Still legal.  (Photo credit: Captain Kimo)

People tell me things.

Sometimes I think it’s because I must have been born with a “you can trust me” aura. Maybe I look empathetic. Whatever the reason, the upshot is that strangers have always felt comfortable talking to me, sharing opinions or intimate details about their lives. Usually within about a minute of meeting me. This means that 1) I never had the “embarrassed” phase as a teenager. I’d heard it all by age nine. 2) Every time I travel it’s an exercise in sociological research.

Take the gruff fellow I met at the gas station yesterday. He was filling up his quad cab pickup, and very incensed over the cost. Bent my ear for fifteen minutes, on all things related to gas prices. “Global warming is a crock,” he huffed, “it’s effing freezing out here!”

That, for me, neatly summed up how scientists and environmentalists have blown the climate change debate.

The message for the past 20 odd years, you see, has been that we need to reduce pollution because it’s one of the chief causes of climate change. This message has failed for the following reasons:

The Scientific Method – Scientists fight amongst themselves, in public, over details. This would be fine if we had a scientifically literate public. This problem isn’t helped by the fact that this week’s science reporter was last week’s lifestyles editor. Consider the following scientific discovery headline cycle:

* Researchers suggest guar gum may possibly improve blood circulation if ingested on Sundays
* Studies link guar gum to improved blood circulation
* Better blood with guar?
* Chewing gum: Does it make you live longer?
* Major chewing gum manufacturers investigating guar, debating new product lines
* Cola bottlers announce plans for guar supplements in your favourite fizzy
* Nation gone guar crazy!
* Scientist at another institute says original guar study flawed; author forgot to carry the one
* Guar.com launched
* Original guar study author claims critic’s mother wore army boots. Did not forget to carry one
* Guar industry analysts worried
* Guar critic says did too, did too forget to carry the one
* Another new study: Guar linked to heart disease?
* Guar.com folds, 3500 IT employees now seeking work in India
* Year in review  — Remember guar?

Vested Interests — The people concerned about climate change are researchers, volunteers, and environmentalists — you know, people who are happy to have enough spare change to be able to afford a fair-trade coffee sometimes. Critics of climate change research tend to be car makers, oil companies, and manufacturers – you know, people who are happy to have enough spare change to be able to afford a coffee producing country now and then.

Whither the weather? – The average non-scientific Joe on the street has difficulty believing long term predictions about climate, when we still can’t reliably predict if it will rain in Philadelphia next Thursday.

So what *should* the message have been? Air quality.

It’s personal: We all breathe. It’s scientific: We’ve got instruments that can tell us exactly what we’re breathing in. It’s immediate and health related: What was that about asthma rates again? It’s tangible: Even guys in pickup trucks know when they can see, smell, and practically chew the smog.

Plus it’s really, really tough to spin the benefits of smog: “Just look at that brown sky! Doesn’t it just make you want to… to… oh, never mind.”

One last ponderable: In most of North America, it’s now socially unacceptable to light up a cigarette. But it’s still okay to fire up a smoke stack.

I suppose I should be careful. Without these kinds of strange contrasts, I wouldn’t have any material for a column. And then I’d have to… ARGH!

Work for a living. Forget everything I just said! No, really…

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Lots of trees. Also, dangerous tree planters.  (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

First, let’s get it out of the way: So, how y’all doing?

I had to start this week’s column with y’all, you see, because it is about Texas, which is where I was recently.

Texans say “y’all” about as often as Canadians say “eh?” – that is, about once a year. However, some years ago, a Texan made the mistake of saying it in a movie, and so now everyone knows that people from Texas say y’all in every sentence. Sometimes twice.

So, having dispelled that myth, I’m now going to start another: what Texans really do is eat a lot of jalapeno peppers. You can find them everywhere – in chili sauce, in rice dishes, your morning coffee, and in the chocolate cake. Texans eat so many of these hot peppers that I’d bet cash that it’s the Official State Vegetable. [Okay, so that's easy money: the only other vegetable ever served in Texas is refried beans, so I've got 50/50 odds there.]

