"Rakes: My Archnemesis"

The Cantaloupe

As of recent weeks, critics have really begun to take fire at me. Someone sent me a copy of this Vern. B. Femack's article and I must admit, it really hurt. I mean apparantly my articles are no better than the mountains. Oh well. I'll survive I think. You know what I'm finding hard about writing? Small talk. It's hard to find unique little things to say at the start of each issue. I mean I talk about some event that's happening or the season or something like that. Well after almost two years of doing this you have trouble coming up with ideas. It's kinda like an NFL quarterback. As a rookie, every play is new and unique. You relish throwing the ball, but after a couple years in the league it all goes downhill. You lose your motivation for doing it. I mean why take a couple steps back and throw a ball for the like millionth time? If I was an NFL quarterback I think I would try something new like crabwalking backwards then crushing the ball with my palm and eating it. Now that would certainly be new and unique! So as I was saying, experience means nothing and it doesn't help anyone and I'm an idiot. But what's new about that? I'm sure I've said all that before.

Always Verdana- Font Of Champions

I've always thought around this time of year that trees truly are crazy. You see this is the time of year where the trees have their leaves turn yellow (or red) and then all the leaves fall off the tree and onto the ground. Now here's my issue with this. Imagine a person. Imagine in the spring that they put on clothes. Now all summer long they wear clothes. Personally I hope you can imagine this, because if you can't you may wish to have an imagination adjustment (or maybe you need to get out more). But that's off topic. Now imagine just as the days start getting chillier and colder this person takes these clothes off and stands there shivering in their underpants. This is what trees do every year. They strip themselves down for the winter and dress for the summer. Unless of course you want to think of the snow covering as some sort of parka, but then you realize that making those sorts of connections about trees is stupid.

Well Other Than When I Use Arial By Mistake

Last time I asked a question and that question was thus stated, "Do you listen to different styles of music when you're doing different things like hanging off the rafters than say you would when you're pretending to be a cinnamon bun?"Well I got a few answers to this query.
Russell D. writes, "Yes, I listen to different types of music depending on what I do, but I find that the biggest factor that affects what type of music I listen to is my mood. If I'm angry, I'll listen to louder and heavier music and if I'm happier I'll usually listen to more happy music."
Well I assume you listen to different styles according to your mood. However what mood are you in when you're hanging from the rafters? Angry? And pretending to be a cinnamon bun, maybe happy? Is that what you're trying to tell me?Another reader chastizes me on the question.
Dave H. writes "Do I listen to different types of music when I do different things? That's a crazy question to ask, there is only one song ever written. That song is "Peaches". All other 'songs' are um... not songs."
So that's it. However that wasn't the only comment about the previous issue that I got. In the small print it talked about me showing a diamond to my girlfriend. It prompted one reader to remark, "you have a girlfriend?" Well I'll tell you this: I don't not have a girlfriend. Or wait...I don't think I understand how to use double negatives. Maybe that's why I don't have a girlfriend. What girl would take someone who can't use double negatives properly? Of course that takes us to our question of the week, which is something I'm very curious about. So I'll quickly run my "Question Of The Week" title and we can get on with it.

Question Of The Week

The question of the week is mostly for the ladies, but if there are guys who wish to role play, go right ahead. In fact I encourage it."If you had the choice between going out with a guy who constantly compares you to a grapefruit, a guy who dresses up in a salmon costume every time you go on a date, or a guy who is always under attack by wild otters, who would you LEAST wish to go out with and who would you MOST wish to go out with and WHY?"
Please refrain yourselves from NOT answering this question. I have to know this. Why? Because I have three friends who are each one of these things? Maybe. Or maybe, just maybe, I'd just like to know. So help me out.

Soon I'll Garamond My Name

The prestigious Cantaloupe may not be that old, but I am. And I'm getting older. It's getting to the end of September and soon will be October and that's a frightenous thought. But soon after that comes December and I like December. It's good times all around. I really enjoy that Hanukkah season. I also enjoying eating a piece of cherry cheesecake to tell you the truth. Other things I enjoy include long walks along the beach.

