MAYBE I WILL GO OUT FOR HALLOWE'EN THIS YEAR...
My Hallowe'en plan for this year was basically just to watch
Dawn of the Dead and
Lifeforce again, like I did last year, but, a couple of weeks ago, I had a brilliant idea for a costume...
"Here Comes the Thnikkaman!"
UNSEEN CHORUS: {singing} Here comes the Thnikkaman!!! {Floating text crosses the screen.}
STRONG BAD: No way! Check it out The Cheat. {Strong Bad looks and points off-screen.} It's the Thnikkaman!! {Strong Bad and The Cheat run to meet the Thnikkaman, who is obviously Bubs wearing sunglasses and a "TH" sign taped to his chest.} Hey Thnikkaman!
THNIKKAMAN: Hey Kid!
STRONG BAD: Can we have some?
THNIKKAMAN: Yeah, ok.
STRONG BAD and THE CHEAT (in Cheat-speak): Thanks, Thnikkaman!
STRONG BAD: {in low voice, perhaps translating for The Cheat?} Thanks, Thnikkaman.
THNIKKAMAN: Yeah. {takes off his sunglasses} Shut up, kid!
UNSEEN CHORUS: {singing} There goes the Thnikkaman!!! {Floating text crosses the screen again}
The Thnikkaman, possibly based on an old commercial with a character named "Snicker Man", is basically
Bubs from
Homestar Runner wearing a pair of sunglasses and a piece of paper with "TH" written on it in a red marker, who goes around distracting people from what they're doing. He appeared in the Strong Bad e-mail cartoon
"monument" (transcribed in full
here.
Now, I already have a pair of nice sunglasses, an official pair of
Men In Black RayBan's on which I spent way too much money on a whim at a Sunglasses Hut in the now-closed-to-passenger-traffic Mirabel airport just before going to England for a month in 1997, but I thought the one orange sweater I had, a bright "safety-vest orange" Wind River pullover that I stopped wearing on a regular basis because it affected my allergies, I had given away to charity some time ago, but I found it in my clothes basket on top of the dryer, so I'll wear that, with a green sweater I have below it, and my bother bought me some cheap face paint from Pharmaprix, so I'll paint my face blue with a white-teeth-with-black-outline mouth and tape the "TH" on my chest and walk around downtown Montreal and see if anyone gets the reference. I'd like to see you stay on task when you're starin' down the barrel of a loaded Thnikkaman. I don't care what you're doin. No one can resist.
In other news, I wanted to post about some more nonsense from the Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights at Concordia which Kevin Holden and Trudy Mason were discussing on CJAD, but there's nothing about that story showing up on Google News, so I'll wait a day and see if there's an article I can quote. Also, there's something from the Bush/Kerry debate last week that I've been meaning to post about but I haven't gotten around to it since I was procrastinating, playing
Metropolis Street Racing on the Dreamcast most of the past couple of days. Damn, is
Project Gotham Racing, the revised and expanded version of
MSR on the X-Box, nearly as difficult? And I didn't get too far when I was initially playing it some 3 years ago, so I'm only up to the Alfa Romeo and the unimpressive-looking Peugeot 209.
EVERYBODY CAN SUCCEED, ALL YOU NEED IS TO BELIEVE...
...unless your definition of success is "being able to write and direct an episode of Degrassi" and your nationality is "not Canadian", in which case, you can "believe" and even "be honest with yourself, forget your fears and doubts" all you like but the Canadian government bureaucrats and unions won't let you do it, no matter how famous a director you are.
Here's a perfect object-example of why CanCon regulations suck...
(Excerpted from the article "Silent Bob loves CTV's Degrassi: Kevin Smith plans to act in 3-episode arc" by John Mckay of the Canadian Press.)
"Jay and Silent Bob are coming to Canada.
And they plan to visit Degrassi high school. Indie American filmmaker Kevin Smith (Clerks, Mallrats, Jersey Girl) has made no secret over the years of his love of the long-running Canadian TV franchise, and has even included references to it in his films featuring those slacker/stoner characters Jay (Jason Mewes) and Silent Bob (Smith).
