We can always rely on Japanese television to provide us with truly surreal advertising. In this ad for who-knows-what, Red Ridinghood's furry forest friends suddenly become... er... well-endowed.


Quicktime is required to play the movie

Link via Boing Boing.

nVidia FX 5900 Ultra.

First the BC provincial government announced that all forests in BC -- including old-growth rainforests -- were "open for business". More recently, the same government announced that they would begin logging in provincial parks to stop the pine beetle infestation -- a move that was criticized for having little to no effect on the beetles.

Now, the BC government has announced plans to remove 1,000 hectares of land from Graham-Laurier provincial park for oil and gas exploration. According to an article on Canada.com, the government went ahead with this decision without consulting stakeholders in the area.

Okay, I wanted to just report this on my blog for everyone to read, but now I feel a good ol' rant coming on. What is with these ignorant, short-sighted, money-grubbing bastards? Since they won the election, we've seen nothing but a stream of self-serving legislation that essentially screws over everyone for some immediate money-making scheme for private business.

Yes, Premier Campbell, you could rape the land for its resources and the province would be moderately more wealthy... for a couple of decades. Then what? Then we live in a polluted wasteland and the world will be without hundreds of species of animals and plants, and what precious little forest will be gone, and the world will be that much closer to cooking itself in a greenhouse of carbon dioxide.

Don't try to tell us that the forests are being managed and replanted. In the terminology of the forest industry, "forest management" means systematically replacing old-growth, natural forests with artificially planted stands of trees. You can't plant an ecosystem. Replanting trees just gives you a really big farm.

I'm simply stunned by the level of unabashed greed and inhumanity exhibited by this government as a whole. The only thing more disgusting to me than this travesty of a government is that British Columbians were stupid enough to elect them in the first place, and they'll probably re-elect them next time around, because I live in a province of red-necks and greedy businessmen.

Link: Canada.com: "B.C. to open 1,000-hectare corridor through park west of Fort St. John for oil and gas exploration"

One of Canada's new unmanned surveillance aircraft crashed on landing Friday, due to a failure of the parachute. The aircraft lands by deploying airbags and a parachute to slow its descent.

Typical of Canadian aircraft, it's powered by a snowmobile engine.

No, seriously. It is.

Many thanks to the Canadian military for perpetuating a national stereotype. (heaves sigh)

Link: Canadian Forces' new unmanned spy plane crashes in Afghanistan

Allow me to tell you about my morning. Got up extra early to go to work so that I could leave work early this afternoon. Discovered that I'd forgotten to do the laundry last night. Am wearing "laundry day" clothes. Car was covered in layer of ice. Wipers froze partway across windshield and jammed. They're now dead -- don't know if it was the fuse or a burnt-out motor. In Vancouver, you can't drive a car without functioning windshield wipers because it can start raining at any time.

On the way to the bus stop I spotted the the only bus that would take me to the office (the #5) just leaving the stop. Caught the #17 instead. Discovered that they'd changed the #17 route so that I had to walk about 11 blocks. Yeah, that's worth the bus fare. Missed dinner last night and had to miss breakfast this morning in order to make it to the office on time. Now I'll leave the office late and I'll have to spend my evening crouching on the cold, wet pavement, peering under a dark dashboard, trying to figure out which of the bloody fuses is the one that blew, if that's even the problem.

I'm hungry and pissed off and this coffee is terrible.... and... uh... alright I ran out of things to complain about. Hey, look. It's become quite sunny and nice out.

After the house across the street burned down last November, it was abandoned and boarded-up. Until this morning.

As I might have mentioned earlier, Blogger kindly sent a free Blogger hooded sweatshirt to all Blogger Pro users.

Mine was shipped last week. Unfortunately, FedEx only delivers in the daytime. When they couldn't deliver it during the day (when I'm at work), rather than holding it for pickup, they destroyed it.

Yes, they promise "The World On Time", or they'll destroy your package. Guaranteed.