The story goes that Peter Parker’s DNA was altered by a spider bite. The alteration gives him superhuman strength and agility, spider sense and the ability to climb walls. Depending on the version, he also gets the ability to shoot webbing from his wrists, but I’ll get to that later.

If Spidey can stick to walls because of a genetic alteration it’s because something in his fingers and toes has changed. It would therefore stand to reason that if he covers his hands and feet with gloves and boots, he’s effectively covering up the very thing that would allow him to climb walls. Worse, in the Spider-Man TV series, Peter Parker’s even portrayed sticking to a wall with his feet only while wearing sneakers! If the writers and animators wanted to make the story believable, Spidey would have to go around without anything covering his hands and feet. Disbelief: 1, Suspension: 0.

What’s more, even though his spider “stickiness” allows him to stick to walls with enough strength to carry 170 adults on his back, I can’t help but wonder how a normal, everyday wall made of plaster would hold even one, 167 pound person without caving in or collapsing. Let alone the surfaces he sticks to while catching falling people and debris with his webbing. I get the feeling that Spider-Man would spend a lot more time recovering from falls off unstable walls than he does currently. Disbelief: 2, Suspension: 0.

Finally, a prominent feature of any Spider-man story is his primary mode of transportation: web slinging. He gets around town by firing a good hundred feet of web per swing. All of that webbing has to come from somewhere. We’re supposed to believe that Peter Parker is perpetually broke, yet he can afford to pay for all that webbing? He even says that it “costs him a fortune” in the animated series. What fortune? He’s supposed to be broke! And even if he could afford it, I can’t even begin to imagine how you’d fit even one shot’s worth in those tiny, wrist-mounted cartridges. Of course there is the alternate storyline that says he’s able to produce webbing from his own body. But that doesn’t work either. His system couldn’t possibly keep up with the demand. He’d likely fire one shot and be drained. But say for the sake of argument that he was able to produce all that webbing, he’d have to be eating constantly to provide his body with raw materials to produce the stuff. And even if he was continually stuffing his face, remember, he’s supposed to be broke. Who’s buying him all that food? Disbelief: 3, Suspension: 0.

So these are the things that go through my mind while I watch Spidey fighting bad guys. Maybe I’m the only one. Who knows.

You’re completely missing the point. The 99% aren’t in the streets because they want handouts. They’re protesting because  the 1% robbed them of the American Dream. There’s a severe imbalance in your country right now and it’s only getting worse. You should really pay closer attention to what’s going on and take the people marching in the streets as the wake-up call that it is.

The definition of the American Dream is that “life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement regardless of social class or circumstances of birth.” Unfortunately, and as your stories on http://the53.tumblr.com/ make painfully clear, life is not better, richer or fuller for everyone and there is no opportunity for each according to ability, achievement or regardless of social class. The picture your stories paint is of an America where you work your butts off and get kicked in the teeth for it. That’s not how it’s supposed to be.

An elite few are robbing you blind and you can’t see it. Hard work should be rewarded with more than the knowledge that you’re going to die working, or from an illness you can’t get treated. If you think that working hard your whole life doing menial labour just so you can die broke and possibly due to sickness is the American Dream, why don’t you just move to a third-world country now?

When Blockbuster Canada shut its doors a few weeks a go I decided to go fully digital and rent / buy / stream my movies online. For most movie purchases and rentals I now rely on iTunes, but I also use Netflix to stream content. All of this of course, requires a lot of downloading.

I also suffered a hard drive crash. A couple of seconds of weird sounds came from the external drive and poof, it was dead. Without so much as a few hours of touch-and-go performance so I could transfer my files. All my movies, music, files and photos, gone. (Thankfully the bulk of our family photos were on my wife’s computer.) The lesson? Make sure you back up your files. The broader lesson? If you’re going to back up your files, make sure you have an offsite copy. Otherwise, you won’t be protected against fire/water damage or burglary. This of course, requires a lot of uploading.

Finally, I’ve been to the States for business and pleasure a few times this past year. Every time I cross the border it’s like I’m in a digital third-world country. Not because the U.S. doesn’t have good cell coverage but because my telco, Bell Mobility, wants to charge me ridiculous prices for data and voice and give me a joke of a service in return. It’s a legal con.

Meanwhile, Bell Internet, imposes a 100 gigabyte monthly usage cap. And this on the highest package they offer. With all this downloading and uploading (I had to seed about 600 gigabytes of data for the backup) I far exceeded that limit. In fact, last I checked I was still hovering somewhere around 450 gigabytes of download/upload. Thankfully with Bell, even though they charge $2.50 a gigabyte after you surpass your limit (!), they stop charging at $60. Some telcos, like Videotron, don’t.

What I want to know is, when will these telecommunications companies catch up with the modern age? People travel and want to use their mobile phones. People watch movies and listen to music. People need to use these services and don’t appreciate the gatekeepers trying to shamelessly rob them blind at every turn. Not only is it bad form, it stifles the economy and innovation. Companies like Netflix, for example, can’t bring their service to Canada properly because of Bell’s ridiculous overage charges.

