The blue sweater unravels

The blue sweater unravels
Originally uploaded by jcbear2

This might be what Lauren and I need for our grand return. We'll keep you posted.

Matt and Lauren endorse Sen. Barack Obama

It's November 5th 2008, the morning after. As good a time as any to express our support for a candidate in the US presidential election. Of course, we didn't come back for the Canadian election (and neither did most people). However, since Canada is America's Monday morning quarterback we thought it was time for us to voice our grossly over-informed opinions on the matter.

We endorse Senator Barack Hope Obama for the Presidency of the United States of America.

Hey! What do you know? He won. Looks like we're 1-0 in victories for endorsed candidates.

Congratulations us!

Oh, and also: Congratulations USA, way to not fuck this one up!

Matt on the Radio

You've probably abandoned us long ago. But if you do what to hear Matt's drawl without seeing him or the pretense of buying him a beer or suchlike, he's on the airwaves (occasionally).

You can check him out at CIUT 89.5, on a morning show in the morning Take 5. He's mostly a newswriter but has had some on air blurbs and bits.

More on our adventures in volunteerism, careerism and failure as they develop.

Maybe even the occasional outburst of snark.

Newfoundland and Labrador evicts Quebec Innu

"Anytime anybody squats on land or asserts rights, we as a government have to deal with that," said Premier Danny Williams. Without a hint of irony.

Also, that 24 Hour Comic Day thing was our SURPRISE 100th post. After which we promptly disappeared.

24 Hour Comic Day

Our hundredth post kicks off our Non-Sequitur 24 Hour Comic Day.

Lauren and I will be making a comic each (24 pages, at least 100 panels, fully inked and lettered - colour optional) in the next 24 hours.
We will be updating MALITM (BAN) hourly, so keep in touch!

Matt & Lauren in the Morning but actually in 24 hours.

1pm to 1pm

1pm Jan 19 - Begin!

2pm - Matt 2 panels. Lauren 1 panel + character designs. Both panicked 10 minutes in.

3pm - Matt 1 page (not fully inked/lettered)/7 panels + one female lead named Maybel. Lauren 4 panels (fully done). Lauren doesn't want to say anything. We may never finish...one hour behind...

4pm - Matt 1.5 pages (still not fully inked or lettered). Lauren 1 page (6 panels). Lauren in early stages of fatigue. Matt accidentally drew Mary Walsh.

5pm - Matt 1.8 pages (slightly more inked and lettered). Lauren 1 pages (6 panel, page 2 in progress). Lauren losing hope, listening to Journey's Don't Stop Believing.

6pm - Matt 2 (3/4 pencilled page 3). Lauren 2 pages on third. Opened bag of chips. Doubting selves. Beginning to pack in violence, sex, sexy violence and the Bird.

7pm - Matt 3.5. Lauren 3ish/4ish. Film teacher called. Matt is giving up tequila for this. This is OK, a film teacher understands these kinds of things. The plot thickens!

8pm - Matt 4 Lauren 3 on her fourth.

9pm-1:20am - Matt and Lauren fail at Liveblearging.

1:20 am - Matt goes to bed. Finishing page 15 or 16 with the ominous line, "I can wait too." He has never drawn an obese man giving the finger so much.

12:49pm Jan 20 - Matt is done, seriously. 103 panels, 24 pages + cover.

Episode 4!

Episode 4 is hot off the presses--err, GarageBand and Sarah's iMac.

Inside:
- The Writers' Strike disrupts our already haphazard production schedule!
- Matt makes a friend in PEI!
- Sarah makes killer segways and gets a tattoo and
- Lauren narrowly avoids one!

Also, the girls wish Matt a halfhearted Happy Birthday!

Love,
Your valiant producer

P.S. Kindly ignore the mysterious absence of episode 3.

Click here for Episode 2!

This week:

• Lauren bites into the tequila worm and struggles with the teleprompter!
• Sarah regales us with her time in Saskatchewan!
• Matt makes noises with his mouth!
• Hear passing traffic!

All three prove to be horribly obtuse to the world around them!

xoxo
-Sarah

Podcast, The Inaugural (Click Me to Download!)

This Week

Matt & Lauren's inaugural podcast!
Listen to us as we:
- Laugh at our own jokes!
- Learn/disgrace the French language!
- Premiere Internet Wars!
- Go from Sea to Sea to Sea!

Including 3 of our favourite songs! (Buy their CDs! Lauren says it's "legaller")

One penis joke per podcast guaranteed!

Chaos! from Sea to Sea to Sea

No, we have not abandoned you (singular), our focus has shifted to becoming a PODCAST. To round off the summer, I'm embarking on some thangs that reflect on the past two months (you know, the months with no posts).

