Any artists interested in a brief collaboration – other than those I’m already working with – shoot me an email? I have an Idea.

It’s my birthday today, and thirty-five is not one of the great birthdays: it feels sort of milestoney because it divides evenly by 5, but unlike a “divides by ten” birthday it doesn’t feel impressive in any way, and unlike 25 it is not an awesome number. It is just sort of there, blandly saying “well, you’re in your mid-thirties now, and no mistake.”

Plus, having your birthday be right in the middle of the workweek is exceptionally unfair and I wish to complain to management about that.

Anyhow. Those interested in giving me presents (surely there are some of you) – what I’d hope people might do is also consider buying James Young something from HIS wishlist, since James has done a lot of thankless heavy lifting behind the scenes to keep this blog running smoothly despite configuration issues that make Rube Goldberg machines look like inclined planes in terms of ease of use.

Alternately, you can always consult the Paypal button or my Amazon wishlist. Service resumes as normal tomorrow.

Well, we’ve definitely had a banner week here at the site with all the image-looking (and some leeching, which I’m not too happy about and have to work on), so now that Alignment Chart Week is over, it seems like an ideal time to point out the old Amazon wishlist, for those so inclined to make holiday purchases, or alternately there is always the Paypal button at right.

Donations to the Canadian Civil Liberties Association are good too, although I would like an iPad and I bet I would make the world a better place with it, and so forth.

I am not sure what this birth-year cover entails, but I suppose there are worse omens.

See, now that is a bad birth omen.

Anyhow. For those wishing to buy me birthday presents (which, barring a sudden need for an organ of some kind, will be your last opportunity to do so on a significant date until November!), the wishlist is here, and the donation button is on the right sidebar as always.

When I was a kid, there was this awesome picture book I read, one of the sort where the writer/artist had put in all sorts of diagrams and little details and so on, and it was about this race of tiny, fuzzy hippopotamus-like people divided into two kingdoms which were at war. But I can’t remember the name of it.

Is this ringing a bell with anybody?

UPDATE: In comments MIB correctly identifies it as Trouble For Trumpets, which now checking eBay I discover is stupidly expensive. And what’s worse is that at some point I’ll buy it, because that’s the sort of book I wanna read with my kids if and when I have any.

All right, I hope this is not an abuse of my posting priviledges here, but I thought there might be a chance that someone here could help me. There’s bit in the Tank Girl movie with Lori Petty where Malcolm McDowell says,

“Eight, eight, the burning eight. Between Sunday and Monday hangs a day so dark it will devastate.”

Okay, what the hell is that from? (Might also be “The burning hate”?) Surely that’s not original to the movie; there’s got to be a source, hasn’t there? But Google turns up nothing but quotes from Tank Girl itself. McDowell later quotes some variation on “Abandone all hope, ye who enter here” from Dante, but the “burning eight” bit does’t turn up in a cursory glance of the English translation of The Inferno I have.

If anybody out there could tell me the source, or if it really is an invention of the screenwriter, I would appreciate the hell out if it, because it’s been driving me crazy since Friday.

Oh, and um … so that I’m actually providing some measure of content and not just a plea for assistance … Okay, I know that Tank Girl gets a bad rap, particularly among comics fans who see it as a travesty to the source material. And I guess it sort of is a travesty to the source material. But divorced from all that, it’s still a pretty iconoclastic movie. In the pantheon of Early To Mid Nineties Sci-Fi Dystopia Movies Made On A Modest Budget, it’s  a very fun and unusual experience (and I will watch Malcolm McDowell in pretty much anything, frankly). This is a movie in which Lori Petty gets a weird haircut and takes a bath in sand, Iggy Pop cameos as a pedophile, a bizarre animated interlude takes the place of a proper ending, two songs by Bjork are played, and Ice-T receives second billing as a mutated kangaroo-man designed by Stan Winston’s company. It’s a testament to that insanity of the Hewlett and Martin comics that a movie like this comes off a totally watered-down, cleaned-up Hollywood adaptation. It could have been a little better, but it could have been a hell of a lot worse. At least it was directed by someone who wanted to get some of the visual feel and anarchic flavor of the comics, and who hard the absolute nerve to make a sci-fi movie with a female lead who wasn’t “conventionally” hot.

Weird thing, though, the box to the DVD has a banner across the top that says “AVANT-GARDE CINEMA,” and that’s probably stretching it. Avant-garde a clue, maybe. (Joke copyright 1968 George Harrison.)

Hey. while those of you eligible are nominating Matt’s story for the Aurora Awards, why don’t you nominate that Beatles thing I did? Win-win.