Occupy Wall Street? I think Wall Street is only the beginning.

It wasn’t long after the birth of democracy in Athens, Greece, that “problem politicians” began to crop up. These are the stereotypical politicians who are in it for themselves, not the people they’re elected to represent. They aren’t in the job because they can make a difference–though they may have started out that way at the beginning of their careers. No, they’re in it for the power, the prestige, and to make their campaign contributors happy. These are career politicians who love the job. If only there was a way to pick people who didn’t want the job. People who weren’t beholden to campaign contributors and their agendas. People who could care less about the lobbyists. People who just want to get things done so they can get back to their regular lives. And then it hit me. The model already exists in jury duty.

Proposal 1: Jury Duty

We randomly pick people to serve on jury duty all the time. The idea is of course that if you randomly pick people from the population, you mitigate the risk of people putting themselves forward for dishonourable or self-serving reasons. We need the equivalent of jury duty for public office. People shouldn’t want to do it, but qualified people should be called on by their city, state and country to serve their fellow citizens. Their terms should be limited and their compensation reasonable.

“How would these people be picked?” you might ask. After all, randomly putting people in positions of power would be a recipe for disaster, wouldn’t it? To answer that I first point you to the current system. Are we better off with self-serving career politicians who don’t necessarily have their constituents’ best interests at heart to begin with? “But surely someone who doesn’t know the first things about running a city would be a terrible choice.” Again, what is the primary profession of the majority of politicians we elect today? They’re almost all lawyers. Lawyers know law, they aren’t trained to run cities, states or countries. They rely on their staff to provide them with the information they need to make decisions. What’s more, we don’t pick our politicians on their qualifications. It’s a popularity contest. Who has the bigger advertising campaign? Whose handlers polished them enough to come off as the “right candidate?” No, we don’t need polished lawyers to decide what’s best for our towns. We just need thinkers, and they don’t necessarily need to be lawyers. We could pick scientists, engineers, architects, programmers, the list is a long one. And you know what? We wouldn’t be any better or worse off when it comes to “is this the right guy for the job?” Because picking a candidate on popularity is about as random as the jury lottery. Except doing the latter means you cut out the self-interest portion from the equation.

Proposal 2: A Second Vote

I admit that this system may be too radical (for now), so here’s the other, less radical epiphany I had this past week. A second vote. We vote our politicians into office, which is great. I propose we have a second vote at the end of their term. A vote to see if they did the job honourably. They may have stumbled, they may have outright failed, and neither of those matter. What matters is, were they honest and did they treat the office with respect? If so, great. Thanks for your effort, have a nice day. If not, jail time. In my mind, nothing is a greater deterrent to political scumbaggery than being judged by your constituents with jail time as a potential consequence. I had originally thought of a public hanging, but that’s a bit harsh, right?

As I’d expected, it was physically challenging. Though to my great surprise, it was as much, if not more mentally challenging. In other words, during most workouts, my mind threatens to give out way before my body does.

This revelation has lead me to learn a couple of very important lessons. The first is that showing up is huge. You can’t do anything till you’re there so just get your butt there. Once you’re there, you’re committed and it’s automatic.

The second lesson is that you’d be surprised at how much your body can do if you can get your mind out of the way. It never fails, we’ll start a workout and all I can think of is “a hundred of these? I’m going to die!” But before you know it, I’m at thirty, then fifty and woah, I’m past the halfway mark. Soon I’m at sixty, then seventy-five… almost there! When I finish the workout I wonder what happened. Did I black out? I’m done? How’d it happen? Had I listened to my mind and given in to the fear of “a hundred!? Are you crazy??” I would never have discovered just how much I could actually do.

Though I still battle with the psychology of it all, it’s slowly starting to sink in that there are broader applications to these lessons. First, whatever it is that I want to accomplish, before anything I need to show up. Second, if I can set aside my fears and reservations and get on with it, who knows how far I can go and what great things I can accomplish!

That being said, we can’t try our hand at everything. Nor do we want to. So in lieu of picking up a rifle and going to war, or making millions only to lose it all because of bad decisions, we can read about it from those who have gone before us. Reading opens up our world to the experiences of countless others who have lived entire lives unlike our own. Through their writing you can travel to the ends of the earth, make and squander fortunes, find love and have your heart crushed, climb to the top of the world and live in the gutter, all from the comfort of your couch.

So pick up a book, any book, and read. Who knows, you just might learn something.

The lesson here, I think, is summed up quite nicely by Homer Simpson’s immortal words:

You tried your best and failed miserably. The lesson is: never try.

Needing to shed about 30 pounds, I’ve found myself paying closer attention to nutrition. I expected to find at least some consensus on the subject. But no. Instead, I found the “experts’” advice to not just vary slightly, but to be diametrically opposed! Suffice it to say, the experience has left me feeling somewhat confused and bewildered. I mean, reading the same publication on any given month will give you differing data. And forget about getting your information online. The Internet is an echo chamber on steroids when it comes to nutrition. You can find information to back any point of view: eat meat, don’t eat meat; eat carbs, don’t eat carbs; eat fruits and vegetables, stay away from fruit; meat protein causes heart disease, meat protein doesn’t cause heart disease. What!?

