From the History Files - The 2013 NHL intro for Brits

(ok, back in the day, being 2012-13 season, I wrote this and got it published somewhere online. I'm busy with the Nanowrimo thinger going on but in the meantime, enjoy this piece of history)

Looking to widen your sports knowledge to something outside of the local football league? Perhaps you are looking to butter up those Canadian tourists that wandered into your bar and will tend to tip way too much if someone mentions hockey around them. Whatever your reasons, welcome home.

Last year I started submitting some posts to WhatCulture about the NHL, voted by 3o million Canadians, 54 Swedes, and Danny Taylor of Plymouth, England as being THE #1 hockey league in the world. The NHL stands to begin it's 94th year of play (give or take) next month. And this year is no different as there is much excitement in the maple syrup-flavoured air, hockey-stank excitement. Nobody in Canada has been this excited about the NHL starting up since last season when it finally began after another epic Lock-Out, which will be discussed later.

In what went down as the greatest Stanley Cup Finals ever played since 2012, the Chicago Blackhawks stunned the Boston Bruins with 2 goals in the final 90 seconds in Game 6 to clinch hockey's greatest trophy. It was karmic retaliation of sorts, for the Bruins had earlier made the biggest comeback in history to defeat the Toronto Maple Leafs in Game 7 of a playoff series earlier which everybody outside of Toronto found hilarious. If none of that made any sense to you, welcome to...

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW OF THE NHL AS A NON-FAN;

All you need to know is this; The NHL is crazy. There is nothing rational about it, either on the ice or off. It was the subject of the greatest sports movie ever made, and has some of the best haircuts ever. It once had two players that dominated the sport like no other athlete has ever dominated a sport yet they played at the same time. Imagine Maradona and Pele playing at the same time, and on occasion even on the same team to defeat the world's worst superpower and #2 hockey nation (no, not America, the other one).

This moment knocked the 1972 Summit Series off the #1 hockey moment
of all time - yes, it is of someone crying. 

THE EASY STUFF;

The regular season starts in October, is 82 games long, and lasts for about six months.
Playoffs start in April and go for about three months. There is no 'one game take all' playoffs; this is all about maximizing owner revenue so the teams are forced to play four rounds of best-of-seven's, which in reality is quite brilliant. The first team to win four games over their opponent moves on to the next round and possibly gets a break while waiting for their opponents to inflict maximum pain on each other.

They play for a large trophy called the Stanley Cup, named after Lord Stanley. It is so rare, there are only 3 replicas of it in existence (the presentation one, the touring one, and the one at the Hockey Hall of Fame. The original is kept in a safe at the Hall of Fame as well and is no bigger than a large salad bowl, which was probably it's original intention).

Canadians start talking about hockey about 2 months before the regular season starts. This is called the 'pre-season' and in reality mean nothing unless you are a Toronto fan, then it defines the rest of your season, saving you all sorts of heartbreak later on.

This photo deserves to be a bit more viral.

Top 10 Stoner Movies (Part 1)

So when you read 'Stoner Movies' you may have been thinking; here we go, another easy to click-bait list of repetitive movies I've seen on other lists.
The lists I looked up when doing ... research... for this blog were the same; they all have some drug-related theme in them. Most likely a list of comedies that are easy to digest, buddy comedies such as Harold and Kumar, Jay and Silent Bob, Cheech and Chong, etc. Maybe someone will be brave enough to throw in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, just to say that they know not all 'stoner' movies have to be mainly about smoking weed and insulting one another.

Ogie doesn't play that way. I hated those stoner lists - most stoners I know of don't sit around discussing the finer intricacies of Harold and Kumar (or which was which) or want to watch actors pretending to be stoned when they are not. I enjoy them for what they are - comedies that have actors pretending to be stoners in them. If you know how movies are made and how pot actually works, it's pretty difficult to actually get shit done in a way that will make it easy for an editor to piece together a film. I wanted a list of movies to watch while baked. This is what I came up with.

12 Ways The Dark Knight Rises and the 2012 Canucks playoffs were eerily the same.

[republished due to its original immense popularity, Chris Nolan's Interstellar release and I find it really funny] 

12 Ways The Dark Knight Rises and the 2012 Canucks playoffs were eerily the same. 

I want the Batman!

