I thought that Kit Ro might enjoy THIS.
The rest of you as well.
If not you can always just read stuff there.

I know our own copper tone dog will enjoy this and this.

Yet Another Superannuated Impromptu Trip

FMD = Some family member is driving to someplace
SIC = There's space inside the car
FT = I have some free time on my hands

FMD + SIC + FT = An impromptu trip

Yup, I going on an impromptu trip to Vancouver and Seattle, Seattle if I get across the border. Haven't been State side since 98, but I should have no trouble since I'm a Canuck by birth. Anyways, the trip is for my second cousin's wedding in Seattle. I haven't been there or in Vancouver since I was 9, or maybe 12.

Heard about the wedding when my aunt and uncle came back from driving to Seattle last January. Figured that I'd be working by now so I didn't think I'd be going. And since I'm back in school in the MWD program I thought that I'd have class around the time of the wedding and the long weekend. But since this week is the wrap up for session A I only have class on Wednesday instead of the full week. So Thursday and Friday off. Then the long weekend so that's Sat, Sun, and Mon. And apparently Tuesday is a P.D.(Professional Development) day for the profs, so I have Tuesday off. So all this off time means I have time to do nothing (except, the online MWD component) , especially since the long weekend is between sessions. And since my aunt and uncle are going and there's space in the car, and I have free time. It all adds up to one impromptu trip.

The only problem is that I miss the first day of Session B , but it's only 2 hours of class for one course. Granted I only have 4 hours of class time for that course a week. But oh well, I just have a feeling that I might be "sick" on Wednesday *cough* *cough* *wheez*. So I might as well be "sick" in the car driving back to Cowtown. Plus it's a tech course and the instructor has to dumb it down for the people in my class that don't have an engineering background so I should be able to catch up. Since I'll be back Thursday. Plus I can tell my instructor that I'm going to a wedding anyways. And there's another problem, I'll miss the Labour Day classic a la the Banjo Bowl. The Bombers Vs. The Roughriders.

If I can't get across the border for whatever reason then I can hang out with my peeps in Van. Brigs & A.G., Blll, (if I go to the island) and other friends and family members. How's the Loonie doing against the Green Back, these day? Cause I'm thinking of getting some shoes. Plus the stuff my sis and younger cousins want. But they're in Winnipeg so they're going to have to wait for the stuff they want.

Should be a good trip. Last time I had an impromptu trip, was when I came to Cowtown. Then I ended up living here, but I won't say what I do here is living, more of an existence. Hmm maybe I'll end up in Van or Seattle. Maybe I'll be offered a job or just end up staying. Hmm that be interesting.

Either way should be a good trip, and hopefully I'll be able to see all the crew that are out there and my family too. Should be fun, driving thru the Rockies on two way hi-ways, with freight trucks coming at you in dark tunnels. Beats driving from The Peg to Cowtown or visa versa (point the car west/east, put a brick on the pedal, and go sleep). But going east is easier, no gas required when the car runs out, the gradual slope to sea level and the momentum should guide the car all the way to Winnipeg.

I'll post something about how the trip went when I get back.

hehe

Hey All! I am alive! I have arrived safely in Vancouver, and have finally found a spare minute to blog. I'm still on the hunt for housing, having briefly interrupted the search for a week to attend a wedding on Vancouver island, near the lovely little town of Cumberland. I'd regale with you with tales of backwater hilarity, but I think we all know Pelly Saskatchewan has the market cornered on that.
This past week I spent 4 days hiking about 50km in total, along the surprisingly well maintained trails to the lighthouse at Cape Scott. And the best part is that I left my hiking pants (ie. one of my dozens of pairs of black and yeller track pants) so the only logical choice of clothing was.. you guessed it... my Gap khakis!
What else to say. Orientation week starts in a few days, which, typically (and rather un-funnily), promises to be rather disorienting. At some point after that I imagine I will do some work.
Oh, and my parents arrived with all my crap today. I still have no place to put my mattress, but at least my unicycle is once again by my side where it belongs. All is right with the world.
Laterz.