If I see another article titled, “everything you know about nutrition is wrong,” I’m going to punch someone. I mean seriously, we aren’t talking about comparing belief systems here, we’re talking about food and how it affects our physiology. You’d think that by 2011, we’d have some definitive insight into that most fundamental process.

“He is, but why can’t you approach him yourselves?”

“We tried. He didn’t believe us.”

“So you need me to convince him.”

“Yes.”

“Alright.”

“OK, hold my hand, we’ll go now,” he said, extending his hand.

“Wait. You can’t just appear in the Oval Office. We might get shot before we utter a word.”

“Right. So what do you suggest?”

“Take me back to my cabin, I’ll call him first,” she explained.

He reached out and held her hand and they disappeared. At that very instant, there was a flash of blue light in the woods surrounding Colleen’s parents’ cabin.

“Wait out here, I’ll just be a moment,” she instructed. She walked off toward the cabin. It took her about ten minutes before she returned, phone in hand. “I had to change. It’s bad enough I traveled to another planet in my pyjamas.” She dialled the White House switchboard. “Yes, this is Colleen Banks for President Banks. Yes, I realize the President is sleeping. It’s extremely important. Please wake him.”

“One moment please,” the operator responded.

She listened to muzak for a good ten minutes until finally, someone came back on the line.

“Colleen, is that you?” It wasn’t her brother.

“Yes, it’s me. Heather?”

“Yes,” It was Heather Milbank, the President’s Chief of Staff. “Colleen, it’s three o’clock in the morning. Can’t this wait? The President, your brother, needs his sleep.”

“Listen, I’m not a child and don’t appreciate being ‘handled.’ Put my brother on the phone, now,” she said sternly.

“Alright, but it’s your hide.”

The line clicked and began ringing. It took a few rings, but finally someone picked up.

“Yes?” came the groggy voice of her brother.

“Eric, it’s me.”

“Colleen, what’s wrong? Are mom and dad alright?”

“Yes, yes, they’re fine. I need to talk to you right away. It’s a matter of life and death.”

“Col, what is it?”

“Not over the phone, face to face. But I needed to call you first before showing up, otherwise the Secret Service might get spooked.”

“Yeah, yeah, okay. I’ll tell them to expect you at the gate. But you’re at the cabin, you won’t be here till tomorrow anyway.”

“No, not the gate, and no, not tomorrow. Right now.”

“Col, what the hell are you talking about?”

“Trust me, just go down to your office and make sure your security detail doesn’t open fire when I show up.”

“Alright, alright, I’m going. But if you’re messing with me, that’s it for three AM calls.”

“You won’t be disappointed, Eric. I’ll see you in a couple of minutes.” She hung up the phone. “It’ll take him a couple of minutes to walk from the Executive Residence to the Oval Office. Let’s just be safe and give him five. She kept an eye on the time readout on her phone. When the time had elapsed, she reached for her friend’s hand and they vanished.

Eric Banks was in the Oval office wearing his silk pyjamas and a robe with the President’s seal on it. A skeptic, he’d decided to humor Colleen only because she was his sister. Maybe she was just working through the trauma of losing her husband. He didn’t know. But he figured kid gloves was the best way to deal with her for now. He’d told his detail that no matter what happened in the next five minutes, to keep their sidearms holstered. That only made them nervous and more alert. They tenuously agreed, but when it came to the safety of the Commander in Chief, sometimes you just had to lie in order to keep him safe.

He was about to head back to bed when out of nowhere the room lit up with a bright blueish light. As soon as that happened the doors to the Oval Office flew open and in poured half a dozen Secret Service agents, guns drawn. They rushed the President and began evacuating him from the room when a voice yelled out, “wait!”

It was Colleen. She was standing in the middle of the room with a man. The agents didn’t stop evacuating POTUS until he’d given the order. Three times. Evacuating the President was one of their most rigorously rehearsed procedures. You didn’t stop for anyone or anything until the President was secured. His repeated orders however, paused the procedure. For now. At this point there were another ten agents in the room and the number seemed to be growing.

“Eric, it’s me, Colleen! Please, my friend just wants to talk,” she said, her voice trembling. Staring down a couple dozen SIG Sauer 229s in the hands of trained professionals will do that to a person. She knew to expect some show of force, but the raw energy of the Secret Service in action had shaken her. For his part, her friend seemed pretty unaffected by it all.

“Col, how the hell did you… appear there!?” the President asked from behind a phalanx of agents.

“My friend. He’s able to travel anywhere in the blink of an eye. That’s why I called you first. I didn’t want to alarm your detail.” She paused. “Guess it didn’t work.”

“What the hell’s going on Colleen?” her brother asked.

“Sir, if I may?” asked the stranger standing next to his sister.

The President nodded.

“Well, sir, there’s no way to say this without sounding crazy, but your planet is in grave and imminent danger.”