Present and unaccounted for

Hangovers. Nagging colds. Relationship woes. In our workaholic culture, none of these nasty things will keep folks from showing up at the office. Shunning Aggie's advice to take a mental health day, the suffering drones are present in body but barely in spirit.

Painted Stick recently pointed out the term for this phenomenon is presenteeism.

Word Spy defines it like so: presenteeism (prez.un.TEE.iz.um) n. The feeling that one must show up for work even if one is too sick, stressed, or distracted to be productive; the feeling that one needs to work extra hours even if one has no extra work to do. —presentee n.

Statistics Canada has even noted this sister condition of absenteeism in a report on depression and work impairment.

So the next time you feel like like you're running on three cylinders, it might be wise to pull over to the side of the road. And take a nap in the staff lounge.

Supersized

Overheard on Sunday...

First woman: I have six at home.
Second woman: I have eight. I wanted 12. But my husband only wanted six.

What were these ladies discussing? Bagels? Lawn chairs? Place settings?

Nope, kids.

In a world where small or even childless families seem to be the new norm, there are at least a few couples out there prepared to pick up the slack.

Further casualties

With all of this blue-skying about saving Winterlude™ with megaQuonsets and peeing en masse into the canal -- yeah, like that doesn't happen already -- we have overlooked the fate of the symbolic, perpetually perky, porcine heart and soul of the festival. I allude, of course, to the National Capital Commission's™ legendary Ice Hogs™.

I mean, if global warming burns their natural environment, indeed, their entire raison d'être, into sodden raison toast, these guys just ain't gonna make it.

Their job is to skate up and down the frozen Rideau Canal and schmooze. When you consider that each of their Body Mass Indices include, conservatively, about a hundred pounds of highly absorbent foam rubber and fun fur, trying to make them swim laps in their melted venue will send them to Davy Jones' Locker™ faster than you can say 'Spongebob'™.

Oh, the, um, humanity. Or whatever...

So we need to stop global warming. C'mon people, ideas! Don't let the Ice Hogs™ drown! Think of all the children world wide who dream of Ice Hog Time™!

Why, just the other week, the ESI™ Research Director was telling me emphatically, if a tad ungrammatically, "Iceswine has become incredibly popular". Oops. I think he also said, "Iceswine is very tasty."

We'd best leave him out of the search party when they founder...

Image: The Good 'Ol NCC™

Winterlude: Three Ideas

It looks like Old Man Winter will finally show up in the nation's capital. I predict a fully functioning Rideau Canal skateway before Ground Hog Day. In the meantime, the NCC should work at some Plan B's -- which I believe they have already started, seeing that global warming is likely more than just a fad.

Here are some strategies in addressing this urgent matter.


Idea #1 – Physics 101 or Don’t Eat the Yellow Ice

Remember from your grade 11 physics class when that wacky guy at the front with the curly gray hair who claimed to be a teacher made that preposterous claim that hot water cools faster than cold water? And you thought, “Yeah. Right. Someone has been sniffing too much mimeograph ink in the teacher’s lounge.” Well, actually, it’s true – I’ve empirically tested it with martini ice-cubes. I won’t bore you with the details, but it is a scientific fact. Something to do with efficient heat transfer, thermodynamics, loss of mass, etc. Google it, if you don’t believe me. So all the NCC has to do is warm up the Rideau Canal, and then it will freeze faster. How to warm it up, you ask? Well, we could start by peeing in it. That’d work. Half the booze-hounds leaving the Byward Market on a Saturday night are already on-board.


Idea #2 – Swee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-p

If any of this global warming stuff is true we may as well give up on the whole outdoor skating thing. Of course, we have a winter tourism industry that’s largely based on those 50 days a year that one can skate on the World’s Largest Skating Rink® so we can’t just close up shop on this matter. Now that the LRT project is dead, we could try to get that $400 million from the government to fund the next big thing for Ottawa – the World’s Longest Curling Rink®. As for a space to build it, I suggest we erect a Quonset hut over the Canal between the National Arts Centre and the first bend at Concorde Avenue and then add some refrigerant pipes under the waterway. That’s roughly a mile in length. That surely must make it the World’s Longest Curling Rink®-- though I’d have to check with what currently exists in Saskatchewan – you never know. Ottawa could host some serious bonspiels. Real Men bonspiels. The Rideau Iron-Man Invitational Bonspiel: One skip, two sweepers, a paramedic and a heart defibrillator. Something like this could bring a newfound respect to a sport that for most of its history could be simultaneously played while smoking and drinking.

Idea #3 – Winterlude: Ottawa’s Annual Tulip Festival

Wouldn’t it be wacky if we celebrated our winter splendor with an aquatic theme? Bathtub boat races in the unfrozen canal. Polar Bear Swim-a-thons. A flotilla. Wait a minute --- we already have some of this. It’s called the Tulip Festival. But if I remember from a few years ago, we actually got snowed out for one of the concerts at Tulip Fest. Maybe that’s the problem: we’ve got things backwards. We need to keep the events but swap the dates. Though I heard recently that the Tulip Fest is bankrupt. That’s what they get for not having an ice carving competition.

Wankitudinosity

The Irregulars know from wank. And if there's one thing we at ESI Inc. believe we deserve, it is the acknowledgement, nay, adulation, of our peers.

Or not, especially after being stiffed so often in the past by multiple blog awards committees, undeserved slights that have all been chronicled in excruciating detail by our (very short) resident conspiracy theorist.

So I note with complete bafflement, appalled alarm, etc., that we were unaccountably omitted from this week's "Top 100 Wankers of the Year" list, in the newstand issue of Frank Magazine. (Shurely shome mishtake...? --4d ) Not only were we bumped from first place -- a clear error on the part of the judging panel, and one that would lead me to question if they were: a) sober, or; b) bought off -- but we didn't even get on the damn list! Outrage!

Granted, winner of the coveted Number One position is Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay, who has acquitted himself admirably by putting his foot (and possibly other body parts...) into it, on a buncha well-documented occasions over the past coupla years. Then denying it. The Hon. Peter is a palpable wanker.

But c'mon! Anybody who reads us regularly -- or who drops by only once, totally by accident, for that matter -- knows that wankitudinosity is a major part of our brand recognition. (Um, okaaay, it's all of our brand recognition. Now shaddup, go away, and stop buggin' me, kid.)

Image: Possibly Vancouver Sun, or maybe Radio Canada... jeez, there were were a lotta photographers watching him blubber that day....