For some, the summer of 2012 was to be the cause of great rejoice; The Dark Knight Rises was to cap the end of the amazing Batman trilogy, the Vancouver Canucks were going to win the Stanley Cup after losing in Game 7 to the Boston Bruins a year earlier. That experience would be enough to give them the drive to Win It All (spoiler alert; it didn't). Canucks fans also wanted Zdeno Chara to climb back up his beanstalk and leave all the other hockey players alone. None of that happened, leaving Canucks (and Boston) fans and hockey analysts alone to contemplate the pleasures in the smaller things in life, like drool and soft helmets.

(BIGGER SPOILER ALERT: The Canucks lost to the eventual Stanley Cup Champion LA Kings in the 1st round of the 2012 playoffs)

12 Similarities between The Dark Knight Rises and The 2012 Vancouver Canucks: 

1-For fans of both franchises, there were exceedingly high expectations going in from previous showings.

2-Ryan Kesler appeared in neither.

3-Batman took eight years off before returning for TDKR and the ending was left open for another possible return years from now. Vancouver decided to also take some years off and is preparing for their next Cup push sometime around the year 2020.

4-Both Batman and Mason Raymond took 5 months to recover from a broken back to limited effect.

hmmm... can you take off the bat and add the number 16?

5-Neither Batman or the Canucks showed any ability to dish out a hit.

6- Apparently both Gotham and Vancouver have professional football teams that nobody cares about.

7-Anne Hathaway’s eyebrows scored just as many points with film critics in Los Angeles as the Sedin twins.

8-Batman had a few thousand cops that did nothing to help the situation, the Canucks had these guys; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBQ1rmIbTjw

9-Once Batman and the Canucks left the city, life went on and it was like nothing had ever happened.

10-If Darryl Sutter’s coaching style could be physically described, it would look like Bane. If Alain Vigneault’s coaching style could be physically described, it would look like Michael Caine’s quivering lips.

11-TDKR had a lot of supporting characters from previous movies that proved to have no discernible purpose for being there; the Canucks had Jim Hughson, Nick Kypreos and Gary Valk.

Uh, hello?

12-Bruce Wayne came out of self-imposed hiding to find his overall value had plummeted to barely being able to provide for himself, Vancouver had Roberto Luongo.

On Cross-Promoting and Self-Publication

So, I wrote a book. Many times. Over and over and over. I finally stopped and said 'I'm so tired of re-writing this.' It was called many things but I finally settled on this title;

Then I self-published on Amazon's CreateSpace (for traditionalists that still own bookcases and like hard copy books) and Smashwords (which allows for multiple format downloads instead of just Kindle).

That was about 4 months ago and it's slowly starting to get some good feedback.

Now for those that have never done research into self-publishing the general mantra is 'it is what you make it'. Not only are you self-publishing but you are also self-editing and self-promoting with a little help from your friends and family, of course.

So here Ogie is to lose his anonymity... I wrote Enter a Fistful of Marijuana and my name is now self-evident.

It's a social commentary comedy (the book, not my name). You might like it, you might not (again, the book). The Amazon version comes with footnotes - I wasn't able or patient enough to try and format the Smashwords version to accommodate them so for the added bang, you should go Amazon. However, right now I am offering the first 100 downloads by donation on Smashwords.

Here's some great reviews I have received without paying anyone to say them.

"This is hilarious. Smart, satirical and an easy, breezy read."

"It's a post modern trip through the war on drugs and all of the politics surrounding it. The author manages to show a great sense of humor, while examining some of the larger issues confronting our materialist society. The book manages to be social commentary without being boring social commentary-- something that more literary work should aspire to."

"There's a lot going for this book: loony characters, more marijuana than you knew existed, a Canadian wilderness setting and the self deprecating humor of my friends to the north, and some fun musings about what it would take to make a better world.

Jack Steele is ostensibly the lead in this farcical situation, a xenophobic and somewhat murderous secret agent whose assignment with the IRS involves a lot of snappy banter and people getting punched in the nuts. But there's a lot of others that you come to like: an IRS bureaucrat seeking to distinguish himself in the most hilarious way possible, a trio of stoners who get themselves in way over their heads, a Mormon who uses his high for inspiration, and an unlikely femme fatale. The POV's move around enough that you never beg for another character, though for me, Jack was the most fun to read.

There's some fun touches in here that will make you laugh out loud, and it moves at a pretty fast pace. This was the first time I saw footnotes used to develop asides for the story, and I clicked on every one of them. There are some pop culture references, but plenty of original humor. It has some of the rough edges that you get when reading self published fiction, but nothing that broke the book.

Overall, a great read for anyone seeking something fun, sometimes deranged, and lighthearted!"

So, go to here or here and give it a spin. Post reviews there or there or even here, where I will attempt to keep things more literary-minded. 

