Chris Tisdale's Blog

Archive for August, 2008

My dad sends me quite a few forwarded emails (fewer since I introduced him to snopes.com) and most of them are groaner jokes or interesting conspiracy theories about oil, regular dad-forward type stuff.

He sent me this the other day, and I finally got around to reading it. If you have a chance, give it a read, and then at the end I have a little exercise for you to try.

Read the rest of this entry »

P.E.T.A. is just another terrorist organization, and they need to be stopped.

Aside from their completely absurd agenda, condescending superiority complex, and guerilla tactics, what’s not to like about these animal savers?

How about their latest ad campaign, which is exploiting the recent Canadian bus-beheading incident to further their insane causes?

I haven’t seen it, and I’m not going to link to it. It’s been on the news, and the wife found read me a synopsis. If you really want to check it out, I’m sure you can find it, but I’m not going to satisfy those fucks with so much as an href.

The gist of their fucked-up logic is something like, ‘The way that victim felt on the bus, his fear, is the same way an animal feels right before it’s slaughtered.’

First of all, what a weak fucking thread of a connection to make for your sorry-ass and insane propoganda.

Secondly, shame on you fucking people. Actually, shame isn’t even close to what you people deserve. Shit in your open wounds, you fucking people. If you lost a loved one in a tragic random act of madness and unthinkable horror, and some group of big-titted vacuous celebrities fronting a group of overzealous fuckholes decided to use your loved one’s murder to further their assault on the rest of the world, I’m guessing it wouldn’t do much to ease your grief and suffering.

Not that I wish any harm to anyone, but I can’t help but wonder, if one one of Pam Anderson’s kids died in a car accident, do you think she’d be okay with her beloved PETA turning it into some kind of Anti-Veal statement or something? “See the way his limbs were torn off when he went through the windshield? That’s just how chickens feel when the drumsticks and hot wings are removed.” Fuck you, you disrespectful cunt-whores.
Speaking of overzealous fuckholes, apparently, that baptist ministry that seems to think picketing funerals and other tragedies in order to blame ‘the gays’ for all of the bad things in the world instead of doing something more constructive with their time and money-like, I don’t know, feeding the homeless or committing mass suicide-are planning on bringing their holy bullshit to this kid’s funeral too. I don’t care if this beheaded young man and his family were puppy torturing inbreeding drug dealers who like country music, I would still have nothing but the utmost sympathy for them right now. As if losing a son wasn’t bad enough.
And third… what? What the fuck are you talking about, ‘This is how an animal feels when it’s slaughtered’?
I’m not saying I’m an expert on meat preparation, but I’m pretty sure they don’t put ipods on cows, and wait until they’re asleep at 1 in the morning before coming up from behind and jamming a hunting knife into the back of its neck. It just doesn’t seem like a very efficient technique, at least, not from a mass production standpoint.

I’ve seen fields of cows, I live in beef country, for fuck’s sake. those dosey bastards wouldn’t survive a decade as a species if we set them ‘free’. My retarded Sheltie could take down a half-dozen of those lumbering lunch-mobiles on his worst day, not to mention the buffet all of those liberated bovines would make for wolves and bears and cougars.

Let’s assign feelings to animals for a minute, because that’s how PETA wants you to think of them. I’m no animal empath, so I’m not sure one way or the other, but let’s just say they have feelings. Which is a life more enjoyable, one where you live in a peaceful, protected setting, with all the food you need, enough mating to keep you satisfied, all of the naps you could ever need, until one day, you’re led into a small pen and BAM, it’s all over.

or…

You live in the wild, where you may not see your first steps, because a natural predator may just raid your family and eat your soft little body, and assuming you get to adulthood, life is a constant struggle of scrounging for food, fighting off competition for procreation, and running your ass off when those same predators appear, hoping like fuck you aren’t the slowest one today, hopefully Jerry’s ankle is still sore from that rock slide the other day, oh no, Jerry’s outrunning you, and they’re getting closer, it feels like your heart’s about to explode, but just before it does, you feel the jaws sink into your ass, and you stumble just long enough for another one to get up beside you and latch onto your throat, bringing you down, and as you cry out in pain and fear, suddenly there are six of them on you, tearing and ripping you apart, and you feel every tendon and piece of meat being chewed and pulled off of you, your eye gets stabbed out by a vicious and misdirected fang, and then, maybe, you finally are allowed to die, and your family gets to come back the next week to find your bones starting to bleach in the sun.

