In Canada It’s Not Called Summer It’s Called The Off Season Unfortunately The Off Season Started Far Too Early This Year

Posted on April 18, 2008 by Gabriel

copyright bannercsnafu photo header
Opening faceoff against the Buffalo Sabres; March 27, 2008 — Photo by Me.

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Ottawa Senators take the ice, 03.27.08; Video by Me
Let me know if the YouTube isn’t available.

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And it started so well. So promising… after losing in the Stanley Cup Finals last June to a stronger and more experienced Anaheim team the Ottawa Senators began this season with the National Hockey League’s best start ever, going 15-2… that’s fifteen wins, and two losses. Then, sometime around January, their brains exploded.

It wasn’t like they couldn’t win games… just that they couldn’t win them in bunches. From December until the end of the regular season in April, they went 28-29-8 and came within just a couple of points of missing the playoffs altogether.

It’s actually not that unusual over the past dozen years for the team which loses in the Finals to miss the Playoffs or get creamed in the first round. But the other teams previously in the same situation as the Senators started the season with losing records. They were hungover, burnt out from two straight months of hyper-competitive playoff hockey, whereas the Senators seemed to be energized and experienced.

There are a couple of excuses, a player with a bad attitude, a coach who got fired and some injuries to key players, but really the team just got into a deep funk. The team was in a malaise worthy of 1979’s Jimmy Carter. They tried meetings, they tried a couple of trades but everything they tried just seemed to act as a hand pressing down on the heads of the players.

The Ottawa Senators, despite losing some excellent and talented players over last summer, are still one of the deepest and most talented teams in the NHL. But after January they had no focus, they looked like they were lost… like they were mildly stoned.

But really, because Bryan Murray, the General Manager, waited so long to change the coaching staff, and actually replacing the Head Coach with himself, there was actually very little the Senators could have done. The team lacked focus even to the point of having no set system for their offence, defence and special teams. They were just players milling around most nights.

And that’s how they went into the Playoffs. They also went in missing three of their top six forwards and played against the Pittsburgh Penguins, probably the most offensively talented group of players on any team this season.

And now they’re out, swept in four straight games in a seven game series. And they’ve got three months — the Off Season — to figure out how to break this weird malaise…

Daniel Alfredsson, the captain of the Senators, actually played two of the games with a torn MCL knee ligament.

Of course now I’m stuck with a gloating step-father and grandfather, who are both lifelong fans of the Montreal Canadiens… the Senators have made the playoffs in eleven straight years, winning the Eastern Conference Championship, the Presidents Trophy and several Division Championships along the way. The entire time my step-father and grandfather have told me how crappy Ottawa’s players and coaches really are, all while watching Montreal fail to make the playoffs.

And now… Montreal has a team, led by a phenomenal rookie goaltender, which might actually make a run for the Stanley Cup Finals. Which has my family members deluded into believing the Canadiens have a chance at winning. They don’t. The Senators at full tilt might have had a shot at winning the Stanley Cup this year, but it would have been a serious struggle. That’s how strong the Western Conference is…

I really hate the Off Season. Because the Senators have been so successful during the past few years this is as early as they’ve been out and I’ve had to change my allegiances.

So now I’m going with Pittsburgh to win the Eastern Conference, and the Anaheim Ducks from the West, and I think they’ll repeat as Stanley Cup Champions. And I am aware that both teams, over the past two playoff seasons, crushed the Senators like a pop can.

…I can’t believe the Senators got beaten last year and this year by teams named after waterfowl.

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Posted in Canada, CSN:AFU Aboot Canada, Entertainment, Hockey, Humor, Humour | 2 Comments

Counterbalance

Posted on March 15, 2008 by Gabriel

Big Wreck: Canadian


“Blown Wide Open”; ‘In Loving Memory Of…’ (1997)

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This was a bare sidewalk twenty-four hours ago… — Photo by Me, March 09, 2008

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I thought I’d have some time to write this week, but my grandfather’s computer, my moms package delivery schedule and various issues with WordPress, Bell Canada and 504 Messages got in the way.

I managed to go all of last week living on other people’s “normal schedule”. But some 504 Weirdness from Thursday until Saturday that would take way too much time to explain threw me back into my personal “normal schedule” and I haven’t been able to straighten things out because people keep insisting on enjoying my company… fukkers.

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February 01, 2008
Let me know if the YouTube isn’t available.

This is mom and I driving home, listening to CBC Talk Radio, as the storm was just starting. By the next day another 26-inches of snow had dropped on my Little Village.

