Merry Christmas!

Ok first off i'd just like to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas! Thanks to all your love and support this blog is now in the top three blogs of people i know that have blogs. Trailing only Stacey Bowman's TornLake blog, and Dug Stevenson's blog, which also coincidentally are the only two other blogs i'm aware of.

Christmas kind of rules in my opinion. Some would say it's for the added time off. (11 days in a row this year including weekends so i'm pretty stoked on that!) Some would say it's for the gifts. (You greedy cheesedicks!) Some enjoy the food. (Fatty fatty fat fat stick your head in gravy! Mmmmm.......gravy.) Overall though i think it's a little bit of everything that contributes to the feeling of the season. Snow, presents, family, friends, drinks, food, vacation time, new year's eve, world juniors tourney, you name it this time of year has it all.

I'm sure you're all wondering just what the hell i'll be up to this year? Well first off i'll be spending the 24th and most of the 25th at home with the fam. Then the night of the 25th i'm cruising up to Kingston with Palmer to stay at the Mumford's retirement residence, which i'm pretty pumped about because i've never seen it and i've heard it's a pretty sick pad. The Mumford's are straight up genius', many months ago they purchased tickets to the World Juniors hockey tournament, possibly the greatest international hockey tournament in the world. They have 5 tickets to every single game and have very generously allowed Derek to invite myself and Mr. Palmer along to the first two days of the tournament. So when you tune in to TSN at 7p.m. on Boxing Day, to watch Canada take on the Czech Republic, keep an eye out for me, i'll be the one quietly beating off under my jersey and crossing "World Juniors Canada game" off my bucket list.

After that I'll be returning to Toronto and having a nice long week full of......well nothing really. I'm off work and i'll be making the most of it. And by making the most of it i mean drinking, relaxing and sleeping in. Sackville is making his way to Toronto for New Year's Eve which is exciting news, we have no plans as of yet, but one thing is for sure, when all the boys are looking for their wives to kiss at the stroke of Midnight, Mike and I will be looking for each other so we can laugh at them and act like we're happy being single! Fuckin chumps eh Mike? New Year's day will be a large Grimes family fun day with all the cousins, uncles, aunts and significant others getting together. I am already once again prepared for the onslaught of "so are you seeing anyone? really? why not? you know you should really be looking to settle down eric!" To which I will respond once again with my trusty shut them up line, "actually i'm gay!" Works every time.

Needless to say i'm excited about the holidays and i'm ready for them to start now. I need this time off pretty badly. Once i return to work on the 4th or 5th or whatever the hell day it is, well then it's only about a month and a half until the event of the year, surfing trip to Nicaragua! Booya! I can do a month and a half in my sleep once i've got something to look forward to.

So Merry Christmas, Happy Hannukah, Kickass Kwanza, whatever it is you celebrate, celebrate it well and don't hold back. All the best.

Your pal,

eric

Happy Holidays Loyal Readers

Well, let's face it, this is probably the last you lucky ducks will be hearing from us till after the Holidays. In the spirit of the season I was going to post a Weird Al holiday song, but this is funnier:

The Best of Conan - watch more funny videos

Hypocrimes

So what's the title of this new blog entry supposed to mean? Am i talking about molesting giant african animals? Well i could do a blog about that i suppose but i cherish my freedom and what happened in the past is no one's business but my own. No it's supposed to be a little combination of hypocrite, and Grimes. Doesn't really work that well to be honest but it's already there and i'm too lazy to change it.

So why am i calling myself a hypocrite you ask? I think because in a way all of us are and it's damn near impossible to avoid. I think every last person reading this can say that at one point in their lives they've made a bold claim that came back to haunt them down the road. I just happen to make dumber, bolder claims than most.

For example, for years i've sworn against two essential items that relate to bad weather. Number one is the umbrella, and Part B is the scarf. I always maintained that umbrellas and scarves were the tools of douchbaggery. Unneccessary items for those that thought they were too good for rain and cared far too much about neck temperature. But let's take a real good look at what i'm arguing against? Other people's choice to be dry and warm. That's an absolutely ridiculous argument to make wouldn't you say? Yeah maybe but you can shut your mouth you boa wearing moisture hating turdsack.

See what i mean. Ridiculous. And while i've maintained a firm stance against these items for years, my resistance is now starting to fade. If you had performed a bag search on me through the non winter months you would have found an umbrella. A rarely used umbrella, but an umberella-ella-ella-eh-eh-eh, none the less. When it's spitting out you won't find me hidden underneath it, but in a monsoon i will admit i pop it like it's hot. And i will still continue to publicly berate anyone caught using an umbrella in the snow. As for scarves, well i still don't own one, and have never worn one when it's been my choice. (I'm sure my mom made me wear one when i was a kid and had a purple one piece snowsuit passed down from my female cousin) But i gotta admit they look sharp, clearly do a lot for warmth, and come in quite handy for us old men who now wear peacoats rather than snowboard jackets. That gap between the top button and the neck is significant.

So what's the point of all of this? I mean honestly why the hell am i writing a blog about the most retarded subject of all time? Well i don't have an answer for you, i think i just needed to ask for forgiveness from the masses, and to say yes i'm human, sometimes i make mistakes. But i mean other people do shit like that too. Let's look at Mike Denby, i mean he once said, "man i'll never ever wear a suit to work as long as i live!"....and.....well i guess he doesn't....and probably won't. But wait i got one also from Mike Denby, "man i'm never going to eat meat again, i'm a vegetarian!" And you know what dear reader! Well.....he's still a vegetarian i guess.....fuck. Ok wait i got one, he claimed he'd never get an STD! And man alive does he ever have a raging case of chl......nevermind.

Ok well that's it. This goes down as the single most retarded piece of literature ever churned out. No point to it whatsoever. Merry Christmas.

Love always, Optimus Grime

Tribute to a Legend

This article will be devoted to someone that i recently lost from my life. A man who entertained me once a week for a short period of time, but never failed to leave me enthralled, aghast, amazed.....pretty much took me through the entire rainbow of emotions. I laughed with him. I cried with him. And when he died....a piece of me died with him. If you don't know who i'm talking about....then i'm going to have to take a quote from Alex Kitz when he was asking Mumford if he read up on the show "Lost" after each episode and Mumford responded that he did not, "well then you're an idiot!" The man is none other than Jimmy Smits.

For those of you stupid enough to not watch Dexter every week, then you won't understand this tribute and you should probably just go rent seasons 1 or 2, or maybe take a long walk off a short pier because you are a waste of space and serve no purpose in society. Dexter is quite frankly the best show on TV bar none, and this season Jimmy Smits (Miguel Prado), was the best character on said show.

Miguel: "Are you going to help me kill Ellen Wolf?"

Dexter: "No"

Miguel: "Well then FUCK YOU!!!" (Incredible switch from normal conversation to insane latino rage)

Miguel: "That blood sucking defense attorney ELLEN WOLF!!!!" (I got chills when i heard this quote, i'm pretty sure Jimmy Smits is method and probably killed an actual Ellen Wolf before doing this scene)

(Spoiler alert!)When we look back on this season of Dexter, i hope that collectively as a fan base, we can look past our feelings of sorrow for the loss of Jimmy, and remember him for all the good times. The time when he discovered Dexter was a killer and not only accepted but embraced him for his actions. The time when Dexter asked him to dress inconspicuous because they were staking out a potential kill, and old Jimmy showed up wearing all black with black sunglasses. The time wear Jimmy showed up at Ellen Wolf's house and forced his way in at the end of an episode, leaving us all to wonder whether he had the balls to kill her. Jimmy's first kill and the look of latin ecstacy on his face as he plunged the knife home. And of course, who could forget the crowning jewel. The time Jimmy was faced with his own impending death at the hands of Dexter, and rather than shy away and cower, he screamed in Dexter's face that "this doesn't end here!" as he died.

