THE FORCE IS STRONG WITH THIS ONE

REVENGE OF THE SITH has been hovering around the 80% fresh mark for the past few days over at rottentomatoes.com (In contrast, the first two movies in the prequel trilogy ended up around 60-65%)

A. O. Scott, the New York Times Critic says "This is by far the best film in the more recent trilogy, and also the best of the four episodes Mr. Lucas has directed. That's right (and my inner 11-year-old shudders as I type this): it's better than "Star Wars."

My own inner 11-year-old is starting to get seriously amped about this last movie. Here's hoping George pulled it off.

Fault lines shifting

Are we heading for a major re-alignment in the political landscape? Like the Federalist/Sovereignist divide in Quebec, the issues of the role of the Federal power and how power is shared among the different orders of government cuts a swath across the political spectrum, bringing quasi-commies and borderline libertarians under the same ideological umbrella:

What is your vision of this Canada

Big Federal Government in a strong Federation: NDP-Liberals

Small Federal Government in a loose Federation: Conservatives-Bloc

Big Federal Government in a loose Federation: Liberals-Bloc

Small Federal Government in a strong Federation: Conservatives-Liberals

Throw each party's attitude toward the U.S. into the equation and well....

it's enough to make your head spin!

This just in:

PM no longer cool

UPDATE:

PAUL WELLS is stealing my brainwaves!

A laboured analogy

Paul Martin reminds me of a guy I went to high school with in Thunder Bay. He was a couple of years ahead of me and several steps above me in the social echelon. He was the younger brother of a student who had been very popular, and had,with little effort, inherited his sibling's mantle. Above average athlete, clever enough to get by, winning personality, but his most noteworthy attribute, as far as I could tell, was his incredible ability to ingratiate himself with the teachers. He was a permanent fixture on student council and sailed to the presidency in his final year, which meant that he spent a ton of time out of class. I doubt that this guy did half the schoolwork of a normal student. He always seemed to be organizing this, or spearheading that. Too busy for silly stuff like homework, you see. I'm pretty sure he was on a first name basis with most of the teachers, both of the VPs and our weird Principal, who wore white socks with every suit he owned, no matter the color. If ever there was a chosen one, this guy was him.

I remember hearing teachers saying that this guy was destined for big things. I was perplexed. I found it remarkable that a guy who apparently spent so little time in pursuit of academic excellence managed to pull off straight As, but as some students noted sourly, teachers are a forgiving bunch, if you make the right noises, and you know which buttons to push. Needless to say, on paper, the guy was a scholastic superstar, a real leader who had been heavily involved in running the school from nearly the first moment he arrived in Grade nine as a snot-nosed greaseball in a Club Monaco sweatshirt and Zubaz pants. Universal admiration gave way to adulation when the faculty and student body heard the news that our man had made it into one of the best schools in the nation. A promising young man justifies the faith of his legion of supporters. And yet.... there were whispers of skepticism. Some questioned if this guy, who had coasted on charisma, could cut it as a small fish in the much bigger university pond. Could he meet the impossibly high expectations that had been set?

Fast forward one year later: Total wash out. Having had it easy, having had everything handed to him on a silver platter for five years, he was completely unprepared to take it to the next level when push came to shove. Maybe the doubt began to set in the first time he spoke up in a lecture. Instead of obsequious head-bobbing from cronies and a benevolent smile from the teacher, his words were greeted with the hostile stares of his fellow freshmen and a dismissive chortle from a prof thoroughly unimpressed with his intelect.

Maybe he found himself dismayed to discover that his quips, which played so well in the cafeteria, bombed in the pub, surrounded as he was, by wittier and cleverer guys.
Was he shocked to see the kind of guys he had dismissed as dull nonentities back in high school become the stars of their new fraternities, puking their guts up after shotgunning a couple of wobbly-pops behind the bleachers at the game? How about those weird hippy guys who were so terribly tiresome in high school, with their social activism and their hemp clothing... what were they doing chatting with the brainy co-eds in the student centre? When did they get so cool? Maybe he tried to join some clubs, but it wasn't the same. He was deprived of his ready-made high school social network and someone else, some other alpha-male, had usurped his spot as "the man".

I'm sure he tried to work those relationships with the faculty. But an overworked prof is too busy meeting with grad students and lecturing dozens and dozens of students to pay much attention to an anonymous freshman. Didn't do your assignment? Tough. Failure compounded failure, and the golden boy eventually found himself on academic probation. Eventually, our hero dropped out of school, and returned to his hometown, defeated and chastened.

"What happened?" incredulous observers asked. I think that ultimately, he was crushed by the weight of expectations, and reaching the dizzying heights to which he had aspired, a position that by rights, he was told, BELONGED to him, he found that he simply wasn't cut out for the gig.

Oh, to have been tested and be found wanting.

The Rock Under John Paul II

Father Ray DeSouza in the National Post speculates on the name choice of the new guy, whom has already been pilloried in the media for his rigour and orthodoxy -- as if those were flaws in a Pope:

...what then did the new pope wish to say to us? Vocabor Benedictum. "I will be called Benedict."

Commentators immediately looked to Benedict XV, the last pope of that name, who, assuming the papacy in 1914, tried to stop a Europe on the brink of the First World War from committing suicide. With Europe today in an advanced state of cultural decline and demographic suicide, the comparison is apt.

Yet it was likely that the newest Benedict had in mind none of his predecessors on the Throne of Peter, but St. Benedict himself, the father of Western monasticism and patron saint of Europe. Benedict (ca. 480-547) studied in Rome as a young man, but was soon disgusted with the decadence and degeneration he discovered amid the detritus of the Roman empire. He fled the city, and so attracted to himself the monks who would found the monasteries that would preserve the cultural patrimony of the West during the Dark Ages.

There will be no fleeing from Rome for Pope Benedict XVI. He must now attend to what he indicated on Monday was the pressing need of preserving the Christian patrimony of faith and culture in the third millennium.

Easily the funniest thing I have read on the Internet in months:

I may be mistaken...but I think John Ratzenberger from "Cheers" and "The Empire Strikes Back" has just been elected the new pope. Now that's unexpected.

I nearly peed myself.

It's all about ME

I think that essentially modern post-Christian Europe, and Canada, and large
parts of the United States, too, have replaced the traditional impulses of
civilization, which is to breed, and to prosper, and to expand and survive with
a culture of narcissism. You know, I'd like to have, if you put it to me in
those terms, I'd like to have meaningless, promiscuous sex, and just think about
myself all day long, and all week long, and all year long. But in the end, when
you prioritize that, you actually destroy the culture that enables it. It's a
completely absurd culture and brazen. And that's what we've done.

Mark Steyn on Hugh Hewitt show.

In contrast:

It's all about YOU

"TOTUS TUUS"

All the more profoundly I feel myself totally in the Hands of God — and I remain continually at the disposition of my Lord, entrusting myself to Him and to His Immaculate Mother (Totus Tuus).

the preceeding is text found in the last will and testament of a recently-departed fellow, who lived in opulent surroundings, and walked with kings, yet was buried in a simple wooden box and, except for a few personal articles left no property behind him.

FATBODIES

HARTMAN Are you allowed to eat jelly doughnuts, Private Pyle?

PYLE Sir,no, sir!

HARTMAN And why not, Private Pyle?

PYLE Sir, because I'm too heavy, sir!

HARTMAN Because you are a disgusting fatbody, Private Pyle!

PYLE Sir, yes, sir!

Full Metal Jacket

I've been accused of having a weight obsession. I like to think of it as more of a fat obsession. I don't care if someone is stout or thick-limbed, because stout people can be "built solid" (hard-fat, some call it), but I despise excess fat, particularly on myself. Maybe it stems from my youth --I was a porky kid growing up, in spite of the fact that I was quite active and played alot of different sports. Slow metabolism, maybe? My parents were delighted when I got a paper route at age 12. Besides the valuable lessons to be gained in managing one's own business and learning responsibility, they also imagined that the daily physical activity would help me get rid of my baby fat. Unfortuntately, they did not forsee my eventual transformation into a newspaper delivery tycoon and the inevitable delegation of legwork that followed.

At my peak, I was managing the deliver of 200 newspapers a day on 4 different routes. I say "managing" because I wasn't really delivering the newspapers myself. I devised an ingenious business model which involved recruiting a couple of lucky neighbourhood kids every day to accompany me on my deliveries (they tended to hang out near my house in hopes of getting "the word" --think the longshoremen in On The Waterfront. Carrying two bulky newspaper bags over each shoulder, like bandoliers slung on a bandito's chest, I shuffled up and down the streets of my town, handing papers out to my "runners". The runners were the two or three snot-nosed urchins whose job was to sprint up each driveway and drop off a paper. My job was simply to hand each of them a fresh paper as they returned. It was a fantastic system with very low operating costs --payment for the kids consisted of one chocolate bar at the end of the route (worth about 50 cents in those days). I myself could clear eight or nine bucks a day. As my wealth grew, so did my waistline. I was walking less and less, and eating more and more chips and chocolate bars as a result of my newfound prosperity.

