CLICK HERE for fantastic photos of clouds and various other phenomena

I wasn't very good at the whole Christmas thing this year. I didn't get greeting cards out in time (sorry everyone), I forgot one or two thank-you bottles for my coaches and each time I went gift shopping I bought something for myself. However, there were some high points - I put lights on my house and decorated a tree in the basement for the first time in a couple of years. I was able to hook up with almost all of my friends for a meal or drink, had the MCC girls over for a movie night, spent Christmas eve with my Dad and son and had Christmas dinner at my sister's. And everytime I went shopping, I got something for myself.I bought two
beautiful prints for my bedroom. I'd been eyeing them whenever I went into House Warmings in Oakville and decided I might as well just get them. Hanging them has inspired me to finally re-decorate my house. It's still got the same paint and endless wallpaper as when I moved in!
I'm not sure if it's because there are no small children in the family or because my parents are gradually being erased by their respective illnesses but the season doesn't feel like anything special. To be honest, it's a bit of an ordeal and I'm more excited about training camp in March than I am about this holiday. In fact, on Christmas morning, I slept in until 10:30, watched the movie Accepted (not too bad with the guy from the Mac vs PC commercials. Actually, I think he is the male version of Jennifer Aniston and they could make the most boring movie ever if they were cast together) and then rolled back to my dad's to take him and my mom up to dinner at Laurel's. I'm so glad my nieces and their other cousins are there to liven things up. We watched Cars on their big screen and then did a few Elf Yourself creations. I was ready to go home after that - this going to bed at 1:00am and sleeping until 10am is exhausting.
Tara gave me some amazing truffle-ish treats she had made (I can't remember what they're called but so delicious!) and Ryan & Courtney both gave me art they had done themselves - Courtney's was irises done in pastel and Ryan's a pencil sketch of Hawkeye at Sherbourne Lake when we first got him. Ryan did such a good job and it was the perfect gift. I wasn't prepared though and it made me cry. I had Hawkeye for 15 years and he died a couple of weeks ago. Probably not the reaction Ryan was going for but it was my favourite gift in spite of appearances.
Okay, like I said, I'm bad at joy this year - I feel like Dennis Leary - Merry Farking Christmas! I'm sure you can understand why I haven't posted anything besides vids - I am absolutely bored and boring...I'm at work for a couple of days this week and will hopefully have more interesting stories to tell after New Years Eve. And if not? There's a multitude of entertaining stuff on the internet that needs sharing!

This is just so damn funny...I had to post it

Very exciting - my son and his gf Courtney got engaged last weekend! I was standing in line at Massey Hall when he called to tell me, "She said yes!!".

Courtney's from New Brunswick and is going home for the holidays so he did this whole thing with a riddle wrapped in a giftbox with clues leading to other clues around their apartment and ending with a hangman puzzle in his pocket. The puzzle spelled out "Will you marry me?". I am so pleased - Courtney is perfect for Ryan and bonus - I genuinely like her! They are planning on a wedding in 2008 in NB. Courtney has a huge family there as opposed to the 8 of us in Toronto.

When he called me, I was just going into Tafelmusik’s annual performance of Handel's Messiah. The appeal of this Christmas event is that you purchase the musical score and sit in the appropriate section - alto, soprano, tenor etc - to perform the chorus.

The conductor is very entertaining in character as Handel and the two and a half hours flew by. We were very late getting there and had to take seats in the soprano section. You guys KNOW I am not a soprano by any means. Plus my eyes automatically go to the alto line in the score so there were a couple of embarrassing moments where I started to sing a few bars before the sopranos. You have to imagine the scope of this - standing in the middle of 2500 people all belting out the halleluja chorus is...overwhelming and FUN. The Nutcracker is OFF the list of Christmas traditions. I'm definitely going to do this again next year.

Is nothing sacred? Don't watch if you have deep-seated affection for the muppets...

Matty, this one is for you...

And I thought breast implants and liposuction were extreme forms of self-modification...
WADA is hoping to have a definitive test for detecting gene doping before the Beijing Olympics. However, "Even if a test does not become available until after the Olympics, authorities have the power to test samples taken during competition for up to eight years."

So I'd like to know - would an Olympic medal make it worth it to you?

