"I got tired of not being able to make eye contact with these people. I thought, 'What skills could they have?' Holding a sign was an obvious one."
-- Andre Jehan, the owner and founder of Pizza Schmizza

Bear with me, I have no idea how long this post is going to get. It's not that I have a lot on my mind, but I've done a lot of things and I feel the need to catch up.

First off is my quote. The story is fairly comical, but there's certainly a couple of scoops of genius thrown in there. The homeless are getting a few bucks and a meal for holding a sign. That sounds like a good deal to me -- this year I hauled 20-litre jugs of juice around the University of Regina campus for 6 hours in the blistering sun, and all I got was a free pizza supper. Granted, I did get more pizza, but I worked more hours, too.

Secondly, as if these guys wouldn't make some money while they're advertising. I was walking down Scarth Street this one day last summer, and there was a kid holding a sign that read "Egg A Punk $1". He'd obviously been egged a few times already, but he was itching for more! So I gave him a dollar, took my egg, and told him that I couldn't egg him in good conscience. He was massively disappointed, but I felt that he earned my dollar just by coming up with that idea -- just as some people will think, "Yeah man, this guy's alright. I should give him a buck for his troubles."

Finally, there's this issue of ad saturation. Look, I said it before and I'll say it again: if you don't click on Internet banner ads, things are only going to get worse. And that's exactly what happened: now we're choked with spam, we have interstitials, pop-ups, and stupid flash animations, and that's just on the Internet. We've even been inundated with commercials at the movies! Advertisers are looking for new ad space, but the consumers seem to forget that we, ultimately, have the power. I think that the consumers just want to consume, and further, want to be told what to consume -- all action, no thought. We've forgotten that advertising caters to us! If we let advertisers know which ads are effective and which ones aren't, they'll start directing their money and energy through those channels, leaving the others clear. Now, this may be just part of the boom/bust cycle, where everything is flooded because the clear channels haven't been found yet, but somehow I think things are going to get much, much worse before they get better.

While I'm on the topic of sheep, I suggest looking at this article, which says that a third of Americans believe the US found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

What a joke. I mean, there's a lot of fodder in this article, from the numbers presented to the pollsters' reactions, to the excuses put forth. What I want it to boil down to is that Americans, by and large, are idiots -- but I don't think it does. If these polls were performed in Great Britain and Canada as well, I would imagine that the numbers would be lower, but there would continue to be people holding these same beliefs. It's not because Americans are really that much more stupid than the rest of the world, but they're that much more insulated.

We once again find ourselves returning to pre-9/11, where America was in its little bubble while the rest of the world eroded. People aren't willing to challenge authority. People aren't willing to read the dissenting voices, if they're reading at all. People want to believe that their administration is doing the right thing, regardless of the evidence. It says right in the article that this has been in the news for two years -- how can people not know it? It's because if it doesn't affect them directly, no one is interested; and if it affects them negatively, they'll moan and complain, but they won't lift a hand to change it. Tom Hanks said it in Catch Me If You Can: sometimes it's easier to live the lie, and if there's one thing we North Americans love, it's the easy way out.

Finally, on the subject of movies, I went to see Chicago tonight, and it was fabulous. The story was simple but well-presented, the acting was top-notch, especially John C. Reilly as Amos Hart; he brought a sense of pity and compassion to his character that went beyond anything the other actors brought to the table. His performance of Mr. Cellophane while dressed as a clown sums up his role so powerfully that the choreography seems almost superfluous.

Speaking of the choreography, it couldn't have been better, with scenes like Gere and Zellweger as ventriloquist and dummy while a second Gere makes the media dance like puppets, and A Tapdance, where Gere metaphorically turns random movement into dancing in the same way that he turns the new evidence around on the D.A. Also, surprisingly for me, Zellweger and Queen Latifah booth ooze sexuality, leaving Zeta-Jones in a distant third. Queen Latifah's number, "When You're Good to Mama", was wonderful, with Latifah pulling out all the stops as a burlesque performer in a gentleman's club.

I left the theatre wanting to watch this movie a second time, possibly without the story interrupting it. It's so good, in fact, that I gave it 9 show tunes out of 10. Don't forget to watch for the boom mikes if you decide to see it; there's one in almost every scene.