green green grass of home

North Vancouver has a vast array of hiking/running trails that run like veins through the mountains from ...

Deep Cove to ...


Horseshoe Bay ...

the Baden Powell trail, one of the many that wrap through the mountains, can be accessed at a number of points enabling the hiker to choose the length and level of difficulty and adventure. the wilderness is stunning!



moot or hooey?

the West Coast Trail , another internationally acclaimed hiking trail and must do while on the west coast of Canada, is 77 kms long and was originally built in 1890, to serve as a communication link to aid in the rescue of vessels in distress off the southwest coast of Vancouver Island

desperate plea

no wait...

I take that back...

...this is really embarrassing but i'm hoping someone out there will be able to tell me how to post photos from your desktop. email me!

pleeeeease!... thanks

that little extra DNA

we're a strange lot, we humans

driving past the PNE the other day, i cracked my window in time to catch the screams of a group of people strapped into a huge roller-coaster.

i didn't actually see them but the imagery was enough to make me laugh out loud. we're the only animals on the planet who will actually barter with others to scare the begeesus out of us. here's five bucks, see if you can make me puke...

now i have just enough residue from the cro magnon years to understand the rollercoaster thing, the thrill of zooming past things at the speed of light. whipping around corners being flung this way and that, but what i have a hard time wrapping my gray matter around is bungie jumping. 

i mean with roller coasters it's the centrifugal force thing, the speed thing... but bungie jumping?... it's... the death thing. i'm going to wrap this rubber tube around my ankles and hurl myself off this tower towards the pavement or rocks, and hey, i just might smash a hole with my head or rip my legs off, but whoa, what a rush!!

rollercoasters or bungie jumping... both pale in comparison to... the catapult...


moot or hooey?

there has never been a sport invented that's required rain

home is where the ??? is

the real estate market in Vancouver is nuts. for the past few months i've been looking for a home and have found it a very depressing task. the other day my realtor took me to a loft at the edge of Gastown. the building was nice, the price was right, parking included, insuite laundry... i opened the front door and an overwhelming sense of claustrophobia sent me running for the balcony doors. it was small, the cement floors were chipped and there was a palpable pungent odor of cat poop and sweaty bodies that brought my hand to my face in an automatic response. my realtor with his usual charasmatic smile looked over at me and said "this is cute. i can see you living here. i like the floors" (they were green) we finished the grand tour and exited the building. as we were waiting to cross the street i looked down to see a spent hyopdermic needle at the side of the road. looking up and back at the front of the building i then saw a man and a woman sit down against the building and roll up the woman's sleeve.

my realtor simply shrugged and said that was to be expected in this neighbourhood and that we should probably think of moving quickly on this one as there was already one standing offer on the place... we crossed the street and i stood, amongst the wafting streams of urine, fixated on his enormous teeth,

as he reiterated the urgency of responding quickly, all the while planning my excape route once i'd knee-capped him with my ball-peen hammer. somehow he'd come to the conclusion i fit in here, that this was where i belonged. i went home and hid under the covers.

moot or hooey?

Vancouver opened the first safe injection site in North America. at present there is... umm, one.

potty talk

I consider myself a fairly environmentally conscious person. I recycle, use energy saving light bulbs, buy/eat locally, etc, I'm even a catch and release spider girl. beetles, lizards, mice… safe. the only things that don't generally survive in my house are mosquitoes (re:weekday warrior) and flies because they're evil. 

But if someone says to me moot, you need to cut back on the elephant burgers, I'm generally open to changing my ways for the betterment of mankind. however, there is one wee enviro doctrine that's been needling my conscience.

it's the pee thingy.

"if it's yellow let it mellow, if it's brown flush it down".
I try, I really do, but I just can't do it. there's something fundamentally wrong about peeing into a bowl of pee. it goes against everything your mother's taught you.
guys, you're used to peeing on things. you have direction and purpose. we have the splash factor.

as for the second half of the doctrine… duh. I don't even want to go there.
so I confess and I apologize to anyone who's been under the impression I've been adhering to the requests, signage, and house rules. I've been nodding, smiling, and lying my face off. "if it's yellow, flusherello"

moot or hooey?

in the middle ages, people used to throw their poop onto the streets below, which was from where the chivalrous act of men walking on the road-side of women was born

not for the faint of heart

circumcision… are your knees giving you trouble? sorry, perhaps you should sit down. you are? of course. images of male babies and scalpels, young boys and barmitzfas, whatever the first thing that sprang to mind that caused you to cross your legs, i'll bet your left gonad/gonita it wasn't a woman. certainly not a woman writhing in pain bleeding to death under a tree in the middle of a desert.

