My photography stinks methinks.

I returned a pair of picture frames to Zellers this evening because my photos wouldn’t fit in them, even though they’re perfectly sized to match the dimensions listed on the frames. Are inches in China and Taiwan different than the inches we use here in North America or something? I shouldn’t be surprised because those cheap frames were probably assembled by a five-year-old in some sweatshop and, honestly, how can a child that age be expected to know how to measure stuff properly? I mean, they’d have to deal with fractions and junk, and I didn’t even learn fractions until, like, grade three or some shit like that.

No, next time I’ll make sure my cheap ass buys cheap-ass frames made by a kid who’s required to have at least his grade three to work a job in a sweatshop for a slave lord corporation. See, I care about quality. I also care about paying less than what it costs to actually make the product so that my North American consumerist way of life can be maintained by corporations that keep countries, manufacturers, and workers under their crushing, capitalist thumbs. Maybe some day, that kid in the sweatshop with the grade three education (as unlikely as that is), if he works hard and saves up for a few years, he too might possibly be able to purchase a similar five dollar set of picture frames for his home in the slums next to a plastics manufacturing plant that dumps hazardous waste into the river running through his over-populated town, poisoning the water, soil and air, and increasing child mortality, cancer and severe deformity rates. That is, if the cost to buy the same rice exported from his country and imported back in at a price higher than it was sold for doesn’t increase and eat into his savings. But chin up, kid, and hang in there.

I also returned the frames because they smelled funny. Actually, they didn’t just smell funny, they reeked of something awful. They reeked so bad that I had to keep them in the front porch instead of my bedroom until I returned them because the smell was so gross after the plastic wrap came off.

When I brought them back, the woman at the courtesy desk said that my photos should fit and I felt like telling her, “I know they should fit but they don’t. Why the fuck do you think I’m returning them? Oh, plus they stink.” She took a nice, long whiff and said she couldn’t smell anything weird. So this makes me wonder if I’m just crazy and smelling phantom smells or if her sniffer wasn’t working properly. The frames stank, stunk, stinked, if you ask me. I don’t know how anyone with a working nose wouldn’t be able to smell that smell. Unless, of course, I’m simply “olfactorily” insane. There’s probably good odds on that bet if the “this beef broccoli I ordered smells like ballpark dugout urine” is anything to go by.

Speaking of people probably thinking I’m weird, I spent some time tonight during my walk climbing up on playground equipment taking photos. The sky was bright and the clouds were moving crazy fast so I tried some long exposure shots just to play around and see if I could get the clouds and sky to blur but keep everything on the ground in focus. Not very good results at all but it was something to do and something to make me want a fancier camera and some photography knowledge.

When the fish plant’s the classiest place around.

Melissa stopped by tonight after she grabbed a bite to eat at the “new” Brothers Two, which they now refer to as “B2” because they apparently want to have a retarded name for their restaurant.

“Hey, anyone want to go eat at B2 tonight?”
“What’s B2?”
“‘What’s B2?’, he asks. Seriously? B2 is the talk of the town!”
“Yes, seriously. What the hell is B2? Did they just open?”
“Wow, you don’t know? B2 is Brothers Two. They re-opened and now call it B2.”
“Why?”
“Because changing their name to an acronym is hip.”
“No, it’s not. It’s retarded.”
“It’s hip. It’s cool, just like how the movies do it. You know: ID4, T2, AVP, MIB, D2: The Mighty Ducks, and Halloween: H20.”
“Most of those don’t even make sense. You’re more retarded than they are.”
“So you don’t want to go to B2 with us? Is that what you’re saying?”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying. I refuse to eat there because their name is lame.”
“Fine then, the rest of us will have a great time and a fantastic meal at B2!”
“Whatever. I hope you get D2.”
“What’s D2?”
“Diarrhea twice.”

Anyway, she had leftover potato skins with her that had the usual “healthy” stuff on top like bacons, cheeses and sour creamses but they added this sweet Thai sauce which made them even more addictive. Good gawd, they put together a winner with that greasy pile of an appetizer, I gotta say.

We decided a bit of a stroll would be a good idea, and we stopped to take dumb pics around town in front of places such as the fish plant where Melissa imitated their mascot’s friendly, little lobster dance, and then at The Doggie Style where she got on all fours like a new customer making a mistake about the type of service they offer.

