The 29th

We had a large team for Friday night trivia this week which usually always leads to losing horribly, so I wasn’t surprised when we did. When Sharon and I showed up, Richard was already there with Greg and his friend Ellen, and D’Arcy’s sister Karen was there with a few of her friends. I wouldn’t really end up talking to any of them until after trivia when some of us ended up going to the Silver Fox to see Tom’s band play.

Upon arriving at the Fox I had a bit of a chat with Dwight and Peter R from the Lazy Jacks, both of whom couldn’t believe I hadn’t heard of Valdy and tried in vain to explain to me who the iconic Canadian folk singer was. Following that conversation, I snapped this photo of Richard at a loss for words to explain why the hell anyone would eat a pickled wiener.

As I watched men and women who looked like they belonged on Coronation Street dance to cover tunes, I discovered one of my trivia team members, Glenn, grew up in Ellerslie, her brothers were good childhood friends with my dad, and her family owned one of the general stores out there that I used to love going to as a kid. Any store with penny candy I could buy with bottle exchange money is bound to stick in my head for life. I also learned that one of my other teammates, Brenda, the one that looked familiar to me, was actually one of my babysitters when I was six or seven. I should have asked her if she had any good stories about how much of a little brat my brother was during his devlish years.

The 28th

Yup, this is horribly gross and painful looking. My brother called me today to chat for a bit and emailed me this lovely photo of his frostbitten ear. He’s a mailman out west and forgot to bring a hat with him on a nice day that suddenly had the temperatures plummet while he was doing his route. With a thoroughly frozen ear, he sought out a doctor who gave him the same cream they use for severe burns and soon this monstrous water blister erupted behind his ear. I freaked out on the phone as soon as I saw this thing that looks like the spawn of some alien bug just waiting to explode out of its watery, cocoon. And explode it did. Thankfully no alien pupae were in there but waking up to a river of ear juice running down the side of one’s face is pretty disgusting too. Yup, gross.

The 27th

Tonight I witnessed a murder. After a disappointing viewing of The Darjeeling Limited, Shawn left for home and within ten minutes he was on MSN to tell me that he was never going outside again. At first I thought he was going to tell me that the temperature had dropped thirty degrees or something, instead he told me how he could hear crows from the time he left the house. He said it was like a wall of sound muted by the houses but grew louder for a moment when he passed the spaces between buildings. Already freaked out at that point, he said that suddenly hundreds of crows rushed to fill the sky above him from out of nowhere in a flurry of black, flapping wings and ominous cawing. Extremely freaked out, he was convinced the End Times were nigh. I had to go see this for myself.

I ventured into the streets at 1am where the night was cold, without a breath of wind, and there was a stillness to the night under the greyness of the sky. I carefully made my way along the icy streets to where Shawn had last seen the crows congregating at the convent. As I made my way around the corner from the church I could hear their cawing, and when I reached the convent I could see a murder of crows, hundreds of them, continually rising up in small clouds of blackness and then settling back down in waves to cover the entire roof of the convent. The sound of their flapping wings and overlapping caws was crisp and clear in the night, the only thing standing out amid the quiet.

It was eerie to say the least. Other than herons, I don't think I have never seen any birds out at night, especially not in the winter, let alone crows by the scores. The stark contrast of their black against the snow-covered rooftop of the convent, and the way they would rise up in groups to swarm back down on the rooftop again and fill the trees up like black leaves was spooky. It was almost like a colony of bats in a way, but actually more like something right out of Hitchcock’s Birds.

I tried to get photos of them but it was impossible to capture their movement while they were swelling up and circling over the roof. I moved around the building and their numbers started to dwindle as groups would fly off into the distance dotting the grey sky with black, or flock noisily amongst the trees. By the time I reached the front only a handful were left roosting in the treetops while I could see a massive crow cloud disappearing past the neighbourhood rooftops.

I know they’re just crows but the way they flocked from the church to the convent really had something sinister and out of place about it. Imposing exagerrated End of Days religious overtones and the whole portents of doom thing would account for most of that but their sheer numbers alone on such a calm, still night was actually creep-city. Though I wonder if there were any nuns inside clutching their rosary beads.

