omfg dat old (:-) guy iz a f'n losa lol!!

In an effort to shock the nation, I actually awoke and remained awake from 9:00 am on but didn’t feel much like getting out of my cozy bed for the next hour or so. I eventually made it down to the market where I spent entirely too much money on food but it wasn’t all frivolous, impulse food purchases. I did buy some sushi as usual but tried nigiri (salmon and shrimp) for the first time. It was actually really good and nothing like I expected it to be. The salmon was sort of what worried me but it turned out to be excellent and even better than the shrimp. The only problem is now I need to wait another week before I can get more.

I went to see Valkyrie with Greg and Nathan, and right before the flick started a bunch of kids snuck in—rather slickly and aided by modern technology, I might add. One waited by the exit and texted his buddies outside who were waiting on the other side when he opened the door. Even though they did what once would have been done with a couple of knocks, I was fairly impressed by their clever and brazen use of text messaging to avoid ticket prices. However, the little bit of admiration I had for them pulling that off so simply and deftly quickly faded.

The lot of them wouldn’t shut up, they were falling over each other and being a huge, noisy pain in the ass. It went on and on, no one was going to say anything, and I had finally had enough of putting up with their type of sneaky, noisy teenager bullshit when I go out to see a movie. I thought about chucking my “just in case” glass bottle of iced tea at them. I thought about walking by and wailing on the backs of their seats with my boots before getting an usher. I thought about choking one until the girls (and maybe the boys) started crying and begging me to stop. Instead, I walked down and tried being somewhat assertive with a pissed off shut the hell up. To that, they backtalked.

Now I’m super-pissed at having to get into a back and forth with a bunch of fucktard teenagers. I told them to shut the fuck up, to which the little girl in front of me said, "You can’t talk to me like that.” I just thought, “You know what? Yes, I can.” I leaned in toward her, looked her in her Clearasil-soaked face and said, “Shut. The. FUCK. Up.”

It didn’t do any good. It felt great to tell the little bitch to shut her blowhole but I should have just reported the obnoxious under-age fuckers to the under-age ushers who are probably their friends…for the good that would have done.

I had to pay to see a movie that they were talking through, that they didn’t have to pay for. That certainly made me even more pissed off than usual. One of them left and an usher came in shortly after that. As icing on the cake, I thought he was going to ask me to leave. He didn’t but had he I would have flipped out and something or someone would have been cracked with a glass bottle of iced tea.

Local man, 30, mauled by cougar. Friends laugh.

After picking up yet more eye drops but making sure they’re not the kind that make my eye worse, I went to trivia at The Link despite my aggravating, infected eye. It was announced that beer tickets now need to be used the same night that they’re won. Stupid and annoying. Especially for anyone who might be the designated driver that night or who happens to win more than a a couple and can’t pound their winnings back before the end of the night. They could could give them away, I suppose, but charity’s for chumps.

It looked like our team would be comprised of just D’Arcy, Nathan, Greg and I but D’Arcy invited a couple of lady friends he knew to join us—one of whom proceeded to molest and grope me all night long, neither to my delight nor to my liking.

After trivia, the fellas and I went to The Silver Fox but since the place was packed and because I couldn’t deal with being in public any more tonight I went home and called Michael’s. I had been craving a slice ever since the other night when—in my desperation after finding out Michael’s had none—I had to settle for a slice from A-1. Tonight, they said they would only have them after 1:30 am but I thought I could perhaps fight off the craving for another night. Shortly after 2:00 am, however, I couldn’t withstand the craving any longer and caved. Even though it would no doubt mean a nasty bout with heartburn, I put that out of my mind and got myself a greasy, all-meat Michael’s slice, and it was damn well worth it.

Do people sell secondhand eyes on craigslist?

