Wurd!

It's Black Friday in the US, which means that it's a time where people go a little crazy and maybe get a bit stressed out.  Why not take a load off and learn some new vocabulary:


Snackle- verb. (Snak-el) To settle for a snack you don't really want but you're too lazy to get anything else.  I snackle on bananas a lot because they're easy and involve no cooking.

Santa-ist- noun. (San-tah-isst) A person who is overly enthusiastic about Christmas.  These people often have overly elaborate decorations and wear ugly Christmas sweaters non-ironically.

Waking up on the wrong side of the dick- verb. A crankier version of waking up on the wrong side of the bed.

Amazish- adjective. (ah-maiz-ish) When something makes you really happy but you don't really care all that much- eg. When you hear that they're doing a reboot of a cartoon you loved as a kid...it's great...but it doesn't really affect you.

More Shit I shouldn't have to explain

Ok, so there are some basic life rules that some people just never got the message about.  If you are guilty of any of the following, please a) stop it and b) talk yourself out of the gene pool.

Stopping in the middle of a sidewalk or hallway will get you shoved out of the way.  Move to the side if you've stopped to check your phone, you're lost or you just want to look at something.  If you are stationary in a place that is obstructive, do not be surprised when someone gets upset or, like me, hip checks your stupid ass out of the way.

Not everyone works Monday to Friday 9-5 or works night shifts etc,  Therefore, when you're out in public or at home having a loud and raucous time, there is a good chance you're ruining someone's rest.  This is the basic principle of not being a dick.  Not everyone lives your lifestyle, so don't impose yours on others.  If a neighbour asks you to turn your music down at 9pm, they aren't necessarily just a jerk, maybe they work the graveyard shift and you're ruining their sleep.

Being a parent doesn't make you a better or worse person than other people.  Just because you have kids and I don't, do not act like you're better than me.  The world is overpopulated and all you did was make it worse.  On the flip side, just because I didn't have kids, I am not better or smarter than you and if I start acting like you are dumb for having kids, smack me.

Driver picks the music.  As the shotgun position passenger, you are the driver's assistant, you do not make the choices.  If you are sitting in the backseat, you have no say in anything at all- not even bathroom stops.  You sit there and shut up and help the driver.

Do not post all of your issues on social networking.  Nobody needs to know every intimate detail of your life.  If I needed to know that much detail about you, we'd hang out more rather than be passing acquaintances on a website.  Picture, general stuff etc is fine, but I really don't care that you just woke up, what kind of sandwich you had or every relationship detail between you and the latest love of your life for the month.

Low crotch jeans make you look stupid.  I don't care if they are fashionable, they make you look like you crapped in your pants.  I will not take anything you say seriously while I'm busy wondering if you don't know how to dress yourself or if you've suffered a sporadic rectal prolapse and that's why your crotch is between your knees.

Left-wing people hate being associated with SJW's and feminazis just like right-wing people hate being associated with the Klan and Trump.  Extremists of anything give the rest a bad name.  Not all lefties are pothead hippies who think everything is offensive and think everyone should live on a commune.  Not all right wingers are racist homophobes who sleep with their sisters and have 4 teeth.  Stop assuming everyone is a worst case scenario.

I'm so tired of being tired

"Chronic fatigue syndrome is a complicated disorder characterized by extreme fatigue that can't be explained by any underlying medical condition. The fatigue may worsen with physical or mental activity, but doesn't improve with rest." - Mayo Clinic

Ok, now try explaining it to people.  Here are 99% of the replies:

"Maybe you should exercise more"
"You're lucky, I can never sleep"
"Sounds kinda lazy"
"Have a coffee"

Yeah....no.

Do you know that feeling you get when you are deeply, bone tired?  The kind of fatigue you feel after you've been swimming all day, in the sun, had a few cold beers and your body just wants to crawl into bed and sleep for 18 hours?  Now imagine feeling that way all the time.  I mean ALL THE TIME.  It doesn't matter if you just worked out for 3 hours or if you just woke up in the morning after a good 8 hour rest...you still feel that tired.