This has been the summer of pestilence, to coin a phrase. Following mumps entering our hallow'd halls of academia at Dalhousie and Tuberculosis get close to our NWT tubers and a that guy who got on a plane, I was expected the other three horsemen at any moment. I still am, horseman aren't known for being on time. Until then pestilence continues to be taking its sweet, sweet infected time with us. Saskatchewan has seen 800 cases of West Nile Virus this summer. This summer is estimated to be the highest since 2003, when there were 947 infections. The closest 'Nile, Egypt' is 2639km away.

In the Northwest Territories 3 MLAs have had their seats acclaimed, Meg White, Jack White and Meg White, again. Let's just say that the tour in this summer was really popular. No one can compete with the Hardest [Campaign] Button to Button. Ah-oh. Acclamations are not all that uncommon North of 60, in 2003 19 seats were won by acclamation(apparently a good year for West Nile lovers and Democracy-haters).

Anyone go to V-Fest Toronto? Did you see Lauren? I didn't go or see Lauren!

UPDATE: In the past two days, power outages have affected both the Canadian heartland (we're Saskatchewanian Square at heart) and the Great Hereditary Ghiz Fiefdom of Prince Edward Island. Chaos, I tell you! Chaos!

One Step Forward, Two Steps...well, definitely not forward

No, we have not abandoned you (singular), our focus has shifted to becoming a PODCAST. To round off the summer, I'm embarking on some thangs that reflect on the past two months (you know, the months with no posts).

As always, it seems we start with religion.

Over the course of this summer, Pope Benedict XVI's popeship has come to the attention of many. As is the case with any 21st Century religious all-knower, he has a difficult job of bridging conviction on modernity. (Just look at the Dalai Lama and scientific communism, or the Ayatollahs and the bringing back of 'sexy' or Tom Cruise and prescriptive psychiatric meds). While Scientology fights back at modernity by nominally embracing 'science', Catholicism has no hopes of such a trendy name change. Cathology? Sciencolism? Nope.

So how did the Church choose to address modernity? In anticipation of the 100th year of the production of Ford's Model T, the Vatican said: 'Hey, these cars are really catchin' on - Benny! We should say something about these horseless chariots!' Benny, never one to turn down some good advice sanctioned the release of the Ten Commandments of the Road. Unfortunately for former-Moses Charleton Heston thou shalt carry a colt-45 was not one of them. Finally the epidemic of bad Catholic driving is over. We know, for certain, that unspeakable acts in the backseat are indeed unspeakable and not to use the auto-car as an expression of vanity. Says the owner of the Pope-mobile.

So, that covers one step forward. Deal with modernity by jumping right into. Next come the ten commandments of blogging (thou shalt not covet thy neighblogger's traffic or other widgets), YouTube (thou shalt not infringe on Viacom's copyright), etc. The next is a retreat back into the familiar: exempli gratia the Return of the Latin Mass. This doesn't seem like too big a deal. Where there is a big enough group of people who understand the Latin Mass, Benny says it may be celebrated. This will not be affecting me, personally. Apparently though, a line about the Jews got everyone all up in a tizzy. The line offers a prayer on behalf of Jews, to Jesus so that he may accept them into the Kingdom, despite them not accepting Him as the Personal Lord and Saviour. This may sound offensive, but it isn't if you consider...

Benny announced that the Catholic Church is the One True Church. That's right, not only is Jesus the Only Way to Salvation (if you're following He is both the beginning, the end and the way to get from beginning to end) -- the Catholic Church is the only way to get Jesus-props. OK.This actually pissed everyone of any Christian denomination off. Insofar as they cared what the Pope of Rome had to say about whether or not their Church was "wounded" or the decrease of attendance was due to George Stephanopolous' white-white smile on Sunday morning talk. Which was not very much. If they stopped listening in the 16th Century, some Car-mandments certainly won't get their attention in 21st.

So there you go, one step forward and two steps in the dark.

Hell hath no fury like a dolphin scorned

A new month, a new tainted food scare.

What chemical or organic poison is currently out to tempt the palate? Whale meat, saturated with "alarming" levels of mercury, intended for... wait for it... Japanese schoolchildren.

Now that the panic of "Oh my God, I ate whale meat just last week!" has subsided, as this has not affected the perfect bubble that is North America, read on (and keep eating that delicious blowhole sandwich).

The Globe reports through Reuters that an assemblyman in Taiji discovered the tainted meat, where "two samples of short-finned pilot whale had mercury levels 10 to 16 times more than advised by the Health Ministry" and further samples had "10-12 times more methyl mercury than advised levels."