The 23rd

Greg, Tammy, Shawn and I stocked up on junk and landed back at the house with Richard to watch The King of Kong: A Fist Full of Quarters, the second time for me and Shawn because it’s just that entertaining. Getting a glimpse into the world of competitive gaming in classic arcade games is actually fairly interesting, in a Trekkies sort of way, and seeing just how crazy good these guys are at Donkey Kong, Pac-Man and the like is unbelievable. Teacher/family man Steve Wiebe sets an unofficial home record in Donkey Kong and wants to defend it live in a sanctioned arcade, having to travel thousands of miles, hoping the current champ and hot sauce/restaurant entrepreneur, Billy Mitchell, will show up and square off against him.

It has so many unintentional hilarious lines, too, and the nerd/weirdo factor is huge from the cast of real-life characters. Plus they throw in interviews with Mr. Awesome, Roy Shildt, who holds the world record high score in Missile Command, posed in Playgirl, has some odd obsession with Patton, and has apparently published an autobiography with photos of celebrities fellating him. Who could ask for anything more?

Seeing as we were watching a documentary harking back to the ’80s, I picked up some junk food that harkened back to my childhood, specifically wafers and a Snack & A Half. Strawberry and vanilla wafers were always a favourite of mine as a kid, later came the chocolate ones, but I sort of sickened myself on all flavours in the ’90s when I’d buy a bag in bulk and eat mass quantities of them in Darren’s basement while we played Dungeons & Dragons. There’s something satisfying about the way the dusty, crisp wafers sandwiching the dense, sugary filling blend together, offering a slight tanginess in the case of the strawberry-filled variety.

Speaking of sandwiching, one of the classic items I yearned for as a kid when staring into the corner store freezer was the Snack & A Half ice cream sandwich. It was always just a bit too pricey for me to get one with any regularity using the measly pocket change I was able to scrape together but when I had enough coin to purchase one of these delectable treats it was a treat indeed. The smooth vanilla ice cream layered thick between two frozen oatmeal cookies and the whole thing coated in chocolate was one of those perfect combinations in life, a trifecta of tastiness. There was a very particular texture to the cookies that remained somewhere between crunchy and soft, never being one or the other, with a fleeting sugary crunch. The one I ate tonight was no different, it seems the recipe hasn’t changed in the last twenty-odd years as the Popsicle people must know they shouldn’t mess with a good thing.

The 21st

Last Sunday afternoon, because it was such a nice day, I was going to go out for a walk when my right eye suddenly started to bother me. It felt like there was an eyelash caught up under my eyelid or maybe it was just dry from the cold weather. In any case, I figured going for a walk in the cold wouldn’t do anything to help it and later on it turned into a sharp pain that really started to drive me nuts. It felt sort of like the time I somehow managed to get a drumstick to bounce back and hit me square in the eye, scratching my cornea and giving my pupil a nice aberration. That really, really hurt and this came nowhere close but the same sharp pain was there.

So yesterday I had an appointment for my doctor to check my ear and I asked him about my eye while I was there. He suggested I see an optometrist, which I did today, but she couldn’t seem to find anything wrong with my eyeball even though I had all of the symptoms of a corneal abrasion. They tried to get me in to see a specialist in Charlottetown but there won’t be any openings until next Thursday. Lovely. I can barely keep my eyes open for more than a couple of hours at a time without needing to rest them and now I have to put up with this for a week more.

For a little while tonight I thought my eye was better, that an eyelash in the corner of my eye had finally maneuvred its way out from under my eyelid, and I’d finally be free of this frustrating irritation. No such luck. I have no idea how long this is going to go on for but it’s making sitting in front of a computer screen all day trying to work very difficult. I’m so glad I kept a tube of Lacri-Lube on hand. Sweet, sweet ocular lubricant/opthalmic ointment.

The 20th

Monday night Shawn, Bryanna and I headed over to the Wellness Centre to see if we might be fortunate enough to get a bowling lane and on the way in these buckets were collecting drips and outright steady streams of water pouring from holes in the ceiling. Keep in mind that this building is a bright, shiny, new (and apparently porous) multi-million dollar construction. The water was running down the high wall above the entryway, seeping through peeling paint and and coming through soaked ceiling tiles. Ah, another quality bit of construction work my tax dollars paid for. Between the fuck ups in pool length measurements forcing them to re-tile to a shoddy roof, it’s nice to see the city hiring quality contractors time and time again.

I especially liked how the staff put a fun, little spin on the structural flaw that was rotting the roof and going to cost me, the tax-payer, by putting up a cute sign. It said something along the lines of there being people on the roof “ice fishing”, hence the holes in the roof and the water leaking everywhere. I’m sure glad they’re taking that frustrating, unacceptable problem seriously. I wonder what sign they’ll put up when the ceiling caves in and crushes a group of first graders during a school swim. “Bring a pole! We’re fishing in the kiddie pool!”