That energized feeling of a good night's sleep or an invigorating workout?  That never happens.  EVER.

You want to read that book?  Good luck, within half an hour you'll be snoozing.  You want to marathon a show?  Why bother, one episode in and you'll be zonked out.  You wanna hit that workout?  Ok, but your body and brain are gonna fight you the entire time and you don't get that energized feeling afterwards.

I developed CFS after a very nasty bout of mono in my early 20's, it lasted nearly a year, I was hospitalized with multiple internal infections (kidney, liver, stomach etc) and nearly lost my spleen to a rupture.  Most people think of mono as the 'nap' illness that makes you sleepy for a few weeks; not knowing it can be very serious and have permanent effects. As one person put it 'damn, you didn't get mono, you got stereo" 

 It's been over 10 years, and trust me, I've tried it all.  Caffeine, weight loss, sleep aids, naturopathy, red bull all day, sleep timers, exercise, prayer...I've tried.  I find I get a lot of the same reactions to be chronically fatigued as to depression...people have had a peripheral experience with the feeling (sadness, tiredness etc), so they feel the need to offer their own 'helpful' suggestions as though they 'get it'.  Would you comfort a suicidal person by telling them to 'cheer up'?  No, because the problem obviously runs deeper than you understand.  So the next person to tell me to go to bed early, exercise or have a coffee is going to get a beating...after my nap.

Don't get me wrong, I know it can be hard to know what to say when someone tells you that they have a condition, a problem or something of the sort- your first instinct when presented a problem is to think of a solution...but I urge you to refrain- just saying 'dude, that sucks' is preferred. Chances are the reason I'm telling you about the issue is to offer a reason as to why I didn't attend something, am leaving early or fell asleep on your shoe at a party before the first beer; so I'm not expecting you to have a solution- just give me a pillow and keep it down.

"She loves her sleep"...ya, and diabetics sure 'love' their insulin....fish 'love' to be in water instead of air..."she loves not being stabbed by a murderer".  Yes, the fact that I have to sleep a lot means that I miss out on things, but I was lame when I was an insomniac, so I feel kinda even on that end of things.  

Let's also face it, getting older certainly isn't helping either.  I remember when a hangover was a minor inconvenience for an hour until I could get my hands on some greasy food- now, a hangover lasts 4 weeks and requires divine intervention to stop the pain.  The impending Canadian winter doesn't bode well either; the long dark nights, the abhorrently cold weather, the long work days as the year winds down, all of these things make a snooze on the couch sound even better than normal.  I guess what I'm saying is that I need a fountain of youth and to live in the tropics.  

Until that happens (lookin' at you lottery tickets), I just have to cope with being tired of being tired.  I keep hoping that in one of my many dreams, my subconscious will think of the cure (by which I don't mean I wish I could dream of Robert Smith in his eyeliner).  

Rant over. Nap time.

A Geek's Guide to Being a Leafs Fan

A new life form has been born...the hockey geek.

Long has there existed the belief that being a jock and being a geek are two circles on a Venn diagram that shall never meet.  Jocks and geeks are the age-old school rivals who never get along and are supposed to be polar opposites.  It's believed that a geek who loves Star Wars, Star Trek and Warcraft could never follow sports and that a jock who captains his football team would rather beat up a LARPer than join them.  The world, however, is changing; geek chic is in.  Thanks to things like ComicCon, Big Bang Theory and Bill Nye, the geek way of life is just as cool as the jock ever was.  The once clear lines drawn between these two social groupings is blurred- to the point where Fan Expo even has a sports section.  As one of these new era crossbreeds, it's easy to see apprehension on both sides, jocks and geeks alike are nervous to cross that boundary as there is a lot of knowledge to catch up on when you join a new fandom, be it the wizarding world of Harry Potter or the Yankees dynasty.

To help simplify for my fellow geeks who are eyeing the Leafs franchise with nervous interest, here is a little help in understanding the current state of affairs.

