Originally Posted at Mr. Topp and the Big Bad Blog.

I’ve been taking photos of Karen today, so that she would have some professional looking portraits for her blog.

Things appear to have gone well. Also, my wife is pretty.

Later? Bloopers.

Originally Posted at Mr. Topp and the Big Bad Blog.

You probably remember SOPA from a few months ago. Hopefully you remember it as the piece of legislation that would have crippled the Internet, curtailing civil liberties and destroying online innovation in the name of “protecting” the movie and music industries.

If not, you probably remember it as the day Wikipedia went on strike.

The campaign against it – culminating in an “Internet blackout” which featured sites such as Wikipedia – lead to the abandonment of the legislation, meaning that we can all continue to include external hyperlinks on our own sites, without fear of being blacklisted in America.

But what of consequences? An elected politician – Lamar Smith (R-TX) – actually introduced this legislation, and tried to push it through without debate. It’s difficult to see this as anything other than a betrayal of the people he is purported to represent. How can he be held to account?

The answer, of course, is to block his re-election. It so happens that there is a Republican primary occurring on May 29th in Texas.

You may be able to vote in the primary. (I can’t – I’m neither American, nor in Texas.)
You may be able to vote in the election. (I can’t – I’m neither American, nor in Texas.)
And you may be able to donate to the campaign to defeat Lamar Smith. (I can’t – I’m not American.)

So if you’re a Texan, an American, or in possession of a green card (in which case it’s apparently OK to contribute to political campaigns), the Big Bad Blog encourages you to vote with your wallet and/or your, um, votes.

For me, this plea is all that’s allowed.

The legislation failed, but legislation fails all the time – there are no consequences to it. SOPA deserves consequences. Please help deliver them.

Originally Posted at Mr. Topp and the Big Bad Blog.

I have received an unsolicited email from a recruitment consultant, which is obviously a keyword driven mass email from some poorly designed database.

I have penned the following reply, but not sent it as of yet. I now debate bridges burned versus self satisfaction …

Dear [REDACTED],

Unfortunately, your email does not find me entirely well – I have a slight cold.

Despite this unfortunate state, I have anyways decided to respond to your email. Not because the roles you list below are at all interesting or pertinent – indeed, they leave me only with the impression that you approach your role as a recruitment consultant with a “spray and pray” approach, which I find disappointing both as a potential jobseeker and a hiring manager – but because I am concerned that you don’t understand what you’re saying.

The title of your email begins with the word “urgent”. This word is in all capital letters, which is typing for I’M SHOUTING RIGHT NOW. So you are beginning by shouting the word “urgent” at me.

This follows with the words “please respond”. Which would be fine if you were actually interested in my response, but as you are (quite clearly) taking a “spray and pray” approach, it seems doubtful that you actually hope for a high response rate amongst those to whom you are sending this email.

The final phrase in your message title is “actuarial contract opportunities”. This is the point at which it becomes clear that you have never, ever, for even a second, glanced at my CV. I have no qualifications as an actuary, because I have never sought such a qualification. I have had two roles – both over five years ago – in which the word “actuarial” features in the job title or department.

As such, I am declining to inform you about my availability or current situation. I expect people paid to match job candidates to roles (and vice versa) to have some skill in this area. While I am uncertain whether your email represents a lack of skill in this area, or merely a poor work ethic on your part, the answer does not really matter.

Unimpressed, I remain,
Mr. Topp

Originally Posted at Mr. Topp and the Big Bad Blog.

Here’s one for BMW:

BMW. Our motorcycles are sexy. Maybe too sexy. (Results may vary).

You’re welcome, BMW. I await my cheque.

(In related news, the TSA is concerned that there may be an anomaly in your crotch area.)

Originally Posted at Mr. Topp and the Big Bad Blog.

Like many people with a “presence” on the web, I have Google Alerts set up to inform me when my handle (mrtopp, Mr. Topp) appears online. It allows me to know when I am being referenced around the internet, so I can – if I wish – engage myself in the conversation.

It’s mostly useless.

I see comments I’ve left around the net, and my own blog posts. Yay me?

Recently, it has been even less than useless, as one Brian Topp had been in the running for the leadership of Canada’s official opposition party, the NDP. Platforms aside – because I don’t know them – it made me grateful that Mr. Topp lost that particular election. Were he the leader of the official opposition, I would have just had to delete the alerts.

