The 31st Going to bed at four in the morning and getting up at one o’clock is just stupid, especially considering how much damn work I have to do. Why, right now I’m spending valuable sleep time writing about how I should be sleeping instead of staying up until 4:00 a.m. I managed to get something done this afternoon anyway but four hours of work a day is bad for business so that’s got to change. Plus I knocked off a little early so I could go out to eat and check out an art gallery that’s opening here in town. Tammy came in for the gallery opening and for trivia but we headed to The Loyalist to get a bite to eat first. It became a fateful evening because they had their all-you-can-eat Italian buffet. As much as the dictate-your-own-pasta-dish appealed to me, I was more interested in the various desserts in the spread. I couldn’t finish my plate of pasta and didn’t really want to because I soon discovered that the generous portion of meatballs was clearly made generous due to the fact that the meatballs were not of the highest quality. Desserts were eaten instead, one of which was some kind of lump of chocolate mousse-ish deal with a thick chocolate topping and bits of walnuts throughout. It wasn’t particularly good, almost like an uncooked brownie in a way, but I ate it anyway. Within a few minutes my inner ears started to itch, followed by my throat and soon after that a tingling tongue. All bad signs of what I’m guessing is some new, mild allergy I’ve developed to walnuts. Same thing happened when I was eating them recently while playing cards with my grandparents. I don’t know what that’s about at all considering I’ve eaten them my entire life. I guess I’ll have to talk to my physician to see if walnuts are right for me. Turns out that the gallery which was supposed to have its opening at The Armoury was cancelled due to technical difficulties, whatever the hell that even means. We just joined everyone at trivia and won second place. I gambled my $1.25 share of the winnings away on the VLTs. Party. The 27th Back Alley Music has been putting on shows lately so I decided to head up there to see Mike, Catherine and Old Man Luedecke play. It’s a cozy spot and the little room at the back sounds pretty warm, a good place for some acoustic songwriters circles. I really enjoyed the tunes and like what Back Alley is doing by putting on all-ages shows. I’ll be curious to see how bands and larger crowds fare in there though. I headed over to Tammy’s after that to watch a movie and she fed me some really good butter chicken. We watched Tristram Shandy: A Cock & Bull Story which was entertaining enough and pretty funny but I get the feeling that I would need to be British to fully appreciate the movie. Of course, Steve Coogan putting a hot chestnut in his pants is always good for a laugh. I crashed there so I could eat breakfast at the Kozy Korner Café in the morning and go check out the farmer’s market. The KKC is this little café/convenience store/coin laundry run by a Lebanese guy who really knows how to cook eggs over easy, and has these cool tables that look like they’re covered in random sheets of paper with all sorts of calligraphic and blackletter print on them. I’ll have to go back sometime and try one of the Lebanese dishes and maybe even buy a bottle of “fermented dairy drink”. Sounds…tasty? We ventured up to the farmer’s market where I got to see lots of dogs outside, eat perogies with hot sauce, and wish I wasn’t too full to eat a giant “cowboy cookie” (whatever the hell those are). I decided I should head home though because I told Shawn and Neil I would jam. On my way home I put some precious gasoline into my car and got some 649 tickets, checking my other ones at the same time to discover I won twice in a row for a grand total of $72.50. That never happens and was a nice surprise but now I’m wondering how my karma is planning on working itself out, what form the counterbalance will take. After we jammed for a bit in The Sauna upstairs, I figured I might as well head back to Ch’town because Kira, Tammy and Andrea were all going out to see a couple of shows at Brennan’s and Baba’s. Normally I wouldn’t bother going back up for that but I really just wanted to get the hell outta dodge for the weekend. At Brennan’s some blues band consisting of a half dozen middle-aged dudes was playing, and I found the drummer’s playing to be sort of disconcerting. Watching him play was odd because he was always shaking his head and almost reluctantly drumming. He’d be making faces while he was shaking his head, like he was in a disagreement with the drums, that he didn’t want to play and was being forced to play against his will. From time to time people would get up to dance and I was sitting in the most awkward position because I sort of had to look out at the band, across the dance floor, or I’d be looking at a wall. Not only that but I was