merry ho ho

Can we get the big guy some rosacea cream?

So it looks like we made it to Christmas, eh? Thought I was going to have an aneurysm getting all that shopping done yesterday, but it's all over.

If we were all graded for Christmas, I would definitely fail. I rarely visit stores and never shop over the course of the year and every Christmas, while out trying to buy gifts, I see all sorts of neat shit that I think I'd like and end up purchasing bags of stuff and I'll come home and realize I've spent tons on myself and little on family members.

FAIL!

Anyways, have fun over the next couple days pounding turkey and egg nog and rum and wine and wobbly pops.

shortest day of the year

It's the shortest day of the year. It is at the same time the most depressing/optimistic day of the year. Although this is the pinnacle of crap winter, the days also start getting longer now and it's nice to have this milestone soon out of the way. The sun was down by 4.

What did I do today?

I watched a shitpile of football and found a lot of great youtube clips.

Ugliest dude in the world.

Two days of work this week and then an entire 12 days off. I'm having trouble taking my clutches off the Egg Nog carton and rum bottle right now... Two more days... 

north pole idol

One of the highlights of working in a newsroom is the entertaining array of press releases from all sorts of random international organizations that come through the office email on a daily basis.

For some reason, in our cozy building in Yellowknife, we receive daily Winnipeg Blue Bombers updates, ceaseless penis enhancement spam and monthly media releases from this crazy church in the States called the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas.

This is a group that was going to come to Canada to hold protests outside the funeral of that kid who got his head cutoff on his way to Winnipeg this summer, chiding Canada for being "faggot enablers," because that kid was gay.

So in the holiday spirit, they released a letter to Washington State asking them to hang a banner on their legislative assembly building with their unique message dangling there, under the argument of free speech (because apparently the state building is displaying a nativity scene that does not conform to scripture).

How can the pastor still take himself seriously in this letter when the link provided in the letter is: www.godhatesfags.com/library/displays/santaclauswilltakeyoutohell.html . I think that's where you immediately lose all credibility.

For the first time, I can't even think of anything smarmy to write here...

I hate to give this group any publicity, but I figured it may be nice to balance all that Islamic Fundamentalist fear-mongering out there with some good ole' fashioned Christian people-hating in our own backyard.

macho man (and another one)

I can't determine whether he is crazier now or was crazier back then?

Macho Madness, indeed

Old Macho Man interview babble gibberish...

"I can't sing, I can't dance, but I can make romance..."

Man, I must have been pretty doped up on Lucky Charms on Saturday mornings to put up with this garble.

macho man (continued) - the haunt hulk hogan post

The Macho Man works hard and he plays hard (or so says he)

Oh, Macho Man... (hit the link)

"Believe me, the Macho Man loves women..."

Hey Macho Man, I think there are still some openings at Yellowknife's Dementia Centre. I'll put in a good word for ya. Ooooh yeeeaaaahh!

BE A MAN HOOOOGGGUNNNN!!

Chotchkies employee of the month: Randy Savage

Reason: Comes to work with 38,957 pieces of flair

Used to be a hard Hulk, now you done turned soft

Come on, Hogan. Be a man already...

P.S. Booker T calls out the Hulkster

Note from Oil Can:

Yo, the Hulk? He Dog the Bounty Hunter's brother or somethin? He wears old man sweatpants, dude.

But his daughter, Brooke, she look good though, right?

Yo, old man. Hands off the goods.

cold update

Just thought I'd update for anyone reading this outside of Canada (can't think of who that may be, but who knows) about the season.

It's winter, officially. How do I know this? Well my truck has been a frozen block in the parking lot for 48 hours, covered in a grey-coloured frost. It looks like it has freezer burn. Someone told me it reached -40 at some point over the last two days. I believe them. It's nothing to be shocked about, but that first inhale of -40 air each winter does produce that sensation.

I pulled my hockey gear out of my inanimate vehicle yesterday and the whole bag was frozen stiff. A big chunky block. It took minutes to squeeze it through the broken 4-runner passenger seat that barely bends forward. The material of the hockey bag sounded like a thick paper bag crumpling. I grabbed at my composite sticks and they burned and stung the flesh on my fingers. "DAMN!" Hockey was a little painful, as I only had about 45 minutes to thaw my shit out.

For some reason, when it gets this cold -- I'm talking hand-gets-stuck-to-your-keys-cold -- whenever I walk past a light post or a road sign, I have this sick urge to stick my tongue to it. I have no explanation. It makes me cringe. I watched a kid lose his tongue on a slide when I was five and the image has never left me. He was crying. He ripped his face from the frozen object at -40. There was blood all over the snow, the slide and the kids face. And he was just screaming.

Also when I was young, I would often wonder if you could see steam coming from your ass when you farted in frigid temperatures. I got a friend to watch once. You don't fart steam. So if you see me smiling gleefully in -40, maybe stay a few steps away... at least till the smile subsides.

Took the Frankenstein cables to the beast tonight and got her running after two days of inactivity. Took her out for a ride and filled her up. Guess what? Gas is under a buck in Yk! Amazing. Of course, I took the beast to the only station that was still over a buck because it was the only spot I could get a corndog. Mindy spoke about watching gas prices go over that milestone number back when he was working the Truckstop in Enterprise years ago.

It's about g'damn time.

So I had to stock up on candies, scratch-n-win tickets and corndogs to make up for all the money I was saving.

northern twist to musical staples

On Tuesdays, I do these things called ATNs at work. Basically, they are 100-word briefs about events, programs, hunts, and just about anything neat or noteworthy going on in communities in the Sahtu and Tlicho regions of the NWT.

My office

So I'm staring at community names in the phonebook like Tulita and Gameti all day, and with the mind singly devoted to puns, I start singing songs in my head...

Da-du-du-du-da-du-da-du... Tulita (you know, that Tequila song)

I'm singing that one at volleyball tonight and Mindy hears and so we start to try to come up with different community names stuck inside southern standards.

Here we go:

"Deh Cho, Where you going with that gun in your hand?" (Hey Joe - Hendrix... you can also put in Tlicho or Behchoko)

"Eleanor Wrigley"... Nice one, Mindy.

"I'm not the Gameti I used to be" (I think it's a K-OS song?) Or "Gameti-ville" that shitty Eminem song.

"Cuz I'm Tuk in the middle with you" from Reservoir Dogs

"R-E-S-P-E-C-T. Find out what it means to me... Sahtu-k it to me..." - Aretha

"You gotta fight for your right to Whati!" - the Beasties

Okay... I'll stop.

Feel free to leave your own.

thanks Sean

I've delved into my disdain for this individual before, but something new came to light today and I can't help myself.

Not only does he hit a proportionate amount of smaller players while some how maintaining a tough guy moniker, have a dopey verb named after him that gets thrown around more than midgets at bars in the 70s, get severely overrated by the media as an all-around player when he's a total defensive liability (-10, that's good for 706th out 715 NHL players), talks and shoves a lot in scrums but not back it up, smokes when he's a role model athlete to kids (looks he's doing a lot better with the ladies now that he's rich), is a Calgary Flame and is singularly responsible for child poverty in Africa (okay I'm pushing it), but...

It doesn't even look like she's having fun.

it also turns out that Dion "I push around Europeans" Phaneuf falls in love with sloppy seconds.

I'm sorry, Elisha.

Thank you, Sean.

P.S. Bring it, Jung