Monday, April 30, 2007

i'm making a pilgrimage

y'know how devout christians sometimes make a big deal about going to bethlehem, and muslims to mecca, etc etc...
well, i'm going to toronto.
Disclaimer: I am not a coffee drinker, and have maybe paid for 2 coffees at Tim Horton's in my whole life. Regardless, I'm sure many devout Church of Greater Ontario worshipers are going to mistaken my business trip for something more devout...

this was a very poorly executed attempt to imply that all of Ontario treats Tim Horton's like a church, where they regularly go to pay homage, with obscure phrases like "double double" and so forth...

I myself cannot for the fucking life of me understand how it is more pleasant and enriching to get in line (you HAVE to see the size of both the drive through aisles and the line-ups of cars in Toronto every morning) and give them 2 or 3 bucks a day for "acqua sporca" (dirty water, to us italian types). all this, rather than brewing your own cup at home or, should you be scheduled to the nanosecond every morning, at the office...
y'know, nanosecond-scheduled-types, they make coffee percolators with timers on them, so you can fill a thermos (hey, buy one with "Tim Horton's" on the side if you must) and run out the door...

er, choose your time carefully, and deposit your earned money on things and acctivites that give you the most pleasure. habits are SPOOKY!

Thursday, April 26, 2007

hooooooookay

i'm a little worse for wear this morning. apparently, wine + scotch (yummy 18 year Highland Park) + port (1998 vintage. most tasty) don't mix too well...

an odd occurence. why, after posting pictures, does my profile and archive list dive to the very bottom of the blog?

Wednesday, April 25, 2007

if that wasn't enough for y'all

here is a photo of She Who Must Be Adored, in living colour

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cuteness experiment 2

or, I LIKE BEAGLES!!!!11111!11

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cuteness experiment 1

blorch

whenever a gift isn't self-evident, i tend to think about what to get. it is very easy for me to fall into the "i'm so witty" trap, though, and inevitibly i end up getting something that sends a message or proves a point or some such, rather than coming up with the thing that would make the person happier in the having...

well, this time around, folks, i ain't trusting my instincts. i'ma go with the Ali filter, running any so-called ideas through it and see what comes out the other side!

Tuesday, April 24, 2007

whoopee!!!

this summer's european odyssey (my spelling is teh suxxors lately) has been booked. we're spending our usual couple of weeks in Riga, and a couple of days in Prague on the way back. looking forward to it.
so is my bank account. damn, flying to northern european countries during the summer is prohibitively expensive!

meh, what else are we gonna do with our cash? well, buy ali her first car, for starters...
oh, and figure out what the heck to buy alan for his wedding...

Monday, April 23, 2007

well, then

we're back to monday. those were some evil evil dreams last night. i actually had to wake up and jot one down. gonna turn it into a story, methinks. anyway, the points are decent enough for it to carry itself through. my main wonder is whether or not i can do scary...

Friday, April 20, 2007

*sigh*

anybody know of a way to block certain commenters from my blog?
either that, or i have to ignore the comments...

on another note, the sun's out, the weekend's upon us, and we're headed up to the cottage at last!

we intend to read much book, drink much tea, and lounge much our sloth-y selves...

Wednesday, April 18, 2007

what the heck

does spam really work? if someone, say like that russian entrepeneur "alex" who posted a comment in the previous message, bombards me with the word "vicodin" will i eventually decide to buy some?

i would encourage the twos and twos of you who keep up with this blog to do the following. rather than buy the crap that the wonderful world of madison avenue pushes on you, i would ask you to do the opposite. the commercials or ads in general that irritate you should guarantee that you ban the product from your life. if it happens to be something you really like, remember that there are always alternatives. negative reinforcement will, at the very least, one day result in a world full of amusing advertisement.

oh, and to all the spammers out there, keep on truckin', folks! i was sure to buy a penis enlarging pill if i received 300 more emails about it. just think. only 300 more emails and you finally would have convinced me. in the interim, i figure i'll just tell my nigerian friend about it. i think he's depressed since his brother in law needs to take all this money out of the country, and he could probably use the ego-boost that a larger wang entails...

Monday, April 16, 2007

Lasagna Tutorial

When one brings over all the essentials and demonstrates to one's gourmand-ish friend how to go about putting together all those tasty ingredients to make my grandfather's southern italian Lasagna.
Oh my, but it is tasteriffic!

incidentally, as tasty as that lasagna is, it was oh so well complimented by one of the absolute finest wines i've ever had the pleasure of drinking. some "hand picked" chiraz thang from down under.

THANK you, narc!

Friday, April 13, 2007

hey hey

had a great morning. looking forward to the golf season.
last night was fun, and while i really like the style of the Mini, we'll have to see come next year whether or not i'm willing to forego all wheel drive and some interior room (that thing's really small inside, which is odd, considering it's the size of the Yaris, which has appreciably more interior space...).

boring...

tonight, dinner with the uncle, which i'm looking forward to. tomorrow's the lasagna tutorial, which i'm looking forward to...
i haven't cooked a dinner at home in six days, and won't until sunday night. it's been one of those weeks...

Thursday, April 12, 2007

thank you sir, may i have another?