Eventually, I overextended myself when I tried to take on an extra route and adapt my clever system to bicycles in order to make my deliveries on time. Newspaper bags are heavy, and they bump your knees when you try to pedal. A few scraped knees and hands convinced me of the folly of my ambitions, and I eventually scaled back my volume of business as new kids (potential paperboys who did not want to work for me) arrived in the neighbourhood to threaten my racket. I was under pressure. The circulation manager had menaced me with the loss of one-or-more of my routes if I didn't finish deliveries sooner. Luckily, I was saved from this ignominy by a timely career change courtesy of my dad: I was forced to quit the route when we moved to a new town.

In spite of my continued participation in a number of team sports; soccer, hockey, football, I remained chubby throughout my early adolescence. It was only when I became a lifeguard and took up running, cycling and weightlifting that the chub began melting away. Sure, I could get in great shape if I put my mind to it, but I distinctly recall that the minute I stopped working out, lovehandles would appear as if by magic, a symbol of my egregious slackery. I gritted my teeth through high school as I watched beanpole classmates down triple-decker cheeseburgers and tubs of coca cola in the cafeteria. I suppose I wasn't blessed with their metabolisms--which, incidentally, seem to have slowed down significantly in the intervening years, so that formerly svelt boys have now become lard-bellied men (much to my delight). Not so for this boy. My slow metabolism turned into a blessing in disguise. I figure that as I approach the start of my fourth decade on this earth, I still have to maintain approximately the same level of activity as I did when I was in high school in order to stay trim. How many other guys my age can say that?

My neurosis, if you want to call it that, truly coalesced when I joined the military. In the military, thin is ALWAYS in, and FAT equals LAZY plus undisciplined, which is a bad thing, if you are part of an organization that sees discipline as an absolute imperative. It stands to reason that lardasses are treated with contempt in the army. On basic training, I distinctly recall one of my fellow recruits, a tubby fellow, tortured by sergeants as he attempted to do pushups: Private, you look like a dog humping a football! You look like a f*cking beached whale, you fat piece of sh*t and so on... There was little sympathy for the guy. After all, if you are going to join the military as an infantryman, one of the most physically demanding jobs around, it stands to reason that you will get in shape before showing up for training. In this, as in most instances, the transgressor is not the one punished, the group is, as a whole. Everyone does pushups FOR the guy who can't do them himself. It was left to his fellow recruits to "motivate" the private and show him the error of his ways. I think a blanket-party (see Full-metal jacket)ensued, and possibly an RTU (return to unit, for discharge or re-training at a later date), but I don't remember.

I suppose in our infantilized culture, it is conceivable that someone would say to themselves "ah, I won't worry about taking responsibility for my own health and fitness... I'm joining the army! The army will take care of that for me"(Mark Steyn would say this is an inevitable result of the growth of the Nanny-State). Some recruits show up out of shape because it hasn't occurred to them that they bear a share of the responsiblity for ensuring their own well-well being and preparing themselves for their new career-- and that there are consequences if they don't. Nowadays, it seems individuals have abdicated all responsibility for their own personal fitness and health.

Maybe that's why some seem to be drawing the wrong conclusions from Morgan Spurlock's acclaimed film Supersize Me: the "Corporations" (traditional scapegoats and boogeymen of the left)are conditioning young people to eat shitty food, and therefore are to blame for the obesity epidemic in North America. Excuse me? What about the fact that people are simply too bloody lazy to make the necessary lifestyle adjustments that their questionable dietary choices demand? Normally, I wouldn't have any regard for an opinion on this subject from Colby Cosh, a very sharp journalist-turned-Blog superstar who happens to be an overweight chain-smoker (from what I gather), but he makes a fairly good point in bringing up the seldom heard-of idea "personal responsibility" and Les Sayer's clever little experiment, where he actually managed to LOSE weight eating a McDonalds-only diet. HOW you ask? Short answer: Unlike Spurlock, he worked his ass off. Says Les:

Seeing my fat and sugar intake be 200% of "normal values" while eating McDonald's food for a month, caused me to really value the importance of regular exercise. If I can lose weight, lower my cholesterol and triglycerides, and have blood work that reveals a healthy liver and kidneys, and all the while eat at McDonald's, it proves to me two things: firstly McDonald's food isn't laden with the "poisons" some people believe it to be. This makes me smile because the same people who earnestly warned that my liver would "collapse" or "explode" within a couple of weeks of the diet, are now insisting that 30 days wasn't long enough. Some people really believe this stuff. And secondly, diet is important for a healthy lifestyle, but not essential. Exercise, however is essential.

Ultimately, I'm more on Les's side than on Morgan's. I don't think that MacDonalds is trying to con me and everyone else. I don't think that they need to change their menus or their marketing practices (but bully for them if they do it, even as just a PR thing) While I find their food mostly distasteful, I recognize that it is marketed cleverly and I can appreciate the appeal it must have for youth. Nevertheless, as far as I'm concerned, McD's should keep doing what it does --unapologetically selling fatty food of questionable nutritional value to folks. I sure don't think that it's their fault that everyone is getting fatter and fatter because we are eating too much, and letting our kids eat too much, of their crap, or that we are not getting enough exercise, and that we are not forcing junior to get off the frigging couch and go split his XXL trackpants doing a few laps around the track. That's where the personal responsibility part comes in. It isn't a corporation's responsibility to fix things. It's up to you and I.

When I start to put on weight (which happens every once in a while), I know I basically have three options:

A) Eat healthier (How do you know you are on the right track? A good clue is when you stop putting on weight)

B) Exercise more (how much? As much as it takes to stop putting on weight)

C) A combination of A&B

Failure to follow one of these three options will result in me becoming a fatbody -with all the attendant health implications that has (body acceptance my ass-- being fat is unhealthy. Period).

YES, it is that simple. I'm responsible.

Action Comics Presents... POPEMAN!

Please excuse my irreverent take on this subject, but it just occured to me that John Paul II was the nearest thing the 20th century ever had to a real life superhero.

Popeman's origin issue introduces a young Polish man and his intrepid band of seminarians boldly pursuing their studies in wartime Cracow under the very nose of Uncle Adolph and his nefarious Nazi no-goodniks. Right from Panel one, you know that this story will have major fan appeal: a dark street in the Polish city, circa 1943: Spoltlights scour the rooftops as sinister SS men run through the streets. "Mein Gott!" says Hauptmann Heinrich "That Jew-loving priestling has escaped me again!" -- "Better luck next time, herr Heinrich" Young Karol shouts from the roof of the cathedral, before leaping down into the alley and running off to live another day.

No one can forget that successful multi-issue run in the seventies, when the Crimson Cardinal (that's Popeman before he got his new identity in the Action Comics 1978 Super Special Rendez-vous Rome issue) battled the Poland's red menace "the Communist Establishment" with the help of the Social Justice League and a squad of crucifix-wielding nuns; the first of what would be many memorable team-ups and cross-overs.

One of my personal faves was Issue 453 (still have mine mint condition in mylar), where Popeman took three bullets from a would-be assassin and came back to lay some serious doctrinal ass-whuppin' on would be reformers a few pages later. At this point in the his run, the globetrotting caped-and-capped crusader presented the very picture of the man in charge.

No one stepped out of line with this successor of Saint Peter. He was a muscular man of the cloth, an ascetic avenger, a power-packed pontiff. Our hero ran a tight ship. Woe to the hapless political figure who challenged his authority--You best believe that he would set the fool straight with a well-placed encyclical to the proboscis.... and of course, he would be back battling human rights abusers a few pages later-backed up by his priests and bishops. Foes trembled in fear of the Papal ban, but Popeman also had a softer side, and every issue issue featured a friendly encounter with one of the members of his legions of adoring faithful, who were always there to cheer their hero on no matter where he went.

Following his defeat of most of his commie arch-nemeses (and their nefarious Atheist Acolytes) at the end of the eighties, some observers thought that the character had run his course and should be put out to pasture, but Popeman emerged revitalized at the beginning of the nineties, thanks largely to the introduction of the Young Catholics, who had always been background characters, but who now began to take on a greater role in Popeman's struggle against secularism and agnositicism.

After a run of several decades, which has seen Popeman confront every major evil of our time and emerge triumphant, the series now comes to a close. It is fitting that in the final issue of his title, Popeman leaves the world with a message of hope, arms his followers with his greatest superpowers --faith and love-- and urges us onward in our battle with the forces of darkness.

Don't toss out any of the back-issues folks. They are all collectors editions.

