LET'S GO FROGGIN!

Yee-haw and howdy neighbours and welcome to another episode of Outdoor Life's latest attempt to make a TV show with absolutely no budget ... Let's Go Froggin!

This week we is gonna profile a champion frogger from south of the border .. well not the Mexican border, nor even the Mason Dixon Line .. but Nares Inlet is south of the 60th Parallel so it's still South, pardners, yee haw!

(Yes this entire post will continue in this vein so you are fair warned)

This here little lady is called Terra and she is a self taught frogger.

Legend has it that Miss Terra was out explorin the wild swamps of Springhaven Lodge when she put her paw down on a hank of grass and out pops a frog! So excited was this little lady that she instantly knew that froggin was the sport for her!

With a combination of resolve, fast paws and natural talent .. well, ok, maybe not so much talent but resolve and fast paws, this rookie dove in to the ancient art of froggin, that bein, scarin you up some little green amphibious type varmits. We call it froggin, but his here border collie may call it herding frogs

Although a rookie, our little lady came well prepared; when she was havin a hard time rustlin up them pesky frogs, she brought in her own personal trainers and her own personal imported frogs. That's a city frogger fer ya, brung her own darn entourage ... not that it seemed to help her much

Although new to the sport of froggin, Terra did demonstrate some mighty slick techniques. She was quite fond of the "SOS" technique, which involved tapping her paws staccato-like hoping to draw out the critters.

When that didn't work, she resorted to the Submarine technique, using her face periscope-like to try to find her prey

I can't say that she were real successful but you gotta give her the A for effort. Mebbe herdin frogs is different from catchin frogs; I don't really know how them foreigners do things.

Here for your viewin pleasure is an expert from what I'm sure will be an award winning episode of Let's Go Froggin, so enjoy, have fun and go froggin!

CNE 2013 PART ONE: RIBBON GIRLS, HIGH WIRES AND DOGS MADE OUT OF CORN

Aw can you smell it? The end of summer?

It smells like indoor sand sculptures and buttered popcorn and corn dogs and people getting ill from eating maple-bacon topping on a deep fried pork filled croissant ...

Yeh, it's CNE time again

Our first visit to the Ex this year was not all about food ... OK we did start our day with a corn dog. Yes, a corn dog. It's what for breakfast. And a Pepto for lunch. But really, this isn't a post about the food at the Ex.

We will be going back to the Ex to see the Air Show but that takes up a good chunk of the day so this time we decided to check out a couple of other shows the CNE has to offer. First up was Tic Toc, an original "acrobatic" show in the vein of Cirque de Soleil

There was some kind of story here involving a kind of madhatter character, a gigantic clock, a kidnapped professor ... well really it was a bunch of performers and really that's all I care about. I never "get" the stories in Cirque de Soleil either. Just spin around the stage and pass me another corn dog

There was this guy in a hoop, and he had a girl to spin with him in the hoop which is really rather touching cuz if you're stuck in a hoop it's nice to have someone with whom to share the experience, and maybe grab you a coffee (or a corn dog) as you spin around.

If the corn dog is way up high for some reason you could ask this guy to help you get it.

He was balancing on a series of canes and got to about 30 feet in height, which would be handy in Toronto this summer, what with all the flooding.

Of course, the show had ribbon girls, a pair of them, working in tandem. I've seen lots of ribbon girls and I never really tire of them. Sometimes I want to know where they got the ribbons from and where they keep them .. and sometimes I just like to keep all that a mystery

Most of the shows contained rather familiar elements but the climax was worth the wait, featuring a series of acrobats bouncing off the giant clock face and swinging from the clock's "movements"

If Tic Tock represented the "new school" or even current school of shows one would see at a fair, the Ex offered up a perfect example of "old school" or should I say "classic" It really doesn't get much more classic than the Flying Wallendas.

