Georgia street was closed for most of today because of the Santa Claus Parade. I headed out to start my shift at work and arrived about 45 minutes later. Normally, it takes about 10 minutes to get to work if I take a bus and 20 if I walk.

The #5 Robson bus is usually pretty efficient, but today it had to take many detours – it turned right on Thurlow and went all the way down to Beach Ave. Crossed over Burrard and turned left up Seymour where it met up with its proper route. 30 minutes later and I’m off the bus, wondering why the heck I didn’t just WALK.

Along Robson there were people handing out popcorn at the Bell store, Starbucks was handing out free samples of gingerbread lattes and every street was packed with either parade goers, shoppers, and football fans. Everyone who just wanted to get out on a sunny afternoon – knowing that the rains will come again.

It being Grey Cup Sunday, we take a slight pause from being Canuck fans and remember that we’ve also got a pretty kick ass football team around here. (See John’s CFL post if you are unfamiliar with our ‘Mutant Form of Football’). Being the heavy favourites and league dominators this year, our boys came out on top. Now it’s time to plan another parade route, which will cause another crazy day of traffic downtown.

The Canucks face off tonight in Pay Per View action vs Chicago. Even though Alex Burrows will probably be broken-hearted, with his Alouettes losing today, they should be able to steamroll over the hawks with some of that momentum from Friday night.

As for me? 4 more hours of work to go…

This whole “don’t drink the water” thing is Metroblogging gold.

You still shouldn’t be brushing your teeth with the water or drinking it but seriously, you CAN wash your hands. We were out Friday night and 3 women in the ladies room with me got right out of the stall, headed to the paper towels and left. Um, I’d rather take my chances with the tap water + soap then uh… that. That’s just wrong [mbv].

This is something BIG happening to the city and even though it’s about a major public health risk, there’s so much to blog about. From news reports to peoples’ crazy behaviors. Maybe tomorrow we’ll be able to blog about the BC Lions winning the Grey Cup – but who cares about football anyway?

We’re doing okay here on day 3 without water, the dishes are stacking up [audihertz], we had to go grab some more bottled water but man the skies cleared today and the fresh air, sunshine and snowy mountain views just lifted our spirits. Even though I was out in New West serving tea on my only day off in two weeks, it was worth it.

We get to have a nice night at home tonight. We have beer in the fridge and leftovers from Flying Wedge. Mercy me that’s good pizza!

The Canucks won last night and even though I work from 3pm to 11pm tomorrow – hopefully I’ll still be able to catch the game on the radio. It’s another Pay Per View so I think John will be headed to our friends’ house in Lynn Valley for some munchies and male bonding.

I’m SO looking forward to this short week coming up – nothing to do except work for 3 days, plan a massive Thanksgiving dinner with my husband and hit the stores south of the border during some quality sister time with Jenny.

I started Christmas shopping already, got something for the in-laws and hopefully we’ll get a parcel down to the family soon. I can’t wait to have Christmas in Kansas City or Iowa, I’m sure John can’t either. Until then, we’ll enjoy the holidays up here with my family. My Oma’s health is failing lately, we have to get out and see her although I’m sure she’ll bounce back soon. She was all boisterous the other night watching the hockey game, “Oh those lousy Canucks!” She’s the Canucks’ number one 85 year old fan – it’s tough love, really.

With Canada’s largest ever boil-water warning in effect [gvrd], trees toppling down on to houses and power outages gallore, we braved the storm [mbv] in Vancouver while our Canucks did not-so-good on the ice this past week. We discuss it all on Episode 7 of The Crazy Canucks podcast.

Even though the last few games have all been losses, we still get together to record this episode because when it comes down to it, you can’t stop Canucks fan. Alanah was unable to join us on this episode due to technical problems, but the rest of the crew was here. We also experience some technical issues of our own during the podcast, but the cause was most likely due to an awful storm that hit Vancouver in the last 48 hours, leaving many without power and residents to boil their water until further notice.

