Well, this answers a lot of questions, I suppose.

Well, then. Lovely. And no, it's not a doctored photo.

What a country.

I'm almost always a very proud Canadian. I qualify this entry with "almost always" because there are times when I'm really quite embarassed - and it usually happens once every two years, during the Olympics.

Now let me qualify that statement a bit. I'm very proud of our athletes, the brave individuals who train for years and years and years for one single performance - something that must take a level of commitment and courage that I honestly can't understand. This alone makes me proud of the athletes we send to the Olympics, as being an athlete of that caliber is of course very impressive. And I'm also very proud of the accomplishments that we as a country have achieved at the Olympics (Can we say, uh, "Final Score: Canada 5, USA 2"?).

But what embarasses me is the fact that overall, our country performs very poorly at the Olympics. Especially when compared with other nations - often those smaller than Canada. A population of 30+ Million people should be able to put together a fantastic Olympic team, be it the Summer or Winter games, that is competitive at all levels and in close to all events, and comes home with a significant medal count.

This, however, is not the case. Our governments (Municipal, Provincial, and Federal) all go on and on about how we should be proud of our athletes, and how important it is to send a good Olympic team to the games, yet the levels of funding that are provided to the athletic organizations across this country is absolutely pathetic. It is so poor that this year we are sending our smallest Olympic team ever to the games - a team that is not expected to perform very well at all.

In fact, our team is expected to perform so poorly that the Minister of Sport has claimed that Canadians should not expect our athletes to win many medals (going so far as to subtly imply he's not expecting even a single medal), but "I think at the end of the day, if we didn't win a medal but we found that the quality of life, measured by the amount of physical activity and health of the Canadian public, was increased, that would be a really good thing." (Read the whole thing here)

Actually, what would be a "really good thing" would be to have an Olympic team that was able to command respect at an international level. I'm sorry, but while he's certainly right that a good measure of a nation's health is the level of physical activity in which its population participates, it is still utterly embarassing that we have to send a team to the Olympics which is so devastatingly underfunded that they are not really expected to do anything but be an also-ran.

And that, I'm sad to say, is something that I'm not proud about being a Canadian.

Obviously.

Quick - how do you reverse a downward trend in your approval rating? Just issue a terror alert.

And the odds are ...

Which country will be the first to have an athlete fail a drug test at this year's Summer Games? The odds (according to www.wageronsports.com) are:

CHINA	5:1
RUSSIA	8:1
UNITED STATES	15:1
AUSTRALIA	15:1
GERMANY	15:1
FRANCE	18:1
ITALY	18:1
CUBA	18:1
GREAT BRITAIN	20:1
NETHERLANDS	20:1
ROMANIA	20:1
SOUTH KOREA	15:1
HUNGARY	20:1
UKRAINE	18:1
JAPAN	25:1
POLAND	25:1
BULGARIA	25:1
GREECE	30:1
BELARUS	25:1
SWEDEN	30:1
CANADA	30:1
NORWAY	30:1
SPAIN	30:1
BRAZIL	30:1

$417,000,000,000 in military spending, or ...

Annual Amount Needed to Address the World's Top Global Issues

• Eliminate Starvation and Malnutrition ($19 billion)
• Provide Shelter ($21 billion)
• Remove Landmines ($4 billion)
• Eliminate Nuclear Weapons ($7 billion)
• Refugee Relief ($5 billion)
• Eliminate Illiteracy ($5 billion)
• Provide Clean, Safe Water ($10 billion)
• Provide Health Care and AIDS Control ($21 billion)
• Stabilize Population ($10.5 billion)
• Prevent Soil Erosion ($24 billion)
• Retire Developing Nations Debt ($30 billion)

Figures are from the World Game Institute, based on an annual budget with a 10 year period needed to achieve complete success.

If you do the math you'll realize that all the sum of those numbers is some 260.5 billion dollars less than the US defense budget for 2005 alone.

(I found this over at Matt Good's website)

Well said, good man. Well said.

"Our enemies are innovative and resourceful - and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people - and neither do we."
- George W. Bush

Good/bad up/down

Well what an interesting day today has been thus far.

Hm. Where to start, where to start...

Well, the morning got off to a rip-roaring start right at 7am with a whole bunch of infrastructure crap to deal with. This took me nearly an hour to deal with, which, considering that I like to enjoy the first hour of the day by having my coffee, getting settled in and going through my to-do list for the rest of the day, well ... it set me off a wee bit down the "mr grumpypants" road.

Anyway, as is typical around here, when Kyle is under pressure and has lots of things to do (6 emails from the company president asking for 6 different things, as well as about four other things that needed to get done before lunch), everyone was bugging me and asking me to help them with this, assist with that, find out the answer to this, fix this for me. Or, they would simply just take root near my desk and babble on and on and on and on and on. Despite the very evident fact that I was FREAKING BUSY!. Ah, what a whiner I am.

So things were going decidedly crapfully, until, until, until ... I looked over at the fax machine and the dreaded Palliser Quote had come in. Why dreaded, you ask? Well, dreaded simply because I was expecting a big list detailing the perfect wedding, but the wedding we couldn't afford. Anyway, I picked up the fax, sat at my desk, and took a big, deep breath. I read through the fax.

And I couldn't believe my eyes - because it was at least $3,000 less than I was expecting. I've placed a call in to the guy from the Palliser, asking him to call me back - because I believe that somewhere, somehow a mistake has been made. Well, I don't really believe that, the "final total" was pretty clear. But I don't want to jinx things. Because at that price - I would have just gone straight to him and signed on the proverbial dotted line right at lunch.

Anyway, things have calmed down a bit since. Played a Poker tournament over the rest of my lunch, and that was particularly rewarding - came in first place and had the pleasure of wiping the floor with a cocky, yappy little asshat who thought he was God's gift to the poker table. I really have to start playing for money ... if only I had the disposable income and the guts to do it...

So, today has turned out really really really good. Yeeehaw.

That is all.

Great George W. ad...

This is probably the best ad for George W. I've seen. In fact, it's one of the best political ads I think I've ever seen.

Clicky, clicky

Great George W. ad...

This is probably the best ad for George W. I've seen. In fact, it's one of the best political ads I think I've ever seen.

Clicky, clicky

Two months and one week

Two months and one week to go before I will be able to slip my wedding band on and forever be joined with Stephanie.

We both promised each other we would journal our last couple of months leading up to the wedding. And so, here it begins.

Did a couple of things this weekend and this week that were wedding related. Hurt my back bending over the coffee table folding, assembling, and sealing wedding invitations, which, despite the pain it caused my back, was actually quite fun. I very much enjoyed spending time with Steph and being involved in the wedding. Up to now, with the exception of some things, it's mostly been about Steph (and that's fine, what with having to get her dress, shoes, etc., etc.) but now I can participate too by arranging things at the Palliser, putting together invitations, and so forth.

Hopefully we'll hear from Brian at the Palliser soon with the budget, so we can look it over and find out where everything he quotes us on fits in to the overall budget. I really hope that most, if not all, of it fits in, but that's a bit of a pipe dream, unfortunately. As long as we get to keep most of it in there, then I'll be very happy as it all seemed very wonderful.

Aside from that, we need to finish and send out the invites, which hopefully we'll get done today. After that (I've made sure the website is all finished), it's getting the Tuxes ready and writing the ceremony. Hopefully we'll do that this weekend.

Memories...

While not everyone may find the gentlemen from Homestarrunner.com funny, I find them particularly hilarious.

That being said, I challenge anyone who remembers the good old days of computer gaming to not feel at least some nostalgia when clicking on this link.

TROGDOR!! hehe