Football fans are fat and ugly

I had two run-ins with the Grey Cup this week.

On Thursday, my friends and I ended up at the Sheraton downtown. We were just going for massages... but had to elbow our way through a horde of fat, cowboy-hat wearing rednecks to get to the elevator.

At the elevator, a huddle of ridiculous men -- one painted blue, one wearing viking horns and the last one wearing some kind of hat made out of a two-four -- crammed into the elevator ahead of us.

My friends took one look in the elevator and refused to get in.

So we shared another elevator with a couple of Grey Cup cheerleader types. Ladies: how do you gird yourself against the horror of an ogling by thousands of fat, drunken brutes?

And then today I made a fatal mistake. I decided to take my two-year-old to the Biodome. Which is... yes, next door to the stadium where football fans were gathering for the big event.

As soon as I left the metro, I could tell something was wrong. There was a whole lot of neckless fat people milling around the entrance to the stadium (and why... does your neck disappear after watching, say, ten years of football?).

These folks were at the stadium six hours before the game... not lining up for tickets... just kind of milling around dangling their backwards cro-magnon hands. Like they arrived in Montreal that morning and didn't know where else to go.

Buddy, it's going to be a long day...

My mom and viral marketing

There's something beautiful about people who don't get viral marketing. Like my mom... she forwards me viral marketing emails because she genuinely likes them. Usually, they're nothing clever: a cute animal, a recipe. An email makes her smile and then it heads my way...

And when I see her message, I think: "crappy affiliate viral marketing bastards... tricking my mom and all her friends... filling up my inbox with things I've seen 50 times already..."

But the truth is, the recipes and cute animals make my mom genuinely happy. And when I occasionally tell her to stop forwarding them, she gets hurt.

And then she forwards me something she can't resist... something that makes her so happy, she has to share. But she attaches a passive aggressive little note to the email in defense of the cute animal/viral marketer.

The note will say something like: "I know you don't like these, but this reminds me of you when you were little..." And I feel bad and mean for telling her not to send me little kids and kitties. And I respond, telling her she can send me anything she likes...

And she'll never know that the little smiley at the bottom of her rabbit-licking-bunny email goes to a website managed by a Latvian fake Viagra spam ring that uses the proceeds to fund human trafficking.

And that's what is truly beautiful about people who don't understand viral marketing... hopefully they never will.

The questionable ethics of thrift shopping

I've haunted thrift shops for as long as I can remember. Most of what I wear comes from garage sales and thrift shops, with an occasional new thing thrown in to bring it all together.

I always thought I was doing the right thing -- for all kinds of reasons -- when I bought my stuff second hand. I could justify it. After all: I'm not rich. Plus, when I buy my clothes, I give cash to charities, etc. etc...

But now I'm not so sure. Hear me out:

We have toddlers. Two of 'em. Recently, J and I pounced when we saw a new box of diapers at a local thrift shop. We threw it on our cart along with all the kiddie clothes we were about to buy... We paid, and left.

Then I started to feel bad. Really bad. Shame.

J and I both have decent, full-time jobs. We do okay. Unlike a lot of the people shopping in that thrift shop, we can certainly afford to spend $30 on a new box of huggies.

So what the hell were we doing, snapping up essentials for our kids in a thrift shop, right in front of people who regularly struggle to feed, house and clothe their kids?

I'm no longer sure how I feel about this. Of course, I'm not going to run out and start buying all new clothes for my kids. It's second hand all the way, baby.

But I'm going to thrift shop more selectively. Next time, I'm going to think about whether I'm buying something that someone else will truly need.

Usually there's enough to go around. But when there isn't, I'm asking all of you to stop, look around, and ask yourself if you belong in that thrift shop. Maybe you do. And maybe you don't.

For our part, J and I resolved to donate a bunch of diapers and formula to a food bank over the holidays. Because as parents we know how much this stuff costs...

One week, no Internet at home.

Can you believe it, we made it through a weekend and five whole work days without the Internet at home.

You know what? It was awesome.

The good things about having no Internet at home:

More sleep
No late nights writing and surfing when, really, I could have been sleeping.

Better sleep
I went to bed with a clear brain, rather than being overstimulated from ingesting a lot of useless information.

Happier kids = happier parents = even happier kids
Every night before bed, the kids ran around the house singing and dancing. And so did we. They didn't once clamour for big peoples' distracted attention while we checked our email. Because we couldn't check our email.

More peace
One less distraction meant no cranky adults because one of us is on the web while the other cooks/does dishes/washes kids.

Reassurance
I admit, I did take my laptop out to a cafe to "catch up" on flickr, facebook, etc... And was totally underwhelmed by what I was missing. Do I really need to read everybody's status updates, every day? Did I miss any crucial emails that needed an immediate response... ummm... no.

More peace
Oh yeah... I already mentioned that one. I love getting to that point where I have to figure out what to do because I can't suck away my time online. It feels scary, and awesome...

Less chaos
There's just a lot less crap lying around the house and I think it's because we're keeping the house clean. TBD...

The bad things about having no Internet at home:

We couldn't find somebody's postal code
So I had to take the letter to work and look it up there.

J had to spend 20 minutes talking to a help desk
This rates as the biggest, no-internet-at-home annoyance yet.

I can't download the next episode of Generation Kill
But that's what friends are for...

I'm Woody Allen's son (not...)

I'm starting this post with two facts:

1. J is a prankster.
2. People always tell J that he looks like Woody Allen.

So on Saturday night, we were at a Halloween party. As usual, total strangers kept telling J that he looked like Woody. J is always amused.

But this time he upped the ante: He told a total lie. J told a huddle of people that, in fact, his mom had a tryst with Woody Allen in the 1960s. And that ever since, his family suspected that he was Woody Allen's son, but had never verified it.

Then J sat back and watched the awestruck little huddle as they worked the room... they spoke with other little huddles. Again and again, then those huddles turned around to gawk at J.

This will come back to us.

As often as we can, we go to parties hosted by this one organizer. Every time, we get to know more regulars and our paths cross at subsequent parties and festivals. It's a little community of sorts.

I know... it's only a matter of time before someone wanders up to J and says, "Hey, aren't you Woody Allen's son?"

And then our kids will come to be known as Woody Allen's grandchildren. As they grow up, they will start to speculate and this lie will ultimately be woven into family lore.

Our kids will tell their grandchildren. And in another 100 years, this party lie will be a sacred family secret... that we are all in fact the spawn of a great, New York actor and comedian. Mark my words.