The 1977/78 Spider-Man TV series may have not had the best writing, acting, effects or costume, but it did have one funk-tastic theme:
If you’re curious and looking to kill an hour or two today, here’s something: the 1977 pilot for the series, complete with their take on the “bitten by a radioactive spider” origin of our hero:
Weird as this all may have seemed, it was out-weirded by the Japanese version (they somehow got a licence from Marvel Comics), who added a giant robot to the mix:
I love this flag of Italy, done up as basil, spaghetti and tomatoes. That’s not the only flag that’s been done up as food…
Someone needs to do one for the Canadian flag. Perhaps cheese curds for the white field and back bacon for the maple leaf and bars?
A popular implement for a common type of quarterbacking.
In the wake of the PyCon 2013 “Dongle” incident and the ensuing fallout, the emails — but notably, no tweets, Facebook comments or any sort of messages delivered in the open — have been trickling in, asking what my thoughts on the matter were, given that:
My answer: wait.
With the intersection of a lot of “hot button” issues: privacy, privilege, sexism, racism, back-and-forth accusations of misogyny and misandry and conflicting visions of justice, there’s been far too much bile being passed back and forth for listening and civil discourse to take place.
(If you really must read something on the topic, Amanda Blum’s take on it in her blog most closely aligns with my own point of view.)
I’d like my contribution to the discussion to be one that benefits rather than harms, and you can’t do that by “shooting from the hip”. That will take time and thought, care and consideration.
In the meantime, since the incident has caused more than a few people to ask “What is a developer evangelist, anyway?” Here are some links you may find useful:
…and here’s an article about how well I evangelized evangelism.
While shopping at Total Wine and More, a giant liquor store in Tampa a couple of days ago, I went to the “imported beer” aisle. While checking out their fine selection of trappist monk-made Belgian beers, I glanced over to the “Canada” section. This is what I found:
Where’s the 50? Where’s the Brador? Where’s the love?
For those of you unfamiliar with these particular beers, they’re hardly the best Canada has to offer. It would be like having American beer represented by Miller, Coors and Budweiser products.
Once again, I remind you that I wasn’t in a tiny little store with a small selection, but a great liquor warehouse whose selections ran the gamut from the regrettable…
This is what happens when candy ravers turn 30. PLUR me an adult drink!
…to the sublime:
At $4000 a bottle, I want it to make me able to taste colours and smell music.
Even worse is what’s acting as our representative whiskys. Consider “American Pride Canadian Whisky”:
Manifest Destiny — now in a bottle, and new “cheap rotgut” scent!
If you need a primer on Canadian whisky, Houston-based Hank on Food’s review of Crown Royal Maple has an excellent one. One fact I didn’t know is that Canadian whisky is a big seller in the U.S. liquor market, making up almost 12% of all booze sold, and second only to vodka. I hope that Crown Royal makes up a fair chunk of those sales, but I can see these cheesier, cheaper, nowhere-to-be-seen (at least in my neck of the woods in Canada) whiskys serving the “I don’t care what it tastes like, I just want to get hammered” demographic very well.
By far the saddest thing is “Canadian Mist”, whose producers are under no illusions about who makes up their market. Check out the ergonomic thumb indentation on the front of the bottle:
…and on the back, a groove for your fingers:
They only way they could improve on this design is by adding some kind of clip to keep in place the paper bag that conceals the bottle while you take a swig in your cardboard box under a highway overpass.
From an alcohol standpoint, we’re not putting our best foot forward. Canada needs a booze ambassador.
This call to the “C & E” crowd (the people who are nominally Christians, but go to church only on Christmas and Easter) could’ve been phrased better.
Calling out “Phrasing!” is a gag that’s well-used in the TV series Archer:
This one goes out to my mortician friends (I’ve got at least one).
For the past few weeks, whenever someone has said “Have a good day!” to me, I’d smile back and say:
“You too, and remember: good days are made, not had”.
Most of the time, the response is a look that seems to say “You’re a dick.”
I’m just going to stop saying it.