The extensive use of jalapenos means that food in Texas comes in just two flavours: Thermonuclear Tex Mex and Blow Your Taste Buds Out Barbecue. This makes perfect sense because Texas has hot weather all year round, so obviously the one thing you want to do when sitting down to a meal is sweat some more. [Actually, it seems to be a natural law that hot regions have hot cuisine. You would never, for example, find a Hot N' Spicy Reindeer Burger on the menu in say, northern Finland, where it might actually do you some good. See also India vs. Iceland or Mexico vs. Russia.]

Another myth about Texas is that everything is big. Coming from Canada as I do, where just one of our provinces is bigger than the countries of France and Spain combined, I have a slightly different sense of the word “big.” But I will say that Texas, and in particular the city Houston is “sprawling.” It was so sprawled, in fact, that for my conference at the new George Brown convention centre, I needed both a day’s rations and a GPS unit to make it from one end of the exhibition hall to the other. At some point, Texas architects are going to have to learn how to build “up” instead of “out.”

This is not to say that Houston is all ugly and urban. Unlike other cities I could name (which I won’t name, but will call by the pseudonym “Detroit”), Houston is making a real effort to beautify the streets and bring in some greenery. Unfortunately, municipal workers are doing this with such enthusiasm that if you stand still for more than two minutes on a bare patch of ground, you risk being drilled with a tree planter, and stuffed under a sapling.

The other problem with all this arboreal exuberance is that Houstonites have not chosen their tree species wisely. The tree roots tend to grow “out” instead of “down” (see also Texas architecture, above), which means that you need a pair of sturdy hiking boots to climb over sidewalk paving slabs that have been shoved up at 45 degree angles in all directions. It’s really only a matter of time before someone trips and falls. If they are holding a coffee and a burger at the time, given the legal history of the US, I predict a massive lawsuit involving unsafe sidewalks, traumatic coffee burns and corporate enforced obesity.

Assuming of course, that the plaintiffs don’t try to travel to the courthouse by train. In a moment of foolish romantic travel idealism, I had decided to see a bit of the US on my way to Houston and booked a trip by rail. What I did not realize was that the US train system consistently operates in its own time zone, which is Local Time + 1 or 2 hour delay. This meant that I sprinted across several states just trying to catch missed connections.

The other fun bit was that major metropolitan train stations in America are apparently, by law, placed in hard to find and incredibly rough neighbourhoods and then made to close on weekends. This ensures that you get to meet the locals, even if you try to look inconspicuous and just want to be in a Lonestar State of Mind. After a couple of nervous hours, you’ll feel that All the Eyes of Texas Are Upon You.

Which is why I was glad to get back, All The Way From Texas.

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Be afraid? (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

It’s amazing what you can find on the Internet. I just discovered, thanks to a casual reference on a website, a startling film that may well change the way you look at certain things, as well as change how you live.

No, I’m not talking about the global warming movie, “An Inconvenient Truth.” I’m talking about Jonathan King’s debut feature, “Black Sheep,” wherein a flock of innocent sheep is transformed into a pack of blood-thirsty killers.

Yes, that’s right. It’s a movie about killer sheep. Murdering mutton, if you will.

Reviews suggest that it is “as comical as it is terrifying” and further that “it is an outstanding contribution to the livestock gone amuck horror genre.”

Let me start by saying I didn’t know there even *was* a “livestock gone amuck” horror genre. Admittedly, it’s been a long time since I visited a video store, but I’m sure I’d remember a whole section of films like “When Good Ducks Go Bad” and “Goat Gore III — This Time The Humans Get Sacrificed.”

I haven’t seen the film yet, so I can only speculate as to the content. Do the sheep dress up in wolf’s clothing to fool unsuspecting farmers? Or do they simply pull the wool over the eyes of the local villagers? Or do they — yes, you’ve guessed it — show up as mutton dressed up like lamb, pretending innocence until they can do their worst?

