Dear Everyone,

2008-01-03T08:51:00.000-05:00

A brief 680 News piece quotes Ontario's police forces as having 'nabbed' 69 people for drunk driving in the GTA over the holidays out of a province-wide total of 33.

So, the 43% of Ontarians living in the GTA (GTA: 5.56 million; Ontario: 12.85 million) manage to account for only 20% of holiday drunk driving charges

Obviously many people in and around Toronto have the advantage so far as adequate public transit is concerned, but still, it's surprising that we are underrepresented by more than half! So much for big, bad, mean, corrupt, dangerous Toronto.

Dear Corwin,

2007-05-09T12:12:00.000-04:00

I miss you terribly at Hamilton-area gatherings. What shindig is complete without snarky comments from Corwins? Or an appearance from Legolas, at the very least. And how do we know that our party actually partied without incriminating video evidence of the event?

How can we ensure optimal Corwin presence at the next event? How can we get you to stay overnight?

I volunteer Borrelli to bake you a pie if it will help.

With love,

Hamilton

Dear Dummy on my Street with the Annoying Car Alarm

2007-01-29T21:55:00.000-05:00

You are too dumb to own a car alarm. I'm fairly certain that your car is not the object of attempted car theft three times a week. Seriously. Fucking learn how your car alarm works or I am going to smash your car.

With smashy fists of fury,

Carly

Dear Bacardi,

2007-01-25T20:24:00.000-05:00

Incorporating reflective surfaces into an ad can be nifty keen, placing such an ad in a toilet stall is not so keen. Having your potential customers stare into a mirror labelled with a name tag:
"Hello, my name is:
Whatever you want it to be!"
while they pee just doesn't inspire the sort of debached spirit that would lead to rum drinking.

Soberly yours
sra

Dear Face, Dear Book,

2007-01-25T19:50:00.000-05:00

Book. Book book book. There is something intellectual about the word book. intimate about your face. Face face face. Face. Yet together all these words can tell me is which 80s cartoons you think you liked. Spelling is apparently not the rule in a face-book. If a face-book blinks what pages does it miss? I could go on, but this is the oldest rant in the face. Book the facts.

,

Dave

Dear Everyone,

2007-01-24T12:31:00.000-05:00

Where have all the posters gone, long time passing? Where have all the posters gone, long time ago?Sadly,

Greg

Dear Everyone,

2007-01-21T19:22:00.001-05:00

Where did you all go?

Wondering,

The blog

Dear David Alexander, King of Kings

2006-06-01T16:35:00.000-04:00

Dear Dave,

Thanks again for a glorious time last weekend. Megan and I had a great time, and I can't help but think you completely paid back your beer debt to me. Actually, you probably bettered it, since you served such crisp, clean delicious beers, and I'm sure I only ever bought you the piss they serve at Wilf's. I don't mean to keep talking about the beer, but you had at your well-located abode three of my five favorite beers. That's more than coincidence my man; that's love.

I'd also like to say it was so nice to see so many Laurier people, especially those that I've fallen out of touch with since we all left the craphole that is Waterloo. It's amazing how many English majors were there too. Often it takes me hanging out with you and 'those' English majors for me to remember that I don't hate all English majors. It's just that here at Mac, a lot of them are either mentally unstable. Other English majors not at Mac are simply unemployed with no marketable skills. That wasn't the case on the weekend. I had hope for our generation for a moment.

I drank it away though. Thanks for the booze buddy.

With love,

Borrelli

Dear TTC drivers,

2006-05-31T13:20:00.000-04:00

Yeah, that surprise wildcat strike a couple days back sure did suck, but let’s not talk about it. I’m over it. I forgive you.

Instead, let’s talk about safety – yours, and mine.

Buses are a drag at the best of times, but we riders can deal with a lot, and I know you folks have to, too: rude people, confused people, mentally ill people, drunk people, inexplicably verbally abusive people, people who spit on you when you ask them to pony up their fare (at least that's a thing of the past), people who throw themselves in front of your vehicles, the ever-present threat of psycho terrorist suicide bombers, etc.

