If anyone is looking for a Christmas present idea for me, look no further.

Here are my choices for the first round in the east:

1. Boston vs. 8. Montreal – Boston in a 5 game cakewalk.  Watch the poutine-eaters flip 100 cars to honour the team’s anniversary.

2. Washington vs. 7. New York – Washington in 6.  Oviiiii!!!!

3. New Jersey vs. 6. Carolina – Carolina in the upset 6 games.  Brodeur has looked human since getting the wins record.

4/5. Philly vs. 4/5 Pittsburgh – this one hasn’t been decided yet for home ice, but I don’t think it matters.  Pittsburgh in 7.

There you have it!

I write this from the shores of the Caribbean Sea – literally. 

It’s dusk. The stars are just becoming visible through the sky – which ranges from rusty red to deep blue and then grey in the clouds over the eastern horizon. I have my feet up on a breakwater, and the beach is six feet below it. The ocean can be seen washing up on the beach another forty or fifty feet beyond that drop. Its pulsing rhythm of breaking and receding is music to my ears, music I can only appreciate when the smell of salt water dominates my sense of smell. There is a woman down at the water, oblivious to the larger waves we were getting earlier today which nearly knocked some kids silly when they ventured too close to the break. She is standing alone, the surf washing over her feet and trying to pull her towards its depths. She is not concerned with that – she is admiring the sheer power of the water and trying to decide whether she dares to venture closer or not. I have nothing but ocean in front of me more or less for 180 degrees of my vision. A cruise ship just appeared on the horizon, heading out of Nassau harbour. It is headed north, likely for Miami or Fort Lauderdale. Brilliantly lit, it stands out on the sealine like the lone palm tree on the point down the beach from us does.

When I’m here, the one thing I can’t help but be overwhelmed by is the beauty of this place. Sure, there might be some litter on the beach. It has absolutely been overdeveloped to the point of near insanity. Even if I had just one little hole in the wall on the beach, I’d still feel overwhelmed by the same thing. It’s friggin beautiful here.

There’s no point in worrying about the details. Like the grains of sand on the beach in front of me, the little things will get washed away and returned by the waves of life. What matters are the big things, like the fact that the water and the earth and the sky all meet here – that they chose me to witness their playground.

Man, I love it here.

Whoa.

I am inspired to bring this up today because of an all too familiar experience I had today. Nearby my secondary residence, there is a Tim Horton’s (one of the 21 in Kingston – I have visited 20 of them). Now, talk to someone in Kingston about the Tim Horton’s in the Portsmouth Village, and you’ll more than likely get a brief scowl and hear an utterance similar to “that place is horrible” or “worst service ever”. I don’t know what the problem is with this particular location, but it consistently has bad speed of service, marginal food quality at times and ugly UGLY service staff (I don’t go to Tim’s for the eye candy, but I know when my eyes bleed and when they don’t). I won’t hypothesize that the competency of the service staff here has something to do with the average person living nearby and thus likely working here (this IS near St. Lawrence College after all), but let me give you an example.

Today when I arrived, it took me approximately three minutes to get the attention of someone behind the counter. This may be excusable if it were 3 am and there were only one or two staff on that night. This was at 3:15 on Sunday afternoon, I was the only person in line, and there were SEVEN people behind the counter milling about in their own inane ways. Once I finally managed to get the attention of the ugliest of the ducklings, I started to have my order taken until the staff member decided to regale one of her fellow staff members in a story of what happened to her last night. She did this while I was talking to her, halfway through my request. Credit must go to her coworker who noticed the look of growing spite in my eyes and quickly directed her attention back to her job. 

I would like to take this time to officially declare the girl at the Portsmouth Tim Horton’s in Kingston who took my order as the Winner of my Shovel of the Month award for January 2009. Congrats! May you get Ebola!

As an aside, I’m on an EPIC movie string this weekend.  So far, it’s been Top Gun – A Beautiful Mind – A Few Good Men – Hunt for Red October – Con Air.