The Geek's Guide to Being a Leafs Fan

This story beings a long long time ago in a galaxy far far away...1917 Toronto.  The Toronto Arenas are born into a newly forming league called the National Hockey Association.  Due to an evil presence in the galaxy known as Eddie Livingstone, the team and the league underwent many changes, becoming the Toronto St.Pat's of the NHL from 1919-1927 and finally, the Toronto Maple Leafs of the NHL in 1927. A franchise is born.

We join the story in modern day. A New Hope.

It has been a dark age for the Toronto Maple Leafs, having only made the playoffs once since 2003-2004 season in which we were brutally knocked out by Boston.  We have not won a Stanley Cup since 1967 and our heroes have scattered.  Without a strong leader (captain) to rally around, the team finished last in the league in 2016 and it seemed that our Leafs were doomed to fall to the evil lord...Gary Bettman.

Gary Bettman, a man who looks like Gollum and the Count from Sesame Street with the voice of a hideous cross between John McCain and Fran Drescher.  Bent on the destruction of the Canadian hockey market, evil Lord Bettman has been corrupted by the American dollar and builds new franchises in places that hockey cannot live while leaving formerly blooming hockey hotbeds in Canada to wither and fail. Choking the life out of the Quebec expansion bid, adding to his desert arsenal with another laughable non-hockey city team, Lord Bettman sits atop his hockey throne blowing his nose with a Canadian flag and punching Canadian geese.

In the shadow of the evil Lord Bettman sits an old master, his glory days behind him but with much wisdom to share.  Master Shanahan looked upon the team with hope and has been meticulously forming and developing his Shanaplan to bring this team back to glory.  He called upon an old friend who he knew he could still trust and Obi Wan...I mean Mike Babcock, came to Toronto to coach.  Completing his Jedi council, Master Shanahan snagged his former master Mace Wind-Lou Lamoriello to be GM.  With a strong council united with purpose, they sought a chosen one who would be their beacon of light and lead the team into its new age.

And then it happened....

"With the number one pick overall in the 2016 NHL Entry Draft, the Toronto Maple Leafs are proud to select, from the ZSC Lions of the Swiss National League A, forward Auston Matthews."

 I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in...joy.

Matthews is one of the most highly touted prospects in recent memory- he's young, he's good and he's from Arizona whose desert landscape could, for all intents and purposes, be Tattooine. He will need time and a lot of training by the council, (I'm picturing Shanahan on Mattthews' back "Do or do not, there is no try") .  As we look to our new chosen one to lead our team to victory over evil Lord Bettman and to reclaim glory for Toronto and Canada alike. he cannot do it alone.  Together, with the roguish puck smuggler William Nylander and giant hard-to-understand Freddy Andersen, and the slight ewok-ish Nazem Kadri, this team stands to become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.

Unfortunately, at the moment, we're still in Episode 4; we need to be patient to get to the big finale.  I guess the original blowing up of the Death Star would be equivalent to making the playoffs again.  If you're looking for instant gratification and a Stanley Cup this season, you're lookin' in Alderaan places.  (*badum bum*)

So you see, geeks and sportos aren't that different afterall; we're all fans at the end of that day.  There are good guys and bad guys, there are plot twists and turns and interesting characters.  The NHL has orcs (Zdeno Chara), long bearded wizards (Joe Thornton), house elves (Brian Gionta) and a lot of pale Swedish guys who look like they could be Data-ish looking androids.  So grab a seat, let's watch a game together and see how this one ends.

A Woman's Rant part 2- Bras

I still remember being about 10 years old and wishing I had big boobs so that the boys would notice me.  Man, what a stupid kid.

Much like buying pants, buying a bra is easy for a lucky portion of women; the rest of us are simply doomed to suffer.  Even the name bra...short for brazier...sounds uncomfortable.  The only enjoyable part of a bra is how good it feels when you take it off at the end of the day.

