johnrobe

Trivial but interesting fact I learned from hitting "Random Article" on Wikipedia — A guy named John Scott Harrison is the only person to be both the father and the son of a US president. Plus to top it off, his grampa Benjamin Harrison V, signed the Declaration of Independence.

His son was Benjamin Harrison, who I know nothing about, and his father was William Henry Harrison aka "I died in 30 days!"

That’s a lot of president in one family, eh?

John Politics

Originally uploaded by puuikibeach

I live with a wonderful woman who goes into a freaky rage at the sight of an apostrophe in the wrong place. I admit that I react with emotions ranging from amusement to mild anger whenever I see a grocer’s apostrophe myself, but my reaction is nothing like Timmi’s.

So it’s a good thing we’ve never been to the Grand Canyon!

Two people were just convicted and sentenced for correcting the grammar on two signs in the Grand Canyon National Park. They were sentenced to a year’s probation and banned from US National Parks for a year. I suppose it’s not a huge sentence, but it’s still injustice, if you ask me.

Photo credits as noted. Found in the the (awesome) Atrocious Apostrophe’s Flickr group.

And now … the same post, apostrophe-gone-mad style!

I live with a wonderful woman who goe’s into a freaky rage at the sight of an apostrophe in the wrong place. I admit that I react with emotions’ ranging from amusement to mild anger whenever I see a grocers’ apostrophe myself, but my reaction is nothing like Timmis.

So its a good thing weve never been to the Grand Canyon!

Two people were just convicted and sentenced for correcting the grammar on two sign’s in the Grand Canyon National Park. They were sentenced to a years’ probation and banned from US National Park’s for a year. I suppose its’ not a huge sentence, but its still injustice, if you ask me.

Photo credit’s as noted. Found in the the (awesome) Atrocious’ Apostrophes’ Flickr group.

John Photo Snarkiness, Politics, Rants

I love my neighbourhood, and I have to say that generally speaking, I am politically aligned with it. Every election though, I find myself shocked, not so much at the results for my riding, but at the people in it.

People in The Beaches (not The Beach, which I refuse to buy into) come in two types, if you look at the people standing in line at my polling stations.

1) Soccer moms, their kids and their husbands
2) Hippies

Not the tie-dye wearing flower children type of hippie, but the type who grew up, bought houses, had kids, worked at real jobs, but still play guitar on the weekends and wear sandals everywhere.

Seriously, last night was raining and cold, yet half the people in my polling station were wearing sandals!

Although this sounds rant-ish, it’s really not. My neighbours are all great. I just question their choice in footwear.

John Politics, Rants

I go from one end of the country to the other and the world goes to hell in a handbasket!

I grew up in the 80s (and maybe the 70s, I admit nothing) and lived in perpetual fear of a nuclear holocaust, and ever since I was aware of it, the Doomsday Clock was the symbol of that fear. I used to honestly think about the clock, imagining its giant hands clicking closer to midnight and the fireballs over Toronto and London and Kitchener that would mean I had to run to the basement and go into hiding until the fallout was gone.

Today, The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, the group that sets the clock, announced that they were moving the clock two minutes closer to midnight, putting us at 11:55 — not a good place to be. I first heard this on the radio, and images from my childhood of that giant, scary clock went through my mind.

And then I saw a clip on TV at the airport of one of the scientists solemnly pulling a cloth off a stand next to the podium revealing a terrifying piece of BRISTOL BOARD with a clock on it in what appeared to be magic marker!

Gah!

Seriously, this is the Doomsday clock we’re talking about. Stephen Hawking was at the press conference to read a statement. It was a worldwide news event. The best you could come up with was CARDBOARD?

Wait a sec … does this mean there IS no clock? That there never has been one?

Apparently!

Seriously, I’m not expecting that there’s some sort of magical clock that reads the minds of scientists and sets itself accordingly or anything… all I want is an appropriately scary prop that looks like a clock! It’s not that expensive! I’m sure I could whip one up for a couple hundred bucks that would do the job! Hell … didn’t anyone have a standard kitchen wall clock they could have used? Set it to five minutes to midnight, unplug it, then put that ominous cloth over it for the ceremony. Voila!

Remember the first time you found the truth about Santa Claus? How you had this crushing disappointment because something so good and wonderful wasn’t real? This is the opposite of that.

