California Über Alles!

🍞

PLEASE RETIRE 👏👏 👏👏👏

Neat! That address / intersection is a five minute walk from me! Thanks for pointing it out, I wouldn’t have noticed it otherwise (with the ad being so absurd)

I kind of wish I could un-read this article. Holy fuck.

Neat, does that mean you also have Canadian citizenship? It seems that our grandparents’ generation were leaving Ontario for the UK more frequently than I would have expected - Ricky Gervais’ father for example was a Franco-Ontarian.

We’re reminded about the Commonwealth whenever the monarchy is in the news, but I don’t really know what purpose it serves beyond acting as a reminder of the history of our country. I don’t believe the current generation feels much of a connection to the UK the way previous generations did. When I was a child I think there was much more of a feeling of connection (in fact two of my teachers in primary school were English expats, including a lovely little old lady named Mrs. Readey, who retired back to England once our year was done), but lately it feels like more people feel connected to the US, probably since their culture is propagated everywhere. And we generally don’t think about the fact that Charles is also our king, as the monarchy has de facto zero influence on our government. I still like to periodically bring up the Commonwealth as a whimsical little nod to our history.

What did you think of Toronto / Ontario?

An update on that bot, I think they realised it was malfunctioning, so now they are doing some manual intervention to make it seem more lifelike. They also edited the original comment they posted on all of the crossposts.

Take a look at the way they comment. It has big “native Russian speaker but knows a bit of English” energy

That bot is malfunctioning as heck. It probably had a bit of code to comment on posts that were crossposted about a particular subject (Musk election interference in this case), but its list of crossposts accidentally included this post. I suspect all of their good bot developers are either working on Reddit, or are now sunflowers in Ukraine.

Hey bot! Пиздец! 😂😂😂

Well then I hope you’re enjoying Toronto, commonwealth-bro!

Nice! A lot of great Group of Seven there.

By the way, if you happen to be from Toronto (or will be in Toronto around the end of November) the art auction houses have their major auctions around that time. They always have public previews / exhibitions in the days leading up to the auction, which happen to be a great way to see some art up close (before they get purchased by private collectors). The previews are totally free of charge, they might just ask you your name for security purposes, but otherwise anyone can come in and look at the art. This auction house has a big previously unseen Lawren Harris coming up: https://www.waddingtons.ca/auction/major-fall-auction-canadian-international-fine-art-nov-28-2024/

The auction houses low-key love when more people come to the previews, even if they have no intention of bidding, so I recommend taking advantage of that if you can.

Yep, Ottawa! You’re hitting all the best public art galleries! Did you also visit McMichael?

Is that at the national gallery? Or AGO?

Everything was fucked!

I was the other way around! I really liked Joy Division, didn’t really care for New Order. Now I like them both, but they stimulate very different parts of my brain.

It was just one of those days!

Wait a second… you’re not Canadian but you know who The Hip are? And you like them?! My mind is blown, my dude. That’s awesome 😃

Weird, I was just about to add my comment in here about The Hip. I used to haaaaate them, like get up immediately and turn the radio station if they came on kind of hate.

Then I remember the music video for Poets came out, and I thought it was okay. Fine, maybe I like one of their songs, but fuck the rest!

And then I heard Bobcaygeon a few years later - I think it was the right place and the right time. A cottage trip, after a few drinks, and somebody I had a lot of respect for said they loved the band. Suddenly Gord wasn’t some awful screechy eccentric folk elderly-rock singer, but an eccentric artist whimsically singing about deep Canadiana. I started exploring them more, and now I love them and passionately regret that I will never be able to experience them live.

RIP Gord, you beautiful weirdo.

If any non-Canadians want a glimpse of what Canadian culture is like go take a listen to the top Tragically Hip songs. Also pay attention to the lyrics because some of them are just poetry and magnificent.

Rush still fucking sucks, though.

The hypocrisy!

Under His eye.

Are you asleep right now?