It’s autumn here in North America: the leaves are falling, the
temperature outside is warm but not hot, and ... thousands of people are paying perfectly good money to sit in freezing cold arenas.

That’s right, it’s exhibition season for the National Hockey League
and hockey fanatics everywhere are waiting for the regular season
with breathless anticipation. This means that lawns are not being
mowed, dishes are not being done, and loved ones are writing letters
that begin with “Dear Sweetest: The kids and I moved out during 2nd
period. We might send a forwarding address when we find a new
apartment.”

So, following my longstanding policy to promote relationship harmony,
I am going to try to help non-hockey fans understand what all the
fuss is about. With that in mind, I proudly present:

CHANDRA’S NHL HOCKEY GLOSSARY

Hockey: Hockey is game where 10 very large men move around at top
speed on an ice surface while balancing on what amounts to oversized
razor blades. The players carry around hunks of lumber called sticks,
which they used to hit a slab of hard rubber called a puck. The first
object of the game is to use the puck to pick off as many spectators
in the stands as possible. The second object is to try to hospitalize
members of the other team. Occasionally, players will also try to
score goals. The game is divided into three 20-minute periods, each
of which lasts a little over an hour.

Stanley Cup: A) The championship trophy coveted by all hockey
players. B) A piece of protective equipment belonging to a guy named
Stanley.

Penalty: A punishment handed out by a referee to a player who gets
caught doing something that is against the rules, such as: slashing,
knifing, thumping, elbowing, evading taxes, cross-checking,
embezzling, kneeing, biting, gunning down, tripping, or saying nasty
things about the other guy’s mother.

Referee: A position created by kindhearted NHL officials to employ
players who have become vision-impaired as a result of slashing,
knifing, thumping, elbowing ...

Coach: A man who’s job it is to A) swear at the referees, B) swear at
the players and C) swear at the spectators. As a rule, these men are
physically incapable of smiling, even after their team scores a goal.

Goalie: A masochist who has to catch rock hard pucks with various
soft bits of his body (i.e.., face, stomach) as 250 lb. men rush at
him on skates without reliable braking system.

The Bench: An area where the players sit between shifts on the ice.
In a TV broadcast, the camera will zoom in for extreme close-ups of
The Bench area so you can see your favorite player bleed, spit, or
clean his nose.

Butterfly: A) A goal tending style in which the goalie keeps his knees
together and feet slightly apart. B) What a player sees after being
cross-checked into the boards. See also Stars, Chirping Birds, and
Large Blue Spots in the Field of Vision.

Intermission: A pause between periods when fans are entertained by a
large, unattractive piece of ice-resurfacing machinery called a
Zamboni.

Butt-Ending: A) A penalty for striking an opponent with the top of
the shaft of the stick or B) what I landed on the last time I tried
to skate.

Rink Music: Rousing tunes played during lulls in the action. For
example, enthusiastic hockey fans can often be heard
yelling “chaaaaaarge!” after the cavalry tune is played.
Confused curling fans, who figured they’d purchased World Curling
Championship tickets from the scalpers outside the arena, will yell
“sweeeeeeep!” after this tune is played.

Faceoff: A threat issued by one player to another, i.e.., “Call my
mother that again, and I will rip your faceoff.”

Clutch and Grab: A) A defensive style of play often used by slower
teams to prevent faster teams from using their speed. B) What a
player does to his Stanley Cup region after he gets kneed by an
opponent.

Next week: Cricket, Sumo Wrestling and Aussie Rules Football made
easy.

Researchers have recently discovered some amazing things about dogs that will absolutely astound you ... if you're a cat owner.

In one study, scientists found that dogs may have personalities. That is, dogs apparently have enough unique characteristics and traits that you can actually tell them apart.

If you've ever been owned by more than one dog, you know this already. However, as a self-confessed dog companion you have shown yourself to be mentally suspect, and thus scientists don't trust your judgement. This is because you regularly allow yourself to be smooched by something that may have just drunk out of the toilet.

So, how did scientists come up with hard proof of doggy differences? They recruited a thousand Labrador Retrievers and had them fill out the "What's Your Party Style?" quiz in a recent issue of Cosmopolitan magazine. A control group of was asked to complete the "Which Star Trek Captain Do You Most Resemble?" quiz. (Incidentally, scientists had to choose this particular breed; otherwise it wouldn't have been a lab test.)