In the year or so I've lived in the city, I’ve seen a lot of weird things go down on the bus, but I'm sure I don't know the half of it. But, boy, am I getting there.

So anyway, thanks.

In gratitude,

Greg

P.S.: No thanks of any kind whatsoever to the dude who tried to board the 106 with a freshly-filled jerry can of gasoline yesterday afternoon.

Dear Carly,

2006-05-29T23:36:00.000-04:00

Good to hear from you. I'm doing okay. I'm working in downtown Barrie as a cellular phone salesperson. They gave me a free Blackberry and I've decided to only work for people who buy me toys from now on. The store is upstairs from a place called "Vin de Garage" and the place smells like wine on humid days.

Sherry and I went to Toronto on Saturday and hung out on Dave Alexander's back deck with friends from what is rapidly becoming "back in the day."

Today was my day off so I worked on overhauling my website and napped with Sherry on the couch and barbecued souvlaki and watched Battlestar Galactica.

The most disturbing thing about Barrie is not the widespread but subtle racism or the alarming number of churches or even that Big John's Records was bought by some guy who renamed it BJ's and cleaned it out and removed all the threatening signage and Sharpie-on-boxboard political screeds from the wall, but the fact that I find myself listening to Sloan almost constantly, while puttering around on the internet and reading science fiction novels in my parents' basement.

I'm trying not to regress to seventeen but it's a losing battle.

With very little respect for authority,
Regan

Dear Everyone,

2006-05-29T22:06:00.000-04:00

How are you?

Yours in wonder[ing],

Carly

Dear Tony Blair,

2006-04-25T10:15:00.000-04:00

We understand you are leaving politics in Britain. Please don't turn away from politics forever. We've been looking for someone like you: someone socially progressive and fiscally responsible; someone charming; someone Tough on Terror; someone who supports human rights; someone to train our immigrants; someone who will invest in the environment (and economic growth); someone to invest in education and healthcare and impose new hidden taxes; someone who's been out of the country for a while; someone with nation-building experience; someone with a record of pragmatism and caucus revolts; someone who has been to Iraq and thinks Saddam Hussein is an awful person; someone to introduce income-contingent loan repayments and higher tuition at universities; someone Tough on Human Rights; someone new; someone like Pierre Trudeau.

Mr Blair, please come to Canada. The Liberal Party needs you.

Invoking you fondly,

Bob Rae
Michael Ignatieff
Carolyn Bennett
Scott Brison
Gerrard Kennedy
Stephane Dion
(Add Your Name Here)

Dear Oliver,

2006-04-20T18:55:00.000-04:00

Can you come back now? I miss you a lot. I want a dog around, but I don't want a new dog because you can't really get better than the best dog who ever lived. So it would be really good if you could magically come back. I've asked Adrian a couple of times to make you alive again, but even though he'd do anything for love, he won't [OK, can't] do that.

Love always,

Mommy

Dear Acme,

2006-03-30T11:59:00.000-05:00

I put in my order for a helper monkey many, many moons ago. I still have not recieved my helper monkey. I would like a helper monkey.

Plus, the dish fairy you sent, not so helpful. She tends to create dirty dishes instead of cleaning the dirty dishes. I would like a refund, please.

Sincerely,
Disgruntled customer # 543-49

can rock will travel

2006-03-24T01:48:00.000-05:00

Dear Dave Alexander,

I just wanted to drop you a line and let you know I really liked the play you wrote for the Fringe Festival this year. I laughed. I shouted. I felt up the person to the right of me a fair bit and the person to the left of me just a little.

You really captured the precarious situation Canadian musicians can find themselves facing in a world where failure to achieve popularity south of the border can leave them starving in the gutter playing ukelele ditties for quarters and half-eaten lunch-break sandwiches.

