The Chickening

Orange Is The New Black* is a fun new comedy/drama from Netflix, the American ... setup? Distributor? Production house?

*(From here on, for brevity's sake, I'll call this show OITNB).

I'm not sure what to actually call Netflix, exactly. Because it's all of the above. And more.

In the recent past it's just existed as a subscription service, where you 'streamed' TV shows to watch at your convenience, for a modest fee. These TV series' had all come from other sources/production companies/networks – until really fairly recently.

Now, Netflix is actually producing some shows of its own. But not in a conventional sense ... no, these TV series are being released all at once. Yes, all the episodes in the entire first season are instantly being made available for subscribers at the same time. No more waiting a week between eps!

Welcome to the new world of: 'Everything is on demand'. You've been able to do it with music for some time now, thanks to iTunes, iPods, and most recently, online and on-demand streaming software like Spotify and Rdio. Now we've got it with TV series. Who wants to waste time waiting for 13 weeks to see 13 eps of a great show, when you can see 'em all at once, at your leisure?

What a concept! Not only do fortunate North Americans have the freedom to watch an episode at their leisure, on any device that connects to the internet ... you can amass the entire series at once, and watch it at will.  Put it on pause when it's time to get another beer, eat, take a leak, or maybe even take a shower and change clothes, you stinking couch slug!

This allows for 'marathon' viewing (watching a whole series or more, at once) ... which is a great way to kill a rainy day. Or to wallow in a session of being confined to the couch or your bed, due to hangovers, sloth, or amputation recovery periods.  I am quite familiar with all three of these scenarios.

But wait ... it gets even better! Not only is Netflix  offering up this great subscription service, all at once for entire series' of shows ... these shows are actually EXCELLENT QUALITY. They aren't just any run-of-the-mill, reality-show crap you see endlessly on the 'regular' (no sex, no nudity, no ultra-violence, no swearing, no FUN) boring networks.

No! Netflix has chosen – and chosen wisely – to opt for quality material. A while ago, there was a superb miniseries starring Kevin Spacey called 'House Of Cards'  – an American re-tooling of a UK series – featuring Spacey as an evil and conniving US Congressman with evil power on his evil mind.  And he gets it, evilly.

Then the much-vaunted and long-awaited fourth season of Arrested Development was out of the Netflix gates. And most recently comes OITNB – a superb comedy/drama set in a US women's medium-security prison. Yep, you can get laughs out of a prison show, and, keep it real!

Beware mysterious chicken!

Here's the chicken rumpus.

All 13 episodes of OITNB are excellent. But the one that had me on the floor laughing was the one titled 'The Chickening'. In a nutshell, the show is about a WASPy, entitled, somewhat clueless main character named Chapman She is incarcerated following a rebellious, adventurous departure from her boring, WASPy, mainstream, mayonaisse-like life. She falls in with a lesbian international drug-runner. I say lesbian not for lurid shock value (but ooo, there's a shower scene ....), but because it's an important plot element – Chapman hadn't dabbled in same-sex activities up to this point. So this plunge into the deep end of non-characteristic behaviour for Chapman is the main point here – international drug running is extremely illegal, and having sex with a woman who's her new drug-running partner is really new to her routine.

In this eponymous (chicken) episode, Chapman notices a chicken casually pecking and scratching around the jail-yard. She's alone when she sees it. Later, she casually mentions it to her (sorry, can't resist) jail-bird pals ... only to discover this chicken is legendary. It's Moby Dick to a certain con (an older, crazy Russian woman) who's in charge of the prison's kitchen. And, no one else has ever seen the chicken. It's a legend, not unlike Bigfoot, or Nessie.

The new poultry sighting has the chef, and every other con, perked up and back on serious point: the chef immediately offers a valued prize to anyone who can bring her this chicken. She intends to "eat it and absorb the chicken's warrior spirit" – as it was apparently the sole surviving fowl from a fire that killed all the other chooks in a coop years before. And it now can apparently scale extremely tall prison fences to get inside the yard and scratch around.

The antics snowball from there, as every con in the joint decide they're going to capture this elusive (and mostly invisible) chook, win the prize, and gain the adoration and trust of the crazy Russian chef. Then the rumours start flying (rumours can fly; chooks cannot) among the various racial cliques in the joint ... why is this chicken so special?

