Back to basics...

Okay, so it has been a while since I actually sat down and put in some time on the old TundraTalk. I apologize. Not sure what has gotten into me but I guess I just have not been too keen on writing lately. My bad.

So I decided today I would just put a post up. Kind of back to basics post. Just me rambling on about something that really is not much, but I will make it a big deal. BUT before I go too far I am going to take care of some business first.

If you are interested the Peterson Family Christmas Letter is up on the internet. You can locate it HERE. If you want to see the Peterson Family Christmas Variety Show you can link to it HERE or just watch it below...


Peterson Family Christmas Variety Show 2008 from hamiltongbp on Vimeo.


NEXT: There now that that is out of the way....Lets get to today's rant.

Now, as most of the country knows, Canada is cold. Regina, on the usual, is around 10 degrees colder. Not sure why, but it is. North Dakota is a very similar climate. Cold enough that it is imparitive that when you go outside you must be dressed appropriately, or even smarter, just don't go outside. I am normally a guy who likes winter. Much better than summer. At least in winter if you are cold, you just put on another layer. Summer, if it is hot and you are sweating just sitting still, you can't do a damn thing about it except turn up the AC. Summer in all it's humid glory blows.

Now all you haters out there, close that email. Don't send me a hate filled diatribe about how great summer is, just shut your pie hole and listen. Don't hate the playa, hate the game. I like summer, not having to put on three layers to go outside is nice. I like sitting on my boat whether it be in the driveway or on the water. Summer is nice, but hot sweaty summer sucks.

Now, I know when I was attending the world famous (for what I don't know) Hazen High School, I was a bit of a dumb ass. Sometimes I would do dumbass things. We all do when we are in high school. Well, except for maybe Nick Chase. He was wound a bit tight. Like for example during the production of the fine WhiteHot Production Dakota Vice we decided it would be cool to stage a shoot out in front of the Red Owl grocery store on Main street. Complete with sound efects and really lifelike toy guns (compliments of the Rock Boys personal collection). Apparently the cops were called and at the end of the scene you can see a cruiser roll past to check it out.

Can you imagine if we tried to do that today? The Government Threat Level would be raised to "extreme red we all going to die" level we would all be put in jail, then have mental evaluations (most of us probably could use those), and then we would be sent off to Guantanamo, or maybe even be put on that plane to be waterboarded some where in a country that does not like us that much. Anyway, long story even longer, that was pretty dumb.

Or the time that I decided I wanted to see how fast my motorcycle could go. Not sure how far over a hundred I got but the front wheel lifted off the ground because I had a faring on it. That was Dumb.

Or the time I had an arguement with my dumbass sister and decided to leave the house. I went out to the car, pushed the garage door opener, started up the Escorche, cranked up Run DMC on the bottom of the line cheapest Alpine stereo (that only had fast forward) I could get, to 11, and then failed to look to see if the door opened. Yup, that was REAL dumb. Dad was not to happy that I installed a drive thru on the garage door.

Anyway, I did some dumb things. Which leads me to the reason for this rant. I know I am getting old, but I do not think I am that old. As I was driving thru these recent snowstorms on my way to work the past few days I have been marveling at how stupid high school kids are now. They think they are bullet proof. Case in point. This morning as I passed the first of two high schools I saw what I thought was just Mensa club worthy.

These boneheads park on the street in front of the school. On the road there are two lanes, in the summer. In the winter there is barely two lanes because of all the snow piled in the median. These Einstiens get out of their cars and walk down the middle of the right lane to get to school. They don't even hesitate when two lanes of cars are coming at them. They just keep on walking whilst the two lanes are scrambling to make one on the icy roads. Hey shit head, walk on the sidewalk. Oh sorry there is snow on the sidewalk so the open toed shoes you are wearing will get snow in them. My bad. I guess that is good logic to walk on the fu#king road.

Not to mention none of these idiots are wearing a toque. Put a freaking hat on. It is -50 and you think it is too important to not mess up your hair so you decide to not wear a cap. Brilliant. I know it was cold back in the day when I was travelling to school, but I don't think I was EVER that stupid. I want to keep my ears. Oh, maybe they have heated iPod headphones. Don't even get me started on the three girls I saw walking down the sidewalk all of them with their heads down texting. GET OFF YOUR PHONE AND TALK TO EACH OTHER.

Get this, the other day I was at the Co Op getting groceries and as I left the parking lot I saw this group of girls walking back to school from lunch. There is a McCrappy's in our neighbor hood so one of them had a bag of food with her. As she is walking out of the parking lot she just throws the bag on the ground, like that is what you are supposed to do with your left over McD's shit. "Someone else will pick it up, it is too much work to carry it to a trash can." So me being the nice guy I am I roll down the window and yell at her "Hey, you dropped something." Now she gets this panicked look on her face that she acually DID drop something, like her phone or iPod. The the realization comes over her that I am pointing out her stupidity right in front of all her friends.

