Vote Canada for American president
I wouldn’t fault Americans for being dismayed by the choice of people who want to run for their president. Fortunately for them, a couple of Canucks are offering to throw their toques in the ring.
It’s called the Canada Party. Vancouver comedians Brian Calvert and Chris Cannon listed their campaign credentials in a YouTube video, racking up over 350,000 views in a little under a week. “We’re your friends, we’ve noticed you’re hurting, and we’re here to help,” says a bearded Calvert, seated in front of a fireplace in the video. “We’ve seen your candidates, and frankly… they scare the shit out of us. So we’re volunteering our country to lead your country.”
“Lock it before you pocket,” ya hear?
Pocket dialing isn’t just incredibly embarrassing, it’s also tying up 911 lines. It’s such a problem that the Ontario Provincial Police and several local police units, including the Toronto Police Service, are releasing a PSA encouraging people to “Lock it before you pocket.” Police are saying that 107,000 people pocket dialed 911 last year. The campaign includes a YouTube video depicting an actual call. When the caller in question is phoned back, he said, “I call you guys like almost every day, man. It’s an accident. If you see my number, it’s an accident.” Umm, yeah. Except when you’re getting robbed or assaulted. Or injured.
Harper vs. Putin in 2012 Summit Series… maybe not
The Toronto Star reported that Stephen Harper and Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin will go head-to-head to mark the 40th anniversary of the classic Summit Series. Each would lead a team of Canadian and Russian players in two games scheduled for September. Sounds like a great, and potentially plausible, matchup, especially since Putin has a tendency to get photographed doing a variety of macho things, like topless horseback riding, submarine riding, and co-piloting a firefighting plane. And Harper, who calls himself an “amateur hockey historian,” needs to beef up his image after all those lame rodeo and kitty photos. It would be great… except the Prime Minister’s Office denied the whole thing on Twitter.
If you want your money back, you’re going to have to smash your stuff
A Canadian buyer smashed a violin in order to get his money back through Internet service PayPal. A seller identified as Erica forwarded the dilemma to blog Regretsy. She said she sold a violin authenticated by a luthier to the buyer for $2,500. But the buyer disputed the violin’s origins, and instead of returning the instrument, PayPal asked them to destroy the violin in order to return the money. A PayPal spokesperson issued this explanation: “While we cannot talk about this particular case due to PayPal’s privacy policy, we carefully review each case, and in general we may ask a buyer to destroy counterfeit goods if they supply signed evidence from a knowledgeable third party that the goods are indeed counterfeit.”
