The 31st Another delicious but unnecessary dessert was eaten tonight at dinner. I kind of said to myself a while back that once I've tried all of the desserts at a restaurant that I don't really need to go back and have the same one twice. I never actually stick to that but it is something I said to myself at one time. That being the case, I ate something called Chocolate Confusion and then, as usual, Laine didn't finish her dessert so I ate what was left of hers and felt ill. Anyone surprised? After dinner, Sharon went home and me, Kyle and Laine went to the theatre to play air hockey and arcade games. I don't like playing pinball unless it's on the computer because I waste too many quarters in real life because I suck. I like air hockey, though. I didn't lose one game so it's nice to come back from a long hiatus undefeated. With coins expended, Kyle rented a movie and went home so me and Laine, undaunted, decided there was still more fun to be had on a Friday night in Summerside. The decision was made, the fun would be had at the Miscouche Legion where darts and pool are free. Oblivious to the country karaoke on the opposite side of the establishment, Laine proceeded to beat me at both games of darts. I was not impressed but at least getting bested at darts was better than channel surfing in my living room on yet another Friday night. Plus we got to see a mannish woman in white Mom jeans and a tie-dyed tank top. The 30th Today was just as nice as it was yesterday so, true to my word, I donned my short pants and went for a brief constitutional to enjoy such fine and fair weather. Shorts before April? Capital! Years ago, in the glory of all my geekdom, I started collecting these Star Trek Universe cards from Atlas Editions. Well, they're more sheets than cards and they go into sets of binders. It was a mail order thing and I bought A LOT of these sheets and binders for quite some time. I must have several hundred sheets spread through 4 different binders. They cover pretty much everything that is the Star Trek universe (hencethe name) from cast members, characters and episodes to aliens, weapons and ships. The attention to detail is crazy so it's quite a valuable resource to any serious trekkie...er, trekker. I am NOT a serious trekker. I've watched the greater part of the original series, The Next Generation and episodes here and there of Deep Space Nine and Voyager. I didn't even give Enterprise a chance after I heard the Rod Steweart-esque theme in the intro. That's just plain wrong and gross. So why do I have all of these sheets when I seriously don't give a shit about 80% of the information they contain and probably have only read a handful of them EVER? It was probably to fill some OCD-related void or because I apparently had cash to waste on utterly pointless stuff like a Star Trek Universe collection. At least it came with a set of cool coasters…that I never used. I know I will never read these things or find any use for them unless someday someone has an intriguing bit of Star Trek related trivia that's begging to be answered or even perhaps I could use them as a reference to settle some argument about which star date Kirk made out with some chesty blue alien lady in a crystal ship. Did that even happen? Since neither of those things are likely to occur, and seeing as I could find answers using Google much more easily, I want to get rid of these hefty three-ringed tomes of pure, unadulterated trekkie knowledge. Here's the rub though: eBay is pretty much the only place I can unload this set and, judging by the going rates, I'd be lucky if I managed to score even 10% of what I paid Atlas Editions by the time they just stopped sending me shipments. That itself was pretty weird because I was upset at the time because the set is incomplete. Fuckers. I guess the reality is, though, that I volunteered to let them rape me in the pocketbook. I'm ashamed to admit what I paid for the set so I'm not going to admit it. All I know is that if I can't even get half of what I shelled out then I'm going to just be stubborn and keep them instead of letting some crafty trekkie out there get the better of me by buying the set for a song. No way, Pointdexter! I suppose I've got something to look forward to keeping me busy in my retirement. The 29th Today was a beautiful day. I should have been wearing shorts and if tomorrow is similar I just may expose my meagre calves to some sunlight. I did some running around and basically enjoyed getting a bit of sunlight and walking about without a jacket on. There was a light breeze bearing that telltale smell of the fish plant though...which is always nice. Tourists flock here for that reason, I hear. I went for a short walk tonight too after dropping off my car at the garage. The oily wound on the bottom of my hemophiliac Sentra needs to be staunched and soon. The 28th Today I added some more toys to my designer's sandbox. I got a couple of cheques recently so I figured I might as well spring for the Pantone® Essentials set and now I'm just tickled DS 125-3 C. It seemed to be a pretty good deal and it came with good case to boot so now I'm all