Here, I’ll even set up a copypasta for you:

“Scenes From An Alternate Universe Where The Beatles Accepted Lorne Michaels’ Generous Offer” By Christopher Bird (http://mightygodking.com/index.php/2009/11/10/scenes-from-an-alternate-universe-where-the-beatles-accepted-lorne-michaels-generous-offer)

See? Easy-peasy. Nominate me in “short fiction, English.”

In an act of shameless self-promotion, I’ve posted my short story “The Coldest War” (which originally appeared in the February 2009 issue of Asimov’s Science Fiction) online here. If you’re a Canadian citizen (not necessarily living in Canada) or a permanent resident, you can follow the handy-dandy links to the Aurora Awards nomination page once you’ve finished reading the story.

So I’m just going to put up the annual “Christmas drive” post right now, because the simple truth is this: keeping this site up and running costs me a fair chunk of change and a lot of work. I like doing the work and I don’t really mind paying the money: that is why there are no advertisements on this site (and never will be for anything other than things I am personally involved in creating).

But that doesn’t mean I mind occasionally holding out the hat; after all, I only do it three times per year (on Christmas, my birthday, and the site’s anniversary in August). Because while I would do it for free and indeed mostly do just that, I still like offsetting the cost a bit.

So this time I present you with not one but two options. The first option is the ever reliable Amazon.ca wishlist (Amazon.com shipping is too prohibitive, alas, to make giftgiving from it really worthwhile). The second and newer option is that I have finally caved and included a Paypal donation button on the sidebar there for people who might just want to tip a buck or two into the hat rather than buying me large impressive presents that show how amazing your genitalia are (and I am certain they are quite splendid).

(Hey, if every one of this site’s unique readers chipped in just one dollar a year, this could be my job! Except, on second thought, that is kind of disturbing on multiple levels.)

In email:

My request is that you actually tell people what G20 is actually about. If you want people to send you over there, it’s only fair. It’s not just a trip to London they’re nominating you for. (Maybe, given that you are generally pretty pro-labor, you could talk about how the Labour Representation Committee are strongly opposed to G20. Or you could talk about how G20 protesters have been systematically targeted for violence and unlawful arrest.)(/soapbox)

I’m pro-labour, but that’s different from being for the Labour Representation Committee, who are real honest-to-god hardcore socialists (as opposed to American “socialists”) in the old-school “ideology before practicality” mold.

Honestly, G20 protestation – much like WTO protestation – is frequently ridiculous because it’s so undefined. One of my great dislikes about liberal activism is cause-collation, or as people commonly recognize it, “when Free Mumia signs show up at a gay rights rally.” G20 and WTO protests, in my experience (and I’ve seen/attended a few) inevitably end up being colossal wankfests because they’re not really about anything, they’re just a giant chorus of “YOU’RE DOING IT WRONG” and while that’s not untrue it’s also completely unhelpful.

I know I am going all Toby from West Wing here, but if you’re going to protest labour policies or climate change policies or poverty policies, great, but pick one at a time because the inevitable message class just gives the appearance of a group of disorganized, clueless hippies and/or “in it for the experience” protestors. (Go figure that a campaign to go in-city camping to protest carbon trading regulation would be considered unserious!)

And why I want to go to G20? From their site:

We are inviting 50 influential and knowledgeable bloggers to attend the G20 Summit on April 2nd in London, UK, where they will get unprecedented access to world leaders and thinkers and the chance to ask questions about the issues important to them. 20 of those bloggers will be nominated by you.

I’ve had the chance to put questions to Jim Flaherty and Stephane Dion already, so I consider that practice for something such as this. Rest assured, if I go, the questions I’ll be asking will be about international climate change policy – and I’ll have consulted with several of the leading environmental law and international law professors in Canada before I go because I’ll want to do it right. (Also, the whole Jon Stewart “only the court jester can really ask such of the king” sort of deal.)

Addendum: those of you following me on Twitter, feel free to direct a tweet to “G20Voice,” because they have decided to make themselves accessible via Twitter because, I dunno, politicians love Twitter now for some reason, and talk me up.

So: G20 Voice has decided to subsidize bloggers to cover the G20 Economic Summit in London in April. And I would really like to go! I mean, if you look at their list of categories, I qualify for two: I’m definitely from a G20 country (GO FIRST WORLD!) and furthermore I believe I am “high-profile and eclectic.”

Also I am dirt poor with no summer job in the Law as of yet, and I would really, really like a free trip to London to help me forget about that for a few glorious days. And did I mention that doing this would probably be really good for my resume? Because it totally would!

