Lakeside Lair

She's a year old!

2008-04-18T09:36:00.003-04:00

I can hardly believe it but Eve is one year old now. Aint' she sweet?

Earth Hour 2008

2008-03-28T13:19:00.003-04:00

This is such a small thing to do and not inconvenient at all so let's just have fun with it. Tomorrow, March 29th at 8pm, just turn your lights out for an hour.

For the Bible Tells Me So

2008-03-27T13:59:00.005-04:00

One of my favourite quotes was made by the late Erma Bombeck, "Guilt is the gift that keeps on giving." With a Catholic mom and a Baptist father and as a young adult becoming a Salvationist, I know guilt - and yes, it is the gift that keeps on giving.

In my early 30s when it became clear to me that I could not adhere to the heterosexual imperative our society demands, I stepped away from the church. Why hang around someplace where you know that they would run you out just for being who you are?

In the ensuing years I have had to find my own sense of spirituality but have often thought of all the young people, still within their churches, questioning their sexuality. I've read that suicide rates for young people who question their sexuality are much higher than the average and I often wonder if this is not because of the guilt and shame which is inflicted by fundamental and main-stream religions.

This past week while perusing the titles at the video store I came across this title:
For the Bible Tells Me So.

If you are a young person reading this who is struggling with your sexuality or a parent whose child has just revealed her/his sexuality, or anyone who has struggled with reconciling your faith with your sexuality, run to your video store and rent this film.

Six word memoir - meme

2008-03-17T11:07:00.003-04:00

I saw this at Hahn's blog and thought I'd use my humble graphics skills and my sick twisted mind to design this hypochondriac's testament:

I tag:

Here are the instructions for the meme:

1. Write your own six word memoir.
2. Post it on your blog and include a visual illustration if you’d like.
3. Link to the person that tagged you in your post.
4. Tag five more blogs with links.
5. And don’t forget to leave a comment on the tagged blogs with an invitation to play!

Andrea Martin

2008-03-16T09:25:00.005-04:00

I miss SCTV. I loved Andrea Martin's characters: Edith Prickly, Edna Boil, Pirini Scleroso and her impressions of Barbra Streisand, Connie Francis and Bernadette Peters. I think Ms Martin is brilliant and was delighted to see her in the film My Big Fat Greek Wedding.

Message in a Bottle

2008-02-23T09:58:00.003-05:00

I've been tagged for the first time in my bloglife.

Here are the rules:

You are about to send a virtual Message In a Bottle across the Blog Ocean. Leave a message in the sand or on the bottle. Write anything you wish. Be a pirate or a poet. Serious or silly. Anonymous or not.

What message would you like to send out to the universe?

Click here for a blank picture
Write Your message
Post it and let her know you did here
Tag 5 or more people
I tag:
JLee's Place
Drowsey Monkey
My Brain Hurts
Larry Hnetka Goes Hmm..
Rainbow Pastor

Having my first...

2008-02-21T09:03:00.003-05:00

My daughter is expecting her first baby in August. Yes, I'm to be a Memé again. In going through some old file folders I found this little piece I wrote not long after having her.

I loved being pregnant. As my belly grew, I wallowed in the glory of all the preferential treatment I received and the mounds of pecan pie that I consumed. Visions of cherubs filled my dreams. My waking hours were spent decorating the nursery and devouring parenting books and while I fought a loosing battle with girth control, I developed a stout determination to be the best mother that ever walked the earth.

What could possibly go wrong? After all, they're only babies, nature's most adaptable creatures. It would be easy to get an infant on a reasonable schedule within two weeks right? Yes, those were the blissful days filled with pleasant dreams and anticipation of giving birth to the Gerber baby.

Someone once told me that when something seems too good to be true, it usually is - I went into labour three weeks early. Now most people know me as a cool and quite competent woman but I must confess that when my water broke, I lost it. Had it not been for the composed demeanor of the seasoned head nurse, I most certainly would have forgotten everything I learned in prenatal class.

