There are a lot of subculture sports out there, and unlike skateboarding or surfing, not all of them gain mainstream acceptance. Just casually perusing your weekly television schedule, you often encounter events such as Timber Sports (Lumberjacks racing each other. It has an ESPN page!), or Fitness America contests (beauty pageants with pushups) or WNBA basketball (low blow!).

As Canadians however, we should learn to embrace these niche competitions, not change the channel in abject confusion. Why?Because it seems Canadians are awesome at being quirky. For example, I present Jensen Kimmit; the Edmonton native is the new World YoYo Contest champion and uses his own, signature plastic YoYo in competition. I mean, I played with a yoyo when I was a kid, but I never had the swag this Albertan possesses when flinging a round object around on a string.

Can you imagine if we could get YoYo into the Olympics? Along with Hot Saw Racing and Fire Fighter Competitions? Canada would totally own the podium.

[via Gawker]

“This image is striking (and also sad) because, while it was taken in 1966, it’s still current,” Cronenberg told the Post (parentheses mine)

Toro Magazine, that once great magazine that went the way of online only and has since become and pretty good site, purchased some 24,000 photographs of Canada from the New York Times. These photos, ranging from 1910 to 1984, show Canada growing up through the eyes of it’s much bigger, much uglier, much meaner older brother/sister/neighbouring country.

I would love to know how much Toro’s founder, Christopher Bratty, paid for these (is this why it’s no longer around. So Bratty could scrapbook Canada?), but an even more pertinent question is, what do you do with 24,000 photos of Canada taken over the last 100 years?

If you’re Toro, you hire budding photographer and daughter of a famed Canadian director Caitlin Cronenberg to curate it down to just 24 (I would love to be all bloggy and write some giant diatribe on nepotism not being fair and shit, but seriously, it’s way to hot so who cares, I need to get back to my unglamorous job that doesn’t involve curating anything), and show it during the Toronto International Film Festival. Creatively named RED: A Preview Exhibition of the NY Times Canadian Photo Archive, Cronenberg promises “The exhibition won’t be photos simply hanging on a wall. Working with set builders, lighting designers and prop artists, I’m creating a cinematic-inspired installation with wall-size photographs backlit with light boxes and framed with salvaged wood. The show will have a very dramatic flair, which is fitting considering the opening coincides with the Toronto International Film Festival.”

You can get a sneak peak of the photos on their website, or you can check out the photo of the day. The exhibit does sound fairly promising, but seriously, what the hell are they going to do with 24,000 photos afterwards?

WHERE WERE YOU AND WHAT WERE YOU DOING DURING THE QUAKE?

Eating a late lunch in my street level kitchen today, I suddenly noticed my arms were feeling awful unstable leaning on my table. Almost like it was shaking. Lo and behold, I looked up to see if I was going crazy and I realized everything in the room was shaking. The light fixture hanging from the ceiling gave me a little more perspective, as it wasn’t just unstable, the thing was swinging like it was getting used as a speed bag by a prize fighter. I thought I was crazy as I considered whether or not we just had an earthquake in Toronto. A few minutes later I wasn’t sure if everything was mildly shaking again. It’s kind of surreal, but mostly disorienting. Then I finished my sandwich, which was delicious, thank you.

Twitter immediately exploded, naturally. Apparently a 5.5 magnitude earthquake [since downgraded to 5.0] hit central Canada and some of the Northern United States. On the richter scale 5.5 is defined by the U.S. Geological Association as a moderate shake that has the potential to damage poorly constructed buildings, so, although it may not have felt all that crazy this was one you can legitimately brag about experiencing.

Those of you from California are probably scoffing at our thrill ride reaction. Well, fuck you, it’s novel for us ok? Don’t act all aloof and unimpressed if there’s ever a giant snowstorm in Compton.

By-and-large I didn’t think it was a big deal and I was surprised when I found out the magnitude. Not sure why people are evacuating buildings, but you never know I suppose.

And now that’s one more experience to cross off my list. Next up, getting tear-gassed at a G20 protest.

Most popular earthquakes jokes on twitter right now:

1) That shaking is the sound of Quebec seperating

2) Tsunami watch for fake lake in Toronto convention centre (this one is kind of tasteless for me. I saw a documentary about the 2005 tsunami that hit SE Asia and that thing was absolutely no laughing matter).

I, like many other Canadians, have somehow allowed this annual food gambling tournament to turn into as much a part of our national pastiche as curling, hockey, skating on frozen rivers and drinking milk from bags. If you ever leave Canada to live in a foreign land, I promise you those are the five things you will miss most.

