Month: July 2006

Still With The Zizou

It is funny reading this morning in the Canadian papers more going on about Zidane’s headbutt and the need to have it explained by scientists…the science of the headbutt looks like this:

“Just because somebody acts aggressively doesn’t always mean that they’ve lost it,” Glassman said. “There’s also often a question of choice.”

“Anger, he said, “can be learned behaviour to get what you want.” But anger that does result in losing it is almost always evoked by a perceived violation, said Lorne Korman, director of the anger management clinic at Toronto’s Centre for Addiction and Mental Health.

Canada’s sport, hockey, is entirely based on retaliation and violence. Canada’s back up game, CFL, is pretty much based on retaliation and violence. The reason soccer does not do well in North America is the false perception that there is not enough retaliation and violence.

Soccer is filled with retaliation and violence, headbutts behind the play, slide tackles that are way too hard, cleated shins, clattered skulls during a well fought for header. North Americans (softies for the most part) just do not understand how that can go along with the grace and hearty athleticism of fitba. Heck, I snapped a guy’s leg once and finished another game with three teammates in the hospital, one of whom made the New England Journal of Medicine for his badly bruised pancreas. Good, then, to see Zizou getting the best player award because he was – and no namby pamby new PC NASCARian milk-drinker misunderstanding of the importance of a head butt should have gotten in the way of that.

Made It To Portland But Only Just

We were doing very well on the New England meander – until Portsmouth NH that is where the melt down of the brain of a six year old hit epic proportions. I heard a noise I had not heard before, shaped in the sound of the word “MEANIE!!!”

For some reason all I thought of was the movie Sophie’s Choice. It is sick but I was under a sort of duress of a nature only a child with a will of steel can create at an interstate intersection. We are a gentle family and have to think of strategies…but why that movie and its impossible terrible dilemma would come into mind is beyond me, especially as it has been maybe ten years since I thought of it. But I have to be honest and that is what happened. Blame pop culture if you must.

So it was left to him – fluffy the cat or your blankie. One must go for the duration. And on the I-95 as you enter Maine, at the tourist information lay-by in a group of trees, sitting on landscaped stones he said “blankie” and cried. He made the decision and then he returned to the car as full of remorse as Satan in Paradise Lost as he flung himself off the edge and into Hell, immediate and immersed in his awareness of his own damnation. OK, maybe not quite that full.

Then, within minutes of getting here, he played on the slip and slide and shot portland with the super soaker.  Early into jammies, though.  Damn early.

And Now A Word From Our Potter

I am quite pleased to have the only blog with its own Potter Laureate, Gary Rith. [Ed.: click that link for a picture of a tea pot.] Recently there has been some interested talk in knowing more about his work. So Gary sent along this:

Alan says I should really have everything together before posting an ad at gen x. Well, he has a point. I am never really all that together, but let’s put it this way: you people are the test cases.

OK, so there is a little interest in my work, maybe some shoppers here, maybe just a preview of an open studio sale? There are pictures sent seperately, all look a little bluish for some reason, but are pretty good. I have to look at my Paypal acct. to remember how that works. So, although I make a lot of stuff, this is the standard list. Ask about teapots, pitchers, vases, plain items without animals:

Glazes: lemon, grape, super celedon, turtle celedon, speckly celedon, strawberry, baby blue, slate blue, blue jeans, green beans.

Glaze combos: yellow w/ a little green and blue accenting;blue jeans 1/2 and 1/2 with any celedon;
grape, speckly celedon or baby blue with green and blue swirls.

Prices:

  • Small sitting piggy bank $20 US postpaid
  • Mugs: Large, postpaid $22 US dollars

    1) straight sided with swirly spiral cuts: animal on bottom or handle
    2) fancy foot with textured sides, animal only on handle

  • Steins (enormous!) $26 US postpaid
    -animal on handle above or below

  • Bowls:

    med. cereal/ice cream/salad size $22 US postpaid
    -med. large serving $32 postpaid
    -large $36 postpaid
    all with one animal on edge, add another for 3 more bucks (like 3 piggies or a pig on one side, cow on the other

Animals available: piggy, cow, elephant, bunny, frog, dog (beagle mutt), dog (Spike), dog (springer spaniel), dog (black lab) cat, fish, turtle, rhino, hippo, (human )baby or clown

Everything is cute, microwaveable, dishwasher safe, LEAD FREE non-toxic glaze and guarenteed to arrive in good shape or replaced. You are welcome to submit an order subject to viewing, and I will make it if I don’t have one, picture it, and you can say yes or no. I also reserve the right to make suggestions: for example, no blue elephants on a blue mug.

Lastly, I would need your address, and if they have to, prices subject to change.

So there you go. We are going to likely set up a page for Gary’s works after I get back from special assignment. I get nothing out of the deal. All money goes to Gary and he spends it on chips and soda pop. Click on the pictures for a bigger view.

NCYO’s New Look

There are few blogs that really look as good as they can look but recently NYCO has undergone an upgrade which is visually attractive, well designed and functionally useful. This might leads one to suppose that I am praising its usability but I hate that word-like thing.

Anyway, even through there are three columns and blank space to the right and left, it words as the blank space compliments the rest in its natty grey. The shadowing between the columns keeps it from looking two-dimensional and cluttered. The “yellow box” to the upper-right with the lead side-story is a nice touch on the side-blog idea.

So it looks good and it works well. Good thing she is a good writer, too.

