Every time I think North American news has even the slightest chance at a few days of reasonable coverage (minus FOX and fiends, of course), something ludicrous happens. Leave it to Jon Stewart of The Daily Show to fuel my fire.

I was in Toronto this past weekend celebrating a friend’s 30th birthday, and everytime we would turn on the television or pick up a paper I would see a smattering of articles and photos about Tiger Woods and the low impact, non-critical, car accident he was involved in on Thursday evening.

When I first saw the report on CNN, I watched for a couple minutes, they announced Tiger was not in critical condition, and so I changed the channel to probably something like Mad Men.  No big deal.

Umm.. wrong.

Apparently, its the biggest deal ever.

Apparently, the fate of the world is now resting on the fidelity and personal life of Tiger Woods.

Wait a minute? It doesn’t?!?  Well then why the hell does anybody care about this?

So Tiger Woods was in a car accident? Umm… WHO CARES?!?

So Tiger Woods possibly cheated on his wife… is anyone really surprised? Is this the first spouse to ever be unfaithful?

The media and interest in this subject is completely unbelievable to me. When will people wake up and stop assigning any sort of importance to professional athletes?

THIS article is a perfect example of the idocy and general uselessness of athletes.  Ron Artest admits to drinking Hennessey at  half time during NBA regular season games.  I can’t even decide what’s dumber, the fact that he drank during games, or the fact that he is now admitting it publicly.

The deep fascination with sports and athletes continues to boggle my mind, however Tiger-mania has certainly taken the cake recently.

Tiger Woods is just like everyone else, except he has millions of adoring fans, millions of dollars and a publicist.  The fact that he has to apologize to people for his private actions is appalling.  It doesn’t matter if Tiger Woods is sleeping with a harem of women outside of his marriage, he’s not, and never claimed to be a moral authority.

He’s just a dude that hits a tiny ball, into a tiny hole, over miles and miles of wasted green space.

I find this sort of literature extremely fascinating and with every article I feel I come one step closer to actually disconstructing each one of my own habits (good or bad). 

As I was reading at Starbucks the other day, making my way through yet another wonderful issue of Scientific American Mind, I thought of a brand new study I would love for some research neurologists to undertake.  I am honestly fascinated and painfully confused about how the brain malfunctions at such a high level that it allows someone to go out and actually purchase a HUMMER.

This study would be specifically geared towards people living within the city limits, or even those living in the suburbs, because its these gems that really need their head’s checked.

In case, those of you reading this happen to never have seen a Hummer, here’s a photo.  Yes, its ridiculous.

These vehicles were originally designed and built for the military, but even as far back as 1992 GM began bulding civilian models to sell in the retail market.   Because obviously, if these machines are good enough for the sand dunes in Kuwait, they’re good enough to drop off Sally and Alex at a soccer game in suburban Conneticut. 

I can almost guarantee that this idea came from some idiot son of a PTSD’d Gulf War Veteran who decided to go into marketing instead of enlist in the army.  His way of making daddy proud.

Officially, on the record, I consider anyone that drives a Hummer an automatic Asshole. 

Remember Monopoly, “Do Not Pass Go, Do Not Collect $200. You’re an asshole.”

NOBODY NEEDS ONE OF THESE VEHICLES. 

The worst is when I used to work on Bay St. in Toronto, Ontario Canada.  

Bay St. is Canada’s Wall Street. It’s a 2×2 street with fairly narrow lanes. It would be an off week if I could leave the office for lunch and not see some yellow Hummer with two wheels parked up on the curb and the owner no where to be found.  My guess was its usually some investment banker/ stock broker who thinks he owns every road in the Province just because he pretends to understand complex Derivatives. 

Be it Bay St. in Toronto or The Avenue of the Americas in New York City, these streets are made for compact to midsized cars, and yet people are driving Hummers within these cities like they’re securing checkpoints in Fallujah.

The people that drive Hummers seem to have such an ever-reaching need for that sensation of “power” that they only feel comfortable in their own skin if they’re driving around in a “mobile bank vault” as mention in an article in Wired.com

The Wired.com article states that not only are Hummer owners enormously arrogant buffoons, but they also receive almost FIVE TIMES more traffic tickets than any other driver. 

 Read that article —> HERE

And why are the Hummers ALWAYS yellow?

I mean, you’re driving a Hummer.  Do you really need to stand out even more?

You’re driving a huge vehicle that looks like it could take out a rhinoceros and that doesn’t make  enough of a statement for you? 

If you’re really THAT starved for attention why don’t you just go ahead and crucify someone and strap them to the roof . Trust me, you’ll be the talk of the town.

So for all of you sensible people out there, do me a favour please. If you ever hear your friend, child, sibling, cousin, nephew, godson, brother-in-law, spouse, or anyone else you know mention how they’re considering buying a Hummer, sit them down for a moment and have a little chat.

Feel free to slap them around if necessary, and highly recommend that they purchase a vehicle for use in regular society and take the difference in price and invest in some therapy and self-help books.   Because in reality, if you’re driving around in a monster vehicle like a Hummer without having any real need or use for it (farming, raising horses, military exercises, hunting terrorists, etc.) you need to stop worrying about size, and start checking out the rearview mirror, because something in there has gone terribly wrong.

There are some sayings that drive me a little crazy. Some sayings I am so sick of that each time I hear themd I come one step closer to snapping and letting lose on whomever opened their mouth to utter the sentence.

One of those sayings is “Wow, its a small world isn’t it?”

For me its always, always, always the same thing. A friend of mine was in Toronto (a city 35 minutes away by car) or Hamiton (the city in which I live) and they happen to run into some stranger through some extremely predictable series of events and at one point or another it is revealed that they have me in common as a friend. Yippee.

This is all fine and dandy but when this story is ever retold it always ends with, “Wow, its a small world isn’t it?”

Its typically at this point that I am ready to scream.

No! NO ITS NOT A SMALL WORLD!

Its a big world.

A huge world actually, with over six billion people.

You met this person within a thirty minute drive from where I sleep in the same city I was born.

Its a coincidence that happens everyday within every city all over the world. People meet each other. Those people have already met other people, and will likely continue meeting more people.

Chances are, at one point or another you will meet someone who has at one point or another met someone else you have also met.  And the longer you live somewhere the more likely it becomes you will have met a lot of people from that area, who will likely know people you have met from the same area. This process is called “not living in your basement.”

Aaaaaannd breathe.

However,  I may think different in some scenarios:

For example, if you happen to be traveling through the desert in Morocco one day and a sandstorm destroys your means of transportation. You are forced to then walk into the horizon alone surviving for days with only a bottle of water and a snickers bar before you pass out in the sand not sure if you will ever wake up.

Thankfully, you awake in a small cave to the man who has apparently saved your life.  He sees your Molson Canadian t-shirt and volunteers the information that he only saved your life because the one Canadian he met during his only trip into a small Moroccan town was very kind to him and so he wanted to return the favour.  He asked you if you might know this Canadian, and you almost laugh at the request but wish to humour this man’s request.

If this man then tells you, “his name was Michael Cecchin”, I will be the one to say;

“Holy shit, wow, it truly is a small world isn’t it?”

Otherwise, its just a funny little story..