Anyone for skiing?

In Britain they have a saying "Anyone for Tennis?" which is packed with British humour and actually means "Anyone for going outside and getting soaked in the rain?"

In Vancouver we should have a saying "Anyone for skiing?" which will mean "Anyone want to go for a jog on the snowless ski hills?"

So we just had the Winter Olympics, and one of the mountains that was used to hold many of the events had no snow. Well, it did have snow, but the snow was trucked in from other mountains, it didn't spontaneously fall from the sky onto the hills that the skiing was on. Seriously. But now, today, weeks later, at the end of March, there's tons of snow up on Cypress Mountain.

And a collective groan goes up from Vancouver.

Did the universe just end?

The search for dark matter and the Higgs boson particles using the Large Hadron Collider at CERN has started! They started slamming particles together today!

See http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSLDE62T26K20100330

So are we gone yet? Did replicating the actions that happened when the big bang started the universe make everything hit the restart button?

No. Looks like we didn't stop.

Or did we? How would we know? Maybe our existence has more to do with a collective belief in our existence than in physics. Maybe the people who believed that the hadron collier would end the universe and tried to get the work stopped in law courts are gone. Maybe they ceased to exist a few minutes ago. Maybe just little bits of the universe have winked out of existence. How would we know? Has anyone got the inventory list so we could check things off?

This may be the results of an overactive imagination with a cold, but it does make me wonder.

How old are those fashions?

Whilst sitting in the Public Market at Granville Island a couple of days ago I couldn't help but notice a lot of people who looked oddly familiar. No, I didn't know any of them - and most of them were in their late teens / early twenties, and I don't think I know anyone in that age group.

So why did they look familiar? Because they were wearing the clothes of the 1980s.

And because they were the same age that I was when those clothes were in fashion in the 1980s. Thunk. Am I that old now? If I was their age, I'd think someone my current age is... old. Oy vey. This is a time warping experience that I wasn't expecting.

Of course, skinny pants from the 1980s on the turn of the century women of today makes most of them look like... ice cream cones. The ones with the pointy bottoms that won't stand up by themselves. High definition is not always a good thing ladies and gentlemen! I hope that's not what I looked like back then! Sometimes reviving fashion is not a good thing!

What crowds? Were we expecting crowds?

HMMMM.... all is quiet on the crowds scene in downtown Vancouver right now. Where are all the Paralympic people?

The zipline across Robson is up and running again, the olympic torch in Coal Harbour is lit up, and all the other crowd gathering points are once again open for gathering, but there doesn't seem to be a lot of interest any more.

It is nice that the helicopters that pounded the air around us every day of the Olympics have stopped - there was some excitement on the weekend, but we're back to normal city noise now.

The sports action in Whistler and the various venues in Vancouver is going well, but the crowds are not as numerous as for the Olympics.

Did we overdo it on the 2 weeks of Olympic excitement? Are we all too pooped to party? Or is it just a Tuesday, wait for the weekend time?

Will the crowds be different for the Paralympics?

The constant reverberating sounds of helicopters flying low over Vancouver's downtown signals the start of the 2010 Paralympic games as I wonder what this crowd of athletes and watchers will be like.

The opening ceremonies are tomorrow, but the crowds have not been as big as they were just before the Olympics began.

The last set was happy, enthusiastic, healthy (except most of them were committing slow suicide by sucking on cancer sticks), and really didn't understand what to do about people in wheelchairs around them. Reminders of human mortality were not what they were expecting.

But these new athletes are paralympians, not olympians, so many of them are in wheelchairs. Top performing athletes in wheelchairs.

I expect the crowds will be different, but I'll wait and see. I'm almost looking forward to crowds... and odd thing indeed.

Does everyone in Vancouver have a hangover?

Many people are lingering longer in the coffee shops.

Many people are buying a tub of ice cream and consuming it.

Many yoga classes are focussing on "restorative" poses - the ones where you get into one position and stay there for 5 minutes. No one is complaining.

The early morning news is describing a marked rise in people calling into work sick with colds, but the traffic is still quite a mess this week as droopy people get themselves into work.

Do we all have a collective hangover from the Olympics?

The early morning news says all the "high-fiving" people were doing in the streets with complete strangers during the Olympics helped the cold spread. It's like the office cold gone global. But some of us didn't join a lot of crowds. (Those of us in wheelchairs tried to avoid the crowds at all costs!)

A distinct difference between the Olympic weeks and now is obvious on the streets. The streets are empty. We have normal traffic, but that's it. We've all calmed down and gone back to normal living.

I think we were all a bit over-stimulated by the Olympics, and now we have a low-energy hangover. It's an amazing, shared, hangover of immense proportions.

Are they going to change the words to Oh Canada again?

Warning, this post may end up being more of a whine than a fun thought or two.

My blog post from February 28, 2010 marveled at the amazing ability during the Olympics for people to spontaneously break out into singing Oh Canada on the streets. It was a wonderful feeling, and the energy was terrific (although now everyone in Vancouver seems to be having a hang-over of sorts - everyone seems lethargic here now...)

One of the things I marveled at was how everyone knew the words to the anthem - considering how many times they've been changed, it was surprising. So of course now (this started yesterday) the politicians in the nation's capital want to change the words again.

But everyone knows what they are now!

So the politicians want it to be more gender-neutral, sure, that would be nice... but no one will be able to sing the song anymore! After the words "Oh Canada" everyone will be muffing it again!

Nice idea, but couldn't they have gotten it all correct the last time they changed a large portion of the words? How slow are these people? Are they going to change it again in another 20 years? Can we really trust them to get it right this time and then stop picking at it? Is this the last time this will happen?

These are all questions I'd rather not have to ponder... I don't think I'll like the answers.

If I had a parrot what would I teach it to say?

An old comedy sketch from a kid's TV show The Electric Company has a plumber knock on a door, a parrot inside the house says "Who is it?" and the plumber says "It's the plumber. I've come to fix the sink." The comedy happens when the plumber is driven to distraction and collapses on the door step because the parrot keeps saying "Who is it?" over and over again and the plumber keeps answering "It's the plumber. I've come to fix the sink." The humans then come home and find the plumber on the door step and ask out loud "Who is this?" and the parrot says "It's the plumber. I've come to fix the sink." Ta-da-dump-bump.

We've just had our 5th flood since we moved into this building 11 years ago. The plumber just left after fixing the faucet in our shower. This is the first time the damage has started in our suite.

This is the also 5th spot that the flood damage has been in! A whole new area of damage has been opened up to us! It even goes out into the hallway outside our front door! It's amazing how an apartment condo building is put together to maximize damage from leaking pipes!

So if I had a parrot, what would I teach it to say? I may go for the "Who is it?" approach, but wouldn't it be so much more fun to teach it to say "It's the plumber. I've come to fix the sink." whenever anyone asked it "Who is it?"

Some people would be confused by the parrot, but others would just have to smile and laugh. That's the best way to deal with floods - I know this from experience.