Burke Smirks

The ongoing saga of the NHL's Anaheim Ducks continues today with the news that Brian Burke has been relieved of his general manager's duties and has been replaced by assistant GM Bob Murray.
Various sources have indicated failure to accept a contract extension as the reason, but CEO Michael Shulman cited breach of contract.
"Brian was hired to run the team, not to smile and enjoy his success. While he did not smile when the team won the Stanley Cup, it WAS clear that he enjoyed the experience. This is clearly a breach of contract and he was warned at the time. Feuding with Kevin Lowe of the Oilers over the signing of Dustin Penner was another episode. We hired him because we thought he was a dick, not because he ENJOYS being a dick. We can do better."
The Toronto Maple Leafs are expected to aggressively pursue Mr. Burke so they can add his surly and humourless persona to their collection.

Serial Weirdness - Chapter 1

Seeing as this seems to be a one-Gack show these days I am taking it upon myself to introduce to you, our dear readers, the concept of "Serial Weirdness". As I think of weirdness I shall enter them here, hopefully in some sort of coherent form for you to follow along in single chapter form. With any luck it shall entertain, possibly titillate and hopefully amuse the crap out of the lot of you. 

Probably not titillate.

So, without any further delay may I present to you Serial Weirdness.

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The wind whistled through the trees in the park, the bare branches and limbs moving with the force of the cold November breeze. The few people brave enough to venture outside moved quickly with the effort of hurrying to where they were going and getting inside as expediently as possible. The shops and cafes that lined the park were doing a brisk business and those shop owners were inwardly pleased with the hourly take while showing outward concern for the needs of the shoppers.  The rapid transactions kept the shop owners warm. But deep in the park it was cold.

You know the hot dog cart. You see them all over the city in the summer, hordes of nitrate-deficient people waiting their turn for one of mankind's' greatest gifts, the hot dog. Smother it in everything remotely edible that comes in a squeezable tube and wash it down with super highly concentrated sugar water and you have the perfect city meal. But deep in the park on a cold November day the cart was out of place. The canvas walls that the owner had erected to keep the cold off flapped mightily in the wind and the little immigrant man shuddered. Stanislaw Kovac was working against his will. His wife of what seemed to be *forever* did not like him spending time at home when there were hot dogs to be sold. Stanislaw tried to explain that no one would want to venture into the park for a hot dog but she was having none of it.

"Go sell your hot dogs! Keep your blood moving!" She yelled. A lot.

So there he was, huddled in his canvas enclosed hot dog cart, trying feebly to keep warm and keep the cans of pop from freezing. He looked outside; the grey clouds rolled past. He was bored. He closed his eyes.

"This is silly. I could be watching Jeopardy. I'm going home no....." he stopped talking. He thought he heard a voice behind him. He turned around. No one was there. He stuck his head out the back of the enclosure. No one. Another sound behind him. The voice, a tiny one was coming from inside the cart. Stanlislaw cocked his head to one side and tried to locate the source of the little voice. He waited. The voice called out again, muffled.

"Hey! In here!" The cooler? Stanislaw took a step backwards. What could possibly be in the cooler that was capable of speech? His wife put a tape recorder in the cooler and it came on after a time. She was a card! No. His wife was many things; funny wasn't part of the top 100 traits she possessed let alone a trait that she would want to show off. 

Stanislaw didn't want to open the cooler. What would he find? "Hey! Are you out there? It's cold!" Who was this talking to him? He thought briefly about running from the cart but since he'd lived through the Hungarian uprising in 1956 he figured he possessed enough "moxie" to withstand whatever could be talking to him from within the cooler. He inched closer. It was quiet except for the wind. No voice.

He grabbed the tongs from the top of the counter and stepped closer, staring intently at the cooler. Slowly he stretched out his hand with the tongs and reached for the lid. Edging the tongs under the handle he flipped the lid up and jumped back. Nothing. He crept back up and peered over the edge. Just the hot dogs.

Stanislaw looked around him. Nothing in his enclosure. Nothing immediately outside. Nothing around for miles it seemed. Stanislaw looked back into the cooler.

"Thanks for opening the lid. We needed the fresh air."

It suddenly became apparent; the hot dogs were talking to Stanislaw Kovac.

It Was Going To Happen Sooner or Later

Citizens of the small South-Western Ontario community of Dutton were shocked yesterday when bus-loads of Visigoths showed up on the outskirts of the sleepy little town, disembarked and then preceded to sack the town.

Just after 8:00 am 5 chartered buses pulled into the “Gulp and Blow” truck stop just off of Route 401 and several hundred warlike Germanic tribesmen exited the buses and stood quietly by as the bus drivers removed their siege gear from the luggage compartments. After organizing themselves into manageable groups they swept into the town looting and burning as they went.

 “We weren’t expecting this at all,” Dutton Mayor Vince “Chewie” Bacca was overheard exclaiming as the chaos erupted around him, “We had a strawberry supper planned at the Community Park for this afternoon; this might push that back some.”