There has been an unbearable stinging in my right eye last couple of nights. I thought it might have meant that the Polysporin drops were working to kill off whatever funky badness was squatting in my eye but now I’m thinking perhaps not. The stinging seems to be caused by the drops I’ve been using in between the Polysporin doses, or at least the general stinging in my eye is being made worse by them. The reason I think this is because I found a bottle of another kind of drops which don’t seem to make my eye sting anywhere near as much. One kind plays nice with the antibiotic, the other kind not so much. I’ve gotta go get me some more of the good kind because my eye is driving me fucking bonkers.

Stay tuned to find out what other ailments and afflictions might overtake me.

Previously on Lost.

Greg invited people over to watch the eagerly anticipated fifth-season premiere of Lost. Before going over, I went out and bought some Polysporin for my eye that has taken on a lovely, pale shade of vermilion. I’ve self-diagnosed myself with pink eye and am hoping some Polysporin drops will make the white of my eye actually white again.

When Nathan and I showed up at Greg’s, Michelle was already there with Karen who had brought a big pan of delicious lasagna with her. Oh, thank you for that, miss. Neil showed up but he had to go soon after because Lost was going to be on past his bedtime and he needed to get home to put on his PJs. That and the fact that he’s also behind by one and a half seasons. Carol and Troy showed up, too, and he shared his jalapeño and cheddar Doritos with me. Those things are tasty and addictive but only about the first three or four are actually good, then not so much even though I kept eating them anyway. Lost, on the other hand, was both amazing and addictive. Doritos, you lose.

Obama for Prime Minister.

Obama was sworn in. Goodbye, Dubya, and good riddance. I watched the inauguration and Obama’s fantastic speech. I have no idea how people memorize eighteen-minute speeches though. And then there was that poor poet who had to follow a grand and eloquent speech from one of the most historic inaugural addresses in U.S. history. Talk about pressure.

In non-political but vastly important news, my eye is once again fucked. Not scratchy this time, just dry and red as Satan’s ass rash. I’m mighty sick of this…

Dear, swerving motorist. Fuck you.

I gotta say that I’m really digging the new packaging for the No Name Brand stuff at Superstore. There’s no messin’ around: it’s straight-up Helvetica, dead simple but attractive food shots, and that no-mistaking-what-brand-this-is yellow. The bags of frozen peas are a thing of no nonsense, plain beauty.

I went for walk for the first time in a while tonight. As I neared Notre Dame on Cedar Street, a car swerved toward me and then veered away. There’s no doubt in my mind that it was completely intentional seeing as there was nothing on the street to make them swerve like that. From me, they promptly received a nice, long, unimpressed, panning middle finger. Fuckers.

Now I sort of know how a couple of old ladies felt when Mark swerved toward them years ago, forcing them to jump off the sidewalk in fear for their lives onto the grass. It was terrible. They probably broke their hips. All Mark did was laugh as he crossed back to the right side of the street.

That happened maybe a dozen yards from where I stood tonight scowling at some arsehole motorist. What the hell is with people swerving towards pedestrians near the corners by the Boys & Girls Club?

Almost getting struck down by a car tends to work up a person’s appetite. Craving a slice of Michael’s, I walked into my favourite pizzeria to find no slices waiting for me. Why do you disappoint me so with your lack of slices, Michael’s? The pizza craving was far too strong to ignore so A-1 would have to do but, after eating it, the slice did not do. It only temporarily kept the pizza craving for Michael’s at bay until I am to become hungry again.

Bedridden at his own behest.

My internal alarm (yes, I do actually have one) is way out of whack. I got out of bed at 4:30 this afternoon and I don’t feel very good about it. I ended up playing Aurora Feint in bed and watching TV until 6:00 am, essentially spending the entire day and night in my room being beyond useless.

While this fourteen hours of video game playing and TV watching may appear as outright laziness, I can assure you that it is not. This self-confinement to my bed is an experiment. I’m trying to determine the length of time I am required to remain in bed before my body is covered in bed sores and for my limbs to atrophy.

Some may be wondering, “I thought your limbs had already atrophied…?”

I see chives, bacon bits…any Paxil or Zoloft?

