It's all About Focus

With a new pool complex nearby, I've been taking the kids swimming quite a bit lately.

Now the problem with being a middle-aged guy (BIKINI) is that if you have eyes (BIKINI) in your head (HOTTIE) it becomes difficult to focus from time to time.

This can be problematic in that (NICE TATTOO) it is distracting as hell and hey I'm only human (BIKINI) and I've got to (focus focus FOCUS!!) on what (OOPS LARGE BOYFRIEND) I'm supposed to be doing here.

Anyway what I'm trying to say is that I'm there with my kids and I'm (SLEEPING ON COUCH TONIGHT) happily married and I don't mean to look but I have eyes don't I? Am I not a (CRETIN) human being?

It's not like I'm being an ogling pervert or anything. (LOOK AT THOSE! OH SORRY BUDDY).

It makes me uncomfortable (IS SHE TOPLESS? NO IT’S A BIKINI WHEW) that's all.

Anyway, there I was with the kids when I had to go to the bathroom so I got out of the pool.

For a change.

I can't quite remember what I was talking about just now (OUCH MY CHEST HAIRS HONEY). I'm so distracted these days (HOTTIE) what with work and all.

And here’s the other thing. Spouses have eyes too and you can’t tell me they don’t admire (PIERCING PLACEMENT) another guy’s abs any more than I happen to notice (BIKINI) in passing another woman’s shallow unimportant physical attributes.

It is hypocritical to think that it is only men who can admire from afar someone whose (THOSE REAL?) body shape is perhaps more tuned than one’s own (DISGUSTING FLAB) physical presence.

I think of it as admiring a work of art, really (DON’T STARE! DON’T STARE!)

You know my latest column was going to be really funny but now I've lost my (IS THAT A BUTTERFLY ON THERE?) train of thought. (FACE LIKE AN OLD BOOT BUT WHAT A BIKINI)

I was also going to talk about how distracting it is to drive past the local beaches (BIKINIS OH MY GOD BIKINIS AS FAR AS THE EYE CAN SEE! FOCUS! FOCUS! DRIVE THE CAR!!)

It is really (BIKINI) annoying to have to do this, but since I have to go to the office and back 6 or 7 times per day and I have to drive past the beach each time even though it’s 28 blocks out of my way (HOTTIE) I think it is really worth it (FOR THE ENVIRONMENT).

I wish I could remember what I was going to write about today. Huh.

Man my neck hurts.

Beater Logic

I put some oil in my car this morning, thus blowing my entire auto repair budget for the year.

When it comes to vehicular maintenance I have to surrender my man-card and admit I’m pretty useless. As my dashboard lights up like a Christmas tree I know some belt has torn or a vital fluid needs replenishment, but that’s about it.

Incidentally, if you put a vital fluid in the wrong hole, the vehicle will cease to function.

Beer in the radiator may be amusing, but it is apparently not good for the engines’ continued or long term operation.

It makes the beer taste dreadful too.

I have also discovered that warning lights are pretty much meaningless unless all of them come on at once when you stall at intersections. This can be embarrassing if you are taking your wife to the hospital, or if the vehicle is a police bait car, or both.

If mine doesn’t run then it probably means I’ll have to spend some money on it – how much being directly proportional to how little funding I have currently available, or how big a hurry I am in at the time.

Because I own it outright, I do not care if it gets dings in doors or anywhere else for that matter, and I haven’t washed it in many months.

This is all known as Beater Logic, a subject with which I am intimately familiar.

In the old days, before I got so clever, I used to actually pay to have the problems associated with warning lights fixed by a mechanic. Now I know better, so I just put large wads of chewing gum over the offending lights on my dashboard so as not to distract me or spoil my night vision.

My car was recently broken into but not really – I never lock it. The would be thieves actually re-arranged the rubbish to look neater. Toss out a few Tim cups next time would ya fellas? Thanks.

My first beater was a 1968 Dodge Cornet. Bugle. Something like that. Dodge Strumpet maybe.

Purchased for $900 at Prairie Shyster Motors in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, it was a real trooper with 4 doors, about 3 out of 9 cylinders actually functioning, and an awesome AM radio that changed stations by simply bashing the top of the dashboard, or turning a corner.

