Just when you thought the Senator Prank was funny enough, the Credit Card Prank was risky enough, and the All-Natural Prank was unhealthy enough, Zug's John Hargrave has topped it all with his latest project: The Penis Enlargement Prank.

The things people will do for a laugh. And oh so manay laughs there are to have...

"City of Brotherly Love", my ass

Upon returning home from a nice relaxing weekend at a friend's cottage, I learned two important things:

1) Parking your car beneath a tree for a whole weekend while birds are out in full force is a very bad idea.

2) Do not lean your brand new shiny piano-black computer case at an angle against a sharp object while you insert brand new hardware, lest it slip and fall, causing a large ugly gash that more or less exactly fails to match the shiny-piano-black-newness motif that was originally intended.

The Calgary Flames have made an unexpected run in this year's playoffs and have reached the Stanley Cup Finals after not having made the playoffs at all the past seven years. A big deal is being made on the fact that this is their first Cup Final appearance in 15 years, since their win in 1989. Considering there are 30 teams in the league, though, that isn't really a long time; if the league were perfectly balanced, they'd be right on schedule.

Congrats to Calgary; good for them! It's good for the city and for Canadian hockey; it can only mean good things for what was previously the most troubled Canadian franchise in the league.

As good as it is, a dark spot deep inside me can't help being bitter. The Flames have had an awful time selling tickets, and the upper bowl of the stadium has been closed off for years, opening only at the start of these playoffs. The team reaches the post season again, and suddenly the bandwagon is overflowed, and they're rewarded with a berth in the Final and a chance at the Cup.

The Leafs were gawdawful back in the '80s, but still every game sold out. 1993 brought a return to competitiveness, and we threw them a massive party for falling an overtime goal short of reaching the final. Every season pumps blue and white through the veins of Torontonians, and every playoff game win brings horns and crowds filling the city streets. There are a lot of great hockey fans around the continent, but no team has fans more loyal, more devoted, more rabid, more numerous, or more stubbornly optimistic than the Maple Leafs.

37 years since their last win, and what do we have to show for it? Where is our reward? In the estate of Harold Ballard and the pockets of the Teachers Pension Plan. I don't know whether to be furious that our devotion has been used only for dollars for so many years, or humiliated that we can be duped so many times. It's like family; no matter how irresponsible they get, you keep the love flowing and hopefully they'll turn themselves around.

Oh happy state! when souls each other draw,
When love is liberty, and nature, law:
All then is full, possessing, and possess'd,
No craving void left aching in the breast:
....
How happy is the blameless vestal's lot!
The world forgetting, by the world forgot.
Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!
Each pray'r accepted, and each wish resign'd

Eloisa to Abelard - Alexander Pope, 1717

Tomorrow a by-law prohibiting smoking in all indoor public places including bars and clubs across the GTA takes affect. At long last, we can enjoy a drink and not gag at the smell of our own clothing afterward. I think the by-law could actually improve business at bars, because it is likely that there are more people who avoid bars because of the smoke, then there are people who smoke there.

The complaints against the law are entertainingly hypocritical. "Leave me to live my life, my way, not yours." Hmm, by allowing smoking, aren't you forcing non-smokers in the area to live their lives your way? Others try to make analogies to alcohol and fatty foods, sarcastically claiming that they should be banned, too. The key factor is that smoking hurts everyone around you. Responsible drinking and chocolate bars only hurt the consumer.

A quote supposedly from a French jurist, as found in today's Toronto Star: "Your right to swing your arm ends where my nose begins."