����So when you're thinking surf music, summer, sun, sand and beach volleyball, I KNOW that one country immediately leaps to mind, eh, and that OF COURSE is my homeland--Canada.

����Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.

����So, anyhow, it was insanely late last night and Olympic Beach Volleyball comes on TV. The kids and I are making all these rude comments about the fact that this actually IS an Olympic sport.

����We pretty much come to a consensus that an Olympic sport should be something you would NEVER do yourself in real life and something that serves absolutely no practical purpose in this day and age.

����For me this makes shot put, javelin and anything involving any amount of physical exertion beyond a brisk walk to the store an Olympic event. So, if you look at it that way, Beach Volleyball is a righteous sport indeed.

����Anyhow, the Beach Volleyball game begins, Canada against the U.S. The commentators are Canadian so they can't actually say, "These Canadians have a snowball's chance in hell of winning but hey, they're ours, it's after 1 a.m. and anyone who will watch an obscure sport like Beach Volleyball at this insane hour probably doesn't have a life."

����No, they can't say any of that. And at the beginning the game goes as everyone expects and the Americans pull ahead. But then this odd thing happens and the two Canadians refuse to quit, and actually pull back AND TAKE THE FREAKIN' LEAD.

����The kids and I, beach volleyball afficionados that we are (it took the combined memory banks of the four of us to establish that you needed at least 14 points and a two point margin to win at volleyball--we are not a volleyball brain trust), begin, against all reason, to cheer the Canadians on.

����I'm sure that the yells of four people in an apartment in Montreal made a massive difference to two men sweating their guts out half the planet away on Bondi Beach.

����Eventually, the Americans pulled ahead again and for about 20 minutes the two teams stood at match point, one point away from the whole enchilada. But someone forgot to tell the two Canadians that this is where they give up and accept the inevitable. They came back and won, automatically going to the final eight.

����The Olympics are about many things--money, greed, drugs, commercialism, athleticism, courage, skill, dedication, pain and sometimes blind luck. They're also about nationalism which can be a tricky genie to let out of the bottle.

����We Canadians are a massive country land wise, and a tiny country population wise living right smack north of the most powerful country on earth.

����Most of us, with the exception of French-speaking Quebec, speak the same language as the Americans, eh. We look alot like them, and we are flooded by their culture through TV, radio, and movies, dude.

����And the odd thing about being Canadian is that instead of saying WHO we are, we often define ourselves as who we're NOT--as in this wildly popular beer ad which basically says We Are NOT American, and we are VERY cranky that Americans don't give a flying puck about our country.

����We hate it that Americans don't realize that we're their biggest trading partner by far, that if Canada goes down the toilet we're taking them with us.

����We are SO pissed off that they don't pay any attention when we go through one of our periodic neverendums, when the province of Quebec holds a referendum and tries to coax its people to vote to separate from Canada.

����We KNOW that through their economic and cultural power the Americans can pretty much have their way with us. We just wish they'd respect us in the morning, eh.

���We Canadians might SEEM like a quiet, peace loving people, but back in the War of 1812-14 we got so huffy we marched down there and burned down part of the White House.

����If the Americans tick us off again, heck, we could unleash the full might of the Canadian Armed Forces on them In A Heartbeat.

����All we have to do is find those two trucks with the gun racks, the rubber bands for the airplanes, and where Uncle Fred hid the key for the outboard motor ...