Summer fun food and drink - Let`s name the babies - that would be fun · Saturday July 26, 2008 by colin newell
A family court judge in New Zealand has had enough with parents giving their children bizarre names and did something about it.
Ok. Let’s get into it shall we.
I am, for all intents and purposes the product of the seventies. And for those of you, just joining us (quite literally… in the last twenty years or so…) let me just explain what I mean.
I think my mother and father are two of the World’s oldest hippies. And I dig that. I really do. They had the good sense to name me Colin… at a time when the name Colin was totally cool. And I am still good with that name. Like, totally.
But what the heck is with parents who have 3 sons and they name them Caelin, Coban and Calum? Hello. The last time I checked, there were more than one or two letters in the alphabet. And what is with this Celtic name shit anyway? My great grandparents, I think, were from Cork, Ireland – my folks and their folks grew up in Eastern Canada so I think I earned the right to have a cool Irish name… So go ahead, challenge my logic. I dare you.
Anyway. Anyone, I mean any two parents… so fuzzy brained to have 3 boys and give them all imaginary pseudo-Celtic names (starting with the letter C no less) need to have my Tony Lama encased leather boot firmly up their ass. Grr. Are we having summer fun yet?
Back to the lead story. People that name their children Sun Flower or God is my Judge (actual name from the seventies…) need to get off the Ganja and get with the program. Thankfully when most of us become adults, we can legally change our names to something that we really like – sadly, when we are kids (and we are generally merciless to each other between the ages of 4 to 16…) the damage is generally done.
So. I am Colin. And I am pretty well balanced. And I have never spent more than a few hundred dollars on therapy (in the 80’s… I mean who wasn’t!?) Who knows what that bill would have been if I had been named Amber Rose Tamara, Saffron Sahara or Tallulah Pine (Simon Le Bon spawn…), Fifi Trixibelle, Peaches Honeyblossom and Pixie (Poli-Eco-Idiot Bob Geldof) and the all time worse picks – Dweezil, Ahmet Emuukha Rodan, Moon Unit and Diva Muffin from music loon Frank Zappa.
Thanks Mom. Thanks Dad. You freaking old hippies rock! Thank-you!
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Summer fun food and drink - Let`s have babies - that would be fun · Friday July 25, 2008 by colin newell
Romanian immigrant Livia Ionce has broken a British Columbia record — she’s the province’s most fecund woman in 20 years.
Livia and hubby Alexandru became new parents of their 18th baby, Abigail, on Tuesday. The Abbotsford couple’s 17 other children range in age from 20 months to 23 years old. Wow.
Photo above – In Romania, in the sixties, a woman’s ability to produce many strong offspring was measured in her ability to levitate mice deer – This phenomenon, known as the Flippening was demonstrated at an early age with Livia with her ability to levitate transport trucks… 3 at a time…
Abigail adds to a current line-up of 9 girls and 8 boys… uhm – making 10 girls and 8 boys. A youthful 44 year old Livia muses, “The girls in the house said they are happy that they continue to outnumber the boys, but it may not be the end of the story.” And concluding – “Maybe it’s the last, but I’m not sure.”
In the Ionce family, Mother’s Day is obviously more like Christmas than the traditional hallmark moment normally reserved for less prolific women. And when you do the math, it equates to a household birthday party, on average, every 2 and 1/2 weeks. More hallmark moments, more presents. You might say the giving never ends in this family.
Andrea and I are big fans of Jon and Kate makes Eight on TLC (The future of video entertainment – TV cameras in every house…) but these numbers are staggering.
My mother actually had a girlfriend (growing up in Montreal) who was one of 12 kids – Her mother was 40 when she had her last child – and there might have been more but her husband was tragically run over by a truck driven by a mysterious and never-identified woman – Hmmm. Makes you think doesn’t it?
Oh well – for all the thousands of couples (like us) that eschew a contribution to the gene pool, there are hundreds of families like the Ionce`s that fill in the gaps. Bless their hearts – all 20 of them.
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Summer fun food and drink - Heading home to Papua New Guinea · Monday July 21, 2008 by colin newell
A Papua New Guinea politician is threatening retaliation against Canadian companies after eight young dancers were denied entry to Canada, apparently because border officials didn’t believe they were on a cultural exchange.
