No Saddam in '07

I can barely see through the tears as I write this. Of the last two days of 2006, this is definately the saddest. I can't believe it has come to this.

The Butcher of Baghdad butches no more.

Around dawn (local time) in sunny Iraq, the sun finally set on the life of Saddam Hussein. He's gone, man. Solid gone.

Allowed to plant one last smootch on the trunk of his miniature Wooly Mammoth, he was then lead to the gallows without pomp or ceremony. Once there, he promptly danced at the end of a rope, without music.

Twas a private affair, with only a few Iraqi officials and Bob Barker in attendance, who tearily thanked him for 24 years of helping control the people population.

"No problem." Saddam is reported to have said. "And thank you, Bob... for A NEW CAR!"

The laughed, but it was hollow, forced laughter.

Many people will be elated by today's news, but not me. I must admit that I wasn't always a Saddam fan. I hated him at first. Because he invaded Kuwait, televised coverage of Desert Storm pre-empted the last half of an excellent episode of Danger Bay. In following years, I only knew him as that lunatic seen on my TV from time to time. It wasn't until I saw Ron Howard's excellent documentary, "Arrested Development", that I decided to do some research, and unexpectedly discovered we had much in common.

1. Stalin. He loved Uncle Joe, and you can't fault a man for that. Stalin was awesome.

2. Raisin Bran Crunch. This stuff is Delicious City in a bowl. Saddam knew it, and because of him, I know it, too.

3. Doritos. I automatically take three steps back from any man who doesn't like Doritos. To like Doritos is to be human. Hussein went fucking bonkers for 'em.

4. Fruit Loops. For a long time I was under the misconception that he enjoyed these pastel crunch rings. Turns out he despised them! What a relief it was more me to discover this! Sometimes when you think you know a person real well, they can still suprise you!

5. That's all I can come up with. But that's still more things in common than I have with the people who surround me daily.

Last year ended with me in a foul mood. The 1986 animated theatrical feature, Transformers: The Movie, is set in the year 2005. But by the time December 31 had rolled around, I had seen no evidence that any of the movie's events had really taken place. Boy, was I pissed!

This year ends on a similar note. In fact, I'm going to go ahead and say that this is even wor... who am I kidding. Last year ended WAY worse. But still, this is right up there. It's pretty bad.

Injustice Prevails

To: Aref Shahin, Chief Justice of Iraqi Appeals Court

cc: Saddam Hussein, Defendant; The Internets

From: Jamie S. Luxton III, A Guy For the Defense

Re: Appeal Rejection


Dear Mr. Shahin,

How are you? I hope you and your family had a merry christmas! Did you get anything cool?

Mine was alright. It's kind of a mixed bag when you get together with your family and friends and have a great time, but there's this melancholy feeling when suddenly you realize how rarely you get together. Why do you have to wait until Christmas? Why can't you get together all the time, right? It's weird.

I also kind of hate how the spirit of Chrismas continues to be lost amidst all the commercialization. I'm not religious myself, but Christmas always reminds me that Jesus was a pretty cool guy. He kind of reminds me of Superman, except Superman has better powers. Still, say what you will, powers are powers, and Jesus used his only in the cause of good.

If I had the powers of Jesus, I dunno. I'd probably end up swiping a motorcycle or something. If the cops caught up with me, I'd turn their water into wine, and instead of arresting me, we'd party!

Anyway, yesterday, I was enjoying my second viewing of Casino Royale. Have you seen it? I think it's a serious contender for best Bond ever. But who do you think Mr. White was, and what was the organization he worked for? It makes me curious. Plenty of fodder for future episodes, I hope.

However, my enjoyment, and that of the people near my, was diminished by an unfortunately timed ringing from my cellular telephone. You can imagine how may dismay was further compounded by the text message my phone displayed; "Hussein Appeal Rejected".

Mr. Shahin, you know me well as the man who represented Mr. Hussein during his appeals trial. Even though I do not have a licence to practice law in my, or your, or any country, I am well known throughout the internets as master wordsmith. Just yesterday, I was commended for my talents by no less a person than the former President of the United States, Gerald Ford. It was on this reputation that Mr. Hussein retained me as his legal council.

Anywho, as the defendants' representative, I must inform you of my disappointment in your condemning my client to death. I am very, very disappointed, and I'm confident that my client feels the same way.

It was not your decision to invoke the death penalty, I know. But you will be just as resposible for his death by doing nothing when you had the chance to stop it. I realize you are well within your authority to let him die. But comes to mind the words of Dr. Ian Malcolm, famed chaos theorist from Jurassic Park. Though I am no fan of the decision to have Jeff Goldblum to play this character( I'll bet you're no fan, either), his words haved stayed with me all these years,and not just because I plagiarized them extensively for a high school assignment.

