As opposed to the Fightin’ Irish, who are generally football teams at Catholic high schools, which makes them predominantly Filipino, Chinese, Korean, South American and Italian, at least in this city it does, and it’s always a cheap laugh when I see them on the bus in their team sweatshirts. But am I being racist, or are they?
Quote the first, from Departed screenwriter William Monahan, via Susie Bright’s Journal, whom I used to read all the time in Mondo 2000 and so on and which blog I only stumbled across because she posted a link to my blog on Facebook. See, being referrer-stat obsessed has a payoff!
I’m Irish. I’ll deal with something being wrong the rest of my life.
and Quote the Second, from the same source:
What Freud said about the Irish is: We’re the only people who are impervious to psychoanalysis.
and Quote the Third, from my boss, the Manolo, who says he doesn’t have an Irish bone in his body. Still, he’s got our number:
If Darby O’Gill = Uncle Remus for Irish People, then the Pogues = N.W.A. for Irish People.
The Giant Squid has many secrets, some speakable, some unspeakable. But they may be as nothing compared to what we have found out about the hitherto-thought-to-be-entirely-or-at-least-in-all-likelihood-harmless Vampire Squid. Simpletons! You ask me why I have a “thing” about Squid.
I tell you I am your safeguard. If not for this warning, how would you ever know?
First they came for the Krill, and I said nothing…then they stayed for dessert…where was I?
I’m being tremendously lazy today because I spent far too much time trying to get iTunes to do what I want it to do, which is move certain songs off my CD drive onto my iPhone without erasing every song on my iPhone right now or forcing me to upload to the iPhone all the goddam ABBA and crap that’s on the hard drive, but Nooooooooooooo, Steve won’t have it.
Seriously, you KNOW you’ve put your stamp on a company when even their smallest products reproduce your pathologies in perfect detail.
Anyhoooooooo… Today, thanks to Sam Macmillan at 6S and Michael Allison at the Wilcox Group, I got to ride in the convoy of the Olympic Torch today, although I did not actually see the flame, which is neither here nor there but somewhere else, which is where it would be if it was, isn’t it?
Now, perhaps we need a little background…
I live on the Downtown Eastside, and the Olympics have, for literally the past 2 years, been a huge political shitstorm of Katrina-esque proportions. That the Olympics would take place regardless of how popular the No Olympics movement became was clear from the beginning and if there’s one thing my time working at Greenpeace taught me, it’s that by participating in useless protests that will never result in change, people bleed off their urge to act and, thus, prevent themselves from changing the world.
And I have a problem with that.
So, surrounded as I have been for the past 24 months by nonstop political sloganeering from all sides of the issue, essentially all of the mindshare I’ve given the Olympics has been equal-opportunity pushback, as in “WILL YOU ALL SHUT UP AND LEAVE ME ALONE? AND YOU!THERE! SUCK IT UP, THE OLYMPICS ARE GOING TO HAPPEN WHETHER YOU WHINE ABOUT IT IN PUBLIC OR NOT! AND YOU! THERE! MY WHOLE GODDAM COUNTRY IS A FREE SPEECH ZONE SO SUCK IT YOU’RE NOT IN BEIJING ANYMORE!” and equally pointed words to those effects.
Although it was cool when my boyBono said “No Olympics on Stolen Land” in the concert to which I didn’t buy a ticket to because I assumed, wrongly, that they’d be too expensive. Which they were not, and serves me right for not investigating, but oh well, such is the cost of pessimism.
So, as I remarked over at Trueslant, my ability to get past the politicking to connect emotionally with the actual sports and internationalism has been crippled (yes, deliberate word choice, suck it). Then again, apathy is a national characteristic, so maybe I’m just being a Good Canadian.
So, it was both nice and remarkable that, given all that backstory, Michael and Sam decided to pick me as one of the 2 bloggers to get a ride-along today (the other was the (in)famous John Chow) but they did (boy, I sure snookered them, didn’t I, and now I’m gonna hear from all the “billiards” PC-ists, aren’t I oh yes I am).
So, behold the live-tweeted timeline of a conversion. I’m really, truly grateful to them for inviting me along, because not even a cynic like me can resist seeing, say, 10,000 people in a single block in Deep Cove, all dressed in red and white and cheering their semifrozen faces off and freakin’ cowbelling like their lives depended on it.
Stuck in traffic behind #Olympic torch on The Reservation in North Van can’t see a darn thing
@JohnChow we will see you soon. Why didn’t they pick speedy runners? Even I can run this fast!
@busybeeblogger It IS fun, I’m really glad I got the chance
@jeremylim you can ask I guess. They picked me out of thinair as far as I know [in reply to the obvious “how do I get in on that ridealong action question]
@WoundedCrane are they fancy? [she said she wanted Swiss cowbells for her dogs; I thought maybe Swiss House had special commemorative cowbells, or at least commemorative cows]
@WoundedCrane deep cove [in response to “where are you that it’s raining?]
@jeremylim thanks you will get there [in response to “Nonsense. You’re highly prolific and very much loved. Wish I were the same so I could get in that van!”]
John chow says 300m is one Vegas block and I say 2 furlongs we all have diff frames of reference #van2010#olympics
@WilcoxPR thx 4 the rt. 10,000 ppl in deep cove on just 2 blocks [the PR agency behind the ride-along starts contributing to the convo]
Explaining the Raven pub to my carmates for #van2010 [specifically, their Stupid Hot Wings. Story goes; they have 5 levels of heat, and if you can eat the Stupid Hot Wings plate, your whole meal is free. Nobody’s ever won. Waitress says “why do you think they’re called STUPID hot?]
UPDATE: AndreaR reports on Twitter that apparently only Canadians can see it. Awwww, we feel speshul!
(In)Famous filesharing site The Pirate Bay has decided to stick it to the Canadian government in more ways than one. Let’s face it, the music industry can spend all it wants on lobbyists, but the real reason the Canadian Conservative Party has opposed filesharing is simply that they haven’t figured out how to tax it.
Yet.
So, besides NOT paying the Tories‘ baksheesh every darn day of their lives, the Pirate Bay‘s little Scandinavian hosers was hard at work last night getting up this lovely spoof of our illustrious or at least illustrated PM Stephen Harper on their main page, and ain’t she a beaut? Nice Peace Tower there, by jee.
If the Pirate Bay can bypass your government restrictions, why sure as you’re born so can the Canadian Government. They’re pirates alike under the skin, and if you don’t believe me you are encouraged to find a Tory and dissect him yourself just to make sure.
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cracked. I’m thirsty! 
raincoaster 