Tag Archives: Justin Bieber

It’s Canada Day, eh? Part II

Posted by facelikeafryingpan in July 2013 and tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

We Canadians know what the rest of the world thinks of us–mostly thanks to the way we are depicted in American television shows.  According to these depictions, we use monopoly money, drink a lot of beer, apologize constantly, and end every sentence with “eh.”  We’re not offended by these portrayals.  In fact, we are renowned for our great sense of humours–and spelling “humour” with a “u”, by the way.  Only in Canada, would you find currency named Loonies and Toonies.  One of our biggest exports to our southern neighbour is  comedians.  And there is an art to using “eh” correctly–and only we “Canucks” seem to have this gift. But today our gigantic nation–second in size only to Russia–with the teeny tiny population of roughly 34 million people is celebrating its 146th birthday.  Yes, we are a young nation devoid of ancient man-made wonders, but filled with many wonders created with God’s hands.  The Rockies, Niagara Falls, the Cabot Trail, the icy Arctic, and the golden prairies.

Canada's equivalent to "huh."

Canada’s equivalent to “huh.”

We love "u"'s. We add them to everything.

We love “u”‘s. We add them to everything.

Tuques, Beer, and Bob & Doug

Tuques, Beer, and Bob & Doug

Timmy's. Every town has at least one.

Timmy’s. Every town has at least one.

Mm. Fries, Gravy, and cheese curds=poutine.

Mm. Fries, Gravy, and cheese curds=poutine.

Beaver Tails. Footnote: These have never been attached to a beaver.

Beaver Tails. Footnote: These have never been attached to a beaver.

Yes, we Canadians are known for some pretty strange things.  But, then again, our nickels bear the likeness of a rodent–the beloved Canadian beaver.  Our flag boasts a big red leaf.  And we have adopted a bilingual version of our national anthem, which means that most of us haven’t got a clue what we are singing anymore.  Like I said, we don’t take many things seriously.  Except our hockey.

 
And we, Canadians, can be found everywhere–in your movies, on your TV sets, and in your iPods.  ryan-gosling-300James cameronchristopher plummersandra ohmichael bubleleslien.jpgmary pickfordPhil hartmandave thomasfay wraylorne michaelsjason priestleyeric maccormacknia vardalosrachelle lafevrebrendan-fraser-20070503-249440_largealex trebekellen pagetommy chong
Keanu Reeves, Howie Mandel, Pamela Anderson, Dan Aykroyd, Ryan Reynolds, Rachel McAdams, Jim Carrey, Avril Lavigne, Neve Campbell, John Candy, Justin Bieber, Nelly Furtado, Seth Rogen, Willima Shatner, Shania Twain, Alan Thicke, Donald Sutherland, Alanis Morissette, Eugene Levy, Martin Short, Jill Hennessy, Phil Hartman, Paul Anka, Kim Cattrall, Nathan Fillion, Michael J. Fox, Ryan Gosling, Monty Hall, Sarah Chalke, Kiefer Sutherland, Peter Jennings, Celine Dion, Bryan Adams, Sarah McLachlan, Ryan Gosling, James Cameron, Christopher Plummer, Sandra Oh, Michael Buble, Leslie Nielsen, Mary Pickford, Phil Hartman, Dave Thomas, Fay Wray, Lorne Michaels, Jason Priestley, Eric McCormack, Nia Vardalos, Rachelle Lefevre, Brendan Fraser, Alex Trebek, Ellen Page, Tommy Chong, Catherine O’Hara.
Happy Canada Day to all my fellow Canadians!  Raise a cold brew and wish the best country in the world a Happy 146th! 

Photo Credits:  eh (https://twitter.com/filmeh), “U (http://www.takepart.com/photos/everything-you-need-know-you-learned-sesame-street), Bob & Doug (http://www.cbc.ca/75/2011/08/image-of-the-day-canadian-content-eh.html), Tim Hortons (http://screamingbeltloop.com/?tag=tim-hortons), Poutine (http://calgarypoutinecrawl2013.eventbrite.com/), beaver tails (http://www.niagarafallstourism.com/eat/fast-food/beavertails-niagara-falls-canada/).

