Ah, May 21. A day leading into the best weekend of the year for us Canadians. Any number of reasons. Primarily it is the first long weekend of the year where we aren’t typically house bound. Secondly, because of history.
What history you ask? Well let me edumacate you.
We used to call it Victoria Day in honour of the birthday of Queen Victoria who ruled the Commonwealth for what, 250 years prior to Queen Elizabeth the Second and just after the 1500 year reign of Queen Elizabeth the First. I’m sure there was someone else in there, I seem to recall a few Georges. But I digress. Victoria Day. She was important.
Except in Quebec, where antipathy to the monarchy has always necessitated a need to celebrate a different day so it became rebranded there as Dollard Day (not to be confused with Dollar Days at Zellers), a celebration created by Lionel Groulx in the early 20th century to honour a dude named Adam Dollard Des Ormeaux, a French settler and explorer who ambushed and massacred the Iroquois just west of Ville Marie, which ultimately became Montreal. Oh, and he died in the battle.
Recognizing that celebrating this “martyr” was not consistent with, well, sensitivity to First Nations, the Quebec Government rebranded as the much less nationalistic and provocatively named Fête nationale des Patriotes or National Patriot’s Day celebrated exclusively in the “nation” of Quebec. While the “patriots” they celebrate are the precursors to the constitutionalists who collectively sought to bring about freedom from British Imperial rule, the true champion is Louis-Joseph Papineau who ultimately led an armed rebellion in 1837/8 (ironically the first year of the reign of, you guessed it – Queen Victoria). So as always,
And yes, everyone in this weird story is a Metro station or neighbourhood in Montreal, even Victoria.
At any rate, I digress. Here in the world at large, our collective memories have faded and as political erectness has become the flavour of the day, the whole thing morphed into “The May Long Weekend” and “the weekend Canadian teams get eliminated from the Stanley Cup playoffs” before eventually simply being branded as “May Long” which of course is Canadian shorthand for busting out the grill, going camping, planting flowers and gardening, leaving work early and otherwise whiling away the days on a patio/deck/whatever enjoying the first warm and sunny weekend of the transition to summer.
Ahh, I can feel it now (slowly turns his chair and looks out the window – I’m sure I can see the sun through this… Snow?!?! What?).
Yeah, that’s how it works here in Calgary. The odds of having garbage weather on this particular weekend are extraordinarily high. So much so that people count on it. In fact we laugh uproariously at those poor suckers who were fooled by last weekend’s incredible weather.
The weather for this particular Canadian weekend is in fact so predictable you could probably base a Cryptocurrency on it.
In fact maybe I will.
And I will name it Vicpatriotcoin.
Which of course reminds me, crypto has been in the news a lot lately, so I have done the heavy lifting for you and found the best new cryptocurrencies/altcoins/shitcoins that will accompany the aforementioned Vicpatriotcoin.
All of these coins are available for trading on Stormont’s exclusive new Crypto-trading platform “gimmeyourmoneydummy.net”. Deposits are currently being accepted, but we ask that you send them in cash, preferably in a discreet manila envelope.
Vicpatriotcoin
Deriving its name from a famous Canadian holiday weekend with predictably, unpredictable weather, this coin provides users with the ability to transact across a dedicated blockchain network. As a uniquely Canadian coin, there is a limited amount of coin available, but this crypto isn’t obtained by mining as most coins are, rather the code for the coin is written under the cap of every second beer produced in Canada in the three weeks leading up to May Long. It is expected that the warmer the weather or the more panicked Leafs fans become, the more beer will be consumed and the more coins will be uncovered. It is entirely possible that the entire float of this currency will be in circulation by Monday.
ChickenCoin
While not a bona fide crypto, Chickencoin is a series of NFTs (Non Fungible Tokens) inspired by recent CDC guidance relating to salmonella fears that encouraged people not to snuggle or kiss their backyard chickens as they might get sick. This is a real thing. We are not a smart species. At any rate, these one of a kind ChickenCoin NFTs will feature various celebrities and other notable figures kissing chickens. It’s really weird and more than a little off-putting, but so far the big sellers and most valuable NFTs are the ones featuring politicians and washed-up 1980’s actors. The exclusive Mr T with a chicken NFT is the most valuable so far as it also commemorates his 69th birthday.
