The 30th I drove up to the theatre to see the early showing of The Simpsons Movie with Nathan, Shawn and Bryanna this evening. The line-up for the register was all the way back to the door and there was no way in hell I was waiting in that slow line so I decided I would just get everyone’s tickets on my card to save all four of us waiting in line at the “express” ticket machines in the entrance. A note relevant to the story that follows: my credit card works, I used it the night before, and I’m nowhere near my limit. Bearing that in mind… The last time I tried to get a ticket using one of those machines it declined my card so I had to wait in line where a teenage worker ran my card no problem and gave me my ticket. When I informed her that the machines weren’t working she just said that sort of thing happens from time to time. No apology and no offer to inform the manager. I couldn’t be bothered asking her to mention it to the manager who was probably her age or younger knowing how that damn theatre is run. So tonight, with fifteen minutes before showtime, I waited for my turn at one of the express ticket machines and soon noticed everyone ahead of me was having trouble with their cards while the people in the other line were not. Of course, leave it to me to pick the line with the busted terminal. So right there I was already fed up because this seemed to be a consistent problem and off I went into the lobby to track down the manager. He came out and explained that there had been a problem earlier but he had fixed it. While that may have been the case, I told him that it was on the blink again and he offered to reset the system. After it was reset, he didn’t even stick around to see if the people in line were able to get tickets and, sure enough, it declined more cards including my own. At this point I become frustrated beyond belief and did what I normally do which is just bury my anger and submit to waiting in line for the terminal that did work. At the other one, people seemed to be having more luck until an older couple ended up taking forever and trying every single card they had between the two of them. I’m not even sure if they got their ticket or if the people in front of me got theirs because they all went through the process and left for the lobby without a word. Now I stood in the entrance before the terminal screen, the lone customer remaining from what originally was a couple of dozen people waiting in line. I punched in four tickets for the seven o’clock movie (which would have started four minutes earlier at that point) and waited for a response from the greasy computer screen covered in fingerprints: Processing… Processing… Processing… DECLINED. Punching the wall, I was now thoroughly livid due to the fact that I was being continually denied a ticket for the movie and also that the manager was a useless douchebag who doesn’t have someone open another register or FIX THE FUCKING COMPUTER PROBLEMS! I told the trio waiting for me that we were to leave and told the manager who was taking peoples’ tickets that neither machine was accepting my card. I could tell from the look on his face that he knew I was mad, I just wish I would have seen his face after I left the theatre because as soon as we got into the parking lot I launched my glass bottle of cold, refreshing iced tea at the side of the theatre. It smashed open and made a very loud, hollow, corrugated-metal-siding whump before raining down and clattering on the sidewalk. I turned around, extremely satisfied, got into my car and drove past the lobby to see if Mr. Headset Manager was to be seen either bawling, mad, or both. I didn’t see him but I was told afterwards that he did come out right after I threw it. He probably went back in to call the cops or something. I guess we’ll have to wait and see what happens next time I go. Not that I want to continue going to that theatre but I don’t have much of a choice considering they have a monopoly in town and basically on the island for all the new releases. Maybe I could write head office with a complaint about the express ticket system, the manager’s uselessness and demand that in addition to free passes I want a new bottle of iced tea. The 28th We went to see Harry Potter and The Order of The Phoenix last night, and even if the movie had been bad it would have been worth the ten bucks to sit in the air conditioned theatre. I had heard reviewers were saying it was boring and too long but I didn’t think so at all and I liked it as much as any of the others. The magic duel between Voldemort and Dumbledore was one of my favourite scenes from the entire series. I just wish that the CGI would have been more consistent across all scenes because some animated bits were utter crap compared to some of the other really well-modelled creatures. The talking envelope looked nearly on par with that