MACKSTOPPER: A Project to Support the Winnipeg Blue Bombers Football Club

Timed Release Rewards Project
by James Hope Howard
Winnipeg, MB      Community-Owned Sports

Manitoba Links Weekly: Downtown Problems, Gleaming the Cube, and Augh Let's Just Get This One Run Already (ManLinkWeek 45)

Well, long time no see! As I'm sure you noticed, alas, I'm a few days off the weekly pace with this installment; the end of summer is as frenetic a time as any you'll find around here, so yes, I'll admit to being a bit behind. If you're wondering why something very recent isn't included here, it's probably because I'm saving it for next week's -- for this week's -- no, hang on, I'll get this -- I'm saving it for the next ManLinkWeek.

Unless, of course, you were thinking about recent Blue Bomber developments. (You can't spell "Winnipeg Blue Bombers football" without "LOL, BOMBERS BEING AWFUL".) That's going to be its own post, and trust me, I'm pretty sure that it's going to be a doozy. First things first, though, of course.

And, before we begin, one helpful summer tip for those of you -- I realize this is a very small subset of Winnipeg readers -- for those of you who enjoy Slurpees: here's how to prevent brain freeze. Yeah, they put a robot on Mars and everything, but here's some science we can use for a change!

ManLinkWeek -- Hajime~!

Manitoba Links Weekly: We've Hit Peak Summer, Imagine Being Able to Buy Poutine and Beer Simultaneously, and Hey I Bet the Guy Who Didn't Fully Read or Understand His Own Anti-Crime Bill Would Make a Really Great Judge (ManLinkWeek 44)

And welcome back! This is a Friday feature now, maybe? I don't even know any more. Summers, man! Summers are TOO BUSY, a point that I shall elaborate upon shortly. But first, preamble:

-- I have a column in this week's Uptown Magazine; I have a column in every week's Uptown Magazine, but not always with a central idea as fundamentally awesome as the one I'm pitching this week. So have a look!
-- I successfully defended my Virtua Fighter 5: Final Showdown championship against all comers last weekend, which is great, because it means I don't have to update that bio paragraph on the right again. (There's quite a bit of livestream footage from the weekend-long event, if you're into that sort of thing.)
-- My poor sad old laptop overheats so quickly now that it occasionally just gives up and dies with a loud popping noise, which is... slightly unnerving to experience, and has not sped my ever-glacial writing pace up any. So I'm increasingly in the market to finally pick up a new computer, and coincidentally -- after a long stretch of the game appearing to be PC-only -- SimCity 5 will be on the Mac after all. Hmm.
-- And, in more encouraging news -- I had the good fortune of being able to attend the beginning of the Joey Elliott Era live, last night, and he won. So, hey! That's pretty cool. (You've never seen a city so energized about its 2-and-5 football team as we are about ours.)
-- BUT ENOUGH ABOUT ME
-- If, for some reason, you don't happen to follow the hashtag #banished on Twitter, you missed Mike McIntyre's coverage of quite the day in court earlier this week. I don't want to spoil it for you, just get in there and experience it for yourself. (Remember: start reading from the bottom.)
-- And speaking of Twitter, here are the details on a beer swag giveaway, so have at that too while you're at it. If you're on the Twitter, I mean. You Facebook types can ignore the whole thing and get back to your busy day of watching people you don't remember very well complain about how Facebook's changing.

(I'm nearing the point now where my preamble is a full post in itself, a rather convincing sign that I need to think about retooling this feature soon.)

All right! Get ready to stare at your calendar in befuddlement, because it's time for ManLinkWeek!

Manitoba Links Weekly: Sinkholes, Short Lines, Women's Urinals, and Mystery Province, the Province of Mystery (ManLinkWeek 43)

Is it Friday already? Dang, that was quick. Long weekends, man, they throw everything off. Well, humour me my usual preamble, before we begin.

This has nothing -- absolutely nothing -- to do with Manitoba, but I absolutely have to mention it because holy shit, this headline, and holy shit, this entire story.

