Worth a shot

Screw journalistic objectivity - I am throwing my support behind a cause. There is an online petition to save possibly the best show on television: This is Wonderland.

Go sign it. Please.

(even if you don't watch the show, trust me it is totally worth saving)

Girls Rule!

Before today's impressive haul of four more medals, Canada had 14 and 9 of those were won by the women. Now that number is 13 out of 18. I don't know what this means, if anything, I just wanted to point it out. Canadian Girls Kick Ass!

Speaking of which, as I watched the games while eating breakfast this morning I was able to witness what was, at least in my opinion, the moment of the olympic games so far. Alberta's Chandra Crawford gave an awesome performance in the cross country sprint and got the gold. The 22-year-old had only won one medal in world competition so far and that was a bronze.

But it wasn't that she won a gold that was so great, it was seeing her reaction afterwards. She was jumping on the podium and smiling and her enthusiasm was infectious. I know nothing of sportsmanship or the thrill of competition and winning, but I think Canada's Chandra Crawford epitomized all of that today.

The obsession continues

I know who Duff Gibson is (and that he grew up in Scarborough), what the "team pursuit" is and why the Canadian women's hockey team is going to win the gold. That's because it's been all Olympics, all the time this week (well, as much as it can be when you have a full time job). I've been switching the station to CBC at the gym, going to www.cbc.ca/olympics at least four times a day, and when Erin and I were deciding to go for dinner on Friday I insisted the pub/bar/restaurant have a TV.

Like I said: I am obsessed!

But I am also curious about how some of these sports even get thought up or how one figures out that he is good at them. A prime example: skeleton (which we are good at having won three of six medals between the men and women's competitions). Are the elite athletes in this field the kids who had the cheap parents who wouldn't buy them a real sled, but rather they got stuck with the $3 sheet of plastic that is the "crazy carpet"? Are these the kids who got so good at sliding down the hill on that accident waiting to happen that they decided to do it head first and seeing as how they lived to tell about it they now find themselves on the medal podium at the olympics? Because really, I can find no other scenario that would tell you that this is the sport for you - go on, try it, you might just excel.

I also find the biathlon weird, but it's more so about the strangeness of having someone cross country ski for a kilometre or so and then deciding it might be fun to have them take a short rest and fire off a few rounds. Who comes up with these things?

I think it might be kinda fun to try and come up with a new winter sport - but, of course, only if it is something Canada would excel at...Maybe we could have athletes drink a few beer and then do something. Or snowmobile racing? Ice fishing? Winter diving?

Goodbye good TV

Those TV network types couldn't be satisfied cancelling just one of the intelligent, funny and quirky shows that I watch (and really, really like), no they had to go cancel two of 'em. Within two days of each other.

The CBC gave the axe to This is Wonderland on Monday after three seasons, while that network south of the border CBS only gave Love Monkey like three episodes before pulling the plug. Damn low ratings! These were two excellent shows people. I repeat - smart, funny and highly entertaining. You should have been watching.

...At least Love Monkey gave us Wayne, aka Teddy Geiger...

It's an honour just to be nominated

Will I be able to defend my (Ontario) reporter of the year title?

Who knows. It's just nice to be able to have the chance...(k, so awards don't really mean that much and they are fairly subjective, but the bonus that comes will them sure is nice.)

Let the games begin!

I don't play sports and I don't watch sports, but for two weeks every two years I'll sit glued to the TV watching the Olympics. I'll watch speed skating, cross country skiing, bobsled, moguls - just about anything, although it helps if there is a Canadian competing. I'll check CBC online throughout the day and read the sports section for the first time in 18 months.

Maybe I've just bought into all the Olympic buzz or maybe it's because there are so many individual sports and it's just the athlete against themselves. Either way it's addictive because I don't know who these people are or understand their sports, but that doesn't stop me from being invested in their performances (I was so happy to see Jennifer Heil win the gold in women's moguls live this afternoon).

Or maybe it's just cause during the last summer Olympics my obsessive TV watching paid off by me winning a spa vacation at Mont Tremblant with Olympic diver Emilie Heymans...

