For your perusal...

Bored and looking for something to do? Perfect. Check out some of my recent publishings? Just a thought... it's cool if you say, "Piss off, bloke. I'm going out to play football." Because let's be honest, English accents dominate, well, next to South African accents...

Anyway, here is a cover story that I have just published with the Post:

http://burlingtonpost.com/printarticle/171776

And, here, is a list of my articles with the Post...

Enjoy... or fall asleep -- but hopefully you are informed before you hit the hay...

Pop quiz

Okay, so America is filled with plebeians -- old news, I know. And the statistics are there. 2/3 of American's can't locate Iraq on a map. 2/3 of American's can't recall the four gospels. 75% of Americans are gun-toting, bible-thumping yokels -- well this is according to Barack Obama. I agree Obama, oh how you are so eloquent.

But, now readers, how do you fare? Where's that place that America has been running in circles in for the past 5 years?

Or what are the four gospels (hint they are all men)... Maybe we are a tad intellectually brighter (or some of us), but let's give our neighbours to the south a little bit more credit. Oh by the way, if elected, Hillary will "obliterate" Iran. True story. Fuck it, I retract giving those gun-toting, bible-thumping yokels to the south of the border credit.

When was the best day of your life?

When someone asks you that question in the title, how do you respond? (It may be possible that no one has asked you said question, but that also means you're 5-years-old and no one is interested in you or your life for that matter).

Will you be unoriginal and respond with the hackneyed: "my wedding day, of course." Or unique with, "When I was standing on top of Everest trying to breath." Or strange, like, "It was when I was younger and I fought off a pack of starved wolves... naked. Scratch strange, that would be fuckin' amazing. Kudos to you crazy stronger-than-a-pack-of-wolves but unnecessarily naked individual.

But really, do you have a "best day of your life" (yet)? No fuck that, you can't say, "I haven't had one yet." Because, unless you have been locked in a manure-reeking dungeon since your shitty birth with only a scrappy rat as company, than you have -- as logic serves -- to have had a best day of your life.

So, what day was it?

Side-note: If you're interested, here is a recent feature article I wrote for the Burlington Post: http://burlingtonpost.com/news/article/169860

Something to Mull Over?

Ducks. It's possible they could flank us when we are least expecting it. They seem very cunning and are cute -- dangerous combination. Horses. People get way too fuckin' obsessed with these creatures that could kick you harder than Jet Li -- and that's a kick. Yes, horses have nice tails and manes while also sporting chiseled quadriceps, but that doesn't mean I want to plaster my room with them -- fuckin' crazy horse weirdos.

Fish. Kinda creepy little fellas aren't they? I mean, we eat them, and yes, some of them are succulent, but really, they have scales and are as evasive as O.J. Simpson. But they are tasty.

The youth. Being impressionable is one of the most dangerous things out there. Part reason for Hitler's rise to power, part German destitution after the Treaty of Versailles. But when youth are at such a malleable stage, dangerous things can happen. The success of YouTube, the Spice Girls and drag racing due to the Fast and the Furious are just a sliver of the whole barn. Everytime a new blockbuster rolls in millions their debut night, teenagers have a newfound life as a fighter (Never Back Down), bank robber (The Bank Job), and/or lesbian (the O.C.). It's a fact of life, the lesbian part that is.

The Internet. This cyber-behemoth and all of its possibilities scares the living piss out of me, which could also be kicked out of me by a horse. 

Is writing dead?

Okay, back off cantankerous-scholarly-types, I don't mean all writing, just bear with me.

Bored? Sorry, that was rhetorical as the answer is manifest in the fact that you are reading this. Anyway, I have made a discovery. And yes, it is up there with Columbus's escapades, dynamite and why banana's taste like they do (if that constitutes as a discovery or if it has been discovered is neither here nor there, however). 

Cue the metaphorical drum-roll... people don't "blog" (as in a form of writing that is unstructured, embellished and grammatically fucked) but "photoblog." Okay, I concede that it's not as groundbreaking as the discovery of the Deinocheirus dinosaur. Quick aside: Its name means "terrible hand."

Alas, I digress.

To be germane, I ran a quick pseud0-experiment lacking any scientific credence whatsoever. And, you can do it too. Zoom your mouse pointer/tip/arrow/flying animal to the top left corner of this webpage and click -- NOTE: Click button only after finishing this noteworthy quasi-article -- "Next Blog." Keep on clicking until you reach a "creative outlet" where someone has removed the "blog toolbar" and you can no longer click.

Like myself, you will discover, hopefully, that the vast majority of other "creative outlets" in this technological scrapbook (a.ka. the blogosphere) are simply collections of self-absorbed photographs. But really, is this so much of a big suprise anymore?  We are so clearly a culture of the self-absorbed, -aggrandizing, -praising, -promoting, -loving. We are just too lazy or busy taking pictures of ourselves to write about ourselves taking pictures of ourselves.

For a kick start into our culture over-saturated with "MY"space, MY Facebook (pretty sure that's how it's properly spelled) and "i"-pod, -tunes, -phone, -google, -umbrella's.... you should check out this "Photoblog": http://nyetowl.blogspot.com/

Happy self-aggrandizing... and don't worry, I'm right behind you, especially with the corresponding self-loathing and all.

Sheridan consumes up to 600,000 sheets of paper weekly

by Ryan Bolton and Jon Kennedy

Sheridan’s Trafalgar students and faculty consume up to 600,000 sheets of non-recycled paper every week, far outstripping other area colleges’ weekly paper consumption, the Sheridan Sun has learned.

