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...

mIND sUCCESSFULLY bLOWN...

for the second year in a row... Man, the creators of LOST know what they're doing... I'm more hooked... Did you see it? What do you think? If you haven't seen it, watch the finale... Crazy.

Wow... this is funny

I couldn't help but watch this video multiple times... not sure what they were arguing about... but funny.

click HERE

oh, then watch this... not the other way around...

right HERE

Then, confronted with new evidence... try a bit of this...

HERE

Three for Four aint bad...

Apart from my oversight in the Colorado/Anaheim series, I picked 'em all right. It was fun watching Edmonton turn it on to overcome the 2-0 and win the series in 6. It was more fun to watch the demise of the Ottawa Senators and hear the yearly "We're not going to make any major changes to our team this offseason..." Glad to hear it. Carolina rolled over probably the hottest team in the NHL... cudos.

Here they are folks, ROUND 3 Predictions...

Carolina (2) vs Buffalo (4)

Well, carolina's my team this year, so here they go to the Cup finals by beating the Sabres in 6 games... it'll be a tough one, but the Wonderdog will light the lamp this series...


Anaheim (6) vs Edmonton (8)

Aside from being the only Canadian team left, they have some good work ethic, an insane Home crowd and some pretty hot players (meow...) They're facing the hottest current team in the playoffs, but they're still the Mighty Ducks. Even if they pull out the flying V and the knucklepuck, I dont think they'll manage to change their fate of losing to Edmonton in 7 games. Sure, the ducks are flying, but the Oilers are greasing... go oil!

3 minutes... later

I've been listening to the official LOST podcast on my iPod lately, which is giving me some bits of information to keep me rabid for the show... for instance, tonight's episode is entitled "3 minutes" and is supposedly about wha' happen'd to Michael in the woods the last while. I'm getting pretty ramped for next weeks 2 hour finale with Desmond returning into the mix... gotta love those back-stories filling in those bits of info we all love and crave.

>:4 8 15 16 23 42 EXECUTE

Closest I've ever gotten...

Finally, I have picked someone who's done well in Survivor... Danielle got 2nd place... I picked her and Dan to do well, and neither got voted off first. Booyah.. Congratuations Aras, your ok in my books. Too bad for terry, he's cool. One more thing... faking always is the hardest instument slowly portrayed really exactly greatly not always nicely there.

LOST tonight...

can YOU dig it?

Playoff Predictions

Well, the leafs are gone with the wind, so I figured I'd try my hand at predicting the outcome of other teams... I've decided to root for Carolina because they have Kevyn "the wonderdog" Adams on their team... Anyways, here's my predictions for the 2nd round.

Sanjose(5) vs Edmonton (8)

Edmonton in 6 games... I like edmonton this year, and Chris Pronger has been huge this playoff... they'll have trouble with Cheechoo and Marleau, but squeak it out in 6 games.

Anaheim (6) vs Colorado (7)

Colorado in 5... for no other reason than the fact that my Church league hockey team is the Avalanche...

Ottawa (1) vs Buffalo (4)

Ottawa sucks... so does buffalo... Nobody wins this series, they'll all have season ending injuries when their planes crash head on... Buffalo in 6

Carolina (2) vs New Jersey (3)

Carolina of course... the leadership of Adams is too much for the Devils... they lament not signing Satan in the off season and they pay for it now...
Carolina in 5

Winding Down.... and up...

So, LOST is finally back to a new episode... I don't know about you, but I look forward to my Wednesday night LOST experience and am thrown off a bit whence it is cancelled or re-runned. There's probably 4 episodes left, in which they'll probably fill in some of the storyline to tie off some loose ends, while at the same time, showing us enough of the big picture to keep us hopelessly hooked until september, When they'll give us a bunch of information, then slow-play us until next May...

I wish I were patient enough to wait a couple years and get the dvd sets to get all the answers. Or I could just re-invent the time machine...

Here's our new baby...

This is our new cat, Moggy... she's real small and cute and she doesn't really like me yet... It's kinda like we cloned Amerylis, but over cooked the clone cause she's got a darker face. She's pretty funny when she wants to be. This picture is of her reading by association and preparing for next christmas... she'll also know everything there is to know about our new house. I wanted to name her Chewbakka, but Faith thought she was too attractive for that. We almost compromised by naming her Mongo, but figured that'd be in poor taste... Good luck Moggy, hopefully Jooje won't hate you forever.

