A Legend Passes

According to multiple sources, Sheri Martel, the Sensational Sherri has passed away. Best known as the valet/manager of The Macho Man Randy Savage, the Sensational Sherri had a wrestling career that spanned three decades. We are diminished for her passing. No word yet on the cause of her death.

Caption Contest

A shiny new comic book (or an old shitty one) for the best caption to this photo. Any entry that makes liquid shoot out my nose will be given careful consideration.

Advice From Don Frye

There are some great people in the world. People who, for good or ill, are themselves. All the time. 100 of these people are Don Frye. And I do mean that Don Frye is worth 100 normal humans any day of the week. Don is an MMA legend from his many battels~! in the Pride Fighting Championships. Don is crazy tough. I will never forget watching Olympic Judo Gold Medalist Hidehiko Yoshida break Don's arm in a Pride fight. Don didn't tap out. Don didn't even wince. In fact, Don refused to acknowledge the injury because that would be to admit weakness!

So where does Don go from here? With the purchase of Pride FC by UFC, a company for whom he refuses to fight, his options are limited. Luckily, as hapless as they are, the International Fight League has stepped up and hired our mustachioed hero as the coach of the Arizona Scorpions. Don't worry that you haven't heard of the IFL as they are on once a week on Sports Channel, or Sports TV, or whatever those non-TSN stations are called. And they draw no fans. And make no money.

Anyway, the one smart thing the IFL has done is to market Don's particular brand of advice. The kind of advice that can only come from a man who fights for a living, has a Tom Selleck moostache, likes guns and red meat (which he has killed himself with a high-powered weapon), and thinks the U.S. has gone downhill since Reagan left office. Don's world is a glorious pastiche of black and white. Right and wrong. Republicans and dope-smoking hippies. To tell you the truth, somedays I would love to be that sure about everything in my world. To have nuance shoved aside as I eat a rare steak and enjoy a cold beer without worrying what my wife will say about the expense ('cause I ain't eatin' no cheap steak) and the health risks. But I know me, and I am no Don Frye (*this is a must-see fight, espcially for the hockey-fight style used by both throughout the bout). But, wimps like me can now go to Don for advice. Advice on love, cars, guns, money, anything manly. Yup, on the IFL web page is an entire section devoted to Don's advice to both men and women. And it is glorious. Here is a sample:



Dear Don,
After thirteen up-and-down years of marriage, my wife and I have decided to split up. I'm not too upset about it and neither is she, but recently she's taken up with a much younger man. We're separated but the divorce hasn't finalized yet and so technically we're still married.

When I saw my wife with this guy, I was suddenly, unexpectedly jealous. I want her to move on and live her own life but knowing this punk is stepping out with my wife makes me nuts. What should I do?

Let me ask you a question. You’re a man right? I mean, biologically and all that, you’ve got the necessary parts? Good, glad to hear it.

Now start acting like it.

A man has got to have some dignity. You got rid of her for a reason, didn’t you? I’m guessing part of that reason is that you don’t want her anymore. So why should you care if she’s out with some jerk? You wouldn’t want her now that she’s been giving it away to him, would you? Of course not. It’s like tainted meat.

Besides, you know how many other women there are out there? I can’t put my finger on a number, but it’s a lot. So stop whining. That isn’t what a man does. A man would go out and find another woman - one even younger than that guy his wife is dating, if he really wants to make a point.

Then again, maybe you’d rather stay home and feel sorry for yourself while some guy’s whooping it up with your wife. If that’s the case, then there's nothing I can say to fix the kind of troubles you got.

Oh to be that cool. Never going to happen. But I will keep reading Don's advice on how to be a real man and pray that reincarnation is real.

Thursday Poetry Slam

Today's poem is ripped from the world of pop music. I present "Clumsy", by Our Lady Peace.


Throw away the radio, suitcase, keeps you awake
Hide the telephone, the telephone, telephone in case
You realize that,somedays, you're just not ok
You level out, you level out, level out, and it’s not alright now
You need to understand, there’s nothing strange about this
You need to know your friends, You need to know that...
I’ll be waving my hand, watching you drown
Watching you scream, quiet or loud
And maybe you should sleep
And maybe you just need...
A friend, as clumsy as you feel, there’s no one laughing



Well, it's no Sarah Binks, but I guess it will. But what in the hell are they talking about?

Of Fireflies and Netminders

Is there a "it's getting hot in here" meme on this blog? Well, there should be. I am sweating so much that I am releasing drugs and alcohol I consumed in Whistler back in '93. Ugly and unpleasant to say the least.

Grotesque bodily functions aside, let's shift our focus to cool winter evenings. Dry snow crunching underfoot as soft flakes drift down through a moonlit sky...ahh, now I am nice and cool.

I want to bring to your attention a song that I love dearly. A song as monumentally bad as it is tremedously fun. It's Johnny Bower, famed netminder for the Toronto Maple Leafs, singing that Christmas classic, "Honky the Crhistmas Goose". The story of the song is recounted below by Chris Lomon.


Johnny Bower: Toronto's singing sensation

Courtesy of mapleleafs.com
Writer: Chris Lomon
Editor: Wendy McCreary

Johnny Bower, bigger than the Beatles? Well, at least that's the story the Hall of Famer is sticking with.

Some 37 years after Bower, one of the most talented and respected men to ever tend the twine in the NHL, recorded two Christmas songs, the colourful and charismatic backstopper still chuckles at how the whole thing came about and the end result.

It was during the 1965-66 season, when Chris Young, a songwriter, came to Maple Leaf Gardens, seeking the assistance of a member of the Original Six club in recording two songs he had penned...