horribly animated Spanish bee used in the Nasonex commercials. Tonight was one of those nights where absolutely nothing happened and I had a stack of Dave and Conan just waiting to be watched. I hardly ever have one of my recorded late night TV marathons like I used to. Not that I relish the thought of watching hours upon hours of the stuff but I remember a few key boring weekend evenings years ago spent sitting back and watching an entire week or more of Dave and Conan in one sitting. I’m just glad I’ve recently started recording to DVD because VHS is a pain in the ass and looks like crap. If only I had an actual commercial skip button I’d be all set. Needless to say, laying on that couch for upwards of eight hours has rendered my back unbelievably sore and I’m going to definitely need a wheelchair and a chiropractor tomorrow. The 26th I drove to Ch’town with Shawn and Bryanna so we could go see Contrived at Hunters. While looking for a parking space I almost ran over yet another female pedestrian. If I keep practicing maybe I can actually manage to mow one down one of these days. We ate at The Gahan House and thankfully we got a table out on the deck because it’s just been muggy as hell lately. The meal was just okay so I think next time I eat up there I’m going to check out one of the new Asian places. I’m so sick of pub food and deep fried crap that some sushi or tasty vegetarian dishes will be a nice change. We hit Hunters in time to take in some trivia which was all TV, movie and entertainment questions. I’m all about that type of trivia, the less sports questions the better. Kira showed up after work and hung out to watch the band play. I had never heard Contrived before but it was something to do and some of the members are from Wintersleep so that made it more of an interesting choice for the evening. A couple of songs into their set, I heard one of them mention something about Wintersleep and then they started playing “Archeologists”, one of their newer songs that I really like. As soon as I heard the singer it dawned on me that more than just the drummer and guitar players from Wintersleep and it turned out to be the entire band, from what I could gather from the convoluted band line-up info Shawn gave me afterwards. The band was great to watch and I liked most of their tunes. Their drummer, Loel Campbell, is a MONSTER drummer. Watching him play was worth the cover charge alone. Even the bass player, Mike, was going all out. I don’t think I’ve seen any bass player brutalize their bass and have as much energy on stage as he did. They all put on a great show even though it was a sweaty, muggy place, and the crowd was pretty thin. The 21st For lack of anything better to do, I went to The Deckhouse with Shawn, Bryanna, Laine, Kyle and Nathan so they could continue their drinking in an pub overlooking the harbour instead of the living room. It’s an okay place to go depending on who’s playing or who’s going to be there but lately it just seems to be full of baby boomers or the polar opposite—drunken meatheads. Tonight was the meatheads. Keep in mind, the following observation comes from a guy who doesn’t like to go out much, doesn’t particularly like strangers, has been punched in the face (hard) for no reason in the past, and tends to be paranoid and prone to exaggeration. One guy looked like a sketchy westender who went to school with me but I couldn’t be sure. He had that look about him, that posture, that negative energy that seemed to forecast a punch in the eye or two. His face looked like what Eddie Vedder would look like if he were a prick in a white ball hat, a boxer and had a face made of a carved, freshly-glazed ham. Other than him and a bunch of beach dudes in ball hats that looked like they may want to do some fancy fighting at any given moment should they take the notion, Aubrey was there supervising all night because, well, that’s what he does as the new supervisor, and Melissa showed up to hang out for a bit after she got back from the big Aerosmith concert. There were also some girls dancing and Rhonda was one of them. I hadn’t seen her in quite a while so it was nice to say hey and chat for a bit. I noticed she disappeared for a while, and Bryanna and Laine were taking quite a while to come back from the washroom. According to those two, one of the dancer girls was half passed out and bawling on the washroom floor, bare-assed with her pants around her ankles after having puked up her lasagna or something. Her boyfriend and Rhonda were helping her get herself together so they could get out of there before the tiniest bit of that girl’s dignity that still remained somehow was lost. I bet she’ll have quite the story for the office come Monday. But seriously, I hope she’s alright. I wanted nothing better than to leave the sketchy, ham-faced gentlemen and the naked lasagna-puking lady