The plot reminded me of a song by Guttermouth called "What If," which depicts an alternate history where Fred Schneider, who later went on the front the hugely successful B-52's auditioned to replace the recently deceased Jim Morrison as lead singer of The Doors.

Whoever was in charge of picking the music is to be commended, particularly for the inclusion of "Cripple Creek Ferry" at the end. It had Corwin and me singing along. Loudly. And we were the only ones.

And I was still singing it 24 hours later.

If intellectual property lawyers conspired with a computer virus and a crooked behavioural psychologist to remove from the world all music except "Cripple Creek Ferry" by Neil Young and "Titanic Terrarium" by The Tragically Hip I can honestly say the world would be a better place. I'd put them on infinite loop -- no, shuffle -- and grin like an idiot for the rest of my life.

The portable audio player wars would be stopped dead, though, and the steady stream of collateral technological improvements that have spilled from their pitted battlefields into other sectors of industry and commerce would end with them.

You're a pretty cool guy, Dave.

Corwin's okay too.

--Regan

Dear Smashing Pumpkins,

2006-02-06T12:33:00.000-05:00

I'm really frigging excited that you've decided to get back together. Actually, that doesn't really properly describe it, since I tell people the day I met Billy Corgan was the greatest day of my life. And the day I saw you guys live that one and only time was the second greatest day of my life. Sad, I know.

I have to admit I was skeptical when Billy took out that full-page newspaper ad the day his solo album came out, saying he was getting SP back together. I pretty much just thought it was an attempt at publicity for the album. So now that you've signed a management deal, it seems like you weren't kidding. So please don't toy with me. You HAVE to get back together now. It's been more than five long years, and new Pumpkins music is sorely needed. By me.

And it had better be good. If you get me all hyped up and actually reunite and then suck, it's going to be all the more disppointing. There's no sense in a Smashing Pumpkins reunion if the new material sounds like TheFutureEmbrace. 'Cause that was one steaming pile of crap.

In conclusion: Reunite, make it good, don't disappoint me.

Peeing my pants in excitement and anticipation,

Carly

P.S. D'Arcy, I hope you've laid off the crack and can make it to the reunion.

2006-02-05T10:55:00.000-05:00

Dear Oprah,

So word on the street is there's some people trying to win the Nobel Peace Prize for you. More power to them.

But let me ask you this: how many secret bombing campaigns against Cambodia have you ordered in your lifetime? I'm guessing none.

Love,
Regan

Dear David Alexander,

2005-12-17T18:40:00.000-05:00

A man who tries to live on the generosity of the Muses, I mean on his poetic gifts, seems to me somewhat to resemble a girl who lives on her charms. Both profane for base profit what ought to be the free gift of their inmost being. Both are liable to become exhausted and both usually come to a shameful end.

So do not degrade your Muse to a whore.

With suffering,

Schopenhauer

Dear Golden Hawks Football Team,

2005-12-01T19:02:00.000-05:00

Please win the Vanier Cup on Saturday so that I get to write about cheerleading for The Cord. You see, if you win, the paper will be 8 pages, meaning there will be room for me to write an editorial on cheerleading. If you lose, the paper will likely only be 4 pages, meaning my piece will be cut. So please win. I really love cheerleading and I really want to write about it.

Selfishly,

Carly

Dear Boys Downstairs,

2005-11-21T12:45:00.000-05:00

Please learn how to cook. It really isn't that hard to follow the directions on the side of the box. I'm tired of the stench of burnt food seeping into my apartment and the sounds of fire alarms on a daily basis. When your food catches on fire, it's a sign that it's more than done.

Many smiles,

Amy

Dear Bell Canada,

2005-11-07T12:15:00.000-05:00

November 7, 2005

Why must you make my life so difficult? It's really starting to get to me that I've had to call you 7 times to try and resolve 1 problem. That math just doesn't make sense. And the fact that this has been going on since May just adds to it.