Once I got it together again and resigned myself to the fact that this baby was going to be born before I got the garage to put the snow tires on the car, the delivery went well. Apart from a brief moment of respiratory arrest when they made the mistake with the epidural and froze me from the waist up instead of from the waist down, it was eight mercifully brief hours of labour, delivery in a regular hospital bed and back to the ward in time for supper.

After the delivery I was consumed with energy, ready to tackle anything that came my way and when they brought little Jennifer to me I nursed her like an old pro. Shortly after feeding time was visiting hour and with my cooing bundle nestled in my arms I held court like the Queen Mum. Exuding confidence I proudly exhibited my latest accomplishment and boasted that I felt so good that I felt like going home then and there.

Before I knew it visiting hour was over, my new daughter was finished her final feeding and was whisked off the the nursery until the wee hours of the night when she would be returned to me for another fix. I settled down in bed to rest and dream about which of her new outfits I would bring her home in.

The morning bustle of the hospital roused me with vague recollections of fumbling in the dark with a screaming infant - surely a nightmare. When the nurse came in with my baby I asked her if anyone got the number of the bus that hit me. She giggled, placed Jennifer in my arms and on crepe soles squeaked away to get the rest of the layette.

Jennifer was wide away and hungry. Our eyes met and at that moment she began to howl. Perhaps I should have combed my hair I thought. Oh well, maybe if I feed her she might like me better. Calmly I began to go through the motions of breast feeding and as I pulled my baby towards me the reality of the situation overwhelmed me. I was condemned. For the next eighteen years I was solely responsible for this child.

Instantly my bravado dissolved, I was utterly inept and it wasn't long before I was howling louder than the baby. I spent the rest of the morning sobbing into my pillow, inconsolable, trying to bear the disgrace of knowing that my baby was in the nursery being bottle fed.

Tragedy in Toronto

2008-02-19T16:10:00.001-05:00

Canadians sure do like to poke fun at the American media.

Great Expectations

2008-02-17T18:43:00.001-05:00

I have come to realize that I have high expectations. I demand a lot of myself and push myself to achieve. As I write this I've just finished watching the documentary In the Shadow of the Moon and I'm remembering the joy, excitement, sense of adventure and pride I felt as a child during the early days of the space program. I don't think I realized it until just recently how much my childhood fascination with the space program influenced my life.

For as far back as I can remember my heroes were what today, we call nerds. Scientists and inventors who asked questions that no one else dared ask. Who dreamed of things beyond what the rest of the world thought possible. People who through hard work, sacrifice, dedication and an unswerving belief that what they alone dreamed could indeed be achieved, found a way to do the impossible - fantastic even.

I get goose bumps when I think that just about the time I was learning to ride my bike without training wheels, there were men, slide rule in hand, conceiving the plan to launch a human being into space. When I think of the whole space program, one word comes to mind - audacity. Dictionary.com defines it here:

au·dac·i·ty –noun. 1. boldness or daring, esp. with confident or arrogant disregard for personal safety, conventional thought or other restrictions.

I get goose bumps because I am thrilled to know that such daring exists. These folks at NASA took up a challenge to put a man on the moon within a decade. Perhaps today that doesn't sound like much of a feat but when you regard it in the context of the technology that existed at the time, the fact that they accomplished this is quite miraculous. The laptop upon which I type this probably has more computing power than all the devices which existed at Mission Control at that time. The astronauts, who were not simple barnstormers plucked off a circus tour but highly educated and trained pilots, knew that they could die in what they were attempting. They saw their friends die on the launch pad in a lift-off simulation yet they didn't waiver.

When I think about the courage and personal fortitude it took to pursue this goal, I get goose bumps. The astronauts, engineers, physicists, chemists, machinists etc. put their minds to accomplishing this goal, expected to accomplish this goal and did it. They did it.

I get goose bumps when I think that we ever thought we had the right to use space as we saw fit. Talk about the ultimate expression of eminent domain. I'm speaking to the little known cold-war program to put spies into space. At the same time our collective imaginations were being sparked by the advent of space flight, the American and Soviet governments were in another space race - one to put a team of men into space to spy on each other. The PBS series Nova covered this in a program called Astrospies.

