This is the second time today I find myself defending Fifty Cent. This MP is either 1) an idiot, or 2) playing for cheap votes.

From the Globe and Mail: “‘Tis the season to be suspicious”

According to a study released today, 32 days before Christmas, by the Canadian Alliance Against Software Theft, 40 per cent of Canadians are so concerned about security that they will not shop on-line for Christmas gifts…The study asked respondents about the types of on-line security products they use, their greatest on-line security fears and their familiarity with threats such as “phishing.”

These people are dumbasses.

First of all, “phishing” has nothing to do with online shopping, unless you buy things from sites advertised in spam. This is akin to paying the $100 “processing fee” for the free vacation that the nice lady just called you about, even though you don’t remember entering any contests.

Second, you run a FAR greater risk of fraud or theft every time you give your credit card number to Ticketmaster over the phone, or hand your card to a waiter in a restaurant.

But the biggest dumbasses are the people who sponsored the survey, and the Globe who published the result under a scare headline. If 40% of people are so concerned that they won’t be shopping online, it’s reasonable (though not definitive) to think that 60% of people *aren’t* concerned enough to avoid shopping online.

As big a twat as I think the man is, I have to agree with him on this.

You know when your dentist says, “Whew…I never want to do a filling like that again!” that it wasn’t fun for him. I didn’t find it so bad; after the two needles I just sat there and watched CNN. Granted, my upper left gumline now feels like an innnertube, but there was no pain and you don’t really have to do much except lie there and listen to him drill shit. Still, he said that the cavity was so deep that the gum had started growing into the gap over the old filling, so he had to, and I quote: “Get rid of some of that gum tissue.” I suspect that I’ll understand what that means in a few hours when the freezing wears off.

As I said earlier, it’s not even my fault that I have this goddamn cavity. I’ve always taken pretty good care of my teeth, and this is the only cavity I’ve ever had. But when I was younger — maybe 11 or 12 — I had some appliances put on my teeth to keep them from crowding together. My orthodontist, who was both a sadist and a putz, left the hooks from this appliance on my upper back teeth in case I ever wanted braces. They stayed there for six or seven years, and I never did get the braces, so finally my usual dentist took them off. “Uh oh,” says he. “They put this on wrong. It’s too far from the tooth. A cavity’s formed where food got in between.” Brilliant. And he tells me this just a few days before I move to Toronto, so there’s no time for him to fix it, but it doesn’t hurt anyway. I guess the nerve wasn’t exposed or something.

A few months after moving up here, as I’m eating some french fries, I feel something crunchy in my mouth. I start to freak out ’cause I assume something hard and sharp was in my fries; turns out a big chunk of that tooth had just broken off. I find a dentist post haste. He gives me my first filling, during which I fall asleep and he has to prop my mouth open with some kind of spring-loaded tarpaulin. I ignore his instructions about not eating for a few hours and promptly chew the shit out of my tongue.

So, anyway, more years go by and that filling just wasn’t doing the job anymore, hence my trip to the fun chair today. All seems well for now, but talk to me around 1:00 and see if I’m still in a good mood.

Yup…having your mouth frozen is a weird feeling.

Later I’ll explain why I only have this filling because of my dumbass childhood orthodontist.

Just got back from basketball. Three hours of it. I stink. But at least I helped PC go 1-9 and instead of 0-10.

.:.
Habs won again, in a shootout this time. It’s the weirdest thing…they’re still second overall in the conference, but they’ve only scored two more goals than they’ve allowed. Ottawa, #1 in the east and the class of the league in my opinion, has scored 49 more than they’ve allowed. Can you say…juggernaut. Still, all the Leafs fans have this smug look on their face and keep saying, “Just wait ’til the playoffs.” I hope the Sens draw them in the first round and pound them into the ice. Leafs fans: the last time your team won the cup the Vietnam war was young. YOU SHOULD BE COCKY ABOUT NOTHING!!!!

.:.
What was I thinking, making a dentist appointment for 8:30 tomorrow morning? I’m already sleep deprived, and the adrenaline from playing basketball will keep me up until god knows when this morning. I’m liable to fall asleep while he fixes this filling.

.:.
I have now officially begun the longest course in the MBA program, and by all accounts one of the more difficult: economics. I assume it’s difficult in the same way that accounting was: if you haven’t seen it before, it’s like an alien language. I have seen it before, but it’s been more than ten years and I only scraped by with a C because of my friend CBJ, so…if anyone asks I don’t know what demand curves or baskets of goods are, ‘k?

I Dream of Jeannie Set to Blink to Big Screen

Things that today did not have going for it:

• it was Monday
• it was cold & grey
• three hours of meetings
• work is not going as well as i would like (got some bad news today) and I’m way behind from the week away
• the weather’s calling for snow (or at least chance of snow) every day this week
• the mail room seems to a) have lost my copy of Revenge Of The Sith, and b) be staffed by a meth addict who talks yells a mile a minute
• i have a pounding headache, which I believe is from being overtired. oddly enough, the best sleep i’ve had in the past week or so was the night before the exam.

I’m hoping for a late day turnaround.

Holy crap, they won a game. Against the Heat, no less.

We watched The Poseidon Adventure (imdb | rotten tomatoes) this weekend, another in the long line of 70s disaster films. It wasn’t terrible, but I wouldn’t call it good either. First of all, child actors should have to pass some kind of…well, screen test before appearing in things like this. Where did they find that kid? I could pull a 12-year-old off the street and he could do better. Anyway, Gene Hackman and Shelley Winters were good but the rest were just way too over the top. The effects, good for ’72, seem a little sad now. I’ll be curious to see how tonight’s TV movie and next year’s feature film remake turn out.

Walk The Line (imdb | rotten tomatoes), on the other hand, was excellent. Joaquin Phoenix did about as good a job playing an icon as you could, and Reese Witherspoon played June Carter as well as she could without really being able to replicate the voice. It was predictably biopic-y, but never veered into shmaltz or fairy tale endings. Go see.

Two things that really struck me while watching it:

1. People 10, 20, 30 years later must’ve just shaken their heads at having the good luck to see Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Elvis Presley and Carl Perkins all in one show.
2. I miss Johnny Cash.