set to choose PMS colours to my heart's content. I definitely needed some coloured swatchbooks to help me on my freelance designer's path. The set has spot colour swatches for matte, coated and uncoated, process colour for coated and uncoated, and the ever-so-useful colour bridge. At first, I was iffy on buying it because I thought I could possibly get away with just the colour bridge but it's too good of a set to not buy. Plus it's a write-off so even better. I'm sure this must be the least interesting subject for any non-designer to be reading about but you need to understand something: now I can reference the duotone CMYK mixes from my duotone book that I input into Photoshop with the DS numbers in my 4-colour process guide to make sure the values match up! The 27th After a considerable drought at the theatre there is actually a trio of movies I'd want to see instead of six bullshit movies week after week. Having already gone to see The Hills Have Eyes the other night I went to see Inside Man with Nathan tonight and I'll probably go see V for Vendetta later in the week. The sweetness of the poster design is a good indicator of just how great this movie is. Every movie I see with Denzel Washington lately is one that I seem to really like. Jodie Foster played a very unlikeable character and she played it very well. It was the first time I've ever seen her in a role where I completely disliked the character. And Clive Owen played another Sin City sort of character where he's just a calm, tough and unblinking type. He's a good choice for the criminal mastermind. This was a great film through and through. A solid story with a really cool twist ending, great characters, a very interesting editing style, great visuals and nice choice of music. The score had this cool blend of 40s filme noir and 70s crime drama music, which really worked with the dialogue and the way a lot of the scenes were sort of throw backs to the old crime flicks as far as dialogue, cops and chicks go. It's so nice to go see a big Hollywood movie for once that doesn't disappoint in the least and isn't a fucking remake! The 24th I went to see The Hills Have Eyes tonight with Nathan, Laine and Sharon, and found that it wasn't the lame, teenage fare remake I was expecting. It was a bloody, brutal, twisted and fucked up movie. One guy spent so much time covered in blood that you just figured he was going to drop dead any minute. The make-up for the mutant freaks was really good and I couldn't help but think someone had been watching Goonies not long before they designed some of the characters. A lot of the scenes were pretty disturbing and bizarre and there weren't many parts that bothered me as far as corny, cliches go. I mean, there were horror movie cliches and cliches in general but they weren't groaners for the most part. The music seemed to be pretty unique too. It was sort of a cross between a traditionally scored horror movie blended with 80s horror flick music, weird electric guitars and stuff, which worked really well. I'm not usually into brutally violent movies but this had so much extra weirdness in it and good acting (which was a nice bonus) that it stands out as one of my favourite new horror movies. The 23rd There's a new Internet café downtown that just recently opened called Peeks and Perks that is a little spot with art on the walls, organic food and coffee, and busy with customers. In Summerside AND busy with customers, you ask? Yes, I'm surprised too. The chai latté I had there yesterday was one of the best I've ever had. It was a little bit spicy and not just a cup of sweet candy juice like most other places. I went back there but for breakfast today with Tammy and Nathan and we all got the Portuguese breakfast. Man, it was good. Spicy bits of Portuguese sausage, two eggs and toasted Portuguese corn bread. I'll definitely be going back to try a bunch of the other things they make and they're actually open on Sundays so I finally have another option for Sunday breakfast. The 22nd Waking up early is for the birds. Getting up at 9am wasn't so bad I guess but it just seemed to prolong my day and allow more frustrating things to happen. My iPod won't show up on my Mac, my scanner was giving me headaches, there was some general clumsiness throughout the afternoon, excess annoyances and even Post-It notes wouldn't stick. Maybe getting up early just makes me crankier. The 21st I dropped in to my parents' place this afternoon to say hi, pick up mail, etc. and on my way out I saw a little kitty at the bottom of a tree in the backyard looking up at all of the little chickadees flittering around high up in the branches. This was the little grey kitten that my mom said would come over and visit the dogs when they're out back. With no dogs to harrass, the kitty was pretty intent on the birds and was soon up the trunk and into the branches. I couldn't get near him but noticed that there were two other cats in the yard. One older grey cat took off under the patio and the other white one jumped over the fence into the neighbour's yard. That one busied himself with rubbing his face all over some pines branches