Barry Bonds Memorabilia!

This 120cm ceramic one of a kind bad boy is currently available on e-bay. It took over 400 hours to make. Wow.

The Grind

Alternate Title: My Cockiness and Stubbornness Pay Off!

Last summer a co-worker of mine was very pleased with himself for having completed the Grouse Grind in 44:50. And he should be pleased with himself as it is an excellent time. I'm not sure why but when I heard his time I told him that I would be beat him. At the time I was running somewhat irregularly and doing not too much else. I definitely wasn't doing the Grouse Grind a couple of times a week. Soon after that, two friends and I actually did the Grind and I finished in just over one hour. It seemed my cockiness was perhaps unwarranted and definitely premature. A couple weeks later I did it again and finished in 57 minutes. But, I was still determined to beat the 44:50 time. I'm stubborn like that. The first time I did it this year, along with my two motivator pace bunnies, who, lets not kid ourselves, after the first climb of the season, stopped doing their jobs very effectively, I finished in 52:46. I let my co-worker know but I also let him know that I still intended to beat him. The next week I finished in 49:50 or so, then after a two week hiatus, 47:40 or so. All the while I kept my co-worker informed of my improvements and took joy in his realisation that I would in fact beat him. Because I'm like that. This is where it became a little complicated. When I time myself it is from the post at the gate to the post at the base of the stairs to the lodge. But my co-worker's 44:50 time was from the post to the rock clearing, which is a bit shorter than to the post. He timed himself from rock to post, did it in 37 seconds, so we gave him a very unofficial time of 45:27, with an asterisk beside it. Last week, I did the Grind in 45:29, so close to the unofficial time I could have claimed victory and no record book would have stopped me. Thankfully, my co-worker did the right, honourable and proper thing, which was too go out the next night and set a new personal best of 45:15 thus removing the asterisk and giving me a target. Finally, today, I finished in 44:41, which, in case you hadn't noticed, is faster than the original time I set out to beat. Next week, I may do the Grind again. Or, I may go out for beer and poutine. I can't really say. So, Rob, what do you got for me now?

Michelangelo Antonioni R.I.P.

Workplace Satisfaction.

Would it be wrong to quit a job because they ran out of coffee? Because we're out right now. And I'm not pleased. Not even mildly amused.

Ingmar Bergman R.I.P.

Pizza of the Day & Contest Time

Today's pizza has big chunks of tofu, red peppers, green onions, olives and a whack of garlic. Oh yeah, and Mozzarella and Parmesan cheeses. And, it's almost round. And there's dried basil baked into the crust. Which brings us to the contest. My pizzas seem to have been lacking a certain flair and creativity of late. I don't mean to say I haven't been enjoying them, just that they're lacking a certain level of excitement. This is where you come in: In the comments section make recommendations of new pizza ingredients or combinations of ingredients that I haven't thought of or tried yet. The only rule is no meat. I'm the judge so I decide who wins. The prize: I name the pizza after you, post it on my blog and you get the public recognition you so obviously desire.

Teutonic Efficiency!

Now, I don't wish to unnecessarily propagate stereotypes and I certainly don't wish to add to the rampant anti-Teutonic hysteria that is so fashionable these days, but I would like to tell you something of what it means to be organized and efficient. So, I was recently in Deutschland for a vacation. I woke up relatively early one morning, planning to take a train from Dresden to Berlin. When I got to the train station I bought my ticket but they told me the train may not actually go as there was a strike. Mind you, this conversation was all taking place in German, and my German is nicht so gut, so, that's what I understood to be happening. Sure enough, when it came time for my train to come and go, in the land of punctual trains, it didn't. After talking to some Deutsche-Bahn (the German train company) information people I learned that there was indeed a strike on but that it should only last a couple hours and the best thing would be for me to wait until it ended, then my train would come and I could go to Berlin. They gave me free coffee as I stood and waited and before too long, there was an announcement that the strike had ended and trains were resuming. The DB info people weren't really sure what was happening but kept me informed as best they could, even writing a message on my ticket authorizing a different route, should that be required, and finally when my train came they sent me to it and off I went to Berlin. Later, while on the train, there was another announcement apologising for any inconveniences caused by the 98 minute strike. It was at this point I did the math and figured out how late my train had actually been. The answer...98 minutes. Jawohl!

Slavin' for the Man!

I am going to do something tomorrow that I have not done in a very long time. I hope that after tomorrow I don't have to do it again for a very long time, if ever.
Tomorrow is a Saturday.
I am going to work tomorrow.
Yuck!

Grind!

2007 Grouse Grind Summit Series Leader Board after Day 1:

1. SB-52:46
2. PK-54:46
3. DKBC-55:20(?)

In the News...

And the award for the best headline ever goes too...

click

Pizza of the Day!

