“Anything to declare?!” “Yeah, Don’t go to London”

I’m sure everyone had the same reaction as I did upon learning that Prince William was finally going to marry his long time girlfriend, Kate Middleton. “OH!, good for them, what’s the score in that hockey game, Dave?” First things first.  William is the real winner after this because the newest Princess to be is a good looking piece of royal ass.  At this stage of my life I kind of wish I was still in contact with my ex-girlfriend so I could show her what a REAL Princess looks and acts like, but, I digress. 

In the days following the news of the latest royal engagement there have been countless stories about the wedding and the rabid dogs that are the british press are churning out stories.  Of course, a royal wedding is a huge, expensive undertaking that the Royal family funds.  I have NO idea how they have so much money and where it continues to come from (i hope it isn’t coming out of my Canadian pocket) but they obviously have some pounds, not euros, real currency, pounds.  Who am I to say how the Royal family spends their money, 30 – 50 million pounds for a wedding isn’t out of the realm of possibilty, wait a minute!!?  “On top of those costs, British taxpayers will pick up the tab for security and transportation, which could add up to $130 million”  How is this a good use of tax payers money?!  The financial difficulties among the English population has been well documented over the last couple of years, due to the mighty recession.  How is Charlie, the 43 year old brick layer from Manchester going to feel he is flipping the bill for this Princesses big day and he ain’t getting squat!  I don’t want to rag on William too much because I am not quite sure if he is the one driving the double decker bus.  However, I doubt Princess Diana would have been in favour of spending the common folks hard earned money on security at her sons wedding especially this soon after such a difficult financial crisis for so many.  That’s easy for me to say because I am not a member of the Royal Family and Princess Diana died many years ago.  However, from what I read about Princess Di (very little) she seemed to be very down to earth and a world leader in charitable causes.  Angelina Jolie wishes she was half the woman Princess Di was – ha – suck on that Jolie, you sexy as hell, old bitch. 

For a country that is hosting the 2012 Summer Olympics I wonder where they are getting all of this money?  The thing about the Olympics  is that the English masses are going to enjoy those sporting events and parties.  The Olympics are nothing short of a two week, patriotic love fest where the whole city shuts down and getting wasted at noon on a work day is the norm, well, maybe a little more acceptable then what probably already happens in London anyways.  My totally irrelevant point is that taxpayes money for the Olympics is a great idea because the country will benefit from hosting these events.  I doubt you would find very many Vancouverites who regret or hated having the Olympics in Vancouver.  What does the English population stand to gain from spending money to watch Prince William marry Kate Middleton?!? nadda.  Perhaps Hugh Heffner could swindle Kate into a little Royal Family Centre Fold to help cover the costs of the wedding, I would have no problem chipping in for that!

Best looking women athletes

I use this term having stolen it from Daniel Tosh. He also probably would not agree with this blog post at all, but fuck it we move forward for the, no doubt, two fans of this blog.

Now, onto the hotties.

Melissa Hollingsworth – Skeleton
A little Canadian patriotism early here because well we have hot ladies and Melissa is at the top of that list. Pictures don’t even do justice to how smoking hot this woman is as she squeezes herself into a tight lycra suit and flys down an ice tube – down boy.  Skeleton athletes need to have strong legs for those quick starts and pushoffs to get them going……Melissa’s just happen to be some of the sexiest out there.

Lindsay Vonn – Downhill Ski
Two sultry ice queens start off the list as they were at the front of my brain as I created this post. But look at this picture and tell me this girl couldn’t be confused with a gorgeous movie actress a la Malin Ackerman or Ellen Pompeo (of Old School fame). Once again a nice tight lycra suit helps to show off Lindsays athletic body and great legs and makes downhill skiing somewhat bearable for the population not from Austria.