behind for the night, and thankfully we soon left to head back to the house. At this point, Shawn had some beer after previously arriving at the pub with a whole bottle of Cuban rum in him. Surprisingly, Cuban rum keeps Shawn pretty mellow and docile, unlike the Jamaican variety. That’s probably why Bryanna and Nathan were able to draw permanent marker tattoos on him without any fuss whatsoever. Hopefully that’s also the reason as to why he let Bryanna apply some eye liner and lipstick to his face. Creepy, stubbly, seductive and just plain wrong. As the night was winding down we ended up ordering a mess of garlic fingers from Michael’s. I love their garlic fingers; me and friends had a weekly engagement with them for the major part of our teenage years. Thick crust, real bacon, greasy cheese and even donair sauce lately is damn good but a huge plateful of them at 2:00 am is something I’m now regretting. The 17th There hasn’t been much of a summer so far but we finally managed to get to the beach at night to have a fire. Two nights in a row actually which made for a lot of marshmallows being eaten in a forty-eight hour period; a lot of blackened, charred marshmallows actually. I think I just heard someone say bowel cancer… The first night there were hundreds of jellyfish all along the beach at Thunder Cove and we thought we saw a UFO. It was pretty weird for a while because it kept getting brighter then fainter, much larger than a star and moving oddly but it just turned out to be a helicopter. The mystery was fun while it lasted. Kyle bought some magical powder that changes the colour of the fire so that was pretty neat. I want to get ten packs and go nuts next time we go. Both nights were super clear and the stars were crazy. Bryanna said she’d never been to the beach at night before and had never seen the sky so full of stars. I guess we sort of just take it for granted living on PEI during the summers. I was hoping Vick would have entertained us with salty seafaring stories but we just watched him burn old wooden shingles instead. I wonder how all of that burning housepaint affected our roasted marshmallows. The 15th Shawn invited people over for a barbecue again and afterwards we headed out to Frosty Treat where I somehow managed to muster enough will power to avoid getting any ice cream or something useless from the gift shop. Now I wonder why I didn’t bother with ice cream because I really should be taking advantage of every visit to the Frosty Treat while it’s open. I was plenty full, though, but that’s never stopped me before. We headed out to Malpeque after that to pay the kitties at the Cat House a visit. I suppose it’s technically called The Cat’s Meow but I feel dumb calling it that. Whoever looks after the place actually got rid of the adjacent little kitty houses (sort of like the little houses by the rink…but for kitties) and moved the main house back along the tree line. Not only that they gave it a new paint job, new shingles and a gutter, of all things. There were surprisingly few cats around too, maybe six or seven when the place is normally teeming with them. Perhaps with all of the renovations the cats had to move elsewhere to find cheaper rent. Boy, I’m one funny guy. One grey cat was all balled up in the tall grass and even though he looked cozy it was obvious that he was pretty sick. All of the other cats would run away but he just laid there all lethargic and let me pet him for a bit. I put some food in front of him but he just sniffed it and went back to looking tired and miserable. Hopefully it was just a kitty cold and he’ll be around next time I go back to visit. There was one friendly kitty, though, who seemed pretty clean so chances are he was just recently abandoned there by someone and the harsh reality of his living situation hasn’t sunk in yet. It looks like Bryanna is going to take him home and Potato could have a boyfriend. The 13th Shawn had to work tonight so since it was nearing 10 p.m. and I was uptown anyway I figured it didn’t make sense to drive home only to drive him back up to work in twenty minutes. To kill time, I parked in behind the old Holland College building where all of the graffiti covers the walls, sat there listening to CBC Radio 2, flicking the headlights, all while Bryanna apparently was trying on shirts in the back seat and Laine kept commenting on her cleavage. Exciting, huh? That’s just how we roll. I dropped Shawn off at the Superstore and then it was up to Bryanna, Laine and me to try and figure out what to do with the rest of our evening. Since the carnival is in town we headed over there to check out all the carny action. The place was starting to shut down and the place was overrun with skanky and non-skanky teenage girls alike with their boyfriends. There was the full complement of carnies and every second person was walking around with