I really just want my money. You owe me $214, and your customer service people are acting like it's no big deal. Every time I call, the person I talk to tells me that what the last person told me is wrong. And now you say that you have no record of me ever having had the phone number 880-2668? I obviously did, because someone finally managed to find it. Don't tell me you're sending me a cheque if you're not sending it. Don't tell me that it will be here in 4 weeks, when you were apparently supposed to say 4-6 weeks, when you were really supposed to say 6-8 weeks, when you really meant never. Don't send me to credit, then back to billing, then back to credit.

One of the 4 people I talked to today claimed, "You don't have to swear at me." Well, I wouldn't have to swear at you, if your company wasn't a bunch of incompentent dildoes who are trying to steal $214 from me. I realize this isn't your fault specifically, but when you agree to work for Bell Canada you are immediately implicated in their shitheadedness. Sorry. That's just how it goes.

$214 is not a lot for you - you guys have lots of money. It is a lot for me. So please just give me my goddamn money so I can be done with you. When I have a nervous breakdown/heart attack/ulcer I will blame it solely on you.

I realize that in the past you guys have been able to do whatever you wanted because you basically had a monopoly on the phone business. But Rogers has home phone service now. And it's cheaper. So maybe you might want to think about trying to change the fact that everyone in Canada hates you.

With Seething Anger,

Carly

Dear Dave,

2005-10-31T12:58:00.000-05:00

Thank you for inviting me to contribute to Dear Everything after I copied your format on my own blog.

Yours in homage,

Carly

Dear Corwin and Greg,

2005-10-20T02:30:00.000-04:00

Corwin: I need your help manipulating Liki.

Greg: You foolish fool, you've ruined my Statcounter graph by linking one of your posts from ask.metafilter.com. Now all I can see when I look at my stats is how you got 300 people to read your post and I'll never even get more than 50 people to read mine.

Angstfully awaiting your reply,

Dave

2005-10-15T14:24:00.000-04:00

Dear mysterious newspaper thief,

I pay for a daily newspaper subscription because I wish to read my newspaper each day. If you must 'borrow' my paper for some reason, please leave a note saying so and then return it when you are finished.

When my paper goes 'missing' because someone borrowed and did not return it, and I report it so as to recieve a refund, the delivery person is unfairly blamed, may be disciplined and eventually even fired. In effect, you're stealing both my newspaper and someone's job security.

That's not fair!

Perhaps we could arrange to share both the cost and the benefit of my subscription?

In frustration,

Greg

Dear Corwin,

2005-10-06T20:45:00.000-04:00

Where the fuck is wikipedia?

With wikilove,

Dave

friendly death threats

2005-09-29T00:16:00.000-04:00

Dear The Internet,

It's my goal in life to destroy you.

I've been going around for a few years telling my friends and family, "I'm going to destroy the internet one day," whenever they ask me what I'm doing my life or how I see the future or whether I'd like more peas. But I realised I had never made my intentions clear to you, the target of all my sinister aspirations. So here it is, the internet: my job as a book store employee, my study of computer science in university, my online weblog, they're all converging elements in my master plan to orchestrate your grand and sudden and complete and permanent collapse.

I'm inside you, the internet. I'm scraping away at the very foundations of your existence. Sure, your hardware and software components are significant factors to consider when plotting your death, but your ultimate death will be cultural.

Now here's where you get the fear: Do I mean cultural stagnation? Violent conflict the likes of which not even Usenet has seen? A creeping infiltration by corporate entities and agents with agendas posing as ordinary users? Will I dilute the online proletariat with armies of payrolled sockpuppets?

Or am I planning something even more subtle and diabolical? Consider, the internet, what would happen if all the pointers and clickers out there in the wealthy electronic regions of the world were simultaneously struck by the futility of their actions. What if one day surfin' the weeb felt as pointless and bland as janitorial work or calculus homework?

