Because we didn’t have time to set up an elaborate framing device. If we had, we’d have used this one.
Or this:
I’m beginning to think that, as 2020 was like being in the boat in Life of Pi, 2021 is just liminal space.
Our video, which has a shockingly low 668 views so far. NOBODY is feeling it today, not even Justin Trudeau:
Okay, here we go. Squares: Outdoors, Outerwear, Rideau Hall, Begins in French, Gloves, Scarf. And Vaccine.
Oh right, you need your bingo cards:
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It’s Groundhog Day, sure, but not exactly, because there was no Federal Covid-19 Briefing on February 2 of last year. Remember BC, Before Covid, when we believed that every year would be better than the last?
Naw, who am I kidding? I’m GenX; we haven’t believed that since we were in grade school.
Here is your Groundhoggian/Woodchuckian briefing video, shockingly entirely Wiarton Willy-free! As a former Wiartonian, I thought it was a federal law that they had to mention him once a year. God knows, there’s not much else going on in that town.
1,089 views on this video, Tuesdays always being less busy than Fridays. Yeah, it’s probably because everyone figures I’m sleeping in on Tuesdays BUT I TRICKED YOU THIS TIME:
Good morning, possums! We’re here, we’re caffeinated, and we’re doing this!
Basically the core elements of existentialism. Don’t ask too many questions (another core element). Existentialism is a Whole Mood, very 2021 indeed.
I don’t even know who I am anymore now that I’m not a cybersecurity journalist and I’m not the Governor-General of Canada.
Yet.
Our video is here, with 1700 tuned in live. Fridays are always busy at Rideau Cottage:
I see CPAC Captioneer is feeling Existentialist himself. Without faith in history or the future, their captions are meaningless, and without the incentive of being paid by the word there is no reason to fill them out to 150 words, the way they did mere weeks ago. It’s okay, CPAC Captioneer. We’re all half-assing it these days except Justin Trudeau, who is coasting on the adrenaline that’s sustained him through the Trump years and the oxytocin glow of the Joe Biden inauguration.
Edited to add: I guess CPAC doesn’t get a copy of the speech in advance, because only after the fact do they fully-ass the captions:
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau provides an update from outside his home in Ottawa on the federal government’s response to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. He announces tighter travel restrictions aimed at curbing the spread of the coronavirus. Air Canada, WestJet, Sunwing and Air Transat have agreed to suspend air services to all Caribbean destinations and Mexico starting January 31 until April 30. In addition, starting next week, international flights will only be allowed to land at Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver and Calgary. The prime minister also announces that the federal government will soon introduce mandatory in-airport PCR testing for returning travellers, who must await their results at an approved hotel for up to three days at their own expense. Mandatory COVID-19 testing at U.S. land borders will also be coming for non-essential travellers.
And our cards are here:
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Well, possums, we were bad. We neglected you last week AND this week; what is it about Tuesday that makes it so damn difficult to liveblog the Covid briefing?
I’ll tell you: my god damned alarm not going off. What, after all, is the point of technology if we cannot use it as a convenient excuse when we want. My phone has many thousands of times more computing power than was used to send the Apollo astronauts to the moon, but what do I need it to do? Provide plausible cover for when I sleep in.
Mission. Accomplished!
Moving right along, or left along, which is more to my anarchal communist taste. Tastes. But the less said about those, the better…
We, meaning me, are calling you, meaning you, “possums” because
Anyhoodle, we missed both last week’s and this week’s Tuesday briefings, so we’re going to do a twofer today on Tuesday. Yes, you can mark your “Alliteration” square.
Here’s the video from today, since we’re doing these in reverse order because wemeaningme aremeaningis arbitrary that way. 33,000 views so far, one of the more popular ones.
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Well, kittens, we’re going to have to come up with something else to call you, as it appears that skeevy Armie Hammer uses the term to describe the women in his bizarre sexual fantasies. Not that we’re against bizarre sexual fantasies. No, perish the thought! But his involve cannibalism. And, after having met Willy Pickton, there just isn’t enough brain bleach on the planet to scrub that image out of my head. We don’t want you messed up in that!
I got into an argument recently on the internet (imagine that! Me!) about whether or not Pickton’s pork ended up in grocery stores, and in doing the research I discovered…well, long story short: it’s worse. It is, in fact, very possible and even very likely that human remains ended up in a wide variety of consumer products, because he apparently took his victims’ bodies to the same rendering plant that he took his pork, and the uh, “outcome” of that plant ended up in mass-market products from lipstick to …. well, who cares what else, really? I’ll never look at my $35 Nars the same way again.
A friend of mine was paid a great deal of money back in the day by the pork marketing board, because after the details of the Pickton case came out the price of pork fell through the floor, for obvious reasons, and he managed to get it up again. No such issue at the Lipstick Marketing Board. But, ew. Let us bond with the concept of motivated forgetting, and put it behind us.
Indeed, let us forget that with extreme prejudice. We interrupt this dark interlude to remind you that, thanks to TikTok, sea shanties are trending on all platforms.
So, readers, let us try to put that behind us and move forward in the very Canadian spirit of “we shall never speak of this again.” Which brings us to the Philosophy of Forgetting, which I didn’t even know was A Thing, or if I did, I forgot it after my TBI.
Related: the very internet-native concept of the Eternal September, which is the state of always having so many new users unfamiliar with the basics and protocols that it always feels like the first day of school. Right now, we have an Eternal September for democracy itself, hell, for critical thinking in the first place.
Here’s how my yesterday went. My today is going so well I forgot I ran this Twitter poll.
But you’re no doubt going:
Well, the Covid Briefing Bingo, also, is going well. Trudeau hasn’t shown up yet even though it’s at his own house, and my blog’s inexplicably adding page breaks to the post in between every paragraph. So, mark your “Technical difficulties” square.
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