Behold the Devil

Now I’m not necessarily a fan of conspiracy theories, although I’ve long believed that if you get paid for providing a service, then it’s in your best interest to make sure you don’t do your job too well.
Case in point — therapists.
My own personal preference if I needed some mind work done, would be to find a therapist who had oodles of time on her hands.
And yes, I doubt I’d ever see a male therapist, because everybody knows men don’t have feelings, and certainly don’t know how to discuss them.
And they’re always wrong. And they can be easily distracted by a decent set, or a shoddy set, or any set, come to think of it.
Anyway, I would likely find a therapist who had plenty of time to spare.
“I need to see you now,” I would say.
“Sure, come on over, I’m just polishing the leaves on my rubber plant. It’s shiny!” she would reply.
Why does she have so much time? Because she’s so damn successful, that’s why.
Her patients come in broken, leave fixed, and unless they get caught in a vortex that is Vulcan, AB., they never have to return.
Done and done.
Journalists work in much the same manner. First, write a story, but don’t write it too well or else you’ll never have a reason to do the second, follow up story, followed by the third. And judging by trilogies, the first is always acclaimed, the second is tripe, crap, offering just enough to keep people interested, but not nearly enough to remember, and the third is the Pulitzer.
Although I don’t know how they’re going to best Shrek 2. I just don’t know how they’ll do it. Puss In Boots was hilarious. Antonio, you’re such a card!
But back to conspiracies, I think I have found one and I need to share it with the world.
It comes in a tube, it smells delish, it’s greasy and it’s blue.
That’s right, you guessed it.
Lip balm, or rather Blistex Complete Moisture Lip Balm.
The product comes in a cool, blue tube, and the packaging proclaims it “Penetrates to quench dry lips.”
Now, I did indeed sense some penetration when the balm was applied, but quench dry lips? No siree bob did it quench dry lips, rather, it created dry lips.
Shocked?
I’m not. I’m rather impressed by the folks at the lip balm factory for having the nerve to concoct this witches brew, this devil stick.
Both myself and a friend, I’ll call him Ken, smothered our lips with Complete Moisture, only to notice the very next day that we had developed an insatiable appetite for it. It seemed the more we used the worse our poor, dried out faces required.
Clever, you Blistex charlatans. Very clever.

Bigger and better seizures

Pamela Fayerman, Vancouver Sun
Published: Tuesday, February 27, 2007
B.C. doctors are being put on alert that the most commonly prescribed antidepressant in B.C. is increasingly being observed to have toxic overdose consequences like seizures and even deaths.
"We are alerting doctors about our concerns to give them a heads-up that it is a potential concern because it appears it is more toxic than it was originally hoped it would be," Derek Daws, managing director of the B.C. Drug and Poison Information Centre said in an interview Monday, referring to the medication called venlafaxine, whose brand name is Effexor.

Talk about spinning a sentence to make something terribly frightening sound actually kind of positive.
“It appears it is more toxic than it was originally hoped it would be.”
Wow! You guys did it. You’d figured it would be a little toxic, and now it’s even more toxic than you’d hoped!
Kudos.

Can't you smell the popcorn

Don’t know whether or not it’s because I’m a sheep, I am the marketing person’s dream come true or because I can’t get enough of those giant posters advertising Norbitt, but I found myself at the theatre this weekend, desperate to see what all the hype was about.
I could have checked out Babel, but I hear it’s el terriblay, disjointed and bleak, or I might have stopped in on The Queen if I could have found any soul willing to accompany. Not even a glimpse of Helen Mirren’s ample bosom could entice the hubby. Maybe he’s gay.
So, along with a friend I grabbed a ticket to Dreamgirls to see what all the fuss was about.
And Gack! So much singing. Why didn’t someone tell me this was a musical?
The film was fun to watch and mostly fun to listen to. It was really an attractive movie — I found myself more interested in what Beyonce would wear next than what the plot happened to drop in my lap.
Overall, a decent pick if you’re out this weekend. But take note — Jennifer Hudson has an amazing voice, truly, but sometimes you just want to cover your ears.
It’s just too much.

Other hits and misses both on video and on the big screen:

Pan’s Labyrinth: Brilliant. Loved it. Didn’t even realize I was reading subtitles it was so good. Very bleak, very scary, very brutal. Not a movie for kids, but a film that will stay with you for ages after you’ve watched it. It’s also one that I want to see again and again. I know that when I go back to this movie I’ll notice things that I missed during the first go round.

Children of Men: Clive Owen drew me to this film. He’s a very handsome man if I do say so, and an accent always gets me. That’s what I’m always telling Ken, but then I have to remind him that Peter Griffin is not an accent, he’s a cartoon character, and not a particularly sexy one at that. But back to the film — very dark, very bleak, a really interesting concept about what would become of a childless world. Interesting, violent and fast paced. It’s also not an epic film — so many movies fail these days because they’re just too damn long.

The Illusionist: Edward Norton drew me to this film. He’s a very handsome man if I do say so, but I don’t like his accent in this film. Is it Dutch? Dunno, but don’t like. Do like the film, though. It’s dark and moody. The plot isn’t difficult to figure out. If you are clapping the side of your head when it’s all said and done, shouting “I never would have guessed it!” Alex Trebeck won’t be calling you anytime soon. It’s a gooder, may as well rent it.