Well, the rumour mill spreads and mutates, of course. It HAS to be because there's something INSIDE the chicken.

Is it drugs? Money? A gun? A cell phone? Precious jewels? (That's one voluminous-on-the-inside chook!)

Everyone has a theory ... and the merry chase begins.

Here's where I admit something about chickens. I really enjoy seeing them in TV shows and movies. I'm not sure why. They are amusing creatures ... most times when a chicken appears in a show or

The notorious plot accelerant.

movie, there's other mayhem, or serious plot developments, going on around it. And unless someone takes a swipe at, or makes a move toward said chicken(s), they usually just blithely carry on pecking and scratching for food. They're insidiously distracting because of this very reason. How can the creatures remain calm when all this OTHER shit is going on?!

So 'The Chickening' episode was hilarious. Plot points and scenarios built up around the chicken, to the dénouement where Chapman decides to abandon a crucially important phone call to rush outside – when she spies the chicken again –  and attempt to capture the feathered beastie one more time. (Spoiler alert: she fails).

It's funny how we can get distracted by little things, if they're unusual enough. There's a chicken or two near where I live – which, if I lived on a farm, would not be unusual at all. But I live (technically) in the city centre of Wellington. I'm in a jpart of the city that's mostly jungle (Aro Valley) – up near the top of said valley. I look down on quite a few valley-floor houses. One of them has a few chooks running around (and at least one rooster). The rooster crows most mornings. This is not a sound you'd usually hear in a 1st-world city. (It is unknown at this writing if said chooks are packing any valuable items within their body cavities).

Distractions come in larger sizes too. Like say, earthquakes. Wellington is perched on or near three major tectonic plates/fault lines. This past weekend, we had a ding-dang-doozy of a quake, a 6.8, on Sunday, at around 5 pm. This was preceded by an impressive 5.9 on Friday morning, around 9:15 am.

Float like a butterfly, sting like a Rhode Island Red.

I was at work for this Friday morning one. I'd just arrived. And let me tell you: when you're sitting at your desk on the 14th floor of a downtown office tower next to to the ocean, gazing out the window, hoovering coffee and munching a muffin ... and suddenly you're watching the horizon bob, weave, duck and rope-a-dope better than Muhammed Ali ever did in his prime ... that gets your attention. So much so that a chicken could have walked across my desk and I would not have noticed it.

Adding to the fun for this past weekend, my new mate Rob Martin was down from the Rotorua vicinity with two other friends – Alina from the Bremen region of Germany [where Becks is produced], and Kayleigh from the USA's Carolinas area. They were all down for a beer festival (and other weekend shenanigans) on Saturday. They arrived Friday about 5:30 pm by bus, after having travelled all day since about 9.30 am ... and when told they missed a good jolting quake that morning, they were a tad crestfallen. They are all new to New Zealand, had never been to Welly, and were really keen to feel a quake.

Given the now-well-known history of this past weekend, we can safely say here: There has never been a time when the phrase: Careful what you wish for!  has been more poignant. Ha ha. (Hint: we had some kickass quakes on Sunday).

Friday night saw us wobble about (due to ale ingestion, not seismic activity) to a couple of excellent

One of the many fine Kiwi craft beers we regularly drink here. 

 craft beer bars – once we stowed everyone's luggage at my place. The first bar was, of course, my place. We relaxed for an hour taste-testing some fine craft beers that I'd stashed in the fridge, as Rob – being a Canadian from Ontario – has had precious little opportunity to experience proper beer ... and he's really keen to try as many of the myriad New Zealand craft beers as he can. He of course had come to the right spot, and was with the right guy to show him the hoppy ropes (that would be me, if you're having trouble keeping up). The girls weren't too fussed about hoppy craft beer, but politely tried the ones I offered up as samples, and proclaimed them to be "quite nice".  Hop Zombie was the clear favourite. And rightfully so. It's most excellent.

Adam Page is a musical wizard and all-round fun guy.

The night was loads of fun, of course, as we pretty much drank the entire tap menu at Little Beer Quarter, then witnessed the awesomely talented Adam Page perform at Meow. Then at about 7:15 Sunday morning, an even larger quake than Friday's one woke us up. My houseguests were quite impressed that I'd arranged for them to be there for this one! And as nothing broke or fell down, it was agreed all 'round that it was fun and a memorable experience.

