Whether you are happy with the results of yesterday’s election in the United States or no, one can’t help but feel an overriding sense of optimism, of a hope for a better future. That country (or a decent-sized portion of it) has given the signal that they’re looking forward to meeting the challenges of today and tomorrow with enthusiasm and a sense of purpose. How long that lasts and if it will come to pass is another matter, of course.

Whether you are happy with the results of last month’s Canadian federal election or no, one can’t help but feel an overwhelming sense of frustration, malaise, cynicism, and fear. The few Canadians who made it out to the polls were not inspired by the promise of a new day but rather the pessimism of a dark tomorrow and who they wanted to avoid having as leader. The votes cast were surely more often than not the meek attempt at staving off a lesser-liked candidate or party. We had nobody to vote for and voted for ‘anybody but him/her’. (This is how jumped-up little tyrants like Harper get into office. Next thing you know, he’ll be talking about lebensraum.)

Where will our Canadian visionary leaders come from? Who will rise from among us, causing this nation’s citizenry to leap up off the couch, appeal to their neighbours to hear the call, and march to the polls as though something were at stake? I don’t think many Canadians have a faith in our system or in our politicians and, as there’s precious little to choose between them, really, there isn’t a compelling reason to go to the polling station, is there? Nope.

Ah, what the hell. There’s Champions League matches on today so look for me at the Proddy Arms, watching United grind Celtic into a fine powder. That’s a race that provides a modicum of passion for a jaded Canuck.

On Sunday last, a tippling triumvirate sat down to weigh the comparative merits of Scottish waters. Here is how it all went down. My Brolaw invited me to drink scotch in honour of my recent birthday and it was to take place at my father’s house, where we would conduct serious investigations under controlled circumstances. I arrived to find a number of scotches on the table and stacks of forms awaiting my hand. As accompaniment, there was an ample selection of savoury snacks, including herring both smoked and kippered, olives and spicy cheese, fried bread and various crackers, smoked salmon, Polish sausage, and cashews. The paté remained in the ‘fridge because, frankly, who could remember everything once the bottles started being opened?

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On Sunday last, I toddled my hangover and family over to a kiddie Hallowe’en party at the family-friendly hour of 10:30, whereupon children started filling up on spookily-decorated cupcakes and grown men drank pumpkins in the form of ale. Bless those brewmasters who lend an air of legitimacy to any imbibing occasion. The party was a hit and among the many highlights was Thomas the Tank Engine crouching behind the sofa to fill his tender with something not unlike coal. The cars were fast pulling out of the tunnel and no one in the room could have missed the rising steam signalling what had happened in the boiler before mommy had to take him to get his caboose cleaned pronto. That’s one engine in need of potty TRAINing. Wow, this is A-material, no? Shit like that is plenty funny when it’s someone else’s kid.

The week has been largely uneventful, although I have been hitting the gym and alehouse with equal frequency, cancelling out the bad of one or is it the good of t’other? Some small corner of the world is well balanced through my actions. Please be so considerate in your own efforts.

Tonight will be taken up by shelling out for the little goblins. thehandoftamm will be at his customary perch, posted at the top of my porch with one hand on my wineglass and the other poised over the choco bowl, laughing maniacally and demanding that the children perform some feat in return for a treat. Do not send in any unsavoury editorial speculations as rejoinders to this last statement.

Tomorrow Brolaw B and Señor thehandoftamm and I will be conducting investigations into the various forms of bottled Scottish waters available for consumption and the latest entries in rolled vegetation from Cuba. I shall be smarting once more on Sunday, I would imagine. Provided I am not dead, I will share the results of our research here in excruciating detail.

I began by leaving work in the middle of the afternoon. Champions League matches were on and, armed with today’s portable communications devices, one is happily able to take the office across the street to the Arms for a little Irish work. After a few glasses and concerned that things could go too long and become too enjoyable, I split for dinner with the family, allowing my bossy elder son to choose the restaurant to save everyone the aggro of his disappointment at anyone else’s suggestions. It was a testament to my maturity as I maintained composure when he dropped his milkshake on the floor, sending glass shards every which way.

Following negotiations for an appropriate bedtime where I represented management admirably against stiff opposition from labour’s pint-sized reps, I decided to clear out and celebrate sensibly with the lads and a game of footie. Me and T-Unit made our way to the bowels of downtown and found we were ahead of schedule. O happy day –there was a pub open and we took a pair of stools in sniffers’ row. It was no strip club but the tap directly in front of us was for some stuff named Peeler and the wait staffers were having tremendous difficulty keeping their ample bosoms inside their plunging necklines. Too bad we only had time for a swift one before kickoff, which was set for 11:15pm. Ouch.