Requiescat in pace, John Paul II

Pax Vobiscum,Pontifex Maximus

Lomins, the Alfinator and Meels in the kitchen of the family homestead. Alfie wants to eat, as usual. 

Easter 2005: The folks and my girl on the banks of the Detroit river. The best view of Detroit is from this side of the river... trust me, you don't actually want to GO to Detroit.  

My main squeeze calls this my "Bin Laden" look, infidel swine! 

"George Lucas raped your childhood?"

I'll admit it... I am an unrepentant STAR WARS fan. That being said, most of the real fans would laugh at such a bold statement. Although I have seen each of the installments more than once, and can remember the odd quote from a memorable scene, I'm not, you know, THAT INVESTED. Not so, the true Star Wars devotee. The true fan lives and breathes Star Wars. Anyone who has seen that hilarious bit from Late Night with Conan O'brien with TRIUMPH and the geeks at the "Attack of the Clones premiere knows the type of person I'm talking about.

There are men and women (but, let's face it, mostly men) who own thousands of dollars worth of priceless memorabilia, from the first edition action figures still in their original packages to the hundreds of comics and movie-tie ins and crappy merchandise trinkets, not to mention multiple versions of the Original Trilogy -VHS, Laserdisc, DVD, Original Trilogy, Special Editions, etc... These are the jokers that wait in line in their costumes at each of the premieres for days before tickets go on sale, clusters of Jedi Masters, legions of stormtroopers, and the occasional Princess Leia with cinamon-bun hairstyle. Many of them first saw the original movie (now known as Star Wars Episode Four: A New Hope) in theatres when if first premiered in 1977, long before it was the cultural landmark that it has become in the years since. They are now in their thirties, and they take their Star Wars very seriously.

If you needed any greater proof of this seriousness, harken back, if you will, to those heady days of 1999, when, in the wake of the triumphant release of the 20th Anniversary Special Editions, George Lucas birthed the first of his prequels, a movie which told the story of how Anakin Skywalker, the boy who would become Darth Vader, was discovered by the Jedi. The ear-shattering buzz around this film, brought on my a wicked-ass trailer and brilliant marketing campaign, infected the fans in the weeks leading up to its release and was impossible to ignore... many outside of the general fan community could not help but feel a frisson of excitement as well. This would be a cultural event for a NEW generation, a space mythology updated and beefed up with CGI to cater to our more jaded and discerining movie-viewing eyeballs.

While some like me kept expectations as low as possible in order to avoid disappointment, others proclaimed the second coming of the Jedi, and made of the as-of-yet unseen film a golden calf to be worshipped mindlessly. A backlash was inevitable. At pre-screeings, some of the mainstream critics grudgingly recognized the briliance of the visuals, even while they panned the performances in the same breath. The word was out, and it was not good. George Lucas had botched the direction. The dialogue was stilted, the performances, particularly those of younger castmembers, woefully poor. I remember a quote from an actor in the OT (I think it was Carrie Fisher, or maybe Harrison Ford): "You might be able to write this shit, but you sure can't speak it" --or words to that effect. i hesitantly interrogate those who had "seen the elephant", as it were: "Yeah, but the action... great action right?" I had heard about the amazing lightsaber fight that put anything in the OT to shame, and my hopes rested on that, if nothing else.

Ultimately, Star Wars Episode One: The Phantom Menace , or TPM, as the fans call it, proved to be a pretty satisfying movie experience for me. Was Jar Jar annoying? --Does a bear shit in the woods? The only justification I can find for that egregious creation was that it was there to amuse the kiddies. Yeah, the dialogue was groan-enducing... and how! But I distinctly remember some cornball lines from the Original Trilogy, too. The story was a bit dense and sometimes difficult to follow, but the visuals more than made up for it. Bottom line, I was entertained.

But how did the true believers greet the movie? Well, some of the more forgiving ones seemed to find it acceptable. "Third-best Star Wars movie" was an opinion I heard more than once (Some of the original fans had never gotten over the feeling of being let down by Return of the Jedi after the crowning glory of the Empire Strikes Back, strangely, and figured anything was better than Episode 6). But in some corners of the Internet, the Dark Side held sway. The indignation and vitriol that I saw spewed out onto movie site message boards like AICN and TheForce.net when the first movie in the new trilogy was released was nothing short of alarming.

"Lucas sold his soul for CG!" they raged. The legions of Internet critics- a distinctly diffenrent breed from the Eberts and Roepers of the world- piloried it: "Derivative kiddie-popcorn fare devoid of the magic of the OT (original trilogy)!". "George Lucas Raped my Childhood!" one despondent dork wailed.

Jesus, why don't you tell me how you really feel! The only way I could account for these puzzling deep-seated feelings of anger and betrayal was to hypothesize that somehow, over the years, because of nostalgia and the subjective nature of our childhood memories, these three movies released so many years ago (lest we forget, they were MOVIES, people!) had grown into something much more singular and significant in some people's twisted psyches, a philosophy, a zeitgeist, a way of life -- the same way that Star Trek has for others. "IT BETTER NOT SUCK" had been the mantra of their trepidatious and timorous subconsciouses for so long as they awaited the messiah's return. For these people who had invested so much of themselves in this imaginary universe, so much more than an entertaining cinematic experience was at stake. A trivial film could trivialize their very selves, the essence of who they were.

Fast forward three years, much the same story: For some, Episode II, Attack of the Clones (AOTC) the 2002 follow-up to TPM, was redemption or vindication, for others, it only added insult to injury, as their hopes were again dashed. Personally, I found the second film an improvement on the first, but a flawed film nonetheless. Entertaining overall, and containing some virtuoso sequences, but certainly not in the league of, say, The Lord of the Rings movies, for example. How traumatic it must have been for those sad fellows who had spent countless hours dreaming of new star wars movies to not have their gargantuans expectations met. "But I thought the Jedi would be cooler!" "I thought we would see Darth Vader being a bad ass!" "I would have shown more of the Clone Wars!"

So now we come to the moment of truth. We are on the cusp of the Third Act, the denouement, the one that everything has been leading up to. Star Wars Episode 3: Revenge of the Sith opens on May 10, 2005. The movie tells of Anakin's final descent into evil and his betrayal of the Jedi will be the yardstick against all the other films will be measured. The Trailer looks very promising: Plenty of kickass action and mayhem and a decidedly dark tone. "Ah, but the other trailers were great too... and look how the movies turned out" the haters warn. Will ROTS provide a suitably spellbinding and thrilling climax, tying up all loose ends and bringing the Saga together in one cohesive narrative, or will it be the final betrayal: a sprawling, shambolic mess that colapses under its own weight and ends the series on a bad note?

The fascinating thing is that it may end up being the former to some and the latter to others. Perhaps ultimately, it wil be seen as a flawed masterpiece lacking the wide appeal of the best episodes in the series, but rising above the level of the lesser installments in Lucas' opus.

Lucas himself has said "I feel that I've made the movie the best I can and it turned out the way I wanted it to be, so I'm happy. I never try to anticipate what the world's going to think or even worry about whether they're going to like it or not. That's not my job, to make people like my movies. They either like them or they don't. That's completely out of my hands."

Wise words from the original Jedi Master.

DELWIT!

My brother and his friends came up with this word a couple of years ago. When I first heard them use it in conversation, I couldn't quite figure out what they were saying. They would use it as a response to a question: "Are you going to go out tonight?" Answer: "Del-wit!". It worked as a greeting "Wassup?"..."DEL-WIT!" or as a description for someone "That dude is so delwit."

Sometimes it would be modified into an emphatic statement "Del-wit... TOTALLY!"... or made into a prediction "Soon to be... del-wit" (or to be del-wit soonly). In time, it became as ubiquitous within my brother's peer group as that most Canadian of exclamations: eh.

I find the etymology of this word fascinating. It is basically a contraction of the words "dealt with", as in "That issue needs to be dealt with".

Apparently, the word originated from the good-natured mimickry of an acquaintance of theirs who made constant over-use of the verb "to deal": "Deal with that open window" (close the window, please). Could you deal with the phone? (Answer the phone for me, will you?). Naturally, over time, the standard response to the request after someone had carried it out would be to say "It's totally dealt with",
In time, this became "totally, deal'with!" and eventually, "totally delwit!" (or when you feel like changing things up: "totalled!"). If you hadn't done something yet you might say "soon to be delwit", or "to be delwit soonly" (Why soonly? I don't know, I'm not an etymologist!)

Now everything is delwit. I find myself using the expression all the time with my brother. It has even developeed into a bizarre patois that sounds like gibberish to the unaccustomed ear. If I want to know if he'll be catching a lift with me to go visit our parents, for instance, I might ask "Will you be delwit down to mom and dad, soonly?" To which he would answer, of course: "Totally!"

Somehow, this weird dialect hasn't gotten stale for us yet... in fact, I have a feeling that if we keep using it, it may CATCH ON...

