Torn from the Headlines Tuesday

So the Great Winter LoveFest of 2010 is now over, and thanks to the exceptional efforts of many - which made the last couple of weeks (and the week to come) an affair to remember - the love letters are still flowing in, fast and furious.

You like us.

You really, really like us.

Mostly.

From one of this morning's Vancouver papers:

"In case you don't read The Los Angeles Times, here's what esteemed sports columnist Bill Plaschke wrote on Sunday: 'Canada, you were gold. For two weeks, you lived your anthem, your hearts glowing like that moon that hung nightly over Burrard Inlet, a light on the front porch of a house that felt like a home.' "

Well, didn't that just get me a little misty-eyed?

Everyone, bar none, likes to be complimented on their choice of homey porch lighting.

And then I read a little further...

"In a related story, a British journalist complained that the stupid moon kept him up at night."

Oh, that stupid farking moon.

Add it to your litany of complaints. Another glaring oversight on our part.

So very, very sorry. Whatever could we have been thinking?

And yet again, I have gone from the thrill of successfully completing my hostess-y duties to the despair of actually having a moon in our Canadian solar system.

British newspaper dudes (especially you from The Times) - who the hell pissed in your pigs-in-a-blanket? For the most part, each and every day, you have behaved like petulant children. Stamping of feet, literary tantruming.

Dissing planets.

No one or no thing is beyond attack.

Now here, instinctually, I would love to tell you how relieved I am that you can all screw off and go back home. Back to the comfort of your climate (which is EXACTLY the f*cking same as ours), back to your overcrowded, polluted London and your pithy news posts.

And back to your g.d. moon.

Which apparently is of a smaller, more aesthetic wattage than ours.

I would love to tell you that I sincerely - in my glowing heart of glowing hearts - hope that there is some country who will take equal delight in crapping all over your 2012 Games.

But I won't.

Because, according to the rest of the free world, I'm a good hostess.

And I'm polite.

(Wanker.)

My City Monday

Gah.

I've been up in my little turret, studying all day. Big test on Wednesday.

(by the dubs - advancing one's intellect and striving for certification? Highly overrated).

(especially when the G.D. Olympics are on.)

(and in my city, no less...)

(wah)

It's still Monday, right?

Well, unless you fall somewheres off the east end of the Canadian Map.

Then too bad for you.

So, I know that the subtitle of my blog is "The Good.The Bad. The Irksome."

But just for today, I am going to change it to "The Happy. The Sad. The Awesome."

Come along, now. We don't have all day.

The Happy:

I was thrilled to come upon this during a regularly-scheduled gallavant - nice to know that we have someone local who has Banksy aspirations...(does it count if it's on your own fence?)

Here's a close-up - the striped pants are pretty fee-usss!

The Sad:

*note to dude on left:
Put down the sign when we're losing...

Oh, Canada.

What.

The.

Frickin'

Hell?

Yeah, buddy. We're living something...(I think it's call Get-Back-In-Yer-Net-You-Idiot-Itis)

The Sad (But Proud):

Making nice. Shaking hands. Because he's such a lovely young man. And we are nothing.

But polite.

The Awesome:

I think I may have died and gone to heaven. Even though I was home slaving away over sarcomeres and xiphoid processes, my friends saw it in their hearts to still go downtown and play amongst the international jet set - they knew I would have wanted it that way.

My absence was noted, and my hard work hitting the books was rewarded when the Good Countess Jaeger came home with the most AMAZING present ever.

It is called a "Hockey Sockey", which is an offshoot of "The Pook" (go here for the fantabulistic website).

In its relaxed state, it looks like this:
But it can be so much more.

It can be a brooch. It can be a pterydactyl.

It can be a mullet.

Or it can be this:
I am currently rocking the 'Double Trump Comb Over'.

I'm still trying to perfect 'The Moose' where you knot the top ties and put your Olympic mittens on top. Picture to follow!

Happy almost Tuesday, my lovelies!

Thoughtful Thursd-eh

I am feeling a little patriotic today, for some inexplicable reason.

As a result, there will be no explicabling.

Instead, I will offer up a primer on my neck of the woods.

(Because we're hosting the 2010 Winter Olympics, and I would hate for you all to feel uninformed of the city you could potentially be visiting - forewarned is forearmed)

(And I know you have a right to bear arms - I would surmise that forearms fall into that category somewhere)

(OK, that was really stupid - I really don't know how civil rights and physiology are even remotely similar)

(Must. Have. Coffee.)

In case you're interested.

Because you know, relations between our two countries are about to heat up, baby. New president - new game. I'm hoping for Nude Twister.

Our borders are already touching.

Without further ado (I'm a little short on ado today), a snippet from Will Ferguson's "How to be a Canadian":

"British Columbia: "Recycled, Free-Range, Hand-woven - and All Organic!" (Rust is organic, right?)

Location: Somewhere between California and Alaska, appropriately enough.

Main Industries: Forestry, whaling, tourism

Main Hobbies: Anti-forestry, anti-whaling, anti-tourism

Main Export: Beef

Main Import: Vegans

Provincial Flower: Mildew

Sunshine: Intermediate

Long-term Forecast: Not so good

Provincial Motto: "We don't think that's very funny."

...Lair of the Ogopogo and the place where the sun sets on the nation, BC is a land of tai chi and chai tea, where the trees are cedar, the condos are leaky, the coffee is Starbucks, the tie is dye, the poles are totem, the reviews are mixed and the stone-age neanderthal Sasquatch is real. "