What Would Joan Jetta Do?

Joan Jetta would totally smash into the back of your truck if you don't yield the right of way, bitches!
I may have mentioned to a few of you that I was thinking of rolling Joanie off a cliff to put her out of her misery. Well, the mountain came to Mohamed. Joanie smashed into a truck last night and man, she is banged up worse than the paparazzi when they messed with Tobey Maguire.

Long-story-short, I was traveling northbound on King Street in Waterloo and some kid who was traveling southbound did not notice the steady stream of oncoming traffic cruising through the green light and decided that he should make a very dangerous left-hand turn. Clearly not the best decision he would make in his short 20-year stint of time here at this gig called "Earth".

Luckily, I saw the guy in the truck start to turn left when it was clearly unsafe to do so, so I had time to brace myself against the steering wheel so that I wouldn't go face first into the steering wheel or get whiplash. No one was hurt, thank goodness.

See pics below:

The point of impact - the other side was pretty smashed up too. It's hard to see from the picture, but the front plane of the car is no longer bumper and grill and hood, it's a vertical plane of bumpergrillhood. I think that the VW symbol on the front of my car vaporized on impact. I couldn't find it anywhere. Maybe that was Joanie's soul and it's now in heaven with Tercela (my first car)?



Both airbags blew and my whole car was shrouded in this mystical airbag mist that will probably give me cancer of the miscelaneous body part. The windshield was smashed, but didn't shatter into pieces (thank goodness). I prefer my eyes to not be filled with shards of glass. I know, I know. I'm a total princess.



Check out the insides of my bitchin' stereo!! I wonder if this is a safety feature of some sort...the stereo/radio is a designated crumple point to absorb impact.



I truly loved my Joanie, but I'm afraid she's not going to be salvageable, except by salvagers who will strip her down and sell her for parts, kind of like that new Paris Hilton movie, which looks like a garbage pile in a failure bowl (starring none other than Giles from Buffy - note, I'm on a Buffy kick right now).

I'm now driving a rented Kia Rio, and because I name all my cars, she has been dubbed "Rosie", and no - it's not because the car is cheap and it's had sex with Tom Arnold. At first I was calling her Kia Farrow, which then led to Rosemary's Baby and now it's just Rosie. If you need a name for your car, just let me know. Previous car names have included:

Joseph Stallin'
Michigan J. Frog
Stally Jesse Raphael
Tercela the Tercel
Paul Walker's Scrotum

Ok - that last one wasn't a name I made up for a car. It's a name I made up for Paul Walker's scrotum.

When I got home last night, I had to call Economical insurance to make my claim. I'm not sure if their system was overloaded or if it was just not working right, but I kept on getting cut off when I was on hold waiting for an agent, so I had to call back a few times. At least I had a nice song to keep me occupied and calm while I was waiting to get service (or waiting to get cut off again). Please excuse my poor song lyrics recall in this video. I was still a bit shaken up from the accident.



Every time I called in, Africa was the waiting music. I wonder if that's how Economical measures their customer service? Instead of dropped calls or customer satisfaction rates, they measure how many Africas the customer has to listen to before they get the service they were calling in for.

Boss: Bradley - could you come into my office for a minute?
Bradley: Sure thing, Mr Corriander.
Boss: Bradley, I'd like to talk to you about your call response times. Our metrics tell us that your customers listen to at least one and a half Africas before their calls are answered. This is far longer than service excellence objective of answering all calls before the lead singer of Toto stops the old man and asks for some old forgotten words or ancient melodies. What do you have to say for yourself?
Bradley: I'll try harder from now on.
Boss: Well I hope that next time you take some time to do the things you never had.

Grammar, Toto. Grammar!!

Did you know...

...that the head vampire from the first season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer is no other than...
Da-da-da-da!
The mean and yelly dad from the Twisted Sister videos!



The first minute of this is pure, twisted familial gold.

If you liked "We're Not Gonna Take It", you'll like this too.



I remember being so excited when these videos graced the TV screen when I was a kid. I not-so-secretly wished that the next time I was bullied, I'd say the magic words ("I wanna rock") and my comrades and I would suddenly turn into the love children of Jem & the Holograms and Guns 'n' Roses. That's a shock and awe tactic unto itself.

Juns & the Rosograms also had another famous child

"Creeeeeeeole lady mama-lahhhhhd"

The mean, yelly dad from the Twisted Sister videos is actually named Mark Metcalf and he's kind of like Ron Howard's brother. You know him from lots of things, but do you really know him? Do you know that he owns a restaurant in Milwaukee? Do you know that his wife's name is Libby? Do you know that he wrote a poem about AIDS? Well, he did. And he put it on the internet. You should stop taking from the internet and start giving to the internet like me, Mark Metcalf and one of our other gifts from God, Tina Chen. I highly recommend you listen to her song about Missouri, the state she lives in (that God created) and "Not Like Any Other" which gets really awesome, really early in the song. If you prefer electronic music to a Capella, I suggest you listen to the version of "Missouri" in the link below. This has inspired me to write a song about my state, Ontario.

