Edmonton, about this time next year


Absolutely Nothing Could Possibly Go Wrong With This!

Mayor touts city cattle drive

Edmonton - An urban cattle drive would be a great way to mark the city's centennial next year and celebrate the annual Canadian Finals Rodeo, Mayor Bill Smith says.

The mayor says he's going to pursue an idea that would see a long-horn cattle drive down 118th Avenue, down Kingsway Avenue and into the Skyreach Centre. While professional wranglers would be used to keep the cattle on the right path, Edmontonians could pay to take part in the drive, Smith said.

Well, one team leaves, another one arrives - or, in this case, another two! The Aviators are going to have both a mens' and a womens' team, and season tickets will be about $200, for both. It should be good, even thought the history of pro soccer in Edmonton is full of high optimism followed by crushed hopes. One good thing about the Aviators, though - they're not owned by the Eskimos. As a final note - the team website is right here.

Simile of the week

Just started reading the trade paperback edition of The Preacher (a rather dark comic), and came across this gem (possibly not exactly verbatim, but very close): "As frightening as a psychopathic greased gerbil wearing a mining helmet and carrying a flashlight, with your bare asshole in sight..." Hee.

Lame Moments in Sports #11
Probably the lamest moment yet.

Trappers sold, heading to Texas
Canadian Press
10/23/2003

EDMONTON (CP) - The financially struggling Edmonton Trappers of the Pacific Coast League have been sold to a Texas buyer, owners announced Thursday, leaving only one triple-A baseball team still in business in Canada.

The Canadian Football League Edmonton Eskimos, which bought the Trappers in 1999, have sold the team for $10.4 million US to Round Rock Baseball Inc. The team is expected to play out the 2004 season in Edmonton before moving to Texas next fall.

Well, that does it. This, on top of the events of a few weeks ago (see Lame Moments in Sports #9) have prompted me to take the following step: As of now, the Edmonton Eskimos are officially suspended from the roster of teams I cheer for, this suspension to last until the beginning of CFL training camp next year. Until then, I will be counted among the supporters of the B.C. Lions and Saskatchewan Roughriders. This I am doing not simply because of the Trappers' move, but because when Edmonton's baseball fans first heard of the sale, it was a done deal. In the article Hugh Campbell makes two claims about the reasons behind the sale and move. First of all, he says that it was done to recoup the money that the Eskimos spent on the Trappers in the first place. Secondly, he says that the PCL no longer wanted Canadian teams in the league (an entirely believable idea). Now, if the sale was done for financial reasons, why was no attempt made to find a local buyer? And if the second is true, why didn't Campbell let the baseball fans of Edmonton know what was going on, so we could attempt to convince the PCL that this is a viable baseball city. As my sister put it, this entire thing both sucks and blows.

Anyway, Edmonton Eskimos, I no longer support you, and will not again until next June.

Assholes Run Amok in Edmonton Again

Stickmen using billboards to attack mayor
Edmonton - The Stickmen are again targeting the city's mayor with a cheeky billboard campaign.

The political group, fronted by two-time mayoral candidate Mike Nickel, is taking shots at Mayor Bill Smith with a sign near city hall.

"There's nothing more pathetic than a man with sight, but no vision," the billboard reads. "Where's your vision Bill? Perhaps being a good booster is not enough."
Actually, Mike, there's nothing more pathetic than you, you greedy, treacherous, cowardly piece of shit. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a fan of Bill Smith, but the Stickmen are emblematic of everything that's wrong with politics today. From their anonymous attacks (yeah, we pretty much know who they are, but that wasn't their doing) on public servants, to their sneering self-righteousness and contempt for their fellow Edmontonians, they are truly scum in every way. I'm tempted to vote for Bill next time out just to spit in their faces.

Hrmmm. I went 32-16 with my picks for the first round of the UEFA Cup, which is less than impressive. Thanks, underachieving German teams. Anyway, undaunted I press on, with an overall record of 67-22. Here's with the draw for the next round, with my picks in bold, bold print.