What if people realised that you're destroying their minds and stealing their youth and vitality?

REVOLUTION!

Pitchforks and torches and marching boots through server farms, wires snipped and hardware smashed. Computers would be disconnected from one another across the face of the Earth, a great Simplification, the destruction of the gossiping machine. TCP/IP and its associated protocols would be proscribed by all major religions, and computers would be returned to their previous uses, like weather forecasting and electronic dating and Tetris. And a few years later people would sit around the television and say things like "Hey, remember those decades when we were stupid and lost our days and nights and pieces of our souls to a vast egalitarian network of computers and their users?" and then other people would say "Nope" and all would laugh.

So think about these scenarios the next time you try to sell me photographs of people having sex with their grandmothers.

Your nemesis,

Regan

2005-09-28T15:20:00.000-04:00

Dear Canada's right-wing blogosphere,

Why do you take so much pleasure in discrediting yourselves and your political views by tacking-on gleeful threats of physical violence?

Am I supposed to take your objections to pedophilia seriously when they're linked to enthusiastic discussions of murder?

Perhaps a plurality of Canadians keep voting Liberal (and a majority shun the Conservatives) because they're just a little bit reluctant to support people who think that sharing their fantasies about killing people is neato.

To centrists, radicals are like icebergs. When scary things like this slip out now and then, regular folks can only assume there's plenty more lurking beneath the water's surface.

In conclusion: The difference between sex with children and sex among teenagers is substantial. Opposing both is fine, but shouting "pedophile!" at people who think the latter ought not to be illegal makes you look pretty foolish.

With befuddlement (and a little fear),

Greg

Dear Greg,

2005-09-26T04:00:00.000-04:00

The blogosphere is coalescing around you.

Amy and Trevor offer you gifts of representation. In addition, WLUSU Campus Clubs refuses to recognize my Presidency of Laurier Activist New Democrats.

Finally, you are famous because of your second blog, while my second blog struggles to develop and maintain a trendy readership. Also, this photo reminded me of you. I might try to go to Grad School in Toronto so I can be cool like you and Liam.

With love,

Dave

2005-09-24T20:56:00.000-04:00

Dear Ikea,

I have a great deal of stark, white furniture in my home now. Which is nice. And little round rugs. Which are also nice.

But I'm not made of money, goddamnit.

With this in mind, I hereby kindly request that you cease and desist stocking reasonably priced solutions to each and every one of my at-home furniture, decorating, and knick knack related needs.

Please build future Toronto-area locations either further from my apartment or considerably less easily accessible by public transit. Discontinuation of your free shuttle from the Leslie subway station to your North York store, for example, would help.

Those wee meatballs are great, though.

HÃ¤nsyslÃ¶st,

Greg

Dear Ear to the Ground Organizers

2005-09-19T13:44:00.000-04:00

To Ear to the Ground Organizers:

I'm really sorry that everything didn't go to plan this weekend, but is there a particular reason why it is necessary for me to mail you everything back to get my refund? You obviously know that I paid with paypal since you attached the receipt to the bottom of the email explaining your protracted refund process, so why can’t you simply transfer my money back into my account?

What is the purpose of mailing you my unused wristbands, along with paper copies of the (attached) receipt, other than to make things unnecessarily difficult for me to get a refund, and perhaps waste paper? I bought another two tickets for a friend, who has his wristbands in another city. Right now I am expected to either ask him to mail me his unused wristbands so I can send them to you (to be thrown out, I assume), or for me to mail him a signed printout of your .pdf form. Plus we have to pay for stamps.

Considering we were earlybird ticket purchasers who were trying to support this concert from its inception, I was hoping ETtG would do its best to make the refund process as easy and painless as possible for us. A little goodwill in this community goes a long way.

I’m really sorry that things didn’t work out this weekend, but I hope you guys can have enough respect for your supporters to help us out when you couldn’t come through with your end of the deal.