I can take it. 

We now return to my regular programming.

Retro 2005

Found this old email from 2005. Time to go all nostalgic on myself. This was before ex-wife, kids, losing jobs, court, moving, buying, more kids. Good times.

in lieu of a christmas letter, this is going to be it. 

 

Jay's favourite moments of 2005.

#1 picking up those business cards that said "Jay Royston - Pub Manager" on them.

#2  throwing away those business cards 2 months later.

#3  seeing the colours on the tree on "my" new front yard change colour in the autumn.

#4 Knowing that for a few short minutes, I was over $10 000 richer, until my bank's financial manager informed me that my loan was approved and was now $10 000+ deeper in debt.

#5 realizing that my parents believed enough in me that i could take care of 2 kids, 2 dogs and a renovated character house with a large enough paycheque.

#6 taking Dave's daughters (brooklyn, savannah, and maddy) skating before i left chilliwack.

#7 being cleared medically for another year.

#8 finally getting in touch with my inner redneck with a few really good, muddy days of mudboggin in my old jeep cherokee.

#9 having my 2 dogs, 1 borrowed (kubie), 1 donated (chompsky) spend a quiet afternoon walking on the frozen Fraser river.

#10 Golfing on a large clear fairway in kelowna with no pine trees in sight, courtesy of Ed.

 

Jay's current top 1o movies in no order.

 

#1  Muppets Wizard of Oz - just cuz I was fortunate enough to achieve a childhood goal and see these guys at work - and they paid me to watch them do it.

#2  Zoolander - I didn't say that they were movies released in 2005. It's just that most of the movies i saw this year weren't all that memorable.  I still want to see a live break-dance fight.

#3  Kentucky Fried Movie - the most influential movie EVER.  At one time, someone took a chance on making this type of movie and the only other notable one like it that i know of was Amazon Women on the Moon (same director, coincidentally).  It's still the reason why i wanted to get into film.

#4 Hedwig and the Angry Inch - okay, if you're not into the idea of watching a musical about an east german kid who gets most of his penis cut off so that he can come to america with his army boyfriend who subsequently dumps him in kansas, where he goes on to become a transgender rockstar on the restaurant circuit, you probably won't be interested in this. 

#5  I Heart Huckabee's  - clever, philosophical, has shania twain... what more can you ask for.  The "why am i here?" movie of the year.

#6  Pulp Fiction - come on, it's Pulp Fiction...

#7  Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back - there's something about being vain enough to star in your own slacker movie and have all your friends in it that makes you feel good that somewhere, someone is living the hollywood dream.

#8  Elektra - just cuz this was another movie that, despite being quite lame, will always remind me of little moments spent that summer wondering why hollywood exists in the first place.

#9  Pestilence Part 2 - The Spaghetti Incident - the greatest little movie not yet finished.

#10 The Cable Guy - No matter what people say, to me this is still Jim Carrey's best performance, and the funniest movie Ben Stiller ever directed.

 

Jay's best bands off the top of his head

 

#1 Cake  (coulda seen, shoulda seen, didn't see)

#2 Radiohead  (seen)

#3 Frank Zappa (no longer seen)

#4 Bif Naked  (seen and bumped into in person)

#5 Our Lady Peace (not seen)

#6 Hank Williams (the 1st one)  (quite dead)

#7 The Offspring (never seen)

#8 Lost Vega  (lived with the bass player)

#9 Slade  (who the Fuck was Alice???)

#10 George Thorogood (seen)

 

Jay's top 10 favourite other stuff

 

#1 putting xmas lights up, turning them on and thinking "damn, that looks pretty good."

#2 watching The Office, a deadpan, funny tv show on NBC starring Steve Carrell but i download off the internet.

#3 knowing that somewhere out there a lot of my friends have become fathers for the first (or third) time.

#4 watching the Grey Cup's first overtime game in 50 years, live.

#5 accepting the fact that dreams change, lives go on and it is possible to lose 20 pds in 6 months if you stop eating potato chips.

#6 having ALL my stuff in one place finally.

#7 finishing off a manuscript that i hope to get around to submitting some places in the new year.

#8 those raspberry smoothies that Tim Horton's is serving up.

#9 knowing/believing that everyone around me is doing fine, keeping healthy and living life.

#10  knowing that for another year, i won't have to figure out what to write in a xmas letter and being able to use "lieu" in the correct context finally.

 

I apologize if there is some gaping holes in there that i didn't answer.  Feel free to email me with specific questions, otherwise, have a great xmas.