oh good god, I'm addicted. Go fug yourself is totally feeding my inner bitch. Take, for example, this recent piece on Paula Abdul;

"July 21, 2006

Fugga Abdul
It's been quite an active few years for global disasters, both natural (tsunamis, earthquakes, hurricanes) and unnatural (leggings, Paris Hilton's singing career). But sometimes you stumble upon a phenomenon that can't be easily classified.
Such is the curiosity that has befallen Paula Abdul's chest.

[Photo courtesy of X17. click to enlarge]
Ignoring for a second the hollow pod in the middle of her torso, allow me to state the obvious: Wow, that's bad. What an unflattering garment-- no breast support, and baggy and misshapen cups that make her chest look less like a mass of woman-flesh and more like an old beanbag that's been kicked around, lost some of its punch, and turned a little beady.
As for the Sternum of Doom... what meteor carved that crater? Did her pact with the devil go bad? Did Simon Cowell carve it out with a spoon? Did it sacrifice itself to become a chin or cheek implant? Did a nearby stripper accidentally ding her by sneezing while launching a ping-pong missile out of her nether region? Did she have herself turned into a human shot-glass, the better for mischief in Cancun?
Because I don't think the Pit of Despair was always there.

This photo is from the Grammy's back in February. I can't see a fleshy sorbet dish there, can you? Or is it just masked by a bra that might be the most resplendent feat of architecture known to man, plumping her up to the heavens?
Whatever it is, the deep and bizarre torso pit -- classified abdullis hollowitis -- is unusual indeed and must be studied with great care. "

My friend J.P. and his wife Lori have had a baby boy - congratulations! They haven't named the baby so John suggested we have a baby-naming contest. I work with a bunch of nerds and so far they're voting for Frodo....asshats.

Hey, One Red Paperclip guy, Kyle MacDonald, got his house!

In case you haven't heard...

Floyd Landis tests positive for performance enhancing drugs

Find out how Floyd Landis' positive test shows why drug testing will never work.

I've added two new links on the right to spare you from my boring life;

The Sartorialist - Street fashion coverage at it's best
&
Go Fug Yourself (fugly is the new pretty) - use the Categories menu on the left to get the fugly on your favourite celebs...

I was back in Montreal on the weekend, this time for the db festival. Technically, I joined this crew way back in the spring but I've only made it to a handful of practices and haven't had a chance to race with them before this. I flew in around 1:00pm on Friday but the rest of the crew had chartered a coach with BMO and weren't arriving until around 7:00pm. I had lots of time to shop along St. Catherine. French Connection is selling t-shirts that say "FCUK MONTREAL" and I considered buying one for about 1/10th of a second. In the end just knowing that they sell them is enough.
I was looking forward to a great dinner with some decent wine but the crew decided to go to the Bar B Barn. Oh well, it's a good place to go with a large group.
What I love about the Montreal db event is that the races are far apart (1st at 8:30am - 2nd at 3:30pm) so you can leave the basin for a few hours. Marisha and I headed up to St. Laurent for more shopping. She got some great outfits. We both bought tote bags that we're pretty pleased with because our purchases kind of exceeded the available luggage space (this is the bag Marisha got). I had only packed a knapsack for the weekend and it was already completely stuffed. Anyway, our races went well, we had a fabulous meal at Bueno Notte (worth checking out as a restaurant & a nightclub if you're in town). The next day we placed 3rd in the A final and we were able to walk directly onto an early flight home when we got to the airport. The difference between getting home at 6:00pm or midnight for me! The only down side of the weekend was that one of the paddlers had her wallet stolen in a bar. She didn't notice until we were getting out of the cab but a couple of them went right back to the bar to see if she'd left it on the seat...The bar, Vol de Nuit, was pretty sketchy so no surprise when they dumped the waste bins in the washroom and a purse and a wallet full of credit cards (but empty of cash) fell out. Unfortunately they weren't hers but it gave a pretty clear indication of what had happened to it. In order to get on her flight the next day without photo id and credit card, she had to file a police report and bring a copy to the ticket agent.
When I got home the dog-sitters, Kaylynne and her sister, were just leaving. They told me how the dog was and how BBCC regatta went and it wasn't until after they took off that I noticed they'd cut the grass! With the 3-wheeled lawnmower!! Also, I'd left some cash on the counter to pay them for the weekend but they didn't even take it all - left $10. Sheesh, just cutting the grass was worth more than that to me!!

Yesterday afternoon was great! As mentioned a few posts ago - my friends, John and Lori are expecting a child who may or may not put in an early appearance. They're keeping Lori in the hospital to monitor the situation (and to keep her from going rock climbing and doing motocross races). Anyway, what does this mean to me? I get Lori's ticket to a matinee performance of SPAMALOT!

