Chris Floyd (3/22/66-12/29/07)

"Check your junk mail... a bunch of your jarhead buddies sent you some."

That was how I found out that the best friend I have ever had had died. Lori had noticed that a few of my jarhead friends (the term doesn't offend... trust me) had sent me some emails to my junk account (for some reason no one ever thinks to send us mail at our primary account!). So later that night (Wednesday the 2nd/3rd) I logged onto my yahoo mail account at work and... there it was.

I spent the next twenyt minutes or so calling both Floyd's cell number (one of the emails had said that his wife, Michelle, had that phone) and Michelle's. After not getting any answers there, I called another fellow Third Herd alumni, Stacey Frizzell. Stacey answered (Stace is a guy, by the way...) and the rest is plain from the header of this particular post. I found out that the funeral is set for 2 p.m. on Thursday, the 3rd. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a little bit twisted up over not hearing about my best friend's unexpected demise early enough to actually attend the funeral but there's just no one to get mad at in this particular SNAFU. Apparently Floyd had written our new North Dakota number and address down sometime around the tornado in August that just about wiped us off the map but neglected to actually put it in any books or phone lists or anything else, so when everyone started calling and looking for me... nothin'. I understand. It's disappointing, but if Chris could have used a cel phone directory as well as he could a suicide clutch or a spud wrench, well, the result would have been pretty much the same but at least I could have been there.

Since I can't, though, I wanted to eulogize him as best I could.

You hear a lot about how adversity forges friendships like nothing else. You heard right. Now don't get me wrong, peacetime service in even a bungled beauracratic looney bin like the Marines isn't like what's currently going on overseas but in the mid-to-late 80's, painting fifty yards of gravel road white rock-by-rock, digging holes deep enough to bury a 1985 Ford F-150 and then being told to just fill it in when you're done, walking firewatch in the barracks on your liberty days for something a brown-bagger did while the brown-baggers got to go home because "They gots families", having CS gas tossed at you more often than is really necessary (even for training purposes), and a thousand other little inanities could really turn a bunch of young miscreants into... well, miscreants, to say the least. But we were miscreants bonded together against a common enemy. You guessed it: anyone that had even one more stripe than the rest of us. And flashy metal on the collars? Forget it... those guys shoulda all been fragged on sight!

Those (and too many others to list!) were the circumstances under which I met Chrisopher Alan Floyd. Now had I met Chris (or rather; "Floyd", or "Sigmund" or [my personal favorite] "Pink") even so much as one year earlier I probably would've sneered, mumbled "burn-out!" under my breath, and forgotten the little creep. Okay, he was never little... that's exactly why I would've mumbled "burn-out!" rather than said it out loud. But I didn't meet him then and, instead we became friends.

Now Chris was no saint, let's not kid ourselves here. I can remember literally hundreds of times when he'd scarf up the last beer and laugh as he slobbered all over the neck of the damned thing just to keep you from being tempted to snatch it away from him (as if you could!). But you know what? He'd usually be the first guy to pony up for another six (or, in 3rd Herd's case... a case!), assuming, of course that he hadn't pissed his entire paycheck away on the beer in hand. Which happened. A lot!

We hung out a lot. And drank a lot. And got drinking in public tickets a lot! But we had a lot of fun beyond drinking... although I really can't remember ever NOT drinking with Floyd! My first concert ever was with Floyd and Yogi Simpson (and maybe Hackman too, I really don't remember it very well) at the Aerosmith concert when they were still on drugs and Ted Nugent opened for them. Besides being temporarily deaf from ol' Ted's routine, I probably got drunker that night than I ever have before or since. I vaguely remember sitting down on the floor of the McDonalds' right in the line to order when Floyd looked me over and, no doubt realizing that it was either sit down or fall down for me, said; "Hey, Down'van... whaaaaa doooooon't yoooo siddoooowwwwn 'foooooore yooooou fallllll dooowwwn?" I also remember his nearly girlish giggle as he grabbed my by the armpits and literally dragged me over to a booth and dumped me in it before going back to the line to get the food.