essentially at ass level only a few feet away from the baby boomers twirling and stuttering in their blues-induced dancing. One dude had on a leather ball cap and he was dancing the way guys shouldn’t dance. Just wrong, wrong, wrong. But another dude in a skin-tight, purple and black tiger-striped shirt was making an awkward spectacle directly in front of me. He had moves, they were just bad ones, and when he wasn’t raising his arms up for mysterious dance reasons (effectively exposing his soft underbelly) he was apparently displaying his ass crack on a consistent basis for the ladies in attendance. I’m glad I was averting my gaze as much as possible and missed all of that nastiness. We left shortly thereafter for Baba’s to check out the bands. As expected, it was pretty packed and very warm but I still had a pretty good time. I was starving by the time we left so Suzi and Wendy led the way to pizza slices but the line was absolutely foolish, as were the lines outside all of the Chinese restaurants. Off to Burger King it was. There were two streams of traffic converging into the drive-thru lane, and because I was in the angled lane two cars managed to get in front me from the other lane, even though I was clearly there first. The fucker in the first car was bad enough, him pretending like he didn’t see me while his girlfriend waved at us either apologetically or to be a total bitch, I still can’t figure out which. The second car was worse because it was full of a bunch of drunken douchebags. One guy in the back kept yelling incoherently at me from the back seat while a girl in the front opened her door so she could have a little puke in the parking lot. Classy. After ordering, that carload of fucks decided they didn’t want to wait any longer and tried to squeeze past the fuckers ahead of them which resulted in the driver busting a bit of the curb with her back tire as well as the tire itself. It was awesome to see them get their comeuppance in a puff of concrete dust and deflated rubber. Our frustration and anger gave way to joyous and spiteful cheers of satisfaction. Driving past them as they sat in an empty parking lot down the street was glorious. The driver was leaning against her stranded car with her face in her hands, probably wondering what her parents were going to do to her. My chicken sandwich combo tasted sooo good. The 24th For a change, I drove to Kensington with Nathan, Shawn, Bryanna and Kyle to play trivia. Jimmy was hosting it and it was obvious it was only the first night. There were three teams so we were obviously guaranteed to take home some prize. D’arcy and his friend Paul joined our team and we all managed to snag second place. The only problem is that you don’t get money at the K’town trivia, you get beer tickets instead—and a lot of them. What good does that do me though? Excessive Food Update: Even though I had supper before I went, I still managed to have a bunch of Greco garlic fingers with donair sauce, a bag of Tostitos with French onion dip, and one of those big-ass charity chocolate bars with almonds. None of the above was required eating by any means. The 23rd Another season of Lost is over. I'm looking forward to season four but not the wait, and not like I did with the last two seasons. The Hatch made for some of the most interesting TV I've seen in a long time. The season’s had an odd cliffhanger and the next season is going to be weird for sure. The more I think about it the more I get the feeling that it’s going to be weird in a very good way. I’m interested to see how they’re going to handle storylines that take place off The Island in these flash forwards. Although, I think some people will stay and some people will be taken back home. It’s really the only way they can continue the story of The Island, and the character-based flashbacks are done with, in my opinion. We’ve gotten all we need to get out of those types of flashbacks and I think they’re going to jump into the future of the storyline and start flashing back to the finale. It’s just too bad they’re making three more seasons of sixteen episodes each instead of just two with twenty-four each. That just adds up to a lot more waiting than I like and a greater chance I might die before the series ends in 2010. That’s sad, I know, but dying without knowing how this show ends, how they reveal the answers to all of the mysteries, and finding out just what the hell is going on would be very upsetting to me. Here’s hoping I make it to the summer of 2010! The 21st Mark’s home for a bit and he, Shawn and Bryanna picked me up to go somewhere to satisfy Mark’s craving for chocolate cake. I just wanted to go along for something to do, and didn’t really feel like getting any dessert. Odd, yes, I know. We ended up at Brothers Two and somehow I was the one who ended up getting dessert and not long afterwards we were hanging out at Mark’s parents’ place where