Now deal with that.

Why Paul Martin blows, big time, according toSteyn:

I overestimated Paul Martin. I assumed that, underneath the autopilot boilerplate pol-drone, he had a view on Iraq, Canada, the world, etc., and it was only because of the interminable holding pattern he was stuck in, waiting to land at Sussex Drive, that he felt unable to reveal it to us.

But, if anything can be clearly seen these days, it’s that Paul Martin has wanted to be prime minister his entire life and has worked ruthlessly toward that end, and yet has never troubled himself to acquire a political philosophy. I don’t mean like Thatcherism or Reaganism. He doesn’t have to invent a top-to-toe Martinism; he could just latch onto someone else’s philosophy, one he happens to--what’s the phrase?--believe in. But it’s clear, and it’s increasingly being clearly seen to be clear, that he doesn’t believe in anything.

Cool? I'm fricken frozen! 

Blogosphere hails The 'Donkey's return!

Fans clamoured for more heaping helpings of bloggy goodness.

Indeed, like Julius Caesar, Triumphant triumvir, entering the Eternal City at the conclusion of the Civil Wars, I have returned... Now that my classical allusion has you convinced that I an insufferable blowhard, allow me to elaborate.

Three long months have passed since I had a decent internet connection, and for several reasons, after months of living web-free, I fell off the wagon. What that means, dear reader, is that you'll be hearing from me a bit more often.

Hollywood runs afoul of Hebrews

I had to laugh a bit when I read this article. Somehow, the image of the loverly miss Portman getting chased through the streets of Jerusalem by enraged ultra-orthodox jews brings a smile to my face. Never mind the fact that the Israeli-born actress has been studying at Hebrew University in Jerusalem for several months and should have known better... what the heck were the film producers thinking? I mean, how clueless and disrespectful can you get? This is why, Kabalah bracelets aside, its nice to see trivial, narcissistic, secular Hollywood take a big bite to the ass (a la
Passion of the Christ)every once in a while from some old-school religious types.

I hope the director got his ass kicked by some IDF guys for that....

So another week races by, and what do we have to show for it? You first! No really... oh, OK, if you insist! I finally got the official word: I am being appointed to my position as a permanent employee. Over 50 months in this program, across 3 government departments and 5 different assignments, and at last we arrive at the end of the journey. Finally, I don't have to (figuratively) wear the MacDonald's trainee button, anymore. I can tear it from my breast, strip off my wifebeater and button-down shirt --exposing a hirsute torso, pull my pants down, and play the bongos as I run around the office in my tighty-whities. I'm expecting the letter any day now. Dude, I SO rock.

Incidentally, this once-a-week blogging thing is where it's at! No more self-indulgent daily navel-gazing that doesn't seem to go anywhere and ends up coming across very trivial ( oh woe is me! I must vomit all my innermost thoughts into this blog everyday because I'm so deep and what I had for breakfast is so fascinating and what I think of some flick is so important and nobody understands me! ) Yup, Just straight-up quality content from now on. I'm gonna write about important shit! You know, actual interesting events that occur in my life?

Oh, yeah, did I mention I saw the movie SAW last night? That is one M-Fing scary flick, y'all! Oh yeah, and that Quaker instant oatmeal cinnamon cereal bar really hit the spot this morning. By the way, nobody understands me.

Being at work after-hours is always a bit eerie. Everything gets really quiet and you begin to notice the subliminal sounds. You know, the ones that are always there but that your brain filters out as you go about your daily routine. The hum of overhead lights and computers; rasping breath, wheezing, throat clearing, snorting, knee-or-ankle-cracking... the little noises that people don't even realize they are making. When you are in a work environment that tends toward the geriatric, like mine (average age appears to be about 73-- I still get called kid or sonny even though I am pushing 30... I think you get the idea), people make alot of noise, even when they aren't speaking. When you pick up on them, tt can be distracting and a bit disconcerting to listen to all of these groans and gasps --a subtle reminder of one's own mortality. One day, I will be all bloated and gassy and uncomfortable, sitting in my orthopaedic chair, with my feet on a footrest to ease the pain of my gouty extremities... and maybe, unlike so many around me today, I will have an epiphany: Holy Shit!... What the hell am I still doing at work at age XX? I need to F*ing RETIRE already!!.

You see, it is my firm belief that too many people work long past the point that they are making any significant contribution to their workplace. At what point does going to work become a convenient way to hit the snooze button on the alarm clock of life (y'know, like gradschool can be for so many scared undergrads?: Grow up? No thanks, I think I'll read Nietsche and study radical Feminist thought for another 4 years... now, THAT will make me marketable!). In the words of Mr. Kenny Rogers, "You gotta know when to hold'em, know when to fold'em". So many people stay in the game for so long, it's years before they realize that, not only are they no longer welcome at the table, but they aren't even able to keep up with the revised rules. Maybe I sound like a jerk, but I guess I'm just alarmed at the number of grandpas and grandmas I work with. Are you OK financially? (If you aren't, that's a whole different kettle of fish).... then buy a frigging Winnebago! Go fishing! Spend time with your family! There is more to life than work! We'll find someone to replace you, honest.

On a completely different note, if "How many gazebos do you she-males need" isn't the best line ever spoken on The Simpsons, I don't know what is.

Word.

It has been so long since I posted anything, I actually forgot my password for a second or two. I feel like I have broken into someone else's blog and I'm surepticiously banging away on the keyboard hoping I don't get caught. Speaking of getting caught --I have been completely ensnared by Norman Spector's daily press review over at Macleans It is now a part of my daily routine, as essential as that cup of dark roast I pick up across the street from my office before starting my workday. Why read the paper when you can have someone like Norman read twenty of them and report back to you?

Work has settled down a bit, thanks to the departure of a boss whom, in the words of one of my old army instructors, "failed to live up to the low expectations she set for herself". I'm taking the time to enjoy life a bit more, and be blown away by something wonderful happening in the world every so often. --Like elections in Iraq, for instance, where burqas and blue fingers are the new fashion statement. Western democracies have been put to shame by people who risk life and limb to do something practically half of us can't be bothered to do every four years or so. A treatise on the value of democracy is being written before our eyes.

I'm also staggered by the response of the world to the Tsunami. A cynical part of me wants to think that it came about because so many westerners know Thailand, or at least know someone who is there, was there, or soon will be. Way to go, everyone, but we musn't forget other disasters, like the situation in Darfur, or more mundane tragedies, like poverty and homelessness at home. I dropped off some clothes and food to the local shelter last week. I figured that the usual stream of good will might have been temporarily diverted into the flow of goods to Asia.

Part of me wants to sign up for internet access again, just so that I can go back to doing this with some regularity... until I do, go read some Spector.

Where to begin?

Weaning myself from my compulsive blogging habit has been tough, but the transition to a blog-free existence is necessitated by the fact that since my move, I have not had my internet re-connected. Having my umbilicus to the world wide web severed has proven to be quite liberating, actually. No more racking my brain to come up with interesting topics to write about (--aha! but you never wrote anything interesting anyway you are probably saying right now--fair enough)... I can now concentrate on more important things, like drinking and eating, f'rinstance!

The first few days of December, I was living a spartan existence in a cubby hole full of boxes. My routine went something like this: wakeup -go to work- come back from work- unpack- sleep - repeat until done. To my great surprise, as days turned into weeks, I gradually emerged from my dwindling mountain of boxes to discover to my delight that I did, in fact, have a rather nice new appartment. By no means am I completely settled in, but a month on, I'm becoming more and more optimistic.

Perhaps because of my new found optimism, I seem to have transformed into some kind of bon-vivant in the last few days, gorging myself on good booze and fine food during the holiday season. The ever-increasing tightness of my waistband is evidence that this type of behaviour is not without effect, so before I burst my buttons and split the ass out of my dungarees, I'm gonna head out on a lung-bursting 10 K today. I figure my recent social smoking will come back to haunt me, but I need to get a headstart on my 2005 resolution (Get in real shape!), particularly since I managed to keep my resolution for 2004 (learn to dance properly) and I don't want to break my streak of two years and counting.

About six months ago, I acted on last year's New Year's Eve promise I made to myself, and thanks to a bit of self-discipline and commitment, when the music comes on, I no longer caper or mince around the dancefloor like a jackass, but can actually perform a serviceable waltz or foxtrot. I'm pretty good with the latino stuff too --cha cha and mambo are two of my favourites-- and I'm at the point where I look like I actually know what I'm doing up there. Some of you may laugh at my quaint notions, but, having been born about 200 years late, I am a firm believer that learning to dance properly is an essential part of any young gentleman's education... and besides, chicks dig it.

