Proof that man is an adaptable creature

To rebut all those creationist crazies running around out there, I have two pieces of evidence proving that man is an extremely adaptable creature and, therefore, a product of evolution:

1) since moving back to Yellowknife - and the long, frigid winters - after school, my chest hair situation went from non-existant (except the lone, long stragglers around my nipples) to sporadic tufting, in under a year; and

2) after less than a month in Iqaluit, I find myself waking to a sunny, +6 morning in early August and walking to work, thinking "what a beautiful summer's day." A month ago, if I'd believed I could ever be capable of feeling that way, I would have put a cigarette out on my nards and ate a handful of toenails (I have no idea why... Just seems like a sadistic punishment for masochistic thoughts.)

So there you have it, ladies and gentlemen. Two personal anecdotes that show how much of a creation creationism is.

PS. I might be going a little bonkers, but a lot of girls have been walking around town in gumboots the last couple of weeks... and looking pretty damn sexy. Yes, ladies, you're downright foxy in kneehigh rubbers. Keep it up.

Just had to wade in on that one...

Herbiberous

Anything redeeming about the Olympics?

The Olympics begin tomorrow morning. As a kid, I was all over the Games and could sit there and watch the steeplechase or shotput completely contented, so long as a Canadian was competing. 

I don't get excited over them so much anymore. They're unfair (I mean, rich nations will always kick the shit out of poorer ones), they've really gotten too big (cities are spending billions to put them on and hundreds of millions just to bid for the chance to hold them), and too scandalous (don't believe for a second that some athletes aren't cheating using designer steroids). Because of this, the games have almost become THE excessive commercialization of sport, which is the total opposite of what it promotes itself as.

STILL, once they begin, I'm sure I'll tune in. And specifically, I'll be glued to all USA Men's Basketball "Redeeem Team" (named thusly because, despite being home to the greatest players in the world, they have gone years without a gold in international competition) games, to see if they can take the gold.

You want to know how likable Chris Paul is? His teeth gleam in pictures.

I'm torn over whether to cheer for them. There are some likeable characters on the team (Chris Bosh, Chris Paul) and, maybe because of the pleasant MJ, Barkley '92 nostalgia, I'll be pulling for them. 

Either way, it's definitely going to be interesting to watch. It will be intriguing to see how this team full of mega-stars like Kobe, LJ23 and D-Wade co-exist under the glare of international competition, with millions and tens of millions in tow with their sponsors. I mean, how does a guy like LeBron (even if he legitimately wants to make a sacrifice to win) try to play second fiddle to someone like Kobe. Nike has invested bazillions into this guy and they must be in his ear, telling him to run this thing. You think they want to see LeBron pass up a big shot to D-Wade in front of a worldwide audience. They've gotta want him to be the man and there has to be pressure there.

LeBron's sneakers: "Pssst.... Bronnie? Fuck Kobe. He's a punk. You the man!"

And then there's D-Wade, who's been quiet (hurt) since the Heat won it all in '06. He's going to want to make some noise. 

These are things the old Dream Teams didn't have to worry about: the money...

I almost think you have to get rid of those big three, and then run with guys like Paul and Bosh and Carmelo. I don't know how this is going to play out.

So me and Oil Can will be making sure we tune into this...

Oh, wait... Oil Can wants to say his piece...

Fuck all them pros! No way I'm standing behind that Redeem Team bullshit. Bunch of spoiled muthafuckas...

(Oil Can is a little bitter about those mutli-million dollar contracts pro athletes have been signing these days.)

I heard that.

(Whoops...) Who you gonna cheer for then, Can?

hmmm.... shit. That's a good question. Who's all competing?

(Reads list)

I don't know... hmmm... you know what? I'm gonna cheer for the brokest team over there...

The brokest?

Yeah, the poorest, peanut-butter sandwich eating muthafuckas they let in there.

And so it was, that the Can and I sat down and figured out who, in fact, was the brokest motherfuckin' basketball team in this year's Olympics.

We went by GDP per capita... (according to Wikipedia -- love that shit, baby!)

                           GDP                        Population        Per Capita    Rank

Angola               $43.362 billion          15,941,000       $2,813          (12)

Argentina           $523.7 billion            40,677,348         $13,307           (9)

Australia            $718.4 billion             21,730,000       $34,359           (2)

China                $10.21 TRILLION        a shitload         $7,800         (11)

Croatia             $74.419 billion           4,453,400        $16,758        (7)

Germany            $2.81 TRILLION        82,217,800      $34,181          (3)

Greece             $342,886 billion        11,216,708         $30,745        (5)

Iran                $753 billion (damn!)   70,472,846        $10,624          (10)

Lithuania           $66 billion                3,369,600         $19,730          (6)

Russia             $2.088 TRILLION      142,008,838       $14,692           (8)

Spain              $1.310 TRILLION        45,200,737      $33,700         (4)

United States     $13.543 TRILLION!!    304,798,00      $45,594            (!)