I know; not exactly a "he dove onto the hand grenade to save me" kind of story that you see in the movies but we weren't in the movies. And for us, being drunk out of our ever-loving gourds in Norfolk was about as close as we ever got to that kind of action anyway.

And as ballsy as he was he never got pissed at us grunts when we'd start singing "Floyd's woman from Tokyo..." after he started dating Michelle McCauley, a waitress of Korean/Irish descent, at the legendary Yorktown Pub. I'm pretty sure I've mentioned that story to you before, Michelle, but if I haven't, well... there you have it: we were less than touchy-feely, sensitive guys.

And then of course there was Scott McQueeney, who beat us all to whatever comes after that last six pack. Floyd was with there along with the rest of us who went to Manchester, NH for Scott's funeral. I remember how understanding he was when I used a bic lighter to burn off that Irish pennant from the collar of his, borrowed of course, dress blues while practicing for Scott's funeral at the local reserve armory (said Irish pennant being probably at most a half inch under his chin!). Very understanding indeed. That's just the kind of guy Floyd was, though. But by later that night at the Salty Dog he was totally over it and, you guessed it... drank it up with the rest of us poor saps.

I could go on forever (and wish I could) but we have to save some of our stories for the next reunion (and the one after that and the one after that and...), not that I don't think we'll be repeating 'em all over again for the rest of our own days!

In short I just want to say that Chris Floyd was a hell of a guy. In fact I've considered Floyd to have been my brother since long before we got out of the Corps together; closer even than my real brother. I was hoping that my little girl would grow up thinking of him as "Uncle Floyd" the same as Hack's kids do but now she'll only know him from pictures. He was my best friend... ever, and the world is a sorrier place without him.

Goodbye Chris. I'm gonna miss the shit out of you.

Top photo: Floyd and one-year-old Susie in our hotel room in Williamsburg, VA, 2005 (their only meeting)

Bottom photo: Floyd, Michelle, Lori and I at a restaurant in Williamsburg, VA, 2005. One of the last times I ever got to see him.

This isn't really typical of me but...

Does it strike anyone else that it just might be a bad idea for the shuttle Endeavour to come back to Earth without using that special filler material that NASA came up with after Columbia burned up on reentry to cover that hole that the latest piece of falling ice/foam made?

I really don't like second guessing NASA. I think the media does everything they can to present the space agency in a bad light without ever reporting on all the great things are accomplished by the same bunch of guys. The mass media seems to look at NASA the same way as they do the military. You know; "We love the troops but we hate what they do." Same thing with NASA: "We love astronauts but they're all a bunch of alcoholic, psychotic, gun-toting, diaper-wearing weirdos, aren't they?"

Oh well, I guess that's a topic for a different post. Back to what I was talking about...

A few flights back they sent a guy out on a robotic arm to pull out two pieces of felt gap filler material that stuck out about 1/8th or 1/4 of an inch. For all intents and purposes it was done because they felt that even though the best brains in the business all concluded that there was very little chance of a serious problem ocurring due to the filler strips sticking out slightly that it was "better safe than sorry". I thought then (and still do now) that management made the right decision to pull the strips. If for no other reason it was the right decision because after Columbia the public needed to see that safety was foremost in NASA's mind.

Well now they've got a hole gouged all the way through a tile that has bared a piece of the actual skin of the shuttle to superhot gasses created by reentry. The astronauts have photographed it, used a laser to determine it's depth, and eggheads round the world (no doubt) have pondered the level of danger that this may or may not present to the crew and the vehicle itself. Everyone seems to have come to the conclusion that it's really not that bad. Hmmmm.

