I am a Hero; Jack Bauer Has Nothing on Me

I hate Monday mornings. I wake up terribly early knowing that by noon, I'll have to think about going to sleep so that I can wake up with enough energy to do a ball-busting midnight shift. If I have enough energy, I might go to the gym for a light workout, come home and do myself up some scrambled eggs Gordon Ramsay style.

However one Monday morning a few weeks ago I had very little energy and just decided to goof off on my laptop and checkout what wasn't happening on Facebook. I was probably about ten second away from closing the window when all of a sudden my friend Connie messaged me. And I had a feeling that it was important because she addressed me by my first name. In my experience, people only do that if the situation is pretty important.

So she gave me an 800 phone number to call and confirm if she had a flight for tomorrow morning. It was then that she told me that she was messaging me from a hospital in Muskat, Oman. For those of you who didn't watch Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego as a kid, that's in the Middle East. Connie spent her Christmas holidays there and was a teacher there a few years ago.

Seems that while she was down she caught some jihad-virus that was going around or something, was stuck in the hospital and thus, missed her flight the previous day but now couldn't tell if she was rescheduled for a flight tomorrow or not.

So there I am, about six-thirty in the morning, trying to figure out how to help my friend escape the Middle East within the next 24 hours. I called the airline and trying to get all the info I can, relaying it back through Facebook and then relaying any concerns Connie may have back to the airline. Needless to say I was saying, "Could you hold on a minute" quite a few times during these phone calls.

After about twenty minutes of dealing with people with bad accents, I was finally able to get the times for her flights. She would leave Muskat, then fly into Kuwait, then off the Dulles International Airport and then to Detroit with a short drive back into Ontario.

Just before I got off the line, the attendant I was dealing with asked me if he wanted to upgrade Connie's seat to give her more legroom for only the small fee of $150 USD.

I relayed this to Connie and based off the negativity of her response, I told the airline that she would pass on the generous (I made sure they could hear the sarcasm) offer.

Connie did manage to make it home and that day, I got a cheque from the government of Canada (Most likely word of me rescuing a fellow countryman spread quickly) and my Batman shirt arrived in the mail.

So yeah, I'm a hero. Saved a friend from captivity in a Middle Eastern hospital which was boasting about how their doctors washed their hands semi-daily and had been Jew free for 34 days. And I did this less than an hour after waking up.

The moral of the story: Schweitzer-Man is awesome

How To Make Boring Flights Fun

I like flying. I don't do it a lot but if I'm going home for a vacation, it's the only way to travel. However, one thing bugged me about today's flight: No television. It seems that a wire got loose or something, I have no clue, and that shut off the TVs all throughout the plane.

That sucked for me because I had my headphones, ready to watch anything that might hold my attention and also because I had bought the latest issue of The Ring magazine but had accidentally put that with my luggage which was being loaded onto the plane. So while I was flying, I thought of ways to make airline travel much more interesting when you. Most of these are Star Trek related, so try not to complain too much when reading.

1) Re-enact the plane scene from "Commando"-One of my dad's favourite comedies, and one of my favourite Schwarzenegger films, Commando has a good scene where Arnold is on a plane with one of his daughter's kidnappers. In an attempt to escape before takeoff, Arnold requests a blanket and a pillow, then quietly knocks the guy out and breaks his neck, then using the blanket and pillow to cover up the deed.

Getting off before takeoff is going to take a lot of ingenuity but since this is Arnold, he gets it done no problem. He approaches the back and a dumb stewardess stops him.

"Sir, you need to remain seated during takeoff!"

Arnold just looks at her and simply says, "I'm airsick."

Re-enact that. Granted it will probably get the flight delayed because they think you're going to try and ignite an explosive in the bathroom but...actually there are no real upsides to doing this."Ja, wait till you see what I read on dees blog."

2) Pretend you're going into warp speed-Yeah, yeah, big Star Trek nerd but this quick little time killer can have you pretending you're commanding your pilot to activate the warp engines as Captain Picard demonstrates here. This might freak a lot of people out and most likely get you kicked off the plane so again, use at your own discretion. "Make it so, Schweitzer-Man."

