Archive | May, 2012

Imponderable #47: Alberta Canada

25 May

May 25, 2012

From my “A rose by any other name would sound pretty stupid” department, cross-referenced with my “will any of these kids be employable when they grow up?” department:

Moo Smith
Unique Anderson
Unique Braithwaite
Messiah Simpson
J-Cub (no last name necessary)
Smiley Richards
Tuff Cooper
Tuba Kearney
Jazz Bloomberg
Camry Billings
Andromeda Davis
Xxavier Hernandez
R Hilton 
J Phillips

Isn’t R such a nice masculine name? But what about the pair of not-so-Uniques? Keeping in mind that I picked the last names at random, which of those kids is likely to get an interview for an important job? Tuba? Doubtful. Which kid will get teased mercilessly in school? Camry would be my guess, followed by Tuff, who better be when he grows up with a name like that. And naming your kid J is not doing your kid any favors, all you are guaranteeing is that she will spend her life explaining that no, it is not an initial.

Parents want their children to stand out and be individuals. That’s great. But is giving them silly names the way to go? Sure, celebrity kids all get dopey names like Apple, but they have celebrity parents and celebrity money backing them. Flower children from the sixties gave their kids silly names like Moon and Mop-N-Glo but you could blame that on the drugs.

I am not just being old-fashioned or cranky (this time), studies show that people with bizarre names do worse in the job market. It is a fact. Parents, if you want your kids to be truly unique, encourage them to be creative and intelligent. Then when they become famous they can call themselves anything they want and no one will beat them up in the men’s room or file their job applications in the trash.

Remember, Eminem started life as Marshall, Jay-Z started life as Shawn, and Lady Gaga was plain old Stephanie. I think they did pretty well for themselves.

Why would a parent name her child Tuba?

The question is Imponderable.

Moo? Seriously? That kid is destined for bulimia.

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Drooliver’s Travels

24 May

May 24, 2012

Allan Keyes is back once again to point out some of the more interesting aspects of Japanese culture.

While in Japan, I resolved to watch a lot of the local television, so as to get a better sense of daily life there.  Being the lazy, anti-social couch potato that I am, this was a fine plan. One of the things I was keen to watch was some run of the mill anime. I don’t mean the stuff that we all know here, like Gundam or Sailor Moon or Naruto or One Piece –I was looking for the general filler that runs there but doesn’t cross over big. Think of our Saturday morning cartoons – I wanted to see the Anime equivalent of these:

And shockingly enough….I really wasn’t disappointed. Most of what I watched involved fights between various high school heroes, mechas or space soldiers. Meh. I can see that anywhere. But there was one program that really kept my attention. It was moody and kind of creepy. From what I was able to discern at the time, the plot went something like this:  Generic  high school guy notices the girl next to him in class asleep at her desk.  At day’s end, she wakes up and leaves a small puddle of drool on the desk in her wake.  So like any normal kid, the guy…..decides to take a taste. Of her drool. Left on her desk. Hooooooooookay. Well, the kid gets sick as you would’ve expected, but instead of Hep C or mono, he starts suffering withdrawal symptoms.  If he doesn’t taste this girls’ drool every day, he gets sick. As the story progresses, they seem to share a “drool bond”, where they can sense each other’s emotions through mutual (and clinical) tasting of each other’s drool.  And there’s even more strangeness with hidden scissors that I won’t go into, since I couldn’t adequately explain.

I spent a few days online trying to find out more about this strange show, and I finally found the title: “Mysterious Girlfriend X” – isn’t that a perfectly Japanese title? God knows what kind of wacky title a show like that would have if it was created here – Swappin’ Spit perhaps, or maybe Drooliver’s Travels? (Ok, I admit I’d watch a show with THAT title). Turns out that the anime is based on a popular manga, thereby proving that a large segment of Japan has serious saliva issues

 

Because this is really not cool:

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