what you totally should have done for Valentine’s Day

Chuck Norris has a Valentine's present for ya 

For some reason, many men seem to feel that what women really want in a man is want is a yes man, ie someone who, no matter how outrageous her suggestion, always nods and says, “oh that sounds good.” I don’t know if these guys have watched too many episodes of SATC, or if they’re just cribbing off some lame Dave Barry short that  he phoned in one day on deadline, but it is not actually true.

Women of a certain, not-too-distant-from-myself type, may want to do things their way, but they would prefer that all involved understand that this is because their suggestion is the best, not because their fellow is a doormat.

Note that although said fellow may, in fact, actually BE a doormat, it’s probably best for him not to give this impression. Given their druthers, women tend to gravitate towards opinionated animals as pets, not the hokey-dokey labrador type. This is telling, fellas. When the leadership finds out, they’ll put a hit out on my ovaries just for telling you this stuff.

Anyway…

So, given that asking and doing exactly what she tells him is, as we’ve agreed, out, what should the ideal boyfriend do for his ladyfriend on the big V-Day?

Exactly what Chuck Norris tells him to.

I know most men just want to spend Valentine’s Day like any other day – eating Doritos and engaging in a little heavy petting with their girlfriends. V-Day “shebangs” are taxing: they require time, planning and extremely large biceps.

However, after extensive research, I’ve devised a simple strategy: just call Chuck Norris.

To explain, since I’ve been at the University, and am thus more acquainted with what I like to call those “hipster, indie types,” I’ve been privy to a lot of interesting conversations. Most of them concern imaginary battles between trendy “It” fantasy genres: Pirate vs. Ninja! Robot vs. Lumberjack! Space Warriors vs. Chuck Norris! OMG, who will win?!? The answer is simple: Chuck Norris ALWAYS wins….

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the legend of Stamp’s Landing, with bonus legend decoder

Stamp's Landing 

from the archives 

The Legend of Stamp’s Landing, with bonus legend decoder
Tuesday, June 28, 2005

Got this from the back of a menu at the pub. Hey, you think this kinda thing makes it into Toynbee???

The Legend of Stamp’s Landing

Stamp’s Landing was named by Captain Edward Stamp in honor[sic] of his great-grandfather who, in 1794, under the command of Lord Howe, fought in the battle of “the Glorious 1st of June” [they fought grouse from British warships off Spanish Banks? Vancouver’s history is even more colourful than I’d imagined. What kind of ordinance did the grouse use against the Brits, I wonder].

Sir William Henry Stamp, Bart [which isn’t a Simpson’s reference: it means “Baronet”] the commander of HMS Formidable [a word I can spell only by remembering the French, which sounds way cooler anyway, even just in your head] 74 guns, did engage in that battle and sustained a heavy blow to the head [ the Bart, not the Formidable]. Delirious, he jettisoned a small landing craft, boarded it and drifted into a fog bank and disappeared.

He drifted for several days at last hitting a rock shore in a small inlet now known as False Creek. He was greeted there by several friendly natives who cared for him, sustained him with food and drink, and showed him a good time. [he musta been a big spender]

After a year, he reluctantly bid farewell to that friendly place [besides, the girls were starting to “show” by now]. The natives took him into open water at what is now known as Point Atkinson. There he was picked up by a packing frigate that was patroling the area. Stamp related the story of his landing in that friendly place with beautiful women, good food and drink and warm companionship. All aboard were fascinated by the stories and the good fortune of Stamp’s Landing.

Throughout the years the name “Stamp’s Landing” has lived in legends of good fortune and navel [sic again, unless this is another sly pregnancy reference] luck. When adrift at sea, sailors would propose a toast with whatever rations they had left, “Here’s to another Stamp’s Landing!

and now for the Secret Legend Decoder, which I got from inside mine own head. 

Secret Legend Decoder

So this dude, no doubt sent abroad for sheer uselessness, as were so many young men of the times (there’s always a surplus of useless young men; at least, there was back then, before the days of motorcycles and fatal vending machine accidents) got the shit scared out of him when he was bopped on the head with something in battle with the fearsome grouse of the Lower Mainland, and besides, he was in the wrong ocean entirely anyway. So when an opportune fog bank rolled in, he got into a wee boat, hoping to sneak away from the action unmissed.

He succeeded, landed, managed to make some friends among some unwarlike people, and spent many months making a parasitic nuisance of himself. Finally, when they’d had enough of this pasty-faced layabout, they stuck him on a boat out in the middle of traffic, where sure enough some lemolo kingchauch sailed by and went: oh look! Anudder whiteboy! Let’s fish him up! Whereupon this dude lied the pants off himself and thus became legendary.

So much easier to do when you’re the one writing the legend, eh?

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A Valentine to my readers

Nothing says I loves y’all like a bouquet and a classic ballad, so here. Don’t say I never did nuthin’ for ya.

Joachim Laporte nature muertes

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Valentine’s Day Sweetheart: The Jealous Astronaut

The Jealous Astronaut!If, like me, you grew up babysat not by living, breathing human beings but rather by the marvelously crude animated friends on the incredible flickering electric rectangle, you’ll love this.

The Jealous Astronaut...begin Transformation!We lost The Osmonds. We lost The Jackson Five. We lost The Partridge Family 2200AD . We lost Scooby Doo. We lost Josie and the Pussycats. We lost Kimba the White Lion and Speed Racer and G-Force and He-Man and the Masters of the Universe.

But now Metro passes along this gem for our animation-starved generation. Now we’ve got something to fill the hole in our aching souls: We have The Jealous Astronaut!

tranformation complete!What better muse for a post-millennial Valentine’s than an aging, obssessive, hygiene-impaired, would-be-adulterous rocket scientist? I sense another Douglas Coupland book coming on…

YouTube is over the jump if you don’t want to wait for that Flash to load up.
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Continue reading

Blame Germany!

Die! Deodorant!

Is this who’s to blame for the choking miasma that inhabits the ladies’ room at Metrotown? The brave or desperate souls who venture into the complicated tunnel system behind the Food Court (and who survive) tell tales of a horrible, synthetic, eye-biting cloud of Spring Meadow-scented vapour. We here at the ol’ raincoaster blog had always put it down to the suburban penchant for Aqua Net, Charlie, and the apparent inability of mall-goers to deposit their deposits within the toilet bowl, instead of all over the seat, the floor, and the cubicle walls.

How wrong we were.

It turns out that Germans are apparently so stinky that only crop-duster-sized doses of deodorant are effective on them. Unfortunately, they are equally effective at setting off fire alarms, as a group of blushing, sweating, but presumably Meadow-Fresh teenagers discovered.

“The fumes of the pleasant-smelling deodorant were so intense that they drifted up to the ceiling and set off a fire detector,” said Volker Buttgereit of the Buesum police force… “Hopefully the girls will get by with a little less spray next time,” said Buttgereit.

Well I for one fully support the use of aromatherapy candles in ladies’ rooms. If nothing else, the resulting explosions should singe off their underarm hair, thus reducing the need for deodorant in the first place.

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