Allison Stokke – Pole Vault
That’s right, we’re reaching into the metaphorical, yet true category of sports for this next gorgeous lady. A stand out at Cal University (who knows if she’s good at pole vaulting but she definately stands out in a crowd….ba dump ba dah!) she quickly went viral on the internet before realizing that all the attention was not worth it. So you won’t see any modeling or anything of her online but enjoy the picture of this good looking track athlete. I’m not even going to give the internet people the joy of a well thought out pole joke here, because I respect her too much. Pole Vault teehee.

Isabelle Mercier – Poker
Okay, okay, I know poker isn’t really a sport or an athletic event but I was starting to run out of options. Mercier is a little big more to the yummy mummy side of things but if that lady was staring at you across the poker table we all know you’d go all-in in an effort to impress her, only to have her call your obvious bluff (your tongue hanging out was the giveaway genius) and take all of your chips when you turn over your deuce, eight.

Well that’s all i’ve got, feel free to lip me off and denigrate my manhood but i’m sticking with my choices. If you’re so smart who did I miss? Notice how I didn’t go with the obvious ones that everyone uses (and as Tosh puts it “are 7’s at best”) Jennie Finch, Danica Patrick, Ashley Harkleroad, or Natalie Gulbis.

Is Brian Burke a reincarnation of JFJ?

It can be argued that Brian Burke was the architect behind the current Vancouver Canucks squad, he was the one that dealt for the top two picks in the draft that netted the Canucks Daniel and Henrik Sedin, two of the top snipers in the NHL these days. It can also be argued that he was the man behind the Anaheim Ducks cup run of 2007, even though he really came on board after they had Ryan Getzlaf and Corey Perry drafted. However, he was smart enough to draft players like Bobby Ryan and re-sign Scott Niedermayer and Teemu Selanne again and again.

So, he had a lot of cache after a couple of years in Anaheim and of course the Toronto Maple Leafs GM at the time John Ferguson Junior was known as….well lets just say it politely, a fucking idiot. So the Leafs were in desperate need of a strong visionary that had the hockey knowledge and smarts about him to bring them back to a power position in the NHL. They have rabid fans and are the top hockey market in the world so suffice it to say they had their eyes on one and only one man to handle the job once they finally smartened up and fired the man that had made outrageous contract offers with Jason Blake, Pavel Kubina and Bryan McCabe (along with no-trade clauses for all of them). Brian Burke was seen as the star GM in the hockey world and Toronto did everything they could to land him. He would be their way out of the darkness that had enveloped the team.

Or so they thought….

Two years into the journey and Brian Burke is not even remotely handling the job in the proper way. I know when he took the job Burke said he would rebuild the Leafs in a non-traditional way in an effort to expedite the process, but why bother? Do you know how the Anaheim Ducks won the cup Brian? What about the Pittsburgh Penguins? or the Tampa Bay Lighning?

They used their draft picks wisely and built a team around top end draft choices. They tanked the team for three or four years and ended up with 3 or 4 top ten draft picks to build a franchise around. Once you have give your draft picks a chance to get themselves into NHL form through play in the AHL or a couple of seasons worth of learning lessons at the NHL level, start signing some free agents to fill out your roster and patch holes in the defence and forward areas.

Instead he has traded two first round draft picks for a sniper who has no one to play with and has tried to create a formidable blue line which has failed miserably. The first first rounder he traded was promptly turned into Tyler Seguin (the top ranked centre in the 2010 draft) who would have probably been a great fit with their Nazim Kadri selection from 2009. Brian Burke’s calculations in thinking the aquisition of Phil Kessel would be the key to the Leafs making a string of playoff appearances shows about as much mathematical accumen as I did in the pre-calculus college course that landed me on academic probation. His probation will be the Leafs mired in another decade of uselessness as the Boston Bruins reap the riches of the Leafs terribleness instead of Brian Burke.