like some weirdo but let me pet him through the fence. Meanwhile the chickadees had flown away and little kitty was up in the tree bawling because he couldn't get down. He tried every method he could think of but eventually made his way down face first until he got close enough to me so that I could pick him up off of the trunk. He wasn't very enthusiastic (or appreciative) about me rescuing him into my arms. He bawled some more and squirmed out then took off under the patio and barely squeezed through the fence. On the other side the white cat and the kitten got into a bit of a shouting match, some chasing, some tumbling, some backing off and finally some more chasing until they were gone. I left the backyard and picked up some oak leaves, twigs and acorn tops on my way home. They're for a project. I don't collect dead bits of trees. The 19th This weekend has focused mostly on eating, eating and eating some more. It began with me getting a big dinner at The Loyalist on St. Paddy's day that ended with a mint cheesecake with green apple drizzle (sounds weird but it was actually really good). Saturday morning breakfast at The Cup was foregone for a trip to Moncton where I had a really good stir-fry at Billy Rockets in the food court at the mall. It was surprisingly good and relatively healthy considering it's Manchu Wok, KFC and the like filling out the rest of the food fair. I didn't buy a damn thing the whole time I was in Moncton other than a birthday card for Tyler, food and drink. Sharon actually had the biggest haul while Nathan basically got a pair of jeans and, surprisingly, Ms. Shop-aholic Laine didn't buy anything at all. With my feet aching and crowds getting on my nerves, we left to eventually convene once more but this time for dinner. The big meal was at Boomerang's and, man, was it good. I had one of the best burgers in my life there plus fresh loaves of bread, onion strings and stuffed mushroom caps. I've even got half of Sharon's burger still waiting for me in the fridge. Today consisted of having a very greasy breakfast at The Two Sisters with Nathan, Ian and Holly. It wasn't too bad, it's just that for the length of the drive and the lack of atmosphere I would have much rather stayed in town and eaten at one of the regular haunts. Four hours later I found myself with a bunch of people over at Tyler and Melissa's for his birthday dinner party. Melissa had prepared a five course meal and every bit of it was deliciously delicious. Especially the dessert which was a chocolate trifle cake or something to that effect. I sat there for the rest of the night, full to the brim, digesting and also ingesting too much coffee. I think I should go for a jog. That line makes me laugh because it would never happen in a million years. The 14th I was watching Family Guy the other night when all of the sudden there was a theme song and a parodied animation, and they blew my mind with a reference to an old show I had almost forgotten about: The Great Space Coaster. Every now and then something from that show would pop into my head but I could never remember what it was from or if I had just made it up. Well, everything came back to me as I found www.tgscoaster.com and went through the video clips and images. Baxter. M.T. Promises, Gary Gnu...so classic. It gives me a strange feeling when I look at these characters because they've been embedded in a weird place in the back of my head. I laughed out loud when I saw bunch of stills of Speed Reader. Holy crap. I nabbed some images and videos from that site and this one completely floored me because I remember how cool the little video gadget was. I still want that thing so bad. The sound it makes reminds me of an Atari. It's funny how much some of these characters are influenced by The Muppets. Maybe Jim Henson had something to do with them but Knock-Knock looks like Big Bird and Goriddles looks like Animal. Baxter the Clown is actually getting creepier the more I look at him. The 12th I've kind of been shying away from podcasts mostly because I don't want to devote more time to sitting down and concentrating on other shows and such but I have been wanting to listen to the Lost podcast. So today I downloaded some and, well, downloaded a ton of other ones. I've also wanted to listen to the Ricky Gervais show and after downloading those I found a bunch of others that seemed pretty interesting like old cartoons, Strongbad emails, other Lost podcasts and even Photoshop tutorials. It just makes sense to get some of these since I sit here all the time just listening to music anyway. Apple did such a good job integrating iTunes, the iPod and podcasts that I'd be pretty stupid not to download them seeing as I can do it all through one application and don't need to search around on the Web for them. Although, I am going to feed this yet-to-become-an-addiction with some podcast searches. Now I'm tempted to get a video iPod... The 9th I listen to CBC Overnight pretty much every night before I go to sleep. They're usually playing the news from Germany or the BBC when I hit the sack so I get all of the juicy news from Central Europe and from