Really Stupid Mistakes Are Often the Most Obvious

Your girlfriend should never have to call you on Valentine's Day to find out why you haven't called to wish her a Happy Valentine's Day yet.

Dummy.

10 Things That Bug Me in the Kitchen

1. That stepped-on piece of cooked macaroni that fuses with the bottom of my sock and forces me to drag my heal in vain for 10 minutes before I give up and finish cooking one-side barefoot.

2. The last raviolli that clings to the inside of the can while I shake little bits of sauce all over the stove-top.

3. Plastic wrap that refuses to stick to any of my containers, but will happily fold over in a heartbeat and become inseparable from itself.

4. Trying to get peanut butter from the bottom of the jar and getting more on the knife handle and my knuckles than on the blade.

5. Rice Krispies that, having been previously soaked in milk, bond with super-glue-like strength to the side of the cereal bowl and must be chiseled free.

6. Any recipe that involves boiling milk and water. It's a timebomb concoction that waits until my back is turned before instantly frothing over the top of the pot and coating the burner.

7. Cleaning burnt milk from under the burners on my stove.

8. Smoking burners that haven't been properly exorcised of their burnt milk.

9. The bags inside cereal boxes that have obviously been sealed too well. The ones that, no matter how careful I am, end up tearing open jaggedly, ensuring that every pour will include 9 pieces of cereal skittering across the counter and down beside the fridge.

10. Sinks that aren't big enough to handle a 4-day backlog of dishes... What's up with that?

Not the Way it Should Be Played

16-0.

That's the humiliating score Canada posted over Italy in the first round of Women's Ice Hockey at Torino 2006. And I say "humiliating" not from the perspective of the Italians, but from that of hockey in general.

No team should lose a hockey game by 16 goals.

Fine, the Italian team wasn't as good as Canada... That was expected. In all fairness, this year's Women's Ice Hockey is being called a "two-team tournament" because of the dominance of Canada and the U.S. Okay, so we can pretty much bank on those two teams facing each other for the gold... But we still have to play the tournament and get past all of the other teams who have put so much time and effort (not to mention blood, sweat, and tears) to get to the Olympics.

But do we really need to crush them? To flaunt in their faces how much better we are than them? To make them feel as if they wasted their time in showing up?

Sadly, yes.

The Olympic Ice Hockey rules dictate that the team with the most goals in the tournament will have Home Ice Advantage in the Gold Medal game. This means that Canada and the U.S. (who are assuming they will be facing each other) are not only playing each game of the tournament to win, but also to stack up as many goals as possible along the way. It's the most classic case of adding insult to injury.

This isn't the way hockey is normally played, and it's not the way it should be played when the world is watching. The good sportsmanship these players have had instilled in them since they first laced up their skates has been thrown out the window. Where they were previously encouraged to "let up a bit" on a team they were beating handily, they are now being told to "show no mercy". Pathetic.

Apparently, a simple coin toss to determine Home Ice is out of the question...

I'm not a hockey player, and definitely not a woman, but I'd like to apologize to the world in advance, on behalf of the Canadian and the U.S. teams for the misery they will be forced to inflict on the rest of the teams. Let's just hope the Olympic Committee realizes what a gong show they've created with this rule and that they get it sorted out before Vancouver 2010.

There's "In a Rut", and Then There's This

Man, am I in a slump lately... Yeah, with regards to this blog, sure, but personally, too. I feel like my life of late has been a test pattern interrupted only occasionally by infomercials for obscure and mundane products. And not the cool infomercials either... Remember back in the late 80's and early 90's when they weren't even full-motion commercials, more like slideshows of real commercials? And the "slides" updated based on a set interval, so you didn't always get great shots... If it refreshed during a part of the infomercial where there was lots of motion, all you got to see for 5 seconds was a frozen blur.

That's me lately: Boring, blurry, and hard to watch.