I dragged my ass out of bed in the middle of the afternoon then headed to Ch’town for the Music PEI Awards Gala. It was cold as hell tonight, my beard froze on the short walk to the Confed Centre. I ended up in the back row to watch the show and at one point I was mentioned in the thank yous which was nice but also kind of weird because I didn’t have anything to do with the show itself, just the voting process. Although, I guess there wouldn’t be much of a show without the votes so…

They had a tribute to Ken which was nice to see, even though it was sad at the same time but good to have the acknowledgement of Ken’s contribution to the music industry and his talent. Not to mention going over a lot of interesting things about his life I never knew in the first place. Marcella and her band played a song then she came back out with Ken’s parents. Roy gave a very nice speech about Ken.

The after-party was at the Delta where they had mashed potato martini-things and chili which were both quite good, especially since I was starving and because I’m all about food that has all sorts of fixin’s available as toppings. I ended up hanging out with the Lazy Jacks (sans Dave, plus Sue) for a bit and then with some of the Music PEI folks when they showed up at the party. The entertainment was provided courtesy of the Grass Mountain Hobos, Vishten and Smothered in Hugs. They were all solid acts, a nice variety of genres for the crowd.

The after-after-party took place upstairs in one of the Delta’s meeting suites or whatever you want to call it. Sitting around with all of those people was plenty awkward and plenty noisy which made it plenty more awkward seeing as I couldn’t hear a damn thing anyone said. Still, I hung out for a while and chatted with Shannon, Shauna, and a few other folks I knew but eventually I had enough and drove home sometime around 4:30 in the morning. I should have gone home right after the gala and saved myself the stress of two after-parties.

Frigid Flaps. Feint Fatigue.

A bunch of us went out to eat at Anson’s this evening and it was fucking cold as all hell out. I picked up Greg who is able to walk with crutches now that his hand flaps no longer bleed when he uses them. Being laid up with a broken foot and bloody hand flaps in the dead of winter? Sure sounds like fun to me.

If it weren’t for his flappy palms, I’d suggest Greg start playing Aurora Feint on his iPhone, a game I’ve just started playing on my iPod. Holy addiction. Kind of confusing at first and actually fairly hard if you ask me but eventually I got the hang of it. It seems to be a weird combination of a fantasy RPG mixed with Tetris, a game combo I’m finding hard to resist, and one that’s reminding me what hours of video game play does to my hands and wrists. Not to mention to my chronic dry eye.

Does this mean I’m an exhibitionist now?

I drove up to Ch’town this afternoon for a visual artist show I was taking part in at The Guild. It was organized by Shannon as showcase for PEI designers, artists and photographers that do work for those in the music industry. For it being an afternoon event there was a fairly decent turn out and a lot of great work on display. I put a few posters up and had some work displayed in a slide show in hopes it might lead to some new work. Every little bit of exposure I helps, I suppose.

After the show I got to see the new Music PEI offices at the ATC, and Shannon and I grabbed some grub to eat in the board room. Nothing beats a gigantic chicken shawarma from Cedar’s, especially when you’re absolutely starving.

On the way home I stopped in at a pet store to check out their selection of puppies, kitties, bunnies, birdies and various furry rodents. While there were lots of cute and interesting animals, it was a pair of chihuahuas that caught my attention. Sure, they’re funny-looking and weird little animals already but it was the hilarious expression on one of their faces that had me stifling laughter.

The one standing up always seemed to have this tight-lipped, drawn-back, distant expression on his face. He was coming across as aloof and giving off a bit of an disdainful attitude. Then the other one with the goofy, doe-eyed look would pounce on him, they’d fight for a minute, then the other one would go right back to staring past you, seemingly trying to maintain his dignity despite the fact that his own crap was resting next to him on a bed of shredded paper.

I'd consider eating them in a box with a fox.

I don’t know what it is about chicken eggs that are of a colour other than white, but I find that I really want to crack them open and eat them as long as nothing disgusting is inside. I like brown eggs better than white ones. I now like blue eggs better than brown ones. It’s purely for aesthetic reasons, nothing based on taste or quality.