3) Have Fun With Turbulence-Turbulence can be fun if you pretend that life is like a video game and if you die you can just start where you left off at. However for those who know better, turbulence can be kinda scary. There are options to make turbulence a bit more fun.

Be a Hero: Wear a Superman shirt. But wear it underneath a light jacket or shirt. That way when it starts shaking, you can stand up (Try not to stumble or you'll look like a pansy), rip open your shirt/jacket and say, "Don't worry, I'll take care of this" and move towards the back like you're going to save the plane. I wore a Superman shirt on my plane ride and when it got really shaky a woman two seats over (There was a free seat in between us) grabbed onto my arm. Does anyone else agree that Superboy from "Young Justice" looks a LOT like me?

Be Like Picard...or Kirk: Yep, going back to Star Trek again, this time, instead of shouting to go to warp, just pretend you're sitting in the captain's chair, press one of the buttons and say something standard like, "Engineering, transfer auxiliary power to impulse engines! We've less than ten minutes before this sun goes super-nova."
Again, don't shout but say it loudly enough so that the people in the same row as you can look over and have a WTF look on their face.

Or if you really wanna have fun with it, ham up your delivery like every Shatner impersonator and do your best Captain Kirk impression.

"Mr. Scott, you've...got to TRANSFER auxiliary power to the impulse engines if we...planonescaping! The lives of millions...hanginthebalance!!!"

"We're Under Attack!": Again, going back to Star Trek, during the original series, the budget wasn't as high and special effects weren't as advanced as they are today. That and the acting wasn't always the best. Usually when the starship Enterprise got hit by enemy fire, you'd see some crew members falling one way while others fell another. If you don't believe me, just watch the last five seconds of this clip. So when the plane shakes a little bit, just over exaggerate your movements. That or try to time it perfectly so you fall into some hot chick's lap. Happy landings indeed.

Klingons are responsible for turbulence aboard most starships

It Never Rains...

When people talk about "Hell freezing over", they're mostly talking about a typical day in Calgary. It usually means lots of snow, lots of grumpy people and a severe lack of natural sunlight which makes my albino-esque complexion stand out so much that they're begging me to by a tanning session at the gym. I'm not kidding about the last part.

But one thing that I really miss about Ontario weather is a good thunderstorm. Right now my parents have been getting their fair share of showers lately but I must say, I just miss the roar of thunder, running between raindrops as I tried to get between car and house and especially the lightning. It reminded me a lot of the Emperor from Return of the Jedi.

I remember working at a tiny gas station one sunny Sunday afternoon in Maidstone. These three dudes on motorcycles came in, filled up their bikes and then I noticed that they were just standing at the fuel island, looking out towards the horizon (Which I couldn't see from my position) and talking amongst themselves. I decided to see what was going on and stepped outside and looked down the highway that lead to Windsor.

You could see this enormous black cloud floating above everything and slowly inching itself closer and closer towards us. I spoke with the bikers and they were headed into Windsor but weren't sure of what they should do now. I remember them riding off into the darkness but when I left the rain was just wild. For some strange reason, I enjoy driving in the rain even if everyone else on the road is acting like they're skirting around a minefield.

God dammit, Mother Nature, can we get a thunderstorm...preferrably when I don't have to be anywhere?

Yes, something like this will do just fine

Schweitzer-Man vs the Nazis Part II

So there I was, downtown Calgary and I realized that I had arrived too early. So maybe I could have afforded to fall asleep on the train and arrive a bit late. And since it was cold, I decided to walk around and warm up. As I rounded the block for the second time I saw a group of women carrying signs so I decided to follow them to city hall.

Sure enough when I got there there were trucks for CTV, Global and various other media outlets. There were a few counter-protesters around, making name tags with goofy names like 'Pac-Man'; 'Tinkerbell'. I was thinking about putting 'Schweitzer-Man' on mine, but decided not to take one at all. If it looked like I had anything to do with the counter-protest movement, chances are that I would not have gotten as close to the skinheads as I did.

As one of my college professors once told me: "That's boring. Make it sexy!"

Which brings me to my next point. I have no idea which group it was that attended this. I heard some people saying it was the 'Aryan Guard' while other said it was a group called 'Blood and Honour'. It's confusing because the Wikipedia page for the Aryan Guard links it to the Blood and Honour website and they insist that they are NOT the Aryan Guard. Confused yet? But for the sake of clarity, I'll refer to these people as Blood and Honour.