Now that the army has decided to lay siege to London and more importantly, report back to us. Unlike other folks *coughbrigridcough*

I have put up London time for all to enjoy and marvel at.
At the moment, it is yellow, but if soviets prefer a different colour, red for example, they should let me know.
Now if anyone can come up with a better name than just plain old London, then lemme know.
Like city of no street, or something.

And on that note. I decided that we shall test out the word verification thingy. So now when you comment, you gotta verify the word thingy. To help prevent the spam you see.
No this does not prevent P.slam from commenting.
Unless he can't read.

And so I have made it to London!

And isn't Ontario nice? In this short time span of a day I've left the cuddly arms of my even cuddlier amore to enter the world of expletive spewing Ontarians who scream at me from their cars. They must sense that I am an outsider. But the curses go on... it's true Ontario does hate me. I arrived in a cab at my new home only to find that my entire street is being torn apart. There is no road, no sidewalk... just mounds of dirt everywhere. The taxi driver finally ploughed through the bog and drove into the neighbours driveway.

When I reached my new home I was pleasantly surprised to find my Fed Ex shipped art supplies waiting for me... outside... with no one there. I was somehow under the impression that if the receiver of the delivery is not home the well-trained Fed Ex employee will take it back to the warehouse and patiently wait for a phone call. It's true, nothing was taken but then who the hell would try to steal on a street where there is...well... NO STREET! Alas, I should be thankful. Afterall, I'm still alive...

But perhaps I won't be for long. There is no grocery store in sight. I live in some sort of suburban bowel (which I'm sure the whole of London is) where there isn't even a cornerstore in sight. I lost myself in it and briefly considered asking people directions to the university but I restrained myself. The university was 5 minutes away from my home. Or rather just the faculty of education. I think fine arts is more like 30 minutes away. Lucky that my room-mates are in education.

Well that's it for now. I'm going to go off and buy a large pizza. I believe I espied a Pizza Hut 20 minutes from my house. I'll live off that for a week... until my room-mates arrive.

Honestly now.....wtf!?!
Why oh why.

Ah, that's why

Sometimes I read something that just makes me laugh.

Sometimes the only way that I can get others to read it is to post it on here.

International Male Fashion SWAT

The Flu will one day own all of these clothes.

Ik breng je nu de leipe mocro flavour: http://www.streaming-clips.com/play.php?id=2295 Eet smacklijk, jongen!

Begrijp het. Word.

Team Canada has got some snazzy new jerseys!
Check 'em out!

SuAnn is in town tonight.
So we might be seeing a movie. If he's got the time.
Choices are:

40 Year Old Virgin ---show at 10:20 @ Polo

The Aristocrats ---show at 10:00 @ Polo

Everyone is welcome to join in.
So whatcha wanna C?

In other news...

(Honestly, I think that this is one of those instances that separates Canunks from Yanks. Canucks would tell cutting assholes to get to the back of the line (or as an MPI commercial said "geek'n deebach"). And if an ass rushed to the front when the doors opened, the people in the line would tattletale, and the person opening the door would politely ask the ass to leave. Except on Boxing Day then it's every fucker for him or her self.

$50 laptop offer sparks a violent stampede
Bargain hunters thrown to pavement, nearly run over

Wed Aug 17 2005


RICHMOND, Va. -- A rush to purchase $50 US used laptops turned into a violent stampede yesterday, with people getting thrown to the pavement, beaten with a folding chair and nearly driven over. One woman went so far as to wet herself rather than surrender her place in line.
"This is total, total chaos," said Latoya Jones, 19, who lost one of her flip-flops in the ordeal and later limped around on the sizzling blacktop with one foot bare.

An estimated 5,500 people turned out at the Richmond International Raceway in hopes of getting their hands on one of the four-year-old Apple iBooks. The Henrico County school system was selling 1,000 of the computers to county residents. New iBooks cost between $999 and $1,299.

Officials opened the gates at 7 a.m., but some already had been waiting since 1:30 a.m. When the gates opened, it became a terrifying mob scene.

People threw themselves forward, screaming and pushing each other. A little girl's stroller was crushed in the stampede. Witnesses said an elderly man was thrown to the pavement, and someone in a car tried to drive his way through the crowd.

