Tag: Toronto

  • Newsbriefs Part V: Hudson Bay Company to Rewrite Own History

    Found­ed in 1670, back when Cana­da was pro­nounced ‘Kana­ta,’ the beaver was the King of the preda­tors and the British and French mocked each oth­er with slurs like: “Aha, you have a fun­ny accent!’ A small HBC rose to become what it has been for more than three cen­turies: a Cana­di­an bea­con, a sym­bol of nation­al pride, and as of late a com­pa­ny who sold out to an Amer­i­can dandy with a few bil­lions burn­ing a hole in his pant pock­et.

    When the world is your oys­ter,’ said new HBC own­er Jer­ry Zuck­er after the $1.5 bil­lion pur­chase, ‘you can get bored of oys­ter juice pret­ty quick­ly.’ When asked what the fuck he meant Zuck­er replied, ‘I decid­ed to start buy­ing his­to­ry! I am a genius!’ When pressed to stop smok­ing mar­i­jua­na on inter­views, Mr. Zuck­er fur­ther explained, ‘Now that I own the HBC group, I am offi­cial­ly chang­ing its place in his­to­ry, and I am writ­ing myself in it.’

    After ask­ing Mr. Zuck­er for a few tokes of what was obvi­ous­ly good cannabis; he con­tin­ued, ‘they spread insa­tiably far and wide and with­out mer­cy; they were the Star­bucks of your ear­ly nation. But its his­to­ry is a sleep­er; there are no car chas­es and noth­ing ever blows up good. I am going to change all that.’ After a few min­utes, it all start­ed mak­ing sense. ‘That’s some good shit, Sir,’ said this reporter.

    Through­out its his­to­ry, HBC rep­re­sent­ed Cana­da as a mosa­ic of over­priced wet, smelly furs to just over­priced cloth­ing today. ‘That’s great and good, but I thought for exam­ple, what if HBC employ­ees trav­elled through Cana­da in heli­copters as ear­ly as the 1700’s? That makes sense to me, I always want­ed to be live in the 1700’s and I AM a cer­ti­fied pilot. I have tons of changes in mind, like why didn’t fur traders use machine guns? They are awe­some! If they had used them they would have fought com­pe­ti­tion off more eas­i­ly. If that had been the case, then maybe I would not have been able to buy HBC now. Woah, chick­en and the egg man, chick­en and the egg…’

    Watch for HBC’s revised his­to­ry to hit HBC’s books sec­tion as ear­ly as this sum­mer.

    –This and all News­briefs have been pub­lished at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to’s satir­i­cal news­pa­per The Toike Okie, and/or the even more twist­ed Bruck­News e‑zine.–

  • Newsbriefs: Part IV

    Rogers Expands Rogers on Demand

    TORONTO- Rogers Com­mu­ni­ca­tions ever-grow­ing lust to build an impe­ri­ous monop­oly over Cana­di­ans announced today details about their upcom­ing sec­ond-gen­er­a­tion Rogers On Demand ser­vice.

    ‘It fun­ny how it came to us,’ said an unapolo­getic Ted Rogers, ‘(The board and) I sat in my arbore­tum, just beneath my own small ten foot gold stat­ue of myself won­der­ing just how to expand the ser­vice beyond just movies. Then it hit us. Not every­one likes to just watch movies.’

    Accord­ing to their news release, Rogers On Demand will now include ser­vices from drugs, gam­bling and pros­ti­tu­tion. ‘We sim­ply could not believe we had neglect­ed such an obvi­ous mar­ket before. It might be a low denom­i­na­tor clien­tele, but we are talk­ing hun­dreds of mil­lions here.’ added Andrew Cor­ri­pio head of Rogers’s glob­al mar­ket­ing.

    ‘You will find our prices to be very com­pet­i­tive. Not only that, there is also the extra advan­tage of bundling Rogers On Demand with any of our oth­er tele­pho­ny or cable ser­vices, trust me, you will def­i­nite­ly see some real sav­ings on your month­ly bill. We are very excit­ed about our prospects.’

    After being asked about the fact this ini­tia­tive might be con­sid­ered ille­gal by both local and fed­er­al author­i­ties, Mr. Rogers added: ‘I have nev­er giv­en a fuck about what they thought in the past, I see no rea­son why to I should care now.’

  • A Bruck-Zen Moment II

    Stage: Col­lege sub­way sta­tion about a block from my place, catch­ing up with a friend while she wait­ed for a Street­car. I had not seen in her for a few months but I had just giv­en her my still valid TTC day pass.

    ‘…And that’s what the note said in the book I went to pick up today… I thought it pecu­liar.’
    (Read: ‘A bish­op, a belch­er and Ste­vie’ in the Decem­ber archives)
    She looked blankly at me for a few sec­onds.
    ‘You know, you are weird.’
    ‘Huh? What did you say?’
    ‘You are weird Mauri­cio.’
    ‘…Because I told you about what hap­pened to me with the book?’
    She then pro­ceed­ed to tap me light­ly on my chest.
    ‘Thank you for not dat­ing me.’
    ‘Huh?’ (She had a thing for me at the begin­ning of ’05)
    Some awk­ward silence fol­lowed.
    Weird? Like weird?’ I said hold­ing my tongue, although I was start­ing to warm it up in case she mael­strom-ed on me.
    Then the street­car came.
    ‘Okay bye,’ she said as she tapped my shoul­der. ‘Thanks for the day pass.’
    Yes, I got I annoyed. So I said it like it is:
    ‘I see, this com­ing from a woman who mar­ried a Domini­can after know­ing him for less than two weeks at one-week inter­vals through­out the sum­mer and is now try­ing to bring him to Cana­da under the pre­tence that he will love you for­ev­er? In case you are won­der­ing, I am not the one import­ing a hus­band. So be care­ful who you call weird. Mea­sure your words.’

    She gave me a look that reeked to dis­dain as she left for her street car. Mmm, I doubt she will be call­ing any­time soon.

  • A Bruck-Zen Moment I

    Stage: Octo­pus Lounge

    ‘So, you an own­er?’
    ‘Yes, and I hate peo­ple too.’
    Curi­ous­ly, that was the last thing I thought an own­er of a busy lit­tle Italy Lounge would say. But we live and learn.

    Lat­er, I would learn that he was the broth­er of one of the 3 own­ers of that estab­lish­ment.