WORKING, WET AND WONDERFUL

ASIDE FROM A SQUISHED-TOGETHER ELEVATOR RIDE OR TWO, MY HOPED-FOR MEETING WITH THE B.C. LIONS CHEERLEADERS WAS NOT WHAT I ANTICIPATED.

So now that we've got that myth out of the way (hey, and didja know, they're called the Felions? Meow, purr....), what was Vancouver really like?

Well, it was a whole bunch of this...

It rained, and rained, and rained...and then it rained some more. Vancouver's a beautiful city, but I did not bring an umbrella. I felt like I was in the Vancouver Aquarium the entire weekend.

But it was also about this...wild fans of the Saskatchewan Roughriders (green, left) and the Lions (red, right) getting together to watch the Lions win the Canadian Football League West Division Final.

The Lions will arrive in my city, Winnipeg, tomorrow along with the Montreal Alouettes for Sunday's CFL championship, the 94th Grey Cup, and I'll be working on that all week for my newspaper.

The weekend was also about a chance to get to meet the beautiful and talented MJ The Infomaniac, but I'll post about that meeting when I get the chance. I did not get the opportunity to meet Andrea of Colouring Outside the Lions. :-(

Right now, I need to dry out, my computer keyboard is wet.

A "CHEERFUL" INVITATION

I HAVE BEEN INVITED TO VANCOUVER THIS WEEKEND AT THE BEHEST OF THE WOMEN BELOW.

OK, not really, but I do hope to inadvertently run into these two women below, members of the British Columbia Lions' cheerleading squad, inexplicably posing with whoever this guy is.

OK again.

No, in fact, I am off to Vancouver this weekend to cover the Canadian Football League West Division final on Sunday between the Lions and the Saskatchewan Roughriders at B.C. Place Stadium.

And if I get to meet the cheerleaders at a post-game hot tub party, well so be it. All part of the job.

But even if that doesn't happen -- or even if it does -- at least I might be able to meet with Vancouver blogger MJ (The Infomaniac) or Andrea (Colouring Outside the Lines).

Regardless, this will be my workplace this weekend (and how ironic is it that Vancouver, which hardly ever gets snow or cold but just gets rained on all the time, has a domed stadium and Winnipeg doesn't):

Here are some action shots of the Lions and Roughriders in action. The winner of this game will advance to the Grey Cup, the CFL championship, in my Winnipeg on Sunday, Nov. 19.

It's going to be quite the national party, even though the game itself will likely be played in -40 C temperatures. Still, it's Canada's big football hoedown and it's going to be fun.

Nelly Furtado will play at Grey Cup half-time (we'll be watching to see if she has a clothing malfunction) and 45,000 people should be drunk by half-time. I, however, plan to remain sober.

After all, I do have to write and I will be working.

"NOT RESPONDING"

THIS IS SUPPOSED TO BE THE AGE OF THE INTERNET.

The indestructibility of the World Wide Web, the advent of MySpace, the zillion-thoughts-a-second instantaneousness of computers.

So why the hell is that at least once a day, with a high-end Dell PC that I purchased less than six months ago, I get this response from Blogger or from this site or that site: "NOT RESPONDING."

Or I get some stupid message that comes on saying this program or that program saying "We apologize, but mim needs to shut this program down now. Would you like to send an error report?"

No, I'd like to kick you in the balls!

I see bloggers mention it all the time: can't post a picture, lose a lengthy comment on a post you've just spent the last 15 minutes composing, lose a song I've just downloaded when the site shuts down...

You spend $2,000 on your new computer, another $50 a month on your high-speed connection, you buy optional programs like Limewire or Flickr or this or that...and it all goes kersplat.

Is this some big conspiracy by the computer companies and servers and website operators, including Blogger, to drive us mad so that we'll just spend more on the next highest level of service that STILL will break down?

I realize technology is fragile. But why don't they just spit it out and say, "Shit happens. Things break down. This is what you should expect. We don't have it all right. We are not infallible."

But they don't. Instead, they offer outdated advisories saying this site or that site will be taken down for maintenance. But that usually happens only after users have lost this or that.

While I'm at it, might as well whine a bit more. Why do they offer those boxes that say "remember my password," and you click on it to do so, and it never DOES remember your password?

Am I a complete whiner who just doesn't have a clue because I don't have my PhD in getting along with computers or what?

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. :-(