The results showed that 40 percent of the test subjects wanted to play phaser fetch with James T. Kirk, while 30 percent wanted to discuss time travel with Captain Janeway over a cup of coffee. The remaining subjects went to the door and asked to be let out.

Okay, not really. What the study did do was have dog owners rate their dogs for various personality traits (aggressiveness, curiosity, friendliness) and then had strangers rate the dogs the same way. Most of the time, the owner's assessment and the stranger's assessment agreed, thus proving that dogs probably do have recognizably different personalities. Either that or they downloaded the personality test answers for their owners from the Internet.

A second, more interesting bit of research has demonstrated that dogs are very good at reading human social cues - better, in fact, than their cousin the wolf, or our cousin, the chimpanzee.

In this study, a graduate student approached a group of dogs, a group of chimpanzees and a pack of wolves, pointed at a wet spot on the carpet, and said "Bad! Very bad!"

No less than 100 percent of the dogs responded by ducking and whining apologetically. About half of the chimpanzees threw a banana at the investigator, while the other half pointed indignantly at the dog. No one is sure what happened with the wolves, as they're still waiting for the graduate student to get out of hospital.

Right, okay, what really happened was that researchers hid a bit of food under one of two cups. The experimenter would then indicate which of the two cups the animal should investigate by either looking at the right cup or gesturing at it. Dogs were much better at recognizing the clues given by the human.

Again though, if you have ever been owned by a dog, you know this already. This is because you have to spell things like "car ride" or "chocolate" or "veterinarian" so that your dog won't know what you're talking about. Your dog will wake from a sound sleep and go to the door because he can tell you're wrapping up that phone call. Or she will hide because she can tell that's flea shampoo you've just taken out of the medicine cabinet, and not your own body wash and loofah.

Will there ever be definitive proof about cat personalities or a cat's ability to read humans? We'll need more subtle and sophisticated tests. When asked to fill out the personality quiz, 95 percent of cats tested bit the investigator's ankle and wandered off. When asked to find the food under the cup, 97 percent of cats scratched the investigator's ankle and wandered off.

So for now I guess, the dog is having its day, while the cat remains resolutely out of the bag.

First, let's get it out of the way: So, how y'all doing?

I had to start this week's column with y'all, you see, because it is about Texas, which is where I was for about 10 days last month.

Texans say "y'all" about as often as Canadians say "eh?" – that is, about once a year. However, some years ago, a Texan made the mistake of saying it in a movie, and so now everyone knows that people from Texas say y'all in every sentence. Sometimes twice.

So, having dispelled that myth, I'm now going to start another: what Texans really do is eat a lot of jalapeno peppers. You can find them everywhere – in chili sauce, in rice dishes, your morning coffee, and in the chocolate cake. Texans eat so many of these hot peppers that I'd bet cash that it's the Official State Vegetable. [Okay, so that's easy money: the only other vegetable ever served in Texas is refried beans, so I've got 50/50 odds there.]

The extensive use of jalapenos means that food in Texas comes in just two flavours: Thermonuclear Tex Mex and Blow Your Taste Buds Out Barbecue. This makes perfect sense because Texas has hot weather all year round, so obviously the one thing you want to do when sitting down to a meal is sweat some more. [Actually, it seems to be a natural law that hot regions have hot cuisine. You would never, for example, find a Hot N' Spicy Reindeer Burger on the menu in say, northern Finland, where it might actually do you some good. See also India vs. Iceland or Mexico vs. Russia.]

Another myth about Texas is that everything is big. Coming from Canada as I do, where just one of our provinces is bigger than the countries of France and Spain combined, I have a slightly different sense of the word "big." But I will say that Texas, and in particular the city Houston is "sprawling." It was so sprawled, in fact, that for my conference at the new George Brown convention centre, I needed both a day's rations and a GPS unit to make it from one end of the exhibition hall to the other. At some point, Texas architects are going to have to learn how to build "up" instead of "out."

