I don’t usually blog about hockey but this article by Pete McMartin in today’s vancouver Sun is just too funny to leave out (and it is Friday after all) ….

“Are the vancouver Canucks Canada’s Team? … No. They’re not.” -Edmonton Sun sports columnist Terry Jones, in his May 6 column.

“Canucks as Canada’s team? No thanks” -April 28 posting of National Post blogger Joe O’Connor, in which he stated he would rather starve than cheer for the Canucks.

“Of some 2,500 posts related to the vancouver-Nashville series on the Flames Forum at calgarypuck.com, the vast majority are virulently anti-Canuck …” -Calgary Herald sports columnist Kevin Brooker, in his May 9 column.

As you can see, the rest of Canada, which we here in vancouver officially refer to as A Good Place To Be From, has been busy reminding us that they do not like our hockey team.

What they really mean is they do not like vancouver.

This, of course, is nothing new to vancouver. The rest of Canada has always hated us because we’re the prettiest girl in school, and the less pretty girls -you know, the kind who dress all in black and think they’re intellectuals because they looked up “existentialism” -like to think we are dumber and shallower than they are, which normally we would respond to, except that we’re too busy right now brushing our hair. We’re getting ready to go out. We have a totally bitchin’ night ahead of us. We’re going out dancing.

The rest of Canada says, oh no, it’s not you. It’s nothing personal. It’s not envy or anything like that.

We just don’t like your team, the rest of Canada says. They’re not Canadian.

Well, okay. Point taken. There is Ryan Kesler, who is American, and therefore someone who is only being nice so he can steal our oil and water. There are the Sedin twins, who National Post blogger Joe O’Connor referred to as “identically brilliant but somehow bland” -by which he means, I can only suppose, that he prefers brilliance with a side order of criminal charges and drug abuse, or that the Sedins have yet to commit the requisite violence needed to make it into a Don Cherry Rock’em Sock’em video. And there is Roberto Luongo, whose hair gel is Italian.

In our defence, we would point out the obvious, that many Canadians are not from Canada -Exhibit A, most of vancouver -which even the Conservatives had figured out by election time.

But that’s a fact that hasn’t seemed to have penetrated hockey’s thicker craniums. All those concussions. This is your brain on skates.

But what they really mean by the Canucks being un-Canadian is that vancouver is un-Canadian -that here, frostbitten bodily extremities do not fall off during the winters as nature intended, that the coffee does not taste sufficiently enough of pencil shavings and that we no longer consider chicken à la king Chinese food.

Edmonton Sun columnist Terry Jones lumbered down this well-worn path by interviewing, of all people I have never heard of, Vancouverbased sportswriter Vesa Rantanen, NHL correspondent for a Finnish magazine that has three a’s and two k’s in its name.

“How Canadian a city is vancouver to start with?” Rantanen mused in Jones’s column. “It never snows. It never freezes. The city is not known about any real Canadian thing … I find vancouver the least Canadian city of all the places I’ve been.

“It’s not just a climate thing, but attitude. This is more Northern California than Canada. Nothing bad about that, but I think outsiders see it as yuppie, expensive and shallow.”

Well, duh. Tell us something we didn’t know, Rantanen. We are yuppie, expensive and shallow. Look at the place! We’d be stupid not to be yuppie, expensive and shallow. I’m writing this column in my hot tub while sipping a clever little Okanagan Pinot Gris. Life is good here.

Which is stating the obvious. Which is like telling Edmontonians that they live on an ice rink where the only thing standing between them and the frigid blasts that come roaring out of Siberia are the frozen bodies of other Edmontonians, or like telling Calgarians that their uniquely colourful city explores the full range of the spectrum from tan to cowchip. And also that both of their hockey teams suck.

Not that we hold any of that against you, rest of Canada. You are who you are, and we are who we are.

All we would ask of you is don’t hate us because we’re beautiful.

Oh, who am I kidding?

Go ahead. Hate us.

We don’t care.

In fact, we revel in it.

Because we have a dance to go to, and you don’t, poor things.

You gotta love this great sarcastic article taken with permission from Bert Franco from The Onion Network… and I couldn’t agree more with their views.

Many programs out there will try to take your money with the promise to make you rich overnight with distressed properties and no money down…

Take a look, this article is priceless….

” Man, am I chagrined. I really thought my ship had come in.

Have you ever thought you had a sure thing in your hands, only to have it slip away at the last moment? I certainly know what that’s like now. That’s right–I recently learned the hard way that there’s no such thing as a free seminar on how to buy distressed properties for no money down.

Ever since losing my job at the Gas ‘N’ Go on 14th and Daytona, I’d been scraping for any money I could get. Panhandling, donating plasma, collecting empty bottles, the whole poor routine. My life was in a shambles, and my sleep schedule was way out of whack.

