Rubber Teeth and No Pants

What happens in Montreal stays in Montreal, but I have to share one thing that was pretty funny.

The Ale House Wings were in Bill Edwards' Cheers in Point Claire, playing some pool and having a few beers early on Saturday night. The place doesn't get bumpin until 11pm or so, which means we had the back section to ourselves. At the two pool tables, a very drunken version of billiards was being preformed, or attempted. We had been celebrating since our victory that afternoon and were primed for a visit to the championship game in the morning.

Tim sidled up to me with a weird expression on his face. After a second it hit me, his teeth were enlarged. That, combined with the doofus-yokel look on his face busted me up. "What the hell?" I asked him, chuckling. He spit out a small set of rubber false teeth and showed them to me. Awesome.

"Put 'em back in, go talk to Eddy." I prompted, pointing to our goalie. Tim walked up and after a second I saw Eddy's eyes focused on Tim's picket-fence grin. It was funny watching him staring at the teeth, you could read his thoughts on his face as they formed, "what the eff is up with that?"

Tim moved away to shoot and Eddy came over to me. "Hey, let me ask you something." he leaned in and said quietly, "Does your brother have dentures?"

It was the confused look on his face that did it, and I busted out laughing. Eddy didn't know why I was cracking up for, and said, "No, really. I mean, I just never noticed before." I filled him and soon we were both howling as Tim made faces while he knocked down balls on the table.

Next Tim went over and stood by an inebriated Eric who was leaning on the bar with no pants on. He was in his boxers, leaning casually with his hand wrapped around an empty pint (he had spilled the rest on the floor, like the three previous pints) Like I said, it was early, so nobody was around to be offended at this point. I could sense the manager was going to show us the door if the antics continued once patrons started filling up the place. And I would have totally understood.

Tim stood there, looking at Eric, who didn't even notice him. Patty did though, and he burst out laughing when he spied the protruding dental work combined with the "gee wiz, mister" expression on Tim's face. I saw him elbow Kevin next to him and pointed to Tim and they both bent over laughing. From across the room, Eddy and I were wiping tears away from laughing at them laughing at Tim. Soon everybody was broken up and the pool games on both tables were paralyzed. Everyone but Eric. He was in his own place.

False set of rubber teeth from Spenser Gifts, $3 US
Enough beer to get 13 hockey players "comfortable", $370 CDN
Reducing the team to nearly wetting themselves laughing, Priceless.

Sadly, I don't have a picture, but it looked something like this....

Letter to my Liver

Dear Liver,

I know we had a rough weekend, but I wanted to tell you a few things I appreciated about you.

You were a champ on Thursday, mostly keeping up with Leigh in Saranac Lake as we crawled around the pubs of that town. For many livers, that would have been the end of your weekend, but not for you. It was just the start.

Friday night was probably the roughest night, after we won our first game verses our arch-enemies the New Jersey Blues. Beating them was a sweet, sweet time, and scoring the first goal on them was the cherry on the cake. So can you blame us that we went out and celebrated a little? I know, we went a bit overboard, especially at the Peel Pub. That’s like the greatest bar ever made.

Well, except for Bill Edwards’ Cheers in Point Claire, where we ended up the following night after finding out we were in the finals. Hey, I was taking it easy by then, I stuck to beer only (no more shots of tequila) and we were out of there before midnight so we could get some sleep before the championship game.

The final game was a severe battle, and you were strong. You even got a stick shoved into you at one point, which was a cheap shot. If I wasn’t doubled over I would have stood up for you, but someone else on the team took care of him for you.

We lost a very close game 1-0 when they scored with 2 minutes left in the game. I was bummed, and refrained from and beer after the game to give you a break. It was going to be a long drive home and you had more than done you share by then.

As I drove over the Pont Mercier Bridge, I thought I could hear you quietly weeping deep in my bowels. Were you sad we had lost, or was it the over-use I exposed you to the last few days? Well, I’m sorry. You're an important part of the Shamus body team. We need you, buddy.