Boy, were you way off...

the new thing in the house is a new CAT!!! what were you thinking... silly people.

and then there were three...

so there's something different at the Grace homestead... the balance has been thrown off and there is something new in the home. I can't tell you exactly what it is, but it does have something to do with chocolate. I like chocolate... Jooje hasn't given her comment yet, but she isn't too sure about it either.

That's all I can say right now... I think they're listening... the others... watch LOST on wednesday... it's getting freakin good.

My name is Henry Gale, I'm from Minnesota

wow, I'm glad they finally gave us some information to chew on this week on LOST. I was searching google to find out what the black light brings out on the blast door in the hatch, and found a site with some interpretation and magnification of the images. check it out... can't wait to see what they do with Henry and if Hurley's gonna plummet... what ever happened to Michael? Good show...

So, we bought a house...

I'd like to say that we've been too busy buying a house to post anything for the past few weeks, but I'm just too lazy. We bought a house in Kitchener. I wanted to wait to post a picture of the sold sign, but now I'm the opposite of lazy. It's really exciting. Everything will be sorted out by the end of the week, by which time I will be poorer than I've ever been. So long as the inspection on Friday doesn't go horribly wrong, this beauty will be ours... so there.

Much Ado about NOTHING...

... but am I really surprised?

Today was the holiday that should be a Statuatory one, NHL Trade Deadline Day! I couldn't help but check every few hours/minutes to see if there were any new surprising trades reported. Sure, as a Leaf fan, I don't have much to be excited about on these days, it's true... the Leafs typically suck on these occasions, and didn't dissappoint in that regard this year, but there's always hope that this will be the day that Antropov, Hoglund, Kristich, Renberg, (Insert scapegoat's name here) will be dealt away never to be seen again. However, the Leafs have a bad habit of giving crap players too much of a chance... their problem is that they're too nice...

oh well

Farewell Mr Klee... you were cool in your early days, but more of a chump recently... So long Mr Czerkawski, I never liked you anyways... And goodbye mr conditional draft-pick... you probably wouldn't crack the nhl lineup anyways.

In with the old...

Welcome Mr Richardson, I hope your stay is short and more Leetch-esque than Housley-esque. Good Day Mr Suglobov, I hope your tenure with the Marlies is fruitful.

Anne of Green Gables is playing a victim on CSI Miami tonight...

Here's to hope... that the Leafs will get their collective heads out of their collective keesters and make the playoffs...

Booyah

We're Baaacck

Well, that was quick. We just got back from a 9 day mission trip to the Czech Republic. It was both long and short and a lot of fun and work. The following are a few examples of things we did, if you want to see or hear more, come over... I filled our new digi-cam with 450 pictures and videos...

A big part of our time there was playing hockey. Playing hockey used to be the good excuse to get a visa to enter the country, but now it's more of a good way to get people's attention. We've noticed that if we play better against a Czech team, they are more likely to listen to what we have to say and will likely respect us more for our game. It's strange playing hockey against them cause we've been taught the Canadian style of hockey, safe plays and crashing the net. They've learned that a long pass up the middle that will result in a breakaway 1 out of 15 times is the way to go and they really enjoy the drop pass inside the blue line. We found that the breakaways didn're really bother us playing against them, but I got the rare chance to play with a Czech team against a Czech team and boy, did I feel out of place. This photo was taken on Monday when we played the HC Skulls, featuring a bar-code instead of a name on the back of the jersey. We won 18-11, but found that there were a couple players on their team that I had met 4 years ago in the same town. They invited me to play for them on Wednesday, so I donned the HC Skulls jersey for a game. It was a lot of fun, but me being a Canadian, I crashed the net waiting for the puck to arrive and the rest of the players were still farting around inside the blue line. I felt a bit out of place, but I did score a goal, which made me feel better. We won 6-5. It was funny to me that some of the Czechs on the other team hit me a few times, spotting me as the outsider... I laughed because I never get hit in the non-contact league I play in so it's funny to me when I get rocked. This photo was taken with a guy who rocked me late in the game when I had my head down. I lifted my head only to see orange and then I was on my can... he's a good guy. On the week, we won 3 games and lost one in a shootout. After the game we won 18-11, we had a shootout for fun with everyone from both teams, so I scored my patent pending goal with my stick between my legs... it was priceless. Hockey was good.