We ended up back at the house to play cribbage with an old board shaped like a big 29 that she got from her grandparents. I used to have a little one like it but it’s out in the world somewhere now, making someone else happy. Melissa then proceeded to beat me very badly in two games. My belief is that the 29 board is rigged and/or cursed.

They up and left with all their 1970s inventory.

The end of an era. Pro Hardware moves out of Dominion Square to make way for the Holman’s Building renovations. They haven’t closed, they’ve only moved to another downtown location. Though, one wonders how they’ve been able to stay in business with the likes of Wal-Mart and Canadian Tire sucking business up to the other end of town like a downtown-core-killing, black hole of consumerism. Pro Hardware’s the little hardware store that could. Mixin’ paint and cuttin’ keys like nobody’s business.

However, buying lobster mugs, carved wooden fishermen salt and pepper shakers, circa 1981 greeting cards, demented ceramic clown faces, plastic monks with pop-up boners, or tacky PEI souvenirs made from seashells and googly eyes at another location just won’t be the same.

You will be missed classic downtown Pro Hardware. You will be missed.

Meurths? Moths! Murths? MOTHS! Oh, meuths.

I was invited out to Jill and Troy’s tonight for a party at their place in the country, and while hanging out with everyone on the patio it was impossible not to notice the impressive moths fluttering around their outside light. These weren’t no run-of-the-mill miller moths. One was huge, its brittle wings looking like papery-bark with eyes on them, and had two big “mascara applicator” antennae.

Another moth was furry with bright yellow and pink colouring, and looked as though it might taste like cotton candy or dissolve into sugary powder if you popped it into your mouth. I’m sure most of the party guests admiring the moth’s soft fuzz and vibrant colours were thinking the exact same thing.

There were so many different kinds of moths I’d never seen before, including one that looked like a part of a fine, white doily. The big, brown papery one got into the house and had a bit of a freak out by the stove until James grabbed it by the wing and tossed it outside. To be honest, I know it was only a moth, but it was freaking me out a bit. I find bugs and the critters in the entomological realm fascinating but some of them creepy as all hell at the same time. Sort of like sharks except gross.

I spent some time playing with Atticus. He’s got a lumpy skull and is a bit nuts but he’s a good-looking boy and a good dog so I can kind of overlook the jumping he does all over people. Out in the yard, Jill showed me the garden she had planted and then brought in a few fresh radishes for me and James to try. No word of lie, that radish was the very best radish I’ve ever eaten. It was tender, juicy, flavourful (as flavourful as a radish gets, I suppose) and spicy—like really spicy. That lingering type of spicy, spicier than some hot peppers I’ve eaten. It opened my eyes to a whole new world of appreciation for the lowly radish. I never knew a radish could be considered delicious. I didn’t realize it was possible to actually crave radishes. I guess those Fraggles were really onto something.

Who would you rather meet: Kari or Optimus?

I had a giant dish of chicken parmesan for dinner at Anson’s this evening followed by a completely unnecessary hot fudge sundae at the St. Eleanor’s dairy bar for dessert. The night was a good one for a fire in the backyard, despite the mosquitoes being annoying as hell. I’d be damned if I was going inside and let them ruin my night though. Some people came over for the fire and put up with mosquitoes but eventually it was just me and Marcus sitting fireside, roasting marshmallows while we discussed the finer points of Transformers and Mythbusters.

You know…cool guy stuff.

A Memory Like An Elephant…With Dementia.

I went to K’town trivia this evening but decided I’d leave earlier than usual in hopes I’d be able to grab some Frosty Treat beforehand but there were dozens of people in line-up so I reluctantly skipped getting the Skor flurry I was craving so badly. Damn tourist herds denying me my ice cream treats.

Karen, D’Arcy, Terry and Luke showed up at the K-Club and, despite our combined brain power, we didn’t win a damn thing. I wasn’t much help, though, seeing as I talked people out of an answer Terry had correct from the get-go. I was positive at the time that the FBI’s headquarters were in Langley, Virginia, thinking I remembered that little trivial tidbit from Silence of the Lambs and The X-Files. Nope. Wrong. CIA headquarters is in Langley, VA, which is actually just a suburb in Fairfax County near Washington, DC. What else is in Washington, DC? FBI HQ, just as Terry had stated. I was actually thinking of the FBI Academy where Clarice and other FBI types go for training to punch criminals, to hold guns the “cool” way, and to wear suits (both the mansuit and pantsuit varieties). The Academy is in Quantico, VA, which I was mixing up with Langley, VA, making me double wrong. Clear as mud, right?

