Friends from Toronto are in town visiting, and wanted to go check out the Lac-Leamy casino in hull. While watching Vinnie win $250, I noticed two things:

1. French face cards have different letters: R for the king (roi), D for queen (dame) and V for the jack (je ne sais quoi). Sounds obvious, but it looks WEIRD.
2. French dealers have twice as much work to do, because they have to announce everything in BOTH OFFICIAL LANGUAGES. It goes like this: "Seize sixteen." One quick phrase. You tap the table because the dealer is showing an eight, and pull a 4. "Vingt twenty." The dealer flips over a 2. "Dix ten." The dealer draws a V. "Vingt twenty. Egalite push." Zut alors.
   

But the most astute comment came from Jay, as we walked by a decorative cement pool that had been completely drained. There were hundreds of shiny coins lying at the bottom, and somebody joked about whether anybody wanted to make a wish and throw some change into the empty pond. "Well, it's no different than what we were doing over there," said Jay, gesturing over his shoulder to the blackjack table.

[Ed's note: On Altavista's translation site, "blackjack" translates into "nerf du boeuf" which literally means "ox nerve."]

I only tuned in to the last 4 seconds of this year's Superbowl, so I missed the half-time show and Janet Jackson's naked breast, pierced nipple and all.

In trying to find the footage (for sheerly research purposes, you understand), I've read several news articles about the incident. The funniest was in this article, which after several paragraphs outlining how the FCC and involved performers were responding, suddenly felt it necessary to include the following piece of information:

President George W. Bush turned off his television just before Jackson flashed her breast.

[Ed's Note: This, of course, would be the boob alluded to in today's title]

I would say that this is the state of the news in America, but this article appeared on a Singapore newspaper's web site. Which perhaps means that other countries are slowly, inevitably, sinking into the journalistic quicksand that is today's popular media. Go MTV!

Walking home from a workshop, I passed a father carrying three pairs of skates. Trailing about ten feet back was a young kid swaddled in a snowsuit and hockey jersey, carrying a tiny plastic stick. His face was hidden behind his bug-headed, full-face-mask helmet. Another ten feet behind him trundled an even smaller child, with a similar but even more diminuitive outfit, complete with bug head.

After the littlest one passed by, I paused and turned to watch them walk up Somerset toward the frozen canal, into the taunting blaze of the winter's setting sun. For a moment I glimpsed the glinted silhouette of these three silent people, snow-squeaking toward a cold, steaming evening scratched out happily on the ice.

It was a perfect picture. It was the kind of image that I could take out when Americans ask what it means to be Canadian. It was the kind of image I could take out when anyone asks me what life is about.

But I left my camera in my bag. Not everything in life needs capturing.

[Ed's Note: Besides, it was way too cold for him to take his hands out.]

After dinner tonight I tried using one of my landlady's snuffer-things to put out the candles.

[Ed's Note: His landlady likes to light candles when they have dinner together. There is nothing more to that story.]

After putting all four of them out, two were still smoking, with that little orange, glowing ember on the tip of the wick. I licked my finger, and squeezed the first one. Tsss. It went out. Moved on to the second. Phhht. Hm. The ember was mostly out, but there was still a tiny bit of light. I brought my finger back to my tongue to wet it for another attempt. What I failed to notice was that the bulk of the ember had broken off the wick on my first try, and was now stuck to my finger, still raging, raging against the dying of the light.

Ow.