Around this town: Clara Hughes, Blue orbs, and other things

It's hard to believe. A stunning event that you know is true because you're seeing it happen, but yet doubts linger in the back of your mind simply because it's so improbable.

I'm not talking about the Bombers beating the Tiger Cats this week, but the owners of the Boyd Building taking down their illegal electronic sign. I don't mind electronic signs in general, and I don't even mind this one, except that the very presence of the sign meant that the owners intended to reneg on their intention to build a taller mixed use complex next door and in the adjacent vacant lot that used to be a park, which leads me to believe that the proposal was nothing more than a ruse in the first place to gain control of the park for use as an illegal parking lot.

However, the fact that they actually took down the sign gives me a bit of hope -- not much, but a slim little ray of hope -- that the owners may sometime be convinced to do something about that ugly and illegal parking lot on Portage Avenue if the City were to push a bit harder. And by "something" I don't mean cheap plastic planters.

*****

During the recent Summer Olympics (c) a thread was started on the Winnipeg Zoom forum about doing something to honor the great Winnipeg-native Olympian Clara Hughes, now that it appears that her Olympic (c) career has come to an end (although I hesitate to write those words). "More than just a little park off Main Street."

Another great local Olympian (c) Cindy Klassen has a street and a fancy recreation complex named after her. Our civic and provincial politicians sprained their ankles racing to name shit after Jonathan Toews after just 3 seasons in the NHL, yet Hughes, one the greatest Olympians of all time, has a tiny park with a tiny little sign in her honour. 

I'm sure she doesn't mind, and she doesn't make Winnipeg home anymore, but it just seems a little out of proportion. 

UPDATE: I'm not sure how I missed this, but Regan Wolfrom posted about this a week ago. (I blame it on slo-pitch playoffs.) The Metro has picked it up as well.

*****

A drama unfolded in the local bloggoshpere recently. North end activist Michael Redhead Champagne, a.k.a.North End MC, posted that his sister was missing. This alarmed me and several others who spread the word on twitter, because, you know, the people who follow me on twitter are just SO likely to hang out at the places where an abducted Aboriginal girl would be. 

Then came this post: Dear Woman Beater. 

You are a snake. A poisonous snake. A coward. Spineless. A mindless predator. Ruthless. Systematic. Power hungry. You must feel like a big man when you hit women.

That's just a small sample of the post itself. You have to read it, but especially the comments. There is some pretty crazy shit there. Accusations of crack use, rape, child beating, etc.. things I would not feel comfortable about having on my blog. And then a dialog starts between commenters who claim to be the lost sister and her mother. It's a unique slice of social media there.

Anyhow, I'm happy to report that the sister is safe.

*****

Osborne Village will never be the same once Papa Georges is gone. Of the the great Winnipeg institutions started by Greek restaurantuers, Papa Georges was one of the go-to places for late night vittles after the bars closed. Moreso than the loss of Vi-Ann or even Movie Village, this will change the character of the area for me. PG's along with the Courtyard building across the street, mark the entrance to the core of the Village. The dense, quirky and pulsating mass of businesses that make the Village so unique.


You could see some signs. The building was looking worn in recent years. I'm not entirely surprised by this, but I do hope that whatever moves into that location will not be generic and mundane ... a franchise of a big US corporation looking for a high-visibility spot in a new market.

*****

If you go to Google Streetview in about 2 months and look up Bishop Grandin and St. Mary's, there's a good chance you'll see a dork on rollerblades holding up a cell phone.

That blue orb has probably scanned all of the chip information off my credit cards.

*****

That's Around This Town for today. 'Till next time ... 

Vote for Jon!

Only one day left!

On the anniversary of the 2010 Olympic games, CTV is having a contest for Canada's favourite Olympic 2010 Moment. Manitoban and general nice guy Jon Montgomery is in the running for his dramatic gold medal win, enthusiatic celebration, and iconic stroll through Whistler.

You should vote for Jon. In fact, it is your obligation as a Canadian (assuming you're Canadian, as most of my readers are.) Why? I'll tell you why:

Jon's victory was the turning point in the games. Prior to that, with only a couple of exceptions the games were filled with dissappointing results, broken Zambonis and other mechanical failures, melting ski hills, and gimacing Wayne Gretzkys stuck in traffic on the back of pickup trucks in the rain. After Jon's victory, with only a couple of exceptions, everything was awesome, and Canada walked away with more gold medals that ever before. Plus, he chugged beer on TV. In fact, his whole family chugged beer on TV. Even Jodi!