My retinas burn, I’ve got a mattress on my face, and I seem to have lost my eyebrows

Posted by facelikeafryingpan in November 2012 and tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

“Push Bob off the ladder. He’s messing with the clock again.”

Why on earth do we turn back the clocks in November?  Seriously.  I miss daylight.  And no matter how much Vitamin D I pump into my body, I still feel like I’m in a mental fog.  Apparently, I’m not the only one.  The other day, my husband asked me to pick him up at 12′ long sub from Subway.  I don’t think he realized what he had said until I asked him how I would get it home.  Strap it to the top of my car?  Which we both thought would be funny.  My car is really small.  And it is also the shiniest, most polish-laden car to ever grace the face of the earth.  Seriously, I think it can be seen from space.  So, he immediately had to say something about mustard stains on my roof.  See, this sunlight deprivation is affecting both of us.  And not in a good way.  I am so stupid that I even decided to write about this.

I’m still finding clocks that show the wrong frickin’ time.

And to think that it is only November.  And that the shortest day of the year is still over a month away.  I may be a drooling, incoherent, one-brain-celled idiot by the time April rolls around.  Seriously.  You haven’t met “Winter Me” yet.  And for anyone who ever doubted that God has a sense of humour, I present Exhibit A.  He placed me about as far away from the equator as possible–Canada.  Ugh.  Yes, I am angling for an invite to somewhere warm and shiny.  Really.

I, too, would hug the sun. But in a much kinder, gentler, fashion.

“My car smells funny and I don’t know why.”

1)  Like I said, this lack of daylight makes me stupid.  Not stupid enough to park between two dumpsters, mind you.  No amount of scented pine trees hanging from my mirror could combat that stink.  Not to mention the fact that I’m a tad bit of a neurotic germaphobe.  I’d probably have to throw out my car.  My very polished car.  Which would suck.  I have a fortune invested in it in car care products alone.  Anyway, back to the photo at hand.

Despite his lack of couth or his nasal impairment, this individual does show a remarkable talent for parallel parking–something that I avoid at all costs.  Seriously,  this dude could give lessons.  I don’t know how he even did that.

Maybe he didn’t.  Maybe his roommates are getting revenge on him for snoring or eating the last Eggo.  Strategically placing bins of trash around someone’s car does sound like fun–except I’d have to boil my hands afterwards.  Not fun.  I’ll stick with shaving off people’s eyebrows.  Not that I’ve ever done that.  Yet.

 2) If you are feeling tired (living a sunlight-free, vampire-ish existence will do that to you), I would not recommend viewing this video.  Way too many comfy, white mattresses.  On a cloudy day.  You don’t even get to enjoy the sunshine vicariously.

I love sleep.  My life gets in the way of it though.  But I think I’ve found the perfect hobby.  Mattress Dominoes.  And I’m not alone in my fascination for a sport that only requires a Sealy Posturepedic.  It turns out that competing for the Guinness World Record for the largest game of Mattress Dominoes is a favourite global pastime.  Who knew?  Well, apparently everybody but me.

This particular attempt to secure this record was made at NYC’s Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum in 2010.  Participants had to be taller than 4’11”.  Yay!  Finally, something I am tall enough for.  While they managed to “topple” 380 standing sleepers, the record has been broken several times since.  The current record is 1001 mattresses and was set earlier this year in a Shanghai shopping mall.

This post is making me yawn.  You too?  Shut up.

3) I love to make fun of Justin Bieber, even though he is my fellow Canuck.  Well, it turns out that he has, perhaps, one of THE shiniest cars ever.  Blindingly so.  It looks like it’s made of Reynold’s Wrap.  Before you’ve crinkled it up to cover your turkey sandwich.

I wonder how many retinas he’s fried with that thing?

Damn it! Now he’s killed the other eye.

These are just a few other shiny cars I found.

