You may have heard about "The Best Job In The World" campaign that is being advertised by Tourism Queensland. It really is a stroke of marketing genius. The job description is basically having the time of your life on the Great Barrier Reef for 6 months and blogging about it. To apply, you have to make a one minute video outlining your skills, knowledge and how you would be the best person for the job.

The response was immediate. The advertisement went into newspapers around the world and within hours the site had crashed because so many people were either applying or just viewing the videos. I'm not sure if Tourism Queensland realized what a sensation they were about to create. I have been receiving regular emails from people telling me to apply and that it would be a perfect fit for me. I was mentally planning my video when Aiva excitedly dragged me to the computer to watch videos and insisted that I apply. There are now thousands of applicants, young and old, strange and normal, fun and boring. I already make this blog, so really, I'm kind of doing the job already except that I'm not living on Hamilton Island...and I'm not being paid. So I guess that actually makes it a hobby but that's not the point.

If you would like to watch my video application please click here. Don't forget to give it a rating...and if you want to tell all your friends to check it out, that would be fine too.

Thanks.

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Dr. Horrible and the Sing-Along Blog is really, really funny. It's a web based comedy/musical that was made last year during the writers strike and was only available online (now iTunes and DVD). The episodes are about 7 minutes each and yet the characters funny and pathetic. It stars Neil Patrick Harris (commonly known as Doogie Howser M.D.) who plays an evil villain/scientist. He completed an application to join the prestigious Evil League Of Evil and is eagerly waiting for a reply from the leader Bad Horse. Dr. Horrible's character is a perfect mix of Dr Evil and that kid from The Wonder Years. To complicate things, he is in love with a girl that he is scared to talk too that he stalks in a laundry mat. Captain Hammer, Dr. Horrible's nemesis (played by Nathan Fillion) also has an interest in the laundry girl and the hilarity ensues.

Since stumbling upon this video yesterday, I have watched all the episodes several times and have been humming at work like a daydreaming weirdo. I don't know the words yet, just the tune, so it sounds uncomfortably like a commercial for My Little Pony.

Below is Act 1 Part 1 for your viewing pleasure and the next part is here.

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Like most weekends lately, I decided to go for an early morning ride to avoid the traffic. I was already cycling at some awful hour before the sun was above the treetops. Much to my surprise, some cyclists were biking back into town peddling fast, sweating buckets and breathing hard. I was pretty proud of myself for being out that early in the first place and these keeners totally rained on my parade. There was only one solution: I poured my water bottle on my head and tried to look like I was just finishing a 24 hour race.

As the sweat (water) dripped down my face I noticed that the on-coming cyclists would now nod at me as we passed since they clearly recognized my hardcore-y-ness. I nodded back with disdain, barely dignifying a response, as royalty would wave off a servant. Serves them right for claiming that riding before 8am is still too late in the day.

My destination was Garie Beach. I have heard great things about it from both surfers and beach bums alike. I knew that the road getting there traveled through Royal National Park, which was a regular cycling playground for me. Little did I know that the turn off to Garie Beach started at the top of the ridge and plummeted down the side of a cliff. Visions of my bike crash came flooding back as a squeezed the brakes like vice grips and used both lanes to cut the angle of the corners. I couldn't come to a stop if I tried as I screamed down the road (literally) "I got it, I got it, I got it!" Luckily, at that ungodly, hour there wasn't a lot of traffic leaving the beach or going up the hill back to the main road. I nearly ate bumper as I caught up to a car with surfboards strapped to the roof. I actually passed it instead of chewing metal as that was the better option. Judging from the surprising profanity, the surfer-dude driver was not expecting a crazy cyclist in spandex to pass his open window yelling, "I got it, I got it, I got it..."

When I finally stopped at the bottom (and checked if my brake pads had worn off) I was amazed at the beauty of Garie Beach. If you haven't had a chance to visit it before and you are even remotely close by, I highly recommend going to see it (watch out for cyclists). The sun was still low in the sky and the waves were lazily building up momentum for the day ahead. Surfers were mingling about, half waiting for their late buddies and half just enjoying the morning. I too eased about, wandering listlessly along the beach with no particular intent or destination. Sometimes I took ten steps and stopped to look around and sometimes I stood in waist deep water and let the waves tackle me. It was a truly spectacular beach with the steep green ridgeline tracing the beach with the waves large enough to enjoy and not intimidate. I spent a few hours there and at one point I just sat in the sand and listened for a while. I'm sure that it got busier later in the day but in the morning the only sounds were the waves, wind and seabirds.

Now, only if I didn't have to bike back up that road and ruin an otherwise perfect morning.

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We have a "camp" (summer cottage) near Thunder Bay on Lake Superior in the "wilderness", part of a little community we call "The Road", originally developed for camps. While we remain "campers" and make our main home in the city, many on the road live there full-time, though many of them drive to the city almost every day to work or when they just get sick of their 50 inch TVs. We who live here cultivate an image of being rough tough bush people living in the wilderness, even if the nearest McDonalds is only 20 minutes away.