I doesn't help that everything around me is conspiring to ensure I remain as unexcited as possible, either. Take TV, for example... This is one of the longest dry spells for entertainment that I can recall. Sure, lots of stuff to see, but very little of it worth the time. I don't care to watch celebrities dance or figure skate... Whether or not somebody can be the best singer out of 8 or 10 other people and still not make anything of themselves doesn't interest me in the least... And how many police/crime/trauma shows do we need to have on the air before we consider it "enough"?

Even the programs that show promise are ending up as disappointments... "Lost"? Great idea, but milking the suspense ever-so-slowly over the weeks gets too tedious to bother with. "Arrested Development"? Classic example of, "Smart, witty, and entertaining... Let's cancel it." (Anybody else having "Dead Like Me" flashbacks?) Even my personal favorite, the one shining star in the darkness that is network television, "Scrubs" got held back for half a season to allow room for crappier, destined-to-fail shows in the Fall Schedule. And now that it's back (Hooray!), what do they do? Constantly put it up against specials and award shows so it can't help but fail in the Nielsen ratings. Brilliant.

Big Screen Hollywood hasn't been much better, either. I don't think there have been more than a couple movies worth spending the $12 per ticket to see (not to mention the $30 for popcorn and soda). And believe me, I've tried! Although, "King Kong" was awesome, I could have waited for "Fun with Dick and Jane" to hit Blockbuster, and "Munich" was simply 3 tedious hours of predictability and repetitiveness that I'll never get back. Maybe there was a deeper political or social agenda at play there, but you need a more recent event and a lot more action if you want to flog it over 180 minutes (Take note, Spielberg).

What's left, then, to keep me from nodding off and drooling on my chest? It's winter in Canada, the sun goes down by 4:30 in the freaking afternoon, and I work until 5! And don't even get me started about the weekends... Winter in Calgary means one of two things: Bone-chilling cold, or howling wind, both of which drive me nuts. I could do without ever seeing snow again in my lifetime, and the migraine headaches brought on by the infamous chinook winds are no picnic, let me tell you. So, I either get to wander the malls that are 90% women's clothing stores, full of people who are oblivious to the fact that you exist or that they have just cut you off in their determination to get to that prized sweater that's just gone on sale, or I can sit in my home, staring at the walls until I'm ready to climb them.

I'm telling you, summer better get here quick or you might end up reading "Cuppojoe's Psychotic Mind"...

Midweek Miscellaneous

Pondering
Lots of people refer to Wednesday as "Hump Day". I wonder what prostitutes call it...

He Shoots, He Scores!
NHL Hockey returns tonight... Oh, baby! And, in case you haven't heard, Sport Illustrated has already picked my hometown Calgary Flames as the Stanley Cup favorite for 2006. Oh yeah! Iggy and Kipper are gonna rock the 'Dome this year!

Help Wanted
Lookin' for a job in fun, high-paying, fast-paced environment? Well, I can't help you there... But, if you live in Calgary, are lookin' for work, and don't mind having embellished stories of your workplace performance posted to the Internet, drop me an email. Who wouldn't want Cuppojoe for a boss, eh?

The Other Cup Fever
My thumbs are almost completely healed... Must be about time for Tim Horton's to bring back their Roll Up the Rim to Win contest. I swear, if I don't at least get a free cup of coffee out of them this time around, I'm gonna... Well... I'm gonna... Uh... Damn! I probably won't do anything, but I'll sure be pissed! (Curse this cursed addiction...)

War... What Is It Good For?
Can anybody help out a poor Canadian and explain the Iraq War in a non-biased, non-partisan way? I've heard about a thousand people give their fist-shaking, frustration-venting accounts, but I still don't get it. What is the fight about? Is Iraq evil? Is Bush the spawn of Satan? What's going on here? Please, just a simple breakdown is all I ask for!