The dancers arrived in Vancouver on July 4, expecting to spend four weeks in the British Columbia Interior, sharing traditional storytelling, dance and music at the invitation of the Little Shushwap Indian band.
Instead, they got four hours of interrogation by the Canada Border Services Agency… and then sent home. Bloody brilliant.
(Today)I had coffee with Papua New Guinea expert, Brendan Holden (retired University professor) at one of my cafe haunts – The Finnerty Express, underneath the UVic bookstore.
I know a little bit about PNG Culture (over 20 years experience observing PNG media) and Brendan Holden knows a lot about PNG culture, having lived and worked in Fiji for almost 3 years, having worked in Vanuatu and having visited a wide variety of Micronesian and Melanesian Islands.
Let’s just put it this way: The Canada Border Services Agency have just fuddled up big time… again. PNG Culture is entirely different than Canada’s – and when dealing with unique cultures like PNG, we need agencies and officers with a modicum of training and some sensitivity to cultural differences.
The Canadian Border Agency has no diplomatic training. They are about as culturally sensitive as a hungry wolf in a sheep paddock full of expectant ewes.
So, you wonder: What on Earth can PNG do to Canada, Canadians or Canadian businesses doing business in PNG?
Actually, I am not so concerned about Canadian businesses in PNG.
I am concerned about Canadian travelers and missionaries on the job in PNG.
Word travels fast in that part of the World – believe it or not.
And revenge or retribution is usually swift and painful.
Hopefully, next time, the CBSA will grab a brain and use a little reason, show a little compassion and exercise a little restraint.
On the up-side, the dancers got away before the RCMP airport detachment could put a taser cap in their asses…
Tok wantaim Yumi wantok (Say it with me friend…) – We live in interesting times!
Summer fun food and drink - B.C. UFO sightings increase · Sunday July 13, 2008 by colin newell
For the record, I have never seen a UFO before… lots of balloons, helicopters, shooting stars, kites, planes, gliders and, yes, even rockets… model ones. Ok. Fireworks too. Guess that counts.
But true-blue (I mean green) UFO’s. From outer space? No. Nothing yet. Still waiting.
And yet currently, British Columbia is a hot bed of UFO sightings. Lots of people calling into Transport Canada (and the R.C.M.P. [The Canadian equivalent to the F.B.I.]) with reports of objects floating, darting, ducking, spinning, glowing, and generally flirting in the sky… or above the ground.
Yea. UFO’s apparently flirt with Cows… just prior to performing the vivisection… Or they are coy. Whatever works I guess.
Anyway. Sightings are up big time. But why?
I have a theory. Yea. You figured that didn’t you?
If we look at other times in the last 50 or 60 years when there were bursts of intense interest in UFO’s and correspondingly frequent sightings – Yes, there seems to be a connection there too. Interest and scrutiny yields results.
From my reading I have discovered periods of increased activity just after World War II, during the Korean war and during the most intense periods of the Cold War between 1962 and 1975. But why then? Why in those time periods?
Well. People feel generally powerless during periods of global unrest – and generally powerless during Alien abduction and when they undergo Alien facilitated probes in their naughty regions… experiences which appear to go hand in hand.
So as Israel threatens to Blaff Iran off the map if they don’t lay off distilling corn liquor and Iran rattles the saber at Israel’s all night raves. And while the U.S.A. utters waddle shaking martial harangues at any country with an oil supply – and (thanks to the TSA) intimidates every American citizen for daring to travel within their own country without 16 pieces of photo ID…
Well, we are starting to see things… in the sky… from all this stress.
(And)The way I see it, those lucky enough to see something totally other-Worldly… Well, they are probably hoping to catch a ride… somewhere else… Like Rigel 5 or Alpha Centauri. One can always hope I guess… that there is a Planet out there somewhere, populated with beautiful young people that wear nothing but linen, never age much beyond 21 or 50 years of age, and get restored whenever they get bored – and guns, violence, pestilence, envy, greed and malice are totally foreign to their species.
Gimme some of that. I promise to behave… and not bring anything Earthly with me…
Sigh. Dare to dream people.
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