By the way, there’s a long weekend coming up, and a few college friends and their families are coming to stay with us for a few days. There MAY be drinking going on. Are we cool?

See you Friday,
Shamus

Puckheads

Today I leave for what has become a traditional trek North every year to Montreal for the Russell Hockey Tournament. I look forward to it because it's a weekend of hockey, and I get to lace up my skates along side of my brother.

Tim is a great tournament player, and usually grabs a game MVP award each year. His method is to park in front of the opposing net and cause trouble. He has a knack for knowing where to be, so he's fun to play with, even though we only get to do it this one time a year. But skating on his line does lead to some issues. For one, I tend to take more penalties.

There was an incident a few years back when were playing a team from New Jersey where I ripped a shot from the slot, which caught the goalie on the pads and dropped to the ice. Tim was right there and tapped in a loose puck for a goal. Now, the next part I saw out of the corner of my eye, but I'm sure what I saw. As Tim raised his stick to celebrate, he went down on the
ice. I quickly circled around and saw a big guy standing over Tim, looking down at him like he had just finished putting him down on his butt.

Something went off in my head, a switch that hadn't been flicked in a long time. I'm not a big guy, but I'm fast, and I took three big strides towards the guy, who turned as I approached. I hit him square in the chest, driving through and pushing him off his feet, backwards into the goalie and both slide into the net.

As you can imagine, a minor scrum ensued. They were upset I had wholloped their defenseman and goalie, and I argued that they had hit Tim with a cheap shot from behind in retaliation for scoring. I was yelling, "At least I hit the guy while he was looking at me!" as the ref dragged me over to the box. It was well worth the two minutes.

After the game, while sipping some of the liquid refreshments provided by the tourney sponsor (Labatts), Tim said in a low voice, "You know that thing in front of their goal when I scored?" I thought he was going to thank me for knocking the crap out of the guy, which he didn't have to do. It was instinct, and just the slightest bit fun.

"Well, I fell. I slipped." he said with a slight grin.

I felt bad for the guy I'd clobbered, but he hadn't been hurt. The expression on the guy's face as he sat on his butt in the net now made more sense to me. It was a "What the hell was THAT?" kind of look.

C'est la vie.

Shake it, Sister!

Nun rapped for wild dancing

Actual Article - Tuesday, August 23, 2005; Posted: 8:07 a.m. EDT (12:07 GMT)

BRUSSELS, Belgium (Reuters) -- A Belgian nun's acrobatic and indecorous dancing with a missionary during the Catholic World Youth Day in Germany over the weekend earned her a reprimand from her mother superior, a Belgian paper said on Tuesday.

Daily Het Laatste Nieuws showed pictures of a dancing Johanne Vertommen being held up in the air by the missionary, and then clinging to him with her legs wrapped around his body.

"I wouldn't do this at home but at such occasions I get carried away by the enthusiasm of the group," the 29-year-old told the paper later.

"My mother superior raised the issue today: she thinks I should watch out a bit and bear in mind that I represent our community," Vertommen said.

Pope Benedict attended the celebration at the Marienfeld, outside Cologne, in the presence of some 700,000 people.


This story intrigued me, so I searched the internet and can report that I have procured the photo in question.

Quite distrubing, actually.

I need an intevention or something

My name is Shamus, and I like country music.

It’s hard to say when it got out of hand, I mean, I used to be able to handle music. In high school it was rock and roll. I guess you could say I was open to experimentation, but I always said I’d listen to anything BUT country. The mantra was “friends don’t let friends listen to country music” and Nancy Reagan was preaching “just say NO to country music”. Life was good.

But then the 90’s came along and I got caught up with some shifty characters. Bands started to give acoustical sessions on MTV, and suddenly it was OK to be unplugged. Mandolins, violins and bongos were accepted, even embraced. Even Mettalica was getting softer, playing their music with the San Francisco Symphony.