Don't get me wrong; I'm no egghead. I've been called a lot of things ending in "head" but never egghead. I don't have an advanced degree. I don't even have all the facts that the real eggheads do. But I wonder if this isn't something that maybe they should be applying that "better safe than sorry" ethos to. I mean come on... even if the danger isn't really all that high isn't this the ideal time to try that filler goop out in a real space environment and see how it handles the heat and stress of an actual reentry rather than rely on lab tests and computer models? Isn't this the perfect opportunity to see how well it can really be applied in a microgravity, airless environment? Hmmmm?

I see the latest news on Space.com is that Endeavour is undocking from the ISS a day early in order to come home before hurricane Dean (I think that's the name) can cause problems. That's wise. I guess we'll all see if they're as right and wise about the tile damage as they are about the weather when Endeavour comes back.

I'll be crossing my fingers!

One last post before we go...

Well we're movin' into our new house on Monday and our internet's gonna be down for as long as a week or two so I thought I'd update this pig. Besides, it's been more than a month since my last post and I was afraid that I was gonna turn into Joe if I didn't post something!




First off; here's our new house for those of you that may have missed the pics on email.












Yes, it is a little crooked. It's the picture, though, not the house.


Honest.












Remember my last rant about Charlie and the Chocolate Factory? Of course you do... it's right below this one ya yutz! Well Lori recently got me a copy of the book for Father's day and I read the whole thing to Susie over the course of about a week. Now, having read the fershlugginer thing, I have to say...

The book's total shit too! I was shocked. I've always loved Roald Dahl's work and couldn't believe that the book that's considered to be his crowning achievement is largely garbage!!!



I suppose maybe my perception is colored irretrievably by my childhood memories of the movie with Gene Wilder but I'd like to think to think that I have the capacity to be impartial on this one. After all, I knew that the Star Wars prequels were destined to be dissappointing for me because (news flash!) I'm not twelve anymore. There was just no way that Georgie Boy was gonna be able to make a film that affected me in the way that Star Wars (that's right... Star Wars! None o' that Episode IV: A New Hope garbage!) did because twenty years had passed.



But Charlie/Willy predate that period considerably and given that the book came first I hoped that I would find that it was Dahl's outlook on it that had changed and that the book would indeed be just as good (though not necessarily the same as) the movie.



Boy was I wrong!



So I suppose I owe Tim Burton an apology for the vast amounts of acid and general hate I spewed forth in his direction from various orifices (mmmmmm... there's an image!). Sorry Tim. Your movie is, indeed, extremely faithful to the book. In fact I would have to say that the Burton version of C and the C F is one of the best examples I can think of of a movie that follows the book in virtually every way.



But...! My opinon on the film remains unchanged. Sorry Tim but that's the way it goes. You were slavishly faithful to a book that stank; a book that pales in comparison to the 70's film version. The earlier movie has heart and humor and lessons galore while the new one (like the book) is full of an "aren't these people awful?" sentiment with virtually no redeeming qualities whatsoever.



And as a last aside to Mr. Dahl: Double... NO!... Quadruple shame on your withered soul for disparaging a film that so clearly improved on your own work! Whassamattah, Roald... jealous that you didn't think of some of that dialogue of Willy's in the Wilder version? Sure most of it's not original but Willy himself is a creature of pop culture so why shouldn't he speak in literary references? Particularly since the dialogue you gave him was so unmemorable and pedestrian!



Dahl was credited in the earlier film as the screenwriter so I'll have to assume that a number of the improvements over the book are his (Slugworth and the Everlasting Gobstopper subplot, etc.) but for him to badmouth the film due to its dialogue being improved by a highly respected producer with decades in the business is just ludicrous. It's not often that I come down on the side of a suit but this is one exception I'm glad to make.



FIN



Coming up next post: Do all 107-year-old houses make all those creepy noises?

Charlie and the Big Bag of Runny Shit.

Last post I threatened to review something that I actually liked. Of course you didn’t believe it because you know me.

Never let it be said that I disappointed you.

