The obvious lessons from this past weekend have already been well-documented. Toronto's capable of hosting a very decent Grey Cup, Saskatchewanians travel rather well and Lenny Kravitz really needs to invest in some new jeans. But over the course of four or five days of drinking and cavorting, you learn a few other things as well. And so we share with you our accumulated wisdom, in the form of 10 lessons that you can take home to impress all of your friends at Regina's swankiest cocktail parties:

1.) What happens in Edmonton should stay in Edmonton. To be clear, we thoroughly enjoy the Spirit of Edmonton breakfast. Copious drinking at 9:00 a.m., with hung-over cheerleaders doing extensive routines in the middle of the room? You really can't beat that. But we had a bad feeling when the MC kept promising us a "real treat" - the "Edmonton Festival City Road Show." At first, it didn't seem quite as weird as we had feared. While opening with a flexible woman dangling from a rope for about 10 minutes was a curious choice, the combination of African drums, Irish dancing and Scottish bagpipes that followed - surely a scene that plays out on many an Edmonton street corner - was quite charming. But then things took a turn for the bizarre. We really can't do this justice, except to say that it involved a middle-aged female lounge singer belting out inspirational songs while a becostumed gentleman introduced as "Randall Fraser, stiltwalker" teetered around on stilts and twirled ribbons in the air. We'll say this for it - it was nothing if not "festive." (And in case you're wondering - yes, Randall Fraser is a member of the Edmonton Stiltwalkers Society. Book him now for your holiday party!)

2.) Dave Dickenson might not be quite the hot offseason commodity you think he is. We feel a little bad about this, because Dickenson seems like a really nice guy and concussion-related problems are unfortunate. Also, he's surprisingly tiny in person, which is always endearing in football players. But while the likes of Henry Burris and Marcus Brady were tearing up Thursday's touch-football tournament, featuring CFL quarterbacks playing with regular-guy teammates, Dickenson had his problems. The low point came when the bespectacled fellow counting steamboats chased him at least 10 yards into the backfield, then somehow forced a fumble despite this being a non-contact game. We'd expect that sort of thing from Kurt Warner, maybe, but it's not going to cut it in the CFL.

3.) Power tools + excessive drinking = good times. In the list of all-time bad ideas, this one has to be up there. As legions of drunks staggered through the convention centre on Saturday afternoon, they were presented with a contest that involved operating a power drill. If they could drill five holes in under 10 seconds, they won. We're not exactly sure what they won, because the one member of our group to try it took roughly 26 minutes. But since he escaped with both his hands intact, we'll declare him a winner anyway.

4.) Riders fans are really, really committed to this whole green thing. Walking into the Rogers Centre for Sunday's game, we were delayed slightly as security lifted the giant foam green helmet off the Saskatchewanian in front of us and inspected underneath. When he was greeted with a quizzical look, the security guy offered a reasonable explanation: "I already found weed under one of these earlier."

5.) Big and Rich own the Grey Cup. Who are Big and Rich, you ask? Those would be the guys responsible for the country hit "Save a Horse (Ride a Cowboy)". For roughly 361 days per year, we manage to avoid this thing. But for some reason, it's absolutely inescapable at Grey Cup parties. We're firmly of the belief that this song should never be played in a room that doesn't have a mechanical bull (with or without Cody Pickett), but maybe it all makes sense if you're from the West.

6.) It's never too early for Steve Hayman to bring his A-game. As always at the Spirit of Edmonton Breakfast (which, as you can see, is really a goldmine for material), we were treated to an MC making assorted jokes that range from the corny to the slightly blue. For a guy trying to work a room full of drunks on a Saturday morning, he did a fair job. But he had nothing on the leader of the beloved Argonotes, who came equipped with a dizzying array of one-liners - among them a solid one about Saskatchewan poised to match the number of Grey Cups won by Sarnia and Queen's University, and...well, truthfully, we can't remember the others, on account of the nature of the event. But trust us, he was very funny. And we maintain that the Argonotes' cover of BTO's Ain't Seen Nothing Yet is genuinely more enjoyable than the original.

7.) A good pipe-metal band can save even the lamest party. After some great showings at past Grey Cups, this year's Schooner party - the one endearingly hosted by the folks who want a CFL team out east - was a bit of a disaster. Courtesy of slow and surly service provided by Convention Centre staff, plus overflow from Riderville, the entire room was basically just a lineup for the bar. But then along came the Mudmen, and all was right with the world. Either ten years behind its time or ten years ahead of it, this winning ensemble consists mostly of several bagpipers who look distinctly like bikers, fronted by a dude who appears to be channelling Fred Durst. Maybe it was just relief that they didn't do a take on "Save a Horse (Ride a Cowboy)," but we can honestly say we enjoyed their hard-rocking, hard-piping set - especially when they closed with a rousing chant of "DRINK! FIGHT! DRINK! FIGHT!", which offered the fleeting hope that they were mere moments away from beating the hell out of the Convention Centre staff.

8.) So can cheerleaders for a non-existent team. Granted, it turned out they were just the Brock University cheerleaders in different outfits. But still, the presence of a Schooners cheerleadings squad - despite the pesky failure of the Schooners' to actually exist - sent an important message: It's possible to skip owning the team and go straight to the cheerleaders. If only someone had told Lonie Glieberman about this, we all could have been spared a lot of headaches.

