At the stampede today I saw a kid with a T-shirt that said:
“The Eh Team”.
The only times when I ever use "eh" is when I'm making lolpics, and it depends on context.
"Eh" is perfectly good lolpic grammar, using "teh" instead of "the". There was a time 12 years or so ago when I would not have said this. It took EFFORT to type "teh" on purpose, because of the many years I spent typing and editing papers for college/university students, and I prided myself on having perfect grammar, spelling, and punctuation.
So if I look out the window right now and say, "Teh skies is clowdy today," it's grammatically correct if you're making a Cheezburger-style lolpic. It's not entirely accurate, though, because part of what looks like clouds is actually smoke from the wildfires in BC.
Q.: What do you call a litter of kittens?
A. An itteh-bitteh-kitteh-committeh (itty-bitty-kitty-committee)
TBH, I thought they already had. I thought I remembered a big public uproar a few years ago, and they were banned as a result. So obviously I was surprised to see MLB’s post about them. I guess my memory was playing tricks on me. Or perhaps just wishful thinking.
Agreed that they definitely should be banned.
There's an annual uproar about them, moreso when an egregiously bad accident happens/more horses die that year than usual.
And that's bad. There should not be a "usual" number of horse deaths at a rodeo.
I’m not aware of the chuckwagon races ever being banned.
Various groups have
called for them to be done away with, but it’s never actually been done.
Me, I have more of a problem with the tie-down roping. I can hardly watch.
Edit: Being on the CTrain during the Stampede is, I think, worse than the 4 train in Manhattan during rush hour. I am totally exhausted.
I mean, I had a great time in Calgary, but I’m ready to come home!
Most rodeo events are actually pretty abusive, when you look at them from the animal's point of view.
But I will admit to an occasional bit of amusement, such as one particular CTV newscast in February 1988, when news anchor Lloyd Robertson was doing his nightly report about the Winter Olympics in Calgary.
Calgary is world-famous for the Stampede, and a lot of international visitors seem to have the notion that the Stampede runs year-round. A couple of tourists from Arizona told me this when I chatted with them during a road block in the Kootenay area (fatal traffic accident up ahead; traffic was stopped for a couple of hours so the emergency vehicles and coroner could deal with everything). I'd decided to take the dog for a walk and see if there was anyone interesting to talk to, and this older couple were up for a chat.
They told me they were looking forward to the Stampede, and were dumbfounded when I told them they'd missed it by 3 weeks (this was in August). They said, "We thought it went year-round!" and I told them, no, it's just 10 days, every July. On the bright side, they'd be there well on time for next year...
Anyway, the Calgary Olympic organizers realized that the international visitors would really like to see some rodeo action, so they arranged a mini-Stampede, held indoors.
Lloyd Robertson reported all this, and continued on, "and today's featured event was ladies' barrel wrestling..."
I literally fell off my chair laughing. LITERALLY. I must have laughed a good 10 minutes on my living room floor.
Lloyd Robertson continued on, blithely unaware that he had said anything that must have caused many people in Western Canada to react the same way I did. One of the columnists from our local paper wrote a satirical editorial about it the next day. It's not that anyone was angry, just a "smh" reaction at the silliness of Eastern Canadians who don't know much about rodeo.
If you haven't visited The Sentry Box, I highly recommend it. A significant portion of my books and Mayfair rail games collection came from there, along with some artwork. I remember one print of the cover art for a fantasy novel that had sat in the store for about 3 years. Nobody wanted it. It was high up on the wall, so I never knew what the cost was. But then they brought it to the July SF convention and had it on their table in the dealers' room. I checked the price, silently kicked myself as I could have bought it years earlier, and bought it right then and there.
Whereupon the guy running the table said in a grumpy voice, "We should have put it in the art auction." I told him that I knew how many years it had sat in the store unbought, so this was likely the best they'd get. It likely wouldn't have gone past minimum bid. But it was a pretty cool piece of art, so it's mine now!
Public transit during the Stampede is often a game of spot-the-fake-cowboys. That's especially true if you're at an event where the politicians show up. They wear their jeans, cowboy boots, and hats like a costume, not like normal clothes. There's an especially creepy photo of former Prime Minister Stephen Harper trying to "dress Western". He really didn't do it very well, unless his goal was to look like the villain in a bad movie.
Did you try any of the weird foods on the midway?