Dexter has now been around for three full seasons. And in these seasons we have seen a myriad of characters come and go each hoping to leave it's mark upon our creative conscious'. The ice truck killer in season 1, whom Buckley and i discovered yesterday on imdb, and we found out he has never acted in his life before Dexter....or after. Sargeant Doakes, Dexter's long time enemy spanning two seasons who's constant pissed off attitude and hatred towards Dexter left us with many memorable moments and quotes. Detective Lundy who's annoying eating habits and sublime buttocks made us all realize why sometimes younger girls like to bone old men. George King...the skinner...who's Nicaraguan heritage has made everyone coming with me in February on our surfing trip start to have second thoughts. All were great characters, but in the end there will always only be one that stands out in my mind. Miguel Prado.....Jimmy Smits....thanks for the memories.

The Monday Screw

The Monday Screw

Usually we talk about (often hilarious/amazing) tales of us getting screwed over. And no doubt there's a-plenty of stories about us getting the screw to constitute months and months and years and years of The Monday Screw. But todays was just so juicy, I'm going to have to put our stories on hold for a week.

So Barack Obama is supposed to be President on January 20th, right? Just wondering if anyone remembers that, because apparently it's slipped the collective mind of the Bush White House.

CHICAGO—The White House has turned down a request from the family of President-elect Barack Obama to move into Blair House in early January so that his daughters can start school on January 5.

The Obamas were told that Blair House, where incoming presidents usually stay in the five days before Inauguration Day, is booked in early January, a spokesperson to the Obama transition said. “We explored the idea so that the girls could start school on schedule,’ the spokesperson said. “But, there were previously scheduled events and guests that couldn’t be displaced.”

It remained unclear who on Bushes guest list outranked the incoming President.

Um, so yeah, someone is going to feel pretty stupid when they get back from vacation and find out that their intern Dwayne denied the incoming President of the United States one of the 132 rooms in the White House. "Oh wait, they meant that Barack Obama!?"

It seems like every  institution in Washington is getting pretty strict about renting out rooms come Inauguration time.

Awesome

Starting this week, each Friday I'm going to drum up some cool trivia and quotes about amazing movies and not-so-amazing movies (read: pilfer the extensive trivia catalogues of IMDb) as a little treat for those thousands of loyal fans who stick it out till Friday afternoon to make sure they've read every. single. one. of our postings. This week: Donnie Darko

Donnie Darko is of course one of Eric Q. Grimes' favorite movies of all time, which in and of itself should be internationally know trivia for the picture. But seeing as Richard Kelly has never worked with William H. Macey (triviaaaaaa!), it's of little surprise that he ignores our good friend Eric. Anyways it's in the spirit of ignoring Grimes that the inaugural launch of "Awesome" is dedicated to that funny little ginger.

Donnie Darko (2001)

- The movie was shot in 28 days, exactly the time-span of the movie itself, on a budget of under US$5 million.

- In the scene at the house party someone is shown jumping on a trampoline, wearing a Ronald Reagan mask. This is taken from a photo of the journalist Hunter S. Thompson wearing a Reagan mask while jumping on a trampoline.

- In the film Donnie refers to "Married with Children" (1987) and, more specifically, Christina Applegate during conversations about sex with his therapist. The script initially called for Donnie's fantasies to be about Alyssa Milano. This had to be changed however when Richard Kelly was denied the legal rights to reference her in this manner.

- In the theater scene, Richard Kelly originally intended to have Donnie and Gretchen going to see C.H.U.D. (1984). However, there were problems with finding out who owned the rights to the movie. Finally, Sam Raimi came to the rescue by allowing Kelly to use and distort footage from The Evil Dead (1981), free of charge.

- Noah Wyle's character, Prof. Kenneth Monnitoff, is seen eating hard candy in some scenes because Wyle decided his character would be diabetic.

- Richard Kelly's original choice for the music to be played over the final sequence was 'U2''s "MLK." After difficulties obtaining the rights to the song, it was decided to use Gary Jules' cover of the Tears for Fears song "Mad World" instead.

- Richard Kelly originally wanted Tim Robbins to play the part of Donnie's father.

- The original poster art for the movie had been using an Arabic-style font, but this was changed to the much more standard Times New Roman boldface font for the video release after the terrorist attacks on the USA of 11 September 2001. The title remains in the same style in the film, though.

- Jason Schwartzman was replaced by Jake Gyllenhaal, due to Schwartzman's scheduling conflicts.

- Director Richard Kelly modeled the tone of the film after Stanley Kubrick's Lolita (1962). Elizabeth Darko (Maggie Gyllenhaal) is even dressed as Vivian Darkbloom (Marianne Stone) from Lolita at the Halloween party.

- One of the deleted scenes involves Donnie's English class discussing Richard Adams's novel Watership Down (1978), the plot of which involves a rabbit who prophesies the impending destruction of the rabbit warren. This scene was later included in the actual feature when the director's cut of the movie was released on DVD.

- During the open shots of the Halloween Party shown later in the film, in the background the sound of a wolf howling can be heard. It is the howl of the werewolf from An American Werewolf in London (1981).

- When Donnie's mother is calling to say how they'll be on the red-eye flight, the airport announcement in the background says that Flight 2806 is boarding at gate 42 and leaving at 12 AM. Presumably this is the flight they're taking, and also a reference to the 28:06:42:12 countdown that Frank gives Donnie.

- There are 28 scenes in the director's cut of the film. (Frank says the world will end in 28 days 06 hours 42 minutes and 12 seconds)

- The movie takes place in 1988. Frank tells Donnie the world will end in 28 days, 06 hours, 42 minutes, and 12 seconds. If you add these numbers, the sum is 88. When Samantha asks when she can have kids, Donnie says: "Not until 8th grade." Donnie mentions to his therapist that his dog Callie died when he was eight. (He is later seen holding a stuffed toy dog in her office.) According to the television reporter, the fire at Jim Cunningham's house was extinguished "sometime after 8:00 last night." The climax of Donnie Darko occurs one week before the 1988 US presidential election. George Bush was elected on November 8, 1988 [11/08/88].

- The scene where Donnie corrects Gretchen was improvised because the actress could not say the word.

- The shot of the bike ride to Grandma Death's house is an homage to Steven Spielberg's E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982), in which, Drew Barrymore also starred.

- The first scene in the movie is an homage to Martin Scorsese's The Last Temptation of Christ (1988). The same movie is also labeled as showing at the movie theater.

- Jim Cunningham [The Swayze] depicts drugs, alcohol, and premarital sex as "instruments of fear." In the movie, Donnie smokes a cigarette, drinks alcohol, and engages in premarital sex. The climax of the movie occurs after he surrenders to all three temptations.

- When Donnie tells Gretchen he accidentally burned down a house, they are walking directly in front of Jim Cunningham's house. The Life Line Exercise Card that Donnie reads is about a girl finding a lost wallet. Later, Donnie finds Jim Cunningham's wallet on the sidewalk outside his mansion.

- In the "Cunning Visions" infomercial, Jim Cunningham pats a child on his behind. The young boy who wants to learn how to fight at the school assembly is the same boy in Jim Cunningham's infomercial (Larry Riesman).