female circumcision… (give a nickel to know what that conjured up)
hmm, female circumcision. probably not as harsh as male circumcision yah? um…
start by squeezing your female genitalia between two very unsanitary sharpened rocks or steel and scraping away until the most sensitive soft parts peel off. don't forget the little button.
feel a little numb? that's the general idea.

ok, now sew the remaining damaged flesh together, with fabric thread. make sure to leave an opening though, just large enough to pee. no bigger, or what's the point really.
to be fair, apparently there are some "doctors" who are able to perform this procedure in a much more humane manner. how, escapes me entirely but hey, uncle Jack only lived past his cancer expiration date because of the vodka so what do I know. did i mention no anaesthetic...

female circumcision is common among Muslim as well as Christian families in Egypt and African countries, as a "rite of passage" and a way of protecting the girls' chastity. yup, that'd about do it for me. chastity belts, chaperones, shark cages, anything! come on people
and come their virginal too small for anything but immaculate conception wedding night? geezus criminy!

once they heal… (hold on, got to go open a window) they're allowed to remain in whatever condition that glorious first night's left them, that is, until the birth of their first child when they're sewn up eensy weensy once again.
ok we're done... almost

some good news.
Egypt has just passed a law stating that compulsory female circumcision is now "officially" and legally outlawed. however, questionable timing for the present 90 % of Egyptian women who've already been circumcised

moot or hooey?

the clitoris is the only organ on the human body that's sole purpose is pleasure

build it and they will come

i don't have cable so i'm pretty much at the mercy of whatever airwaves happen to be bouncing by. 

the other night it's a nail biting decision between the ant races and American Investors. it's the semi finals and i'm just about to flip over to catch the results when this guy starts explaining his invention. 

he wants to build houses out of giant Legos. same theory as the kiddy ones, only adults get to play. he wants to revamp New Orleans… hmm, one house, two house, red house, blue house…

i have to say that once he got going thought, it kind of made sense. Legos are fire-proof, water-proof, termite-proof. they're lightweight, colorful, and if you ever get that uncontrollable itch to change things up, you can find a wide variety of home reno ideas on the side of the box. snap, snap, snap, Sally has a new kitchen.

i'll bet they could construct an entire town in a day. and if they can make homes out of straw, recycled bottles, tires, canvas, grass, cardboard, why not Legos...
I can't wait for the compact camping version.

clay,



straw bale, 

wool...


moot or hooey?

the most original use of recycled material was recorded in the early 1600s when British buccaneer William Dampier ordered a crew of pirates to construct a world globe 20 feet across, made entirely of hair, teeth, and sinew scavenged from captive mutiners

super freaks

if you find these guys creepy, have a look at this site called hollywood zombies

moot or hooey?

zombies will only attack if you show no signs of aggression, and then they'll chew on your jugular

tennis anyone?

glancing down at the front page of the National Post today I realized it had been much much too long. there was a time when all tennis schedules were practically tattooed to my forehead. regardless of what time, which bar, which tv store, tennis seemed to dominate the social calendar. things have heated up quite a bit since I last tuned in. heated up in the form of Rafael Nadal. my lord, he's just about the hottest thing that's hit tennis in an eternity, complete with an insane list of accomplishments. a whopping 21 years old this year stirs shameless thoughts of the Demi kind but one can only claim complete impunity citing the "gorgeous latin male" clause.

moot or hooey?

the term love, in tennis, was a 17th century expression "play for love" meaning "to play without wager" just for the love of what you were doing

dreaming of winning the lottery?

200 very stressed applicants in Madrid Spain were interviewed by psychologists, and 30 lucky lottery winners won the ultimate prize. 

the loot?… they all won sledge hammers and the right to go nuts on the walls of a local hotel. 

top executives swung along side of one working mom who said she "simply wanted to hit something". one teacher was quoted as saying "I don't need to smash my classroom now"... ok kids, you can come out from under the desks…

so… a bunch of psychologists sit around in a room one day and decide among themselves that it would be a good idea to arm 30 of their "most stressed" and deserving patients with bone crushing instruments. 

hmm, and they were convinced this was the best solution to the problem? or perhaps a reward for taking their meds on time, just a day at the park for those who'd been working the hardest?... sweet

moot or hooey?

studies have shown that walloping things as a means of dealing with stress is not only ineffective, but can actually worsen the problem

love is in the air

according to Japanese folklore, July 7th is the day for romance. 