Nik Wallenda is making a living out of doing high wire spectaculars, walking over Niagra Falls and the Grand Canyon but this Wallenda troup adhered to what made the family famous; controlled and perfectly executed wire walks without a net

From the clown that opened the show, to their costumes to the stunts themselves, this was classic Wallenda, stuff I watched on TV as a kid. Classic can sometimes be corny. But when you see it live, and see the grace and skill involved in what they do, it doesn't seem corny at all ... well corn dog perhaps ... but this isn't about food

And if the corn dog jokes are becoming a bit odious for you, check out the video. Music by Serena Ryder and 100% corn dog free.

DR DRAW AT TASTE OF THE DANFORTH

The Taste of the Danforth is an annual street fest here in Toronto. The Danforth is largely acknowledged as the hub of the city's Greek community but it's actually a very culturally diverse area. We don't go as often as once we did because I don't seem to have the time to eat souvalki off a stick with a million of my nearest and dearest friend.

Well, perhaps not dear but in that crowd very very near .. way way way to near

One of the things I enjoy about the festival is the entertainment. And not just Greeks dancing and breaking plates and yelling things in strange tongues ... if I want that I can go to a family party.

We have seen many good local acts there and this year was no different. Here is a little video with some shots of the street including a demonstration of thai boxing and featuring the music and performance of Dr Draw, a band featuring an electric violin player. I thought the name Dr Draw was a clever moniker to describe a musician who draws a bow across the strings .. turns out his actual name is Eugene Draw

No matter what he is called, we enjoyed the performance. I was a fan of Jean Luc Ponty, one of the pioneers of electric violin and this guy is just as good, playing an eclectic mix of rock, disco, electronica, sound tracks and classic tracks. His rendition of Elenor Rigby was a stand out

His performance was so high energy he referred to it as his "work out video" Yeh, I had a heart attack just watching him

The video captures a bit of it I hope

ADVENTURES IN MOVING, SOME WTF MOMENTS

If you are viewing this post your life may be in danger. Actually, my life would be in danger as well and quite frankly, that is more distressing me than any danger it may put you in .. sorry, that's just the way it is

For the past several months, Collette and I have been under care of a super secret government agency that relocates families, changes their identities and helps them maintain security. No, not the Witness Protection Program; the WTFWHTMA ... rolls right off the tongue doesn't it. You may better know it as the What The Fuck, We Have To Move? Agency

This agency is an entirely Canadian operation .. which explains why the whole process was like something out of an old school screwball comedy. And not an "A" list comedy, with Cary Grant and Katherine Hepburn, but a decided "C" list comedy with Frank Gorshin and Adrienne Barbeau

How else to explain some of the following incidents:

1) When searching for a new house I responded to the following "Fully fenced in yard with fruit trees and private parking" It seemed to be written in English, but it must have been a foreign language. Yes the yard was fully fenced but it had recently been completely paved over except for the three foot wide strip where three sad apple trees wondered where the hell the soil went. This paving was to provide the parking for the house .. and the two houses beside it. What was private? Well people from the street were not allowed to park there

2) Another house that I went to see seemed pretty nice; large bungalo, nice yard, a basement apt for Jeff. I noticed that a section of said basement was being drywalled off and when I inquired what that was for the owner told me "Oh that's for me, I'm moving to Cambridge but I will be in Toronto once or twice a month so I'm making myself a little apartment here" Right. So I wasn't renting a house, I was renting a tenement

3) We finally found a house, a lovely new house but there were a few minor issues ... like the gas wasn't turned on and oh yeh, there may be a minor gas leak but nothing to be concerned about. Yeh, that's how you make a house smoking free

4) We decided to buy a portable dishwasher. I go to Sears, find a floor model at a great price, buy it, have it delivered. When it comes, the thing has no wheels. I phone the store and am informed that the portable dishwasher does not come with wheels. Collette inquired: This is a portable dishwasher right? They respond Yes ma'am. She asks What makes a portable dishwasher portable? Yes, we got our wheels

5) The new house has a nice yard but I had to do a little fencing for Terra. Terra is barrier trained, if she sees a barrier she won't cross it. It can be low, she won't jump it, knock it over or dig under it. Problem is, what I see as a barrier, my dog sees as an open door. Across one side of the yard I put up a metal garden fence. It had "slats" in it, about 12 or 14 inches wide. Collette watched our 50 lb border collie put one paw through the opening, duck her head and just slide on through without touching the sides. Yeh, I can't wait till this dog grows some bones

6) Our new house has a very nice basement apt where Collette's nephew Jeff is living. We love living with Jeff but sometimes he has a perspective different from mine. He was concerned that our street has no sidewalks. Dude, I've been where you grew up, you don't even have paved roads ...

