those darned dogs...

did you hear the one about the hunter who…

today's paper… "Surrey Mounties find dynamite, shotgun near tree", read read read un huh… guns, trees…
three quarters of the way through the article i'm so captivated (yawn) that my gaze drifts to the much smaller, scrunched in between ads headline (again, guns and trees) which is, one can only assume, an error in syntax… or an exercise in dyslexia.

"hunter shot in leg by dogs"

"ha ha ha!" i snort. "yo, editors!!?"

it gets better. turns out it's right on the money. some guy (James Harris from Iowa) goes out hunting one day, shoots a pheasant, lays his gun on the ground so he can hope a fence and retrieve the bird, and his pack of hunting dogs (coward) jumps on the gun and shoots him in the ass…. ok, the leg.
talk about biting (well, shooting) the hand (um, leg) that feeds you.

moot or hooey?

four of the dogs held the gun while the fifth pulled the trigger.

new pad

computer key pad that is. actually the whole set-up. mine came to a screeching halt a few weeks ago so I'm getting a new lap top. between that, being ill for a week, and general laziness, I've been pretty slack in writing this blog.

my new computer has all the bells and whistles. can't wait to get at it. it'll be hooked up to Skype so I can talk to friends in Cuba and Chile, and the graphics programs are breathtaking... now I can ramble on and on in technicolor!

moot or hooey?

the word "blog" is made up from the two words "blah" and "dog" and originated with stories of people's pets.

long tack sam

my friend ann marie made a fabulous film a few years back and has just released a book under the same title.

it's an incredible memoir about an even more incredible man.

moot or hooey?

Long Tack Sam was the greatest Chinese magician in the history of vaudeville

bumper to bumper

fifty minutes in an enormous bumper to bumper line-up to get over the Lions Gate Bridge, not moving an inch in three minutes, when bonk, the guy behind me rear-ends me. 

geez, for the love of... are you serious? boy oh boy oh boy oh boy! 

i throw my car into park, pull the emergency brake, get out of the car, put one hand on my hip and gesture towards my bumper like a Bob Barker girl with the other.

he just throws his arms in the "i don't know" pose then backs up a couple of inches. 

I turn so he can't see me laughing, and get back in my car.


moot or hooey?

the term road rage originated LA in 1984. George Orwell would have been impressed

stick em up

looking through today's "day in pictures" on the BBC site, i came across this photo. the caption underneath read "five-year-old Emmanuel Macasucao picks up broken plates a day after a tornado hit his family's home in northern Philippines." ... that's all you have to say??
so little Emmanuel is out in the street playing with broken glass. take a closer look. little Emmanuel is out in the street playing with his life.
ok, so it's most likely a fake, maybe... but who cares. he's five years old holding what looks like a pretty real firearm in a country known for its "Paltiks" who manufactor operable replicas of anything from simple revolvers to M-16s and AK-47s.
with a gazillion of these floating around and everyone and their dog purchasing these things, from politicians and military, to the Japanese yakuza, civilians, and "private armies", and everyone and their cats thinking they're real and defending themselves accordingly, couldn't you give him a lego set or something. so what if his isn't operable. who's gonna know?!... until...

moot or hooey?

the Philippine authorities and the military turn a blind eye to the production of these weapons even though they're obviously illegal, and are known to jam and explode, because they are unable to provide an alternative livelihood option. surprised there aren't more jobs available in funeral services

Euchred!

going through "24" withdrawal the other day, i decide to walk up to the video store and rent the last series. i get all the way up there only to discover it's gone. it's been rented and there'll be no sign of it for two whole days. 

well, you know how it is when an addiction sets in. it's one thing to know you've got a fix just around the corner. a completely different story when your dealer just rented out the last goddamned copy of season six. i'm just about to get medieval on this guy, when my phone rings… it's a friend of mine inviting me over to play Euchre. yes! the perfect distraction to keep me from crawling the walls.

i unchain the clerk and zoom home to get my cards.

we're sitting there at the table, pleasantly distracted, toes, eyes, nostrils, and eyebrows working out our secret codes when i look into my hand and see a bower… Jack... Bauer.
'oh cruel world'
so Robert Cochran and Joel Surnow et al were Euchre players, hmm.

moot or hooey?

the term "bower", in euchre, comes from the German word "bauer". it's also a word for "jack". and the "joker" was invented specially for the game of euchre non existant prior to that in a regular deck of cards

ps: Jack Bauer borrowed my gun for this photo shoot

bum-sicles

this is fabulous! renowned photographer Spencer Tunick took this photo of 100s of people on melting Aletsch glacier in Switzerland. apparently the photo shoot was commissioned by none other than Greenpeace as part of a campaign to raise awareness about global warming. 2,300m (7545 feet) but the temperature was between 10 and 15C. the Aletsch glacier is a protected Unesco World Heritage site.

moot or hooey?

the best bum scene ever filmed for the big screen is in the film "the cooler" with William H Macy.

honest, I just want to talk...

these are South Korean special commandos. they are staging a drill south of Seoul in preparation for an inter-Korean summit later this month. will they be attending?