"Tanabata" is a Japanese festival of the stars that celebrates the meeting, just once a year, of two lovers, a shepherd (the star Altair) and a weaving girl (Vega). this is the day to find your soul mate, and this year, 2007, is supposed to be particularly romantic being the seventh day of the seventh month of the seventh year. 

what you're supposed to do is write down your romantic wishes on a piece of paper, and tie it to a small branch of a tree. the best of luck and love to you all!

moot or hooey?

the most successful "love" stimulating dinner consists of celery soup as a starter, baked wild fish and artichokes as your main dish, and dark chocolate drizzled over rich vanilla icecream.

money for nothing

recently in Vancouver there have been a number of debit card info thefts. 

someone figured out how to build replica key pads, where you enter your secret code after swiping your card, and managed to swap them for existing key pads in stores.

apparently all they needed to do was unplug and plug in. they later swapped them back for the originals, making off with all the data entered into the fakes ones during their feeding frenzie. 

my card was one of the unfortunate ones to be scanned and although they were unsuccessful in withdrawing any funds from my account, it was a royal pain in the butt to change cards and pin numbers, again and again and again. 

what i'd like to know is, with all the technology that's been floating around for decades, all the gazillion cases of fraud, identity theft, etc, why on earth haven't the banks figured out a way to add a photo to your banking details. scan a driver's licence, passport, ID card… i know i'd feel a whole lot better if a big honkin' photo of my mug popped up on the teller's screen when my card was scanned. 

or how about photos on the bank cards themselves... while we're at it, why not on credit cards as well... i think we should be able to fuse a mugshot onto pretty much anything we own if we like, bikes, umbrellas, cars steering wheels... resale value might go down a tad but...

moot or hooey?

overall, crime rates are much higher in western Canada than in eastern Canada

pizza and porn

if it has naked women and pizza, it's porn. 

most people who've never even watched a porn flick (snort, who?) could tell you that. 

a middle-aged woman, bored on a Friday night, orders pizza from the nerdy pizza boy with the big schlong, promptly seducing him with the latest eight track elevator music upon entry into her 1970s apartment, while batting innocent eyelashes and exclaiming how she's never strayed from her husband before as she twists the unsuspecting young stallion into an array of positions and poses one would only find, well... in a porno... all the while letting the pizza get cold that's always bugged me. 

so technically, is Winnipeg based Porno Pizza selling porn? 

one might assume from their name that they are, but the owners claim otherwise. here's how it works. 

you the consumer order a pizza, munch it down, and voila! there's a racy pornographic picture just for you, stuck to the bottom of the pizza box. 

kind of like a crackerjack prize, something you can play with after your treat: wash your hands first. 

owner Corey Wildeman says they've already "aroused" a lot of attention. 

one woman told CBC News that she thought "porn was something I wouldn't expect to have anything to do with pizza". 

guess that answers my question above. 

apparently a lot of his customers are women. 

i have a few questions for Mr Wildeman: along with your ID, do they ask for your sexual preference? this could come in handy when dressing, or rather undressing the pizza. 

next, are the pictures wrapped in something before sticking them to the bottom of the pizza? multi purpose reusable cellophane perhaps? 

and lastly, where are they getting the pictures? are they "real" porn posers or are they mom and sis on a saturday night after a few beers? Winnipeg, right?...

moot or hooey?

pizza is a 30 billion per year industry just within the USA, and each American man woman and child eats an average of 46 slices of pizza per year.

i've got a nice piece of florida swampland for sale...

reading the paper the other day and I came across an article that made me laugh... sort of. 

"people with early dementia tend to be very safe drivers" said Professor Desmond O'Neill. "the risk of crashes among Alzheimer's patients is 'acceptably low'" he said.