Record as of this podcast: 8-10-1 (4th in the Northwest Division)

There’s only so much that you can say as to what’s going wrong with the team, but we all agree that the answer is simple: we need more scoring. Three games against Anaheim, Calgary, and Detroit all resulted in more numbers in the loss column, but there are always shades of positive points that keep things looking promising. We look at some slight changes to the roster, address stupid trade rumors, and do our duty of being faithful Canucks fans.

Run Time: 34:34
The Crazy Canucks Podcast, Episode 7

I’m still alive, I promise. I’ve worked about 30 extra hours in the last week or so and I’m a little tired. It’s the “crazy time of year” and aside from regular overtime, I’ve taken some extra shifts (e.g. working the stat) so that my lovely husband [audihertz][radiozoom] and I can enjoy Thanksgiving [wiki] together next week. We’ll do a huge grocery shopping order, he’ll roast something tasty, I’ll make us watch Miracle on 34th Street [imdb] and he’ll probably try to get in some football. I’ll have 4 days off (Thurs-Sun) and I think we’ll probably just rest. We need some rest. That, and Christmas shopping. We need to send a parcel down to his folks, although it totally sucks we won’t be able to hand-deliver anything this year.

With all the rain, the Canucks losing, and the extra hours at work, the week’s been pretty grey but something that’s picked me up is being named City Co-Captain/ Vice Captain/ Robin to Jeffery’s Batman/ Alternate Captain/ to Metroblogging Vancouver. That, on TOP of being able to purchase Metroblogging panties, well – now there’s a little bit of sunshine for my day.

Kind of crappy timing since this is the first time I haven’t blogged EVERY day since uh forever and I’ve been out of it for 4 days BUT the Canadian Blog Awards [CBA] are now open for voting. You’ll find local gems on the voting cards such as Gus Greeper (under, If Spock is Enough), Metroblogging, Vancouver Canucks Op Ed (for best Sports Blog) and of course this one here – Miss604.com. Head on over. It’s free to cast your vote and show us that you love us (or at least kinda put up with us). Thanks!

The old vintage jerseys look great on TV. Lately, fans have been obsessed with the soothing blue and the crisp green of the 70s era Canucks uniforms [audihertz].

They were brought back a couple of years ago when the league was having flashbacks. You’d catch original six teams playing each other in their old colours or logos while our guys would don the ‘stick in rink’.

Lately, these have become our third jerseys – almost permanent fixtures and selling like hotcakes cause the fans just love ’em. With the recent 100% local ownership, the talk of bringing back the stick in rink made Vancouverites all giddy [globe & mail]. Even the newly re-launched Canucks.com is sporting white and blue.

I must admit, they are better than the orange and yellow V’s of the 80s, although the skate will always have a place in my heart.

When goalie Roberto Luongo goes ‘vintage’ he sports a mask with Johnny Canuck painted on the side. Now just who IS Johnny Canuck?

Johnny Canuck was created as a national personification of Canada. He first appeared in early political cartoons dating to 1869 where he was portrayed as a younger cousin of the United States’ Uncle Sam and Britain’s John Bull….

The character re-emerged during World War II in the February 1942 issue of Bell’s Dime Comics No.1. …Johnny Canuck’s cartoon exploits helped Canada fight against Nazism. Like Captain America, he met Adolf Hitler and almost single-handedly ended the war…[Wiki]

When I lived in the States people used to ask me if “Canuck” [wiki] was a derogatory term. They’d want to use it (or had heard it used) in such a manner. Looking at Dictionary.com, I can see why they might think that. Hmmf. I don’t take any offense to the term, even if my team was handed their biggest loss of the season by the Ducks [tsn] the other night *sigh*

There have been many superstitions about our team. I heard one that it was considered unlucky to have their arena located between two bridges. Hmm might explain why we haven’t made it to the cup final since the days of the Pacific Coliseum. There are other rumors that the vintage jersey is lucky, some think it’s unlucky. Some say that the vintage-style pads Luongo wore the other night were to blame for a loss.

We don’t know yet whether or not the owners decide to give the Orca the boot. Johnny Canuck probably won’t be making a return, and I think it doesn’t matter what we wear right now – we should just be looking to succeed this season.