Green eggs, well, that’s something else entirely but I think perhaps this attraction to eggs of various colours only extends to the eggs of chickens. While I like the colour of robin eggs, I would find something very odd about cracking some open for a tiny omelet. Same goes for other species of birds. The consumption of eggs from an ostrich, vulture, flamingo, emu, penguin, crow, condor, parrot or bald eagle would be just plain weird. Now ducks or geese, well, they seem pretty close to chickens I suppose. I’d probably eat those types of eggs, but never in a million years would I eat reptile eggs. The thought of eating a snake or lizard egg is almost enough to make me spew. Though, I might eat a dinosaur egg if it were possible, mostly because no one has ever eaten a dinosaur egg and I’d like to be the first.

The lip-warmer…doctors orders, sorry.

It was Dad’s birthday today, and also one year since the docs performed the ol’ noodle scoop routine on me. Pretty crazy to think that a year has gone by already. I guess that also means it’s been a year since I was given a mustache against my will. Thankfully that thing didn’t stick around for very long.

I’ve often wondered how much work it would be to maintain a truly foolish mustache. Not one of those shit-eater, pencil thin mustache/beard combos, even a little John Waters thing would be too odd. I mean a wacky Dali-esque jobbie or waxing up a gigantic, curly animal-sized pushbroom of a monster that some sort of southern gentleman would sport on his upper lip while doing southern gentlemanly things.

Perhaps someday. I say, I say.

Lose? No, we let someone else win for a change.

I went to trivia tonight with Greg, Nathan, D’Arcy, Micelle and Karen at The Link. We didn’t do very well at all. In fact, we came in dead last. Horribly dead last. Embarrassingly dead last. That’s not to say we didn’t have any money at the end of the night, though. After weeks and weeks of first place here and second place there, we finally divvied up our accumulated trivia winnings of over one hundred bucks. Not too shabby of a split when all is said and done.

Failed Saving Throw vs. 9th Level Baker’s Spell.

I hit up the bakery in K’town for some goodies after my meeting was over this afternoon. I wasn’t really interested in getting any baked goods or sweets (though you can’t blame a guy for looking), I only had one thing in mind: Gen’s Antipasto. No luck. They had all of Gen’s other stuff but not her delicious antipasto. Sadly, it’s looking as though the bottle I got for Xmas will be the last I will ever see of this particular delicious concoction.

I guess the bakery had its effect on me, its lingering spell working steadily during the fifteen minutes I spent in the car on the way back in town. The craving for more of that bakery smell and for some bakery goods hit me pretty hard. I ended up getting a veggie pizza slice, some rapure, a piece of cheesecake and a Rocky Road square from the Water Street Bakery. I managed to settle in and get some work done after getting home but I was once again bitten by the bakery bug as I spent a good portion of the night making apple sauce, and egg nog bread with a buttered rum glaze. I gotta say, it was pretty damn good too.

…a remote control just to operate the remote.

I stayed up way too late last night watching Lost, until 6 a.m. this morning to be exact. I went to bed in darkness, only to wake up in darkness at 5 p.m. Yay… With the day wasted I figured I might as well watch more Lost and some Mythbusters, and eat a tonne of food seeing as I was being a useless fucker. It dawned upon me after consuming the better part of a box of Chocolate Special K that the cereal is only good while you’re eating it because afterwards you end up with a gross, waxy coating in your mouth from the cheap chocolate. I wonder if there’s actually any trace of real chocolate in that cereal to begin with.

He’s the spitting image of you, Mr. Neidhart.

At the market today I bought some special New Year’s sushi which was altogether tasty, and some blue eggs from a lady who said they’re from some kind of South American chicken. She could just be dying them like Easter eggs, how would I know the difference?