His thesis, boiled to its' essence, is that just because a thing can be done, it does not mean it should be done. These words are as relevant to our situation as they are to the cloning of dinosaurs.

But there is no science to the disbursement of justice. It is all guesswork and assumption. Even though I do not understand your legal system, by Canadian standards, I think I did a pretty good job of establishing my clients' innocence in this matter. Let me refresh your memory.

In this matter of ordering the deaths of 148 people in the town of Dujail, in the year of 1982, I feel that Mr. Hussein made clear that, at the time these orders were given, he was "in the tub". Exibit J, a jar of dirty bathwater from the date in question, firmly establishes his whereabouts. Clearly, these orders could not have been given from a bathtub.

Furthermore, exibit S, some used kleenex, confirms that President Hussein was, in fact, suffering from a cold on the date in question. Any orders he did give on this day could easily have been misheard by his minons amidst all the hacking and coughing. DNA tests, conducted by scientists no less, prove that the dried out phlegm originated nowhere else but the very lungs of Mr. Saddam Hussein. Carbon dating, also conducted by scientists, confirm the the tissues were from 1982.

I even went to the trouble of locating, and bringing before the court an expert witness, the Hermit Meteorologist. He stated, under oath, that the town of Dujail was the site of unique weather patterns, including bullets falling from the sky like rain, and that this was part of the normal climatology of the region. It seems cruel, but God wants it that way.

And so it was that I introduced exibit L, The Old Testament, as further proof of the cruelties God is capable of. So, while it in no way diminishes the tragedy of so much death, it must really be asked, when people take it apon themselves to live in defiance of the Wrath of God, who do we blame?

President Saddam Hussein? I think not.

When you take the time to review the facts, Chief Justice, I think you will guess the defendant is not deserving of such a harsh and unforgiving penalty.

Anyway, thanks for your time. Please enjoy the enclosed Rolex and "Quality Street" chocolates with my compliments. Spreaking of which, if you like gold, I happen to have some bullion that I'm not doing anything with. Let me know if you're interested.

Yours Truly

Jamie S. Luxton III

A Guy for the Defense

If Wishes Were Bread, Jesus Would Turn Them into Fishes

Well, it's Christmas tomorrow, and I, for one, am totally psyched about it. I've been cosplaying as Parson Brown all week. I hope everybody has their Christmas wishlists all made up.If not, it's probably too late to get what you're asking for. Me, I wrote mine up months ago. I toned it down a bit this year, realizing just how good I have it compared to most of the rest of the world. So I decided to not ask for anything too extravagant.

1) Eternal Life. Pretty self explanatory; I don't want to die. I don't think this is too much to ask for. Even though I'm not really accomplishing anything worthwhile, I'm also not hurting anybody while doing it. There's a lot worse people to have kicking around forever than Yours Truly.

2) Some Magnesium. Remember how your chemistry teacher showed that, with just a little heat, it would turn into a brilliant white flare? It's pretty neat, and I was thinking just recently how I would like to see that again.

3) A Dead Old Woman. Sounds morbid, I know. But just listen for a second before you jump to conclusions. See, all my roommates went away on holiday vacation as of a few days ago. It therefore falls to me to feed their cats while they're away, and I'm already sick of it. A dead old lady's carcass just tossed out on the floor would give them something to snack on at their leisure, and solve my problems. As a bonus, it'll also help disguise the wretched odor from the litter boxes.

And since I'm here all alone with the cats, I'll maybe ask for one thing on their behalf:

4) A Pillow Shaped Like A Baby's Face: Everyone knows how cats love to sit on babies faces. Unfortunately, the baby sometimes dies and considerable time and effort is wasted trying to replace it. This present solves those problems. I don't know if anybody's invented these things yet, but if not, they should start. I realize it's sort of a niche market product, but it's always best to start out small and expand production later, should it be warranted.

That's it! I hope I get everything I want, and so do you. Meowy Christams!

Lighting the Darkest Hour

Not many reasons to keep it in my pants this week. First up; Pics of Britney Spears' vagina have been flying 'round all over that internet. I must admit, I was hesitant to look at first. After all, she just had a kid like, two days ago, and I was expecting it to be all stretched and loose, and hanging down out of her skirt like an upside-down pitcher plant.