But first let me provide some context.

Being a former barista and theoretically, a writer by trade, my average coffee consumption hovers somewhere in the range of three cups a day. And when I say “cup,” I don’t mean the kind of cup you get at a fancy restaurant. I mean, at least a 14oz paper container or a giant, steaming, mug. Basically, I am a caffeine addict, as anyone who knows me and has seen me sans coffee for any prolonged period can attest. I turn into a disturbingly aloof sociopath. It’s not pretty. Don’t try to sell me things before 9am.

In terms of brand loyalty, I’d say due to pure availability to taste ratio, I drink Starbucks coffee 75 per cent of the time I purchase a coffee, followed by 20 per cent Tim Hortons and 5 per cent misc.

Overall, purchased coffee represents roughly 60 per cent of my total intake, with the rest being home brew of myriad beans and roasts.

I take my coffee seriously, but I am most definitely not a snob. I’ve tried almost all possible permutations of the black goddess, including a recent sample of Chemex brewed Intelligentsia Rwandan. Black. Beautiful.

Why am I boring you with all this? I just want to provide context for the fact that, when Roll Up The Rim To Win is on, I drink *exclusively* Tim Hortons coffee. I don’t know what the marketing term is for when a campaign works so flawlessly it monopolizes its intended demographic, but whatever it is, it’s me.

I will be standing inside a Starbucks, but instead leave for a Tim Hortons somewhere in the neighbourhood instead if I want a cup of coffee. It’s ridiculous and I cannot control myself from acting otherwise. It may be a sickness, but I know I’m not the only one.

Essentially, Roll Up The Rim To Win is like gambling. You convince yourself if you drink a coffee that’s not from Timmies, it will be the equivalent of the one week you forget to play your lucky numbers in the lotto. That one cup could have been a RAV FUCKING FOUR.

Instead, you spent an extra 30 cents for a Venti Pike Place. How could you forgive yourself?

Adding fuel to the flame is the fact I have actually won an iPod before, and so the deranged part of my brain is convinced I could absolutely win $10,000. Why not me? I’m lucky! I can’t even type Roll Up The Rim To Win without capitalizing every word just like the official name.

I am curious what Timmies sales number are like during this promotion. Roll must be pretty mind boggling since McDonalds is literally giving away free coffee to try and counter it.

Anyways, my name is Simon and I have a problem with Roll up the Rim to Win. I just thought I would share so anybody wondering why I’m jittering at 3am knows what the hell is up.

Final random thoughts on Roll Up The Rim To Win:

• Why are employees ever not more repulsed when handed wrinkly, torn, stained, possibly chewed up winning tabs?
• Did you know you can substitute any hot drink for a winning coffee and any baked good for a winning donut?
• The Country Style equivalent is ludicrously bad. I have won 15 cents off of a coffee before there. Every drink is a winner my bum.
• There is an online version this year.
• If you win the RAV-4 then die in a stuck peddle accident, would it be possible to sue Tim Hortons in addition to Toyota?
• This table of cups consumed per geographic area and accompanying winning prize distribution is, to me, fascinating.
• I am not sure why, but I am convinced there are better odds of winning with large cups than any other size.
• I have thought and written way too much about this.
• I’m going to make you read the words Roll Up The Rim To Win one more time because I hate you.

The closing ceremony is flickering on a little screen in my room but is overshadowed by the massive elephant that can’t be ignored: what did I do with all my free time before I watched Olympic coverage 15 hours a day, 7 days a week? I can’t remember, and frankly, a world without the brain numbing strains of “I Believe” gently wafting through the air is to me, a world of abject horror.

I have always loved the Olympics. I watched it as a child, waking up early and staying up late, cheering on athletes and indulging in national pride. This recent event in Vancouver however, reached levels of ubiquity in Canadian culture; and I don’t mean capital ‘C’ Culture, but culture like it’s on seven television stations non-stop around the clock for 16 days straight and all our national newspapers relegated an 8.8 earthquake in Chile to a skybox because our men’s team pursuit won a Gold — type of culture.

For fucks sake, our Prime Minister shut down our entire government in the middle of an Afghan detainee scandal so that he could hang out with Wayne Gretzky and attend every curling, skating, hockey and skiing medal event he could bojangle his prime ministerial self into. Even now the camera is showing him at the closing ceremonies, no doubt planning his next slanderous television ad when, inevitably “this onion ring,” is elected to Liberal office and runs for Prime Minister of Canada.

Can you imagine if the American House shutdown for a month in March so President Obama could fully devote his time to a college basketball pool?