Contrary to what some may think, the interesting bit in this story is not that the meat was intended to be served without inspection by local authorities. Nor is it that bioaccumulation (the process of accumulation leading to progressively higher concentrations of a contaminant up through the food chain, via predators ingesting prey that have previously accumulated contaminants in their body tissue - thanks, Google, for helping me remember Grade 9 Geography) is really starting to show in ecosystems. While these do have that certain journalistic je ne sais quoi, I think I've pinpointed the real scoop.

Short-finned pilot whales are part of the dolphin family. Dolphins are highly intelligent. Dolphins are also pissed off, as penguins, previously the stuffy, tuxedoed snobs of the sea, have waddled, tap danced, and now surfed into our hearts. What happens when a highly intelligent, pissed off creature - who has access to methyl Mercury - realizes its going to be eaten by a bunch of Japanese schoolchildren that turned down Flipper AGAIN for Farce of the Penguins?

Oh, readers, I think you know.

What can you do to make sure we can enjoy delicious dolphin cousins for years to come? Firstly, if you have friended the rockhopper penguin Lovelace on facebook like I told you to, go and unfriend him right now. We don't want to make the dolphins think that we're switching over to penguin eggs because we like them better. And for that matter, if someone offers you a penguin egg, state very loudly, in the direction of the Pacific Ocean, "Oh, Christ, don't make me sick" (and take the egg ever so sneakily for an omelette).

This is all an assumption, readers, but I'm pretty sure I've uncovered the real roots to this story.

...

My back-up hunch? Sailor Mercury is behind this. She's a sailor, she's Mercury, it all makes sense.

Toronto No Longer 'facebook' Capital of World

Where once Toronto was able to claim it was the facebook Capital of the World, it has been usurped. Fortunately, it has gone to our former colonial overlords in London. While Toronto's facebook dominance coloured the social utility with various urban concerns and 'facade saving' expeditions (from Sam The Record Man to CityTV trucks to the Sheppard Subway line to'Let's Resurrect Honest Ed'), now Londoner's concerns will come to the fore.

Finally we can all hear about how much everyone hates the 2012 Olympic logo and be emotional scarred by the image of Lisa Simpson performing oral 'favours' just in time for the big release Simpsons Movie. Maybe we'll hear about the next coffee shop-bound single mom who will take over the world with her series of novels sooner, or something about the Queen.

THE INTERNET WAR: 'Ask' Won't Tell

[We've all heard about the threats the vast series of tubes called The Internet faces on a daily basis. For the most part we don't understand them. After all, isn't 'Neutrality' reserved for those Swiss pansies? In the tradition of Marshall McLuhan and the "X-Files", this semi-irregular segment probes threats to the internet. More importantly we will underline how unstoppable The Internet is in...THE INTERNET WAR!]

It has been a while, fellow revolutionaries, since I have commented on the State of the Revolution. This is hardly due to a lack of material (the talking heads of the Reactionaries and the Doubters will gab and gab) but our faith in the Glorious Netscape Revolution of 1995 has held firm. The Vanguard of the Revolution has been under attack. Google, say the Reactionaries, is 'bottoms' when it comes to privacy. The company has come under fire for keeping searches tucked away in a supercomputer--a supercomputer that kind of looks like that room at the end of Raiders of the Last Ark. It seems Privacy International (or Privintern) fails to realize that the Internet is not about 'privacy'.

'Privacy' is a pitiful notion whose heyday was before the Glorious Revolution of 1995. The Internet is about communication, breaking down the walls that restrict information and letting these autonomous abstractions roam wherever they may. Except if that information is music and it roams into onto the hard-drive of a 14 year old girl. But if it roams into the hands of a potential employer, that's the Glorious Tubes @ Work. There is no reason to feel any shame about your Jell-O fighting past, in fact, you were good at it . If your employer can't appreciate that, well then, they can't appreciate you. It would've been a great Christmas Party. Everyone seems so worried about 'THE MAN' finding out their personal information. There is no MAN. It's just us, Revolutionaries, running the world from the blue light of a computer screen.

The only thing more frightening for the Privacy Junkies, more than keeping their Truth from their potential employers, is keeping it from Corporations Who Sell Things and Advertise.

No revolutionary abstraction has gotten as much heat for this as 'facebook' (NO! I WILL NOT CAPITALIZE, I WILL SPELL HOW THE CAPITALISTS TELL ME TO!) facebook is a social networking site where people post their information for all to see. But it is not simply a way for Torontonians to wear badges of civic-action through group-joining. What's the difference between you showing everyone in the world 'Where You've Been' and the guy who wrote that application selling that high-quality information that would otherwise cost hundreds of thousands of dollars for a market research firm to collect to Expedia, Travelocity, and Priceline?