So how could anyone blame me that my tastes widened to traditional music as well? Yeah, I tried Irish Traditional music, which led to the modern-ethnic infused bands like Great Big Sea and Ashley McIssack. The music was prime, so I excused the use of fiddles and country harmonies. But it was there.

I think the real slide to dark side came just in the last few years. Several types of music that I had mocked and cajoled started sounding pretty good. I remember becoming a fan of Kelly Clarkson, the strange feeling that I was breaking some rule by liking her music. “Since You Been Gone” became the song I would crank with the windows down and the wind drowning out my bad singing. That's not country, but it served as a facillitator to my appetites.

It finally happened at a party. I was listening to a song and asked the host who it was and he said Johnny Cash. It was a cover of a popular rock song, and he was doing it with his own black style, and it was pretty sweet.

Then it was a friend giving me a CD of mostly rock with a few country tunes sprinkled in. At first I kind of skipped over them, but if I wasn’t paying attention they would come on. Once was called “Chrome”, by Trace Atkins, and it was decent.

“If you liked that, then you’re going to love this,” I heard as another CD was passed my way. I listened to it in private, guiltily hiding it behind my System Of The Down box set.

Like any junkie, I soon got sloppy. My daughter found my putting the cd in the player and asked, “What are you listening tom Daddy?”

In that moment, I knew I had to come clean. “Honey, Daddy has a problem. I’m listening to country music.”

She stumbled back, a look of horror on her face. “But Daddy! You said Rush was the greatest band in the world. How could you…”

“I know honey, Daddy has a problem but he’s getting help.”

But deep down I know I won’t. I mean, I can stop listening to it at any time, if I wanted to.

ANON

Sorry to my anonymous posters, but the spam thing has gotten out of hand. So I'm turning off that setting that allows you to post ANON.

No biggie, take 5 seconds and create a profile and then you'll have a name. You still don't have to tell anything about who you are, so don't get all nervous.

And by the way, Fuck You, spammers. Your day is coming. Bill Gates is pissed and he's going to open up a can of whoop ass on your, well, ass. Damn, that didn't come out as strong as I'd hoped.

Konichi Whaaa?

Japanese Crown Prince Naruhito (L) and his wife are welcomed by a mascot as they visit the 2005 World Exposition in Nagakute. Japan is living up to its reputation as a safe country with the World Exposition, where only four of the 12 million visitors have been pickpocketed.(AFP/Kazuhiro Nogi)



The missing statistic is that 424,000 tourists have been beaten severely by Japanese citizens for openly mocking the lame mascots. Five knuckle justice is the way it's done in that technically-advanced country.

What the hell are those things supposed to be, anyways? Walking shrubbery? Unripe Pineapples? Some distant cousin to Pikechu? Granted, I'm not a big Pokemon aficionado, but throw me a friggen bone here.

Somebody, tell me.

Not funny, Launchcast

Sometimes my music service just likes to fuck with me.

This came up today just as someone poked their head in and say, "Hey Shamus, what cha listening to?"

"No, wait! That song came up randomly! I clicked 'Never Play Again', see?"

Into Thin Air

A guy I work with has disappeared. I mean like, POOF! Gone.

Sebastian worked in the help desk in our little technology group for about a year. Quiet, quick with a smile and a Russian born and bred, he was an easy guy to talk to once you caught on to the accent. If he came to you with an issue, you knew he had worked a bit on the problem and was not just passing calls off without dealing with them. That's rare in the help desk world, staff that use their brain. People liked him, and he fit right in.

Last March he waved me into the help desk room as I passed his window.
"What's up?" I asked, expecting some email or database issue.
"Check this out." he said, and launched real player. The trailer to the new Star Wars movie came on. I hadn't seen it yet, and it was sweet.
"Holy mongoly." said I, and after that we were pals. We traded IM's often on various nerd-type stuff, even though neither of us really ARE nerds. No, really.

