See you in a week!

The Board of Directors is en route (that's french for "on the way", people) to the Coachella festival this weekend. Enjoy yourselves (not that way), and we'll undoubtedly have some hilarity to share on our return. In the meantime, all of you JTC delegates are asked to participate in the new poll.

In my mind, you're all Super delegates.

Coco

TTC Strike Averted; JohnnyM Horrendously Disappointed

So - contrary to my previously mentioned hopes and dreams, there will be no transit strike here in the city of Toronto, and the estimated 1.5 million daily TTC riders (my sublime, self-righteous ass among them) can continue to be herded to work like cattle tomorrow morning.

But before we go back to our regularly scheduled programming, I'd just like to relay a conversation held between myself and CoCo on Friday afternoon on a downtown patio, which I think gets to the root of my "put people outside of their comfort zone, and something good might happen" argument...

JohnnyM: "So, if there's a strike on Monday, how are you going to get to work?"
CoCo: "I'll just walk. You?"
JohnnyM: "I think I'm going to run in."
CoCo: "But won't you be all sweaty?"
JohnnyM: "Yeah, but I can shower at the gym."
CoCo: "Hey - that's a great idea...I think I'll do the same. Actually, regardless of if there's a strike, I might just start doing that."
JohnnyM: "There it is."
CoCo: "You're really hot. Let's make out."*
JohnnyM: "Holy shit, you're so gay."*


* I may have taken some 'artistic license' with this portion of the conversation. But I'm pretty certain CoCo is gay. And I don't mean happy. We're talking rainbows.

WTF Volume 4: Calgary

Welcome to the fourth installment of JTC Inc.'s "WTF" series, where we highlight things that make us say "What the fuck?". This edition deals with Alberta's largest city, Calgary: gateway to the west. And by "the west", we mean "rampant crack smoking".

The ludicrously short Calgary (nee Husky) Tower

WTF Factor: Head recoil with eyeroll

Usually the narrow form factor of a tower is used to achieve greater heights than surrounding buildings of standard design, but not in the case of this embarrassingly short edifice from which the Husky company quickly disassociated itself. In a contest of phallic symbols, The CN Tower makes this look like a nipple.

Trailer Park Tuxedoes

WTF Factor: Cringe with groan

Jeans. Jean shirt. Jean Jacket. This class outfit is a Calgarian staple, even in the business district. With every second person around me consistently draped in denim, I felt out of place in an actual suit.

The Idiotic Street/Avenue/Quadrant System

WTF Factor: Clenched "I'll get you!" fist shake

Albertan Urban Planners must be smoking B.C. bud, because they decided to combine the 'avenue/street' cross-hatch city plan with the 'ne/se/sw/ne quadrant' plan. The resultant layout means not only does each avenue intersect itself (ie. 9th and 9th), but there are two of each intersection (ie. two 9th & 9th's). Perfect for the hammered out-of-towner trying to give directions to a cab driver.

Plus 15

WTF Factor: Gestures suggesting masturbation

Instead of being a real city and burrowing beneath the earth, the city decided to escape Old Man Winter's chilly spank by building walkways "Plus 15" feet above ground. Welcome to Calgary: Despite bathing in oil, we're still lame and cheap.

The Number of Transient Crack Smokers

WTF Factor: Turned-up-the-wrong-street regretful frown

Actually, although there were a lot of crack smokers, what was weirder was the number of addicts on the streets generally. The fun part is seeing who can get the least number of needles stabbed in their arm while running by the Cecil Hotel.

The Red "Mile"

WTF Factor: Both palms facing upwards

The fact that a few Flames' supporters bars are within a three-block length in a four-kilometer strip-mall called 17th Avenue is great, but Calgarian's belief that these these bars cover a "mile" might explain the Calgary Tower's height.

JTC Inc. would like to extend our deepest apologies and sympathies to Calgarians; Apologies, for the above scathing commentary about your municipality, and sympathies, because your city really, really sucks.

On behalf of the entire crew, thanks for flying JTC Inc.

In the midst of loathing air travel during a recent excursion, I noticed how the whole flight safety routine with the flight crew sherades et al is little silly. There's no need to point out the only four possible exits from the hermetically sealed vessel that passengers will be riding at 30,000 feet above the earth: trust me, I'm pretty sure we know exactly where the door is in the event of an emergency, and have probably already sussed out the old ladies and children we'll need to trample to get there.

That said, the useless pointing routine could be used to alleviate the doldrums on the plane between the "sit down with your seatbelt on" time and the "get up and have sex with a stewardess in the bathroom" time; They could do a fulsome job of pointing out the insanely obvious and add the following to the routine:

"There are two exits at the front, two at the rear" *point at two exits at front, and two in rear - don't forget to blow out your guns after using them to point*

"Food goes here" *point at passenger's mouths*

"Pants go here" *point at passenger's leg/crotch areas*

"This is going to be huge!" *point at own crotch*

"Motherfucking snakes!" *point at motherfucking plane*

I think you get the idea - it could be a lot more exciting.