- The film Donnie Darko and Stephen King's It (1990) (TV) both feature a knife-wielding bully. The primary bully is named Seth Devlin. His surname is a reference to the devil. A sticker inside Seth Devlin's locker reads: "What would Satan do?"

- According to the director's commentary, the book which Eddie Darko is reading in bed is Stephen King's "The Tommyknockers", the cover of which "some bastard stole from the set". Earlier in the film, Eddie's wife Rose is reading King's "It".

- Donnie mentions the DeLorean car, which was used for time travel in Back to the Future (1985). In that film the DeLorean had to reach a speed of 88 mph to travel in time.

- Rose Darko is reading the Stephen King book "It". In the book, children in a small town are terrorized by a clown. Later in the film, we see an encounter between Donnie and a clown.

- The dance performance in the movie is actually performed to "West End Girls" by the Pet Shop Boys (Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe). Due to budgetary constraints, however, the song had to replaced by Duran Duran's "Notorious" in post-production.

- When casting for the role of Donnie's sister, it came to Richard Kelly's attention that Maggie Gyllenhaal (who had few film credits at the time) would be available for the shoot. The agent who proposed her casting reminded Kelly of her scene in Cecil B. DeMented (2000), where she drank urine. Though Kelly was slightly hesitant towards the idea, he did like the way she drank urine--and knew he wouldn't have to work hard at creating a sibling rivalry between her and her brother, star Jake Gyllenhaal.

- The song that plays as Donnie is riding his bike home in the theatrical version is "The Killing Moon" by Echo & The Bunnymen. As Gretchen waits for the school bus, a Volkswagen Rabbit vehicle quickly passes in front of her. When Elizabeth Darko is sleeping on the recliner, there is a stuffed rabbit next to her. As Donnie reaches for the car keys, there is a Polaroid picture of him and his sister in Halloween costumes on the desk. Donnie is dressed as a rabbit. When Donnie is talking to his sister after his mom leaves near the end, a "jack o lantern" bunny is seen on the table. Frank, the rabbit, often appears near a water source (sprinklers, water main, faucet).

- The words "Cellar Door" are written on the chalkboard in Karen Pommeroy's classroom. When Donnie asks about their meaning, she replies that "This famous linguist once said that of all the phrases in the English language, of all the endless combinations of words in all of history, that Cellar Door is the most beautiful." In the director's commentary Richard Kelly mistakenly attributes the phrase to Edgar Allan Poe, but it was actually J.R.R. Tolkien who, in his 1955 essay "English and Welsh", said that "Most English-speaking people . . . will admit that cellar door is 'beautiful', especially if dissociated from its sense (and from its spelling). More beautiful than, say, sky, and far more beautiful than beautiful."

- Newmarket Films, the movie's US distributor, approached Richard Kelly about doing a director's cut. He accepted the offer and did the re-edit with editor Sam Bauer in a swift nine days. Comparably, it would take him a full 5 years before he was ready to step behind the camera again to film the universally panned "Southland Tales".

- Richard Kelly received only $9,000 to write and direct Donnie Darko which had a budget of 4.5 million dollars.

- The character Karen Pomeroy's name is a reference to Wardell B. Pomeroy, a sex researcher at the Kinsey Institute.

- Seth Rogen's feature film debut.

The Ol' Trail

Crystal Clear

A few days ago I kind of stepped in it on Stacey Bowman's incomparable blog Tornlake

In it I defended Michael Ignatieff's rise to power over the past few weeks within the Liberal Party. To catch you up with the debate (and to prevent you from navigating away from our website) I have pasted in responses to my comments.  

I have a terrible feeling that, in choosing Michael Ignatieff, the federal Liberals are about to choose a leader who is a political dilettante. Mr. Ignatieff exhibits all the same characteristics of ego and entitlement that made it impossible for John Turner either to mobilize the party beyond the Toronto elite or to connect with Canadians on a national basis. I certainly hope I am mistaken because the last time such a mistake was made, the consequences were two terms of Brian Mulroney.

It is precisely because he is statesman enough to put the interests of his party (and, by extension, the country) ahead of his own -- as he did yesterday -- that Bob Rae should have had his candidacy put before a Liberal national convention. And, had that occurred, the winner would not have to carry the faint whiff of illegitimacy that will follow Mr. Ignatieff for the foreseeable future.

So my initial response was: that's kind of dumb. And I don't want this debate to turn into ad homonym attacks, so let me make it clear that I don't think the person who made the comment was dumb. I just think that the idea in and of itself is unclear and not clearly thought out. Luckily, the editor of Tornlake popped by to clarify the comment:

Kitzy, I think the previous commenter was making the point that, regardless of whether Ignatieff would have won had the leadership been put to a vote at a convention or otherwise, giving him the reigns of the party without going through that process is what might give his leadership the 'whiff of illegitimacy' to some. The point is not whether he would have been voted in anyway, the point is that his leadership will not be validated by those votes.

For my part, I agree with you that Ignatieff may be able to bring new ideas to the party and he certainly brings intelligence and knowledge. But experience definitely counts, and Rae does have more experience.

I sincerely hope you're right and that saying Ignatieff might not be able to mobilize Canadians outside the GTA is a generalization.

Thanks for all your comments -- interesting discussion!!

Now let's just cut right to the chase: "thanks for all your comments"!!?! Why are you trying to silence me Bowman!? And if you think you can, you are very, very, VERY mistaken. This is EXACTLY why I [ed. note: We / Mostly Eric you part-timing piece of garbage] have a blog! Because here, the pointless arguments NEVER cease!! Not until we're proven right!

So in terms of you agreeing that Ignatieff will bring intelligence and knowledge. You're welcome. But as for some of the topics you are more reticent on? Well let's dig in, shall we?

(1) Experience Definitely Counts: I've been CEO of a large company for 30 years! And in those 30 years I have consistently made poor decisions resulting in the mind-numbing failure of a once booming business. Obviously Bob Rae wasn't that bad. I hyperbolize only to demonstrate that sometimes quality of experience is more important that the quantity of it.

(2) A Leadership Validated by Party Votes: Well, for starters, considering that only the best connected and influential Liberals even attend the Liberal Convention, the notion that somehow it would have been some kind of egalitarian democr-orgy had the vote been taken all the way there is a little bit naive. Secondly - and I cannot emphasize this enough - changing the rules on a whim because some people feel like it would do away with a "whiff of illegitimacy" / support their candidate certainly reeks of far more illegitimacy than following the rules of the constitution that have been ratified by the very people whose voices everyone seems to value so much.

(3) Giving him the reigns of the party without going through that process is what might give his leadership the 'whiff of illegitimacy' to some: Anyone who is unwilling to check on the basic constitutional laws that have guided the Liberal Party should think twice about throwing around jagged words like "illegitimacy". It's easy for everyone to get worked up about things like this - I'm reminded of the US elections in 2000 when Al Gore won the popular vote - but there are rules in place for a reason, and at the risk of sounding repetitive, let me echo my sentiments from above: you don't get to change the rules just because the call didn't go your way. In 2008, McCain was poised to win the popular vote while Obama won the Electoral College. He didn't, but if he had, would all the Liberals who had cursed Bush for "stealing" the election say, "welp, too bad we had to 'steal' the election this time"? Elections aren't stolen. They really honestly aren't. Did the Republicans win the recount because they beat the shit out of the Democrat lawyers? Yeah, they sure did! Which is to say, they worked a whole hell of a lot harder and they worked a whole hell of a lot smarter and that's how they won the recount. Complaining about that is a bit like saying, "The Red Wings totally stole that game from us by playing harder, faster and smarter! That's so unfair!!"