Trevor YVR Plett

("I thought I was your archnemesis.""I have a life outside you Bart". Words spoken by Kelsey Grammar playing Sideshow Bob. Well some of them. And Kelsey Grammar also was on Frasier, but you know what he was on before Frasier? Cheers. Or maybe it was 'I Love Lucy'. No, I'm pretty sure it was Cheers. Did you know that his real last name isn't Grammar, but he just got that because he properly pronounced everything. "Really?" you ask. No, not really. I made that up so I'd look smart. I suppose it backfired now didn't it?)

The Femack Attack By Vern B. Femack

The Femack Attack
By Vern B. Femack
Giving 1 out of 5 stars since 1999

Newsletters Will Never Recover

For those of you who do not know, I am a critic. I search the internet long and hard for things worthy of reading. On one of these long and difficult journies to find something worth reading I came across a newsletter called "The Cantaloupe". Now I will admit, it didn't sound very interesting and I almost lost interest before reading, but I'm a critic so it's my job to read and insult. The Cantaloupe is written by Trevor YVR Plett (which has got to be the weirdest middle name I've ever heard) who is still fairly unknown to most in the internet critical community. For me, I welcome new blood. After all the terrible comments I made about Nelson Jordan's blog and Ericka Walton's recipes they stopped writing and thus deprived me of easy targets. So when I found this middle-namely challenged individual with his so-called "Cantaloupe" I licked my lips in anticipation. I was not disappointed in the least let me tell you.
Let's look at his most recent offering titled "Valiant Even In Hiding". By the way, how on Earth could you possibly be valiant in hiding? That's just silly. If you're hiding you're clearly a coward! I mean I could go on for pages just on this. What kind of message is this sending to kids? To be cowards? Luckily for me, this title is the highlight of the article. It gets worse.
Mr. Plett begins to talk about music and in particular talks about rap. He makes light of the lyrics, "Throw your hands in the air and wave them around like you just don't care". The audicity of this attempt at a joke boggles the mind. Apparantly this author has not read up on his history. Did Mr. Plett not know the origin of this phrase? How could you possibly forget that this saying was started by Hubert J. back in the slavery era? This was a saying that united people to "throw their (freed) hands in the air" and wave them because they deserved better treatment and they deserved freedom. Rappers are simply paying tribute to a legend by repeating this line in a song. And for one to make fun of this is the most unsympathetic thing, simply pathetic I'd say. After reading this I couldn't continue. But no I wasn't done insulting this hack author yet. I had unsuccesfully tried eating lunch (I wasn't hungry after this gross display of ignorance), but since I could not I checked for previous issues. Apparantly, this so-called writer has more than fifty issues out and even a book. This means there has got to be some people out there who love nonsense and bafoonery as much as this hack.
I just don't get what's wrong with our society. I mean I know there many crimes and atrocities going on, but this simply is the last straw. Napolean Dynamite seems to be the movie of our generation. The movie is causing the stupiderizing of our society! And it even made me write the not-word "stupiderizing"! What is there to like about this kind of humour people? Get your heads on straight! I've considered writing the government for years in order so they might control the rampant spread of terrible art forms. Why haven't I you ask? Well that would put me out of a job. So for now I'll have to tolerate it. All the hacks in the world breathe a sigh of relief, because I, Vern B. Femack, have decided to give you a reprieve.
Back to the topic at hand, "The Cantaloupe" isn't worthy of me even giving it a grade. I've already written far too much about it. This hack job is pedestrian at best. I think this newsletter should either 'loupe' off into the distance or be lopping off at the head.
* out of 5

Personal E-mails Will Never Recover

For those of you who don't know, it is a critics job to show how much better he (or she) is than the rest of you. Having run most everyone out of the water professionally I figure it's about time I start using my hacking skills. Well I hacked into a 13 year old girl's e-mail account and I found this e-mail sent to her by her friend. I'm going to reprint it in it's entirety

"hey sara, did u c that hot gyu in clas today. i m totly crushd him. gborew. kud u c if he liks me 2? pleez."

