Sunny Day + Guns N Roses = Sweet Ride Home

Cruising home, the classic GNR tune Sweet Child O' Mine came on.

What can you say? Slash is a shaggy genius and Axl Rose is a freak poet but they made some kick-ass music together. Remember this beauty?


Sweet Child O' Mine (main stanzas)

She's got a smile that it seems to me
Reminds me of childhood memories
Where everything
Was as fresh as the bright blue sky
Now and then when I see her face
She takes me away to that
special place
And if I stared too long
I'd probably break down and cry

She's got eyes of the bluest skies
As if they thought of rain
I hate to look into those eyes
And see an ounce of pain
Her hair reminds me
of a warm safe place
Where as a child I'd hide
And pray for the thunder
And the rain
To quietly pass me by


Rock on.

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Life in Mayberry

A local town is voting on whether or not to keep their police force.

The vote was last week and I haven't seen anything in the news about the outcome. They must still be counting votes, which is not small task in that town because the elections staff has only so many fingers and toes.

Speaking as a former youth delinquent, not having town cops is awesome. Our town had a Royal Canadian Mounted police (the RCMP is the equivalent to the State Police) sub-station to cover a 40 square mile area. They had one civilian employee answering the phone, and calling in Mounties with the radio if needed. Crime was almost nonexistent, like Mayberry from the Andy Griffith show, where people didn't lock their doors and the biggest calls they handled was weekend mischief and noise complaints from houses near the beach. After many complaints of "rowdy teens by the Thousand Steps", a few Mounties would trudge down the Thousand Steps (there was really only 1 34 steps, but it seemed like a thousand, hence the name) and wave their giant flashlights at us until we stamped out the fire and moved on. Most times, we could party with no interruptions because the Mounties didn't really want to walk all the way down. Or they just knew it was kids having harmless fun. Whatever.

Sometimes, the fun wasn't so harmless. Every so often the Mounties would catch us in slightly more "precarious" situations. In those times, it was helpful to have our friend Sparks along. His sister worked at the sub-station, usually on weekends, and we had our back bacon saved on a few occasions by her. One time they had snagged my brother Tim, Stinky and Sparks driving erratically. After pulling him over, Sparks kind of mouthed off a bit and that led the Mounties to tear up his car. The one Mountie pulled a set of nunchucks from under the drivers seat and asked Sparks, "And who's are these?" when the radio crackled and the a call came over their radio. "Big fight down at the Ocean Beach Hotel!" the other Mountie called over to his partner.

"Looks like it's your lucky day, boys." he says, tossing the nunchucks and jumping into his cruiser and roaring off. Well, lucky his sister was working and recognized the car description and tag, and called them to a fictional ruckus somewhere else.

The one time I benefitted from this insurance policy was during an extremely crazy evening in Crescent Beach, which ended up with a guy named Boris roaring off in his banana-yellow Porche 924, laying a strip of rubber and clipping my friend Mark in the process. We had a chase and in the process attracted a Mountie who joined in the case. He had us all pulled over, about four cars worth of teenagers all yelling and trying to haul Boris out of his pansy car, the lone Mountie looking like he needed some reinforcements. The guy thought somehow I was the instigator of the whole mess, and was threatening to take me in. Me! Can you imagine? I was still an alter boy at that time, for gosh sakes. The Mountie had a strong French accent, meaning he was from Quebec, and had no problems throwing a young man in jail, alter boy or not.

Sparks had not gotten pulled over with us, but had seen it happen. He called his sister at work, and in a few minutes, the Mountie came over to us and told us all to go home, that he had another call he had to go to. "But I'll be keeping my izz out for you." I was too happy to get out of that situation to have a good smartass comeback for him.

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XM is making a big mistake

XM radio is trying to keep it's subscribers from jumping ship by offering discounted subscriptions. I was listening to the Jay Thomas Show last week and heard several XM subscribers call into a show to report that they were given rates of $3 per month to stay when they called to cancel their XM subscriptions. Now that's a bargain! One guy said they also gave him a new receiver as well as the cheap rate. Firesale? Sounds like it.

