Softness in his eyes, iron in his thighs

I say this without even the slightest mockery, but this may be the most openly gay theme song — and indeed, cartoon — of my childhood.

Here’s to Canadian animators for more or less entirely doing whatever the hell they pleased with these weird little shorts about a muscular Greek man, his half-horse-and-all-naked sidekick, and the woman who couldn’t maintain consciousness through an entire episode.

Plus, holy shit — he just shot the sun.

And our brothers, marching together

The kind of theme you’ll never, ever hear on television again -- born in Canada, written likely without a trace of irony, and helping young children to understand that outer space sounds like this:

“Wooo-wooo-woo-woooo, beep beep beep beep!”

Because it totally does.

Pa Pa Pants Man!

Pants are comfortable!

Which are good? Which are bad?

Canadian concerned advertisers knew just how to appeal to the confused children, May/December parents and off-duty cops demographics.

Happy Thanksgiving all.  Real posts impending.

Peace on Earth

(Proper updates to begin this week, but in the meantime enjoy a story of the Ukraine in a unique medium)

Mega mega white thing

(thanks to BeaucoupKevin)

Recoverin’

I survived the marathon!  Good for me.

More details to come on it tomorrow (because I have pictures courtesy of my amazing supportive fiancee and family), but let me just say that everyone everything says about running marathons — even the stuff that contradicts the other stuff — is absolutely true.  I used to be trudging along on the treadmill and decide to fantasize about what it would take for an adult to burst into tears while they’re running, because I’d read stories about that and it seemed so strange to me.

Now I know!  It’s all contradictory because it’s inexpressible, and in the end it comes down to your body and how you deal with it.  Chatting about the race with someone at work today, she said to me, “Yeah, I imagine it’s like child labor that way.”

I nodded, and then she said, “No!  Wait, I meant labor.  Child birth! You know what I meant:  how people say they’ll never do it again, and then forget how it hurts.”

“I know exactly what you mean,” I answered.  “No matter how cheap the shirts are, child labor is such a pain.”

So don’t worry, I’m staying classy.

Marathonin’

Right about now I’ll be leaving the starting line of the Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon, to run my first full 26-mile race. I’m running with the 3 hour and 40 minute group, so anyone who feels like cheering for me can tune in at around 11:15 to 11:30 to watch me cross the finish line.

There should be a live finish line camera here.

I’ll be the guy looking tired, with bib #961.

If you see me on the “Lying Prone At The Side Of The Road” camera, for God’s sake call someone.

Maybe I’m just not man enough

Rebecca Mayes sings songs to review video games, and I like that.

There’s a hefty portion of the internet dedicated to talking about video games, worrying about them or reviewing them or celebrating them.  Even songs about gaming isn’t particularly novel, since there’ve been rappers and performers in this niche for a while.  Even mainstream musicians are sampling games, though I think more to seem clever than anything.

What makes me smile about Rebecca Mayes is that I doubt very much there’s anyone else who sounds like her in this little space, so even when she’s not all that great, she’s at least different.  Hearing a cute, wee blonde Brit with a sweet voice singing about Bionic Commando (the crappy new gritty one, not the awesome a 1980s one about a guy with a robot arm fighting white-label Nazis) is itself enough of a contrast to make you stop, blink and step outside the “gamer” box a bit.

She has a series of videos available at The Escapist (which I discovered watching the increasingly rage-filled Zero Punctuation), and this one is my favorite (sorry about the embedded ads):

As an extra treat, take a minute to read the comments threads to her videos.  You will find that they’re populated by a number key groups:

1. Superfans who applaud her merest gesture
2. Hyper-critics who savage each video for its lack of gravity and nuance
3. Dispassionate observers who point out that nobody would be talking about her this much if Mayes wasn’t cute, before discussing in depth her appearance
4. Dispassionate detractors who tell them to shut up, it’s because she’s an artist who is beautiful inside as well, before discussing in depth her appearance
5. Moderators who desperately try to remind everyone that these are songs about video games on the internet, for God’s sake

I would not attempt to capture the gender politics at play in those conversations, since discussing comment threads in general is like trying to describe Pig Latin to a third-grader — it’s hard to put into words to begin with, before you wonder why it deserves talking about at all. But it’s fun to see people react to an outsider who also a girl but who clearly plays games or at least has access to them — while entirely missing the point of feather-light songs and chintzy videos meant to be smiled at and forgotten about, just like the games they’re reviewing.

Easily worth a listen.

A still more glorious dawn awaits

Possibly the only justifiable use of AutoTune that I’ve ever heard:  Composed by Colorpulse, sampled from Carl Sagan’s Cosmos, which is well worth reading and watching.

(courtesy: MGK)