The spring came and went, and the summer flew along like Lance Armstrong on crank. Occasionally I'd walk by his window and waved to him sitting is his spot with his bristle-shaved haircut that made him look a bit like a Siberian refugee. He'd be making faces at his monitor which told me somebody on his headset was testing his patience. Just another day.

On Friday I was walking by and saw another help desk guy, Damian, sitting in Sebastian's seat. Thinking back, I hadn't see Sebastian in a while. I checked the board that lists PTO time and saw his name was no longer listed. Ut-oh, not a good sign. I saw another one of the help desk guys and asked him where Sebastian was. He gave me that raised eyebrow, 'you haven't heard?' look and filled me in.

The story is that one warm day a week or so before, Sebastian went out at lunch time, saying he had to go to the Post Office. He never returned from that errand. The staff was concerned, as it did not fit his history. Calls were made, no info was gleaned. The next day, and email came to one of the staff from an internet account. It was Sebastian saying he was done, leaving and not coming back for his stuff. He gave no reasons, just.... bye bye.

Nobody has seen or heard from him since. Subsequent investigation revealed he left his ID badge under his keyboard before heading for lunch that day, and he didn't leave many personal belongings behind, both of which point to the theory that he knew he wasn't coming back after lunch.

My guess is that either A) he hit the lottery or B) he joined the local branch of the local Russian Mafia. I guess there is the option C) he just got fed up and left, but that would have been preceded by a few hints of dissatisfaction, no? Option A is the strong contender in my book. Why tell people you won the lottery? Just up and go. He won't have to work any more, so he won't care to use the company for a reference. I guess I'm hoping it's option A. I don't think the local Russian Mafia has a decent dental plan.

I really want to know what the eff happened.

Stop Skydiving, You Morons!

I know JV is going to argue this one, but I maintain there is no reason for skydiving. Here's another case in point!

My cousins lived near an jump-field and witnessed a few accidents. It just takes one of those stories for you to realize that it's a retarded thing to do.

There is no reason to risk your life in such an idiotic way when you have people dependant on you. Especially when you have kids. Having kids means you put a few things on hold, like Saturday Night knife fights and drag racing on Central Avenue. Add free-falling with a tangled canopy to that list while you're at it.

"But it's a thrill!" Yeah? Well, there's tons of other ways to get a similar wha-hoo. Bungee jump, roller coasters and even a motorcycle ride can blow your skirt up just as well as jumping out of a plane, and your loved ones won't have to have their lives impacted by your selfishness.

Another exception to this is if you are way old, like 85. Then if you die it doesn't matter all that much, you were probably just sitting around talking to the TV and waiting for Mr. Death to come knocking at your door. In fact, that's one of the ways I'd like to go. Plummeting to Earth screaming profanities. "Yippi-ki-yi-yay motherfucka!"

He's a Pinball Wizard

The news has been really, really depressing recently. Dead park rangers, rising gas prices, infected piercings, and the trouble between Nick and Jessica. It's enough to drive you to drink a 6 pack of Smithwicks after dinner when you should be out mowing the lawn.

Maybe that's why I loved this story so much.

Sophie's Sucks

I was on my own for dinner. The kids and Kel were out and I had a few hours of alone time. So what did I do? I calzoned, baby.

Sophie’s is the only Italian eatery in town, and we’ve had a love/hate relationship. I love how their food used to taste, before they moved to a bigger building. The pizza crust is what they call “New England style” which is kind of thicker and flaky, rather than doughy. Since they moved, the crust is no longer light and tasty, but soggy and undercooked. The staff is now high school kids who don't know peppers from pepperoni. They also expanded their menu to include other things, which further screwed the quality of the pizza.

So we don’t get pizza there any more. They make a decent calzone, so I picked up the phone and dialed Sophie up to order a small meatball and onion. I rode my bike over to pick it up my order (7 miles round trip) to get a bit of a workout in as well.

The roads are hilly, but the ride didn’t take long in the warm evening air. I walked into the restaurant to pick up my order and realized I’m still wearing my helmet.