And exactly how do sheep become killers, anyway? Your average sheep, even if full of murderous intent, is hardly well-equipped in the fang and claw department. Do the victims get flocked ’til they drop? Will we be introduced to a hitherto unknown martial art called “Nok Ewe Doun” (feature move: the mutton chop)? Perhaps the sheep gang up on their prey, taking them one at a time, and stretch them out on some torture device – for instance a rack… of lamb.

Presumably at some point in the movie, the humans stop being woolly-headed about their predicament. At that point they’ll be able to fight back, and the show will end with our heroes (probably a hunky young farmer and his trusty border collie) contemplating a six-month supply of shepherd’s pie. The peace will last until the movie producers read a follow-up story about Dolly the sheep and come up with: “Black Sheep: Episode II — Attack of the Clones.”

So how will this movie change your life? Well for one thing, if you go see this flick, you won’t ever be able to count sheep to fall asleep again. You may wake up in the middle of the night to find your toddler having nightmares too. “But everywhere that Mary went, the lamb was sure to follow, mommy!”

If the movie becomes a hit, the tabloids will never be the same; we’ll be awash in sheep celeb stories. There will be a headline about a sheep who goes bankrupt, but who is discovered to have a closet full of Ray Baaan sunglasses. The Internet will be flooded with bootleg copies of a video of a private shearing session between the movie’s star sheep and several, ahem, “sheep of the night.”

And inevitably, there will be at least one of the flock who hits the sheep dip a little too hard. He’ll wrap his Lamborghini around a telephone pole one night, get arrested and make headlines for mouthing off about how the cows are responsible for all the wars of the world. Or worse, he’ll lead the police on a high speed chase across town, trying to take it on the lamb.

Right, I know, I’m sorry – this whole column has been full of sheep shots. I guess I just don’t want you to come away from this piece the way I’m sure you’ll come away from the movie.

Feeling fleeced.

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If only I could find them… (Photo credit: postbear)

Humans, it is said, are creatures of habit. That’s certainly true, but it occurs to me that some of our habits are more useful than others.

For example, consider the act of making tea. We toss a teabag in a cup, boil some water, put them together to steep and then… dump the teabag in the sink. I’m not sure why we do this, except that there must have been a rash of garbage pail fires back in the 1970′s caused by hot, soaking wet teabags. Either that or a kitchen cleaner manufacturer has subliminally encouraged this in its advertisements so we buy their ‘tea stain removal’ products.

We have a number of strange habits when we’re on the phone too. For instance, ask anyone (in North America, at least) at the other end of the call a question that involves shuffling through paper or looking something up. Chances are that, while doing so, they will make a strange noise with their mouth that sounds something like “chew-tee chew-chew-chew.” I think this comes from a generation of radio and television conditioning: we know there must not be dead air silence.

Or consider gestures. How many times do you or your officemates gesture to explain something while in a phone conversation, even though the other person isn’t able to see it? And how many times are you going to laugh at yourself this week now that I’ve pointed this out? [Columnist's disclaimer: Author not responsible for laughter causing car accidents if you were talking on your cell phone and noticed yourself gesturing. Indeed, author strongly encourages you to stay off the phone while driving and to stay in your own @#$%^&! lane.]

Speaking of driving, another utterly useless practice is turning on your signal light to indicate that you want to parallel park. This is because in most cities, traffic is so bumper-to-bumper that the person behind you is only three inches away from your tailpipe and couldn’t back up to give you any room even if he wanted to. And anyway, he probably won’t want to, because he’s too busy gesturing rudely at you to move on. Or possibly gesturing at the person he’s talking to on his cell phone.

Some of our habits have good intentions. I suspect most of you, either at home or at the office, have a place at your desk for pens and pencils. This will either be in the right-hand drawer, or in a battered coffee mug that says “I listen to CHUM FM Radio!” on the side. Time for a quick survey. How many of you:

A) Don’t have any actual pens or pencils in your special ‘pen and pencil place’ because you’ve absentmindedly left them near the copier or other people have filched them?

B) Have 38 pens that don’t work because they have no ink, and 15 pencils that don’t work because they haven’t been sharpened in five years and you have no idea where you put the sharpener?