After his offers to direct and/or write for the show were declined (sorry, he was told, Degrassi is 100 per cent Canadian content and that would jeopardize their Telefilm funding) it was agreed he could act in three episodes. So he'll be playing a dual role: a visiting director and the mute Silent Bob character he plays in his films.
"It's the easiest job in the world because I have to play myself but I play a fictionalized version of myself where I've been successful," Smith quipped Wednesday during a photo-op visit to the north-end Toronto studios of Epitome Productions where Degrassi is shot. "I pretend I'm a little different version of me.""
Goddamned Telefilm, a bunch of meddlesome, pedantic, protectionist bureaucrats deciding what does and doesn't constitute "Canadian Content"... so a television programme shot and set in Toronto produced by Canadians with a Canadian cast wouldn't count as "CanCon" because of a one-time event where one of America's hottest young directors would direct a couple of individual episodes, even if a few episodes written and directed by Kevin Smith would bring a lot more attention to said Canadian production all around the world?
If Kevin Smith is only acting in this, it's not really that much bigger a deal than that time he starred as himself on
Yes, Dear, which is a sitcom on television on some channel somewhere that has apparently been on since 2000 despite my not having ever heard of it until I caught the Kevin Smith episode by chance while channel-surfing.
You know, I really think
Degrassi studio
Epitome Pictures (formerly Playing With Time Inc.) should just come up with a bullshit pseudonym writer and director for that episode and have Kevin Smith "ghost" it behind-the-camera with the truth leaked out as a rumour which Linda Schuyler would publicly deny while winking in an obvious manner.
But fuck Telefilm Canada anyway, since they fund the anti-Canada propaganda screeds from seditionist motherfucker director Pierre Falardeau like the
Elvis Gratton series.
Anyway, if Kevin Smith going to appear on this episode both as himself and as Silent Bob, what implications does this have for the
View Askewniverse as a whole, since Smith has never pulled a
Last Action Hero wherein he starred as himself with his characters? It will worse than the time that Steve Urkel from
Family Matters and Jaleel White, the actor that plays him (ooh, and Sonic),
coexisted within the Miller/Boyett-verse (scroll down to the article "The Destruction of the Matrix" on the bottom of that page). Or will he only be Silent Bob in the movie they're filming rather than as a character that exists off the set?
IN THE UNLIKELY EVENT OF AN EMERGENCY OVER WATER...
...remove the lifejacket from the pouch under your seat or below the armrest. Place the jacket over your head, fasten the waistclip, and tighten your belt. Pulling the tab will inflate the jacket. Now, hold on, Rose! Never let go! Don't you give up!
My Heart Will Go On... Air Canada?
(Excerpted from the article "Airline puts on ritz for rollout", by Lisa Schmidt,
Calgary Herald, October 20
th, 2004.)
"Air Canada's new corporate colours touched down Tuesday in Calgary with international superstar Celine Dion, part of a splashy launch for the reinvented carrier.
Weeks after emerging from bankruptcy protection, Canada's largest airline unveiled a new advertising campaign featuring the Canadian pop diva, who joined the airline's cross-country promotional tour.
"This is a critically important market for this company going forward," said Air Canada chief executive Robert Milton.
[snip]
Dion donned a new dark blue Air Canada uniform and sang at appearances in Toronto and Montreal backed up by 10 employees. Her song You and I will be used in the airline's television and radio ads starting Thursday.
A music video for the song features the airline's new base in Toronto at Terminal 1.
Dion's music will also be part of a $46-million, three-year deal between Air Canada and the Canadian Tourism Commission to promote Canada in Britain and the United States starting in January."
Yes, if I was running an airline, could I possibly choose a better celebrity to build a marketing campaign around than a singer who is associated with a certain movie about a mass fatality incident on a large passenger vehicle?
I think not.
Also, if truth in advertising still applies, considering that
Celine has lived full-time at Caesar's Palace for the past couple of years, shouldn't Celine be endorsing
Air Vegas?
By the way, everything in the title before the lame Titanic reference is taken from an actual Air Canada safety demonstration someone I know secretly taped.