So ... VOTE NOW!

The winner will be announced on Sunday. Thank you.

Jon's great adventure

Jon Montgomery, Manitoba's own beer swilling Olympic gold medalist, had a good summer. He was flown all over the world by companies that wanted him to give a motivational talk to their employees, or cut a ribbon, or pose for a picture; and in the process he swam with great white sharks, golfed with Retief Goosen, travelled to Africa with Right To Play, and got engaged to his girlfriend Darla while vacationing on a tropical island.


He did more in one summer than I have in all of my summers combined. Somewhere in that whirlwind "off" season he cobbled together six days to film a television pilot for the Discovery Channel: Best. Trip. Ever. Here's a preview:



Go to the website to view bonus video and other features, but more importantly set your PVR to the Discovery Channel, Saturday at 6:00 pm ... because I know the kind of people who read this blog have way too much going on Saturday nights to watch TV.

(also on at 10:00 PM, according to the Discovery schedule.)

The Falcon Cam is back, and other stuff...

The CBC falcon cam is back in business for 2010.


Watch that little cheating whore Princess raise her chicks with her new young stud Ivy, whom she hooked up with after dumping her long-time mate Trey.

Women. I tell ya ...

Fun fact about peregrine falcons: they can dive at their prey at over 200 mph, making them one of the fasted birds on the planet. They also have a taste for human flesh.

****

Still on the subject of dangerous birds: what is the greatest threat to Winnipeggers? A: Geese.

"They can beat the hell out of you," warns animal behaviour expert Jim Shapiro, a professor at the University of Manitoba. He's taken a beating from a gosling's father during his research. "I was not paying attention and got hit in the groin."

I took Dr. Shapiro's course at the U of M (btw ... why is everybody named Shapiro a doctor?) and I am here to tell you that geese are not dangerous. Good thing too, because that would be pretty embarrassing:

person 1: Oh my God, you're missing half your face? What happened???

person 2: I got attacked by a goose.

person 1: A goose ...

person 2: Um ... I mean a legendary ninja warrior they call "The Goose" because of, ah, his freakishly long neck. Ya ... that's it.

Professor Shapiro used to bribe us with higher marks for helping him round up and weigh his angry and dirty geese on his goose farm south of Winnipeg. (A large Canada Goose weighs 15 lbs. Most are 11-13 if I remember correctly. Nice size for a family dinner.) A goose does not have teeth, and does not have sharp talons for ripping your ear off. All it can do is beat you with it's wings which probably hurts it more than it hurts you.

So, unless you pick up the goose and hold it in front of your groin, I don't think you have anything to worry about.

****

Still on the subject of things without teeth ... have you seen the new Olympic mascots?


Hey kids! Come and play with the one-eyed monster! It won't bite ... I promise!

Own the podium?

About mid way through the Olympic games, I was afraid for the Vancouver Olympic games. I was afraid that it would parallel the opening ceremonies: splashes of brilliance here and there, but plagued with rain, technical glitches and below-par performances; and ending with a painful anti-climactic finish involving a grimacing hockey player. It started on day one, and continued throughout the first week: speed skaters not living up to expectations, sliders and skiers crashing and burning, and zambonies breaking down and spilling hot water all over the speed skating oval. Zambonies, fer Christsakes. Good grief.

Thankfully the Olympics are two weeks long, and, aside from Rod Black's worsening commentary (Game On! You've been served!!. Uh, Rod .. this is figure skating), week two was much better than week one. The zambonies worked, the speedskaters found their groove, and the medals began rolling in. A terrific last week, punctuated by a glorious win for hockey gold!

There was been much criticism and debate over the "Own the Podium" program: It didn't work, the money could be better spent elsewhere, the name is un-Canadian, yadda yadda yadda ... Look, those who expected Canada to get more medals than the U.S. were nuts. You're not going to do that ... they have 10 times the population and 10 times the money, and on top of that they have had a freakishly fortunate run in Vancouver. But sometimes you set the bar extra high to push yourself, and I think the results have been great. We have won more medals than ever before, more gold medals than any other nation in the winter Olympics -- ever, and twice as many as we won in Turin.