Another really cool opportunity we had was to go into local public school classes and talk for a class. Some classes were English classes so we helped them practice, some were classes in Grography so we told them about Canada. The class in the picture was a lot of fun, we shared about Canada, they shared some of their culture and I made balloon animals for everyone. I'll never forget when the teacher (the one in the red turtle-neck with the whie poodle on his head) showed us the Czech version of the hokey pokey song and did the "put your bum in... put your bum out... shake it all about...." Very hot.... It was a lot of fun talking to kids, telling a bit about why we were there and entertaining. This was the first trip in Hlinsko that got to go into the schools and the Principal gave us an open invitation to come back anytime, a big door opened to the missionaries in the town. Very cool.

Prague was very cool, we had a day to experience the city, do the tourist thing and have fun. My feet still hurt from all the walking, but it was a good day. We saw the castle, ate lunch at the patio of the Lubkowicz Palace Cafe in the Castle. That was very cool, with a very nice view of Prague, and very good food. We saw a girl get her foot smashed by the Castle Guard's rifle because she got too close during a photo. Very funny, I mean, where's her head... you just don't get too close. One thing I found weird, especially during the olympics, was that I could not find a single good quality Czech Hockey Jersey for a reasonable price. There were lots of cheap cheap ones and there was only 1 place I found that had Nike Jerseys with no name or number for about $200 cdn... crazy.

Woke up at 4:30 am in Prague to catch our flight at 7am and ended up in Kitchener at 8:30 pm (2:30am Monday in Prague). Such a long day, with a 6 hour layover in the mostly forgettable Amsterdam. I mean, the red light district was gross, the uncooked big mac's were gross and all the nice buildings had construction blocking any good pictures... blech... We're home now, and I'm sick and tired of being jet-lagged, sick and tired... good trip though. Want to do it again.

I hate the wind...

I don't know why I can't get back to sleep if it's windy, which happened this morning. No one should be up at 6:15am... I've slepth through more tumultuous weather than today's, like when I slept through the tornado in a tent while camping with our youth group... Oh well

Leave today for the Czech Republic to play hockey and do some missionin'... I was hoping to have saved enough optimum points to take a big chunk out of an ipod video purchase, but there haven't been any real 20x the points days since December. Oh well, I'm sure I'll find something to keep me busy for the 9+ hours of flying. Sleep perhaps? I doubt that... that's silly...

I went to Czech for the same type of thing 4 years ago. To this day, I remember the flight home so vividly, listening to the only good music channel they had and hearing Desert Rose by Sting about 4 times on the flight back. And on the way there, there was a freaked out movie about "famous" czech composer, Mahler... Any SCI&TS Music alumni will remember him as Ms. Catton's license plate and fave composer. He was one messed up dude.

Anyways, we'll be back in a week or so, we've got people house sitting, so you can go to their place and take their stuff... otherwise, catch you on the flip side.

Brian Williams must be 90 years old...

But he's still mesmerizing...

Ski Jumping is cool.

Wednesday's Would You Rather

Thursday Edition

(p53) Would You Rather...

have a ketchup dispensing navel

OR

a pencil sharpening nostril?

This Just In

The hard-hitting journalism of "Jooje Is A Cat" has changed the seasons in K-W. A recent article on Jooje is A Cat has forced the "powers that be" to change the weather pattern for the better. The recent snowy situation in Kitchener can only be the result of the pressure put on the weather makers to "get real" and act normal.

So, that said, you have me to thank for the white stuff, but I don't need your thanks. The smiles on the faces of children as they frollock in the snow is thanks enough.

Jooje The Cat, the People's reporter.

Sorry, our relationship has been reduced to this

what's with the friggin weather...? I know, it's sad that all we talk about is the weather, but get over it... this isn't bloody Vancouver. Come On, flippin RAIN in FEBRUARY. I'm not just mad because of the wasted money on my Chicopee lift pass, it's just that I like winter. If it's gonna be cold, I don't want rain, I want snow! gah, I'm so sick of this that I have to fly 9 hours to get a real winter.

That's right, Faith and I are going to the Czech Republic later this month for a week long mission trip. I'm gonna play hockey and we're gonna do all sorts of things. And maybe, just maybe we can experience some real winter for a change.

Wednesday's Would You Rather

Thursday Edition

(p46) Would You Rather

have skin that tans upon hearing the voice of Al Gore

or

be able to make Amish people break dance?

Oh boy, another...

SO, it's here again, the affliction of Thursday Evenings, and a reason to watch CSI... Survivor's back with the most shocking twists EVER!!! This time they are starting with 4 tribes, old chicks, young chicks, old guys and young guys. Booyah. I don't know if I'll get into this one or not, however I am intrigued by the exile island concept and new tribal starting setup. Looked like the characters were pretty bland.