Then came the big one ... The Chickening ... at 5 pm Sunday. The 6.8 one that really rattled things around and knocked shit off shelves. The one that kept on going (the first detectable wave of it) for well over a minute ... the one that

The pesky things just kept coming.

forced me to clumsily lunge from my chair to grab my monstrous 55" TV, to keep it from crashing forward onto the floor, as it was bobbing and weaving and rope-a-doping like crazy too!

This 'Chickening' had EVERYONE'S attention now ... mostly because ... it wasn't stopping. Later on the news called the event "multiple swarms of quakes and aftershocks". But we knew better. It was one ... long ... quake, that went on for many hours. I likened it to being at a rave, with loud pounding house/trance music that assaults you ceaselessly – where you cannot tell where one song ends and the next begins. Yeah. It was like that.

As the news of the Big Quake spread, the 'net was suddenly as alive and vibrant as the prisoners in the show OITNB were, looking for a magical, mythical, possibly treasure-laden chicken.

And just like with the now-famous Zimmerman acquittal in the US the previous week (wherein a man on "neighbourhood watch" shot and killed an unarmed 17-year-old kid, because he thought the kid might be up to something nefarious ... and the man was found not guilty of murder) – the net was suddenly rife with heretofore unknown lawyers and legal scholars expounding on the tricky ins and outs of Florida law.

Now, Wellington workplaces abounded with folks who'd been hiding a wealth of expertise, qualifications and knowledge about being secret seismologists and engineers! Why so shy, folks? Show us all your mad skillz!

I myself elected to hunker down at home for a few days, after the quake started and kept going – upon advice from work and actual professional engineers, who said "don't come into the city just yet" ... and I did the only thing that made sense to me.

I took total defensive precautions. I grabbed all the couch cushions I could find, and built myself an impenetrable fort on my bed! With ultra deluxe double-duvet shields!

And I named it:

It was an unparalleled success! I could hunker down, eat pizzas, drink wine and beer, and watch the mayhem from total, secure safety.

Not to mention, it was a fun thing for the cats to play hide n' seek in.

But like all good things, the quake subsided, and the (now) 4-day weekend was fast coming to a close. (There were two extra days tacked on as both the city and my office management deemed it wise that we stay home until things were sussed out and cleaned up a bit).

I eventually had to put the cushions back, hide the sign in the e-closet, and prepare my lazy ass for a couple of days actually working ... as the office officially re-opened on Wednesday just past.

I'm not sure where that chicken is now, though.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Anarchy – and no porn – in the UK
As a final footnote, I saw British PM Cameron in the news the other day, proclaiming his mighty government is going to kibosh – by way of law – access to porn on the internet in the UK.

Once again, a monumentally bad idea leading to a completely unenforceable new law, enacted by barely-sentient, completely clueless jackwagons was about to make for some fun news reports.

Clearly unbowed and unphased by (or more likely, having NO idea about) the myriad recent attempts by the US government to "do stuff" with the net and how US citizens can access it – and more specifically, the immediate and totally effective response of renowned  Net Ninjas "Anonymous", who took down and monkeyed with every website in the US government – these UK governmental bozos are actually going to try and do this.

Can't wait to see what levels of complete humiliation Anonymous will heap on these ass-clowns.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
More summer reading ideas for my northern hemisphere homies
Keep track of all things cool and interesting in the Oshawa region of Ontario, by reading Glenn Hendry's 'Shwa Stories!
And pull up a stool and have a beer and lots o' laughs with Don Redmond over at Brew-Ha-Ha!

And so onwards into that good night we go, ever vigilant with eyes peeled for more absurdities.

Until then, I'm

... and you're not.

Templates

It's a no-brainer
Templates – an interesting concept. They show up everywhere, sometimes in surprising places.

Right now I use an array of different kinds of software to do things (legitimate things!) for publishing, the web, and photography. Every piece of software has an option to use, or make, a template.

Templates come in handy (not quite duct-tape handy, but close) when you know you're going to be faced with repetitive motions in how the document, web page, or photo is going to look. If there are 15 boring/drudgery things you need to do to each page (or photo) before you can move on to do more interesting things to it (still keeping it seemly and legal here) ... making a template for the boring shit makes sense.