Dinamo Zagreb (Cro) v Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk (Ukr)
Borussia Dortmund (Ger) v Sochaux (Fra)
Manchester City (Eng) v Groclin Grodzisk (Pol)
Barcelona (Spa) v Panionios (Gre)
Benfica (Por) v Molde FK (Nor)
Slavia Prague (Cze) v Levski Sofia (Bul)
Rosenborg (Nor) v Crevena Zvezda (Ser)
Valencia (Spa) v Maccabi Haifa (Isr)
Spartak Moscow (Rus) v Dinamo Bucuresti (Rom)
Gaziantepspor (Tur) v RC Lens (Fra)
Brondby (Den) v Schalke 04 (Ger)
Aris Thessaloniki (Gre) v Perugia (Ita)
FC Utrecht (Ned) v Auxerre (Fra)
Steaua Bucuresti (Rom) v Liverpool (Eng)
Valerenga (Nor) v Wisla Krakow (Pol)
PAOK Salonika (Gre) v Debreceni (Hun)
FC Copenhagen (Den) v Mallorca (Spa)
Parma (Ita) v Austria Slazburg (Aus)
FC Basle (Swi) v Newcastle United (Eng)
Hajduk Split (Cro) v AS Roma (Ita)
Genclerbirligi (Tur) v Sporting Lisbon (Por)
Torpedo Moscow (Rus) v Villarreal (Spa)
Feyenoord Rotterdam (Ned) v FK Teplice (Cze)
Bordeaux (Fra) v Heart Of Midlothian (Sco)

Millwall appoint Wise as caretaker

Millwall have confirmed that Dennis Wise will take over as player-coach on a caretaker basis following the departure of Mark McGhee.

That's probably not the bestest ever picture of Dennis Wise, at least we hope not, but Lord love him he's the new Millwall manager, at least for four games. I'm with the folks who are expecting him to get the job full time in the end. A good think? We'll have to wait and see.

"It" gets kicked old-school in Montreal
Violence flares in Montreal after concert cancelled
Last Updated Wed, 15 Oct 2003 17:11:14

MONTREAL - More than 100 police officers were needed to break up a riot in downtown Montreal after a punk rock concert was cancelled on Tuesday night.

Yeah, who the hell is this 'It' who keeps getting kicked, punched, pushed, knocked, hit, and fired up anyway?

Anyway, I was going to write today about the historic merger of the two right-wing parties in Canada, but what with a punk riot and Millwall's manager being fired, there were far more important things to deal with. The reason behind the above riot was the refusal of Customs to let members of the bands Total Chaos and The Exploited (see picture) into the country. Dang, why can't we get concerts by Total Chaos and The Exploited in Edmonton? Oh right, 'cuz they're not allowed into the country.

I will deal with the Alliance-Tory merger at another time.

Millwall sack manager McGhee

Dennis Wise is expected to be put in temporary charge of Millwall this weekend after unrest among players and supporters at the New Den brought down manager Mark McGhee.

This was probably coming. Millwall fans are not the most patient of people. Dennis Wise has been placed in charge, and, as the article above notes, will face the first-place team in his first game in charge. The new season just got a lot more interesting.

Lame Moments in Sports #10
Yet Another Racist Asshole Rears Her Appalling Head

Stephenson: Asians ruining LPGA Tour
Sports Ticker
10/10/2003

NEW YORK (Ticker) - Jan Stephenson is teeing it up with the men's 50-and-older crowd this weekend, but she might get more attention for teeing off on the LPGA Asian players in a magazine interview due out next week.

"This is probably going to get me in trouble, but the Asians are killing our tour," Stephenson says in the November issue of Golf Magazine. "Their lack of emotion, their refusal to speak English when they can speak English. They rarely speak."

I'm gonna get on this bus early. Seeking to fill the void in the sports world left by the precipitous departure of Rush Limbaugh, Jan Stephenson, whom I may have heard of before, decided to beak off about the state of the LPGA, and, as you can probably tell from the article above, her views are distinctly 19th century. If you don't wish to go and read the entire depressing thing, I'll sum up for you - she blames Asian people and ugly women (I kid you not) for the problems with the womens' game. This, in a sport where the most recognizable player is Annika Sorenstam...

Anyway, Fulton Allem was unavailable for comment.

The lamest thing about this affair is, however, the tide of people who will rush to Stephenson's defence, claiming that her freedom of speech is under threat, and that she is being trampled by the jackboots of political correctness. If you follow the link to the article and scroll down to the bottom of it, you'll see that the very first comment is from somebody whining about "bleeding-heart liberals" and so on and so forth - this before anybody had even complained about Stephenson's comments in that particular forum! Truly, truly, lame.

