Get'cha Head in the Game

It would appear that the only people reading this blog are the ones that write it. That being what it is, the least we could do is something to entertain each other. (Remember the story about the bear with the LiveStrong bracelet?) Anyway, I’ve come up with a game. Here’s what we’ll do:

1. Program your I-pod to random.
2. Write down the first three songs.
3. Write something special about them.

That’s all. It’ll be fun. Can’t wait to read about your music. And…GO!
I’ll even start.

Song 1: Swinging on a Star – Bing Crosby
I love Bing Crosby. My favourite movie is “White Christmas,” but I also love “The Bells of St. Mary’s,” and “Going My Way.” This song is from “Going My Way,” when he’s trying to get all the bad-ass kids to sing in a choir so they’ll stay out of trouble. It’s awesome. This song says you’ll grow up to be a mule, or a pig, or a fish if you don’t go to school and have nice manners. A song with a moral; them were the good ol’ days.

Song 2: Get'cha Head In The Game – High School Musical Soundtrack
I have my I-pod set so that when it picks up music, it picks it up from the general music selection and not a specialized folder. This means that it has every single song that has ever been entered into my I-tunes library. Both of my kids have I-pods so I also pick up their music. (And Christmas music.) That being said—I love this movie and know every song word for word. And also, it’s a good running song.

Song 3: Starry-Eyed Surprise – Paul Oakenfold
Another good running song. I first heard this song on a Diet Coke commercial (the one with the girl on rollerskates and the bubbles). I loved this song so much that I spent the next four months asking every one I met if they had ever heard this song and who it was by and what it was called. Finally, a girl in one of my classes (Anna—the knower of all) had heard it and knew who it was by and what it was called and I ran to the library to see if I could find it, and they had it, and so now I have it. And also, this is one of the songs that I play full-blast before a football game so the boys can sing at the top of their lungs and get pumped up. Listening to eleven-year-olds sing the lyrics “Eclectic electric, ladies of the evenin’, drinkin’ booze and minglin’” is rather amusing.

Hockey vs. Baseball

This post is in honour of the 2008-09 season that starts in just a few short days. Originally, this piece was part of a bigger piece that extolled the virtues of Canada and used, only for comparison purposes, our neighbours to the south. This is not meant, in any way, to insult any American readers.


Hockey is to Canada what baseball is to the United States. There are Canadians who profess to dislike hockey, but I’m pretty sure they’re just kidding. A Canadian who doesn’t like hockey is like a college student who doesn’t like extra money; I’ve never met one, and I doubt they exist.

Americans, however, seem to prefer baseball. Baseball is very boring to watch. In baseball, the batting team spends most of its time sitting in a dugout and spitting out streams of tobacco. The players in the field spend most of their time crouched and ready to move in case the batter happens to hit the ball, which doesn’t happen that often. Sometimes, when the batter actually hits the ball and it’s flying out into the infield, he can run to first base. But usually, by the time the batter gets there, the first baseman is already holding the ball. Then the player is out and he has to go back to the dugout, sit down, and spit out streams of tobacco.

And then there is hockey. Hockey is two and a half hours of fast-paced, action-packed, sit-on-the-edge-of-your-seat excitement. Both teams play at the same time and skate so hard and so fast that each player only plays for about a minute at a time so he doesn’t get winded. Where baseball consists mostly of people standing still in one place, hockey is about constant motion. As columnist Andrew Coyne from the National Post writes, “It’s ice dancing, only with more bruises and fewer sequins.”

Speaking of bruises—hockey players are known for their bruises and scars and missing teeth. Baseball players are disabled by violent sneezes (Sammy Sosa), sleeping on their eyes funny (Chris Brown), and straining their elbows flipping sunflower seeds (Greg Harris). In May of 2006, during the playoff games, Oiler, Ryan Smyth was accidentally hit in the face with the puck. Smyth lost three teeth, cracked both lips, and after a quick trip to the locker room for stitches, was back in the game to score the winning goal in overtime. In 1964, Bob Baun of the Toronto Maple Leafs won the Stanley Cup playing on a broken ankle. We can see why we consider our hockey players so heroic. Hockey players play their game harder than anyone expects of them; baseball players miss games for accidentally rubbing chili juice in their eyes (Bret Barberie).

One of baseball’s advantages is that most of the players still have all of their teeth. Besides that very minor detail, hockey is, all around, the better sport.

