Pop Culture Blog: Music, Movie and Humor

Leveraging low-hanging synergies outside the vertical fruit box since 1999.

Notes From The Sideshow.


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I’ve spent the majority of my time over the last two months talking about thespianism (not a misspelling, unfortunately) and roaches. What else has been going on in my world, you ask? I’d be just pleased as punch to fill you in. For the love of God, turn away while you still can.

The 2006 wedding invitations are piling in. Both of them. Looks like I’ll be hitting Stowe Vermont for Katy and Reynolds’ in June, and then Toronto for Jason and Amy’s in October. I’ll also be at the bachelor party for Jason which will involve a lot of traveling all told, but will see the reunion of many Welland and Guelph favorites. I’m really looking forward to that weekend and have a liver on backorder at the Hospital for Sick Children.

Work related which I rarely discuss here – I have been charged with breathing some life into our company culture. This is something I have always been good at, but have really been slacking on for the last 2 years or so. I am going to do finally something with a domain I’ve had dormant for years, CompanyCultures.com, so I can write about what I learn. I’m reasonably sure it has to involve a lot more than ordering fleeces with our logo on it and buying rounds at Remingtons. I just realized while Googling that Remingtons is also the name of the big male strip joint in Toronto. So that statement is undoubtedly going to confuse some people.

We’ve rebooted our search engine marketing blog, and I love the new design. I have been hounding people here daily to contribute to it – and I hope to make it a useful group effort which will reflect well on the company. This is also ties into the whole culture effort, but so far it’s been like pulling teeth. I’ve always loved to write, and I can’t understand why so many people are afraid of it. Probably also explains why I took Algebra 2 three times.

Season 6 of the Trailer Park Boys starts this Sunday, and you can download episodes, usually a day after they air, here. You can expect quite a bit of commentary in the weeks to come, and I hope it’s better than Season 5. My predictions for this year – Bubbles gets a chick, Steve French returns, Ray wins a fortune on the VLTs and Lahey gets drunk.

Speaking of TPB, Detroit Velvet Smooth and I went to see Spamalot on Friday. He was given two really good tickets for Christmas, and I thank him for taking me. The entrance to the Colonial Theater is right under the scaffolding that collapsed and killed 3 people last week. It was very eerie walking out, seeing all the flowers stuck through the chain link fence of the construction era, and then slowly looking up and remembering where you were. The play was fantastic – hilarious and extremely entertaining. Go now.

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Home Is Where The Hiss Is.


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“No promises – I’ll bring her over, and if she likes it we can tell her it’s hers”. My friend’s adorable little daughter has been on the market for her first pet, and after reading Hissy’s exploits here last week mumsie had an idea. I initially figured she was just being polite, and trying to help me solve my cockroach dilemma. But then I remembered how smart the sprog in question is, and the idea of her actually digging a Madagascar Hisser as her first domestic house pet didn’t seem quite so ridiculous. Couple that with the fact it comes with a nice chain, pin and itself is encrusted in enough jewels to make it look like someone tried to kill it with a Lite Brite – and I felt we may be on to something.

The muchkin loved what she saw, and Hissy now lives with a family here in downtown Boston: Roach relations are still quite good. She has found a lifelong (well, Hissy’s life anyway) friend. She’s a little upset that I am not letting her take him to school, bed, park, etc. But she’ll live. – Mom

Her Dad said I could post this photo, and I think you’ll all agree that with the exception of the enormous insect visible in the terrarium, it’s beyond adorable. I am happy at how things worked out, but I will miss my short-lived little hissing friend. I felt a poem was in order.

Oh dear Hissy,
We’ll miss ye.
But please let’s not fret,
You’re a bug, I’m a man
That’s as close as we’ll get.

Should I miss you,
Want to kiss you.
And my life is a bore.
I’ll go visit the munchkin,
Or just leave trash on my floor… for extended periods of time until 1300 of you move in and force me into a homeless shelter like that movie with the guy named ‘Joe’. A final word from the newly adoptive family:

She is still yelling “MOMMY! Look at HISSY! HE TURNED UPSIDE DOWN!”And we say, “Yes, they do that.” Everybody at work is still thinking how odd it is that her first pet is a cockroach. Now, I am their friend from work who has a daughter whose first pet is a cockroach. Like everybody can have a friggin dog. – Dad

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Friday’s Quizzlet: Go Wok Yourselves.