Surfin’ around the plethora of HBOs the other night (our free subscription is almost up and there’s just no way I’m gonna pay for that crap) I stumbled into Tim Burton’s remake of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.

Initially I thought, "Hey, that’s funny!" No, not because something amusing was happening but because for the last few weeks Susie has had the Gene Wilder version on a constant loop here at our house in Those North Woods, USA. Now when this particular… flick… was in theaters I just couldn’t believe that anyone thought the original needed to be remade. I’d heard for years that Roald Dahl was famously unhappy with the original and refused to ever watch it (his script apparently was changed drastically) but having never read the book (it would have interfered with my constant re-reading of 2001) I have always considered the film to be one of my all-time favorites and sort of thought of it as being near perfect—despite the admittedly low production values.

Well, anyway… back to the point. It was on. It was free. I was morbidly curious. I watched it.

"BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAP-(splash)-A-DAP-A-DAP-A-(splash)-BUBUBUBUBUBUBUBBUBUUUUUUUUuuuuuuuuuuuuup-(splash)-… up-(splash)-….up-(splash)-…. up-(splash)-…. Fweeeeeeee -(splat)."

What was that, you ask? That, my friends, is the cartoonish representation of what a really nasty case of stinking liquid shit being shot out of a Marine’s ass after a night of wild drinking at some local shitkicker bar complete with chicken wire in front of the stage sounds like, toilet water splooshes and all.

That same sound seemed to come out of my 5.1 sound system during the entire viewing experience of watching "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory". Of course it was all in my head but that was the general "taste" I was left with by the time the friggin’ credits slithered their turd-like way up my stained and violated 27-inch CRT.

You might assume I didn’t like it. You’d be right if you did.

Now I have to preface this whole "review" with the admission that not only have I never read the book but I didn’t even see the opening 20 minutes or so of this particular, ummmm…. production. I stepped in it, I mean stumbled into it at the point where Charlie finds his golden ticket at Bill’s Candy Shop.

Initially I thought that maybe HBO had started yet another new channel-- one dedicated to showcasing workprints of unfinished films that had since been finished and gone on to theatrical runs. Such a channel would be of specific interest to true movie geeks who get a kick out of watching a film go through the whole process from script to screen. I thought this because the whole time Charlie is opening up the wrapper of the chocolate bar there isn’t any music creating any underpinnings of tension and the pacing of the scene was dull and lifeless, as were the expressions on all the actor’s faces. Imagine, if you will, unwrapping a piece of Bazooka Joe bubblegum and… GASP!!!!… finding a small comic strip inside the wrapper! Yeah, I know; Big F’in’ Deal, right? They ALL have that in them. That’s pretty much the feeling that’s telegraphed by the scene. It felt like an assembly edit. No one seems to think it’s all that big a deal. If they do, then maybe it’s the massive doses of thorazine that they’re all apparently on that are what’s keeping them from acting surprised or impressed or, well, anything!
So then all the kids show up at the gate of the big, impressive, computer-generated chocolate factory.

The kids. That leads to my next rant.

Whatever you may think of the "original", you have to admit one thing: they’ve each got loads of individual character. While they are undeniably stinkers who need a good hard swat to the behind with a circular saw they are also absolutely real examples of children that all of us have, at one time or another, run into in our daily lives. I won’t go into them individually but I felt like I knew these kids. And while I didn’t like them I always felt like they were at least potentially rehabilitatable. The same sort of goes with the parents; they’re messed up too, but not soooooooo badly that you can’t relate—at least a little.