"A PEI prisoner’s drunken x-rated impersonation of cartoon character Cyril Sneer led to drug possession charges after his lively jig revealed illegal drugs tucked away in his rectum."

And that's the lede. The story doesn't mention (beyond "National Post Staff") who got the assignment of writing this piece, but whoever it was could probably have the print version framed and then just retire, right now, call it a successful career and live in contentment forever.

"Campbell asked guards if they had ever seen the cartoon character Cyril Sneer — a pink aardvark with a lengthy snout and the primary villian in the 80s Canadian children’s cartoon The Raccoons. Then, he tucked his penis between his legs, bent over and jumped up and down (apparently) pretending to be the evil industrialist."

I love the "(apparently)". I love it. It's entirely possible that the impression just wasn't very good (it sounds dead-on to me, man, I don't know), but I prefer to believe that the guards just don't remember The Raccoons and that the impression was uncannily accurate, because that makes picturing the whole scene even funnier than it is already. CEEEDDD-RRRIIIIIIIIICCC

There is absolutely no way to transition smoothly from that into any other topic, so I'm not even going to try. This week's Winnipeg Internet Pundits episode was very good, I wrote an Uptown column you should read, and the arrival of Folklorama gives me a chance to link my old Folklorama music album post. And there's a thing this weekend I want to draw your attention to, but I'll do that as its own standalone post, so never mind that for now.

It's quiet, peaceful, serene -- until ManLinkWeek wakes up!

Awesome Old Cars, Family Reunions on Flatbeds, and Jesus Christ That's a Sentient Lifejacket: Here's Everything that Appeared in the Gimli Islendingadagurinn 2012 Parade (56k Modems Beware, Seriously)

Yes, this is the third parade I've been to in five weeks, and yes, I know that sounds really silly. They just keep happening near me, man, it'd be rude not to drop by and see 'em. And I certainly couldn't pass up the annual Islendingadagurinn parade, described as "the largest parade in rural Manitoba"; the Gimli parade hits that sweet spot of being big enough to pull in support from all over the area, but not so big that companies feel obligated to send something and hang Christmas lights on a company truck.

There was a lot of stuff -- a lot of stuff -- in the parade, so fair warning: even having cut back a bit on the maximum image dimensions this time around, there are still about twenty-six (!) megabytes of pictures in here. And not a heck of a lot of duplicates, either; as much as it pained me to cut the alternate angles of interesting old automobiles, you'll see in a second that it had to be done. So if you'd like to see a larger version of a picture, or you want to see one of the parade entries from another angle, feel free to let me know; the chances are very good that I can dig one up.

Ah, but enough preamble. Let me be your eyes and... well, eyes, I guess, as we detail yesterday's holiday event.

Manitoba Links Weekly: Vegan Restaurant Drawn Into Beef; One Guy Just Really Does Not Like Brian Pallister; I'm at the Senate Chamber, I'm at the Rights Museum, I'm at the Combination Senate Chamber and Rights Museum (ManLinkWeek 42)

Ten-digit dialing has arrived, and I'm sure we're all very thrilled. So here's a column about it! Timely as though torn from the headlines, which it was, so... yeah, there you have it.

Before we launch into tonight's episode of Manitoba Links Weekly, allow me to honour one of my prior commitments. I had promised previously that I would note when the Bombers finally won a game, so: holy crap, the Bombers finally won a game. By one point, because the opposing quarterback drove the ball into winning field goal range with seconds left on the clock and then fumbled it like an idiot, BUT WHATEVER IT STILL COUNTS. Our collective Swaggerville Grey Cup parade planning is surely in full swing as we speak.

And, incidentally, if you happen to like the Canadian Football League, you might enjoy my recent review of the Saskatchewan Roughriders breakfast cereal. Or you might not! It's a risk I'm willing to take.

I hope you're hungry, because it's time for a serving of ManLinkWeek: