ELgiN StreEt iRReguLars

Free Cheese Magazine

2009-11-29T20:36:00.002-05:00

Tired of reading about cheese on the internet? You can get a free copy of the winter issue of All You Need is Cheese mailed to your house by clicking on this link. I think it also gives you a subscription to subsequent issues.

[Just the thing for any one out there who belongs to a post-modern wankfest performance art group.]

Shocker.... mayor hires new mouthpieces.

2009-11-27T06:54:00.015-05:00

This morning's local news has informed us coyotes that City Hall last night fired a PR guy. While hardly causing us to spew hot Ethiopian Yirgacheffe at the monitor, it did prompt eye rolls and longing thoughts of stirring in something a tad stronger than half 'n half.

The firing was nuthin' surprising in itself.

Since the last election, appointed staffers within throttling distance of the mayor's office have been, pretty much, reluctant temps. Terms vary, but a remarkable number have been scragged and hoofed out the high-speed revolving door down there, possibly for their curious inability to articulate our Beloved Leader's, ummm, belovedness to the masses.

No, what made our furry forehead wrinkle was the new hires in Fired Guy's place. Forgot his name already... can't keep track anymore. Sorry! I digress...

Anyway, they are (ex) print reporters Patrick Dare and Derek Puddicombe, very recently late of the Petfinder's and the Stun's respective city hall bureaux. Oh, and Chris Day, lately the press secretary for federal minister John Baird's Tory-to-its-roots hair. And possibly the hair of Baird's famously late ex-cat...

I expect that in an ill-lit corner at City Hall, an elected official of less than total competence and far less than total hirsuteness may be congratulating hisself on his self-diagnosed genius in suborning two local newspaper scribes, and buying stronger ties to federal conservatives. At least until he fires them all. Very soon, when he rediscovers that the public still thinks he's unlovable. But right now, I bet he's thinkin' he's finally bought the right mouthpieces for a clear re-election shot.

Both former journos, being who they are, have probably done their due diligence. Even knowing what they're getting into, they must've calculated that job security with Larry still trumps that at the shaky newspaper conglomerates that employed them, Canwest Global and Quebecor. Good, ummm, luck with that.

And maybe they can turn things around in time for the next election. Or maybe, just maybe, the mayor will continue to do things as he has, and we will finally get to vote him into a job for which he's temperamentally and intellectually more suited. Something in the private sector. Although personally, given his record of success in office, dog catcher would suit me just fine...

Cheerup: NaBloPoMo and NaNoWriMo are almost over

2009-11-26T18:56:00.004-05:00

November is the dreariest month. For metabloggers. Because it is both the month that many bloggers pledge to post every day and the month that many commit to writing a 50,000 word novel.

The sky darkens earlier every night and the blogs we follow are filled with whining about word counts and how terrible those words are or we get posts where the author confesses to having nothing to say but then types in several screens worth of Facebook status updates.

But with all this dreariness, I am still optimistic that along with the solstice and lengthening days, December and the holiday season will will bring us the family dysfunction and morality rants that will make reading blogs fun again.

Sand, surf and Cedric

2009-11-25T11:27:00.008-05:00

Sometimes I am guilty of judging a gnome by his coveralls. Who woulda thunk that Cedric would have a most delightful time in Barbados?

Just because he's hundreds of years old, has a rather complex facial-hair schema and insists on wearing his little pointy hat at all times, doesn't mean he's not a surfer dude at heart.

Cedric frolicked with sea turtles, knocked back lime-flavoured rum dacquiris and gnawed on coconut, straight from (inside) the shell.

His only unfortunate encounter involved that bottle of Bajan hot sauce I happened to leave open. He will never mistake the stuff for maple syrup again. I really must teach him to read.

Look up. Wa-a-a-a-a-a-ay up.

2009-11-20T09:46:00.007-05:00

Something we coyotes notice about many Ottawa residents is that they don't seem to look up much. We do, because we're just like that. It's survival instinct. Ya never know when one of them crows is gonna swoop in and try to swipe your bag lunch.

Anyway, this being the nation's capital, when we're swivelling our heads around, we often see stuff that you rarely see in other places, apparently unnoticed by everyone around us.

Things like a whole team of guys in black helmets and jumpsuits, from who knows what tactical team and who knows what paramilitary/military outfit, casually rappelling down the side of the Westin Hotel on a sunny November afternoon. Taking lotsa pictures of themselves doing it, presumably for their Top Sekrit Taktical Skrapbooks...

