awesome band name #5,675

Just got home to see the Canucks put a whoopin' on the Desert Dogs. Man, those Sedins are magic. Love 'em. They're still so underrated too. I told a friend Hank was leading the league in scoring the other night and he replied: "Really?" I think these guys will get their due once the world sees them light it up at the Olympics.

Anyways, on the walk home tonight, I passed a sex shop called la Capoterie, which had, as a logo, a smiling condom, which in turn made me think of an awesome French band name: les capotes innocentes.

If you think about it, a condom never did anything to anybody. But what happens to it? It gets fucked and then thrown in the trash.

Just sayin.

From an awesome French band name to an awesome French band. I'd put this song up there in the top five or so songs I've ever heard in my life and remember listening to it the first time on my couch, with my dad of all people, on a lazy Sunday. We both didn't talk for the whole five minutes, except maybe at the three minute mark or so when my dad turned to me and said, "this is a pretty good song."

Here it is, in all it's glory.

Tassez Vous De D'la -- Les Colocs

And if you liked that, here's a live version for your aural pleasure.

world junior madness

World Junior Championship hockey is the most exciting kind on the planet.

Easily.

Do you know why it's predominately young people who volunteer to fight in wars? Because they don't know any better and they buy into national pride and patriotism and all that surface honour and prestige that comes with wearing their country's colours in battle. They haven't yet begun their own families and they haven't gone through any further formal education than the indoctrination that we receive in high school. They don't care why they are fighting and they think they are invisible and that's why they put themselves in harm's way.

To a lesser degree, that's why the World Juniors are so entertaining. Players routinely throw themselves violently at each other, without a smidgen of concern about what kind of damage that contact will do to their bodies. You don't see anywhere close to as many great hits in the NHL as you do at the World Juniors. It is young people representing their country.

It's end-to-end action. It's adrenaline. It's sacrifice. It's exuberance. It's talent and speed and grit minus the strategy and scheme that bogs down professional hockey. In the end, it's usually heart that wins it.

This year, we lost, after winning gold the previous five.

To tell you the truth though, I don't think we deserved it. The Americans were by the far the speedier, more dangerous team. The USA is producing a new breed of hockey player, in the Patrick Kane/Ryan Kesler mode. They are fast, tenacious, two-way, strong on the puck and skilled. I'm a little worried.

The Canadians aren't doing anything wrong, I don't think. We continue to pump out the greatest players in the world. Big, smart, hard-shooting kids.

Yet, this year, we didn't want it as much. Nothing against Eberle, Ellis, Kadri and the handful of gritty Canadians who came up clutch and gave it all they had, but as a squad, I felt the Americans were a little more desperate.

(Note: Mark my words Cormier (terrible choice for captain) and Pieterangelo won't do much in the NHL. Cormier made some awful decisions and Pieterangelo dogged it a couple times and I feel he just doesn't get it.)

I shouldn't say anything though. Tonight is the reason we watch sports. That was a GAME. It was unbelievable. If you read this blog, you will know how much I detest the word unbelievable, because it's so overused. But truly, I could not believe Canada came back from that 5-3 deficit, with just 3:30 to go. Eberle -- the Messiah, as he is known in Regina -- was a puck magnet and is some kind of special hockey player.

I should have believed though. They'd done it before. Shit, it was less than a week ago. But after two brain farts, and a quick two 5-3 deficit in the third, I was a little down. It was then that I texted Mindy, writing about my despair with Pieterangelo.

Mindy responded with two texts:

"Fuck Allen." (Canadian goaltender who looked shaky at best.)

Followed by:

"K watch Eberle."

And watch we did. The bar I was at, on St. Catherine in Montreal, was thoroughly in the grips of the Habs-Capitals game. I only went there because my roommate and his buddy were watching the Habs game at home and I couldn't convince them to watch the Canada/USA game.

When Canada scored in the first period, I would say about 50 per cent of the crowded bar cheered. When the Habs scored, it was like 75 per cent. I attributed the 50 per cent to the amount of Quebecers who wish to stay in Canada.

Now not to sound too judgmental, but since I've been in Montreal, I haven't heard nearly the amount criticism, debate or analysis of Canada's Olympic team as I would have anywhere else in the country. The World Juniors haven't received too, too much fanfare and reading message boards on hockey sites, I realized a great number of Quebec residents did not relate or care about Team Canada.