Today's pizza has jerk tofu, mushrooms, red peppers, green olives and green onions. Oh yeah, and some Gouda cheese too. Has anyone else noticed that I can't make a round pizza?

Breakfast!

Mummy!

Well now, this here news story is just plain weird.

Toronto FC

Canada's new and only MLS team, Toronto FC finally scored a goal today (three actually) at the fifth time of asking. It's good for them, I suppose, but bad for me as I was planning on writing about them going their first five games without having scored at all. They went and ruined that so I got nothing.

Divers Beware!

Mr. T weighs in on the subject of simulation in football.

Nicely Played!

Arsenal's 2-2 draw with Tottenham today means 2 things:

1. We need only 1 point from our final 3 matches to sew up a Champion's League spot.

2. Today is St. Totteringham's Day! Enjoy it.

Now, if you'll excuse me I'm off to the Whitecap's home opener in my spanky new 2006 USL Champions jersey.

Toots!

As part of my ongoing project to see as many of my ska and reggae favourites in concert as I can, I went to see Toots & the Maytals at the Commodore Ballroom last night. My concert review: Wow! Sixty one years old and the man still has it. His voice sounds just as good and soulful as it does on my recordings of him from the sixties and seventies. The audience was very much into the show, the Commodore floor was bouncing, and Toots knows how to work a crowd. "Funky Kingston" and "54-46 Was My Number" were two of the best examples of audience participation I've ever witnessed; for both he had us all singing, shouting, hopping and dancing. Those two songs, along with "Pressure Drop" and "Time Tough," and also "Monkey Man" for sheer dance energy, were the highlights of the night for me. I could have danced all night if he would have played all night; as it was I left the show sweaty and wired and very happy that I had decided to get my tired ass off the couch and go.

I Love You, My Weng Weng!

The second in an on-going series of entertaining videos of midgets from Asia:

The Doldrums or Mid-Table Mediocrity

This season has been a tough one for Arsenal supporters. Sure, there have been flashes of brilliance, a spanky new stadium, a lesser cup final and a view of great things to come, but for the most part this season has been a write off. Too many injured players, too many suspensions, too many early goals allowed, and way too many missed chances have combined to put us in the position of struggling to hold on to the fourth Champion's League spot. So this is what mid-table mediocrity feels like. And really it isn't so bad: If we're fourth, there are sixteen teams behind us. And even though we lost the Carling Cup final, sixteen or seventeen other teams won't play in a cup final this season. We expect more from our team, but that is because of the dizzying heights (yes, I said it) we've reached over the past decade. The last time we finished below fourth was 1996. Of the past ten seasons, only twice have we been out of the top two, we've won the league 3 times, the FA cup 4 times, 2 doubles, and played in a Uefa Cup final and a Champion's league final. Throw in an unbeaten season and a 49 game unbeaten stretch to boot, all the while playing some of the most attractive football around. But while Arsenal is experiencing this one-off (I trust) bad season, for the large majority of football supporters every season is like this or much worse. By the mid point of the season, most teams have almost nothing to play for, save for those far enough down the table to have a relegation battle on their hands. Chelsea who are currently buoyed by billions of Russian roubles are flying high, but before this run they hadn't won the league for 50 years. That means there are Chelsea supporters that if they started supporting the club when they were young boys, wouldn't have experienced the joy of being champions until they were well into their fifties. There are also football supporters whose teams will probably never win the league, yet they still keep going. And good for them, I say.

Cheddarvision!

Alternate Title: Why the internet is a beautiful, wonderful, and mysterious place...

I was reading an article on the Guardian website about some of the most boring webcams on the internet today and learned of what must surely be the cream of the crop. It is called Cheddarvision. The Cheddarvision website has a webcam that is focused on a wheel of cheddar cheese that is aging. It is aging. You can go to the website and watch a wheel of cheddar cheese age. That is even better than watching paint dry, which you can do at www.watching-paint-dry.com. If you're the impatient sort and don't want to watch a wheel of cheddar age in real time, you can watch the time lapse video of the first 3 months of aging here. It gets very exciting when someone puts a sticker on the cheese which later falls askew and then later still is re-aligned and so on and so forth . Also, I think at one point someone stuck a red clown's nose on the cheese. Everyone, even the cheesemaker, is a comedian apparently.

This has got me thinking of the webcams I could set up around my house. I could have the moss-growing-on-the-deck-cam. That would have been very entertaining last Saturday as I scrubbed some of it away. Or the dust-collecting-behind-my-bedroom-door-cam. Dust collection punctuated by me sweeping it away every few days. Or even the what-is-in-my-fruit-bowl?-cam. Right now, it has two navel oranges and two spartan apples. Two days ago it had an orange, an avocado, and a tomato. See the possibilities? I think the best one, though, would be, and this would take some fancy engineering and a tiny transportable camera, the how-big-is-the-cyst-on-my-eyelid?-cam. Yes, I'll work on that one.