D'ya know what I really don't like to do?

paint.

Stupid Baseball

Well, due to the stupid baseball playoffs - aka the "World Series" (of america), I was forced to watch the Leaf game on the Ottawa channel. Man, I hate ottawa. I hate their sports teams, theirnews reporters and especially their commentators. It's a tough call between the Ottawa play by play guys and the ones on any given American Network.

I thought the officiating in the New NHL was tough on players, but these losers wasting my ear cells whined and complained every time a Leaf player crossed pathes with a sen. Every play was dirty in their eyes and they would have called 500 penalties had they had the whistles. Pierre McGuire and Jim Hugson have just moved up a few notches in my books. Stupid Ottawa.

Note: Sportsnet HD chose to air the Baseball game rather than the Leaf game, however I still would be complaining if I did want to pay for sportsnet as it would have only been in regular definition... *spit*

The Trees are Beautiful Up North

Well, we went to Cochrane for the Thanksgiving weekend, indulged in turkey for 6 straight meals and even spotted a UFO just outside North Bay


Below is a picture of a Tamarack tree (aka a Larch tree) in amongst the evergreens. They are the only Evergreen , in the pine family, which is not evergreen. Every fall, the needles turn golden and fall off. They are really quite nice to look at, especially considering that the rest of the trees had lost their leaves by the time we got there.

Bob Cole and Cassie Campbell?

So I turned on HNIC tonight to find Bob talking an awful lot and a female voice butting in a lot. Harry Neale isn't on tonight and it's tough to follow. Bob is scrambling a lot with the extra talking and Cassie is trying too hard. At least the video is in HD.. yummy HD.

Leafs are looking good, despite all the injuries to the D. Peca seems to not be playing tonight. That's not good.

Wednesday is gonna be big!

LOST and the Leafs season Opener against Ottawa. What more could you ask for in a night? I could do without attending the Prenatal course that night, but what do you do... breathe, he - he - he - hoo!

Predictions... LOST... I know the 6 episodes starting this week are going to catch us up with Jack, Sawyer and Kate with the Others. I believe Eko, Locke and Desmond are all ok, but I don't reckon we'll find out until February... Oh, and the others are just imaginary friends of the dog.

Predictions... Leafs... I'm picking the Leafs to win in OT. Because they stink in shootouts and I can't pick a team other than the Leafs. and the Sens Suck.

i-Tunes = i-Gay

So I upgrade to the new itunes this week and not only do I have to get used to a newer look, but I bought some songs and they played back choppy... itunes screwed up my audio drivers and I had to re-install them. Gay.

It was my first venture into online music purchasing. I've been burned buying whole cds that were mostly crap besides the 2 songs tha t I liked. We'll see if I sick with it.

H is for Hockey.

My Newfie boss has me messed up. Whenever I read the letter "H" on it's own, I hear her say it like this... "Haich"... incredibly silly newfies. Anyways, church hockey started up again tonight. Fortunately and unfortunately we moved down a division due to our last place finish. Although we did win the "B-Cup" last season. On the upside, I consider it an upgrade to shoot for loftier goals and the "C-cup" this season. And, if we do really lousy, we can try for the "D-cup", although I find that unmanageable.

We started off with a bang and a shutout. This division seems a bit more near my pace, so I can keep up. I'm excited about maybe scoring more this time around.

I ordered leafs tv, and in true fashion, I can catch all the leafs pre-season games looped over and over due to lack of any other worthwhile content. I don't mind. I didn't manage to get tickets to any of the pre-season games and it's pretty impossible to get regular season tickets, so this is as close as I get. I believe they will make the playoffs this season. Mark my words.

Busy weeks. Lazy Me.

Well, it's been a few weeks, busy times. We finished the baby's room a couple weekends ago. It features laminate flooring, bought for about $25 total at RONA. That was a steal. The walls feature a light blue paint with weird looking tree-type thingy's all around. The closet doors are the same pattern but with inverted colours. We got the crib, aka the "Baby Cage" at Ikea on the 24th, aka "Our 4th Anniversary".

We spent most of our anniversary at the Christian Horizons Breakaway day, getting paid for 4 hours to enjoy the waterslides and free BBQ lunch at Wild Water Kingdom in TO. Even better, we helped provide the music for the event and landed a Babies R Us gift card for our efforts. Score!

