The noise about the upcoming Canadian DMCA made me remember the Pig and the Box, which is well over a year old now.  And strangely enough, I just happen to have new translations available as of today!

The Russian version is courtesy of Nikita, Katja and Kirill, who have done a great job introducing me to a language I have no hope of understanding on my own.  Many thanks to them for helping me through the Great Italics Disaster of 2007   You can download the Russian version here.

The Swedish version has actually been finished for a long time, and I humbly apologize to Patrik for not announcing it before.  I see by my email records that I first received his work over a year ago, which means I’m far too stupid to live.  You can download the Swedish version here.

And finally, I have the Dutch version for you!  This one comes courtesy of Marco, who also did the Dutch Crow book.  He did a ton of really hard work on this, and I feel extra-super-bad that I didn’t make a proper announcement in a timely fashion (although it was available to download).  You can download the Dutch version here.

I’d just like to thank everyone that’s sent in translations over the last year, and let you know how cool it is for me that my silly little book is able to travel so far thanks to all of you.  This is what Creative Commons is all about, and I’m so glad I could be part of it!

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As expected, the government has prioritized copyright reform, promising to “improve the protection of cultural and intellectual property rights in Canada, including copyright reform.” No words of balance, no words of access – simply more protection led by copyright legislation. This suggests – consistent with most speculation – that a DMCA-style bill could be coming to Canada within a matter of weeks.

It’s highly unlikely that any of the major parties will oppose this legislation, since it’s usually framed in terms of: “Canadian culture is under attack from American influences… the only way for our ideas to become stronger is to give our artists better copyright protections”. Nobody will vote against it because it’ll seem like a vote for Hollywood (which is true irony).

If only there was a Pirate Party in Canada, and there’d be an election before the copyright bill was introduced. And, well, we had enough votes to do something about it. Sigh.

It’s just about that time of year again, so we here at PTTBT thought it’d be good review some of the basic rules of how to avoid getting sick during flu season. If some of these weren’t obvious to you, you might want to go buy NyQuil now, cause you’re hopeless.

1. Wash Your Hands
Read this vital article about proper hand-washing, and practice it religiously. Carry anti-bacterial spray wherever you go, and right after shaking someone’s hand, spray both your palms and rub them together for at least 2 minutes in absolute silence (whispering to yourself is okay too). It’s not generally known, but 99.5% of all deadly bacteria in the world live on your hands (yes yours, don’t try and pass the blame, buddy), and the only way to keep them at bay is to clean them out like Microsoft Windows Defender kills viru… er… never mind.

2. Stop Making Out With Sick People
This is especially important if your significant other isn’t sick at the time. The easiest way to catch something nasty is to DO something nasty with someone dripping mucus from various areas of their body. Common diseases like Rhubarb Syndrome, Lasseter’s Finger Rot and Orang-utan Flu are all easily transmitted by mouth-to-orifice contact. If the person you’re about to smooch has a mini-pack of tissues in the pocket, stop drop and roll, my friend. Stop, drop and roll.

3. Wear Appropriate Clothing
If you’re going to the opera and it’s near-freezing outside, don’t wear a t-shirt and Hawaiian shorts on your way there. It’s freezing, you idiot! When your body is exposed to low temperatures without proper cover, it becomes worn and stressed and begins doing silly things like hooking up with perfect strangers it met over the internet for Pictionary parties, which typically degrade into drinking contests where everyone loses. Instead, throw on a tux for when you’re riding the bus, and switch into your more festive attire in the opera house washrooms. A little common sense goes a long way.

4. Pre-emptively Self-Medicate
Germs hate medicine like NyQuil or NeoCitran because they make you dizzy and happy (germs like misery and anguish, you may have noticed). The best way to keep germs away is to drink at least half a bottle of highly drowsy medication once a day (double-dose on Mondays, half-dose on Fridays and weekends), topped off with strong scotch or Newfoundland’s famous Screech. You’ll know you’ve got it right when the walls start dripping. Some may call this “addiction”, but those people are generally crabby because they’re not trippin’ on candy-flavoured goodness.

5. Don’t Go Outside
The majority of germs in the world exist outside, which is why it’s absolutely vital that you not leave your home. Build an airlock around your front door, and be sure that any pizza or raw produce coming into your home is sprayed heavily with antibacterial mist (don’t worry, ingesting large quantities of the spray is actually good for your digestive tract… makes it tougher and less of a pansy-ass). If you have extremely persistent friends or family who attempt to come inside your “clean room”, simply start screaming hysterically and curl into a ball and roll around on the floor until they go away. You can’t trust them, no matter how nice they seem: they’re vessels for disease, and they must be kept out.

Hopefully, with these simple tricks at your disposal, you’ll be safe this flu season. Unlike us here at PTTBT, who have spent the last 20 hours praying for death as a mystery illness devours our soul and leaves us empty shells of rot and festering mortality. Damn you, Rita the cleaning lady!

The next few days may be light, FYI.

Radiohead!

Yes, insiders say that selling their latest album sold over 21 million units, which in itself is quite a big deal. But, whether driven by a sense of moral duty or just extravagant wealth, the average “price” paid by fans was over $500! As a result, the band is now now $10.5 billion richer, and looking for fun things to do.