Bras have been around for quite some time, over a hundred years in fact, so why are most of them still akin to medieval torture devices?  I'm sure if you told a man that he was expected to wear underwear that has metal wire in it to support his testicles, he would not fancy the idea of putting metal near his sensitive skin.  However, as women, the bearers of breasts, those mixed blessings that give nourishment to the young and provide entertainment for the slightly older are our closest comparison.  They are composed of flesh, blood, ducts, fat...namely, human material...however their natural state is deemed unappealing and they must be covered and restrained in bras.  Functionally there is some benefit...if you're over an A cup and have ever tried to run while bra-less, many risk injury to themselves and passersby.  So, every morning (unless it's a lazy Sunday), we lock and load our girls into the bra for hours of wear.

Bras come in many shapes and sizes, which is probably why the vast majority of us wear the wrong size.  We get measured for our first bra in high school and the first post-breast feeding bra after childbirth and that's about the only times we bother to ensure we are still the same size.  A bad bra is like having a self-inflicted wound that you willingly re-open every day.  The bra is meant to lift and support, so a bad bra does the opposite- it weighs you down and puts strain on all the wrong spots.  Thanks to my frontage, I still have massive back, neck and shoulder problems from years of carrying the weight incorrectly because La Senza hasn't got a clue how to make a real bra.  If you pay less than $50 for a bra, you may as well just go without and dislocate your shoulder preemptively.  Sure, many of them look cute, sexy etc...but 99% of them should be worn for an hour tops before you're actually doing harm to your body.  This is all assuming that you are among the proportion of women who need to wear a bra because they have breasts that are too big to go bra-less- which is <10% on average worldwide.

So since only <10% of women could consider wearing clothing without having to wear a bra underneath, can some explain to me why all fashion now makes it impossible to wear bras with the outfits?  I've previously described the most recent fashion trend as 'waifchella', which means that it all looks like it belongs at Coachella and would only suit women of waif sizing (aka half a toothpick).  This style trend also includes a lot of cut out tops, low cut, backless, super tight etc clothing.  None of this clothing actually accounts for any type of bra or breast support under the clothing.  Therefore, they are marketing 90% of clothing to a maximum audience of 10%....and people wonder why we have body issues.

However, if you're like me and you have a plumage that needs one of these bra contraptions, I cannot recommend a proper bra any more highly.  Find yourself a real boutique, not La Senza (La Crapza), not Victoria's Secret (whose secret is that they make terrible bras) and get yourself properly fitted.  Any professional couturier will tell you that those chains mentioned above do not measure you properly- they will simply give you whatever size they want to sell you, not what fits you.  A well-made, well-fitting bra and change your life.  It will make you look 10 pounds thinner and 5 years younger.  You will stand up straighter, you will feel less pain in your shoulder and back and you'll notice how clothing fits better.

So ladies, take care of your girls, because the bra may never be a girl's best friend, but we can at least try to make sure they aren't our worst enemy.

May I Have a Few Words

As the OED will still not take my calls, here are the latest contributions I've made to the slow death of the English language:


Affectionitis- noun. (ah-fek-shun-eye-tiss) a condition whereby people are scared of any human affection. They recoil when hugged and act like you're trying to kill them if you give them a kiss.

Blabberghasted- adj. (blah-burr-gast-ed). When you're simply shocked at just how much someone else talks without shutting up.

Bragestif- noun (brah-zhest-teef). The crumbs you find in your boobs after eating, especially something flaky, that you snack on when the meal is done and you're still sitting down.

Debrain- verb (Dee-brayn).  A reflexive verb for when you have mentally checked out and/or stepped off the train of thought.  Eg. "I would love to help you solve your problem but I've debrained for the day and am of no use"

Sayonara Strombo

The CBC has made some seriously questionable moves in the past few years in order to try to maintain its relevance and budget in a quickly evolving media world.  Some examples include the slashing of thousands of jobs, allowing the iconic Hockey Night in Canada theme song to be bought by another station, hiding their blatant knowledge of Ghomeshi's workplace harassment...and trying to revamp Hockey Night in Canada for a new, younger audience.