But I digress, my point is that, while I guess I can't hold it against people for mistakenly thinking that Ignatieff is an illegitimate selection, I can tell them that they are flat out wrong. And pleasantly, it won't be a matter of opinion. In this one case - and I'm usually willing to carry on discussions - anyone who says that Ignatieff is not the legitimately chosen leader of the Liberal Party is literally, completely wrong. They are wrong. Period! Because he was chosen by the process that was written into constitutional law and ratified by a two-thirds majority of all Liberal delegates. Which is to say, you can like or dislike Ignatieff till the cows come home. But anyone who says he is an illegitimate selection, or even that his selection has a "whiff of illegitimacy" is actually not thinking calmly, clearly or reasonably. And that inability to do so makes the theory stupid.

BME Pain Olympics

Oh my god. This will not be a long posting. However i am currently having a chat with my old irish pal JP, you know him as the Jagermonster, the JYP, J-Pie, J-Fly and several other aliases. He starred many times in the Chronicles of Grimes back in the day. Anyways he has just asked me if i'm aware of the BME Pain Olympics. Which I am not. He said it's a video floating around the internet right now, of two guys, and a knife. They are competing to see who can withstand the most pain.

WITH THEIR DICKS AND BALLS! Yes you heard me correctly, dicks and balls. He has not seen it yet, but from what he's heard BME is a group of guys that self inflict pain, and they even have a website. I have not been to it, and i'm not sure i'm going to. He also has informed me that from what he's heard, one guy in the video cuts his balls off. OFF! OOOOOOOOOOFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Like what the fuck? He said he's also not sure but one guy might cut his dick off. Jesus Christ i can't understand this? Why...why would anyone do this? Has anyone out there seen this video? Is this all true or just a horrible sick joke? Please someone just tell me it's not real and I can go back to having at least a little faith in mankind.

JP has again just informed me the video is titled "BME Pain Olympics Final Round". And he put it best...."mate it better be the final round." He refuses to watch it, so do I, that's where you come in dear reader. Search it, watch it, take one for the team and tell us all if it's legit. After searching it on google it legitimately exists, and the photo above is from a guy watching the video for the first time.

To Scrap Or Not To Scrap.....

That is the question. Now what is the answer? Well maybe I should do a better job of defining my question for all you numbskulls out there. The question, well it's the same questions that's posed at least a few times every single year. Should fighting be outlawed for good in the NHL? Well i'm not here to answer that question, only to provide my opinion on the matter.

I think most of you already know what i'm going to say, no absolutely not, fighting is essential to the game of hockey. Hockey is basically the only major sport in the world where the game is policed not only by the referees, but by the players themselves. The system within the game is actually quite interesting too, because as anyone who watches hockey regularly knows, there is a hierarchy in place on any given team. Enforcers, grinders, agitators, checkers, playmakers, snipers, superstars. Without an internal code within the game, I think you would see a rise in violent incidents on the ice aswell as an increase in dangerous hits. Players could run around on the ice all willy nilly without fear of retribution from the enforcers. Your star players, the Crosby's, Malkin's and Ovechkin's of the league would have bullseyes stamped on their foreheads. These are the players that people pay to see, and without protection on the ice it would be free reign for cheap shots.

Obviously there is no way to fully remove fights from the game, but what they would do is probably something along the lines of throwing a person involved in a fight out of the game and giving them a one game suspension or something. Again though, this only creates problems. How do you mediate who started the fight? The league would be constantly be tied up with complaints from players and team officials over whether suspensions were warranted or not. What if someone started a fight to protect a player, does he get a suspension? What if a player is attacked and drops the gloves in response? Does he get a suspension? These would all be very grey areas and the amount of debate and hearsay would vary from case to case and it would be extremely difficult to maintain any kind of consistency in the verdict.

Essentially the argument about fighting is raised every year because of an on ice incident. With 30 teams playing 82 games each, there are going to be a lot of fights. Enforcers these days are not just big hockey players anymore. For the most part they are trained fighters. They take martial arts or boxing lessons. They are much bigger, and much stronger then the fighters of the old days. The chances of someone getting injured in one of these fights are pretty good. The most recent incident was not actually too major. Two fighters were finishing up their duel, and they fell, and one of them smacked his head on the ice pretty hard. He's fine, and just has a gash on the back of his head for his troubles. However of course this spawned the debate once again.

What everyone needs to realize is that this is a sport played by grown men and that they have accepted the responsibility of their position. Alot of these players are realizing their dream of playing in the NHL and if you removed fighting from the game, some of them would be out of jobs. For the most part, if you don't want to fight, you don't have to. Star players rarely if ever fight, and when they do, it's usually at their own volition, and referees are also usually quite quick to break these ones up. Wayne Gretzky in his career fought 3 times. His longest one was 14 seconds against Neal Broten. He instigated the fight by dropping his gloves first. Sidney Crosby has been in one fight in his career against Andrew Ference last year. He held his own, and also dropped the gloves first. When a star player does fight? It's usually against another star player or at least one similar in stature to himself. They never last long, and their are rarely ever many good punches thrown. Quite simply because they are not trained fighters, they take a big swing, lose their balance, and the refs jump in.

What society has to accept is that accidents happen. Has anyone ever been killed in a hockey fight? No they haven't. However people have died on the ice as a result of stick swinging accidents, or dangerous hits. Which as i mentioned earlier, would only increase with the removal of on ice policing. The entertainment value of a good hockey fight makes the league unique, I personally don't go to the game to see fights, but if one happens when i'm there....you can bet i'm on my feet rooting for Laraque to lay a beating on Lucic! It breeds team unity and can actually completely change the game. How many times have you seen a team down a couple goals, and then their fighter squares off against the other team and lays a beating on him, and the next thing you know the tempo and direction of the game swings completely and you've got a comeback on your hands. Happens all the time.

So in conclusion, obviously i support hockey fighting. Everyone has their opinion and that's just mine. I know some people see it as barbaric but for those who have played the game and followed it loyally like many of us have, it's quite obvious that it's been engrained in the culture and is important to it's success.

Learning How to Play It Cool...

Twentieth Century Fox has optioned rights to "How to Talk to Girls," a newly published advice guide written by Alec Greven, a 9-year-old expert on the subject.

The first of a four-book series, "How to Talk to Girls" was published Nov. 25 by HarperCollins, the publishing house that is a sister company to Fox. The film deal encompasses all four volumes.

The studio hasn't set a writer yet or assigned a producer, but 20th production co-president Alex Young sparked to the story of Greven, who was 8 when he began writing the book as an assignment for his third-grade class, to help classmates break the ice with members of the opposite sex. The result was a pamphlet that sold at his school's book fair for $3.

HarperCollins is selling the first of the four editions for $9.99.

The advice seems simple enough to follow: Greven's tips range from the facts of life ("Sometimes, you get a girl to like you, then she ditches you. Life is hard, move on!"), to getting a girl's attention ("Show off a skill, like playing soccer or anything else that you are good at.") to talking to girls ("You also have to be aware that girls win most of the arguments.") to dealing with crushes ("It can be very hard to get a girl to like you. Sometimes it takes years! Whatever happens, just don't act desperate.").

Fox bought the book preemptively, before Greven began logging airtime on TV shows including "The Today Show" and "Ellen."

The Gotham Group brokered the deal and I for one am excited as shit to see what this looks like on screen / learn an enormous amount about the opposite sex from someone under the age of 10.