So: please nominate me. When nominating me, try to ignore the comic book stuff (as much as you might like to mention Rex the Wonder Dog) and the Photoshops and instead try to mention that I am the senior editor of Osgoode Hall Law School’s law blog, an occasional political blogger (both here and at Torontoist.com), and a “clever humourist with an offbeat, trenchant, observant world view” or similar words to that effect.

I have about four to five thousand readers per day; if I get three or four hundred nominations I am positive they will ask me to go and do important blogging crap! So get on the horn? Please? I realize trying to get one-for-ten is probably unrealistic, but then again so is the idea of going to London to be a FOR REALS JURMALIST and you will note that is not stopping me.

As per usual with all posts where I beg for favours, in comments feel free to request posts about whatever when you actually go through with the two-minute effort of nominating me. I am nothing if not disproportionately reciprocal!

UPDATE: In comments, Zifnab points out:

If they don’t actually check your blog, you’re a shoe-in.

He has a bit of a point, so if you haven’t already nominated me, I would suggest including in your nomination a link to one of my more “respectable” posts. Like this post about environment stuff, or this one about nuclear power, or this one about airships, or this one about gorillas, or this one about term limits, or this one about the Liberal Party being fuckups, or this one about Obama’s election, or this one liveblogging the Canadian election debate, or this one about concrete, or this post at TheCourt.ca debunking allegations made against Chief Justice MacLachlin, or what the hell the political Magic cards or the Joe the Homer ‘shops.

Okay, I just want to go on record as saying that 33, as numbers go, is a sucky one. It is evenly divisible by 11, which earns it a little cred, but that does not counter the fact that “early thirties” is gradually starting to become inapplicable to describe me and that kind of sucks. However, so far friends have gotten me an Animal Man trade, the latest Scott Pilgrim and the offer of future-bread, which is like freshly baked bread which only exists in potentia, and that’s good!

Anyways, since it is my birthday, I will not-so-casually mention the wishlist, with potential presents for the man running this pointedly ad-free website ranging from “fuck you” to “I secretly collect locks of your hair” in cost.

So the nominations for the 2009 Bloggies have begun, and although I think the odds of winning anything are relatively low, I’d certainly like to try getting nominated in any of the following categories:

Best Canadian
Most Humourous
Best Written
Best Kept-Secret

So if you’re willing to go to the trouble of nominating me (and at least two other blogs, required by their nomination form – feel free to suggest anything in comments, I always like to look at sites people recommend), I’d appreciate it. As per usual, if you want to request a not-guaranteed post topic out of me, that is something you can also do in comments.

(And for the person who asked: Thursday Who’s Who is on hiatus until the end of exams.)

EDIT TO ADD: To clear up some confusion: it’s three different blogs overall, not per category. I’m not willing to ask people to do that much work.

Voting in the Canadian Blog Awards for Best Humour Blog ends… well, I’m not sure, but sometime either late today or tomorrow at the absolute latest. If you have not voted, vote! If you have voted, vote again from a different computer or something! Hold rallies! Petition your local mayoral office to hold an official MGK Jamboree Day!¹ Floss with official MGK Brand Dental Floss!²

Same deal as always applies: you may request a post on something or whatever in exchange and I will definitely consider thinking about writing something vaguely in connection to your request. (Actually, a good deal of next week’s postery resulted from previous requests, mostly because I’m hitting crunch time at school and am too busy to come up with anything original or interesting on my own. WE ALL BENEFIT!)

If you are looking for a truly ringing site review, consider James Bow’s roundup, wherein he explains that I “post funny videos,” says that Skippy of Enjoy Every Sandwich is a “young and energetic young woman” (not only making sure to emphasize that Skippy is young, but also a different gender than I thought Skippy was), mischaracterizes the Useless Men as “essayists” rather than advice columnists, and claims that Mitchieville is a “good read.” In fairness, Bow did correctly point out that Noise to Signal is a web comic, presumably by using the power of sight. So, you know, one out of five, that’s better than George Bush is doing these days, amirite?

Also, I encourage all readers to heartily ignore Skippy’s hate-filled diatribes, wherein he grossly and falsely accuses me of being seventy thousand people or something because I am polite and give my past guest contributors who are welcome to add more content to my site whenever they wish (which is not often) a nice tribute by associating them with me as pointedly as I can do. Honestly, it is my life’s goal to become the number one Christopher Bird on the web, and surpass the guy who wrote The Secret Life Of Plants.

(True story: back when I first got onto Usenet in 1993, I used to get one or two emails a month from people asking if I was that Christopher Bird. This persisted until about 1998. Those of you who read the Wikipedia article will note that the other Christopher Bird died in 1996. You may draw your own conclusions as to whether this means that people are innately stupid or innately optimistic or both.)