So yes, I think it’s fair to say that over the last two plus weeks, the Olympics have been a big part of all our lives.

I, for one, am a big enough man to admit I am going to suffer more withdrawal than a lonely manic depressive walking out of Avatar who was eating popcorn laced with heroin.

On the sports side, I am glad Canada did well. I hope there is some carryover effect to the summer Olympics, and perhaps Canadian self-identity as a whole.

The old Canadian in me is skeptical. The CTV-Conglomerate Canadian believes.

Now to get out of my Rogers contract so I can sign a deal with Bell. They deserve my money. Bell is so awesome.

I wasn’t originally going to post this because I thought it was pretty standard stuff, but since I first downloaded this “tiny desk concert” of K’naan performing at the NPR music office while on his U.S. tour, I haven’t been able to get his acoustic version of take a minute out of my head. It also includes great versions of Fatima and waving flag. Well worth the watch.

I believe Jesse posted a tidbit about this kid before, but let’s really get into this here.

We’ve all heard this story before: young Canadian gets discovered and plucked from small-town Ontario, packaged by the massive labels and becomes a pop-sensation. Except this isn’t Avril Lavigne. It’s Justin Bieber, a 15-year old kid from Stratford, Ontario who looks like a child model from a Consumer’s Distributing catalogue.

I’m not going to hate on this kid even though he’s essentially our Aaron Carter. I suffer from that Canadian inferiority complex where I tolerate (if not support) anything produced in our home and native land, even if it’s not of exceptional quality. Examples include Celine Dion, Roots clothing and clubbing baby seals.

Here are some random facts on Justin Bieber in point form:

1. He was discovered on YouTube
2. If you type “Justin” into the YouTube search, he is second in the autofill options behind only that Timberlake fellow
3. He’s 15
4. He’s being mentored by Usher
5. He’s signed to Island records
6. His single went platinum while he was at Canada’s Wonderland, where he tweeted a celebratory tweet then probably was turned away from riding Top-Gun because he’s too short.
7. His album doesn’t drop for another several weeks
8. HE HAS AN ALBUM DROPPING ON THE SAME LABEL AS MARIAH CAREY.

And you know what? I wouldn’t be surprised if he out-sold her. The really interesting aspect of this whole Biebermania however isn’t just how fast he’s blown up — that’s become part and parcel of the internet generation, viral phenomena and all.

What I find engrossing is that this kid, in my short term memory, is the first case of a YouTube talent crossing over to mainstream celebrity status. Yes, Sean Kingston and a few others were discovered on MySpace, but even they had to kind of earn their stripes. This Bieber kid was basically a case of some A&R guy calling his mom and saying “I saw your child on YouTube, I’m going to make him a star.”

We’ve known this was the future of pop-machinations for a long time. This is just the first time the process has seemed so blatant and strangely transparent; like the ubergloss of a Demi Lovato for example who was completely created by Disney, except without being able to hide the talent’s past.

He’s the real life version of the movie Josie and the Pussycats. Is YouTube fame sustainable? I guess we’re about to find out. Also, how many parents are already scheming of ways to turn their kids into viral video superstars?

My favourite part of the below video is imagining the epilogue, when all the parents come to pick up these underaged children from their wild text messaging party, then filing lawsuits at the obviously of-age party participants who creepily are having a good time instead of chaperoning.

Also, I am strangely uncomfortable seeing underage prepubescents chasing after each other. This video makes me feel dirty.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWTdh8eM_aY&feature=player_embedded]

Have a taste on us. If you hate it, that’s cool. If you like it … well, you know where to find us…

For those who’ve heard Mad Men’s praises sung but haven’t had a chance to check it out, iTunes Canada is currently offering the first two episodes of the series for download, free of charge. You can grab both by following this link, in standard and HD flavours.

HD downloads will cost $3.50 while standard def (pshhhh!) will save you a dollar off that price. Even more interestingly, episode three popped up on iTunes this past weekend before it even aired on AMC. If that pattern continues, it might be a boon to die-hard fans who depend on … less than legal distribution channels.

Of note: this season, Mad Men wasn’t picked up by any Canadian stations. Meaning, unless you get the AMC channel (Rogers customers only), iTunes is your only legal means of following your favourite band of alcoholic advertisers. Near exclusive  online distribution is definitely new ground for a show of Mad Men’s calibre. With today’s news that Mad Men has been renewed for a fourth season, I’m sure the AMC folks and other networks are watching the online download numbers closely.

Most importantly though: free stuff!