...so I took some for my Top Sekrit Taktical Skrapbook too. We coyotes are just like that.

OC Transpo and the Strollers

2009-11-15T21:27:00.007-05:00

On Wednesday, the City of Ottawa's Transit Committee will be asked to consider OC Transpo's report on a new policy for the seats at the front of the bus that used to be called Courtesy Seating and are now called Priority Seating.

The report is called Priority Seating - Managing the Front of the Bus. First of all, they're going to rename the seats at the front to "Co-operative seating". If people who should give up their seats don't they can still be charged with an offence under s. 18(2) of the OC Transpo by-law, but that will be a last resort.

The "co-operative" versus "priority" seating isn't why this is going to Council. The real controversy is with the strollers. On the list of stupid things people in Ottawa get worked up over, big strollers clogging the front of buses is right up there with the use of lawn chairs at Blues Fest.

The problem for OC Transpo was that dealing with strollers was left to the discretion of the drivers. This led to the unfortunate baby-napping incident of 2008. Now this will never have to occur again because the new policy has detailed criteria for baby buggies. It starts off with:

An open stroller occupied by a child will be allowed on the bus if:
It is capable of being folded
It is capable of being safely stowed
It will not interfere with other passengers or with the safe movement of passengers within the transit vehicle; and
It can be wheeled, or (when folded) carried, through the aisle without contacting the seats.

The policy carries on with wheelchair priority, and what to do with double strollers. Although I've never tried to navigate the City with a stroller it all seems to make good sense to me. Still I have to say that their plan on what to do with the strollers that can't go inside the buses caught me by surprise. Rack'n'Stroll is the sort of innovative thinking that we don't often see in this town.

Update: Looks like City Council didn't go for the new plan.

She's a soul (sole?) woman

2009-11-15T16:33:00.003-05:00

Overheard at Hartman's IGA:

Young woman to clerk: "Can I get 100 grams of soul, please?"

I did not stick around long enough to find out if she was trying to divine the spirit of James Brown, or merely had a hankering for a certain kind of fish.

Now, in the movie 21 Grams, one's soul was said to weigh the amount reflected in the title.

That would leave our shopper just short of five full souls.

This just in...

2009-11-12T06:54:00.007-05:00

John Baird's cat dies. I had nothing to do with it, honest. But unlike most cats of my acquaintance, it was pretty much the exact opposite of delicious. I suspect environmental factors...

UPDATE: And Billy Bragg is my hero...

Cue the evil lighting...

2009-11-10T09:00:00.007-05:00

An elliptical voicemail led me late last night to the doorstep of Mister Sloppy's evil world domination HQ in Centretown. After I buzzed the intercom and the reinforced door silently swung open, I let myself into the computer room. There, Mister Sloppy looked ineffably smug.

"Oh, hi, Slop! You called?" I said.

"Indeed. I brought you a gift from my trip."

He pushed a small corrugated carton toward me. One heady sniff and I opened it. Two dozen extremely fresh bars of Cailler Ultrafine Dark. None of that Tobler crap... Mister Sloppy's taste in gifts is legendary.

"Thank you!" I said gratefully. "And how was the vacation?"

"It was... very fine," he said. "Ate great ice cream. Sailed a private yacht on Lake Geneva. Took an excellent Swiss train to visit the Large Hadron Collider..."

"And how did that go?" I asked, an alarm ringing faintly in the back of my mind.

"It's working again, isn't it?" purred Mister Sloppy, fixing me meaningfully with a bright blue eye. "And good thing, too. I'm gonna be needing it."

"Eep! So you're still on the world domination thing?

"Does the mayor think he's finally a real civic leader because he hung out with Prince Chuck and John Baird's hair for a photo-op? I'm all over it!"

"Ummm. Oh. Look at that! It's bedtime for little coyotes. Thanks for the chockies. Gotta go! " I yelled over my shoulder.

"Oh, I know." Mister Sloppy's voice followed me out the door. "But you'll be back... I have more chocolate."