This is not to say that Houston is all ugly and urban. Unlike other cities I could name (which I won't name, but will call by the pseudonym "Detroit"), Houston is making a real effort to beautify the streets and bring in some greenery. Unfortunately, municipal workers are doing this with such enthusiasm that if you stand still for more than two minutes on a bare patch of ground, you risk being drilled with a tree planter, and stuffed under a sapling.

The other problem with all this arboreal exuberance is that Houstonites have not chosen their tree species wisely. The tree roots tend to grow "out" instead of "down" (see also Texas architecture, above), which means that you need a pair of sturdy hiking boots to climb over sidewalk paving slabs that have been shoved up at 45 degree angles in all directions. It's really only a matter of time before someone trips and falls. If they are holding a coffee and a burger at the time, given the legal history of the US, I predict a massive lawsuit involving unsafe sidewalks, traumatic coffee burns and corporate enforced obesity.

Assuming of course, that the plaintiffs don't try to travel to the courthouse by train. In a moment of foolish romantic travel idealism, I had decided to see a bit of the US on my way to Houston and booked a trip by rail. What I did not realize was that the US train system consistently operates in its own time zone, which is Local Time + 1 or 2 hour delay. This meant that I sprinted across several states just trying to catch missed connections.

The other fun bit was that major metropolitan train stations in America are apparently, by law, placed in hard to find and incredibly rough neighbourhoods and then made to close on weekends. This ensures that you get to meet the locals, even if you try to look inconspicuous and just want to be in a Lonestar State of Mind. After a couple of nervous hours, you'll feel that All the Eyes of Texas Are Upon You.

Which is why I was glad to get back, All The Way From Texas.

It’s August. If you live in the northern hemisphere, you know that means it’s 35C (95 F) outside. Unless you’re in Europe right now, in which case you don’t know how hot it is because all the thermometers are under water. As is your house, your car and your office building.

Anyway, because it’s boiling out, officials have once again released their hot weather advisory: you’re instructed to take in plenty of fluids, stay indoors, and turn off the air conditioner.

Yes, you read that right. Energy managers were absolutely shocked to discover that power usage has gone through the roof this month. So they’ve asked everyone to please just stop using electricity.

“We just cannae take much more of this!” said Ontario Hydro chief engineer Jimmy Doohan, in a recent interview. “Our dilithium crystals are gaen to blow, laddie!”

If this were a one time request or a special circumstance, I wouldn’t mind shutting off a few lights and such, to ease the strain on the system. However, I don’t know about your local utility, but mine has been completely surprised, stunned and flabbergasted by August power usage, every year, since about, oh, 500 BC. You’d think by now they’d have say, a backup plan, or something.

Of course, these are the same people who are totally surprised by snow.

In Canada.

In February.

“We cannae do it!” said Chief Snowplough Driver Montgomery Scot in an interview last winter. “If we keep up this speed we’re gaen to blow up!

All right, maybe I’m being a little hard on my regional administrators. After all, humans have a long history of unexpecting the expected. For example, in my copy of the “Big Book of Bad Plannin-” (they ran out of room for the title), there’s evidence to suggest unpreparedness started as early as the cave days. Here’s one cave painting, translated:

CRO: Wot you say we put campsite here?
MAG: But isn’t dis in path of annual mammoth stampede?
NON: Don’t be silly. Dat only happen last year. And year before.
CRO: Wot dat noise?
[Thunder of several thousand large animals approaching]
MAG: Argh!
NON: Eeeg!
CRO: Oogh!
[squish!]

Fast forward several hundred years, and things hadn’t improved much during the time of the Roman empire.

CAESAR: I say we move all our armies to the eastern front.
GAIUS: But sir! Don’t you think the Gauls will revolt again this year, like they have every spring?
CAESAR: Nonsense, whatever makes you think that?
LEGIONARY: Ave! Caesar, there is some fellow named Asterix here to see you?
CAESAR: Let him in.
[pow! crash! biff! smack!]
CAESAR: Oh, I die! Fac ut nemo me vocet.*
(*Latin for: Hold all my calls.)