a smoke hanging from their lips. The girls each got a huge mass of cotton candy, only to throw it out because no single human needs to or should consume that much cotton candy in one sitting. It’s scary to think about what Mom and Pop are setting themselves up for when they let their kids wolf down a puff of spun sugar larger than their heads before piling into the mini-van and heading home. As the blinking and flashing lights were being switched off all over the place and only the gambling booths seemed to be staying open, we decided to leave the wonder and excitement of the carnival behind us for the night and find something else to entertain us. Hopefully something that smelled less like fryer fat and machine grease, and had less potential for getting a punch in the eye. The Deckhouse seemed like an okay choice but the place was pretty dead and had a small group of baby boomers and one old dude dancing to cover tunes from the 70s, 80s, 90s and today. We sat through “Brown Eyed Girl” and then I felt I needed to get out of there before “Walking On Sunshine” made an appearance on the set list. The 11th I woke up later than I wanted to today, excited that I’d be seeing The White Stripes tonight, and went to check my email hoping to find a message saying that they would be putting on a secret sideshow. Well, I got an email and it said the sideshow would be at The Basilica Rec Centre in Ch’town at 2:30 which meant I was going to have to get ready in a damn hurry and drive like mad to get there in time. No way was I going to miss a secret show if I could help it. Of course, there was road construction on the way there so I got held up a bit, cursing every minute of it. That’s when Clayton, Sarah and Neil pulled up behind me in the line up of cars. We eventually all met up at The Basilica with the crowd of other fans waiting for Jack and Meg to make an appearance. Tammy showed up, so did CBC (who stuck a camera in my face to get a comment), and everyone waited…and waited…and waited. Nothing was happening and pretty soon a bunch of people took off down to Peake’s Wharf. We had to follow just in case but nothing was going on down there either so I went back to Tammy’s to check the board and my email to see what was going on. Turns out some douchebag started the hoax and even snapped a photo of us suckers waiting in front of the rec centre for a show that wasn’t going to happen. Or so I thought. An email soon showed up saying there was a post on a Stripes forum (seemingly legit, like other secret shows) that said they’d be playing at 5 p.m. at Confederation Landing. So I headed down there with Tammy, met up with Clay, Sarah and Neil, who had apparently snuck into The White Stripes’ catered green room at the arena when the three of them went to get their tickets. Security was pretty lax considering where Neil was able to get into and that Clay and Sarah got photos of the roadies doing soundcheck. Standing around waiting, Laura Oakie and her friend told me that someone they knew owned a boat that was rented out so that Jack and Meg could arrive by sea. Already things were sounding cooler and it was the perfect day for a boat ride too, other than the wind. Very soon after a couple of dudes in black suits, top hats and red ties sauntered in wordlessly with a big bin of shirts and we knew the seaside sideshow was official. And arrive by sea they did! In what must be one of the coolest entrances ever, Jack and Meg could be heard playing from a distance as a fishing boat slowly made its way across the harbour right up to the landing where everyone was waiting for them. The boat just kept going back and forth in front of the landing while they played a cover of “Catfish Blues”, “Black Math”, “Hotel Yorba” and “Screwdriver”. Then they were back off across the harbour as Jack waved bye to everyone. I was unfortunate enough to have CBC TV get a comment earlier only to have a woman from CBC Radio turn around and stick a mic in my face and ask me for a comment live on the radio. Not only was it live but they then went and used my soundbite for the rest of the day during the hourly news. Sort of cool but mostly embarrassing. I don’t really care though because I got a bunch of video and photos of The White Stripes playing on a boat, and bad soundbites, the heat, the sweating, the running around, the sunburn and even the hoax were all worth it. Plus I hadn’t even been to the damn show yet. In the meantime, I went to the Interlude Café with Tammy to get a bite to eat. I got some dumplings and some spicy peanut sauce dish with more dumplings that were both extra tasty, and a lychee bubble tea that didn’t come with any bubbles for some reason. That happened last time too so I guess I’m destined not to ever have them, even though people tell me they’re gross anyway. With a belly full of dumplings and pecan pie, I left for the