But I have to say the Britney Box actually doesn't look all that bad. Still, it doesn't take long before the mere sight of the Pop Star Pussy starts to get... unmotivating. I find myself more interested in knowing what it smells like, or if you let a snake loose in there, would it come back out with a gold coin in it's jaws? And would we discover that the coin was real gold by the fang marks in it?

But then, yesterday, something wonderful happened. Yestereday went and became the newest fucking greatest day of all great days.

You know of what I speak... it can only be one thing.

http://uk.promotions.yahoo.com/transformers/

This doesn't seem to be up on the official site just yet, for whatever reason. But this one is still better than the first one I found. This computer I'm on sucks so much, any video is instantly rendered into a jumpy slideshow of stills. What's more is that I had to watch it in french AND without sound. In spite of all these hurdles, the trailer still managed to rock the world, and the world has yet to cease rockin'. Were an impartial, interplanetary tribunal to happen past right now, they would have no recourse but to declare "World! We hereby find ye to be... Rockin'!"

Six months ago I described a brief list of essentials that I required from a Transformers movie. What I left out were my hopes and dreams that seemed too much to hope for back then; Icing on my cake of giant robots fucking up the urban sprawl. As none of them were absolutely essential to my enjoyment of this movie, I left them unvoiced. Some of them included:

- A bus getting torn in half.
- A tank being thrown through the air.
- Explosions of a size and quantity heretofore undreamed of.
- Fleshlings being rended asunder by drill hand monster-bot.
- A holographic moustache.

And now this trailer promises me all these things. You probably can't even imagine the waves of ecstasy that wash over me just thinking about it. It's like Christmas... but not any ordinary, ho-ho-hum Christmas. It's like dreaming about getting a blow job and waking up just in time to see Santa's boot heels disappearing up the chimney.

So don't let those holiday blues get to you, people. Stay alive with me. Tomorrow is way better than today will ever be, even if only because it's one day less to wait for the greatest movie of all time.

The Dark Crumplezone

Life in a small city, for the specialty consumer, almost by definition, is an exercise in frustration. You are almost always guaranteed to have your finely tuned preferences habitually compromised by your community's inability to support them.

Say, for example, you're the kind of person who likes to buy a lot of... Oh, I don't know... toys. I don't mean sex toys or anything like that. I mean the same kind of toys that are resignedly dispensed, out oif a sense of obligation, by adults to those less fortunate. Namely, their children.

Here in Kelowna, the toy connoisseur has astonishingly few options to explore. You got your Wal-Mart, and you got your Toys'R'Us, and that's it. Oh sure, there's that one super geek shop, full of inflated prices and ancient japanese properties that no one remembers or cares about. But that place doesn't count.

So when I'm scouring the city on a toy hunting expedition, I'm actually spending about a collective one and one half minutes looking in Kelowna's toy sections. Rediculous!

Still, it remains difficult to not get excited beforehand about all the possibilities. But, as in so many of life's arenas, dissapointment is the only reward for my anticipation. It's kind of like having Christmas every week instead of once every 52 weeks.

So when a rarefied straw of hope is extended to me, unwisely, I will clutch at it until all hope is wrung out of it and, bent and ruined beneath my weight, I slide of off the end into the pits of despair and chaos.

Case in point. Every year, as Hanukkah draws nigh, more and more second rate department stores try their hand at luring you in with promises of delectable toy selections. Why, just a few weeks ago, as I perused my local free newspaper, what should I find inside but a flyer from Zellers, exclusively advertising Toys, Toys, Toys!

Zellers, as every true Canadian knows, is a dingy, miscreant department store that no one can ever take pride in shopping at. It is a shopping experience specifically designed to make you feel poor and alone in the world.

What's more is that Zellers touy department typically consists of a few dusty, undisturbed aisles in a corner forgotten by time. Stray cats come here to die in peace, and the only time Zellers staff enter the toy department is to attatch $4.99 price tags to their dessicated corpses.

My worst personal experience with Zellers occured in the days of my youth. As I recall, I discovered that what I thought was a rather realistic ventriloquism dummy, was in fact an 89 year old woman who'd died there of a heart attack some three days earlier. It is perhaps, no suprise, that my mother did not enjoy my demonstration of my ventriloquism skills.

Even though the old lady was reasonably priced at $5.99, my mother was still reasonably upset. Which may well be the only reasonable reaction she ever had. She told me to wait right there and left me alone with the cadaver.

Mother went to customer service to complain about the dead woman in the toy section. I cannot say how the staff there reacted, but soon after she left me, I heard ringing out over the store's paging system words that, judging by the thick layer of dust, had never been heard in the history of the store;
"Clean up in aisle 23."