The Maros’ invited me over to join them, The Landrys and The Carvers for a hearty lunch of homemade soup and biscuits. Tammy showed up too for a bit. It was nice to see that lot again, it’s been a while since I’ve been at a big gathering around the Maros table. While there I made sure to take a photo of the ugly baby pic they have on their fridge. Seriously, this is the most monstrous baby I’ve ever seen in my life. Good gawd, he looks like a wrestler, and one that’s ready to grapple no less. He’s in diapers but he’s the size of a six-year-old…a BIG six-year-old! I feel kind of bad making fun of a baby but, honestly, look at that thing! And they keep this pic on their fridge! It would keep me from making any trips to the icebox that weren’t completely necessary.

I ran some errands this afternoon, exchanging a few Xmas things for Lost - Season 4 and some new slippers (essentials really), re-stocked up on groceries and steamed/fried up some frozen dim sum from the Superstore for dinner. I’ve only ever had frozen dim sum, not the fresh stuff, so I’m guessing it must be a thousand times better fresh. Although, the frozen stuff I bought from the Asian food store in Ch’town was damn good. I should go back sometime, hopefully they’re still open.

I’ve finally completed the process of transferring all of my Letterman/Conan VHS to DVD. It was a long, time-consuming process and leaves me with over seventy DVDs but it’s finally done. An OCD pursuit fifteen years in the making, I’ve compiled a collection of clips from late night TV going back to December 1993. How much of it is actually good, who knows? All I know is that two unwieldy boxes of inconvenient tape-based media have been squeezed down onto versatile optical media in a handy-dandy carrying case. Saying goodbye to these “master” tapes is going to be difficult but it’s got to be done.

Of course, it likely won’t be long until my scores of versatile, space-saving DVDs will be near obsolescence, needing to be converted into yet another format that I will probably be able to carry around in my pocket. Actually…I’m perfectly okay with that idea.

An uncontrollable case of the fidgets.

It was nice day today but it was cold, cold, cold. Melissa was finally able to get home now that the roads are plowed but she’s not sure what the deal is on her flight tomorrow. Hopefully the snow won’t mess it up.

I went for dinner at Pizza Delight with Sharon and Greg tonight and, for some odd reason, I was the only one who didn’t get dessert even though Sharon described her little dessert cup as being the “good parts” of ice cream cake (i.e. the chocolate fudge and cookie crumbs). I’ll get one next time. Maybe three.

Greg dropped Sharon off then came back here, and Tammy and Patrick stopped by to drink hot toddies while we hung out watching Little Rascals for a bit. All I can say is that fidgets are fucked and give me the creeps.

Gimme an S-K-U-N-K-E-D — What’s That Smell?

It was still storming today so Melissa ended up getting stuck here because the roads weren’t plowed. The three of us kicked off the day by eating French toast and watching Ricky Gervais. A mighty good start by most standards. I played a card game with Melissa, and (whatever the game was called) she kicked my ass in it.

The points scratched onto the tally card would seem to suggest that I had won with a whopping one-hundred points to her mere four. However (and unfortunately for me), it turns out that lower is better in this particular game. So, much like golf, Melissa’s extremely low score gave her some hefty bragging rights. Also much like golf, I don’t like this game either. I’m fairly unimpressed. Especially because I was super skunked. Then she beat me at a game of cribbage. Double unimpressed.

I made some spicy/cheesy tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches for supper. There’s just something about that comfort food combo that goes quite well with dead-of-winter storms. We decided to take a short walk to the store before we watched a movie, even though it was ultra-shitty out and the wind was crazy. Seeing as the horrible weather wasn’t making things depressing enough, we watched The World According To Monsanto. I can’t even put into words how bleak and hopeless that documentary makes the future of our food supply look.

To shake off Soylent Green-type thoughts, Melissa and I played some more cribbage. This time I did manage to win a game but was then humiliated as I was double-skunked by her in the next. Changing from cards to board games, I thought, might improve my luck at winning something and staying ahead so we played ’90s Trivial Pursuit. We perhaps won a game each, I can’t remember because it was late by the time we called it quits. If you could skunk someone in Trivial Pursuit I’m sure she would have found a way to do it.