Unfriending Facebook Friends

Today I went from 386 Facebook Friends to 252.

Basically I trimmed the fat. Everyone whom I barely knew, didn't know that well, only met once, never met at all - they all got Unfriended.

Some of them were also old friends that I just don't socialize with any more.

I wanted to get 250 even, but I discovered I was unwilling to part with 2 more of them.

Some of the people I did keep were Canadian celebrities I have only met once or twice, so but I ended up unfriending at least 30 celebrities - especially politicians.

I probably could have unfriended many more, but that would likely have been upsetting to some people.

There may even people I later re-friend again, which means they will have earned their place. And others in the future whom I unfriend, so maybe someday I will reach that nice round number of 250.

I did this partially for privacy reasons. The more friends a person has on Facebook that you barely know, the less privacy you have - and the more likely that your privacy will be invaded.

I have also been updating my privacy settings. I would like to be able to update them further to tighten up security.

Fake Lawyers = Debt Collectors + Scams

A friend of mine today told me how he was being harassed by debt collectors who are using fake names / fake personas and pretending to be fake lawyers.

It is the kind of thing you hear about in scams involving Nigerian princes.

You know the scam. They contact you offering money, then tell you to contact a lawyer who will help arrange the transaction, the (fake) lawyer then claims they can only process the transaction for a fee. Usually a ridiculous amount like $5,000.

At which point, if you actually pay them money you are clearly a gullible moron.

So the same thing is now happening with debt collector scams here in Canada.

The Canadian (assuming they are in Canada...) debt collector threatens to sue you for the debt (whether it is a real debt or just a scam) and then they "hire" a fake lawyer - who is just them using a fake name and not a real lawyer - who then proceeds to harass you with fake legal documents sent in the mail to get you to send them money in the hopes that the debt collector/fake lawyer will stop harassing you.

My friend explained that they will go to extreme lengths to make the fake lawyer look real.

They will list the fake lawyer in lawyer directories, having a website for the lawyer (which will usually be really small and incomplete), a LinkedIn account for the lawyer, etc. But if you dig deeper you will discover that the fake lawyer doesn't have a Facebook page, that there is no records of them graduating from any law school, and that the person does not exist - although they will use a common name. Not John Smith obviously, but instead will make up a name that sounds real and when googled does come up with results of people living elsewhere - but the fake lawyer in question will not exist or have the bare minimum.

• A Facebook page that was only ever used once.
• A Twitter account that is mostly empty.
• A LinkedIn account with very few colleagues / no real colleagues.
• Etc.

They will not have anything that isn't free. For example a listing in the Yellow Pages, because that costs money.

Now real lawyers do sometimes get hired to sue people for very large debts. That does happen. But when their retainer fee is $5000, you can be sure that they are not being hired to track down and harass people who have debts less than $25,000. It just isn't financially worth the trouble of suing people for small amounts when the cost of the lawyer is so much.

Imagine for example suing someone for $20,000 over a debt (a real debt) and paying the lawyer $5,000 in retainer fee. Even if they are successful in court, there is still no guarantee the person will pay them. The person could declare bankruptcy, they could move overseas and refuse to pay, they could "disappear" into northern Ontario and live in a cabin / drop off the grid for a year, etc. So the people suing would have lost $5,000 and still got nothing.

Suing people for money really only makes sense when the following criteria are met:

• The person you are suing has lots of money. Suing the poor is pointless.
• You are suing for a large amount. At least $25,000.
• The debt needs to be real. Not some phony scam.
• The debtor needs to have a contract with debtee*.

* The last one is actually really important. For example lets say someone had old credit card debt, and the credit card company sells that debt to a debt collection company for pennies on the dollar. So for example if someone owed MasterCard $20,000, MasterCard sells that debt for perhaps $200 to a debt collector. MasterCard's contract with the borrower is then finished. The borrower had a contract with MasterCard. They do not have any contract or agreement with the debt collector, which means they are under no legal obligation to pay them. The debt collector will then proceed to harass the person in hopes of making a profit off of the purchased debt. In this example, if they manage to get $400 out of the person then they just doubled their money.