But Mr. Mulcair won, so all is well in the world, which apparently revolves around my Google Alerts.

But I digress.

Last week, Google Alerts sent me an email that “Mr. Topp” was being mentioned on the Internet. And it wasn’t my blog. And it wasn’t about the New Democratic Party of Canada. It was from a blog called tiddlyompompom.

It said this:

Wednesday, 3.30 am

Little M: Muhmeeee! Muhmeee! MUHMEEEEE!

Me: Nggggggggggg

Mr TOPP: Nggggggggg

Wednesday, 4.37 am

Little M: Muhmeeee! Muhmeee! MUHMEEEEE!

Me: Nggggggggggg

Mr TOPP: Nggggggggg

Wednesday, 5.27am

Little M: Muhmeeee! Muhmeee! MUHMEEEEE!

Me: Nggggggggggg

Mr TOPP: Nggggggggg

Wednesday, 7am

Mr TOPP: Little M, time to wake up…

Little M: Ngggggggg! No.

Now, I’m Mr. Topp. I have a daughter who has a name that begins with “M”. She is little. These scenes could easily be taken from the Topp household. All that needs to be true is that the role of “Me” is played by Karen.

And so I must wonder: Does my wife have a secret blog?

I choose to believe yes.

Sure, some details in other posts are clearly way, way, way off of my life. Including the pictures. But that’s probably just to throw me off the trail. Karen: I know it’s you. I’m on to you. And I’m revealing your dirty little secret mummy blog!

Originally Posted at Mr. Topp and the Big Bad Blog.

When Maggie was born, I began the Maggie-A-Day project.

The concept is simple:
Every day, take a photo of Maggie.
Every day, post a photo of Maggie to my Flickr stream.

Here is today’s photo:

Here at the Big Bad Blog, we are trying to figure out what to make of this.

Is this a rousing success? That I’m still posting photos of Maggie nearly every day, eighteen months later?

Or does the fact that there are four months – over 120 days – between today’s date and the most recent Maggie-A-Day photograph constitute an embarrassing failure?

I choose the former; this is a project for which the delivery schedule is unimportant. It is creating a slideshow of beautiful moments from my daughter’s life, to look back on whenever I want a fit of nostalgia (or when she does). And the latter leaves me abandoning the project after documenting little over the first year of her life.

But I do need to remind myself of that; it is a qualified success. And it neither looks nor feels like a good omen for my creative reset. Things have been moving however. In the last half of April I have:

• Bought a new lens – nothing brings out the urge to play with my camera like new kit.
• Enrolled in the Photocritic Photography School
• Decided on my May “planned photograph” – Karen needs professional (or indistinguishable-from-professional-amateur) photos of herself for her business

All in all, a good start — I’m set for the first full month of my creative reset in May. I have a course to learn from, and a photograph to take.

And, of course, another month of daily Maggie sightings.

Originally Posted at Mr. Topp and the Big Bad Blog.

Yo.

Catz.

Originally Posted at Mr. Topp and the Big Bad Blog.

London has an election coming up on May 3rd, and your intrepid blogger has a vote.

As is his wont, he has decided to go through the candidates, and openly muse about why he should (or shouldn’t) vote for them. Given the number of candidates, it seems as though we’re going to do this in three parts; we will endeavour to cover all candidates prior to the election.

So, in the order presented in the pamphlet provided by London Elects, here are the candidates to be the Mayor of London:

Lawrence Webb, UKIP

I don’t know much about the UKIP, other than that “UKIP” stands for “United Kingdom Independence Party”, and that they’re a conservative party that would like the country to exit the EU. The Mayor of London has no say in such matters, of course, so — other than a feather in their cap, of course — there’s no obvious UKIP policy that fits with the power of the mayorality.

So what does their manifesto contain?

Immigration Policy

Amazingly, since it lies outside of the mayor’s power (although perhaps not surprisingly, given it’s the purpose of their party) the thrust of their point-form manifesto, is an anti-EU and anti-immigration policy. (Really. A one page, point form, manifesto. I’m embarrassed for them.)

Their anti-immigration stance has even evolved into some sort of generic anti-movement policy, separating “long term Londoners” from the rest.

This list includes things beyond the mayor’s power (changing immigration policy, altering EU policy to eliminate red tape), the illegal (giving preferential treatment to people from London on the job market), the weird (levy 25p on all overseas visitors), and the immoral (giving preference to Londoners over asylum seekers for housing).

