Worst Blog Ever

So, I got one question submitted on my AMA post last night. No, I'm not counting the one from my sister-in-law that asked:

How much wood could a woodchuck chuck, if a woodchuck could chuck wood.

Let's leave comedy to the professionals, shall we Sue?

Anyway. My friend Leigh Anne asked what prompted Kristie and I to move to NZ.

In a word: Edmonton.

Sorry, that sounds really pejorative. But the fact of the matter is, Edmonton is freaking cold man! And don't tell me that it's only really cold for three weeks out of the year. Because it usually starts snowing in October, and doesn't stop until May. Sometimes not until June! And those three weeks you're talking about? That is three weeks where it is below minus 40 degrees Celsius, and that goes beyond cold.

Although I'm being funny...

Really? That was funny? Now who should leave comedy to the professionals?

Anyway, a year or two before we made the move, we had spent an unbeleivable Christmas in Hawaii. When we got back to Edmonton, in January, we were absolutely miserable. If memory serves, it was a long cold winter, followed by a cold wet spring. So we finally just said: forget it!

When we got back from Hawaii, we were knew that we wanted to leave Edmonton so we started looking at all of our options. We wanted to go someplace warm, and someplace that where the political values would align roughly with our own. So we kicked around a few places in our minds:

Hawaii? Yeah, we could afford that!
Austin? An island of liberalism in a sea of conservatives, but a possibility.
Greece? We dodged a bullet there!

Then Kristie suggested New Zealand. Hmmmm...New Zealand eh? After doing quite a bit of checking into NZ, we decided that it may just have what we were looking for in a new home. Warm weather. Well, warmer than Edmonton anyway! At the time, it was into its third term of a liberal government, and even though it shifted to the right when we came here, it wasn't going to go Progressive Conservative any time soon.  It placed high on the OECD in terms of livability (I think Auckland and Wellington were in the top 8 places). So we made the decision to leave Canada.

At the time, Kristie was only about a year into her PhD program, and we knew that we'd have to stay in that winter-hinterland for another two to three bone-chilling years. Or would we? One day, while pining for our new home which was still two to three years away, I spied a job offering that would have been perfect for Kristie with the Ministry of Health. I brought the job to her attention and long story short (too late), she applied and got the job! After a short period of time where we applied for our visa, Kristie was on her way to forge our path in NZ. I stayed behind to sell the house, and get the dogs ready for their travels as well.

Years later, after settling in, we are still finding more and more that confirms our decision to move here! Cognitive Bias? Maybe, but we're still happy. Yes we miss our friends and family, and yes it is expensive getting back to Canada for visits, but we know we made the right decision, and we know we're going to be happy here for many years to come!

Ok, today's blog entry is a bit of a cheat, as it will be quite short, but depending on the traction I get on this one, it will set up my next few blog entries for me.

I have always been interested in doing an AMA (Ask Me Anything) blog entry.

So I throw this out to you. Ask me any question you want, regardless of how disgusting, embarrassing, or emotionally scaring it may be, I will answer your question as completely and truthfully as I possibly can.

It's poutine Jim, but not as we know it.

So a couple of days ago, Kristie and I broke one of our 30 day challenges. That challenge was to not eat out for the month of September, and we barely made it two weeks, and then we broke down and ate out.

What could have caused us to break with our 30 day challenge? Did our fridge go on the fritz and all the food spoiled? Or perhaps someone came into our house and stole every morsel akin to The Grinch:

“He took the Who’s feast, he took the Who pudding, he took the roast beast. He cleaned out that ice box as quick as a flash. Why, the Grinch even took their last can of Who hash.”

Alas, no. The thing that made us break our vow, was a vile little temptress called POUTINE!

For those who don't know, poutine is a French Canadian dish that consists of Fries, Gravy and cheese curds. It is pretty much a coronary served in an aluminium pie plate, and it is something that, until very recently, didn't exist here in NZ.

We recently came back from a trip to Canada, where we managed to squeeze in one day where we could partake in our greasy trip down memory lane, and it was fantastic. After that, we resigned to a poutine fast for the next two years, until we came back to Canada for another visit.

But what should Kristie and I spy, during a walk to a movie theatre in the heart of down-town Wellington? A sign advertising poutine at a Cajun restaurant called Sweet Mother's Kitchen! What? Poutine in NZ? Surely the world had gone all topsy-turvy. Surely it must be a spelling error, or some Canadian residing here in NZ thought it would be funny to give other Canadians false hope, and hence defaced the sign. But no, upon entering the restaurant, we found that it was indeed poutine.

