I Come To Praise The Shawarma

Forget Subway. Get a shawarma. And not just any shawarma, but one from the Shawarma House in Byron. For five bucks you get a ton of meat (chicken or beef), sincere service, and a great tasting meal. Plus, their humus is divine. Literally. The sky opens and a supernatural being spreads it on your pita. Honest.

On a side note...who makes good pizza in this town? I get 827 pizza adverts every week from Ceizure's, Pissa Pissa, Some Guy's Pizza, and Century 21. Who promise to give me pizza if I sell my house. So where is the good pie in town? Thin-crust, tasty pie. I can't believe that after living here my entire life I don't have the answer; so I throw must put it to my betters, who know better than me.

And if he is listening, Rev, is there good shawarma in Japan?

Today I took a stand and stood up to sexism in the workplace!

We have all encountered the sting of sexism in the workplace and today I could no longer turn a blind eye to the injustice I encountered.

I walked into the bathroom in my office's "compound" and there it was. A simple sign above the toilet with a cartoon making fun of men who forget to put the seat down along with a demand that men remember to lower the seat. At first, I thought this seems reasonable, but then I started to see the problem and I spoke out on behalf of men everywhere.

I believe in equality of the sexes. To me that means that men and women reciprocate in our actions. We do not carry on with chivalry if we believe in equality. Equality means that women should be willing to lift the seat after they use the toilet in consideration of the next user who may be a man. In fact, neither sex should always do the ssame thing with respect to the seat. Sometimes they should leave it up, sometimes they should put it down. But we should not tolerate an unjust expectation that men will always lower the seat after use. It's time to support equality and speak in support of randomized seat lowering!

Join me brothers in the fight. We shall overcame. Yes we can!

Dumbest Person Ever. Evar!

Seriously stupid.


H/t to the Canadian Cynic

CIS football and the end of history

Look around our society and you see signs of uninterupted progress. We have better technology for communication; cleaner lakes and rivers than a decade ago; more impressive pro athletes, and more channels on tv (although the verdict on quality of the content is still out).

From this perspective, CIS football stands out as a shocking exception. I recall football teams with large players with high skill levels. We could list the incredible athletes that we were able to watch but that would take up a lot of space.

Watch a game these days, like UWO versus Laurier or Ottawa and you see something that looks more like intramural flag football. Lot's of wobbly passes, lots of lob passes where 5 players have a chance to make a "500 up" style play. Remember the blocking and run plays of Western with Jamie Taras and Blake Marshall? Those were impressive to watch. The plays I saw last week on "The Score", not so impressive. The offense looks like they are calling "everyone go out for a pass".

Things aren't much better in the western conference. The Dinos look they are high school sized players and the passes are just as wobbly.

In my opinion, as the rest of the world has progressed, CIS football has regressed to a level of play not seen since the 1960s and 1970s. What happened?

A social scientist would observe that this regression has not been witnessed in other levels of football (with the exception of the CFL). In the US, the game showcases unbelievable athletes and play and if you watch hi-lites of stars from even 10 years ago, the improved skill level is impressive.

So what's wrong with the CIS? Can we identify something that adversely affected CIS football that did not affect other leagues and levels of play? One perennial contender for this factor is the decline of high school and junior league football in Canada. Fewer kids play, fewer quality coaches prepare the raw material. In contrast, US high schools continue to run their teams along a pro-model.

Another possibility is that the CIS really is a league of "student-athletes". The CIS, and most notably the OUAA, has rejected calls from the west to allow more use of scholarships to aid recruiting. Apparently we lose athletes to Div III college programs in the Dakotas over this issue. This issue has hit the point that UBC and SFU are planning to leave the CIS for the NCAA. Dan Federkeil who played for the Dinos is now an offensive lineman for Peyton Manning's Colts. He suggested that the intensity of work on the field is orders of magnitude higher in the US than in CIS. In other words, the pro game begins in the US at high school. In Canada, the career ends with the CIS level of play as its high point.

Finally, if you compare the rumored weight lifting records of players in the 80s and the lighter lifts of players today and it may be the case that CIS drug control policies have been legitimate whereas the NCAA and other levels in the US continue to develop their athletes with pharmaceutical help. In other words, the CIS shows us what we get in the game with clean athletes. A noble group of players but not as exciting a product.

A Balm, A Sop If You Will

Since Honshui is unable to take compliments about his fine article on Western Football, I thought that maybe the old trick of doing the opposite might work. Sort of like this...


Of course, this makes me the pig, and 'shui the "chick". Take from that what you will.

Time to recognize the UWO Football Dynasty

UWO rolled it up against the hapless G-G's on the weekend making it clear that their lop-sided loss to the Gaels was probably, nay most likely, an aberration. Western is to be commended for their ability to show their dominance when it counts the most -- give Western the ball with 5 minutes left to go and the outcome is most likely in their favor.

UWO's greatness has never received its due. Back in the 1970s and 1980s, the love it or hate program was known as the "Dallas Cowboys of the CIAU". No other program took to the "half shirt" tear away jersey like Western. No program has consistently been there at the end of the season. To deny them their place in history is like saying that the Jim Kelly, Thurman Thomas Buffalo Bills are not one of the greatest NFL dynasties in history. So great is the Western program, that no Ontario raised player in his right mind went to another OUAA program since UWO was guaranteed to have a winning season and the players, a lot of great nights out at the Ceeps beating up the other undergraduates. Forget Blake Marshall fumbling on the 1 against Guelph. Forget about the heart breaking loss to UBC in Varsity Stadium, UWO had the horses to go all the way, every year. That's right, Western was so good that they could have won the Vanier Cup every year. All that held them back was bad luck. You know, like in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead when the one character keeps tossing a coin that lands heads over and over.

Western has not received its due as a football program dedicated to improving access to post-secondary education for academically challenged players. Where Queen's, McGill and Toronto stuck with their elitist admission standards, UWO stealthily embarked on what one could call the "No Football Player Left Behind" initiative. Western Alumni should be proud of the opportunities granted to these fine football players at the expense of non-athletic academically challenged students.

So as the torch passes from Metras, to Semotiuk, to Haylor and now to Marshall, let me lead the swell of admiration for such a d0minant but under-appreciated, rather than under-achieving, program. So as it always has in the past, as UWO looks past St. Mary's to a meeting with Laval in the Vanier Cup, let's applaud Western for just being there. Don't judge them on the basis of how they do against Laval. Unlike the other programs, Western is there! They have already won in the minds of their faithful Harper voting alumni.

Rickety, Rackety Roo,