Being in Windsor with the family for the holidays has been a welcome break from the craziness that was December. First of all, I met a fantastic girl...we get along amazingly well and we enjoy each other's company--I'll just leave it at that. Angst-ridden overanalysis has been the death of more than one fledgling relationship for me and I'm not gonna continue to make the same tactical error over and over again. I'm not overthinking things, just going with the flow. Only time will tell, I suppose. Work has alternated between frenetic and depressing, but a couple of good Christmas parties and some fun off-hours has helped me shake off any winter funk that might have started to set in, so all things considered, I'm in pretty high spirits.

Because I don't know when I will get a chance to write again, the most fitting way for me to close this entry is to wish you, my unknown reader, a wonderful Christmas and extend to all my best wishes for 2005.

J

Blog Going On Hiatus - Network Executives Cite Poor Ratings

Ottawa - November 30 2004

Network stuffed shirts announced today that ailing internet Web log Vis Comica would be put on hiatus and all new postings suspended while new writers attempt to "re-tool" and "work out some kinks".

The once-popular site, known for its rambling diatribes on politics and pop culture, has been struggling of late in the ratings, lagging just behind Triumphfan's "Poopblog" and perennial favourite "ANABLE-US", a site run by the Arkansas chapter of the National Association of Belly Lint Enthusiasts, in the quest for daily hits.

When asked to comment on the site's downward slide, spokesperson Luis Bernstein-Garcia offered the network's theory:

"We think this may have something to do with the fact that the guy who runs this thing --I think his name is Jeff -- has not been posting nude pictures of pre-op trannies, which was how this blog was pitched to us in the first place"

The head writer of the site, alcoholic recluse Jamal Leders, could not be reached for comment, but is believed to have retired to his cabin in the woods of Northern Quebec to work on new topics for the blog and shave his backhair. Sources close to the writer describe his state of mind as "strangely euphoric", but caution that this may be largely due to the copious amounts of glue he has been sniffing following the end of his short marriage to a philipino mail-order bride.

It is said that Leders suffered a complete emotional breakdown following a recent meeting with network honchos where he was told his blog would be suspended, but staffers remain confident that he will return to the network family if he can put his personal life back in order.

"No one likes to see someone go to pieces like that. You tell the guy that it's OK to cry, but part of you is thinking Come on man, have some dignity" offered Clovis Van Der Veldt, Associate editor for Blogworld Syndicated, who was present at the meeting.

At the present time, officials refuse to speculate on Vis Comica's return date, but assure loyal readers that they remain behind the blog and are committed to its continued existence, as long as something more profitable does not come along. They remind visitors to the site that the links and archives will remain operative until they figure out how to pull the plug.

Now that I have seen how little storage space I'm gonna have in my new place, there's no getting around it... I'm gonna have to get my IKEA on!

I'm such a hypocrite. Barely two weeks ago I was bragging about my minimalist tendencies, and now I'm scurrying off to that unholy temple of swedish conformity to stockpile lamps and bins!...

What would Tyler Durden say?

We were meant to live for so much more
Have we lost ourselves?
Somewhere we live inside


We want more than this world's got to offer
We want more than this world's got to offer
We want more than the wars of our fathers
And everything inside screams for second life

SWICHFOOT
is a San Diego Rock band with a distinctive sound and a refreshing outlook on life.

Their style of rock is as accessible as any mainstream act you are liable to come across, and yet their lyrics are infused with a spiritual message that is far from "preachy".

Little known fact: Their single "We were meant to live" was inspired by this 1925 poem by T.S. Elliot with the frequently-quoted ending:


The Hollow Men

I


We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats' feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar

Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;

Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death's other Kingdom
Remember us -- if at all -- not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men.


II


Eyes I dare not meet in dreams
In death's dream kingdom
These do not appear:
There, the eyes are
Sunlight on a broken column
There, is a tree swinging
And voices are
In the wind's singing
More distant and more solemn
Than a fading star.

Let me be no nearer
In death's dream kingdom
Let me also wear
Such deliberate disguises
Rat's coat, crowskin, crossed staves
In a field
Behaving as the wind behaves
No nearer --

Not that final meeting
In the twilight kingdom


III


This is the dead land
This is cactus land
Here the stone images
Are raised, here they receive
The supplication of a dead man's hand
Under the twinkle of a fading star.

Is it like this
In death's other kingdom
Waking alone
At the hour when we are
Trembling with tenderness
Lips that would kiss
Form prayers to broken stone.


IV


The eyes are not here
There are no eyes here
In this valley of dying stars
In this hollow valley
This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms

In this last of meeting places
We grope together
And avoid speech
Gathered on this beach of the tumid river

Sightless, unless
The eyes reappear
As the perpetual star
Multifoliate rose
Of death's twilight kingdom
The hope only
Of empty men.


V


Here we go round the prickly pear
Prickly pear prickly pear
Here we go round the prickly pear
At five o'clock in the morning.

Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow

For Thine is the Kingdom

Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow


Life is very long

Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow

For Thine is the Kingdom


For Thine is
Life is
For Thine is the

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.

Vindicated

I am selfish

I am wrong

I am right

I swear I'm right

I swear I knew it all along

And I am flawed, but I am cleaning up so well

I am seeing in me now the things you swore you saw yourself


Vindicated by Dashboard Confessional

True story:

Today I stepped into the elevator at work at around 5:45 pm. An exhausted-looking gentleman was standing in one corner with his trenchcoat in the crook of his elbow. I gave him a quick glance and said "Good evening sir! How are you?" as cheerfully as I could. "Good evening... I'm doing fine... um, being kept very busy.... very busy" murmurred Michel Dorais, Judy Sgro's Deputy Minister.

"I'm sure you must be" is all I could answer.

one last party at 259 Bay 

Farewell to 259 Bay 

I was telling a friend the other day about my theory regarding Iraq, and it
occured to me that I had never properly articulated it before, so, for the first time in writing, here goes.

1991: Gulf War. Coalition Forces defeat Saddam Hussein's army, driving it out
of Kuwait and back into Iraq. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Colin
Powell is among those who advise against the invasion of Iraq, intimating that a
full-scale invasion would commit the U.S. and the international community to a
long term occupation of Iraq, possibly involving a drawn out period of fighting
insurgents, islamic fundamentalists and foreign fighters from the region who
rush in to fill the vaccuum in the wake of Hussein's downfall. "No way" says
President Bush Senior. A no-fly zone is established, the U.N. imposes economic sanctions and puts forward resolution after resolution in the U.N. calling for Hussein to disarm in the years that follow.

next ten years: First World Trade Centre Bombing, al Qaeda's rise to prominence. Bombing of U.S.S. Cole, ect. ad nauseam.

2001: September 11th.

2003: There is no direct link between September 11th and Saddam Hussein. U.S.
administration's strategy: Create one. Expansion of "War-on-Terror",
Axis-of-Evil, Doctrine of pre-emptive war paves the way. States giving aid and
comfort to terrorists are now legitimate targets. Following the failure of
sanctions and the expulsion of UN weapons inspectors, Secretary of State Colin
Powell is among those who advise against the invasion of Iraq, intimating that a
full-scale invasion would commit the U.S. and the international community to a
long term occupation of Iraq, possibly involving a drawn out period of fighting
insurgents, islamic fundamentalists and foreign fighters from the region who
rush in to fill the vaccuum in the wake of Hussein's downfall. "Exactly" says
President Bush Junior.

Fight them there so we don't have to fight them at home.

One event can change everything.

Demon Diarrhoea?

Historian Donald E. Graves describes the conditions in Winfield Scott's camp near Buffalo prior to the invasion of the Niagara peninsula during the War and 1812:

"Discipline is but the second object," Scott informed his officers, "the first is the health of troops," and from the outset he followed this credo. He ordered his men to bathe three times a week in the lake under the supervision of an officer who was to ensure that they were to "wash themselves from head to foot, but not to remain immersed in the water more than five minutes." Unusual for the time, this insistence on hygiene paid dividends - from April to the beginning of July, only two men died of sickness at Flint Hill and, to the amazement of medical personnel, "even the demon diarrhoea appeared to have been exorcised by the mystical power of strict discipline and rigid police!"

From the book Where Right and Glory Lead! The Battle of Lundy's Lane, 1814

Just think: This was an era where sickness often decimated armies before their campaigns had even started... If a few more American Generals had told their men to take baths like Scott did, Canada might now be a part of the United States!

Have you seen THIS SITE? Nothing more pathetic than a bunch of weepy wankers pretending to apologize in order to make a political statement. OK, so you are pissed about the fact that Bush got back in, but excuse me... what the heck are you really sorry about? Sorry that the Democrats blew it? Sorry that others don't agree with your particular world view? Are you really apologizing for the results of an election? Why should you apologize for the fact that your countrymen and countrywomen exercised their democratic right?... on the bright side, some of the photos, with their ersatz sentimentality, are downright hilarious.

