What's better than a church?

A church attached to a bar?









Why not share heating costs with Bobby's Place - Olde World Tavern?

Non-Rhetorical Question: How olde world is it? This seeming inconsistency may be perfectly understandable.

Even today, it could be. In South America, priests are often called on to perform car blessings. The owners bring their car and vans and SUVs to the priest before they embark on long trips. The car has no say in the champagne dumped on its engine - whether the quality is good or bad - the car's front is propped open, and the priest bursts a champagne bottle over the engine and tires with an expression of nothing but the most sacrosanct mix of Godly fear and humble servitude.

Not visible in the above photos is the Greyhound bus depot that shares the bar's parking lot. Church+bar+buses = A great new business!

Somehow Moose Jaw has stayed alive all these years, and it hasn't been because of smuggling booze or making headlines for grisly shotgun murders. They've revamped their image to include the words "historic" "charm" and "diversion."

My Mom, a big-city girl herself, called Moose Jaw "a pleasant diversion," as we coasted home in our dual control heated '07 Hybrid. I didn't have Jane Austen on hand, so instead I read from Evelyn Waugh, which is just as good, since he makes fun of the upper class, and is British, so I read it aloud. A perfect ending to our little excursion, darling.

Meringue Psycho - Director's Cut

Janet Leigh and I have things in common. For example, we make the same face while eating delicious food as we do when a psycho killer is about to attack.

-

I wonder as I wander

Fig. 1 inner monologue

Visiting the mall is one of my favourite things to do during the holidays. Throughout most of the year I wouldn't be caught dead in the mall, but for some reason, come Christmastime, you will find me dazed with mallish wanderlust, eyeing the shoppers like a retired mall supervisor - wistful, nostalgic, and happy.

On the inside of this facade is a derisive commentary on our culture's wonderful frivolity. Our ways are so ridiculous, it makes me joyful. Sometimes I think I go overboard satirizing society but no the mall proves that ever-more-needless appliances keep coming out every year, and we are in fact destined for a world full of moving picture frames (you got a plug-in that's not being used? How wasteful. Why not attach a cord to that photo of the Bahamas?)

This year, in the centre of the mall, was a two-sided display, and I decided to interview the salesperson for The Thunderhead. No, ladies and gents, this isn't a fishing yacht, or satellite dish. It's a shower head: "The Space Age Shower Head." I asked the salesman, who resembled Will Farrel's Anchorman, what made the shower head Space Age. He ignored my question and launched into a spiel about the shower head's material while turning the shower head towards me slightly so I could observe what appeared to be 80 water-spouting teats.

But he didn't call them teats. He called them nipples, and showed me, over and over again, how you could squeeze them. While he did this, the shower head looked like an explosively-lactating Monty Python udder. The salesman then informed me that, because of the nipples, the shower head is way ahead of its time, which is what makes it Space Age.

Woh, woh. Isn't the Space Age a version of the future espoused by people in the 1940s? Don't we we live in the information age now? How does the Space Age have anything to do with shower heads and nipples? Those three things do not agree in logic. One does not occur because of the other. What he really means is "space sage." He must have just read it to the poster-guy over the phone, who misunderstood him.

I watched as he manipulated the shower head like a Tai Chi master would move an invisible medicine ball with flat open palms, seemingly in all directions at once. As a "space sage" the shower head is brilliant. How else am I supposed to clean my shower while re-enacting the latest CAN Space Arm repair mission? How else am I supposed to wash both cheeks without turning my head? It's also easy to install. "Even ladies can do it," he said. Oh that's nice for th- wait a minute! he's talking about me! He must think my limp right arm is dead and left there only for symmetry. It's clear to him this shower head could benefit someone like me.

He was set up in the centre of the mall, obviously a special Christmas promotion (The shower head was only 99$! what a bargain). On the other side of the partition was the "Garment Steamer." Unfortunately this is not a Garment Company Inc model of Mark Twain's river boat. It's in fact a vacuum cleaner that spews water on clothes instead of sucking dust from floors. The vacuum's spray-head (which did not have nipples and was not space-age) pointed upwards on a meter-length pole which was attached to the base. In front of the steamy nozzle was a shirt on a hanger, the bottom part of the shirt tied into a knot. It looked like a plug-in scarecrow. Seeing the steam rising from the shirt's collar was like watching a perpetual party gas rendition of someone's head vaporizing to an essence.

The Garment Steamer's motto was "Adding Value to Modern Life."

Has adding value really become this marginal?

Answer: Yes, but you should also be unhappy with modern life and buy this appliance.