Law and order?

Webb seems intent to undermine the police and justice system through his “Law and Order” proposals:

1. Zero tolerance on certain types of crime. Leaving aside that zero tolerance policies do not work and pervert the course of justice, the line “offend on Saturday, face court on Monday” strikes me as impossible.
2. Encourage citizens arrests.

The good idea

Every campaign needs a good idea, right? For Webb, it’s the time-limited multi-bus trip: as many bus trips as a person wants/needs within 70 minutes of the ticket’s purchase.

The caveat is that this appears to have simply been stolen from the Liberal Democrat platform (see below). So, um, the only thing I like about the UKIP platform is the bit they stole from the Lib Dems.

Why you should vote for Webb

You shouldn’t.

London is a global financial capital — immigration is its lifeblood. An anti-immigration mayor, even a powerless one, would do irreparable economic harm to the city and the country.

The immigration issue aside (if that’s possible with the UKIP), Webb’s ideas seem pretty awful. The one page manifesto is an embarrassment; any serious candidate who wants your vote should put some effort into their campaign.

Even if you find yourself agreeing with the UKIP and Mr. Webb, the poor showing on the manifesto shows that he is not serious about the role; he does not deserve a single vote.

Carlos Cortiglia, BNP

The BNP (British National Party) are a far right party of racists and bigots.

There is no reason to examine the Cortiglia’s platform.

Do not vote for this man.

Siobhan Benita, Independent

My dissatisfaction with the mainstream parties (see below) makes an independent candidate intriguing. An independent needs more vetting, however, as their unstated political views are not necessarily clear based on party alignment, and their track record may be absent.

Such is the case with Ms. Benita, who has an About Page that is worryingly absent of content.

Still, after reading the UKIP’s “manifesto”, Benita is a breath of fresh air. She has a separate manifesto for each of her policy areas, any of which put the UKIP manifesto to shame.

Ms. Benita appears to be prepared, and has some interesting ideas.

Why you should vote for Benita

Other candidates seem rather lackluster (see above and below), which is a poor reason, but a reason all the same. She also has well thought out positions that I happen to agree with:

Education appears to be her primary concern, and she wants to bring libraries under the mayorality. I am on board with these — although concerned that her primary agenda appears to deal with subjects that are outside the purview of the mayor.

Given the new rules for academies brought about at the national level, to have the mayor responsible for planning permissions for new schools, while the councils are responsible for education itself seems like a strange mismatch (of course, Conservatives probably see it as “competition”, and won’t change the rules here). Throw in the fact that the mayor is a visible force in the city, while most people do not know who represents them on the council, and it would create greater accountability for a primary concern in local elections.

Other fantastic ideas:

• Free transport for job seekers
• Having the tubes run later on weekends
• Better river transport services
• Donate government buildings to charities after working hours

Beyond this, we are also rather fond of her entire Housing Manifesto.

Why you should not vote for Benita

A lot of the mayor’s “powers” are not powers, but places where they wield influence. This is done – as far as I can tell – through will and personality. When I watch Benita talk (and that’s a video from her campaign website, not something random I chose in which she is uncompelling), I’m not convinced that she can convince people. When I read about her accomplishments as a senior bureaucrat, I find them to be suspiciously vague.

She has no track record, and there’s no reason to think that she’ll be able to push through anything on …

… education, which is the focus – “priority”, in her words – of her campaign, despite it being outside the remit of mayor.
… economic growth, which is one of the mayor’s responsibilities, but one in which she has no official powers.
… improve policing, where the mayor has many powers, but is not involved in operational decision making.

With her top priority being outside the scope of the job, an absent track record, and no opportunity to see her in action under pressure (as an independent, she is not invited to the debates), she seems to be a “high risk, high reward” candidate.

I like what she’s selling, but remain quite unconvinced that she can deliver any of it.

Brian Paddick, Liberal Democrat

At the moment, I am not a big fan of the Liberal Democrats. I was quite excited about them in the last General Election, and thought quite highly of the prospects of a coalition government that featured them. Unfortunately, they seem to have instead agreed to support the Conservative party – thereby losing their progressive voting base – in return for a referendum on AV that they lost, at least partially, by mismanaging the campaign.

It has not been impressive.

But local politics and national politics are quite different, and when it comes to the position of mayor the person matters even more. The mayor does not answer to the party whip. And Brian Paddick is a very interesting candidate.

