"Sending Jogger Coordinates..."

If the talking, seeing, all-knowing Sauron clothes weren’t enough, now we’ll have something else to contend with: Big Brother clothes.

Wal-Mart apparently isn’t happy with being the devil; now it has chosen to take the role of General Devil God. In other words, it will start inserting “smart tags” into its clothing sometime this month. These electronic tags will not be able to be turned off by buyers (though they can remove them) and they are, yes, trackable, meaning that Wal-Mart will now be tagging its victims like a wild animal species.

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You know that great feeling you always get when you go into Costco? You know... the rush of knowing your getting a great deal? Well, my friends, be prepared for that feeling to get even better! Costco has enacted some really proactive policies about its seafood suppliers, what it will sell, and has overall implemented better (more sustainable) seafood practices.

I personally applaud the effort. I think it really shows a lot about the core values of the company and that Costco cares about the environment and the oceans.

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In a world where everything appears to give us cancer - Grilled Chicken can be added to the list.

That's right folks, the same grilled chicken you have been eating at your family BBQ because you thought it was more healthy than the diablo chili dogs, may cause cancer. How is this even possible? Well, grilled chicken contains PhIP, a cancer-causing chemical. PhIP and other heterocyclic amines are formed from the creatinine, amino acids, and sugar found in muscle tissue, and are produced by the presence of hot internal and external heat and lengthy cooking times. Heterocyclic amines can bind directly to DNA and cause mutations which can be be the first step in cancer production in your body.

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5. Comedians

Comedians must come up with all new material during the appetizer round. Material must surround topics provided by the game. In Round II, comedians have to perform the material in front of a rowdy bar crowd and make the customers laugh at least 75% of the time. In round III, they must take turns dodging thrown vegetables, drinks, and chairs, with the most points going to the person who sustains the least amount of injuries.

4. CPAs

Each accountant must sign, stamp, and seal as many papers as possible in ten minutes. During round II, a complete audit of a major, unsavory corporation (Enron, Halliburton, ect.) must be conducted within 30 minutes. In round III, each accountant must explain the ins and outs of financial, estate, and tax planning and preparation to a client without making him or her fall asleep.

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If you are a Food Network fan (I’m a newbie myself) you might be into the addictive show called Chopped. In it, renowned chefs battle to beat one another—and the clock—by creating an appetizer, a main course, and a dessert out of specific ingredients they are all given in a short time frame. Some weird ingredients include peanut butter, cinnamon candies, sardines, and plenty of other curve balls. It’s a lot of fun to watch—and oddly addictive.

What would happen, I thought the other day during a commercial break, if other industries tried the Chopped formula? I think plenty of different areas could have some fun with the Chopped theme. Here are just ten of them.

10. Cops

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You may already have seen, and presumably been charmed by, Tanya Davis' video poem titled "How To Be Alone."  It is a step-by-step guide to re-entering the world as a single person after a break-up.  And, frankly, it's adorable.

But not to The Globe And Mail columnist Russell Smith, it's not.  

He calls it "pair-bonding-obsessed weepiness," which confused me.  Did we watch the same video? 

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A few weekends back the DJ was having some fun with the music, and suddenly I was hearing new takes on old songs, whether it was the sounds of a female voice (I don’t really know who it was…) singing over the top of a Michael Jackson beat, or even a classic Tribe Called Quest song playing with their standard use of samples. It was awesome. They were mash-ups, remixes, hip hop classics at the mercy of, well, the hands of, a talented DJ who knows how to play with the anatomy of a beat. The art form of turning a something that wasn’t what it was originally into something new that sounds just as sweet, or maybe even better. But that’s a different kind of beat…

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I was part of a 350 day last fall- do you remember that? It was a worldwide effort to bring people together to beg the U.N. to beg the representatives going to Copenhagen to get together, agree on something, and please, please, please get something agreed on and signed so that we can all work together and get on with things. I mean, let’s stop arguing about how best to save the world and just start saving it- isn’t that the oldest of every debate that you’ve ever heard of. It’s a bit idealistic, a bit unrealistic, and bit of exactly what any international politician needs to hear from those of us who are sick and tired of not getting results from the people who are supposed to represent us.

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I like China Mieville's work a lot, not least because he operates in the fantasy genre, without writing about elves and unicorns.  YOU know what I mean.  Fantasy has the potential to be so much more, and Mieville takes it there.

Mieville has announced that he wants to write one novel for each kind of genre, and this is his take on the mystery genre.  And it is, as you might expect from a China Mieville novel, mind-bendingly bizarre. 

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