I'm looking at the words "dementia" and "Alzheimer's" and chuckling to myself in anticipation of the inevitable punch line at the end of the article. 

he goes on, "many medical journals have reported an apparent increase in crashes per mile driven for older people, yet several studies have established that this is related to low mileage rather than to age". 

ok, so the elderly are crashing their cars due to lack of use and being unaccustomed to the roads. seems reasonable. I'm still waiting. 

he continues, "stopping driving can limit access to family, friends, and services and is an independent risk factor for entry into a nursing home". 

what are a few casualties along the way in the name of the comfort of private transportation. "people with early dementia tend to be very safe drivers and they tend to limit their own driving themselves when they deteriorate." 

the key words here being "dementia" and "deteriorate". 

apparently cognitive tests cannot determine safe or unsafe drivers... the article ends and I fiddle with the cursor believing I've surely missed the page where it all comes together in uproarious laughter... alas, -30-.

moot or hooey?

however, in the end there is indeed a punch line: in Canada you can obtain a drivers licence at the age of 16 and not have to take another driver's test ever again unless you get in trouble with the law

little children are sacred

 
Ms Pat Anderson and Mr Rex Wild released a report a few weeks ago called "Little Children are Sacred". 

it was a devastating account of rampant abuse of indigenous children within Australia's Northern Territory, and has caused quite a stir. 

the NT government commissioned the report after a series of allegations. 

apparently children as young as five had contracted sexually transmitted diseases and girls were being prostituted, to both indigenous and non-indigenous adults in exchange for gasoline.

Prime Minister John Howard's Federal government declared the crisis a "national emergency" and responded to the situation by announcing their intensions: a sweeping invasion into Aboriginal communities in the NT including, a ban on alcohol and porn enforced by the military, mandatory medical exams for all Aboriginal children 16 and under, scrapping permits for outsiders to get into townships and roads on indigenous land, immediately quarantining 50% of welfare payments (which can only be spent on food and other essentials) as well as making future payments conditional on school attendance and child health, the seizure of Aboriginal land and homes for five years, and the dispatch of interstate police as well as Indigenous troops and managers into settlements with authorization to enter homes for inspection at any time.

Indigenous Affairs Minister Mal Brown says the compulsory acquisition of homes was "to ensure that people are living in hygienic conditions" and to "control… the condition they're in, who's in them, and what's occurring in them".

residents of the town of Mutitjulu have expressed alarm at the looming military deployment to their community and claim, "even the doctors say they are reluctant to examine a young child without a parent's permission. it is a violation of our human and sacred rights"

Mr Rex Wild is quoted as being both for and against the government's actions. the report he co-authored proposed several community lead strategies, which are quite opposite to what the Australian government has in mind.
Parliament will be called to override the Aboriginal Land Rights Act and territory self-government laws.

it's an election year, which has heightened the situation even more.
while the National Indigenous Council, Reconciliation Australia, and Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd back the government's plans, others disagree. Democrats Leader Lyn Allison called it "an outrageous authoritarian crackdown, a jackboot approach" and Greens leader Bob Brown slammed 11 (gasp, it was in crisis mode that long ago and no one...) years of inaction. 

former Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission chairwoman Lowitja O'Donoghue said "stripping people of control was not the way to get tough on child sex abuse". Indigenous activist Michael Mansell also condemned the move as immoral, racist, and illegal. 

Prime Minister Howard says it's not racist, but aims to give Aboriginal women and children a better future. PM Howard says he will claim all responsibility for the outcome of his government's decision. 

I wonder if PM Howard has seen "Rabbit Proof Fence"...

even though the renowned Journal of the American Medical Association acknowledges the plight of the elderly, teenagers, and battered wives, nowhere in its reports does it mention the very reality of battered men. JAMA

moot or hooey?

the fastest growing group of violent criminal offenders today is teen girls.

it wasn't me... well, not directly

Alberto Fujimori has been in exile for the past seven years. 

he was the President of Peru for ten years during the 90's and fled in 2000 when his government collapsed amid a scandal, scandals?.. scandal... he sought asylum in Japan, where he holds citizenship, but only made it as far as Chile, where they managed to detain him. 

he's up on human rights and corruption charges that range from illegal phone tapping, the siphoning of state funds, bribery of politicians, and the death squad killings of 25 people, and faces extradition to Peru.

most certainly, he denies any wrongdoing.

after "in-depth analysis and reflection", and an offer from Japan's conservative grouping, People's New Party, Mr Fujimori has announced he will run in the next Senate election in Japan. 

some Peruvian officials believe this as simply a manoeuvre to avoid extradition. Chilean legal experts say the offer of candidacy will not affect the final deportation ruling. 

it will be interesting to follow the proceedings.

during a ten year stretch in the 90s the country flipped over a total of ten Prime Ministers, most of whom left due to embezzlement or corruption charges etc. Mr Fujimori should have no trouble fitting right in. scandal 1 , scandal 2

moot or hooey?