His Lib Dem affiliation paints him as a progressive candidate, but he comes from a policing background which, to my mind, tends to produce more right wing types.

His number one focus, naturally, is the police. With his mix of the progressive and the practical, he makes a quite intriguing figure as the person in charge of the Met.

Why you should vote for Paddick

First and foremost, because of his position on policing. Too often those who make “improvements” to policing – who provide more money, more manpower, more tools – are hardline right wingers. A progressive with practical experience approaching such a role is a rare and wonderful thing.

There are other nice ideas in the manifesto — the one-hour bus fare supported by the UKIP also appears here, along with other ideas to make travel in London more affordable to those on a limited income. There are also some good longer-term environmental goals

Why you shouldn’t vote for Paddick

That Lib Dem association again. While the policing focus – along with the clearly well thought out practical ideas – is all Paddick, the manifesto is decidedly about the Liberal Democrats, and not Paddick himself.

How much does he care about these things? How committed to them is he? And – given my reservations about the party itself, these days, is there enough Paddick here to hold my nose and vote for his party?

Stay tuned …

There are still three candidates — including the two favourites — still to come. Keep an eye on the Big Bad Blog for more of our election preview.

Originally Posted at Mr. Topp and the Big Bad Blog.

Like sex?
Like sex toys?
Like sex toys, but find yourself unable to afford them?
Like the Swiss?
Willing to consider second-hand sex toys?

If you answered “yes” to all the above questions, then you might just be interested in buying sex toys that were found left behind on Swiss trains.

The rest of us, however, are just left scratching our heads in disbelief. (I mean … Swiss?)

Image is by Brent Schoepf.
Webcomic is

Originally Posted at Mr. Topp and the Big Bad Blog.

Today’s blog post has been provided by Pete, who has graciously ensured that the Big Bad Blog not be empty during Mr. Topp’s vacation. Management disavows any knowledge or approval of the content of the following message.

With Mr. Topp heading out on vacation I figured he could use some low quality filler for his blog. To that end, here I am once again providing you with my amateur reviewer’s opinion. My chosen topic this time is The Hunger Games.

(Spoiler Alert: I don’t want to be limited to what I can and can’t say because someone reading this may not be as up to date on current trends as I am. Seeing as I am practically a Luddite at this point if you are behind me in the times you should be ashamed of yourself. To that end I will be talking about what I have read (which is all three books and associated Wikipedia pages) and what I have seen (which is a few movie trailers) so I might ruin some endings if you aren’t careful.)

(Editor’s note: There weren’t any spoilers for The Hunger Games so in an attempt to preserve the tattered remains of Pete’s integrity we have added spoilers for other books and movies. We wouldn’t want Pete to be a liar.)

Editor’s note: The previous note was just Pete talking to himself. We’re not editing this for him.

Editor’s note: Except to break it into paragraphs. Paragraphs are good.

Editor’s note: And change “ladder” to “latter”. But that’s it. We’re done now.

Why the odd title? Suzanne Collins stated that she comes from a background of writing three act plays, something I noticed before I read that on Wikipedia. If you ignore the chapter and section breaks in the books, it is still very obvious that each book is three parts. Since I haven’t seen the movie I am going to mostly talk about the books, but I am going to mention the movie at the end. (Darth Vader is Luke Skywalkers father.)

I said before that I am a fair bit behind the times so the first I heard of this franchise was the buzz about the impending release of the new movie. Like any annoying buzzing sound I attempted to isolate the source and found that The Hunger Games was a book series that had replaced Twilight as the hot new teen drama. Once I had that fact I was ready to turn my back on the whole thing and pretend I was never interested, there was only one problem. I was still interested.

Something I found amusing about the Twilight series was the near universal scorn it received from anyone I considered a respectable source. The Hunger Games on the other hand was receiving moderate to positive reviews from the same sources. That caught my attention. (The Titanic hits and iceberg and sinks.)

I should come clean about something at this point. I read a fair bit of children’s fiction. As a kid I wasn’t much of a reader. Outside of the books I had to read for school I almost never read for fun until the latter half of high school. The reason for this was I was never given anything to read for fun that was actually fun to read. Adults were encouraging me to read books they thought I would enjoy, but I didn’t, so I just learned that books weren’t entertaining. When I started to have friends who read they were able to recommend books that were actually fun to read and I have been reading more and more ever since. Having missed out on some highlights of children’s literature I have made an effort to go back and see what they were like. Also the really good children’s books make adults wish they were kids again.