Y'all just about done with your self-abasement and self-loathing? Good... lets move on, cause honestly... the knockoff sites are getting
OUT
OF
HAND

While everyone is apologizing, I'd like to apologize to our friends to the South for having such a high opinion of all of you... This type of degrading behaviour indicates that not all of you are worthy of my regard.


R.I.P. BIG BABY JESUS.

I dedicate this to all the pretty girls
All the pretty girls, in the world
And the ugly girls too
Cause to me your pretty anyways baby


ODB: the man who introduced KELIS to the world.

Tim and Jim 

Pops thinking he should have brought a warmer coat... bloody Ottawa weather! 

Remembrance Day 2004: At the National War Memorial in Ottawa 

Maybe you have GOOGLED others --I once changed my mind about asking a girl out after digging up some stuff on the Internet (nothing salacious... it had to do with debt, believe it or not) - but have you ever Googled yourself?

It's amazing what you can find out:

I remember when I was a spokesperson for Canada Customs during the Summit of the Americas in 2001 in Quebec City and spoke to someone at the Press-Republican of Plattsburg New York... but I don't remember saying the stuff I am credited with saying... @$&%# media!

I remember serving as a Corporal in the Lake Superior Scottish Regiment at one time, but apparently, I was also a Sapper in the Royal Engineers in 1863. If my third listing is taken into account, my military career spanned over two centuries. Pretty impressive. Between my stints in the military, I must have dabbled in petty theft, although I have no recollection of stealing a pig or any other farm animal, for that matter.

I guess the lesson is Don't believe everything you read online...

I wonder if it is too late to call that girl?

To all those progressive Americans who have decided to leave George Bush's USA and head North to live in the Dominion of Canada in the wake of your recent elections. You are most welcome! However, before you pull up stakes, there are a few things you need to know about this country and how we differ from the United States... we wouldn't want you to have any nasty surprises when you get here, so here goes:

Our taxes are higher... deal with it. Many of you are well-educated and have
the potential to secure high-paying jobs -- For this temerity you will be penalized most severely(incidentally, you better be employable, or we won't let you in as
skilled workers, wink wink). In our northern socialist paradise, we like to level the playing field, so think of this as your opportunity to allow others to experience the utopian health care system you have dreamed of for the U.S. --thanks to the
income taxes that will decimate your disposable income. Hey, at least you'll get your flu shot!

We grow the best dope in the world. BC Bud. And it is decriminalized, which means you can get fined, but you won't go to jail. Also, if you are gay, you can get married in several provinces. That's all I will say about those two little nuggets.

Except in BC (which is barely part of Canada) our winters are really bloody cold --and not Aspen ski holiday cold, or a blustery-Nantucket-in-January cold-- I'm talking bone-cracking, mind numbing, fingers-turn-black-and-fall-off cold. You will undoubtedly find this hard to take... but you may find comfort in the fact that our miserable mosquito-plagued summers are mercifully short.

We are more "British" than you, in the sense that we have a Queen, a Westminster-style
Parliament, and we are generally more subdued and less individualistic
than you... (Peace order and good government, is our credo rather than life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness) but we are in denial about it, in the sense that we have
constructed an identity for ourselves as a multicultural nation, so that we can
pretend that we weren't basically a colony of Britain until the 1930s. Hell, we
didn't even have our own flag until the sixties!

We consider ourselves a mosaic, not a melting pot. In the U.S. a Chinese person who immigrates becomes a Chinese-american. In Canada, a Chinese person who immigrates to Canada is considered Canadian by the Government, but identifies themselves as Chinese to everyone else. Some people say we couldn't be a melting pot because we don't have anything for people to melt into. The anglo side of this bicultural nation is notiorious for its insecurity over its identity, we identify ourselves by what we aren't not what we are.... hence our occasional juvenile outbursts of antiamericanism, masquerading as nationalism....as for the French side... I'm not even gonna go there.

None of your f*cking guns. We really really mean it. Shit, I mean, we've spent over a billion dollars on a gun registry that doesn't event work! That's how serious we are about gun control in this country... and we sure as hell don't have any second amendment type garbage in our constitution. You better not bring anything more dangerous that a BB gun up here or we will confiscate it on your ass. Guns are for cops, soldiers, and the occasional hunter out in the boondocks... That's it. Which raises the inevitable question: Are Canadians a bunch of pussies? Well, that is a complex question.

We like to think that we are a kinder, gentler, country (to borrow a phrase from Bush Sr.)... and yet in our favourite sport (that's hockey... just hockey... not ICE-hockey)bloodletting is a mundane occurence. Also, we have some pretty macho national icons like the mountie, and the voyageur, and the lumberjack... One thing for sure, we USED TO BE tough... real tough. We had the best army fighting in World War I, we had the world's fourth largest Navy in World War 2 (which started, for us, in 1939, NOT in 1941, thank you very much). We once even defended ourselves from invasion by your ancestors (War of 1812) and burnt down the goddamn White House in retaliation --it used to be painted pink. Now, we think our military is for peacekeeping, and only when the U.N. says it is OK. I suppose we have largely forgotten our fathers, but we wear a poppy every November 11, and pretend we remember. In Quebec they do remember (je me souviens), but what they remember is 1759, and the Battle of the Plains of Abraham, which is still being fought today. They are winning.

Finally, our beer is.... different. Our beer is to yours as Aston Martin is to Pinto, as sirloin is to ground chuck, as diamonds are to cubic zirconia.... in short, Democrat beer lovers, to their delight, will reap the unexpected reward of their political choice in the form of access to our vastly superior brews. If that isn't incentive enough to move to Canada, I don't know what is!

Once again, welcome... but you've been warned.

Magnanimity in victory, dignity in defeat

I'll say this... in spite of the nastiness of the campaign, the finale to this election has renewed my faith in the American political process.

In his concession speech, Kerry was the opposite everything his critics accuse him of being: He was warm (emotional, even!)and down-to-earth, he was succinct, he was he was direct and straightforward. It was a heartbreaking glimpse of the statesman he could have been.

In his victory speech, Bush displayed thoughtfulness, humility, and gratitude. Even his detractors must admit that he displayed none of the arrogance and cockiness that sometimes bubbles to the surface in his moments of triumph.

Before the nation descends back into the bitter partisan bickering that has characterized the political landscape for the last few months, I'm just going to enjoy the moment...

Looks like the Republicans have put the boots to the Democrats in Nebraska after all...

The Democrat's chosen one, Barak Obama, comes highsteppin' into the endzone and does a funky touchdown dance to celebrate his Senate seat in Illinois. Someone to watch in the years to come.

10:40... Ay Dios mio! Bush is winning the hispanic vote in Florida? Kerry may go southcentral on the fool's ass on the left coast, but in the nubby-state, the barios are painted red, ese!


It is 11:30. As it stands right now, Bush is ahead in the popular vote, but the electoral college is what counts. Shades of 2000 (the damn election looks like a carbon-copy of the last one anyway)... looks like we have to wait for the decision.
I'm going to bed!

If Bush ends up winning this thing.... the pundits are shaking their well-coifed heads. I mean come on! The economy is lethargic, Iraq, if not a quagmire, is certainly not a pretty picture. The intelligentsia, Michael Moore, Hollywood, minority groups, the media, your uncle Jerome, your yuppie neighbours... they are all against Bush. Any half-decent Democratic candidate should have handed George his ass. How could this happen? Who are these people that may be giving the White house back to Bush? I know! Let's pin it on the religious right! Maybe these supposedly-outside-the-mainstream turned out to vote in droves? You remember, of course... These are the people that made the Passion of the Christ a $500 million box office smash after the Liberal elite had written off the "art flick" as lacking in mainstream appeal and consigned it to box-office oblivion. Apparently, there are alot more rght-wing wackos out in the heartland than the Democrats thought. If Bush wins, is the mainstream about to be redefined in America?

Some random musings on election night in the U. S. of A....

seven-thirtyish... I'm watching CNN. They are going to great pains to tell us that they will absolutely, positively NOT CALL ANY STATE until they are 100% sure of which way it is gonna go... and just because they are NOT CALLING A STATE, that does not necessarily mean that the state is "too close to call". Gotcha. Consider that ass covered.

Terry McAuliffe, that obnoxious DNC jerkoff, has a vague, slightly annoying accent I can't place. Sorta sounds Midwestern. You know, the people who say "sari" when they mean sorry, and call hockey "ice-hackey" SHUDDER!

I'm oblivious... Until tonight, I had no idea that Red is for REPUBLICAN and Blue is for DEMOCRAT. I thought it was vice versa... like up here in the great white north where tories have always been BLUE, unless they are RED tories, meaning conservatives who are social liberals --I dunno, the whole bleeding heart thing? Isn't there some kind of association there?