So the leader of this counter-protest got up on the steps of city hall and announced what would be happening. There were going to be two blockades of police, one blocking the counter-protesters and the other blocking Blood and Honour with about a hundred metres or more in between them. I noticed a lot of the people there were wearing masks (Guy Fawkes seemed the most popular; I think those people were just hoping a fight would break out) and was told that it's legal so long as they don't do anything illegal. The leader of this was a long-haired dude named Jason who had previously been assaulted by members of Blood and Honour so I can understand why they would want to wear them. In their case it was "V for Very Unoriginal"

I don't know who said so, but shortly thereafter someone said, "There they are! They're down the street!" Cue the theme to Superman as I dashed down the street with my video camera in one hand and my other camera in my trusty camera bag. Before I could even get across the street I saw an obstacle in front of me which was the police barricade. Normally I would have done a flying somersault over them but thanks to my charming good looks and youth, they took me to be a member of the press and let me through.

As I got closer I could see the waves of two identical flags for Blood and Honour. As was earlier stated, there were not a lot of people. About sixteen, I imagine, most of them dressed in black, some of them with shaved heads (There was only one woman and she had pink hair) with bandannas over their faces. What mostly surprised me was how young most of them were. Most of them looked like they belonged in Germany's version of High School Musical. A lot of the older ones looked to be in their thirties and forties with big guts and faces that told me not a lot was going upstairs other than the theme to Benny Hill.

"We told our parents that we were going to the library to study...please don't tell on us."

The one in charge was probably in his twenties but you couldn't tell looking at him. He was just so short that you would have thought he was crouching or on his knees. I'm surprised that nobody went up and kicked him. Not because he's a Nazi (Kick all Nazis, not just short ones) but just to see how far the little guy would fly.

The whole couple of hours I was out there consisted of Blood and Honour getting blocked by police at one block so then they would try and go around the block only to find that the police moved faster than a bunch of fat white guys who probably won't lose a pound despite all the walking they did. Aside from shouting "WHITE PRIDE WORLDWIDE" they really didn't do anything.

At one point one of them got right up in the face of one of the officers in the barricade and began shouting at him. They were the ones who deserved to be at City Hall. They weren't the violent ones. The officer just kept quiet and let the moron rant away. "That's right, hide behind your sunglasses," he sneered at the cop as he went back to join his friends who were all hiding behind their bandannas.

"We're so full of pride that we're going to hide our faces so no one knows who we are...wait, what?"

And that was it, walk, get blocked, shout and repeat. On and on. I don't know what in the hell these dumbasses were trying to accomplish. "Hey, let's walk around and wave a flag and shout the same slogan over and over for four hours! When we done, we can go back to the clubhouse and circle-jerk!!!"

And you know that last part is true.

Occasionally, some of them would decide to remove all doubt about their lack of intelligence and possible inbred family tree by opening their mouths to speak. "I got laid off from my last job because I don't speak Arabic," boasted some fat slob. I'm sure the fact that you were caught trying to have relations with a Basset Hound didn't help you either. And let's look at his actions right now. Instead of taking the opportunity to look for employment in downtown Calgary, he's going to just walk from one block to another, back and forth for a few hours, shout "WHITE PRIDE WORLDWIDE", show everyone how fat he is and then go home and pass out drunk during a Nascar race, muttering in your sleep, "They took muh job!"

It's fine to hate someone if they're an asshole, but to hate them simply because "der skin is blaak", well it makes me think that random sterilization isn't such a bad idea. Or maybe just for members of Blood and Honour. They must realize that separation of the races is just crazy and the pipe dream of the KKK and Elijah Muhammad. I mean, these people must have watched Star Trek and all the episodes (start video at 2:19) they did about racism or demonstrated that racism was something not tolerated due to it's sheer stupidity.

Wow, with you being unemployed, I'm glad you still have money to spend on the essentials like cigarettes.