C) Don’t have a special ‘pen and pencil place’ because some dork who was gesturing while talking on his cell phone in the car accidentally crashed through your office and mashed your desk?

Of course there are some habits with historical legacies that may have made sense once. Many of us still say “knock on wood” or “touch wood” when we want to prevent a jinx on whatever we just mentioned. The problem with this of course is that very few of the things we own these days are wood and somehow saying “knock on MDF product” or “touch plastic” just doesn’t have the same ring to it.

And talking of ringing, there’s the phone. I’d sign off on this column now, except that I can’t find a working pen.

Just as well you can’t see me gesturing rudely about this.

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You thought I was kidding about the straw. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Ah, there’s nothing quite like real estate shopping to bring home to you exactly what kind of “purchasing power” you really have.

The process begins with a trip to the bank, where a sharp-eyed analyst will review your finances. He or she will look at your income, your car payments, your credit history, your bank accounts, how much your first born is worth in collateral, the number of gold teeth you have for potential extraction, and the exact distance between your knees and the ground so the “payment guarantor” (a guy named Guido) can adjust his swing accordingly.

After this analysis, during which time it was revealed that you have an excellent credit rating, several thousand in savings and a great gross debt ratio, you will be told you can afford: a straw bale house in rural Wawa.

Okay, so maybe you’ll be able to buy something in metro Wawa; the next part of the procedure is even worse. That’s because you must now start perusing the real estate advertisements. This is a cyclical process that works as follows:

1. You read through the ads rejecting all of those properties not suited to your needs (i.e., anything less than six bales high).
2. You find a few ads that describe houses that sound absolutely perfect (i.e., “Look honey! It’s got barley fibre doors!”)
3. You arrange to visit the property and discover that the ad photo was taken with the Real Estate Agent Camera, which is designed to make the home look three times bigger than it really is, filters out unsightly objects like the auto wrecking yard next door, and is just enough out of focus to hide the peeling paint or missing shingles.
4. You start back at Step 1.

If you’re house shopping right now, I feel your pain — and I have something that may help. I have painstakingly researched and created what may be the world’s first Real Estate Agentease to English dictionary. Some of the most common estate ad terms have been translated below:

Cute: You cannot swing a cat without hitting all four walls.

Cozy: You cannot swing a gerbil without hitting all four walls.

Handyman’s Special: Possibly it’s just best to knock it down and start over.

Bargain House in Country with Acreage: Your spouse will suddenly be seized with a mad desire to raise hogs. Or possibly alpacas.

Income Property: Provides a steady stream as long as your tenants do not do something silly, like default on their payments and then suddenly take a keen interest in pit bull dog ownership.

Quiet Location: Located out beyond even rural Wawa.

Immediate Possession: Code for owner is trying to unload this property in a hurry.

Rare Find: A term used to make the property seem special without actually meaning anything. See also Unique, Exceptional and Exclusive.

Cozy Kitchen: You must sit in the oven to eat your dinner.

Water Frontage: Expect your basement to flood. Monthly.

One Floor Living: The second floor was condemned by the building inspector as unsafe.

Newer Windows/Furnace: They might be less than thirty years old.

Compact Single Family Home: Your mother-in-law is guaranteed to think the house is very cute and want to move in with you.

Great Room: A room in an awkward spot on the floor plan that can’t be used as a living room, dining room, or even foyer.

Vendor is Motivated: Because the property is being watched by the local police.

Feature Home: Agent has represented this property for more than a year and can’t move the thing.

Tent, Sleeps Four: What you might want to consider for your next residence to save yourself the trouble and the expense.

And it beats straw bales.

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Country life: Not necessarily as advertised. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I just finished reading, through bleary eyes in between the 2 a.m. and 3 a.m. teething child fusses, a book called The Quality of Life Report by Meghan Daum. It’s a story about a 30ish New York TV journalist who falls in love with “the simple life” in a small city in the American Midwest while on assignment. Thinking that she’ll become a better person, she follows a crazy impulse and moves there. Naturally she soon discovers that life is no simpler in the “country” than it is in the big city.