**Ok yes, I wear a helmet like a mary. I wear it for 2 reasons. First, my kids have to wear theirs and when they catch me riding without my lid they act like I’m driving without my seat belt on, which is like the worst thing in the world in their eyes. Second, I read a news story of guy who was about my age who fell off his bike riding one day and didn’t die, but ended up a vegetable on a ventilator. No effin thanks **

“Did you ride here?” the blonde waitress asked, astutely noticing my chapeau de safety.
“No, I have a soft head.” I said with a straight face.
“Huh.” she said, as if the concept had never crossed her mind. And in her defense, perhaps it hadn’t. I mean, you can’t ride with a pizza.

Or maybe you can. The calzone came in a small pizza box, which I hadn’t anticipated. I thought maybe a bag or small food container, but not a large, flat box. I had my backpack, and stood the box upright inside. The nice thing is the calzone can’t be wrecked that way - it’s a sealed pizza. A giant hot pocket, as it were.

Cruising home, I saw a former neighbor and slowed down to say hi. Frank used to live down the street and we would stop and talk or yell as the case may be because he’s a bit hard of hearing. After a few minutes I recalled that Frank loved to talk, and ending conversations is tough. So I was blunt.

“Hey, Frank. Good to see you, but I have to head home. My calzone is getting cold.” I said, jerking my thumb over my shoulder.
“What?” said Frank. “You‘re cold? It‘s 85 degrees!”
“No, I have a calzone in my backpack.” I said, doing the pointing thing again.
Frank gave me a look that told me he had no idea what I was saying, except that I had to go. He waved goodbye and I rode off.

The calzone was a big disappointment. Sophie, I'm done with you. You effin suck.

Ho Ho Ho's

Surrounded by young female Santa Claus assistants, a Swedish Santa takes a swim during the annual Santa Claus World Congress in Copenhagen(AFP/SCANPIX)

And they're all on his "naughty list".

Letter To Nancy

Dear Nancy from (computer software company),

Thanks so much for your impersonal voice mail yesterday. You must be on the West Coast, as the time stamp was after 7pm here in the East. Guess you figured I was working late, as you led the call off with "...so sorry I missed you." You remind me of my ex-girlfiend who used to call when she knew I wasn't home so she wouldn't have to talk to me. Just don't tell me you have to wash your hair when I ask you out (ha ha, sorta).

Regarding the email problem you mentioned, yes, SPAM is a huge issue for email administrators. How acute your company must be to have picked up on that and designing a product that would totally handle the problem for us. My CIO is going to bust his dentures grinning over that news.

I'm hoping that the full-scale implementation of your product will wipe away the reek of several stinkers we're invested in over the past few years. Believe it or not, there are other vendors out there promising to have the solution to the whole SPAM conundrum, and we have bit on them like a hungry trout at a juicy fly.

Our manager, Dave, took the lead and implemented one product last year that was supposed to alleviate all of our pain points with email. We spent truckloads of cash and countless hours setting it up, training users and even had a fun Ice Cream Social as a kickoff for the product in our environment. Well, I don't need to finish this sad story. But I sure miss Dave, who had to be let go when the product didn't live up to the empty promises made by the vendor. Damn shame.

So you can understand if I'm not leaping to champion your cause here, Nancy. In fact, I'm probably not even going to call you back. But have a fantastic day yourself!

Yours in technology,
Shamus

Summer Camps I Won't Be Going To

• Magnifying Glass Camp
• Genealogy Camp
• Stay Inside And Pray Camp
• Nick Lachey's Camp For Pouting Performers
• Camp Broken Arm
• Don't Ask, Don't Tell Camp
• Cramp Camp
• You To Can Yodel Camp
• Do It Yourself Piercing and Tatoo Camp
• Anti-Virus Camp

Put Up Your Dukes

Yes, I went to the Dukes of Hazzard last night, and I effin loved it. I'm an old Dukes fan from childhood, when I was glued to the adventures of the orange car with the vocked horn. I even had my picture taken with Enus.



