The 28th What better way to spend a Wednesday evening than seeing a couple of bands play? Well, I suppose I could be watching Lost but I can always download that. I drove up to Charlottetown with Shawn and Laine, picked up Kira and Katharine and headed to The Gahan House (twice in 4 days…) for dinner. They have really good Japanese-breaded chicken fingers and coffee I can seem to drink without sugar. Just us three travellers ended up going to Hunter's to see the bands play though. The big draw was The Most Serene Republic and I unfortunately never found out the name of the opening band. They were pretty decent but holy crap TMSR blew the roof off the dump. There may have been a dozen people at the front but they still put on a great show with a tonne of energy. Their drummer was amazing and looked like he was having a blast. I guess doing a show at a nearly empty pub on a Wednesday night in middle of winter didn't effect their performance. I was so impressed that I bought their album and their new EP. Shawn let me borrow Underwater Cinematographer prior to going to see the show and I really like the tunes a lot but the Phages EP is super-great. I managed to get a few of them to sign a CD and one of the guitarists, Nick (I think), said they were going in a different direction than the last album and their new full length is going to be awesome. Well, based on the eight tracks on the EP he's quite right and I can't wait for the album now. The 27th Well, Carl's dead. I found him at the bottom of the bowl and The Cobra Twins bit the dust the other day. I thought that Thomas Algae-eater went belly up too because he was literally belly up but it seems he was playing possum. He's still got his face stuck to the side of the bowl and looking as creepy as ever. I'm sort of thinking that maybe he had something to do with their deaths. I'm not outright accusing him of "pisciscide" but something seems fishy to me (pun intended). I told Crystal and J.P. that they could have Thomas now that my other fish are dead but I'm worried what might happen to their goldfish. I wouldn't want to unleash a killer into their midst. The 25th I drove up to Charlottetown with Melissa because she was doing stand-up at Baba's. We ate at The Gahan House beforehand and it was pretty good. It always seems like a different restaurant to me when I eat there because I'm seated in an entirely different section each time. It's kind of weird. We went over to Baba's early for the show. The turnout wasn't great but everyone seemed into it. Our table filled up pretty quickly after James, Crystal, J.P., Jamie, Nikkie and James showed up. Melissa did another good job with her routine, as disgusting as some of it was. Another girl got up and I thought she was pretty funny too and so was Taylor. I saw him perform last time I went and he's always good for a laugh. As the night wound down, this table of drunken dudes sent over their ambassador to make pals with those of us who were left. He was one of those guys, I can't really describe him except to say he was a douchebag. This frat boy with his open shirt and overbearing confidence was such a charmer. He seemed like he might be alright at first, but then came on a little too strong with the buddy-buddy. His cringingly overt demeanor made it very obvious that he was trying to make nice with Melissa before letting us know that we were all invited to a party they were having back at their hotel room. Needless to say, none of us went but I sure hope those four fullas had a good time raping some unconscious girl…or themselves. The 23rd I find it unbelievable that I've gone twenty-eight years without ever eating peanut butter on apple slices. I have been missing out. I seriously think I'm on the verge of an addiction but at least it's better than meth. I've also taken to eating peanut butter straight from the jar. It's a wonderful thing, peanut butter. Ian introduced me to shredded cheddar and p.b. on Texas Toast years ago when he worked at Cherries. I don't know who got me into eating potato chip and p.b. sandwiches but I think I'll have to make another one of those pretty soon. It's been years since I've had one. Maybe I'll combine the shredded cheddar, potato chips and p.b. into one sandwich… This might be the beginning of my "Elvis" period, and it would best be avoided. I'll start to get worried once I break out the bacon, lard, bananas and white bread. The 21st Cory's home for a few days because his grandmother died so he went to the funeral today and did some visiting then came over for a bit tonight to hang out and watch Lost. I'm getting tired of being told that "mysteries will be revealed" on the show and when the episode is over they haven't revealed any secrets or they're just lame ones. Sigh. At least we're only about one-third of the way through the season so there's still time to address some issues in the series but I don't like being lied to. Damn you, Damon and Carlton! Make with the reveals! Also, at least one grocery store in this town should have a kick ass sale on cereal but they don't. The 17th I bought some more fish today because I felt bad for the single fish still alive in the bowl. He's been a trooper and has seen many come and go. The stories he must have…and sadly I have forgotten his name. No wait, it's Carl. Poor Carl seemed mighty lonely in that big bowl of his so I found him a few friends. A couple of orange guys seem to be getting along well with him now, and their vivaciousness seems to have re-invigorated a lethargic Carl. They look exactly the same so I've named them The Cobra Joe Twins, Tomax and Xamot, from G.I. Joe. They're also much more curious than Carl is because they'll often come right up to the glass and stare at me while Carl seems rather indifferent. You'd think he'd be thankful for the new friends I hooked him up with and join in with their group staring session. The other addition is a creepy looking algae eater I've named Thomas. He doesn't do much except cling to the tiki idol and comes across as the anti-social one. That's ok though. He's there to do a job, not to fraternize with the tenants. The 16th I ate 18" of Subway tonight and watched many, many hours of movies and TV. The 9th I drove up to Charlottetown with Shawn tonight to