I'm Sick of Radio Hosts

Where is Venus Flytrap now? What happened to the DJ? Are they gone forever? Did they disappear with Drive Ins - quietly, from neglect?

I'm sick of Radio Hosts and radio contests and little games. I'm sick of their tiny little playlists full of the same crap day in and day out. I don't want to phone in to win and I don't want to hear about the ever grateful that just won a general seating ticket to a $12 concert. I will not learn the "phrase that pays" or any other pathetic marketing ploy. I'm fed up. I can't take anymore of two talking heads bantering back and forth about shopping, social faux pas, and trivial celebrity news.

Sometimes they drive me to talk radio. But there are times when I just want to hear some music. I want a DJ. I want someone who knows what they are playing and cares about it. Someone who takes pride in what they do, has control over what they play, and is passionate about music.

I don't even mind the commercials. I know we have to pay one way or another. So please let me know if you know any good stations with DJs that I can listen to while driving in Vancouver.

Warning

Can there be any better advertisement? I often find myself late at night watching trash TV. Flipping aimlessly through channels looking for something to watch. I'm the sort of person who struggles against sleep. Drifting on the couch, achy and tired and wanting to go to bed seems preferable to actually going to bed.

Nothing on. Click. Nothing on. Click.

Then I see a warning. That's enough to stop me. And then I wait for it. The offense material. I think of it as a promise made. Does this really deter anyone? Who is offended by what they see on TV and why are they watching Showcase?

I wish I came with an advisory label. It would give less people grounds to be offended and would probably make me seem that much more interesting.

Evil Twin or Alter Ego?

This is my mother-in-law, Jane. Personable. Charming. Smiles a lot. You wouldn't think so if you've ever seen her running.

You see, Jane has an evil twin. I see her running all the time. She wears a red jacket and looks a lot like Jane. Well, except that she never smiles. She doesn't look as if she is grimacing from running, she just looks angry. I couldn't tell you why. All I can say is that, she won't smile.

Or at least that's Jane's story. She says she doesn't have a red running jacket and that if she saw me she would smile. She says she has seen her evil twin. But I can't say that I have ever seen them at the same time. Still, I was sure that she has been telling the truth.

But lately, I've been thinking. You see, Jane is a runner, but I never see her running - just the twin. Then I came across this photo and now I'm not so sure. I guess I'll leave it to you to judge. Does Jane really have an evil twin or just an alter ego?

Do You Mind Me Asking?

When people want to know how old I am, they just ask. When they want to know how old Donna is, then they use the magic words - 'Do you mind if I ask, how old are you?'

Just in case you are currently using this phrase with what you believe is impunity, you should know that it really is a short form for "I think you are old, but I don't know how old." Not that Donna isn't older than I am (eight long months I never let her forget), but no one seems to mind asking me how old I am. Funny, isn't it?

I guess, there are some things that you can't come straight out and ask. You have to make your way around them. Con it out of people. It is a social rule and a very Canadian one at that. (Confrontation is to be avoided whenever possible. Of course the notwithstanding clause is applied to all hockey arenas. You will notice that most balloting is done in schools and churches and not arenas. No mistake there.)

"So, did you vote yet?" That's the question everyone is asking today and I can't always tell if that is what they want to ask. Is it just a filler question, like 'how about them Seahawks?' or 'how's the weather in Vancouver, raining?'. Or is it really a different and more interesting question? Am I just being reminded of my duties or do people really want to know how I voted?

That's what I want to know.

How did you vote?

You don't mind me asking, do you?

M.I.A.

Have you seen this man? He's missing in action. I saw him last Saturday night. He was tumbling through a crowd chasing a certain girl. He was supposed to play hockey with me on Sunday, but he never appeared. What has she done with him?

If something dire has transpired, well I'm holding Donna and Laura accountable. They were after all the architects of his demise. It was those two who made the introductions between him and this certain girl. To be precise, it was those two who set him up on a blind date. Now, I've never been on a blind date and in fact, although I know they happen, I can't say that I've ever known someone to have been on a blind date. I've always liked the idea.

I guess I attach a more Hollywood romanticism to it than a TV 'reality'. (If TV reality makes any sense.) Why I think of Hollywood and not TV is a mystery to me, because TV is my only real experience with blind dates. By that I mean, during one of our pub crawls - the bicycle crawl for those who are keeping track - we stumbled across a taping of a blind date.

We were absolutely polluted by this point and stumbling is the most accurate description of our motor skills. When we poured into approximately our 14th bar, I noticed a big camera and searing bright lights shining on a couple. The lights and camera kept everyone at bay. Everyone except two of my very drunk friends, who boldly walked up and started chatting. I think they were trying to pick up, but to be honest I had trouble concentrating.

So when Donna and Laura started talking about setting our friend up on a blind date, I had nothing valuable to add. I also had very little in the way of expectations. I suppose that's not really true. I expected that they would meet and date a couple of times at most - maybe out of boredom or out of obligation - but that would be it. A couple of times, max.

