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Why do actors in Canadian tv commercials seem to turn up and be in every second ad for a while, and then disappear? I mean, yes, there are some who appear in an ad series, but there's a striking number who appear in several ads for different companies within the space of a few months or a year, and then disappear. Why is that? Obviously voiceovers is a surer gig, because there you can hear the same voices forever. I just kinda don't get it. Is it agents, the industry, the. . .? There's a tall guy on now whose been in ads for at least four or five different companies. . .what will happen to him? Companies who use tv advertising obviously aren't too concerned about actors turning up in various commercials at almost the same time, so being a fresh face isn't much of a big deal. But after a few ads, poof and that actor is gone. Or there's the attractive blonde middle-aged woman who appears in one ad playing, quite impossibly, an impeccably tailored, cheery sales telemarketing slave for a company hawking insurance for old people, and then in another ad for a company that helps you find out about dead people you may be related to. She may be typecast, but will she be recast? I don't get this phenomenon. I mean, yeah, sure, I suppose that, once in a blue moon, one of these actors does go on to something of a tv career of some sort (and many work on the stage, say). It kind of makes me think of small European countries where I've spent lots of time and where it seems every second movie has the same actors. You almost feel bad for any other actors in a the small country, because it seems only a handful ever get a chance. Then again, there's also a kind of wry or warm familiarity one feels upon seeing the same face, yet again, in yet another different role. And of course small countries with unique languages, or maybe just small countries, period, have supported domestic film and tv industries, unlike Canada, where it's a no-brainer if you're CTV, or even CBC alas, to show _Wheel of Fortune_. Maybe Canada was once like some of these other small--but independent--countries of today. I could well imagine that, decades ago, if John Vernon's or Barry Morse's car broke down near your house and he came by to ask to use the phone, you'd just welcome him in with a "hello John" and offer him a coffee or a beer, just as if he were a close relation (for, in some ways or metaphorically, that is what he was). Does that, could that happen in Canada now? I doubt it. Anyway, long-winded post, but I'm sure you get my drift.
Why is it that so many obvious computerese words are still picked up by spellcheckers? I mean words like “internet,” for example. Were spellcheckers pre-invented in the 1950s?
--Ok sure it has to do with bubbling thicker-consistency milk, but how come the *ONLY* kind of soup that ever seems to boil over and make a %&UTFVKJ()&*!Z!! of a mess is something like cream or celery or cream of mushroom or whatever?
--Why, when it takes longer actually to think "Ok, I am not going to signal now. I won't. Ha ha. I won't do it," do people not just signal?? Sorry, rhetorical question again. It's a passive-aggressive thing. People in long left-hand lane lineups who fail to indicate that they want to turn are expressing their tinytude and desperate desire to feel big and important, like guys who need big dogs or trucks to make themselves feel well endowed. But I still have always wondered how it is that it can be easier, somehow, to tense up and consciously decide, ok, I am now not going to signal, rather than just going ahead and signalling as a matter of routine, like your goddamn mother would have told you. You almost never see this in Europe, but daily in the U.S. Maturity, power, shrivelled appendages, etc., whatever.
--Why do Indians in (First Nations peoples etc.) old radio shows or old tv shows or movies often say things like "me wantum"? Did this start with some white actor or writer who heard "um" in a Native language and started using it? How did this particular cliche or stereotype get going? Was it Tonto, Little Beaver, the people who wrote those parts? "Me think, me wantum" etc. Where did this linguistic cliche originate? Who was responsible? Did he (I assume it was a he) have any reasons for inventing how Indians might speak English besides quasi-racist ones of wanting to other them, or were there actually grounds for suggesting that this was how certain Indians might speak English (after all, second-language speakers of any sort normally have identifiable accents and habits based on the first languages they come from)?
Why is it that so many obvious computerese words are still picked up by spellcheckers? I mean words like “internet,” for example. Were spellcheckers pre-invented in the 1950s?