On the way to the movie, one of the people in the car said that movie had gotten one star in the paper. I had no expectations other than seeing some quality car chase scenes and Jessica Simpson pretending to act.

I had thought originally we were going to the local drive-in to see the movie, and was looking forward to how nuts that place was going to be. Packed with muscle cars and good ole boys whooping it up while draining kegs of Budweiser - could it get any better than that? I even washed the Grand Am and painted a “01” on the side in anticipation.

Instead, we went to a community theater which was half full of Hazzard enthusiasts. We went with a professional snowmobile racer and some of his family, all of us had grown up with the Dukes and the show. We would be a tough crew to impress.

Let me say that they did a great job on the movie. No way is it one star! Hell, it was one star alone after the first 10 minutes. I laughed way too much and too hard, and the car chase/race scenes were excellent. The only mistake was casting Jessica as Daisy, but she’s not in it much and when she is she isn’t wearing too much. At one point she drops a long coat and reveals she’s wearing a skimpy bikini, and the guy behind us goes “Ho -ly crap…” Yeah, so she has that going for her.

What’s great about the movie is that they wrote it keeping true to the old TV show, yet brought it up to date. At one point the Duke boys are in Atlanta with the General Lee and the rebel flag on the roof (which they didn’t know was there, Cooter painted it on) and they started gettig mad abuse by people who are offended by the flag. Now, they could have glossed over the flag thing, but they went at it head on and made it another funny element to the movie.

If you’re a car person at all, the sight of the “new” General Lee will make your heart start pounding. Sweeeeet. And you find out why they have to slide in through the windows.

There are a few cameo’s, most notably by the cast of the Broken Lizard troupe. You might remember them from such hilarious movies as “Super Troopers”. They add more fun to the show here.

I already can’t wait for the DVD, which will have more of the outtakes they show at the end of the movie. They let you see the “real” landings of the General Lee on the insane jumps it takes. You KNOW the car can’t make the jump and not be damaged, but in the movie, it miraculously survives every time. The outtakes show the General going off the road and slamming into barriers and stuff. They must have went through 2 dozen Dodge Chargers making this movie.

So don’t let the movie reviewers turn you off this flick. The script has a few holes in it (like how the hell did Cooter completely rebuild the General Lee in just one night when it takes a full day to get my A/C compressor fixed) but seems to work.

(This is where I hit my new horn - you know the one)

Hooking Up

Can it be this bad? I'm not single, so I have no idea if the dating scene is as bad as is show on the reality TV show called "Hooking Up" (ABC Thurs 9pm). But if it's even HALF as bad, dating today must blow.

The show follows several women as they upload, download, email and chat to find Mr. Right, or Mr. Right Now. The online dating scene is booming, especially in the big urban areas like NYC where the show if filmed.

They show a mix of different women and who they are looking for. Some, like Amy, 31 from South Dakota, make no bones about looking for a husband because as she says, “I want to make babies.” Her philosophy is awesome, as she sleeps with every date on the first or second meeting because “it lets me find out how they really are a lot faster.”

You got that right. One guy she took to her sister’s house for dinner for date #2. After the meal, she dragged him into a spare bedroom and they “got to know each other”. Cut to the next day, Amy looking a bit miffed says, “I got to know him better all right. First, he slept in until 1 o’clock, then he got up and watched football. Which I hate!”

There’s a few other great daters on the show as well. My favorite part is what I call the “psycho-montage”, where they cut to a bunch of dates this one girl has. They show them chatting about topics that don’t belong on date 100, let alone date 1. One guy went through his list of allergies, another explained how he had vacation time he was saving in case he met someone, so he could take her to a far away place for a month. The best was the wing-nut who cried over drinks shortly after meeting her. THAT’S attractive.