(Harry Potter kills Lord Voldemort in the end.)

Given that I am a parent it is somewhat obvious that I don’t have an infinite amount of time and money. So my investigation into The Hunger Games was going to have to be done in a way that fit my lifestyle. Usually I try to see the movie first, and then read the book. It has been my experience that the book is usually better than the movie so if I see the movie first and like it I will like reading the book too. If I do it the other way around I like the book and am disappointed by the movie, giving me one pleasurable experience instead of two. I have been to the movies exactly once since my son was born two years ago so I didn’t want to risk a rare movie going experience on something that I might end up hating, especially when there is a new Batman movie due out this summer. I also didn’t want to buy the books because even if I didn’t hate them the odds of me rereading them were pretty low. The left me trying to obtain a free copy of the books. Again Luddite, I went to the library, only to be handed a new challenge. The upcoming movie meant a lot of people were trying to read the books for free, at a time when the Toronto Public Library was on strike. When I check there were 2400 holds on the first book in the series. When I told my Dad this story he directed me to www.epubbud.com. A website that is self-described as youtube for books. There I was able to find a free, grey market, eBook version, which works well in a house with both a kobo and an android tablet. (Batman is really Bruce Wayne.)

I really enjoyed the first book, it was by far the best in the series. You are introduced to the fictional world by learning about life in District 12. Life in 12 is hard, so you feel sadness and pity for everyone, but you also sort of admire someone making it under those conditions. Once the story moves to the capital and pregame starts you get caught up in it and start to feel the anticipation of what is to come. And then the games begin and you get lost in the action. All in all a good span of emotions that work together to provide an engaging reading experience.

The second book is where the problems start. Book two actually feels like a copy of the first. Life in the districts is bad, prepping for the games is scary, and the games are intense. It seems like Collins wanted the story to be a trilogy so bad that she made a second act that was all filler. There was some information that we needed to learn and characters that we needed to meet, but we didn’t need to do so by going through a cheap knockoff of the first book.

Thankfully Book three did break some new ground. After the ending of the second book it was impossible to keep the same formula so changes had to be made, and change is good. I am a sucker for a good tale of rebellion, and book three hit a lot of high notes. Stirring speeches, fighting impossible odds, vying for freedom, what’s not to love? The climax of the series was a bit of a letdown, but I am used to that by now. I guess a climax is really hard to write because it keeps happening over and over to me. A story keeps getting cooler and cooler until you wonder “how can they top that?” only to learn, they can’t. Oh well let’s sum up and get out of here. The aftermath and epilogue were kind of lukewarm but they were believable. They went to war, there was trauma and loss, and then they had to get on with their banal existence for the rest of their lives. Dramatic or not, it is true. (Tyler Durden is hallucination of the narrator, part of his insomnia and MPD)

That is actually a good summary of how I feel about the series in general. It was very believable. The emotions that you felt, the events that were played out before your eyes were what you should expect from people in those situations. The main characters do grow and develop, but are still flawed like real people and sometimes do dumb things, like real people. I think whether or not you will like the series will be determined by whether or not you like the characters. If you find them annoying you will likely not like the story. One thing Collins does well is vilify the enemy. It is very common in storytelling that you have to make the bad guys “BAD GUYS”.

Personally, I hate wishy-washy villains. If you are going to be bad, then be bad. If you are going to be bad for the greater good, then be an anti-hero. What Collins does in The Hunger Games is take aspects common to decadent western life and push it to a grotesque extreme, and then set them against the poor starving and oppressed. It is an enjoyably stinging satire of the divide between the haves and the have nots, until you remember we are the haves.

(John Ritter is a robot.)

(Seriously I don’t know why I told that joke. It was 10 years ago and there are like 8 people in the world that will get it. At least most of them read this blog.)

I am glad I read the trilogy, I will find the time to watch the movies, but not in theaters, and I likely won’t opt to buy either the books or the movies. I have a feeling the movies will proceed similarly to other recent trilogies. The first one will be amazing, the next two okay but not as good. Think of The Matrix, or Pirates of the Caribbean.

All of that being said if you did ask my opinion, I would suggest that you read the books.

The good outweighs the bad, and who knows, you may find sixteen year olds less annoying than I do and like it even more than I did.