I don't know why, but sometimes I get into crazy conversations and it happened again. I can usually confine my crazy communications efforts to this office where we toil. We have enough off-the-wall characters around here to keep me amused for hours. So when we start discussing silly subjects, I'm usually totally engaged. I see value in silly. Usually there is no value, but I see it anyway.
So, can you name 10 famous Canadians who aren't dead or are current or retired hockey players?
OK, you think you can ... then do it in under a minute.
Hey, it's just a silly game, play along, dear diary. Nobody will have to know, unless you read out loud.
So right off the bat we can eliminate the guy that Weyburn adopted ... T.C. And really, how famous was he? In Canada, right on ... but do they know that much about T.C. in Pasadena or Barcelona?
Then we eliminated those other well-known Canadian icons ... Wayne and Cheery Cherry, who is only famous on Canadian TV.
So where are you gonna go in the one minute assigned to you?
Quick now ... OK, Justin Bieber, let's start with him, that's a gimme.
Now you can roll out the famous, non-hockey players, can't you? People who are at least known on this continent?
In baseball we have, Votto and that other guy.
In music, we have a great list like Lightfoot and Neil Young, Celine (hate to admit it, but they know her in Pasadena), Annie and Shania.
Still with me?
In science and research, we have activist David Suzuki who is sorta famous. That's about it from that side of the bench. We usually don't worship our scientists even though many of them have had major breakthroughs in medicine and technology. We like underwhelming the world when it comes to research it seems.
William Shatner? Still alive and pretty famous because he does ditzy television shows and commercials.
Should I make it tougher on you? Do I insist that the "famous Canadian" still has to be a Canadian? In other words, if he or she has forsaken their Canadianism for Americanism, should they still count?
Hello Alex Trebek. I believe you are still Canadian, but not sure.
Christopher Plummer, you're famous and I believe still Canadian, and thanks to last year's Oscar and a little movie called the Sound of Music, you're pretty well known universally.
Conrad Black ... oops, nope, he's British, remember that big stink-off with Chretien?
OK, my minute is up. How many did I get?
I sorta count up 12 if I include Alex and that "other guy" in baseball. So I think I can claim a justifiable 10 quickly famous Canadians and none of them were famous for shooting anyone, so they're famous for relatively good reasons.
Who is on your quick famous Canadian list?
OK, I told you I hang around with crazy people ... I am a flawed man. Can't help it, it's part of the job description.
Next week ... your finest Olympic viewing moment? Or how about the best person to analyze a Roughrider loss in 10 words or less?
I liked our office guru football commentator Gayle's summation the best. On Monday morning I asked her opinion about the Saturday afternoon game.
"They did it, and then they didn't," she said.
Yep, that's about right.
Make sure you follow me on my Tweet and if you find me there, let me know please because it will be groundbreaking information for me.