show at the Civic Centre and met up with Clay and Sarah again. I ran in to buy a poster because the one I got at their last show I saw in Vancouver a few years ago was awesome. Rob Jones from Animal Rummy designs amazing limited edition screenprinted posters so I needed another for my wall. Then we went inside and found we had seats really close to the stage, not the greatest seats for viewing the band but still pretty damn good. The opener was Dan Sartain and his band who I thought were okay, he had a few good tunes but I really liked his cover of Alice Cooper’s “Second Coming”. They finished up, tore down, set up for the main show began, and some dude passed out from the heat or something (you’d think air conditioning in a rink wouldn’t be a problem but someone didn’t flick on the AC switch apparently). The lights went down, the crowd cheered, and Jack and Meg came out to open with “Dead Leaves and The Dirty Ground”. It was loud, loud, loud. The three of us ended up leaving our seats to stand on a landing to get closer to the stage so we could take photos and video. I’m surprised we got as much as we did before one of the black suit and red tie guys told us we had to stop taking photos and go back to our seats. No confiscated camera, no problem. I just kept taking more photos and video from my seat anyway. They had a ginormous disco ball that created a crazy light show, a giant red wall with a platform and bright lights down front that would blast their shadows up onto the wall. Everything was bathed in a red and white glow; obviously perfect. As much as I liked their show the time I saw them in Vancouver, this show beat the one out west hands down. They played for about an hour—shorter than I was expecting—before they left the stage and everyone hanging in what seemed like an overly long encore break. In any case, they came back out and played a surprisingly long encore that ended with them parading around on stage with the PEI flag. It was a fantastic show, worth every penny, crazy to think they played PEI, even more crazy that they played for us on a boat. All hail Jack and Meg. Long live The White Stripes. Hope you come back soon. Too bad they never got a chance to play in S’side at the Steele Arena. I’ve posted ten videos on YouTube, some from the sideshow and some from the arena show. The 10th I went to see Transformers with Shawn and Kyle tonight, and was blown away by the special effects. The story, the script and some foolish changes/inaccuracies aside, I liked the movie a lot. It was a big-robots-making-big-explosions, and tons-of-guns-and-missiles type of movie that’s great to go see every now and then. I don’t understand how people are able to visualize, let alone realize, the scenes that were in the movie. Robots pounding each other, shooting, and blowing shit up everywhere, chase scenes that transform into robots flying at one another and pounding each other some more. It was amazing to watch, and to see the cartoon brought to life like that. There was a tonne of cheese and dumb jokes but it’s impossible to get away from that when you make a movie like this. It’s just unfortunate that no one told them they didn’t have to use every cliché in the Hollywood Handbook of Clichés. Still, I’ll sit through a movie with a terrible script any day if it means I get to hear Optimus Prime’s classic voice again, leading the Autobots and having it out with Megatron. I just don’t see why they couldn’t have made Bumblebee into a VW bug like in the cartoon, and they really missed a bet by making Devastator one robot instead of the five Constructicons that transform into a gigantic super-robot. Huge robots are great but think about how much better a gigantic robot would be. I’m just happy they got Peter Cullen to do the voice of Prime; that alone made the ticket price worthwhile. The 9th Well, it took me some time to figure out the style and even more time to export the files properly but I finally got the short video done using the photos and footage I shot during the Zombie March in Ch’town. I went back and watched the end credits to Night of the Living Dead and ripped that off solid for the intro. I’ve always felt that those end credits were probably some of the coolest ever conceived so I had to pay homage to it. The video is posted below on YouTube but the quality sucks like everything else on there so I wanted people to have the option to see it without so much compression and noise. I've posted a zipped MPEG file here that’s 42.5MB so download that if you’ve got broadband. Otherwise, deal with YouTube’s crappiness. The 8th My aunt and uncle, Edith and Frank, are home visiting from Arizona so there was a surprise party planned for their 55th anniversary. Their daughter and my cousin, Kathy, was also home and I hadn’t seen her since I was two or something like that. She got all of their old Super 8 