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I’ve also been playing a lot of Max Payne recently which probably has something to do with my time switch. I started on Saturday while waiting for the 504 BS to sort itself out. Muscle memory is an amazing thing. I haven’t played Max in almost a year so I was staring at the controller trying to remember what the controls were, then the game started and Max got off the subway and the killing just started. I managed to shoot my way through the entire first two Parts before dying… that’s like twenty freaking levels of stone cold killing bliss.

I’m pretty sure I’m going to be exhausted all weekend as I try to move my schedule back so I’m just going to post some photos and YouTubes I’ve done over the past few months until I have the energy to start writing again.

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If you find a broken link, or the YouTube stuff isn’t loading
properly, let me know and I’ll find an alternative…
I’m Canadian, it’s what we do. Off the ice.

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Posted in Canada, CSN:AFU Aboot Me, Entertainment | 4 Comments

Nineteen Years Later And I’m Still Walking Like My Knee Was Busted

Posted on February 27, 2008 by Gabriel

Vulgaires Machins: Canadien


“Puits sans fond”; ‘Compter les corps’ (2006)

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Weird juice with fruit chunks on a French magazine… — Photo by Me, Feb. 08, 2008

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I was grocery shopping recently for the first time since… November? I’ve pretty much run up one side and down the other of every menu from every take-out place within fifteen miles of my apartment so I’m going back to basics: chicken with Shake n’ Bake, hamburgers, peanut butter and honey…

While I was at the store, and again while I was having lunch at a restaurant downtown, I kept noticing people limping… there were a lot of really bad knees and hips out limping around. Every other person seemed to have a cane. Winter is a crappy time of year for people with broken bodies… every time you put your foot down on an uneven surface your knee and hip have to make corrections, and if they’re already messed up all those changes hurt.

Just like my knee does now… I walked with a cane for the better part of three years, I even had a futuristic super-brace for my knee. And now, according to my little brother, I don’t limp so much as lurch. In the summer of 1989 I was playing ‘American 21’ on an outside basketball court at a school down the highway from here. I went in for a layup and planted on a Dude’s foot.

Basically I dislocated my kneecap, tore some cartilage and ripped my ACL by a few millimetres. The first doctor told me it was a sprain… so after he gave me some T3’s, crutches and a tensor bandage we all went out to a Pit Party. Two years later I finally got the operation to fix the ligament… so I’ve been lurching around for nineteen years now.

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A 3:23 Adventure: Walking Kipling
She really likes the snow…
Let me know if the YouTube isn’t available.

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So far this winter I haven’t exactly been “active” or “participating” in “life”… I’ve mostly been “couch bound” or “growing exponentially” and “avoiding” all “human contact”. So my knee has only been uncomfortable a few times, and only a couple of times has it really hurt.

But mom fired her dog walker on the weekend… she hires kids from the high school, pays them way too much money, even buys them gifts, then the kids — being kids — lose interest and start missing days. It pisses me off because mom does invest time and energy in these kids because mom really loves her dog… but in a sane way, she doesn’t think Kipling is human.

So I told her I’d do the dog walking until she can find some kid to take over, and Kipling and I walked for an hour today. It was pretty much the first real exercise I’ve gotten since the early fall… and the kids only ever walk Kip around the block so it was hers as well. Towards the end Kip was limping almost as bad as I was. She lurches as well… she kind of lands three legs okay, then lurches into the fourth.

And now my knee really, really freaking… well, it’s not a sharp pain, more kind of a dull throb. Like the “Gorillaz” were having a concert under my kneecap.

In 2006 I was walking five miles every night… for the first couple of months my knee hurt like a bee-ach, but then it felt relatively okay.

With my schedule I’m not sure how long I’ll be able to be mom’s dog walker, I don’t think she wants me coming around at 3am to take Kip out for a walk, but it’ll be nice to have a reason to get outside… especially since it gives me an excuse to take my camera out.

I’m starting, already, to see the wisdom in making sure people with depression or disabilities have a pet to keep them / us occupied.

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If you find a broken link, or the YouTube stuff isn’t loading
properly, let me know and I’ll find an alternative…
I’m Canadian, it’s what we do. Off the ice.

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Posted in Canada, CSN:AFU Aboot Canada, CSN:AFU Aboot Me, Entertainment, Ottawa | 3 Comments

A Two Minute And Twenty-Two Second Cultural Snafu Adventure

Posted on February 24, 2008 by Gabriel

Daniel Lanois: Canadian


“Jolie Louise”; ‘Acadie’ (1989)

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The Chateau Laurier in Ottawa — Photo by Me, summer, 1997

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A Two Minute & Twenty-Two Second Adventure: Shopping
Let me know if the YouTube isn’t available.

This personal video thing is something new… it may not even stay up. I’m thinking about taking short clips of things I do during the week and post some of them… as is.

