Here are two acronyms I dislike very much: MRI and IV. I went to Ch’town for an MRI just to make sure nothing funky is moving in next to my brain again and really wished I hadn’t requested one. I hate needles—hate, hate, hate them. IVs are even worse because they keep the damn things in you and I’ve come close to passing out in the past when I got my first one. I’m a pansy, I know. This time I got all light-headed again and started to feel a little nauseous, and when they told me I could go into the MRI room the floor was sparkling. To be sure I wasn’t getting the sparklies I asked them to confirm that the floor was, in fact, sparkly and that I wasn’t on the verge of getting tunnel vision, breaking out in a cold sweat and passing out. They assured me it was indeed the floor and to just hop up on the MRI table.
That damn machine is noisy and cramped. I’m glad I only had to get put halfway into the tube, otherwise I’m sure claustrophobia would have set in. Having one’s head strapped down while a big machine chugs, whirrs and pulses rather loudly around you is disconcerting but not as much as a CT scan seeing as I’m not being bombarded by radiation. I’ve had my share of those and x-rays already, thank you very much, and I’d like to continue to have the only major source of radiation coming at me be from my dual-monitor set up and not from something that requires me to cover my junk-region with a heavy lead skirt.
Other than the IV/dye injection, wondering just when the hell the twenty-plus minute test was going to end, being very uncomfortable and my legs falling asleep, it really wasn’t all that bad. I don’t know what the MRI revealed but I do know that salmon-coloured hospital pants aren’t my thing.
The 22nd
I went to stay the night at my grandparents’ place last night and it was the start of the Weekend of White Flour and Cheese. I ate two big slices of homemade-type bread with peanut butter while we played Queens, as I watched TV into the wee hours I consumed two cheese slice and mustard sandwiches made with regular white bread (I dunno what that was all about), a cinnamon roll, crackers with Cheez Whiz, a bowl of puffed wheat, and several chocolate chip cookies. The following morning I woke up too late for normal breakfast and dinner was already being prepared. An up west dinner at that; basically supper and not lunch-like by any means. My first meal of the day was Hamburger Helper, broad beans and more bread when lately my breakfast has either been coffee or a small bowl of cereal or a grapefruit.
After getting back into town, Shawn and I jammed and managed to record a pretty good tune. It’s good that were actually getting some use out of the Tascam and that it’s working, as opposed to not working which is something I’m accustomed to technology doing for me lately. When it came time to get going with some food action, we went to get Laine then headed to the Superstore where we were supposed to get ingredients to make a big meal but we settled on the pepperoni pizza and garlic fingers from the deli instead. It smelled so damn good in the car on the way back but after a few garlic fingers and only one piece of pizza I was done in. More white flour dough and cheese than I needed for sure. I barely had room in the fridge for the leftovers and I don't know why I saved them because I don’t want to eat the leftovers. The last thing I need to do is eat cardboard-y pepperoni pizza and garlic fingers with fake bacon bits on them that have been reheated in the toaster oven all week long.
I wonder if Raisin Bran is on sale…
The 15th
Thanks to Jason at Sonic I managed to score two free tickets to The Tragically Hip show tonight in Ch’town. Through the driving rain and wind, I headed up there with Tammy to get our tickets and find our seats, fully expecting we’d be on the floor seeing as the tickets were provided three hours prior to the show. After my last experience being on the floor at a Hip concert (my first concert ever actually) I wasn’t looking forward to being swept back and forth by the swaying current in a sea of ball hat dudes fist-fighting, girls bawling and people puking.
Turns out the tickets were for the floor but imagine my surprise to see there was seating, and imagine my even greater surprise when I discovered our seats were second row, dead centre, and padded! Jason, you are a miracle worker. I couldn’t believe how good our seats were and that, in addition to seeing The Hip, I’d be seeing The Sadies opening for them. This would be my second time seeing them too so I was extra happy to be so close to the front. Ever since getting their double live album a while back I’ve been jonesing to see them play again.
The entire band is phenomenal. The Good Brothers are smokin’ players, they even traded off guitar necks to play each others’ guitar at one point. I couldn’t stop watching Mike the drummer though. He’s just crazy good and watching him play while they go from school zone speed to warp speed during “Ridge Runner Reel” was amazing. Since they were the opener I didn’t get nearly enough of them but seeing as I got the tickets for free I should’t get greedy.
