Canadian Boats Can Do Racing

Today’s Heritage Moment is about sporting. If you live in a nation, there is literally nothing more important than being able to beat other nations in sport. This is more important than anything. Anything at all.

Specifically we’re looking at Canada, just a few days old, challenging English and French teams in canoeing (or some kinda boat race anyway). These plucky up-and-comers are the underdogs and they win anyway. Who woulda thinked it? Maybe this Canada thing will turn out alright after all.

We are told that nobody respects the team, dressed as they are “in their absurd red caps and brown suspenders.” I don’t know what is worse, the old timey time people who thought red caps and brown suspenders in some way affect ones ability to do boating, or the narrator who uses the word “absurd” as if he agrees with them. But what really gets me is how much money the team’s hometown wagered on this. Do they just have that kind of money lying around? In that whole young town is there nothing that they might be better off spending money on? NO! This is more important than anything. Anything at all.

Anyway, I don’t have much else to say. It’s got decent music and I like the pacing. In spite of his hatred of caps and suspenders, the narrator does a good job. There’s not a lot of quotability here, sadly (though, if some band ever takes the name “The Legendary Parisians” I’d totally support them). I feel like I have to call this one above average. Let’s go with Three and a Half Pieces of PDR’s Reviewing System Cake.

Ptoo

I have been brushing my teeth for decades. I have been using this one sink in my apartment for something like nine years. After all that time and all that experience, when am I going to stop spitting on the faucet? This happens at least once a month.

Only Fair

Listen, if I’ve got to put up with people who say things like “I don’t like drinking water because it has no taste”, then it is only fair that I get to complain about sunlight. This is non-negotiable.

PDR has been sleepin’ around!

This last weekend I slept in three different rooms in my apartment. Now, I’m fully aware that this is not an interesting fact, but it does allow me to title this post without it being blatant lies.

Haiku!

Danger from the moon!
We can’t hope to defeat it,
but we can join it.

Hey, speaking of terrible PDR Poetry, like two months ago some song lyrics came to me in the shower and I saved that as a draft on this site for posterity. Well, now that we’re trying to update the site I want to get rid of all the unpublished drafts, so I’m going to go ahead and put this here. It’s even stranger than my usual poetic attempts, but that’s okay because I can blame the shower. I give you, Puppets On Fire:

Runnin’ out of ammo and food again. Every day the same old thing.
If brains were bullets you’d have a knife, but that’s good enough for this damn life.

Fenced in, strung up where could we go? Only places left were the ones we didn’t know.
Freedom is worth a hefty price, but hey, we still have appetites.

People say there’s nothing to be done, but it sure don’t feel that way holdin’ a gun.
Shame it’s such a gruesome act, ’cause nothing really compares to that.

The map was on the placemat back, but we stayed focussed on all the snacks.
The fence had holes bigger than the gate. We told the boss he said “that’s okay.”

We were puppets on fire, our strings did no good. Burnin’ on the ground, just lifeless wood.
From those ashes smoke did arise. The way it moved it looked so alive.

In our places we ate and cursed. Trapped in this spot what could be worse?
So that dark column blew across the sky. We watched it and waved goodbye.

Maybe I should have admited I didn’t recognize the voice…

I just got a wrong-number phone call on my cell in which the caller mentioned the fact that I work nights and asked me if “Mark” had called me with the news yet. Since I do work nights and I know Marq, I thought this was genuinely a call for me. It was easily the longest I’ve been on the phone for a wrong number. Strange stuff.

Anyway, I woke up late before work last night and have not yet been able to return to sleep today. And this after just righting my schedule after the last time it was messed up. I have literally wasted hours doing nothing but tossing and turning now. Sleep hates me. And I don’t care for it all that much either.

Finally, I’m thirsty. Someone bring me a glass of water.