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I’ve been watching a movie called Heaven’s Gate, which alternates between being one of the best movies I’ve ever seen and one of the more frustratingly horrible. It’s a 1980 movie about the 1890’s Johnson County War, which was basically a mini-war in Wyoming between wealthy land owners and really poor Eastern European immigrants.

“Elmer Gantry” is on now… there’s a program on TVO, Ontario’s public broadcaster, called ‘Saturday Night At The Movies’. Every Saturday night they play two classic movies — usually with some theme in common — plus interviews done way back in the day with the people who made it. This week the common element is both films, “Gate” and “Gantry”, were both United Artist pictures… Gantry was one of its most successful, winning an Academy Award for Burt Lancaster and Shirley Jones, and “Gate” was the movie which bankrupted the movie studio.

Elmer Gantry is one of my favourites, it’s a 1960’s movie based on a book from the 1920’s… it’s about Revivalism, one of the last things Gantry says in the movie is from Corinthians chapter one, 13:11 “When I was a child, I understood as a child and spake as a child. When I became a man, I put away childish things.” I’ve always loved that…

The history of religion in the United States, and Canada to a much lessor extent, is fairly wrapped up in “Gantry”. I’ve never read the book, but the movie follows a road-side tent Revivalist named Sister Sharon as she crosses the country… Burt plays Gantry, a salesman slash huckster who can preach like Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell combined.

At first Sister Sharon is a street preacher “the common people put Christianity on the map in the first place”, but after Gantry falls for her his involvement grows her ministry as they move from town to town. Sister Sharon is too clean, she couldn’t offer sermons from the gutter, but Gantry, who had lived there and learned how to speak the language, could… “like two cops working over a criminal, Gantry offering them the electric chair and you offering them heaven.”

But Gantry was corrupted, he was living a con because of his growing infatuation for Sister Sharon, and Sister Sharon was enthralled with the power he brought and his ability to drag her ministry into ever larger tents… so, of course, in the end every thing goes up in flames because Sister Sharon, as good as Good ever was, has been convinced by Gantry of her Blessedness.

In “Gantry” the established churches take advantage of the religious awakenings Sister Sharon leaves in her wake. After her ministry leaves a town Church attendance soars, the money flows to the alter. So the Churches want her to preach “like it or not we are in competition with entertainment”. But, as she grows, she starts to dream of a standing church of her own… maybe even one in each city and town. So the established churches, fearful of her ministry pulling parishioners from their pews, plot against her.

For all of his best intentions, and Gantry does love Sister Sharon, every thing he does to make his kaleidescope vision of what Sister Sharon wants to come true is just another step away from what she was meant to do… one more step away from what Christianity was meant to be.

Thing is, as Gantry’s unintentionally bringing Sister Sharon’s Christian ministry to the ground as she believes he is building it up… at the end he is the only one of her flock who really seems to find redemption.

So, basically, there’s a True Believer (Gantry) without any faith in the God but only in the messenger (Sister Sharon), who inadvertently kills the messenger by getting her to believe in herself over her God.

In the end Gantry and Sister Sharon split Christ’s fate… Gantry, after three days “missing”, is reborn and tries to bring Sister Sharon back to her street preaching. Sister Sharon sees a shooting star — “a fiery line across the world” — and sees in it her future as the leader of a Greater Church, thanks to the work of Gantry.

Then, during a sermon in which she begins to “faith heal” as though Christ was in her body, she is sacrificed in a fire which also takes her first permanent church… her last words to her congregation are “Those who believe in God will be saved, trust in the Lord. Wait, we must have faith.”

The common theme between “Gantry” and Heaven’s Gate” — after the United Artists thing — lies in the relationship between establishment and newcomer and how the Newbie’s inevitable corruption will lead them down the same path to becoming the Establishment and if they are to be reborn, if they want to find their path again, it’ll take a really large fire and the sacrifice of something very important.

Or something. Next week they’re playing “Soylent Green”…

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If you find a broken link, or the YouTube stuff isn’t loading
properly, let me know and I’ll find an alternative…
I’m Canadian, it’s what we do. Off the ice.

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Posted in American Politics, Canada, Christianity, CSN:AFU Aboot Me, CSN:AFU Movies, Entertainment, Punk | 2 Comments

Portrait Of A Munchie Attack

Posted on February 15, 2008 by Gabriel

The Trews: Canadian


“Not Ready To Go”; ‘House of Ill Fame‘ (2003)

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Me at the fountain; Feb. 12, 2008 — Photo by Me

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This is a self-portrait of me in the local Burg3r King… it’s the first time I’ve eaten in a Fast-Fast Food place around here in over a year.

It’s not something I avoid as a philosophy of being Anti-Something… I’m actually pretty Pro-Those Things. Mostly I try to avoid 3F Places because of taste and health issues, although I did go to an A&W in Ottawa a few times last year. But that’s different… A&W has the tastiest burgers Ever.

