The 26th Me, Jill and Tammy went to Charlottetown tonight for James' CD launch. The plan was to go up early and catch a movie at City Cinema, grab a bite to eat and head over to Baba's early to get a seat. We got there and the movie was sold out. We went back to the car and it wouldn't start. Thankfully, after a little while Jill figured out that the battery connection was off and we had a running car again. So it was 7pm at that point and we drove to the Formosa because we've been wanting to eat there for a while. They're normally open until 8pm but were closed early because they were running out of food. We settled on Churchill Arms solely because there was a parking spot in front of it. However, we arrived just when everyone else was so they were overwhelmed and we had to wait forever for our food. Then we went to Baba's early and all of the good seats were already taken. At least we made it to the gig which was the main purpose of the trip. Though, we couldn't see anything because the place was packed. A nice topper for the whole evening though was getting all 3 of our orders from the Wendy's drive-trhu messed up. I'm going to bed. The 23rd It was Jill's birthday today so I decided to make her a cake. Of course, I ended up burning it and didn't have the ingredients here to make another one. Thankfully, I was able to salvage most of it and it tasted ok even if it did look like a sloppy, pile of goo with candles on top of it. The 19th Last night Jill made supper and it was this awesome curry chicken and veggie dish she says will be known henceforth as Chicken Jilliane. Oh man, it was good. I made dessert which was this baked chocolate fudge pudding thing and I'm craving more of it. There's no way in hell I'm going to prevent becoming hugely obese if I keep having meals like those all the time. We watched Fargo after that and I forgot how nuts Peter Stormare was in that movie. He's one of the craziest people I've ever seen and him just staring at you is enough to make you piss your pants. MacPhee and Nicole came over tonight to watch Office Space. The movie was pretty funny but the nacho dip Nicole made was awesome. After that I got dropped off at The Heritage where I met up with Tammy, Rhonda and Tanya. I proceeded to kick ass at air hockey. It's not really fair for me to claim victory though since they had been drinking and don't play much. It was fun anyway regardless of how many loud, obnoxious idiots were there with their slicked-down shit-eater bangs and foolish sweaters. The 15th My Strong Bad Emails DVD set FINALLY arrived after almost 9 weeks of waiting. I watched a couple of them this afternoon and they look great. It's so nice to have all of them on DVD for the collection factor and because it makes them so easy to watch. No downloading, I can rewind/fast forward, watch bonus features, and is another great way for me to spend money on frivolous things. I called the movie line again and this time it was the guy instead of the woman. Normally he does a better job with the names than she does but I caught him this week. For In Good Company, he pronounced Topher Grace as Topper Grace. Why the hell don't they record this, edit if necessary, and then put it on the movie line? I guess I'm probably making a much bigger deal out of this than I should. One thing that I'm NOT making too big a deal out of is the fact that Meet The Fockers is STILL fucking playing after something like 8 or 9 weeks! Get a new movie in there for fuck sakes! And get rid of Racing Stripes too while you're at it. I attended my second session of my novice driver course tonight. Pretty dry stuff but at least it's out of the way. A man was in tonight to talk about his horrible accident that left him paralyzed. I believe his name was Alex Poole and he convinced me that doing stupid shit in a car and ending up as a paraplegic isn't a good idea. Thankfully, I'm sober 365 days out of the year, nervous in a car, don't do foolish shit, and otherwise have never really fell into the "I'm invincible" attitude. But then again, I do have some pretty shit luck. Hopefully it will be restricted to restaurants being out of the food I want and not cross into the domain of life-threatening injuries. The 13th Jill and Melissa stayed here Saturday night and after bacon and eggs yet again for breakfast (though they were good and I was starving), the three of us decided to go to some flea markets. One out in Bedeque was closed but available "by appointment only" if you called ahead. Ya, that's convenient after driving 15 minutes to get there, and just plain weird if you ask me. It's like calling someone's house and asking to go look through their garage with no other customers. The other one at MacCormick's store was depressing, and it smelled funny and of acrid smoke but I did manage to see an old woman with a black and white "cowhide" ballcap floating on the top of her perm. Classy. That afternoon I went out to Baltic with Dave to have a get together that was sort of a belated birthday dinner for