CSI's on afterwards, so I have a reason to pay attention to it.

In other news, the Leafs sure have been impressive lately.

In other news, sources have revealed that monkeys aren't real.

In other news, Jack Layton's moustache speaks up regarding years of emotional abuse.

Wednesday's Would You Rather

Thursday Edition

(pg 57)Would you Rather...

be able to successfully avoid doing chores and facing minor relationship problems by hiding under some coats for a while

or

be able to bake chicken pot pie in your pants

Toronto vs Ottawa

Wow I hate goal horns...

Leaf game

This is painful... 5-0 now... ouch

LOST

So, Matt and Faith and I are watching the LOST recap thing last week and listened extra close to what Walt was saying to shannon when he appeared to her the few times after he was kidnapped and before she kicked it. We thought it couild be backwards, so in an act of computer-wizardry, I took the audio from those stretches and reversed it, probably expecting to hear a message from satan or something. Here's what we found.

When Sayid and Shannon try to make Island baby 2, he leaves the tent to get water, he says "They're coming, and they're close"

When Shannon is running after the dog, Walt shows up and says "press the button, no button's bad"

Something to think about.

Wednesday's Would You Rather

Would you Rather (pg 55)

have glow-in-the-dark body hair

OR

be immune to the lethal combination of Pop Rocks and Coke?

Things to Consider: completely gratuitious reference to "Pop Rocks and Coke" myth

Are dogs and horses smart?

I read a stupid book of stories about animals at work today for "Story Time"... The book was trying to find out whether animals are intelligent at all or if they just act that way sometimes. I read about Midnight the bucking bronco, Stubby and Chase, dogs who did some crazy things. Stubby the dog was a good story, he was a war hero, with no training as a war-dog... How could an animal such as that be smart enough to save people's lives?

I know my cat's pretty stupid... that's it.

Wednesdays Would you Rather

(pg 52) Would you Rather...

be able to walk on pudding

OR

be able to project holograms of the Mexican super-group Menudo?

things to consider: street performing, convincing primitive cultures you're a god

What's up with that?

The Leafs take the first West Coast swing in a long time and they only have 1 Late game which wasn't all that late (9:00). I'm kinda T-O'd about tomorrow's game, as it's on Leafs TV (which I have) but it's on at 7pm and I teach til 9:30, leaving me unable to watch. Ah well

In other news, LOST returns this wednesday at 9... booyah!

That'll teach me to say stupid things

So tonight I got a speeding ticket. 27km over limit, knocked down to 15 over about 1/3 the cost and no points... that's a relief. I was just saying to someone yesterday that I usually get a feeling about when COPS are around so I don't get tickets. IDIOT!

What makes it worse is that the whole reason for me leaving the house tonight and driving fast on the highway was to go to play some pick up hockey with the guys Faith and I are going to Czech Republic with. After getting the ticket, I arrived at the arena to find the arena empty of anyone for the 11:00 time. Our name was on the board for the 11:00 slot, but no one was there. I waited about 20 minutes, only to find that I was apparently the only one not in the know.

And so I muttered unpleasantries all the way home... That's all I have to say about that,

Wednesday's Would You Rather...

Would you Rather... (pg 17)

have skin that doesn't tan upon direct contact with the sun, but rather plaids

or

have a vocal cord deformity whereupon attempting to utter any type of greeting, the Happy Days theme blasts from your mouth?

Happy New Year!

Maybe I'm just an idiot, but I don't find New Years to be all that exciting of a "Holiday". In the past I've always gladly offered to work Newyears Day to get the time and a half pay on the biggest copp-out Stat holiday there is. Why accomodate the collective hangover or most of the world? Why not make St Patricks day after a stat?

Anyways, I'm not much for big parties. I enjoyed the company of people we met up with, but 2005 ended with a big melodramatic finish and a kiss on the cheek. We saw all the people in Times Square squealing like idiots and kissing anything in range, but I really didn't find any desire to be part of that.

In with the new I suppose. Back to listening to people's resolutions and watching them continuously break them until February when they say "screw it" and forfeit. Time to contuinually ruin cheques and write 05 by mistake in the date portion. Maybe I'm just not sentimental enough to want to reflect on last year and re-focus on this year. oh well.

I hope your new year is fruitful and fruitcake-less...

Wednesday's New Feature...

In an attempt to make my blog more regular, and to use the new book I got for Christmas from Santy Claws, I introduce to you...

Wednesday's Would you Rather?!

