Everywhere I look it’s turned brown. Spring in many parts of the world arrives with flowers, warming winds, cooling rains and green leaves. In the northern reaches of Alberta, Spring arrives with slush and a general “brown-ness”. It’s a particularly unpleasant and ugly time of year in Edmonton.

Autumn in the northern hemisphere is lovely. The golden colours and the airbourne leaves permeate the increasingly dusky landscape. Winter arrives with bitter winds from the Arctic tundras to the north accompanied, if we’ve been good children, with soft and silky snow. If we’ve been bad it will be an icestorm. Yet this cold and impenetrable shroud of white which inevitably settles has its own beauty. Here you will find the cold crunch of the snow on the ground, brisk winds and starlit clear nights of the Aurora.

Spring on the other hand is simply brown. The snow is being driven out or melting into rivulets disappearing into drains near parking lots. The dirt hidden within the walls of snow and the plates of ice are revealed as if a cancer spreading through the pure whiteness. The grass that has lain dormant for months breathes a sigh of relief but the weight of snow, cold and ice has squeezed the colour leaving tired and brown blades perking towards the sun.

Even the sun, our glorious giver of life encourages the brown-ity of Edmonton. There is now more sunshine hours than darkness and yet, withering light emphasizes the desolate nature of the city. The bright yellow light enhances the earth tones and casts away the shadows from the nooks and crannies with ever increasing intensity. The roads are slushy, muddy and potholey. Cars seem to be one in their choice of mud worn winter trimmings. The great glass buildings, buffeted by winter winds are streaked and dull against the sunshine.

So it’s another spring in Edmonton. Thankfully it lasts only a few more weeks. We’ll have old man winter give us one more blast of cold arctic weather, a reproach for the young maiden of spring. She will cast about and finally clothe herself in finery and grow confident in her place. The birds are coming back and the sounds of nature waking up are everywhere. The ancients saw spring as a time of hope, fertility and wonder. Even so far north where spring comes late, winters are long and dark and the summer is short, hope germinates. Even in brown Edmonton.

I’ve never been the biggest fan of social networking sites. A lot of my workmates are on LinkedIn, a network of professionals. It’s supposed to create networks that will help you connect to other professionals in your field or industry. Then there’s the biggest of them all: MySpace. So it seems fun and all, but I just don’t get it. Maybe I’m crazy, but MySpace seems like some giant billboard service.

However, I am now completely and totally addicted to Facebook. For some time Facebook was mostly popular in schools and universities allowing you to create networks and groups for people to interact. Now they’ve opened up to the rest of the world and I’m hooked.

Why is it so good?

The concept of what computer social networking is inside of Facebook jives with my idea of human social networking. Your profile is only visible to your friends, you can select who and what people see. Most importantly it’s the little things that it does which makes it work. There is minimal advertising, the interface is clean if sometimes not the most intuitive placement in links, and it is responsive. It shows me what is happening with my friends and that is the most important thing.

So yes, I totally encourage you all to try it out. I’ve created a St. Patrick’s Day Drunk Dial group and intend to keep the whole thing updated. I’ve run into a ton of old friends and acquaintances and the group like nature of it is very neat. It reminds me of being in University and I guess that is the point!

And so we come to the end of another St. Patrick’s Day Drunk Dial. So who won this year? I can honestly say the winner is none other than the Queen of England broadcasting from Edmonton, Alberta. For her entry, she will receive a bottle of Newfoundland Screech that will be delivered by special mail to Buckingham Palace (and if you think I’m joking, never fear…).

This year we saw so many entrants from Montreal alone that I have decided that the best entry in Montreal shall receive a special mention. So without further ado here are your entrants in the 2007 St. Patrick’s Day Drunk Dial. Vote for who you think deserves the prize (outside of the Queen) and I shall personally hand out a second bottle of Screech if they show up to Montreal for 2008. Yes you heard that right, we’ll be repeating all this in 2008.

Niall Brown wins the “Honourable Mention” for the most entries ever flooded into the Drunk Dial system with his calls from Montreal! A big thank you to Mike Mannion for putting us all up. I can honestly submit that St. Patrick’s in Montreal 2007 was for so many incredible reasons, one of the best weekends of my life.