It was an interesting read, but it got me thinking: why is it we keep believing that somewhere out there is a ‘simple life’ or even that there once was a ‘good old days?’ This seems to be a persistent theme in our history, going right back to the cave days:

ARGH: Dis life in cave thing not easy. You gots to clean it regular and check it for bears.
MUGG: You said it brudder.
ARGH: Plus you gots to tend the fire or it go out. Then the bears check the cave for yous.
MUGG: Which is no fun.
ARGH: And da risk of getting runned over by mammoths!
MUGG: Don’t even get me started. Life was better in da trees.
ARGH: I hear ya. I hear ya.

The Greeks didn’t have it much better:

ACASTUS: By Zeus, there just aren’t enough hours in the day!
ENDRE: Slave management got you down?
ACASTUS: Yes! If it isn’t one of them needing a flogging it’s the other.
ENDRE: Don’t look at me for sympathy. I’m up to my gyros in this election. Democracy is one heck of a lot of work.
ACASTUS: And then there’s this whole Trojan War thing.
ENDRE: Yeah, that Helen. What a WMD!
ACASTUS: Pardon?
ENDRE: Woman of Mass Distraction.
ACASTUS: Ah.

Or consider revolutionary France:

PIERRE: Did you see the paper today?
ROBES: Now what?
PIERRE: Marie said that if we don’t have any bread, we should eat cake!
ROBES: And which side is she on again?
PIERRE: Sacre bleu! Not ours, you nummy!
ROBES: Sorry. It’s just that it’s all so complicated now, this revolution and all. How I wish for the simpler days when kings were kings, and we peasants knew our place.
PIERRE: Serf’s up, Robes. Get with le program.

The truth is, there never really has been a simpler time. It only seems simpler because it’s all just so much history now, and we know how the story ends. This is like saying “I knew that!” when the identity of the murderer is revealed, and you’ve already had a sneak peek at the end of the mystery novel.

So what about a good ol’ days? Was there ever a golden time, when things were better, easier, more carefree? Of course there was: it’s called your childhood. Life seemed much nicer back then because while you were off playing toy trains with your cousin Eddie, your parents were sweating the details of putting dinner on the table (meatloaf or mac and cheese?), arranging for a mortgage (variable or fixed?) and dealing with office politics (do I call Bob a weenie now or wait ’til the office party?).

Plus, we tend to have selective memories of our childhoods. We remember the cool train set, but not the time cousin Eddie whacked us on the head with the caboose. Or maybe we do and that’s why we’re contemplating calling Bob a weenie, because he reminds us too much of cousin Eddie.

Whatever. The point is that, like the movie said, the grass is usually only greener… over the septic tank.

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Next on my list. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

For the past couple of years now, I’ve been saving two-dollar coins, carefully tucking them away in a wee piggy bank instead of using them to buy my weekly cafe mocha at Tim Horton’s. Those of you familiar with Tim Horton’s coffee know the extent of my sacrifice. For those of you who aren’t, think of your favourite caffeinated beverage and imagine what it would be like if it were ten times tastier. Think whipped cream. Think chocolate sprinkles. Right, now you all understand my pain.

I was saving for something that I figured I couldn’t justify as a household budget expense, but that I really wanted. And last week, I finally had enough to buy it.

A robot.

Not one of those Robosapiens, or the cute little Aibo, and sadly, not the big Asimo of the Honda commercials. Nevertheless, something very cool: A robot vacuum.

There, I’ve admitted it. I am a geek. Other people save up for new bikes, or big screen TVs. For me, this was like having a Ferrari show up at my door. Better, actually, because a Ferrari would have screamed “mid-life crisis!” to the neighbours. The only statement my robotic vacuum makes to the neighbours is that I have a cleaning crisis. Okay, it says that I’m a geek with a cleaning crisis.

