From CBC News:

Man Steals Ballot Box
PICTOU, N.S. – The RCMP in Pictou are investigating a stolen ballot box after a man walked into the Pictou Landing Fire Hall Monday afternoon and took the ballot box.

The man apparently left a letter outlining a grievance over compensation he felt he was owed.

Elections Canada says the ballot box, containing 126 ballots, was thrown into Pictou Harbour…

While the ballot box was eventually recovered, the issues that this election were apparently to be based on remain missing. It’s unfortunate that more people living in close proximity to water, myself included, did not take the opportunity to throw a ballot box ot two into the drink. It would have been much more satisfying than voting.

From TheRegister.co.uk:

1. Talk to people for chrissakes. Don’t live your life through the sodding TV. Go and meet up with mates or stay at home and talk with your family – and talk about something other than the TV. How about hopes/aspirations/feelings?
    
2. Buying things will NOT make you happy. Honestly. Spend the money on activities or things you’ve always wanted to do. That is what money is for, don’t you remember?
    
3. A job is something you do to give you a focus and purpose in life. It also provides money which pays for your home and food and supports your family. The rest can then be used to make your life outside work more enjoyable (see point 2).
    
4. Stop bloody whingeing all the time. No one likes moaners. And we just don’t care if you’re stressed or not – we’re not you. So what’s the point? Just get on and do it. And stop trying to find other things that you can blame for the fact that you’re a whingeing, boring, overworked bastard.

Read the rest of the article »

In the event that you become a billionaire it is important to be prepared. Being disgustingly rich isn’t all fun and games. There are responsabilities. You will need an original set of billionaire eccentricities. Mine are as follows:

• I will wear a new pair of socks every day. Maybe I can work out some kind of deal where I give yesterdays socks away for charity auction like Michael Jordan does with his shoes.
• I will start a large-scale media campaign (including magazine ads, billboards, radio ads, and TV ads) to destigmatize masturbation. It’ll be like NBC’s The More You Know featuring big name stars. If you ever see a MASTURBATION IS OK
  bumper sticker, you can rest assure that I have found wealth.

Email me (steven@actsofvolition.com) and let me know what your billionare eccentricities.

Despite having an inflated self-image, aov’s own Matthew Dorrell has neglected to gloat about having a poem published UPEI’s student creative writing journal, Annex 2000.

Matt’s poem, Selling Vacuums is funny and upsetting. However, like all geniuses he is falsely humble and unhappy with the bounty of his quill (that’s what old pens that smart people used are called). He claims that the published piece is “in many little pieces and I have not as yet discovered how to re-assemble them properly”.

The world won’t wait. Ladies and Genderless, an aov exclusive (sort of), the newly revised version of Matthew Dorrell’s Selling Vacuums, previously published in UPEI’s Annex 2000:

In large letters:

P – E – N – E

and where the final S was to be, an aov member rolling in the freshly fallen snow, laughing histerically at his poor spelling.

Today the sun made an extended appearance.* People danced in the street or, at the very least, they smiled for the first time in weeks.

Forget all that nonsence about free-will. We are simple animals with a complex system of rationalizing our actions. Actions which are based on nothing more than the electricity and the chemical soup housed in our pre-historic brains and influenced by the environment which surrounds us. A quick equation to demonstrate:

Sun = Happy

This doesn’t mean you have no control over your moods. Here are a few things which may help you tip the balance of happy vs. sad chemicals in your favour:

Ya Mama – Fatboy Slim
Shake what ya mama gave ya. Found on Fatboy’s new album Halfway Between the Gutter and the Stars and on the Charlie’s Angels soundtrack.

Charlie’s Angels
No plot. No point. Beautiful women kicking people. Bill Murray. Happy.

The Grasshopper
2 oz. green creme de menthe
2 oz. white creme de cacao
2 oz. light cream

* Actually this happened yesterday. Today it is snowing. The delay on this post comes from having nearly finished this post yesterday and having it disappear. It angries up the blood I tell ya.

The fine people who make our Swiss Army Knives seem to have a promotion on that if you play their little SwissCard Tetris game and get a really high score that holds until the end of the month… they give you a free SwissCard! Let’s all get free SwissCards, they give out 10 a month.

(the highest score is about 6000, the lowest is 3000, shouldn’t be too hard, right?)

Update: Either my flash/java/whatever it uses is messed up, or that game is rigged. It speeds up slowly, and becomes unplayable at around 300 points. Mr. 6000 points is cheating the Swiss somehow. No free knives today…