So in watching the space program I grew up believing that anything was possible. I grew up believing that through hard work, I, and anyone else, could achieve. I grew up with high expectations of myself. I think what has driven me to survive an abusive marriage, raise my children, put myself through school and build the life I have is my expectation to succeed and achieve. Surely, if it were humanly possible to put a man on the moon it was possible for me to rise above whatever circumstance in which I found myself.

The downside to this belief is that I tend to think that just because I did it, others should be able to do so too. Sometimes I think I do others a disservice by projecting my own level of high expectation on them. I think in a lot of ways I pushed my expectations on my children. Recognizing their strengths and potential I can see how sometimes I have pushed them towards what I thought was best. The problem in that is that by doing so, I don't allow them to explore and learn from their own journey. It's hard when you are alone raising children not to become over protective or smothering. You know all the mistakes you've made and you don't want your kids to repeat them. The big lesson for me as I go through my middle years is to trust that I have given my kids all the tools they need to be decent, independent, responsible adults and have the audacity, if you will, to just step out of the way and let them be just that.

On clear, dark nights out here by the lake I still gaze at the sky. If I'm patient, I can see satellites orbiting above and think of Sputnik and a certain July event that was so thrilling it brought tears of pride and joy to Walter Cronkite's eyes. Although I'm learning to be more mellow as I age, when I look at the stars I feel sometimes it's alright to have high expectations because it gives us all something to reach for.

Good things grow in Ontario....

2008-02-04T08:18:00.001-05:00

I was cleaning up my hard drive and found these photos I took at Parkdale Market when I was visiting my mother in Ottawa late last summer.

Create a Free Slideshow

The Lobotomist

2008-02-03T11:23:00.001-05:00

Last Monday I felt fine. Had a few doctors appointments during the day and later that night settled in with my local PBS station.

They aired a program titled The Lobotomist. The program was an account of neurologist Walter Freeman who devised a procedure which came to be known as "ice-pick" lobotomy. It was performed by lifting the eye lid, inserting an ice-pick, using a hammer to tap the ice-pick through the bone in the orbital socket then moving the ice-pick from side to side to detach the frontal lobe from the thalamus. Sounds like something straight out of the Inquisition eh? Well this little operation was done, ostensibly to help patients suffering from various mental illnesses such as anxiety and depression.

I was horrified and the images in the documentary disturbed me but I simply couldn't change the channel. The next morning I woke up with one of the worst head colds I think I've ever had. I was so sick I couldn't move my head from side to side without feeling the most excruciating pain and dizziness.

While I was truly sick with high fever, chills, ear aches and horribly stuffed nose, after reading blog buddy, Dr. Deb's post on the Nocebo Effect, I can't help but wonder how much our subconscious mind plays a role in our physical health.

Winter 2007 at the Lair

2008-02-02T20:13:00.000-05:00

Took these photos just before the holidays.

The ghost of Tom

2008-02-02T13:56:00.001-05:00

In my life I've loved three men. The last man fathered my two children. The second man broke my heart. I woke up this morning thinking of the first man I ever loved.

I met Tom when I joined the youth group at our parish church. He was seventeen and I was twelve. To him I was just another skinny little girl in the choir and while he was always polite, he never really gave me the time of day. Still though, I knew I loved him.

At twelve I knew a lot about love. I had already had two real-live boy-girl dates with Jerry, an older man of fourteen - one where we took his kid sister to see Bedknobs and Broomsticks and he paid and even held my hand when we lined up for tickets and the second when we met at the rink across the street from my old grade school to go ice skating. He bought me a hot chocolate, made me laugh and kissed me on the teeth. He even brought me home to meet his mom and we spent an afternoon listening to and talking about his Black Sabbath Paranoid album. I really liked Jerry and he was the first boy to ask me to dance at the school dance and the first boy to peddle his bike half way across the west end just to go bike riding along the river with me.