And that's what's in the CD player this morning. Nothing like a little L7 to kick off an annoying Friday.

Been listening to this on a fairly regular basis since it came out, and loving it. The band have gone back a couple of albums and broken out the ska-punk thing again, which is excellent, since in my opinion And Out Come the Wolves is one of the finest punk albums ever. Anyhoo, Indestructible has several of those rolling ska songs, as well as a couple of barn-burners ("Spirit of '87" in particular). The lyrics on a number of the songs ("Indestructible," "Fall Back Down," and "Tropical London," among others) deal the recent break-up of Tim Armstrong's marriage to Brody Armstrong of The Distillers, but it's not really a "break-up album." Rancid's social conscience shows up on songs like "Ivory Coast" and "Stand Your Ground," and the old-school/hardcore mob will find its appetite sated by repeated listenings to "Out of Control." That said, my favourite cut on the entire thing has got be "Red Hot Moon" - a poignant little remembrance of a friend lost.

A friend of mine was mentioning that the album sounds smoother than previous Rancid offerings, and I agree, particularly when it's compared to the first coupld of Rancid albums. However, I don't think this is a bad thing; it merely reflects the fact that the band is getting older and more experienced. As for rumours that the band has "sold out" by turning up on MTV and hanging out with Kelly Osbourne, well that's just horseshit. Buy Indestructible and listen to it many times.

Web Posted Oct 7 2003 12:36 PM MDT

Chief not running for mayor
Edmonton - Police Chief Bob Wasylyshen has decided not to run for mayor, he announced in a news release Tuesday.


I can't say that this bit of news fills me with dismay, although it does surprise me a little bit. I've got a number of problems with with Bob Wasylyshen, beginning with the fact that he doesn't seem to really like Edmontonians very much. He has consistently resisted attempts to make the police department more accountable, in particular opposing the creation of an independent advisory group to handle complains against the force. During his tenure as chief, the police have become less friendly to deal with, adopting a far more confrontational attitude to the public. The attitude was summed up excellently by a cop I heard expressing disappointment that "there are people out here who have no fear of the police." Well, yes, I thought that was the point of being a law-abiding Canadian - you didn't have to be afraid of the police. To top it all off, I don't actually think I'm any safer in this city. Anyway, he might have turned out to be an excellent mayoral candidate, but the omens arent' good.

Lame Moments in Sports #9
How to Stop Cheering for your Home Team in 1 Easy Step
or, How I Temporarily Became A B.C. Lions Fan

I went to an Eskimos game a couple of weeks ago, against those self-same Lions, and, by the end of the third quarter, I was definitely pulling for the boys from B.C. Why, you ask? Well, it had to do with the section I was sitting in with friends. We sat right in front of the most obnoxious, unpleasant, drunken morons I have ever heard in my life. Now, I'm up for a bit of rowdiness at sporting events (I'm a Millwall fan, for heaven's sake). However, I'm much more up for it if it's not simply shouting "B.C. Sucks!" and belching for an entire game. I'm not really exaggerating here, folks. That was pretty much the extent of their clever repartee - they never even really got around to cheering for the Eskimos. I mean, the most gutter-dwelling English soccer hooligan can come up with something at least a little bit witty once in awhile. Now, I'll confess, not helping the matter was the fact that I was sitting with a girl from B.C., who'd actually bought the tickets for the game, and I don't think she had as good a time as she might have.

Second bit of lameness with the night - I can't count the number of times over the years that I've heard someone talk about soccer hooliganism, and close with the line "They don't even go to watch the game. They just go fight." Well, at the Esks-Lions game, I saw four fights involving multiple people in our section of the stadium alone. By the beginning of the fourth quarter, the police had pretty much moved into our little corner permanently to deal the idiots. I didn't know it at the time, but elsewhere in the stadium, my sister was having beer spilled all over her by a similar pair of inebriated guerriers. All this a week before the Millwall - West Ham derby played out with exactly two arrests, one of them for scalping tickets.

Anyway, I'm an Eskimos fan again, but it was close for a little while.

For a few minutes, it looked like that the fairy tale was going to continue, thanks to that shot. However, it wasn't to be. Full credit to the Canadian team for coming as far as it has. Anyway, here's the full story.