The janitor was on the scene with remarkable speed. His swift arrival and shortness of breath I took as signs of his true professionalism. He quickly correct me and explained he had merely been exercing by the barbie dolls one aisle over.

Anyway, the incident was resolved to the satisfaction of all parties involved. We got to go up to the manager's office, from whom I swiped a cigarette while Mom signed some papers. Then we went home with a brand new, free, hot plate, and a goldfish who unfortunately died before we left the parking lot. But the promise of Beefaroni for dinner, warm for once, staved off any tears.

But all that is neither here nor there for my purposes here today. As I was saying before, Zellers was going on and on in their advertisment about all their wonderful prices on all their wonderful selections of toys.

Naturally, I regarded such claims with a healthy amount of skepticism. As I flippantly flipped page after page, I was soon confronted by large letters unabashedly proclaiming " ALL TRANSFORMERS 25% OFF!"

Unfortunately for Yours Truly, as devotees will have already surmised, this captured my particular fancy. The promise of robots in disguise is too much for me to resist. So I had to see it for myself.

Perhaps the only real suprise is the disappointment I let myself experience as I gazed apon the pathetic smattering of toys. There were six actual Transformers toys on the shelf. Three of them were "Cybertron Defense Red Alert", two were "Mudflap", and one was "Dark Crumplezone". All toys I had no interest in and could have easily purchased months ago if I'd been so inclined. So I've nothing left to say. Except this:

Fuck you, Zellers. You have no secrets left. I see the truth of what you are and I shall not be deceived by you again. You are Canada's retail Auschwitz. Go to Hell.

Breaking News

Having nothing on my own agenda, I rang up my good friend, Marvin Hinton, a few days ago to see what he might be up to. As it turned out, he'd planned to run a series of errands that afternoon. Among them, paying a cable bill and heading to the hardware store where he could obtain the parts for the pneumatic drill press he was constructing. I asked if I could tag along, and he didn't object. Soon after, he arrived at my house and off we went into menial adventure!

Midway between the two chores I described above, we became hungry, and agreed to hit the foot court at the local shopping centre; more out of convenience than any real desire for that particular fare.

As we sat and ate, Marvin stared off at something just long enough to get my attention. I turned to look in the same direction, but saw nothing that seemed out of the ordinary. A fat bald woman in a wheelchair, a glam-rocker, an assortment of obnoxious children, and a trendy looking fellow with a paper bag, heading towards the bathrooms. I looked back at Marv, who'd already resumed his eating. I asked him what he'd seen.

"Know a fag by his bag." he said.
"What, you mean his balls?" I asked. He shook his head.
"That guy with the paper bag. he's a homo... sexual."
"Oh." I said. "How do you know?"

What Marv told me then I relate to you now. You will, no doubt, be shocked and perhaps a bit skeptical. But considering his pedigree as a voice of authority and security, I do not doubt the veracity of his words. And that should be enough for you.

Anyone who's ever resigned themselves to use of public facilites will no doubt be familiar with the grafitti that frequently adorns the walls and stalls. Also to frequently be found are lewd messages promising good times if only you would call the number written there.

But the bombshell, the greatest secret of the gay community, is that public bathrooms serve as meeting places where they can anonymously carry out their unique brand of perversion. The public toilet is practically Cocksville town square.

Of course, no public bathroom can offer complete privacy. There is always a gap between the floor and the partitions of each stall. Any casual passer-by would instantly notice two pairs of feet in one stall, and presumably immediately alert the local authorities.

Ever devious and cunning, the faggots have devised a strategem to counter this liability. It's simple ingenuity would be admirable were it's purpose anything but so irredeemably deviant. This is where the paper bag comes into play.

Not any old paper bag will do. It needs to be a large paper bag, the sort given out by "boutiques" and clothing stores. Maybe it even has handles on it. The bag is placed on the floor, and one of the homos stands in it, while the other sits on the toilet ans sucks the bagstanders' cock. Should the forces of all that is good and decent happen to peek underneath the partition (for the purposes of security), all the would see his two feet an a paper bag, allowing the blowjobbery to continue unhindered.

As Marv finished his story, I turned just in time to catch the trendy fellow just leaving the washroom, now without the paper bag, the glam-rocker just behind him.

So now you know the truth. Anytime you're having a shit anywhere but a private residence, somebody else has been sitting right where you are, but sucking cock.

I'm sending a written copy of this update to National Geographic, in hopes they'll expose this depravity to the world and, ultimately, end it. I know that's the way God would want it.