Now here comes Tim Burton and his "artistic vision" thing to go and screw all that up. The kids in C and the CF are nothing less than total reprobates who come off as nothing more than budding recruits for some inner-city gladiator academy. While the kids in the original were portrayed as horrible little kids, the future sociopsychopaths in Burton’s poopfest resemble nothing more than miniature versions of Karla Homolka and Jeffrey Dahmer. Mike TeeVee (or however it’s spelled in this incarnation) is, by far, the worst of the lot. I think Stanley Kubrick protrayed Alex in ‘A Clockwork Orange’ as more of a redeemable soul than Tim Burton did with poor little Mikey (whose father should not only deprive him of a real gun until he’s twelve, he should probably seriously consider depriving the little S.O.B. of oxygen for the same amount of time and help us all out). The same sort of goes with the parents (just about the only thematic element that this thing has in common with the 1970’s version is that the kids and parents are about equally screwed up, relative to each other). They’re messed up soooooo badly that you can’t relate—not even a little.

Plus (as if all that wasn’t bad enough!) there’s no Slugworth character. There isn’t even a hint of any desire on the kid’s parts to get into the factory so as to sell all of Johnny Depp’s secrets for their own selfish gains, as in the Wilder version. They all just seem to want their stinkin’ chocolate. To make things worse, the appearance of the everlasting gobstoppers cause two of the kids to sort of eyeball each other as if to say, "Hey… that’s the thing I came to scarper off with and make scads of ill-gotten dough on the black candy market!" but then nothing happens with it! WTF?

There’s no contract to sign! The friggin’ oompa loompas are all played by Deep Roy on crack! Willy Wonka appears to have a Dorothy Hamill/Elton John fetish! Nobody so much as breaks a sweat or acts in any way disturbed when the kids all meet their inevitable "ends"! Jesus… lemmee offa this lame-ass ride already!!!!!!
And now the worst for last--

Charlie.

I don’t know who the kid was who played him. It’s not his fault. I hope he goes on to do something more meaningful with his life. Something like crushing used hypodermics into a garbage can at an L.A. methedone clinic (Oh we’ll get you off that smack, oh yes we will!). But the truth is that the Charlie character was even bigger B.S. than all the other kids put together.
Sure he was poor. Sure he meant well. He had a heart of gold. He was the only one who "got" Willy. He was… hopelessly perfect.

In the original, Charlie was all of that as well but he was a real friggin’ kid! He effed up! He STOLE fizzy lifting drink and bumped into the ceiling which had to be washed and sterilized and he damned near got NOTHING! He damned near LOST! Good DAY sir! Only the fact that his innate goodness overcame his equally innate badness and his conscience made him give back the everlasting gobstopper rather than sell it to Slugworth and get revenge on Wonka saved him in Willy’s eyes. But in Timmy B’s idea of a better way of doing things poor little Charlie is the one who stands his moral ground and eventually leads to Willy’s reconciliation between Willy and his father and parenthood in general.
Huh? Why do all the great, older filmmakers have to go through Lucaspeilberg Syndrome? Why must the adults all be infantile and pathetic and only be redeemed at the hands of the superior child? Why God why?

So just in case you scrolled down here real quick in an effort to avoid all of my sulphurous ranting, here’s the final word:

"BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAP-(splash)-A-DAP-A-DAP-A-(splash)-BUBUBUBUBUBUBUBBUBUUUUUUUUuuuuuuuuuuuuup-(splash)-… up-(splash)-….up-(splash)-…. up-(splash)-…. Fweeeeeeee -(splat)."

P.S. If this is what ol’ Roald Dahl had in mind all along (he wrote the lyrics for the Oompa Loompa songs), then he should be ashamed of himself for badmouthing the original so badly all these years.

P.P.S. If Mel Stuart is still around, someone let him make more movies!

Lack of image credits: Friggin' Blogger, of course!

Impostor or; The Rising Cost of Impostage

Well, it’s been a while since I’ve tackled a film review on this glacial site so I guess it’s time I took a running start and tackled another turd again. Here we go!