The Hip came out and put on a fantastic show, and I really wish I had the lastest album because I wasn’t familiar with a few of the songs. Didn’t matter though because they nailed everything, new and old. Gord was running around like a madman, dripping, soaking wet, so it’s no damn wonder he’s in such good shape. If it had been me on stage doing what he was doing I’d have collapsed from a heart attack after one and half minutes.
I think Johnny had broken two sticks within the first ten minutes and Gord broke the strings on his guitar at least five times during the night. At one point he was playing and asked someone in the front row how he was doing then kept mouthing the chord changes to the audience as he went. That was pretty good for a laugh. That and him swirling around with his back to the mic stand or pretending he’s making sweet love to it and then falling asleep.
Gord expends so much energy acting like a nut and running all over the place that the rest of band can relax (by comparison) and just play solid the whole night. Besides, it would seem very out of place if Paul was standing on an amp reaching up to the heavens for no apparent reason and trying to pull his shirt over his head, again, for no apparent reason.
Compared to the first time I saw them over in Moncton with Greg and Nathan back in high school, this show was much more enjoyable. Nothing to do with their performance at all last time, altogether due to the morons around me that made it hard to focus on the show itself instead of concentrating on keeping my balance, avoiding random vomit or not getting punched in the kisser. Things this time were much saner, the sound wasn’t overwhleming and being so close to the stage made the whole show that much more interesting. That and there was about four or five more albums worth of material they could choose from.
Clayton told me aftwards that he and Sarah got to meet The Hip after waiting around for a couple of hours with some DVD crew that’s been taping all of the maritime shows. They’re most likely going to show up on the DVD because the after show meetings and stuff will be in the special features which is pretty damn cool. Some other guy who was way out of control excited all night (and with the DVD dudes) ended up getting a mic from Gord and then a pair of sticks from Johnny at the end of the show. Lucky bastard.
The 12th
I’ve been waiting for the release of this version of the iPod ever since the announcement of the iPhone. The touch screen, the interface, the features, Wi-Fi access for Web browsing and iTunes Store downloads…I’m gettin’ all hot and bothered. I watched the iPod touch’s guided tour on Apple’s site tonight and started drooling because it’s 99% exactly the iPod I want. Right now, other than the price, the only thing holding me back from getting one is the paltry 16GB maximum capacity, especially since the new iPod classic goes up to 160GB now. I know it’s got a flash drive and not a hard drive but I’d gladly take a fatter version with a 160GB hard drive that had all of the other goodies on top of it. Seeing as I can’t afford a new iPod right now anyway I think I’ll wait for the 2nd-gen iPod touch.
in non-iPod news, I made a pretty tasty supper tonight. The other night I fried up some veggies and the corn ended up getting sort of seared in the pan, the flavour reminding me of some dish I had years ago when I lived at home. I couldn’t quite place what it was but I knew it was something Dad made so I asked him if he could remember what it was. He knew what I meant but couldn’t recall what the dish was either, then Mom remembered they were called corn fritters so Dad dug out a massive tome titled Miss Benoit’s Encyclopedia of Cooking, and found the recipe for me. That book is the ultimate classic cookbook from my youth.
I made a batch of the corn fritters tonight and they were just as good as I remember them being when I was a kid. They fry up so well and have such a good texture, plus they’re dead simple to make and are awesome with a bunch of hot sauce on them. I meant to take a picture but I was so hungry it slipped my mind. Dad made them for supper tonight too, Mom tried salsa on them but he stuck with just pepper. We both thought they’d probably be something that would even taste good with molasses or syrup on them too. They’re sort of like a pancake, sort of like corn bread so it would make sense.
Ok, now I’m hungry again.
The 9th
Neil had a scene to shoot at John and Gail’s place in Schurman’s Point that sounded like it was going to be just as weird as the rest of his movie. I drove out there with him and Nathan to find Jaycee raring to go and get into the movie-making business. I can’t even really explain how odd the scene is except that some black make-up and chocolate syrup can make for a pretty convincing low-budget bullet wound. I wish I had brought my camera though to get some pics of the weirdness and Jaycee’s drawn-in mustache.
Even though it was a lot cooler tonight than last night, I’d be damned if I’d let a nice night go to waste by spending it all in the house. My craving for fast food hadn’t subsided since last night so I made a b-line for Burger King and ordered me up a Spicy Chick’n Sandwich and a BK Veggie. I don’t know why they felt the need to use an apostrophe in “Chick’n” though. Are apostrophes hip? Is it like replacing the S in a pluralized word with a Z? They always seemed dumb to me, especially for something that wasn’t “cool” and “cutting” edge like, you know, Summer Street Barz. May that shithole rest in peace.