Double standard

I'm not a big fan of Belinda Stronach's, but the first thought that popped into my head when I heard Liberal David Emerson was now a Conservative minister was that his critics wouldn't be using the same language they'd thrown at her (dipstick, prostituting, whore - I believe were a few of them) and I think that thought was right.

(I kept that thought to myself - sort of - because the first time I shared it the response was, "not everything is about putting women down" or something to that affect and I got a little sensitive. Everything might not be, but I believed the language used to describe Stronach's defection wouldn't be the same used to described Emerson's and I was right. Unless someone can find the media reports I've missed...? I'd actually love to be proven wrong).

Hmmm, I wonder why women in this country don't want to run for political office...

Vegetarian funny

So I don't eat beef or pork (or any weird things like lamb, duck, venison...) and most of my friends are some form of vegetarian, but this little flyer is FUNNY! (We got it in the mail) If only all junk mail could be this amusing...

You can't quite see how funny it is from the full size, so look closer. Look at the pig (cow?) telling you it loves you and the chicken and her chicks who will pray for you (because you eat meat, I assume? And this makes you a killer!).

One question: who eats dolphins?

Feminist farewell

I actually gasped when I saw this on the ticker yesterday while watching CP24: "Betty Friedan dead at 85"

I must admit I knew much more about her contribution to the second wave of feminism when I first became a vocal and (slightly obnoxious) feminist in high school, now I just know she contributed a lot to the rights of women.

I bought "The Feminine Mystique" several years ago...maybe now I'll actually read it to honour her memory.

My two cents

I normally don't see movies because of "the buzz," but I made an exception this time around.

With all the critical praise and award wins/nominations "Brokeback Mountain" seems to be the movie to see. However, it was the reviews from two women I work with that pushed me over the fence. In one corner the young women who said nothing happens except "angry man sex" and who believes all those who say they like it really don't like it (or get it), but they want to be part of the crowd so they say they get it and it's wonderful. In the other corner a 66-year-old Catholic woman who attends church every Sunday and who liked the movie, even though she thought she wouldn't.

My verdict: it was moving and visually beautiful. Yes, nothing happens, per se, but at the same time the actors (mostly Heath Ledger, but also Jake Gyllenhaal) are able to convey love and longing, at the same time as the characters' shame and inner struggle. I normally don't 'get' arty, award-winning type movies. But I think this time I did and it was pretty good.

(Kudos also to the person behind the score. I hardly ever notice that aspect of a movie, but when there are this many scenes without dialogue it's hard not to and this one was good)

I have to learn how to say "NO"

Maybe I'm just a masochist or I have a really bad memory (nope, that's not it) - or maybe I just believe the best in people/situations and that things get better. I shouldn't. I was wrong to think that.

I agreed to be judge for the second year in a row of a student writing contest about diversity. Now I know what you're thinking, that this sounds like it wouldn't rank very high on the levels of hell scale. If you're thinking that, you would be wrong.

There are more than 200 entries. The winners are announced on Feb. 18. The judges decisions have to be in NO LATER THAN Feb. 10. That's right. I got a week to drudge through the crap not so good stuff to get to the top three. Not so good stuff like the kids who keep talking about how diversity is great because it means different kinds of food for them to eat and different kinds of music for them to listen to. And, maybe when you're 13 that is diversity to you. Maybe I am expecting too much of these middle school kids.

So far I've read 20 and already there has been entirely too much use of the word "coloured" (um, don't the teachers give a little lesson on diversity and whatnot before sending the little kiddies off to write these works of openmindness and acceptance). I also did not miss the Grade 8 student who used the word "bastien"...I'm thinking if he knew what it meant he'd know how to spell it.

Yes, this is what I'll be posting about for the next week: how very disappointed I am in the next generation and how they can't express themselves good. There will, of course, be the few shinning lights that make me resist the urge to pay a visit to the local schools and yell at the teachers and educate the students (I hope).

On the bright side, being a judge does create endless conversation opportunities where I recount excerpts from the entries to my friends and colleagues for my own amusement (I did this A LOT last year - used it as date/getting to know you fodder. This year new people will be subjected to it...and the few people who stumble upon my blog. Hello there. Please come again!)