“Thom [Yorke, lead singer of Radiohead] is a big Facebook user, but was getting pissed off because he kept getting all these stupid app invitations,” said another unnamed source, “So he decided to buy the company and put a stop to them. I mean, since he was filthy rich and everything.”

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg had reportedly been holding out for a pay day well over $20B, and rebuffed Radiohead’s advances as he had with Yahoo, Microsoft and Google. However, it was Yorke’s willingness to employ Blackwater to surround the Facebook compound with heavily-armed humvees that really sealed the deal.

“Mark can’t come to the phone right now, he’s hiding under his desk this afternoon,” said Zuckerberg’s secretary, Alana when we called earlier.

More as the story develops.

Brian asks: “You’ve got a show being produced for TV, and yet you have no apparent skills. How did you get a show through the production process? Do you have any tips? Who did you bribe first?

Well, Brian-with-no-last-name, this is a very complex question. If I had to give a quick answer, I’d say: “Lightning Blue”, but I guess without context, that’s pretty confusing. So let’s start at the very beginning…

When you first come up with the idea for a new TV show, you have to realize that nobody will want to hear about it. There are some people that will claim to want to hear about it, but they just want to know enough to effectively duplicate the concept without feeling obligated to pay for lunch. To TV types, new ideas are poison, and they will quite possibly turn green at the idea that they’re being pitched something (this is why there are so many cop and doctor shows around).

To get around this, you need to frame your idea in a new and confusing way. I find it works wonders if I talk about my ideas as if they’re social network websites. For example…

YOU: “I’m working on this new site. I think it could be the next Flickr.”

PRODUCER: “Really? I love Flickr! I keep all my sultry rabbit pictures there!”

(uncomfortable pause)

YOU: “Anyway, the site is based around a bunch of pirate pages that are transported by spaceship code as they fight to coordinate a mobile web experience against the threat of a shady subnet of extra-governmental code warriors.”

PRODUCER: “You know… I think there might be a TV show in there, if we change a few things…”

YOU: “No! Really? You’re pullin’ my leg…”

Once you’ve signed up one producer, the rest is fairly easy. The producer will go on extensive plane trips to far-off places, pitching your idea in a fast-paced, exciting way that often resembles: “Boom! Zip! Swish swish… Boobs! Duck! Twist! Surprise! Ahhhh…”

In the meantime, you’ve got to get ready to fill in the missing pieces (ex: plot, character, purpose). This is usually done in a document called a Bible, named thusly because very few people will ever bother to read it, and those that do will generally treat you like some kind of messiah, even though you were probably drunk on pre-emptively-celebratory booze when you wrote it. The Bible will be delivered to any broadcast execs that are taken in by the sound effects in the producer’s pitch, and they will tell their secretaries to read it cover-to-cover and report any interesting Freudian slips in the text.

The next two years are called “The Taco Years”, because you will have used up your Option and Bible-writing money, and will have to resort to eating tacos to make ends meet. If you were especially silly with the money you were paid, the term will take on extra significance because you will be forced to work at Taco Bell as well. It doesn’t actually take 2 years for an executive to decide whether or not to pick up a series… they simply pause at this point because all series creators enjoy being able to recount their “years of suffering as an artist” in press materials.

After the requisite delay, the exec will join his or her colleagues in a boardroom, stick all the pitches up on a bulletin board, and pick the new season’s shows based on the attractiveness of their header font. Typically, brighter colours work best in this regard. This is why, if I had to give a hint about how to get your show on TV, I would say to use at least 36pt bold, italic fonts in a colour known as “lightning blue”.

Anyone that tells you anything else is just trying to keep you out of the running.

Have a question for us? Just drop us a line at our question-specific email address, and we will consider covering it. Please note that we reserve the right to edit, censor or generally improve lackluster questions.

Dressed in his nightcap, he’d go for a ride,
Suddenly slumber, and his jockey would fly.

He was sent to the vet for a long MRI,
And they found a small modchip in the back of his eye!

They gave it a zap (as vets like to do)
And Henry discovered that he’d mastered kung fu!

And he spoke fifteen tongues (with a little Burmese),
Hacked NSA servers completely with ease…

The vet called the Feds and the Feds came with guns
But non-drowsy Henry found he really could run!

They sent in the choppers and they hunted him down,
But after a week, knew that Henry’d left town.

He’d gone deep under-cover in the slums of Algiers
To search for his past, and conquer his fears…

Met a man named Alfonso with an old salt cube store…
Zenned out upstairs for a half year or more…

And when he came to, his mem’ry was clear:
He was Henry the Horse, the one bad guys fear!

But he couldn’t return to his CIA past,
Till he knew who’d betrayed him the year before last…

With a clever fake moustache and a sidekick named Steven
He strapped on katanas and went out to get even!

Henry, Henry, the horse super-spy
Could “put you to sleep” in the blink of an eye!

Wonderful artwork again courtesy of the truly genius Ape Lad. And just so you know, I had no idea where I was going with this one till I wrote “MRI”…

Page 3 is up much faster than expected, and it makes me vaguely worried we’re going to run out of queued contributors… so if you’ve got a creative streak, drop me a line and I’ll add you to the list.

Just a few notes that’ve come up: size your images for 5:7 ratio (tall, that is), colour is great, JPG, TIF, anything like that works great.

Thanks to all!