Some software comes with pre-made general templates. Every type of software has a unique name for the types of templates they deploy. Web design programs call them "CSS" (Cascading Style Sheets). The best page-design program going, Adobe InDesign, calls them Master Pages. Templates for photos in Photoshop are actually more like "pre-sets" for actions you might want to regularly deploy on photos of the same ilk.

And in life we have templates, too. From the time we're old enough to wobble around and get our sticky

No. Not even once. 

hands into things we're not meant to, parents attempt to apply "templates" to tweak this pesky behaviour. They're more like rules and regs ... but you can consider "don't paint the dog blue", "don't stick forks in electrical outlets (power-points down here)", and "don't feed the DVD player peanut butter sandwiches" all types of templates. Psychological ones, to be sure.

So not only do templates make life easier (eliminating the repeating, savagely-boring drudgery of common tasks), they also prevent you from getting a total beat-down from continuing to do stupid things into your adult life ... like jamming food into DVD players.

My merry beer-blogging mate Don over at Brew-Ha-Ha has been noticing another type of template in play these days. It's a kind of "greeting form letter" for women on a dating site (POF) to use in lieu of any original idea or concept they may have trouble conjuring.

And here's the rumpus.

Can templates make things TOO easy for us ... to the point of eradicating any semblance of original thought or creativity?

(And ironically, as I typed "semblance",  I hit a key wrong and a typo ensued ... and I instantly got the tell-tale red squiggle under the word ... so I immediately just right-clicked on the word to get the correct spelling. I'm an editor, professionally ... so I should have been able to fix the spelling myself, without being aided and abetted by a mechanical spell-check 'genie' in the software. But I don't get paid for writing this blog. So I cheated and did the easy thing ...)

Now where was I. Oh yes. Don notes the uncanny predominance of the prefix "Hey!" followed by the iconic happy-face-smiley thingy, ":-)" appearing at the start of an alarming number of POF greetings, from women, aimed at him. Hey, he's a hip, happening dude, with a cheeky twinkle in his eye, and a 10,000 kilowatt smile – so ladies on the 'POF prowl' are prone to flocking to him to say hello. Or in this case, "Hi! :-)".

And he posed the question to me just the other day: doesn't using a template in a situation like this – where you're meant to be coming off "as yourself" in a meet-and-greet online situation – cheating to the point of it actually detracting from your first-impression attractiveness?

Two Kates, no waiting.

One thing's for sure. When Don reads an intro from someone on that site that starts out with an original idea ... those ones stand out.

Certainly, women looking like Kate Upton or Kate Beckinsale (left) helps a lot in these instances, too – for leaving an instant and lasting impression on a guy. But we're just sayin' ... dating sites may not be the best place to deploy a template.

Embarrassing wetness from above
So the wild and wacky weather weirdness of the world continues ... this time (this week) it was Toronto's turn to get slammed and soaked with a metric ass-ton of rain. Heaps more than usual, it seems ... to the point of turning subway trains into submarines.

Roads were flooded that don't normally collect lake-sized amounts of water.  And in one filmed YouTube incident, a water snake ... on a train ... (no word if Samuel L. Jackson was on hand to toss a few "MU'PHUKKA!"s at it).

"Say 'IT'S RAINING', again!"

Homes by the multi-thousand were hosed down, flooded, and rendered powerless. People climbed to the top level of GO Trains to escape the rising tides. People leapt out of car windows to splash around and see if, in fact, the water was really that wet.

Two weeks prior, it was Calgary's turn to deal with the mighty wet fist of nature, with torrential downpours, floods, and overflowing rivers, to the point of the evacuation of many people. A friend in Austria said it was pretty much like that all spring there too.

We got it here in Welly too – see my last Blog about being sans electricité for eight days.

A nice reminder from the natural world that we can get too used to our "life templates", if you will ... build a house and put trains on a track all you like. Sometimes big storms can slam down on you and take all that away for a while.

Hey, at least it's made almost everyone (except the Toronto Star zealot reporters) forget about big, fat, brain-damaged, drug-hoovering,  drunken redneck mayor Rob Ford for a while!