Pointless, I know, but I had so convinced myself I was right that we had to confirm it later at Karen’s using the power of Google. Obviously, I was wrong so I apologized to Terry and my other teammates for letting everyone down. We hugged, cried a bit, and a few smiles of forgiveness later it was all water under the bridge.

Karen was nice enough to throw some burgers on the grill for everyone and that made everything even better. She also made us watch clips from Little Shop of Horrors on the YouTube, and since I can’t stand musicals for the most part I wasn’t expecting to like any of it. The power of the Internet surprised me again. I had never seen the movie but the scenes with Steve Martin—especially those with him and Bill Murray—were hilarious. The giant plant’s facial movement and articulation looked phenomenal considering when the movie was made. I think it was even better than most CGI crap I see these days and Audrey II was a friggin’ animatronic puppet from the ’80s.

“A will-o’-the-wisp? No, it’s just a bald weirdo.”

The sun decided to show its face for a very short period today before going right back behind the clouds, leaving behind a bleh, grey and muggy day. I hate when it’s sticky and gross like this, and I sure as hell don’t feel like cooking much in this weather. I kept dinner simple tonight by making a kinda-caesar salad using komatsuna and bacon I bought at the market last weekend. Mixed in: chicken, snap pea crisps and the always requisite croutons. Overall, a fairly good salad except the komatsuna had an odd flavour which I think would have been better in another type of salad. It was the first time I’d ever tried the stuff and it wasn’t all that bad but bacon and chicken together in a salad will make any salad better. Someone could fill a bowl with lawn trimmings and autumn leaves, and if they covered it with caesar dressing, some crunchy croutons, chopped chicken and crispy bacon I’d eat the stuff, no question.

I had a dish full of brown rice leftover from when I made a big batch in a rice cooker I borrowed from my mom the other day. Having now used such a handy appliance makes me wonder why the hell haven’t I bought a damn rice cooker of my own. So easy to make rice now, it’s ridiculous. I threw all the cold rice into a pot of cooked vanilla pudding with some cinnamon for a dead simple rice pudding for dessert. Normally, me having a pot full of pudding sitting in the fridge is not a superb idea but, thankfully, it’s not very good so there’s not much chance of me eating the whole thing in one sitting. I sure do like pudding though.

I stopped in at my parents’ after dinner where Mom told me they’ve had over a thousand customers each day at the new Maid Marion’s since they opened on Tuesday. With it being as bloody busy as that, I guess I won’t be going there for a week or so until the crowds die down a bit. It will be interesting to see how long it will take for the novelty to wear off everyone.

It didn’t get any less muggy after dark so I figured a bit of a bike ride would help me cool down at least for a little while. I biked into the new park around the corner with its ponds and bridges and its total lack of lights. The night was quiet, kind of foggy and dewy, there was a neat glow all around the edge of the park grounds from the far off street lights, and the still ponds had some great reflections in them. I hung around the park for a long time taking pictures, playing around with long exposures to see what sort of things I could capture when I turned on my little keychain light.

It was fun messing around like that, getting some neat shots, and enjoying the outdoors on a calm night. Although, I’m sure if anyone saw me running around on the bridges swinging and zigzagging my a light around or biking around the park swirling a light in circles all by myself they would no doubt think I was a bit of a nut.

Canadian-Style Mexican-Style French Fries.

Melissa came over with a bunch of groceries to make some sort of foolish nacho-style fries concoction she had been going on about wanting to make. She used big, wedge-cut kind of fries which she blanketed with chopped peppers and onions, diced tomatoes, salsa, cheese, black beans, sour cream and fresh cilantro. Mother of Kenny, they were good and plentiful—there was a ridiculous amount of food piled onto all three of our plates ready to be devoured.

After the nacho fries fiesta had come to an end, I needed a bit of a breather before joining her, Nathan, D’Arcy and Marcus down at Dooly’s where they were all lucky enough to see me suck at pool. We settled on the couches out front for a while, Greg showed up from work to join us as we talked about disgusting, harsh, inappropriate, insensitive and coarse things as if we were hanging out in the privacy of the living room. I’d like to know if other people chat about the same sort of stuff in public where patrons and staff can easily overhear the entire conversation. Well, they were able to easily overhear it before I purposefully chose obnoxious music on the jukebox like Fatboy Slim’s seven-minute-long “The Rockafeller Skank”. It even annoyed me, though, I still was amused by it.