This e-mail was sent by Rachel Albertson of Lethbridge, AB to her friend Sara Frankles of the same town. The intellegence displayed by Miss Albertson is astounding! She should get her Ph.D. in intellegence or something! I actually wanted to see what was really going on here so I visited their class and to my surprise I didn't see one hot gyu! I didn't even see a gyu! I saw some guys that were way out of Rachel's league though. Of course the particular guy Rachel thought was a "hot gyu" probably invented the word "loser" and he still was far above Miss Albertson. I certainly think this girl should become a counsellor when she grows up, because she will certainly know what heartbreak and not being loved feels like. The only problem with that is she'll have to talk and well you know how that will turn out. Of course she wasn't the only one in her class. All the kids seem to be this way. If I were the teacher I might simply die.
I think Rachel's parents need to ban her from contacting anyone again through any kind of media, because then I wouldn't have to accidently hack into an account containing one of her e-mails ever again.
* out of 5

People Will Never Recover

Yesterday this girl walked up to me and asked if I noticed anything different about her. I told her, "No, you still have enough makeup plastered on you that I think you have blubber instead of skin, your clothes still look like they've been bought off a hobo and well you've still got that same personality". To which she replied, "No, I got a haircut". Well any bozo could have figured she got a haircut, but I was trying to spare her the embarassment. And to think she got mad at ME.
Her hairstyle which I will proceed to not mention what it looked like gets a...
* out of 5

The environment will never recover

The world runs off new ideas, new innovations and new thinking. People are always searching for the newest product to buy. If something is older than a couple years it is found to be obsolete. I have no problem with this. This is the way the world should work. The problem is that people are generally not creative or forward thinking at all. People keep making the same boring buildings and boring roads as before. However for the next thing, people aren't the ones to blame.
Look at nature. When's the last time nature reinvented itself. Everytime I go to the mountains they are the same. What's so special about a big rock? Last time I checked it was grey. I wonder what colour it will be next time I look at it. Or possibly I might think that if I leave and come back the mountain will be twice as big. For something to be truly special it needs to take things to another level. For the mountains, they seem to dwell on their previous glory. One hit wonders is what I'd call them. Big, dull and boring.
Maybe I'm being too harsh. Maybe I'll go check the mountains one more time. I can certainly give them one more chance. Perhaps I'll find some new plant or wildlife. Maybe the mountain will start spewing volcanic ashe or explode. There may be the potential the mountain will get up and run away from me. Okay let me get in the car and check......Nope. The mountain is the same as always. The mountains get
* out of 5

Next Week

I hear there's a bunch of movies coming out soon. If I didn't know better I'd think maybe one of them could be good. But I know better. Coming Friday you can read as I give more things * out of 5.

Valiant Even In Hiding

The Cantaloupe

Welcome back for another edition of the World's most trivial editorial comment. Okay, the Cantaloupe is a little more valued than that, but I must say that my commentary on the world has only really changed a few people's lives. I mean there are highly popular motivational speakers out there who change thousands of people in one day! So what good can I do by only changing a few? Well I suppose you'll have to answer that one, because from now on I'm going to talk about much shallower topics like...

Music and the Arts

At the start of this year I came up with a theory of mine. It holds that every even-numbered year, not a lot of good CDs come out. And every odd year there are quite a few. Well recently I have bought a whole bunch of CDs and there's many more yet to be released in the coming age. Well it made me think about all the different genres that are out there and the lyrics that they are exemplified by. First of all, country (which isn't a musical style, but I'll include it anyway) is all about being either A) Drunk, B) In Love (Most likely with your pick-up truck) or C) recently seperated from your siste...errr....wife. Now even in real music genres there are distinct themes. Metal is mainly about how much you hate everything. Rap is mainly about throwing your hands into the air and waving them around like you just don't care. Now before I move any further I want to unpack the action here. Imagine you're at a rap show and someone sings a song with these lyrics...oh wait, you're at a rap show. Right, so imagine you're at a rap show (singing those lyrics is inevitable). What are you going to do? When told to throw your hands in the air are you going to "throw" them up? No. Most people don't throw up their hands they smoothly raise them. These are clearly two different things. Now waving them around like you just don't care means basically random motion of your arms. I assume it's telling you to flail your arms wildly. What do people normally do? Keep their arms perfectly straight and move them back and forth rhymically. Now answer this question: If you don't care what people think, why are you doing exactly the same thing? So what am I trying to say, that rap is stupid? Nope. Just that next time you're at a show, you need to act like you're in a panic. And being at a rap show, with all the gangsta's who are probably ready to shoot each other, it may not be the most unfounded panic either. Back to music and what it's about. Classical music is mostly gibberish. I mean seriously, if it's supposed to be so high class, why do they sing in unintellegible words? I don't get what they're saying. It's like they're speaking another language here! I mean I know English had a lot of weird words a few hundred years ago, but I thought I could at least understand it! It's the same problem I have with other countries around the world. Do they not educate their kids or something? Like why do they all not know English and they speak it as some sort of gibberish? I don't get it.