Crank: Ken’s choice. Both of us hated it, but then again, when I hate something I manage to make everyone else who is in the room hate it as well. I don’t mind Jason Statham, and I don’t mind Amy Smart. But this movie, which did have a sort of interesting plot, went haywire. By the end I wasn’t even laughing. Granted it’s not a comedy, but if you can’t laugh at the stupidity of the film, then you’re just left shaking your head and wondering how difficult it would be to murder yourself with a fat, red crochet hook.

Once a cheetah, always a cheetah

Associated Press
Published: Tuesday, February 13, 2007
BRUSSELS, Belgium -- An animal lover was mauled to death by cheetahs after entering their cage at a zoo in northern Belgium, authorities and zoo officials said Monday. Karen Aerts, 37, of Antwerp, was found dead in the cage, Olmense Zoo spokesman Jan Libot said. Police said they ruled out any foul play. Authorities believe Aerts, a regular visitor to the zoo, hid in the park late Sunday until it closed and managed to find the keys to the cheetah cage. "Karen loved animals. Unfortunately the cheetahs betrayed her trust," Libot said. One of the cats that killed Aerts was named Bongo, whom the woman had adopted under a special program. She paid for Bongo's food, Libot said. Animal rights group GAIA called for the immediate closure of the zoo, located 90 km northeast of Brussels, saying it was unsafe for both visitors and the cats. Rudy Demotte, the Belgian minister responsible for animal welfare, sent a team to investigate.

I, for one, would never have thought a cheetah could have betrayed the trust of a friend.
What does this tell you?
Never trust a cheetah. I personally think that’d make a great t-shirt. Maybe with a little lamé animal print?
And on a side note, if cheetahs are so damned dangerous and unpredictable, then why aren’t they locked in a secure cage?
Oh, wait….
I would have figured she’d be totally safe, that is, unless she doused herself with antelope urine beforehand.
I hear cheetahs go crazy for that stuff.

Sure they're real

If I were rich.
The plan has always been well established. I’d learn to speak Spanish, invest heavily in dark chocolate and take up the harp — and not one of those lame, child-could hold onto ‘em harps, one of those really big celestial ones.
Anyone can learn the guitar or the flute, and don’t get me started on the piano, but so few have the means to purchase and store a gigantic harp. And fewer still, I imagine, would be able to procure harp lessons from a harp virtuoso.
Nothing quite says ostentatious like a giant harp in the living room. You can take your saxophone and shove it Kenny G, I’ve got me a damn harp!
Along with my language skills and my harp-playing skills, I’d also take up another skill, one that I’ve always wanted to master.
Hairdressing. Or styling. Or whatever they’re calling it these days.
I want to pump all the colour around in the weird, flat-bottomed, handle-having bowls; I want to wield that trimmer with verve. I want to flip those little foil pieces to the ground with gusto and I want to shout “Voila!” as I turn my once ugly duckling toward the mirror, revealing the masterpiece I have created.
I think I’d be great at it. Have always thought so.
Until recently, however, when my view of hair stylists, and women in general, came tumbling, tumbling, down, down, down.
A profound feminist, I was reminded of late why it is that we’re still not where we need to be. Reminded, as Sandra Bullock was in Hope Floats, that oftentimes members of our own sex are out there, lurking in the shadows, ready to betray us.
Ah, good show.
I recently found myself sitting poised in one of my favourite places — the uppy-downy chair at a hair salon. I love the smells, the lighting, the regalness that is getting your every follicle tended to by a skilled professional.
The woman tending to my much-maligned coif shampooed and scrubbed, toweled and tousled.
And then she began to speak.
That was the end of my great salon experience.
The woman was younger than myself, a mother, and en route to becoming a wife.
Having recently got over the ridiculousness that is wedding planning, I offered her a few tips. I kept the “Don’t do it,” tip to myself, I’ll have you know.
And then she said:
“Yeah, weddings are a lot of work. My boyfriend said he’d buy me a boob job if I agreed to go to Vegas and get married.”
She went on: “I said, ‘Whatever, you’ll buy me a boob job anyways,’ snorkel, snorkel.” (I used the term “snorkel” to linguistically describe the sound her laugh made. It wasn’t so much as a laugh as a grunt/snort/giggle. Or maybe I’m lying and her snorkel sounds just make for a better story.
But back to the boobs.
What does she get out of it other than a really painful surgery and maybe a few casual glances cast her way by pervy men with whom she doesn’t intend to begin a relationship?
And what does the guy get? Well, he gets it all, now, doesn’t he? He gets the wedding in Vegas and the fake boobs to match.
If this were just one instance of a near stranger confessing to me that her boyfriend had offered to buy her a boob job, I might let it go, take it under advisement and assume that she’s just one escapee from the idiot farm.
But I’ve heard this “buy me a boob job” comment from several women of late.
Boob jobs, it seems, have become the latest craze, replacing ear piercing, perms and acrylic nails.
Sure, it might be a bit painful, but could you imagine how great they’ll look in a sweater?
They are no longer random body parts, rather, they’re accessories, purchased with no more thought than a really great purse.
And another thing — can you play the harp with a set of really big ones?
And P.S. if you do have a harp, and carry it along with you, nobody’s going to be looking at your girls.