Big, fat, rich crybabies
According to some fans of the incredibly esoteric rich-guys' game of yacht racing, The Americas Cup is happening now in San Francisco.

Except the only ones racing are the Kiwis. And that's the rumpus there ...

Ahoy, Fattie McRich-Swine!

Technically, or by definition, a "race" is something involving two or more things, people or animals trying to get to the finish line first.

The big, fat, rich bastards who normally partake of this yawner of an event are mostly NOT partaking right now because ... well, no one really knows why. It's something to do with a piece of gear that either conforms to the rules. Or doesn't. Who the fuck cares, really ...

Anyway, some rich guy got 'shirty' about this concept, and then some other members of this rich-fat-bastard fraternity thought they better get their noses out of joint, too (and I'm not stereotypically leaving women out of this story – yacht racing is 100% a rich fat white MEN'S colossal waste of time). Then the rest of these wealthy weasels with big boats got worked up and waved their fat little arms in the air, stomped a few times, and decided not to play either.

Yeah we get it. You're rich. And on a boat.

Which resulted in just the Kiwis willing to front up, get in the boat, and go sail around the course. Alone.

Shockingly, nothing broke on the boat this time, so they won (no kidding here ... a mast snapped in two, one of the last times these rich swine got together to waggle their penises at each other – oops, I mean race expensive yachts around a big wet circle. That did cause the Kiwis to lose, and rather dramatically, that year).

So the Kiwis are winning this year's America's Cup. Yay, I guess.

Beer fest time again!
Nothing absurd about this tidbit of fun, at all. I'm including it here because ... well, we need a bit of sensible, proper fun amid all the weirdness. And nothing says 'fun' like me and a bunch of pals amassing at a beer fest.

There's a small one tonight in the Malthouse bar – an IPA* Challenge. A good enough excuse as any to drink some fine IPAs. Next weekend, the SOBA** Midwinter*** Beer Fest is upon us. Always a fun time, this year it's in a slightly larger venue, so more funsters (and brewers offering fun!) can attend.

THEN, early in August, it's the big Beervana event, in the Caketin*~. This is the largest fest of all here in New Zealand, and should prove to be a good drunken time. How could it not ... the plan is to provide a LOT of beer all under one big roof. Add fun-loving beer drinkers. Stir. It's a simple plan ... and these are the ones that usually work out as planned, with little or no risk of failure.

And there you have it – this week's notable absurdities, and impending fun.

Yours, in beery anticipation,

* IPA – India Pale Ale. Really hoppy tasty ale. Yum. The challenge is, how many can you try before you realise the challenge has now become ... what ones HAVEN'T I tried yet?!
** SOBA – Society Of Beer Advocates, a small but dedicated group of funsters here who (guess what?) like good craft beer. A lot.
*** Midwinter  – July means it's winter here in the antipodes. And more precisely, it's about the middle of the season. Hence ... the timing and naming of this fest.
*~ Caketin – This is the nom de mockery of the big sports stadium here, Westpac Trust Stadium. It is thusly named as it looks for all the world like a giant cake tin. It's where pro rugby is played, and some big concerts happen ... and events. In this case, a big beer swilling type thang. Come on down and get yer swerve on!

Must reads!
I've already mentioned Don Redmond's Brew-Ha-ha! G'wan, have a read! It's all about beer and fun. Can you take the pace? Also be sure to tune in to Glenn Hendry's Shwa Stories! An excellent look a the goings-on in Oshawa, Ontario.

Hosers & flags

Hosers
At this writing,  the 1st of  July – Canada Day 2013 – is over for much of Canada.

There's about 50 minutes of it left in Vancouver; my Toronto pals are long-passed out (hopefully, not in a ditch ... again).

I will wager anyone I know in and around BC is also 9 sheets to the wind, or already tucked up in an equally cozy drainage pipe.

Here in New Zealand, it's almost the 3rd of July (living in the future has its benefits – I like to say we get 48 hours to celebrate everything, from holidays like this, to Xmas, and birthdays).

Like every holiday weekend, no matter what the 'cause celebre' or actual reason for it, most of us head out with escalated glee in anticipation of having an extra day off – and another reason to drink. Often, heavily. And as many would vouch, this is a LOT of fun.

Canadians around the world (expats) have really taken up the cause lately, as well.