Good luck. Please get me my fucking money. Easily.

With love,

Michael Borrelli

Give me back my service fees

2005-09-16T23:59:00.000-04:00

Dear banks of Canada,
         I'll bet you think this is pretty funny. I'm sure these debit fees started out seriously enough. One of you got mad and decided to punish the other banks by charging a fee to their customers for the use of your debit machines. Then you all started doing it and the other banks probably sent you a nice thank you card printed on the skin of a homeless person you found in the warm area surrounding the bank machine. You showed that bum.
         Then you thought, hey, we got a good thing going here, but why is Royal Bank getting fees from our customers while we're not? So you thought, hey, maybe if we all start charging a service fee for using other people's bank machines, our customers wont run away.
         Well think again TD Canada Trust! I'm sick and tired of paying you fees for shit that you imposed indirectly when you started charging members of other banks for using your bank-machines. I'm tired of thinking, why do I bother depositing money that I'm just going to use anyhow? I don't have any savings. What is it that keeps me initialing those awful deposit slips while my balance receeds to zero again and again?
         In case you forget, the agreement was this: I let you invest my money; you pay me a small amount of interest. I understand the fee concept. When someone adds value to something I own (for exaple, style to my hair or long-distance service to my phone). But there is nothing you do to my money that I couldn't do myself.
        So consider this your final notice: I will no longer deposit any money at your banks. I will keep my money in a shoebox where it belongs.

Your broke acquaintance,

Dave

2005-09-14T22:55:00.000-04:00

Dear the Fembots,

Your music is helping me understand Charles Manson.

This realisation comes as a shock to me. I've loved music for most of my life; I've memorized entire albums and learned the intricate histories of any band that could hold my interest. When I find a band or an album or a song I enjoy, I get single-minded and obsessive. Every important moment in my life is somehow inextricably linked in my memory to the music that was playing at the time or the song that represents the events' effects on me.

When I was five my family moved from Wadena, Saskatchewan to Barrie, Ontario with only Blue Sky Mining by Midnight oil and Billy Joel's Greatest Hits, Volume I and II in the tape deck of our fake-wood-paneled station wagon. No matter what "Piano Man" may mean to Billy or the rest of the world, It still represents the cold, bleak close of the 1980s. I quit my first job over Sloan's Navy Blues.

I have a habit of making long speeches about songs and bands. I commandeer social situations to teach classes on the finer points of 90s East Coast rock, or the events that led me to associate Ric Ocasek and Weezer's debut album with reclining car seats and vomiting in a friend-of-a-friend's flower garden. I just get nervous in "ordinary" conversation because I feel I have nothing to contribute but complaints about obscure technical issues and a few tales that are wearing thin, so I resort to the "Ongoing History of New Music" talking points.

I had to unlearn my habit of proselytizing about "music's significance to me right now." Turns out girls don't like it when you stop halfway through making out to note that this is your favourite Eels song and did you know Peter Buck plays on their albums?

Girls are weird.

I'm pretty susceptible to suggestion from musical sources, but I never understood how a person could latch onto a song like "Helter Skelter" and attach such murderous meaning to it. It's a freaky little Beatles tune with vague lyrics about a generic drug delivered in a half-talk over manic, hyperactive guitars. Sure. Maybe it reminds you of drinking and driving, or taking mushrooms and cowering in an elementary-school playground at 3am. But as an omen of impending race war and a signal that it's time to murder wealthy Caucasians in LA, it's flimsy at best.

I used to think that was a pretty rational way to look at the effect of even the most intense musical barrage on the psyche. But then you guys showed up -- in my stereo and in my brain. I remember being unimpressed by your performance at Hillside this past July. I guess I dismissed you as uninteresting, as Dave Alexander music. Cowboy hats, guitars, synthesizers, cowbell, etc. Yawn. But Amy bought your CD and I heard it in the car. One line stood out: "Let them break their bats on our heads...."

