. I bet if we were in the same yoga class she would be way way hotter than me and i would always be watching her and hoping that she would notice me and maybe we could go get a nonfat soy latte and we could be friends and maybe she would help me with my patehtic writing career that is totally not as good as hers.

UPDATED: Welcome, Technorati users. The full list of my Eckler posts is here.

Sicko

A relative e-mailed me a newspaper story about Michael Moore's latest movie. I'm a bit out of the popular-culture loop up here and haven't seen it, but I do know that Mr. Moore has rose-coloured glasses where Canada is concerned. He's also a bit too quick to jump to conclusions about our society. I will offer a quick overview of our health system, in case he leaves out some details:

• Doctor's visits (including specialists): FREE, sort of. The government is now taking $1500 out of my paycheque every two weeks. I go to the doctor maybe three times a year.
• Hospital visits: FREE, sort of. See above. We do not pay the cost of any medical procedure that is done in a hospital.
  
• Medical supplies, including medicine: PATIENT PAYS FULL PRICE. Steve's diabetic pump cost $5000, and his blood-testing strips cost $1 each. A person I used to work with is taking pills that cost $100 a day. You can buy medical insurance to cover all or most of these costs.
• Ambulance trips: PATIENT PAYS FULL PRICE. About $300 per trip, at least here in Name of Town Withheld. This is a good deal, as it gets you four handsome and sympathetic ambulance attendants at your door in about five minutes.
• Wait times: ABYSMAL. A friend of mine (full disclosure: who has nothing but good things to say about our system) almost died from a weird pregnancy illness that caused severe vomiting. She spent a LOT of time in emergency wait rooms, often next to people with severe alcoholism and mental illnesses. You can imagine how great this was for her.
• Freedom to choose your doctor: NOT TRUE. When your doctor leaves town, you have to beg another GP to see you, and most will not even consider it. It has been over a year since I had a doctor. Steve convinced a GP to be his doctor about six months ago, and we are hoping that she will agree to treat Michael and me. However, it is true that we do not have HMOs that assign doctors to patients or demand that you cycle through cheaper treatments before trying treatments that are more expensive.
• Satisfaction with Canadian health-care system: MIXED. The first thing any Canadian will say about our system is that it is better than the American one. You will usually get this from people who have no experience with the American system, so you can judge for yourself how much their opinions are worth.
  

Our system is a source of national pride, which is so Canadian I could vomit. Only in Canada would a mandatory group-insurance plan be a source of national pride.

*pantpantpantpant*

Am I wrong, or are 60-year-olds incredibly sexy all of a sudden? How did this happen?

Dear Fit Yogurt: Go to hell.

Isn't this girl hot? I was thinking that it was great to see women with curves in advertising when I discovered that this ad is supposed to turn your stomach. Yes. You are supposed to look at this woman and immediately start retching up your dinner, then grab a little cup of Fit Yogurt. It is part of a campaign that re-shoots iconic images of women using larger models. You can see a few more of them at Shakesville.

This might be the vilest ad campaign I've ever seen. The tag line is Forget about it. Men’s preference will never change. Fit Light Yogurt. Because it's a great idea to reinforce the notion that women should try to look exactly the way men want them to look. We don't have enough trouble with that already.

I was going to be a bit more expressive in the title of this post, but decided that it wasn't worth upsetting my parents and the Forces of Evil any more than they already are.

A flash of memory

I hesitate to share this flash, as the Good Reverend will likely pop up with a correction that throws me into doubt. (Forces of Evil: no, not you guys. Don't you have legal papers to file? If you're looking for something to do, maybe you can help Uriel with her campaign against dermatologists.)

My dad was the lead guitarist in a cover band when I was much, much younger, and they played this song. They used to practise at the back of the drummer's store ("Jim-Bob's Flooring"), and I liked to go to their rehearsals. I'd sit on big rolls of carpet and listen to them play country-rock music or the songs my dad wrote.

My godfather sang lead, and my dad's best friend Steve played bass. I have a memory flash of Steve with a Band-Aid on his ear (goodness only knows why) goofing around and singing this as "Summer of '89", and I distinctly remember thinking that it was 1986 at the time. I was sitting near the bathroom, which I had a mortal fear of because the fellow who occasionally played keyboards told me there was a mouse in the toilet. I'm sure this was very funny to a guy without kids.