I joke about just about everything imaginable. More often than not, I joke about my own faults and misfortunes. I like to think that if you can’t laugh at yourself, you can’t laugh at anyone else. By laughing at myself, I believe I have a blanket license to make fun of everyone and anything that comes in my path. It’s how I see things, and while I genuinely don’t believe in laughing at the misfortune of others, I reserve the right.

Recently, one of my acquaintances decided that my sense of humour offended him, despite his numerous statements related to the economically disadvantaged and racialized minorities. He felt I was out of line for making a joke which I knew was inappropriate. I’m not disputing that my attempted humour was in bad taste – it was horrendous and monstrous. However, I was genuinely disappointed in my friends selective “humour” (or lack thereof) when it came to some topics. This is where I ask the question – what is “the line”?

So, who decides what is in good taste and what isn’t? If a line is drawn in the sand, who draws it there? Is it permanent, or can it be moved? Does the line depend on who is crossing it or who is watching/listening/reading it be crossed? Do people care if the line is there at all?

I guess my concern lies more with people’s obliteration of the line in the name of ‘fun’ or ‘joking around’. I’m all for joking at another person’s expense, but don’t suddenly pretend you’re genuinely insulted when a) you were making jokes of an equally offensive nature recently and b) you know it’s all for naught anyways. I know this stand is hypocritical, but I don’t care. When I make fun of someone, something, anything, I rarely meant it out of a malicious nature. There are very few people out there who I actually wish harm upon, and I’m pretty sure they already know who they are.

The rest of you – be warned. I’ll make fun of you. I’ll make fun of your face, but likely not to it unless your name is Adam, Steve, Margot, Laura, Danyal, Ted, Jon, John, Jer, Heather, Phil, Alex, Steve (the real one), Dan, Allison, Beth, Simon, Mike, Scott, Matt or Jay. I’ll make fun of your situation in whatever form it may be, but know that I genuinely hope you get out of whatever tight jam you’re in. I guess what I’m getting at is that if you know me, you’re fair game. At the same time, I consider myself fair game for whatever shots you want to take.

It all evens out.

Today marked the fourth consecutive day I took away from work due to a nasty cold.  Last Sunday night I felt fine, and then BAM – come Monday morning I was useless.  I tried to go into work that day, but I didn’t last more than an hour and a half before I was completely sapped of energy and starting to sniffle quite a lot.  I’m not sure where I picked up the bug, but it was miserable and long-lasting.  When I tried to get out of bed on Tuesday, my head was spinning and I had next to zero equilibrium.  

Wednesday came and I felt much better in the morning, so I got going and headed into the office.  Bad idea.  Similar to Monday, I didn’t last more than a couple of hours before I was toast.  Today wasn’t much better either, but I think I’m finally starting to come around.  I noted to one of my co-workers (while she kept her distance) that I really only get sick twice a year – once in the winter and once in the summer.  The last time I was sick was when I got Westjet Ebola coming back from Calgary after V-Fest West with Johns.

I hope this is the last time I get sick for a while.  It’s not because I hate the feeling of being sick (which I do), but rather because I hate taking this much time away from the office.  I’m a bit of a trooper when it comes to this kind of stuff, and I take a perverse kind of pride in being able to slog through stuff like this.  This time though, I was convinced that it probably better for my coworkers if I stayed away.

On the plus side though, I’ve had the chance to sit around and make a few reflections over the past couple days.  For starters, even with digital cable, TV sucks from 12:30 PM until about 4:00 PM.  My saviour (sorry Jebus!) has been the package of Office DVD’s (US Version) that came in the mail on Monday.  Season’s 1-4 in one glorious package!

Despite the horrible week I’ve had so far, I’m starting to feel much better and suspect a triumphant return to work will happen tomorrow.  Say what you will, six-day weekends rule – even if they’re spent mostly in bed with a box of kleenex nearby.