To the pitch we took against Grecian opponents who seemed intent on recreating the battle of Salamis, casting us as the doomed Persians. They probably didn’t bother to make the distinction that I was wearing a Turkish Ilhan Mansis jersey while my team mates were all decked out in Liverpool crimson. There was a mighty clash of 30-somethings representing the lowest tier of men’s six-a-side dome soccer, many of whom were north of the weight limit and well south of the body image set by Adonis. The Greeks scored twice in the first half and some of that surely has to be blamed on the Tories. Thankfully, the natural ruling side put in a sparkling second half repleat with a brace of our own goals (note: not own-goals, for which I am a specialist) and the game ended with a hard-fought level score.

To celebrate our good fortune we repaired to the public house, wherein they serve ale and meat to worthy combatants. After some inspection of their pint glasses and their nacho platters, and given that the hour was already 1:30am, we parted ways. Finding my bed at last by 2:00, I went to sleep a little older and smugly satisfied. In the morning, however, my ankles barely permitted me to walk ten steps and with each one my thigh muscle made a sound like peeling your foot off a sticky cinema floor. I think my future mobility is going to require that all buildings be outfitted with ramps.

Before we could leave the house, I made a lot of threats about how children who don’t nap don’t get to see matches and how telling mom about what I do at the field will result in a future without allowances, no visits from Santa Claus, and no insulin for those who develop juvenile diabetes. Once my pockets were full of projectiles and mini-bar stock, I said it was time to go, only to be horrified by Mrs. thehandoftamm’s insistence on wrapping the dude up in hats, gloves, winter boots, parkas and the lot –despite the fact that it was 20 degrees and sunny out. The first half was already starting and I rationalized that any abuse he took for being overdressed would be offset by the extra padding should a trampling begin in the stands.

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Let us begin with Thanksgiving weekend. Plan A was to go to the rural retreat and spend a day lakeside. This got switched minutes before packing the car and Plan B became sending my familyoftamm away and me staying in town for working on the house. Working on the house, in my version, means going to the lumber yard and then having the lads over for ale, meat, and ale. And gin. And then going to play music. Playing music while half in the bag sounds terrible. That’s why all the hard-partying rock bands are total phonies. Party during or after the show, not before. There will be no posted audio from the weekend, like I did that other time. Sorry.

The rest of the weekend was unremarkable but I did get my reno work done amidst a lot of sweating out toxins and using the saltiest language possible. I also killed a mouse and that was satisfying in one sense, as I had been tracking that littlepieceofshitmotherfucker for weeks already but my camera was out of town so there’s no blood-soaked evidence with accompanying poetry here. Sorry.

The weekend ended harmoniously and then our civic obligations kicked in. Once everyone was over their turkey hangovers, they were asked to go out and cast ballots for politicians. I guess those turkeys were really weighing people down because more than 40% of the eligible electorate couldn’t be bothered to vote. While I can’t blame them for apathy when our menu of choice was so poor on all fronts, there is still a duty to at least go out and spoil your ballot if everyone is too horrible to contemplate voting for. Only losers don’t bother going to the polls. And, it would seem, other losers actually go to the polls as well. My idiotic countrymen voted in Adolf Harper and his Unprogressive Conservatives again, albeit for another minority mandate. These are the same kind of right wing pigeons that handed the keys over to George W twice. The more people I meet, I become only increasingly convinced that most people are imbeciles. I’m little better, admittedly, so shouldn’t be pointing fingers but come on! The alternatives weren’t very good but THE CONSERVATIVES? I guess there’s some solace to be taken in the knowledge that Little Stephen will throw temper tantrums again and again until he calls another useless, nothing changes election in another 18 months or so. Let’s hope any other party can get their asses together between now and then.

While I’m at it, how about we eliminate parties altogether? You vote in your local representative and then, when they’re all gathered in Ottawa, they elect a PM from amongst themselves. And if that PM is crap (coz the chances are very, very good) then they all vote that person out and try another, because everything has to be done with some kind of non-partisan consensus. Yeah! That’s the way it’s going to work. I take back what I said about me being little better than an imbecile. I’m a certified genius, based on this idea.

Also, the Olympic Games need to work like jury selection: you get notice in the mail that you have four years to train because, baby, unless you can prove why you can’t be available, you’re doing the 100m hurdles at the 2012 games. Start doing laps, tubby.

Speaking of tubby, I joined a gym today. Mrs. Thehandoftamm said if I didn’t lose 20 pounds by Christmas, I was going to be served papers by the lawyer. I offered to lose the weight by cutting off my nuts and giving them to her. She could then make change for my 50 off her ample buttocks. I’m sleeping in the car again for the rest of this week. Nobody can take a joke anymore. Sorry.