I don't know about you but my tastes change frequently
- music, art, food - I'm talking about the stuff that feeds your wants as opposed to your needs. And I'm rarely vague about what I feel like consuming. I'll eat sushi almost every day for an entire season and then suddenly crave curry for 2 weeks.
Still, I surprised even myself today when, after 2 years of listening to and collecting mostly current artists, I walked into a record store and dropped a couple hundred on old school blues. I CRAVED it.
Memphis Slim, Roosevelt Sykes, Nina Simone, Louis Jordan, Ella Fitzgerald. I couldn't wait to get home to listen to it - even on my crummy cd player. I was like one of those chocoholics with a tub of double chocolate brownie fudge haagen dazs or something. And it's not a mood thing. I don't listen to the blues when I'm sad anyway. I was just missing something. In fact the song that just came on sums it up - Lost my Boogie (Memphis Slim). So - Sunday poker players be prepared, we'll be listening to the blues. And don't complain if I'm smoking a cigar and drinking shots of bourbon. Gypsy's getting back her boogie.

Yesterday was the Chilly Willy. I couldn't fit it into my day but the guys came over for poker last night so I heard some of the results. Duke won the 10k followed by Adam, Kyle then Mehak. And some guy (non-paddler) did the 21km in 1:08 !!? I think the weather was the best the Chilly's ever had - sunny and about 6 degrees with a bit of a headwind on the way back.
As for poker, we only played two games and Duke won both...I'm getting really tired of being in the final two all the time and not winning. I really need to work on my bluffing. I also think we need to switch the times - we often start at 4 or 5 pm which means no dinner. So last night we ate half a bag of ridiculously salty pretzels before deciding that pizza was in order. Happens every Sunday - junk food overload.
Watched American History X after that - I'd forgotten what a powerful movie it is. And Edward Norton - so good. I had to change the channel at the point where he stomps on the kid's head though. I blame the pretzels and skunky Calsberg (or does it always taste that way? I've got to stop drinking the stuff left over from parties).

You are missing some elfin fun if you're not visiting Victims of Photoshop (link at right) although I suspect that just about everyone with email will receive this link at some point today...

Where's my damn flying car???

From New Scientist Magazine;

Brilliant Minds Forecast the Next 50 Years

What will be the biggest breakthrough of the next 50 years? As part of our 50th anniversary celebrations we asked over 70 of the world's most brilliant scientists for their ideas.
In coming decades will we: discover that we are not alone in the universe? Unravel the physiological basis for consciousness? Routinely have false memories implanted in our minds? Begin to evolve in new directions? And will physicists finally hit upon a universal theory of everything? In fact, if the revelations of the last 50 years are anything to go on - the internet and the human genome for example - we probably have not even thought up the exciting advances that lay ahead of us.

Alexander Vilenkin forecasts the future
Cosmic strings, relics of the hot, high-energy early universe,

might well be discovered, allowing us to directly test superstring theory

So yesterday was Shro's Grey Cup party. It was a really good time. All the usual suspects were there plus a few extras - all under 3 ft tall. It's still kind of weird being at a paddler party where there are children running around but they're cool because they're paddler babies.
Anyway, our usual poker group was there. I didn't bother getting in on the first game - too many people - so I watched Borat on Derek's big tv. Oh, we also watched some football. Eve won the first $10 bucks in the pool, next was Duke for $30 and Connor won the big pool - can't remember but I think it was $100 or something. Kyle won the first poker game which means he's broken the run of bad luck. BTW, if any of these guys owes you money better give them a call!
Amy and Shro had put out tons of food...appetizers, some really excellent chili (in two temperatures) and later, jalapeno poppers. Oh yeah, and endless popcorn to go with the endless second poker game.
Speaking of which, I did pretty well - pot was a couple hundred - I was in the final two. But honestly, how can you concentrate when your opponent (Shro) is doing a Borat impersonation. He started every sentence with "Gypsy..." as in, "Gypsy, who is this woman you have shrunk? I will look through your treasures, gypsy. Is this understood? " and "Gypsy, I tire of this game. Let us finish so I can go to PG." After about 20 minutes of this, I couldn't even pay attention to the action. I went all-in a couple of times hoping for a quick out but kept winning back chips. Argh. It was the fall classic all over again. I don't think I got home until after midnight and, even though I set my alarm, did not get up for boxing on Monday morning. In fact I'm bagged right now.

Is it just me or is Leon Washington flipping a double bird on this Topps sports card? I just checked ebay there are 11 of this particular card on the block. A plain jane version has a current bid of $55 but the one at left (gold and autographed) is up for $750. It'll be interesting to see what it gets.


click image to see that, yes, he is in fact flipping us off...

Woo hoo! Simpsons movie trailer

Huh. I guess I'm going to the St. Andrews Ball at the Royal York instead of Agribition in Regina. You know what this means....a new dress! Checking Go Fug Yourself daily so I know what NOT to wear but have confidence I'm already halfway okay since I refuse to wear plaid (or is that tartan?).

This cartoon has been stuck up in our foyer since the rock-throwing incident. It was done by a master paddler at one of the east coast clubs but is now up on the Nelo website...

