Be vewy, vewy quiet...

A new poll released Tuesday suggests only a tiny minority of Americans - four per cent - know Canada is already their largest supplier of crude oil.

This is good. That's not the kind of information we want getting into wide circulation down there. Next thing you know, they start blaming us for high oil prices. An then..well, kablammo!

The soft underbelly of the crocodile.

Via Canadian Cynic I see there's a civil war a-brewing at Free Dominion (no link) between the dominant Christian/so-con "fags'n'fetuses" set and Team Fiscal Conservative. I point this out not because I give a shit, but because sometimes it's amusing to see how genuinely ignorant and stone crazy some members of the CPC's base really are. Go forth, point and laugh.

But don't stay too long. Shit loses its funny after, oh, 40 seconds, leaving you with nothing but the sinking realization that there really are people who's biggest concern in the world is what total strangers do with their genetalia. And that's just sad. Puppy sad.

Bring the noise

Attention: from here on out, all Oilers/sports-related content can be found at the new joint venture of myself and the Belfast Canuck entitled Todd Harvey's Moustache. All other snark stays here.

Eases the pain.

(Actually I'm just trying out this image posting business.)

The day after the mourning after

Now that that hockey business is over with, I can move on to talk about more interesting things.


Um.


Ah.



*crickets*


Soooooo...the UFA market looks interesting this year...

What happens when you lose everything?

You just start again. I sit here this morning, after arriving an hour late, last night a dark bruise on my memory, I don't know why I got as into it as I did. Maybe I just wanted to feel part of something bigger. And while it lasted, it was great, this feeling that something was happening. It was all a lie, of course, but our belief made it real. Today, life goes on, the childish silliness of it all shelved for another year. But I'll miss that feeling more than I will miss watching the games.

In the meantime, I'm trying to understand how to be gracious in defeat. It's a alien concept to me. Maybe its the overabundance of war metaphors used to characterize sports, but I don't understand how one is supposed to crawl from the wreckage, look up at the foe who vanquished you and thank them for it. As if the sting of the loss isn't enough indignity.

Meh. At least there's the World Cup, a spectacle I have no personal emotional investment in. Maybe its better to watch from a distance.

Wow.

Poetry.

Oh boy! Another hockey post!

Two things:
First: the lameness of the team's Cup run slogans. For the Oilers, it's "Get Electric!" which totally makes sense for a team named after a fossil fuel (I guess the alternate, petro-friendly slogan "Get Lubed!" didn't make it past the focus groups.) For the Hurricanes, it's "Whatever It Takes!” which is about as vague and pointless as it gets. "Whatever It Takes?" Would you punch your grandmother in the throat? Skull fuck a dead baby? Eat a gallon of lard? Crawl naked over a football field covered in broken glass and lemon slices? Look at Rod Brind'amour's face? No? Then I'm afraid, sir, you are not willing to do "Whatever It Takes!"

Second: the lameness of the coverage. The CBC is brutal. I don’t know if it’s budget cuts by the Conservatives or just incompetence, but MotherCorp can’t get its shit together. Improperly cued replays, drunken camera work and, worst of all, the execrable duo of Bob Cole and Harry Neale, who used to be pretty good but have lapsed into senility.
I'd tune into NBC, but I refuse to watch their coverage until they stuff a sock in Pierre Maguire's yap and then stuff him in a old refrigerator down at the dump. GOILERS.

Coupe du Monde

How fucked is it that Budwiser is the official beer of the World Cup? It's funny how they are trying to market it as some international beer, enjoyed by cosmopolitin people the world over. Like anybody from real beer countries (Germany, Holland, Belgium, Czech Republic, Canada and er...anywhere else but the U.S.A.) would touch the stuff.

I'm also sick of those Rogers commercials with the three dinks from Canada going to the World Cup. The chick is mad cute, though.

Germany is owning this game. Too bad they can't seem to score.

RED CARD!

Crossbar! CROSSBAR AGAIN!