A long time ago in a feces-encrusted theater in Burbank, Lori and I saw a trailer for an upcoming flick called Impostor starring Loo-tenant Dan and Madelyn (clothes… what clothes?) Stowe based on a story by Phillip K. Dick (he of ‘Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?’/Bladerunner fame) about Sinise’s character (shame on you if you didn’t get the Gump reference… in fact just get the hell out! You heard me!) being framed as an assassin of some sort in the typically Dick-ian (I just can’t bring myself to say ‘Dickish’) dystopian future full of blue light, garbage, and steam all over the place.

It looked vaguely intriguing yet was pretty undecipherable and we both kinda figured, "What the hell? It’s got ‘Mother’ from ‘A Midnight Clear’ and a chick who’s notorious for stripping in virtually every movie she’s ever made… why not?"

Well then the damned thing just up and did a Peter Pan right in front of us and disappeared from sight and/or memory.

About two YEARS later we went and paid good money for another turdfest and what do we see in the trailers? You guessed it; Impostor. Same trailer. Same cast. Same reaction. We wondered; "What the hell? Where did it go for two years?" Anyway… that was the last we saw or heard of it again. I think this all started sometime in ’95 or ’96 (yes, smartass… that’s 1995 or 1996, not 1895 or 1896. Jeez, I’m tellin’ ya!).

Then last night Netflix sent the fershlugginer (you may have noticed my love of that non-word. If you don’t get it you’ve obviously never read any Mad Magazines prior to 1984) to us. I guess Lori had noticed the title in their database and figured, as we had twice before, "Why not?"

Well here’s why not.

Okay, baldly synopsized (no snickering from the Peanut Gallery!) the thing goes like this:
Earth has been attacked in the middle of the 21st century by the Centauri and lots o’ folks is daid. Loo-tenant Dan’s dad is one of them. He grows up and becomes an Oppenhiemer-type of weapons design genius who has created some sort of weapon of mass destruction that should give us poor backwards human types the ultimate opportunity to go and kick some Centauri butt back across the 4.whatever light years to the Centauri homeworld and put a stop to the interstellar shenanigans.

But before he can finish his science project a Gubmint ‘bad guy’ (is there any other kind in Hollywood?) played by Vincent D’onofrio comes along and claims that he (Loo-tenant Dan, that is) is really a Centauri replicant (Phil Dick… remember?) who is an exact copy of the real Loo-tenant Dan, sent here by the aliens to assassinate the Chancellor of Earth.

So all hell breaks loose and lots of fighting/running/shooting/swearing/sweating and other movie kinds of stuff happens, starring an astonishingly complete cast of Hollywood’s B and C-grade actors and extras. The sheer number of nameless faces that you’ve seen in literally hundreds of movies and TV shows that you see again in this flick is brain-deadening. Some of the background players actually went on to get higher profile work like Connie Neilson, Mekhi Pfeiffer (or however in the hell the dude spells it) and the greyish black guy from CSI but most are just there to remind you that even B and C-grade actors gotta eat.

Anyhow, long story short… Loo-tenant Dan figures out that the alien sent to assassinate the Chancellor must have met some sort of grisly end before ‘copying’ him (if you rent it pay attention to ‘the fire’) and goes to find the crashed ship with his doctor wife (Stowe, who I have to add is actually about five years past her ‘best if used by’ date in this particular flick) and is followed by about 18,000 other Gubmint baddies with real machine guns and plastic helmets that were (I kid you not) borrowed from ‘Starship Troopers’).

I won’t blow the ending for you (though it kinda blows all on it’s own) but there’s a twist, then there’s an explosion, and then a bunch of names scroll up the screen before you realize, "Oh… it’s over? Huh."

About that time is when you want to look at the special features section of the DVD and check out the "original short film". It’s basically the entire flick minus about 45 minutes of absolutely inconsequential characters and action that pretty much serve only to stretch this thing out to feature length. Apparently the whole story was originally intended to be part of an anthology movie like "Cat’s Eye" or "Creepshow". Honestly, the short version isn’t perfect either but it’s really more enjoyable than the full-length feature if only for the fact that it wastes less of your time.

