My good buddy Kevin has let go with another rant in response to my earlier video post featuring a skit from This Hour Has 22 Minutes. In the video they expand on the growing fad of cloning popular TV shows such as CSI into various different cities with different casts. They take the popular show Flashpoint and do a send-off of it “Flashpoint St. John’s”. I thought the exaggerated Newfoundland accent and mannerisms came off as funny. Kevin’s take on it, however, was slightly less accepting. For those of you that didn’t catch it in the comments, here it is, in full:

Ya know what pisses me to no end?

Let’s start with number one. In all me days of living, scratch that, existing on the rock, not once have I heard anyone one say “Lard Tundering” or “Stay where yere at” and so on. It’s not that it’s never been said. I’m sure some poor sod has let part of it slip from time to time in a drunken stupor and not realizing that he is classing him or herself with the mainland equivelent of what’s taken for Newfoundland phrasing and dialect. Even in day to day conversation, letting go with a line, as what mainlanders have come to believe are some of the main catch phrases often heard in every port along our shores, like that would have the fella standing next to ya look at you kinda of funny and ask, “What? What da F*&% are you talking about, b’y?” No one I know from from any part of the Newfoundland planet speaks like that and what’s worse is now we’ve got a few displaced personages from our rocky shores (maybe) passing themselves off as the average day-to-day Newfoundlanders. These individuals are seeking to call themselves comedians, and with funding from the purses of the Canadian public pouring into the CBC, they’ve been allowed to put them on our airwaves, and subject us to the uncomedic ramblings of poor writing, the imagination of a fruitfly and the wit and wisdom of stale bread. I cannot find any jocularity in what these individuals call comedic sketches. This hour . . . and the bottom of the barrel cast are a true insult to all that is Newfoundland. They are as limp as a dish rag with a quick line and their approach to comedy leaves you savagely hunting for the remote in an effort to quickly change the said channel. What are we thinking letting these morons pass themselves off as “True Newfoundlanders”? If this is what we are now presenting to the world as a glimpse of what the common everyday variety Newfoundlander is like, then we’re in big trouble.
Not only would the unsuspecting mainland viewer take this a reasonable facsimile of what he might expect should he venture out of the confines of upper Canadiana to the shores of the far east, he would almost immediately think to himself that the Newfoundland idiot he’s been told that exists on these shores is most certainly alive and decaying at the same time. We have allowed these throwbacks to the whoopie cushion, to box us all together in a tragic farce lasting 30 minutes a week and growing and blanketing our combined faces to the viewing world, saying, “This is us, wadda ya think? Cathy Jones needs to find another line of work, the other just need to stop.
As sad as it is, the newfie joke, lately, has been on all of us.

Did I say that out loud?

The circumference of a large Tim Horton’s coffee is approximately twelve inches. The opening on the lid for sipping is approximately 3/4 of an inch. Then why, WHY, does the seam of the cardboard cup so often end up lined up perfectly in the center of the opening in the lid?

I bought two coffees today and guess what? The opening in the lids were lined up perfectly with the seam in the cup! Arrgh!!!

UPDATE: I’ve been told that the reason they do this is to line up the weakest part of the lid with the strongest part of the cup. That makes it least likely to collapse and potentially burn someone. Hmmmm.

Uhm, ok. So, I’ve been told. My good buddy Kevin, who apparently is a dedicated fan of my website, is sick and tired of my occasional “writer’s block” posting. By “sick and tired” I mean he took the time to write a lengthy comment on the subject and by “occasional” I mean every other post.

For your convenience, I’ve included his comment below. I’ve taken a couple of liberties and corrected Kevin’s occasional fat-finger misspellings.

I don’t know if this is actually a post.