GOOOOAAAAAALLLLLL!!!!

Game over. Poland hasn't beat Germany in football in 85 years. Not to mention that big loss in '39.

Huh.

I'm pretty astonished that I've had the TV in my office tuned to the World Cup for the bulk of the last three work days and the only comments I've received have been inquiries about whatever game is on. Sometimes, this gig is pretty sweet.

Waiting for a miracle.

Aw fuck. Some random notes.

* Jussi played great. The first 'canes goal was the result of some dodgy lateral movement, but overall, you can't fault him for the loss. He held them in it and he's probably the only Oiler who can hld his head high today.

* Pronger fucked up. I never thought I'd see those words, let alone write them, but there it is. The big man's giveaway, which led to the winning goal, cost the Oilers the series.

* Sergei Samsanov can get away with a no-look behind the back pass. No one else on the Oilers can, but that didn't stop them from trying, which cost them at least three quality scoring chances.

* At this point, it's almost worth taking two just to run down Ward, nor can I think of any better purpose for that meat sack on skates Laraques.

*Meanwhile, the PP stunk. Again. Has there ever been a team in the Finals that has had as many 5 on 3 advantages and faled to capitalize?

*The World Cup is the gretest spectacle in sports.

*It speaks volumes about the size and fervour of the 'canes fan base that they have to troll Oilers fan blogs to find others they can talk hockey with. They are also dirtbags.

*Tomorrow's a big day. Both Ukraine and Germany are in action, so I've got a 1 in 3 chance of someone I'm cheering for winning agame tomorrow. But with my luck....

"Rod Brind'amour has a face like a slapped testicle"

Go on, cry home to your mama. She waitin' for you.

Oh sweat you, now how you gonna act? Bringing that trash in here.

This is MY house!


GOILERS!!!!!!!!11!!!!1!!!!

Man...

It's one of those days where everything in the world seems to be designed for the sole purpose of pissing me off.

Well...

Today is one of the longest days ever. One can only replay the horid events of last night over and over so many times and engage in only so many blog debates over whether Smith or Conklin was to blame for The Giveaway (100 per cent Conks, BTW) before the madness starts creeping in.

But really: why didn't anyone tell me Liberty City Stories was out for the PS2?

Curses.

My biggest failing is negativity. It's not that I see the glass half empty, but half empty and full of a mixture of pus and cat urine. My pessimism has no limits: ain't no mountain high enough that we can't fall off of, break our spines and spend the rest our lives shitting in a bag. It may well have been this negative streak that drew me to the Habs and, later, the Oilers: two franchises with glorious pasts long behind them both teams come with high expectations that yield little results. Cheering for the Habs/Oil axis is a pessimist’s dream because chances are, in the end, your most dire predictions of failure will come to pass, and you will stand vindicated and defeated. Yet the history and tradition these franchises embody generates visions of success that fuel impossible hopes.

When the Oilers made the Stanley Cup final, I was, as usual, skeptical. Sure, the run up to now had been great, the team had an air of destiny about them, but it was too much to let myself believe. But when the Oilers jumped out to a three goal lead in Game One, a game they dominated from start to finish, the mask slipped. For a few minutes, I believed.

It’s only right, then, that the universe would punish me for my sins by making the Oil cough up four straight goals, injure starting goalie Dwayne Roloson (putting him out for the series), and install the worst backup since Andre “Red Light” Racicot to literally give the game away with under a minute to play. Fuck.

Now’s the time for rolling over. Now’s the time to call it done, for Carolina fans to break out the brooms and lube up the livestock for the victory party behind the barn. Right?

Well, no. See, I’m tired of disappointment. I’m tired of being negative. I’m tired of giving up. I’m ready to see this through, to fight to the bitter end, to rally ‘round Jussi Markkanen. I’m ready to believe. So come on, Oilers: don't let us down. Send the ‘canetards back down to the holler in tears.

Raisng 'canes.