Naturally I would have loved to go into full superhero mode and body slam these pussies like I was Hulk Hogan but sadly due to the massive police presence in the area, the odds of escape would not have been in my favour. But if there was one idiot who deserved it, it was a man I nicknamed 'Leprechaun-Nazi Douche'. He was wearing a large Leprechaun hat despite St. Patrick's day having passed. He walked around with Blood and Honour and would say stupid shit like, "You got these people that come from Sudan and they have like eight kids and they start selling drugs and listening to rap music."

Oh right, Mr. Leprechaun-Nazi Douche. Because as we all know, white people never have an abundance of children, listen to rap or do drugs. No, it's all those evil minorities. What was even more sad was that the Blood and Honour people just kinda stood there and accepted it. Eventually Blood and Honour realized that after four hours of walking around they were pretty bored and going to go back to their clubhouse to circle-jerk. Mr. Leprechaun-Nazi Douche went over to the counter-protest side and tried to pick fights with anyone who would give him attention. I last saw him walking down the street all by himself.

"Look, I'm wearing a big leprechaun hat!!! I'm so crazy and original! Please pay attention to me!!! PLEEEEZZZEEE!!!!"

So with the Nazis on their bus and gone, I decided to leave as well since there wasn't going to be anything interesting going on anyway. In closing, I leave you with a picture of a happy police officer and a member of the 4chan community.

"Now that the Nazis are gone I can play paintball! Hell yeah!!!"

I'll just let this one speak for itself

Schweitzer-Man vs the Nazis

"But my Führer, we are Nazis; we have no brains!"

-Nazi Captain in Three Stooges short Back From the Front

Ever since I was a little kid I was fascinated by superheroes and while Batman is my favourite, the first one I remember being exposed to was Superman. I didn't know jack about the whole backstory to him being the last son of a doomed planet until I actually started watching Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman when I was seven. And yeah, I don't care what people say, that was an alright show...until it got dumb of course.

But yeah, it wasn't until I got a bit older that I realized that Superman had been around the time my grandparents were young which is pretty cool. What's also cool is that they incorporated the heroes into the effort against the Nazis in WWII. While it would have been cool to see Superman use his heat vision to slow melt the skin off of Hitler's face, we had to settle for something more suited for the times.

Come on, melt his face! It'll be just like Raiders of the Lost Ark!

Which brings me to what I'm talking about today. I was walking home from the bus stop when I saw a sign attached to a streetlight. Apparently what my history teachers in high school taught me was just a lie because Nazis are alive, well and probably smell twice as bad now as they did in the 30's and 40's. They're holding a White Pride parade and anti-racism march is being planned and I plan to be in attendance with camera in hand.

Nazis piss me off. I remember watching documentaries about hate-groups in high school and most of them were the same story: Fat and friendless in high school, decided to become a Nazi so that way you'll be accepted somewhere blah blah blah. Then they go to prison, meet up with more Nazis, get some stupid tattoos and basically ink themselves so stupidly that it's impossible for them to interact in normal society...like this jackass.

Just the kind of guy you hope your daughter brings home

Naturally with such ignorance out in full force, I could be tempted to unleash my superpowers and beat all up and drop them off at the nearest Jewish doctor's office but instead, I've devised a few ways that you can have fun with Nazis. That's right, fun with Nazis.


1) Bring Three Stooges Videos-If you're going to do this, I recommend Back From the Front or any other sketch where they parody Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party like You Nazty Spy. But if you want to really offend these asshats, then go with Back From the Front.


After all, what's going to piss off some Nazi's more than the story of three Jews who board the S.S. Schiklgruber and easily defeat it's entire crew and dispatching of the captain and his officers by having Moe Howard dress up as Hitler?

"Hang Hitler."

2) Insist that Everybody's Home is Africa-I watched the boxing documentary When We Were Kings about the Ali/Foreman 'Rumble in the Jungle' in Zaire. At one point Foreman can be clearly heard saying, "Africa is the cradle of civilization. Everybody's home is Africa."

Everybody you say? Christ, just try to say that to a Nazi and not have him foaming at the mouth in pure rage.

2A) Ask What their Real Name is-Go the Nation of Islam route. I remember a scene from Malcolm X where he is asked what his real name is by his Muslim preacher. He gives his full name but is then told that that name (Malcolm Little, specifically the surname) is the name of the slave owners who owned his family.