A couple things before we continue:

1) What the fuck is the US worried about? Recession, please? (Unless someone is fudging numbers.) I mean, goddamn! There must be a lot of rich motherfuckers hanging around all those poor folks down there. (Oil Can wants me to remind you that there are 12 of them playing on the Redeem Team.)

2) I love how Argentina, Iran, Russia and Spain have their populations measured down TO THE PERSON! Maybe if you didn't spend so much time trying to figure out your numbers, you could step your GDP game up, Argentina.

3) I'm not going to lie, Spain. I'm impressed. Respect.

4) China's numbers do not include Hong Kong or Taiwan or Macau or Monster Island.

5) What the hell accounts for Lithuania's GDP? Lithium?

6) You want to know where Canada ranks, right?

                       GDP                             Population           Per Capita      Rank

Canada            $1.274 TRILLION        33,339,000        $38,200        (2)

So with that out of the way, we've got Oil Can's 2008 Olympic Basketball Team...

ANGOLA!!!

"Mother Africa, baby! We got this..."

Team Angola roster:

Carlos Almeida

Felizardo Silvestre Bumba Ambrosio

Milton Barros

Domingos Emanuel Da Silva Bonifacio

Olimpio Cipriano

Luis Costa

Vladimir Ricardiho Geronimo

Joaquim Gomes

Fransisco Domingos Gomes Horacio

Idelfonso Carlos Antonio Kiteculo

Eduardo Mingas

Carlos Morais

Abdel Aziz Moussa

Victor Muzadi

Leonel Ditutala Paulo

Sounds like the god damn Portugese Soccer Team! - as Oil Can takes a large chug of beer.

Team USA roster:

LeBron James

Kobe Bryant

Christ Paul (the 't' was a typo, but I'm gonna leave it. I think it's apt)

Chris Bosh

Carmelo Anthony

Dwyane Wade

Jason Kidd

Michael Redd

Carlos Boozer

Dwight Howard

Deron Williams

Tayshaun Prince

Yep.

I like my chances. Sorry, Can.

So it's settled, then...

Oh, wait there's one thing we can both agree on. And something we will both be cheering - together - during the Olympics.

On three. Alright, Can?

One...

Two...

Three...

FUCK MANU GINOBLI!!!

Ya whiny bitch!

Priorities: a discussion between a young and an old man

As a man gets older, his priorities change.
Apparently.

I took a cab out to the end of Federal Road to pick up a friend's car today. I hailed it outside the post office, about a half hour's walk from the destination. I could have walked it. It probably would have been nice and relaxing on this sunny day. But I had no energy.

A nice old French man, who must have celebrated his 60th birthday years ago, picked me up. I always just end up yapping away when I get a nice cabbie.

"I think I would have liked to walk this... but I don't know, man. I'm so dead. The last two weeks, I've been so tired," I said.
"You need a vacation from your vacation, eh?" he joked.
"No, no. Just a vacation."
"Okay."
"Not even a vacation. Just a week , man. A week with a girl, a hammock, a beer, and a beach. Shit, I don't even need a beach. Just a girl and a hammock. And a beer."
The old man chuckled.
"What?"
"At my age, the order changes completely."
"Really?"
"Yeah," he said. "I need the ocean, first. I need to have the ocean. Then the hammock would be nice. Then beer. And then a girl."
"You've had enough girls, eh?"
"Well, when you're 60, a girl is not much use to you."

Well played, good sir.

60-year old man's idea of a hot, steamy, one-night stand?

And yes, I do need a week. But I'd settle for a weekend, at this point. Even a 60-year old man's idea of a one-night stand, actually.

Herbiberous

...and people say it's stealing

Anyone kicking around Slader's for any amount of time during the epic wedding last summer in Edmonton might remember the Dilla videos bumping on his laptop, in the brief moments of semi-sobriety, between waking up and getting out of the apartment.

Some kind soul had posted, on youtube, all the original songs Dilla sampled on Donuts, and in the second half of the video, you could here how he chopped it.

Inexplicably, they all vanished a month or two later (including Dilla's sampling of Motherlode's "When I Die" for "Intro" on Donuts, which was ridiculous).

Well kiddies, some selfless humanitarians have posted new songs from some J Dilla classics and some of my favourites...