film transferred to DVD, and it was kind of surreal to see all of the footage they shot when they lived in California during the late 50s, the cars, everyone so young and people back at the farm in Lot 16. My mom was just a little kid running around the yard, her older sisters playing it up for the camera, and my grandparents sitting around enjoying the summer weather. I never really knew my grandfather on my mom’s side because I think I was three when he died but I just barely remember him and being up on their farm. I’ll hopefully be able to make a copy of the DVD before she leaves so I can watch the whole thing. I also heard some crazy stories from my mom while we were enjoying the all-you-can-eat turkey dinner buffet (I mostly saved room for pie and cake). Apparently Kathy’s ex-husband was one of the soldiers who captured Noriega, her husband will soon be going to Iraq, and her husband’s sister’s brother (I think) was the personal physician to Saddam Hussein during the time of his capture. Talk about six degrees of separation from former world dictators! The she tells me that my dad’s friend Kendall was in the airport terminal in Scotland when terrorists crashed their car into it a week ago. Insane. The 7th This turned out to be quite an eventful and fun Saturday. I drove up to Ch’town this afternoon and the rain that came down was insane. It was coming down in buckets and quite a few cars were pulled over on the road but since I was running late because of a two-hour long mid-afternoon nap I didn’t have time to let rain slow me down. At 5 p.m. zombies were going to be marching through the streets and I had to see it. I wasn’t expecting much since PEI tends to lame things up quite often but once I saw a couple of dozen people covered in blood, makeup and torn clothing lurching, shuffling and dragging their feet down Victoria Row I knew it was worth the drive. I followed the group of walking dead with Tammy and Kira as they made their way through downtown up to the ATC where a couple of victims waited to be attacked right in front of the glass walls of K-ROCK. The glass ended up getting covered with bloody, smeared hand prints and once the victims became zombies themselves they joined the rest of the undead mob and headed over to the mall, leaving more bloody palm prints on walls and windows. It was funny to see a bunch of zombies, moaning for brains, obeying crosswalk signals and also having a zombie courteously hold a mall door for me after leaving a big bloody hand print on the glass. The mall’s stores were all closed but the mall itself was still open so the zombies stumbled their way through the corridors, their moaning for brains echoing through the empty mall, pounding on the shop doors while clerks did their cash. It was like Dawn of the Dead, except without lame, blue zombie makeup. We followed them down to the library where they scared the crap out of an Asian tourist before they staggered off down the steps and disappeared around the corner of the mall again onto University. At that point I had filled my camera’s card with a bunch of video clips and pics, and I was thoroughly charged by running around with a horde of zombies. They did a great job and that was definitely some of the most fun I’ve had in a long, long time. Maybe next year I’ll get all bloody and join them. I’ve decided that I’m going to make some sort of video to post online for the zombies to check out. I’m going to try and get it finished by the end of the weekend and hopefully I can pull off what I’ve got in mind. Kira went back to work so I went to the Tai Chi Garden with Tammy to check out their menu. Tracy and her friend Dwayne were there, and they told us how they were going to watch UFC at Razzy’s later on. I’m not exactly an avid fan of UFC but I thought, “Why the hell not?” I just loved the idea of going from zombies to elegant Asian food to ultimate fighting at a roadhouse bar all in one day. After eating some awesome food at the Tai Chi and realizing the reason I don’t wear sandals is because they look completely ridiculous (they make customers remove footwear at the door), we headed back to Tammy’s to figure out a game plan for the night. She ended up feeling pretty sick (not because of the food, just in general) so I picked up Kira and Melissa so we could check out Brent Randall and His Pinecones at Baba’s. As it turns out, we actually didn’t get much of a chance to listen to the band. It was shaping up to be a pretty so-so night until this older dude with a big mop of white hair and moustache fancy-walked his way up to the ATM right next to me and tried to fancy-withdraw some cash unsuccessfully. His eyesight wasn’t so good so he asked for some help and I obliged, walking him through each step (noticing the crude tattoo of a hunting knife on his forearm) until he finally had a couple of twenties in his