I got a book with "Over 200 Absolutely Absurd Dilemmas to Ponder" by Justin Heimberg and David Bomberg. I'll try to post every wednesday with a new dilemma for all y'all to ponder. Oh, and I didn't steal the idea from fournie... she can blame Santa for giving me this book of useless stuff.


Would You Rather... (pg. 49)

be able to expedite the arrival of an elevator by pressing the button multiple times

or

have the ability to sound incredibly natural and sincere on an answering machine?

Good morning world!

It's friggin Christmas morning, and what do I go and do? I wake up at 6:30 and can't get back to sleep. I'm in the North Country where even at 7am I have a good solid HOUR until any hint of sunlight is around, but I can't sleep. It's Christmas morning!

I should be tearing into presents right now, but I don't feel like it... I would rather get some sleep.... Maybe I do have a bit of the Christmas jitters like I used to. I know for a fact that there's a Playstation 2 under the tree with my name on it and would love to crack that out and play some Burnout or NHL 2k6 with Bob Cole and Harry Neale commentating, but here I sit in the dark typing on my blog.

Yesterday I played around with Windows Movie Maker trying to make the Trebuchet videos into one mega video. Pretty Fun. The slow motion replays make it pretty cool and like Homer, I loves the "star wipe" transition. Booyah

Danny Get You Gun

So, today I did 2 new things. I shot a few real firearms and tasted bear meat. Bear meat was good and lean, but a bit grizzly.... actually, it was pretty good... just like cow

Karen's boyfriend Bryan took me out to shoot some guns upon finding out I'd never shot one. I shot 7 shots with a 22, 4 with a big-arse gun he called a triple 4, and 4 shots with a 12 gauge shotgun. I put a pile of holes in a mountain dew can and completely destroyed a water bottle. I think I want to have a "22" some day... it's small, doesn't make much noise and the ammo is cheap... maybe I could take care of the noisy pommeranian across the road...

Bryan and I made sure to take care of the Night Stalker aka Santa on the wall...

Christmas Came Early

This past weekend we had the Grace Family Christmas in Kitchener... My brother and parents stayed over for the weekend and we had Turkey Dinner on saturday night. We had 11 1/2 people here for dinner, a bit crowded, but pretty good.

Brock brought over guitar hero, it's a pretty challenging and fun game... I'll have to try the multiplayer part sometime.... I can play guitar pretty good, but I don't think the skills are transferable. Ah well.

a fridge you say?

That's right, I saw a fridge all messed up in pieces at the side of the Expressway today. Not just in any old ditch, right up against the guardrails near the 401 exit... Not a bar fridge or mini fridge... a full sized fridge...

Wonder if there's any food in it...

Blast from the past

So Faith went to TO today and found something quite remarkable in a Shopper's Drugmart in the Eaton's Centre.

The Pop Shoppe is back, just not in the way it was before. Pop Shoppe pop is being distributed to stores across Ontario. Most of the old flavours are there, including my favorite, Lime.

I remember taking our empties back to the store and picking out full pops, making sure to get lots of lime. Good memories, until the memories of it shutting down come back... bastards! How dare you take that away from me...

Well, it's back, so go celebrate... Most Hasty Markets and Farah foods in Kitchener have some.

Good ol' media coverage...

Is it just me, or was the whole "no confidence vote" thing just as stupid as the NHL lockout? All too many people speculating on how it would go down, while for months you knew that it was going to happen.

Don't mistake this for any sort of political opinion, or me giving a crap in general, i just thought it was real stupid having headlines today of how the government was brought down, having known for the past few weeks that it was gonna happen today... the headlines should have read "Ho hum... what a surprise..." bah.

What do you mean AIDS isn't funny

I stayed up til 1am, like every Tuesday night, to watch Dr House cure some other poor idiot's weird disease... It's a good show with a lot of wonderful sarcasm mixed with eclectic characters. Last night's main patient was a.)Gay as a 3 dollar bill, and b.) Infected with AIDS.

Somehow the show, while possessing all the same things that makes it real funny usually, was not as fun as the rest. It didn't have the mood of one of those shows where at the end a few of the people are on screen out of character talking about how deadly AIDS is and what you can do to prevent it... It was just a regular show, with the deadly disease of the day being HIV...

What is it about AIDS that makes it less fun than Cancer or MS? Who knows... I'm just glad they had the sub plot of House trying to cure a rat with a tumor...

"AIDS AIDS AIDS AIDS AIDS AIDS AIDS AIDS AIDS AIDS AIDS"
-Team America, World Police quote from musical "Everyone's got Aids"

There was a what in the where now?