Ointment and Tendencies Thereof

One of the cool things to do if you go to a rock show is to go crowd surfing. Now to tell you the honest truth I've only done crowd surfing myself once. In most circles it is frowned upon. Well I think that in life if you lose crowd surfing at concerts, we should bring it into other aspects of our lives. Perhaps at a hockey game. After a goal is scored by the team you're cheering for and all the fans are standing and cheering you start crowd surfing. The only drawback to this plan is that a lot of hockey arenas have two decks. This may still work but you'd have to have good catchers underneath. Maybe the next time an accident happens somewhere and a bunch of people crowd around to see what's going on you should go up on top and surf. There's a chance all the people will see you surfing and realize that life is short and to be enjoyed, not mourned. Doctors say laughter is the best medicine (or is that comedians) so the injured folk may become healed. Crowd surfing could become a public service.

That Question Of Mine

During the last issue I asked a question of all of you. I told you all to "answer the question already". Well most of you failed. You get a C+ (which of course is the worst grade possible in the Cantaloupe's new grading system). One person however did not fail and got a C- (which of course is the highest grade possible under the new grading system). This person said, "What Question? I'm A Blonde!" Thanks be to this reader for you have done all I asked which was to answer in any way you wanted. So here we have it, blondes may in fact be just as smart as anybody else. And peace and harmony will reign upon the world forever. Of yes, and because of this response a certain Lauren D. gets to be READER OF THE MONTH for January 1994. Now I hear the next READER OF THE MONTH may go even farther back. Retro is the craze nowadays so answer and you may win!
Today's question is this....

"Do you listen to different styles of music when you're doing different things like hanging off the rafters than say you would when you're pretending to be a cinnamon bun?"

2 is one digit long

So take it from me, you listen to a lot of music in your life. Silence is hard to come by. So if you're reading this e-mail right now (which you are) and listening to music (which is possible), turn it off and listen to the sounds around you.......that's too quiet isn't it? A little disconcerting. Well you'd better turn the music on and louder just to be sure you're not having any thought processes going on. Wouldn't want to let those start now would you?

Trevor YVR Plett

(On top of spaghetti all covered with cheese I found a diamond ring! Well not so much a diamond ring, but definitely a meatball. That meatball may have been a little shiny and it may have been able to cut almost anything, but I don't think it was a diamond ring. I even showed it to my girlfriend and she said "YES!". I guess she knew it was a meatball and it couldn't have been a diamond ring. My stomach seems to think it's a diamond with all the pain signals it's giving me, but I'm sure that's normal considering I hope to propose later today. Yep, I got a diamond ring right here in my pocket. I believe it's in this round and saucy box.)

Answer the Question Already

The Cantaloupe

Well it's upon us like a deer sneaking up on an unsuspecting cabin, the school year. Now for many of you the passing of summer into fall only means the trees get deleafified. But for others it's a dramatic change. For some people (the younger ones especially) it means you get to go back to your favourite place in the whole world, SCHOOL! Now personally I know school is a long and boring thing for most of you, but I've decided to be kind and gentle (well not so much gentle) and give you some tips for going Back To School. But don't take it from me, I have no kids of my own to send back to school. Take it from Yerov the hard-working Russian farmer.