What I didn't expect was that he would go M.I.A. The big man has been giddy like a school girl ever since and I for one must admit I like it. So here's to Blind Dates. And if you see my friend wandering aimlessly, with a giant grin, let him know we have a game next Sunday.

Ordinary?

What makes someone an ordinary person? I've just finished reading Camus' novel The Outsider - a frustrating book about an ordinary man who can't fit in because of he's too honest about himself. Its a book about being normal and what that means. Its also about judging others and how we do it. I didn't like the book the first time I read it, but this time I got all riled up about ordinary. So please forgive me as I rant.

Two nights ago, our perspective leaders made their pitches before a national audience and if we didn't know any better, it would seem that they were all soley interested in the ordinary person. Each of them told us they had a monopoly on insight into the needs, wants, and dreams of the ordinary Canadian. I don't know if I'm that ordinary person they are talking about.
On an immediate level, I feel like I must be. Sure I might be a little taller than Joe average, but whenever I fill out forms about myself with little boxes to check (age 18 and under, 19 - 29, 30 - 49, 50 - 69, 70 and over) it seems I'm checking them right down the middle. And yet I'm no senior, and I'm not poor, and well I'm not any of the people our leaders listed as the ordinary Canadian. I guess they think, despite my very average stats, that I am special.

It strikes me as funny that I'm put off by being lumped in to a great big mass called ordinary and at the same time I'm annoyed when I'm excluded from that same big grey lump. Do we all want these two things: to be ordinary and to be extraordinary, to be normal and to be special? And that's the thing with lumping people into groups - we don't fit.

But who doesn't know what ordinary is? Even Gilles thinks he knows the average Canadian or at least he knows that they aren't like him. He believes that the average Quebecer is completely different form the average Canadian, and that is what gets me riled up. Not him so much. Sure, I think he is wrong. I don't think you can find that average Quebecer anymore than the average Canadian.

Would the average Quebecer be a man or a woman? Would they be from Montreal or Quebec City or from a small town? Would they be a smoker, a liberal, an athlete, an artist, a salesman, a plumber...Would any of these things define them? When you find this person, wouldn't they be as unique and complicated as anyone else? They would be far too slippery to label as the typical anything or anyone. In fact, I believe there is more difference between individual Quebecers than there is between provinces.

But what gets me going is how we depend on this notion that I belong to this group and you belong to that group. We depend on this mythical sense of the ordinary person, a willingness to redefine ourselves as ordinary, as well as a willingness to define 'the other' as a homogeneous mass.

For Duceppe, English Canada is just one big lump. But how different is that from saying things like 'there are no guys to date in Vancouver', as a friend of mine likes to lament. We do it all the time, but imagine a city the size of Vancouver being devoid of any available attractive men. A notion that seems hard to imagine. Any city this size is filled with ordinary people, each one extraordinary in their own right. We just can't stand back and see it.

Don't we all want to make ordinary people extraordinary and extraordinary people ordinary. I certainly do. But sometimes these notions of ours just come undone. Take last Sunday for example. In England, a semi-pro soccer team called Burton Albion played the internationally renowned extraordinary Manchester United. The game finished a 0-0 draw. A team of ordinary guys took on a team of superstars and they held them off for 90 minutes. So does that make them extraordinary? Or were they already an extraordinary and just waiting to be noticed.

IMAX 3D

If you haven't seen a 3D movie at the IMAX, I strongly recommend it. A small group of us recently went to see the Polar Express and it was truly amazing. The story itself is heart warming and well done, but it pales in comparison to the visuals. The animation is outstanding and the 3D effects help suck you in. I had imagined that we would see two dimensional objects floating on different planes and some would jump out towards us, but what I got was a truly 3 dimensional world that felt full and concrete.
If that doesn't interest you, then seeing your friends in these ridiculous glasses might.

Cranium

I really dislike getting in the shower. I like showers and so once I'm in there, well I don't really like getting out. I'd like to say it is the getting wet or the change in temperature that bothers me, but firstly I don't really believe it and secondly I think it misses the point. There are just certain things I hate starting.
Sometimes I confuse my hatred of the getting going part for my feelings about the thing itself. Showers are not one of these things. I hate to admit it, but party games, like charades or pictionary, fall into that category.
So I struggled this New Years Eve against the majority and lost. I found myself playing a party game. And like many a movie about people my age, we were paired into our respective couples. (A dangerous tendency that likely employs a good portion of the marriage counseling industry) I'm often amazed at how the simplest answers will evade us and yet the same pair will leap to the impossible with ease. I remember years ago, my brother mystifying my parents by guessing an answer from a scribble and then getting stuck shouting out "Valley of the Dead. Valley of Dead" until time expired on Death Valley.
You see, I give myself away. I do enjoy them. There I've said it. But don't think that is going to make it any easier to get me in the next time that horrible silver tin of Cranium comes out. Sure, I get sucked in. And maybe I shout out an answer or three. But I still hate starting. Maybe it's the getting wet or the change in temperature.