Gascoin
Gascoin is newly issued coin that seeks to trade off the scarcity of gasoline in the Eastern part of the United States and is newly created in the aftermath of the great Colonial pipeline shutdown of … last week. Using Minecraft as a way to unlock these coins, users enter a secure virtual world through a portal and are required to mine for and pursue a group of highly elusive villagers, creepers and endermen. Each of these “mobs” will be carrying a garbage bag which may or may not contain gasoline. When they corner a mob with a bag, they have to use redstone blow up the bag. If it contains gasoline, it will have a larger explosion which will unlock a coin and code that the user can then save to digital wallet. Once 100 coins are collected they become tradeable on the exchange. The amount of Gascoin available is as yet unknown so you probably have to play the game forever.
Crudecoin
Strangely not based on oil prices, the Crudecoin derives its value solely on the basis of how ridiculous my blog can be on any given Friday. As newly issued coin (just today), Crudecoin will have the dubious honour of being priced to perfection on issue. I don’t see how I can top this one so I suggest that if you are going to short any of these products, this is the one. If anyone is interested, I can also do this as an NFT, so you will have your very own personalized version of the blog.
Bitucoin
The brainchild of none other than Murray Edwards of “$1.38 billion in Q1 profits CNRL” fame, bitucoin is a new entrant into the commodity “themed” altcoin market. To unlock value in bitucoin, miners must travel to northern Alberta and get into a “excavator” which they use to “dig” through dirt and scoops giant piles of black, sticky goo into giant transport trucks that then take the goo to a “processing facility” where it is heated and separated into bitucoin and tailings. The bitucoin is then measured as a virtual barrel and then transferred via the exclusive bitucoin blockchain known as the “pipeline” until it hits the users virtual wallet as a “barrel” of bitucoin. The supply of bitucoin is finite and as a commodity-modelled crypto the pricing will be volatile, but we are confident that the virtual/crypto version will ultimately be much more valuable than the physical one.
WIngcoin
Building on the concept of scarcity in the physical supply chain, the Wingcoin was recently introduced as a result of an announcement by a number of poultry processors in the United States that they are running out of chicken wings. While completely unthinkable, it is a reasonable outcome of our bizarre North American obsession with crispy chicken sandwiches. Wingcoin’s value is benchmarked to the Biden administration’s recently announced Strategic Chicken Wing Reserve (SCWR) which is a 200 million pound store of frozen chicken wings held in a secret location in an ice cave in the far north of Alaska. Wingcoin miners are able to unlock coins by participating in virtual chicken wing eating contests with prizes awarded based on a heat absorption measurement derived from the Scoville Scale. Once coins are unlocked and put in a virtual wallet, they can be exchanged for single plates of wings at participating restaurants. The value of the coin thus rises and falls with the price of a plate of wings. With a full two more months of NHL and NBA playoffs still to come, the time to buy Wingcoin in now.
Vaxcoin
This one is pretty simple. Vaxcoin developers have hacked into the healthcare databases of both Canada and the United States and stored all the private health information of each citizen into a secure electronic vault on the darkweb. For every two people who has been vaccinated one Vaxcoin will be created. Each individual will then be informed that they will have the opportunity to purchase Vaxcoin. To receive a Vaxcoin, you must transfer an amount of cash through the private blockchain. Vaxcoins can be stored in the digital wallet, sold to other people through an exchange or redeemed back to Vaxcoin in exchange for a vaccine passport in the form of an NFT (remember those?) that will allow the bearer unlimited access to travel, restaurants, theatres, sporting/entertainment events and public bathrooms. Obviously with the fixed supply, the value of the vaxcoin is expected to increase exponentially as more and more people purchase their NFTs or hoard Vaxcoins to blackmail the masses.
Stucoin
This is the purest of the new cryptos and distills down cryptocurrency and NFTs to their truest form.
Here’s how it works.
You send me money – the amount doesn’t matter.
In exchange, I will send you a code. That code will unlock a Stucoin that you can store in a virtual wallet or on an exchange of some coin. If you can find someone to buy that from you or exchange a service for it, more power to you. If you can’t? Thanks for the money.
There you go. Long weekend silliness. Don’t forget to send me money. Have a great weekend.
Now I’m going home.
