Smells Like Yukon Flog

We can’t begin to tell you all how impressed we are with everyone who Smells Like Yukon. You’ve been faithful to the lazy ethic by not casting a single vote in the lazy poll–and yet, at least one of you has found the time and energy to respond to a desperate plea for caption contest entries featuring Murray Lundberg:

“Although he will miss his beloved Carcross, Murray Lundberg decides to take the ‘Whitehorse Plunge’.”

Now, we don’t want to put too much heat on Murray, so to speak. We know this may be asking a lot, but it would sure be great to also have a few entries that touch on the City of Whitehorse’s just-announced 7.5% tax increase. Should be a no-brainer. On second thought, double points for entries that incorporate the City tax increase and Murray Lundberg. Triple points if that entry comes from Murray himself.

Please don’t ask me to explain the points system; we just made it up.

Our latest poll–related to the “Men of Action / Lazy River” radio segment–is now live on the Smells Like Yukon website, including one brand-new never-before-seen option. That brings the total number of options to five. It’s our hope to slowly add to this total so that we can boast our usual 20+ options by the end of the month.

Given the subject matter of the poll–the laziness of Yukoners–we think it will be marginally acceptable for you to visit the poll and read the options. However, under no circumstances should any Yukoner actually attempt to vote. If you don’t already know this, let me spell it out for you: there are NO government incentives or funding programs for voting in a Smells Like Yukon online poll.

We repeat: NO GOVERNMENT ASSISTANCE!

Click here to look at, but not vote in, the latest Smells Like Yukon online poll.

The fast and furious rate at which entries for the new caption contest have been coming in–three in the first day, and the first entry no less than 10 minutes after the photo was posted–has Smells Like Yukon wondering if somebody has inside knowledge about an impending failure of the 2008 coffee crop.

Why else would Yukoners seem so desperate to get their hands on the caption contest prize of a free cup of coffee? And if you do have this kind of inside information, we’d like to point out that your time might be better spent watching Trading Places and trying to figure out how to corner the coffee bean market–as opposed to wasting your time writing pointless captions. Hell, even if you don’t have inside knowledge, your time would probably be better spent watching Trading Places or even The Golden Child.

That said, we thought we’d give you a little taste of what we’ve received so far. We can’t say who this caption is from, but we will direct your attention to the conspicious absence of any reference to Murray Lundberg….

“The rapidly increasing costs of both home ownership and rental accommodations in Whitehorse are forcing many residents to take their “sun holidays” much closer to home. This vacationer reports that such holidays are made more enjoyable by the in-flight breakfasts served at the 98.”

One of the regular Smells Like Yukon site features that we haven’t been able to update is the online poll. We were all prepared to let you choose the best from over 20 possible ways to punish Yukon News reporters who get too close to the “The Truth,” but the mix-up in CBC segments turned that theme into a temporary dead end. As hard as we’ve struggled to compile a poll related to the laziness theme explored in the latest segment “Men of Action / Lazy River,” we just haven’t been able to get our act together.

Now, there are two schools of thought about Smells Like Yukon’s online polls. There are those who believe that the Government of Yukon relies heavily on our polling data when devoloping policy in any number of areas. We know this thanks to the fine research done by the Political Science department at Yukon College. The other, less credible school of thought maintains that our polls are just pointless exercises in list-making that offer no real incentives for anyone to actually vote–and therefore provide no useful data from which our political leaders, or anyone else, can draw when formulating public policy.

No matter which school of thought you subscribe to, we’re hoping you might be able to help us play catch up on our polling initiatives by suggesting some of the top signs that Yukoners are getting lazier.

To get the ball rolling, we offer the first four:

1. Radio “journalists” reduce output of silly segments from bi-weekly to monthly

2. CBC morning show broadcasts segment about laziness in 7:15 a.m. time slot, but no one is awake to listen.

3. Yukon’s most famous artist can’t be bothered to include facial features on people in his paintings.

4. Tourism Yukon changes slogan from “Larger than Life” to “No trespassing.”

We’ve tallied the votes for Caption Contest #10 (actually we subcontracted the job to a free script) and the following gem from Michael Pealow of Whitehorse won the hearts and minds of all those who Smells Like Yukon:

“Worried about what anti-sled-dog extremists might think, Murray Lundberg begins to walk his dog with him wherever he goes.”

This entry received a whopping 75% of the popular vote–or, in slightly less impressive terms, 3 out of the 4 total votes cast. Now, if all three of those votes came from Michael, now would be the time for him to either fess up and/or drown his shame in alcohol. If we’re not mistaken, we might owe him a coffee to help with the hangover. Even better, we might even make it available on a local basis, saving him the time and expense of traveling to Australia and attempting to locate Jesse.

As threatened or promised, a new photo has now been posted for Caption Contest #11. We briefly toyed with the idea of letting the winner submit the photo for the next contest, but then we figured that anyone smart enough to win a Smells Like Yukon caption contest would also be smart enough to realize that this “honour” would really be a transparent ploy to get other people to do our work for free.

Anyway, thanks to everyone who entered the last contest. You’ve got till January 1 to submit captions for the current contest–and, you never know, maybe a decent prize will finally materialize. Entries mentioning Murray Lundberg are highly encouraged. Something along the lines of “Unable to win the heart of Dennis Fentie with words alone, Murrary Lundberg braves the elements to flaunt some ab in full view from the Premier’s office window” would do quite nicely, we think.