Gibberish

It's Monday, I'm at work bored as fuck, i'm in a shitty mood and don't really have much of a reason to be, and i'm on here to write about god knows what. I really don't have a clue what i'm going to write about yet, maybe i'll just put these couple of sentences up and call it a day. It seems everything is pissing me off today, Mumford trying to get me to print out 89 pages of some fuckin bullshit for him. Do it yourself alright? You've got the time. Denby being too busy to email back and forth with me. Kitzy's having a shitty day too, just got an email from him that said "kill me now!" Now add the fact that Favre is currently in Florida on a cruise ship with Anna. Then throw in a dose of Pearson being on vacation with Susi all next week in the Mayan Riviera. That's not to say i'm some asshole who doesn't want my friends to have fun. Cause i'm happy for those boys, but at the same time it just reminds me of how much i want a break, and more than anything how much i'd love to just get away for a bit, even if it's just for a few days.

It kind of amazes me how much i let the weather affect my mood. In the summer getting through a work week is a breeze. No problem at all. I'll meet up with one of the boys for lunch, maybe eat outside if it's really nice. Or hide from the sun if it's too damn hot. Talk about getting away to a cottage or hitting a patio after work. The sun keeps it light out til mid evening. We can play soccer in the park and keep active. But then it starts to get cold. I wake up in the mornings these days, and it's dark out. I walk to work and it's cold. I get to work, hide inside all day, scamper to meet someone for lunch if I can and complain about how cold it is, then i walk home....and it's dark again. Things that seemed so easy to get done before, like laundry or grocery shopping, all of a sudden seem like much more ominous tasks.

Ok ok you can stop loading your gun now. I never intended to make people feel suicidal from reading this posting. Sometimes i guess you just need to get some shit off your chest. I've got alot more i could potentially unload but i think this is good for now. I mean for the most part i'm a happy guy right! I mean i'm not clinically depressed or anything so enough of all this crap. There are some positives to winter no doubt about it. I mean there are the obvious ones that come with weather change. You can't snowboard in the summer (unless you live in whistler i guess), sure i haven't gone snowboarding in about 5 years, but at least in the winter the option is there! And we all keep talking about getting a big snowboard trip organized, renting a ski in ski out place on a mountain somewhere and cramming it full of all of us. Beds for the couples, floor for the single guys! Don't worry Mike we can snuggle on the carpet.

Let's see what else. Well as you may or may not know, (and it's probably may since i don't think anyone other than denby or kitzy read this) i'm quite partial to the game of hockey. So one of my saving graces during the winter time is the opening of the outdoor hockey rinks. And they have officially opened this past weekend so that gives me the chance to get out there a few times a week, get some exercise, and non-violently release a whole lot of pent up sexual aggression. Alot of the boys like to come out and play too so that's always a good time. I'm already looking forward to catching Mumford with his head down sometime and possibly placing him in the hospital. (89 pages Mumford? really?)

Another pro/con to winter would have to be the partying aspect. Now it can be both good and bad depending on how you look at it. There's no doubt people, myself included, slow down their partying ways when the cold weather arrives. Their are several pros to this. You save some money, you get better at video games, you catch up on movies, you masturbate more often, your parents stop giving you lectures on the culture of binge drinking, you get to see Mumford's cold smile which is hilarious, you have less random bruises from not seeing a drunken Julien Favre so much, and you see Mike Denby more often since he's your only single friend left and couples stay in more in the winter so you cling to each other secretly hoping the other one doesn't find his true love before you do. I've said too much. Let's get to the cons. First off the obvious, getting drunk and partying....can be pretty fun. Hacking danks is cold, it's always dark, no more patio drinking, bikinis and tank tops are replaced by pants sweaters and coats, you need cabs to go pretty much everywhere, i always lose gloves/mittens, my radiator in my room is turned up way too high and i can't control the temperature and have a windowless room, my feet are often wet from snow, my coat/andrew's coat is falling to pieces.

Ok i guess those kind of turned into more my winter problems than a general overview of everybody's. But i think you get the point. Wow i actually gotta say i feel much better now having released all that crap out of my system. And hey maybe you'll actually read it since it's winter and you've got nothing better to do.

Gritz Weekly Theatre & Pantomime Review - Festen

FESTEN

The Company Theatre

Berkley Street Theatre (26 Berkeley St)

Grimes mentioned below that I had a previous engagement last night. And he wasn't lying. He's no liar.

There's a pretty unanimous consensus around town about Festen: it's intense. Not just a little bit intense. A lot of yelling. A lot of swearing. A lot of taking off of clothes. It's an intense play. And pleasantly it's also a pretty good play. And that's a happy coincidence. There are few things worse than seeing a bad, intense play because you feel like talking about how shitty the play was somehow suggests that you don't care about the intense subject matter investigated. And that goes for movies too. Hated Brokeback Mountain? You must be a homophobe. Hated Crash? You must be a racist. Hated Starship Troopers? You must be a dirty no-good Bug. And that's unfortunate because usually when people hate movies (or plays) about intense subject matter, it's not because they shy away from the subject matter, it's because the movies or plays deal with that subject matter in a dull, blunt, careless way (example: Crash).

Festen certainly careens towards that sometimes. A play about some quite disturbing issues, set against a family celebration of the patriarch's 60th birthday, starts off very strong introducing a full cast of rounded characters (including, and especially, Nicholas Campbell of Da Vinci's Inquest fame). It's a WASP-y affair with much song and drink. That is, until the eldest son played by Philip Riccio (pictured above) begins to pull some of the skeletons out of the family's collective closet.

Obviously I won't go into plot, but I can say that each actor plays their role with exuberance and dedication and it is a pleasure to watch them all explore the corners of their respective alternate-personalities - especially youngest son Michael played by Allan Hawco and the father played by Corner Gas' Eric Peterson. 

However, the play itself feels a bit dated and stereotypical. The judgement of the WASP family is something that goes back as far as WASP-y families have produced writer children and sadly Festen fails to add anything of value to the cannon. While the actors approach each of their characters with the careful attention to detail the subject matter demands, the play leaps from one broad sweeping statement to the next, neither one particularly revelatory. The play left me feeling entertained, but unfulfilled. We have moved past a world of bitter black and white. If Dexter has taught us anything it is that the debate between good and evil is not easily settled in a matter of minutes. And while a full discourse on Good v. Evil may well be a bit beyond the 90 minute run time of Festen, an acknowledgment of the debate would have been much appreciated. Sadly it was absent, and as such, so were the deeper questions and emotions surrounding the plays emotional core.

Festen is playing every night at 7PM till December 13th. Tickets range from $20-$40. Only 40% appropriate to take a date to (especially if it's Mumford. That cocktease....)

Valkyrie: A review

Ok so last night i had the distinct pleasure of getting to see a movie well before its release date. Thanks to Alex Kitz, who through his contacts in the biz, scored two sneak preview tickets to Valkyrie starring Tom Cruise. However he couldn't attend due to a previous engagement, so he forwarded the tickets on to myself, and having no significant other to speak of, i invited the man known only as "The Comfort" to be my date.

So we showed up good and early cause apparently they give out more tickets than their are seats to ensure a full house. Mumf rocked a popcorn drink combo, while i chose a more conservative route and went with Glosette Peanuts and a medium Fruitopia strawberry passion awareness. The theatre filled up, 7p.m. hit, and so began Valkyrie.

