10. “The Big Book of Careers for Graduates with a B.A. in History”

9. Andy Dick’s attention span.

8. John Baird’s attention span.

7. Any conversation between Andy Dick and John Baird.

6. The professional futures of the guys at NBC who greenlighted “Primetime with Jay Leno”

5. The amount of time I realize I’m watching Oprah, Dr. Phil or Dr. Oz before I quickly change the channel to anything else.

4. The amount of time I realize I’m watching John Baird before I quickly change the channel to anything else.

3. The amount of time I realize I’m watching Andy Dick in anything BUT “News Radio” before I quickly change the channel to anything else.

2. This sentence.

1. The period of time between when you knock something off the counter and still think you can catch it until it hits the floor in a big gooey, sloppy and/or sticky mess.

Cheney is another story and I’m sure he’s responsible for about three of the horrible events listed below.  Being the immortal denizen of the underworld means you gotta rear your ugly head and cause some chaos or the lesser demons just won’t respect you.

10. The eruption of Mount Vesuvius – In 79AD the entire city of Pompeii was completely destroyed, as were other cities but we never seem to care about those, when Mt. Vesuvius erupted.  The resulting lava floes, firey rain and ash killed around 18,000 people.

There have been worse volcanic eruptions, but in some footage and written encounters, there was significant mention of a “little, monkey-like man” so Bush might have been involved and we needed this list to be 100% accurate.

9.  My junior prom date ditching me -  Although I’m not sure who she ended up leaving with, I’m pretty sure George was drunk or high in Texas at the time and it wouldn’t have really been possible for her to get there and back.

It might have been Clinton, but I can’t say.

8.  The Spanish Inquisition – Although nobody ever expects it, the Spanish Inquisition killed more than 1,000 people who weren’t Christian between 1540-1700.  Although Bush’s hands are completely clean of this one, it might have been used as a source of inspiration for him and his Cabinet in the wake of 9/11.

Thankfully, the PATRIOT Act isn’t that bad…

7.  The rise of Miley Cyrus – Miley Ray Cyrus (born Destiny Hope Cyrus on November 23, 1992) is way too famous for her own good and eventually must be stopped.  I’m pretty sure this one is all Billy Ray Cyrus’ fault, with maybe a sprinkling of Haliburton thrown in for good measure, and money laundering.  Eventually, the death toll from this young popstar might just eclipse anything else on this list.  So far it’s zero, but just keep watching her… she’s sneaky. Oh, and this makes me kind of throw up a bit : “In 2008, Cyrus was listed among artists and entertainers as one of Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in The World.^[12] Forbes Magazine ranked her #35 on “The Celebrity 100″ list with earnings of over US$25 million in 2008.^{[13]” From Wikipedia.}

6. Polio – Although the total number of deaths from the many strains of polio are unknown (by me anyway, I couldn’t be bothered to really look at all those medical sites) it killed a lot of people and left countless others in really, really rough shape.

Thankfully it’s been mostly eradicated, however as of 2006, polio remains  endemic in only four countries: Nigeria, India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, hey…

wait a minute…

5. Dancing With The Stars – From the evil in this show, I’d point this back to a Cheney / Rumsfeld drunken binge, but Bush is in the clear again.  Just how evil is this show? Really really evil.

I tried to add a clip from YouTube but my computer kept crashing. This might not seem so weird but I HAVE A MAC! These things don’t crash and are perfect in every way, so you know something’s wrong.  Plus I think Dancing With The Stars made Steve Jobs sick…shame on you Dick and Bob.

4. Great Famine of 1876–78, India – A famine is bad, but a famine for two years in an extremely populous country is pretty F’n scary.  An estimated 58,500,000 were put in danger and over 25,000,000 died.  That’s like the population of Canada without the Toronto area being gone.  Way to go nature and bad food policy.

But well done Bush.  I think he sent a card.

3. The Great Depression – After a rocking financial time, when money was free and the stock market just kept rising, it stopped rising and actually crashed.  This caused a panic and financial crisis which hadn’t been seen for over fifty years and effected the entire global economy.  Unemployment skyrocketed, people lost their homes, banks closed down and…

wait a minute…

2 and 1. Spanish Flu – The 1918 flu pandemic (commonly referred to as the Spanish flu) was worse than the Bubonic Plague.This is big people… this thing killed so many people, those who survived stopped eating paella and that stuff is awesome.

When something is worse than another thing called the “Black Death”, you know it’s bad.  An estimated 100,000,000 people were killed by it and not only that; it was helped along by World War One! So along comes this massive war, with loads of death in trenches and oh wait, you’re dead from the flu… FROM SPAIN!