On average, each one of Sheridan’s 9,000 students and 326 full-time faculty at Trafalgar Campus use some 64 sheets of paper every week for assignments, handouts and research.

That’s three tons of paper or 72 trees a week, according to GreenPrint, an environmentally-friendly software company.

Students and faculty use paper at such a rate that Sheridan spends up to $120,000 on paper purchases annually.

“We spend probably $110,000 to $120,000 a year on paper… just on paper,” Jim Greer, Sheridan’s purchasing officer, told the Sheridan Sun. This figure does not include expensive toner or printer maintenance costs.

Other area colleges have policies in place to curb superfluous paper use.

Conestoga College, for example, has taken the initiative in trying to stem how much paper faculty and students consume. Students are permitted a maximum of 1,500 pages each semester. All printing must be school-related and students and faculty are instructed to duplex print – printing on both sides of a page. Moreover, each print job cannot exceed two copies and the school has the right to restrict printing if “abuse is suspected,” according to Conestoga’s website.

“There are printers in every lab but not in classrooms,” said Charlene Bailey, an IT Technician at Conestoga College, in an e-mail. “Student technicians do a printer run every morning and write down how much paper is left in the printer and how much paper they add to a room.”

Conestoga, with 6,200 full-time and 33,000 part-time students, consumes approximately 81,000 sheets of paper a week, according to Mike Abraham, the NetMail & GroupWise Administrator at Conestoga College.

George Brown College with 15,000 students, in comparison, printed 54,000 sheets last week in its Library Learning Commons’ and computer centres throughout its three campuses, said Tetsuro Saito of Educational Resources at George Brown. Moreover, George Brown charges five cents per print job and has set the printers to duplex as default.

At Humber College students receive 2,500 credits from their IT fees, which allows for 500 print jobs a semester. Once the credits are exhausted, students can purchase more credits at five cents for each duplex page. With a population of 18,500 full-time and 50,000 part-time students, Humber prints an average of 129,550 pages a week.

“Currently, all but a few printers duplex,” said Ryan Burton, Humber’s Service Support Manager, in an e-mail. “Getting the rest of those printers to duplex will cut my paper cost by an additional five per cent.”

Sheridan has the ability to duplex, but does not always set its printers to do so.

“In IT here, we are seeing 66 per cent duplexing. But in the student labs it is more like 29 per cent [duplex print jobs],” said Jim Fletcher, an IT director at Sheridan. “I would like them [students] to embrace duplex printing.”

So why does Sheridan consume so much paper in comparison to other local colleges?

Fletcher suspects it’s because of the lack of duplex printing coupled with other factors.

There are printers in virtually every classroom and lab at Sheridan making printing convenient. More importantly, printing is ostensibly free for each student, although each student pays for IT operations through ancillary fees.

“It isn’t free, but it is readily accessible… Putting an account system in place will make people account for the pages they print,” said Fletcher.

Various other colleges and universities, for instance, have implemented print cards that charge a set fee per print job. Like George Brown, the University of Waterloo, University of Western Ontario, Wilfrid Laurier University and other post-secondary institutions use print cards.

“The IT department is tracking [paper consumption] in classrooms and labs,” said Greer. The IT department has implemented a print monitoring software system called PaperCut NG. The software is capable of tracking and charging print quotas “to promote the responsible use of IT resources,” according to its website.

WebCT is another possible solution to reduce Sheridan’s vast amount of paper consumption, said Greer. By submitting and posting assignments via WebCT, both students and faculty can cut back on their paper consumption.

“We’ve seen actually a bit of a decline in paper usage over the years because of WebCT,” said Greer.

On the other hand, both Fletcher and Greer contend that students are not aware of the mass amount of paper they waste daily.

“You see printers with copy there that no one has picked up. Yeah, there is a waste,” Greer concedes.

Fletcher explained that “rogue printing” also impacts Sheridan’s paper consumption. For instance, “some web browsers will prompt you to print 1,800 sheets” instead of the required six pages.

Greer says that the software is in place to track and possibly charge for each print job. This software, he says, may change wasteful habits.

“If a student is told now with the rumour about having to pay for print, you may think twice about just printing it and leaving it,” said Greer.

Your Laugh Hangs (Slam)

The voice hangs upon the wire--

flagpole, laughing kids, the cigarette burns.

Eating in the blissful cold

holding onto the opaque stick

bellowing the crooked laugh

cringing at the empty--

justice.

Bringing back the love

lost amongst the pain, regret, loss.

The secrecy lives in us

arming the smoked apathy

green crass, broken bones, concrete cracks.

The trigger is sweaty

the face is blank

the mind is cloudy

the voice is sour

the love is shattered

your laugh hangs.

Parental Guidance is Advised Pt. 5

"What do you think about that?"

"About what?"

"About starting a chapter like that?"

"I feel that it's postmodern."

"Good."

Frank was lying on his back reading the back covers of a couple novellas sprawled around his bed. 

"A fascinating read. This is a seminal work. The New York Times," Franks reads. "How do they go about getting these vacuous blurbs anyway? Like these opinions that are plastered on the back of each book don't hold any insight into the novel itself. Utterly vapid shite.  In reality, we are just looking for the acclaimed sources that reviewed the book to ensure the book's quality... the Times, Washington Post, and whoever has a fucking credible literary opinion, oh,  Robert Ebert. Would we actually notice if they put, 'This novel is reminiscent of falling off a bridge into a pit of hungry barracudas and surviving? The New Yorker.'" 

"Are you high?"

"Possibly, yeah."