Melissa decided she was going crash on the hobo bed instead of going back out to Clinton. All the nacho fries we ate earlier apparently weren’t enough food to hold us over for the night so more chopped peppers and onions, diced tomato, and salsa were dumped into a pan but this time with some eggs and hot sauce for some mighty good scrambled eggs. if only the leftover black beans had been saved…

A First Time for Everything or Seizure Surprise.

I woke up to another cool, grey, miserable day and, as I was mentally situating myself in order to get some proper work done, the phone rang. Despite not recognizing the number, I picked up anyway—generally something I don’t do. Good thing I did, though, because my sister’s friend, Jenn, started off by assuring me my sister was fine but that she had just come out of a seizure and they were on their way to the hospital.

“Uh, wait, what?! I’ll be right there!”

I dropped everything, called Dad on his cell which he coincidentally just happened to bring to work that day, and then drove up to the hospital where he and Mom were already waiting with Jenn. The doc was with my sister at that point. When we went in to see her, she said she felt fine and that she didn’t remember any of it. Last thing she remembered was being in Jenn’s living room and the next thing she knew she was being tended to by paramedics.

When Jenn went to put her little girl down for a nap, she heard this big bang in the kitchen and had no idea what my sister was doing out there. It was only after she went out to check on her that she realized something was wrong. She found her on the floor in the middle of having a full-blown seizure. Jenn called 9-1-1 and her husband, who bolted out of work and ran home. He got to the house just as my sister was coming out of the seizure and the ambulance got there right about the same time. My sister didn’t remember leaving the living room and walking into the kitchen where she either collapsed or fell out of a chair. She was lucky she didn’t get badly hurt when she fell or—luckier still—that she wasn’t driving at the time.

After the medical folk did some blood work and a CT scan on my sister, they told her that she was in perfect health as far as they could tell but that, as a precaution, she wouldn’t be allowed to drive and would need to go for an EEG to figure out what may have triggered the seizure. The doc said chances were that it was brought on by stress, lack of sleep and the like, making it unlikely for her to have another one. He explained that some people have a lower threshold for dealing with sudden increased electrical activity in the brain, and so people who aren’t epileptic can have a seizure from excessive stress factors.

They released her after a few hours, which is good, but having no clear cause for why an un-epileptic would have an out-of-the-blue seizure isn’t exactly reassuring. Hopefully it was just stress and my sister won’t have another seizure because of it again. Hopefully she hasn’t suddenly developed epilepsy either, something I didn’t think even happened. I always thought you were born with it and you had it all your life, that it suddenly didn’t simply surprise you in your mid-twenties to scare the shit out of you and everyone in your life.

An Experiment in Miniaturized Meat Meals.

The first day of summer ain’t feeling very much like summer. No bright, sunny skies and warm winds greeting me as I left the house today. Just grey skies and a cool wind. I rolled out of bed early-ish to go pick up Mom and my sister to drive up west where Dad was already at my grandparents’ place with the dummy dogs. Since I was last up for a visit, my grandfather had painted his shop and the garage another shade of green that apparently everyone but me dislikes. Sure it doesn’t match the house but it’s a mighty bright, happy green tone, that’s for sure.

Could Pantry cookies with their apparently hand-cut baker’s logo be any more classic of a grandmother-type cookie? She’ll have tins of all sorts of homemade cookies (her chocolate chip cookies being the best in the world, for serious), a bag or two of store-bought ones plus a box of those thin, crisp Pantry gingersnap cookies without fail. Every time the dogs go up west to visit my grandparents they do exactly what pretty much everyone in my family does, except my mom, when they get in the house: head straight for the cookie cupboard. They wait side-by-side next to the cupboard door until my grandmother gives them each a cookie. They repeat the behaviour when it’s time to go home. No one can ever say that Winnie and Khaly aren’t spoiled rotten.

After I got home, I decided I’d whip up a batch of meat muffins. I’ve actually been excited to make them ever since the idea struck me at Melissa’s one night. What can I say? The concept of muffins made out of meat amuses me and as a person who loves meatloaf I’m not about to pass up the opportunity to try out mini-meatloaves. Thankfully, other people out there had the same idea already. There was no shortage of meat muffin recipes but I used ground pork from the market instead of beef and, I gotta say, those little meaty suckers were fucking delicious. A couple of those and a big, baked sweet potato makes for one hearty meal.

A Coincidence in Creophagism.

