I had to take a long hot shower before sitting down to write this.  I was covered with campfire-smoke, Off (mosquito repellent), sunscreen, weasel hair, cheese from Tim’s exploding smokies, and a variety of other unidentifiable grime and grease.  Fortunately, that can of beans I had for supper last night has finally worked it’s way out of my system.

In case any of our foreign Beer Buddies aren’t aware, Canada Day is a celebration of the day The Great Gretzky comes up from his fabled home in L.A. and gives hockey sticks to all the children who have been good throughout the year.  If they’ve been bad they only get a hockey puck in their stocking.  We leave out Big Mac’s and 7-Up for him to eat and some people will even leave out his rookie card in hopes that he might sign it.

Of course you could read about the “real” origin of Canada Day, but my reality is for more exciting.  Now if you’ll excuse me I have to slowly wean myself back to a mere six-pack of Blue Beaver before the week-end.  To all of our fellow Canadian Beer Buddies out there (you know who the four of you are), “Take off, eh!”

In a barely related topic, as many of you are no doubt aware by now, George Carlin went to that big Comedy Club in the sky the other day.  In honour of his memory allow me to present the seven dirty words you’re not allowed to say on t.v (or the internet; they’re both such great learing tools for our children).  Incidentally, I will be putting my own special spin on these:  Shite, Pee, Girls-pee-pee, Frak, Boy’s-pee-pee-sucker, Motherfraker, Boobies

So let’s all do our best to never use those words when we are on t.v.(with the exception of frak); because someone might think you have the mentality of a four-year-old.

Another thing that really got me excited was an add on the back page of one comic. It said, “Make someone love you for $3″. It seems that for the low, low price of three bucks you could get a Venus Love Goddess statue. It will apparently work wonders for you.

“When you want to make someone love you, see whether The VENUS LOVE GODDESS attracts that person to you!” “When you’re trying to pick someone up, see whether The VENUS LOVE GODDESS makes you unbelievably charming!”

This thing sounds absolutely astounding. Not only that but this company is offering a double-your-money back guarantee. I’ll bet that this will work better than that voodoo-doll I’ve been using lately.

I ran across the following video and I thought that anyone owns or used to own a teen-age boy and tried to engage him in conversation could probably relate to this. Enjoy, and stay tuned for future.

Million Buck Canuck really is onto something. You will not believe how easy it is to make a milion dollars in a year. Just check out this post, Something Moolah This Way Comes. He has a lot of great money making tips on his site.

Million Buck Canuck is also an amazing artist. I borrowed this pic from his post Gettin’ Ink Done!  Please follow the link for his description of his awesome work of art he drew up for his tattoo. I only wish I had half the talent of this guy. Soon to be millionaire and astounding artistic ability, all in one!

A little while back I ran across a blog out there entitled, The Rundown. ManoDogs (aka Harris Lynn) has also been collecting for…a couple of years and he has developed some very interesting views on the industry. Anyone who is a collector should really go check it out.

Now; if it should happen that you are not so much into comics, The Rundown has a wide variety of other subjects to offer as well. If you’re one of those American Idol watching people (I swear I’m not judging your taste), you might enjoy the post about David Archeluta and what sort of crazy scheme his father has cooked up. If you should happen to enjoy reading about total strangers’ medical problems, Harris has that covered. There are also posts about online bingo and what’s going on with Ozzy these days, just to name a few.  Really, there’s something for everyone over there.

Getting back to the important part though, Harris and I have been having a very amusing discussion about all of the continuity issues that are causing so many problems for The X-Men and poor Spidey (i.e. One More Day). You should read the initial post and then all of our comments.

So I urge everyone, whether you’re a Fanboy/Girl or just looking for some well written thoughtful pieces go checkout The Rundown. I gave ManoDogs a case of Blue Beaver Beer; if you tell him that Ernie sent you, he just might be willing to share (better hurry, they’ll disappear faster than Nightcrawler being chased by an angry mob).

On the week-end though, I was introduced to Maple Amber Ale from the Banff Brewing Company.  My first taste was quite brief, but it was intense.  I immediately overcame my shyness and took a second, much longer taste.  As I savoured it, I tasted a smooth, rich  creaminess not often found in beer.  Then, of course, there was the sweet flavour of genuine Canadian maple syrup.  There may have been a time when I said I would only drink beer flavoured beer; but let me tell you friends, after those two sips, I became one of the converted.

My first taste was slow and sweet and lingering and just a little shy.  My second taste was not.  When I found myself desperately yearning for another sample of the Maple Amber Ale; I ran over, grabbed it and downed took it hard and quick like some sort of wild animal.  Alas, our relationship was over all too quickly.  We both had to go our separate ways.  However, while I can seek comfort in the embrace of the Blue Beaver; I will be searching for my new maple lover ale.

Now, it’s not all that uncommon to find beer cans in the ditch (there are still a few dirty, filthy litterbugs out there), but these ones were still full. Almost as astonishing as that was the fact that they were close to 10 feet tall! I did a little bit of calculating (I asked J.D. to do it so I wouldn’t have to, but she was busy) and I determined that the owner of these cans would have to be somewhere between 120 and 144 feet tall.

I was seriously considering climbing up and getting into one of these cans, but then I thought, “What if I drown in there?” Then I thought, “What a way to go!” Then I thought, “What if the owner comes back and finds me in there? What do I do when I find a bug in my beer? I just fish it out then flick it off my finger as hard as I can without caring whether or not it lives, after all it’s only a bug.” Then I thought, “Well, maybe that’s not such a good way to go.”

So I just took some pictures of the cans to prove that I really saw them and then I drove off, thinking about what a great story this would make when I got back to the bar.

It was listed under “Miscellaneous Help Wanted”. Now, I know what you’re thinking (because the exact same thing occurred to me), “Hey this is a 100% legitimate ad for people (preferably girls) to sell liquor at the rodeo. It’s definitely not just Franklin trying to get girls’ phone numbers and possibly their home addresses if they apply with a resume.”

In my first couple of weeks at this job I was presented with a few challenges, most of which I won, and I just sort of took my time to understand the game without taking too many risks. Gradually, I was presented with more challenges, then I made some alliances and slowly became well-liked by my fellow castaways co-workers. I was able to survive a few eliminations and I even got immunity a couple of times.

It didn’t take me very long to become the leader of my tribe; and I survived many more eliminations. A little while back I became the back-up hunter/gatherer shipper-receiver for the whole island. Now after one more elimination, I have moved up another spot to become the head shipper/receiver. If this trend continues, next I should become the Jeff Probst of my job and then the Mark Burnett.

Outwit - well, if you knew the kind of people I work with you’d know that’s not even a little bit difficult to do
Outlast - the ladies will tell you how well I can outlast other guys
Outplay - I never play at work; ’cause work isn’t fun, work is work