I remember reading somewhere that the ancient Greeks had three words for love. Philia, indicating a brotherly/friendship love; eros, for a romantic/sexual love and agape for an unconditional/spiritual love. I suppose in my twelve year old brain I entertained the notion of a romantic love with Jerry, I mean he did kiss me, even if it was only on the teeth, but in hindsight what I felt for him was the love of friendship.

With Tom however, it was different. I had a big crush on him. He played the guitar and was the leader of the guitar masses we had at church. He looked like a cross between John Denver and Cat Stevens and while I watched him hang out with the older girls I secretly hoped that one day he'd notice me. My fantasy of some day being Tom's girl was shattered the Sunday morning our parish priest proudly announced that Tom had decided to enter the priesthood. Now those romantic fancies seemed wrong - sinful even - and had to be purged. I left the youth group and didn't see Tom again until one summer day when I was sixteen.

I was walking down Bank Street in The Glebe in Ottawa when I heard someone call my name. I turned around and there was Tom smiling at me and just as handsome as he ever was. I stood there, astounded as he threw his arms around me and gave me a big hug. I didn't think he would even remember me and here he was, warm wide grin under a bushy moustache telling me how great it was to see me. Cars, buses rushed by, pedestrians jostled me, for all I know a dog could have been pissing on my shoe but all I heard, all I was aware of was Tom asking me if I'd go have coffee with him. Over coffee he told me of his experiences at seminary while I nodded and smiled. After about an hour he said he had a bus to catch, got up and was gone. I didn't see him again until the fall when walking down Elgin Street I again heard someone call my name.

For the next three years that's how it was with us. Tom would pop into my life from out of the blue. We'd spend an afternoon, a few days, a week together then, poof, he'd be gone. In those interludes he'd sing to me the songs he'd written, read to me from his journals, we'd talk about art, music, poetry and all things spiritual. He found himself dissatisfied with the Church, left the seminary and for a time wondered what he would do with is life. He felt he was called to some type of service but wasn't sure what that would look like for him.

With Tom I saw the movie Midnight Express and pondered Warhol's soup cans at the National Gallery. These were things I couldn't do with the fellow I was dating at the time - the second man I loved; man who eventually broke my heart. If I were an ancient Greek I would say that what I felt for Tom was a combination of philia and agape. The girlish romantic infatuation of a twelve-year-old was transformed into the love one has for a kindred spirit, a pal, a buddy, someone who understands your quirks and loves you for them. He knew I was dating (and later became engaged to) the other fellow and I knew he dated other girls and that was fine because I didn't see Tom as someone to be romantic with. He was, as Anne of Green Gables says, a bosom friend.

Tom never kissed me. Not until the very last time I ever saw him. We had spent the day together and in the afternoon ended up at his parents' place where he shared a couple songs he was working on. I had a date that night with my fiancee and it was getting late so he walked me to the bus stop so I could get home in time to get ready. We made small talk as we waited for the bus and just as it arrived, Tom took me in his arms, gave me the most passionate kiss I had ever experienced in my then, nineteen years and said, "I don't want you to marry him, I want you to marry me." The doors to the bus opened and I hopped on, deposited my bus ticket, plopped down on a seat and as the bus pulled away watched Tom stand at the curb until I couldn't see him anymore. Heaven forgive me but the one thought that went through my head was, "Oh no, now he's ruined everything." Somewhere in those years that we were chumming around together, without me knowing it, Tom fell in love with me and I didn't know how to respond. So I didn't. He must have called the house every day for the next two weeks and I kept dodging his calls until he stopped calling.

About two years later, when I had broken up with the fiancee and was dating the man who I would later marry and have children with, my mother phoned me at work to tell me that Tom had been killed. The account of his death was not clear but he either fell or was pushed off a twelve-storey building. I couldn't bring myself to attend his funeral but did, months later, visit his grave.

I often think of Tom, his music, his prose, his humour, his smile and the love I felt for him. When I think of him I can't help but wonder what would have happened had I had the maturity and courage to not get on that bus, to answer his phone calls, to see him one more time.