hand. Then he offered me that hand, rough as an old leather glove, for a handshake to thank me for my help and asked me what I was drinking. I told him I was driving so he thanked me again and went off to the bar. At this point, even though the guy seemed pleasant enough, I don’t think any of us wanted him to come back and sit down. Moments later, however, he made his way back with a Labatt’s Blue in each hand, and asked to join us. We quickly found out that his name was Bob and that he had taken a liking to Kira since he repeatedly commented about how he thought she was an attractive, young lady. We could see that he wasn’t leacherous or creepy, he was just a happy drunk dude who took a shining to our Kira. We also could see that he wouldn’t have enough teeth to share evenly between the four of us. Trying to remember everything he said, what it was referring to, what it meant, and in what order it was all said is just too overwhelming so he are some key points in a long, rambling fashion that Kira and Melissa helped me remember: “All I wanted to do was drink a few beers. I’ve got these two lady friends and they were gettin’ chaotic, so ya know what I did? I got the fuck out! They gave away my last beer, to my fuckin’ tenant, my LAST beer! HELLLOOOOOOOOOO?! Get the fuck out! You’re a pretty lady, I wouldn’t lie to you. It’s the truth! You gotta tell the truth. You see someone you like then you put ’em in a cage and then who do you love: the person in the cage or the person that used to be free? Bob-Bob-Bob-Bob-Bob-Bob-Bob. You can’t be anybody if you’re not yourself. Well, I’m here and I’m drinkin’! Get the fuck out! You guys tomorrow, you’ll be thinkin’ what a fool we met last night, what a fuckin’ idiot. But you know what? I don’t care, I won’t be there, go ahead. What the fuck do I care? All just a buncha hippies from up west! So you’re all just sittin’ here, not drinkin’ nuthin’? That’s cool. That’s cool. I go up and dance by myself and I look like an idiot or I go without. If you can’t be you then who can you be? My lady friends stole my houses. HELLLOOOOO?! Bottle of pills. The other day was my birthday so I took the day off because I can. You’re an attractive, young lady. It’s the truth, I gotta tell the truth. I wouldn’t lie to ya. GOLD?! Gold? That’d be hard on the teeth! Fourteen and never been on a go-cart.” I’m not trying to make fun of Bob, he was just really funny and would yell the most random, hilarious things. He kept yelling at this girl while she talked on her cell phone, answering the questions she posed to the person on the other end but he was laughing and having a good time. He was always friendly and polite so it was probably one of the only conversations I’ve ever had with a drunk that didn’t make me want to twenty-three skidoo. As an example of his joviality, here's a short clip of good ’ol Baba’s Bob. The 6th Today was Shawn’s twenty-third birthday so he invited a bunch of people out to his cottage at Locke Shore for some barbecue and some drunken foolishness. As expected, tonnes of food and junk, and Shawn helped himself to plenty of rum while Bryanna, Sharon and Laine helped themselves to margaritas. I had one of the best—quite possibly the best—chicken burger in my entire life: a barbecued chicken breast that was marinated in spicy molé marinade for a day, topped with more of the marinade and stuck in a big, soft bun. I don’t need any more food any time soon but I’d have another one of those burgers right now. Krystal, Neil, Mary-Kate, D’Arcy, his brother, Joey, Krystal, Kat and Matt all arrived throughout the evening. I bought Shawn some dollar-store foam swords so I challenged people to sword fights and Neil dominated me in fencing, contrary to what this photo Bryanna snapped suggests. After Shawn had finished off the baby rum that came with his big daddy rum bottle, he started playing tracks from the 80s Transformers: The Movie soundtrack. He really got into the theme song “The Touch” by Stan Bush, and actually cried during Optimus Prime’s death scene music. That’s extremely sad, and I don’t mean because Optimus died but because a twenty-three-year old man still cries openly about the death of a cartoon hero from his youth. The 4th I woke up this morning (err…afternoon) and could remember only a small part of a weird dream I had. In the dream I remember a long hair brushed against my arm when I was adjusting my glasses or something. I figured someone’s hair must have attached itself to my Velcro scalp at some point. I grabbed it and tried to pull it away when I suddenly felt a little pinch really deep inside my ear. That’s when I started to worry. The lone strand of hair coming out of my ear hung down the side of my face six or seven inches and I wondered how I managed to not notice something like that before. Needless to say, I wanted it to be gone so I pulled on it some