Nish, Patience, patience, patience. Remember... it is the middle of Fall. Still a month to go before winter starts. Can't remember anyone going through a Canadian winter and being disappointed about not seeing enough snow. JM

This isn't a problem in Toronto. First, we have a Tim Horton's on pretty much every major street corner or close by... and they are open 24/7. You can get food... but not a burger. Many MacDonald's have 24 hr drive-thrus. There are other places. Most of the sub shops are open late to accomodate the bar closing crowd.

Now... don't get technical on us!

Donald Rumsfeld is giving the president his daily briefing on the war in Iraq. He concludes by saying: "Yesterday, three Brazilian soldiers were killed." "OH NO!" the President exclaims. "That's terrible!" His staff sits stunned at this display of emotion, nervously watching as the President sits, head in hands. Finally, the President looks up with a puzzled look on his face, and asks, "Exactly how many is a brazillion?"

LONDON, (AFP) - British tourists have left the residents of one charming Austrian village effing and blinding by constantly stealing the signs for their oddly-named village. While British visitors are finding it hilarious, the residents of F-- -ing are failing to see the funny side, The Sunday Telegraph newspaper reported. Only one kind of crimimal ever stalks the sleepy 32-house village near Salzburg on the German border -- cheeky British tourists armed with a sense of humour and a screwdriver. But the local authorities are hitting back and with the signs now set in concrete, police chief Kommandant Schmidtberger is on the lookout. "We will not stand for the F---ing signs being removed," the officer told the broadsheet. "It may be very amusing for you British, but F---ing is simply F--- ing to us. What is this big F---ing joke? It is puerile." Local guide Andreas Behmueller said it was only the British that had a fixation with F---ing. "The Germans all want to see the Mozart house in Salzburg," he explained. "Every American seems to care only about 'The Sound of Music' (the 1965 film shot around Salzburg). The occasional Japanese wants to see Hitler's birthplace in Braunau. "But for the British, it's all about F---ing." Guesthouse boss Augustina Lindlbauer described the village's breathtaking lakes, forests and vistas. "Yet still there is this obsession with F---ing," she said. "Just this morning I had to tell an English lady who stopped by that there were no F---ing postcards."

I believe the number of unique visitors that CP greets every month is somewhere around 1.6 million. And that is an externally audited number. So there may be a few one it wonders, but 1.6 million unique visitors is a pretty staggering number.

NICKNAMES If Laura, Suzanne, Debra and Rose go out for lunch, they will call each other Laura, Suzanne, Debra and Rose. If Mike, Charlie, Bob and John go out,they will affectionately refer to each other as Fat Boy, Godzilla, Peanut-Head and Scrappy. EATING OUT When the bill arrives, Mike, Charlie, Bob and John will each throw in $20,even though it's only for $32.50. None of them will have anything smaller, and none will actually admit they want change back. When the girls get their bill, out come the pocket calculators. MONEY A man will pay $2 for a $1 item he wants. A woman will pay $1 for a $2 item that she doesn't want. BATHROOMS A man has five items in his bathroom: a toothbrush, shaving cream, razor, a bar of soap, and a towel from the Holiday Inn. The average number of items in the typical woman's bathroom is 337. A man would not be able to identify most of these items. ARGUMENTS A woman has the last word in any argument. Anything a man says after that is the beginning of a new argument. CATS Women love cats. Men say they love cats, but when women aren't looking, men kick cats. FUTURE A woman worries about the future until she gets a husband. A man never worries about the future until he gets a wife. SUCCESS A successful man is one who makes more money than his wife can spend. A successful woman is one who can find such a man. MARRIAGE A woman marries a man expecting he will change, but he doesn't. A man marries a woman expecting that she won't change and she does. DRESSING UP A woman will dress up to go shopping, water the plants, empty the garbage, answer the phone, read a book, and get the mail. A man will dress up for weddings and funerals. NATURAL Men wake up as good-looking as they went to bed. Women somehow deteriorate during the night. OFFSPRING A woman knows all about her children. She knows about dentist appointments and romances, best friends, favorite foods, secret fears and hopes and dreams. A man is vaguely aware of some short people living in the house. THOUGHT FOR THE DAY Any married man should forget his mistakes. There's no use in two people remembering the same thing.

A fire fighter is working on the engine outside the station when he notices a little girl next door in a little red wagon with ladders hung off the sides and a garden hose tightly coiled in the middle. The little girl is wearing a fire fighter's helmet and the wagon is being pulled by her dog and her cat. The fire fighter walked over to take a closer look. "That sure is a nice fire truck," the fire fighter says with admiration. "Thanks" the girl says. The firefighter looks a little closer and notices the girl has tied the wagon to her dog's collar and to the cat's testicles. "Little Partner," the fire fighter says, "I don't want to tell you how to run your rig, but if you were to tie that rope around the cats' collar too, I think you could go faster." The little girl replies thoughtfully, "You're probably right, but then I wouldn't have a siren."