Why does it take your printer so long to grasp that you wish to print something? Is it a _printer_, or does it secretly have many other activities it routinely performs, like balancing a beachball on its nose, that it does not tell you about? Why does my computer want to tell me that “beachball” should be two words? After a week end pick up base ball game, do programmers routinely have hi balls at balls on beaches?
Picture a standard 4-sided stand-up metal grater. What is the side with the holes that are kind of star-shaped and like tiny grapeshot extrusions for? Oh, I’m sure I’ve used it. But every time I grate something, I kind of look at it and wonder. The other three I understand. Is the mini-bullet-hole meant mainly for garlic and ginger, or. . . ? What do you use it for?
What is the real significance of Bill Haley and the Comets in the history of rock n' roll? I am a bit of an expert in this field, believe me (radio, record, writing experience--so, naturally, I'd need fairly serious responses). Sometimes I try to situate it, and I'm sure I have, but maybe I've forgotten now. I can do it again (determine the real significance of. . .), but anyway, I leave it there.
Why do guys sit on pec-deck machines at gyms and stare dully like zombies in front of themselves forever? Sorry, tricked ya.' Rhetorical question. Same reason they sit on ab-cruncher machines and stare, dully, forever. Because they are vain and hope that, if they can only improve their pecs and abs, they will be much hotter to girls. In all the years I've used gyms, I've seen so many of these guys, who sit, dully, staring, hogging one machine to themselves, so that they may eventually heave themselves into the activity of doing *1 or 2* more reps (so powerful to them is the notion of their potential super-attractiveness, that if they can do just one more pull, one more crunch, they will attract girls like flies on scat, that, like children keeping a toy, they will not leave that machine until their energy fails utterly, and their dreams of being *that* scat go on hold for a few minutes more). "Oh good for you," I want to clap. That's the internal reasoning. The external reason they stare dully is because they know they look stupid--anyone sitting or standing there, staring, forever, doing nothing, does tend to look pretty stupid. They know they should at least be looking at a magazine, or looking at the menu at McDonald's, or putting gas in their trucks, or doing _something_--they feel how stupid they look, too. So they stare, dully, trying, hopefully, to look _really really serious_, as if they are about to do one great massive set, and as if they are real bodybuilders, despite the fact that they'd probably have to be rescued by emergency personnel if they tried another machine.
--Ok sure it has to do with bubbling thicker-consistency milk, but how come the *ONLY* kind of soup that ever seems to boil over and make a %&UTFVKJ()&*!Z!! of a mess is something like cream or celery or cream of mushroom or whatever?
--Why, when it takes longer actually to think "Ok, I am not going to signal now. I won't. Ha ha. I won't do it," do people not just signal?? Sorry, rhetorical question again. It's a passive-aggressive thing. People in long left-hand lane lineups who fail to indicate that they want to turn are expressing their tinytude and desperate desire to feel big and important, like guys who need big dogs or trucks to make themselves feel well endowed. But I still have always wondered how it is that it can be easier, somehow, to tense up and consciously decide, ok, I am now not going to signal, rather than just going ahead and signalling as a matter of routine, like your goddamn mother would have told you. You almost never see this in Europe, but daily in the U.S. Maturity, power, shrivelled appendages, etc., whatever.
--Why do Indians in (First Nations peoples etc.) old radio shows or old tv shows or movies often say things like "me wantum"? Did this start with some white actor or writer who heard "um" in a Native language and started using it? How did this particular cliche or stereotype get going? Was it Tonto, Little Beaver, the people who wrote those parts? "Me think, me wantum" etc. Where did this linguistic cliche originate? Who was responsible? Did he (I assume it was a he) have any reasons for inventing how Indians might speak English besides quasi-racist ones of wanting to other them, or were there actually grounds for suggesting that this was how certain Indians might speak English (after all, second-language speakers of any sort normally have identifiable accents and habits based on the first languages they come from)?
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