7) We decided to use professional movers for this move. Collette wanted to use a guy who does all the moving for the Toronto school board. We arranged for one date then he informed us that he would not be able to make that weekend after all; none of his drivers would work, cuz it was Jamaica Day ... I strongly suspect it had a lot to do with the above mentioned non "smoking" house

There are more stories but I've run out of beer so the telling of them will have to wait. And the agents of  WTFWHTA have informed me that this post is in violation of their mandate. Prison time could be implimented. Great. I'll probably have to move in there myself

THE BOOK OF MORMON THEATRE REVIEW: A FUNNY THING HAPPENS ON THE WAY TO THE PROMISED LAND

Did you hear the one about an 18th century American farmer who claimed to have dug up a scripture not only telling of Hebrew tribes who lived in ancient North America but who were also visited by Jesus Christ?

How about the one about a village in Uganda, plagued by poverty and AIDs who had to pay tribute to a mad warlord in order to prevent him from mutilating all their females?

Well how about we roll both stories together and make a musical! Yeh that thud you heard was Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland passing out. Of course Mickey and Judy are both gone so we're stuck with Trey Parker and Matt Stone (creators of South Park) and their musical The Book of Mormon.

The play tells the story of a group of Mormon missionaries who travel to Africa to convert the heathen to their own brand of religion. The Uganda they find is full of violence and poverty and sexual abuse. The locals see no point in converting to the white religion as they see nothing in it for themselves. As one character constantly points out, visions of heaven mean little when you have maggots in your scrotum. As one of the Mormons is quick to learn "The Lion King did not present an accurate picture of Africa at all!"

I would call this play irreverent but that would be like calling Satan a guy with a grumpy attitude. This is satire, sometimes teeth bared in your face, sometimes slyly hidden inside of the cheerily scored, cheekily versed songs. Don't get me wrong, there isn't a ton of subtly here; we have a warlord called Buttfuckin Naked and an African expression that the Mormons thinks is like Katuna Matana but really means Fuck You God.

You could concentrate on the material that could offend and you would be well satisfied. These guys are equal opportunity offenders: Religion, Disney, TV, missionaries, sex, women, men, war, health care ... there is something for everyone.

Not surprisingly, The Book of Mormon devotes a lot of its time to harpooning, skinning, eviscerating and devouring the Church of Latter Day Saints. The Church provides the authors with a lot of material; let's be honest here, the Mormon Church, base on their own writings, is a pretty goofy religion. Each scene of the play is prefaced by the story of Mormon founder Joseph Smith and the creation of his church and it's pretty hilarious stuff. Much of the meat of the play's plot revolves around this goofiness and the Elders dispatched around the world to "sell" these stories to people

This is a Mirvish production so the performances throughout are quite solid but the standouts come from Mark Evans and Christopher John O'Neil as the two novice Elders and Samantha Marie Ware as a local village girl, Nabulungi who's name is constantly mispronounced by the Mormons; Nintendo, Neosporin, Neutrogena amont others. Miss Ware has the production's best voice, whether she milking every possible litre of innuendo from the song "Baptize Me" or soaring to the rafters in her homage to the promised land of the Mormons, "Sal Tlay Ka Siti"

Mark Evans portrays Elder Price, the golden boy of the Mormon missionary training centre, to whom everything comes easily and who is looked upon to do great things in Africa. Of course, this being a comedy, things don't quite work out that way. As his world and the visions of himself fall apart, the Elder is visited of a vision of Mormon Hell which is populated by Hitler, Jeffery Dalmer, Ghengis Kahn, Johnny Cochrane (I let OJ get off) and dancing cups of Starbucks coffee.