My point is, Animals don’t treat animals or people ethically, so PETA’s entire acronym is ridiculous and senseless, their motives are dark, and their tactics are insidious and thoughtless. If you think otherwise, you’ve gotta do your research, these are not nice people, not by a long shot.
As people, we have to figure out how to treat each other ethically first, and that includes NOT exploiting the grief and loss of a family for our own gain. Once we get that figured out, then we can start worrying about the cows, okay?

Until then, I plan on having a medium rare steak tonight, happy knowing the cow was not killed in a brutal and frighteningly ‘natural’ way, but humanely for the nurishment and enjoyment of myself and many others, and then I’ll be sending my thoughts out to the family of that murder victim, hoping that they have the strength to move on past this tragedy, and all of the ensuing bullshit artists who’ve selfishly connected themselves to it.

-Fuck you, PETA. Here’s hoping someone dumps a bucket of fake heads on your organization’s doorstep.

C.R.

My wife and I used to watch Tech TV a lot when it first came to Canada, but it wasn’t long before G4 bought the network out, and slowly, most of the personalities we watched regularly (Martin Sargent, Leo Laporte, Kevin Rose, Patrick Norton, and others) were let go, or left the place. Leo managed to come back in a couple of iterations; Call for Help, and The Lab, both of which I followed pretty closely.

A few months ago, I went to the website for The Lab, to get one of the free files mentioned on the show, and discovered that the show had been canceled. In the ensuing enraged comments, someone mentioned that he had a podcast network thing called TWiT. I Checked it out, and now I can get my fix of the wisdome of Mr. Laporte, and his many cohorts and guests.

From the TWiT site, I stumbled on a mention of Kevin Rose, and learned that he had founded Digg, which I didn’t know, and that he was also a founder of an internet TV channel called Revision3, which features shows made by a lot of the former Tech TV people, and a few new ones.

Ever since these discoveries, I’ve been following both the TWiT casts and the Rev3 shows, and it’s been like the old days all over again.

About a month later, I start seeing ‘trailers’ on the Rev3 shows about a new show debuting on the network, called Wine Library TV, featuring this crazy, hyper, New Jersey guy named Gary Vaynerchuck. I’ve never had much interest in Wine, so I didn’t really think I would have anything to do with this new show, but I thought I would check out the first couple of episodes when they started airing on Rev3.

And now it’s one of my favourite things on the internet.

If you’ve never seen Gary’s show, this article does a better job of describing him than I could. Basically, he’s a knowledgable and passionate wine expert, as well as a ‘web 2.0’ networking and marketing madman, who is trying to bring the whole idea of wine back to the masses, and out of the hands of snobby, condescending wine douchebags.

After watching his show for a month or so, I got the wife into it as well, and we’ve started trying wine more often, and it’s becoming a hobby I’m starting to really get into. I once went to a microbrewery beer tasting event with a buddy, expecting just to get hammered, but we also learned about how to taste for the different flavours, and train our palates to appreciate the differences between ales. Of course, now that I’m a gluten-free-guy, that whole beer thing is pretty much out of the question, but now I can enjoy that same experience with wine, with a little help from a crazy dude in Jersey who constantly references 80’s pop-culture and old-school wrestling.

Last week, I saw that there was some big news coming from Wine Library TV. It turns out, Gary has reserved half of a huge cruise ship for his fans and friends, and is hosting what he calls ‘The Thunder Cruise’, a seven day sail through the Bahamas, with a bunch of amazing wine tasting events along the way. The wife and I have been thinking about going on a cruise for a while now, so when I heard about this, and saw what a good deal it was, I called the wife, and she said, ‘Let’s go!’

(A Sidenote: This is why I love my wife. First, she doesn’t find it too odd that I get practically obsessed over this guys videocast, and actually enjoys it herself, and then, I suggest we go on his cruise, and she barely has to think about it. She’s awesome.)

The cruise officially went on sale yesterday, and we booked our cabin, and the rest of the details like flights and all of that will be taken care of this week. It’s been almost seven years since my wife and I met, and we’ve never been on a serious vacation like this, so I am extremely pumped. The fact that it is hosted by and I will get to meet one of the most inspiring people I’ve ever seen is just a pile of icing on that cake.

So if you like wine, or need to get inspired about how to be a succesful internets person, I couldn’t recommend Gary’s websites highly enough. And if you’re not busy in April, and want to come cruising with us and try some amazing wines, I believe there are still cabins available, go check it out!

-CR