Barry Weiss’s (yes, I am still harbouring that crush) Decoliner. Very shiny.

Flo Rida’s ultra shiny, chrome Bugatti. That’ll suck your eyes out on a sunny day.

I haven’t got a clue who William Gallas, the soccer player is, but he does have a pupil-pinchingly shiny Mercedes McLaren.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And if you’d like to see more of Barry Weiss’s car collection, check out my social media experiment :Searching For Barry Weiss

Photo credits     Messing with Clock (Wikipedia), Mound of Clocks (www.triggerandfreewheel.com),  Smothering the Sun (www.morethings.com), dumpster parking  (curiousphotos.blogspot.ca), eye pain (dreamstime.com),  Barry Weiss decoliner (celebritycarsblog.com) Flo Rida Bugatti (www.celebritynetworth.com), Gallas McLaren (www.ugo.com).

Pass Me My Shark, Put Extra E Coli on my Burger, and Drown That Damn Toothbrush

Posted by facelikeafryingpan in October 2012 and tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

In a previous installment, I told you that I have strange dreams.  This week, my nighttime forays have been particularly interesting.  A couple of nights ago “dream-me” was walking through a creek while Storage Wars‘ Barry Weiss defended me from sharks.  Tiny man-eating sharks.  In a creek.  “Dream-me” was so impressed with Barry’s heroic efforts that I let him make love to me right then and there.  In the creek.  Surrounded by little sharks.  Needless to say, watching Storage Wars is now like foreplay.

Last night, I dreamt that I discovered that I had a two-year-old.  I guess that up until that point it had been very quiet and invisible.  Well, it turned out that this kid was like a walking Webster’s Dictionary.  Its vocabulary made for great entertainment at parties.  Hey, if you’re going to have an imaginary toddler in your forties, you might as well have some perks.  And, yes.  I realize that I have been referring to the kid as “it,” but it’s okay.  It’s not real.  I much preferred the Barry Weiss dream.

Barry Weiss…no creek-dwelling shark is too much for him

I had a beef sandwich the other day.  You’re probably scratching your head and thinking, “I know this chick has the thought-process of a red squirrel, but what does that have to do with anything?”  Bear with me.  Right now, eating cow in Canada is like playing a deli version of Russian Roulette.  A huge beef processing plant in Alberta has been shut down due to an e coli outbreak.  Can ingesting e coli cause strange dreams?  If I eat more, can I pick up the Barry Weiss dream where I left off?  I think I’ll go out and get myself a big steak.  With a side order of bacteria.

1) Let’s face it.  Humans are strange.  And some humans are stranger than others.  I couldn’t possibly bring up Russian Roulette without checking to see if our friends from the Far East have tried re-inventing it.  Sure enough, they have.  From the nation that has brought us the girlfriend lap pillow, the plunger helmet, tomato chocolate, the remote control toilet, and square watermelons, I now bring you Japanese Russian Roulette.  

This kind of makes me want to dust off the old Nerf guns.  Kind of.

I would rather use this toothbrush after the pig than buy one of these.

2)And trust me, the Japanese do not have a monopoly on bizarre products.  I was in the local Walmart the other day and saw something that horrified me.  Justin Bieber toothbrushes.  They actually sing.  Four different colours are available and each one plays a different Bieber hit.  Yikes!  Waking up and having to endure the Biebs singing.  In my mouth.  Is it just me or does that seem dirty?  And not in a pleasant “dreaming-about-Barry-Weiss” way.

This clip pretty much sums up the reaction I had at Walmart.  Except in my head.  I didn’t think I should exclaim my disbelief out loud.  By myself.  To no one in particular.

 

3)  So, what kind of shallow-water dwelling shark could Barry Weiss have been rescuing me from in my dream?  I think we can safely say it wouldn’t be Bruce from Jaws.  Yes, that was the shark’s name.

Apparently, the world’s smallest shark is smaller than a human hand.  Well, not mine.  Mine are freakishly small.  Like Minnie Mouse‘s hands.  But with four fingers and a thumb.