It was getting quite late the day we saw the sign, and we weren't hungry at all, but upon speaking to the waiter, we found that it was not a regular menu item, and he wasn't sure how long it would continue to be available. Well, there's no way in hell that I'm missing out on limited-time poutine! So the next day, we put aside our 30 day challenge, and decided to partake in gravy heaven.

Now, we've had some experiences in the past where a Canadian dish was attempted by Kiwis, and they have been hit and miss. Pumpkin pie...swing and a miss. Nanaimo bars...home run! And now, poutine...it was a solid second base hit.

It wasn't traditional poutine in a couple of ways. First, the gravy wasn't the same at all; this gravy was cajun sausage gravy; tasty, but not traditional French Canadian brown and water. Secondly, cheese curds don't seem to exist here in NZ. Which is strange as their dairy industry is such a big part of the economy here. So instead of cheese curds, it was melted cheese. It tasted really good, and if given the chance, I'd have it again, but it was more of a gourmet poutine than it was Canada's national food...after Tim Horton's donuts, that is.

Image from Wikimedia

This is a response to an  article written by Sophia Harris, that appeared on the CBC website. The article was titled: Pro cheerleading 'should be abolished'.

First a little background about me: I am a former male cheerleader, who use to cheer for the Edmonton Eskimos Football team, back in mumble, mumble, mumble. During the years that I was a member of the team, we cheerleaders were known for our athleticism, energy, and dance routines. It was a time that I remember with nothing but fondness. I met some of my best life-long friends through cheerleading, and consider all of them like my extended family. Ok, that is a little about me, now onto the article.

So after reading this article, I have come to the conclusion that there is very little in this piece that actually has to do with cheerleading. She starts off the article with a quote from Mariah Burton Nelson, a former pro basketball player:

Cheerleading should be abolished,” former professional basketball player Mariah Burton Nelson told me. 

“Cheerleading implies that women's proper role is to support men, smile at men and fulfill the sexual fantasies of males,” declared Nelson, who played for Stanford University and in the first women's pro-basketball league in the U.S.

She then goes on to make this comment:

Many women’s pro-sports teams still struggle for recognition. Meanwhile, men’s leagues take centre stage, where women’s main job is to look good and entertain the crowd.

So on one hand, she is arguing against the legitimacy of one female sport, while trying to argue for the legitimacy of another female sport.

Anyway, my thoughts on all of this? Total load of rubbish!

Cheerleaders are a part of the game as a whole, like the players they are there to entertain the fans. They are no different than the opening act at a concert, or the comedians who come out to warm up the audience before the talk show host. They aren't the main reason you are there, but they play a big role in the entire production.

She then goes on make a spurious connection that cheerleaders are prime targets for exploitation; not sexual exploitation, but exploitation in the workforce. I'll get on to my views of the sexual exploitation later. She talks about cheerleaders being paid less than minimum wage, forced to do unpaid appearances, paying for and upkeep of their expensive uniforms, etc. While these issues did sound pretty crappy, the bottom line is, they have nothing to do with cheerleading. These are labour law issues, which is why many of them are going to court. They have very little to do with being a cheerleader, and very much to do with a corporation trying to get away with anything they can, to save a buck.

This leads us onto the sexual exploitation of cheerleaders, being made to where skimpy outfits, or posing for calendars, etc. On this topic, I am of two minds:

First, I have no issue with sexualisation for either men or women. Human beings are sexual creatures and I think that western society could do with some attitude adjustments when it comes to sex and the human body. That being said, the decisions should be up to the individual and not a condition of employment. You want to do a bikini photo shoot, or a sexy fireman calendar? Go for it! But be sure it is your decision, and if you can, get some of the proceeds for yourself.

Secondly, I actually agree that many cheerleading teams are overly sexualised, especially when we're talking about the outfits. Even my former team, the Edmonton Eskimos have the women in very tight and revealing outfits. Now, if the women voted on these types of outfits, then I withdraw my statement, and wish you all the best. However for most teams, I don't think the choice of outfits would be left to a democratic vote. Which to me, this is sending out mixed messages.

When I was a cheerleader, we worked extremely hard to fight against the old cheerleader stereotype. We presented ourselves as dancers, entertainers, and above all, athletes. Part of the process of redefining ourselves as cheerleaders was changing our outfits; something that was appropriate for everything we did. And while it took a little while, we won over the fans with this new style of cheerleading too.

This second point however is my bias. We fought to be recognised as one thing, and it seems that some of the values we fought for, have been over turned by others.

In the end, I thought the entire article was much ado about nothing. You could replace the word cheerleading with the word women or visible minority and make the same arguments throughout the whole piece. Like I said earlier, the article has less to do about cheerleading, and more to do about injustices.