Category Archives: Random Thoughts

aussie fondles snake in the dark

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Crikey!“Nothing new there,” you’re thinking, rightly enough. Too right, mate.

But he was fondling it because he thought it was a lizard.

Oh, that’s different then.

A Sydney holidaymaker has received two doses of antivenom following five bites from the world’s second-most deadliest [sic] snake, an NRMA CareFlight spokesman says.

As Fark has the “Florida” tag, I’m thinking of starting an “Aussies playing with deadly wildlife” tag, for lo, we find we are making reference to such events with great regularity.

Now, it’s possible as Metro claims that the continent has been set up, PR-wise, and that people all around the world handle deadly creatures with just as much frequency, intimacy, and cluelessness, but the evidence is against it.

No, my theory is that we interact with wildlife in ways which eloquently, if inadvertently, express our national characters.

In Australia, they make a grab for it and try to become pals; any woman who’s met an Aussie in a bar will understand the scenario. 

In Germany, they issue execution orders. Any Jew…nah, I’ll leave that joke alone.

Here in Canada when we see wildlife we don’t mess around; we call the government. Anyone…seriously, anyone who’s been to Canada should recognize this as the default procedure, regardless of the circumstances.

Dudley, can we talk? Even Horse is embarassed.

(television) star wars

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Nifty Keeno! Television will change our world forever!Is there something in the Ontario water that causes this? Is it that the radio sucks so badly? Is it Cheeveresque or O’Neillian fear of the family tensions that play themselves out more confrontationally in conversation than in silence?

Why does everyone in Ontario enter their house, remove their shoes and, before even taking off their jacket, turn on the television?

And what is the last thing they do every night? Read a bedtime story to their children? Hit the singles chatroooms? Enjoy a snifter of brandy and a wide-ranging discussion of the physical substance of the various ranks of angels? No.

They turn off the tv.

If there was something we used in Vancouver this much, we’d just have it on a timer or a motion detector, although given the propensity of people to become motionless in front of a television, perhaps that wouldn’t work. Yeah, they could use some of these morning shows to immobilize the enemy, particularly now that the Geneva Conventions are considered unconventional for Americans.

Timer, timer is better. On at 7am, off at midnight.

I have a couple of friends who came from the West but who now live in Ontario, and they, too, have succumbed to this bizzare and disturbing fetishistic behaviour. This, plus the fact that I haven’t the slightest hint of it and my gene pool basically sloshes up and down the Ottawa Valley for the last three hundred years like water in a bowl, is what convinces me it’s something environmental.

And you can bet it’s not the quality of the broadcasts. After two days, that possibility has been thoroughly ruled out.

Now, maybe it’s something in the air of BC, but we out there have a marked tendency to passive-aggressiveness of an almost pathalogical order. Would we ever tell you off? No, perish the thought. Would we see you every day for drinks after work and brunch on Sunday and tell everyone in our running group how much we hate you?

You bet. Much more polite.

So I have developed a unique coping system for visits from Ontarians. You always try to make the place nice for your guests and show off the many ways your town is different from where they live, so that they go home with the definite sense of having actually left home in the first place.

So the first thing I do is I hide the remote.

things I have not found blogworthy recently

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And here I thought I wasn’t jaded. Now that's what I call broadband!

  • the naked guy in the park on the night of the last full moon, who came out of the bushes to admire Hermione’s very snazzy blue scooter, but had to go back in shortly to protect his … I think it was a pot of gold?…something like that…from the “scary people you get around here.”
  • the contents of the grille around the base of a small maple tree on the sidewalk in Chinatown: eight cigarette butts, three needles, one syringe, several Chinese candy wrappers, three old lottery tickets.
  • the contents of the grille around the base of a small maple tree in Yaletown: eight cigarette butts, six with lipstick, and one Champagne cork.
  • the time we all had to evacuate the bus when the guy who had been talking about Dostoyevsky got up to give his seat to a woman with a baby and a rig fell out of his pocket.
  • the fact that the next vehicle with which I interacted was a Lamborghini, which made it all better.
  • the fact that the amazing healing powers of the Lamborghini have previously been unreported.
  • the peculiar incident of the dog in the night-time. And Nina. And the homeless guys. Long story…some other time, perhaps.
  • the fact that every Segway ever made turns out to be disastrously faulty and dangerous, so the Segway‘s been recalled. Just like the US 2004 election…oh, wait…

check this out!

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Penticton, BC is a much livelier town than its small-town, retiree vibe would have you believe. Check out this sign from the late, apparently great SuperValu in the heart of downtown:

I LIKE it aggressive and fresh!

But how are their buns, that’s what I want to know???

feel my pain

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Tales of a Chinese Grandmother, although presumably not this oneJust a quick note to let you all know that multiculturalism in action can get on this good Canadian’s nerves as much as anyone’s.

There is some shrivelled old Chinese granny standing on her balcony, slapping herself on the back and hawking up phlegm.

LOUDLY.

She has been doing this for, I kid you not, a solid half-hour. I was having dinner but had to stop. I was going to make some tea but knew I’d be unable to drink it.

Surely this must come under noise pollution guidelines???