If the whole world operated like Domino's Pizza, it would be a much better place

Me: I'd like a medium pizza for pick-up please

DP: What's your phone number?

Me: ###-####

DP: That's a medium pepperoni with ranch dipping sauce (same thing you order every time)?

Me: You got it

DP: That's $7.95. It will be ready in about 12 minutes.

***

An efficient, reliable, comforting exchange. What more could you ask for from any human relationship??? Perhaps efficiency doesn't play much of a role in more compassionate exchanges, but it's still nice when it's appropriate.

I want SOMEone to blow my brains out right about...

...be careful what you wish for.

In fact, my own will/negligence/will to neglect seem to be wrapped around the trigger every time I find myself before what I dramatically call death's door.

But today is going to be different. Yes, dear readers, how few you are!, I've decided to turn this wheel of fortune on its head and wish for exactly what I want... and I might even put some energy into getting it.

In no particular order, here is my wishlist for the 2006/2007 academic year and BEYOND!

1. To be able to chill with no other human being than the lovely hess-i-cita (with a few select peoples here and there)
2. To graduate. Like, with a degree and stuff
3. To find a couple grand under my couch cushions
4. Sleep
5. My honours project done and filed
6. Student loan approval
7. Pot, movies, you-know-who and NOTHING to do the next day
8. Sleep
9. To feel care free again, at least for a moment or two
10. For King's students to understand that public debate is necessary when the law is being broken
11. Lots of sleep
12. A job. A real one that I love. Like The Gazette, only real
13. To be able to think on the spot without churning my brain over and over (although that's prolly a done deal, given the first item in #7)
14. To travel. I love this place, but after 19 years (off and on... kinda), i kinda feel like stretchin my legs.
15. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
16. A bank account with a balance... or just the ability to go to the cash machine and not cringe in fear that nothing is going to be there
17. More drive. I'm feckin lazy. Way too lazy.
18. Sleep
19. Sleep
20. Sleep

There's 20. Not a bad number to start with. OK, back to the all-nighters...

Sundays suck

But stuff like this makes me happy:

DJT says:
what story you working on?

DJT says:
making a petition for why the cafeteria should have sweetner for coffee?

DJT says:
bring it down man ill sign it

DJT says:
you lakey media slave boy

Quotable shit

I'm mostly doing this because I have nothing to say that won't undermine my job at the student paper or my "journalistic integrity" or whatever that means. I'd love to use this space to bitch about people and situations at Dalhousie (AND KING'S) that piss me off, but I'm guessing that *could* get me into trouble. So instead I've decided to compile a "best of" series on the coolest, and weirdest, and most ridiculous, stuff I've seen on recent blog entries and in my everyday passings in life. Hurray to geekness!

**

Loukas, on working

"if I am working I want to be immersed in it. I don't want to see the sun. I want my coffee constantly at my side and my eyes straining against a computer with the blinds firmly shut behind me. Vacations are for pussies, let my billable hours ring out across the land with such force that it shakes the citys foundations."

**

Danny, on moving

"My room's still a mess, I should clean and organize things but I'm just so lazy. So lazy. I'd hire one of the homeless to help me, if I didn't think they'd rob me. Maybe I could make it a competition. I could get 5 shopping carts, fill them to the brim with clothes and books, then all i'd have to do is find 5 homeless guys (or girls, i'm not predjudice) and get them to race uphill from Hollis to Quinpool with my stuff. First one there wins 20 bucks? (is $20 too much?). Someone would drop dead of a stroke, though, and i'd lose my favourate pants or something, fuck that. why do I leave everything to the last minute?"

**

Jen, on the election of Dr. Brian Day, who "runs a private orthopedic clinic and has espoused the benefits of private healthcare delivery," to the presidency of the Canadian Medical Association.

"Day's private feelings cannot in any way affect the manner in which he conducts himself as CMA president as he is bound by the membership and by-laws of that body. Furthermore, the man isn't trying to spit on Tommy Douglas' grave here. He simply proffers a solution to what he sees as the major problem of patient suffering through extraordinarily long wait times. He holds the very sane and moderate belief that there is room for both private and public partnerships to improve both access and quality of delivery. Dr. Day gets a "brava" from me for sticking to his convictions and having the guts to tell Canadians that sometimes the sacred cow needs some company, lest it keel over and die."

