Here’s some links to the pics most recently taken:

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m257/empath69/HEYwheredtheygetthespoon.jpg

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m257/empath69/Herbawoon.jpg

http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m257/empath69/Hercake.jpg

But we’ll wait for school to start, and go on a weekday.

But now you can say you’ve attended “North America’s Oldest Continuous Sporting Event”. And flinched at the start/finish of races (and no, I dunno when they traded up from a sensible starter’s pistol to a GODDAMN SHOTGUN! )

Dunno what’s causing it – specific minerals in the water here? Genetic legacy? Psychic Death Rays from the Black Helicopters?

After that, the ice was broken, and unscripted volunteers came up for a few songs.

Then you made it in, just in time for the ’sing-along’ part. Glad you did; I missed you. XOXOXO

(warning: the following is directed at – and will be CC:’ed to – theScope.ca and their ’star chamber’ of a panel that is the be-all and end-all on the use of this word; NOT NancyMarie)

Oh, you self-important, incestuous circle of unbridled ME-monkeys!!!!

IIRC, one of you realized the vast difference between urban ‘Townie’ Newfoundlanders and rural ‘Baymen’ Newfoundlanders and how there were no ‘baymen’ (not your word) present in the discussion…briefly, for a moment, before going back to how important and UTTERLY CORRECT *your* opinions are.

And another thing, you’re ascribing a single contextual usage of an OTHERWISE HARMLESS WORD. It’s not ‘newfie’ to blame here, it’s the bigotted asshole who’s using that word as a slur against your sensitive sensibilities! It’s just a FUCKING WORD; the jerk *could* use ANYTHING to attack you – even the word “you” – and it all comes down to context, tone of voice and body language!

Oh, and I really love the ego that you exhibit in equating a slang term for a half-million (and dropping) white people of specific ethnic background to a slang term for arguably the second-most oppressed people in the history of mankind!!! Can I get one of you to climb down from your ivory tower for a moment to pay for the pizza you fucking snobs, or should I just leave it, pay my employer out of my own pocket and bow-and-scrape away from your exaltedness?!?

Again, I recall one shining moment of clarity when one of you Politically Correct WordNazis™ commented that he refers to himself as a ‘fag’, and the word does NOT hold the same evil cachet for him that others would…and then he thought about people he knew who LIKED to refer to themselves as ‘newfies’…and for a brief instant, started to waver in your Crusade Against A Simple Word, but then thankfully the moment was over and the rest of your coven brought him back into the fold.

I use the term ‘newfie’ to refer to myself and my kinfolk.

Sidenote to Mr. Cleary: “Newfoundlander and Labradorian” is NOT ‘the word’; for starters IT’S THREE FUCKING WORDS YOU MORON!!! Also it’s ten syllables and thirty damn keystrokes. And it smacks of the U.S.Department of Interior ‘pigeonholing’ inventory term “American Indian”; artificial, contrived and excessively long-winded.

So I say to all of you pretentious ‘artistes’ with precious sensibilities that cannot tolerate a simple WORD, even when it is not hurled at you with invective, but as an olive branch, or term of friendship, kinship or endearment; the problem here is not with ‘newfie’ but with YOU.

Maybe you lot should go hang around in 4chan for a month or two, or indeed ANY internet forum or message board…

AND LEARN TO DEVELOP A THICK SKIN.

If you think Mainlanders with superiority complexes toward us Newfs is the worst problem you have to deal with, you’re gonna LOVE it when you decide to join the 21st century and get online…

I am a Newfie; I like the term (it’s short to say and type, and conjures up an ethnic image I LIKE: one of irrepressible humour and determination to live in a harsh, forbidding place for centuries). If someone wants to use this term as an epithet to attack me, I will deal with that person INDIVIDUALLY, and not ‘throw the baby out with the bath water’. If a stranger comes up to me and asks “What’s up, Newf?” with no apparent malice or ill-intent, I take the term as affectionate, and greet them with good graces.

I don’t get bigoted against people who use a simple word. Heaven forbid, flying off the handle at someone who made no deliberate offence at me would CLEARLY be construed as a personality flaw of ‘overly sensitiveness’ on MY part.

I’m a Fucking Ne- *thinks, and checks with wife* YEAH, I’m a FUCKING NEWFIE, and you lot a) better learn to deal with that, and b) NOT TELL ME HOW I CAN REFER TO MYSELF AND MY PEOPLE.

FUCK YOU.