 Gnerl the Bold, a Visigoth warrior, tax consultant and spokesmen for the Visigoths explains the decision to sack Dutton, a small town situated just south of Highway 401 between London and Chatham, known more for it’s recent amalgamation with Dunwich, it’s “Dutton Old Girl’s Choral Society” and outstanding dairy farming than for it’s ability to incite warlike tendencies in long-extinct European tribes, “We were on those buses for a long time. Barc the Terrible had given each bus some mead and some of his wife’s excellent cabbage rolls and the resultant lower gastro-intestinal stress that many of my brothers had felt had created an atmosphere in the buses that could best be described as, well, pungent. Several fights had broken out amongst the lads and our leader, Varg the Warlike and his right hand man, Tim, decided that we all needed to blow off some steam, as it were. Dutton was the next town. The decision was made.”

 The Dutton community hall and the town arena were the first to go up in flames as Town Selectman Brad Socks rescued the Zamboni from the now burning storage shed behind the arena. A few dozen Visigoth warriors were distracted by the neon sign outside the Shell Station and were subdued by a quick thinking Church group returning from an overnight excursion to the Windsor Casino. Alas, time was not on the side of the citizens of Dutton as they were mostly outnumbered by the rampaging Visigoths who were motivated by blood lust and low blood sugar. One by one the houses in town went up in flames as the people inside fled to the only sanctuary they knew; the Tim Horton donut store south of town.

As the Visigoths grouped together in the parking lot of the coffee shop the frightened citizens measured their life expectancy in moments until quick thinking senior citizen Dorothy “Dot” Hyoomp grabbed for the nearest cell phone and dialled the dispatcher of the charter bus company, asking them to reroute the buses to the parking lot outside for a pick-up. As the buses pulled into the parking lot outside the rampaging warriors extinguished their torches and formed a queue to re-embark on their respective buses, seemingly forgetting the task at hand. Storing their weaponry in the luggage compartments of the tour buses the Visigoths seemed satisfied with the day’s events.

 “Yeah it was a good day for us,” Gnerl the Bold once more explained, “The lads got some burning done. Good burning today, good burning.” With a roar of diesel engines the buses pulled out of the parking lot and headed back out towards the highway leaving the frightened and somewhat confused citizenry to pick up the pieces and rebuild the community.

 “I’m not really sure exactly what the hell happened here today,” Bernie “Saint” Bernard, the proprietor of the Case Farm Equipment dealer commented, “Everyone in Dutton lost their homes today but no one was killed so we’ve got that going for us. Insurance will pick up the tab for the lost property and business so we’ll be just fine. It’s a pity about the Strawberry Supper though; we were all looking forward to that. Someone will pay.”

 After a few days the town council held a meeting where it was decided that they Town of Dutton was going to file a lawsuit against several defendants, notably Karlok’s Siege Equipment, The Weather Network and Balnoks’ Charter Bus Service.

 

Well it's about time!

So I sat out on my back patio about to take a large sip of grapefruit juice when a small Filipino man jumped over the fence and offered to rotate my tires in exchange for a muffin. Not being a complete fool I jumped at the opportunity as everyone knows that Filipinos are spectacular tire men. No sooner had I gone inside to fetch the muffin when I heard my V8 roar to life and the truck speed out of the driveway and down the street! Well to say I was irritated would be like saying that the Pope has more than a passing interest in all things God related.

So I ran out the front door as the tailgate of my truck disappeared around the corner. Apparently my sense of direction had stayed in the house watching Oprah because I started running in the opposite direction. "How will I ever catch the wayward Filipino," I asked myself as I sprinted through the park, past a small family of raccoons busy preparing for the summer by learning to play the lute and lip synching to Dr Phil. I grew tired quickly as I thoughtlessly had put on my nap sack filled with golfballs before I left the house.

My accountant appeared with a Gatorade and I took it gratefully from her, staying silent as I drank as I don't actually have an accountant, or, have an actual accountant (mine is virtual). I tipped my non-existent hat at the accountant and set off on foot down a narrow foot path that lead through the forest near my home. Now, I live in a city and I don't recall there being a forest anywhere that I've seen but I figured that since an uninvited Filipino had absconded with my wheels the very least I could do would be to explore a heretofore unknown grove of deciduous tree-like growth. Obviously!

A squirrel jumped from an overhead limb and whispered stock-tips in my ear but I shut it down quick as I already had an aardvark stock broker that was on retainer. The squirrel blew a raspberry at me and left me alone. Fair enough, he was no Korean barber. Or a Filipino truck thief either. What the hell was I doing in this forest? I retraced my steps back up through the park, once again tipping my non-existent hat at the beautiful but otherwise worthless accountant who, out of a misplaced sense of loyalty to me, or the squirrel, handed me another Gatorade and a guitar pick. Hey, you never know when those will come in handy.

I walked back towards my house and I couldn't help but notice that not only was my truck back in the driveway but my house had been freshly painted! And my kids had grown up and left for college! My key still worked in the door lock but I broke the window anyway and squeezed through the broken glass as sometimes I like putting myself into grave peril for no other reason than "because".

There was a note spray painted onto my fridge from the Filipino, faded with age (the paint, not the Filipino although I understand that people from the south Pacific fade as they move away from the equator) stating that he'd meant no harm when he "borrowed" the truck. He'd merely gone around the block to pick up his sister and drive her to the hospital where she gave birth to a 9 pound, bouncing baby ottoman. 

He, his sister and the footrest we're doing fine.