It looks like the only people who should be pissed are market-research companies. The Internet is creating the climate for Perfect Information that makes Markets efficient. Finally everyone's most base and suppressed desire will be known to The Supplier who can create the perfect Jell-O fighting vacation to the Yucatan peninsula you never knew you wanted, until The Internet made it all possible through AGGREGATION.

KNOW THY SELF? Never better than The Internet knows you.

But! Ask.com, a paltry revolutionary compared to the Vanguard-Google, says no that outdated 20th Century notion that 'privacy' is worth something. 'We will protect your privacy.' says Ask.com. They have already posed as the Vanguard before, now they reveal their true REACTIONARY COLOURS by trying to revive archaic 'privacy'. AskEraser? What are they trying to 'erase'? The Revolution, that's what!

We will not let them! Crush the revisionists! Long Live The Revolution! One! Nine! Nine! Five!

What's a Bessarion? Closed, that's what.

Toronto City Hall is rife with politicking this week. First we were dealing with what amounts to the fall out of the City of Toronto Act that gave Toronto new 'revenue tools' (avenues for taxation to maintain...avenues). Now, we are dealing with the fallout of the success of a procedural waiting game initiated by councilors when they decided to 'Wait and see' what the provincial elections would bring. Great. So, what is the result of all this fallout? An overdone metaphor? Well for Sexy Transit Girls, it means the end of a crush on Adam Giambrone, who has declared he may/will be cutting service on the Sheppard Subway Line, a hike in fees (a whole moose/quarter!) and purging bus routes.

For those outside Toronto, let's take a look back on the Sheppard Line. And for those in Toronto, a look at the Sheppard Line for the first time.

What needs to be known: The Sheppard line was built in the 1990s under Mike Harris (Ontario preem) and Mel Lastman (furniture salesman er snow hater er Mayor). The 'subway to nowhere' was always considered underused/pointless. Of course I'm sure the people who lived in Don Mills didn't think so. I'm looking at you Cousin Sal. Admittedly, this whole thing stinks of politics, though Giambrone swears it is not. If he's being honest, he's off his 'brone.

A subway is largely considered, something you don't open if you don't need. However, closing it has awoken a slightly peeved T.O. zeitgeist, one that always sits next to the homeless guy, always is late for their train, always has something spilled on them, and always gets delayed by a health emergency and has to take the shuttle bus all the way to FREEKIN' DUNDAS STATION.

Also, as is very Torontonian at this point, there are many facebook groups to save the Sheppard line.

UPDATE: Two more.

Rabies is all 'la rage'

After my recent illness (I'm eating solids!), it's good to know there will be something new for hypochondriac Canucks to worry about: RABIES! or is it is known in French 'la rage'. It would seem there is an outbreak of rabies among the raccoon and forest critter population on the Québec-Vermont border. Thankfully something good has come out of this, I learned the word 'épizootie'. Epizooty, as is the English equivalent's appellation, is an outbreak of disease among a certain species of animals. Now back to causing a sensationalist worry to frighten all the hypochondriacs back under their beds! If the rabies epizooty were to make it to Montreal, the city's wooded Mont Royal park would become a hotbed of raccoon disease! Somebody tell Bert! THE RABID 'COONS ARE COMING!
ANYONE WEARING A COONSKIN IS A RABID-COONZOMBIE!

In other Québec enviro-news, there is a serious blue-green algae problem that's a-stirring. It has caused a ban on swimming in the Saguenay region. You do not want blue-green algae in your itsybitsy teeny weeny yellow polka-dot bikini. Though I'm sure you look great in it.

Woe! Woe!

Dear readers,

I am sick. Real sick. Real, ick. This means lots of fluids and the like, though blogging has not yet figured into my recovery. Thankfully it is not Haligonian mumps, flight-induced tuberculosis, or SARS. Just good gastroenteritis. If you've gotten the shits in the last couple of days, live in Toronto, and want to be able to claim you were at the epicentre of the Shits Epidemic '07 drop a line in the comments box. Until then, lots of sleep for me.

That is all.
xoxo
-Matt

An (Un)Black Day.

Oh readers, I want not for news of dear Conrad's fate.

The Globe reported yesterday news that I was extremely shocked to hear. Lord Black is going down as the scapegoat for all of the white-collar criminals that got away, because they weren't members of the British Senate or arts and crafts mavens (if MALITM BAAN was around when Martha Stewart was convicted, I'd be a-stirring then too. She is a handsome woman.).

