It appears I was misled on the nature of Poutine Day. From that same friend who told me about it in the first place:
"We kind of just made up poutine day since we all like poutine so much. In fact, every day could be poutine day."
I'm glad we've that got that cleared up. But every day could be poutine day? I'm now worried that my friend has joined some sort of death cult. She's already on facebook, though. How many cults can she be a part of?
Thanks to the magic of facebook, I've discovered that today is poutine day. I'm not sure that today is actually poutine day, but supposing that it is, then, you're probably interested in knowing what it is. According to the facebook friend that I learned about the day from, "poutine day is, quite simply, the day on which we all eat poutine. Nothing says friendship more than fries smothered in gravy and cheese." Nothing like celebrating friendship by eating food that will likely end all of your lives early. Anyway, now you know. The 24th of October is poutine day. A great way to kick off the last-week-of-October season, which ends with Hallowe'en, that long slow feast of sugar consumption which could finish off the job that the poutine didn't.
Speaking of days with names, apparently, October 2 is Name Your Car Day. I've decided to name my car John Coffey. So. Happy belated Name Your Car Day. Last time I named my car, it ended up needed replacing within half a year. Hopefully the naming of the car was not the cause of its unexpected demise.
It's old news now, but one of McGuinty's first moves in his second term as Premier of Ontario is to declare a new holiday called Family Day, to take place on the third Monday of February. I think a better name would be Thanks For Nothing Day. I've been getting this day off for quite some time now, including the four days following it. These five days, as a whole, are referred to by students as "reading week". It's a secret we've all been keeping that we get these days off in February. Now that I see that I'd be getting shortchanged on a holiday, though, I think it's time to let the cat out of the bag [2]. The third Monday in February is also known as Heritage Day. I know this because every year around the time of our (formerly) secret week off, we get an email saying that the administrative staff have the day off [3]. I'm pretty sure it applies to a lot of other public servants too. So they don't get anything off either. Maybe that's why one of the secretaries nearly bit my head off the last time I locked myself out of my office and needed her to let me back in. Furthermore, the proposed holiday is in February. February folks. It's cold then! Presumably, by the name, the purpose of the holiday is to spend time with family (which, was the purpose behind other holidays). It makes sense to have a week off during this time of year, because you can go away to somewhere warm. But how far away can you get on a long weekend? Not very far, and wherever that is, it'll probably be just as cold. If Thanks for Nothing Day doesn't just doesn't have that ring, perhaps you could call it Take Your Kids Outside and Have Them Freeze Day. Speaking of weeks off. There's another week off around them time of year. This was a well kept secret too until the passport fiasco of earlier this year, when hordes of people were lined up for hours to get their passports so that they could go away for March Break. I guess I shouldn't speak for everybody. Not everyone lives the comfortable academic life like I do. If you're one of those, I hope you have fun with your family in the middle of winter. I, on the other hand, will be too busy with my reading week to enjoy Family Day.
[1] A friend with whom real life communication has almost exceeded by facebook communication. Real life communication itself has centred around the pros and cons of facebook.
[2] It wasn't really that hard to keep this a secret, since, as a graduate student, I mostly just talked to other graduate students, if I talked to anyone at all. It was a bit tricky, though, to come up with a fake reason for skipping a week of class on the third week of February six years in a row.
[3] And when the administrative staff have the day off, then there's not much point in the rest of us coming in. We're pretty much lost without them. Well, I know that I am. Whatever it is they get paid, it's probably not enough [4].
[4] I'm still too lazy to hyperlink my footnotes [5].
[5] I'm also too lazy to proofread. Please don't mind the typos.
Sometime ago I joined a cult, popular amongst university students, known as facebook.
"Wait!" you protest, "That's not a cult, it's an online social networking tool!"
Such are the claims made by facebook, but I fear that claims do not make reality, and the reality is that facebook is a cult. What is the basis for such an assertion? What evidence do I have to support this accusation?
Exhibit A: Weird behaviour. I have a friend with whom my communication is almost exclusively through facebook. He knows my email, he knows my phone number, he's on my msn, but he only writes messages to me on my facebook "Wall". Why is this strange? Any of these other forms of communication are vastly more efficient, but communication through our respective facebook walls adds an extra layer of inneficiency to the communication process. Not only do I have to open a browser to read the email that tells me that someone has posted on my wall, I then have to log in to facebook to read the message.
Exhibit B: More weird behaviour. In the last two weeks, I have been looking for a place to sublet for the summer. I looked at one place that, in the end, I decided not to sublet. I sent an email to the current tenant to inform her that that I would not be subletting from her. It turns out that she is also a member of this cult. No more than a day later, I received an email telling me that she has added me as a friend on facebook. Within minutes of approving her as a facebook friend, she sent me a message telling me "alrite, but it's really hard to get summer sublet stuff done...but thanks for let me know!" Normal behaviour would be replying to my email directly. This is not normal. It is weird.
Only a cult could be responsible for such unusual forms of communication.
Exhibit C: Characteristic of many cults is unusual sexual behaviour. In facebook, this takes the form of "poking". The creator of facebook claims not to have a purpose for poking, but all facebook users know what he had in mind when he cooked up that feature. Why else would there be a facebook group called "Enough with the poking. Let's just have sex."? Zuckerberg, you dirty bird!
Exhibit D: You can leave any time you want, but would you mind telling us why? Have you ever tried leaving facebook? Your friends won't let you. A few have managed to break free, most only temporarily.
Exhibit E: Friends. Every day, I am informed by facebook that buddy and wasisname are now friends with the other fellers. I distrust any organzation that makes such liberal use of the word "friend".
Exhibit F: Aggressive recruitment tactics. Facebook will scour the contacts lists in all of your email accounts and encourage you to send facebook requests to all of your contacts who aren't already on facebook.
Exhibit G: Loss of individuality. See exhibit A. Your thoughts are no longer your own, but belong collectively to your "friends" (see exhibit E).
Exhibit H: Demands total devotion. See exhibit A and B. You must abandon all old forms of communication, and transmit messages only through facebook. You must only use your email account to receive notifications from facebook. All other responsibilities fall by the wayside as people become evermore consumed by facebook. You can see people's frustration with this when they create groups with titles encouraging facebook to do non-family-friendly things to itself because they're trying to do homework (such groups are only allowed to exist to create the illusion that dissent is allowed).
So there you have it folks. Rock solid evidence that facebook is a cult. Stay away while you still can!
