"The best job in the world," and other exploits

There is a contest where people are trying to audition for "the best job in the world." The position is called Caretaker of the Islands of the Great Barrier Reef and is a publicity gimmick by Tourism Queensland Australia. You get paid to live on one of the beautiful islands, snorkel, check out luxury spas and local events, etc., take videos and pictures of it all, and blog about it at least once a week. Rough stuff, I know. Naturally, LOTS of people are applying.

In order to get selected, you have to get the most votes for your audition video. This one's from a guy up here in the Yukon. Too damn funny.



Which got me thinking about the "Polar Bear Dips":





...and the "snow baths" (at about 5:24):





What is it about Canadians and doing insane things in ice and snow? Things that make you wonder just how many marbles they are missing?

That's awesome!

I'm still pretty sick this time around but I hope to join my fellow citizens next year. :-P

Rick Mercer's "Photo Challenge"

The original:




Adaptation:

Rick Mercer's "Photo Challenge"

The original, posted at Rick's Photo Challenge page:



...and with a few minor adjustments.

Canadian irreverence

These are a couple of hilarious videos showing how refreshingly irreverent Canadians are about politics. For those of us who are used to the stiff formality of American politics, these come as a bit of a shock... yet we immediately fell in love with this down-to-earth, politicians-are-people-too type attitude.

A little quick background to set context for non-Canadians: Rick Mercer is a political satirist. All the other people in this video are high-ranking government officials. The lady in red at the gate is Elizabeth May, leader of the Green Party, who has been trying to get a seat in Parliament but so far cannot because of the failings of the first-past-the-post voting system. The guy whose English is not so good was the leader of the Liberal Party at the time. The guy next to Rick Mercer while Rick is reading the paper is Prime Minister Stephen Harper.



Background: Prime Minister Stephen Harper continually claims to work with the other 3 political parties, while in actuality stubbornly refusing to do so. So the 3 parties finally joined up in a coalition against him where the Liberals and NDP would form the government and the Bloc Québécois agreed to support them. Because of this Harper was going to fail a confidence vote last month and thus be out on his ear, so instead he dissolved Parliament until Jan 26 (chicken!), but he'll still have to face the vote then and is expected to fail. In the meantime the Liberals picked another leader, Michael Ignatieff, who will likely be the next Prime Minister in short order. This video is Geri Hall from the show This Hour Has 22 Minutes getting *very* cheeky with Ignatieff.

Goodbye Air Farce, we hardly knew ye

We were introduced to the Royal Canadian Air Farce , a comedy troupe specializing in political satire, shortly after landing in Canada in 2007. We feel like we've only just gotten to know and love this show, and as of tonight it's off the air after an amazing run of 35 years.

Just a few of the beloved favourites we will miss...

Craig Lauzon's robotic Stephen Harper impressions
Driving with Alan Park
Luba Goy's Hillary Clinton impressions
Jessica Holmes' impressions of Belinda Stronach and Britney Spears
The coffee shop scenes
Don Ferguson and the famous Chicken Cannon

For our American friends, the Chicken Cannon was a recurring year-end event. (Oh how it pains me to talk about all this in the past tense.) This was a cannon that fired rubber chickens, or other objects, at caricatures of whoever was considered the most annoying that year. Viewers would nominate targets and appropriate ammo for those targets, then vote on them. Then Don Ferguson did a countdown of the top 5 most deserving targets. The 4 runners-up were shot down with an "armed scud chicken." For the top target they loaded the cannon with all the suggested goopy ammo and fired the final disgusting mixture in an explosive splat. Pow! Great comic and stress relief in one satisfying gloppy shot. Simple but brilliant.

One of our favourite target/ammo combos, watched on Air Farce's website because we weren't here yet in 2003:

• TARGET(S): George Bush, Donald Rumsfeld & Dick Cheney
• AMMUNITION: Iraqi crude - oily just like our targets; cranberry sauce, candied yams, mashed potatoes and gravy (to go with the three turkeys); Freedom fries (don't forget the ketchup); fudge (for the fudged intelligence reports); head lice from Saddam Hussein, maraschino cherry.

Goodbye, Air Farce. We miss you already...

Canadian police chase

I saw this and just about fell off my chair.



Having just bought my first winter tires this year, after slip-sliding away last winter on the few occasions we'd had to take the car, I watched this and breathed a heavy sigh of relief while having a good hearty belly laugh. There is a straightforwardness here, that permeates everything from the way Canadians talk to each other to the commercials they show on TV. This is no small adjustment for these California gals, but we like it!

Rick Mercer's "Photo Challenge"

Political satirist Rick Mercer regularly conducts a "photo challenge," in which he posts photos of politicians on his website and your challenge is to "doctor" them as you see fit for amusement value. My miserable 3-second attempt to resist taking on this challenge was thwarted by the fact that this one was a pic of Prime Minister Stephen Harper, whom I like even less these days given recent events. Here's the original:



I combined it with John McCain's "McTongue" grab-a$$ looking pic from when he walked off stage the wrong way after the third presidential debate:



The end result: