Don't Vote For Me

...seriously.

I'd make a pretty horrible Prime Minister.

Not that what we have right now in Canada isn't pretty terrible, but I'm definitely not the guy for the job of running a country.  Especially not a country the size of Canada.

Canada's a big place, and on October 19th, the citizens over the age of eighteen will take to the polls to elect who they think should be Prime Minister.  Well, let's be realistic, we'll be lucky if half of registered voters actually take the time to go do it after whining on social media about the awfulness of which party leader they dislike the most.  I'm okay with that so long as they don't vote for me.

Let's face reality - if I were elected Prime Minister of Canada, I'd be doing some things that would be people up in arms and shake their fists in the air.  First off, all vegans would have to leave the country.  It's nothing personal (at least I don't think it is), but if you aren't going to eat the food put in front of you then you go away.  For example, if my daughter doesn't eat the meat on her plate at supper time she goes straight to bed.  In the case of me being Prime Minister, "bed" would be somewhere else.  Possibly France.

If I were the PM, there would be news story after news story about me engaging in scandalous affairs with my interns.  I got nothing to hide there.  I haven't even done it yet and I'm telling you all that I would.  I'd probably employ a new intern every couple of weeks too.  That's where your tax dollars would go.

Speaking of taxes, I wouldn't raise taxes.  I wouldn't necessarily lower them either.  I'd just re-allocate them.  You see, most people don't realize that our country is actually a business, the people in government are the employees, and the citizens are the customers.  So we NEED taxes to make sure that we have access to police, ambulances, fire fighters, etc, etc.  The goal of every business is to make money - and Canada isn't doing that.  So let's suppose you were the CEO of a business that had been consistently losing money and showing no growth over a period of eight years or so.  You'd be really fortunate to still have a job. 

Would I legalize marijuana?  Yup.  I don't even smoke weed, but I'd make sure it was very available to those who do, so I could tax it properly, and maybe fix a few roads in the process.  While I'm at it, I'd legalize prostitution, so those aforementioned interns could help pay for their tuition.  

Oh, and old people?  Sorry, but you won't be allowed to drive anymore.  This little initiative will ensure better driver safety and reduce the amount stress induced anger around the country.  And plus, old people smell like old people, so keeping them in a stuffy car isn't a good idea for anyone.  But don't worry, old people I won't send you away with the vegans.  We'd miss your wrinkly little smiling faces too much.  So I'd offer free bus passes for the aged.  These special passes, paid for by the old peoples' taxes, can be used on Sundays between 8am and 1pm so they can go to church, and also on Tuesdays between 10am and 6pm so they can shop in places that offer seniors discounts.  Other than that, old people will be staying at home where they will be safe, cozy, and out of the way.

The flag?  I'd mostly leave it alone, but I might consider adding a watermark of my face on there.

More Canadian hockey teams?  You best believe I'd work at getting Halifax a hockey team!  There are enough NHL teams currently that one of them could move to Halifax.  Let's see... I know!  I'd move the Montreal Habs there! 

I'd also make traveling in this country a little easier.  So many people want to visit the west coast and beautiful Vancouver.  But the travel can be pretty long and tiring.  No problem!  We'll simply remove Saskatchewan and squeeze Alberta and Manitoba together.

Also, I hate the winter time.  So while you're all suffering through feet upon feet of snow, I'd be conducting all of my Prime Minister duties from Florida.

Oh, and lastly, regarding our Monopoly money - I'm absolutely against having a five dollar coin.  I'd probably go ahead and bring back the red two dollar bill too.  I actually cringe to myself when I catch myself saying the word "toonie".  I'm fine with the one dollar coin, as very little costs only a dollar anymore anyway (screw you Dollarama), but I'd put in a motion to bring back The Shinplaster - a nifty and useful twenty-five cent bill that circulated around the time of the Great Depression.

So you can vote for Justin Trudeau or Stephen Harper or Brian Mulroney if you want.  Your choice is your choice and that's a beautiful thing.

I'd never tell you who to vote for, but seriously, don't vote for me.

- ryan

Obligatory Blue Jays Blog

It seems like everyone around has Blue Jays fever right now.

I think those die-hard Jays fans who have been around for years really deserve to see Toronto win another World Series.  I'm a Red Sox fan, but I can recognize that the Jays have been working on building this team for a few years now. And I do like seeing hard work pay off.

To be honest, I don't really care who wins the World Series.

I live in Canada and don't even cheer for a Canadian hockey team, so the likelihood of me being a Jays fan is pretty small.  But I do remember the excitement of Joe Carter, Roberto Alomar, Todd Stottle... Stoddle... Stodtel...Oscarmayer, and Cito Gaston from '92 and '93.  I even had a World Series champs shirt.

my 1992 baseball card.

Those were the days.

I mean, I guess they were.  I don't remember them all that well anymore.  As a kid I liked the Expos too, mostly because they had Youppi as their mascot.  I met him in the summer of '92 when I went with my dad to an Expos game.  Youppi didn't have time to talk though because his very attractive assistant told me that, "Monsieur Youppi aas ay teyleyfonn cahl."

