People Collection List (Canajun Verjun)

Ces, who was voting Tuesday for a New York Jew named Kinky, has I see tagged me to write "five things" about myself that are either profane or mundane.

Being a good boy who could never be profane or do anything considered profane, and being entirely mundane (I'm sure Homo Escapeons will readily back this up), I could only come up with this list:

1. By my rough calculations, I have five scars on my body totalling some 13 inches, nine inches of which are the result of three operations on my right knee, which was totally reconstructed at one point.

I blew out the knee while playing Frisbee football on a hill in Turkey. I have a bolt just below my kneecap holding it all together. The football players I cover laugh at me about having uglier knees than they do.

Other scars are on my right wrist from pushing my hand through a window while losing my temper with my mom as a kid, on my lower back when I had a disc removed (another sports injury) and on my left leg when I sunk a drill bit into it.

2. I have an actor uncle named Len Cariou. Google him. You'll probably recognize him. He's been in movies with Jack Nicholson and Alan Alda, has starred on Broadway with Lauren Bacall and Liz Taylor.

Back in the 80s I travelled to New York and spent a day with him and his then-flame, an actress no one knew until she burst onto the scene later that year with a guy named Robin Williams in a movie called The World According to Garp.

Her name is Glenn Close.

3. I have two brothers and three sisters. All three of us boys have a space between our front teeth. None of the three girls do. Go figure.

4. I told the entire planet, as a sports reporter with The Canadian Press wire service in Edmonton, Alberta, that superstar hockey player Wayne Gretzky broke Gordie Howe's career points scoring record the night he did it.

And my name is on that scoresheet because I picked the three stars that night, Gretzky No. 1, obviously.

5. I was 4-foot-11 in Grade 10 but grew six inches that summer, when I simultaneously discovered girls were as much fun as playing sports and collecting insects.

I only grew another four inches after that. :-(

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.