Players - Slum Village --sample from an acapella song

The Stakes is High - De La Soul

Heat - Common

Intro - Dilla w/Elzhi

Fuck the Police - J Dilla

and just because of the hidden message on the last song on his last album before his death, knowing he wasn't going to be around much longer, I'll post these... he was a genius.

When I Die - Motherlode

Intro - Donuts - J Dilla (the person who posted it added that goofy robot voice thing at the start and made the track about 3 minutes longer, but oh well)

Man, it's so cool hearing where these beats came from and figuring how the hell he found the sample and made it work in the song.

And it's even cooler when you hear something on the radio that has been sampled in track you were just listening to.

A bunch of us took a road trip through Cali to Coachella last April, and I remember hearing little things Dilla sampled in like four or five songs on the radio one day. I got all excited, ripped out the podski and tossed on the parts to show everyone... they humoured me by pretending to be interested.

Shit, I hope whoever reads this is interested... whoops... maybe should have taken a hint.

And man, I get a kick out of how some can call sampling stealing.

Nope, morons.

Brutal. Someone is making cinnamon buns next door... I don't need that.

At least I have Donuts.

Herbiberous

Hey

Whatta ya want, box?

Hoorah for Ra!!!

I had become a grumpy, grumpy dude.

The constant drizzle and the fog were starting to break me. The clouds hung at the top of the hills all week, the wind blew in off the bay and it was cold and grey and miserable, and I had taken on all these characteristics. Not helping at all was the fact that I was alone in the office and when I got home, and Oil Can was my only commisserator. And he was more cantankerous than I.

To summarize, I'd become a broken man by Friday night.

Anyhow, I awoke Saturday and there in the sky was the gift of sun and blue.
I can't really say if I've ever gone six days without sun. Maybe on a trip through Britain, but really those days were so filled with new sights (and booze) that I hardly took notice.

I got up early -- soaked it the hell up -- went to get a coffee and bumped into a girl I met a week ago. We sat and chatted for an hour about accordians and writing and Iqaluit and I credit her with blowing away any of the lingering fog still clouding me up and I rambled off to work feeling re-energized.

I really will never again under estimate the power of the Sun. It had such an effect on me yesterday. I'd kiss the sun if doing so wouldn't burn the shit out of my face.

Me and Heidi-Ann -- back in town from Pangnirtung and Qikiqtarjuaq -- went out and explored the icebergs that had been blown into the bay and stranded in low tide.

Snowball fight, anyone?

Heidi-Ann tries some gigantic ancient glacial sno-cone

Heidi-Ann defeats the Vertigo foe

Carnivorous Ice Whale devours Iqaluit!!!

I chucked a rock at this thing and it bounced straight down

Death in the media

I'm not feeling overly morbid or anything -- it may just be that the clouds and the fog and the cold are starting to get to me...

I know I'm not the first person to ever notice this, but I just wanted to rant on something that bothers me about the media's coverage of that last, significant event of everyone's life: the big D.

Now I'm not sure if this stems from some announcer on TSN croaking and the way it was dealt with, or what, but I've always kind of been repulsed by the way that news stories differentiate between someone dying of 'natural' causes and when someone croaks in an accident or homicide or something...

When someone kicks it from cancer or heart disease or severe herpes, anchors or reporters typically use a kind of condescending tone, like the person who died has ultimately failed:

"John was a hell of a jockey, but his riding days were cut short when he was diagnosed with an incurable hemorrhoid in 1998. He fought long and hard, but finally succombed to the burgeoning blood vessel at the age of 67. He leaves behind a wife, several mistresses, eighteen kids and a worn-out donut cushion."

It's always implicitly stated (by the healthy anchor or writer) that, if John fought harder, he'd still be here, riding women and laying wth horses.

On the other side, when someone is blown up in an airplane or goes off a bridge in a car, they are kind of made out to be heroes:

"Steve died courageously as the bus went over the cliff and into the sewage lagoon. Crews fished him out of the feces and a funeral will be held Saturday. Mourners are reminded to bring nose-plugs."

Steve went 'before his time'. Or before his body or mind turned on him. But is Steve still courageous when he's crapping himself with dementia?

Someone dying from cancer, I think, is leaving 'before their time' too. Or heart disease. I don't see the difference between being diagnosed with incurable cancer and being blown up in an aircraft. Neither person wants either of those things. They don't actively choose them... but the treatment of each ways are so different that it bothers me.

Everyone dies eventually. Everyone fails. Every body will give out at some point. It's not a failure. It's inevitable. It's natural. It's supposed to happen.

On a sidenote, when I go, I want this to be my epitaph:

Herb Mathisen

1983-20??

"Herb was a successful man,

but his heart was a complete failure."