go see The Sleepless Nights play but we met up with Mark, Amanda and a couple of her friends at the Royal Tandoor for dinner first. I have to say it was probably one of the worst dining experiences I've ever had, which is weird because every other time I've gone there it's been fine. We caught the tail end of the buffet, I guess, and there was hardly anything out on the buffet table. I think there was more food sitting on all of the uncleared tables than under the heat lamps. I'm also pretty sure every available table hadn't been cleared and there wasn't any waitress working, just some poor dude from the kitchen who didn't seem to know what the hell he was doing. Not only did he fail to inform us that the buffet wouldn't be stocked up any more (even though there was an hour and a half left before they closed), but he gave us dirty glasses and hardly ever came by the table to see how things were going. He was just awkward, didn't say anything, and spilled water and ice on the table and into people's plates of food. We had to ask him to bring us food from the kitchen when we could flag him down because there was nothing left to eat in the buffet. Shawn had to go fill his water glass in the bathroom because he never came by with refills. So after having a very unsatisfactory meal of butter chicken, some waxy, crunchy rice, and a few veggies we left for Hunter's to go see the bands play. Kira, Fiona, and Andrea showed up, then Kat and her boyfriend, then a couple of Amanda's friends, and, just when the table couldn't be any more crowded, this messed up girl who Mark said was bumming for a lighter outside decided to join us. Her name was Mo'nique (apostrophe added for comedic effect) and she was fucked up solid on something. Horse tranquilizers and NyQuil maybe. To me, she seemed to be—and looked like—a young Crazy-Shirley-in-training. She was asking for a lighter and pointlessly handed a cigarette down the table, then she started to grab at drinks and pitchers at the table, and before you knew it she was trying to get me to go dance with her. Granted, I can't hear a damn thing in a pub setting but I don't think I understood anything she said the entire time she sat with us other than when she'd call over to me from across the table. Shudder. She just slouched in her seat, lethargic mostly, groping for booze at times, occasionally dancing in her seat and laughing at seemingly nothing. At one point, Shawn said it was like being in an episode of Roseanne when she would get into one of her laughing fits. She'd wander off and just when I thought it was safe she'd be back trying to guzzle down the remnants in beer bottles. Thankfully I didn't have to be anywhere near her because she apparently smelled like shit. She was eventually booted out and I could go back to relaxing without having to worry about some drunken mental patient wanting to grope me on the dance floor. Though I was mildly afraid, Mo'nique made for some good entertainment. Oh yeah, The Sleepless Nights were good too. The 3rd Against my better judgement, I drove up to Charlottetown with Shawn and Laine even though it was super windy, cold as hell and drifting like crazy. After hitting a detour in Kensington (always a bad sign), we eventually made it up there to pick up Katherine and Kira. We all went to eat at Hunter's before heading to the cinema to see Pan's Labyrinth. It was definitely worth driving through snowdrifts and sinister wind gusts to see this movie on the big screen instead of a downloaded copy on Shawn's PC. I wasn't really sure what to expect from an R-rated fantasy flick and the trailer sort of made me wonder if it was all just special effects and foolishness. Though, a huge, twenty-something minute standing ovation at Cannes made me think otherwise. Turns out I was wanting more fantasy scenes because they were so well done. They seemed to focus a lot on the real-world storyline which was the horrible domestic situation the main character found herself in near the end of WWII. That was fine though because it was a great story in the first place. It's just that after seeing how well done the creatures were that it left me wanting to see more and more of them. Pan was so cool looking and freakish. He had the perfect voice—I can't even explain it—and I wonder how well they'll be able to translate that into English when the DVD comes out. As creepy as he was though, there is one demonic creature the girl has to face that was bar none one of the creepiest and most fucked creatures I'd ever seen in a movie. I was shocked at how well they were able to creep me out actually. Although, I have yet to watch the Hellraiser movies so… In the "reality" portion of the movie, though, I honestly think this movie also had a few of the most violent scenes I've come across. Brutal killings, beatings and one scene that is on par with the Polanski scene with Nicholson in Chinatown. Even with murders, demons, and freaky fauns aside, this movie remains muy, muy bueno in every respect and thankfully didn't have a typical Hollywood ending. The 1st Like mostly everything else I write about, this is pointless but I have to write about how good my supper was tonight. I bought a packet of Asian Home Gourmet Szechuan Hot & Sour Soup SpicePaste™ the other night because it looked good and I like hot and sour soup quite a bit. I picked up all of the ingredients listed on the back: a carton of chicken broth, some chicken, mixed stir-fry veggies (bagged and frozen did the trick), an egg and some corn starch. From there, I basically just threw it all into a pot and had the best and easiest soup ever. EVER. I can only imagine how much better it would be with freshly chopped veggies, even though frozen was good enough. Buy the stuff. Make the soup. If you like spicy soup then you can't go wrong with this recipe. If you can't find the spice paste in your local grocery store then order it online. I'm serious. I'm going to triple the batch next time and make enough to last me a month. I won't get sick of it, I can tell. Make it and thank me later. Ryan Recommends™. Neil and I shot some more scenes tonight for his movie and we actually got quite a bit done. The best part was driving around with him in the trunk. I bet that was his favourite part too.