The revamp of HNIC consisted of a change of music, stage, personalities and technology, it was a full overhaul from the low-key tradition of the show which boasted a crazy old man in flamboyant suits yelling for 15 minutes about icing rules and anti-Russian sentiments.  The old Hockey Hotstove was so boring it would cause comatose patients to wake up just to change the channel. Unfortunately, the all-new was just that, all new.  It was like taking an 80 year old woman and putting her in hot pants and heels trying to make her sing Nikki Minaj and Beyoncé.  It's fine to update the classic things, but let's not overdo it.  Visually, the revamp was as garish as a cougar with a neon sign.  One of their main new show pieces was Canadian mini-celebrity George Strombolopolous (who we will henceforth call Strombo for obvious reasons).  Strombo was well-known to most Canadians, especially those in the 25-45 age range, the CBC new target audience.

Strombo started out on Canadian TV as a MuchMusic VJ; for those of you under 25 a VJ was a host on a music channel who talked about music and music videos...before YouTube made this possible for everyone to do.  He was handsome and knowledgeable, he hosted the Punk Show and seemed to have a cool edgy vibe that resonated with teens and young adults.  He was given his own radio show, another dead media form, but "The Strombo Show" prospered; showing he was more than a pretty Greek face and had charisma and charm as well as well-rounded knowledge of the Canadian, American and international music scenes.  He gained notoriety for this interviewing skills, reputable members of the music scene would actually seek out his show as he was intelligent and knowledgeable.  This lead to him being showcased back on television on 'The Hour", a late night talk show.  This was not a Leno or Letterman type show, it played more to his interviewing skills and was geared more towards his 'hip' vibe, with his gelled hair and skinny jeans, he was still aimed at the younger viewers in an attempt to get them interested in the world around them.  This allowed Strombo to extend his influence beyond the music scene and into pop culture, politics, current events etc.   His continued success on "The Hour" caused him to be brought south of the border to CNN, where they gave him a similar type of show, thinking that Americans would take to his hip youthful style that CNN vets like Larry King weren't as steeped in.  Unfortunately, although his show was (in my opinion) very well done and very intelligent, Americans just did not welcome the tight-trousered canuck into their hearts.  His stint on CNN ended after one year's brief run and he came back to Canada.

The CBC welcomed him back and excitedly offered him the hosting job of the iconic and beloved, but rating slumped HNIC.  A hip new host was believed to be exactly what was needed to get Canadians back on CBC for Saturday nights and through the far too long playoff season.

They were so wrong.

Strombo is a media man, he is intelligent, he is witty and charismatic. He is NOT a hockey guy.  He has never played even semi-pro, he has never coached, he has not spent time as a sportscaster, sports journalist or, judging from his conversations, really watched many games.  He is also a terrible actor (see his comedy hosting on Just For Laughs).  He cannot pretend to be a hockey guy convincingly, often coming off as well-suited for a hockey conversation as Donald Trump would be for a talk on foreign policy.  If there is one thing Canadians take seriously, it's hockey.  The average Canadian hockey fan could write you an essay on most topics without so much as glancing at Google.  They know a true fan when they see one, and they can spot a fish out of water.  Strombo just never fit in.  As boring as the Hotstove was, those guys knew their hockey and provided insight, analysis and ideas that fans who are loyal enough to not change channels during intermissions look for.  It's like any show that changes hosts- you can't just bring in the new guy because your network brass think he fits the target audience and will learn on the job.  Sports fans are fiercely loyal, sometimes to a fault.  We've proven that the age and hipster wardrobe are of no concern to us judging by the uproar that occurred when Don Cherry was at risk of not being renewed.  In 2016, with no Canadian teams to justify watching the playoff coverage, people all over Canada couldn't stand the 'new' style enough to watch, and the rating dropped.  It was a clear sign that something more was needed.

Oh Strombo, he tried, it didn't work.  It's not his fault, but it's best that he hike up his absurdly tight jeans and stick to music.  Ditch the poor man's Vegas-style set they have going, get rid of no nothings Kypreos and Healy who bring about as much insight as a pineapple with brain damage, and give us back Ron McLean.  Like it should have been from the start.  There's nothing to be ashamed of Strombo- I'm sure Dennis Miller would agree- sportscasting just isn't for everyone.

So, good luck Strombo, wherever you end up.  But seriously, take Glenn Healy with you...