And they do it via threats of legal action, fake lawyers who do not exist, fake legal documents that are not real (or filled out correctly), etc.

And in some cases debt collectors are apparently now running scams, because they have realized that the debt doesn't even need to be real. They just need to harass people until they get the money.

The whole conversation reminded me of James Veitch. A comedian who makes fun of email scams by playing along with them.







Now all joking aside...

Pretending to be a lawyer and harassing people for money. Shouldn't that be illegal?

And it is illegal. Because it is FRAUD. And possibly Grand Larceny if the amount is over a certain amount.

The problem is that the scammers / debt collectors are using fake names, and the "fake lawyer" does not exist. So how do you prove who was sending the fake legal documents and pretending to be a lawyer?

The problem is it is very difficult to prove. And most people don't go through the effort of trying to expose the frauds who are claiming to be lawyers.

So here is a challenge for anyone reading this. If you know of a fake lawyer / debt collector, please leave their name and supposed location in the comments below. This way when people google that fake lawyer / debt collector's name and city, this blog post will come up in the google search results and people will be able to instantly recognize that the person in question is just running a scam.

How to annoy a Millennial or Centennial - and Laugh about it.

Teehee.

A friend of mine did this on Facebook. Here is what happened. And I shall colour code everything to keep it easy to follow and understand.

First, context, he was responding to a video about a Millennial who got offended by a Hula dancing bobblehead on the dashboard of a Lyft driver. In the video the young woman (who speaks like a Valley Girl) harasses the driver and is rude to him, accusing the driver of "Cultural Appropriation". She then proceeds to threaten the driver, claiming she is famous and that she will embarrass him on Gawker.

To which my friend said:

"Millennials are very frivolous and idealistic. The problem is when they say stupid idealistic things they make their whole generation look stupid.

And talking like a Valley Girl like definitely won't like help either."

To which a Millennial named JD responded:

"So why isn't that applied to every generation? We don't Blast Boomers as being stupid because of Ford, or any number of prime examples But yet here you are blasting millennials as a generalized whole because one stupid person made a fool of themselves."

To which he said:

"Because Millennials have a reputation for being idealistic, frivolous, easily manipulated, easily upset, obsessed with social media, uneducated, pampered, lacking skills, and unmotivated.

Thus when a Millennial says something stupid and idealistic, their reputation for being idealistic and uneducated becomes signatory of problems plaguing their whole generation.

Babyboomers have different qualities/failings. But they are comparatively realists with a sense of humour. Generation Y (my generation) are overeducated sarcastic pessimists."

 JD:

"So in other words mediatized pretensions"

Response:

"Oh yes. Forgot about that one. Millennials are Pretentious. Give a Millennial a Youtube channel and watch how big their head gets."

 JD:

"what is appalling is how readily and blatantly degrading, condescending, and better then thou you are towards millennials as a whole. If you even remotely acted like this towards black people, or women, or asians, I doubt you would find it remotely acceptable."

Different person:

*gets popcorn ready in anticipation of a good old fashioned Internet butthurt showdown*

Response from my friend:

Posts an emoji of a cat sleeping and says: "Sorry. Was there a Millennial talking? I fell asleep from boredom.

Gnight."

JD:

"Well since i annoy you so much and you despise me so much. Your quite the arbitrary and prejudiced ass"

Response from my friend the next morning:

"See? The Millennial just proved how Millennials behave.

He got upset very easily.
No sense of humour.
Is so pampered he just expects people to do as he pleases.
Frivolous insults.

And easily manipulated. I didn't even have to try.

Thank you JD for taking part in this demonstration."

Friend who posted the video:

"How did I sleep through this?"

His response:

"To be fair I slept through most of it too. ;)"

Followed by a cat eating a hamburger, fries and pop emoji.

 But wait, this story doesn't end.

JD the Millennial in a bit of idealistic and overly sensitive rage, then unfriends his Facebook friend.

My friend later discovers this and posts on his own Facebook page:

Overly sensitive Millennial

unfriended me because I said

Millennials are overly sensitive.

