Michael Coren

When I left Ontario I knew I would miss certain things, but one thing I was determined not to to miss was Michael Coren Live, the best Canadian political roundtable discussion show on the air. Why? Because it has something so many similar shows do not: balance and time to actually discuss the issues beyond a 30-second sound bite. That's the reason I went satellite rather than digital cable when we moved to BC.

An excerpt from his latest Toronto Sun column, this time talking about one of my pet peeves: smug, superior Canadians (and others) who "know" everything better.



That kind of contradicts that "we don't hate you, we hate your government/George Bush" line that's popular when bashing the U.S.



Betcha Sheryl's telling him that he "deserved" it because look at what America has done to the world.

Look indeed.



But, of course, in Canada we're better than all this, aren't we? Aren't we?

Do the Eurocrats our politicians suck up to really know how much better we are because we're trying to be so like those losers in Paris: morally ambivalent, intellectually smug, and righteously bankrupt of any ability to show true leadership?

My books! My books!

You speak eloquently and have seemingly read every
book ever published. You are a fountain of
endless (sometimes useless) knowledge, and
never fail to impress at a party.
What people love: You can answer almost any
question people ask, and have thus been
nicknamed Jeeves.
What people hate: You constantly correct their
grammar and insult their paperbacks.


What Kind of Elitist Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

via Ghost of a Flea and Paul Jané

Predictable

Well, the countless interview questions about what I'd do if I were bored, wouldn't I find the job tedious yada yada, should've tipped me to the fact that I was considered over-qualified and a potential flight risk to the first local company that offered me something better...

In other words, I didn't get the job.

Weird though, I wasn't feeling all that let down after I hung up the phone with the drone who'd been programmed to tell the losers unsuccessful candidates that they were in fact losers unsuccessful. I guess that I considered myself overqualified, and truth be told, they WERE right: I would've left them for the first suitable thing that came my way.

The interview was good practice though- a cleansing of the palate, if you will. I felt a little slow and stupid during the process, like my brain was shooting neurons through molasses, but I did okay. And I looked fantastic...

Next time will be better.

Overdressed?

Is it a good thing to be the best dressed person during a gang interview? I mean the other three people at the table, career bureaucrats all, were dressed in Walmart biz-casz, whereas I was suit boy.

They're checking my refs and doing whatever it is that they do...

Interview

I've got a job interview tomorrow, my first in a few months. Gotta get my suit ready and my brain sharpened. Time to start earnin'.

Maybe I AM NOT CANADIAN!

Molson's is gonna get so razzed over this by their competition, especially considering how they wrapped themselves in the flag with their Joe Canada - I AM CANADIAN rant.





Translation: Ugly parents usually make ugly babies.

I drank Molson's in high school and in early university, usually because that's what the older (legal) kids were selling off to us underaged losers. I didn't like it, but I wasn't drinking for taste in those days, and Molson sure didn't provide any. For the longest time Canadian beer brands have suffered from the conceit that on the whole Canadian beers were better because they were Canadian, no effort to actually make something that tastes better.

That's why they're losing market share.

Today I stick to the microbrews, which I gotta say are quite a bit better out west...

Charge Moore

Deliciously ironic considering how wonderful he thinks Canada is...

Of course he won't spend any jail time in Canada, but a charge by Elections Canada will effectively bar him from entering the country...thus keeping him from talking with local Canadian morons who show up in his films.

I'm talking specifically about those Canadian losers in Bowling for Columbine who talk about how lovely it is here and how there's no gun crime and people don't lock their doors at night because everyone in Canada doesn't have guns and don't kill each other like the barbarians to the south.

I ask my friends in Toronto, Mississauga, Montreal, Vancouver...Kelowna: do you leave your doors unlocked at night? I remember the crime beat reports on Pulse24 in Toronto, which I still sometimes watch on satellite; hardly the utopia of tolerance that Moore states we have here, using 3 idiots to speak for 30 million people.

Not getting me on a plane soon...

Creepy story about 14 Syrians acting strangely on a Northwest Airlines flight from Detroit to Los Angeles...



If proper security measures had been in place, the airline would be accused of racial profiling and fined a great deal of money.

I'm staying on the ground.

Cancon Timewarp

I am trying to figure out why Kelowna restaurants seem to have an obsession for the 80's Quebec band The Box...I mean, seriously, they weren't that good to start with, but for some damn reason, every time I hear one of their songs it starts ricocheting back and forth in my skull until finally it's 3am and I'm staring in the mirror with a straight razor in my hand and my inner monologue voice (who strangely sounds like Canadian actor Michael Ironside) tells me to end the pain.

My inner monologue has been trying to kill me for several years now.

I've been in Kelowna less than a month and have heard The Box played through restaurant muzak no less than FIVE FREAKIN' TIMES in five different places!

How long until Men Without Hats and Luba puke themselves back up on the radio...

Horsies!

"Horsies!!" screams my two-and-two thirds year old daughter from the back seat of the Odyssey as we scream down the steep hill that leads away from our house.

I look over as we pass row upon row of grapes, getting lusher and lusher until they're harvested for this year's vintage.

And there they are by the side of the road - four magnificent brown animals, gazing at the road with intelligent unconcerned eyes.

My daughter laughs and yells "Kelowna horsies! Yayyyy!"

I look over at Rue and smile. She smiles back.

This is less than a minute from our driveway...

---

Since we moved from Mississauga, Ontario:

• My allergies are gone


• My sense of smell's come back (the kitchen smells MUCH more appetizing!)


• My eyes no longer burn at the end of the day from the haze of ever-present Toronto smog


• I can see stars...sorry, no, that needs emphasis. I can see STARS!

I'd forgotten how beautiful the Okanagan Valley is. Funny that it took last year's fires to put the idea into our heads to move here.

Now all I need is a job.