We have a "Canadians in Wellington" club here in Wellington (a handy thing, considering the name of the club). There is a bunch of like-minded Canucks in Aussie who organise shindigs around these Canadian-specific events too. For a brief, shining, long-weekend moment, we Canadians shout our proud heritage to ... well, to whoever will listen. But does it stop here, with Canada Day?

Indeed, this is the question of the day. The rumpus, if you will.

I get bemused looks from NZers I know, when they find out it's Canada Day. Unlike the USA's Independence Day, it's not as well known, or trumpted on TV or in newspaper ads for the private bottle shops and bars here. And I don't dash around yelling about it.

Of course when my Kiwi mates find out, they ask: "What sorts of things do you do to celebrate?"

I tell 'em – "Pretty much what every Kiwi does with a day off, whether it's a city's Anniversary Day here, or Waitangi Day, or ANZAC Day."

They nod. They get it. We in the 1st-World parts of the planet love to focus our time off with as much fun as we can cram into the time/space continuum. We all do it ... look for a party, gather en-masse, go camping ... and drink.

I loved the long weekends when I lived in Canada, and of course, I love 'em here too. When there's a Canadian holiday – but not one here to coincide –  I love watching the merry shenanigans from afar, thanks to things like FacePlant and Twitter and Google+. And email. And drunken 4 am phone calls, to please come get me out of this gutter! It's COLD and WET.

One odd thing I notice, though.

Thinking back to when I was a kid, we did pretty much everything we do now ... used the holiday as an excuse to have as much fun as humanly possible ... except now, there's an almost psychotic urgency, a half-mad fervour, a genuine unbridled NEED to be SURE to shout out the whole "I AM CANADIAN" thing.

Almost (dare I say it) ... to an American level.

And that brings me to the other thing I notice that's heaps different now, from when I was a kid.

Flags.

Yep, the mighty Maple Leaf. It's being waved about and draped over shoulders and flown from just about anything you can nail or tie a flag to. A lot.

Not just during this weekend, but just about any time of the year.

When I was a kid, you didn't see many Canadian flags around at all. I was born in an army camp (CFB Petawawa, represent!) so you saw a few flags on military buildings (that makes sense). But you saw more military regiment flashes and badges and arm-bands.

When I was 12, I moved to the 1,000 Islands area (it was a family decision – I wasn't off to join the circus on my own). It's my mom's hometown, Gananoque. It was a tourist town in summer, and the tourists intended to be lured in were, of course, Americans. They were just across the river. So aim your evil marketing scheme at those close by, I guess ... make it a short and easy trip for them.

There WERE a lot of flags around in those summer touristy days when I was a kid – American ones. Usually the Stars 'n Bars were tied/flown from the backs of the monstrous yachts that holidaying Americans would stuff their bulks into, and sail (motor) into our marinas.

Sure, a few Canadians had flags on their boats. But they were much smaller banners, understated ... usually no bigger than an envelope, on the back light-pole of a (much smaller then the USA ones) boat.

No one had a massive Maple Leaf flying off their front porch. People didn't run around with them draped over their shoulders like superhero capes, or drive around flapping them out the car/van/truck window, hooting and waving.

And as Gan wasn't a military town, nor did it have any government offices, no buildings flew the Maple Leaf either. I recall being amazed to see one absolutely HUGE one flying near the Ivy Lea bridge (the bridge crossed the St Lawrence River into upstate New York).

And that was it.

One.

Likely the property of Canada Customs.

Fast-forward to now. And it's a flag-fest. The Maple Leaf is brandished everywhere.

And I'm trying to remember when the change happened.

I'm sure it was when I was in Vancouver. So it had to be the mid to late '90s.

Something happened ... maybe internationally? ... to spark this ... over-abundance of national pride. But for the life of me, I can't think what.

In the early '80s, our ambassador Ken Taylor (at the Canadian Embassy in Iran) was a key player (and a true hero) in rescuing a bunch of American Embassy people, who found themselves trapped in Iran due to ... well, the usual political misunderstandings that lead to people in other countries suddenly becoming convinced every American on their turf is a rat-bastard spy. And of course out come the guns, and the shouting ...

But it wasn't that. The phenomenon I'm talking about was in the 90s.