his mom had trays of fresh chocolate macaroons. So much for me not eating any dessert. Mark’s mom and sister were watching the season finale of The Bachelor and somehow we got roped into sitting around for pretty much the whole show. It was absolutely, utterly, and unquestionably some of the worst television programming I have ever seen. The situations, the people, the dialogue, EVERYTHING was so sappy that it made my stomach turn. Not to mention the fact that the dude kept smooching away in a very gross manner on these last two “contestants” non-stop. It made me queasy. The fact that someone is going to choose their wife on a game show is bad enough. What’s worse is that the last two women are vying for his “love” and he’s splitting his time between them; making out one day with blondie, playing grab-ass with the brunette on the beach the next day. The gals are buying him gifts and talking about how much they love him, and then they’re saying goodnight knowing full well he’ll be off to meet with the other one for another day of beach romping, helicopter rides and incessant gross-kissing while they sit in their room and cry, wondering if they’ll get the rose or not. It’s so hard to stomach that contrived and empty garbage. I wasted nearly two hours of my life watching some haircut mack on a couple of chicks who bawled a whole bunch. Moreover, there are multiple seasons and incarnations of this show! People buy the DVDs? I honestly think I’d rather receive papercuts between my fingers and toes than watch that fragrant, steaming coil of shit ever again. The 12th Shawn had a barbecue tonight that ultimately spiralled into drunken debauchery. Thankfully, Sharon managed to capture this depraved, homoerotic activity that routinely targeted me in some fashion. You haven't experienced one of Shawn's barbecues until Luke forces himself upon you (shirtless) despite your objections, subjecting you to his Connery-esque chest, and chases you around the house and out into the street before Kyle is able to calm him down by whisking his nipples. Yup. And to think, Sharon was apparently running around in her underwear in the other room. Looks like I picked the wrong room to hang out in. At least my chicken was good. The 8th I went to see Spider-Man 3 with Bruce, Kyle and Jason, and it was just meh. Fun to watch but it was far too much like a comic book for my taste. I know it's a comic book movie but there seemed to be a lot more cheesy dialogue than the first two films, and there were a couple of scenes I can only really describe as "dance numbers" that I felt were way out in left field and just plain dumb. While it's fun to see Spidey swing around doing his superhero stuff and beating on villains, the movie just seemed to drag and was bogged down with too many villains. They could have very easily taken Sandman out and focused a lot more on the black suit/symbiote and Venom. They actually should have had Thomas Haden Church play Eddie Brock/Venom instead of Sandman. I like Topher Grace but he seems to only be able to play Eric Foreman and that isn't the Eddie Brock I've always imagined. Granted, they did a fantastic job with the black suit and Venom but the movie would have been a lot better building upon the arrival of the symbiote, the animosity between Parker/Spidey and Brock/Venom, and by actually making Venom a lot more sinister. Sandman and Green Goblin Jr. just watered down all of that interaction and took the movie in too many directions. Maybe if I had followed the comics more when I was a kid I might have liked the movie better (or maybe not). I know it's Sam Raimi directing, I know it's a friggin' comic book movie, but it just felt clunky and too goofy. Although, the Bruce Campbell part was damn funny. I'll give them that. The 7th Nathan told me about this Polaroid pinned to the bulletin board at the Co-op today so I raced over on my bike to grab it before they closed. It was way too strange to leave there. Turned out to be even weirder than what he described actually. I couldn't imagine having all of those stuffed animals in my house because it's creepy beyond words. The sunflowers are a nice touch though. What does "And More" even mean? The only thing I can figure is that this faded photo was last in a series of similar photos from an album. But who just sticks a Polaroid on a bulletin board with no write-up or anything? Perhaps the holes in the photo were from slips of paper pinned to it with a phone number on them so that you could call in case you wanted to buy, visit, discuss, or who knows what else with a bunch of taxidermied wild animals of various descriptions. All I want to do with this photo is use it on an album cover somehow, and name the album Taxidermy Photography. I can't get over how perfectly odd it is. The 6th Happy birthday to moi. Twenty-nine, is it? Greetings. Laine showed up at my door yesterday afternoon with a