I relied on the market’s sushi and Asian cuisine to cover two of my meals for the day. Gail was nice enough to give me free brownies and a mocha latté so that covered dessert. I thought my food concerns were taken care of but, after driving Nathan out to Dale’s, I ended up doing some not-so-badly-needed shopping at Bulk Barn. I came across these Snapea Crisps which turned out to be pretty tasty but I was really there for one thing: Double Decker Bars. I was quickly let-down when I didn’t find any on the shelf but at the front counter I found a box of them staring me in the face with a big sign reading “Sale! 49 cents each!” Holy crap, I thought. That’s like a fifth of the price of what I’d have to pay at Freak Lunchbox. A steal of a deal, even though it’s only a third of the regular Bulk Barn price. Still, that’s a solid deal in anyone’s book. And despite my suspicions that I was buying old chocolate destined to hit the Bulk Barn bin in a matter of days, I bought a bunch of the bars in case I’m never able to find them again. I know Shawn will appreciate getting some of these super cheap chocolate finds.

Very much satisfied with the bag full of marked down UK confectionary, I came home and happened to catch some show about this big-ass BBQ festival in the States, and now I want ribs badly. Lots and lots of ribs. The dripping with sauce, juicy meat falling off the bone kind of ribs. They looked so damn amazing smoking over charcoal, fire licking up at them as they were slathered in BBQ sauce with these big sauce mops. As if that mouthwatering display of tantalizing grilled meats wasn’t enough, they showed all sorts of other grilled fare, greasy foods and ridiculous sandwiches filled with mixed layers of almost every kind of meat known to mankind. But the most amazing thing of all time in the kingdom of food’s history hit the screen: fresh and warm, huge and homemade Belgian waffle ice cream sandwiches. That was the topper. They looked so delicious that they were nearly enough to make me rush out to apply for a passport so I can fly down to that festival and eat until I bust.

With the bacon and ground pork I bought at the market, followed by a passing interest as I drove by the new butcher shop, followed by the make-me-weak-in-the-knees BBQ commercial, it would appear as though carnivorous events are aligning in the universe, signaling me to make the meat-themed blog design that’s been rattling around in my head.

That’s a whole lotta dough…I’ll have seconds.

For dinner tonight, I split some taco thing and a goat cheese and seared pear salad with Melissa at the Island Stone Pub in K’town which has a bunch of vintage games and ephemera adding interest to the railroad-station-cum-restaurant’s atmosphere. The “taco thing” was like a taco only in that it had all of the usual toppings except they were atop a slab of deep-fried dough like a BeaverTail. And, yes, it was delicious. Everything was really good, actually. The salad was a bit heavy on the vinaigrette but otherwise mighty tasty. For dessert, it only made sense to keep riding the deep fried dough train by having yet another slab of deep fried dough but served covered in strawberries, ice cream and whipped cream. Much like our dinner, we basically inhaled that mouthwatering mess because we were so damn hungry but I’m glad we had the wisdom to split the meal because having two slabs of fried dough in my belly would have been a bit much, methinks.

We walked over to the K-Club for trivia, won second place all by ourselves then I drove Melissa home where we listened to her friend’s radio show back in Ottawa about stand-up. He talked with Marc Maron for a bit and then played his new double comedy CD. The conversation and the stand-up was hilarious stuff and when it was over Melissa called up her friend and awkwardly made me say hello to him over the phone. Awkward because it was, well, awkward but awkwardness compounded by the fact that she held the phone up to my deaf ear for part of the conversation. We then continued our ongoing, exciting and dramatic cribbage face-off until 3:00am. I swear, she will be skunked and I will be the champion when this is all over. Mark my words.

I saw yet another fox on the roundabout on the way home and finally managed to snap a picture—blurry as it is. No cops showed up this time to interrupt my crappy roadside photography session. I wonder if it’s the same guy coming back night after night digging up worms and stuff.

A Case of Want, or perhaps Crave, versus Need.

I met up with James and Gill at Dooly’s this evening for her birthday. We sat around the foyer, er, whatever you call it—the place with the couches and chairs by the fake fireplace—with Mike, Troy and Jill and Nathan, and Melissa joined us a little later. I had a pretty good time hanging out and some of us went to A-1 later on for eats. I split a bunch of hot, delicious, greasy-ass garlic fingers I didn’t need with Melissa before we walked to Needs so I could buy some chocolate I didn’t need. I suppose it’s ironic that the place is called Needs.

