Ok, I don't expect many people to know what crokinole is, but it's a great game. Why checkers is popular when crokinole isn't is beyond me. I personally don't get it - checkers is so boring. So, having said that, I think it's time we take crokinole to another level.

I've been thinking, and these are the ingredients that I think are required for anything to be popular these days -

1. Sex appeal
2. Violence
3. Fun
4. Not boring (thanks to our over-stimulating environment, we can't pay attention to anything for longer than about 2 minutes. I'd be surprised if anyone is even still reading this...I'm even a little bored myself.)

Anyway, 3 and 4 take care of themselves, as it's a fun, fast paced game. Games are quick, the concept is simple, and it's fun.

Numbers 1 and 2 are a little harder, so, that's where I propose to initiate the United Federation of Crokinole, or UFC. Here's how I envision it


**That little "of" is important, as it prevents us from getting sued (or at least I hope it does.)

Now, this in and of itself doesn't make it violent, BUT, it might draw attention to the Federation from people who are looking for violent things (actually, maybe that's not the crowd we're interested in....whatever, we'll worry about that later.) If someone comes out just to either a) get punched in the face, or b) see someone get punched in the face, I'm sure I can set something up.

This last important detail is the sex appeal part, so I figure this can go on our posters. Maybe, when we really hit the big time, we can really have hot models at events. Or maybe just models, or, maybe just any woman at all.



So, there you have it, that's my plan to take crokinole from obscurity into the big time. If cup stacking can make it, surely crokinole can. Sport??. McDonald's Commercial??? I really don't get it. Crokinole, people, I'm telling you. |

Every once in a while I see something that is just so shocking that I think, "I have to blog this..." This, is one of those times. While perusing the catalogs that are sitting around, I found some 'interesting' things.









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I found this report that says the mother of the octuplets already has 6 kids.

In reporting on "The Early Show" that the mother already has six other children, a CBS reporter who visited the woman's Los Angeles-area home cited two unnamed acquaintances. It has also been reported that the mother has decided to change her name to "Gourteen" for their upcoming TLC show, "John and Gourteen plus fourteen".

That's right John and Kate, fourteen! Next time you want to complain about having 8 small kids, just think about poor Gourteen. |

As I've said before, I hate The Bachelor/Bachelorette. I find it pretty disgusting that they pretend that the show is about people finding true love, and then living happily ever after, when in reality, it's all about getting 2 or more people to "fall in love" with one person (or one person to "fall in love" with 2 people) and then watch as they go through emotional hell and then be crushed when they aren't chosen. Having said that, I did watch the first episode of The Bachelor this week, and it appears that it'll be full of heart-wrenching emotional destruction while Jason looks to recover from his public crushing at the hands of that vile Deanna (may have spelled that wrong, don't care to look it up). The show itself sucked, but the preview for the upcoming weeks was just full of torture. The producers of that show are so sadistic, it's kind of sad that we all find it so entertaining (it's also sad that nobody thinks it's a horrible show for what they do to poor saps like Jason). So, what can we look forward to?? Well, to torture Jason, they bring back Deanna. The beauty of this is, that they not only torture Jason, but they also torture her, AND, they also torture all the women who think that they're at some sort of disadvantage. Awesome. Where else could you possibly have provided that much emotional torture with only one thing? Brilliant. The tears and heart-ache in that preview almost makes me want to continue to watch. Almost. Why almost? Well, because in that preview they showed Jason 'proposing' to an unknown woman, whose identity they so cleverly concealed. Or did they?? That's right, I'm so superbly perceptive that I noticed something in that preview that (I believe) has given away the identity of the woman to whom Jason proposes. After a nauseating amount of rewinding and squinting and slow motion (that even my wife was growing tired of) I feel that I know who he picks. The beauty of this is, a) I can ruin the show for people (which may be mean, but, that show is horrid, so it shouldn't really be enjoyed anyway, unless you're evil) and b) I don't have to watch (except to revel in the emotional pain that people are going through while they get their hearts shredded on national tv). If you don't want to know who I think he picks and the associated 'evidence', then don't watch this video (it's not Lisa).



Next is possibly the greatest dating show ever. Better than Flava of Love, and better than A Shot at Love (with Tila Tequila). That's right, it's A Double Shot at Love with the Ikki Twins. Just when you thought it couldn't get any more dysfunctional than Tila Tequila's 12 dudes vs. 12 lesbians, we get dudes and lesbians, but they're competing for bi-sexual twins! You can tell the calibre of a dating show by how trashy the contestants are, and by that definition, this show is very low calibre. Anyway, that Bachelor part took a lot out of me, so I don't really have anything to say about the Ikki twins, other than it's odd that they call themselves 'ikki', and that I imagine that one will pick a dude, and the other will pick a lesbian, and in about 2 weeks, the Ikki twins will be back to obscurity - possibly porn, if they're lucky, and the 'winners' will be back to the trailer park. I guess the most important thing is that people's feelings will be hurt, they will cry, and they may be scarred and prevented from having a functional relationship in the future, and, really, isn't that what these shows are all about? |

Ok, after some pressure to write a post about Africa, here goes... (you can play this in the background if you wish - sidenote - I got an ipod for Christmas, so I've been uploading all my cds, and I have rediscovered Howie Day. I remember going to a Tori Amos concert with my sister about 7 years ago just because Howie Day was the opening act. He's crazy talented, but I think he's had drug problems, and he was associated with Britney Spears for a time, so he's pretty much gone down the shitter.)