Fiend.

why am i riffing on fourth dwarf's gig

2009-11-06T10:31:00.006-05:00

First 10 menu pulldown choices upon entering the word "why" into Google:

why is the sky blue

why do men have nipples

whyville

why do cats purr

why men cheat

why do dogs eat grass

why did the chicken cross the road

why is there a dead pakistani on my couch

why did michael jackson turn white

why am i so tired

Finally, a sprinkling of public art

2009-11-04T14:43:00.004-05:00

Ottawa's new watering can sculpture at the corner of Kent and Slater streets. Perhaps the can should be filled with vinegar given the nearby chipwagon.

PuBlog - Heartattack and Frank(s)

2009-10-29T22:17:00.018-04:00

Fieldwork at the Elgin Street Diner, by Aggie, Woodsy, 4th Dwarf, and Coyote.

Pluses (Concepts to Steal)

Big booths with comfy seating!
A congenial view of Elgin Street, centre of the known universe;
Beer on tap;
ALL! KINDS! OF! POUTINE! They even have a dedicated section in the menu.

Minuses (Things to Avoid)

Not so much space under the booth for illicit doggie types who were smuggled into the diner in backpacks and didn't want big trouble with health inspectors. They got kicked. I don't think anybody did it on purpose. Well, maybe that Dwarf. But he's such a shortass, he couldn't really reach me.
The view of Elgin Street was kind of lost on those of us hiding under the table. Although the others were kind enough to describe what I was missing, and suggest that it was too bad I couldn't stick my head out to look, because the cat parade was really something;
The beer on tap was domestic. Not microbrew. Selection, according to the Dwarf, was in the tradition of Canadian major brewers: thin, and kinda undistinguished;
Poutine may just be the single most lethal food known to humanity Or caninity.

Background:
Longtime ESI readers probably suspect (correctly) that by now we've left enough loose ends strewn in our narrative wake to stock a world-class hair extension factory. PuBlog research is one such thread. It's about touring city eateries, baldfacedly swiping their best ideas, pewpewing their worst, and using the intel thus gained to start our own pub best damn pub in the world.

We recorded our last true PuBlog post even before the Dwarf started cooking up his Revolutionary New Dating Paradigm. You'll notice, if ennui hasn't knocked you out yet, that he's been on it for nearly two years and 30 posts. It still ain't baked. Sadly, neither is the ESI pub. But we persevere. And I dogress.

Summary:
We who orbit Woodsy and Aggie know all too well that, despite deceptively delicate demeanours, either is at any moment fully capable of inducing heart attacks in the unsuspecting, for all sorts of risque reasons. But I have never before witnessed 'em scarfing heart attacks on plates...

Dog-tired and starved after a full, lunchless day of full-bore Hallowe'en costuming, Woodsy dove straight for the four-cheese poutine. Amid heated speculation about which four cheeses, exactly, were involved, Woodsy double-dog-dared Agatha to order the same thing. Aggie, her blood glucose levels not so deficient that she couldn't rouse a mild fit of oppositional defiance, ordered chili poutine instead. The Short Guy, pursuing the best of all possible worlds, had a brace of chili-cheese dogs with fries. Nobody heard me ask for catburger from under the table, but all three slipped me fries off their plates to make up for it. Well, okay, the Dwarf tried to pelt me with his. But I am talented. I caught 'em and ate 'em. Thank you, Short Guy!

Conclusion:
Puh-lease. Exhaustion? Mega calories? Empty stomachs? Instant snooze-out. Everybody sloped off for post-prandial naps. At 6:30 on a Saturday night. Jeez, we're dull! Aggie said something about feeling really full and a little ill. But she still gave me a ride home. And let me stick my head out the car window and hang my tongue in the wind on the way. She indulges me. And maybe over-indulged herself...

We're going to be famous

2009-10-29T22:00:00.001-04:00

Because Zoom is writing a novel about us:

a dark romantic thriller about online dating, self-betrayal, hidden blogs, horrifying secrets, and a clash of precariously balanced personality disorders. It’s set in that place where love and hate masquerade as each other, and where you can’t trust anybody – not even yourself – because nothing is as it appears

I might take the week off

2009-10-25T20:06:00.003-04:00

Because em on Knitting is My Boyfriend wrote a darn fine Google Poem.

An irrelevant paws

2009-10-23T16:36:00.012-04:00

These are the grey days that try a semimythical coyote's soul. I have many reasons why this is so. Sadly, they are unrelated. So no neat themes or clever segues in this post. Just the usual dogged shagginess. Or shagged dogginess....