Two reviews


Spoon & Fork restaurant in Clarkson - amazing! five stars







Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan - five stars - my face still hurts from laughing.

A follow-up to my post about internet safety:
Two of my nieces go to BSS, a private girls school in Toronto. Their headmistress, who sounds like a true luddite, only recently became aware of the very active BSS community on Facebook. The girls, on the other hand, were suddenly made aware of the policy manual they each received with their school laptops, especially the part that says the school owns all data stored and reserves the right to monitor any activity taking place on said laptops. The I.T. staff, or as my sister called them, "the fat, sweaty, gross I.T. guys" (keeping in mind this is what I do for a living) had been monitoring the girls' activities and felt they needed to bring it to the head's attention. Parents were then invited in to view photos of and postings about the girls drinking, doing drugs, making out with boys and other very personal information. Isn't this worse than reading your child's journal or diary? My sister said the line-up of prominent Torontonians was out the door. Strangely, they were mostly concerned about the fact that some of the girls had created and joined a Facebook group about one particular girl where they said mean things about her. This is an example of technology raising bullying to the next level but I still think they're missing the bigger picture.
Anyway, the whole episode created a huge flap in the BSS hen house and the girls all blame the headmistress. Too bad because she taught them a really important life lesson about privacy, the public domain and always reading the small print.

The world was very busy this weekend...

Local
Happy Birthday to my Dad - he turned 80 this year

International
Saddam Hussein sentenced to death by hanging
...how long before the video is posted to youtube.com?

Sports
New York City Marathon -Brazilian Marilson Gomes dos Santos wins in 2:09:58, Jelena Prokopcuka won the women's in 2:25:05, Lance Armstrong finishes in 2:59:36 and says, "without a doubt the hardest physical thing I have ever done."

Science
An international team of researchers determines that overfishing could take seafood off the menu by 2048. Guys, this is serious. The ecosystem will collapse.

Technology
100 Million Sites on the Web (although this news was outdated by the time this was posted)

Entertainment
Neil Patrick Harris tells People Magazine, "(I) am quite proud to say that I am a very content gay man living my life to the fullest." Is this even news? Whatever, he was great in Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle.

Fashion
Imelda Marcos, notorious shoe hog and widow of dictator Ferdinand Marcos, will be launching "The Imelda Collection" of fashion jewelry and accessories on Nov. 18 . Apparently this was prompted by her grandson, Martin "Borgy" Manotoc. She recalls, "One day my grandson came to me and said, `Mama Meldy, I would like to use your collection to tell the world the real Imelda and the spirit of my grandma,'" she told reporters. "It's only beauty that can feed the spirit."
The Marcoses have been accused of amassing ill-gotten wealth and were driven out of the presidential palace by a military-backed, nonviolent uprising in 1986. The government has recovered about $1.6 billion in cash and assets from the Marcoses and their associates, including Swiss bank deposits now worth about $680 million. Mama Meldy's spirit was some kind of hungry and beauty wasn't what was feeding it...

A few of us were talking about internet safety the other day - specifically bulletin boards like MySpace & Facebook, chat rooms and blogs. Really, they're a creepers dream and a parent's nightmare. One guy, a father of 2 young girls, says ignorance is bliss since he's basically unaware of what's available to kids and how often they're sharing personal information and photographs with strangers simply by posting it in the public domain.
Then I started thinking was it any different when we were teenagers? Does anyone remember those party lines? There were a couple of summers while I was in high school where you could dial 41091 - can't believe I remember the number - and you were connected to a no-limits party line. When we first became aware of it there weren't many people using it. You could talk with guys, give them your phone number, make contact one to one, then arrange to meet somewhere. By the end of the summer people were basically yelling their numbers over the hundreds of other voices, then hanging up and waiting for the phone to ring. I guess technology has options for every generation. My best friend met a few guys this way and she'd arrange to meet them at the subway station or whatever. Her mom always went with her (that's how you know she had the cool parents and could tell them anything. Plus, they kept their weed in a big jar labelled oregano - thought we didn't know about that eh, Mrs. G.?). My mom on the other hand would have had a fit if she thought I went on the party line. I actually only met up with one of the guys in person but spoke to lots who ended up calling my number. "Yeah mom, it's just some guy from school" generally worked.
Anyway, the biggest difference now is the fact that kids are putting up photos and personal contact information and not always using the available security measures to hide it from the nasties. Fortunately, the nasties sometimes identify themselves for us. Take the case of this guy who, on realizing he didn't have a photo to post to his newly created MySpace site, attached his mugshot from the sex offenders registry. He was subsequently arrested for not registering his MySpace account with authorities.