The three of us had to wait a bit but we ended up getting a lane, and while I like the automatic scoring system and actually having a bowling alley again I do miss the classic old lanes they used to have in the rec centre. My buddy Bruce once put enough quarters in the jukebox to play “Blueberry Hill” repeatedly for what would have seemed like three days. The next time we went in the jukebox was unplugged. Go figure.

There was always that one dropping barrier at the end of a lane with “Brunswick” written on it that had a piece busted off of it from someone firing a ball straight into it. I’m surprised there weren't more like that knowing how some of my friends feigned not knowing the barrier was about the come down and throwing a ball down at it hoping for a smash.

We played two games and I didn’t break eighty in either one, not that I’ve ever claimed to be the least bit good at bowling in the first place. Shawn was pretty well doubling my scores so it must be in the genes his father who bowled 291 earlier that night passed on to him. My PEI RCAF Wing 200 bowling shirt didn’t help me in the least but I looked legit though.

Tonight I hopped in the car with my travel mug full of hot tea, picked up some Timbits and cookies, and parked in the John Deere parking lot outside of town to watch the lunar elipse. I didn’t manage to get any good photos, I even tried shooting through the eye piece of my binoculars but no luck there. I watched the moon slowly turn a ruddy brown as I listened to a Ricky Gervais podcast and laughed my ass off while simultaneously freezing my ass off.

The 19th

If you are a musician who has reached a level of success that allows you to embark on major tours, make late night TV show appearances and be on bestseller lists then you should have enough money to afford a decent designer that doesn't provide you with an atrocious design such as this. Let’s go over this point-by-point, shall we?

1. On its own, this photo might have made for a much stronger cover even though it looks like Brad’s in the middle of some sort of sobriety test.

2. The neck of the guitar as a divider line might be mildly clever but the concept is lame and lends itself to the overall design as a cheesy Photoshop addition.

3. Sorry but this guitar finish is just plain gross.

4. A country music album cover wouldn’t be complete without the “requisite” artist photo. Why 90% of the albums out there need some close-up or glamour shot of the artist instead of some strong visual concept is beyond me. In this case the photo is far from requisite, adding yet another layer of Photoshopped cheesiness and one more element to the clutter.

5. Eurostile, wait! Oh no…vertically-scaled Eurostile! While this typeface’s technical nature might be apt for an automotive-inspired title such as 5th Gear, what is not apt is squishing the type for no apparent good reason. In fact, there IS no reason to vertically adjust the type at all, ever.

6. Mistral? Really? You might as well pick Brush Script while you’re at it. You are just choosing typefaces that come installed with Windows, right? I’m also going to take a stab in the dark and say you left vertical scaling on from when you set the album title because this type is also squished and looks absolutely horrible. When that wasn’t enough you went ahead and applied a metallic effect to it which completely destroys the cleanliness of this otherwise smooth handwriting-inspired typeface.

7. Well, at least the trend to mash your fonts is consistent, I’ll give you that. So is the wholesale application of a heavy, liberal coating of tackiness as the metallic type effect comes into full prominence on the bolder Eurostile font. Again, squished for the sake of squishing it would seem. Bravo.

This cover struck my eyeballs and sensibilities with such a powerful, ugly force that I had no choice but to rip it apart so I could figure out just what the hell is so very, very appalling about it. Granted, there’s no accounting for bad taste but whoever approved this design should be fired along with the designer. I can only hope the designer was forced at gun point to produce such wonderfully tacky work.

The 18th

Cory posted this disgusting photo of some unknown, mystery food on Facebook. Here’s how the commenting went:

Ryan Hutchinson wrote at 2:58am
Man, what the hell is that? It looks like something scraped off the bottom of a boat.
Cory Clark wrote at 1:06pm
Hard boiled egg wrapped in bacon, processed cheese, balogna, and slathered with mayo. My blood was 50% cholesterol after eating it.
Ryan Hutchinson wrote at 1:29pm
My stomach would have been 100% on the floor just smelling it.

I think that’s all of the food groups including the daily recommended intake of gross.

The 16th

Laine hosted Partido Grande 2008 del Enchilada at her place tonight where Bryanna prepared super-tasty and super-filling beef enchiladas, Shawn whipped up some Mexican rice and refried beans to round out the meal, while Laine served orange Kool-Aid in wine glasses for that truly “authentic” south of the border touch. If I hadn’t eaten so many damn chips and salsa while the food was being made I probably could have eaten both enchiladas but it’s a good thing I didn’t judging by how damn full I was after just one.