You see, nature may abhor a vacuum, but I’m rather partial to clean floors. I also have kids. This means that A) It’s impossible to keep the floor clean — the Cheerios dispersion rate alone defies measurement; and B) The floor must be kept clean, because toddlers don’t differentiate between dropped Cheerios, marbles, onion skins, grocery lists, or dirt tracked in from the garden. Combine this with the fact that children have this rather inconsiderate habit of requiring food, diaper changes, and lots of playtime while you’re trying to do frivolous things like run a business … well, you’ve all been there. Or you are there, and really want to leave.

Dreaming of my robotic vacuum cleaner has kept me going through many a midnight tidy-up session. Much like my washing machine means I don’t have to take the clothes down to the river and pound them with a rock, I looked forward to a time when the vacuum canister wasn’t getting caught in door jambs, smashing into the back of my ankles, or falling down the stairs. Right, so maybe what I should have purchased was the book Vacuuming for Dummies.

Never mind. What’s important is that it arrived last week. A circular machine about the size of a large pizza, it’s not a very bright little ‘bot. It starts in the centre of the room and works its way out, gently bumping into things and turning away – just like me first thing in the morning before I’ve had my coffee. If it strays too close to the stairs, little sensors warn it of impending danger and it backs away – sadly, not just like me in the morning. Prior to my coffee, all *my* sensors do is throw an “ILLEGAL OPERATION: WINDOWS WILL REBOOT NOW” error and down the stairs I go.

When it comes to dirt though, this little robot is an Einstein. Around and around it goes, sucking up crushed Doritos, crayon crumbs, and the large handful of pine needles my smallest son thought was fascinating until they poked his palm. It hoovers up the dog hair left by our last canine visitor, and it attacks our doormat again and again. Did you know our mat actually says WELCOME and not WE C M ?

I must confess my productivity hasn’t increased yet — I’m too busy following the thing around the house, cheering it on as it successfully clambers over the extension cord strip and scoots under my bed to suck up things that neither broom nor regular vacuum have been able to touch. I’m so enthused, I have seriously considered making it a bumper sticker that says: DUSTBUNNIES FEAR ME.

Once the novelty wears off though, I’ll be able to do any number of things while it cleans the floors. I can spend more time with my kids. I might have a shot at finding my kitchen sink under all those dishes. I might even be able to file my column more than a few hours before deadline.

Well, maybe not. It’s not a miracle technology, after all.

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A whole new meaning to “peer-to-peer.”  (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Many a sci-fi author has made money writing a book — which later becomes a movie — that scares people with the proposition that machines will some day take over the world.

Given that most machines, like your dryer, can’t do simple jobs (like drying clothes) without problems (eating your socks, tying your sweater in knots, shredding tissue paper into three million bits), I really don’t understand this fear. Even the most intelligent computers need to be booted (both in the computer sense and in the physical sense) several times a week to make them work properly.

My incomprehension aside, I just read something that should allay those fears. Machines will not take over the world. We will not be replaced by machines. We’re taking over *their* turf.

NTT, a Japanese communications company, has worked on a technology they call RedTacton which allows the human body to transmit data. Relax — this does not involve Matrix style jacks in the back of the head. You won’t even have to learn the secret of navigating voice mail systems without going insane.

The technology makes use of your skin’s naturally occurring minute electrical field, modulates it very slightly and voila! You become your own broadband network, transmitting at speeds of up to 2Mbps.

This means you could have a RedTacton enabled digital camera in your pocket, and you could upload the photos just by touching a spot on a similarly enabled computer. You could trade music files with someone just by shaking their hand. You could swap phone numbers with some hottie you meet in a bar with a quick smooch. Or if you’re Paris Hilton, you could swap all your friends phone numbers and raunchy videos as well.

The possibilities this technology would allow are endless. I’m ecstatic. For one thing it means that never again will my computer be able to tell me it can’t print because it can’t find the printer. I can just march over to the printer and fwap the data directly into it.

It will give students a whole new way to pass notes in class. It will also give them a whole new way to cheat on exams, but it will also give teachers a method for fighting back. Just walk up and lay a casual hand on the student’s shoulder, smile, and upload the DELETE CHEAT SHEET program.

