All kinds of fun and games have been happening over the last few weeks. Political games: the federal Conservatives got rid of Erin O’Toole as their party leader as he never delivered on election promises. Dumbass games: dissatisfied truckers took a convoy to Ottawa to protest COVID restrictions on unvaccinated truckers not being allowed to cross the U.S. border. Spoiler alert dummies: the U.S. won’t let unvaccinated truckers into the U.S. either!! 90 % of truckers in Canada are fully vaxxed and don’t support these hooligans. The demonstration has quickly degenerated into all kinds of impossible demands (provincial governments make up 90 % of the restrictions, not the feds) and basically a party for malcontents, anarchists, and thugs holding the city hostage. There’s an easy solution to this – give them 24 hours to clear out or get fined, get their vehicle insurance cancelled, and their truck driving licenses declared void. NFL games: wild card, divisional, and conference games were played with the result that the Super Bowl this coming weekend will have the Bengals going against the Rams. Here’s the weird thing - the bowl is being played at SOFI Stadium (the home of the Rams) but the Bengals will be playing as the home team 
Olympic games: they started last Friday – without spectators (due to COVID), diplomatic representatives from most countries (due to boycott because of human rights violations), and many athletes (due to testing positive for COVID). Canada is off to a good start (8 medals so far) – it’s the usual routine for Canada; those expected to win, don’t; unheard of athletes, do Then there are the usual sports: Hockey – Maple Leafs doing well … until the play offs when they will choke; Basketball – Raptors doing well … until the play offs when they will choke; Golf – Corey Connors keeps choking; and Soccer – Canada is at the top of the standings in the CONCACAF World Cup qualifiers, win a couple more games and they qualify for Qatar later this year; the worst they can do is fourth place – that would require winning a game against the Oceania fourth place to determine a spot in Qatar. The temperatures have dropped in the last couple of weeks – we’ve set new records for cold; -38 with the wind chill on some nights. The other day we had our second major snow fall – but only about 8 inches. The worst of the storm passed us by; but not down on the eastern seaboard where Boston set records for snowfall and Nova Scotia got nailed with a freezing ice storm 
It didn’t take long to clear up here – and the snow plow goes by twice a day so the roads aren’t too bad . It’s going to warm up over the next few days with a little sprinkling of snow … and drop back down to -20 this weekend!! Lots of cooking going on … And smoking!! I broke out the smoker and made one of my favorites – Bacon Wrapped Smoked Meatloaf! Mix up the meat loaves (3 this time around), wrap them in 2 pounds of woven bacon blankets, and smoke for three hours over cherry wood and charcoal. Mmm, mmm, good! Want to drive a dog crazy? Have 5 pounds of meatloaf and two pounds of bacon smoking in the back yard!! Doug the Dog watched the proceedings with great interest 🙂 . We have had lasagna (fourteen pounds of homemade); pork and beef roasts; cream of potato soup (with bacon and green onions); Shanghai Noodles; Beef Bourguignon with fresh pasta; Beef chili topped with shredded cheese; deconstructed tourtiere; steaks; burgers; curries - the list goes on and on! Safe to say that we ate pretty well over the last three weeks!! On the Netflix front we finished ‘Undercover’ – excellent series. We tried watching ‘All Of Us Are Dead’ – that died after 30 minutes . We watched and finished ‘The Woman Across The Street …..’ , a spoof / sendup of psycho thrillers – it was … okay. ‘Clickbait’ started off interesting … but the acting / script is pretty bad – figured out whodunnit in the second episode. I watched Season 4 of ‘El Marginal’ – excellent Argentinian prison series . The only problem is that the first 3 seasons which sets up Season 4 aren’t available on Netflix Canada I rewatched both seasons of ‘Wild District’ – a Columbian drug / murder / political thriller – in my mind one of the best Netflix series ever. I’ve started re-watching ‘La Reina Del Sur’ – okay, it’s a telenovela, but it’s fun to watch Season 3 has completed filming but no date is available for when it’s coming to Netflix. On to golf … 5 Canadians made the cut in ‘The American Express’ tournament – Corey Connors did not. In the ‘Farmers Insurance Open’ 4 Canadians made the cut – 5 (including Corey Connors) did not. Last weekend was the ‘AT & T Pebble Beach Pro-Am’ – 5 Canadians made the cut – two did not, Cory Connors didn’t start. This weekend ‘The WM Phoenix Open’ (renamed from ‘The Waste Management Open’, great name for a tournament) will be played – six Canadians will be playing, including Corey Connors; let’s see how he does this time round. The NFL divisional playoffs were pretty wild – all decisions coming down to a last minute play! I called it by going for all the underdogs – I would have been 4 for 4 if Buffalo hadn’t blown it with 13 seconds to go. I also picked the winners of the Conference games so it’s going to be LA Rams and Cincinnati Bengals in the Super Bowl!! Let’s go Bengals!! If they pull it off it will be their first Super Bowl win (they had two previous appearances – ’83 and ’88, lost both times to the 49ers). In hockey Seattle Kraken are still mediocre, but they are on a winning streak of one game –Maple Leafs still in third place and looking good – they have won 8 in a row Got to go … … have a great and safe week … we will see you in a bit!!