The Simpson Blog

Former co-anchor Deb forwarded me a job posting a few weeks ago. The casting people were looking for a host for an in-development show called "Proof". The description of the host role seemed to suit me perfectly, so I got Jason after his weekend shift, headed down to Granville Mall, and shot a quick demo. Here's what I cooked up. Postscript: I haven't heard back from the producers, and they may never call. That's fine. It sounds like a great gig, but I'm sure it's a long-shot. I had fun doing up a resume and cutting together some highlights.

Frankie also said: "Got to hit me / Hit me /Hit me with those laser beams." Amanda went to TLC Laser Eye Centre in Halifax for LASIK surgery on Thursday. It was a birthday present from her parents (she's turning 30 this week!!!). I got to see it up close on a monitor -- kinda freaky seeing a metal hook going into my lady's eye, but ... well, I guess they're professionals. She had the all-laser LASIK. They cut the pattern for the flap with a laser, pry up the piece of cornea to expose the eye, blast it with lasers, dab it back shut ... and then send her home for some Scott care. Friday morning she went back for the day-after follow-up, and learned that she has 20/20 vision in one eye, and 20/30 in the other. Quite an improvement from couldn't-hit-the-broad-side-of-a-barn-with-a-cannon vision that she had before. There's some gunk under one of the flaps, so we'll have to see if that goes away. It could take six months or more before it all stabili

Quoted today in the 16th Finance Fiesta, hosted at FourPenceWorth, written by Penelope Pince. She attributes the poem as "Devote Your Life to Money!" by David Kessel : "It's all just a game." I heard someone say Oh, money, the life-giving juice of society! It brings us its blessings of every variety, It softens the blows that lifetime delivers, It favors the mean and it makes them achievers. It renders us free from oppression by jerks, From mockings, and putdowns, and scoldings,and smirks. It lets us buy tickets and travel away From where we're not welcome But still have to stay, From creditors' letters and big ugly urbs, From all that don't matter, From stuff that disturbs, To wide sandy beaches And azure blue waters, Away from the smoke of ten million motors. With money it all starts to fall into place- No longer respect is what you have to chase. It follows you like an afternoon shadow Thank money, it makes you a prince

The receptionist here complained this week that she couldn't find Wunderbar chocolate bars anywhere. Sounds weird to me. I know that they're not the most commonly-found snacks around, but I haven't found anything to suggest that they're discontinued. I did find places to get them, though. Go online! Yup, there are web sites aplenty for people to buy Canadian candy. Hey, we have British import stores, Indian import stores, Chinese import stores and candy stores that specialize in American imports. Why not a shop for Canadians who miss Canadian food. (Even if the Canadian food in question is actually a Canadian version of a British thing, a la Cadbury products.) To see one, check out Canadian Favorites , or their Canadian-spelled site, Canadian Favourites (which, oddly, seems to go right to an IP address). And to our never-before-Canadian friends in America: you call them 'candy bars' -- we call them chocolate bars. And what we call 'pop'

Jason wrangled tickets for us to see Cubers last night at the Atlantic Film Festival . Good flick. It focuses on the Rubik's Cube -obsessed folks who compete at world-class levels to solve the famous 1980s plastic puzzle. It's interesting to see what kind of people do this, and obviously interesting to see how quickly they do it. Of course, they're geeks. Or nerds. Geeknerds with a math or computer bent, mostly. They've mastered the algorithms needed to unscramble the cube without peeling off the stickers or taking the thing apart. (I used to brag to the kids at school about how my dad could solve the cube in one night. I didn't find out 'til later that he did it with a screwdriver.) The movie reminded me somewhat of King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters , the doc about a rivalry to win the record score at Donkey Kong. Also a movie about geeks fighting for an achievement that only people in their immediate circle of specialty geeks care about. The diffe

It kinda sucks that fat guys don't have a lot of fashion options. As much as having too many options can lead to its own kind of crazy, women have more choices when it comes to finding clothes that flatter their form. TV shows like What Not To Wear and How To Look Good Naked teach women to love their bodies and show them off with the right clothes. But chubby guys don't get the same kind of media treatment. And that's not limited to clothes, either. There's abundant praise for women of abundance, but outside of a certain subset of the gay community -- a phenomenon I've documented here before -- you don't hear much about fat men being sexy. Oh, they're cute, cuddly, adorable, bla bla bla. Just not hot. But there is ... or may be ... a minority of women who don't just "accept" chubby guys. They want chubby guys. One of them wrote an article in the UK Times: I'm convinced that we unconsciously think of powerful men as being physi

Another Scott Simpson has a podcast that is much funnier than I could hope to be. If you like funny, and you have a working set of ears (one ear will do, it's not in stereo), you must check out the podcast " You Look Nice Today ". Find it at the You Look Nice Today web site , or subscribe through iTunes. In the latest episode, the lads joked about a jokey idea for a jokey business, which I'm totally tempted to completely rip off and steal and make my own. Is it immoral to turn something mentioned as a joke into a real thing for money?

I'm in early at work this morning on the Hurricane Hanna watch. Okay, it's not a hurricane anymore. It's a post-tropical storm, with rain on the left and wind on the right. It's not going to be that bad, but we had no way of knowing that back when I volunteered to come in for the bonus coverage. Anyway, you know I'm not a morning person. I'm barely an afternoon person. I read this funny account by funny blogger Matt over at x-entertainment.com : I really need to knock it off with the "three hours of sleep per night" thing. It's out of control, and I spend most of my awake time feeling like I'm sharing a brain and body with someone who is much stupider than I hope I am. The latest trend: Someone asks me a simple question, my brain comes up with two similar answers with different wording, and my mouth translates those answers as one mutated, slurry monster. At work today, someone fairly high up asked me how I was doing. She learned that I was