The Faerie Tale of George Dubya Bush

So this guy decided to show...

JUST HOW TOUGH HE COULD BE ON TERRORISTS

And for all those lives lost, both American soldiers and Iraqis, this old man is all he's got to show for it:

And now Saddam has been sentenced to death. Surprise!

Bush has called it a victory for Iraqi democracy or something silly like that, even as his own armed forces continue to call for Donald Rumsfeld's head, even as Bush's Republicans teeter on the precipice of electoral defeat.

And even as, on Monday, a Republican governor he was trying to help get re-elected in Florida decided to pass up that opportunity to show up somewhere else instead.

The jig's up, Dubya. Listen to the people. Pull the boys out of Iraq.

TRUTH or CONSEQUENCES

FATHER

(Grim-faced disciplinarian)

SON

(Testosterone-tipsy Teen)

THE SCENARIO

Said teen spends every second weekend with me but shows up unannounced last Saturday for sleepover. Always welcome here. On Sunday, the usual grilling before I take him home...

Father: Did you remember everything?

Son: Yep.

Father: Did you do your homework?

Son: Yep.

Father: Did you pack all your clothes?

Son: Yep.

Father: Do you have your key?

Son: Yep.

Father: Did you clean up your room?

Son: Yep. I was only here one night, Dad. Hardly touched a thing.

Father: OK, let's go.

THREE DAYS LATER...

He has a new girlfriend, I've found out. I'm trying to cut him some slack.

I'm Now "Colouring Outside the Lines"

THE PICTURES BELOW WILL NEVER DO THE ART OR THE ARTIST JUSTICE, BUT I AM PROUD TO DISPLAY THEM FOR ALL TO SEE.

And they're MINE, ALL MINE, buuhuuuhawhawhawhawheeheehee!!!

They're original works by none other than Vancouver blogger/artist/fine human being Andrea Pratt, from Colouring Outside the Lines.

And I am now in the privileged company of fellow bloggers Cherrypie (UK), Brian the Mennonite (Canada) and Kyknoord (South Africa) as proud owners of Andrea's work.

There may be other bloggers I know who have scooped up some of her works, but these I know for sure have Andrea Art in their homes.

Here's my beauts, and I apologize again for the off-centre pix:

Andrea is one of the most eloquent bloggers on the Web and clearly one of the most talented. I bought these from the Etsy site for a mere pittance.

I won't go into the costs of framing (!!! :) but it's worth it.

I also want to mention that while she isn't making a big deal of it herself, she's nominated in the artistic category for a 2006 Canadian Blogger Award so I'd urge you all to vote for her.

But check out her blog (find her on my favourites list on the right) and have a look at some of her artistry which explodes in colour and sensations that are unbelievable...

Then make up your own mind.

I wonder what it must be like for Andrea or any other artist to know their creativity graces the walls of people around the planet for an entire lifetime -- and just how that must feel.

Thanks, Andrea.

Mother Nature's PMS

OK, don't get your pantyhose all tied up in knots.

The pictures you are about to see are the equivalent of Mother Nature suffering through (or should that be US suffering through) a bit of PMS, northern North America style.

That's right, just the calm before the real storm, the predictable sign that winter is just around the corner on the northern Prairie, the cranky but inevitable approach of bad, cold weather on the horizon.

No offence intended, ladies, but I can't help but make the analogy. It's the onset of the Winterpeg Wonderland, that long, frigid time of the year when we must go without the necessities of life and just try to survive.

But this is just a sign that it's coming. This is nothing compared with what's yet to come.

This happened Monday over a span of about 12 hours. I took the first two pix Monday night after work and the last three Tuesday morning.

But my plans to do this post late Monday night were bamboozled by Blogger's decision to make uploading photos impossible. Until tonight, Tuesday. So here they are.

This will be no big deal to other Canadians tuning in.

This much snow in late October is a bit early, coming on the day before Halloween, and it will stay here and it will get much colder through December to March until it starts to warm again.

But I wanted visitors from Australia, South Africa, India, Malaysia, South America, the southern U.S. and bloggers in Europe to have a gander, just to get a taste of the first vestiges of a Canadian winter.

So here it is...

Between 15-20 cms. of snow fell. Depending where you live, is this a shocking revelation to you? Or is this what you'd expect from a place in the middle of Canada, the land of hockey and ice?

What's your weather like and have you ever tasted snow on the tip of your tongue or got your tongue stuck frozen on a metal object while you were a kid out playing in -30 C temperatures?