**

Aaron, on being lovers with Joey (following Joey's suggestion)

"Even if I was gay, I'd like to think that I could do better"

**

Li, actually being funny for once... wait, wasn't that like four years ago?!

"Alright, so I kinda just read whatever the FUCK you sent me whilst real drunk and I must say, Catherine is just tooooo fuckin GOOD for you. You understand the fuck yes don't you motherfucker?! Yeah. I thought fucking so. AND another thing, Loukas' fuckin girlfiriend is hotttter than any girl you can ever GET ever ever ever (including Theressa, you prick). So I hope you (and everyone since I hit REPLY ALL by 'accident' so fuck you and all your newsworthy subjects you hear me motherfucker!) OH yeah, my motherfuckin lecture on how to listen to fuckin lectures was fuckin CANCELLED today so that made my 20min walking in the bitter cold worthless (much like yourlife) so Im NOT gonna have that story ready anytime EVER. GOT THAT. Great, fuck Im gonna go pass out now and hope I wil forget this email in the morning thus positively denying it on MONDAY.

SinserererererererererererereLY: Li "Justify my" Dong"

**

Li, on being an idiot even when you don't realize it

"Reid invited me to a stag party last night, strippers included. I had never been to one before so how could I resist the experience. The strippers performed for about an hour, doing all sorts of things with plastic objects over the faces of guys. I was playing the role of the DJ, volume up, volume down, next track back track etc. Wait, don't the DJs for strip clubs all get blowjobs? Wasn't that written in VICE or something?"

**

Rafal, on being an idiot even when you don't realize it

"I am speechless. I am not sure how to express my feelings about this. It is just plain ridiculous. The Superstore does not have fresh bread at 9 a.m. In normal countries (read: Europe), stores are out of bread by 9 a.m. The fact that Atlantic Superstore does not have fresh baguettes at 9 a.m. is unfathomable."

**

There's prolly more, but I'm bored and want to go drinking.

An update on the new wave of pluralism

To be sure, the government has gone out of its way to sweep this consultation straight under the rug of the student movement in this country. The Tories have backdoored both national lobby groups, who have calculated, responsible policy recommendations, in the interest of reaching an unknown, likely ignorant, constituency.

It turns out that those two statements aren't exactly true. The mouthpiece for HRSDC says the department sent out letters to a wide range of stakeholder groups, such AUCC, CASA and CFS, on August 14, informing them of the PSE consultation. BUT it's now more than two weeks later and none of those organizations have recieved the letter (AUCC recieved an email in its general inbox, but nothing official). So somebody fucked up.

In terms of other "promotion," the government announced the fiscal imbalance consultation in its May budget (pgs 79 & 80), and posted a news release on August 8. Both HRSDC and finance department officials say that was enough, despite the fact that the release makes no reference to post-secondary education.

Next, an HRSDC spokesperson says the government is planning on meeting with provincial and territorial officials in the coming months to discuss solutions to the same sort of problems it put to the Canadian public. It will then incoporate the outcomes of both "consultations" into some sort of policy change in the 2007 budget.

The spokesperson says the budgetary deadline forced the government to run the public consultations in the late summer, eventhough the timeline is encredibly awkward for students returning to school.

Finally, Jen Bond wanted to know why the government is running this online consult when it already has at its disposal the body of knowldge collected during the Council of the Federation's summit on PSE, which had roughly 300 stakeholders in attendance. A finance department spokesperson speculated that the Conservatives are taking that body of knowledge into consideration, but he couldn't say for sure.

Despite all this, my opinion stands. If the government wants "to ensure that people from every corner of the country have the opportunity to provide their thoughts on how [it] should proceed," as Minister Flaherty suggests, then it *probably* should have gone a little further than an announcement three months before the consultation, a single, vague news release on the day of its launch and a bunk letter campaign six days later. The legitimacy of the entire process, including the outcome, has been completely undermined by the way it was administered.

To make matters worse, our paper goes out a day before the consultations end, so I don't know if we'll reach anyone in time. But for those of you who made it passed the title of this post, you likely care enough, and know enough, to participate. So DO IT!

Having said that, though, I need to stress that my reservations about the quality of insight that Joe Canadian can offer remain. While I'm not trying to suggest that public consultations necessarily inhibit the legislative process (weelll, does anyone remember the Charletown Accord?!), I'm merely saying that in this case, our student leaders should have been at the helm.

But since the government has gone ahead with this, informed students should take advantage of the opportunity.