Charlotte. She brought some of her culinary buddies so between Dave and Liz and her being great cooks to begin with, there were others cooking up a storm. We had homemade spaghetti which was awesome. Dave made this rich, sweet sauce with meatballs that disintegrated in your mouth because the sauce has been simmering all day long. There was a vegetarian pesto thing I didn't try and a smoked salmon alfredo sauce type of thing which was also really good. So after have three plates of pasta and a plate of salad they broke out the chocolate cake baked from scratch. It had this mocha chocolate icing and was encrusted with pecans. After a big slice of that I was pretty much ready to pass out because I was so full. Then someone announced that they were going to set out some cheesecake. Being the glutton that I am with a giant sweet tooth and penchant for gut-busting eating habits, I ate a piece then sat down and waited to die. The 12th I need an air hockey table in the basement. I'm either not playing enough and getting worse or everyone else is just getting better. Jill is constantly beating me when we play now and Nathan has finally won so he's no longer interested in playing to beat me. I like the table at The Heritage but it's always filthy, the air flow seems crappy at times, it's sort of on an angle and one of the paddle-thiniges is cracked which can cause many types of injuries (most of which I think I've received at this point). I guess it has a classic back-room-at-a-bar appeal to it but the one at the theatre kicks ass. It's super fast and neon and hugely loud in that big waste of space called the lobby. If I get one, I want a fancy, glow in the dark table that talks and has crowd cheers. Ok, maybe that's a bit excessive. The 7th Today was Charlotte's birthday so I managed to plan a whole day in Charlottetown that would allow me to get a bunch of stuff done and hang out with her for a bit. We went for lunch at Churchill Arms and I finally got to eat some real butter chicken. I've had something like a President's Choice frozen butter chicken dinner before but it didn't come close to this stuff. I have to go order that again sometime. I had no idea that there were "traditional English curry dishes". When I think "England" I don't think of spicy, delicious food. I think greasy fish and chips, blood pudding, spotted dick, and fat, disgusting sausages. After we ate and I got a free dessert at the culinary school, I got to finally see her apartment too and it's this cool, cottage-like place. An old building that once you're inside feels like you're in the country or something. It's very quaint. Old, bare floorboards and, well, just old everything. Those are the kind of apartments I like. The ones with character instead of the stale, white, cookie-cutter apartments springing up everywhere with grey carpets, desolate hallways, vinyl siding and buzzers. The 5th Jill had to take some photos of Stéphane's band, La Funk 6, at The Mackenzie Theatre tonight so I was lucky enough to get a comp and got to see the band play for the second time. This venue was much better than the windy, cold deck behind The Shipyard Market. The band was tight as hell, James was smokin' on guitar, and their drummer was amazing. I don't know much about funk and jazz but it was nice to hear a different rendition of Miles Davis' "So What?". That was pretty much the only thing I recognized. It's too bad we had to leave early. It's cool to be able to see bands like that on PEI because it isn't the typical fare. I'm hoping they do well at the ECMAs. The 3rd The Aviator finally came to our pathetic little theatre (while Meet The Fockers is still here after over a month!) so I went to see it with Jill, Nathan and Melissa. I wasn't sure if I'd like this movie or not since I'm not exactly an aviation buff but it was Scorcese so I figured he wouldn't let me down. And he most certainly didn't and neither did the cast. Everyone was great and Alec Baldwin's last scene/line is perfect. The colour treatment of the film is ultra-cool and retro. It didn't disappoint at all but the only thing I wish had been shown was Hughes wearing Kleenex boxes on his feet. I knew the guy was crazy but not quite as crazy as he was depicted in the movie. The 1st I went to see Hide and Seek tonight with Nathan. It was pretty good and thankfully relied on story and acting instead of stupid special effects for scares. I wasn't very keen on the ending. I thought it was fairly generic and could have been much more interesting but at least it was well done and not cheesy or over the top. All of the acting was great and Dakota Fanning was extra good. I like her and she's probably got a long career ahead of her. Hopefully she sticks with good movies since she seems to be doing pretty well so far. I got these photos in an email a couple of weeks ago and they're pretty messed up. I guess all of these strange fish and deep sea creatures washed up after the tsunami hit. I've seen some of these before in books but I thought I'd share.