_.and now for something completely different: Rants of a university student

~ Has anyone Charlottetown Mall lately? What the hell is wrong with that place? Ahbhh. The Charlottetown Mall. Centre of commerce on our fair isle, our source of joy, or at least that of the Friday night mall rats. Proud home of the most dangerous and poorly planned parking lots in the history of mankind, and home to the biggest damn speed bumps ever. Ahwell. Guess I can't take my Lambourgini to the mall anymore.

The ad for the mall announces that it is a "Unique Blend of Large and Small Shops." By "unique" they mean a suckass blend of stores. I"m not saying that the Singer Sewing Shop or Bass River Chairs are not important and integral parts of our community, but they're pretty low on my list of priorities.

Take guys clothing for instance. Right now us guys have the choice of Winner's or Sport Chek or Island Beach Company or I guess maybe Jack Fraser's or Moore's. All reputable establish- ments, if they have what you're looking for. So that's about it. Well, that and Zeller's. Or Christopher's I guess. No wait, that closed down. Or American Eagle, oh, but that's in Moncton. And although Stitches does have some merit as a clothing store, it won"t quite complete your average guy's wardrobe. Unless you happen to be Shawn Desmond.

And what is it with bring- ing in stores like Miss Teen? As if there aren't enough prostitots roam- ing the malls already. Well, them and the 13 year old boys that fol- low them around. You know, if Mall Admin. would pull their heads out of their asses for a few seconds, they might figure out that these aren't the people who are spending money in their mall. Sure, Mommy might have given them a fiver before she dropped them off, but I think they could make a few more bucks if they hauled in a [editor's note: Ryan didn't finish this sentence. Instead of covering for him, we keep things real here.]

And while you're at-it, put some thought into some law enforcement for God's sake. The rent-a-cops back in the day were bad enough, but at least they could exercise some authority over 10 year olds. Now they have some kid who, no joke, cannot be a day over 16. Maybe if you want some pro- tection you should try someone who has actual authority, you know, like maybe someone who doesn't still have a curfew. What's he going to do if there is ever some real trouble? Whip out his flash- light? "Oh please sir! Don't shine that in my eyes." I guess Mall Admin. realized that there's not that much to protect in their so- called mall anyway.

Well, to follow a perfectly logical subject line, George W. Bush was in London this past week, amidst much protest and opposition to his actions in Iraq. This is the same man, some of you may remember this (psst, it was _ just last spring), that couldn't wait to get “‘his boys" (and girls) into Iraq to get all those ““Weapons of

Mass Destruction" (that, for the record, haven't been found) and to hell with whoever or whatever “crazy" international laws got in the way. Well, this past week, Dubya made another one of his great speeches, and I thought some of what he said was kind of inter- esting. In this speech he stated that "America is a peace-loving nation, and has always gone to war reluc- tantly." This came as a complete surprise to the 6 or 7 million dead people who have been killed by US foreign policy over the past 40 years. But we can't blame old Dubya. It's not like he writes his own speeches anyway.

So the Barenaked Ladies have a new album and single. Another Postcard? How about another shut the hell up? This new attempt at being quirky is, in my humble opinion, total crap. Chimpanzees are stupid, postcards are stupid and this song is stupid. I'm sorry, but it is.[Editor's note: We here at The Cadre only like creatures that have prehen sile tails]

And can they please start paying John Bob what's-his-face what he deserves so that he can get back to painting sets or | jumping out of cars or { whatever it is that he does and so that he will stop having to make those stu- pid ads about how much of an asshole I am for pirating movies? Hey, I don't even pirate movies! And I just spent about three hundred bucks for a damn movie ticket, so leave me the hell alone. I'm sure you could find some spare change out of

UPEI Cadre November 24 2003 page 6

the billions and billions of dollars your studios make every year. Maybe give that to John Bob. Or, maybe you could use all the money

it took to make these stupid ads

and give that to your underpaid workers. Stop punishing the people who come to see your movies. That way everyone wins, John Bob can feed his family, I can get right to the movie I paid to see, and you CEOs can get back to making your millions of dollars every year.

Tsk, tsk, tsk, Michael Jackson. He's bad, he's bad. He's. really, really bad. And unless he pays off his accusers again, he's off to some federal penitentiary for a few years. I wonder how his femi- nine side will like federal prisons? Well, what do they say about the long arm of the law? It doesn't matter if your black or white? Or in his case, both.

Have a good one! > ryangallant@hotmail.com