Wow, the French-Canadian accent is a hard one to type out.

Anyway, back to the Blue Jays.

In 1999 I went to a Jays game with my buddy and pseudo-brother Brian.  We sort of went on a lark and had a great time.  Mostly because Tony Fernandez was there.  Tony Fernandez is the all-time greatest baseball player in the history of sports.  He was so good at baseball, and at being Tony Fernandez, that he could have excelled at anything he put his mind to.

God.

But enough about Tony Fernandez, let's talk about Kelly Gruber.  When I was ten years old I had a life-sized Kelly Gruber poster that hung in my basement.  Me and all my friends, because we were a bunch of ass-hats, called him Kelly Booger and used the poster as a dart board.  One of my friends took a dart and dug out a hole in Gruber's crotch.  It was big enough to put your fingers in and totally ruined the drywall in the basement.  Come to think of it, looking back on that poster... having a huge hole in Gruber's crotch was really weird.  I can only hope that none of my friends had any weird ideas of what to do with that poster when I would go to the bathroom.

So these days I'm seeing a lot of "Go Jays Go" around town, and part of me wants to assume it's because the Maple Leafs fans are so sick of seeing their team suck at anything NHL related that they'll become baseball fans while it's chic to do so.  The better part of me knows that nothing makes Canadians happier than having the opportunity to be better at something than the Americans.

But, it does look like fun to be cheering along with them.  And girls look really sexy in baseball hats.  So if the Blue Jays are the flavor of the month, maybe I'll try and... CATCH THE TASTE!

- ryan
(...check out this really flattering picture of me from 1992.  I bet I got all the chicks.)

Our Kids Get Away With Shit

The other night we went out for a little family dinner.  Nothing too fancy, mind you, or nothing very chic either.  We had burgers at Kelsey's.  The point, though, is that we weren't at home.  We were out in public.  Among other people.

And Grayson took a big shit at the dinner table.

And then a part of me actually thought to myself, Must be nice.  Why can't I just take a big ol' shit at the dinner table and get away with it?

I mean, he did it right at the table!  Grunted, pushed, and turned his face red as he squeezed out a monster turd.  And we actually encouraged it like it was cute.  "Uh-oh, someone's having a big poopie," we said.  Other people in the restaurant looked over and made cute faces at him when they should've been disgusted by what he was doing.  If I just up and shit myself at the table those old people would have had me arrested.

So I got to thinking about all the crazy shit kids can get away with that us grown-ups can't.

Like, the shitting in public is a pretty obvious one, but what about talking back to people of authority?  Back in the day you wouldn't think twice about smacking a kid for being out of line.  These days, you can't do that though.  Kids today actually have rights, and they don't even pay taxes yet.  They can talk back to their parents or other authority figures and what do they get?  A talking to, a timeout, or maybe their toys are taken away for an hour or so.

If we talked back to our bosses with attitude, or gave police officers a hard time, we'd be fired.  Or shots would be fired. Either way, the outcome wouldn't be so good.

I've seen kids fucking pick their nose and eat it.  EAT IT! They eat it like it was second nature.  Like they were marooned on an island and it was the only thing possibly available to eat.  The wild animals were already hunted, the trees were no longer producing coconuts, so might as well eat some boogers.  Now, let's not kid ourselves here - everyone picks their nose, even adults - but if you even try to put one of those snot balls in your mouth and someone saw you there would only be one possible solution.  Nobody would ever kiss you again.  And yet, we still kiss our children goodnight, even though we've all seen proof that they have, at one time or another, had boogers in their mouths.

And what about those naps?  When I'm tired I can't throw a shit fit full of tears and screaming.  Nope.  Not allowed.  Do I get to have a nap?  No, I get to have a coffee.  Maybe we should start giving kids coffee.

At Ryleigh's bus stop the other day, this kid tripped as he was getting on the bus.  Sure, it hurts a little.  Maybe he scraped his knee, I don't know.  But you'd think that by the way he was crying and screaming and carrying on that his feet had suddenly fallen off or something.   Now that would hurt.  He didn't suck it up like a champ and take his seat on the school bus either.  He cried in the doorway of the bus while his mom coddled him and babied him.  You can imagine what that did to the line up of cars behind the school bus.  You're right - that line of cars didn't get any smaller.  Or more patient.  If that were an adult... if that were me... causing everyone to be late for work or appointments or affairs, someone would have gotten out of their car and punched me in the fucking face.  Then they would have told me to suck it up and take a seat on the goddam bus.

Amid all this rambling I'm still full aware that it's okay to have dessert even if you don't finish your dinner.  That's still okay.  That'll probably never change, no matter the generation, which political party is in power, or which different group of people are being unfairly singled out as terrorists because their clothes are different.

But something really needs to be done about all these kids taking shits at the table.  If they keep that up, how will they ever learn which fork is for the salad and which is for the entree?

- ryan