Now i won't get too in deep in terms of plot or any of that noise. Because i don't want to ruin the movie for anyone. I'll just give a quick little summary of what the movie's about and what i thought of it. For those who don't know, Valyrie refers to "Operation Valkyrie", which was the name of a plan the Germans had in place for the activation of their reserve army in the case of an emergency. Essentially the basic plot, which doesn't ruin anything by the way, revolves around a group of high ranking officials in Germany's army. Many of which are very close to Hitler himself. Their plan is to assassinate Hitler and end all the atrocities being committed against mankind. Basically kill Hitler, seize power, and arrange a truce for the end of the war. Tom Cruise's character, Colonel Schottenhammel or something like that, amazingly i already forget his name. There's a lesson for you kids, don't do drugs. Anyways he is one of the leaders of this plot and it is his responsibility to pull off the assassination. I won't go any further than that.

Overall i'd give the movie an A-. I'm not sure why i don't give it an A. Because you know what, it was damn good. I enjoyed that the Director Brian Singer didn't try and make an overblown action movie out of the story. He didn't fill it full of explosions and gore or shock footage. The story was centred around the plan and strategy of pulling this insane operation off. It always helps when you know something is based on actual events aswell because you can sit there and be amazed that yes, in one form or another, this actually did happen! The acting is really good, and i kind of enjoyed the first scene of the movie, where at first they have everyone speaking in German and subtitles below, and then it morphs into English. Basically it's a weird little trick that says, "yes they are speaking German, but you're going to hear it in English". One thing that seemed a little overdone, was that any time any person was doing something, there would be like silence from everyone else and ominous music playing that suggested everyone knew what was up. Suspicious glances everywhere. Made me feel like if Tom Cruise was taking a pee, he and a guy in the next urinal would be eyeing each other up and down suspiciously wondering if the other one was going to crack him in the face with his dong. But i suppose towards the end of World War II, that was probably everyone's general mood for the most part, suspicious of everyone and everything, so it makes sense.

To finish up, go see Valkyrie, it's worth it for sure, it's not a movie you wait to see on TMN, cause it's a fine film, just don't take Mumford, he doesn't hold hands and refuses to pay for your snacks.

Internet Hunters

So i decided to post today on a topic i really only read about today. You see i was on cracked.com which is a stupid little internet comedy site that's actually not stupid at all, it's pretty funny! Anyways the article was about the "World of Warcraft" or WOW as it shall be known in this article. Essentially it was a list of reasons why WOW is worse than real life. Now i won't get into the WOW world too much but let's just say it's pretty intense. I mean i knew that video games were getting crazier and crazier, but this list still kind of blew my mind. Anyways #1 on the list was about online sex within the game. How the characters could strip down, and not necessarily make their characters have sex, but they could position them so that they were in sexual positions and then they would talk dirty to each other. So what does this have to do with internet hunting? Well they had a couple links to articles of what online sex in WOW had lead to. And i gotta say......WOW!

They had one instance of something that occurred in China. If you don't know anything about Warcraft, which i didn't until a couple hours ago, basically players form guilds and assume roles within these guilds. You could be a hunter, a priest, the leader....it all just depends how strong you are at the game and how long you've played, aswell as how much you've built up your character. You actually have to basically write a resume to get into a guild and they could string you along for months assigning you to menial tasks only to say in the end that you don't fit. Yes it's insane i know. Anyways this incident in China leads us to internet hunting. There was a husband and wife, and the wife had quit her job and basically just played WOW all day. The husband was also in the game but only cause he wanted to spend more time with his wife and he rarely actually entered the world. So she would play this all day and they had their own seperate computers. One day she was asleep and he went on hers to check his email. He noticed that she hadn't closed down WOW and he started reading her chat with the leader of her "guild". UH OH! Turns out she was having an affair with this guy. Possibly just an online affair too. It remains to be seen whether or not she had actually met this guy in person, but from the sound of their conversation it was entirely possible.

This is where the internet hunters come into play. The husband was none too pleased and publicly posted a message in a WOW chat room about what was going on. Then the crazy world of WOW took over. People started hunting down the guy in the game to try and get at him. The majority of his guild turned against him, and hundreds, then thousands, then tens of thousands of gamers heard about the story and rose up against him. And then, in a mass protest of his actions, they organized a mass suicide......within the game. Where they all killed off their characters. It didn't stop there. Several of these gamers, or as i like to call them, Meganerds, decided to try and find out the guy's true identity. Which they were eventually successful in doing. They found a picture of him, they found his home and cell phone numbers, where he lived and where his family lived. He was bombarded by phone calls, emails, and people even harrassed him in public so much that he was forced to barricade him and his family in their house and not come out. He left school, and chat rooms went nuts with emails being sent to every possibly company they could think of with his picture and details of what he had done and urging them to not hire this man. Some of the messages went so far as to suggest that he and the woman he was adulterous with should be "beheaded" or "put in a pig cage and drowned." The husband of the woman eventually tried to come to his rescue and tried to rescind his claims of an affair but the harassment continued none the less. Was the affair morally wrong? Oh hell yeah. But this just serves as an example of the power of the internet. Especially in China where many people have become completley addicted and now when you enter an internet cafe in China you have to show identification in order to use a computer.

Another example of internet hunting that is slightly disturbing came from a video that was posted also in China. It was of a Chinese woman holding and cuddling with a cute kitten. She eventually puts the kitten on the ground, and uses her stiletto heel to impale it through the eye and then crush it's head. Sorry if that's a little graphic but that's what happened. Truly disgusting i know. However once people got wind of this video....well cue the internet hunters. Several decided to take it upon themselves to figure out who this woman was. They made an internet "Wanted" poster featuring her picture and what she had done and began to circulate it. Someone recognized the park she had committed the vile act in and responded. So once they had the locatoin it was only a matter of time before they discovered her identity. Turns out she was a nurse, and the guy filming was a DJ or something. Anyways both were found, and both were exposed, fired from their jobs, and eventually basically run out of town. Neither were charged with any crimes however because in China there are no laws against animal cruelty.

So we can all have our opinions on internet hunting, whether it's a good or bad thing. In both these cases the people in question had both been up to some unsavoury activities. But it is a little unsettling when you see how truly powerful the internet is. Especially with some of the pictures i have up on facebook! Already looking forward to coming to work someday and walking in and seeing a huge blown up poster of me wearing a women's bikini while my boss stands there and says, "Eric......we need to talk."

Any opinions on the matter? Cause i'd sure love to hear 'em!

Books That Fill Your Pants With Shit - A Response

I am not impressed.

Walter Greyhound is a GuestBlogger on The Chronicles of Gritz. He also contributes to Spin, Details, New York Magazine and gives suggestions on Amazon as DarwinLVR72

Books that fill your pants with shit!

Today i'm going to discuss a topic very near and dear to my heart that i sometimes take flak over. Scary books. Horror novels. Whatever you want to call them, i love 'em. And it's always the same sort of reaction you get from people when they ask you what you're reading. "What book are you reading right now?" "Oh well i'm reading "IT" by Stephen King." Then their faces sort of show slight shock and maybe even a little fear and they find a way to get rid of me. WELL FUCK YOU! I mean what is this stigma attached to horror novels? Why is it that the crazy old abo Julien Favre can be completely obsessed with the Saw series of movies and no one bats an eyelash, but i mention that i like Stephen King books and people seem to think i'm going to cut their faces off and wear them as masks? I mean i can pretty much guarantee you that people that have read "Catcher in the Rye", have killed a hell of alot more fellow human beings, than those that have read "Cujo".