the Brits. The only problem with listening to Radio Deutschavella is that they're always talking about their new chancellor and for some reason, all day, her name (Angela Merkel) keeps repeating itself in my head over and over and over. But they pronounce it Ang-guh-la Mare-kull so it has been: Ang-guh-la Mare-kull, Ang-guh-la Mare-kull, Ang-guh-la Mare-kull, Ang-guh-la Mare-kull, Ang-guh-la Mare-kull, Ang-guh-la Mare-kull, Ang-guh-la Mare-kull, Ang-guh-la Mare-kull, Ang-guh-la Mare-kull, Ang-guh-la Mare-kull, Ang-guh-la Mare-kull, Ang-guh-la Mare-kull… …all damn bloody day long. Maybe I'm going crazy. The 6th I bought a couple of fish the other day and I think they're Tiger Barbs. Just little things with stripes and such. The big one is named Carl and the little one was named Elton. Was because Elton went belly up today. He had been acting really weird so I figured something was up. He'd swim around pointing his head upwards a lot, he'd do somersaults, and swim in weird flips and turns. Carl, on the other hand, mostly stayed in one spot or would dart around like a lunatic from time to time. So poor Elton got flushed and I felt bad that Carl no longer had a buddy to keep him company so I went back and got a couple more fish. This time though I got some serpae tetras and named them Willis and Rudy. I also got a much bigger bowl, some gravel and a plastic weedy plant thing. They seem to really dig the greenery because they're always hanging out beside it. I just really hope these guys last longer than poor Elton. I'm using spring water in the bowl too so hopefully they'll like that better. If they decide to move on to that big aquarium in the sky, though, I'll probably just get one of those really fat goldfish but one without the gross tumour-y things on their heads. The 4th Mark was home this weekend so he came over tonight and so did Neil, Laine and her friend Marissa. We all hung out here before we headed down to The Heritage. I didn't even want to go because I had heard about how busy it was for its first weekend and that people were fighting and acting like dicks. Not exactly my scene. So we went downtown and when we got there the parking lot was pretty much full, there was a damn line-up outside and 87% of the people were smoking their brains out in the cold. After breathing that in for a good while, we finally made it in to find the place completely and utterly packed. Not only that but The Edge was playing so already things were looking dire. After taking in the situation—all of the whorely dressed and shiteaters galore—I decided to take my leave. I got home to find some douchebag had gobbed right on my passenger side window. The frozen loogie was a nice reminder of the evening. The 3rd I didn't really do much today. I worked, made some banana bread, got a few groceries, watched some TV, and sat around for way too long watching videos on ifilm.com. There are some good clips of monkeys acting insane and smoking, cats doing cat things, people doing versions of Nintendo game music, and then the obligatory videos of boobs and people being retarded. There was some creepy stuff on there too like McDonald's training videos and a guy singing a kid's song about the proper anatomical terms for parts of the body. It was weird…and made me feel icky. I remembered today how I used to sit in the living room when I was about 4 or 5 and stretch an elastic band between two handles on this cabinet. I could strum it like a single bass string or something and launch toys from it, among other things. There was one early morning in particular though when I was the only one awake, making my own fun with an elastic band, when I saw a mouse scurry across the room. I believe I screamed like a little boy screaming like a little girl and ran into my parents' room. I don't know if I knew what it was or not but it sure scared the shit out of me. At some point while living in that house, I was in my parents' room watching Star Trek by myself and I had managed to sneak in a bag of Chips Ahoy! cookies with me. I think I ate the whole bag and got grounded for it. Totally worth it though. The 1st Trivia tonight was extra good. We got first place and people actually showed up to fill out the team. Neil Forbes, Jill and Kyle joined myself, Nathan and Laine, helping us rank in again as top players. Not only that but it was the first night at the new Heritage Pub. I was skeptical of the new place at first but, after seeing it, the place is really nice and big too. They did a great job fixing up the building and the layout is great. Lots of open space, a division between a pub-type area and club-type area. They have an actual stage in a big room so it would be awesome if bands actually showed up there to play. It really could be a great venue. What has been done inside really makes up for its location. I know it's novelty now but I'm looking forward to going there again. The bathroom has toilet seats again and locking doors, and there will be a sports bar upstairs eventually so that means pool and air hockey. Now if they'd just get their sweet chili chicken alfredo special back I'll be completely satisfied.