Could never figure out why Americans got so worked up over this tournament... it's not like the best hockey players in the world were there. If there is a tournament going on in 1980 and Wayne Gretzky, Guy Lafleur, Bryan Trottier, Mike Bossy, and Marcel Dionne aren't playing... then obviously it isn't a tournament of the world's best. But we don't play "ice" hockey in Canada... just hockey! JM

Heh Tim... how goes it my friend? I am trying to decipher your cryptic, Deveaux-ian message. Can you give me any help? JM

Colin, We have always pronounced the name: Mack -- (rythmes with sack) ul -- (rythmes with bull) roy -- (rythmes with toy) But in Belfast the Mack changes to more of a Mick and then they kind of squish it together like your third choice. But you really do need an Irish accent to say it right. It just doesn't sound right saying it the Irish way with a Canadian accent. There are actually quite a few of us in Toronto (about 50 or 60)... but I have been in places like Arkansas and run into people who have never met a member of the clan. But in NI... there are thousands of 'em (us). JM

Colin, This was an interesting point about the correct pronunciation of surnames. I remember once visiting Belfast and when I was checking into a hotel a person read my name of a reservation card... Mr. McIlroy. I promptly corrected her pronunciation, to match the way that my family has said it all our lives in Canada. She just as promptly corrected my pronunciation, and told me that the way I said the name was definitely not the right way. That took me back a bit... you don't usually expect people to correct the pronunciation of YOUR own name... but she did it without any hesitation at all. I'm a 5th generation Canadian, and have no ties or information at all to the origins of the name. It turned out that the McIlroy clan was from Ballymena, which is not too far from Belfast, where there are hundreds of McIlroys kicking around. I decided that I would visit the place... and it was really quite amazing visiting a town where every 10th person looks like they could be related to you. So many had the Neanderthal forehead, bushy eyebrows, and other features that mark them as McIlroys. It was quite a little side trip. I tried to use the "correct" version of the name for a while, but it is hard to change after having the name for decades. Plus, you really need a bit of an Irish accent to say it correctly. But now when I say my name I sometimes get self conscious that I am pronouncing it incorrectly. John

Wow! Did you read this post before you sent it? Quite the maniacal screed!

That's a fun debate... but it it gets a little tiring after the 200th time. But it is very logical to me... let's leave it at that. I was more interested in Eric's Biblical conditional statement.

Terry, I don't see the necessity of assuming under the new covenant that the harsh punishments under the Law of Moses should still be in effect. JM

Heh... this has been a very interesting thread. I am not a developer, but I take it that the first 3 lines in your code are conditional statements. How does one arrive at the second one? The one that says that God wrote the Bible. I think it is relatively easy from logic to prove that a superior being being (that some call God) exists, but how do you manage the second conditional that God wrote or inspired the Bible?

That's pretty close to how I remember it happening. >>>Jeremy Falcon wrote: How did you come up with the name Dundas? You don't want to know and frankly it's that experience that has made me so aware of the importance of good naming. I always assumed you had a shop/office on Dundas street in southern Ontario, were trying to think of a name and got so frustrated that you just went "damn it, we'll use Dundas for now and change it later".<<<

Chris, The idea that Gibson senior is an "outspoken" Holocaust denier is what I was questioning. The keyword being "outpsoken" and not "Holocaust denier." I think the guy is a little dotty... and the only reason we have any knowledge of his views is not because he is running an organization that is aggressively promoting a revisionist version of the holocaust... we know his view because anti-Christians seek him out to try and discredit his son, Mel. Mel has been part of the Hollywood elite for a couple of decades... but we haven't heard about his father being an "outspoken" holocaust denier until Mel had the temerity to make a movie that offends the sensibilities of the significant anti-Christian faction in Hollywood. Not that Mel Gibson has anything but heartfelt gratitude towards the aggressive anti-Christians who have been whining about his movie for the last year. At the moment that debt of gratitde totals about $117 million, and is climbing by the minute.

Heh Brit, You pretty much captured the argument, here. Great post! JM

Wow!! Safire is really out of control this time. Gibson's father is an outspoken holocaust denier? What a joke... is he Ernst Zundel? Does he have his own propaganda machine churning out lies? No... he is a dotty old guy, who has been hounded by Safire and his ilk looking for sensational quotes to use against his son, Mel. I saw the movie, and found it intriguing, but didn't really like it, because it was focused too much on the physical suffering of Jesus. My feeling is that if you had the weight of all human sin on your soul, your suffering would be much more intense than merely a physical scourging. But that kind of suffering is hard to cinematically depict. Plus it is very difficult to capture "holiness" on film, which takes away from the utter contrast that would have existed between Jesus and those who crucified him. Still... I'm going to see it again. JM