Seventeen people suffered minor injuries, with four requiring hospital treatment, Henrico County Battalion Chief Steve Wood said. There were no arrests and the iBooks sold out by 1 p.m.

"It's rather strange that we would have such a tremendous response for the purchase of a laptop computer -- and laptop computers that probably have less-than-desirable attributes," said Paul Proto, director of general services for Henrico County. "But I think that people tend to get caught up in the excitement of the event -- it almost has an entertainment value."

Blandine Alexander, 33, said one woman standing in front of her was so desperate to retain her place in line that she urinated on herself.

"I've never been in something like that before, and I never again will," said Alexander, who brought her 14-year-old twin boys to the complex at 4:30 a.m. to wait in line. "No matter what the kids want, I already told them I'm not doing that again."

Jesse Sandler said he was one of the people pushing forward, using a folding chair he had brought with him to beat back people who tried to cut in front of him.

"I took my chair here and I threw it over my shoulder and I went, 'Bam,"' the 20-year-old said nonchalantly, his eyes glued to the screen of his new iBook, as he tapped away on the keyboard at a testing station. "They were getting in front of me and I was there a lot earlier than them, so I thought that it was just," he said.

-- Associated Press
By Kristen Gelineau

Reminds me of that article I read, maybe 2 years ago, in the States again. When there was a Thanksgiving Day sale (so the Yankee equivalent to Boxing day) at a Wal-Mart where they had $20 or $10 DVD players and there was a crazy line up and some lady got knocked down and trampled and was hospitalized. Oh yeeah the best thing was that she had a DVD player in her hands, but when she was knocked down (and I think unconscious) someone took the DVD player from her. I think Wal-Mart ended up giving her a DVD player but the lady got messed up.

Makes me wonder why we done stampede at emergency rooms? Probably because the people that end up being knocked down and trampled will end up with the more serious injury and therefore end up moving to the front of the waiting line. This gives me an idea, Gentlemen, Ladies; I propose that we start a business where we kick the shit out of people outside of a hospital for a fee. Mind you, people that want to get beat up and who are already planning to go to the ER for some reason. By beating them up we increase their chances of seeing a doctor right away. Basically it's a service to jump the ER queue line. The more money you pay the more severe the beating, and the higher the chance to see a doctor. I don't know just a thought. It's either that, or we start the 2 tier system.

A suggestion.

I propose that the times on the blog include the Pacific time zone, to be place at the end, next to the Cowtown time. Since we have 2 members of the dead fox troop out there, on the Wet Coast and other peeps. Although, one of them has yet to post anything. And the two of them are in different cities. But anyways yeah just a suggestion.

'Appreciative Hand Love comment of the Night' for today comes from a couple who I passed in the mall...

The woman is browsing through the bookstore when her man speaks up...
"What are you looking for? A dictionary so that I can understand what you're saying to me?"

Holy Crap!

Q: You're doing Get Smart with producer Charles Roven, correct?

Carell: Actually, they're still writing it. They have an outline and the next step is to actually script it.

Steve Carell that is.
That would be awesome.
Taken from an interview from the always great CHUD.

Here's one for my homie....

Brig Rid....we'll miss you.

Monday marked a sad day, where we lost a member of our crew.

....to Vancouver.

In other news:

SuAnn comes into town this wknd.

Man that bottle is big. ummm.

Here's one for my homies knees. (or lack thereof)


In other, other news:

Norm Macdonald was on Leno last night. He mad a moustache. A bushy one. He looked like a weird version of Tom Selleck.

Norm is in the new Deuce Bigalow flick. Unfortunately.
So now we kinda got to see it now.
He supposedly looks like a terrorist.
Good stuff.
Some quotes from the show:

he filmed the "movie" in Amsterdam, he refers to the people there as "Drug addicted whore people"

When on the topic of drugs:

"I remember when pot was something you boiled eggs in."

"...when acid was something you threw in a guys face."

"...ecstacy was the feeling you had when throwing acid in a guys face."

Redheads hold a big advantage over others


OTTAWA -- Redheads have a striking advantage over blondes and brunettes that goes far beyond appearances, says Canadian medical research: they don't feel pain as sharply.
The work from McGill University in Montreal that found the single gene that makes their hair red also makes them react better to painkilling drugs.