9.) Don't mix your pipers and your cheerleaders. As you can see, large men playing bagpipes and small women in skimpy clothing are two of our favourite Grey Cup mainstays. But at Friday's Touchdown Manitoba party at the Hilton, disaster nearly struck. After the Blue Lightning had wrapped up a lengthy and very energetic set, a narrow passageway was formed through the crowd for them to make their exit single-file. But as they began to make use of it, the next performers - the Winnipeg police department's pipe band - began using the same passageway to advance toward the stage. Disaster nearly struck, before the cheerleaders frantically scampered out of the way before being steamrolled by the pipers.   

10.) If you're having a "hand show," we know the man for you. On Saturday afternoon, wandering around the Convention Centre, we received a very enticing text message. "Shoomy going on hand show with Ben Cahoon," it promised. "Come quick!" As disturbing as this sounded, we hurried over - only to discover that it wasn't quite as obscene as might have been expected. As it turned out, Boatmenblog contributor Shoomy was merely going on a game show with Ben Cahoon; the whole "hand" business was attributable to some well-refreshed texting by another member of our group. All the same, we were pleased to watch as Shoomy out-trash-talked two other contestants before a jury made up of Cahoon and Video on Trial regulars to take home a brand-new barbecue. So the story had a happy ending - if not quite the happy ending implied by the original message.   

Well, we didn't really see this one coming. Your halftime entertainment for the 2007 Grey Cup is...wait for it...Lenny Kravitz!

Hopefully, he'll bring Lisa Bonet. And Ricky Williams. 

Either way, resistance is futile. In that spirit, we will begin taking up arms this weekend as we ready ourselves for the "love revolution" Lenny has promised.

Last year's Grey Cup halftime show prompted Rusty to rave to CBC Radio about the incredible super-awesomeness of Nelly Furtado. (He was quite drunk.) So as you can imagine, we're pretty psyched for Wednesday's announcement of who will be gracing us with their presence at this year's halftime festivites. (Watch out, Andy Barrie...here comes Rusty.)

Now, we've seen enough Grey Cups to be able to make an educated guess as to who it'll be. Our gut, alarmingly enough, tells us it'll be Avril Lavigne. Our heart is with a more tasteful dark horse like Sloan. Our deepest fear is a repeat of the 2004 Tragically Hip performance, which we mercifully missed most of because we were stuck in a 35-minute bathroom lineup at Landsdowne Park.

But frankly, these are all a little...impersonal. With the Grey Cup back in Toronto for the first time in 15 years, it's time to show the CFL what we're made of with some distinctive Argo flavour. Some options:

• Diane Clemons. Pinball's wife has a lovely singing voice, as we discovered when she performed the anthem a couple of years ago. The only catch is that, on the evidence of that performance, they'd have to extend halftime to about 90 minutes. (And yes, we just made a joke - albeit a mild one - about Pinball's wife. We're going straight to hell.) 
• Clifford Ivory. They call him "Sweet Music" for a reason. Okay, they called him "Sweet Music" once, after he sang the anthem. But he did a really nice job. More importantly, it would give some of us a reason to keep wearing our favourite jersey. And anything that gets him back to the Grey Cup parties is well worth it.
• Shake Severs, featuring the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. The return of Robert Baker speaks for itself. If Noel Prefontaine can learn to rap, he could join him on stage and they could settle their differences 8 Mile style. And the presence of the TSO would give our man Shake the gravitas he deserves.
• This person.
• Cody Pickett riding a mechanical bull. And now, a little something for the ladies. The Argos have a former rodeo star from a multi-generation rodeo family hovering behind Rocky Butler on the depth chart; isn't it about time to put him to good use? An entire rodeo might be a little expensive to stage, but anyone who's been to a crappy Western-themed American bar knows there's nothing sexier than partying atop a mechanical bull. Sort of like this.
• Sherwood Schwarz: The Musical. It had comedy. It had drama. It had Shaggy. It's a story that needs to be told, and nothing could be more fitting than enlisting Garth Drabinsky to stage it.
• Frank D'Angelo and the Steelback 2-4. Surely the pan-Canadian crowd at the Grey Cup, unlike those ingrates at regular Argos games, will appreciate the great talent that is in their midst. And if not, it'll at least have the upside of bringing us all together - 50,000 Canadians from places big and small, coming together as a single voice to drown out his cover of My Girl. 

What, you haven't been counting down the days until the 2007 Grey Cup?

CFL fans based in Toronto are obviously very excited to get a chance to show the country our passion for Canadian football, and a great weekend of partying.  To that end, we are very excited by a project from our friends at argofans.com who will be publishing a free Grey Cup guide for fans. The guide will have maps, event listings and coupons and should be useful for anyone looking to navigate their way through Canada's biggest party in Canada's biggest city.  To sign up to receive the guide, simply go to this link.

We should also point out that if you have a non-Frank D'Angelo affiliated business that is interested in reaching an audience of people from across the country, you can get advertising details here.

Thanks to Mark at argofans for spear heading this project, and for giving us a good excuse to finally start using the Grey Cup 2007 tag.