It’s always a blast to step out for food and drinks with our friends from the Tucows office in Starkville, Mississippi,
and last night was no exception. My coworker Darryl and I hung out with
Bill, who was visiting from Starkville and had a blast. We talked about
work, poker, booze, alcoholic Van Halen bass players and even a bit of
politics. Anyone who says that “Red Staters” and “Blue Staters” (or
well, Darryl and I would be, if we were American) can’t get along needs
to get out of their echo chamber for a stretch.
We all agreed that the Bush plan to privatize social security sounds
like a perfect opportunity for financial institutions to gouge people,
which in turn sounds like a perfect opportunity to post this comic:
We talked for a little bit about tech enclaves and what painful social
scenes places with nine-to-one male/female ratios have. Naturally, the
movie Office Space came up. Bill and I love that movie.
Strangely enough, my fellows in Tucows’ Reasearch and Innovation
department haven’t seen it yet (when I started working at Tucows, Boss Ross
didn’t know what the “Is it good for the company?” sign I posted at my
des referred to). What the hell kind of research group are we? I must
correct this oversight soon.
We ended up at my favourite watering hole, Smokeless Joe, where they
know me well enough that as soon as I sat down at the bar, the barkeep
said “Sorry Joey, there’s no Black Katt
on tap this evening.” That’s why I love that bar so dearly; they know
me there, and they’ll often turn down the stereo to let me play
accordion for the crowd.
Rick Mercer happened to
be sitting at the bar beside us and we got into a conversation with
him. Mercer, for those of you who don’t know him, used to be on a CBC
news satire show called This Hour Has 22 Minutes and does an occasional special called Talking to Americans,
in which Mercer does “man on the street” interviews in the US that show
how little our friends to the south know about their largest trading
partner with whom they share the world’s largest undefended
border.Americanophile that I am (hey, I’m marrying one, and I’m the
direct descendant of one), it pains me to note that a number of their
politicans have used “I’ve never travelled outside the country!” as part of their campaigns.
Bill asked Mercer if he was the one who fooled then-Governor
George Bush (he got Bush to comment on his endorsement by Canadian
Prime Minister “Jean Poutine”), to which Mercer replied “yes”. “I’m
glad you didn’t interview me; I might’ve made the same mistake,” Bill
said.
To be fair: can any of my fellow Canadians name the G8 member countries
— we’ll exclude the European Union for the purposes of this question
— and their leaders? (I can, but I’m the smartest accordion player in
the city. I have a level of excellence to maintain.)