The beauty of a horror novel is the fact that the writer can actually scare you by using your own imagination against you. He has to be able to make you see what he sees in your head, and doesn't have the ability to rely on shocking your system with a quick scene change to a guy in a mask holding a knife. He has to be able to rely on a slow buildup. He has to be able to set the mood and accurately describe the environment in which the action is taking place. He has to describe every detail vividly without going overboard and losing his grip on your suspense. Not an easy task. Horror novels are also quite different from their movie counterparts. You're not really going to be able to read a book and all of a sudden scream or throw the book against the wall.

Now i'm not trying to knock horror movies in anyway. While i may not see Saw V opening day like Favre, i do enjoy the occasional horror flick. Jaws is one of my favorite movies of all time. I saw the movie Scream on my birthday back in the day and thought it was entertaining as hell. And even movies short on plot and high on gore can be a good time just to see what the hell new ways a director will come up with to knock people off. (Re: Turistas, Hostel)

So now i'm going to give a few suggestions to people for books to read if they enjoy horror novels, or have never really tried reading one. This isn't to seem like a pompous asshole, they're just books i loved. First off is the one i'm re-reading right now, which is "IT" by Stephen King. I read this book probably ten years ago and didnt' remember much of anything about it since my brain is mostly full of malted hops and bong resin. (Tommy Boy) And i gotta say....wow....just so good. Probably his best. I mean in terms of fear factor how can you really go wrong with a demonic clown named Pennywise? The book takes place, as all his books do, in Maine. You follow a closeknit band of "losers" at two different time periods. When they're 11 and meet Pennywise for the first time. And again when they are in their late 30's and have returned to face him once again. The book regularly flips back and forth from each of the two eras and does not focus on a singular main character, but rather each member of the group in turns. It's a long book, 1078 pages to be exact, small type too. But well worth it.

Another beauty which i've read countless times is also by Stephen King writing under his pen name of "Richard Bachman", and is called "The Long Walk". One of the main reasons i loved this book is for the mystery involved in it. You're never quite sure what year it is exactly, or why what's taking place is happening, and even more importantly why it's accepted. It's almost as if you are being lead to believe that you are already living in this world and know what it's all about. I know that sounds strange. Basically the book starts with a group of 50 kids that have all received "the invitation" in the mail. They have all showed up, because you are lead to believe that being invited to the long walk is a huge honor. It is the most prestigious event in the country every year and is lead by a man known only as "The Major". I personally picture him as Sargeant Slaughter. The mystery of just what the hell is going on is what leads you into the book. Soon you realize that these fifty kids are going to take part in a yearly competition known as "The Long Walk". The rules are simple, they start to walk, and they keep walking. They have to maintain a certain pace which is closely monitored. If they fall below the pace they receive a warning. If you get three warnings....BLAMO! Last one left is the winner and receives the ultimate prize which is constantly hinted at but never explained. It's not an unbelievably clever book, but it's high on entertainment and is one of those books that you end up flying through. For the most part it takes place in the head of one of the walkers and it is interesting to see how King delves into his emotions as the race continues. Either way it's awesome, check it out!

I realize this is too long already so i won't give long descriptions of any others. However other great scary books include Firestarter by Stephen King obviously. About a little girl with incredible mental powers. The Historian by a girl i can't remember about Dracula and him being alive in present times. And Different Seasons by Stephen King, which is 4 short novelettes in one book. 3 of the four novelettes were made into movies, and you know them as "The Shawshank Redemption", "Apt Pupil", and "Stand by Me".

That concludes my little chat on horror novels, i'll understand if you avoid me next time i see you.

Off The Trail

Just Palin' It Up

You'd be right to point out that American Thanksgiving is coming up this weekend anyways - so in that sense, perhaps Sarah Palin is giving us all insight into cruelty towards animals in America. Or perhaps she's showing us that nothing goes with the slaughter of a turkey better than the new Starbucks Mocha Ginger Frappaccino. I guess we may never know.

No matter how you cut it though, the look on the turkey farmers' face kind of says is all. "Are you actually filming this?" And the timing is almost impeccable, the synchronization with which she finishes her first answer and he finishes with the bird is almost way too good.

On the other hand, you have to give Palin a whole lot of credit. Any Governor can show up at a Turkey Pardoning (a traditional activity in the US) but it takes a media GENIUS to turn it into an international fiasco.

If anyone is wondering where they've seen this before, FFW to 4:28 in the below video. It may jog your memory...

What a Weird Day!

Ok so this is going to be a quick little blog, but i just wanted to talk about two events yesterday, neither of them are super over the top make you scratch your head and say "huh?!" But at the same time they are not typical Wednesday occurrences.

Ok so first of all, there is this homeless guy who sits out in front of my building in a wheelchair everyday. He's a really nice guy, i've never seen him drunk, he doesn't yell at people, and alot of the people in the building have conversations with him sometimes. So every so often when i've got some loose change i send it his way. Anyways i was walking by him yesterday and he was all smiles and just starts talking to me. Here is a verbal account as best as i can remember from our exchange.

"Hey man you might have seen me yesterday sitting here playing with a watch?"

"Actually no i didn't see that, but why what's up?"

"Ok so yesterday i'm sitting here and i bought this watch off a crackhead for two bucks!"

"Oh yeah, nice, seems like a good deal, was it a nice watch?"

"Well that's the thing i bought it and I immediately went to a jeweller to get it appraised."

"And what did he tell you?"

"Well at first he told me that it might be just a knockoff, like a five dollar watch or something. But he couldn't find it in any of his books or online or anything. So he told me he'd hang onto it and find out for me. So i called him again today and he told me to come in. So i went in and you'll never guess!"

(He is literally busting and can barely talk at this point, he's so goddamn excited. He's almost trying to say words faster than his mouth can process them. And he has a little zip up pouch in his lap. And he points at it. I can't see any money in it, but i can see a little orange ticket, about the size of a business card with stuff written on it.)

"I can't see that man what does it say?"

"6500 BUCKS!"

"WHAT!?!?!"

"Yeah man, 6500 bucks it's worth! See look!"

(Again he points at the ticket, and sure enough it's a jeweller's card, with the amount written on it! He starts laughing when he sees the shocked expression on my face. At this point i consider knocking his wheelchair over and stealing the ticket)

"Man that's amazing! Congratulations, there's your meal ticket for a long long time!"

"HAHAHAHAHAHA I know I know! I'm going to go into the welfare office and when they give me my cheque i'm going to say, NO THANKS! I DON'T NEED IT! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAHAHAHAH!!!"

"Hahaha, ok well hang onto that ticket, don't take it out of there, and don't let it out of your sight!"

"I wont man, i'm going to get it tattooed to my body!"

"You also realize now that you told me this, that i'm never going to give you any change again!"

(He has a good laugh at this, i again congratulate him on his good fortune, and head back inside)

So there you go, not your typical Wednesday afternoon story as i said, but you gotta feel good for the guy, i mean sure it sucks that someone out there lost a 6500 dollar watch, but if you have a watch that's worth that much, you're probably not strapped for cash, and the guy didn't steal it, he bought it off some "crackhead" as he put it. So hopefully he puts the money to good use.