Irony. :)

 A different Millennial named KS responds:

"As a more relaxed defender of Millennials I will just say that whenever older people say or do dumb shit we generally attribute it to the individual but when a Millennial says or does the same thing it is pinned on our generation as a whole."

 To which my friend responds:

"That is almost exactly what I said.

And I listed the stereotypes of how Millennials behave (like getting upset easily, being easy to manipulate, being overly sensitive, no sense of humour) and then he went and proved it for me by doing exactly those things.

And I don't feel bad about it because I barely knew the guy, but what I did know is that he was one of these easily offended Millennials.

I asked him once: "You going for a smoke?"

And his response was: "Yeah. You got a problem with that? It is none of your business!"

Me: "I was just asking."

He immediately assumed I was judging him and got offended by the remote possibility that I was judging him.

And ultimately what I really ended up judging him for was how ridiculously overly sensitive he was."

 Different person responds:

"Thank you for listing these stereotypes. I value your opinion so I would like to ask how you propose Millennials overcome the stereotypes you have listed?"

 And response:

"Well lets see what the stereotypes are:

Idealistic, frivolous, easily manipulated, easily upset, little or no sense of humour, obsessed with social media, uneducated, pampered, lacking skills, and unmotivated.

Logically in an effort to combat these problems they should:

☆ Start with turning their cellphones off. Spend less time on the internet.
☆ Learn to relax and take a proverbial Chill Pill. Meditation would be handy too.
☆ Don't believe everything they hear / don't do what they are expected to do.
☆ Learn what it is like to fail at something without being given a gold star for participation.
☆ Learn actual skills that are useful in the real world. eg. Tweeting is not an useful skill, despite what Donald Trump says.
☆ Take their Idealism and use it to actually become motivated to do something with their life.
☆ Do something that is serious and important instead of wasting time and effort on meaningless friovolities.
☆ Learn to take a joke."

 Different friend joking responds:

"That's it! U triggered me. #unfriended ps. c u tonight"

 The friend with the popcorn from the previous comment:

"Weak sauce, and a waste of popcorn. Hope the next one is feistier than indignant."

 To which my friend responds:

"The Millennial Ragequit. Having been raised on participation stars they have no stomach for failure and a hard fight.

Think of it like going to a boxing match between a Generation Y and a Millennial, and the Millennial thinks he will win because he has been rewarded all his life just for participating, but is inexperienced and the moment he encounters difficulty he quits out of frustration.

Meanwhile the Generation Y is a pessimist. They know all about failure. They are experienced from many fights. They know no fight is ever won easily and that it takes determination and patience."

 So really it doesn't take much to annoy a Millennial. They are so sensitive you can beat them with a dismissive yawn, a cat emoji, intellect and humour. And because the Millennial lacks both skills and experience, they are helpless against such an experienced combatant.

For reference, here are the definitions courtesy of a few Google searches:

Gen·er·a·tion Y

noun
noun: Generation Y; plural noun: Generation Ys

1. the generation born in the 1980s and 1990s, comprising primarily the children of the baby boomers and typically perceived as increasingly familiar with digital and electronic technology. Generally perceived to be pessimists.

Mil·len·nial

miˈlenēəl/
noun
plural noun: millennials; plural noun: Millennials

1. a person reaching young adulthood in the early 21st century, reaching the age of 18 sometime between 2001 and 2009, and raised on technology and pampered by their Generation X parents. eg. "the industry brims with theories on what makes millennials tick"

Cen·ten·ni·al

senˈtenēəl/
noun
plural noun: centennials

1. a hundredth anniversary. eg. "the museum's centennial"

 

2. A person reaching young adulthood between the years 2010 and 2016. Perceived to possess many of the same qualities of Millenials, but more so because the standard had been set by the Millennials.

Gen·er·a·tion X

jenəˈrāSHən eks/
noun
noun: Generation X; plural noun: Generation Xs

1. the generation born after that of the baby boomers (roughly from the early 1960s to late 1970s), often perceived to be disaffected and directionless, but also considered to be realists.