Methought, That goes down smooth. Your website (curse its Flash interface!) yielded another fateful tune: "Small Town Muder Scene."

What kind of cruel bastards would write a song they knew would become the soundtrack for my every thought and deed for two straight months and give it such gruesome lyrics? It's sadistic! I walk around at work singing "the bottom basement stair / is caked in blood and matted hair." I live in a dark, creepy basement. I'm starting to get impressions -- fleeting thoughts, really -- that I should perhaps bring about the situations described in your songs simply to exorcise the lyrics' grip on my consciousness. But then I suppose you already knew this.

I'm just another cog in your diabolical scheme. You'll be pulling the strings when the new class war arises from the student ghettos of our nation. And when the land has been levelled and the blood of the innocent floods the soil and all the wealth has been redistributed in accordance with your plan, you'll take up the cowboy crown and cowbell sceptre and rule over a new nation of ignorant twentysomethings, enslaved and strung along by their co-opted ideals and their hunger for liquor and inexpensive ethnic foods and the unstoppable music in their heads.

The future is much bleaker than December '89 on the prairies.

So basically what I wanted to ask is, when the time comes and the shit starts flying, can I just rat people out for you? I don't want to have to kill anyone.

Your unwilling servant,

Regan

2005-09-04T22:20:00.000-04:00

Dear Pigeons,

I know a 23rd floor perch must have seemed like the ideal place to roost, but it's not my fault that your eggs didn't hatch; on the contrary, I suspect that the half-assed scattering of pine needles you call a nest is to blame.

If you continue to taunt my cat I may at some point be unable to restrain her -- at which point she will most likely burst through the screen door and claw you to bits as you plummet toward the pavement together, locked in a horrific struggle to the death.

Also, please stop shitting on my balcony and in my air conditioner.

With grudging respect,

Greg

Dear tree with the pointy fingers,

2005-08-02T20:00:00.000-04:00

I am impressed with the way your pale jagged branches jut out from the green folliage and reach over the water like a hand outstretched. Will you reveal to me life's secrets?

Taco Tuesday

2005-07-26T16:45:00.000-04:00

Dear Ethel's,

I am writing you as a vegetarian who loves Taco Tuesdays; my friends and I have been attending Taco Tuesdays at your fine establishment since as long as I can remember. In the past, I have been happy to pay $1.50 extra for my tacos so that I can subsitute beans for meat. Unfortunately, due to your recent price increases, tacos are no longer a cheap treat for me to enjoy with my friends. Since the price of beans has doubled to $3, your tacos now cost me more than twice as much as they cost my carnivorous friends.
On behalf of vegetarians everywhere, I beg of you, let there be some discount for substitution. I am not asking that you reduce the price of beans, but merely that there be some discount when customers replace meat with beans. Thank you for taking the time to read this, and I look forward to the day when I can once again enjoy cheap bean-filled tacos with my friends.

With love,

Nicole Barker
Past President, Laurier Students for the Ethical Treatment of Animals

Dear America,

2005-07-26T13:30:00.001-04:00

"Individualism, at first, only saps the virtues of public
life; but in the long run it attacks and destroys all
others and is at length absorbed in selfishness."
~ Alexis de Tocqueville

America,
we used you for your highways we snuck accross your
bridges at night we told the customs officer we were driving
through and were immediately struck by the subtle differences
in road signs your billboards selling giant guns and value
judgements against abortion
still other billboards lurked unlit waiting to strike.

America,
your gas stations were a bit too big and
your coffee really was awful and your flag gives
me the creeps America the Canadian flag is silly but
this is the great empire your flag is a war standard
ours the result of some committee of parliament.

America,
I worry that my blue hair will get me beaten
and if I eat too many fries and drink too much coke
I will become fat like the men at your gas stations.

America,
I thought we could pass through easily
but the trees that line the highway hang high and
it rained all night long as we passed through
unincorporated towns with gas station signs on fifty
foot poles and all your red white blue logos.