Analyze This: Up the Creek Without a Pilot

Standing at the open cargo bay door of the Hercules aircraft, I watched the clouds crawl past below and marveled at the fact such a huge plane could even get off the ground, let alone stay aloft.

Looking back, I saw the fighter jet holding position a little below and behind us, despite the lack of a pilot. I guessed the autopilot must have been engaged. Without question, someone would have to land the plane, or it would eventually run out of fuel and plow into the ground. What were the odds the impact would occur in an unpopulated area? Not good, I was sure. Bottom line, we had to find a way to bring it down safely.

I turned to see if either of my companions had a brilliant idea that would save the day. Alec Baldwin stood holding onto one of the massive hydraulic arms that operated the hatch, staring back at me with his patented cold stare. Or maybe it was a blank stare and I have over-estimated him all these years... It was hard to tell. Rockstar (of "Scenes from the Forklift" fame), on the other hand, was already springing into action. Without a word, he hurled himself out the back of our plane and plummeted the 40 or 50 feet separating us from the jet.

Miraculously, he hit the fuselage about midpoint and was somehow able to cling to the smooth metallic surface. Turning himself around, he straddled the fighter and inched his way forward until he was positioned just behind the canopy. Then, gripping two small handles that I hadn't seen before, Rockstar gave a tug and remotely activated the ejection seat. With a violent burst, the canopy came away from the plane. Half a heartbeat later, the empty pilot's seat erupted upwards, climbing for a few moments before the chute deployed. I quickly lost sight of it as we left it far behind.

Knowing we had little time left to avert a potential disaster, Alec and I jumped as well. I suppose I should have been terrified, jumping out the back of an airplane without a parachute, hoping to hit what seemed an impossibly small target, but it all happened too fast. Before I knew it, I was standing on the wing of the fighter, looking at the profile of Mr. Baldwin and wondering how his hair stayed so perfectly still as we screamed through the sky. Come to think of it, should I have been able to stand up and walk along that wing without the airflow ripping me from it and sending my body tumbling to the ground far, far below? Probably not, but I didn't have time to think about it. We still had a plane to land.

I climbed into the cockpit and situated myself on the floor. Without the seat, I wasn't able to sit high enough to see out the front of the plane, but the wind whipping in my eyes probably would have prevented me from seeing anything anyway, even if it didn't blow Alec Baldwin's hair out of place. So, gripping the flight yoke, I disengaged the autopilot and, using instruments alone, settled the fighter into a level course.

As I got everything under control, Rockstar and Alec climbed into the cockpit as well, one on either side of me. While trying to stay focused on the little floating ball with the white line that told me I wasn't about to flip the plane over, it crossed my mind that the inside of the jet had quite a bit of elbow room, considering we were sitting three abreast, much like Cylons from the old Battlestar Galactica series. Being the experienced pilot that I somehow sensed he was, Rockstar began barking out orders and Alec jumped to flip various switches and turn assorted dials in response to his instructions. Working together like a well-oiled machine (but not in the homo-erotic sense), the three of us were on the verge of landing the plane and saving the day.

Suddenly, the cockpit was filled with a raucous noise that threatened to break my concentration. I turned to find out were the sound was coming from and realized it was chatter from my headset. No... Wait. Not from my headset. It was coming from the radio...

...on my nightstand.

Time for this Fly Boy to hit the showers and get ready for work.

Simple Pleasures

I like my toast made with 100% whole wheat bread, lightly toasted so it has that nice, crispy exterior with a core of breadiness to it. Then, I slop on a healthy helping of margarine, spread to all corners so as to avoid any dry spots. Sometimes this is good enough for me, as is... But, more often, I like to put a thin layer of pasteurized honey on for flavor. Barring that, there's always the old standby: Peanut Butter. There's nothing quite like 6 slices done this way and washed down with a hot cup of black coffee as a late Saturday morning snack...

Just thought you might like to know.

Incidentally, thanks again to Mrs. Joe for the new toaster...