Baby boom·er
noun
informal
plural noun: baby boomers

1. a person born in the years following World War II, when there was a temporary marked increase in the birth rate between 1946 and 1964. Baby boomers were highly influential on the economy and culture of the latter half of the 20th century. eg."America's health care costs are expected to soar as baby boomers become senior citizens"



And lastly I would like to propose a new one...

Trum·poc·a·lypse Sur·vi·vor
trəmpˈpäkəˌlips sərˈvīvər
noun: Trumpocalypse Survivor; plural noun: Trumpocalypse Survivors

1. a person who survives and remains alive after the complete financial destruction of the world, similar to what is described in the biblical book of Revelation, during which others will have died. eg. "the sole survivor of the Trumpocalypse".
2. a person born in the year 2017 or any year during the Trumpocalypse.
3. a person who survives World War 3 and the End of America.

In the future the word Trump will mean to cheat, someone who cheats, or someone who goes mad with power and launches nuclear weapons in an attempt to destroy all of mankind.

Oh no, not the Fenians!

 I saw this a few months ago and felt it was funny in light of the uproar regarding Syrian refugees.

Fenians, as you may or may not recall, were Irish "terrorists" from the 19th century who were reviled because they "bred like rabbits", were violent religious fanatics (Catholics) and a nation of drunkards.

"Like many of you I was shocked to hear of the recent Fenian attacks on Fort Erie. How can our government allow Irish immigrants to flow into this United Province of Canada while we continue to be terrorized by Fenian religious zealots? Every Sunday in Catholic churches across the land, radical preachers are whipping their flocks into a cataclysmic frenzy, urging them to cram their Nicene orthodoxy down our throats three different ways. On every ship coming into Montreal or Halifax, hidden among the malnourished, diseased Irish there are sure to be Fenian terrorists ready to slit your throat at the first opportunity. This needs to stop now.

We all know that the Irish are a bunch of uneducated, colonial savages with a primitive religion. How will our women and children be safe while hoards of drunken Irish flow into our cities and roam the streets? Meanwhile they breed like rabbits, all part of their plan of Papist domination. It is a scientific fact that if Irish immigration continues apace Canada will be a Catholic state by 1910. Enjoy having your wine with communion, because that's all about to end. And if we let the Irish in, who's next - Ukrainians? Chinese? Musalmen?

It is our sacred duty to preserve Canadian values now, before it's too late. In 150 years your children's children will look back and know that you did the right thing.

Be sure to share this leaflet with all your friends (or at least those of them who can read... and you can probably skip the women, not like they can vote anyways). Say yes to Canada staying Canadian. Say no to Irish immigrants!

Rev. John Strachan,
York
June 1866"

Note: "Musalmen" is an older derogatory way of saying "Muslim". So evidently if we are still worried about "Musalmen" then we really have not progressed much in the last 150 years.

It should also be noted that Irish slavery (that being the slavery of Irish people by the British) only ended in 1833 in Britain and in the East Indies in 1843, so when the above letter was written in 1866 many Irish were still considered to be "less than human" by many people in Britain and America. The history of Irish slavery isn't often spoken of, but it is the reason why many African-Americans also have mixed Irish blood.

African slaves were more expensive during the 1600s (50 sterling silver) whereas Irish slaves were cheap (5 sterling) because they might run away and gain their freedom somehow. At the time a practice developed of breeding Irish women with African men to produce more expensive children slaves. The practice not only allowed the masters to make more money, but also to ensure that if the Irish women ever gained their freedom they would stick around for the sake of their children - which being mixed race, were considered to be less likely to ever be emancipated.

The American Emancipation Proclamation in 1862-63 meant that suddenly everyone was free, Irish slaves and African slaves, and the slave masters (in the southern states where slavery was still practiced) were none too pleased about it. The American Civil War (1861 to 1865) happened around the same time, and thus the two events are often considered to be a war about slavery - although this is hardly the only reason. The main reason was because the southern states wanted to form their own country and live independently with their own rules (something Texas to this day continues to claim it wants to do).