You don't even have to like Python to enjoy this show. If you have a sense of humour, you'll love it. It's pretty faithful to the original Holy Grail with frequent references to other classic Python bits - the fish-slap dance (I swear I didn't know), a round of "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life" and of course Spam.

The only thing left out was the classic "Bridgekeeper" scene. Remember? "Who would cross the Bridge of Death must answer me these questions three, ere the other side he see."
Oh well, everything else was perfect! Afterwards, we played tourist and had a couple of drinks on the patio at the Hard Rock - very cool since it's been ages since J.P. and I could just hang out.

By the way, click here if you've been wondering about the Bridgekeepers unanswered questions all these years...

So they've finally had a meeting at the club about the graffiti on the trestle. A long time ago someone had painted "Al Thomson you wimp" across one of the diagonal girders. When he became a member of our club, Al modified it so that it read "Al Thomson you win". It stayed like that for years. Most people understood about him painting it over because he has two daughters and a nephew who paddle there but I can think of at least one person who frequently reminded us about the original phrase. Anyway, about a month ago it was repainted and "Al Thomson you wimp" was back up there. A couple of weeks after that it was changed to "Quit whining you wimps". Al had apparently taken action. Over the weekend, while we were all in Montreal, it was painted back again. The board met last night and decided that anyone caught painting anything on the trestle will be suspended - doesn't matter if it's CCA results or nasty comments. I knew we should have put our C4 up there right after CCA! I guess it doesn't matter anyway since they're now talking about painting over everything.

The rest of my photos from NTT3 can be found here. Some of them are on the MCC website but the censors have left out any photos of a guy with his shirt off. Aside from the type of sport it is, this is a little contradictory since they didn't have a problem putting up the ones of girls wearing just their sports bras. However, I don't believe it's our webmaster - more likely someone from the board.

Fun night at the Cue with women's canoe...Katy introduced me to Bellevue cherry beer - nice drink and only a slight hangover the next day! Played some shoot, shag or marry & truth or dare but got bored when we realized Chrissy had had too much to drink to do a decent handstand.
So anyway it was a good weekend in Montreal. The men's C1 1000m was probably the most exciting race with Rich crossing the line at 3:56.432 and Mark at 3:56.438.


After the 1000s we headed over to La Magia on Rue St. Charles for dinner. There was a street festival going on with a bandstand, vendors, street performers, the whole deal... just luck that we were there on Bastille day! After wandering through the vendor stalls we went home to find all these random people sitting on lawn chairs behind our hotel, Le Dauphin in Longueuil. Weird since it just looks out over the highway. We figured there must be fireworks or something and we were right. At 10pm there was an amazing Symphony of Fire style show! This is crazy because we keep having these fireworks coincidences. Eve, Katy and I had basically the same experience in Santorini when we went out for dinner one night and picked a restaurant overlooking the caldera. It just happened to be the night they reenacted the volcano eruption, complete with flowing "lava", that wiped out the population. Anyway, back to Montreal.



The senior women's 500s weren't until 2pm Sunday so we took our time in the morning, wandered over to Timmie Ho's for coffee and a bagel (even thought they don't have cheddar in Quebec THs). It was baking hot when we got to the basin but we stayed cool under the Bohm Dome. After the races were done, they named the Pan Am team almost immediately - right after presenting awards to Karen Furneaux and Richard Dalton. Chrissy and Rachel where told to go directly to Ottawa for a training camp but couldn't for another day or two - Rob Stott is the coach.
Rachel stayed in Montreal for the party and Chrissy, Eve and I headed home. I have to go back next Friday for the db festival....it's a good thing I love Montreal.

National Team Trials # 3

I flew to Montreal on Saturday morning. It was as hot - the olympic basin is just like some big griddle on the south shore. Racing was good but I won't bore you with individual race results - they can be found at http://canoekayak.ca/eng_cat.cfm?ID=52 . Chrissy and Rachel (far right and far left respectively) made the Pan Am team. Pan Am games are in Mexico this September - congratulations ladies! The rest of us are thinking they might need a support group on site. Will they be able to hear us cheering from the swim-up margarita bar? Actually, I have to go meet the rest of the girls right now - we're going out for a celebration. Will write more about Bastille Day etc later.