So I found it interesting as the Habs game ended -- in a loss -- and the Canada game took centre stage, the patrons of the bar started to follow the game and gasp or cheer with any scoring chance, penalty, save or goal.

A couple tambourines were going. We got down immediately in the third and the life went out of the place, but when Eberle scored his first -- the fourth -- the place went WILD!

Ole! Ole Ole Ole! Ole! Ole!

The bar was transformed, and regardless of ideology, we were all behind the Canadians.

My hands hurt from clapping and smacking the bar. I was seated next to an old man in Bubbles glasses, which made his eyeballs the size of potato chips through the thick lenses, who had steadily put back pitcher after pitcher in the few hours I sat beside him while watching the game. And I put back my few too, you best believe.

Stan -- short for Stanislav, I learned after the game -- the guy who I had yelled things like "Incroyable" and "Comment?" at during my fanatical ravings and he had just responded with a shake of the head or a raised hand, was finally getting into it. And when Eberle scored the equalizer, the place went off. I jumped off my seat. I wasn't the only one. I yelled. I wasn't the only one. There were hugs. Screams. Chants.

The power of sport.

Anyways, you know the story. We lost.

But after winning five golds in a row, I honestly think this is good for the World Juniors and Team Canada. We can't win every year. And really, 16-0 games like the one against Latvia aren't worth playing. I was actually cheering for Latvia in that game and, honestly, I was kind of hoping the Americans got up early against the Canadians tonight because I really believed the Canadians were going to blow them out.

It's a good thing we've got this rival in the Americans, who Mindy says have been cleaning up at the Under-18s the past couple years.

Nothing wrong with that.

no dion, no cry

It's been a tough few weeks for Calgary Flames defensemen -- and sworn enemy of slinginlingo -- Dion Phaneuf.

First, he got chirped by mild-mannered Henrik Sedin, eating his words after he roughed up the Swede earlier in the game only to see the Twins and the rest of the Canucks light up his Flamers for five consecutive goals that night. Then, he was vilified -- and rightly so -- for a cheap hit on Anze Kopitar that, luckily, was less severe than it looked. Add to that, he suffered an arm injury against the Leafs on Saturday and his name is currently being whispered as trade bait in the Ilya Kovalchuck sweepstakes, and it would seem that things are pretty crappy over at Camp Dion (Note: if Phaneuf did run a kids' camp, it would probably be attended only by -- to quote the Simpsons here -- "emotionally crippled Mini-Hulks".

Dion as a middle-schooler. "Can I borrow a feeling?"

Well, I'm not going to pretend I don't enjoy kicking this guy while he's down, so I would be remiss if I didn't note how jubilant I was when Steve Yzerman and the rest of the Team Canada braintrust stayed away from the Phaneuf Kool-Aid and kept the most overrated player and gigantic defensive liability and brain-fart prone goofball off the team.

A wrathful tear welled up in mine eye.

For added comedy, a gruff looking Phaneuf -- making his "Blue Steel" Zoolander face -- is all over Nike's new TV spot "Force Fate," which features a number of Canadian Olympians. The company probably was under the impression that he was a lock for the Canadian Team. Mmmm, sweet, delicious, maple-syrup with sprinkles irony. Can you taste it? Tastes great, n'est pas?

Instead of being annoyed when the commercial airs 40 times during each Hockey Night in Canada game, it will just serve to remind me of Phaneuf's snub.

Quick Dion, what's 6 x 7? Nope, the answer is not steamroller. Sorry.

See, this is all that I need to be happy.

A while back, I once told somebody that I hated Phaneuf worse than I hated AIDS in Africa. Having mellowed a bit over the years, I can see that was a little a strong. Nowadays, if I had the choice to eradicate the world of Phaneuf or AIDS in Africa, I think I'd most likely choose AIDS in Africa. See, I'm maturing.

But yeah, it is great knowing that I won't have to feign support for Phaneuf come February. I'm sure it would have involved a lot of vomiting and drinking and cigarette burns on my arms. I swear, with Crosby and Pronger already on that team and with potentially a Phaneuf, I honestly would have found it hard to cheer for Canada in Vancouver.