It is, on the other hand, an affirmation of neglect to the site, of which I am a fan, and now that you’ve undoubtedly found a calculator to do the math, maybe we could continue in the same vein and figure out how long you’re gonna take before you realize that there may be more like me out there, waiting, biting at the bit, for a little or a lot more than you’ve given us. Producing and maintaining a site like this takes on another role of responsibility than that of it’s upkeep. The responsibility is to the readership and or viewership, whichever you prefer, of the site. The poor sod, not unlike myself, who routinely takes the time to check in is more often then not, eager to become involved in the antics and happenstance of what the latest post has to offer. Whether it be biting satire, the odd run-in with the local public at large, the ongoing and sometimes heated exchanges between “wifey and the other half or third”, or maybe an observation to ponder or make fun of. Any of these are relished and sought after day in and day out but to initiate a post in the name of how long it’s been since the last one, is merely taking a breath and informing your awaiting public that it will be longer still before anything of valuable substance appears to satisfy our insatiable appetites. Calculators aside, we sometimes have a right to demand more, after all, you did start us on this road turning quickly into the habit that is our bane to carry; likewise it’s your duty not to cut the cord but to make sure the content is as strong and entertaining or thought provoking as it has always been. Other than that, how’s your day going?

How’s my day? Fine… just freaking fine, until somebody volunteered to be my conscience. Thanks a bunch Kevin. You’re a pal.

In a related news story, doctors have found that one may cure erectile dysfunction by simply looking the afflicted person directly in the eye and yelling “No excuses, mister! Just get it up! NOW!!“

Hmph! Our 11:30 pm crossing on the Atlantic Vision isn’t expected to sail until 5:00 am. Hurricane Bill had less impact on me a week ago when it pissed all over Moncton. I had to wait a week and travel 500 kms to really see what a sonofabitch he is!

Last year around this time I was getting pissed off at old man winter. This year is no different, except I think we are suffering the symptoms of the season a little more harshly than average. This winter in the Moncton region has been a little more snow, rainy and cold than it has been most of the years we’ve lived here. So, here we are now, approaching the middle of March and I find myself counting the days to some unknown date down the road when I can start feeling the chill leaving the air and the seeing the tulips poke out of the frosted ground. We just went through springing the clocks ahead for Daylight Savings time, so maybe the perception of longer days will spring me back to life before I start seeing leaf buds and cherry blossoms.

…and maybe, I’ll get over this freaking writer’s block. I’ve found it ever increasingly difficult to get the gumption to post anything meaningful up here. Even the meaningless trivia that comes my way seems to be more effort than it’s worth to me lately. And it’s not that I haven’t had some interesting stuff happening that I could share with y’all. I’ve recently done some traveling and started a new job. Friends and family have visited, friends and family have had birthdays, pictures have been taken, toys have been purchased. The news is full of wild and weird shit. Elections have been won and lost, controversy has controverted, souffles have fallen.

So… what’s wrong with me. Perhaps the sun’s new found strength bolstered by the increasing daylight hours will awaken me to a renewed spirit of creativity. Maybe I’ll be inspired by the inevitable growth of my annual spring cleaning Honey-Do list and find escape from the labour in clacking of my keyboard.

A quick check of my visitor count in the sidebar shows that I’ve recently surpassed 30,000 hits on this site. Not earth shattering by internet standards, but certainly enough to show me that a few of you are interested or at least curious. Even if that interest is likened to the rubbernecking of drivers slowing their vehicles to a crawl to gawk at the carnage of a highway pileup, I must find the strength to forge on and create.

All right folks. A hundred miles an hour on a slippery road it is. I’ll defeat this writer’s block and give you something to read more often. Or maybe… just maybe, I’ll write about the same topic, three weeks from now. At least it will be spring by then.

What is “normal”?

Websters Dictionary defines it as not abnormal. Well, thanks a freakin’ heap, Websters. You are SO helpful. To be fair, it also describes normal as conforming to a standard or the common type, and free from mental disorder; sane.

Am I normal, according to these definitions? Uhm… I dunno.

Is it normal to be 40-ish, over worked and under paid, slightly balding, marginally overweight, battling a bad back, bad hips, bad ankles, hemorrhoids, ringing ears, near-sightedness, grinding teeth, nose hair, back hair, ear hair, … ?

Does all this make me normal? Maybe.

A quote I read today says that “normal is getting dressed in clothes that you buy for work and driving through traffic in a car that you are still paying for – in order to get to the job you need to pay for the clothes and the car, and the house you leave vacant all day so you can afford to live in it.”

Does this make me normal? Definitely.

So… what’s normal? Are you normal?