2006 Sports Pool Update…A Winner Is Declared!

Remind me again why in April you think a pool that lasts in to summer is a good idea? Noteworthy notes:

  • #1 – People that picked Staal and Stillman did well in the Stanley Cup Finals did very well. Rob wins the NHL portion and a drastically undervalued hockey card for 159 points. Recount allegations will be accepted but any hope of overturning the fine accounting job I did in preparing the scores will be judged solely on the quality of your haiku.
  • #2 – The Hershey Bears won the Calder Cup. No one picked them so there are no more points to be had. Ranald picks up the card of questionable value for this category.
  • #3 – The World Cup section of the pool is still up in the air and won’t be determined until next Sunday when I am on the road and may not get around to totalling the points…again giving rise to the question of what I was thinking in April when I wrote these questions. There is one question which is answerable:

    Which team goes farther: Togo or Trinidad and Tobago? Ten points. Total goals breaks the tie.

    Both teams came last in their first round groups, both had a -4 goal difference, Trinidad got one point for its 0-0 tie with Sweden. Trinidad scored no goals. Togo scored one goal. As the rule was “total goals breaks the tie” Togo wins. Only Matt picked Togo.

  • #4 – The final question in the other sports section was this:

    Who is the top scorer in the NBA playoffs. Twenty points.

    I did not think that there would be a controversy over such a simple calculation. Yet there is. The NBA is the only league of note that uses a nutty nutty system of point calculation based on average per game. As a result, Dwayne Wade got a total of 654 points in the playoffs, leading Dirk Nowitzki of Dallas by 34 points. On the more common standard of points per game, however, Wade was in fourth with only 28.4 points on avaerage for the 23 games he played. Vince Carter, by comparison, was third with 29.6 for the 11 games he played. I am going to ignore the average as averaging was not mentioned. As a result, the winning answer is Dwayne Wade. Don and Matt picked him and both got 40 points for the “Other Sports” category. Again, plead your case if you like on the methodology.

So here are the scores to date. Rob is in the lead at 240 but Matt appears to be only 6 points behind due to a superior ability to pick up points in the less hockey oriented areas.

Correction!!! I did not consider the Togo v. T+T question until after I wrote the above and Matt’s uncanny ability to pick the obscure ones right led him and no other to pick Togo so he roars ahead and is not four points in the lead at 244.

So, as there are 20 points still to go in the World Cup category, it is all up in the air based on the winner of the golden boot and the World Cup Finals.

Further Correction!!! And on further review…Rob can’t win. Both picked Ronaldo for the golden boot and Rob picked Brazil which is already out. Whatever happens, then, Matt is the only one who can win as no one else is within the available 20 points. Matt wins the book Man Walks Into A Pub!!!

~
NHL
Playoffs
Other
Hockey
World
Cup
Other
Fitba
Baseball
Other
Sport
Total
Hans 112 0 0 20 20 0 152
Alan 88 20 0 15 20 30 173
Rob 159 11 0 40 20 10 240
Scott 120 11 0 15 20 0 166
Ranald 128 23 0 15 20 10 196
CM N/P 14 0 20 N/P 20 54
Don 125 14 0 25 20 10 194
Mike 141 8 0 30 20 0 199
Matt 107 17 10 30 40 40 244!!!
Marcia 45

N/P N/P N/P N/P N/P 45

Things I Love About Canada

Wow. I am sure glad that my folks got to this place. And not just cause Europe (and Grannie, too!) turned out to be socialists! But because Canada is really great as our celebrations on July 1st…celebrate. Here is my list about what I really like about Canada – you add yours:

  • Paddle to the Sea. I hadn’t thought about this NFB movie from the 60s for decades and, voom, there is it as the absolute paradigm of the nation’s soul.
  • Wacky idealistic politicians who turn out to stand for exactly the opposite of what they pledged to the benefit of us all. Trudeau claimed logic and was nutty enough to put us on the world stage through doing all sorts of things largely since undone. Mulroney pretended he was fiscally prudent but never finishing the job, acting like he was under Washington’s wing but helped leverage the end of apartheid. Chretien being a nutjob yet getting finally getting 30 or 40 years of deficit financing in line while making us love him for choaking a citizen.
  • Comedians who leave for the US market. They are the good ones and you can tell because the CBC rejects them. SCTV is a perfect example. And did you know Saturday Night Live was turned down as a project by the dullards?
  • Maple products. We eat the blood of trees. What is neater than that?
  • Federalism and how it divides us. Think about it. You have a mobile population, largely made up of immigrants over the last couple of generations, drop them into ten jurisdictions and – whammo – they learn to dislike each other and hold on to what they have and try to keep it from others. Overlapping redundant bureaucracies foster these jealousies.
  • The neediness. From the whole flag on the backpack in Europe and how much that makes tourism operators their love us so much to the hand wringing about how we should be doing this or that on the world stage. The best is the argument over what Canada stands for. What does Belgium stand for? No one cares. We are a nation of whining twelve year olds and we don’t see it.
  • Trees. Both Kingston and Halifax, my two favorite home cities, still sit in the woods and are full of the damn things. That is why downtown Toronto feels so weird. You can’t see the trees. We love them so much we have provincial and Federal parks that we hardly every use but are great when you do. Ontario‘s park system is particularly amazing.
  • The flags. We have the weirdest flags. The national one has a bit of a tree on it. And look at New Brunswick’s – who the hell ever picked that yellow? British Columbia looks like it was designed for a space traveller worship cult. Alberta’s politicians lobbied hard to further reduce the size of the crest and add even more blue.
  • Events like today’s England v Portugal create some small but telling discomfort between immigrant groups of different generations based on their understanding of what this country stands for even though they are compatible visions.

Me and mine? We are off for a ballgame in the US and some pie. Hey – there’s a double header today.