What doesn't need spicing up, however, is the fold out safety pamphlet geared towards those who slept through the safety procedures at takeoff and need a quick refresher as the plane dives into a tailspin. It's fucking hilarious. For instance, the pamphlet shows that during an emergency, the following will occur:

Business women will fire dashed lines out of their eyes down at helpless souls on the earth's surface:

fdas

Despite the prospect of crashing into land or water, passengers will be as enthralled as my first year archeology class (check out bearded dude just staring at the ceiling):

sdf

sdf

fds
And more interestingly, there will be unnecessarily hot women suggestively inflating their vests:

sdadfd

If this is what really goes on, I very much look forward to my next emergency, in particular, having my vest inflated. As a final thought, if you take anything away from this article, please remember to adjust your own motherfucking snake before adjusting the motherfucking snake of a child.

J-Lo's Miracle Weight Loss Plan

I was walking past a magazine stand on Friday, when a headline caught my eye - it was something along the lines of "J-Lo Loses 40 lbs With Miracle Weight Loss Plan!"

Now - unlike CoCo - I'm not much of a celebrity gossip hound, but didn't J-Lo just have twins? Wouldn't extricating two small humans from your abdomen certainly help with your "miracle weight loss plan"?

We here at JTC have a bit of an engineering / process background, as evidenced by our well-documented love of flow charts. In order to help those who may be wishing to employ the J-Lo miracle, I quickly put together the following:

The beauty of this is that it DOESN'T MATTER how many children you may be carrying - triplets? quintuplets? - it STILL WORKS. You just keep on removing them, until you reach your WEIGHT LOSS GOAL.

You're welcome,

JohnnyM

P.S. I saw Doug Gilmour in the Loblaws at Laird and Millwood this afternoon, and almost shit my pants, I was so excited. I guess that could be another weight loss plan...

Watch Out!

We here at JTC are huge fans of watches. And no, I'm not talking about Swiss time keeping pieces (although we are a big fan of both the Swiss and their currency) - I'm talking about when something is considered so "news-worthy" that it gets it's own "watch" on the evening news. As luck would have it, these watches usually come packaged with their own graphics and theme music.







I know you've all seen these - if you troll around the net long enough, it's not difficult to find all sorts of this shit, be it a "Storm Watch", "Hurricane Watch", "Disease Watch", "Gas Watch", "Stock Watch", "Britney Watch", or what have you.



However, what we really love - and what seems to grip our beloved city of Toronto every few years - is the threat of a public transit strike by the Toronto Transit Commission. Who can forget the fantastic Wildcat Strike of '06 when we all found out how important wild felines are to the smooth operation of our transit infrstructure? Shit - we loved it so much that we here at JTC came up with our own graphic for that one.




Well, with another TTC strike appearing imminent, our fear-mongering friends at CityTV ("How simple household items CAN KILL YOUR CHILDREN! Coming up, after sports and weather") have come up with a fresh, updated strike watch graphic




I can't wait to see what happens. Truth be told - even though two thirds of the JTC Board of Directors rely on the TTC to get to our...uh....real jobs - I wouldn't mind if there was a strike. I enjoy seeing people being put out of their comfort zones and realizing that maybe walking/biking to work wouldn't kill them. Also, I'm a big fan of general civil unrest. Throw in an Olympic Torch protest with a TTC strike, and I might just be in heaven, comrades.

WTF, Volume 3: Las Vegas

Following Coco's lead, the following is a list of things that made me say, "What the fuck?" when I recently travelling to the charming village of Las Vegas, Nevada:

Jaw-Dropping Obesity
WTF Factor: Loss of Appetite
Seriously - this kinda grossed me out. I noticed on the plane when we were flying there, that there appeared to be a few more...uh...COS's (Customers of Size) than on most flights I've been on, but I frankly wasn't prepared for the amount of sub-cutaneous fat that I got to observe. How did these people walk around with all that weight? Well...some of them didn't...



Why Walk When You Can Ride?

WTF Factor: Pursed Lips
Never have I seen so many people riding on those little scooters in my life. I think the "water-shed" moment for me though was when I saw two scooters "parked" beside the buffet at the Rio.



That Dude That Gave Me The Finger
WTF Factor: Bemused Smile and Wave
One night, me and the CHP were standing on a corner outside the Bellagio. A taxi came around the corner, and the dude who was riding shotgun, leaned out the window and gave us the finger. There was no one else around - it was clearly directed at us. The following conversation ensued:

CHP: "That was nice."
JohnnyM: "I'm sure he had his reasons."


REAL Whoring
WTF Factor: Disbelieving Stare
While there's been some recent discussions of our own whoring activities here at JTC, I wasn't prepared for the open nature of the REAL whoring in Vegas. Trucks went down the strip, guys wore t-shirts with phone numbers while handing out ads, and every 10 feet there were boxes with pamphlets in them, all offering "girls to your room!"

Not my bag, peeps...but if it's yours - stay safe.



Bringing Children To "Sin City"


WTF Factor: Head Shake
Why? Seriously: why?