During it all many Irish freed slaves went north, settling in Chicago, Boston and other locations now famous for its Irish heritage. Many African freed slaves also went north, some to Canada, and others to various locations where they felt more welcome.

Fast forward to 2016.

Canada.

One of the most welcoming countries in the world. Arguably the least racist, more open minded. It is often called the best country in the world. A veritable Mecca of diversity of races, religions and ethnicities.

But that doesn't mean we don't have mean people who say awful things about immigrants or refugees. Just look at the Conservative Party of Canada and you know how blatantly racist they are, even if they won't always admit it.

But it really is no surprise that Canada is the #1 choice for many refugees to come to. Free education, free health care, an open and free democracy that 'on paper at least' is accepting of immigrants of all nationalities and has such a great reputation internationally.

Unfortunately our reputation wasn't enough to save Aylan Kurdi, the little boy whose parents applied to immigrate to Canada as refugees. Chris Alexander, the Minister of Immigration under the 2015 Conservative Party of Canada personally vetoed the family's application to Canada. Why? Because the Conservative Party of Canada is racist. It is as simple as that. Chris Alexander is a racist. Just one of many in the Conservative Party.


New Democrat MP Fin Donnelly, personally delivered a letter to Minister Chris Alexander asking for his help from his office for young Alan Kurdi and his family, and Chris Alexander vetoed the idea, and later denied ever receiving an application even though all the paper work was handed in and he had received a personal letter from a fellow MP requesting the admission of the family to Canada.

And so Alan Kurdi took his young son on a dangerous boat trip to Greece, trying to make his way towards Germany, their 2nd choice to immigrate to, and desperately trying to get there. But the boat capsized and many refugees drowned, including the boy, Aylan Kurdi, below.

And we should note their last name: Kurdi. The Kurds were NATO's allies during the Afghanistan and Iraq Wars, and continue to be our allies during the war with ISIL in Syria. Now admittedly that is reading into the name quite a bit, but it seems silly that would we deny entry to Canada to people who are:

A. Not our enemy.
B. Our allies which fought alongside us in various wars.

I will give another example:

During the Afghanistan War the USA offered Green Cards to Afghan translators and guides to help American troops during the occupation of Afghanistan. They fought alongside the troops, translated for them, kept them alive in dangerous situations, put themselves at risk, and for what?

It took the U.S. government YEARS to process and finally issue Green Cards to the thousands of translators and guides who assisted them during that war. Many of them NEVER even got their Green Card and gave up on ever getting it because the American government gave them a ridiculous bureaucratic runaround of forms to fill out in order to make it practically impossible for them to ever become American citizens.

What this really shows is the lengths governments (and the people in power) will go to in order to make it as hard as possible to move to a country and become a citizen there.

And Canada isn't much better. We are actually worse. Canada is the HARDEST country in the world to immigrate to. Worse than the USA.

But we do have loopholes. eg. If you are rich, Canada will let you in if you are promising to bring your money to Canada and start a business. So really what that means is anyone with lots of money can immigrate to Canada, but people who are refugees - who need a country where they can be free and safe from war and violence - are left to die on the beaches of uncaring world.

And it doesn't matter whether you are Irish, African or Syrian. People need a country they can call home.

My Rant on Playing Dumb

On Sunday I had an argument with my girlfriend on the way to an Oscar party.

At stake was the Toronto Escalator Rules, which I shall repost now for everyone's benefit so you don't have to click and visit the other page.

What happened was a crowd of us was going down the stairs, my girlfriend walking beside me and we were holding hands. On the left was an escalator going up, which means people at the bottom of the stairs who wanted to go up had two choices:

#1. Take the escalator up, and not block anyone coming down the stairs.

#2. Make the illogical choice of coming up the stairs and blocking the crowd of people coming down.

And lo and behold two morons with their baseball caps turned backwards decided to be jerks and go up the stairs, blocking people on the way and slowing everyone down - meanwhile there was a perfectly EMPTY escalator going in the direction they wanted to go.