My second story is not nearly as interesting, not even close actually, and will take maybe 30 seconds to write down. But again it's one of those things you see maybe once a year or so. After my hockey practice with my company team yesterday, i was walking back to my apartment from my car in the snow. Head down, not really paying attention, when all of a sudden, "CRUNCH!" I quickly turn around and a car had been trying to parallel park and somehow hadn't seen this other car behind him and backed right into the driver side door on an angle, and scraped the shit out of it and put a mighty dent in the door aswell. Myself and another younger guy were right there, kind of looked at each other, muttered a few, "oh shit that sucks", but we both kind of stuck around to make sure the guy didn't take off or anything. The guy got out of his car, and had one of those looks on his face that says, "Why God? Why me? Why now?" He said to us, "don't worry guys i'll take care of it," and got back in his car to move it out of the middle of the street. I turned to the other guy who was lighting up a smoke and asked him if he was going to stick around a few minutes to make sure the guy didn't take off. He said he would, and i trudged back home.

So there you go, 2 things you don't often hear or see, in one day.

The Tittie Pipe

Dexter

Sundays, 9 PM EST, on TMN

I have been fortunate enough to have watched Dexter from when it first started. I don't really remember my parents ordering TMNOD. But they did. And it was a great gift in a number of ways, not the least of which was that I got hooked right off the bat. Which is not to say I'm better than late-comers (though that's likely true). It's just to say that I've known Dexter for quite some time.

And oh the difference familiarity makes.

Last night's episode was, at least according to it's script, about the butterfly effect. About one little action setting off a string of equal reactions which, given time and circumstance crest into something bigger than you could possible imagine. And that was certainly true in Sunday's episode. Give a man a kill, and he's satisfied for a day, teach a man to kill and he can murder for a lifetime.

Other blogs have said that Dex is stupid to be sharing his carefully laid out system. I don't think so. I think he is lonely. Or rather, I think he may be stupid, but he is first and foremost lonely. He needs someone to know his darkness. He needs someone who can understand him rationally. For a man with no emotions, being loved for the sake of being loved is an odd idea. The rational mind would dictate that he must be loved for his true qualities. And he aims to have his new Best Man know those qualities. Even if they are shown in intermittent flashes of his psychosis. 

But I would say the minute to minute of this episode, while totally fucking awesome, was less important than the bigger questions of morality which, when dealt with in a subdued manner are dealt with better here than on any other show on TV. Because really Miguel isn't doing anything worse than Dexter. Is Dexter born with it? Is that why it's alright? Is Miguel just doing this to further his career as a lawyer? Is that why he seems so evil? Does it really matter?

I brought up how long I've been watching Dexter because I think it holds some weight in looking at the bigger moral questions. We, as loyal viewers, have all become complacent to Dex's murders. If he doesn't murder, we almost feel gypped. That is because we know him. And so it is interesting to see Dexter creating a new version of himself. Someone who, in theory at least, follows the code (or some of it). Someone who knows the practical aspects of it all. And yet someone who we cannot root for. 

The remainder of the plot has been derided as a bit of a foregone conclusion. Miguel murders the defense lawyer, Dex has to murder him, all is well that ends well. But I'm not so sure that is the case. I'm always excited with Dexter plots, so I will just say this: I am excited for whatever happens from here on in. But I'm mostly excited for the bigger questions that will be tackled here - namely, can Dexter find some kind of justification for what he does. Or will his half pulling him toward good and normalcy and his half pulling him further and further towards his darkness pull him apart completely?

In side story news:

Worst line of the week: "Trimmed trees! The skinner's been here!!" But on the bright side - the fear in the perp's eyes about his boss suggest that they're finally hunting a bag guy that isn't a serial killer. I mean, honestly, if there are that many in Miami alone, it kind of takes away from Dexter, doesn't it? regardless, Deb chasing an evil drug-lord (or something to that effect) is a good call. And while it could risk the B-plots going into CSI-like territory, I think the character of Deb can help steer it away from mediocrity.

Also, Angels' getting laid. Awesome.

The Monday Screw (cont'd)

So Grimes loves to tell hilarious stories from his past, but I've got a few too.

So around February of 2008 we were all heading down to Costa Rica for a little surf trip. Now this story happens to start with a little screw right off the bat: I was going down a week early, taking a full two weeks off of work and getting in a shitload of trouble for it, but it was worth it because I was going down with a good friend Mike Sackville. 

Sackville even made us change the date we were going down so he could come along. And that date was changed without anyone blinking! Well worth it to have ol' Mikey boy. Anyways, all the other gents were going down a week late, but Sackville and I were going to chill and surf and have a good time.

Did Sackville end up coming down? Oh lordy day no. So I ended up heading down to CR with nothing but a tent and sleeping bag and board for the week, waiting for the rest of the crew to show.

So naturally, looking down the pipe at a week alone, I decide that the night before I fly I should have a few drinks with the boys. 

Now back in February, Jimmy Doug Stevenson lived with us and he and Tym Frank and I used to frequent a place called Molly Bloom's on Thursday nights. $3 pints and $3 grilled cheese sandwiches with fries. And man alive were those sammiches ever fucking good! So for my last night for a couple of weeks, Molly's seemed like a good choice.

So right after work we sauntered down. And we called up some more peeps too. So by the time we were drinking, we had a good booth sized group carrying on in revelry with us. Included in that group was a lovely young woman who I was attempting to woo at the time. But that's neither here nor there - for now. So as we're consuming more and more booze and all having a good time, suddenly through the front doors come the Budweiser Air Crew (essentially just a bunch of hot babes in stewardess uniforms giving out free beer). And you'd better believe they wanted us to drink more. And so we did. And it was good. And in fact we all drank enough that by the end of the evening (closing time, around 4.5 hours before my flight was to depart) this young woman, this apple of my eye, was sufficiently inebriated to find me attractive enough to come home with.

Mmmmmmrack-POT!

Sadly, I was sufficiently inebriated that I could not physically express my affection for this young woman.

How can I put this... Whiskey Dick? Yes, that will do quite nicely. So I was a useless hunk of bastard. I passed out and around 6 hours later awoke with a splitting headache in an empty bed about 4 hours late for my flight. Shit.

It had departed. Long gone. I had fucking missed my flight.

I leapt into a cab and burned rubber to the airport. Explained that I'd been in an accident on the highway and missed my flight. They kindly put me on the next one out - the next morning at 6:45.

So I went home, licking my wounds and before falling back asleep I hoped online and posted the story you see above on Grimes' Wall (back then we were all about the Wall. And then this happened... and we had to curb our usage...).

And that was the end of that. I flew out to CR the next morning, had a great time. A week later the boys came down. And we all had a great time too! Good times all around!

When I returned I was tanned and happy. Happy because of the trip, but mostly because that little bitty I was hitting on before I left was still somewhat interested in me! Magnificent! So one night we're talking on the phone. I am likely whispering sweet nothings when she asks, "so what do you know about Facebook?"

"Facebook!! Well, you have come to the RIGHT PLACE! What do you need to know?"

"Well, you know Walls right? How many people can see a wall?"

"That depends on your security settings I guess... But pretty much just the people you know."

"Okay."

"Why?"

"Well, for example, when you wrote about us trying to have sex... How many people saw that post?"

"Oh... oh good lord...."

"Yeah... maybe in the future you can refrain from using my name and the word 'whiskey dick' in the same sentence?"*

"Uh, yeah, I think I can do that..."

It turned out that someone, someone who knew both Eric and I, someone who may or may not have been from Oakville, someone who I would have trusted had seen the post and immediately brought it to this young woman's attention. Man alive did I ever eat shit for that one. And no doubt that getting turned in for that posting was the biggest screw I've ever had put on me in my entire life.

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*editors note: the wishes of the young woman were respected from that day forth. That is why at no point have I insinuated in any way shape or form who that woman is or used her name in the same sentence as "whiskey dick"