You will need Apple Quicktime to listen to these messages

Outside of Montreal Entrants

• “The Queen of England”, Edmonton, Canada (Winner!)
• “The Pirate Patricks”, St. John’s, Newfoundland
• “Not Drunk enough”, Singapore
• “Baptised with spit”, Shanghai, China
• “The Stomach Flu”, St. John’s, Newfoundland
• “You don’t need anymore Screech!”, Berlin, Germany
• “An Irish song”, Los Angeles, United States

Montreal (in order received and ascending drunkenness)

• “Gonna get loaded”
• “Please send some Screech. Please.”
• “The breaking of the couch” (My Favourite)
• Denial
• “Nice evening in Montreal”
• “Hallo Drunk Dial, I’ve missed you…”
• “You talkin’ to me?”
• “No Anchovies”
• “The Jeebus Exorcism of an American”
• “The Worst Band Ever”
• “The girl might get hepatitis”
• Gerry’s Pub
• “Niall is my love child”
• McKibbon’s Irish Pub
• St. Patrick’s Day Parade

Dave Arenillas also sent me a question regarding why there are no postings of the first ever Drunk Dial. After all the 2006 winners are posted. You see, I instituted the Drunk Dial in 2005 and had everyone phone me. The winner would be decided by me who was receiving the calls. Unfortunately, there was a small snag in the plan. You see, I had decided to partake in the competition as well. Sadly two drunks don’t make a sober. Instead I vaguely remember falling down on icy streets and distinctly remember the conversation at 7am with Westjet:

“umm, I can’t believe I’m phoning like this but, I seem to not be at the airport right now and my plane is leaving in 10 mins… unfortunately the room is also still spinning.”

Ah yes. The hangover is kicking in. The Mannion has created the following:

Remember children, the St. Patrick’s Day Drunk Dial officially has begun.

And yes, we are officially going to hell.

As Caesar walked to the Senate, a seer was standing by the wayside. He turned and joked “Well, the Ides of March are come” and the seer said “Ay, they are come, but they are not gone!” The story goes then that on that day, Caesar was assassinated by Brutus. From that day onwards, “Beware”, yelled the populace, “Beware the Ides of March!”

Indeed my friends, the Ides of March are come and certainly they are not gone.

On these Ides of March, I have sent my warning to Montreal. Mike Mannion, Niall Brown et al await with bated breath as to what madness shall arrive at their doorstep on Friday morn.

The Ides of March are come and certainly they are not gone.

I fully expect to be received into the bosom of Montreal complete with a flask of vodka at the airport. You see, I am joining my friends in Montreal to celebrate the feast of St. Patrick, to give homage to the man who banished the snakes and to play witness to the miracle of the perfect pour. Unfortunately, every time I go meet Mike somewhere, I always get this sinking feeling that havoc of some kind will be wreaked.

The last time that Mike showed up in Edmonton, he dragged along Niall Brown. During that adventure we travelled 3000km around Alberta guided by the Bible in our Bibliomancy trip. Fearing a repeat of that madness, I have elected not to take the Good Book with us (to be honest, Pixel, my cat has shredded a lot of the pages). However, just in case the good lord had some advice I quickly Bibliomancied the weekend’s fortunes.

Because he was very thirsty, he cried out to the LORD, “You have given your servant this great victory, must I now die of thirst and fall into the hands of the uncircumcised?”

I’m not entirely sure what to make of this? Will Westjet deliver me into a land of the uncircumcised? Will I be forbidden to drink? The imagination abounds with fearsome details of horrible circumstances. I would imagine that if I was flying Air Canada I would probably have Bibliomancied a dire fate involving the Spanish Inquisition and a seat next to Celine Dion who would, naturally, refuse to stop singing.

I’m not the only one descending upon the metropolis of Montreal. Ted Bonnah and wife Tomiko are coming from Newfoundland, Nancy Earle is flying in from Vancouver and Anne-Marie is coming up from Quebec City. In addition a friend from work, Dan Fedor, will be joining us there along with a few of his friends from New York. Not to mention all the people who are already there…

The Ides of March are come and certainly they are not gone.

I asked Mike: “So, I should bring my sleeping bag then?”

“Probably best,” he replied sagely.

“Sleep is for the weak,” I said contemptuously.

“It’s to put your body in…” he replied with great piety.

After another reiteration that the Ides of March were come, Mike asked me what he should make of it all.

“Just prepare for doom, death and destruction as normal.”

Okay, I admit it. Sometimes, when I’m bored, I Google my name to see what’s out there. You know, all of us should do that once in a while, just to make sure that the next time you give your name out to someone and they Google you, they aren’t surprised by your namesake who happens to bathe in papaya juice. No, I didn’t find someone who bathes in papaya juice though I am sure that it is some kind of weird fetish.