Do you smell something?

2008-01-18T14:01:00.000-05:00

Saw this news item about the most expensive perfume in the world and it reminded me of the film Perfume which I recently saw.

I wonder if this pricey scent is made from the essence of thirteen virgins.

It's all in my head

2008-01-15T13:10:00.001-05:00

For quite awhile now I've been experiencing some debilitating fatigue and other strange feelings. I trip, loose my balance, have trouble swallowing, see flashes of light, and have painful-numb-tingle-like sensations in my extremities. Until late this summer, I boiled all of these things to simply getting older and moving through menopause.

After returning from my long trip to Ottawa, all of these weird feelings intensified. At first my doctor thought I had pinched a nerve in my back and sent me home with a muscle relaxant and an anti-inflammatory but a few days later when I started to loose the feeling in my lips and tongue and could lie flat in bed and have both arms and both legs go numb, he referred me to a neurologist.

I've since had an MRI and a follow up visit with the neurologist. They found four "spots" in my brain which the neurologist showed me on my MRI images. I expected to see a couple of gerbils on a treadmill and was surprised to see how seemingly vacuous the images of the human brain are. To my untrained eye it all looked like a bunch of empty space but apparently the radiologist (or however reads these films) and the neurologist could see something afoot up there.

The neurologist ordered a slew of blood tests - 20 vials worth - and another MRI. It'll take a couple of weeks for the blood work and I might not get in for the MRI until March. He doesn't want to venture a diagnosis until he gets more info but my GP called me in to go over the MRI results and explained that the tests the neurologist has ordered is called the "MS protocol" - sounds like a Ludlum novel title eh?

I'm not sure if I should be scared. I mean it's not every day that a doctor tells you that he found "signs of inflammation in your brain". Does that mean there's something wrong or simply that I have a swelled head? With my mom having Alzheimer's I can say that I do have a bit of anxiety around what these "spots" might mean.

All I can do right now is wait. Wait for the blood test results, wait for the date for the MRI, wait for a follow-up visit with the neurologist and try not to freak out while I wait. Meanwhile, if you ask me if the numbness and tingling are any better, I know I can look you right in the eye and tell you that it's all in my head.

Happy New Year

2008-01-12T23:52:00.000-05:00

Little Eve has a lot to say New Year's Eve at Meme's place. She's such a happy little girl. She'll be walking any time now.

Judgment at Nuremberg

2007-12-16T09:45:00.000-05:00

This morning I caught the last 45 minutes or so of the court room drama Judgment at Nuremberg. At the Teach With Movies web site it gives the following description of the film:

This movie is a fictionalized account of the war crimes trial of judges and prosecutors who served the Nazis.

"Judgment at Nuremberg" depicts a watershed event: the first trials, based on principles of justice and international law, of the leaders of a country that waged aggressive war and committed crimes against humanity. The film is a gripping, searching and provocative look at the moral issues surrounding both the actions of the accused and the process of bringing them to justice. The film also explores the issue of whether ordinary Germans bore responsibility for the Holocaust.

I have seen this movie many times before, however, while watching the movie this morning, I was struck with how relevant the film's themes are today as we contend with our "War on Terror" and are living with the abomination of such things as America's Patriot Act, detainees at Guantanamo Bay, horrors at Abu Ghraib Prison and Canada's compliance with "no-fly" lists.

Burt Lancaster plays the character Ernst Janning a German judge who is on trial for condemning innocent people during the Nazi regime. Janning is pretty stoic throughout the proceedings but as he watches the court room events unfold, he is compelled to give an explanation for his actions. In one of the most stirring moments on the film, Janning rises in court to give his statement:

"There was a fever over the land. A fever of disgrace, of indignity, of hunger. We had a democracy, yes, but it was torn by elements within. Above all, there was fear. Fear of today, fear of tomorrow, fear of our neighbors, and fear of ourselves. Only when you understand that - can you understand what Hitler meant to us. Because he said to us: 'Lift your heads! Be proud to be German! There are devils among us. Communists, Liberals, Jews, Gypsies! Once these devils will be destroyed, your misery will be destroyed.'