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Appetizer: Name a trait you share with your parents or your children.
I don’t have any children, so I’ll have to talk about Gordo and Bonnie. I share my father’s penchant for food and drink, and my mother’s sensitivity. Recently, my father’s temper has been wheedling its way into my personality – so I just suppress it with more drink. Other traits from Dad: computer love, cartooning, emotional disassociation. More traits from Mom: animal love, awesome with children, inconvenient empathy.

Soup: List 3 qualities of a good leader, in your opinion.
The ability to listen, the ability to admit that you’re wrong, and the ability to listen. Save all the “inspire” bollocks – learn from your mistakes, and don’t treat your team like they’re manning a deep-fryer. There’s probably more than one person working under you who is way smarter.

Salad: Who is your favorite television chef?
My main man – Wok with Yan. He is a Chinese chef who had a TV show in Canada starting in the early 80s – and I believe he’s still going strong up there today. He had a great gimmick – every day he would have a different Wok related saying on his apron. I don’t know how they came up with so many. My favorite, from 1981, was “Raiders of the Lost Wok”. For some reason, I’m afraid I’ll never forget that. He was on in the afternoons right before Spiderman, so I rarely missed a peek at his apron.

Main Course: Share a story about a gift you received from someone.
My sister has this uncanny ability to buy clothes for me. She’s even shown up at my place with shoes. The thing is, I would never even try on any of the stuff she gets for me were I alone in a store, but once she gives it to me I always love it. J – please never buy me any presents other than clothes. You have a gift for getting me gifts.

Dessert: How do you react under pressure?
My productivity skyrockets. When a client is angry, or I have something stressful going on in my personal life, I jump into action pretty frighteningly effectively. If I could harness this ability, and have it extend into the everyday – I’d be a millionaire by now. There’s always hostage negotiator school.

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Hiss Me You Fool!


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Just to recap, I have had Roach Brooch acting as an affiliate site for Black Chandelier – where they sell the live cockroach brooches you’ve been seeing on TV and reading about. This means, if someone clicks through to their site from mine and buys a roach, I get credit for the sale thanks to a tracking system, and I get 10% of the roach bounty. Obviously, I ran several test orders after I set it all up to make sure that it worked.

The problem is, they sent one of these things to me by mistake. Actually, I’m not entirely sure it was a mistake because the guy emailed me yesterday and said he wanted me to have a mascot. Either way, when I got up Tuesday morning, there was a package waiting for me from Utah and I knew exactly what it had to be – A live Madagascar Hissing Cockroach.

Not wanting the thing to die, I ordered a terrarium online and it arrived yesterday at my office. I brought the Utah parcel into the office, set up the tank, called a few of my coworkers over to observe, and carefully introduced the ginormous beast to its new home. “Hissy” as I named him is currently chilling on my windowsill eating the heck out of a piece of banana from the Park Plaza Au Bon Pain.

I’m not one for bugs, but it’s a pretty cool creature. In addition to it’s size and girth (it doesn’t look much like a traditional roach) it has the accoutrements that warranted it a place on America’s Top Model and bring it’s price tag up to $80 before shipping – it’s encrusted in a pattern of multi-colored jewels, and also comes with a silver chain you can clip on to this belt it has which acts like a leash. You pin it to yourself, and the critter can roam around your shoulders and chest unchecked. Hence, it’s a roach brooch.

I edited a bunch of photos of the adventure last night, which I am going to use on Roach Brooch, so I figured I’d upload them to my own galleries so my readers can see the full drama unfold. I’m still not sure what is to become of Hissy. I am in talks with a friend to give him to her daughter as a pet. Your first thought is – what would a 5 year old girl want with a cockroach? But then you have to remember the jewelry angle – it looks like a demented, post-apocalyptic My Little Pony. So stranger things have happened. Enjoy the photos, and remember – my ownership of Hissy was an accident. I swear I don’t own any wizard hats or 20-sided dice.

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