Weekend came and went. It's now Monday night - the 15th of December and in about 6 days, I'll have my first of about 2 straight weeks of holidays. I can't wait for that. It's gonna be great and I am totally gonna chill out. Lots has happened over the past while in my life as well as in the lives of the peeps all over the rest of the world. Let's start with some world news...

Canada has a new PM. And his initials are the same. The name is Paul Martin. From what I've read and heard so far - he will be a good man for the job. Has some excellent ideas and defintely knows a thing or two about finance so that should help out the whole budget thing. I think from a country standpoint, Chretien was just getting to the point where he didn't really seem to care anymore. He was making decisions and doing things "just for the sake of doing them" I think. It's a welcome refresher to have Martin. Let's see how things go.

"We Got Him" is the headline on every major newspaper today referring to the Sadam Hussein story. The thing I am hearing consistently on radio call-in shows and reading in the paper is how shocked people are that he didn't put up a fight when he was found. He was just lying in that hole with a small pistol...essentially waiting to be found. Seems a little strange to me. Then again - people are saying that he was just a bully and when it comes down to it, most bullies are chicken and only pick on people smaller than them. Eventually - the psche of a bully is all about themselves. It's interesting cause there are all these people who follow his words and will kill themselves for the cause that he preaches. They are so determined to help his movement against Western culture, etc. At the same time (yesterday), this strong, defiant man was found hiding in some hole and didn't put up any kind of fight when he was caught. I was quite astonished to see that so many people were so ecstatic that he was caught. Especially in Iraq and surrounding countries - people were so joyous, they were shooting rifles in the air and celebrating. At the same time - the media only shows us what they want us to see so you can't totally believe that. Overall, it's good they caught him - perhaps they can get him to talk and tell them more evil stuff. At the same time, this kind of validates President Bush's "War on Terrorism" in the first place so I don't like that. I'm sure he's sleeping a lot better these days...

Christmas is around the corner and with that comes shopping and gifts. I've never been a huge Christmas gift guy so I don't need to get too many this year although I am taking part in 4 Secret Santas (2 have already happened and the other 2 are this weekend). They've all been different too - we've had the ones that are straight up - I have "Jacque Strap" and he has "Poca-Hotass and" it continues like that. Or there is the stealing version where you can trade your gift with someone who has already picked. Speaking of shopping - I was at Scarborough Town Centre on Saturday and damn - that was madness. I was there for close to 5 hours and that was about 4.5 hours too long. I got a couple decent deals but I am still looking for a new winter coat as well as some black dress shoes.

I'm playing basketball in less than an hour so I've gotta leave soon. It's the last game of the year and we're gonna start up again in January on the 5th. Hopefully I go out with a decent game tonight and I drain some jumpers. It all starts with strong D though so as long as I do that...it'll be fine. The Raptors are looking a little vulnerable in the front court sizewise. They'll be eaten alive by any of the big Western Conference teams so let's see what they do to strengthen the roster. Rebounding and defence down low are killin them They have the offence (there is no question about that ) but to be a great team - you need to pull some stops on the defensive floor to minimize the amount of points the other guys are scoring. They're playing Mr. Nash tonight. He can light it up for 65 points but the Raptors have to win 66-65.