Date registered: January 6, 2016
Jan 01
Another one bites the dust in North Korea. North Korea’s crackpot dictator will join some dear friends for drinks at some nut-bar in the great beyond.
Jan 01
According to some sources, the world’s chocolate supply could run out as early 2014.
Jan 01
I win the Nobel Prize in Economics with my cure for the European Debt Crisis. The plan hires the Spanish to build a giant debtors’ prison wall around Italy and Greece. The Portuguese are hired to police the wall while the Italians and the Greeks are ordered to fight a war (using swords and spears made in Ireland) with the winner allowed to enslave the loser and thereby continue their lavish lifestyle.
Experts discover a typo in the text book used by the world’s most prestigious business schools responsible for turning out bankers and politicians everywhere. Apparently the typesetters had inadvertently switched the letters f and b. Their “fooks” were improperly instructing their “binancial” graduates to “bail” instead of “fail” institutions who lose their shirts in “fad” investments.
The western world collapses as a result of the (not so sudden) onset of an epidemic of Infrastructure Deficit Disorder (IDD) which was previously just referred to as politics. This marks the first time in the history of the world that a new mental disorder is discovered before the drug companies can patent a drug that allegedly combats it. In the absence of any available treatment, the public is told to stay at home and call 3 Asian help desks in the morning.
Deposed Italian PM Burlesgue-aroni surfaces in Canada where he convinces the Liberals and NDP to merge under his leadership. He names his new political juggernaut the Bunga, Bunga Party.
Charlie Sheen is elected the new Prime Minister of Italy.
In a bold stroke of genius, governments everywhere introduce a new lottery (a.k.a. a dating service) that subsidizes hot young chicks who are willing to marry doddering old boomers. Productivity (of the biblical kind) falls but not as significantly as the number of old guys on pension whose hearts can’t make it to the next Valentine Day. Meanwhile a massive influx of inheritance taxes allows governments to cut income tax to “beget” productivity (of the economical kind) which was already booming because the young working guys had no chicks to chase.
The cure to everything is discovered prompting what is left of western economies to collapse with the sudden influx of millions of non-profit charity foundation employees onto the unemployment role.
America pays down its deficit by charging $100,000 per year for the above-mentioned pill.
Jan 01
Jan 01
|
Vital Statistics |
2011 |
2010 |
2009 |
2008 |
| a Canadian dollar is worth | $ 0.98US | $ 1.00US | $ 0.95US | $ 0.82US |
| a domestic postage stamp costs | $ 0.59 | $ 0.57 | $ 0.54 | $ 0.52 |
| a local Bell pay phone call(if u can find one) | $ 0.50 | $ 0.50 | $ 0.50 | $ 0.50 |
| a liter of Pepsi costs | $ 1.99 | $ 2.29 | $ 2.29 | $ 1.99 |
| a liter of water costs | $ 1.99 | $ 1.99 | $ 1.89 | $ 1.79 |
| a liter of milk costs (purchased in a four liter bag) | $ 1.25 | $ 1.32 | $ 1.25 | $ 1.29 |
| a liter of gasoline costs | $ 1.20 | $ 1.13 | $ 0.95 | $ 0.66 |
| a loaf of bread costs | $ 3.39 | $ 2.99 | $ 1.99 | $ 2.69 |
| a paperback novel costs | $11.99 | $10.99 | $12.99 | $11.99 |
| a weekly (Time) magazine costs | $ 6.99 | $ 6.99 | $ 6.99 | $ 4.95 |
| a comic book costs | $ 2.99 | $ 2.99 | $ 2.99 | $ 2.99 |
| a daily newspaper costs | $ 1.19 | $ 1.19 | $ 1.19 | $ 0.94 |
| a regular bus ride costs | $ 3.25 | $ 3.25 | $ 2.30 | $ 2.00 |
| a medium cup of coffee costs | $ 1.40 | $ 1.27 | $ 1.27 | $ 1.22 |
| a basic cable television package | $36.01 | $31.49 | $29.99 | $28.49 |
| a first run movie rental costs | $ 4.99 | $ 4.99 | $ 5.99 | $ 4.79 |
| an adult movie theatre ticket costs | $10.99 | $10.75 | $10.50 | $ 9.95 |
| a children’s movie theatre ticket costs | $ 7.99 | $ 7.99 | $ 7.99 | $ 7.95 |
| Minimum wage (Ontario) | $10.25/hr | $10.25/hr | $ 9.50/hr | $ 8.75/hr |
| an adult men’s haircut | $17.00 | $ 17.00 | $ 15.75 | $ 15.50 |
| a medium combination pizza | $17.00 | $ 15.50 | $ 15.50 | $ 15.45 |
Jan 01
Ma will remember 2011 as the first day of the rest of her life.
Pa will remember 2011 as the beginning of the end of everything that was.
Thing 1 remembers 2011 as a year of adjustments and recovery; the Blues Festival and guitar lessons.
Most Memorable News Event: The Japanese Tsunami
Favorite TV Show: Eureka!
Favorite Movie: Transformers III
Favorite Music: Curl of the Burl by Mastodon
Thing 2 remembers 2011 as another year of fun, fireworks, falls, the urinating rhinoceros and a nosy ostrich.
Most Memorable News Event: Minecraft Video Game Release
Favorite TV Show: Eureka!
Favorite Movie: Tron: Legacy
Favorite Music: Diggy Diggy Hole – Remix by Finger Nails on a Chalkboard
Jan 01
Pa will try again to attend his first NFL football game in 2012.
Ma will buy (or preferably win) a new house that contains her dream kitchen (with a stove that works), a newly shingled roof, freshly paved driveway, new windows and siding, and so on…
Thing 1 will work a little harder at looking after himself.
Thing 2 will work on his taste in music (if not his many eating disorders).
Jan 01
All indications are that 2011 was a downer of a year punctuated by a tsunami of downfalls, fallout, and tanking economies. In the immortal words of Will Rogers, “When you find yourself in a hole, stop digging!” So on that note I will.
Jan 01
The Chinese called it the Year of the Tiger. The United Nations dubbed 2010 the International Year of Biodiversity. It was also celebrated as the International Year of the Nurse. It was the year that the Flintstones turned 50. Hallmark greeting cards turned 100 years old. 2010 also marked the 100th anniversary of:
As I remember all the news that was news, 2010 proved that mother nature was better equipped to take care of herself than person-kind (I blame the women too) is of taking care of itself. My “grounds” for this observation are based on “grounded” airlines and a whole lot of under-“ground” movements that shook (Earthquakes in Haiti & Chile), swallowed (sinkholes in Canada & Mexico) and threw up (33 miners in Chile) people of the world.
Notwithstanding my understanding of the outstanding impact that the above-mentioned events stood for, I am nevertheless going to dub 2010 my International Year of the Nerd Herd. Yes, it was the year that herds of nerds lined up to buy iPads and see a movie about a nerd who created web sites designed to herd more nerds (who we shall refer to as the masses) into virtual holding pens where they could be properly labeled and appreciated by their adoring (albeit artificial) ‘friends’ and ‘frenemies.’
But I am getting ahead of myself. Brace yourselves everyone for another ground-breaking (and sometimes shaky) run through the events of the year as I recall them.