Hey, Old Man Winter. Frig off. Seriously.

March 30th. A shitload of snow again. Ridiculous. Enough with the snow already.

Such a lovely day to procrastinate.

A beautiful day. Too bad I only got up at 3:00 p.m. I went for short walk, and chatted for George for a bit when I was getting my car from the church parking lot. I was finally able to move my car and park it in the driveway again. That’s about all I accomplished today because on days like this I start doing some work but then I find every excuse to avoid finishing it. This is a problem.

Too bad a Super-Movie Serum doesn’t exist.

Kyle and Jason showed up at trivia tonight, and a bunch of us went to the Silver Fox afterwards. I only went because Jason convinced me to tag along but I ended up staying for only about five minutes because it was all I could stand. Marcus felt the same way and I gave him a lift home.

I should have worked when I got back but I started watching the Captain America movie on Teletoon. I had never seen the whole thing before. It was so bad. It was like a car crash—I couldn't look away—and ended up watching the whole thing. Campy as hell but oh so very terrible. I did find the scene where the Captain stows away in the back of a transfer truck up north pretty funny because he went to sleep against cases of Molson. I also enjoyed his repeated use of a certain tactic to commit grand theft auto. More than once he’d ask the driver to stop so he could get out, pretend to be sick, and when the driver went up to him to see if he was okay he’d run back to the vehicle and take off without them. Oh, that Captain America. Always playing tricks on unsuspecting drivers.

My big question is, why did they make Red Skull Italian instead of German? Who cares, I suppose. He sounded like Ricardo Montalban, that’s all I know.

Getting one of these would make fines more fun.

HUGBEES!

One Room. Two Very Different Islands’ Décor.

I went up west this weekend to visit my grandparents and, as I sat in the living room of their old country home, I was struck by an odd juxtaposition in the room’s décor. Flowery wallpaper. A crystal dish full of Werther’s Originals sitting on a doily. Homemade woolen rugs and afghans. Shelves with tiny porcelain animals from Red Rose Tea. A giant, voodoo-esque hand-carved wooden head…

The latter seems like an odd choice, perhaps something one might pick up from How Bazaar or Winners—both places I doubt my grandmother would be doing much shopping for home fashions and room accessories.

The head was brought back years ago by my dad after a trip to Jamaica and it has been resting quietly against the wall by the TV for as long as I can remember. It’s so familiar, I’ve become so accustomed to its presence in the room for my entire life that it has never really stood out as a glaringly unusual piece of decoration in this traditional Prince Edward Island country home forever lived in by traditional Prince Edward Island country folk. It’s almost like putting up a Warhol print next to the framed Atlantic Canada scenic shots given away years ago after fill-ups at the gas station. Or setting a dish of butter candies on the sculptural glass top of a thoroughly modern Noguchi coffee table from Herman Miller. None of those things would be a very good fit in this home but because the wooden head with the big, staring eyes has been sitting there for decades it seems to blend in perfectly well with everything around it, at least in the eyes of anyone in my family I would think.

Though, I don’t think it’s any great secret that my grandfather hates the damn thing.

Greasepaint Nightmares & Tiny Disappointments.

I stopped in at Pro Hardware today and snapped pics of a couple of creepy clown heads. The photos are terrible but the wrong focal points don’t take away from the clown creepiness. My grandparents have a couple of these types of heads hanging up at their place, they’ve been there for years. One is a Scotsman and the other is a dude from the Middle East. They both have a mild creepiness to them, they’ve always fascinated me as a kid actually, but I never really understood why anyone would want these things in their homes. Especially these two creepy-as-fuck clown heads. Good gawd, the smiling one is enough to give me nightmares. If not for the cringe factor I experience from looking at them, I could see myself buying these simply for their weirdness and freakiness. Other people would buy them for precisely the same reason too, I suspect, but I highly doubt my grandparents bought theirs years ago to show their friends and say, “Check out how creepy these fuckers are!”

Why I continue to eat fast food, I’ll never know. Sure, it tastes good in most cases but the way I feel afterwards really should be a deterrent from ever eating it again. Still, I find myself at Burger King or Wendy’s from time to time, and tonight the lure of tiny burgers hooked me, and I gave in to trying BK Burger Shots. I’m well aware of the fact that advertised food rarely ends up looking anything close to what gets unwrapped but let’s compare the image of my meal above with the advertisement below, shall we?

These tiny and tasty-looking grilled burgers nestled neatly between two fresh and puffy buns are far cry from the truth. Not only do they not taste good at all, they come in limp, doughy buns that are all connected to one another, microwaved to the point of rubberiness just like the charred mini-“meat” patties between them. Fee, fie, foe, yum? After tasting these disappointing, gross little slider-style burgers, I’m thinking not so much on the yum. Should I have expected anything different? No, I guess not. I could make a horrible pun here about trying them being worth a shot but they’re actually so bad that they aren’t worth trying, let alone BK’s claim that they’re worth $1.99.

Professional Postponer.

Made from real gorilla chest.

What in the name of Hypnos is wrong with me? I slept fourteen hours and got up at 4:00 p.m. today. I’d say I was well-rested because of it but I’m just over-tired and sore. A person shouldn’t be sore simply from sleeping. I can see if one was to sleep on a bed of nails or in their car, then maybe. But on a comfy mattress, no way.