Sending Kids Back To School The Yerov Way

For those of you who do not know the story of Yerov, well he grew up in the olden days in Russia. When he was growing up in the communist regime they were teaching the kids propaganda about obeying the leaders and what not. Well luckily for Yerov he was from the poor family and didn't even end up going to school. I suppose that's only lucky if you think toiling all your life and ending up with nothing but mouths to feed is a successful life, but Yerov would probably say he's been a success so I'll let him think that. So Yerov took up the family farm and began doing whatever it is farmers do. When did he start this? At the age of 8. So instead of doing schooling like a usual child would he sweated and grunted and crashed rusty farm equipment into the family barn (which also was their house). Well once Yerov had 27 kids of his own he didn't have enough work at the farm for all of them to do so he figured he'd send a couple of them to school. Well he's had a lot of interesting experiences with this. One day one son came home and told him what he'd learned in science that day. "The Earth is round like a ball" his son said. "I'll have no more of your imagination," Yerov said, "We don't need to hear your fanciful stories. Stories don't sow the seeds. Stories don't water the crops. Stories, even the best stories in the whole entire world, don't harvest the crops. So why you be telling me those stories?" His son looked at him and apologized and promised he'd never go to school again. Well he did go to school again, because the family needed some supplies and had commissioned him to go take stuff from the school and bring it home. Either way, Yerov is certainly the practical type so you'll want to take him advice because he knows from experience. Last night I talked in person with Yerov the hard-working Russian farmer and he told me a few things about going back to school. First of all he told me that before one goes back to school they need to make sure their herd of gazelles is safely kept in their grazing area. He told me a story: "Once when my fifteen child was going to school she forgot to close the gate and half my gazelles ran away! Gazelle milk is what feeds my kids. It's the best kind! And don't even ask about how hard it is to get gazelles. It's next to impossible!". So take it from Yerov, you shouldn't let the gazelles out of the pen, because apparantly gazelle milk is a delicacy of some kind. The next thing that you want to know about going back to school is to make sure you bring a couple rags with you. Yerov says, "Well you see, my kids ain't got a lot of money for shoes so when they walk down the long road to school in the morning their feet get blood on them. Well you see, the trick is to get some rags and tie them to your feet and thus your feet stay blood free." Blood free. There you have it. When you go school shopping this year, keep your feet blood free by tearing up some of your old clothes and tying them around your feet. Now I know what some of you are thinking...why should I take advice from a 63 year old Russian? Well take it from me, he has life experience. And if you can't listen to that then for shame. I don't want to even call you a friend. If you hear and don't obey, you need to shape up. So the next one of you that I hear letting their gazelles out into the open will most certainly be getting a verbal lashing from me, you hear? Yeah that's right! I thought so.

For the Uninitiated

Many of you more recent readers of my overrated nonsense may not know how the system works around here. Well you see, it's that time again. Yes, it's QUESTION OF THE WEEK time. Well the way this works is that once you hear my question, you write out a thoughtful reply in your most dignified fashion, quoting Shakespeare at least 5 times and you mail it to me by mail. Don't mail it to me by phone. That doesn't work! So that said, I expect my "INKORGEN" (Inbox in Swedish) to be overflowing with useless nonsense in the next couple of days. You understand? Good.

Comatose Or Worse

Have you ever been talking to somebody and they tell you they're about tell you something important, but then instead of saying what they are going to say they get sidetracked in details about what you need to do when they tell you and stuff? Well don't you hate that? I mean just come out and say it! Don't all of a sudden forget to ask your QUESTION OF THE WEEK if you're wanting to do it. Just do it. Who cares about how you're supposed to respond. If people want to respond they will. Maybe the response will be worse if you totally forget. These kinds of people make me sick. Sick and nausiated. Sick and nausiated and kinda hungry. Hungry for meatballs. So if you ever run into one of these people that I hate so much, tell them they need to get on with it! Tell them that if they were a tuna sandwitch, they'd be at the bottom of the lunchbox!

Oops I Forgot To Do Something

I was just about to write my name and call it a newsletter when I realized I hadn't said goodbye yet. Goodbye.

Trevor YVR Plett

(Of all the colours of the rainbow, I think the colour that brings out intimidation the most is yellow. I mean the sun is fairly yellow. How many people do you know that have the courage to stare directly into the sun's eyes? Not many if you ask me. The sun is a scary thing and it's because the sun is yellow)