I was astounded to find a web site that friends of mine had created many moons ago while I was still living in Newfoundland. I remember well that these friends had come to my place for supper and the following song was composed and posted on the “Den of the Poetic Wheelbarrow” (by the way, I seem to recall designing this web site as well, talk about a long time ago). I present to you a blast from the past by the incomparable Messrs Chick “Helzapoppin” Abercromby, Craigwell Crumblesausage, Basil Melange III  and P. Horstel Wurtzelpotato…

The Rumbler
(To the Tune of Kenny Rogers’ “The Gambler”)

On a warm summers evening,
by the place they brew the Molson
hooked up with Duleepa,
my friend from overseas.
We took turns a munching,
on the curry he’d been making,
pretended I was doing fine,
but I began to wheeze.

He said “Man you better watch it,
for you white folks got no palette,
for that really firey hot stuff,
that I mixed in with the beef.”
I said, “Save it for the girlfriend,
She can eat the salad,”
It was getting hard to talk though,
through my melting teeth.

So he handed me the Sombala,
and stuff called King Prawn Masala,
the he passed the Pari-Pu,
and I didn’t put up no fight.
And the room got dark and fuzzy,
and my bowels started rumbling,
He said “You can’t eat the Vindaloo,
because you are white.”

You got to know when to leave it, know when to heave it,
know when the toilet’s close, and know when to run,
you never drink any water, when your eating Mama’s hot stuff,
it’ll only make it hurt more, and boy it won’t be fun.

Now most you folks be knowin,
us Canadians eat real simple,
mostly beer and lobster,
and we’ll make do with just beer,
So a rule that we can live by,
is “If we can’t even say it,
maybe best to walk away,
and fess-up to the fear.”

So he lauged and made some faces,
and he dove back to his dinner,
someone performed CPR,
but it was much to late for me.
So the moral I’m a sayin,
is if a man is from Sri Lanka
better skip his Mamas cookin,
and stick with KD!

You got to know when to leave it, know when to heave it,
know when the toilet’s close, and know when to run,
When it even makes the cat cry, and the fly’s won’t even touch it,
then trust it’s too damn hot, and boy you don’t want NONE.

You got to know when to leave it, know when to heave it,
know when the toilet’s close, and know when to run,
Better stick to the burgers, ’cause even Old Macdonalds,
though it’s made of mostly garbage, won’t destroy your bum.

You got to know when to leave it, know when to heave it,
know when the toilet’s close, and know when to run,
So now I am a dying, and my lady she’s a crying,
when a Sri Lankan makes a challenge, better let him have that one.

Another year and another S. Patrick’s Day draws near. As with past years, I’m hosting the 3rd Annual St. Patrick’s Day Drunk Dial Contest. Now St. Patrick’s Day is when the entire world wishes they were Irish. I admit, I wish I could claim some sort of Irish heritage but I’ll take calling Newfoundland home as being as close as I will get. Admittedly, I am not Catholic, St. Patrick would never have had me as his disciple and chances are the current Pope would probably not call me his best friend.

Over the years, St. Patrick’s Day has become a potent celebration of drinking. St. Patrick, the man who performed the miracle of curing Ireland of snakes has become the beacon of alcoholics everywhere. Oh look, that particular thunderbolt simply singed my hair. Guinness has been doing an admirable job of trying to convince people to name it a national holiday. It is officially recognized in Newfoundland and Labrador by the way.

So am I asking you to not drink on St. Patrick’s Day? Quite the contrary! I encourage you, nay, I beseech you to visit your neighbourhood speakeasy. I beg you to get the perfect pint poured for you. I pray you to look deep into the glass and watch the bubbles play, meander and rise to the surface. I call upon you to consider the taste on the lips, swirl it around your mouth, let it linger, let it breathe and then inhale deeply.

As you partake in more and more, think of how much fun it would be to tell the world about your night. Tell the world about the joys of St. Patrick’s Day. Haul out that phone of yours and dial +1-484-906-3296 and leave a message. Hey, you could win yourself a bottle of Newfoundland Screech. What was that number again? Well, just in case you forget simply go to http://drunkdial.dups.ca

The rules again?

• Enter the number +1-484-906-3296 into your phone
• Go out and get drunk on St. Patrick’s Day: Saturday, 17 March 2007
• Phone the number and leave a message
• The funniest/best message no matter where you are in the world will win a bottle of Newfoundland Screech!
• Call as many times as you want. Note that every message will be made public

Please note that there will be long distance charges to North America

Go my friends, spread the word. Tell your neighbours, tell your friends, tell the bum on the street. Invite people in, gather them around, spread the drinks, spread the love and be kind to your fellow man.

In our culture we are considered simple people. This is our land, this is our time. In our glass towers we have been born to create. From the very first we are given a keyboard, a mouse, and we are forced into combat. There is no surrender; there is no attempt at trying. It is to do. Or die.