It will drive music industry executives mad, because they’ll now have to sue grandmothers, young children, *and* anyone they see holding hands in a suspicious way, on the grounds they might have been file swapping.

Meanwhile, teenagers will have a new reason to roll their eyes at their parents. I can just see my sons now. “Jeeze, Mum, you actually used *wires* to send data? Or *radio waves?* Didn’t the dinosaurs get in the way of the signal?”

On the downside, approximately two minutes after the technology hits the mass market, spammers will find a way to use it. This will probably involve paying people to ride the subway and jostle other riders, thereby transmitting several thousand adverts for cheap Rolexes, sex drugs, and banned CDs into their iPods.

Virus writers will also surely try to use the technology as well, writing programs especially designed to spread quickly via human to human contact. This will lead to confusion and embarrassment at your yearly physical. “Yes doc, everything is fine. Well, apart from that worm I had last month. No wait! I mean computer worm! What are you doing prepping for surgery?!”

However even human transmitted computer viruses have their upside. Research scientists could program a ‘fake’ virus designed to spread from person to person and report back to a main computer as to where it is, allowing us to better understand how real viruses spread.

Finally, it will totally revolutionize Hollywood. In future spy movies, I can just see James Bond visiting Q now, asking for the technology. “Strictly for Queen and country of course, old chap. Must personally check out all of Goldfinger’s henchwomen, to make sure, they’re not, you know, carrying secret hench codes and so forth.”

And in vampire movies, the villains won’t be out for blood, they’ll be out for data.

“Come on darlink! Just vun… byte!”

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A protection and yard maintenance package  (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

So, it turns out dogs make pretty good film critics.

Pooch and popcorn enthusiasts held a Dog Film Festival in Albuquerque, New Mexico recently. The films had to be about dogs, have dogs in them or make you think about dogs. Owners had to pay $5 to get in, while the dogs got in for free. Of course, no one told them that the proceeds were going to the city’s spay and neuter programs. If they had, I suspect the dogs would have staged a major riot, which would have involved throwing their chocolate covered milkbones at the projectionist.

Why did they hold a film festival for dogs? For starters, it would be impossible to hold one for cats. This is because:

1) You can not leash a cat to take it out anywhere. They either go limp and slither out of their collar, or attempt to shred your shins. Possibly both.
2) If people were able to transport their cats to the theatre, 70 percent of the felines would resolutely look everywhere but the screen, just to be contrary.
3) The other 30 percent would go slightly psycho and attempt to attack whatever was moving on the screen.

But the real reason why they held a film festival for dogs is, well, people get slightly weird about their pets sometimes. We talk to them, hold birthday parties for them, and dress them up in four-legged versions of human clothing. Even I confess to wrapping the odd bone-shaped parcel and putting it under the Christmas tree. Of course, I learned the hard way that it’s never a good idea to put edible things under the tree until Christmas morning.

Of course, there’s a good reason for being nice to animals. In addition to providing companionship, they have skills and abilities we haven’t got, and can’t yet imitate with technology. For example:

Dogs: In addition to protecting your home from squirrels, the neighbourhood cats, and falling leaves, dogs are great additions to any lawn maintenance program. They provide free fertilizer and many dogs aerate your lawn by digging large holes in random places. They’ve also got great noses, capable of detecting a Twinkie at 200 yards. More seriously, we’ve recently discovered that dogs can detect cancerous cells just by scent.

Cats: Cats have this tremendous ability to bring all the hidden mice in your home out into the open, usually by eviscerating them and leaving them on your pillow. They are also an excellent addition to any home office, adding to your professional demeanour by saving all their best hairballs for important conference calls. The sound of a cat purring, meanwhile, may have healing properties — the tone and vibration frequency has been shown to improve bone and muscle thickness.

Fish: Fish promote personal hygiene, mainly because after cleaning out a tank, you smell like, well, fish. Watching fish swim around in their tank or bowl, meanwhile, is a good way to reduce stress. And if you’re depressed, fish are a good source of omega-3 fatty acids, which help combat depression. Mind you, they’re only a good source once.