We hadn’t even smartened up by the Middle Ages:

PONTIUS: Ho! Geoffrey! What dost thou think of my political speech?
GEOFFREY: Read it to me.
PONTIUS: Gentlefolk: I thinketh that ye olde Archbishop ist a weenie...
GEOFFREY: Hark! Look at that sundial! Methinks it is time to go. Anon. Alack. Etc.
[running away]
INQUISITION: Mr. Pontius? Come with us, please.

I’m not sure why humans are so bad at planning for the future, especially for those things we can predict. But, I can think of three reasons: 1) Humans are basically just dorks. 2) Nobody takes history class in high school anymore, so we’re doomed to repeat ourselves endlessly or 3) We’re too easily distracted.

If number three is the case, it’s only going to get worse. Because with computers and the Internet, attention spans have decreased to the point that... oh, look! Here’s an email from my cousin Joe.

...Where was I? Oh yes, so what’s the solution? Well, maybe everyone should start by doing some advanced planning in their own lives. Figure out what you want to be doing next week. Next month. Next year. Heck, even next decade.

How can you go about doing that? Gee, I really don’t know.

I never thought to research that far ahead for this column.

-30-

Clearly, what with a defunct economy, the war in Afghanistan, and rising unemployment rates, Americans don’t have enough to worry about. This is evidenced by the fact that the tabloids are filled with breathless headlines about the love life of Twilight star Robert Pattinson.

Personally, I blame the whole thing on Martha Stewart. After spending years carefully building up our dependence on her housekeeping advice, we were bereft when she had to do time for alleged stock-related crimes (and don't those issues look huge in the light of the subprime mortgage meltdown and related economic shenanigans?) We didn't have as many practical things to fuss about. Sure, she had her minions running things in her absence (And to anyone who cares, I’d like some of these for Christmas. Minions, I mean.) but it’s taken a while for the Stewart empire to recover.

So, in the interest of returning some level of sanity to public discourse, I am stepping into the breach. In an effort to give you all something much more useful and closer to home to focus on, I present: Chandra’s Housekeeping Tips.

The Bathtub: Modern science has yet to explain how it is that a bathtub, which gets sluiced with soapy water just about every day, gets dirty. However, while we wait for an answer, my solution to dirty tubs: Install a brand new one. Shellac it. Padlock the bathroom and tell everyone in your family where to find the garden hose.

Leaf Raking: Every autumn, millions of homeowners around the world spend hours raking leaves up from their lawns. Every spring, they spend hours spraying their lawns with artificial fertilizers. Answer: Let your children run through the leaves as much as they like, breaking them down into mulch. Whatever the wind doesn’t catch and blow onto your neighbour’s lawn is natural fertilizer for your patch.

Cobwebs: Removing each individual cob web as it appears is very time consuming. My advice is to wait until the spiders have created enough webs that it becomes one big, house-covering super web. This should only take about 2.5 days. Then grab a thread, stand in a corner, and reel it all in. (Caution: this may drag furniture and small animals out of place).

The Kitchen Floor: Notoriously difficult to keep clean, because it’s a high traffic area in your house. Solution: Attach mop heads to your children’s shoes, your spouse’s shoes, and all four paws on the family pets. Since they’re the ones running through it all the time, they may as well clean it as they go.

Vacuuming: Buy one of those new robot vacuum gadgets, which recently received the most backhanded consumer review ever: These things really suck!

Dusting: Dust will come off the furniture automatically as you reel in the cobwebs. Incidentally, cobwebs and dust also make great lawn fertilizer.

Dirty dishes: Two words - Paper. Plates.

Cars: I get a great deal of amusement from watching my neighbours waste an entire Saturday afternoon washing their car. I mean, there are so many other important things you could be doing with that time, like, for instance, kicking back and watching the other neighbours rake their lawns. My theory on car cleaning is that the industry invented leases for a reason: by the time you can no longer tell the make or model of the car, or you lose a passenger to the backseat debris, your lease has expired and it’s time for a new one anyway.

Shovelling the Sidewalk: If all you northerners followed my advice about leaves, you won’t need to do this. The decomposing leaves that blow onto your sidewalk will release enough heat to keep your sidewalk clear for months. Spreading some on your driveway will have the same effect, plus, it’s fun to drive through the leaves.

There, that ought to keep everyone occupied for a while. No, no need to thank me.