As it turns out, there was a mix up in the airing of the most recent Smells Like Yukon segment on December 5. Instead of hearing a scandalous tale about bred-in-the-bone Yukoners, you heard a couple of almost-grown men playing Asteroids in a basement.

As you may have guessed, Mark emerged from the safehouse last night. Since then, he has managed to furnish enough information to update the Smells Like Yukon website with information about segment #12 and a video for Behind-the-Sounds. Sadly, we suspect that Mark’s time in hiding has had a detrimental effect on his mind because the first thing he did upon return to Whitehorse was attend a seminar to help newcomers “survive” a winter in the Yukon. And on top of that, he refused to settle on a single, pithy title for the segment–which is not like him at all.

The upside of Mark’s experience on the run is that Salman Rushdie has agreed to work with him as an executive coach.

We’re still recovering from the bait and switch on this morning’s Smells Like Yukon radio segment, but in the meantime we’re forging ahead with the voting to determine the winner of Caption Contest #10. Amazingly, we received a total of nine entries from sources other than my boss, who has yet to emerge from the safehouse. We’re expecting him back later today, assuming last night’s gale-force winds didn’t blow him off course–to Nunavut, for example.

Obviously, with online voting, there are no rules about voting for your own entry. You can even vote for more than one entry. You can even vote for your own entry or entries more than once. We don’t ask that you keep it honest; we just say that if it’s important enough to cheat, we hope you’ll celebrate your victory in high style, as long as it doesn’t involve a DUI.

Voting ends on December 7, at which time we’ll post a new Photoshop specimen–and some lucky soul will be looking forward to hooking up with Jesse for a free coffee in Australia (airfare not included).

If you listen to the CBC broadcast of Smells Like Yukon on December 5 expecting to hear shocking revelations about Yukon’s “born and raised” population and instead hear what appears to be two guys talking with their mouths full, don’t blame us.

We’d like to say our teasers about the content of this segment were a concerted effort to jerk you all around–we really would–but the news would actually be much worse. The airing of an alternate segment might mean that the all-powerful “born and raised” Yukon establishment conspiracy has managed to intimidate someone at CBC. Or, for all we know, it could be something KarlHeinz Shreiber said to the House of Commons Ethics Committee. Of course, there’s always the potential explanation that CBC just got mixed up about the order the segments are supposed to air.

The last-minute possibility of a segment switch was brought to our attention when we heard a recorded CBC promo for Smells Like Yukon sometime after 6:00 p.m. tonight. While it’s flattering to think that SLY warrants that kind of publicity after the local CBC shop has locked up for the night, it has certainly thrown a little wrench into our plans to update the Smells Like Yukon website as usual.

As a result of this confusion, you won’t find details about segment 12 on the website until a future time when we actually know, for sure, which story CBC decided to air. Before Mark went into the safehouse with the expectatation that the original story about “born and raised” Yukoners would air, he compiled information about that segment–and that segment only.
If the original segment does air, we should have the site updated in pretty short order. On the other hand, if it’s a different segment, it might take us some time to put together the details, behind-the-sounds story, and a content-appropriate poll. The good news is, Mark will be able to leave the safehouse immediately and get to work on this material.

Earlier today, we invited you to take advantage of your last opportunity to cast your ballot in the current online poll. After that, you’ll still be able to vote in that poll–it just won’t be current. So hurry.

We understand, however, that this kind of free-wheelin’ democracy might not be your cup of chai, so here’s another suggestion: seize this final chance chance to enter our caption contest. We actually have a few entries this time around, so you might have to “think” in order to “win.” If “thinking” isn’t your strong suit, forget about entering the caption contest and just return to the website tomorrow to help us determine the winner.

Oh, except that would involve that whole democratic process that you don’t like. So never mind.

Is there a connection between illegal docks at Marsh Lake and missing Yukon News reporters? You bet. And this connection—plus a whole lot more—will be explained in the next radio segment of Smells Like Yukon, when crack investigative journalists Mark and Jesse infiltrate the conspiracy of “born and raised” Yukoners who rule virtually every aspect of life in modern-day Yukon. What they discover, to paraphrase Orwell, is that all Yukoners are equal, but some are more equal than others.

This segment to which we referred in the preceding teaser is scheduled to air on CBC Yukon the first Wednesday of the month, sometime between 7:00 a.m. and 7:30 a.m. PST. And just in case you’ve lost your calendar, that would be tomorrow…Wednesday, December 5th. If necessary, you can use the link on the Smells Like Yukon homepage to hear tomorrow’s segment live on CBC’s internet radio.

As usual, the official Smells LikeYukon website will be updated with content related to the new segment. Online features include music details, audio outtakes, behind the scenes gossip, and a bunch of other stuff. As of today, the previous segment, “The Barstools of Yutopia,” is now available for online listening–but only if you’re a member of the Smells Like Yukon Members Club.

In the meantime, we recommend that you take another opportunity to vote in our current online poll while it’s still current. It asks you about what the Yukon needs in order to truly qualify as a utopia. We’re pleased to announce that we have also re-opened all our previous polls. So, if you voted in the past and regret your stupid choice(s), here’s your chance to do it all over again.

And if you’re really hard up for entertainment, you can always peruse our “fascinating” archives of updated news, unbecoming events, free store donations, online video clips and other features on the Smells Like Yukon website.