It was the old, old story of the sacrificial lamb. What about those of us who knew better? We who knew the words were lies and worse than lies? Why did we sit silent? Why did we take part? Because we loved our country! What difference does it make if a few political extremists lose their rights? What difference does it make if a few racial minorities lose their rights? It is only a passing phase. It is only a stage we are going through. It will be discarded sooner or later. Hitler himself will be discarded... sooner or later.

The country is in danger. We will march out of the shadows. We will go forward. Forward is the great password. And history tells how well we succeeded, your honor. We succeeded beyond our wildest dreams. The very elements of hate and power about Hitler that mesmerized Germany, mesmerized the world! We found ourselves with sudden powerful allies.

Things that had been denied to us as a democracy were open to us now. The world said 'go ahead, take it, take it! Take Sudetenland, take the Rhineland - re militarize it - take all of Austria, take it! And then one day we looked around and found that we were in an even more terrible danger. The ritual began in this courtroom swept over the land like a raging, roaring disease. What was going to be a passing phase had become the way of life.

Your honor, I was content to sit silent during this trial. I was content to tend my roses. I was even content to let counsel try to save my name, until I realized that in order to save it, he would have to raise the specter again. You have seen him do it - he has done it here in this courtroom. He has suggested that the Third Reich worked for the benefit of people. He has suggested that we sterilized men for the welfare of the country. He has suggested that perhaps the old Jew did sleep with the sixteen year old girl, after all. Once more it is being done for love of country. It is not easy to tell the truth; but if there is to be any salvation for Germany, we who know our guilt must admit it... whatever the pain and humiliation."

Here is Lancaster's brilliant performance:

Spencer Tracy played the head of the tribunal, Judge Dan Haywood. Throughout the movie as he interacts with the German people and in particular in his interactions with the widow of an executed German officer, played by Marlene Dietrich, you can see his struggle to understand the evidence of the atrocities presented in court in light of the warmth and nature of the Germans he meets. He can't seem to grasp how a people with such love of life and song could allow such things to happen and claim they didn't even know they were happening. I see Janning's statement as the point where this juxtaposition becomes clear to him and this chilling realization is reflected in his comments at the trial's verdict:

"Janning, to be sure, is a tragic figure. We believe he loathed the evil he did. But compassion for the present torture of his soul must not beget forgetfulness of the torture and death of millions by the government of which he was a part.

Janning's record and his fate illuminate the most shattering truth that has emerged from this trial. If he and the other defendants were all depraved perverts - if the leaders of the Third Reich were sadistic monsters and maniacs - these events would have no more moral significance than an earthquake or other natural catastrophes.

But this trial has shown that under the stress of a national crisis, men - even able and extraordinary men - can delude themselves into the commission of crimes and atrocities so vast and heinous as to stagger the imagination. No one who has sat through this trial can ever forget. The sterilization of men because of their political beliefs... The murder of children... How easily that can happen!

There are those in our country today, too, who speak of the "protection" of the country. Of "survival". The answer to that is: survival as what? A country isn't a rock. And it isn't an extension of one's self. It's what it stands for, when standing for something is the most difficult! Before the people of the world - let it now be noted in our decision here that this is what we stand for: justice, truth... and the value of a single human being!"

The verdict is indeed chilling and Tracy delivers it with the aplomb and skill of a seasoned actor:

But while the performances of all of the actors in this film were stellar, it is the themes of the film from which we can draw meaning and which rung a bell for me today.

In a post-911 world we too live in a "Fear of today, fear of tomorrow, fear of our neighbors, and fear of ourselves." We too have leaders who would tell us, "There are devils among us. Once these devils will be destroyed, your misery will be destroyed."

In our fear to be thought of as less patriotic, in our fear of once again being targeted by those who hate us, many sit in silence and say, "What difference does it make if a few political extremists lose their rights? What difference does it make if a few racial minorities lose their rights? It is only a passing phase. It is only a stage we are going through. It will be discarded sooner or later."