So thanks, Stevie Y, for keeping the squad Phaneuf-free and for keeping me firmly behind Team Canada.

And Dion, like the hockey coach told Happy Gilmore at the end of the tryout: "Better luck next year."

awesome awkwardness

Yesterday, I had one of those 'are-you-going-left?-I'm-going-left-oops-I'll-go-right-Shit-you're-going-right" moments while crossing a street in centre-ville. This usually happens to me a couple times a day. You know what I'm talking about. Those situations where you're walking down the sidewalk and look up to find someone coming toward you from the other direction and to avoid crashing into each other, you both go one way. Startled out of the hum-drum of standard streetwalking norms, you don't bump into each other -- there is an invisible air buffer -- but you stand face to face for a second, before politely trying to pass each other by both going left or right at the same time, and you get increasingly frustrated because you are not able to get by, like you're stuck in a computer glitch.

So why do I care?

Well what made yesterday's piece of social interaction noteworthy was the fact that the person I was locked in battle with sat on a motorized scooter, had wispy white hair under a fuzzy toque and he was grinning maniacally behind snowboard goggles like he was the Red Baron.

Classic.

Cursing in French, he sped away, spraying slushy snow as he took the sidewalk curb in a tiffy. And I walked away with a satisfied smirk, knowing that somewhere on the planet, Larry David was nodding his appreciation.

In a completely unrelated tangent, I've been burning up Lupe's Enemy of the State mixtape of late.

Unfortunately, in high school I was voted the most Barry Horowitziest

missing: one jesus

For the past month or so, a naitivity scene has been displayed and illuminated outside the homeless shelter on St. Hubert and Rene-Levesque. In a box on a bed of hay, behind a pane of glass, Plastic Joseph and Plastic Mary knelt piously beside fidgety, naked Plastic Jesus, below a Plastic Solemn Saintly person while a Plastic Sheep stared off into the distance in the background thinking whatever plastic sheep think about. The lit up box was framed by a tree and various shrubery that were decorated with Christmas lights.

The whole scene felt out of place on the busy street, where people often stand for hours smoking cigarettes, wearing tattered clothes, waiting for the building to open to get a hot meal. Also, the set up was so cheesy that a couple of my friends had, over the course of the month, stopped and got a picture beside these famous plastic characters.

Well tonight, as I trudged my own path through the ubiquitous white in front of me as the skies dumped ungodly amounts of snow upon the city, I noticed with a chuckle that the glass naitivity scene box had been kicked in and Plastic Jesus, Plastic Mary, Plastic Joseph, Plastic Solemn Saintly person and even Plastic Sheep had all vanished through the hole in the glass.

Moral of the story?

Holidays are over, bitch.

Get back to work.

herbiberous gets preachy

Earthlings

Okay, so you're probably thinking, what is 'Earthlings' doing on slinginlingo? You're saying, 'Man, I come here for the Megan Fox topless picture (99 per cent of you) or the rants about trivial things (the rest of you lot) and I don't want to do any serious thinking or meditating on my lifestyle here.' And if you're really upset about this, you'll probably say something like Herbiberous, don't preach to me about the treatment of animals when I saw you eating a hamburger yesterday and swallowing it down with a glass of chocolate milk.

I admit, I did have a hamburger yesterday and you know what, I'll probably have one again sometime in the near future. But it will be a somber hamburger, now that I know exactly what I'm supporting and where the strip of beef has come from.

For the record, I have not turned into an animal activist or a bleeding heart or an animal myself. I haven't had the ghost of hamburger past, present and future visit me during the night or anything, but this shit is pretty staggering and after watching this video I felt I should at least embed it on the site on the chance that someone stumbling across it would be interested in watching it and learn about how brutally animals are treated in slaughterhouses, fur farms, laboratories and in countless other areas. I'm not forcing anyone to watch it, but it definitely aroused a lot of emotion in me and has made me at least reassess what I eat and why I eat it.

Now I know some of you are probably shocked right now, with that preceding statement that comes from a guy who routinely makes fun of vegans. But I completely understand now why they would make the decision to keep animals and animal products out of their diets.