So imagine my interest when, at 3 a.m. last Tuesday, I was watching Channel 21, and a half-hour paid advertisement came on that seemed to have been made just for me! This announcer guy asked, “Are you struggling just to make ends meet? Are you tired of missing out on the good stuff in life? Would you like to be your own boss and call all the shots?”

I can’t even tell you how strongly I related. It was as if they’d read my mind and made a show out of it!

Next, they introduced a guy who, up until a couple of years ago, was just like me. This was real exciting, as I’d been feeling really alone and singular in my poverty. The fellow’s name was Paul Rennert, and he told all these hard-luck stories about losing his job and his car, and I don’t mind telling you it sounded a lot like my own life story!

But then–and this was the exciting part–he said he’d come up with an exciting new money-making system, involving the purchase of distressed properties, that catapulted him into wealth and independence so quickly, he hardly knew what was happening! Now he lives in a huge 20-room mansion and, just between you and me, you should have gotten a look at his wife. Whoo! No distressed property on her!

Just about the whole rest of the show was devoted to people who’d learned Paul’s system and struck it rich themselves in real estate. There were people telling all these stories about being poor, just like me, but after applying Paul’s easy-to-learn system, they started receiving checks for four- and even five-digit amounts! They even showed the stubs from a lot of those checks to prove they weren’t lying.

By the end of the show, I was dying to have the secret dropped on me. How can I get in on this and start making money in real estate the easy way? That’s when Paul told me that his amazing seminar was criss-crossing the country, giving everyday people the secret to making more money than they ever dreamed possible.

I thought, oh, well, with my bad luck, that seminar probably won’t be coming to my area for about a million years. And even if it did come, the secret to personal wealth had to be worth a fortune! I could never afford to be in on such a powerful inner circle of big-money power brokers. But you know what? As if by divine providence, it was going to be at the Columbus Ramada that Saturday and–get this–it was free! I couldn’t believe my luck! It really felt like, after years of hard knocks, I was finally getting the good luck I was due.

Despite my joy, I couldn’t help but be a little skeptical. I wondered to myself, “Why on Earth would Paul offer a free seminar?” After all, I’d always been told that there’s no such thing as a free seminar. But Paul explained that, for all his wealth and success, he never forgot what it was like to be poor, and he wanted to give everyone, even those as poor as he’d been, the opportunity to get themselves back on track. I tell you, I felt like building a statue of Paul Rennert in front of City Hall!

Well, the big day arrived, and in my finest outfit, I caught the bus to the Ramada. Turns out, there were a lot of other people whose lives weren’t going so well–there must have been a thousand people there! I wished them well, of course, but I began to worry that some of them might snap up the properties before I could get my hands on them. So I decided to sit way in the back so that as soon as the secret was revealed, I could hustle off to wherever the properties were and start buying before anyone horned in on my action!

Turns out, it wasn’t Paul Rennert who was giving the seminar, but “Chuck,” a vice-president at Rennert Business Opportunities Unlimited. I thought, that’s cool, he’s probably a stand-up guy if he’s involved with Paul and his philanthropic seminar-giving project.

The first hour of the seminar, all these different people were telling their success stories, about how they made all this money and have great houses now–just like on the show. Part of me was thinking, “Hey, get to the big secret! I wouldn’t be here if I weren’t convinced!”

After the stories, Chuck started talking about the system and how it’s just the thing to get you out of your doldrums and how rewards go to those who take action in the moment instead of putting things off. All the while, I’m thinking, “Okay, so tell us already!”

Well, you know what? Maybe you’d better sit down before reading any further. Because you’re not going to believe this.

The big secret cost $129.95! Can you believe it? After all that, we’re supposed to fork over hard-earned money for the secret! Talk about disillusioning.

Now, admittedly, the $129.95 buys you a lot: You get Paul’s comprehensive guide to buying and selling properties, written in plain, easy-to-understand language; Paul’s special book of 101 secrets to making money today; a videotaped guide to using the materials correctly; a special letter of encouragement from Paul; and access to Paul’s secret toll-free 800 number where trained experts are on hand to answer any questions you may have about the materials.

But, man! $129.95! What does he think “free” means? I applaud Paul for wanting to give poor people an opportunity to make some real money, and I realize that a seminar costs some money to put on, but I have to say I think he’s going about it wrong. That big bundle of cash he’s asking for is a huge hurdle that’s keeping this thing from happening for a lot of poor people–the people who need this miracle system the most.

If you’re reading this, Paul, here’s what I think you should do: Print a scaled-down version of the secret on less expensive paper, and hire a modest staff to distribute it door-to-door in poor neighborhoods. Or, even better, scrap the seminar and donate the package to libraries! Then, you can either stop airing the TV show altogether or change it into a show in which you tell poor people that the secret is at the library.

No, it won’t be as good as a free seminar on how to buy distressed properties for no money down, but, hey, as we all know, there’s no such thing as that.”

Again, we couldn’t agree more! If it sounds too good to be true it probably is!

We can however, show you how to buy property with low money down and maintain great positive cashflow!
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