Black faces up to thirty-five years in prison. If he does serve this maximum, 62-year old Black will be ninety-seven when he comes out. And poor. This conviction is putting a serious strain on our relationship. Can't the jury see that?

And what did they convict him on? Obstruction of justice and three measly counts of mail fraud. It's completely ludicrous.

Black's lawyers have already started piecing together the materials for an appeal. Their star witness?

Me. I'm still here for you, Conrad, and I always will be.

*sniff*

Ed Mirvish dies at 92

Honest Eds
Originally uploaded by Bostich

'Honest Ed' Mirvish died this morning, and the obituaries have been popping up all over the media. Ed Mirvish is known for a lot of great things -- being a hard-nosed business man, safe guarding live theatre in Toronto, charity work, turkey, and my kind of cornball humour-- but most importantly he saw himself as a citizen of Toronto.

A lot of people say that doesn't happen to often. As they keep those too-many lights burning tonight (Ed wouldn't let them dim for a second, even in his memory), remember a bargain, remember a show, and remember a chuckle.

The Galaxy Needs You!

No, this is not another post about how you'll be able to lick Darth Vader's behind thanks to the US Postal Service. No, fair reader (-- or soulless abyss that is the Internet, drain on my soul and free time), the Galaxy really does need you, for SCIENCE!

As it turns out the work of painstakingly classifying the galaxies of the infinite blackness of Space is just too tedious for the big brains of the professional scientific community. They'd much rather be weighing black holes. So these Poindexters and Poindextresses have enlisted the greatest tool mankind has ever known for the purpose of classifying mountains and mountains of otherwise undecipherable, unsurmountable and nearly infinite data: Web 2.0.

New Mexican (?) astronomers (who of course have their degree in astrophysics, not the by-mail Miss Cleo service) have put together Galaxy Zoo and are enlisting volunteers to sift through the wormholes, star systems and nebulas and tell them what's what. The monstrous 'tag cloud' that ensues will hopefully give them more information on how the universe is shaped, in turn how the universe was formed, and what Exit to get off to find God's House.

Or, volunteers will be massively distracted once they discover a constellation that kinda looks like David Hasselhoff eating a hamburger off the floor...

UPDATE: There's a facebook group.

Kyoto vs. Cheddar - Political Pet Showdown

Inspired in part by CalgaryGrit's open call for summer competition suggestions and a well-placed e-mail, I have decided to tackle the question on all Canadians' minds as they fire up the grill: Who would win? Stéphane Dion's dog Kyoto or Stephen Harper's cat, Cheddar?

First let's meet the competitors:


Kyoto: After the Liberals were sacked in 2006, Dion adopted the white husky and named it after the Kyoto Protocol. Kyoto is an instinctual killer who's bound only to his master by the subversion of his pack-instincts through domestication. The dog received much buzz once Dion won the Liberal leadership, with some arguing that the dog had acquired a greater profile than his master. Kyoto also maintains his own blog with a tendency to echo Conservative talking points in both English and French, including bashing France (in both English and French). I find this curious.


Cheddar: It is unclear whether Cheddar is named after a town, a cheese, or an international treaty. What is known about Cheddar's checkered (marbled?, ed.) past, is that this cat walked the hard streets of Ottawa from its first day breaking out of Momma Cheddar's litter. Those dark, cold nights taught Cheddar the hard ways of canal-hopping, picking at discarded Beaver Tails, hustling tourists and paying up to always-collectin' civil servants. Cheddar was adopted into the Harper household once former cat, Cabot, died of excitement of moving from Stornaway to 24 Sussex. He is Laureen Harper's lovemuffin.

THE FIGHT
Cheddar comes out of the gate swinging...er, scratching. Kyoto is marching purposefully -- in circles? Cheddar lands a first scratch: 'Your master is not a leader!'. The judges award points. Kyoto lifts its head: 'Your master is a liar!', but Cheddar is too low to the ground and scampers under Kyoto's belly. Cheddar then avoids Kyoto until the judges insist he do something, dodging left and right expertly.
'Your master is out of touch with Canadians.'
'No, your master is out of touch with Canadians!'
'You're a prop meant to humanize your master for the voting public!'
'No, you're a prop meant to humanize your master for the voting public!'

Hours later...

'You were adopted to overcome your master's tragic loss'
'No, you were adopted to overcome your master's tragic loss'
With this, Cheddar scampers under Kyoto. And then, just before he's about to give Kyoto a lesson from the Bob Barker school in pet-care -- ROBOMANATEENo matter what, Robo-Manatee wins. Kyoto and Cheddar are off to meet Pat the Posthumous Policy Pooch, Mackenzie King's ol'friend.

For more on political pets go here.