Last night it must have been in the double digits, temperature-wise, so I slipped into the short pants and jumped the wheels for another ride into the untamed East. The meeting place was to be Dora but they were having a private function which looked like some kind of rally for drunken disco enthusiasts so Ms. Skynyrd, Skins McG, and myself were thrust next door to Allen’s, where the Guinness pours equally well and the vittles are oh so tender.

As is customary for our triumvirate, we discussed the relative merits of musical artists working today in a variety of milieus, from the hardcore rockers to the gentle balladeers, and who among them is most deserving of fawning accolades or sneering derision. There were also grand statements made about those of our peers in marital and/or parental ranks and who is most fitting to occupy such offices and who should really consider other avenues. We compared the sweet potato fries to those of the regular variety and pitted the noble chicken wing against the venerable hamburger (to which I added goat cheese and bacon so step off, ground bovine dilettantes). Bonhomie reigned supreme as the pint glasses replenished themselves as if by magic.

Like all magic spells, however, it could not last forever and before the middle of night struck the wait staff were already turning back into mice and pumpkins. Cinderallaoftamm took to the streets and thought little of the late chill, now well insulated internally. The recipe for cooling your jets at unwanted times, of course, is to be perspiring while riding but catching every single red light on your ride home, when one is made to stop every 90 seconds. Honestly, I got two green lights out of a possible 40 on my way home. I was just about to start blowing them the way I blow stop signs when I noted a whole lot of flares and spinning cherry lights. The jackboot squadron was out in full force again, this time in the guise of the Reduce Impaired Driving Everywhere program.

I knew better than to test my luck as a slightly tipsy wheeled conveyance operator and followed the letter of the law as I observed the porcine patrol pull over a couple of likely violators of spirit. All cops go to heaven. I went home to bed.

Like yesterday, for instance. In the afternoon I stopped in at the Rebel public House for some light refreshment between takes at the studio and, sure enough, it turned out that they were pouring tasty Wellington and serving up hot wings worthy of my (highly coveted) esteem. Note to chefs everywhere: grilled wings beat deep fried wings 9 times out of 10. I meant to try the cheese coins too but time got away on me.

Once I had a good glaze of bottled tolerance, I met up with G-Luv and he came over to my place for some special sauce. Also, he had balls for my boys and they’ve been playing kickabout indoors ever since, which is highly irritating to their father, who just put glass bookcases at ball level in the living room. Damn you, G. These lads had better become signed, professional footballers as teens and help their Da find his way to easy street for the golden years. The rest of our evening’s conversation kept making its way to matters of children and child-rearing so I won’t bore you with it here.

Apart from that, there’s nowt all to report. Here’s a picture of me with the President of Iceland, along with a bunch of other people who didn’t agree to be seen at tbothot.

Having been advised that wait times can be ridiculous for those who wish to have their day in court, I got myself to the place of proletarian protest for 8:30, a half-hour prior to opening. Not surprisingly, the line-up was about 40 people long, because other people must have received the same advice as myself. Or it was simply a matter of experience; I hate to seem judgmental, based solely on appearances, but the look of many of the assembled left me with the impression that they have more regular dealings with the court system than little ol’ innocent me.

This was soon deepened as I stood in line and overheard strangers take up conversation with one another and discussing the finer points of their cases, gambits that had proved successful in the past, and obscure points of law that might serve their needs. I was a total amateur in a group of experts in the field of delaying, reducing, or obliterating convictions. Many of those with traffic-related charges struck me as potentially cab drivers and contractors, who probably rack up minor infractions as part of the job. Still others conveyed more a sense of danger, and that their charges were likely more serious in nature. Perhaps failure to muzzle a pitbull, falling behind in restitution payments, or ignoring restraining orders. All walks of humanity and transgressors of the law were represented first thing of a raining Tuesday morning.

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Friday night’s experiment with testing the bonds of friendship yielded interesting, if predictable, results. Firstly, do not play whist whilst imbibing of gin and mead. Second, do not suspend said game of cards so that you can switch to vodka and currant liqueur. Thirdly, do not allow the vodka to stop flowing so that rye might make its feelings known. Once the rye is at an end, this is not the time to return to vodka. Lastly, once your guests have left, do not don the headphones and slake the thirst that is to come with beer while listening to tender ballads of revenge until dawn.

This, my friends, is a recipe for how to be a grumpy bear when it’s time to take the children to kindergarten in the morning. The homeopathic cure for which is to be found in watching a movie, going to a wretched TFC match where a hopelessly cliché-loving cavalier proposes to his girlfriend in front of 20,000 loogans, going to a stratospherically chic furniture gallery opening where you can’t afford the ermine skin table leg pads, before finally finding yourself at a teenager’s birthday party where, unsurprisingly, everybody dances waaaay better than you, old fat man.

Learn from my mistakes. Go out and find more seemly forms of merriment.