How long can XM survive when they are giving the subscriptions and radio units away? The news has made it's way to Forbes, who reported that analysts have taken notice of XM's troubles.

Standard & Poor's Equity Research maintains a "hold" rating on XM stock. I guess they're waiting to see if Oprah has any positive impact on their business.

BTW, the same research firm rates rival Sirius Satellite Radio at "strong buy." Nice.

Krystal Cuts

So I got my hair cut at Walmart today. Yup, I’m adventurous. I’ve also gone through the other hair cut places around, shooting them down for one reason or another. The last bastion for a good haircuts at Crossgates, but it’s across town and I’m lazy - I mean, very busy.

The barber was very nice, a young confused girl named Krystal with a K. She was new to cutting hair, which her brand-new license hanging on the wall confirmed. She was hesitant, self-doubting, but cheerful and had a sweet attitude. Krystal was saving up to move to Florida, where she would get a better life. She could transfer to a Walmart in the Orlando area, and she and her husband could buy a house for half what they could here, plus they don’t pay any state sales tax there. And yeah, it’s hot in the summer, but better hot then cold, she said.

She asked about my job, and I said I worked across the street.
“Oh, at the church?” she asked.

Now, I have many relatives in the spiritual health industry, and I myself was sent to the seminary at age 16 for a weekend because my folks wanted one of their boys to end up as a priest. The first hour in that cold, stone building made me very uncomfortable. The young, hip deacon assigned to us tried to make the weekend fun. We watched movies (G rated) and learned about life in the spiritual service. He shared with us the exciting routine of the seminary. The 6 sessions of silent prayer a day did sound good, and 3 square meals a day was another temptation. At home, I fended off 5 younger siblings for the best chicken legs, here, there were always seconds.

I raised my hand and asked what I thought was a no-brainer, “You allow seminarians to have radios, right?”

He half-smiled and shook his head. “Oh, sorry.”

That kinda clinched it. Well, that and the whole celibacy thing. And it was for the better, as they would have quickly gotten sick of hearing Rush coming from my room after evening vespers.

I’m too wild, too dangerous to have taken a life in the ministry, but somehow, Krystal didn‘t see that as she trimmed away my locks. Dammit, I guess I should have never shaved off my goatee.

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Japanese Jackass

Awesome.


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Awkward

"It's nice to get away from the brewery one in a while. Take a little drive." - Paul Dooley, Strange Brew.

So we are out here in Boston visiting my brother and his crew, and among our activities here was a house party Friday night for the green holiday. It turned out to be a very traditional kind of party, with musicians providing Celtic music and a semi-lubricated crowd standing around telling stories.

To me, this is what a party is. You don't talk about work, you don't talk about kids, you don't talk about how much the Red Socks are going to suck this year. You share your funny stories and listen to other people share theirs. It's about having a pint and a laugh with some nice music in the background. And that's what was going down at the Donahue house. Sweet.

The best story of the night is a tough call, but it would probably have to be this one:
The host told the story of having a neighbor over one afternoon, and having her dog come with her. The black lab was a onlly 4 or 5 years old, and much loved by her owner, who did not have a husband or kids, just the dog.

The humans visited, while the dog (who had been over before) wandered through the house sniffing and the like. A short while into the visit, the dog walked into the front hall, turned around three times and dropped. Since it was a strange way to lie down, the people put down their tea and went over to check her only to discover that the dog had died. Awkward.

So the man of the house, Paul, took it upon himself to deal with the deceased canine, while his wife comforted the grieving owner. Paul carried the dog out of his house and down the street to her house, while the neighbors stood on their front porches and made comments, not realizing the gravity of the situation. Being a true gentleman, Paul took care of the burial process in her back yard and then hosted a memorial service for the neighborhood later that day. "The dog kicked the bucket in my house," he said, "So the least I could do was give it a decent send-off."