They could have - very easily - got on the empty escalator, gone up it at whatever speed they felt like going, and got to the top very quickly and easily.

But no, they decided to block the people coming down.

So I decided to complain very loudly about it.

"Wow, some people are just too stupid to know when to use the escalator."

And then when I got to the bottom of the stairs my girlfriend decided to play dumb and pretended not to know what I was talking about. She even tried to claim that it was not a crowd of people going down the stairs. (There was a pack of 15 people at least on the stairs when I said it.)

And then we got into an argument about what constitutes a crowd.

And she tried to claim that there was only 1 person ahead of us on the stairs when there was at least 6 people ahead of us, not counting the two jerks blocking the stairs.

When I realized she was doing this all deliberately, playing dumb and making me very frustrated I told her off for doing that to me. It was really frustrating. There was no reason for her to be arguing with me and she was trying to make me feel stupid by pretending to be stupid herself.

ARG!!!!!

I get frustrated and angry just thinking about the incident.

Basically my end point here is DO NOT PRETEND TO BE DUMB. You are only annoying people unnecessarily.

It is one thing if your name is Rob Ford and you are just naturally stupid (and annoy people with your sheer dumbness), but it is another thing entirely when you pretend to be stupid as a gag just so you can frustrate your fellow human beings by pretending you don't know what they are talking about.

I swear if she ever does that again I am going to switch the sugar with the salt so she ends up with a spoonful of salt in her coffee. Then we shall see who has the last laugh.

---

And then of course there are people who are just plain dumb. I blame our education system that places too much emphasis on looks (drama class, seriously?) and not enough emphasis on simple things like English writing, math, geography...

Plagiarism in Essay Writing

Years ago when I was working on my Doctorate of Musical Arts at U of T when I was accused of plagiarism in some older essay work I had done.

Basically what it was I had written an essay years earlier, before studying my doctorate, and one of my professors thought it looked fishy when another copy of the same essay showed up and tried to prove it was plagiarized.

Fortunately I cleared my name by promptly showing all professors and university staff involved my rough drafts for the essay (I had gone through 4 rough drafts) which had been saved years ago and I had just never deleted anything from that part of my life.

Basically the fact that I am a pack rat saved my bacon. I don't throw things out, especially electronic documents.

So word to the wise people, save your drafts and keep them for posterity's sake. You will not regret it.

What had happened however is that I had posted my finished essay (the one I was accused of plagiarizing) online and I had posted it without using my name - in other words, I had posted it anonymously.

Someone else (I don't know who) then copy pasted my essay off of the website and then submitted my essay as their own professor.

What the student didn't know was that they were handing in the same essay to the same professor (for the same class no less) as I had years earlier.

The professor reading my old essay felt it looked familiar, as if they had read it before. So they checked their records / refreshed their memory and remembered me.

Yada yada yada, the next thing I know they are accusing me of plagiarism, of selling my old essay for profit and were threatening to take my degree away from me. (Which they can legally do if they can prove plagiarism.)

Fortunately I did prove that the essay was mine by showing them my old rough drafts.

And I was able to show them the old forum website which I had posted the essay on. Still there, complete with the date it was originally posted. (And I could prove it was me who posted it because I still had the login and password to access the forum.)

My name was cleared, but having such a bureaucratic spotlight thrust upon me (especially when I had done nothing wrong) had made me not very comfortable about the whole plagiarism topic.

It took me years before I finally decided to write this post and talk openly about the incident. Now that I have my Doctorate I feel much firmer and safer about talking about the incident.

Universities have become increasingly aware that there is a lot academic dishonesty going on - especially amongst women, who make up 80% of customers for essay writing companies in Toronto, Hamilton and Kitchener/Waterloo. It is such a problem amongst female students that it has raised the grade point average of all the women in universities that have essay writing companies near the university campuses.

I think the issue for men is that men are too lazy and too cheap to hire someone else to write an essay for them, they would rather just write a poorly written essay, hand it in and get a lower mark rather than hire someone to write the essay for them.

