The Cheeseblog

Yesterday, the bc NDP opened up a big can of whup-ass and the bc Liberals were the deserved recipients. Look: there they are, crying in the corner of the arena like the Weepo Losers they are. Eat It, gordo. And wash it down with a stiff one because you are going to need to be very, very drunk for the next few months.

The Liberal candidate, Mary Polak was soundly defeated in a Surrey by-election by NDP newbie Jagrup Brar, in part because, as the Globe and Mail reports:

A family feud also surfaced during the campaign. Ms. Polak’s mother-in-law, Elsie Polak, campaigned fiercely for the NDP.
“She has hated my guts for a long time,” Mary Polak told a reporter.
“This isn’t about the NDP. This is about hating Mary.”
Retorted Elsie Polak: “Mary is more focused on Mary and not much on the people.”

Bam! That must be a fun family dinner at Christmas.

Turns out that you can roll cheese in England. In fact, it is an extreme sport:
The rules of the game are simple, you show up, you chase cheese off a cliff, you tumble for a couple hundred yards, then you go to either the pub or the local hospital.

They offer sensible advice: “Although there is a safety fence to separate the spectators area from the course, it is not uncommon for spectators to be injured in this event. In 1997 one of the spectators was hit by the cheese and was sent tumbling down the hill and required hospital treatment – so stay alert and keep an watchful eye on your children.”

Good. OK.

Then, these folks in Cambridge, MA offer some equally sensible (though awfully wordy) advice about cheese, AKA ” The Mysterious Marvel:”

“Don’t forget the wines. The confirmed wine lover is, by nature, a philanderer among cheeses and soon finds no food that better prepares the taste buds for the appreciation of subtleties in wine than does cheese in any of its myriad manifestations.”

(Don’t forget to check the “Puppy Cam” link at the top. )

Speaking of elves, here’s a band called Elf Power! They have to be good because the guy in the middle looks like John Cusack. And here’s one called Magic Elf! Even if their album’s title was not “Heavy Meddle,” I would adore them. Because they are elves and dressed all in black and they are a Power Trio!

Plus, I found some instructions on how to create really teensy ELF executables for Linux.

There. Something for everyone.

With the exception of friday night, when my exhausted mind could not conceive of a more appropriate thing to eat than 8 pieces of pizza, I have had no cheese for 20 days. This means I have beat last year’s record of 17 days. Sort of – if you count Friday, it’s exactly 17 days again, but I don’t count Friday for many reasons, not the least of which is because on Friday at about 11 am, my face started itching. Why? Hell, if you can think of a reason, I’ll give you my left kidney. I figured if I was itchy anyway I might as well have beer and if I was going to have beer…well, you know how that party goes.

We’re moving in a week – my body had better accustom herself to beer and pizza in a hurry.

Currently I am surrounded by boxes and disassembled bookshelves. I love all my books and I don’t want to get rid of any, but I have managed to pick out a few to toss towards charity:

The Guide to Foot Reflexology (this is hard to do on yourself. I’m just saying.)
The Real World of Canadian Politics (has never, not once in the past 10 years been at all interesting. Did start me drinking coffee, but ‘at’s a different story)
Outtakes: Devotions for Girls (a joke birthday gift from a friend to whom, to be fair, I once gave a dancing hamster that sings “The Good Old Hockey Game”)
Great Love Poems (containing a predictable amount of Shakespeare and quite a bit of Walter Savage Landor. I had never heard of WSL but I think the greeting card industry has taken quite a bit from his oeuvre:

Proud Word You Never Spoke, but You Will Speak
Proud word you never spoke, but you will speak
Four not exempt from pride some future day.
Resting on one white hand a warm wet cheek,
Over my open volume you will say,
“This man loved me” – then rise and trip away.

ahem.)

Modern Canadian Plays (Mmm. Modern like “Billy Bishop Goes to War.”)
Psycho-Cybernetics (belonged to an ex-boss)
Do It! (Let’s Get off Our Buts!) (got halfway through but – no really – gave up. Way too many exclamation marks. It made me feel like a sun-bleached slug on a dead end road.)
Awaken the Giant Within (found on a bus bench, took as a sign, hated almost all of it. Makes me get Gowan in my head.)

Off they go, then. To greener libraries than mine.

To Sum Up:
Five: more nights in this house,
Four: more bus and skytrain rides downtown,
Three: giant plastic bins yet un-filled,
Two: more pieces of white melamine furniture to give away, ditch somewhere or set on fire,
One: more garbage day (aiiii!)

OH! Th’other day, some guy S. Aardvark works with? told him that Nickelback has done a cover of Super Bon Bon by Soul Coughing. And it’s true! Yack!

Like someone said about “Karma in the Life,” (go to the Samples page), which is Radiohead v The Beatles:

“It makes me feel, um, uncomfortable.”

1. Your powerfully written letter requesting “real change” and “accountability” gains credibility in leaps and bounds if you do not use the “comic” font.

2. You know it is Friday when you wear red shoes to work and when you turn on your radio, the first song you hear is “(the angels wanna wear my) red shoes.”

3. Office people get very cranky when they have no water to drink (oh except for the water that comes out of the forty-five assorted taps. That’s poo-water.)

I like it when people use pants in a derogatory fashion, like “your new haircut is pants,” or “Gordon Campbell’s attempt to erase the last four years of assholery by reducing our sales tax by half a percent is PANTS!”

But of course I do like pants. I wear them almost every day. So how can I have only two pairs of pants, both black? I like them both but I will get a reputation if I continue to wear black pants every day. I need: chocolate brown corduroy pants, plaid pants (this is my first fall without plaid pants and it is proving harder than I expected), maybe some grey pants and also I need to hem the left leg of my awesome pinstriped pants because the alligator clip that was holding the hem up got lost in the laundry and now one leg is substantially longer than the other.

It was easier when I couldn’t afford more than one pair of pants.

But look: coloured money! Available at a Bank of Tim Horton’s near you, and later, at an actual bank, where money belongs.

Why do we need coloured coins? (Why are they at Timmy’s is a question for another post) I agree that we should commemorate our veterans and our fallen soldiers each and every day and hey! we could concentrate our efforts on creating fewer veterans and fallen soldiers, while we’re at it, but I just don’t understand the logic of spending money to make fancy coins. All those art coins from a few years ago and the provincial coins from more years ago and the updated picture of the queen – all that spoozle really annoyed me. C’mon! It’s money. It’s meant to pass through your hands quickly, allowing you to have the things in life that you require and desire. You’re not meant to hold onto it, fondle it, save it, take it out of its fancy storage and gaze at it lovingly. Not the actual coinage, anyway. RRSPs aren’t made of coins. Nor is ING, though I recommend them heartily for your orange savings and loan.

I think I will put every poppy quarter I get in a special piggy bank and when I have enough poppy quarters (so hard not to type “poopy quarters,” yet another post), I will buy the best pants in the world. They will be year-round pants, not just for November or summer or International Pants Month (no, there isn’t one, but there is no pants day, May 7). And every time I wear them, I will think generally good thoughts about veterans and soldiers and ordinary people and all of you, too. Even you who like Tim Horton’s coffee.