The true scene stealer of the production, however, is Christopher John O'Neill as Elder Cunningham. A congenital liar who has never actually read the Book of Mormon, he is initially perceived as Elder Price's sidekick. As Cunningham tells Price "You're Frodo and I'm Sam!" But as the mission begins to fall apart, it is Cunningham with his vivid imagination who saves the day; he reinterprets the Book of Mormon for the villagers, populating the already goofy parables with hobbits and Yoda and characters from Star Trek. O'Neill is a comedic tour de force, filling the stage with energy and momentum, able to show off his physical skills even to us up in the cheap seats

There is actually a form of message in all this madness and it has to do with that faith is faith, belief is belief, and perhaps the intent is more important than the method. But that never gets in the way of the true intent of this musical: To make you pee your pants with laughter. Book of Mormon is flat out funny, my jaws literally were aching when I left the Princess of Wales theatre.

It's pretty fair to say that this is one of the funniest productions to visit Toronto in a long time; they are predicting a sell out and I can't disagree with that. This is a touring production so it's run will be limited.
Tickets will likely be difficult to find but perhaps you could pray ... like, to Yoda.

TO SUMMIT IT UP: THE COPS MAY NOT HAVE GOTTEN IT

Just a warning: This post has definite political overtones, something I try to avoid but as I've said before, it's sometimes difficult to divorce politics from your daily life

What this post does contain is a level of irony so deep and unintended it made me want to push Reset on my brain, because I thought I had made a mistake while importing the data

In 2010 Toronto paid host to the G20 Summit. It was several days of riots, burning police cars, civil disobedience both illicit and legitimate and marked, overall, by the impression that our policing authorities had kind of lost their grip on the situation

Part of downtown was fenced, special jails were set up on the street and while the initial rioters were merely observed by the police and allowed to run away (supposedly to be caught another day) other people, like U of T professors were immediately arrested.

I wrote a couple of posts about it at the time; you can find them here and here and here and finally here

In the time since then there have been several investigations. Cops were charged with things ranging from mismanagement in deploying of officers, invalid arrests, and one cop was charged with assault after baton whipping a person already in custody. Many cops, before the riots even took place, "blacked out" their badges by putting tape over their badge numbers. Not only is this an infraction it spoke to a rather chilling frame of mind of these officers; it was as if they anticipated violating rules and laws and were quite prepared to do so.

Many higher authorities from the provincial ombudsman to the regional police watchdogs who cited 100's of violations. It seems very clear that this was a very dark time for the Toronto police dept. Even Chief Blair admitted to being "overwhelmed."

So it came as a jaw dropping surprise to me that the special police task force that had been created for the summit is so proud of their performance that have awarded themselves with positive citations and commendations. Their reasoning: Hundreds or arrests were made, the task force was thrown together almost on a whim and boy did they bust a lot of people ...

Seems to be irrelevant that most of these "busts" have been deemed, at least, capricious and many instances, downright illegal. A bust is a bust I guess. After all, ain't a cop's job to convict, it's to make arrests. To paraphrase a popular saying: Arrest em all and let smarter people sort em out later.

It's also rather telling that such an important task force was "thrown together" Not only was the police dept overwhelmed, they seemed to be taken by surprise. Funny, I knew about the summit months before hand and have watched for years the violent riots that can take place at these things.

It's also very telling that a few weeks ago police chief Blair sent an inhouse video critisizing his own rank and file for their cavalier attitude, their flaunting of official police policies and a general disregard for their own public perceptions. That entreaty seemed to have fallen on deaf ears as did all those G20 investigations and charges.

A bust is a bust.

Perhaps it's time to put a fence around police headquarters

OBLIVION THE MOVIE: ALL THINGS SCI FI TO ALL PEOPLE

If you enjoy science fiction movies you will probably enjoy the Tom Cruise movie Oblivion. And I do mean sci fi movies, plural, because this one movie is actually a lot of sci fi movies ... all rolled into one. It tries to be all things sci fi movies to all people and we all know that when you try to please everyone, you mostly succeed at not pissing off anyone.