The companies themselves have also legitimized themselves by also offering resume writing, CV and cover letter writing services. And even online classes on how to write assignments for classes.

Once they have a student hooked on their services it is really just a matter of time before students start paying for essays using their credit card.

The problem is even more prevalent at big universities that have a lot of prestige. The more important the school is the more competition there is from such companies that are offering essay and assignment writing services.

But I do have an important question.

What happens when these people get out into the real world and need to write reports for the company they work for? Are they going to hire someone else to write the report for them?

I have even heard tales of people hiring other people to write / create presentations for PowerPoint.

Back when I was in university we were still using overhead projectors and slideshows during presentations, but now with PowerPoint the information for the presentation can be written down and designed electronically, saved as PowerPoint document (PPT), sent to the person who purchased it... and then that person presents the finished product and utilizes their acting skills at lying.

How is an university professor going to accuse them of plagiarism when they are presenting it in person as a PowerPoint presentation.

I wish they would bring back overhead projectors and slideshows. Just my 2 cents.

Katy Perry on Sesame Street - too much?

Below is the video of Katy Perry with Elmo, a clip that was pulled after complaints from upset parents who felt Katy Perry showed too much skin.

Please note that these are the same kind of parents who complained that Bert and Ernie were homosexuals living together.

As opposed to what the rest of us have been thinking for many years, that Bert and Ernie are either brothers or just friends. Sounds perfectly reasonable right?

Well the fact is you can not make these right wing religious nutjobs happy. Take for example the HIV positive puppet Kami who was introduced in 2002 for the South African version of Sesame Street, known as Takalani Sesame. The character was designed to promote tolerance and understanding in South Africa (which has a huge HIV epidemic), but instead it became a magnet for homophobia in America and a horde of Republican congressmen all "warned" Sesame Street against introducing any gay or HIV positive characters into the American version of the show.

So basically it would not matter how much skin (or how little skin) Katy Perry shows in any clip with Elmo on Sesame Street - the religious nutjobs were always going to get offended anyway. Which is amusing because these same Christians presumably go to church every Sunday and worship a statue of a mostly naked Jesus - who is best described as the zombie son of god.

So mostly naked zombie Jesus is apparently okay, but a little bit of Katy Perry's skin is not. That frankly is hypocritical and sexism.

I can only imagine what they would think if Katy Perry did a version of "Madonna with Child", a very common theme in paintings within Catholicism. They would probably decry her about showing too much skin again - regardless of how much she actually showed. It would not matter how innocent or religious the image was, because Katy Perry is a pop singing sex symbol it would be seen as religious sacrilege.

Heavy Metal on the Piano

Who says Heavy Metal isn't a great musical genre?

The problem with Heavy Metal is that people often confuse it with punk, electronica and other types of music. Heavy Metal isn't that loud, it has just been misunderstood.

The truth is Heavy Metal musicians are often also huge fans of classical music. Indeed I would argue that "Heavy Metal" shouldn't even be called by that name, it should more accurately be called "Rock Opera". It would be a more apt description in my opinion. Heavy Metal is very misunderstood by non-metal fans.

FACT - 90% of Heavy Metal musicians studied classical music in university.

Below are examples of Heavy Metal songs being played on piano and keyboards.

Rob Ford Eats Baby Kitten

So I was looking for kitten photos and found this.

So yeah, one more post about Rob Ford. I promise no more!!!

Rob Ford compilation video

Oh what the heck. Here is a Rob Ford compilation video. A collection of the funniest. Maybe now I won't have to post any more about Rob Ford. If you really want to view funny stuff about Rob Ford, I recommend the blog F*** Rob Ford.

Five of the Best Rob Ford Videos

I haven't talked about Rob Ford much on my blog and I frankly prefer not to. But sometimes even I can not help myself. If you want to view more things about Rob Ford I recommend the blog F*** Rob Ford.

Below are my favourite five Rob Ford videos so far.

The Toronto Escalator Rules

If you live in Toronto and are annoyed by all the people who don't know how to use the stairs and escalators properly, here is a great set of rules to live by.

:)