Rabbits: Rabbits provide free lawn care, trimming the grass down to golf putting green level. They are also excellent at producing more rabbits, which means you could open your own organic lawn care business with only rabbit transport costs to worry about. Petting a rabbit, meanwhile, and assuming you don’t get bitten or kicked, can reduce stress levels and promote general well-being. For you, if not the rabbit.

So the next time you rent a movie, consider inviting your furry or scaly family friends in to watch too. You never know how they might pay you back.

Chandra Clarke | Humor and Jokes - This material is safe for work. No really, it is.

This hurts to look at. (Photo credit: GO INTERACTIVE WELLNESS)

First it was tae bo kick boxing. Then yoga was all the rage. Then came Pilates. After that, fusion programs became trendy — things like yolates and piloga. And you just know that someone, somewhere, is working on a kick boxing version of ashtanga power yoga. (“Peace be with you.” *Thwack!*)

As a parent, business person and writer, I find it hard to make time for exercise. Thus, not to be outdone in the trendsetting department, I have come up with my own program: Yoga for Parents. I believe that it will be easy for most parents to incorporate the following routine into their daily schedule:

Sun Too Soon: Begin with this posture, first thing in the morning. Use the left hand to gracefully pull the blankets over your head while the right hand snakes out to push down the snooze button of your alarm.

Drunken Master Walk: After several reps of Sun Too Soon, make your way to the bathroom. Let yourself bounce gently off the hall walls. Breathe deeply with each impact to bring yourself to partial wakefulness.

Power Shower: Place both hands in a choke hold around the shower head and let yourself dangle from it while the water cascades over your body. This will stretch and tone the arm muscles, while loosening the back and shoulder muscles.

Java Warrior: With both hands wrapped around your mug, take long, deep gulps of your morning coffee. Don’t forget your breathing.

Hands Cover Ears: Use this posture to approach your child’s bedroom, especially if they are awake and exceedingly hungry. It will help you retain some semblance of the peace you were enjoying before Sun Too Soon.

The Octopus: Pin the child with two hands, unbutton jammies with another two hands, remove diaper with two hands, hold nose with one hand. Use remaining hands to prepare new diaper and put it on.

The Squid: Use two hands to feed child. Moving constantly and quickly, use remaining hands to catch flying food, wipe nearby surfaces, and guard your clothing. This is an advanced routine, but with practice, you’ll be able to catch all the food bits before they hit ground.

The Nose Bridge: Throughout the day, bring two fingers to the bridge of your nose in a pinching motion. This will relieve stress and bring a momentary sense of peace.

The Cow Pasture: Use exaggerated leg movements to both improve range of motion and proceed with caution through the debris field that is your child’s play area. Stepping on a plastic toy disturbs your aura nearly as much as stepping in a cow pie. Stepping on and squishing Woodsy the Bear will also really disturb your child’s aura.

Java Warrior Redux: As the day wears on, you may find you need to repeat this movement to maintain peak productivity.

The Toe Deflects: While stirring the pot for dinner, move one leg in a slow arc to carefully redirect your child from the stove/garbage pail/cupboard/other half dozen things he’s trying to get into while you’re cooking.

One Hand Clapping: Children should be praised for their accomplishments, but this can be difficult when you’re cooking/cleaning/trying to run your business. Use this movement to reinforce good behaviour.

The Crane: If you find yourself unable to get away from the phone (talkative neighbour, telemarketer, on hold with utility company), use this posture to keep an eye on your youngster.

The Hummingbird: A quick darting movement may become necessary after The Crane, say, if you spot your child shinnying up the lamp post.

Fireman’s Lift: When it’s time for bed, sneak up on your child, scoop him up, and put him over your shoulder. It may be necessary to adapt The Octopus to keep him from squirming away or grabbing door jambs en route to his crib.

Downward Facing Dad: At days end, you will find you have no problem adopting this pose for slumbering purposes. Indeed, the only issue will be making sure you are near the bed when the posture takes you.

Chandra Clarke | Humor and Jokes - This material is safe for work. No really, it is.