But this way of thinking only perpetuates the very evil from which we seek to protect ourselves. In our paralytic fear we've allowed the very principles upon which our democracy was founded to become corrupted. I think these last few word's of Judge Haywood's verdict should be not only etched in our hearts and minds but retained to galvanize us to rededicate ourselves to the principles we have held so dear:

"A decision must be made in the life of every nation at the very moment that the grasp of the enemy is at its throat, then is seems that the only way to survive is to use the means of the enemy, to rest survival upon what is expedient, to look the other way, only the answer to that is: survival as what? A country isn't a rock. And it isn't an extension of one's self. It's what it stands for, when standing for something is the most difficult!"

Extreme product testing

2007-12-13T11:23:00.000-05:00

I seem to remember when I was growing up an ice cream treat called the Nutty Buddy. I don't think I'll look at a chocolate dipped, peanut encrusted ice cream cone the same way ever again. Man, even I cringed watching this video.

Bass Pro

2007-11-25T16:08:00.000-05:00

I have a blog buddy who lives in the great state of Kansas and is an avid angler. Every time he goes on a road trip he finds some excuse to visit a Bass Pro shop. He always speaks of his visits with such glee I figured that Bass Pro must be some kind of Disneyland for outdoors-folk. I had never been to a Bass Pro shop but my nephew Marc works at the shop just north of Toronto. So on our recent trip north, Lise and I stopped in to check the place out.

It truly is a Disneyland for outdoors-folk. They have an indoor shooting range, fish ponds and steam with real trout, every kind of hunting, fishing, boating or camping gear you could imagine. We didn't have a lot of time to look around but I did get a good shot of Uncle Buck's plane.

Oh yes, and one more shot. Alan,this one's for you my friend:

Creepy...

2007-11-24T16:32:00.000-05:00

When I saw this news item I thought of the movie Bug and the very scientific principle that the severity of an itch is directly proportional to its reach.

Dear Santa...

2007-11-22T06:23:00.000-05:00

My oldest grand daughter Natalie has just finished typing out her letter to Santa. She had a little help from mom but this is pretty much verbatim:

Like many thousands of children in Canada she will be mailing her letter to:
Santa Claus
North Pole
H0H 0H0
Canada

Canada Post has an entire page set up for Canadian children who wish to send their letters to Santa and if they send them in early enough and if they include their return address, Santa will answer each child's letter. Remember though that this is a busy time for Santa so if you want him to answer you, send your letter in as soon as possible. Details are on the Canada Post web site.

Right on!!

2007-11-15T16:00:00.000-05:00

Tired of a political party who simply promises a chicken in every pot? Well how about a party that promises pot and weekly orgasms for all?

Yep, Canada's Rhinoceros party is back. Party president Francois Gourd says, "We are a Marxist-Lennonist party - based on the philosophy of Groucho Marx and John Lennon." Their motto: From party to party till victory. How inspiring is that?

Learn more about their platform by visiting their website at neorhino.ca. Much of their web site is in French but they are looking for a good anglophone and translator to work with. So if ya know of anyone...

Moo...

2007-11-14T17:30:00.000-05:00

More cow capers today when, while driving through the drive-through at McDonald's, the tail gate of a trailer opened allowing a herd of eight cows to escape. People in the town of West Haven, Utah called rounding up the cows "Operation Hamburger Helper".

The poor creatures probably planned their escape after watching the movie Fast Food Nation. I know after seeing that movie, if I were a cow, I'd run too.

Ewwww....

2007-11-13T12:12:00.000-05:00

I can't think of anything more disgusting that this. The more I hear about these horror stories from China's manufacturing and food production sectors, the more I suspect any products we import from there. If anything, these stories have made me an even more avid label reader.

Holy cow!

2007-11-07T14:31:00.000-05:00

I once had a stone fly off from behind a truck and crack my windshield. Scared the crap right outta me. Can't even imagine a cow.