Corners were rendered even more interesting by manual steering that required about 27 turns lock to lock – helpful for my developing teenage musculature. It was like a massive ship where you’d start cranking the wheel over, and about 10 minutes of furious cranking later the bow would slowly start to change course.

The winterization process was straight forward though. I had to sweep out accumulated leaves, wire the passenger window shut, and place a piece of cardboard in front of the radiator. Henry Ford would have admired such simplicity.

I recall trying to change a flat tire on this beast and learning that, idiotically, Dodge lug nuts were threaded backwards until about 1972. When I thought I was loosening the bolts I was in fact tightening them – one of the more ludicrous automotive arrangements I have ever discovered (the other being the butt-ugly Pontiac Aztec of course).

I still remember the shrieking sound the lug nuts made as I torqued on them. It was almost as loud as the sound of the enormous rupture appearing in my groin as my pressurized innards tried to rapidly escape from my straining, taut young body.

This episode also taught me that WD40 could be used on something other than frying pans.

So if you ever buy a used car with bits of gum all over the warning lights, buy a selection of fluids at the gas station and relax. It is a fine cruising automobile and you got a screaming deal.

Oh, and gum loses its flavour after a few days so don’t even go there when you get stuff fixed. Trust me.

Vancouver Olympics Opening Ceremony

As memories of the Beijing Olympic Games fade to memory, I have to admit their opening and closing ceremonies were pretty good. Naturally, ones’ thoughts turn to “What are WE going to do?”

Inside sources indicate that instead of having a single guy run around the edge of the stadium like the Chinese did, our BC Place will be re-shaped into a huge Tim Horton’s cup and the entire crowd will get to roll up the rim. The world will win a donut.

This will be accompanied by an innovative government-sponsored multi-cultural extravaganza of dancers flitting about the field singing maple syrup-themed native music performed by Mountie fiddlers from Cape Breton, Anne Murray conducting.

Dignitaries will then enter the field - Gordon Campbell on the right, Prime Minister Stephen Harper negotiating the centre, and Stephane Dion, slightly left of centre and carrying English subtitles of his English translations, will be one step behind the Prime Minister. Note: this portion of the ceremony may change.

The President of the United States (and Mr. Palin) should be in attendance, although it is unclear if Secret Service helicopter gunships will be able to maneuver inside the stadium as they circle to prevent terrorist attacks. Plan on them circling to the left. The gunships that is.

Former President Bush will also attend, with contingency plans ready in case he goes to the wrong location, for the wrong reason, and doesn’t leave promptly.

Next, 26 school children, gaily decorated to represent the sockeye salmon run, will swim ‘upstream’ into the stadium. Plans are for thousands of kids to be doing this, but all the costumes may not turn up as forecast.

Enormous symbolic hockey players will then be lowered from the ceiling onto the field, their teeth falling out and transforming into magical fairies that will pull each other’s wings over their heads and artistically thump the crap out of each other, to the old Hockey Night in Canada theme.

In a bid to recognize regional culture, plans call for enormously bright lights to descend from the ceiling, with brilliant white duct work and fans emerging from the sidelines. Beneath this apparatus, a huge green plant will sprout and grow, like the world’s hopes and dreams. This ‘Growth Operation’ as organizers call it, will symbolize action on climate change and also upholds our province’s carbon neutrality.

Upon reaching full height, bags of this enormous plant’s leaves and buds will be distributed by colourful bikers to a crowd of snowboarders at the top of huge ramps.

As snow falls from the ceiling, these boarders will then ‘ski’ out of bounds and be saved by a multi-ethnic rescue team. This team will then align themselves with the dreams of the people of Vancouver and hurl the ‘out of bounders’ into an enormous, beaver-shaped wood-chipper.

When the athletes enter, the roar of the digitally enhanced crowd will be overwhelming, mercifully drowning out the sound of Rita McNeil and Celine Dion singing Ave Maria, accompanied by bagpipes.

Finally, the moment the crowd and the world eagerly awaits – the entrance of the Olympic torch.

A mysterious shape will emerge from the far end of the stadium. At centre field on an artificial ice surface, the head of the Canadian delegation, Trevor Linden, will shoot a flaming puck at the object, now revealed in all its glory.

There, burning brightly in effigy, is –

Jerome Iginla – the Eternal Flame.

Let the games begin!