Cavity Search or Making a Case for Laughing Gas.

I had a little cavity filled today, and it’s not something I want to repeat any time soon or ever again if at all possible. I’ve always felt I’ve taken pretty good care of my chompers from their awkward early days, through the painful times of high school braces and icky follow-up retainer, to my present day false tooth bridge duo. In all of that time, despite the massive oral overhauls and presence of food-collecting buccal devices, I had never had a single cavity filled until just a few years ago. I think this is my third cavity in about as many years and I can’t say I’m partial to this trend (no pun intended).

I guess I’ll have to break out the toothbrush and floss a bit more often to keep the dentist from having a go at my teeth with instruments that make horrible noises. I’ve never been one to hate or dread going to the dentist like some people do but now I’m worried he’s going to find a cavity and jab a needle in my mouth every time I sit in the chair under the bright light. Even though I honestly and truly despise them, I am surprised by the fact that needles don’t seem to bother me as much when they’re used for freezing my mouth and gums. What I do dislike is when the freezing isn’t quite at the level it needs to be and it takes repeated jabs to get the job done, and even then not so much. I had enough of Dr. Needles poking the roof of my mouth so I just put up with the pain. But, man, that nasty, cold, electric pain from the drill sucked. My hat’s off to all those tough-as-nails folks with filled cavities who walked out of the dentist’s office in the dark days before nitrous oxide and novocaine.

All-You-Can-Eat Highway Buffet.

I drove out to Melissa’s tonight to play some cribbage, eat homemade banana muffins and greasy potato chips because that’s what people are supposed to do on Wednesday nights. Isn’t it? Anyway, I’ve learned that round patches of grass in the middle of the highway must be a great late night feeding spot for foxes because on the way back in town there was a fox on the roundabout again, digging away at the grass for grubs or worms or beetles or whatever the hell it is that foxes eat. I figure they like rabbits best and if there was one living there in that circle of grass it would be a very Looney Tunes kind of thing, like the time developers built a freeway around Bugs’ rabbit hole.

Yes… I do need a life.

“Tigers love pepper… they hate cinnamon.”

I honestly didn’t have any expectations for it to be any good but after I went to see The Hangover with Melissa and Tessa tonight I was surprised by just how damn funny the movie was. I only went to see it because of Zach Galifianakis (who was the best part of the movie as Alan) because he’s been one of my favourite comedians for a while now. It was ridiculous, offensive, over-the-top, and hilarious so I can get past the fact that there was terrible music used throughout the film. The exception was the track during the intro credits, whose sequence was coolly subtle and moody combined with the shots and intro track they used. It actually seemed a bit out of place compared to the lame-o and/or terrible-terrible-terrible tracks they used in the rest of the film. Maybe it was meant to be in sharp contrast with the craziness to come? In any case, a lot of the music instantly dated it, going back in even three or four years is going to be cringe-worthy. Basically, a big eww on that front but otherwise the movie is good for a laugh and pretty much everything out of Alan’s mouth is priceless. Galifianakis gold!

And that, children, is how you get diabetes.*

I slept in late today because campfires and general lack of sleep throughout the week have been doing a number on my eye. The extra hours of shut-eye seemed to help alleviate the burning and itching thankfully, and despite most of the day being behind me I did manage get outside to enjoy at least some of the fine weather out on the back step.

I made a rhubarb crumble later on to share with my family and so as not to eat the whole thing myself, even though my sister made fun of me for eating nearly half of it on my own anyway...and then a Klondike Bar.

*Myth: Eating too much sugar causes diabetes.
Fact: No, it does not. Type 1 diabetes is caused by genetics and unknown factors that trigger the onset of the disease; type 2 diabetes is caused by genetics and lifestyle factors. Being overweight does increase your risk for developing type 2 diabetes, and a diet high in calories, whether from sugar or from fat, can contribute to weight gain. If you have a history of diabetes in your family, eating a healthy meal plan and regular exercise are recommended to manage your weight.
Source: Diabetes Myths - American Diabetes Association

Back when PVC, dioxin and phthalates were fun!

After going to the market today I went to Pro Hardware’s big sale of old junk for super cheap in their old location upstairs. Who knows how long some of the stuff had been in their stock room but they sure did have some neat gems amongst the useless bits and pieces. I bought a few little toy cars by National Toys that were are undoubtedly made from highly toxic plastics and slave-labour assembled by poor Chinese children in the ’70s who probably didn’t live to see the new millennium. The cars sure are great though, charming things really, and they came in little boxes with nifty illustrations on them.