The actual shade of red doesn't seem to matter.

Everyone has the gene called melanocortin-1. But most red-haired people, especially those of Irish ancestry, have a defective version. Gene researchers learned this in the early 1990s.

Jeff Mogil's lab at McGill, meanwhile, had started a hunt in mice for genes that govern how pain affects different people. That hunt led them unexpectedly to the red-hair gene -- at least in lab mice.

But his own lab doesn't do tests on humans, so he asked colleagues in Florida and the Netherlands to test whether the red-hair gene helps people too. "And after they stopped laughing, they agreed to try the study. And lo and behold, the gene does exactly the same thing in people as it does in mice."

"It's a double piece of good news."

For most painkillers in the morphine and codeine family, this applies equally to men and women with red hair, he says. There's another sub-group of morphine drugs that seems to get an extra boost only in red-haired women. It happens to be a type used mainly in obstetrics.

Other types of painkiller such as regular Aspirin and Tylenol don't affect redheads differently at all, while anesthetists have long known that redheads require more anesthesia to be put under.

By Tom Spears
-- CanWest News Service

I see now why Cuddle Puppy had to get new glasses.
Get it,... see now.
ahahahaha.

Also confirmation on the Sin City dvds being crappy.
So, hold out for the inevitable special edition that will be coming down the road. I'd put my money on November.

Oh, that crazy Neal Stephenson(courtesy of slashdot)

In a fight between you and William Gibson, who would win?

Neal:

You don't have to settle for mere idle speculation. Let me tell you how it came out on the three occasions when we did fight.

The first time was a year or two after SNOW CRASH came out. I was doing a reading/signing at White Dwarf Books in Vancouver. Gibson stopped by to say hello and extended his hand as if to shake. But I remembered something Bruce Sterling had told me. For, at the time, Sterling and I had formed a pact to fight Gibson. Gibson had been regrown in a vat from scraps of DNA after Sterling had crashed an LNG tanker into Gibson's Stealth pleasure barge in the Straits of Juan de Fuca. During the regeneration process, telescoping Carbonite stilettos had been incorporated into Gibson's arms. Remembering this in the nick of time, I grabbed the signing table and flipped it up between us. Of course the Carbonite stilettos pierced it as if it were cork board, but this spoiled his aim long enough for me to whip my wakizashi out from between my shoulder blades and swing at his head. more...

It has arrived.....
dum dum duuuuuum

Items #1, #2, #3 and just for Brig Rid, #5. HO!

Yah, that's right, item #2 is listed. Just like cheez-whiz, I know you know you waaan it.

Season 1 of The Muppet Show is out. It comes in a nifty green felt case.
I would tell you more about randomness, but, damn!, I'm tired.

In other news, Fraggle Rock comes out on Sept.6th

Well hey guys! I know this is only going to further cement my reputation as being about as cool as a 13 yr. old girl - but I just saw a great flick which brought me back to feeling the lust for life that I'd missplaced somewhere along the way recently - sorry guys if I've been sending out some funked vibes lately, you gotta understand I was trying to figure out what it was that was missing - turns out, nothing was! I just needed to be reminded of that!
Thanks,
and,
later soul mommas and soul daddies,
Romeo out

Days = 1........

If you are a coke head, don't piss in a river.

Now you don't have to bitch about controllers, you can make your own.

4 days til Batty-A-Palooza 2005

I stumbled upon this.
Here is an excerpt.

"It says something about the enduring legend of The Muppets that so many celebrities would line up to be in a new Muppet movie, even one destined to air on television. The Muppets' Wizard of Oz, stars Ashanti, Queen Latifah, Jeffrey Tambor, David Alan Grier, and of all people, Quentin Tarantino. It's also about the weirdest thing in history that the director of The Muppets' Wizard of Oz is Kirk Thatcher, who played the punk on the bus who gets neck-pinched by Mr. Spock in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. When I found that out, I decided to like the movie, even if I didn't like the movie. I mean, come on! The guy who flipped off Spock is directing a Muppets movie!! Rock on!!!"

And no, I didn't add the rock on.

Holy Cows!