Mr. Dressup vs. Mr. Rogers

Both Mr. Dressup and Mr. Rogers were popular children’s TV hosts. Their shows ran from the late 60s, and although both these men have since died, their shows have been seen by the current generation of children.

Fred Rogers and Ernie Coombs (Mr. Dressup) came to Canada from the United States in 1963 to develop a children’s show for CBC. Ernie Coombs liked working in Canada so much that he stayed here to work on a show called Butternut Square. His show, Mr. Dressup premiered in 1967. Fred Rogers appeared on CBC as well in the early 60s, then went back to the United States. His show premiered in 1968. Having seen both shows as a child, I can say without hesitation that Mr. Dressup was better.

Mr. Dressup would go into his Tickle Trunk every show and become a wizard, or a pirate, or a big, feathery bird; Mr. Rogers would go into his closet every show and change his shoes. Mr. Dressup was intelligent, fast-paced, and exciting; Mr. Rogers felt that preschoolers could not understand what was being said unless he spoke slowly. His website claims, “He leaves time for children to reflect and respond, and he takes time to prepare them for what will come next and to explain what has happened before.” Kids already know what happened—they were there. And when he “takes the time to prepare them for what will come next,” he is taking away the exciting element of surprise. Mr. Dressup was always part of the fun. He thought up the skit that he and his puppet friends would act out; he often showed us how to make the costumes at craft time, and on every single show, he let go of his pride to have fun with his viewers. Mr. Rogers actually made a point of never appearing in the Neighborhood of Make-Believe. According to his website, he felt that his young viewers would have a hard time sorting out who was a real person and who was make-believe. Funny that we Canadian kids didn’t have a problem figuring out the difference between make-believe and reality while watching Mr. Dressup.

Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood wasn’t all bad; he had some fun tours of factories, and the cranky puppet known as Lady Elaine was pretty entertaining. But when comparing the two, I think we can all agree that Mr. Dressup had the better show.

My Bubble

I live in a bubble. I love my bubble. I find that news stories make me angry and sad and I don’t like that. I don’t want to read about feral children, and beheadings on busses, and teenagers shot at house parties. I want news to go back to how it was when I was a kid. When times were simple and, well, let me give you some examples:

1992 – A 35-year-old car mechanic, a housewife, and a teenager involved in a torrid love triangle. Joey Buttafuoco, a prince among men, started an affair with 16-year-old Amy Fisher. Joey treated Amy like a queen—he had sex with her in seedy motel rooms and then went home to his wife and children, he set her up with an escort agency when she was low on cash, he even gave her herpes. So, of course, it was totally understandable that she would fall deeply in love with him, so deeply in fact, that she figured out a way to get rid of the other woman, Joey’s wife Mary Jo. Amy shot Mary Jo in the face. Didn’t kill her, but you could tell the intention was there.

1993 – If you marry a guy with a hillbilly name, he’s probably going to be trouble (I know that sounds like maybe somebody famous said that, but really I just made it up on the spot.) Lorena Bobbitt found that out the hard way. Her husband, John Wayne Bobbitt raped her, forced her to have an abortion, abused her for years until one day she got so fed up that she cut off his penis. Then, she got in her car, penis still in hand, drove for a while and threw it out the window into a field. She then called 911, they found the severed penis, and sewed it back on. The best part of this whole episode, though, is after John Wayne got his penis back, he became a porn star. Seriously. A porn star. I think that just speaks for itself.

1994 – Remember when you were a teenager, and there was always that girl that was just a little bit better than you? Maybe she played the flute better or played basketball better. And maybe you mentioned this girl to your boyfriend, and being the type who only wants to fix your problems he took a bat and attacked this girl after practice one night. That’s what happened when figure skating champion Tonya Harding’s husband, Jeff Gillooly heard about little Nancy Kerrigan. What’s funny is that I’m really not sure how big of a story this would have been if Gillooly wasn’t such a fun name to say.

I’m sure Mary-Jo, John Wayne, and Nancy didn’t think these were such amusing stories, but for the rest of the world, they were entertainment. It’s these stories that I allow in my bubble. So now you know.