only those born in Japan and fathered by Japanese men are able to retain Japanese citizenship… unless you are a sumo wrestler

the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth please...

i flip through the Georgia Straight and happen across the horoscopes. yawn… i mean how could anyone besides your mother know what's going to happen to you the following week. 

i read on just for a laugh. love life blah, blah, blah, Venus is in the blah, blah house, then it ends with "be careful around heat, fire, and machines. they could cause accidents or injuries…" geepers, that's so far from anything i'd ever be doing, what a gyp, so i close the paper and go about my day.

later that day i drive my vehicle to the AirCare centre to have its annual check up. 

i hand over the keys and move into the cement room while they begin the usual routine. 

i sit on a lonesome little plastic chair opposite a tiny double glazed window which i can only assume they've installed for the men. it's the construction site phenomena thing. 

i'm enthralled in John Ball's "In the Heat of the Night" and am chomping down hard on a fingernail when i hear the muffled sound of several sets of feet running this way and that. 

i reluctantly pull my eyes up from the pages just in time to see an enormous puff of white smoke rise up and cover the entire window in front of me. 

did i mention that the cement room has two doors, both that open inwards and for some sick reason have handles only on the outside? no, I didn't. and i hadn't noticed either, until now. 

I try to open the door furthest from the vehicle and flee, when a man in coveralls comes in through the door behind me and says "your vehicle didn't pass, you can move it into the parking lot and leave it there for a while until it cools down a bit". 

yes, we blew up your vehicle, too bad, can you please get it out of here. 

i stare at him for about a gazillionth of a second before shifting to the fire breathing dragon behind him. "i'm sorry but i'm not going anywhere near that thing" i said. 

he looks back at the flaring nostrils of death with a look on his face like Humphrey Bogart in The African Queen, when he knows he has to get back into the water with "all them leeches", and slinks back into the vehicle. 

"insane!" i said, as i closed the door and hid behind the cement wall "he's going to start it up again?!" 

he coaxes the vehicle out into the parking lot, shuts it down, and hands me the keys. 

the next day, after towing, fixing, paying, and pick up, i head back down to the AirCare centre. nothing can stop me now, except maybe… 

i get all the way to the centre, am about to pull into one of the lanes, when a Mercedes idling a few car lengths ahead of me bursts into flames, huge orange flames shooting up from the hood. 

all the staff at the centre come running out with extinguishers in their hands yelling at the rest of us in the lanes to "drive away, drive away", so we all tear out of there like crazy. 

one staff member runs over to us in the middle of all the mayhem and pants out, "come back in an hour".

i go back to my office, grab a cup of coffee and pick up the paper again. i still don't know how much credence i give the article i read earlier, but i have to say, batting two out of three makes me look over my shoulders and down at my boots for machinery in wait.

moot or hooey?

crossing one's fingers is a way of secretly making the sign of the Cross. it was started by early Christians to ask for divine assistance without attracting the attention of pagans.

some pros and cons of womanhood

being a woman has, at times, unusual and interesting attributes.
every month whether we like it or not, our hormones rage wildly forcing us to attempt the most extraordinary feats, all the while, our brains emitting powerful signals of euphoria telling us that pretty much anything we do is acceptable and just. 

we become mad super-powered rulers of everything in our path, burnin' up a wake of flailing unfortunates. 

we are lions in wait. large canine smiles reassuring all around us of our endless capacity for compassion and understanding, as long as no one goes near the ears, tickles the little hairs on the arms, touches the feet, just @#*&!!-ing stop doing that… ok…

we become highly sensitive creatures, swelling with love and empathy for all those endearing heroes of history, Old Yeller, Bambi, and Mr Hooper… oh… Mr Hooper…

the other day at a busy intersection i saw an elderly woman holding a white cane, gearing up to cross, so i went over to her and asked if i could give her a hand. 

she seemed happy to receive it. she told me i was a BH. 

she said it a little quickly the first time, which caused a bit of doubt in my mind as to whether i was receiving a compliment. 

BH, BH, i blinked. we walked arm and arm through the intersection, as i pondered throwing her under a car, when she elaborated.

"you are such a BH. a Big Help" she snickered. "BH, BH, Big Help" she kept saying. 

i patted her hand as i left her safely at the end of the intersection.

moot or hooey?

women who past the age of menopause can increase their life expectancy by becoming evil sinister pranksters