Guesswork

Wow, it’s been so long since I’ve been around here that I barely recognize the place. Sure, I miss it a little but life has come up and it appears I’m going to be away a while longer. Although you never know.

I’ve been a fan of David Suzuki for years now, and not just because we went to the same high school. He’s been responsible for raising public awareness of important environmental issues in Canada and around the globe, and he’s brought intelligence, wit and lucidity to the debate.
That said, I found his widely publicized […]

Does hair really equal sex? For me, I’m lucky enough to have a full, lustrous head of hair which if my maternal grandfather is any indication, I should expect to carry into senesence and the next life, so I haven’t paid a lot of attention to the Hair Club for Men.
However their […]

A while back a couple who are friends of my wife moved into a house a couple of blocks away from us. They’re upstanding salt-of-the-earth type folks, with a dog and a toddler and a safe sensible car to keep the whole family package safe in inclement weather. Anyone would be happy to […]

My recycling fodder from Shoppers Drug Mart features some funky technology this week - a portable stereo that plays both cassettes and CDs. Now seeing as nobody has sold cassettes for the last decade or so, I’m assuming that someone doing inventory at Shoppers’ came across a warehouse full […]

Facebook, the bloom is off the rose. A few months back I gushed like a schoolgirl about the Internet phenom that’s turned millions into social trivia junkies, but the blinders are starting to come off.
Facebook doesn’t really do anything useful. No news, weather, not even sports updates, and certainly no learning. […]

This sign was posted in a public men’s room and I can’t help wondering at whom it’s supposed to be directed.
There are three principal schools of thought when it comes to peeing on the floor: firstly, the majority of users, who know it’s inappropriate and generally avoid it. They don’t need to be […]

If you want to see how the English language is evolving, consider this recently received spam for the male enhancement product, MEGADIK:
Dolls always whizgiggled at me and even gentlemans did in the municipal john!
Well, now I sriek at them, because I took M_E GA D IK
for 6 months and now my cock is excessively greater […]

I lifted the above headline from Yahoo! Canada News except that I wittily added the word “no”, because I’m irked by the way this story is being presented in the media. Now as a regular reader of my increasingly irregular blog, right now you’ll be saying “Big deal, everything irks Metzger” and fair enough. But […]

A British company is planning to launch a free men’s magazine with the unlikely name Short List. Rather than alienate their target market right from the get-go, they should consider a title like “Massive” , “Gargantua” , or “Extreme Magnum Power”. A good rule of thumb is that any name which sounds like a […]

Below a list of Media/Communications/Technology things that irritate me. It’s far from a comprehensive list, and very subjective.
1. TV shows that use the title as a way of describing the entire concept “Who Wants To Be a Millionaire?” “Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?” “Don’t Forget the Lyrics” and
So You Think You […]

Like most people, I win about 4 or 5 internet lotteries a week, and the informational emails tend to have a certain sameness bout them that makes them a little dull to read, even when they’re giving me fabulously good news. However, I got one the other day that I thought was a cut above […]

BBC News reports that 56% of adults surveyed still believe scientists are divided on the question of man-made climate change, in spite of the fact that there is almost universal consensus among climatologists that it is real,it is happening now, and that it is likely to get much, much, worse.
The confusion can be attributed largely […]

There’s something really sad about an abandoned blog. It doesn’t have the crumbled majesty of an ancient ruin like the Colosseum, or the bleak sinister appeal of an old shipwreck. It’s just a blank space, a testament to wasted intellectual endeavour, a sad reminder of a lost enthusiasm and a misjudged level of public […]

The Workplace Safety and Insurance Board here in Ontario is running a program to educate young people about, you guessed it, workplace safety. Basically teens can win prizes like cel phones and music players if they go to the website, register, and fill out a short quiz.
The cool part about the program is the […]

Just when you thought we’d maxed out voluntary human uglification with the piercing-branding-tattoo thing, Australian artist Stelarc has raised the bar with by implanting an ear made of cartilage into his forearm. At this point the ear doesn’t actually hear or do anything except look grotesque, but I imagine the chicks will […]

As an enormously successful blogger, I often get correspondence from readers asking for advice on personal and professional crises in their lives, particularly problems that involve media and communications technology.
As a public service, I’m going to post a couple of these questions, along with my responses, in the hope that it may prove […]

So who do you reckon is the most influential person in the world? George W. Bush? Hu Jintao? Maybe Bill Gates? Nope. According to a Time magazine online poll, it’s Korean pop singer Rain (real name Jung Ji-hoon) who scored more than 470,000 votes out of 2.5 million cast. If you’ve never heard of […]