Just the image of sitting having a nice cup of tea and having somebody else's dog keel over right there in the front room - not sure exactly how I would have dealt with that.


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If Ever There Was A Good Reason

to hoise a bottle of McSorley's, Guiness or Smithwicks, today is the day. We may not have made many contributions to modern medicine, culinary arts or country music, but we brew a decent grog and know how to have fun. So have one on me tonight, laddies.

I'm off to Boston to celebrate with family and strangers and minty-dressed midgets in peaked hats.

Sláinte!



An Irishman had been drinking at a pub all night. The bartender finally said that the bar is closing. So the Irishman stood up to leave and fell flat on his face. He tried to stand one more time; same result. He figured he'll crawl outside and get some fresh air and maybe that will sober him up.

Once outside he stood up and fell flat on his face. So he decided to crawl the 4 blocks to his home. When he arrived at the door he stood up and again fell flat on his face. He crawled through the door and into his bedroom. When he reached his bed he tried one more time to stand up. This time he managed to pull himself upright, but he quickly fell right into bed and is sound asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow.

He was awakened the next morning to his wife standing over him, shouting, "So, you've been out drinking again!!"

"What makes you say that?" he asked, putting on an innocent look.

"The pub called -- you left your wheelchair there again."

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The Satellite of Love

In the late 1980's there was a little show on cable-access in Minnesota featuring a man trapped in a space station with two wise-cracking robots who was forced to watch really bad movies. The show was called "Mystery Science Theater 3000", and it became a Saturday morning staple through the 90's. If you've never heard or seen the show before, let me say "I'm sorry" and offer this classic example of the show.

The theme song of the show tells the story. "In the not too distant future", a guy named Joel Robinson (played by Joel Hodgson) worked for a company named "Gizmonic Institute" as a janitor. Gizmonic Institute was a place where EVERYBODY was an inventor. Even Joel was an inventor.

The bosses didn't like Joel, since Joel was a better inventer. So they shot him into space on a space ship (named the "Satellite of Love"), and performed experiments on Joel.

While on the satellite, Joel created 4 robots. Cambot was created to film the experiments. Gypsy (voice by Jim Mallon, then later by Patrick Brantseg) was created to control the satellite. Crow (voice by Trace Beaulieu, later by Bill Corbett) is the gold robot that joins Joel in the experiments. He is a spec screenwriter, and is more often the one with a sailor mouth. The other main robot is Tom Servo (voice by Josh "J. Elvis" Weinstein, later by Kevin Murphy) also joined Joel for the experiments. He is red, has a gumball machine for a head, and a great singing voice. Intellectual, has a little bit of an ego, but seems to get emotional a lot.

What were the experiments about? The theory was that they could take extremely bad movies, force people to watch them to the point where they crack, and it will help them take over the world. So how do Joel, Crow and Servo fight back? They talk right back to the movie, adding lines, making fun of bad film making and poor effects. It reminded you of hanging out with your buddies, having a few beers and laughing at some bad movie on TV. Except the robots were wayyyy funnier than my friends.

I don't think it's on TV anymore. The Satellite of Love crashed to Earth and Joel and the robots were incinerated in the fiery blaze. There was always rumor that it would make network TV but Comedy Centeral is the farthest it ever got. Too bad, because the show was a study in how much crap makes it to film, and how much fun you can have poking fun at it.

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I like Ovechkin

Alexander Ovechkin is a rookie in the NHL who plays for the Washington Capitals.

This video shows him pulling some unbelievable moves and taking shots that make professional goalies just look silly.

The Ale House Wings play our final game Wednesday. Tickets may still be available.

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Yes, I know I'm Sick

I'm not sure if it's passive-aggressive, or just a need to have validation, but I had a run-in with my doctor this week.