Sharon popped by for a bit to hang out and stroke a cock while we all ate our fiesta feast.

Feeling tired and full, we retired to the living room for a quiet evening of chit chat, watching the girls make multi-coloured wangs out of Plasticine, scaring Jeanine with creepy stories, eating Pillsbury Easter spinkles chocolate chip cookies that Laine baked (and, ahem, burned), and listening to Bryanna snore while she slept soundly on Shawn. I could post a video…but I won’t.

Giddiness struck me and Shawn when we were getting up to leave when he devised a perverse plan for us to make "Mexican Fart" stickers and put them on scented candle labels at stores. This concept caused me to collapse in laughter and to put Shawn in a very Shawn-like giggle fit to only be made worse when he suggested we just randomly stick them around town to which I suggested we register mexicanfart.com and make the labels say that instead. Anyone curious enough to visit the site would be presented with a button that said “Click for more info” but instead of going to a page with more info (whatever that would be anyway) it would just play a fart sound. That’s it. I was crying from laughing so much and oddly still want to go through with that nonsense since it turns out that the domain isn’t taken.

However, for every giggly high there must be a very cold, frustrating, and defeating low. When trying to start my car there wasn’t even the faintest hint of the engine turning over as my battery had succumbed to the extreme cold. Fantástico, hora de llamar un taxi.

The 15th

This is what an amputee cat looks like. It’s also what a spoiled rotten, lazy house cat can look like: a fat, fuzzy slug.

The 9th

This is quite possibly a photo of the last classic, truly vintage business in all of this town. While up on “the hill” we see box store after box store stretching their stale grey walls across old farming fields and the downtown becoming ever more economically anemic as businesses migrate north, keeping itself tucked away in a little hole-in-the-wall is Ivan’s Barber Shop. The space next to Ivan’s shop remains vacant like many of the other spaces along the downtown core but Ivan has been in that same location for, I’m guessing, forever.

I’ve been in there for a “trim” before, probably only a couple of times, and the place was as tiny as it looks from the outside but it was big on retro value. Two old barber chairs, two old barbers, some seats to wait in and listen to old dudes chat about what old dudes chat about, and a big window overlooking the street and the passersby.

I had a chance to sit next to Emmett (local down-and-outer) which was odd, interesting and kind of funny all at once. It was entertaining to listen to him talk to the barbers and to no one in particular at times, other times no one really knew what he was talking about or could understand what he was saying quite frankly. When I’d find myself sitting down in a chair for a buzz the barbers, Ivan and I think Kenny was his name, would talk about what downtown used to be like and point out areas through the window that had some history or relevance behind them. I’d wager the haircut experience there is a far cry from the one at First Choice Haircutters. But, I don’t have any hair so what do I know?

I do know I heard someone say recently that it looked like Ivan had closed up shop but he still seemed to be in business the day I went by to take a photo of the place. I had heard once before that he had closed, he is getting on in his years after all, but the barber pole is still up and hopefully it will keep spinning there for a while. The day Ivan retires and pulls that shade down for the last time in that authentic and steadfast little barber shop will really be the end of an era.

The 6th

Laine gave me a roll of Love Hearts but since I can’t eat them without my teeth protesting in a riot of spine-wrenching pain she said I would have to photograph them somehow. Here we see a handmade, one-of-a-kind robot during a rare show of affection towards a retro, wind-up robot. Behind them we see a portion of my back collection of four years worth of unread design magazines.

The 4th

My friend Erin sent me this Mario Bros blue mushroom tin full of blue raspberry candies. The light was good outside and it seemed to be a logical decision to photograph it sitting atop an icy pile of snow. I totally get 1up for that.

The 1st

Sharon, Laine and I went for dinner at The Brothers Two tonight before trivia and the waitress—like she was heaven sent—brought us a big basket of fresh, homemade bread. There were four pieces left in the basket when we had finished our meal and my question is this: Is wrapping the bread up in used napkins and stuffing the whole thing into my coat pocket improper etiquette? I suppose a more important question is this: Is doing that a sign of some deep-rooted issue with food and/or the waste thereof? My argument to anyone who disagrees with that type of behaviour is this: There’s no sense in wasting perfectly good bread, especially when it’s as fresh and tasty as that bread was and would make perfectly good toast the next morning. So there. Piss off.