Neil was over and he showed me a video he shot of Rupert from the Hello Deli saying hi to me. That was pretty damn cool. It’s kind of surreal receiving a direct greeting from Rupert, though, after seeing him on Letterman for so many years. Neil also got me some swag from the CBS store, including a sweet Late Show Pants mug, and he told me about his trip to NYC and going to see Dave. Turns out the place was a lot smaller than he had imagined and that Dave walks around during the commercials without his jacket on talking to the staff. Despite the Rupert greeting video and the merch, Neil’s first-hand tales of being in The Ed Sullivan Theatre and getting to talk to Dave have made me quite jealous that his and Al’s New York trip. I need to go see Dave before he retires.

Tonight, I drove out to Troy’s birthday party with Greg, Nathan and Neil where Pat gave the birthday boy the ugliest sweater I think I’ve ever seen in my life. Why someone would have designed this gorilla-esque disaster of a garment boggles the mind. Why anyone would buy it and wear it not as a joke is beyond me.

Troy gave everyone a preview of the pilot for the animated version of his graphic novel, Angora Napkin. It wasn’t completely finished, there were still sound effects and some music to be added, but it was hilarious and looked fantastic. I really hope Teletoon picks it up this year. There were so many good gags and references and little homages, including some bits taken from the movie we watched right after it—Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! I finally got to see this movie and hear all of the campy samples that White Zombie used in their original context.

“I never try anything. I just do it. And I don’t beat clocks, just people! Wanna try me?”

“I work on this baby the same way, trying to get maximum performance.”

“You’re all shook up, aren’t you, baby?”

Those lines are forever burned into my brain thanks to La Sexorcisto: Devil Music Vol. 1, which was one of the first CDs I ever bought. I’m surprised the damned thing never melted from playing it so much.

There was a dry eye in the house.

There would be no sleep at all for me before having to get up early for a morning appointment in Ch’town for my eye. The doc said my cornea looked healthy but that my eye was severely dry. After I showed him a pic of my eye when it was all pink and fucked, he said even though there wasn’t any infection that a dry eye can still have those types of symptoms similar to pink eye. Then he gave me a handful of free eye lube samples which, for me suffering from this accursed dry eye, was like a pillhead being given the pharmacy keys. Here’s hoping the drops work their lube-y, moist magic.

For lunch, I grabbed a slice of some tasty pizza from the Urban Eatery then went to a meeting, thus completing my capital city requirements for the day. Tonight, I went to trivia with Greg and Nathan at The Link, Lindsay joined us, and the power went out near the end which forced us to finish up by candlelight. It made for a slightly different trivia experience.

Since my driveway is filled with a mess of icy branches and tree limbs, I parked my car in the church parking lot after trivia and then decided to walk around while the lights were still out all over town. The streets were sloppy, the neighbourhood quiet and everything was grey and dark (obviously). It’s not often I get to walk around this town/city or whatever you want to call it at night with not one streetlight on. It was calm, kind of eerie and weird to see everything so dark, the only light coming from the headlights of cars driving slowly down the messy streets. Had it not been so wet and rainy out I might have enjoyed a longer walk but when cold winter rain is soaking through one’s boots and coat one tends not to want to spend much time out of doors.

Q&A with Dave. HD of Bono. 5Ws with Hobbes.

I got a couple of emails from Neil saying he talked to Letterman during the pre-show warm-up/Q&A at the taping he and Al went to, and that he also talked to Bono outside the theatre, who was recording Neil on his camera while Neil recorded video of him. Pretty sweet. Why the hell didn’t I go with them? Why? Why? Why?

I also got an email from Shannon with a link to an article about Nathan that focuses more on Hobbes than anything else. Needless to say, her sending me that article with the photos of him made my night.

The Amazing Disappearing Driveway.

Another branch gave way which would have definitely demolished my car had it been in its regular spot. Seeing as the entire driveway is essentially an icy tree branch graveyard now, there’s no question about the damage that would have been caused.

I went for a bit of a walk this afternoon to snap some photos. Ice and water were raining down from the branches and wires overhead, the sun was making everything sparkle, and it was a bright, lovely day. The ice needed to be scraped off my car next to my parents’ place but the sun was helping with that job and had actually made short work of the ice removal. This evening, the sun setting behind the icy treetops gave them a nice glow and shimmer but my point-and-shoot couldn’t quite capture the way things actually looked.

Cold casts result in broken limbs.

Last night, I heard the inevitable crack outside that signaled something breaking somewhere under the weight of the ice. This was the result behind the house: a giant, icy branch had fallen across half the yard. Thankfully there was nothing back there to get damaged by it but there is sure going to be a helluva lot of wood for fires this summer.

The front porch windows were completely coated, you could barely see outside. The bushes were bulbous from being mega-thick with ice. Across the front yard and the driveway lay the result of another loud, ripping crack the night before as a big limb came down. It could have caused a lot of damage to my car so I’m damn glad I decided to move it when I did.

Ice weather we’ve been having.

Despite the weather being absolutely miserable tonight, I ventured outside with umbrella and tripod in hand to try capturing how nice everything looked covered in ice. Walking around was slushy, icy, slippery and treacherous business but the trees sure did look mighty purdy coated in ice with the lights shining off them. By looking at it, Winter Street was certainly living up to its name.

As lovely as an ice storm might make things appear, there’s no doubt that this thorough shellacking of ice over everything is going to cause problems. I learned that lesson last winter when a tree limb came within inches of crumpling the trunk of my old car so my new car has been safely parked out of harm’s way tonight. That’s my hope anyway. Barring a utility pole falling onto it, a vehicle fish-tailing off the street into it, or some other unforeseen, unfortunate circumstance, my recently purchased Alero should be fine. We’ll see what happens to the drooping trees and wires tomorrow morning, though.