Northern Ontario has winter as one of its defining features, especially to outsiders. Not surprisingly (to us anyway) the lake freezes up pretty good every winter. This provides some opportunities to polish up the rugged image. About 3 years ago I demanded ice fishing lessons from neighbour Scott, a Kenora import, who was born with a fishing rod in his hand and riding either a boat or a snowmobile. He obliged by taking me several miles across the frozen lake, drilling a hole in 4 feet of ice, dropping a line down 200 feet and bringing up about a dozen beautiful lake trout. Then followed filleting instructions in his very cold garage.

I dutifully recorded the exact spot on my GPS for future use (try out N 48 31 16.8 W88 47 50.2 on Google Earth). This recording proved unnecessary because the following years Scott has, as if by instinct, traveling at high speed, returned to within 10 feet of it, and then stopping precisely at the same place. Keep in mind this spot is at least 3 or 4 km away from and shoreline landmarks. Word of these adventures has been traveling "on the road" and this fall a proposal was floated by some of the "rugged" guys to construct an ice-fishing "shack", the better to pursue our "hard water" fishing.

Well it was on then. Here’s the Zen part. Instead of enjoying the great silent wilderness we have at our door, getting a tan and watching the eagles circle for leftovers, serious ice fishing now involves sitting inside a shitty little building, heating yourself with kerosene fumes rather than sunshine and looking either through a hole in the floor at the ice or at some other idiot two feet away drinking beer, farting and swearing. Something philosophical there.

The building project soon became a contest of who is the best scavenger. It’s a bragging point in these parts to know where you can get dozens of pieces of metal siding for free - or old skis or snowboards - plus tape, nails etc etc. Costs for our project came to about 40 cents a square foot vs $100 for, say, a very basic garage. Not included of course is "labour" but in this case labour consisted mostly of a few guys hanging around the garage, drills and saws ready - "just wait till I finish this beer" while Scott did all the work. Not easily measured. It took about 3 days til it was ready to be hauled out of the garage- by a miniature tank called an Argo, down the road through our yard, tearing up various small trees along the way and then out on the ice. It’s ugly but it’s ours.

Quite a while ago a fellow named Robert Pirsig wrote an unusual book "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" It was kind of a cult thing and quite an intellectual piece of work. The idea (mixed in with the deep stuff) is that success in the seemingly ordinary things we do benefits greatly from a laid back, philosophical approach. Instead, our philosophical approach was one of glorification of bad design, shoddy work, done carelessly and in an unreasonable hurry, all under the influence of stale beer. This yielded astonishing results - the thing survived the launch and is now invisible 4 miles out on the lake. Up close, it’s a different story, but that’s where the beer becomes useful: it’s all a matter of ruggedness.

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I’ve always liked comparing the weather between Australia and Canada because of the extreme differences and this week has proven to the ideal time to judge, which is better or worse.

Australia wide has been witness to a heat wave. A heat wave by definition has to be 5 or more consecutive days of temperatures above 35C. Adelaide has been averaging 43 over the last 7 days but people say “It’s a dry heat” so it’s not that bad except that whenever you step into the sun it feels like you have accidentally walked into the world’s largest microwave. Melbourne uncharacteristically has had days around 40C all week, which has forced many of the world’s best tennis players to drop out of the Australian Open. When fourth seeded Briton Andy Murray was defeated, UK newspapers heralded that Australia was not fit to house any major sports competitions due to extreme weather (Federer didn’t have any problem). Sydney is only averaging a mere 31C but with the humidity around 99%, it feels like you are constantly taking a warm salt-water bath. That salt-water is your sweat dripping down your spine and you just can’t hide that kind of perspiration while wearing a gray suit. Good thing our shower isn’t broken and only the hot water tap works otherwise I would be really ticked off (plumber comes this week).

Canada had its first coast-to-coast white Christmas in almost 40 years. Toronto shut down for a couple of days and the army had to come in to dig them out. Thunder Bay residents are used to anything Jack Frost can come up with and have endured plenty of snow and temperatures as low as -41C this year. At that temperature, frostbite occurs in seconds not minutes and your nostrils are constantly stuck closed from frozen snot. If you are truly lucky, the water pipes in your house freeze and burst.

Clearly, my bad luck in 2009 is ongoing as my house in Canada is now an indoor hockey rink. The furnace blew a fuse and with temperatures so far below zero, it didn’t take long for the water pipes to ice up and shatter. I have 2 rooms on the main floor with ice-covered hardwood floors and a bathroom that may require a full overhaul. The walls in the living room have frost on them so I’m assuming that a paint job will be the minimum requirement. Lastly, the piece-de-resistance, there is a sheet of solid ice that is 3 inches thick covering my basement floor because the water leaked down from the bathroom upstairs.

So, sweat stained suits and scalding hot showers during a humid 30C summer or a multi-level indoor skating rink and flood damage during a -30C winter. It really has been a tough year so far.

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