Modern life has become so diluted that when I walked through the newly-renovated Safeway admiring the new Starbucks and shopping carts with Starbucks cup holders, the spell of wandering through the delightful new store was broken with what equalled the screaching of violins playing EEK EEK EEK and my blocking the produce intersection (there are no longer aisles, just strange 5 and 6-ways). Up on the wall, partially blocked by the floral arrangement wagon, "Poetry" was written in large cutesy font. At least it wasn't "poesie" or "poèmes" but poetry was almost as bad. Underneath were no titles by e.e. cummings and Ted Hughes, but wicker baskets, vases, pottery, and stools. Poetry involves something called words, not stools and earthenware. I hate to be the English-major, but poetry is not a ceramic bowl; it involves a certain agency not usually correspondent with buying flowers and sitting on wicker stools. How are we supposed to teach this to the children?

The Safeway shopping wonderland had gone on without me, and when I looked around I saw a cheery employee moving boxes who asked me how I was.

"I think you misspelled pottery," I said.
"Well, we must sell it." She paused and looked around at the wall. "Oh. PO-E-TRY," she sounded it out for me, willing me to understand that this was a completely different word. I sighed and went away.

In 25 years poetry will mean wicker furniture:"What lovely deck poetry you've got!" Starbucking will mean shopping, and we'll all still be looking forward to the Space Age.

Counting limbs & other body parts, from "Games I play with myself."

(For the record, these are the only pictures my mother has taken of me this year.)

Hound Tannenbaum

I've been spending quality time with my dog this week and the other day I took her for a walk. During the walk, she climbed under some pine trees and emerged with this festive tail decoration. She knew it was there and sprinted down the sidewalk. The pine cross was there to stay. It was so tangled in her fur that I probably could have left it there forever. This was the dog's worst nightmare, and my dream as a photographer.

In terms of photographing her, however, the fact my dog is a dog created problems. I wanted to photograph her tail, but she wanted to sniff the lens. I wanted to get it out of her fur, and she wanted to bite my hand. I stepped out onto the patio with her to snap some photos of her in the snow, and I shut the door to prevent warm air from escaping. No sooner did I do that did I find out that the door was locked. It was thirty below and I was in my socks. The dog seemed vindicated for my harassment. She coolly crept under the steps while I bounced bow-legged across the patio like an attacking ape. Luckily, the side-door was unlocked.

For fun, I've posted a chronology of my negotiations with Pepper. Guess who's winning in each photo.



Answer: Pepper



A: Hmm... debatable



A: Pepper



A: Frustration sets in.



A:Pepper



Pepper: Why does she insist on pestering me?



A: ME!



I also discovered my dog is a fan of Josh Groban's Christmas carol cd. She's not into decorations, but she is into dancing/shaking/bobbing her head to Christmas crooners. I would have made a video, but I'm afraid that is even worse than getting photos.

Redemption by Johnny Depp

My brother, who is going to Bolivia tomorrow, gave me his advent calendar to finish. I was very touched when he said he was passing on the torch. This means I won't have to refill my own calendar, which I digested in a 4-day binge at the end of November when my hormones staged a mutiny, a la Johnny Depp (in the sense both of me eating chocolat and my hormones staging a mutiny - all around he's interfering with my life). When I told my brother about my own calendar, he said that he was giving me his on the condition that I don't eat the chocolates all at once. I agreed, since I'm now on a diet of no junk food.

My advent calendars are nothing compared to home advent calendars, specifically the world's largest, which is in Gengenbach, Germany. This is not to be confused with the world's largest 'anything' advent calendar, which was a contraption whose doors were 2X3 metres large and won its fame at a fair of the same name in Leipzig several years ago. What was inside, I'm not sure, but I guarantee it wasn't a 2X3 block of chocolate.

You may have never heard of home advent calendars before. I have a few questions myself; why is it a home and not an office? Is it because office employees would pay heed to their boss' overzealous holiday spirit to block out their windows one by one in order to win fame in a book only a hundred people read? Is it a ploy to crush workers' resolve to live while desperation is hot around holiday time?

I'm not making up giant advent calendars to make myself feel better or because I'm a lover of giant things. In German they're called Haus-Adventkalender.

I would like to know how I can create a giant calendar of my own, preferably a non-edible one, and one that I can broadcast to the neighbours so they can enjoy my Christmas spirit. Outside accountability will also prevent a similar advent crime as what occurred in my house in November of this year.

I suggest a four-pronged approach and thinking inside the box. The box will be the advent calendar. The four prongs are Mary, Jesus, and two of the wise men.

The two wise men (three is awkward for architects) will help me construct an advent calendar-facade for my house in the suburbs. Mary and Jesus will sit on the overhang, praying for me.

Behind the facade will be 24 cuckoo clocks that will spit out candy for the neighbourhood children every day at noon. The entire facade will be constructed of solar panels, which will fuel the system, thereby making it compliant with the Kyoto Accord, and my stringent environmental/health/ethical standards. It's the perfect holiday item in line with new century morals. If you're a wise man or have an engineering/carpentry degree, call me as soon as possible. Advent is half over, and Lent won't be as fun.