So the Oilers will face the (North) Carolina Hurricanes for the Cup. I woud have preferred the Sabres (a long-suffering team from a city that may as well be in Canada), but in the ‘canes we gave an opponnent I can really work up a hate for. First, in both this year and in their previous Cup run (’97?), they ousted my beloved Canadiens to get there. Beating the Habs in the playoffs is a cardinal sin in my book: I spent the formative years of my life cheering against the Oilers (well, you can also blame my family’s knee-jerk contrarianism for that) just becausee they beat Montreal in ’82. Took me almost a decade and the total reversal of the local team’s fortunes to get over that. Second, the ‘canes are from Carolina, which apparently is not one, but two states in the Bible’n’Bush-loving American south, where the favorite sport involves cars driving around real fast. Blame a lifetime of “Coach’s Corner” for that brand of regional hockey chauvanism, but I just can’t get behind a team from a place where the only ice is in the mint juleps and who’s website has a section on hockey basics (“what’s an ‘icing?’”). So yeah, Carolina sucks and I’m not a big fan of their hockey team either.

That’s why I’m offering a large cash prize* for the intrepid Edmonton fan who makes the trek to Carolina for a game and gets a sign on TV. The catch here is hat the sign must read “"Dale Earnhardt sucks Hitler’s cock in hell!”



*large cash prize does not actually exist

An open letter to HRH Queen Elizabeth II

Dear Lizzy (can I call you Lizzy?),

Listen: I'm sure you're a nice enough old broad (goofy hats and ugly dogs notwithstanding) and I'm sorry your kids are idiots and you have grandkids who dress like Nazis. So don't take it personally when I say it would be pretty awesome if Canada replaced the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, er...Windsor with the House of His Royal Horndog Majesty, Prince Albert of Monaco. First, Monaco is cool. Nice climate, beacasinosasions: the perfect setting for international intrigue. Also, like Canada, nobody really knows or cares that it exists. As for Albert himself , well, his mom was Grace Kelly (who was smoking hot in Rear Window), and unlike Prince Charles, Albert is young, athletic (he competed in the 1988, 1992, 1994, 1998, and 2002 Winter Olympics for Monaco on the freaking bobsled team) and photogenic. Like Charles, Al is something of a horndog, but unlike Charles, Albert has Grade A taste in chicks, having been linked to supermodels Angie Everhart and Claudia Schiffer, as well as Penthouse Pet Victoria Zdrok. Dude's also sired not one, but two illegitimate children, wheras Chuck's kids are just bastards.

Now, I'm not amonarchist by any means, but I figure that if we're stuck with a useless figurehead, it's better that we have a figurehead who, you know, likes to party with hot chicks. And Lizzy, that just isn't you. Sorry. Now, if you want to keep doing the Queen stuff you do now, but without actually being Queen (which I suppose would just make you a batty old lady in a funny hat, but c'est la vie), that's cool. We'll let you a keep a car and maybe a footman or two. Now, don't know what kind of mumbo jumbo is required to make this switch, but if you could hook that up, that would be great.

Your less then loyal subject,

********

4:01 p.m.

One of the crappier parts of my job (other than the unrelenting boredom and overpowering sense of inertia) is when only one of our front office persons shows up and leaves one of us to answer the phones for the last 45 minutes of the day. And, since my office is nearest to the front, I usually draw phone duty. Now, my regular gig is tedious enough without having to field calls from people asking questions that are either completely unrelated to what we do here or are related, but completely beyond my ability to respond to. I usually end up directing all calls to the same branch, which leaves me wondering why we can't just direct all calls there in the first place. Most of the time I just feel like telling hem "Look, I can't answer your question. I went to community college. I am deeply unfulfilled. I am a living, breathing example of superfluous and inefficient bureaucracy. Would you like to leave your name and number so that someone who gives a shit can call you back?"

I must say, though: the one call I answered so far has been the only function I performed today that was even remotely related to my job. 49 seconds of work (including the time it took me to get up from my desk and answer the phone) out of 7.25 paid man hours is not an unusual statistical achievement for me.