Go see Alice In Wonderland.
I love Tim Burton movies, and this one is exceptional. Johnny Depp is brilliant as the Mad Hatter. The 3-D is absolutely breathtaking. It’s the best entertainment I’ve seen in years.
Okay, it kind of worked – the flying moose and the giant beavers and all that.
Actually, it was a nice contrast with the Russian pageant which was so serious, so very 1920s grandeur. Yep, poking a bit of fun at Canada never hurts.
His name may be Young, but you couldn’t help wondering why we couldn’t find anyone younger than Neil Young to sing at the closing Olympic ceremonies? For crying out loud, he was out of key most of the time.
Now I know how that rumour got started about Gordon Lightfoot being dead. By bet is that Neil Young put out the rumour when he heard Vanoc was going to tap Lightfoot for the closing ceremonies – and he wanted the gig.
Where was Timmins native Shania Twain? Nelly Furtado? Someone. Anyone.
Well, at least they managed to put the flame out.
And William Shatner? Oh, give me a break.
Congratulations, Team Canada. Or should that be Team Heartstoppers? First, they take the long route to the finals. Then they let the Americans tie it up in the last minute of play.
And did you see the faces of the Americans as they were awarded the silver medals? They looked stricken. You would have thought they were hanging albatrosses around their necks.
They should remember there is no shame in losing to a worthy opponent. Both teams were magnificent.
When you cover politics, you learn all about managing expectations.
It’s what political parties do during elections and byelections.
“It’s a Tory stronghold,” the Liberals said during last year’s Haliburton-Kawatha Lakes-Brock byelection in which then PC Leader John Tory was defeated by a no-name Liberal, Rich Johnson. Except Johnson wasn’t all that no-name in the riding. He was well known as a former school board chair. And it wasn’t so much a Tory stronghold as it was a personal fief for popular incumbent Laurie Scott.
When Johnson won, it appeared to be either a massive endorsation of the Liberals or a massive rejection of John Tory. In fact, it was neither. It was just a quirky byelection outcome, like so many other quirky byelections.
But the Liberals managed expectations perfectly.
You can’t help thinking Canadian Olympians really could have used that kind of deft management. Stating you’re going to “own the podium” when you’re up against countries with 10 times your population is simply foolhardy. We now have scrambled eggs all over our faces.
And the worst thing is? We deserve it.
How could we have improved the opening Ceremonies of the Vancouver Olympics?
First, we could have given the impression that we are a young, hip country and showcased some of our young, hip talent.
Why didn’t we have Arcade Fire performing Haiti? It would have raised millions on YouTube, instead of Bryan Adams, who is a British citizen now. Why didn’t Feist perform?
This young nation had no young people performing. Where was Shania Twain?
Was the idea to get across that Canada is smug, overweight nation? Hey, they succeeded.
Curiously, this seems to be the reaction of Canadian journalists to criticism of the Vancouver Olympics.
We have screwed up certain aspects of these Olympics. Sadly, though, we are not a mature nation so we cannot take criticism. Like a spoiled child, when others point out our shortcomings, we whine like babes. We don’t look to improve our performance. We slam the people who dare criticize us.
Oh, please. Come off it. Journalists, of all people, should know that caustic commentary is the very essence of what we do. And done well – as the Brits almost invariably do – it’s what should keep this business afloat.
In Canada, where we strive for mediocrity in all things, the very notion that someone should pierce our paper thin hides with witty criticisms of our feeble opening ceremonies, our preoccupation with one sport at the expense of all others and our boring, boring national culture of navel gazing is just appalling.
This is a country where we give our kids ribbons for competing. Excelling is so very un-Canadian.
Honestly, we need to get over ourselves. This is a backwater nation and the rest of the world doesn’t give us a second thought most of the time. Unless they need a war fought, of course. In which case, they expect us to send our fine military people. That’s about the only time Canadians actually excel. Our military shines on the international stage.
So who really cares if our hockey team wins or loses?
The foolish part of the Own the Podium program is the foolish way in which it raises expectations.
If you don’t own the podium, you’re a failure. Or that will be the perception.
Canadians like to mask their disappointment about not doing better in the winter Games with the pathetic statement that all that really counts is men’s hockey.
“It’s our game,” they say. Then they don’t win the men’s hockey, and the entire male Canadian population goes into a deep funk for another four years until the next Olympics.
“it’s our game,” they say, beating their chests with manly bravado. Well, clearly, it isn’t our game. It belongs to the world now, and if all those over-paid Canadian millionaire sissies who play for Team Canada don’t get their act together, it never will be. Heck, if tiny Switzerland can come THAT close to whupping our asses, I say it’s time we found another sport to call our own.
Lacrosse, maybe.
How embarrassing are these Olympics for Canadians?
I won’t even talk about the death of the Georgian luge athlete, which was horrific and raises big questions about the Games infrastructure.
No, it’s more the cultural aspect that bothers me. It started with the pathetic opening ceremonies, which had us all squirminng in our seats. It was embarrassingly bad to watch that tubby poet define Canadians as, well, not Americans.
We say please and thank you and zed rather than zee. And that apparently makes us better people. Frankly, I don’t believe it’s even true. Most Americans I know are impeccably polite – far more so than many Canadians.
For heaven’s sake, when is this country going to grow up? When are we going to realize that being smug about ourselves and snide about Americans is generally viewed by others as being, well, childish? This is not what great nations are made of.
Unlike other Canadians who criticized Nikki Yanofsky’s rendition of O Canada, I kind of liked it. It took guts to get up there and do that – a pleasant change from the rest of the pap in the opening ceremonies.
And how embarrassing was it when one arm of the Olympic cauldron wouldn’t work? How many years have we been working towards this? Eight? Ten? And we still can’t get it right.
We are such a nation of whiners. We whine when we don’t get the Olympics and we whine when we do. And then we screw them up and prove emphatically why we should never have been given them in the first place.
It behoves someone with my last name to give winter tips to snow-bound Britain.
I see in the news that they have been suffering through icy temperatures and some fierce snowstorms. And while we in snowy Canada like to sneer at them and laugh when the country grinds to a halt over a dusting of snow, I think that’s unfair.
On Tuesday, we too had a little snow. Coincidentally, I decided to take the subway to Yonge and Eglinton from Yonge and Bloor. It was a nightmare. South of Bloor, the subway wasn’t operating – because the switches weren’t working.
It sure makes you wonder why we are building light rail, above ground, transportation for the future. This is a city that suffers the extremes of temperatures. We can’t have our entire transit system grinding to a halt every time it gets cold.
Meanwhile, for the Brits, some tips. First, if you don’t want to put snow tires on your car, at least make sure your tires aren’t over-inflated. That way, you’ll get a better grip.
When there is snow in the forecast, pull your windshield wipers off the windshield and point it out. That way, they won’t stick to the windshield or snap off when you start up the car.
Slow down, fill up with washer fluid and gas. And be sure to clear all the ice and snow off your car before you set off. If you can, of course, just stay home, open a bottle of wine and snuggle down on the couch!
Christina Blizzard 