Superfluous punctuation aside, the chicken sandwich was pretty good for less than two bucks. Not spicy by any means but it killed the craving for fast food. Problem was they gave me an extra one with cheese so I ended up with three sandwiches and now I think my fast food craving may be killed for a quite a while because it just made me feel gross—the Hershey Sundae Pie for dessert didn’t exactly help matters either.
I had podcasts to listen to and I wanted to listen to them alone, by the water, up high and in an uncomfortable chair. What better place to go than to the Silver Fox deck? Thankfully they were open tonight and no one was up top so I was able to sit back and listen to some dudes in Lisbon talk about typography until I got too cold to sit outside any longer. As much as Typeradio warms the cockles of my heart, it didn’t do much for the rest of me.
The 8th
Out of boredom because I spent far too many hours sitting on the couch setting up a G4 with OS X for Nathan, I decided to head out for a walk and spend some time sitting out on the yacht club’s deck since tonight definitely had to be the last night for summer-type weather I’d see this year. Of course, they were closing as I got there and my idea to go get fast food at that point was quashed because only the drive-thus were open at just after midnight. By the time I got back home to get my car and get back downtown, Burger King had turned off the lights, when I got to Wendy’s they were just turning out the the lights, and Subway was closed. It wasn’t even 12:30 at this point. So much the “we stay open late” bullshit. Assholes, it’s a Saturday night and 12:30 ain’t late by a long shot, not even by the standards of people who work day jobs and go to bed at reasonable hours.
Grumbling, I drove to Michael’s only to find out I was too early for slices so I settled for a slice from A1 that looked like it had been sitting out for who knows how long. I wolfed it down quietly in my car by the lobster shacks on the wharf overlooking the harbour until I had a huge lump of stale meat pizza weighing heavily in my gut. As I listened to some European band on the radio cover Lou Reed’s Metal Machine Music using acoustic instruments, I decided there was no better way to end this evening than with some Tim’s cookies and Timbits. Needless to say, I was wrong.
The 7th
Sharon came home today from Halifax to visit for the weekend which meant we had to do the classic thing by going to get some grub at China Star for dinner. It was alright but I seriously am 100% sick of Chinese food, not just China Star (which is the best) but all Chinese food. I just need to give it a rest for a while. Egg rolls are about the only thing I ever want to eat when we go out for Chinese food. Egg rolls are not a meal and if you try to make them into one they just make a person feel ill. What was good though was the orange iceburg I got at the dairy bar. Orange slush with vanilla soft serve in it is quite possibly one of the tastiest things ever conceived. It’s like a huge and more delicious version of a Creamsicle except with a greater ice cream ratio. I don’t know why I waited until the end of the dairy bar season to get one.
The 1st
My sister and her boyfriend, Jason, recently moved out to Slemon Park and they just got a new kitty. To be cute, she named the little orange guy Calvin to go with my fat orange guy, Hobbes, thus completing the namesake comic strip reference. I went over for a visit this afternoon and played with the kitty for a while. He’s completely nuts. He ran around like a lunatic, jumped all over the place and attacked my camera on a number of occasions. Then he curled up in a ball and had a nap. My sister said to give him a half hour and he’d be bouncing off the walls again when he woke up from his power cat nap. I didn’t stick around to see the mayhem.
Some people came over tonight to drink absinthe and act foolish but I decided to head out to Arlington to James and Gill’s place for a post-gig party/Tammy’s going away party. Saddle River had a gig in Tyne Valley with Lotus & Sheesham, and after hearing about how good the show was I’m sorry I missed it. Everyone was back at the house though for the party and there was a massive amount of food, including James’ famous vegetarian chili and Gill’s tasty corn bread.
It was a tad cool to be spending time out in the yard but the boys all sat around the fire and played some tunes for a while. Even though I was freezing my ass off I would have liked to stay longer but I wanted to head back in town to say sayonara to Greg before he left PEI and to Bryanna before she headed back to Halifax. I got back and just missed Greg, and also apparently missed quite a bit of drunken foolishness involving people without pants, Pringles tubes arms and wrestling. Bryanna was so soaking drunk that Shawn pretty much had to carry her out to the car in a bucket. Absinthe: 1, Bryanna: 0.