In conclusion: as P. Diddy once said, “vote or die.”³

1. Do not emulate the example of those people in Schnectady. I still get angry letters about the fatalities. Like it’s my fault they gave the kids broken-glass pinatas. I didn’t even endorse that company! [↩]
2. “Sometimes you must fight the crocodile that is gingivitis!” [↩]
3. Hey, does anybody else remember 720? The skateboarding videogame? “Skate… OR DIE!” God, that was a great game. They should remake it with P. Diddy, if only to see him get attacked by killer bees. [↩]

So my earlier round of begging has paid off handsomely and I am a FINALIST in the Canadian Blog Awards for Best Humour Blog. Clearly, you must go vote for me. Same deal as previously applies! Vote for me and you can totally ask me to write about something! And I may even do it.

However, I am entirely balanced and fair, so let us first examine the other four finalists in this category.

Noise to Signal is a comic strip (well, single-panel strip, much like The Far Side, but with no cows) masquerading as a blog. It is not unamusing, but come on! A comic strip is not a blog! Rob Cunningham is very clearly cheating, and as such, any potential humour value that his strip provides must obviously be meaningless in comparison to the sheer outrage I am sure you are feeling right now over his attempts to pull wool over your eyes. Also, I post a lot more than Rob “Once A Week If You’re Lucky” Cunningham, so be aware that his “quality not quantity” arguments are completely meritless. That he has made none of these arguments so far is utterly besides the point, because we all know cartoonists are shifty, and that they will lie and cozen their way into your heart with pretty, false words, then stab you with a butcher knife and draw unholy symbols with your blood. Or is that Satanists? I can never tell the difference. And you know why? Oh, I think you do.

Useless Advice From Useless Men is an advice column wherein I am unsure if the letters are for real or not. It doesn’t really matter. (Unless they are fake, in which case their site is filled with lying liars and clearly they are unworthy of your vote.) It’s competent, clever stuff and the guy(s) writing it could probably get a real job writing something somewhere if they tried. That having been said: one post a week. I feel like a slacker when I only put in one post per day. Admittedly some of them are hyperlinks, but you love hyperlinks, don’t you? What’s that? You want more original material? WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU I AM ONLY HUMAN YOU ARE SQUEEZING BLOOD FROM A STONE HERE! Or, more accurately, “I will get right on that.”

Mitchieville is the token “here is a right-wing blog that online righties think is funny.” This is another way of saying “they are not actually funny.” Yes, I know they think that “hurr hurr hurr liberals are dumb” is the height of wit and that just saying “politically correct” is a punchline (much like “Cucamunga” or “Walla Walla” are innately funny place names), but just like Larry the Cable Guy, the Half Hour News Hour and anything Dennis Miller did after 9/11, it turns out that bitterness and spite do not actually substitute well for comic insight or a sense of timing. However, you just know that Small Dead Animals and Free Dominion and the rest of the right-wing freakosphere are going to take this string of insults what I have just written as proof that left-wingers are full of hatred or something, and organize a massive get-out-the-vote campaign for Mitchieville. Which is kind of depressing. Also, they have a guy writing for them named “Fenris Badwulf,” which is quite possibly the best bad pseudonym of all time. I mean, “Fenris Badwulf” is the sort of name World of Warcraft players look at and say, “man… that’s a bit much.”

Enjoy Every Sandwich is a left-wing blog, and the writer has quite a sense of flair and is quite entertaining as medium-length essayists go. I would certainly vote for him for Best Progressive Blog! However, he is my competition in this category, so forget everything I just said because clearly he is a douchebag with no social skills or originality who steals traffic from starving orphan websites who have whooping cough and/or the dropsies. How low can he sink? He gave his readers titties in exchange for voting. (Did any of you people want titties in exchange for voting? Well, forget it, because I have principles, and will only give you money and possibly drugs.)

But really, the reason to vote for me isn’t that these other sites are obviously low-key hackwork operations run on slave labour and sodomy. The reason to vote for me is because I bring you what nobody else does. Do these other sites go back into the mists of time to inform you how J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis talked when they hung out? Do they introduce you to the cast of American Gladiators? Do they explain Hollywood for you or warn you about the Count or Photoshop old comic book advertisements or talk about action figures or link back to that Atari boxes post you already saw six times at other sites while trying to pimp themselves or expose you to the glory that is Flapjacks?

And most importantly, are they officially sponsored by Rex the motherfucking Wonder Dog?

I think not. So, in addition to voting for me, tell all of your friends! Then make them tell all of their friends! Use force if necessary.