There I was, scratching at the glass of his door last Friday morning. My throat was on fire and the only time I can recall it being that bad I had strep throat. My doctor is a decent guy, not some show off with 40 degrees from all sorts of impressive schools, but I'm pretty sure he passed all the tests and things to become a doctor. He's easy to talk to and doesn't make me feel like a schlub, so I go there.

The doc gave said the quick strep test, which surprised me by turning out negative. "This is definitely strep." I told him, which I'm sure he loves to hear from clients. Especially the ones who barely made it through Bio101. He nodded seriously, as if I were a valued colleague and said he would send out the swap for a lab test, should have results Monday-Tuesday.

In the meantime, he says, gargle with this and he handed me a script. Gargle? I could barely swallow my own saliva let alone gargle anything. So, I popped a steady stream of cough drops all day until finding out we had a stash of left-over penicillin from when Kelly had strep the month before. I have no problem self-medicating.

I was a grumpy miserable bastard all weekend, the drugs slowly working their was into my system. The whole time I'm thinking, "If not for these black market drugs, I'd still be waiting for those damn test results.

Monday came, and no call from doc. The sun rose Tuesday and the phone still did not ring. At this point, I don't need the script for the drugs, but I want to hear that yes, indeed, I have strep and it's not some damn sore throat. I called the office and rasped that I need my results, only to hear the results would not be back until in until 2pm. At 3:30 I called back and the nurse says, "Oh, we won't get those results until tomorrow."
"Tomorrow? But they went out Friday."
"Oh no, they went out yesterday, on Monday."

Huh. Interesting. Well, I still had drugs, so no big deal.

Wednesday morning I was feeling better, but the throat was still a bit sore and I was down to my last pill. Crunch time. I called the office after 2pm and raspily asked for my results. There was some shuffling of papers sound and then the big reveal - negative! No strep.

Whaaaa? I hung up feeling totally crappy. Had I over medicated for just a sore throat? I was so sure it was strep, hell I knew I had strep, I still had a sore throat 5 days after starting the drugs. How could the test be wrong?

So I was playing the waiting game. Without medication, i the throat flared back up, I would have top go to another place for the test, because my doc thinks I'm a hypochondriac with a sore throat.

Thursday morning they called my house with a curios message, "Jim's test results came back and has strep. We'll send a prescription to your pharmacy so he can get on the medication as soon as possbile."

The deuce you say!

Upon learning this news, I got fired up. I called the doctors office and asked for the head nurse on duty. I explained the whole situation but she didn't understand. "No, " she said "the results clearly say you have strep. You really should get the prescription filled." So now she is acting like I DON'T agree with the results!.

I very calmly (and really going overboard with the raspy voice thing, trying to make her feel my pain) went through the story again. This time she got it ,and I ended by telling her I was very disappointed in the office. "Obviously, " I accused "the person on the phone yesterday made up an easy answer to get me off the phone! And somebody last Friday forgot to include the test in the batch to go out. That's two pretty serious mistakes when somebody is in severe pain."

The nurse must have been through this, or worse, before. She was rather cold and unwavering with her "this is not our fault" tone of voice, and that kind of put me over the edge. I launched into a fake coughing fit and then rasped, "Thanks for nothing!".

That worked. The nurse broke her stoic persona, apologized profusely for the screw-ups and wished me well. I hung up with a wheeze and a smile.


Sweet, sweet validation.

The Blonde and The Lord

A blonde wanted to go ice fishing. She'd seen many books on the subject and finally getting all the necessary tools together, she headed for the ice.

After positioning her comfy footstool, she started to make a circular cut in the ice. Suddenly, from the sky, a voice boomed, "THERE ARE NO FISH UNDER THE ICE."

Startled, the blonde moved further down the ice, poured a thermos of cappuccino, and began to cut yet another hole. Again from the heaven the voice bellowed, "THERE ARE NO FISH UNDER THE ICE."

The blonde, now worried, moved away, clear down to the opposi te end of the ice. She set up her stool once more and tried again to cut her hole. The voice came once more, "THERE ARE NO FISH UNDER THE ICE."