1) I have noted that Mr Harpo's personal political party has had a bad week PR-wise, nabbed with their Tory-blue mitts all over the government treasury. And not-so-kosher Conservative Party logos all over the economic stimulation cheques with which they've been stimulating ummm, mainly their own backyards.

The fallback for Tories caught out doing this stuff has become any number of variations on, "Hey, Liberals did it before we did! This ploy's transparency is the only transparent thing left in Mr Harpo's government.

Some people want to fly with the eagles. Some wanna swim with the dolphins. These guys aspire to dredge beneath the bottom feeders.

I've suggested ad nausaeum already that Mr Harpo's idea of political discussion has narrowed to crudely partisan hype. Which I'm afraid means that his ideal governmental model is (ooh, here it comes, wait for it...) a ummm, hypocracy...

2) Light Rail: The mayor says his new plan is visionary. Well, all righty then. He should know....

3) Lansdowne Live. No. Just no. I refuse to go there.

4) Certain doggies have racked up one or two arthritic joints in the last six millenia, and each autumn the chill in the wind takes a little more getting used to.

So I'll take a brief (heh...) paws to recommend Grace Ottawa on Bank Street as purveyors of the best darned handwarmers in town. They cost a buck and a quarter each, they come pre-heated, they're an ideal size, and the toasty Jamaican glow lasts well beyond the time needed for any crosstown jaunt. (I have no idea what makes 'em so heat-retentive, but those chemical HotShot thingies that Crappy Tire sells got nothing on these babies...) Bonus: they're still hot enough to eat and enjoy after the trip, with or without Caribbean pepper sauce. You may want to consider 'em for the coming Ottawa Zombie Walk or the Sandy Claws Parade. And in the interest of full disclosure I want to say that I hold no financial or fiduciary interest in Grace and that that this celebrity endorsement is completely unsolicited. You're welcome!

5) There is no fifth thing. It's a trope. Deal with it.

Coyote: on the lam (on the lamb, shurely -- ed.)

2009-10-21T00:01:00.000-04:00

After recently giving Ottawa's finest the slip, Coyote and a rather comely companion (nothing new for the ol' fox) were spied by an ESI operative motoring about Kingston on the weekend.

The albino disguise, just in time for All Hallows' Eve, wasn't foolin' no one.

Blissfully racking up parking tickets and chowing down on Hasenpfeffer at mouth-watering Chez Piggy,the most semi-mythical of the ESIs proved once again he knows how to roll.

Happy 40th Anniversary...

2009-10-16T08:40:00.013-04:00

We of the Elgin Street Irregulars wish to take a moment to thank some of our spiritual forefathers and wish them an extremely happy 40th anniversary. Sure, they're kind of a boomer phenom, and all geezers now, but the partners in this firm find it positively inspirational that the Pythons managed to produce their entire TV series on a budget of about $2.98, or £1 13s 2d, if you remain fluent in the original pounds sterling.

They still cross arbitrary cohort labels to remind the world of a fresher, simpler time, when absurdists could actually make up shit faster than it happened in real life.

It's much harder now. Especially in Ottawa, where reality may never have been much of a prerequisite. Not that we're complaining. The mayor and the PM alone each have contributed enough material to our "for-comment" file to keep us skirting the other side of the outer edges of sanity for years. Possibly longer. And we haven't even begun to harvest the (over)ripe possibilities hidden in John Baird's hair... I, for one, am pretty sure that there's lethal fruit in there somewhere, and I intend to do what it takes to find it.

Happy Ruby Anniversary, Pythons!

Gettin' it? Uh, no

2009-10-14T00:54:00.004-04:00

Over a weekend feast of gobbling bird, talk turned to an incessantly played TV commercial for the erectile dysfunction drug Cialis.

You know the one: a man getting ready for work asks his wife a stream of questions: Have you seen my wallet? Have you seen my good shoes?

The man becomes increasingly annoyed, as he appears late and cannot locate any of his things. Finally, he makes his way to the garage to discover his car has a flat tire. His wife sits at the kitchen table in her bathrobe, sporting a quizzical half-smile.

No one at dinner could figure out what was going on in this commercial. Three theories were floated:

(*) One of the side-effects of Cialis is memory loss.
(*) The woman is so tired of being this Cialis-addled man's love slave, she sabotaged all his stuff.
(*) The woman is enjoying her hubby's Cialis-popping ways so much, she never wants him to leave home.