*warning! warning! Looooong rant ahead! Skip to the end for the short version!*

some things never seem to want to completely retreat from the daily bulletin board up in my head.
certain memories, (very) old familiar feelings, and what was once the most incredible exhilirating sense of being ALIVE and revelling in my own little universe which has now sort of become the clear-as-a-familiar-scent memory of a most incredible exhilirating sense of being ALIVE and revelling in my own little universe...

it's kind of sort of pseudo-quasi like this: back then, i saw no end to the possibilities, and while they sounded "fun", where i was at ANY given moment just so happened to be the awesomest place evar, and whatever i was doing felt like the absolute pinnacle of things to be doing... i had a life-living version of "too comfortable to move-itis", an affliction that we'd get quite often on a friday night, while on the couch, contemplating whether or not to join my then bestest bud Andrew at Fouf'...
that is, as absolutely fucking AWESOME as dancing all night looked, and often was, so was continuing to lie on this couch and just breath, occasionally catching the scent of her hair.

there are even more intense bouts of "too comfortable to move-itis" now, and had i not once received the mother of all God-damned perspective lessons, this would hands down be the setter of bars. unfortunately, i once ran the gauntlet of understanding (not long enough ago). y'know, everyone's a banzai ski-er until you taste your first fall, and you're always an INCREDIBLE driver until you first spin out of control on a rural 2 lane while an 18 wheeler, air horns BLARING, misses you by inches coming the other way. from then on, you approach the double black diamonds with a little more trepidation, and you maybe don't try to get from st-leonard to chambly in 18 minutes (having already made it in 19)...
you may one day drive back from Toronto in 3 hours and 19 minutes, and while it was FAR more exhilirating (having done it in a fancy car that can easily handle it, for example), it also brought back the heretofore forgotten memory of blinding pit of the stomach instant regret at the decision to speed that came to you at the moment when you thought the 18 wheeler was going to create new crumple zones in your little honda civic...
wow. ok.
Whoah, rant! I said WHOAH! *mutters* Rants is soooo stupid.

*short version:
1-whoever said it is better to have loved and lost is a fucking complete and utter idiot.
2-try not to peak early.
3-NEVER assume that there is enough time. NEVER.
4-things will be wonderful again, but unless you have selective amnesia, you'll always remember how it feels when they break.

blech

stupid meeting today.

oh, all should read (assuming she updates). http://phantaschon.blogspot.com/
this is the wife-to-be of my goodest friend, alan. she is awesome, and with but a little training, could easily head my army of Iguanoid Shock Troopers.

tonight, we have a soiree downtown dedicated to the debut of the new Mini Cooper. yes, i'm thinking of buying one. i'm _that_ impressionable and trend-follow-y.

hey, the only knock against it that i can think of is the lack of all wheel drive, which is a tasty tasty little perk i've grown accustomed to over the past 120,000 km's... well, at least during the 3 or so snowstorms we get every winter.

summers, all i wanna do is have some fun, or rather, own a convertible...

Wednesday, April 11, 2007

'ello 'ello

we've started playing this wonderful Sherlock Holmes game where he investigates Cthulhu!
it's really rather nice.

Tuesday, April 10, 2007

Wootzors!

ali and i began discussing this summer's euro-trip.
she's still to speak with her amazing euro travel agent, but thus far it looks like Frankfurt and Riga.
why frankfurt, you ask? well, it's a good connection city for Riga, is in germany, and counts as one of the cities i've never been to but would like to see.

very tasty tacos last night, Ffej. oh, and it's always nice to get detailed updates on the adventures of your wee-wee. i'm very tempted to write a children's book...should be a hoot.

hey, Alan, the big day approacheth. (cue the Darth Vader theme.) oh, holy crap. that should DEFINITELY be the music that brings you into the reception hall, don'cha think?

Monday, April 09, 2007

to quote Marcus Phenix

That...was satisfying.
easter lunch, that is. wow, we ate much.
the week already fills up with fun and interesting plans. let's see, the usual relaxing diversion tomorrow night, a dinner with my famous uncle on friday night (TASTY pasta ho!), a lasagna clinic on saturday...

anyway, we had a great weekend, as is the norm. thursday night, by the by, went a long way towards reaffirming my faith in humanity. that is to say, it reminded me that there are at least 3 other people out there who share my fascination with correct drinking and eating environments, and also loathe most of humanity.

to quote Marcus Phenix again (this one's for you, Ffej):
Nice!

Thursday, April 05, 2007

i thought the fall was the time of year for this crap!

anyhow.
long-ish weekend ahead, due to easter. we're not religious, we just like to torture ourselves by only making these specific tasties a couple times a year...

i plan to do not very much, as long as it's with ali.

:)

oh, we may go visit her new car at the nursery tonight.

Tuesday, April 03, 2007

evil! bad! bad! bad!

my subconscious is a very terrible thing.

fortunately for me, otis redding said it best.

I've got dreams...
dreams to remember...

spent the entire night tossing, turning, and anguishing. i would really pay money to wipe certain eras from my head, as opposed to forgetting on a daily basis where small things like my fucking car are...

Monday, April 02, 2007

gosh

the weather is rainy today. gives me the same feeling i used to have during those loooooooong seemingly pointless days in junior high, where i felt that the vast majority of my day was pointless (music fucking class? i have a degree from McGill in piano. gym class? i already know how to play football. geography? ffs, we covered that in elementary school. not that there wasn't anything to learn, it just felt very, er, unenticing and meaningless...), and the school itself was dark, ancient, and filled with disenchanted teachers just riding out their tenure till pension. i ABHOR the union system in quebec, incidentally. knowing that unless he beats in the class clown's head with a tuba he can't be fired makes for a less than inspiring teacher.

anyhoo, today feels pretty much like that. oh! i just figured it out! this feeling is the result of having ZERO inspiration. see, my imagination is usually firmly in the driver's seat, which is why some tasks are appreciably more difficult for me than others. when i have no inspiration or creative juices flowing i feel like this. which, in hindsight, i suppose was my problem in junior high. nothing fascinated me or triggered any flights of fancy, apart from that sorta-cute girl Nancy.

hmmm...maybe they'll return. maybe i'll bring my laptop to a cafe later and see what stories lurk up in the attic of my brain. maybe.