Report: Courtney Love hospitalized for possible overdose
Friday, October 3, 2003 Posted: 0938 GMT ( 5:38 PM HKT)

NEW YORK (Reuters) -- Musician and singer Courtney Love was hospitalized for a possible drug overdose following her arrest after allegedly breaking windows at a friend's house, the Los Angeles Times reported Friday, citing police.

Courtney Love had a very bad day yesterday. You know, I've always had a great deal of respect for Courtney Love. I think she's never gotten the credit she deserved for Hole's music, with their success credited to Kurt Cobain and Billy Corgan, among others. When she went back to acting (people forget that she actually began her entertainment career as an actress - she was in Sid & Nancy among other films way back when), and did well at it, people accused her of selling out. I'm not even going to dignify the accusations that she murdered her husband... She's probably not the easiest person to be around, but the degree to which she is reviled by the public and the media is disgraceful.

I remember seeing Hole a few years ago, before Melissa Auf Der Mar left for the Smashing Pumpkins. They came through as part of a summer festival thing that was touring Canada. Anyway, they were awesome. Musically tight, and Love knew how to get the crowd eating out of her hand. From her opening banter to the audience ("Louder, you little fucks, or I won't play," if I recall correctly), to the band's fairly riotous closing number, Courtney Love was mesmerizing. Definitely one of the musical highlights of my life.

So, here's wishing Courtney Love a speedy recovery. If nothing else, she can console herself with the knowledge that, bad as it was, she probably didn't have as shitty a day as Roy Horn did.

A great, great, evening, with hopefully more like it to come. It was hard to watch the last, oh, 83 minutes of the match, as China came at the Canadians looking for the equalizer, but Taryn Swiatek played about as close to a perfect game as you can in goal. She wasn't often spectacular, but sometimes that's the mark of 'keeper having a great game.

Someone, I think it was Nick Hornby, said that supporting a soccer team is not a fun exercise in and of itself, and he's right. Of course, the reward comes in those few minutes of ecstasy after a goal or the days of ecstasy after the final whistle of an important win (see above), which makes it all worthwhile. However, if you take those away, the actual act of supporting your team is pretty much heavy anxiety mixed with anger and disappointment. It's good to have games like last night's to remind us of why we go through it all.

Bring on the Swedes!

Ok, waaaaay back when (July 15, if you're interested), we trotted out Number 6 in our series of Lame Moments in Sports. This, you will recall, was ESPN's hiring of Mr. Rush Limbaugh to babble about football on its NFL broadcasts. The View From Over Here was not in favour of this, and if you need to ask why, you haven't been paying attention. In that posting, however, I predicted that ESPN would would enjoy a brief ratings boost (it was, in fact, about 10% over last year), and that "after about week 3" Rush's true colours would be revealed for all to see. You know what? It's fun being right.

Thursday, October 2
Limbaugh resigns from ESPN's NFL pregame show
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ESPN.com news services


PHILADELPHIA -- Conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh said Thursday he resigned from ESPN's "Sunday NFL Countdown" pregame show to protect network employees from the uproar over critical comments he made about Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb.

Limbaugh quit late Wednesday, three days after saying on the show that McNabb was overrated because the media wanted to see a black quarterback succeed.

Holy Shit! Do I ever have to inject some life into this puppy. Either that, or hit it over the head with a shovel and bury it in the backyard. Well, I guess I'll do the injecting with life thing. Or try to. So what have I been up to for the past month just about? Well...

1. Being a witness at my brother's wedding. It went really well - no fights or anything like that. The wedding itself was a small ceremony, actually performed during the Sunday mass at my mother's church. She celebrated, and my Dad came out from Ontario for it, so all was well and good. There were various parties and festivities surrounding the event. It was a bit odd to see the church on Sunday with a large number of the shaved-tattooed-pierced brigade in attendance in addition to the regular congragation. Anyway, that was thing one.

2. I sort of patched things back together with my soccer head coach, so I will be behind the bench for the coming season. I'll give him credit - he is at least trying to do the right thing. However, I'm not really looking forward to this season. I don't know if it's because of what happened this summer, or because I'm already swamped, time-wise, or what. We'll see how it shapes up when we actually get on the pitch, but I'm feeling like this may be the swan-song for me in terms of coaching, at least for a while. My Friend From Prince George has an injured knee this season, so there's a chance that she'll be assuming some of the coaching duties, which will be great.

3. I survived another rush week at the Bookstore. No more need be said about that...

More to follow!!