Investigative Report Guest Post: Norse Mystery June 21, 2007

By: DoL Roaming Reporter Jeffxa, Defender of Rightful Gender Assignments.

On my drive home on Alternate Route C* at Islington & Kingsway, there is a bus-stop ad for a husband-wife real estate agent pair:

NIELS AND DORIS - SEE THE DIFFERENCE

What’s interesting, is that they always say “Niels and Doris” in that order, but the picture shows a woman and a man from left to right, implying in fact that Niels is a woman and Doris is a man.  Excitement!

Checking the website yields further evidence of this crazy phenomenon.

Niels and Doris: Exhibit A

Niels and Doris: Exhibit B

However, under the aptly named “About Us” page, the mystery is solved!  In fact they are not unfortunately named or transgendered after all.

So, heads-up all bus-ad using husband-wife real estate teams.  Don’t get trapped by the Niels & Doris… trap.  Confusing your potential clients is not helpful.

* there are several potential routes, these are however top secret, so don’t get any crazy ideas, dickhead.

“Who dare insult me in front of my minions!” June 20, 2007

min·ion (n.): An obsequious follower or dependent; a sycophant. 

It came to my attention recently that Jeffxa (our sometimes roaming reporter) has not one, but TWO minions at work.  Though only part-time, Jeffxa recognizes their value; “one is a kinda punk guy who drives a motorcycle and the other is an anime chick who favours very low-slung slacks.  Good diversity.”

I would like to point out, that I, intrepid DoL raconteur and technical bean-counter, have NO minion.  Not even a part-time one.

Reasons I deserve a minion:

1)  My car would be cleaner.

2) Wouldn’t have to get my own steeped (or stepped if we’re in Mongolia) tea.

3) Someone I could take out my frustration on while having them do my bidding.  For example:  “What do you mean urban outfitters only carries their rompers online?  Minion!  Drive down to New York and get me my romper!  And while you’re there - throw these bags of soggy oatmeal at urban’s head office. Post haste!”

4)  I could have my minions compete with other minions in some sort of sycophantian-olympics.  Games could include relays involving dry cleaning pick-up; extremely complex starbucks orders that must be filled without aid of written instructions; a race to climb a really smooth-barked tree at the top of which is an angry possum and at the bottom of which is some sort of electrically charged astro-turf ground cover; and so on.

5) My street cred would go up.  Nothing says hip like people following you with clip boards and a boom box.  That’s right.  A boom box.

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Applications welcome - please include references.

Investigative Report Guest Post: Smarties June 18, 2007

By: DoL Roaming Reporter Jeffxa, Defender of Snacks.

As proponent of all things delicious and snackly, I have taken it upon myself to do a fairly rudimentary analysis of Smarties.

*cough*

Smarties are:
a) sweet and delicious
b) oddly greasy
c) made in, among other places, York, where my mother has apparantly been once
d) described as “oblate spheroids” by whatever weiner wrote the wikipedia entry

In my box, previously located in spot E3 at the Ecandy machine, there were a whopping 11 reds, nearly 20% of the total content.  So, its actually quite probable that through no intent of your own, you may indeed eat the red ones last, or at least *A* red one last.  Not going to get into the permutations and combinations to find out the probabilities involved.  What matters is that if you dump the whole thing out, its pretty much a dead lock that if you want to, you will eat the red ones last. 

Oh, and apparantly the blue ones are dyed with a derivative of a snail or something, neither kosher nor vegetarian.  Score!

Stepped tea? June 15, 2007

take that, tim horton’s.

Falsi-lexi of the Day - “Spitoon” June 13, 2007

Spitoon (n.) - A spitoon is a receptacle made specifically for olive pits. Not to be confused with a “spittoon”, which is for chewin’ tabakee. 

example: “These kalamatas are lovely, but without a spitoon for my pits, my enjoyment is decreased considerably.” 

*I get that I’m pushing it with this one.  But when I came up with it last night I felt a recognizable amount of mirth, put my arms in the air and said “holla” in a jovial fashion.

aminal of the day: the bison. June 7, 2007

Bison:  An oxlike ruminant, Bison bison, having a large head and high, humped shoulders: formerly common in North America, its small remaining population in isolated western areas of the U.S. and Canada, specifically the High Park Zoo, is now protected.

Things to consider about the bison bison:

1)  They prefer to be called by their full latin name “bison bison” in a faux-french accent.

2)  Their meat is delicious.  I recommend trying it at Perigee. 

3)  You can try to milk them and make cheese, but I wouldn’t recommend it. We considered dressing up like ninjas and giving it a whirl, but the plan really fell through when Andrea couldn’t come up with the night vision goggles.

4)  Homosexual behaviour is common amongst the bison bison*.

5)  They are also referred to as Prairie Cows, but they find this demeaning.

* Doubt me?  Check Wikipedia.  *wiki*

whatever happened to you, timotei? June 5, 2007

Timotei® (n.) (pronounced like Tim O’Tay, the name of a well coiffed Irishman) is a shampoo brand owned by Unilever (and from what I can see, no longer available in Canada).  

Things I remember about Timotei®:

1)  Commercials with flaxen-extremely-freaking-long-haired lasses, swinging under big trees OR showering under waterfalls in secluded rainforests.

2)  The lovely natural smell.

3)  I feel like there was a jingle - something airy, Enya-ish, wood-nymph evoking…

Things I don’t remember about Timotei, but that came up in my research:

1)  The name Timotei® comes from Timothy-grass, which is commonly grown for cattle feed and, in particular, as hay for horses.

2)  It was popular with lions.

Under Dashboard, Options, and then Tagline. June 1, 2007

Being on the proverbial ball as I am, I only yesterday realised that you can change the “just another wordpress blog” line under the title.  This discovery made me actually fall off said ball.  From now on I am sticking with my pogobal; the rings of saturn style platform allow for a more graceful stumble.

I digress.

We have come up with some possible taglines.  It would make my life easier if you could all let me know which you like the best (the comments section is handy for this).  It’s hard being clever all on your own; this is especially obvious in this post, where all the options below were submitted by Jeff “The Tagline” Reits.

1)  DoL - because all the other good titles were taken, you selfish bastards
2)  DoL - dual-pronged, smooth-covered, quasi-entertaining goodness for all. and some cement.
3)  DoL - because you can never have too many lies and they conveniently fit into a duotang. 
4)  DoL - that lying-down stereo guy ended up eating little superstar.  you heard it hear first.
5)  DoL - available in Haitian Creole by pressing Alt-H-C and then closing your eyes and wishing.
6)  DoL - if you’re not 100% entertained, go by a bus ticket to Branson, Missouri. Cause that’s the only cure, baby.
7)  DoL - showing you the meaning of ‘keyboard’ since 2006.
8)  DoL - stop eating that Snickers bar and read, damnit.
9)  DoL - 7% of your recommended daily doses of hillarity and riboflavin.
10)  DoL - because there probably is a cure for your ‘non-stop crying’ problem baffling scienticians.
11)  DoL - your sole source for internet non-porn… well, no, actually, but now with 63% LESS porn.

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