Check this out:(courtesy of the digital bits)

"Also, Capital Entertainment has announced that they're going to be releasing Count Duckula: The Complete First Season on 10/4 (SRP $39.98). The 3-disc set will include all 26 episodes of the 80s British animated series' first year uncut and restored, along with an interview with the show's creators (including Brian Cosgrove), as well as a photo gallery, a featurette on how to draw the Count Duckula character and original artwork from the series’ development stages."

Awesome to the max!

Days left is equal to 3.

Willy wonka gave me a visit!

4 more days left.....

That oh so lovely link I posted the other day. Well, it seems to have gotten popular enough to sprout off and go at it alone. Check it out. Its' got new features and looks prettier too!

I found a great place for Kitchen Romeo to go to. (here and here) It would be hard work, but fun I would assume.
Actually, I don't care what it entails, as long as I got to hang out and get free stuff.
Maybe even convince them to switch from m&m's to smarties. Cause as we all know, smarties are just plain better.
mmmm, smarties.

I love flowers

Pelly.

In a nutshell.

I figure there's a reason that we only go every 10 years to this small town. First off, there's only one person we know there, other than our family, and this is the type of person who it's unpleasant to spend more than 5 minutes with. Secondly, once you have walked the town, there is literally NOTHING to do other than drink yourself silly. Anyway, enough of my unorganized complaining. Let's organize it.

Friday, July 29th, 2005:
I woke up at about 9:00, which conicidently was supposed to be the time that we were leaving. Due to circumstances out of our control, we were delayed by an hour before we got on the road. I had the back seat of the van all to myself, so I could have slept along it if I wanted to, but I was unable to get comfortable enough to sleep.

All was not lost though, because I convinced my dad to buy a power inverter and bring his laptop, so I was able to pass the time by playing Sim Golf and watch Pirates of the Carribean. Those of you who have gone on long road trips through Manitoba and Saskatchewan will recognise the importance of having something to do. Anyway, this car ride actually seemed quite short and we were driving into the town before I knew it.

If you go right at the intersection of 2nd Street and 3rd Avenue, you reach Uncle Richard's farm. Everytime previously that we had ventured to Pelly the front yard became a temporary parking lot. This time was no exception. We pulled up and were each handed a beer. It was our fault for getting there at 3:30 Pelly time. The rest of the family had been drinking since 9:00 AM and we had to catch up.

Now, I had previously said that there were going to be a couple dances and a greased pig competition (which was cancelled, sadly). What I didn't say, was that there was also going to be a parade. Since this reunion coincided with the Saskatchewan Centennial, they were holding a town wide parade and there were going to be two floats held by my family, the Saskatchewan float and the "Wet Coast" float. Since my parents are actually from Victoria, I got to be part of the Wet Coast float.

I really wonder about the definition of "Float" that my family came up with.


My mom thought the silver dangly things on the side mirrors were "Tacky". I said that I don't think tacky was an issue.

Anyway, I also previously said that I was to sleep on the floor of the van, because there wasn't enough room at the Bed and Breakfast where I was originally supposed to be staying. Fortunately, my uncle was able to aquire alternate accomodations. Unfortunately, it was the Pelly Hotel. The Fort Livingston Bar and Hotel that this same uncle came to my dad about purchasing because he thought it would be a gold mine. My dad disagreed and the deal fell through. I don't even think Midas could have gotten any gold out of here.

Some images of my room:

This is what 18 dollars a night gets you.

I found a sock under the bed. I didn't question it.

The quality bathenette.

At least there was a Gideon's Bible there. Anyway, being above the bar, I was able to hear everything that was going on. Unfortunately, I was also forced to hear everthing that was going on, but somehow I was able to get to sleep.

Saturday, July 30th, 2005:
I woke up to the rain hitting my window. It wasn't a big storm, but it was still rain. I had to get up anyway, because the parade was happening in 45 minutes and I had to walk all the way across town to get to our float. 5 minutes later, I arrived at the farm to find that no one decided to put the float in the garage.

Unfortunately, the damage was only minor, so the show had to go on. We weren't going to let any rain on our parade... erm.. rain on our parade, so to speak.

