Hello?

Anybody home?

It's been a bit quiet around these parts, but that doesn't mean that nothing is going on. I worked until 1:00 in the morning three times last week, and preparations are well under way for my sister's wedding next weekend. Yesterday, I took a little time out to head downtown to meet some CWD folk, one of whom had driven all the way up from Little Rock, Arkansas to visit our neck of the woods, and another from Flint, Michigan, who makes the long drive up here more often than should be considered sane. Two of the locals even took time out of their busy school schedules to meet as well. Ah, freak internet friends; gotta love 'em.

A bit on the darker side of the news, our thoughts and prayers go out to Les Bartley, the coach and GM of the Toronto Rock, who recently underwent surgery for colon cancer. He will not be with the team this year as he makes his recovery.

Speaking of the The Rock, their home opener is Jan 16, so the pregame will include the unveiling of the team's fourth championship banner. Tickets go on sale Nov 24. Who's in?

Actually, is anyone interested in season tickets?

Oh so close. The Argos were a mere four points shy of upsetting the favoured Montreal Alouettes in the East Division Championships last night, as the Als got a too-close-to-call - but nevertheless incorrect - touchdown in their favour in the final few minutes. Obviously, my pleas for an automatic win based on the fact that the Argos employ the World's Nicest Human Being as their coach fell on deaf ears.

No matter. I expect the Edmonton Eskimos' powerhouse will stomp any team in the east anyway. Nevertheless,

I'm an Argo, I'm an Argo,
I'm an Argo from T.O.
And I'd rather be an Argo
Then a bloody Eskimo!

Blink blink! Yawn! ....stretch....

What day is it?

My eldest sister got married last weekend, and I had a few sleepless nights preparing for my big show as MC at the reception. The weather behaved, the ceremony was lovely, and the sleepless nights seemed to serve me well. My shade-laden grand entrace to the groovin' ultra-cool music of Kill Bill introduced my re-telling of how the happy couple met in fairy-tale style, complete with crayon sketches artisticly crafted by little brother himself. I now have a list of requests from cousins to be MC at there eventual 25th anniversaries.

In other unrelated news, I purchased Finding Nemo on DVD, and - being a computer graphics fan - my amazement at the things Pixar can accomplish never ceases. They always seem to conquer a major obstacle to life-like animation; in Monsters Inc it was hair and fur, and this time it was water. Sometimes you forget that the settings aren't real, and everything came straight out of the artists' imaginations. On top of that, of course, they always seem to create a fabulous story with which to showcase it. Bravo!

I can't wait for The Incredibles to come out next.

It was a wonderful weekend in the sporting world. Not only are the Leafs on a 5-game winning streak, but the Spatulas - the hockey and soccer teams of which I am a part - had some admirable success as well. Coming off an 11-4 win in ball hockey and a 3-1 win in soccer against a team that included a tryout member of the Portuguese and Canadian women's national teams, we headed downtown for the Toronto Central Sport and Social Club's annual ball hockey tournament. This was our second appearance in the tournament, and we were eager to improve upon last year's result, where we went a perfect 4-0 in round robin play, only to lose the semi-final, drained and exhausted.

Sporting our new team jerseys complete with personalised numbers and Spatulas logo, we went into our first game and came out with a solid, if not routine, 5-2 victory. We then followed that with a 2-1 victory in very tight match. While the official score read 2-1, popular opinion on our squad is that our opponent's lone goal, which supposedly found a microscopic hole between the post and my hip, actually found a gaping hole in the mesh at the side of the net. Reconstructing the scene, the laws of physics seem to agree with our assessment. So, we'll just count that as a shutout.

We followed that win with an 8-3 pounding in game 3, and then a solid 6-3 win in a semi-final game I consider the greatest we have played since we started as a team a little over a year ago. So, we headed off to the tournament final with victory on our minds. Unfortunately, the fatigue began to show at this point, and with only about ten or fifteen minutes remaining in the game, we had fallen behind 4-1 to a team with plenty of speedsters.

However, it must have been at that point that we all remembered our collapse last year and decided that we didn't wait a year, come all this way, and put in four solid wins only to lose in the playoffs again. Our resolve and team chemistry really then started to shine. Some quick-moving saves on my part and five - count 'em, five! - unanswered goals later and the Spatulas had their first ball hockey tournament championship with a 6-4 win!

The crowd cheered, the ticker tape flew, and as we hoisted our Cup... err... t-shirts above our heads, we celebrated our team's second sporting success.

It doesn't end there, of course, as the West Toronto S&SC playoffs begin mere weeks from now, and our next regular-season indoor soccer game was the very next day. Still exhausted and soar from yesterday's marathon tournament, I let a teammate take the goaltending duties to relieve a bit of the soarness, and rewarded the team's offensive effort from yesterday by contributing a hat trick in our 6-5 win.

Go Spatulas! Let's hope for more of the same for our next games Wednesday and Thursday.