The Liberal party has always been les rouges, as far as I know. The Green party is green, of course, the NDP is, uh, green too, but more of a pukey green, and the Bloc is... who cares.

CNN reiterates that they will no call any state unless... yeah, yeah, I heard you the first time, Judy!

Candy Crowley of CNN: Like Otto from the Simpsons would say... "uh, you used to be a dude, right?"

8:25 pm... Everyone is so enthusiastic about the early returns! The Democrats are thrilled, the Republicans are confident... I see some burst bubbles in someone's future.

sidebar - Vanessa Kerry: She looks like her dad in drag... except her eybrows actually move.

8:40 pm... President Bush carries the old Dominion of Virginia, as expected, and North Carolina (home state of John Edwards!) but Pennsylvania still hangs in the balance

9:15... rumours of another Miami-Dade cock-up abound. Election threatens to drag for days....

9:40 bush Punks out Kerry for one of Maine's electoral college votes, but Kerry puts the kibosh on that gambit by taking one of Nebraska's... end result. nil gain for either candidate.

So far, nothing but speculation and wishful thinking from my usual web haunts....

It is official. Barring any unforseen complications, I will be moving to a new place at the end of this month. It is a lovely little flat in a 6 story building in the heart of Sandy Hill, and only a 20 minute walk from work. I don't really have much of a choice, since the next occupants of my current place will be arriving at the begining of the month.... they have a really interesting plan for remodelling the building. You've heard of open concept? Well they are going to do "open air concept"... basically, they are going to gut the apartment and tear it down to the foundations. How avant-guard! They are levelling half of my block to build condos. I thought the building boom was over and that the housing market had levelled off, but a walk around my neighbourhood would disabuse you of that notion. Centretown is being transformed as heritage buildings and delapidated houses like mine make way for condos and townhouses way out of my price range.

Moving in December is going to be such fun, what with the snow and bitter Ottawa cold and all! On the bright side, my minimalist tendencies mean that I really don't have that much stuff to move. I suppose that one day, in the distant or not-too-distant future I will become a much more efficient and voracious consumer, stockpiling massive quantities of products, furniture and appliances, in a desperate search for fulfillment. For now, I subscribe to Tyler Durden's philosophy about material goods: "The things you own... end up owning you"

When I was a member of the The "Lake Sups", a Reserve Infantry Regiment in Thunder Bay, I trained with guys from a number of different units, including The Loyal Edmonton Regiment. The Loyal Eddies, and many other proud Canadian Regiments, bear this name proudly on their battle-scarred Regimental colours:
ORTONA

This week, Canadians REMEMBER

"It wasn't hell. It was the courtyard of hell. It was a maelstrom of noise and hot, splitting steel...the rattling of machine guns never stops ... wounded men refuse to leave, and the men don't want to be relieved after seven days and seven nights... the battlefield is still an appalling thing to see, in its mud, ruin, dead, and its blight and desolation (...) With the fall of Ortona, the battle of the Moro river is over, and there is a new name to add to the list of great deeds of the war...neither in this war nor in any other has there been anything more bitter and intense. The Canadians beat two of the finest German divisions that ever marched in a long fury of fire and death ending in the appalling week of Ortona."

Matthew Halton

The REVIEWS are in!... 3 out of 4 critics agree: TEAM AMERICA: WORLD POLICE is one funny f***ing movie!

I can't remember the last time I laughed so hard at the cinema. This is a repugnant, reprehensible nasty little bastard of a puppet flick. If you are a Michael Moore dupe, you will probably be deeply offended. If you are a chest-thumping neo-con, you will be outraged. If you are a sceptical observer who unapologetically appreciates clever satire laced with liberal doses of obscenity and juvenile potty-humour like me, you will love every minute.

Kudos to Matt Stone and Trey Parker for delivering a sorely needed kick to the nuts to moronic celebrity blowhards, brain-dead profiteers of patriotism, and cliche Hollywood action flicks.

PAUL WELLS of Macleans says: Team America: World Police is certainly the most insightful political movie of 2004. I could not agree more.

Once in a while, reading STEYN is like having the veil of ignorance, stupidity and complacency lifted from my eyes. Why accept the status quo? Why accept political ideology as gospel? Here is an excerpt from one of his latest articles, from The Western Standard:


(...) what’s fascinating to me is that, no matter how inept the nanny state is, no matter how bad the health care system gets in reality, Canadians are still unwilling to give up on its utopian virtues – universal lack of access, equality of non-care. We believe it’s more moral to take poor government health care than to make arrangements for our own.

The Canadian system is supposedly designed for the weakest in society - the unfortunate person who needs medical treatment but, without the state, would have difficulty gaining access to it. But, by treating all of us as the weakest in society, the state softens us – and softens itself. When health care is the government’s responsibility, it becomes its principal responsibility. Imagine if we had as many high-profile conferences on national security as we do on health. But we don’t. Because the minute you make government the provider of health care, you ensure that, come election time, the electorate identifies health as its number one concern. Thus, in a democracy, the very fact of socialized health care seduces government away from its prime responsibility – the defence of the realm. In the Canadian cabinet, the Health portfolio is more prestigious than Defence. Think Donald Rumsfeld would regard it as a promotion if he were moved to Health?

You may not agree with his view... but it certainly makes you think....

I watched Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind last night --alone and exhausted from a crazy week of picket-line duty and 10-hour days. The Public Service Alliance of Canada was on STRIKE this week, and I ain't a member... I'm considered part of the excluded "management" category right now. That means I had to do employee liaison duty --basically stand outside my building with a bright orange panel vest from 6 am to 10 am, and stop people from sneaking into the building. Anyway, after the week I had, perhaps I wasn't in the right frame of mind to watch a movie like Eternal Sunshine, because I can't say I enjoyed it. Incidentally, I also rented The Punisher. It brought back fond memories of reading the nihilistic comics as an angry teen and it was right up my alley.

The bizarre cinematography and quirky style of Eternal Sunshine got on my nerves after a while, but more annoyingly, I couldn't figure out why Joel, Jim Carey's character, became so desperate to hold on to his memories of the character played by Kate Winslet. I guess it was the sentimentality of the character, and the realization that he really didn't want to forget his "Tangerine" after all, once he recovered from the sudden trauma of the breakup... but Clementine, as portrayed by the usually lovely miss Winslet, seemed to me to be an insufferably obnoxious, selfish and pretentious hippy slob with a real mean streak, not at all worthy of the male lead's heartfelt devotion. There must have been something special about her, but I think that the filmmaker failed to show enough of her sweet side to make her seem like someone worth hanging onto. Maybe I'm just a cynical bastard (OK, I admit it, I AM a cynical bastard), but, having taken the extreme step of decided to erase memories of his ex-girlfriend from his head (OUCH!), and seeing how most of the memories seemed pretty bad anyway, I couldn't figure out why the despondent Joel changed his mind halfway through the memory-erasing procedure, particularly since Clementine had had the procedure done first! --In the movie this cruel decision on her part is supposed to be excused because she is "impulsive"... excuse me? Jetting off to New York City for the weekend is impulsive... deliberately erasing someone from your brain is... well, something else entirely.

More to the point, and I speak from personal experience now, a person may indeed have many good memories of someone after a breakup, but sometimes, if there are enough bad memories, the bad ones can colour the whole experience, even taint the good memories enough so that in hindsight, the entire relationship may come to be viewed with some degree of ambivalence. That isn't to say you end up despising the person for all time... just that you can be philosophical about the whole thing and say "Well, on balance, that was a pretty lousy experience..." In time, you may come see the benefits of having had the experience, because you learn from it, don't you? And it makes you the person you are today. Still... what you don't do is look back and say "Wow, I'm really glad I have all these memories of this person!"...at least I don't-- you just try to salvage something good and do your best not to dwell on the bad. By that measure, the idea of rapid memory-erasing in order to accelerate the healing process, which is the central conceit of the story, isn't an entirely illogical one... although it is probably grossly unethical to tamper with peoples' brains the way they do in the movie.

I have had people ask me if I have any bitterness or rancor towards an ex girlfriend that treated me particularly shabbily some time ago... and I can say with some degree of pride that I do not. You see, I underwent some memory-erasing of my own. Not through some unnatural procedure... just by the slow passage of time. I lost contact with that person completely and somehow, whether it happened by design or by accident, both good and bad memories of that time in my life, so raw and painful for some time after the break-up, have faded to the point that I scarcely remember our relationship. Viewing the period now with the clinical detachment of hindsight, am I sad that I can't really remember much? Not really. I guess that is just the way my brain works. I have a vague sense that I may be depriving myself of something by either having repressed the memories or having lost them quite by accident, but then again, my head is always full of other good memories, because I try to make them every day.

Paloma and Mila are at work, so the rest of the Ellard clan spend time loitering in the streets of Windsor on Thanksgiving weekend. 