The most painful are the dates where the two are obviously not getting along, yet neither one calls a halt to things. One pair bickered like mortal enemies, then when leaving the bar the guy is rejected for a goodbye hug and asks, “What, you didn’t have fun?”

The underlying message about online dating seems to be that everyone posts pictures that were taken several birthdays previous, they lie about what they are really like and all want Fabio with a great job.

Hey, reality sucks.

West Nile Hazzard

There she is, once again, breaking all the rules. You go, Jessica!

Space Hacksaw

For the record, those astronauts have balls.

Space travel is a dangerous affair, much more so that it looks on Star Trek. On Trek everything is "warp speed" and "Make it so, Number 1". Well Jean Luc, it just isn't all that easy here on the real Earth.

Which is why I'm tuning into the NASA channel like never before. Usually, the channel programming makes CSPAN look like MTV. The last few days, though, have been gripping.

I was amazed at the docking with the space station, where the Commander pulled a flip move right under the station so they could photograph all the tiles. Then she eased it in for a smooth docking. Nice driving. I bet she can parallel park like a mother effer.

Even the maintenance and daily routine stuff they show is kinda cool, watching them float around in the confined space of the station and shuttle. Every once in a while they take a break and look out a porthole and radio down to Mission Control with wonder in their voice saying, "Man, if you could see the view..."

So today the crew had to do a space walk (or EVA, as the NASA nerds say) to fix some filler between the ceramic tiles that protect the skin of the shuttle during re-entry. This isn't like changing your own oil or switching out your brake pads. If this guy effs the job up they're going to all burn up on re-entry. No pressure. Not MUCH!

According to the news story:
"Astronaut Stephen Robinson said both pieces came out easily. He did not have to use a makeshift hacksaw put together in orbit that he brought along just in case."

Makeshift hacksaw? With all the billions they spend on the space program, you think someone could have sent an intern down to the local hardware store and pick up a hacksaw to toss in the space shuttle trunk before lift-off. Grab a roll of duck tape and a tube of crazy glue while you're there, because you just never know.

I was trying to think of cool stuff I could do if I could go up on the space station. One thing would be to aim the Hubbell Space Telescope at Earth and call my friends and have them go outside and wave, and try and see them on the telescope. Then I would call Stinky and have him moon me because that would be funny to see using a 2 billion dollar telescope. And then everyone could see Stinky's ass on the NASA channel. Classic.

Burning Down The House

My sister Anney is in town for a visit. Real reason she's here, to have us meet the boyfriend.

My brothers and I have never been tough on our sisters boyfriends, although a few have had a few rough run-ins. But it's never intentionally mean or anything. Anney has been seeing this guy for a while, so she decided she better bring him around.

They drove down from Halifax and stopped first in Boston. After they left there, my brother Tim called and gave me the 411 on the guy, which was pretty much all good. That just meant Tim hadn't tried hard enough, as there HAS to be something about the guy we can pick at.

But after meeting him, Kelly and I both liked him. We even got him a little sauced and no hidden personality traits surfaced. So, he's all right.

Well there was one thing. We went to Jillians and had a few beers and a shot of Jamisons and somehow it came out that both Anney and Jimmy were under the misconception that Canada burned down the White House back in the 1800's.

Whaaaa?

I knew it was hoey, and Kelly tracked the facts down on the internet the next day. Apparently, there is an urban legend in Canada that Canadians DID burn down the White House at one point.

So if anyone out there is under the same misinformation, here's the facts:

• The British (not Canadians) burned the White House in 1812
• Canada didn't become Canada until 1867, 55 years later

As much as I love Canada, and Canadians, I know that deep in their hearts they have this fear that the US is going to invade one day. The fear manifests itself in several ways, one is by spreading rumors like this, so that when the time comes, the US Military wouls be all like, "Well they say they burned down our White House once. Maybe we'd better step off?"

Don't lose any sleep over it. You'll love being American Citizens! You'll get mail delivery 6 days a week, and you'll get both July 1 and July4 off as holidays.