The concept was we were all going to wear rain gear to symbolize all of the rain on the west coast. This worked to our favour, but somehow the symbolism was lost to the parade onlookers who sat there. By the end of the parade, though, it started to get sunny and we all went back to the farm to indulge in the family trait of alcoholism.

Now, the staple of the family reunions USED to be the Listerines playing, but with one of the founding members no longer being with us, we had to settle for the New Listerines, who because of some legal concerns, needed to change their name to L21C. Woo, go 19 megabyte video!

One bright side of this day was that it went by quickly because I got to play poker with my cousins for the majority of the day. I actually won one game, but the deal was, if you win, you must buy drinks for everyone.

Anyway, there was a dance that night too, with the most confusing cover band that I've ever heard: The Crawdaddies. You haven't lived until you've heard 2 guitars, a banjo and an organ cover "When you're Gone" by Bryan Adams and Sporty Spice. I suggested that they cover "Squeeze Toy" but for some reason, they've never heard of it.

Sunday, July 31st, 2005:

Sunday was the day of the slowpitch tournament. That was basically all that the organizers told us, so we could be forgiven for not knowing what the hell we were supposed to be doing. Unfortunately, the first game had the majority of our players hungover/late and we lost it 21-7.

The second game was much better. We tied them 10-10 and I realised that I am actually not bad at playing second base. Goooo team! 0-1-1 record ftw!

By this point of the weekend, everyone was getting tired/sick and was basically in a bad mood. My dad realised that there were no plans for dinner to feed the 20 or so of us, so he started looking at places to get food at. Our cousins, not realising where we were, suggested getting chinese food delivered. I saw this was an oppertunity to leave for a while, and suggested that we drive out to a bigger town to pick up some food. So we settled on the closest place that could be considered a town and left for Swan River.

The 45 minute drive there was relaxing. I was glad to be in a place that could be considered civilization. Although, I hear it's full of Ninjas, so I didn't want to stay long. We stopped at KFC and got too much food and drove back. Still it gave me time to recharge.

When we got back, we found that several people had left and we were now stuck with 4 buckets fo chicken for 15 people. I bet my dad that we'd never reach the 4th bucket, but he seemed to think that we were ravenous enough to do it. We got to the end of the 3rd bucket before everyone was done. My dad then ran in and ate one piece of chicken from the 4th bucket and said he won the bet. I still contest that decision.

One of the cooler things from the weekend was the sudden appearance of A LOT OF DRAGONFLIES! (8.9 MB video, woo!) It made me think that someone had super powers using them for evil somewhere.

We also had some fireworks that night, but by this point, it was all but over.

Monday, August 1st, 2005:

I was told that we were going to leave at like 9:00 AM for home. I was eager to get home, because I can only handle so much. I woke up at 5:45 AM and I could NOT get back to sleep. After sitting there for a couple hours, wondering why that lamp was broken above the mirror, and finally wondering if the cleaning staff would ever find that sock, I couldn't take it and I left my key in my room and checked out.

Carrying all my stuff, I started walking to the van. Unfortunately for me, I had no idea where the bed and breakfast was. Fortunately for me, this was a toy problem in a town this size and I did a brute force linear search of all of the streets. This may not have been the most elegant of solutions, but I found it in 15 minutes, so take THAT Van Reese.

My dad came out about an hour later and found me reading in the van. He brought me a danish and we started packing everything up.

The drive home was as easy as the first drive, but this time was full of the first season of Corner Gas, which was funnier as I was just in Saskatchewan for a while. We got home at about 4:00 Winnipeg time and I just collapsed.

I am SO glad that these things happen so seldom. I can't take too much of them :D

Puppy out.

5 more days to go!

a follow up to yesterdays reason to get a mac.

and I thought you'd want to know, The Golden Girls: Season Three is out on Nov. 22 (22/11)

6 more days to go!

virtual reality + mario = this

another reason to get a mac.

keeping with the classic theme. Wouldn't this be kinda cool.

Anyways.
How goes with all the out-of-towners?
Is the convention a-rockin'?
Was the greased pig tasty?
Does cowtown have less pollution problems now that Cap Planet is there? Or is there more polluting evil doers around, trying to knock him off.
Does Cap Plan give SuAnn a ride around town, thus saving his knees, or lack therof?