Unification Minister Lee Jae Jeong and Vice Unification Minister Lee Kwan Se left for Kaesong, North Korea today for preparatory talks. at the eventual new summit-level meeting, if and whenever that will be, the parties will discuss the establishment of a peace regime and the settlement of the Korean Peninsula's nuclear problem, as well as ways of further implementation of economic cooperation projects between Pyongyang and Seoul.

sounds pretty friendly. peace, cooperation, no nuks... and 007 frogmen with waterproof sub-machine guns... hmm, something tells me there may be a better way to show the love. not to mention it's a bit like picking a fight in a Hell's Angels' bar armed with a big fluffy pillow.

moot or hooey?

the death tolls for Nagasaki as well as Hiroshima are still open

what are friends for

what do you think these guys are doing? playing poker yes? just taking a break? well sort of. their pal Christino Parian is in the little white box in the background. they've had the wake and now they're trying to raise enough money to bury him.

moot or hooey?

in North America a typical funeral with burial is about $7,000. a typical funeral with cremation, about $5,000. immediate cremation, $1,000. not including the pennies on your eyes.

eraser head

can you imagine having a pencil stuck in your head for 55 years? Margret Wegner can. she fell over when she was four and and one went right up her nose. she only just had it removed... 55 years later.

Professor Hans Behrbohm claims the 3.1 inch pencil had not been causing Ms Wegner any harm, so it was safe to leave it. um... she suffered headaches and nosebleeds for most of her life and had serious frontal sinus inflammation... a little lead poisoning never killed anyone though so...

apparently the pencil had narrowly missed the optic nerve and was too close to the brain to risk removing it 55 years ago... he went on to say "she now no longer has headaches and will be able to smell again"... well... that's just... amazing...

moot or hooey?

apparently Ms Wegner was able to sneeze out raunchy Freudian imagery for years

thanks heaven for little girls

reading the paper today i came across an article that claimed that several local newspapers geared towards the Punjabi population were posting ads for ultrasound clinics that are promoting the abortion of girls. the idea that someone would do this simply flummoxes me. the world is filled with incredible Punjabi women who have made enormous contributions. one can't imagine the loss of not having had these people in our world. here are some of the women who have made a significant difference and for who's existence we should be forever grateful.

Dr Parminder Bhachu, Artist Pritham Chakravarthy,

Dr Ruby Dhalla, Dr Nina Grewal,

Director/Writer/Producer Mira Nair,...


... the list could go on, and on, and on... feel free to add to it...

moot or hooey?

apparently selective sex gender abortion and infanticide are responsible for over 60 million deaths or disappearances of female babies. repercussions ranging from a shortage of brides, to an increase in female sex slavery

hey dude, who smashed my car?

yesterday our offices were in a whirlwind in preparation for our October board meeting. briefings, updatings, info exchanges, meetings. everything was right on schedule as usual... until David called the office with an update...

the article below was in The Province this morning.

"David Suzuki, right, and ethno-botanist Wade Davis start searching for other transportation yesterday after their rental car was hit by an emergency team rushing to the Vancouver rade and Convention Centre, where the environmentalists had been meeting with Premier Gordon Campbell."

Mysterious parcel spices up Suzuki's day
Lora Grindlay, The Province
Published: Wednesday, October 10, 2007

Strange things were afoot at the World Trade Centre in downtown Vancouver yesterday.

Just before 2 p.m., a receptionist at the Ministry of Economic Development on the waterfront building's seventh floor opened some mail. A powdery substance fell out and the receptionist reported tingling on her hands.

That brought a swift response from police and fire officials, who shut down the building.

In the excitement, one of four fire trucks that rushed to the scene at the foot of Howe Street smacked into a rented red Toyota Yaris, stranding the high-powered duo of conservationist Wade Davis and environmentalist David Suzuki.
Davis and fire officials traded insurance information as Suzuki cooled his heels. They eventually hopped a cab to the airport while firefighters duct-taped the front grill and fender back on to the car.

Suzuki said they had been meeting with Premier Gordon Campbell before flying to Campbell River. "Surely this is not a story?" he said with a laugh.

As for the mysterious powdery substance: "Our best guess right now is it's some form of cooking spices," said Vancouver Fire and Rescue Services assistant chief Tim Armstrong.

"It came from Italy. They normally get packages for different trade shows here."

moot or hooey?

last time Wade was in Vanc for a board meeting his computer was stolen