I went to Andrea's wedding on Friday afternoon. It was fantastic! Andrea's dad, former Maple Leaf Wilf Paiement, comes from a very large French-Canadian family (16 kids) and the outdoor wedding was like a Seurat painting. Trevor and Andrea were under a gazebo. There were a few chairs set up but everyone chose to settle themselves around the lawn, under trees and umbrellas, so although the temperature was almost 40 everyone was comfortable and happy.
Andrea looked beautiful with her hair piled up on her head. Her dress was strapless with blue and clear crystal beading around the waist. My camera was on it's way to Montreal with Eve and Chrissy so I don't have any photos. Andrea has promised to send some as soon as she's back from her honeymoon in Cuba. Trevor, as always, looked like an Abercrombie and Fitch ad.
I had a great time at the reception! Andrea put me at a table with Micky and Poopie (I finally found out his real name is David), Ange and her husband. I haven't seen any of them for years so we had lots of catching up to do. Actually I had seen Poopie at Uncle Lou's funeral but I wasn't completely sure it was him so we didn't talk. I have rarely been to a wedding where there is no gearing up period between the dinner portion and the dancing - this one went straight into high gear! There was an icebreaker game where Andrea's hockey playing brother had to put on a grass skirt and Carmen Miranda style headress and teach hula dancing to a bunch of the guests. I left around 10pm, just as family members busted out marachas and a conga line was forming. I am so glad I 'd stayed to go to the wedding!
I went home and packed so I could get up for my 7am flight to Montreal.
I'm picking up photos from the NTT #3 weekend this afternoon and will write about that when I post them.

My friends John and Lori are at the hospital right now waiting to see if their baby intends to be born at 34 weeks and 4lbs or would like to hang out getting room service for a little longer.

Click here for photos from Sue and Kris’ Wedding

Click here for photos from Louise's Baby Shower

Slow week at work? The David Hasselhoff paper airplane will provide hours of time-wasting fun.




(okay, you can stop sending me this stuff because this is absolutely my last post on anything to do with The Hoff)

Stop the madness indeed!!
I found this White House-sponsored,`80s music video on a comic book site. Considering the celebrities who eventually became substance abusers, it's pretty funny who makes an appearance.
Look for: LaToya Jackson, Whitney Houston (very young), Nancy Reagan, David Hasselhoff (totally random - two videos de fromage on my blog in one week), Kim Fields (The Facts of Life), Herb Alpert, Kareem Abdul Jabar, Stacey Keach, Casey Kasem, Tim Reid (WKRP in Cincinnati and That`70s Show), New Edition and Arnold Schwarzenegger. Special guest appearance by Boogaloo Shrimp from Breakin' and Breakin' 2 (??!!)

That Aquaman is one happy shopper...

http://als.ytmnd.com/

Thank goodness I never got around to removing the pile of winter workout clothes from my car. On Thursdays I don't have to be at work until 9:00 so after great workouts in both db and C-1, I still had time to iron my favourite Roxy skirt and blow-dry my hair. I was thinking I looked pretty good when I stopped at Starbucks for a grande Misto. I hadn't driven a block before I'd dumped half of the contents into my lap...and had to drive to work sitting in a puddle of hot coffee with milk and sugar. Fortunately, there were fleece warm-up pants in the car. Unfortunately, I still had to walk across the parking lot in my "must-have-peed-herself" skirt while a busload of japanese exchange teachers disembarked. Very funny!

Someone just sent this article on the Budays ... http://www.floridatoday.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060624/SPORTS/606240317/-1/archives

urrgh. The malaria is so bad I can't even get excited over the news that Kelly Slater is single again. Okay, it's really just a flu virus but humour me. These things always feel way worse in the summer.
So for our amusement, I'm attaching what is possibly THE worst video ever made. Gotta love David Hasselhoff! Actually, I caught him on that new show - what is it - Trailer Park Talent Show? America's Got Talent? - and he's very engaging. I'm not a fan but did meet him once at The Docks and he is one of the tallest, most attractive men I've ever seen.

Okay - turn up the sound for this one!

David Hasselhoff - Hooked on a Feeling

Long weekend letdown...
I originally had lots to do - Kris and Sue's stag on Saturday night and a couple of days visit with my long-time friend Karen at her new place in Haliburton(that's us at Cedarbrae Mall, August 2 `74). Unfortunately, my plans didn't quite pan out.

I helped Ryan and Courtney move into their new place in Richmond Hill after practice on Saturday. It's fantastic - two bedroom, beautiful wood floors and brand new fixtures. I'm very pleased for them. They're much closer to their friends, jobs and, coincidentally, the Dunlap Observatory. My dad took us there as kids and I thought it had been closed years ago due to light pollution. Apparently not. Considering that Ryan's an astronomy geek, it's a lucky convenience that he's so close to a really large telescope.

Anyway, the move took longer than expected. I went home and fell asleep for a few hours. Woke up all groggy and disoriented, crawled into bed and slept through until 9:30 am Sunday. I woke up with a sore throat and fever. The only time I felt this bad was in Thailand when I didn't bother taking my malaria pills and picked up some fever that knocked me out (delirious) for 3 days. Perfect.

Anyway, I felt better by the afternoon and went over to the Boulevard Club for some lounging and reading of trashy magazines. In the evening, the Dish, Laura and I went to a movie - The Devil Wore Prada - and dinner. The movie version presented a very watered-down Anna Wintour character compared to the book. Still not a bad movie though.

Monday was easy: practice-sleep-practice-eat-laundry-sleep