John Politics

When I was in grade 12, we had a really really strict English teacher come to our high school. He was actually from England, and seemed to have it in for all of us Canadian keeners who thought we knew his language. On the 5th of November that most hellish of years (from an English class perspective) he came in and asked us all if we were celebrating Guy Fawkes’ day. Of course, none of us had any clue what he was talking about, which delighted him to no end. He was the type of teacher (that I hope you never had) who seemed to live for those moments when he knew more than his students, and would then stand there grinning and cackling at us. I’m serious, he cackled.

After the “laughter” stopped, he explained that Guy Fawkes’ Day was November 5th, the day that a Catholic named Guy Fawkes’ tried to blow up the English Parliament, and King James the First.

When we asked why they would celebrate that, he said, “Because they caught him!” and cackled some more. It wasn’t for years that I learned it was more of an anti-Catholic holiday in its origins.

I sort of blocked the whole incident, I admit, until I went to see V for Vendetta, which was actually very enjoyable.

So here’s to you Guy Fawkes — teaching children via your plots and misfortunes, centuries later. And to that English teacher … bite me.

John Politics

Today I read a news story in the elvator that could have been from the Onion. Apparently, Iran has renamed danishes to “Roses of the Prophet Mohammad”. Actually, it was the Iranian confectioner’s union, but close enough.

In a move echoing “Freedom fries” and … wait a minute… confectioner’s union?????

So yeah … they renamed all the danish style pastries no matter where they came from (pretty much all from Iran) in retaliation for the Danish cartoons that have much of the muslim world in an uproar.

When will the world stop overreacting to things? Until it does, I am punishing Iran by renaming the Flock of Seagulls classic “I Ran” to “That Diet Pepsi commercial song”.

John Food, Politics

As many of you know, I’m originally from Woodstock Ontario. When I was growing up, Oxford County was a solidly Progressive Conservative riding. Occasionally, my mom, who was a closet Liberal, used to make comments to Dad over the dinner table that were veiled political comments and those little quiet zingers the closest the Robertsons, and by my own child-like extrapolation, Oxford County ever got to political variation.

Then I went to university, and the whole thing got turned on its ear. The county elected an NDP MPP in the great Bob Rae landslide and since then it’s been a Liberal / Conservative battleground. On election night, as I sat at my computer watching the results come in from across the country, I occasionally clicked on Oxford County to see how the results were looking back home. I was also interested because I was vaguely wondering if the Liberal candidate was related to a girl I went out with in high school. (I still don’t know!)

It was a reasonably close race that the Conservatives ended up winning, with a real breadth of candidates, including Kaye Sargent, the Libertarian who had been running since I was back in high school. (She always totally kicked everyone’s ass in the debates).

Many things happened that fateful night, with dreams realized and hopes crushed across the country, and the most important to me was not the election of Stephen Harper — it was my discovery of the most awesome political website in the world, the website for Jim Bender, Marijuana Party candidate in Oxford County.

Check it out. Click on it. The site has changed a little since the election… it has a nice Valentine message, but with respect to what makes the site awesome, it hasn’t changed. It has it all.

Black background …check!
Red text …check!
Yellow text …check!
Green text …check!
Giant text (Jakob Neilson would be proud) …check!
Scrolling text …check check!
Spinning bong …check!
Floating hearts …check!
Twirling marijuana globes …check check!
Serif fonts …check!
Sans-serif fonts …check!
Use of the term “scratch n splif” …check!

Honestly, I don’t mean to be mean to the guy … for a few reasons. I know it’s not easy to make a website. It’s certainly not easy to make one like that. *rimshot*

Also, it’s easy to sit back and make fun of someone else’s efforts, but it’s not particularly nice or classy. Jim, if you ever read this, please don’t be too offended, I’m actually kind of a fan. Although I am mocking the presentation, I’m passing no judgement on the content. Although I think it’s safe to say I’m not ever going to vote Mary Jane, I have to admit, the passion and articulation with which the arguments are presented is admirable.

Besides… I’m not the target audience for this site. I honestly think that for someone who is leaning toward voting Marijuana, this site might put them over. I also think that this site would quite simply be AWESOME when stoned, and for that, Jim Bender, I tip my cap to you.

John Design, Politics