Unfortunately Toronto hockey fans continue to buy tickets (kudos for not being bandwagon jumpers) which means the Leafs never have the time to tank a season and focus on building from the ground up. Until they change their mantra of “Every year we need to make the playoffs” for a couple of years, they will flounder at the bottom to mid range of the eastern conference. They will soon learn from Edmonton how to take a team from the scrap heap and build it into an entertaining product that sells tickets and has success on the ice.

What time is it Mr. Wolf?

Well kid, Mr. Wolf has no fucking clue what time it is because every single one of the clocks he encounters everyday tells him a different bloody time!

How is it possible that of the 10 to 12 clocks I look at a day none of them have the same time on them. Take for example my workplace, where I am sitting right now, which has three seperate clocks all within eyesite: 9:20 on blackberry, 9:18 on computer, 9:16 on phone console……pardon? They are all electronic and the blackberry and computer are literally networked to each other! How is it possible that there are three different times. How do I know which one to trust so that I leave work the second I’m supposed to instead of giving my company a bonus minute or two of time in the office to make up for writing blog posts at work? Ridiculous.

Thematical musical interlude:

And don’t even get me started on the various clocks at my house. The microwave and oven clocks are obvious toss outs because everyone knows those are never even remotely close to the time, but my laptop, blackberry and television clocks are all skewed so harshly that it is impossible to try and guess when to leave my apartment to try and catch the bus when needed.

And have you ever had this one, where you are looking at the clock in your car which you are pretty confident is bang on accurate and then the radio announcer says “…and current time is 8:24” which is approximately five minutes ahead of what time you actually thought it was according to your dashboard clock.

In a digital age isn’t there some kind of instrument that will just sync all your clocks together to match the greenwich mean time or whatever the worldwide clock that is king to all other clocks tell us? Is there an app for that apple?

Bandwagon sports journalists

Sometimes I wonder how particular sports journalists maintain their job for more than a month. Most sports fans emotions about their favourite team ebb and flow with their current effort levels and success rates. But why does it seem like “professional” jounalists get sucked into this same stream of mindless thinking. Shouldn’t professionals be able to evaluate players/teams and realize when they are over-performing or under performing? For example take Mike Brophy of Sportsnet and his articles about the Toronto Maple Leafs less that two weeks apart.

Article 1, Oct. 27 2010: Phil Kessel for MVP, positive about Leaf’s possibilities for year
Article 2, Nov. 3 2010: Toronto is Loserville, that’s about as negative as it gets

Now I understand that Brophy is probably a Leafs fan and that articles about Toronto will get read lots, but where is his credibility? How can he possibly consider himself a hockey expert when 6 days after he was more giddy than a 10 year old boy that uncovered his mom’s Playgirl collection he has thrown himself off that rainbow covered wagon and is high tailing it like Forrest Gump. We can only hope somebody shoots him in his buttocks. Best quote comes from the second article where he writes:

“The funny thing is, the Leafs struggles this season were not exactly unanticipated. Most picked the Leafs to be in a dog-fight to make the playoffs, but when they got off to a great start, winning their first four games and picking up nine out of a possible 10 points in their first five games, expectations (once again) rocketed through the roof.”

Who helped rocket those expectations Mr. Leaf MVP Candidate?

But it’s not just brophy that flip flops like John Kerry in a presidential debate circa 2006 or whenever it was. The Vancouver Canucks’ media over the first couple of weeks of the season had been attempting to further flame the embers of a possible goalie controversy between Corey Schneider and Roberto Luongo. Now, Luongo has been a fixture in the league for more than 10 years and one of the most solid goalies around for the majority of his career. That, coupled with the fact that Luongo is a notorious slow starter should have kept all the medias mouth’s shut while he struggled for a couple of games and Schneider picked up a couple of wins. Now Luongo has reeled off back-to-back wins including a shutout and most people have forgotten how to spell Schneider.

I realize the rationale behind the media talking in such ways – it illicits a response from the general public and there are enough morons out there that will argue against the logical reasoning, hit the panic button, and go hide in their bomb shelters. It’s the same reason Fox News has so much success in the US.