Speaking for myself, I cannot be entirely sure how this will affect me going forward. I watched Super Size Me and strayed from McDonalds for nearly a year, before finally capitulating and downing a Big Mac while I was hungover. I now eat McDonalds far less, but I haven't been completely assuaged from ordering up some McFood. I've read Fast Food Nation and was disgusted by the treatment of cows and chickens and by the rampant diseases embedded in fast food and I have to admit that I've visited these "restaurants" far less frequently.

This film takes the next step. You can read all you want about slaughterhouses, but until you see a cow's jugular slashed as it writhes, dangling in the air from a hook on one of its legs, as its life sprays out of it, the brutality doesn't really hit home.

I think if we eat this food, we should at least see how it gets to us, because these days we are so detached from the actual process of killing animals for sustenance.

Again, I'm probably not going to become a vegetarian or anything, but at least I'm no longer ignorant and I know where my food comes from. The next time I eat meat, I will have to soberly acknowledge that I am complicit in the kinds of things depicted in this film and I will have to accept that.

I do know that I will no longer eat veal or foie de gras, which I just recently tried for the first time and found delicious.

The pictures in this film are intended to offend you, but I do believe that we should all see this so we are aware of just exactly what we are doing and we should not choose to remain ignorant just because we don't want to be offended.

However, if you don't want to watch it, just skip ahead.

There's a lot of wrong in this world and I don't know where to start, but at least being informed about what going on is a step.

THAT IS THE END OF MY PREACHINESS!!!

Note:

Just a few things here in response to the film:

-I thought it was kind of goofy at first, but I think I'm completely onside with my bud the Dog Whisperer, who only eats meat if it's from an animal he has had a hand in hunting (wow, now that's alliteration, folks!).

-I do support the trapping of wild animals for subsistence purposes. The trappers in Canada's North should not be lumped into the same category as those who operate fur farms. The trappers North of 60 are feeding their families through traditional means, in areas of the country where there are literally no jobs.

-Also, I wonder why there is such a vitriolic and venomous attack against seal hunters in Northern Canada while there is so much atrocious and mechanized murder in slaughterhouses. I mean, the segment on the Kosher slaughter in particular made me want to vomit. I think priorities need adjusting, PETA people.

-I remember when the circus came to Yellowknife when I was a kid, my mom bought me a ride on the elephant and I was ecstatic (and nervous as hell). I rode it around the Yellowknife Community Arena parking lot. After watching this film, I feel so conned. Another reason to hate carnies.

-A couple years ago, I fulfilled a childhood dream and made a trip to Egypt to view the pyramids and Sphinx and temples which had awed me since I was old enough to read. On the fateful day, I haggled with a tour guide and found myself on a camel, wandering through the desert, toward the three gigantic Giza Pyramids. It was happening. It was surreal. I should have been shitting myself with delight. Instead, though, I could not get over how sick and sad looking the camel I was riding was. It farted and my guide whipped it. It teetered like it was going to fall over any time we went up an incline or down a little hill. It actually fell forward once and I thought I was going to be paralyzed. It kept stopping and then farting. And my guide gave me a stick and told me to hit it. I looked at it and I swear, it turned its head back to look at me and a tear rolled from its eye. I couldn't hit it. I just couldn't do it. So my guide gave me his horse and he took over the camel and beat the thing. And there were the pyramids. And the Sphinx. But my attention had been diverted to the camel who was wincing and farting and teetering and dying in front of me. It fucking bummed me out.

-I worked with a guy at Con one summer who had previously worked at a chicken slaughterhouse in Manitoba that supplied chickens for KFC. He bragged about the amount of chickens' throats he slit an hour -- I wish I could remember the figure. The guy, it should come as no surprise, was a complete asshole.

thank you, air canada

I just wanted to thank Air Canada for losing my bags on Tuesday.

Since the two large bags weren't sitting there, spinning around on the carousel after my flight, I had the luxury of taking the bus home without the hassle of having to lug the two giant sacks down the aisle, on and off the seats, then the two blocks home and up two flights of stairs.

The bags arrived on the next flight and, wouldn't you know it, were delivered to my doorstep later that afternoon.

No hard feelings. At all.

So again, I couldn't be happier that my bags were lost.

And that's the way I'm going to try to look at things from now on.