Bee /! BG led Ideas for a do-it-yourself column Sorry. Don’t have energy to write today’s column. Got a head that has to be felt to be believed. Bringing in a new decade is serious business. Doesn’t happen every day, you know. Youll have to write and fill this space yourself. If you're stuck, feel free to use one or more of the following topics from an ideas file which anchors the upper right comer of my desk and which I haven’t got around to working up to 700 words myself. The ideas, not the desk. See what I mean? Can’t even write a sentence that makes sense. 1. Ethnic jokes and when to use them. For instance: a local barber said he was bilingual and could say “three cats sank” in French. “Une, deux, trois, quatre, cinq.” 2. Babies and booms: expand the thesis — clear cut logging is an abortion of nature. 3. How to get into the growing of square trees and the fortune to be made therein. 4. Joe Gallant’s coaching career or: 16,307 offsides, 11,319 incorrect second-and-long calls and 14,615,961 poor trades. 5. Come up with 52 possible names for the GST which can be printed in this newspaper and which make more sense than Goods and Services Tax. Eg: Gotcha Stupid Taxpayers; Gonna Stickit Toya; the Grab Stab Tab. 6. Lie, naked or clothed, on your neighbor’s lawn and pretend to count blades of grass. Make a list of all the really witty things people say to you. 7. Discuss the time it would take to learn to speak Chinese, obtain a real estate licence and spend the millions in commissions you’d make in a week or two. 8. Wite 700 words on the creatures which you think live in the bottom third of those glass sugar containers which stand on some restaurant tables. Industtious waitresses always top up the contain- ers before their customers can get to their bottoms. (The containers, not the waitresses.) 9. List 75 things you can do to avoid mosqui- toes. Staying in bed doesn’t count. 10. Why did you move here from the Prairies? Why did your neighbor come here from Ontario? What is there about this goofy province that attracts other Canadians like bees to beer? Don’t _ be silly, of course bees drink beer. At least in B.C they do. 11. What are the upper and lower limits to the demand for bat guano in your community? Conduct a door-to-door survey in your neighbor- hood and report the results. B.C. politicians will immediately conduct their own study, appoint a commission to study the study’s results and then slap a tax on all provincial bat droppings. You think they won’t? Hah. 12. Describe your favorite sandwich. Tell us how to build it. Encourage your readers to send their favorite sandwiches to you for judging. With luck, you won’t have to buy groceries for months. 13. Discuss the absolute stupidity of having highly paid municipal employees go around the community sucking up piles of dead leaves with over-size vacuum Cleaners. To what depths have we sunk that we need a government to dispose of our leaves? 14. Learn library research techniques by going to one, looking up all the events in history which fell on your birthday and tell us about them. Be sure to make it interesting. If we fall asleep before the end of the column, your life will might become a series of terrible misunderstandings. 15. Decades ago, going to the theatre was an occasion for dressing in one’s finest and impress- ing one’s peers. Write a column on what people wear to movies these days. Some wear little, others a lot. Impressive it’s not. 16. Come up with a dozen exercises a person could do while standing on a street comer waiting for the light to change. No, wait. You can’t have this idea. It’s a good one. I'll take it back. 17. Instead, list a dozen uses for nail and toe clippings, one of which cannot be using them to stuff one of those dopey little stiff pillows that pretentious people place on divans. Go for it, column writers, and Happy New Year. I’m heading back to bed. LADIES NIGHT _ EXTRAVAGANZA - TRAVELODGE: Sun. January 28th, 1990 OZ SS New Years Special! THE NUMBERS COMPANY Endorsed by: ° Police e Ambulance e Fire Dept. Reflecting Residential Numbers 6560806 Gingerbread house raffle benefits food hamper THE DURRANCE Elementary School gin- gerbread house raffle winner is Lisa Goudie. The raffle raised $107 for the Lions/Review Christ- mnas Hamper Fund, kindergarten teacher Daye Scandrett says. * KO CHRISTMAS GREMLINS sneaked a couple of mistakes into print about the Kiwanis/Review Toy Drive. Last week, we put the local Lions in charge of the drive, instead of Kiwanis. And a headline error Dec. 20 might have had you looking for presents for the wrong age group. In any case, the drive was once again a success, said lar organizer Ted Parsons. * xk THEN THERE was the case of mistaken identity, in a caption Dec. 20 of a Parkland School track athlete carrying the Queen’s Baton down the Pat Bay Highway. The athlete shown is Michael Wilson, one of several who helped the baton on its way to the Commonwealth Games in Auckland, New Zealand. x * * A POSITIVE attitude has helped keep Edna Griffiths of Sidney on this planet for a long time — 102 years, as of yesterday. Edna arrived in Sidney in 1943 with her husband, Arthur and family. Arthur took over Sidney Trading, which is now Sidney Super Foods. Born in Bradford, Ont., Edna was 18 when her parents and 17 siblings moved west to Macoun, Sask. “There weren’t many girls my age in Macoun, so I was the belle of the ball,” she said in an interview two years ago. One of her courters was Arthur, and the two were married in 1915 in Regina. The couple operated the Benson, Sask., general store and lived in an apartment upstairs, before coming to Sidney. Arthur died in 1956. A regular attender of Silver Threads until she was 95, Edna continues attending the some of the seniors’ centre events. And she continues to attend United Church services. Edna has three daughters — Helen, Beth and Jean — four granddaughters, two grandsons and two great grandsons. kK x DOING A little shopping in Sidney during the Christmas season were about 40 Iranian seamen. The crew’s grain ship was anchored off Victoria, so they came to Sidney for an afternoon, Dec. 21. By 5 p.m. they were reboarding an aluminum boat to head back to the ship — and await Vancouver grain handlers to return to work after Christmas. * OK ANYONE WITH pre-1970 quilts who wants to register them with the British Columbia Heri- tage Quilt Project should call Cynthia Stan- hope of Sidney at 656-1827 for information. Quilt registration day is Jan. 18, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., at the Newcome Auditorium. The day is part of a province-wide census of quilts, says Stan- hope, of the Victoria Quilters’ Guild. eK THE PENINSULA Diabetes Auxiliary has released results of a recent raffle: first prize, 1990 Honda Accord LX, Wilf Lynk of Sparwood; second, a Honda Civic hatchback deluxe, Gwen Edlund of Kelowna; and third, $1,000, B. Lloyd of Victoria. e ze x Bettina “Sidney's most respecied name in Fashion” Siarts January 4th, 90’ 2392 Beacon Ave. Sidney,B.C. 655-1323 161 Fort St. Victoria, B.C. 384-1723 | Congratulations Susan Good of Sidney — It’s one year later & you've kept that 41 l/ 2 pounds off! Center’ The weight-loss professionals. Marina Court 9843 2nd St., Sidney, B.C. Hrs. 6:30 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. Mon.-Fri. 656-9505 Appointments Recommended