This harmless little shark is the Dwarf Lanternshark, believed to be found only in Columbia and Venezuela.  The Chihuahua of sharks, it doesn’t exactly instill fear.  So, it would appear that my dream took place in a South American creek.  And the only danger I faced was having my heels over-exfoliated by Snickers-sized sharks.  Perhaps, Barry wasn’t being heroic after all.  He just really wanted to touch my smooth feet.

No small sharks were harmed during the filming of my dream.

Related Links:  Searching For Barry Weiss

It’s Canada Day, eh?

Today is Canada Day and my “home and native land” is officially 145 years old–a youngster as far as nations go, eh?  I hope you will indulge me as I dedicate today’s blog to the land of beavers, maple trees, and hockey pucks.

We Canadians know what the rest of the world thinks of us–mostly thanks to the way we are depicted in American television shows.  According to these depictions, we use monopoly money, drink a lot of beer, apologize constantly, and end every sentence with “eh.”  We’re not offended by these portrayals.  In fact, we are renowned for our great sense of humours–and spelling “humour” with a “u”, by the way.  Only in Canada, would you find currency named Loonies and Toonies.  One of our biggest exports to our southern neighbour is  comedians.  And there is an art to using “eh” correctly–and only we “Canucks” seem to have this gift.

Although it is very un-Canadian to brag, I must apologize and ask for you to humour (again with the “u”) me as I share a few Canadian facts:

-Canada is the second largest nation in the world.  But our population density is very low at 3.7 people per square kilometre.  Yes, we operate in metric.  This may explain why our American neighbours think we live in igloos and commute to work via sled dog.  When our weather forecasts say it is 32 degreesin July, this does not equate to your 32 degrees–the temperature at which water freezes.  It actually means we are enjoying a balmy 90 degrees.  Yes, it does get hot here.  We own barbecues, swimming pools, and bikinis–not just toques, parkas, and mukluks.
-We are home to the longest coastline in the world, the world’s highest tide, and the largest island in a freshwater lake.  In Canada, we do things big.  Just look at those fuzzy Mountie hats.   How much guarding can these guys do when they’ve got hat fur in their eyes?  This must have been our Queen’s idea (yes, we are part of the British Commonwealth and, on occasion, sing “God Save the Queen”)–have you seen her hats?

-We ranked 5th on the World Happiness Report–massive beer consumption and several pucks to the head will do that.

-And only 40% of us have a favourable opinion of Don Cherry. It’s gotta be the clothes.  I’d be crusty if I had a starchy collar that went up to my ears.

-We have two official languages, although the province of Quebec only recognizes one.

-54% of our nation is made up of forests and woodlands.  Yes, we have lots of lumber.  And moose.  And bears.  And maple syrup.  Yum.

This is what our flag looks like.  We have beavers on our nickels, but our Parliament has actually considered removing the giant rodent from this coin.  Apparently, it is not considered a “noble” creature.  I, personally, am fond of our buck-toothed little friend.

And Canadians can be found everywhere–on your movie screens, your TV sets, and your concert stages.  Here is a sampling of famous Canadians:

Keanu Reeves, Howie Mandel, Pamela Anderson, Dan Aykroyd, Ryan Reynolds, Rachel McAdams, Jim Carrey, Avril Lavigne, Neve Campbell, John Candy, Justin Bieber, Nelly Furtado, Seth Rogen, Willima Shatner, Shania Twain, Alan Thicke, Donald Sutherland, Alanis Morissette, Eugene Levy, Martin Short, Jill Hennessy, Phil Hartman, Paul Anka, Kim Cattrall, Nathan Fillion, Michael J. Fox, Ryan Gosling, Marty Hall, Sarah Chalke, Kiefer Sutherland, Peter Jennings, Celine Dion, Bryan Adams, Sarah McLachlan, Catherine O’Hara.

Photos:  Mounties (Wayne Cuddington, The Ottawa Citizen), Don Cherry (Bruce Bennett/Getty Images),