If you like post apocalypse movies (and I do, I always think that start of a good story is the destruction of humanity) Oblivion has you covered. The film starts several years after humanity has been invaded by aliens we call the Scavs, our war with them destroys most of the planet, the Scavs blow up the moon creating huge earthquakes and tsunamis that tear the earth apart and thanks to the bombs we unleash, irradiate the rest of the planet. As Cruise's character states, we win the war but lose the earth.

Mankind is preparing to leave Earth to colonize Titan but in order to do so, we have to drain the oceans to provide fuel for a huge space station/space ship called the Tet, that hangs up in the sky. The Scavs, though defeated, are still around and seemed interested in destroying the hydro processors; the Tet launches drones to defend the processors but these lethal robots need maintenance. This is where Cruise comes in. He plays Jack, a technician whose duty is to service the drones and protect them from the Scavs

Jack is not utterly alone on Earth, he has been partnered with Victoria, Andrea Riseborough, who monitors Jack's movements and acts as a liaison with Mission Control in the Tet. The pair of them live in a glass stilt house high above the earth and high above the clouds

The movie starts out with a very deliberate pace; Jack and Vic's life seem rather placid for the fact they live on a planet that is badly wounded. These are among my favorite scenes in the movie; you know that something isn't right here, that the picture is a little too perfect. And sure enough, the cracks in the pretty picture soon begin to form. Jack is haunted by dreams, dreams of the past, of the earth's past, of his own past but this cannot be so; for reasons of security his and Vic's memories had been scrubbed before they began the mission. Yet in his mind he sees himself in New York, on the Empire State Building, with a strange woman.

On top of that, the woman who speaks to them from Mission Control is down right creepy. A space craft, a human space craft, suddenly crashes on to the earth and Jack learns that all is not as it seems. So now we are in a dystopia, another one of my favorite sci fi genres; think Logan's Run, where the policeman keeping the law soon comes to realize that the law may just be a bit fucked up. It just gets worse. Enter Morgan Freeman.

Jack is shocked to learn that there are other humans still on Earth. Morgan and his band of grubby survivors are here to point out to Jack that the war may not be over, or it may not be exactly as it may seem. The spacecraft has a survivor, as portrayed by Olga Kurylenko, and it is the woman Jack has been seeing in his dreams. Morgan sets them out on a mission, into the radioactive zone, suggesting that out there, Jack may find his destiny. Yup, now we are in The Planet of the Apes, only without the apes and a motorcycle instead of a horse

I want to avoid spoilers here, as Oblivion is still in theatres, but before the movie ends, several more sci fi cliches are thrown into the mix. The movie begins and it moves some place but there are a few logic jumps in the middle and I'm not sure if the timeline works. The movie is strangely devoid of emotion, even when the story demands it.

Oblivion was directed by Joseph Kosinski, who also did Tron Legacy. I quite enjoyed Tron Legacy. It was completely gorgeous to look at, it had a lot of momentum that carried you along, tension was built and it actually had an emotional core. Oblivion is certainly gorgeous to look at, its post apocalyptic Earth is one of the most impressive I've ever seen.

There is action in the movie, quite well done, from high level physical stunts to nicely filmed flight and fight sequences. After all, this is a Tom Cruise movie, so you get your Top Gun moments and your obligatory Tom-running-with-emotion moments. But, oddly, the tension never really seems to build. While I admire the movie for its slow build, and there are some great action sequences, I never really felt pulled into the story, I wanted to know what was going to happen but I never needed to know. Unlike Tron, the movie lacks a strong emotional connection, I was interested but not invested. Some of this actually makes sense, some of the characters seem devoid of emotion and I understand the reasoning but it was still difficult to be concerned with them

Oblivion is very much a pastiche and not as entertaining or compelling as B Movie pastiches that Quentin Tarantino throws together, but in the long run, I think it works. It's a good vehicle for Cruise, not as powerful as Minority Report but the kind of thing this dude can pull off. It hones very close to Matrix-style mind fucks but never gets there but its a very entertaining suburb. It won't rank as one of the best sci fi movies I've ever seen but I know a lot of these images will stick in my head; and when you're my age, any memory that sticks is worth something ... much as the memories of a life he may or may not have lead stays with Jack in a world where the Moon bleeds across the sky.