The next pic is of the 3 guys from Czech Republic that came over for hockey training. Left to right, Daniel, Zdenek (our translator from our trip in Feb) and Jan (pronounced Honsa). Zdenek is staying with us right now. He's a lot of fun. Daniel is here to train for the upcoming hockey season. Honsa is here to try to make a team, and it looks like he's gonna stick with the Kitchener Dutchmen Junior B team. I got to watch some of his tryout scrimmages. Good fun. I've spent the past week and a half learning as many goofy Czech phrases as I can, adding to my repetoire such phrases as "Help, Help, call an ambulance!", "My bum is on fire", and "give me your money or I'll punch you in the mouth". I'll be fluent in no time. This picture was taken at The Meeting House in Oakville, a church for people who don't like church. They had a good band there, and I ran into some old EBC folks. (Jamie Sanfilipo and fam, and April) Despite this picture, none of those guys are gay ("teple" in Czech (teh-play)). I learned that one from my Lonely Planet Czech phrasebook. Seem Teple (sem teh-play) means "I'm gay". I can also say "I have a methadone addiction" and ask if there are any gay clubs around. Useful book.

Rounding things out, on Monday Faith and I went to Toronto in search of a djembe stand for my birthday (September 3rd, Sunday). We drove to Yorkdale and took the TTC to Queen st to visit Steve's Music store. We walked past the Condom Shack and City TV/Much Music, where the Olson Twins were drawing a crowd. Faith wanted to wait for a picture, but realized that they probably wouldn't show up on film, the anorexic zombies they are. We found a djembe stand for the right price and hauled it back on the TTC. We spent some time in Yorkdale shopping, I spent time waiting on the benches outside stores and managed to make a friend with an old guy. I was outside old navy, we started talking about watches, when he got distracted by a woman, and tried to draw my attention to a "nice ass". "Just look at it and take it in" he says as I laugh at his remarks and Faith walks out of the store. "Your not dead, you can look" he says as Faith arrives and we move on. Next stop, H&M where my old friend catches up with me and alerts me to a "foxy black chick" just as Faith walks out of the store. That was good for a few laughs. Good day.

Well, that's about enough, only 2 weeks til NHL preseason, booyah! I start teaching music on Tuesday. meh. 33 days til the puck drops.

Must have been something I drank.

We go on wacation long time

Well, it's been almost a month since our vacation, and I tried to post, but it froze whilst uploading pics and I gave up. We drove up to Rawdon, QC to the cottage for a week. We went into Montreal for an overnight at a hotel the day after we got there. The Just for Laughs comedy festival was going on, so we took in some of their attractions. Since we are cheap, we just went to the Street Arts Festival in the heart of Old Montreal. There were a few streets blocked off and they had a bunch of different street performers from around the world. One performer we particularly enjoyed was Alakazam from Australia. The start of his show included him squeezing his body through a tennis racquet.This guy was pretty funny too. He made a lot of fun of anyone who walked in late or walked through the show... This old couple, a man and a woman, walked in behind him during the show. He explained that they were his bikini girls and pointed them towards their dressing room. They were oblivious. Anyways, he was good. We also saw a guy playing buckets like a drumset and a bunch of artsy entertainment.

We took a couple walks through old Montreal, hitting all the shops and being amazed at the bi-lingual skills of the beggars, and the incredibly weak stories they all seemed to have. We ate dinner at the original Montreal Keg Steakhouse, mmmmmm... and we shopped in the biggest underground mall I've ever heard of.

On Tuesday, we went to the flea market in LaChute(or Marche au Puces en francais). We found some crap, but it was mostly a waste of energy. LaChute's market is pretty big, but we didn't find much of any use.

Dave and Kyla Cassidy came to visit us at the cottage later in the week. The were fresh off the tail end of their honeymoon. We went to Dorwin Falls in Rawdon and basked in nature... anyways, that was our vacation. Maybe next time I'll post earlier so I don't forget wha happen'd...

We returned home to find our pool full of algae and the ball hockey team forfeited for playoffs... gay... pure gay. Now I'm gonna get fat(ter) again. That's about it.

You, too could touch Paul Bellini

I've been reminiscing a bit over some old Kids in the Hall sketches... never put salt in your eyes... a Bellini lookalike works at Caseys in Kitchener... I always giggle as I imagine him in a towel...

30 degrees, sunny with a good chance of...

acute unexpected downpours!