I also picked a box of Gothic crayons I assume are old simply because they were made in the US of A and not some country in Asia like everything else. Three toy cars, a box of crayons and a badly needed pair of brown shoelaces all for a mere fifty cents. You don’t see prices like those any more. A steal of a deal. I set up little scenes to shoot in the driveway because I’m apparently eight years old, and ended up snapping pics of some of the other toys and trinkets around me while I was at it.

Melissa stopped by and I went out to Thunder Cove with her, Nathan, Greg and Nikkie. Luke had invited us out to join him, his girlfriend Steph, Andrew and Tiffany to the spot where they were camping for the night on the beach. It was bloody windy but Melissa and I did manage to get the fire going so everyone could sit around roasting wieners and marshmallows while lots of lightning lit up the sky. Steph had her little pug/Boston Terrier named Snoopy with them; a big baby just wanting to crawl up on people’s laps all night. Snoopy took off down the beach at one point though, was gone for quite a while too, only to show up later on when some kid from a fire down the beach brought her back in his arms.

The campfire’s embers glowed, the marshmallow supplies started to run low, and we decided to hit the road, leaving the campers to do their camping. As soon as we jumped into the car and started down the road for home it began to rain. It began to rain a lot, heavy and hard. Had we waited another minute it would have soaked everyone and everything in a matter of seconds. Sure glad I wasn’t camping on the beach.

Roundabout the roundabout roundabout 3:00 am.

Kira was nice enough to invite me over to join the Maros’ for a big ham dinner Nick had made, and then Melissa, who’s now home from Toronto for the summer, invited me out to her mom’s place to visit. I hung out with her and her family for the night while they drunkenly related stories to one another from when they were younger. It was pretty entertaining and eventually made less and less sense.

On the way home, I spotted a fox frantically digging up bugs and worms on the grassy circle of S’side’s ridiculous roundabout. Since there wasn’t any traffic at that late hour, I simply sat in the roundabout for a few minutes watching the fox go nuts at the lawn with his paws, and was about to take a photo when a car came down the road towards me. I didn’t exactly linger as the car approached but they would definitely have been able to see that I had been sitting there for a while from a distance, and as I completed my turn I discovered it was the police who then decided to follow the whole way home.

I guess stopping a motor vehicle in the middle of a roadway’s roundabout to watch a fox dig for his dinner is cause for some concern.

Wondering if it’ll match my belt and shoes.

I was up super early (for me) so I could attend the college’s graphic design advisory committee meeting at 10:00 am, and I would have actually been early too it if weren’t for the bloody road construction in Hunter River. After the meeting, I spent some time taking advantage of the ATC’s free WiFi before hitting up Timothy’s for their free WiFi, a badly-needed big-ass coffee, a not-so-badly-needed Brownie Obsession and to read some good ol’ CBC.ca on my iPod which, if you ask me, still isn’t as good as going through a newspaper. Maybe one of those fancy netbooks is just what I need for that sort of thing. But then I’d need to get a man purse, and I don’t think I want a man purse.

I took the other way home to avoid the catastrophic construction and stopped to take a photo of a nice old Caddy with flat tires parked next to a weird abandoned building.

Sucking the MSG and sugar from my veins.

Kira’s home for the summer from Montreal and I got to hang out with her for the first time since she got home when I met up with her and George at China Star for dinner this evening. Greg and Nikkie joined us too but just us three ended up meeting Luke at the St. Eleanors dairy bar to eat ice cream amid clouds of vicious mosquitoes. We ended up back here at the house with Andrew after he dropped by to invite us out to his and Luke’s place for a bonfire by the pool. A pretty relaxing evening overall, hanging out in the MacDonalds’ back yard with Sue joining us for a bit of a chat by the fire (whose smoke did just an okay job of keeping the flying bloodsuckers away from us).

Prowling Petey Poses for Pussycat Paparazzi.

It was too beautiful a day to spend the entire day indoors in front of a computer screen so I enjoyed the sun on the back step as much as a pale, bald man can and drank my coffee. Not that it’s something I don’t often see anyway but who should I spy stalking birds from atop the neighbour’s fence? None other than Petey the ginger kitty from across the street.

He was pretty intent on catching a bird and even though he did do some posing for the camera I think I may have been cramping his style so I went back to drinking my coffee and left Petey to the hunt.