She stopped, looked skyward, and said, "IS THAT YOU LORD?"

The voice replied, "NO, THIS IS THE MANAGER OF THE HOCKEY RINK."


nice one, Cindy!

Don't Party With Goats. They Will Eat Your Pants.

There were some righteous parties in Surrey BC when I was growing up. None were this good, so it seems like things have gotten even wilder out there.

My younger brother and sisters got to actually host parties at our house, something I could never do growing up because my parents never went anywhere. Once a year they went out to dinner and left us with some unsuspecting babysitter (never the same one twice) who thought 6 kids can't be THAT difficult to wrangle and get to bed. Many a youngwoman regretted making that bad assumption.

Once me and my brother Tim were gone to college, my parents changed. Suddenly, all the rules went out the window and they were into going out and even on overnights, leaving the final 4 to fend for themselves for the weekend.

I shared the above story link with my youngest brother Pat, and he came back with this awesome memory:

I remember Anney and Mary said I could invite a few buddies from my gr8 class to a party at 13768 that the girls were hosting and one of my buddies puked 12 times all over the house but mostly we just damaged ourselves more than anything else.

In the morning I wandered outside and noticed a crumpled figure up near the barn. When I walked up there I found an old friend of Kates' (not of the religious sort) twisted up in a bed sheet and clutching an empty bottle of Dr.Hunters wine. I'm sure you had a few of those over the years...

The image of this scene had me laughing wicked hard. The poor guy who ended up by the barn must have woke in a confused hell. We had chickens, goats and other various animals out there, which would throw most city kids (or even those from just a few blocks away) for a loop. I imagine his thoughts were something like: "Where am I? How the eff did I get to a farm? Why is that horse staring at me? Where's my pants? Why does the inside of my mouth taste like paint rags?"

That's when he learns the important lesson that goats will eat just about anything, even jeans, sneakers and wallets.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, sucks waking up hung over in Surrey.

The Simpsons, The Oscars, and Chuck Norris

I've been watching the Simpsons since they were a short feature on the Tracy Ullman show. The show has been on for almost 20 years, and has yet to jump the shark. Even if you're a casual viewer of the show (like SSB*), you know the opening scene of every episode. I found this amazing clip the other day, a live action re-inactment of the opening of the Simpsons. Can we be far off from a full-blown live-action version of the show?

It's Oscar night, and that holds zero attraction for me. Actors already have it made, we have to give them awards as well?

Yeah, I'm bitter. Once again the Hollywood elite have left out the best movie and actor of the year. Chuck Norris shouldn't be denied kudos for his performance in this amazing movie, so be sure and check out this masterpiece "Walker , Brokeback Ranger".

*sorry man, couldn't resist!

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Survivorman

No food, no shelter, no fresh water, no tools... no camera crew. One man - alone in the wild for seven days with only his wits and stamina to sustain him.

Have you seen this show? It kicks the llama's ass, as the Winamp guy says. I've only seen two episodes: one time he was in the swamps of Louisiana, the other a simulated plane crash in Northern Ontario in the winter. He's an amazing guy with his knowledge of little tricks for lighting a fire with wet bark or the best way to cook a 5 foot rattle snake. You never know when
you'll need that info, but when you do, you'll be damn glad you have it.

The second episode for example, he simulated a fake place crash and even had the wreckage of a small plane on the site for him to scavenge from. He feigns injuries, since he says that if you did survive a place crash, you would most likely have a busted arm or leg. In this one he binded up his arm and then had to do all the tasks one-handed. Crazy, dude.

The show rocks because it's a realistic show. If a gator pops out of the swamp and chomps onto his leg, there's no wrangler there to protect him. He would have to kill the gator with only a sharp stick or end up as dead meat. Literally.

Watching this show makes me realize just how dumb the CBS hit "Survivor" really is. I mean, I knew it was kind of dumb, but after watching this guy those babies on Pirate Island live in a Holiday Inn compared to what Survivorman goes through.