America,
we broke your speed limits in the dark
but didn't make it through before the sun came up
and in the day I came to realize that states like
Michigan Minnesota and North Dakota are not so
different from Canada
I still think you should take down all your flags
and get out of Iraq.

With love,

Dave

P.S. Thanks for the jerky and the public radio
program about British Muslims.

the email of my dreams

2005-07-10T17:45:00.000-04:00

Dear David,

         I want to invite you to Ottawa and give you a job as the official NDPoet laureate. I've also found a nice young socialist who reads your blogs who doesn't know any of your ex-girlfriends and wants to go out with you. We've just been elected to govern the country and the new Constantines album, Tournament of Hearts, is out and it rocks. Hah, rocks, get it? The Cons are thinking of joining Broken Social Scene and The Weakerthans to form The Brokonstanthans.
         George W. Bush has been impeached and it turns out Dick Cheney was a robot... which would have made him President, were he not made in China.
         The new President, Howard Zinn has announced that the United States is undergoing a massive program of reparations towards American Indians and other groups the United States has displaced / invaded / colonized. They've committed to putting every available resource into stopping the AIDS crisis and have introduced radical new anti-pollution legislation, which is for some reason incredibly popular.
         The position of NDPoet Laureate involves writing songs to celebrate socialism and love and other good hippie stuff, but not about hippie like anticonformism or expanding your consciousness. Also, you should put new poems on your blog pretty frequently. I really liked that one you wrote about dinosaurs.
         Well, I've got a very excited coalition government to run. David Suzuki and Stephen Lewis told me to send you their love. They like your blogs too. Hope you'll consider my proposition; the world needs more poets.

With love,

Jack

Dear George W. Bush,

2005-07-05T19:30:00.000-04:00

         I know this might come as a bit of a shock to you, but apparently, Billy Talent and alexisonfire don't like you. Now you may know this already -- I know you like to stay caught up on your current events -- but I thought maybe if you'd like, I could help explain their criticisms. I know sometimes it can be easier to take constructive criticism from someone who cares, so I'll try to put this as gently as possible.
         From what I gather, their main criticism of your Presidency involved getting the crowd at Edgefest to give you the finger. I know you were probably watching from home, so I apologize if this caused you to become distressed -- you were probably upset already that the line-up wasn't as good as it has been in previous years -- but sometimes love has to be tough. You got off easier than Good Charlotte, so consider yourself lucky.
         Another thing that seems to have pissed them off is the fact that you're the President of "America." Now, I know that you aren't really President of all Americans, since the term technically applies to Latin Americans, South Americans and, incidentally, Canadians -- but when Billy Talent said he loved being Canadian because it means he's not American, he was dissing your kind of people.
         So in sum, stop being President of such an awful country, and maybe you can party with the likes of Billy Talent. Also, maybe if you're reading this, you could stop starting all those wars, start respecting human rights at Guantanamo Bay (not to mention in your trade policies), and maybe you could also just ban the death penalty and recognize gay marriage and start providing universal health care and put together a plan to stop climate change, end poverty and provide more people with HIV/AIDS medication. And also, please don't appoint a crazy person to the Supreme Court. Or kill the Senate and blame it on terrorists. I read about that in Handmaid's Tale. You should read it; I think you'd find it quite ironic.
         Anyhow, those are my ideas -- Billy Talent didn't mention that stuff. I think he's just mad that you got to be President and he didn't.
         I'm sure you've got better things to do than read my blog, but in case you don't, could you please tell me your six favourite songs? Don't worry, you don't have to include this one; it's already on my list. Thanks for reading.

Peace out,

David Alexander

Dear Everyone,

2005-07-05T12:30:00.000-04:00

This is my new blog.

I will use it to write letters to friends and enemies alike. Hopefully it won't be as emo as my other blog, but who knows, right?

With love,

Dave