..."When Chris came into the room and asked if anyone would be interested in helping out, most of the guys dashed to the showers," recalled Bower, inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1976. "I've never seen so many players make a such a quick exit in my life."


...though he agreed to lend his time and vocal 'talents' to the project, he was far from certain he was the right man for the job.

...Bower, accompanied by a chorus of kids, including his own son, Johnny Jr., collectively known as Johnny Bower & Little John with The Rinky-Dinks, gathered around the microphone at a CBC studio in Toronto, to record Honky the Christmas Goose and Banjo the Mule.

...While the record sales didn't rival those of any "Fab Four" releases, Honky the Christmas Goose did enjoy a significant amount of airplay, making it on to the Canadian music charts, peaking at No. 29.

...On December 27, 1965, Honky the Christmas Goose was only 27 and 28 spots behind the two top singles on that date: We Can Work it Out (No.1) and Day Tripper (No.2), two legendary hits by four famed lads from Liverpool.

Not bad for a puck-stopping NHL star, someone who never wanted to sing in the first place.

I Call Bullshit On Me

So I had my little rant about Jeff Adams, which was crass and juvenile, but I forgot one key thing. Jeff Adams is a real person dealing with a very real problem. And a nobody like me screaming from his box on the corner isn't helping matters much. Especially when I get my facts wrong. Very wrong. I will say that I spoke to health care professionals and misinterpreted what I was told. They do contend that there is a subsidy for catheters, and that they are sometimes reused in a hospital setting. So I got that wrong. Very wrong. And I was wrong about the cocaine story. It seemed wacky to me, but if the man has witnesses then I shall shut my gob. Which I should have done from the start, but I thought I was being clever.

I certainly agree with Jeff that the problem is with the rules and the way they were enforced. I think the penalty was far too harsh and I think that it should be appealed.

To Jeff Adams, I am sorry. Take heart in the fact that nobody reads this blog, and the ones that do don't take me seriously.

Today I am a small man.

I Call Shenanigans On Jeff Adams

I decided to delete my vitriol-laden screed because Jeff Adams is a better man than I. I am not hiding from my words; I kept a copy as a reminder of my bad behaviour. I just don't feel that Jeff deserves to have it readily available. If you really need to read it, then I am sure you can find a cached copy. Or I can e-mail it to you if you really want to see how big of an asshole I can be.

Do read Jeff's response as it is to the point and reasonable. Something I am not.

Book Recommendation for the JD blog crowd

The endorsement of the book comes from Penn and Teller, prominent intellectuals and religious scholars, so it has to be good. The book uses a computer analogy so the JD crowd should be swayed:

The Root of All Evil?, by the Oxford University evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, is his controversial documentary that complements his bestselling book The God Delusion. Dawkins presents his view of religion as a cultural virus that, like a computer virus, once downloaded into the software of society corrupts many of the programs it encounters. It isn’t hard to find examples to fit this view; one has only to read the dailies coming out of the Middle East to see its nefarious effects.

Lyrics To Live By

The poets of the pop charts have much to teach us if we would only listen. Case in point, these lyrics courtesy of Peter Allen via Melissa Manchester.

"Don't cry out loud
Just keep it inside and learn how to hide your feelings
Fly high and proud
And if you should fall, remember you almost had it all"

And fear clowns. That's in the subtext. But mainly, stop crying. Stop it.

Tomorrow : We learn about the effects of precipitation on cakes left in public spaces.

Glorious Geekness

This is truly the shirt for the geek-about-town. On the one hand, you get to look like a regular middle-aged goofball who surely never ran track. On the other hand, you are a giving a nod and a wink to like-minded geeks. Subterfuge!

Maybe I am overthinking this a bit. Yes? No? Yes.

Morning Drinks or, The Van Pelt Special

The thermometer is on rise here in Southwestern Ontario. Along with this comes the usual cycle of thunderstorms and intolerable humidity. But before we get too down in the mouth (or moist in the shorts as it were) over our condition, let's take a minute to feel some sympathy for The Rev. The Rev is a Canadian writer living and working in Tokyo, Japan. According to him:

"The jungle heat and 90 percent humidity hit in late June and stay until the end of September. By mid August this Canuck is usually begging to be put out of his misery and sent to Baffin Island."

Sounds delightful. But, our friendly expatriate has a solution. Beer for breakfast (or what Honshui and I call the Van Pelt Special - yes KD, that Van Pelt). Turns out, in Tokyo,

"...beer in the morning is not so rare, especially among the salaryman set , though many prefer a morning pick-me-up of chu-hi, a concoction of soda water, shochu (distilled liquor made from rice or sweet potatoes that runs the gamut from nice, vodka-like pricey hooch to industrial solvent) and usually some kind of citrus flavor, that come in at about 6 or 7 percent alcohol by volume -- imagine a weak vodka-and-soda with lime. Not bad if you are hungover, but the sho-chu is usually closer to industrial quality and tends to be hangover-inducing in the long run.

I've seen I've seen guys quaffing on the train platform at 9 am and I've seen quart bottles of beer set out as part of the breakfast buffet at hot spring resorts. Get on a bullet train here at any time of the day and people are drinking before the train leaves the station, no matter what time it is."

So head on over to The Woodshed and check out the entire article. I for one can vouch that the "strip and go naked" is indeed appropriately named.

O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!

The sun is shining, the humidity is low, and I am full of coffee. Yup, it is a good Monday. Now, what could possibly make this day any better...I've got it! This day needs some Erasure.

Now get up and dance you miserable sods. Dance I say!


Update:

Still grumpy? Well then here is a litte more Erasure. Repeat as often as necessary.