Canadians have always fronted up well at the Winter Olympics, and we get quite excited during the Summer Games when a Canuck athlete snags some precious metal. But it wasn't an Olympics that triggered it ...

It had been a notable amount of time since a "Canadian" NHL team had won the cup (The Habs in the early '90s I believe) ... so it wasn't that. Canada DOES regularly own the USA in every other hockey championship they meet in besides than the NHL, so maybe that was part it ...

... Bob & Doug McKenzie had something to do with it, with their coining of the term "hoser", and their portrayal of a hilarious pair of doofus-nitwits that started out as a skit on Second City TV. But they weren't the lynch-pin, or the cosmic lever ...

I will ponder this and see if I can pick the notable "blip" in our history in the 90s that started this trend. I likely won't be able to think of it before I really need to post this (timeliness and all that) ... so if you think you might know, and feel compelled to care enough, post up and let me know.

I do know what poured gasoline ON the initial spark though.

There was that now-famous Molson TV ad with the "Hoser-ly dressed down-to-earth Canadian", with his straight-shootin' "I AM CANADIAN" rant. And it was funny!

Prior to this ad, Molson had some clever ad people who clearly noticed the sudden upswing in Canadian pride ... where Canadians were doing something very unusual and UN-Canadian ... they were making loud, boisterous, boorish  nuisances of themselves, in a (gasp!) obviously American fashion!

Suddenly we as a nation weren't politely sitting on our hands, being quiet and reserved and understated, and ironically whispering clever observances to each other, usually about the overt and loutish carryings-on of our boorish neighbours to the south.

(And I say this with tongue-in-toque-covered-cheek – I've always said it's the USA's government that is the main cause of how the world sees Americans. It's something I'm sure is true of just about every nation on earth ... regular folks are regular folks, no matter where. And they just want to make a living and have some fun, and do stuff they like. It's the frickin' politicians and people with zero sense of fun who cause all the trouble. Often, they are one in the same).

Hey, some of my best friends are American. No, really! Well there's that one guy. And the nine or ten American girls I dated. So, yeah.

Where was I ... oh yes,  Molson stepped up and very cleverly created that "I AM CANADIAN" ad to counter the 7 zillion things that ceaselessly, regularly, ENDLESSLY spewed forth from the USA's marketing-machine weasels  – everything from McDonald's ads, to car commercials, to political campaigns, to ... you name it.

If you were an American and were setting off to do ANYTHING outside your house, if you didn't have SOMETHING flag-like (or an eagle pin would do in a pinch) on your house, car, or person ... if you weren't 'supporting the vets' and polishing up your NRA card ... "Well, sonny-Jim, what ARE ya? Some kinda ... COMMIE!?

In just about every American TV ad, there was "old glory" flapping away, some deep-voiced older, wise-sounding man narrating deep, meaningful thoughts, spewing forth words and concepts that boiled down to (every time) ... "Ain't it great to be 'Mur-can!"

The Molson ad didn't start the Canadian Pride fire (apologies to Billy Joel here) ... but they saw the spark, and fanned the flames, and threw a bunch of something vaguely resembling beer on the pile. And *foom* away it went.

Since being here in New Zealand, I've been guilty of having alarming amounts of booze (that's a gimme), and occasionally draping a Canadian flag over my shoulder (that someone else brought!), usually at a rugby game of Sevens, where many countries are there (including Canada!) vying for bragging rights on the field.

But still I wonder.

Exactly how, when, where and WHY did this all start?

At least the folks I've met from other countries still think we're (Canadians) are the quieter, politer, less-heavily-armed people from North America.

Not sure how much longer we can pull that off though. We can't keep running around like a bunch of tossers yelling about how great we are. We KNOW that wears pretty thin.

It's a good thing we lack the knuckle-headed nonsensical spurts of insanity that cause us to blunder about the planet invading and attacking people. Like some folks we know ...

Seems we Canadians don't have the money, weapons, transportation, or inclination to do that. So far.

Maybe that has something to do with us having a bunch of our own oil?

Oh! P.S. .... Two "Must-reads"!
My two mates Glenn and Don write great Blogs too!
Catch Glenn's 'Shwa Stories here, and Don's Brew-Ha-Ha over there!

Absurdly,