Should we continue the program? Absolutely. It has only been in place for five years, and has produced results. Corporate support might diminish, given that the next winter Olympics are on the other side of the planet, and the hype and exposure will be much smaller. But the governments should stay on board: the Olympics are a time when the country comes together, and national pride explodes. Having a successful Olympic showing as a country does more to crush separatist spirits in Quebec than any sponsorship program or fudged tendering processes for government contracts ever will. From a raw $ cost/benefit perspective it probably works out too in the long run. Kids get inspired to skate, snowboard and get active, leading to a healthier generation and lower medical costs. I have no proof, of course, but I don't doubt that it's true.

Though we had a good showing this time around, we have to keep pushing. Those damned Korean speed skaters aren't going to slow down, and worse: the Chinese are coming! Just like with their genetically modified "16 year old" divers and gymnasts in the summer games, the Chinese are going to breed a whole new batch of ice dancers and speed skaters. They're ruthless: the trainer goes straight to the delivery room, pushes the doctor aside, snatches the baby from the womb of the host, err .. mother, and heads straight for the lab where they spend millions of dollars turning it into a phenomenal androgynous athletic freak-star. The 2006 batch should be just about ready for Sochi in 2014, so we have to ready!!

GO CANADA!


also: Check out James' step-through of the closing ceremonies.

Congratulations Jon Montgomery!

Anybody Want A Peanut? would like to congratulate Jon on his Olympic gold medal.


You can proudly display that gold medal on your shelf next to the frozen turkey!

What? You don't have the turkey any more? Oh well .. that's ok ... I'm sure the medal will look just fine on it's own (or with all your world cup medals).

Festival du Voyageur, Olympics, Graffiti update

Happy Friday everybody!

The Festival du Voyageur kicks off tonight on Provencher Bvd. I hope to check out the Festival at some point this week. If you see somebody walking around with a dead fox on his head, drinking Caribou, that might be me! Come over and say "hi". If it's not me, then hopefully it is somebody equally friendly.

However, I will not be at the Festival opening ceremony tonight, because I will be watching the Olympic ceremonies on TV. I always enjoy the Olympics, but this year I have the added interest of being acquainted with one of our medal hopefuls. Jon Montgomery has won at Whistler before, so don't be surprised if he does well next week.

Here is a photo of Jon with his sled:


Here is a photo of Jon with a frozen turkey:

(don't ask...)

Something else worth checking out: The Waking Eyes are playing at the Forks tomorrow with Sierra Noble between 1pm and 5pm in a Olympic celebration of some kind. (I will not be wearing the dead fox if I go to that event.)

*** Graffiti update ***

You may recall my previous post on City of Winnipeg designated graffiti zones. Well ... turns out they are not official after all. Check out the story by Kristy Rydz in the Uniter.

“This is not an initiative that we are encouraging at all. It sounds like someone is just trying to spur proliferation of graffiti,” said supervisor of public service operations Bob Okabe.

That's too bad, because according to a separate Uniter story, the support for more graffiti is near-unanimous,

When we need to talk about graffiti, we need to distinguish between "artistic graffiti" and tagging. Tagging is never good. I, however, am a fan of creative artistic graffiti, but there is a place for that: like rail cars, bridge underpasses, and walls surrounding construction sites (not that we have any of those in Winnipeg). I do not condone any kind of graffiti on private business, or houses, or my car.

Anyhow .. I raise my glass of caribou and wish you a great weekend! Hope to see you around.

Oh please ...

Apparently there is a conspiracy going on with the Canadian Olympic logo ...

"Canada's Olympic Games belong to all Canadians. While it is clear that the Conservative government's multimillion-dollar infrastructure campaign is crassly partisan, can the prime minister at least stop trying to politicize the Canadian Winter Olympics?" Liberal MP Hedy Fry asked in the House of Commons. -oc-

If anything, it looks like this:

Of course, like lemmings, a bunch of other brainless opposition members jump on the supposed controversy as well. Here is a tip for the media: if Hedy Fry is talking about it, it is not worth paying attention to.

*UPDATED* Olympic Golf in 2016?

We'll find out tomorrow if they make the cut:

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) will announce a shortlist of two sports on Thursday and in two months’ time a final vote will decide whether they will be part of the Games programme.

Squash, rugby, softball, baseball, karate, rollersports and golf are bidding to make that shortlist which will be announced during the IOC executive board meeting in Berlin.

My vote is for golf, and here's why:

• It is a truely international sport. The top 20 men in the world golf rankings represent 10 different countries and 6 continents. The women's game is also very diverse, with the best player hailing from Mexico, and various Asian and European countries being well represented on the LPGA money list.
  