Anyway, back to Africa. Africa is a continent, and it turns out, it's pretty huge, and it takes forever to get there. I believe there was something like 36 hours of travel time (including layovers in London and Johannesburg) to get where we were going (Zambia) where we took a helicopter tour of Victoria Falls.


This was our 'hotel' room in Zambia.

The following is where I was afraid there was some crazy big bug ready to jump out and kill me.

It turned out that there really weren't that many bugs around. We did happen across a grasshopper so big you could have ridden it, but it was fairly benign, so it was all good. There were some flies and mosquitos, but it wasn't that bad.

From Zambia, we went to Botswana, where the majority of our tour was. Botswana is a stable, "successful" country (I put successful in quotes because I mostly determine success based on the number of reality tv shows that originate in a particular area, so, by some people's criteria, it is successful, however, I feel it's questionable.) Botswana is right next to Zimbabwe, which is a shit-hole by most people's standards, and was blamed for the robbery that took place in one of our first lodges. Basically, the single room 'hut' next to ours was broken into in the middle of the night and robbed. Apparently there was no key to that hut, so the theory was that it was a bit of an inside job. Regardless, I was awakened in the middle of the night by yelling and banging and it was really quite terrifying. I can handle having things stolen while nobody is around, but having people steal stuff when the victim is sleeping with the threat of being shot (they claimed to have guns) is a little different. Regardless, I'm kind of glad that we experienced that, as it was a wake up call regarding the fact that we were no longer in Canada. Desperate people (from Zimbabwe no doubt! We hated those punks from Zimbabwe) do desperate things, which I'm not used to here.

Anyway, this is getting long, and we're only on the first night, so I'll just throw up some pictures and say that it was quite an experience to go to Africa, and if anyone is interested in wildlife trips, I really can't imagine anything being better. The number and concentration of animals was almost overwhelming at times and it never really got tiring watching a herd of them walk by.



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Oh New Years! It's my favourite time of year. I'm going to go a few parties and get really drunk (high five!) and maybe score with some chicks! Or at least that's what I'm going to be telling people tomorrow when I get asked what I did for New Years (except for that 'scoring with chicks' bit, I'm married now). In reality, I'm just going to be sitting here playing Facebook poker with someone from Turkey who probably told their friends they were out getting drunk as well. Hey, at least I'm being honest. |

(I originally posted this a couple of Christmases ago, but I heard it on the radio today and thought that I had to re-post it.)

The Christmas Shoes

It was almost Christmas time, there I stood in another line
Tryin' to buy that last gift or two, not really in the Christmas mood.
(maybe if you didn't wait until the last second to buy stuff you'd be in a better mood, dipshit)
Standing right in front of me was a little boy waiting anxiously
Pacing 'round like little boys do
And in his hands he held a pair of shoes.

His clothes were worn and old, he was dirty from head to toe
And when it came his time to pay
I couldn't believe what I heard him say,
(I could believe it. What do you expect from a dirty looking kid in a store? Do you honestly think he has money? I'd just go to another line, as you know it's going to take a while.

Chorus:
Sir, I want to buy these shoes for my Mama, please
It's Christmas Eve and these shoes are just her size
Could you hurry, sir, Daddy says there's not much time
You see she's been sick for quite a while
And I know these shoes would make her smile
Did you ever think that it might make her smile more if you were physically there when she died? Maybe she was so sad that you weren't there that she died of a broken heart...
And I want her to look beautiful if Mama meets Jesus tonight.
What the hell?! Why is Daddy letting you run around by yourself? Where is Daddy? His name isn't K-Fed is it? Jesus is probably the name of the pool boy that mom is screwing on the side anyways.
Mom - I want to look good for Jesus tonight!
Kid - Why Mommy, are you sick??
Mom - Ummmm yeah, sick. Sick of your father...
Kid - What?
Mom - Nothing.

He counted pennies for what seemed like years
See?? Should have gone to another line.
Then the cashier said, "Son, there's not enough here"
He searched his pockets frantically
Then he turned and he looked at me
Don't look at me, kid. I'm not a charity.
He said Mama made Christmas good at our house
Though most years she just did without
Tell me Sir, what am I going to do,
Somehow I've got to buy her these Christmas shoes.
You should have thought about that before you tried to buy something with no money. Grown ups trade money for goods and/or services, so I suggest you either go ask your father for the money, or maybe get a job.

So I laid the money down, I just had to help him out
What? What does that teach the kid?
I'll never forget the look on his face when he said
Mama's gonna look so great.
Unless it's an open casket, it doesn't really matter

Bridge:
I knew I'd caught a glimpse of heaven's love
By using a poor kid and his dying mother to remind you that you shouldn't be an asshole while you're in line buying an ipod and PS3 that you really don't need? Heaven's love indeed. Why doesn't heaven love the poor kid with the sick mother?
As he thanked me and ran out
I knew that God had sent that little boy
To remind me just what Christmas is all about

And what exactly did it teach you about Christmas? Some poor kid, with no money has a sick and dying mother and you buy him a pair of shoes and then feel good about yourself? What a great story! What about the kid? What does he learn about God's love? God doesn't love poor kids who beg for shoes. He only kills their mothers? Plus, Christmas is about the birth of Jesus, which, if I'm not mistaken, isn't mentioned in this song.

The choir of little kids singing at the end is really too much too. Fuck this song sucks. |