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Author Archive | Mark A. Rayner

The Lost Power Point Slides (Napoleon Surrenders Edition)

By on July 15, 2005 in Hinky History, The Lost PowerPoints

Napoleon SurrendersNapoleon surrenders to the English, July 15, 1815

Napoleon presents “country gent” exile to Prince Regent –>last slide

If I surrender, you will:

  • exile me from my beloved France
  • let me live a quiet life in the English countryside
  • allow me to bring my own chef

I will not:

  • call you “smelly beef eaters”
  • take over Europe again.

Prince Regent presents “hellish exile” solution to Prime Minister –>slide 6

Main provisions:

  • St. Helena
  • bad food
  • poison too (just to hedge our bets).

On board the HMS Bellerephon, Captain Frederick Maitland explains change in plans –>slide 12 & 13

  • no, not going to take you to Lake Country
  • no, you will not have private chef on board
  • no, the Billy Ruffian will not take you to St. Helena.
  • from here we sail to Torbay, so tourists can gawk at you for a while
  • the Northumberland takes you to St. Helena.
  • no! No private chef!

Toyota finds Ontario workers malleable and compliant

By on July 14, 2005 in General Skwib, Parody & Satire

Is anyone else alarmed by this? Toyota has turned down zillions of dollars worth of subsidies in the US to put their new North American plant in the Province of Ontario.

Oh sure, the company CLAIMS it’s because workers here are “well-trained” and “literate”, but we won’t be fooled. When they say “well-trained” they mean: we follow orders.

When they say “literate” . . . well, I think that means we can read. Okay, I can’t see anything wrong with that. But the whole “well-trained” thing, that’s code.

All I’ll say is watch out! Wouldn’t it be horrible if our easily gulled workers turned out a line killer robots, programmed to destroy Queen’s Park and maybe even Parliament Hill, rendering our province and country politician-less?

Okay, maybe this is good news after all.

Killer robots! With deadly musical instruments! | Toyota Likes Ontario

Blognate, and other lame words that we hope will never become popular

By on July 13, 2005 in But is it art?, General Skwib

Blogsore — this is what happens to your ass when you spend too many hours working on your blog.

Blogul — pronounced like “mogul” — what every blogger hopes they will someday become. This is better than being a “blogebrity”.

Blogma — this is what every blogger believes. That blogs are important. The MOST important form of communication … ever.

Blogan — your blog’s tagline.

Blogwash — what this post is.

Bloguery — seducing unsuspecting trackbacks with your pretty graphics and vapid, vapid prose.

Blogey — kind of like a bogey, a restless spirit, and kind of like a loogie, the blogey is the post that you try to hawk out, but just can’t. Eventually, you just have to swallow it, or you will hurt yourself.

Blogurt (or possibly bloghurt) — this will be a food that all subscribing to the blogma will have to ingest. It will be creamy, and filled with bacteria.

Blognate — pretentious words about the “blogosphere” that derive from the same word, in the original blogestral language.

Blogestral — okay, I have to stop now, before I am overcome with self loathing.

Too late.

Inspired by:
A rant by Maddox of the Lame Design.

The glow of media whoredom & carnivals

By on July 13, 2005 in General Skwib

I’m a little behind on getting to all the Carnivals this week, what with the light of publicity shining on me and my book because of mainstream media coverage. Well sort of, the London Free Press is the local daily here in London (Ontario). Thanks to the columnist, and friend, Carmi, for the coverage. Carmi, I should note, has a blog too, called Written Inc, which is worth a visit.

The skwib has recently appeared on Conservative Cat’s Funny Stuff, and the 147th Carnival of the Vanities, hosted this week by Wallo World .

Operation Give-Our-Parties-Mascots

By on July 12, 2005 in Parody & Satire

proposed new NDP logoIn the usual skwib fashion, we come to this issue from an oblique angle.

The US has a new movement, Operation Yellow Elephant, which proposes that young Republicans support their President by serving as infantry in the army.

Wow, what an excellent idea; this will really help the American forces meet some of their recruitment targets, which they have been falling behind on for some time now. If you were a young Republican, you would go, right? I mean, your country needs you. Your president needs you (never mind that he didn’t volunteer to serve in a war zone when he was a youth) so you go. That’s what duty is all about.

Of course, it’s easy to say, living in Canada. (And yes, I’m being sarcastic.)

This leads us to the problem at hand. Where are OUR mascots? In the US, the Republicans have an elephant. The Democrats have a donkey. Where are the animals for our political parties?

The skwib has few suggestions:

Liberals:

Candiru. This is the tiny Amazonian fish that swims into unsuspecting urethras, plants a spike to make their residence permanent, and proceeds to feed off the host until the parasitee does something silly like try to remove it.
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The list issue

By on July 11, 2005 in General Skwib

Dear Editors:

We would like to express our considerable annoyance with the preponderance of lists being generated by the so-called end of the millennium. Here are our ‘top ten’ reasons why you should encourage fewer lists, and more grammatically intact prose:

    10) Lists are incapable of expressing irony.
    9) Making other people feel they should read Ulysses is vicious, iniquitous and generally not nice.
    8) Actually reading Ulysses is even worse.
    7) We don’t like counting backwards.
    6) Lists lead to people compiling books of lists, which are doubly annoying.
    5) Is always filler.
    4) Too many sentence fragments.
    3) Countdowns lead one to expect that a rocket will be launched. But no rocket is launched.
    2) Casablanca.
    1) Is usually a huge letdown.

Please feel free to use this list in place of other lists you may be tempted to print, and save Canadians valuable reading time. We hope this suggestion is taken with the seriousness in which it is given.

Mark Rayner, Esq.
On behalf of The Emily Chesley Reading Circle

Originally published: November 29, 1999 in the National Post

Visit The Emily Chesley Reading Circle and discover more of our Letters of Annoyance.