She starts to walk over to pick it up but the other moron with her tells her not to. Seeing that this situation is about to degenerate, I decide to take it up a notch and I tell her to not be a moron and stop littering my neighborhood with her crap. At this point her friend starts to call me names and I of course respond in kind about how ignorant it is to be a litterer, all the while the bonehead in question still has not said a thing. I look at her and ask her if she speaks english because all she did was stand there and look confused. BAM it was like dropping a bomb. Her friends immediately draw the race card (she looked a bit Asian). I think she was a bit torn by the situation because she knew the right thing was to go and pick up the bag so the angry a-hole in the truck will shut up but she did not want to lose face with her girls.

At this point I call them all morons and roll up the window and drive away. You cannot win an argument where the race card has been drawn. No way no how. Especially since I am that white guy in a pick up truck. I'll tell ya, I would have said that to anyone. Black, white, yellow, purple, or green. The purple person would probably be a viqueen fan and really would NOT speak english.

Anyway, where was I going with this. Oh yeah, kids are stupid. I am sounding like an old man. I have caught myself on many occasion standing on my lawn yelling at guys driving by for going to fast. Pathetic. I may as well start telling the 'I walked to school 60 miles uphill against the wind stories already." Oh wait, I told McKenna that story yesterday. I also know my kids are sure going to do stupid things but I just hope I am able to correct them with out calling them Morons.

NEXT: I have some pics from the Trailer Park Boys show that I attended last week to show you and I will get them up here soon.

Have a great day. GET BACK TO WORK!!!

Ric Flair Shuts it down....finally....

It's been a bit of a rough year for me. Not in the work sucks, life sucks kind of way, but in the all my favorite athletes shut it down kind of way. Just a little over a week ago on a monday night the wrestling, or wrasslin', world paid tribute to one of the all time greats. Now I know some of you are now saying to me, "Chris, how would you know, you retired from watching wrestling." Which you would be correct. I did not see it live, a friend at the CBC taped it and I watched it posthumously. Big word.
Apparently Ric over the past month has had a story line where Vince McMahon told him if he loses he has to quit. So apparently he has been winning for a month or two. I did see a match on a Monday where he wrestled Vince McMahon. It was, and I am sad to say it, the worst match I have ever seen Ric wrestle. It culminated at Wrestlemania where he wrestled Shawn Michaels. To whom he lost. Well on Monday night Raw the wrestling world bid farewell to the Man. It was quite a show.
Now I will tell you there were no man tears shed, because we all know that this was a 'Wrasslin'' retirement so he could be back in the ring next week. But I will tell you that it was pretty elaborate goodbye. Have a look courtesy of YouTube...





Now that you have seen it. You know that it was pretty cool to see the Four Horsemen all back together again in the ring. As I watched the whole thing I kept waiting for someone to come out and ambush the whole thing and turn it into a work. I am sure if Eric Bischoff had been in charge I am sure that that would have happened. It was respectful and very entertaining. Something Eric Bischoff has never been.

Speaking of entertaining, I have been watching this guy for around 28 years. Man that is a long time. I remember the first time I saw the Horsemen come out and beat the snot out of someone. It was AWESOME, and then, Ric Flair walked over to the NWA podium in the small studio, to Gordon Solie and cut a promo about limo riding, jet flying, and space mountian. It was incredible. I was sold. This dude is the man.

Now living in North Dakota, you don't usually get to see the world champ that often. In fact, never. I am not sure that Ric Flair, as NWA world champ ever made it through North Dakota. I wanted to see Ric wrestle so bad. In fact in 1996 I drove from Green Bay to Fargo to watch a WCW Thunder taping just on the chance that Ric Flair would wrestle. I was denied. It took until I went to Wrestlemania 19 in Seattle to finally see Ric perform. And even then he did not wrestle.

In Edmonton a year or so later Ric came back to town and it was awesome, but he still did not wrestle. Maybe that is good, because later in his life his skills were lacking. Still when he did his nose dive into the mat, it just got better like a fine wine. That is the thing about Ric Flair, he was always entertaining. Always. There were only a few ring entrance songs that you knew when you heard it there was a beatdown coming. The Freebirds, the Road Warriors and Ironman, Roddy Piper and the pipes, and Ric Flair with the theme from 2001. Everything about Ric was entertaining. His robes were second to none. I think he may have been the last one to wear a robe to the ring. Those things were awesome.

There is a story that I am unsure if it is true, but I hear that Steve Schoenrock, of the Minot Schoenrocks, in college had an old robe of his moms that resembled one of Rics ring robes. Apparently he wore it every saturday morning. It is also unconfirmed that he refused to eat breakfast until Tony Mutzenberger would give him a ring introduction. That is the stuff of legends.

He is the king of the catch phrases. The only other dude who is even close is the Rock. I still to this day use the Whooooooo! at all times. I have used many of his catch phrases much to the chagrin of Donna. ' In order to be the man, you have to beat that man, and right now I am that man.' is one of the all time greats. The airport story is great, and then there is the '60 minute man.' His stuff will be forever be in my dialouge. I guess it is plagerism but I don't care.

So to wrap this one up the world has lost two great ones this year. Number Four, and the leader of the Four Horsemen.

Get ready for the Podcast with the Nordic Man.