I have a few other related flashes of memory, but can't remember what happened before or after. I remember pinching my hand in a microphone stand by messing around with the little twisty thing that lengthened it -- I loosened it and the top part slipped down and pinched my hand. I also remember tightening the strings on my dad's guitar when he wasn't looking. Naturally, I was caught in the act (I never got away with anything, no matter how small) and the drummer chastised me: "Uh uh uh, you're not supposed to turn those, Megan!"

Letter from Jail

Today's episode of Little Miss Know-it-All: Correspondence.

I've read more letters from prisoners than the average person. This is not just because of my preferred attire when visiting the jail; it is also because as a true scholar and lover of the written word, I seek out original manuscripts whenever possible. There is a standard template for prisoners to follow:

1. Thanks for your letter.
2. You are keeping me strong.
3. Random craziness like "Technology sucks!" or "Paul made me do it".
   
4. Boo hoo, boo hoo.
5. God bless you.
   

(Please note that this template is only for use when responding to letters. If the prisoner sends the first letter, he can skip steps 1 and 2 and get right to the craziness and the boo-hooing.)

And so we come to today's prisoner correspondence, written by the lady seen in this glamour shot:


(Parenthetically, this might be my favourite photo ever. I want to nominate that judge as King of the Universe -- Cindy tells me he has to die before he can be considered for sainthood, and this is the type of judge you definitely want to keep alive for a while.)

Yes, Paris Hilton has been writing letters from jail in the desperate hope that one of them would be leaked to the media so she could be in the magazines again. Apparently it wasn't great press when she refused to drink water so she could never be photographed on the prison toilet.

This letter is a perfect example of the prisoner letter, although it's missing the part where the author would typically veer off into crazy-town. As usual, my analysis is in bold text. (Changing the font is way too much work, so I'm going back to the old-school method.)


I read your letter and just wanted to thank you for your kind words of love and support.

I didn't read your letter, because I don't know how to read. I'm paying my cellmate to read and respond to my mail. Actually, she just writes the same letter over and over again and signs my name. I've never given autographs before, so nobody will ever know the difference. I spend my day trying to figure out how to make protein shakes out of the eggs and toast they serve for breakfast here. Did you know there's no Louis Vuitton in jail? Thanks for your letter, even though you are not nearly as cute as me.

The fact that you took time out of your day to write me truly means the world.

It's great that people are still thinking about MEMEMEMEMEME!!!! You are keeping me strong!!!

Especially at such a difficult and scary time of my life.

It's such a joke that I have to go to jail. What is WRONG with the world? I should be allowed to drive drunk and violate my probation! It is SO HARD to face the consequences of my actions! I could totally DIE in here! Boo hoo! Boo hoo!

But I am being strong and trying to make the best of the situation. And the letters Im recieving really do put a smile on my face as I sit here in my cell, sad and alone.

Boo hoo! Boo hoo! Here I am, sad and alone! It is so hard to be MEMEMEMEMEME!!!! How do you spell "I'm", anyway? Good thing I remembered how to spell "receiving". That could have been embarasing.

Again, thank you so much and may God bless you and your family. Love always, Paris Hilton xoxo

Remember to buy my album! And watch my TV show! And pay me to go to your pathetic parties!

Get another volunteer

I found the Heritage Moment ad Sally mentioned a few days ago:



This was part of an ad series that ran during the 1990s. The videos in this series were, um, very Canadian:

• An out-of-touch American getting arrested by the Mounties.
  
• A bunch of politicians arguing about what the Canadian flag should look like.
  
• The Avro Arrow, featuring Dan Ackroyd and this lovely voice-over: "Although the government cancelled the project and destroyed the prototypes, the Avro Arrow remains for Canada a world benchmark in aerospace achievement."

Here's a spoof that's eerily good. If they'd removed the laugh track, you wouldn't be able to tell the difference:

I hab a code

Today sucks. I left work early to come home and lie down.

My friend Sally, on the other hand, is having a glorious day. Fellow Sally lovers, please wish her well.