There’s also the eight Locally-Owned Restaurants in my Little Village of 1800 people, and the thirty more local restaurants and Chip Stands ten miles down the road.

There’s definitely no shortage of places to eat here… unfortunately most of the LOR’s are, basically, identical in terms of food offered and poor service. And not a decent milkshake in the bunch.

But they are family owned, of which I’m definitely a big Pro, and use ingredients you can recognize at a glance. Not all of them are particularly tasty, but at least you know what they are. So, really, there’s no point to be eating at the 3F’s except in cases of extreme munchies.

Cost, however, is a problem with the LOR’s. A family of four at Burg3r King can eat for less than $25… a single all-dressed hamburger with bacon, fries, two drinks with a decent tip at the place across the street — which makes fantastic Greek food — will cost aboot $14.

Anyway… I was in the Burg3r King because of an extreme munchie emergency. I have a friend staying over for a few days and he smokes. I haven’t smoked in over a year so I’ve been having constant nic fits just from walking past his jacket… and apparently nic fits translate pretty well into 3F munchie attacks.

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If you find a broken link, or the YouTube stuff isn’t loading
properly, let me know and I’ll find an alternative…
I’m Canadian, it’s what we do. Off the ice.

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Posted in Canada, CSN:AFU Aboot Canada, CSN:AFU Aboot Me, CSN:AFU Short Cuts, Entertainment, Humor, Humour, Punk | 7 Comments

CSN:AFU Week 50 In Review

Posted on February 4, 2008 by Gabriel

Trooper: Canadian

“Raise A Little Hell”; ‘Thick As Thieves’ (1978)


Click Here For More Canadian Music… do it kids, stick it to The Man.

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CSN:AFU Week Fifty

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31,557,600 Seconds And Still Counting…

Thirty-eight years later and I’m still moving aimlessly around wearing nothing but a diaper and a beer stain… once you find a routine which works for you it’s important, no matter who’s crying at you to “grow up” or “please, use a toilet”, to stick with it no matter what.

So I’m just going to take this opportunity to thank my mom for loaning me her womb for nine months… and a special big time Thanks to Grand Theft Auto and the people at RockStar Productions for raising me. Happy birthday to us all… but especially me.

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The Lists From Week Fifty:

Five Strangest Search Terms Used To Find CSN:AFU

5) itchy beard red dots
4) things you need know about beavers
3) dodge ball in kansas curriculum
2) fuck snow removal
1) Rocket Richard, knitting

Honourable Mentions: peoples reaction towards safe sex canada; star wars ruined the film industry

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Top Five CSN:AFU Posts For Week 50:

1) Canada: Offering A Safe-Sex Environment Where Humanity Can Fuck Itself Back Together Again
2) Greatest Hits: Canadian Inventions — ‘Basketball’
3) Canadian Movies You Need To See That Don’t Suck — FUBAR
4) Greatest Hits: Canadian Inventions — ‘The Pacemaker’
5) The First Ten Things You Need To Know Aboot Canada

Honourable Mention: CSN:AFU Weeks 30 To 49 In Review

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The Five Blogs I Visited Most This Week

1) Natalia Antonova
2) Kamangir
3) My Journey With AIDS
4) Life In The Up And Down
5) Nita: A Wide Angle View Of India

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The Past Week In General:

I really should start keeping track of the things I do… or maybe a list of things I probably should have done would be a better way to go, it’d definitely be more dynamic and there’d be way more words like “activity” and “outside” and “movement” and interaction”.

There was that time when I walked to the store and the new counter-person was wearing a really tight sweater… that was pretty cool.

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Photo Of My Week:



Mom and Kipling cleaning up after my pre-birthday dinner; Saturday, February 02, 2008; Photo by Me.

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This Weeks New Post:

Happy Birthday To Me Happy Birthday To Me 13,879 And A Half Days Old But I Don’t Look A Minute Over 10,953
I’ve always had a weird relationship with my birthday. The things we are used to doing when we’re older are taught to us when we’re younger… “Give me the child until he is seven and I will give you the man” and all that. I had my first real birthday party when I was eight.

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Coming In Week Fifty-One:

Photos of a bloodletting…

Blood… sweet, sweet blood… I had some blood work done last week to monitor some medications I’m taking and took photos of the process. I’m weird like that…
I’ve also been taking photos of my dentist appointments as well. They’re freaking awesome.

 

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If you find a broken link, or the YouTube stuff isn’t loading
properly, let me know and I’ll find an alternative…
I’m Canadian, it’s what we do. Off the ice.

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Posted in Canada, CSN:AFU Weekly Review, Entertainment, Humor, Humour | 4 Comments