The Beginning of the End

I bought some make-up the other day. That may not seem like a big deal to anyone else. Trust me; it is a huge deal. Cause here’s the thing. Make-up is the beginning of a very short road to being elderly. I bet you can’t name one old woman who won’t leave the house without “putting her face on.” There is a certain age that a woman decides that her friends, family, and even perfect strangers should not, under any circumstances, be forced to look upon her naked face.

Next in the short road to elderly-ness is being paranoid. Now that I’ve bought make-up, I predict that it won’t be long before I’m tying my purse handle to the shopping cart and shredding every piece of paper that comes into my home. I’ll start asking friends at lunch to “please watch my purse” while I run to the ladies’ room and I’ll refuse to order anything on-line.

Then it’s a slippery slope to wearing pastel-coloured polyester pants with elastic waistbands and shirts with kittens outlined in sequins. I’ll have short, curly salt-and-pepper hair, beige nurse-shoes, and eyeglasses hanging by a chain.

I bought make-up. I’m afraid.

I have nothing to say

I've never written for a blog before. I've read them though, so I feel like I'm an expert on what is and what isn't a blogworthy subject. All the same, I have spent the last two weeks trying to decide what to write. I've come up with hundreds of ideas (well, tens of ideas, but that doesn't have the same ring to it). And all I've ended up with is a list of subjects that I think are unblogworthy. Subjects that nobody in their right mind would ever want to read about. Naturally, I've made a list of some of the subjects I won't be blogging about.

1. Recipes.
My aunt's brother-in-law's wife's great-grandmother once made some peanut butter cookies that my uncle's father's friend Tom really, really liked. I know you're all thinking that you must have this recipe. I mean, Tom really loved these cookies and so it's pretty much guaranteed that these are the best peanut butter cookies that you'll ever taste. Seriously? Is there anyone out there who needs this recipe? Doesn’t everybody already have a peanut butter cookie recipe, and is anyone really thinking, “I’ve always loved my own peanut butter cookie recipe, but Tom has never raved about my cookies. Maybe I better try this random blogger’s aunt’s brother-in-law’s wife’s great grandmother’s recipe that random blogger’s uncle’s father’s friend Tom really liked?” Don’t worry I won’t be blogging about recipes.

2. My fifth birthday party.
I wore a yellow dress with a green satin ribbon belt. I don’t actually remember, but I’ve seen pictures. Ironically I seem to be pretty happy, despite the fact that my mom went and got all my hair cut off so that the only way you can actually tell that it’s a girl in the picture is the yellow dress with the green satin ribbon belt.

3. Mustaches.
Mustaches don’t really lend themselves to good blogging fodder. Besides listing off different kinds of mustaches, what else is there to write about them. Sure I could tell you about how you can tell what kind of man someone is by how he dresses his upper lip, but that could just become a bitter diatribe about stupid people I’ve met in my lifetime and who really wants to hear that. Mustaches are not something I’ll be blogging about.

4. Work.
I have some great work stories. And great work gossip that very few people know. I could go on and on about things I’ve heard about certain disliked people in the office, but…alas…blogging about work is off limits. Shoot. I really wanted to share.

5. Music.
If you google “music blogs,” you will get over 71 million hits. I’m guessing (because the first sentence took all of my research skills) that most of these blogs speak somewhat intelligently about the subject of music. I do not. I am not at all sophisticated in the way of music. I can’t discuss the riff in the fifth stanza; I do not know the difference between a violin and a viola (besides the obvious fact that one of them has more letters than the other). I don’t know everything there is to know about any genre of music; I don’t even know the names of most of the bands that play songs on my current radio station. I do know all the lyrics to the songs on the RENT soundtrack. I can sing and play drums with all the songs in RockBand (I can’t play the guitar, though; it hurts my thumb). All I’m trying to say is that I won’t be blogging about music.

That’s why I don’t blog. I have nothing to say. I’ll keep thinking though; you’ll be the first to know as soon as I think of something blogworthy. Promise.

THE WAY WE WORK

Welcome to our blog. There are a bunch of us, because we all want a blog, but nobody wants to be responsible for daily upkeep. Cause we're lazy like that.

So here's the way it's going to work:

1. No discussing work (except in the most vague terms).
2. We are trying to remain anonymous, so no blowing each other's covers.
3. There may be multiple posts on some days and no posts on others--readers should make a note of this and scroll down to see if they've missed anything. It's important that every single word is read.
4. Every person and every company has a code name...it'll be fun.