• It is a well established sport. It has been played competitively and remained popular for generations.
  
• Both men and women compete at a high level and attract viewers.
  
• New facilities do not need to be built. Any country that's properous enough to bid for an Olympics game will have a number of championship golf courses available. Aside from facilities for spectators and media, there would be no additional infrastructure cost.
• It is spectator-friendly
  
• It is an individual sport and thus will add fewer competitors to the games than a team sport would, reducing cost and strain on Olympic facilities.
  
• It is the only one in the list that I'm any good at, and therefore is the best reflection of true skill, talent and good looks.

If that's not enough to convince you, here are some of the knocks against the other sports:

• Team sports like rugby, softball and baseball are cumbersome, because a lengthy tournament schedule needs to be set, and a larger number of atheletes need to be accomodated. Team sports are also not consistent with the original Olympic ideal of individual achievement.
  
• Rugby and baseball are played primarily by men. As much as I may enjoy a good game of bikini football, I have a hard time seeing women's contact sports being played at a competitive level.
  
• Squash is played by accountants, and its not spectator-friendly.
  
• Karate is not needed because there are already enough marshal arts represented. Marshal arts do not attract much of an audience, and judging is sometimes subjective. If you are going to add one, you should get rid of another, like Judo.
  
• Rollersports? Are you kidding? What, like roller derby, or roller hockey, or X-Treme roller cross? Leave that shit for MTV.

In my humble opinion, the Olympics need to get back to basics, hacking off "sports" where judging is purely subjective, and fringe sports that nobody cares about. (You already know one of the sports that I think should get chopped.) Get the cost down so that hosting the stupid event doesn't bankrupt a country. At the very least, they should implement a one-in-one-out policy where new sports displace old sports, so the total package doesn't grow.

** I have added a poll to the sidebar to see what you think. Which of the 7 sports do you think should be added?

****UPDATE****
The vote came in and golf made the first cut, (along with rugby). Final selection will be in October.

If golf is in, you will see 60 competitors for each gender. The top 16 in the world rankings get in automatically, plus up to two more per county based on their ranking. Given current rankings Canada would have two men in there (Weir and Ames). No sure about women. Probably none. The PGA spokesdude expects that about 30 countries will be represented for both men and women.

EDIT: it is possible that Ames may choose to play for Trinidad and Tobago. I hope not, but he might. Wouldn't surprise me.

Speed Walking: The Olympic Oxymoron

So you won a gold medal in speed walking, eh? Well congratufuckinglations. I'll bet I can kick your ass at power sitting.

If I were in Jacques Rogge's shoes for a day, the first thing I would do is strike "walking" from the next Olympics, and here's why:

1. It's impossible to officiate. The walkers move their feet so quickly that even if you're looking carefully it's difficult to tell if they have both their feet off the ground for a fraction of a second. Over a 20km course, there's absolutely no way you can properly monitor all "racers". I am sure they cheat their assess off when they're in the middle of the course without any judges near by.
2. It's a poor spectator sport. Really. Marathon is boring enough, but this is like a marathon in slo-mo. Not only that, the racers look ridiculous. Imagine if you will, a worm dancing upright on the pavement. That's about what they look like.
3. It's a fringe sport. Very fringe. There are other fringe sports in the Olympics, like two man luge, but you need to draw a line somewhere.
4. The sport just fundamentally doesn't make any sense. If you want to get from point A to point B quickly, what do you do? You run! You don't fucking walk, you idiot.

If you're going to have a contest for who can walk fastest, why don't you also have a hurdles event for walkers? The racers will speed walk up to each barrier, and them climb over the barrier without jumping. To make it really authentic, you can give each racer shopping bags and hold the event in an Impark lot. That's something I'd be more likely to watch.

Quick Olympic thoughts

So here we are, well into the games and trailing Togo and Kyrgyzstan in the medal totals, with a grand total of, um, zero. Some critics may say that we need to train harder, spend more money, get our kids started earlier, etc.. Maybe, but that sounds like a lot of work. I think instead we should lobby the Olympic committee to expand the podium to include two more medals for every event. Those nickel and aluminum medals would really enhance our total, and our national pride.

And what's the deal here? In a country of 3.8 trillion people, they can't find a kid who's both cute and talented?

I can hardly wait for that thrilling speed walking event. When does that air?