more and this time I could feel it pulling through the skin in my ear canal. It was like one of those magicians who pulls the never-ending handkerchief from his fist except this wasn’t a bright, multi-coloured stream of silk but a long, gross hair. Suddenly I was doing parlour tricks. I continued to pull on this hair and managed to get a few feet of it to come out before I feel a bit of a tug in my ear and I know I’ve hit the end. Although, yanking on it to make it come free was a whole other thing. There was sharp pain each time I gave it yank, and just thinking about it now gives me a weird feeling in my gut. I gave it one last pull, putting my fingers as far into my ear as I could so as not to break the hair off. That’s when things got even more gross. While it wasn’t all that painful, the thing that came out of my ear looked like it should have caused much more pain than it did. The “root” of this hair came out and it looked like a rubbery bit of white, moist flesh about the size of a two Tic Tacs with one ragged end. It grosses me out just to think about it. I remember staring at it and wondering just how the hell something like this could even happen. Then I woke up. I can usually trace elements of my dreams to things that happened to me recently so I think it was some weird combination of my doctor doing my semi-annual ear checkup and Charles emailing me about this guy he knew eating a plateful of tripe at a Chinese buffet. Until reading this story he sent me I had no idea was tripe was but he made sure to fully describe it as “…all white with a flat piece on the bottom and then a rippley piece than ran the whole length of it.” Apparently it wobbles on your plate too and has a clear plastic look. Sounds delicious. I would consider eating the “tripe-y hair root thingy” I pulled out of my ear before I’d eat actual tripe. At least I know where it came from. Not nearly as odd but still odd enough was the dude I saw walking down the street with two empty pop bottles. He went into the neighbour’s backyard for minute then crossed the street and went into my backyard. I couldn’t see what he was doing back there but he soon walked out, went back to the neighbour’s backyard before coming back across the street. This time, however, he was making a b-line for the front door where I was standing. I could tell there wasn’t something quite right about the guy. He seemed like he was mentally handicapped in some way and searching the neighbourhood high and low for pop bottles. He came to the door and I let him into the porch after he bluntly asked if I had any pop bottles. Being the kind soul that I am (and because I was interested to see what the guy would say/do), I left him in the porch while I fetched him a couple of 750s. I even got a shopping bag for him so he could carry his spoils that much easier. As I opened the door to hand over the goods, I imagined the guy being some unstable nutcase who would wait for me to open the door and smash my head in with a bottle before slashing me up real good with the broken bottle neck. He did nothing of the sort. He just wordlessly took the bag of bottles and shuffled out of the yard without a word of thanks. Godspeed to you, quiet stranger. May you receive many a bottle refund. The 1st Happy and joyous Canada Day. It’s hard to believe July is here already, especially because I remember saying the exact same thing about June what seems like only a week or two ago. With July’s start and Canada Day, it appears that this is the weekend of barbecues since I went to another one today out at John and Gail’s with Nathan. Cuddles was really excited it was Canada Day and wanted to show John just how excited she was. John’s leg saw a lot of shi-tsu humpin’ action today. Tammy showed up and Kyle did too later on, plus a few of John and Gail’s friends. A cool, often cloudy, windy day didn’t keep us away from the grill and I think they had about a dozen steaks ready to go. The multitude of pies Gail offered up for dessert was a dessert-fiend’s dream come true: coconut cream, cherry and blueberry. I didn’t even try eating a steak because I was so full but I did manage to find room for slices of the first two of the three pies. If it wasn’t for some strange sense of guilt in making a huge pig of myself, I would have attempted the blueberry or perhaps even a second slice of coconut cream pie because it’s like creamy crack with crispy coconut and a crunchy crust. It was too windy for fireworks once it got dark enough for them. We saw a few go off across the harbour and then they called it quits. Sort of a let down but I’m sure they’ll send up the rest tomorrow or something. JC busted out the sparklers though. Not explosive by any means but pretty fun to photograph with a long exposure. John, JC and his little buddy, Jordan, ran around while Tammy and I snapped some shots from the deck.