Weird tales from the campaign 1

Warning: This blog contains material of a (robo) sexual nature.

Domo Arigato.

Campaigns are filled with weirdness. But having covered three federal elections, I can honestly say, I have never heard of anything as weird as this.

Jamie Butler, a camera-operator and editor for Global News, last night had a run in with a robot.

Or at least, the cast-off tinfoil-covered cardboard remains of a homemade robot suit.

It was waiting for Butler as he arrived at the Hotel Saskatchewan in Regina.

In his room. On top of a desk, beside what was supposed to be his bed.

Butler is shooting and editing video for the television pool covering the Layton campaign.

After a long day on the road, Butler arrived at the door of his hotel room last night, opened it, and was surprised to see the room had been, in his words, "trashed."

"It looked like somebody had a massive party in my room. It was trashed, towels everywhere, stuff on the floor." 

Now, on the campaign trail the first impression of (yet another) hotel room is important. It sets the tone for the night you might have.

Generally speaking, a tidy pile of fluffy pillows atop a puffy duvet is a good sign.

Dirty cups on desks, piles of towels on the floor are not a good sign.

And that's what Butler found.

But it wasn't all he found: "I walked in and looked around, and there was a suit of, I guess, armour, you could call it, sitting on the desk."

Call it a robot shell, discarded in a heap like some kind of freshly-molted faux techno skin.

"It was male-sized," Butler observed. "There were spare parts."

Without daring to touch the mess, Butler examined his find.

There were tin-foil covered tubes that might have served as robot legs, or arms.

There was a tin-foil covered cardboard breast plate, with a reasonable facsimile of buttons and dials on the front and a sign or emblem, on the back.

That emblem was printed on a piece of regular 8.5" by 11" paper, which was in turn taped, or glued to the back of suit.

It depicted two robot silhouettes, one green, one blue. They were holding hands, standing under a rainbow.

Emblazoned under the robo-pictogram was a logo that, in the end, explained all: "Robosexuals," it read.

Butler asked for a different room.

(All photos: Jamie Butler, Global National / TV Pool)