And so begins the post-Olympic event you’ve been waiting for, when the nation sends out its best, it’s finest, its most eloquent pundits to gripe about our medal count — and demand more money to wring a few more laurels from the next Games.

“You don’t get to the podium for peanuts,” reads one Globe and Mail headline. (Regrettably, it’s disqualified from competition for jumping the gun; the Globe published it two weeks ago.)

Our Olympic officials have a natural lead, with Mark Lowry warning that “the world is leaving us behind.” And this year, competition is international: Jacques Rogge, head of the IOC, has jumped in with his own entry, a promise to push Ottawa to spend more on sports when he visits Canada.

There’s no question they’re right. Those extra tenths of a second, those few more millimetres, that additional point from the Brazilian judge all carry a high marginal cost.

But you can’t help but wonder if maybe we could invest in some better finishes for everyone. It might be that a lower medal count might allow us to have a lot more community swimming pools, skating rinks and bike tracks.

Of course, I wouldn’t mind a few more first-place finishes for Canada… but maybe in different events.

On my way into work this morning, I rode on a bus that proudly sported a decal proclaiming BC Transit’s victory as the best transit system in the world… in 1996.

It’s been almost as long since Canada last scored top marks in the United Nations Index of Human Development. C’mon, Canada — Norway, Iceland, Sweden, Australia, the Netherlands, Belgium and the United freakin’ States are kicking our asses!

That podium costs money to get to, as well. And maybe it’s the one we want to mount first.

The news that U.S. department store giant Target has its beady little eyes on our beloved Hudson’s Bay Company has many Canadians agitated, and rightly so. As one shocked and appalled patriot points out in a letter to the Globe and Mail, “The Bay is our greed-driven, me-first, ecologically uncaring corporation… Let’s go against Canadian ideals here and at least try to survive among the fittest, eh?”

This reminded me of my recent trip to The Bay… or, I should say, Our Bay.

“Mr. Cottingham,” the sales associate in the Liz Claiborne section murmured respectfully as I went by. I strolled through Men’s Wear, basking in the repeated greetings as I passed the Tommy Hilfiger (“Hey, Rob!”), 317 (“Dude, how’s it hanging?”) and Ralph Lauren (“Delighted to see you, Roberto!”) sections, before I finally stopped in front of a rack of Calvin Klein ties.

Instantly, an associate was at my side, handing me a china cup of hot Darjeeling.

“I think…” I began, and then grinned despite myself at the sight of so many employees’ heads swiveling toward the sound of my voice. “I think I’d like to take them all. Every tie on this rack.”

“A superb choice, Rob. We actually had you in mind when we picked them out.”

“Naturally, I don’t expect to pay for them.”

“Rob, please. This is your store.” He chuckled. “‘Pay for them.’ Really, now.”

“They’re made in Canada, of course?”

“We even insisted that Mr. Klein take out dual citizenship before we would carry his wares. Well, if that’s all, then I’m off to the fifth floor to grab myself a few dozen microwaves. After all,” he winked, “it’s my store too.”

It’s notoriously hard to get a Canadian election overturned. Damn near impossible, in fact… but Dick Proctor and Moe Kovatch may be about to do just that.

It seems a few hundred voters in the riding Regina-Lumsden-Lake Centre (hopefully to be renamed “Rumsdentre” for the sake of brevity) may have been told to vote in the riding of Palliser. Given that the people telling them were Elections Canada, the voters in question would probably have believed them.

And given that Elections Canada’s mandate did not, as of June 28, 2004, include running cultural exchange programs between ridings, that would probably qualify as a “mistake”. (That’s as opposed to the Liberals saying voting Grit in Palliser was the only way to stop the Tories, which qualifies as an “outright lie”.)

Mistakes happen, of course, but this one had real consequences. With the Conservatives beating the NDP by only 124 votes in Palliser, and the Liberals by only 122 votes in Rumsdentre (see how catchy that is? Just rolls off the tongue), this slip-up could have spelled the difference between a stable, possibly even progressive House of Commons, and the situation we have now.

So now various interested parties are poring over various lists, checking addresses and, for good measure, looking for references to Eileen Dover, Fay K’name and Sue Donimm. (In this latter task, the judge and parties’ counsel will be guided by both the Canada Elections Act and the precedents set down by the Supreme Court of Canada in Regina vs. Phil Ayshio, Connie Lingus et al.)

With a little luck, byelections will come soon to those two ridings in Saskatchewan. And as a special bonus for the diluted democracy they had back in June, voters there won’t feel forced to vote Liberal to keep Stephen Harper from becoming Prime Minister. That’s good news for all the progressive-minded people of Palliser and Rumsdentre.

Pass that name along: Rumsdentre. We can make it happen, people.

In the list of my favourite come-on lines for weird-ass activities, this one has just zoomed into first place:

“Have you ever dreamed of being carried into the sky by a giant bouquet of colorful toy balloons?”

It’s called cluster ballooning. Here’s the gist of it:

The pilot wears a harness, to which a cluster of large, helium-filled balloons are attached.† Control is achieved by releasing ballast to ascend, or by bursting balloons to descend.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m guessing you want to take the balloon-bursting one at a time, with some careful reflection between bursts. “I guess that was one too many” isn’t a sentence you really want to find yourself thinking.

The most famous cluster balloonist was a rank amateur, Larry Walters, who thought he’d drift peacefully over the local neighbourhood by tying helium balloons to his lawn chair. Instead, he shot up to 16,000 feet and the approach path for Long Beach Municipal Airport, where Delta and TWA airline pilots radioed in his position. Walters made his descent by shooting some of the balloons with a BB gun he’d brought with him (planning being everything in this business), and landed safely.

This is a metaphor for something, but I’m damned if I can figure out what.

Whenever I start thinking that the only things technology really does well are

a) entertain people,
b) separate people from their money, and
c) inform people about itself,

someone kindly remind me about Martus. To quote from the web site, “Martus is a software tool that allows users to document incidents of [human rights] abuse by creating bulletins, uploading them at the earliest opportunity, and storing them on redundant servers located around the world.”

It’s even open source, so potential users can pore over the source code and confirm it’s secure (and isn’t copying your data to, say, the police).

I’ll be a happy man if I ever do anything half this useful.