And since everybody's home is Africa...well, for all I know Schweitzer was probably some evil plantation owner in Africa! In fact, I bet that history has twisted his image so that he looks like some great man who won the Nobel Prize. Thank God my family escaped his clutches decades ago! But in escaping, we forgot our true names that were given to us.

Albert Schweitzer: Nobel Prize winner, humanitarian, slave master.

3) Remind them that "Buffalo Bill" was probably a Nazi-Some of you might be aware of this but in The Silence of the Lambs, the transvestite serial killer Buffalo Bill can be seen with a swastika in his bedroom when he's going for his gun. It's one of those 'blink-and-you-miss-it' scenes. Now what the hell a transvestite is doing with a swastika in his/her bedroom really has me scratching my head.

Still, in all reality, these Nazis probably have Buffalo Bill up there with Hitler. We know that even though these Nazis hate anyone who's not white or straight but in all honesty, they wish they could be Buffalo Bill. Hell, this might not make them mad so much as it may help them.

"It rubs the lotion on it's skin or else it reads Mein Kampf again."

I'm looking forward to this rally in two weeks. Hopefully I can get some good pictures and some funny stories while I'm there. Stay tuned...

Randy Quaid Hoping to Outlive Career

It's easy to get hooked into conspiracies. Back in high school I was convinced that there had been one to kill JFK. These days, I'm not too sure about it but then again it's been a long time since I've looked at any of the material. One conspiracy theory I don't (notice the emphasis) believe in is that 9/11 was orchestrated by Bush so that he could invade Iraq.

I always found several problems with this theory:
1) So every other day of the year, Bush is some idiot who couldn't find America on a map but in the days before 9/11, he was planning this masterpiece of terrorism and deception that would make Dr. Doom weep with envy?

2) Why wouldn't he just put FAKE WMD's in Iraq that way if they didn't find any (Which is what happened), they could just plant one and say, "Hey look what we found! Justification!"

He's jealous because he had the exact same plan...except he was going to do it on September 12th

Anyway, I'm getting off track with what I really wanted to talk about. Recently there's been a lot of news about actor Randy Quaid and his wife fleeing to Canada because of legal trouble. Yeah, yeah, I must be bored if all I can write about in three weeks is Randy F'n Quaid.

For those of you who don't know, Randy Quaid is an American character actor. He worked for just one year on Saturday Night Live and appeared as Cousin Eddie in the National Lampoon Vacation movies. The fact that the man could tolerate working with Chevy Chase so many times is a testament to his willpower.

Well it seems that lately he and his wife have been getting into some legal trouble. They were arrested last year for defrauding an innkeeper and faced charges of living in a house without permission.

OK, fraud is a hard charge to beat but living in a house without permission? Shit, I've been doing that for the past 11 months and M'Lord and M'Lady still haven't made any legal action to have me removed. You got to know how to sweet-talk people, Randy. It helps if you give them lemonade mixed with ecstasy; it worked for me.

I've been told that ecstasy really brings out the lemon flavour

The Quaids were supposed to appear in court but instead the couple decided to flee to Canada. Oh, dear. Looks like Randy and his wife took the lemonade themselves; now they think that it's the late 1960's and that the court is actually Vietnam.

Well less than ten days ago the couple were arrested in Vancouver for violation of the Canadian Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. Apparently the couple are seeking refugee status because they fear that their lives are in danger. They cite the deaths of celebrity friends like David Carradine and Heath Ledger as evidence of a Hollywood Whacker who is targeting them.

Several problems with this Randy. First off, David Carradine died of autoerotic asphyxiation (Say that five times fast), something that two of his ex-wives confirmed was something that he practiced.

Second, you're Randy f'n Quaid. Name me two movies you've been in over the past five years and we'll see. Now granted, Carradine's death came after Kill Bill came out but he still had name recognition and was still acting. Heath Ledger died just after finishing The Dark Knight and was reported to have trouble sleeping which is why he was on medication.

And also, what does this Hollywood Hit-team gain from your death? Oh no, we won't get to see some shitty National Lampoon direct to DVD movie that you might have a ten minute cameo in?

Smile why don't ya?