What do you think this ad is about? Or does the company just want us to be confused so random bloggers will ponder all this and inadvertently plug their little yellow pills? Help us out here!

Google Poem: Not that you were planning to, but...

2009-10-11T21:51:00.004-04:00

* oh my god Karen, you can't just ask people why they're white.

* you can't just punt.

* No. I'm sorry. But you can't just be so adamant about something, then whoop-de-doo change your mind, oh well, never mind.

* You can't. Just let her do it.

* you can't just say “sexual harassment is just wrong”

* You can't just accept such stories uncritically.

* See, you can't just let me enjoy the moment.

* This means you can't just mail in your keys and say goodbye to the loan

* You can't just spend money if it is not there and teams are wanting a lot of money for players...

* You can't just come in one day on the train and try to influence everything

* once you've seen the second, you can't just stop.

* You can't just run yourself a bath

* you know, you can't just do this in one second.

* You can't just get rid of it by forcing me

* You can't just write random articles on a daily basis.

* You can't just drop your vowels like that and get away with it.

* You can't just bunch a lot of keywords together over and over again, though; search engines generally don't like that, and your page rank will fall.

* if you forget to take the bottle to work, you have to sniffle all day, because you can't just buy another one. And be careful handling the bottle, because if you spill it you can't get a replacement.

* You can't just forget standards--they're there for a reason. Mostly to save guys from waking up next to monsters in the morning.

* You can't just use any old thing like on a resistive screen.

* I know it's tough and you can't just ask someone to simply “Inner Game That Shit” in order to make it go away.

* You can't just go out and buy a personal jet at your local general store.

* I mean, you can't just hire a random fan who sends in an application and then say, “Wow, you've watched every UFC since 1993 and you clearly know your MMA — here's a striped shirt, we'll see you in the cage next Friday.

* And you can't just call in sick because you don't feel like working.

* You can't just turn around, go back down the ladder and quit.

* You're right that you can't just pick a place by reputation.

* You Can't Just Demand to Be Placed on Somebody's Blogroll.

* In order to slay a god, you can't just bring more warriors.

* you can't just walk in and be all hey can i marry your daughter now kthx YOU CAN'T DO THAT

* You can't just plop down like this.

* you can't "just put him down"!

* It isn't rocket scientist, but you can't just toss up any old free “easy to use” blog and consider yourself a future online business success story.

* They're always like, “Now, now, you can't just go scaling back a recipe!” But that's pretty much exactly what I did...

* You can't just shut a farm down...

* You can't just ask for knowledge.

* Understanding that you can't just create money from nothing and then spend it without any negative consequences isn't complicated.

* If you can't just enjoy watching the Greatest Golfer of alltime play this game, then go back to your beer swilling, women chasing redneck 4some and stop bothering the rest of us with your Bullcrap.

* You can't just play your best games and sit out on your weaker games, it's not allowed.

* You can't just sit inside you car and wait for someone to do the task for you.

* You can't just have the will to do it. You've got to have the stuff.

* you can't just have one person take the ball.

* You can't

Life in Wasp-boro

2009-10-09T19:54:00.004-04:00

Breaking news from Kitchissippi Times...

Google Street View Comes to Stornoway

2009-10-08T17:56:00.003-04:00

The Official Residence of the Leader of the Opposition

(click photo to enlarge)

His and Hers - Part II

2009-10-07T19:10:00.008-04:00

I am told that it was not obvious why I suspected that the truck belonged to a man. See for yourself...

p.s. I have a new compulsion - I now look under big trucks to see if they are bulls or steers.

His and Hers

2009-10-06T20:57:00.012-04:00

I suspect that this truck belongs to a man,

and that this jeep belongs to a woman.

The poll bounce from his NAC gig seemed like a gift... *

2009-10-06T07:22:00.019-04:00

...but the Tory brain trust quickly realized that keeping their robotic client's piano forte front and centre in voters' minds was going to be trickier than it had first seemed... **

* You didn't seriously think we were going to let this one go that easily. Did you?

** It did, however, have certain advantages over "Vote Harper And We'll Burn the Blue Sweater Vest" and "Vote Harper Or The Kitten Gets It".

The Old Dating Paradigm: 1987 Video Dating

2009-10-05T10:40:00.001-04:00

Dating Montage
Uploaded by smithy00101.