This week at work we had a group from the Trillium Serve teams at our workplace to assist us. We made them do some cleaning that we didn't want to do, and they realized how cushy our jobs are... Anyways, I had been planning an ambush of this group of teens all week, which culminated today with me, the pastoral relations guy and the property manager of Christian Horizons pouring 5 jugs of water on the group as they posed for a nice group photo... booyah! I wondered for a while if they were going to be odd teenagers and not seek revenge, then I got hit with a few pails of water... gotta love youth.

Why don't cannibals eat clowns?

wow, another month come and gone...

in case you haven't been paying attention, we've bought a house and moved, learned a lot about home renovations, found out that Faith's pregnant, gone to a family reunion with a bunch of people from New Zealand, and that's about it.

This is a picture of one of the fish I caught on Monday in Cochrane on Menard's Lake. Faith's granddad and I went out a few times to canoe around the mostly private lake and catch some fishies. This particular fish was bout 5 lbs and was probably the biggest one we caught all day.

I will inform you that there was no alcohol involved in this picture, I was merely entertaining the old people in Cochrane. My set list consisted of three songs:

1. The ancient Chinese song "too-ning"

2. The shortest song in the world "Laura" (C-Chord)

3. The great nostalgic tune by Spooky Tuesday "Good Ol' School Days"

Anyways, good long weekend, hope to have the basement cleaned up with the entertainment gear setup up by the end of the month.

Booyah - Because they taste funny!

Some people are like slinkies...

they're not really good for anything, but they still bring a smile to your face when you push them down a flight of stairs.

Yeehaw!

Well, there you have it... The canes made it....Twas a decent series, good game, enjoyable final. I'm glad Detroit and Ottawa didn't make it... that makes me really happy.

Brind'amour did great, Cam Ward was unbelievable, Frank Kaberle was solid... I hope the Leafs can take a page from the canes and maybe construct their team a little better... Awards on Thursday and Free Agency in 2 weeks... countdown to new season in 3 1/2 months!

Big game tonight

Here we are, game 7 of the stanley cup playoffs... doesn't get much bigger than this. Time for Kevyn Adams to get his first Stanley Cup of the playoffs... I predict Carolina to win 3-1, crushing the surgeing Oil... nice try though...

It's pretty much my favourite animal...

New House, New Haircut... Half the time I think she's the perfect Liger, but the other half I think she looks like a fat furry iguana...You make the call.

There is a place in this world for diet pop...

The youth at our church tried this with success last week... adding mentos to diet pop to make it shoot way up in the air... I was looking for videos and found this variation... sweet

Fresh off a stay on exile island...

He's back folks... the former nhl coach of the year, Ted Nolan is back in the NHL this year with the Islanders. It was puzzling why Nolan hadn't been thrown a bone after a great couple seasons in Buffalo about 8 years ago. The Islanders desperately need someone good to turn their crappy team around, so Nolan could be good. Nolan coached the Moncton Wildcats in the QMJHL (The Quebec Major Junior Hockey League or LHJMQ in francais) to the Memorial Cup Final, unfortunately defeated by the Quebec Ramparts (Coached by Patrick Roy himself). Best of luck Mr Nolan, you'll probably need it.

You really think the Quebecois could think of some better name for the league than inverting and translating the english version... League du Hockey Junior Major du Quebec...

Carolina in 7...

I'd love to go for the underdogs again and pick the oil for the cup, but I have to go with the ol' heart and root for the wonderdog, Kevyn Adams, to hoist the cup! Kevyn leads the Hurricanes in faceoff win % at a little over 60% success... Although, he hasn't had a point yet in this playoff, I think he'll come up with some clutch shot blocks this series to help the Canes defeat the Oilers in 7 games...

I can't purely make my decision on the Canadian team vs the American team... it's a flawed argument as most of the players, who make up the team, are Canadian on either side, with a bunch of Euros and the odd American (ie Adams) mixed in. With the same reasoning, if it were Ottawa vs Carolina in the finals, I could never pick the Sens to win, regardless of whether they're Canadian or not...

I expect a lot of good battles with more grit from Brind'amour and Adams, and expect to see Stillman keep rolling along on another stellar playoff... It'll be fun to watch Pronger wallpaper more people and Ryan Smith grind his share of goals in, but I think the victory will ultimately go to the Canes. Keep on trucking...