Actually, to be fair to the Spaniards, the flu wasn’t really from Spain but was named such because the Allies kind of realized a lot of them were dying in Spain but not just from bullets.  It probably started in France.

Once again, Bush was not involved.

So, thanks GWB for not killing millions (only hundreds of thousands), only making millions poor and for really making the most of eight horrible, horrible years.

In loving memory of Sesame Street’s “The Count”. 1971-2007

1. Canada’s free healthcare system; where you can wait 5 hours to be told by an incompetent doctor that he has no idea what’s wrong with you.

2. That same healthcare system; where you can finally get the treatment you need from a competent doctor (when you find one).

3. Did I mention that it was free?  Because it is.  No charge.  Well, not up front.

4. Flying squirrels.  I know they can’t really fly, but they can glide for longer distances than I can.  I know because I tried.  Hence the intimate knowledge of Canada’s healthcare system.

5. Paramedics; for asking simple yet poignant questions like “How on earth did you end up here face-down?” and “Did you think you could fly like a flying squirrel?  ‘Cause they don’t really fly – they glide.”

6. Alcohol; for leading me to believe that if a rodent as lowly as a squirrel can fly, then I can too, dammit.

7. My roomate Jared; for taking advantage of number 6 and egging me on.

8. Eggs.  So tasty, so delicious, so nutritious.  How dare they be so eggspensive.  Ahem.

9. Head Trauma.  It makes life adventurous because you forget the easiest things and see fun colours.

10. Canada’s free healthcare system; where you can wait 5 hours to be told by an incompetent doctor that he has no idea what’s wrong with you.

Whoa.  Deja Vu.

1. Randomly seeing semi-celebrities in art museums. Erika Christensen seemed to really like Seurat.

2. Hearing good music in stores. It makes following my wife around shopping all day worth it. Nope. No it doesn’t.

3. The history of cities. Seriously. There’s a lot of cool reasons why streets are one-way.

4. Britney’s bald… in other news… wait, there’s other news?

5. Hey, have you heard about this awesome thing called the iPhone? It will make your life worth living. And it has “i” infront of it.. it has to be good.

6. Hearing good music in a movie premiere. Band of Horses? Sure that movie is going to be great and I have no idea what it’s about.

7. I’ll give $25 to anyone who can make a laptop or cell phone battery that doesn’t suck after one year…. and don’t tell me Steve Jobs has done it cause he hasn’t… but I heard the iPhone runs on the tears of PC users… so many tears.

8. IFC is now part of Rogers Cable’s standard tier three package, which is great because watching it is like eating chocolate-covered crack off a supermodel’s bare chest.  Beautiful, tasty AND addictive.

9. Unsecured WiFi. It’s not stealing because um, well… it’s just not.

10. Second issues of art zines…. so amazing scraped together from different corners of the continent. Isn’t the internet wonderful? I can’t wait for the iPhone to make it even better… it does that right?

1. Dark and Bitter
2. Sweet and Smooth
3. Black
4. Grey… and Lumpy
5. From such a cheap place, it ends up immediately in my lap
6. Quiet
7. Bottomless
8. Irish and Drunk
9. Drunk and Irish
10. Hot and in a BIG cup
11. Stereotypical and sexist

*Just kidding… we don’t hire female staff writers.

Thanks Brad!!

2. “V for Vendetta” was pretty awesome. And it better pave the way for the “Watchmen”.

3. The Brian Jonestown Massacre are amazing, no matter how much of a dick Anton is.

4. My grandfather’s first car was a Coalsby Cleater. It ran on wheat germ and cod liver oil. And it cost him five bees and had a place for his onion when it wasn’t tied to his belt, which was the style at the time.

5. From Beirut to Jerusalem by Thomas Friedman. Anyone with any interest in the middle east or really world events as they’ve unfolded needs to read this book.

6. Koala Bears? Nope… marsupial.

7. Nice weather. This should be on every Top anything list ever. Seriously

8. Roll Up the Rim to Lose. Now the folks in Canada and US know what this is.

9. Can’t we stop the French riots by sending in the Germans?

10. Moving is almost as tough as planning a wedding, but unfortunately most people move more.

11. Gerbil-bombs are being mailed.. beware.

2. Web 2.0 apps you’re running on your server (or ServerLog for you 1337s out
there)

3. Times you’ve woken up hungover and completely naked in public

4. Times you’ve woken up NOT hungover and completely naked in public

5. Most embarrassing Emergency Room visits

6. Weddings you’ve ruined

7. Funerals you’ve ruined

8. Weddings you’ve ruined by causing a funeral

9. Celebrities whose fingernail clippings you’ve bought on Ebay

10. Favourite Chocolate Bars (you can only have one ‘favourite’ by definition…
the other nine would just be runner-ups)