Stevie meets the Terminator.

This week, Ahnold made a visit to Ennui on the Rideau where he met with our glorious leader Stephen - He with the Face like a Refrigerator Door - Harper. There, in the hallowed halls of Parliament, Refrigerator Boy gave his solemn promise to ban camcorders from movie theaters.

Now, I admit that I gave up going to movies in theaters years ago for various reasons: the theaters shrank to postage stamp size, but the sound still remained the same. Promos and trailers for other movies are fine, but I absolutely draw the line at advertisements. If I wanted to watch ads, I would have stayed home and watch the tube. Finally, the price of the ticket, the obscenely priced soft drink and popcorn with genuine imitation greasy butterlike substance on top would easily cover one month's membership in zip.ca where I could watch all the movies I wanted in the comfort of my own home. Not to mention the fact that Hollywood hasn't really made anything original in years; remakes and sequels seem the order of the day, Oceans 13 (sinatra, martin, davis and the rest of the original rat pack must be spinning in their respective graves) and that travesty that was the remake of "The Italian Job" just to name a few.

It seems, however, that Canada is the leading hot bed of movie piracy because our theaters are flooded with people and their camcorders. I have yet to figure out just how they arrive at that conclusion. As stated previously, I don't go to theaters. However, I have many friends who do, and so I asked them if they had ever seen anyone recording the movie. Without exception, the answer given to me was "no". Besides that, I have been told, the quality of such a recording would be so bad as not to be worth the trouble.

In an attempt to stem this apparent epidemic, Warner Brothers announced earlier this month that they would cancel all their preview screenings of their "summer blockbusters" in Canada. It was then I found that I am not the only one who finds such things as Spiderman 28 and Rocky 42 extremely tedious as this news was greeted with howls of joy from all and sundry. Of course, I can bet that in less than 24 hours after these previews are shown, DVD quality copies of the movies (not grainy camcorder versions) will be available for download on the web. One thing is certain though, they won't be from Canada. I wonder who Hollywood will blame then?

Up In Smoke

The Federal Dope Deal

Once upon a time, about 8 or so years ago, I was hospitalized for the first time in my life. While I was recovering, attached to an IV pole that I named "Sancho" a la Don Quixote, I would wander about the building. On a regular basis, a strange and somehow faintly familiar odour would assail my nostrils; bringing back memories of being in someone's basement on hot summer nights listening to Moody Blues records in the dark.

The days of my mispent youth aside, there was a man in the hospital at that time who had fought for and won the right to use medical marijuana. Unfortunately, while he had the right to use it, there was no legal supply available. None the less, it was brought to him on a daily basis from a source that no one asked about and the nursing staff simply closed the door to his room and pretended that nothing was happening.

The Federal Government has gone in the the Medical Marijuana business and pays "Prairie Plant Systems" to grow it in an abandoned mine shaft in Flin Flon Manitoba. According to records obtained under the Access to Information act, the cost to the patients is 15 times more than the government pays for the weed in the first place. In effect, the government has allowed the use of medical marijuana on one hand, and is placing it out of the reach of those who need it with the other. (I know that this sure isn't covered by my medical plan).

Health Canada, in turn, sells the marijuana to a small group of authorized users for $150 - plus GST - for each 30-gram bag of ground-up flowering tops, with a strength of up to 14 per cent THC, the main active ingredient. That works out to $5,000 for each kilogram, or a markup of more than 1,500 per cent.

To add insult to injury, I have been told that the government weed, in the immortal words of Cheech Marin and Tommy Chong, "couldn't get a fly high".