goldfish bowl and two goldfish. Well, they're some other kind of fish and not gold. In fact, one is white-ish and the other black, and both came to me pre-named as David Bowie and Iman, respectivly. Clever. Thanks, Laine. The celebrating started a little early as I decided to go to Ch'town to attend Andrea's birthday last night. I went out to eat with Tammy at The Merchantman Pub beforehand though and got the chicken pot pie which was really good. The place is kind of pricey but I like trying restaurants that I've yet to eat at, even if it is a more upscale type of pub that decides it's apparently okay to just pump in the local Top 40 station's fare. When will these places learn that music really helps the dining experience and that Nickelback actually makes my food taste bad? Kira moved in with Andrea and her roommate John to a pretty nice spot with three floors. I ate some delicious chocolate cake that Andrea made and sat around chatting with them, Richard, Wendy and a girl whose name I never got. She knew about the gravy from The Spot/Notre Dame Take-Out and I told her how I drank a cup of gravy from there when I was younger. Probably not the best story to tell a new acquaintance but I find it entertaining. I ended up crashing at Tammy's new apartment after we watched Terry Gilliam's new movie Tideland. I don't even know what to say about it other than it's screwed up. Looked fantastic, was interesting, but it was awfully weird. I woke up trying to remember what the hell I watched, remembered the weirdness and tried not to think about it again. Tammy treated me to breakfast for my birthday at Hunters (which I don't really recommend) but only after we went to every breakfast joint in town because they all had line-ups. It was ridiculous, as was the price of a two-egg breakfast at Hunters ($7.99 = ouch). When I got back to town, Ian and Holly showed up with birthday Stewart's, Pocky and cookies. Ian also brought along his new unicycle and showed us his unicycle prowess out on the street. I honestly can't think of a more Ianish thing than riding a unicycle. Well, riding a unicycle dressed in a gorilla costume, wearing a big red wig and honking a horn perhaps. As this was going on I was making use of my parents' old homemade ice cream maker. The strawberry ice cream was churning away so it would be ready for the barbeque at Shawn's place. I think it actually turned out pretty well but after the feed I had at Shawn's I don't think I needed any ice cream, let alone cupcakes. I was pretty much ready to bust and all I could really do was sit on the floor and play with Bryanna's crazy, black kitten Potato. Her and Shawn got me this cool, tin wind-up robot and some Ricky Martin trading cards (swoon), Sharon made me a birthday card and Andrea gave me a copy of her CD. A pretty good birthday overall. The 4th Bryanna, Shawn, Laine and I tried to think of something we could do to keep us entertained and otherwise occupied for the evening. Bowling came to mind but after a visit to the new lanes the new price made us consider other options. We ended up at Dooly's instead to play some pool before Shawn had to go to work, and after he did we three were really at a loss to come up with a way to spend the rest of our night. Since Bryanna is relatively new to our fair "city" I decided to treat her to an exciting lap of the classic BK500, which involved driving from the Staples parking lot down to Burger King and back. It's hard to believe that we repeated this course for hours on end on weekends to pass the time. I'd hate to think how much an evening of that type of fun would cost now with the current price of gas. Laine came up with the brilliant idea to go to The Heritage and I only agreed to go because she offered to pay the cover charge. Any amount of money is too much money to spend to get into that place on the weekend. What a sad state of affairs it was for the first bit. The band started playing and had two people dancing for the longest time; that is, until the cougars showed up in force. One woman, who looked sort of midgety, was in white pants and cowboy boots. While the rest of her pride danced how cougars usually dance, she drew upon her line dancing skills and masterfully blended moves usually reserved for Boot Scootin' Boogie with those commonly used when dancing to a small town cover band's rendition of Material Girl. However, the good times were only starting to roll because her cross-genre dancing styles were injected with a sexuality only a midgety woman in white pants and high-heeled cowboy boots can command. Her lusty, rhythmic pelvic motions were accentuated by her hand placement—thumbs hooked in her belt loops and hands flat against the front of her alabaster slacks in the most suggestive of manners. Had it not been for the tall fellow who so elegantly stood in my line of sight I'm sure I would have puked just a little bit in my mouth.