Anywhoo… go ahead and rent it if you want, of course. It’s not really a bad movie. But that’s part of the problem. Really great movies are, well… great. Really bad movies can be fun. But flicks like this one just sort of lay there and make some indistinct noises while the experience goes from ‘okay’ to ‘oh hell… just finish it off already, will you?’

Maybe next time I’ll just go ahead and review something I liked.

Believe it or not it happens!

(photos courtesy of www.rottentomatoes.com)

In Memoriam for Joe Lampone... wherever he may be.

Ordinarily I just don't find this kind of fan-boyish crap to be funny. Precious? Maybe. Retarded? Uh huh. Pretentious and more than a little scary that someone would actually spend time on it and desperately be awaiting your similarly geek-induced approval and even adulation? Oh HELL yeah!

Check it out all the same. This one's actually funny (though mostly at the very end... it starts off pretty typically for this kind o' thing).

http://www.somethingawful.com/d/news/blue-stripe-cafeteria.php

Yub yub! (gag)

So morons aren't solely a U.S. commodity?

I don't really put much stock in religion so let me just say "Thank hydrogen for the Canadians".

Check out the following article that an ex-BP friend of mine (that means she's no longer in the BP, not that she's no longer a friend) sent me concerning some of the ignorant questions that Canadian Customs gets asked on a daily basis by the world's brainless elite who wish to soil their shores...

Because Everyone In Canada Lives In An Igloo.

Now that Vancouver has won the chance to host the 2010Winter Olympics, these are some questions people fromall over the world are asking. Believe it or notthese questions about Canada were posted on anInternational Tourism Website. Obviously the answersare a joke; but the questions were really asked!

Q: I have never seen it warm on Canadian TV, so howdo the plants grow?(England )

A: We import all plants fully grown and then justsit around and watch them die.

Q: Will I be able to see Polar Bears in the street?(USA)

A: Depends on how much you've been drinking.

Q: I want to walk from Vancouver to Toronto -can Ifollow the Railroad tracks? (Sweden)

A: Sure, it's only Four thousand miles, take lots ofwater.

Q: Are there any ATM's (cash machines) in Canada?Can you send me a list of them in Toronto, Vancouver,Edmonton and Halifax? (England)

A: What, did your last slave die?

Q: Can you give me some information about hippo racingin Canada? (USA)

A: A-fri-ca is the big triangle shaped continent southof Europe. Ca-na-da is that big country to yourNorth...oh forget it. Sure, the hippo racing is everyTuesday night in Calgary. Come naked.

Q: Which direction is North in Canada? (USA)

A: Face south and then turn 180 degrees Contact uswhen you get here and we'll send the rest of thedirections.

Q: Can I bring cutlery into Canada? (England)

A: Why? Just use your fingers like we do.

Q: Can you send me the Vienna Boys' Choir schedule?(USA)

A: Aus-t ri-a is that quaint little country borderingGer-man-y, which is...oh forget it. Sure, the ViennaBoys Choir plays every Tuesday night in Vancouver andin Calgary, straight after the hippo races. Comenaked.

Q: Do you have perfume in Canada? (Germany)

A: No, WE don't stink.

Q: Can you tell me the regions in British Columbiawhere the female population is smaller than the malepopulation? (Italy)

A: Yes, gay nightclubs.

Q: Are there supermarkets in Toronto and is milkavailable all year round?(Germany)

A: No, we are a peaceful civilization of Veganhunter/gathers. Milk is illegal.

Q: I have a question about a famous animal in Canada,but I forget its name. It's a kind of big horse withhorns. (USA)

A: It's called a Moose. They are tall and veryviolent, eating the brains of anyone walking close tothem. You can scare them off by spraying yourselfwith human urine before you go out walking.

Q: Will I be able to speak English most places I go?(USA)

A: Yes, but you will have to learn it first.