While you're waiting for the internet debut of my song about Ontario, here's Robo's latest contribution to the Internet. I traveled to Seattle for work last week and Robo decided to have one of his famous wee-hours shrieking matches with one of the neighborhood cats. How cute! Especially because I had to be up at 330 to catch a 4am limo. By the time I got to him, the shrieking had stopped, but there was still some howling to be done. He's so cute, but he's equal parts cute and disruptive.

This Apology is Brought to You By Joe Camel

I received an anonymous comment on one of my posts (The Ladybug's Picnic Totally Sucked - posted 2008/10/26). I am truly sorry if any offense was taken regarding my comments about baby formula. My comments were not meant to be a slight against those who use baby formula (parents and babies alike) or formula itself, but instead was meant to draw attention to the absurdity and duplicity of the ad campaign featuring Ty Pennington. Once again, my apologies if any offense was taken.

I've outlined my point a little better below. This is not meant to be in defense of any comments that were offensive. If you were offended, that's that. I offended someone. I won't try to un-offend you or try to convince you that you shouldn't have been offended. That in itself is offensive. It's just a better explanation of where the motivation for my comments was coming from.

From my point of view, Ty Pennington is to Similac baby formula as Joe Camel was to Camel Cigarettes. A highly attractive character sent to prey on our human tendencies to gravitate toward that which is attractive or desired. Ad campaigns of this nature usually have little to do with the product itself, it has to do with getting closer to a lifestyle or something/someone that is highly desirable, hence the popularity and effectiveness of celebrity endorsements. The reality is that the product is no better or worse just because a celebrity endorses it. I've fallen prey to this...everyone has. That's why celebrity endorsements prevail. The problem in the case of Ty Pennington and Similac is that there is a mismatch between the endorser, the endorsed and the target market.



Baby formula is something that could mean the difference between a healthy baby and failure to thrive. Who could argue with that?

Nobody.

Do I think they could have picked a more credible spokesperson to make their product seem more desirable than its competitors' products?

Yes.

Do I think that Similac will lose credibility due to this ad campaign?

Yes.

That's the explicit version of the judgment I was making.

So now while I'm on the topic of judgment, I'll judge hard on the cigarette companies by posting the pictures/ads below. This is directed toward the cigarette companies, not the smokers out there. I know it's a complex issue and that the taxes from cigarettes are a revenue stream for our government and I know they sponsor the arts, etc, etc, but you have to admit...these ads are a bit over the top.

This one says "Now Taste America" in Czech


Wow - a lady-doctor. What were they thinking in 1946? If you get out your magnifying glass and you can make out what they're saying about the "T-zone" in the bottom of the ad, it's worth the squinting.


"I can't quit you..."


I think this is my fave. In the one on the left, is the mother going to scold the baby for its bad taste in hats?

Hoose

It's official. We bought a house in Thunder Bay - the land of Mooseburger Trees and the fabled Moonicorn (the one-antlered moose, who incidentally has many chiropractic issues). Look - here's a picture of a mooseburger tree sprouting in the rocky tundra. Magical, isn't it?




Here are some pictures of our new place.

Front of the house. The tree in front of the window has got to go.


Back of the house. Deck with seats built in!!


This is where the magic happens.




Living room - yes - that is a wood-burning fire place



Two people independently asked if we get to keep the pineapple mirror, but sadly, I don't think it will be included in the deal.



Dining area



Kitchen - Over the range microwave. Hollllaaaa!!



Master bedroom ensuite - two sinks!!



Area off the kitchen/dining area



Bedroom 1



Bedroom 2



Bedroom 3



Bathroom for regular people - one sink



Nursery



Check out what I turned up while searching (fruitlessly, I must add) for some pictures of the Moonicorn. For some yet-to-be-explained-to-me reason, some dude painted two paintings of Barack Obama on a unicorn. Did I mention that he's naked in both? I was hesitant about putting these on the blog, because I'm afraid that these are actually offensive and I just don't know the meaning behind them. Well, the second part of that sentence is definitely true - I have no idea what these mean, even after searching the web for answers. If the former part of the sentence is also true, will someone let me know? I don't want to be that one member of the cyber-neighborhood that doesn't know it's inappropriate to have a statue of a little boy of a certain skin colour fishing off the front porch.



The artist who did these also does portraits of other political leaders and celebrities with pancakes on their heads (complete with a lovely pat of melting butter). Once again, not sure if they are in celebration of the absurd or whether they have a meaning that no web search can uncover.