Joe and T-dogg 

yours truly and kid brother George, who insists on making a funny face. 

Speaking of memories... here's a pic of the Ellard family and guests, Thanksgiving 2004. 

Watching George and John in matching suits and ties rounding out the trilogy of debates. Will this be "Return of the Jedi"; the crappiest installment of the three and a letdown to the fans?... or will it be "Return of the King", a fitting climax to an epic conflict? (end of cheesy analogy) Since I missed the second installment (the townhall, widely seen as a draw), I am really struck by the different tone of this one... Bush has his face under control, for one... no more grimaces on the split screen. He also seems less angry, almost subdued. Johnny-boy is still doing the smug grin. He has the look of someone who has this thing in the bag, and who knows it... not so fast, Jack... polls have the race at a dead heat... and we know that the Republicans traditionally poll low compared to their election night numbers.

At one point, George talks about the importance of religion in his life. It is a poignant moment... but I suppose the sneering intelligentsia will gobble this up as one more example of his irrationality. But wait, Kerry is talking about religion too? Oh, OK, now he is talking about schools... he had me confused for a second there! Nice segue.

George and John seem a bit more relaxed... Bush even makes a crack about his scowling and slouching ... Kerry jokes about "marrying up" and taking himself too seriously. They have played it safe and sober.

Some may have found the debate dull, but I was impressed by some of the thoughtful comments I heard tonight... it is almost enough to make you renew your faith in the inherent goodness and rightness of the Great Republic, as Churchill called the U.S. Sure, some of it might be just be campaign trail boilerplate, but I'm impressed by the rhetoric all the same. More than ever, I fail to understand some of the instinctive anti-americanism to which I am constantly exposed. Canadian politicians, who seem to wallow in the petty brinksmanship of their profession, and seldom show true leadership, could take a page from the yankee book.

We'll see what happens with the undecideds. After tonight, I must admit I am optimistic. I am also convinced that whichever of these two guys wins the election, America will be in pretty good hands. In a sense, from my point of view, John Kerry has won a major victory... he may just have convinced people who think like me that he wouldn't make such a bad commander-in-chief.

But lets just see how this thing plays out...

The UK sold us JUNK, critics have been saying for some time. In the wake of THIS tragedy, I expect the Government to come under fire like never before... The Chief of Defence Staff said "absolutely" when asked if he still believed that we should have bought the defective subs...

How many of us agree with him?

Trailer Park Boys?

I Promise I won't post any more bad songs on my blog... but ya gotta admit, Kevin Little created an addictive little ditty.... If you've heard it on the radio, you know what I'm talking about. If you haven't heard it, you are probably completely confused by my last post.

Presidential debate night... I'm gonna kinda provide something of a running commentary, without getting carried away with the details... just the general impressions of a reactionary right-winger... so now that you know about my political leanings:

JFK starts the off by kissing Jim Lehrer's ass... GWB starts off looking very sombre, on his first point he sounds like he's trying to level with the American public on Iraq... On the split screen, Kerry looks bemused by George, who starts to a do a little head-bob whenever he is being particularly emphatic. Kerry makes it clear in his rebuttle to GWB's first point that he is gonna through down the military card tonight.

Kerry is getting in some good early shots. He is all over Bush's handling of the War On Terror (WOT). Bush is being clever, say "I" did this, and "I believe"... swatting away the insinuation that he has been manipulated by people around him, a central tennet of the Bush-hater's creed. Turning the tables on the dems who accuse him of being simplistic in his conduct of the WOT, Bush is telling us that it is a multi-front war. Kerry counters by saying that Iraq is not even close to the centre of the WOT.

Kerry talking about body armour? Wasn't this the guy that voted against the 87 billion for appropriations? Iraq is getting worse, he says. Whap! Bush nails him with voting against the use of force. Bush keeps harping on steadfast, resolved... Kerry says he can succeed but Bush can't. both of these guys have been well coached and they are staying on message.

JFK is looking more expressive than I've ever seen him! He must have given up the botox. Was that an eyebrow twitch I just saw? Now he's getting a bit pendantic, as is his tendency. Bush addresses homeland security with what I have come realize is a central point of his philosophy: Stay on the offense. Fight the enemy abroad so that we don't have to fight them here. Bush looks a bit petulant during portions of the debate, and nowhere near as comfortable as he did during the Republican National Convention in NY last month.

A free Iraq will... a free Iraq will.... vs. "help is on the way"... once again, both bangin' home those messages. On the famous 87 billion, Kerry scores a bullseye: I made a mistake saying I voted for it before I voted against it... my opponent made a mistake going to war. Ouch.

Bush says the coallition is strong, Kerry continues to shit on it, cynically holding the line because Brits Australians and Poles don't vote in American elections... plans to do some fence-mending next February when he an Ter-ray-sa move into the White House, I guess.

Everyone kept describing both of these men as formidable debaters but neither of them seems particularly on their game tonight. Both seem halting, unsure at times. Maybe when they start speaking to each other a bit more they will go for each other's throats.

On his long term plans for Iraq, Kerry sounds sure, confident... he knows where he is going... he may be terribly wrong in his approach, but I don't think anyone can say he doesn't have a plan. Bush takes him to task for his comments on Alawi (the "puppet" PM) after Kerry's statement about changing the "dynamics on the ground". I love it when Bush talks about "enforcing doctrine" like some policy wonk... kinda puts paid to the Bush is a moron assertion.

Why does Kerry keep crapping on allies? "Outsourcing" the war on terror? "coallition of the bribed and coerced?" Is this his nuanced approach to foreign policy we keep hearing about? Bush looks genuinely puzzled about the statement that "pre-emptive action must pass the global test"... The look on his face is "Global test? WTF is this guy talking about?" You and me both, George...

GWB seems strongest when he talks about beliefs... and that is where he and Kerry differ. You may not agree with Bush but you know where he stands. He is categorical. He is certain. Kerry takes issue with Bush's certainy "You can be certain and wrong". What bothers Bush about Kerry is precisely the opposite: In Bush's opinion, Kerry changes positions because of politics and pressure --and in his mind, you just can't do that when you are president. You must be steadfast. Bush believes Kerry will wilt under pressure because he is unsure of his core values.

The comments on weapons of mass destruction, each man's approach to North Korea and Russia and particularly, their closing comments reveal a central truth: Americans are faced with the starkest choice between presidential candidates in half a century. Few men differ so fundamentally on so many issues. I think that the United States is in a unique historical position. At the present moment, it is perhaps the most dominant nation to ever exist... and now the world awaits the choice of its citizens.

Just posting some random pictures tonight because I have figured out how to upload photos! This is the Augustus of Prima Porta, in the Vatican Museum. One of the most incredible statues I have ever seen. The majesty of Augustus Caesar and the glory of Imperial Rome rendered marble.

Memories of Rome... May 9th, hung over on the Apian way, rockin' some kind of pompadour?

Going home for Thanksgiving this year...



I'm looking forward to seeing the familia. This picture is from the last time I visited Windsor this summer. I'm looking very cheerful in this photo... which is a bit peculiar, considering my lungs were filling with fluid at that very moment because of the toxic fumes that waft over the Detroit River during the height of summer.

Believe the hype.

Just saw a fantastic flick that was a big hit in the UK last year... no, not that saccharine mess Love Actually (I agree with Mark Steyn who wrote Love Actually is crap, actually)

The movie I am talking about is Shawn of the Dead (see the trailer HERE) described as "RomZomCom" or romantic zombie comedy. Believe it or not, that is a pretty accurate description. Not only is it a wickedly funny film, it has some great gore, if you are into that sort of thing, and well-crafted characters that you actually care about. Set against the backdrop of an outbreak of zombieism in North London , SOTD (as movie geeks have already christened it) tells the story of the disintegration of a thirty-year old electronics salesman's relationship with his long-suffering girlfriend and his efforts to win her back, aided and hindered in turns by family and friends. What is truly hilarious about this movie is that none of the characters seem to notice what is going on around them for the first third of the film. When they finally do, the payoff is really worth the price of admission.

Some critics claim the movie is pointing out that in today's urban society, we humans are half-zombie already, or at least, that we frequently engage in zombie-like behaviour. Now, there is some validity to that, but I prefer to think that what the filmmakers are really saying is that we can all be a bit self-obsessed or disconnected from the ugly reality of our everyday lives at times, and when we are going through a particularly bad emotional experience, it is entirely possible that we become completely oblivious to what is going on around us... Lord knows, I've been guilty of that little sin more than once.

This is the kind of movie you will want to watch again and again, and you'll probably be rewarded as you pick up some of the more subtle jokes or references (and you finally wrap your ear around the english accents of the protagonists) on repeat viewings. If you don't end up enjoying SOTD, check your pulse... you may be a zombie yourself.

Damn... summer's almost over!