For us the Trial of Doom separates the boys from the men. It is a harsh time for the mothers as the child is forced out, forced into combat with faceless assailants. He stands at the edge of a corridor. He can see the faint lines of his opponent, the clear menacing yellow eyes, the merciless attempts to trap him.

“Surrender your weapons!” his opponent snarls.

“Come get them!” he says.

He drops the gun as it wouldn’t reach that far. He drops his armour as it was slowing him down. He is one with environment. He has a heightened sense of self. He is aware of everything around him. The knocking of the keys, the clicks of the mouse, everything seems to slow and he is one with it all. He turns his back and grabs the chainsaw. It is not fear, it is a heightened sense of glory. It is to do. Or die.

And he returns, tested by fire, tested by death, to his people.

Now we, the 30, go to battle. We go to battle a fearsome group, a group whose hungers our leader has awoken.

“Tonight! Tonight, we go to see the glory! Tonight we go to see 300. Tonight we go to SPARTA!”

And so we followed. To hell we would have followed Chrisonidas. He had laid out a plan. He would charge ahead of the 30, he would hold a place in line. He would stop the hordes from entering before him. From there, we, the few would hold the seats. He called them the Hot Gates, where numbers would not matter. We would build a wall as our ancestors had done before and prevent the horde from pouring into our seats. We would hold the wolves at bay.

“Tonight”, he said, “We will conquer and prevail!”

And we all echoed our agreement as one.

As the gates were opened we ran in as one with purpose. We divided to four to hold the seats for the 30. Chrisonidas and I held our wall. We looked the hordes in the eye and denied them entry. Angry were the yowls, horrible were the cries. They came with superior numbers but we turned them back time and time again.

But yet, tonight, for the first time we failed. We were betrayed from behind. Jasonethus and Jamesecles who were to keep our rear walls from being broken were overcome by the horde.

“Go tell the BioWarians, stranger passing by,
that here, obedient to their laws, we sit”

Tonight, the 30 sat in different seats.

With all my troubles with servers last week I forgot to post about the changes that I have made to my photo albums. I’ve changed each of the galleries to contain a slideshow view of all the thumbnails and clicking on a thumbnail will refresh the photo underneath. The idea is that you will not have to keep going back and forth between thumbnails and larger views. Specifically I wanted it to look a bit like a sliding film strip.

To commemorate the new photo album view, I’ve posted the latest photos from my various weekend trips to Elk Island National Park and Banff National Park. For the last two weekends I’ve taken up the sport of snowshoeing. I’ve had so much fun that I’m thinking of buying a pair for myself. My first snowshoe trip was to Lake Tawayik in Elk Island National Park. Walking on packed trails was nice but the thought of “why bother with snowshoes” kept entering the conversation between myself and my friend Julian. Finally we decided to forgo the safety of the marked trail and boldly walked onto the snow-covered surface of Lake Tawayik. We didn’t die. As the bright winter sun set to our left casting our shadows long and far, the two of us trundled along the lake walking literally on water.

Meanwhile, I discovered that my good friend Eddie was off to take up a new position. I packed the car with snowshoes and drove down to Calgary post-haste to say good bye. Upon arriving I informed Eddie and Melissa (and their Japanese student-friend Miyuki) that we would go yonder to the mountains of Lake Louise and practice our snowshoeing. As if practiced in the arts of securing snowshoe trails, I consulted the web and discovered the Lake Agnes trail. Upon arrival at the less-than-rustic Chateau Lake Louise, we should probably have not been too surprised to find a packed trail. We sighed, hoisted the snowshoes onto our backs and set off resigned to an easy hike. Ah well, we thought, maybe there would be some snow at the top.

We weren’t far off the mark. Lake Agnes is a small lake surrounded by mountains and glaciers. The surface of the lake was completely covered in powdery snow and while the girls sheltered (wisely) in the closed tea house, Eddie and I braved the gusting winds and ran onto the snow with our snowshoes. Sinking knee deep we walked to the centre and then walked out. Now here is why I will probably not live to a ripe old age. As Eddie was exiting the lake, he went through the snow and into the ice, broke through the ice and into water.

Realization dawned. It was very likely that despite the mountain of snow on this lake, the lake was not as frozen as we had thought. Oops.

Tired of going down the packed trail, the four of us peered over the edge of the trail and, giggling like little children, we wandered off the trail and attempted to find our own way back to the Chateau. Despite no map, no compass and with little hope for survival, we made it back and partook in the gracious offerings of hot chocolate (with marshmallows, how decadent) by the Chateau staff (we think it might have been for some Dallas convention, pfeh, we were intrepid snowshoers, we deserved that hot chocolate damnit!).