Faith and I went to Jolly ol' US of A this past weekend to visit Mike and Mary Marshall. We did some christmas shopping in Port Yorn (formerly port Huron) on saturday morn and made our way up the Thumb to the Marshall's place. Along the way, we stopped at Goodwill in Imlay City, a store that has provided us with many treasures. This is where it gets interesting.

Faith went into a change room to try on a sweater. A lady pulled her child out of her change room so faith could use it, cause the kid was gonna be a while. Faith didn't last very long in the small change room because she detected a strong odour inside. The smell became too much for her to bear, so she looked around for the source. And what, to her wondering eyes did she find?

Well, a nice little TURD on the floor of the change room under the chair. That's right, a little ol' piece of poopie.

She quickly left the area, notifying the mother that there was a piece of poo in the change room. The mother turned to her daughter and whispered "was that you?" , daughter denied it saying she smelled something too. No closure on who the phantom dooker was, but there's more.

This is not the first time.... Faith has encountered one other instance where she found a turd in a goodwill change room. What are the odds.

Othere than that, good weekend, Great meal at Ruby Tuesday's (they make my heart-attack fries, with cheese and bacon). Another weird thing was how many dead deer we saw... at least 3 on side of road and probably a half dozen on roofs of various vehicles.

The last number's 42... I'm sure of it.

If you're a lost fanatic, such as myself, and you want a goofy way to get more involved in the show, you can download the doomsday clock just like inside the hatch. That's right! You too can be part of the Dharma Initiative in station Swan. It functions practically the same, and you have to input the numbers every 108 minutes... not sure what happens when you put the wrong numbers in...

...guess your computer will blow up, or you'll get eaten by some black smoke... or maybe some new guy shows up at work and acts like he's always been there and makes a list of good people and his freaky buddies kidnap the good ones and some big black dude kills a few of them and doesn't talk for 40 days until the girl cries.

or whatever

Is it just me, or are there a lot of quality tv shows on these days?

That's the question that Faith posed to me the other night. I wondered if we were lowering our standards, but come to think of if, there's a lot of solid programming on these days. Last night, I experienced for the first time, My name is Earl and The Office, on top of Degrassi TNG and Corner Gas, of course not forgetting CSI: Miami.

Tuesdays, I've been watching House MD... good friggin show.

Wednesdays is of course LOST night, followed by CSI Newyork. I know New York and Miami aren't as good as Las Vegas, but they both have compelling and twisted plots...

Thursdays is Survivor by habit and CSI Las Vegas night... Same ol' survivor, but heck, I've watched it this long...

Skip Friday

Saturday is Hockey Night in Canada, as well as no other good reason to watch TV.

Which brings us to Sunday, Simpsons, Family Guy and Faith's favorite, Grey's Anatomy.

That brings me to a total of 13 1/2 hours of TV per week... I need to quite my job so I can keep up. It seems to be a bit of a revival of sitcoms and dramas rather than the glut of reality shows that have been the norm for a few too many years. That's a good thing I think, although bad for my eyes and brain. Most of these shows are in HD now, so that means I need a new TV... Just need to babysit Garrett more so he can work on killing the old one... on off on off on off...

Gonna be a long winter, with lots to distract your head... enjoy

I swear I'm not crazy...

Seriously, I saw another hologram on Mapleleafs.com... today it wasn't harry, it was some reporter guy... honestly... Dennis Beyak talked to me.

She's a lonely road that only ends in heartache...

and heartburn. The "she" I'm referring to is the mcDonalds Monopoly game, which I found out, today at lunch, is done. I might be mistaken, but I didn't win anything of note... what a crock.

I knew at the get-go that I shouldn't get into the game, as it has chewed up and spat out many a naive person before me. But, alas, I gave into the cravings and over-indulged (much to my wife's chagrin) for about a month now. I feel like such a sucker, but I knew I'd feel this way. Idiot! GOSH!

ah well, time to try to be healthy and do what Jared did... I'll be wasting my money on veggie subs with no cheese or sauce, to slim back down to my playing weight of just under 240... kilos...

Lets talk Weather.

Seriously, what's with all the thunder storms today... Woke up to one this morning, now here comes another. I talked to my Mother-in-law today, she lives in Cochrane, Ontario. They recently had about a foot of snow drop, and there was thunder along with freezing rain this morning...

At least my house is more elevated than the rest of the neighborhood. I'll have time to build an ark should the need arise.

Convergence

If you didn't watch CSI Miami on Monday night, I suggest you find a way... This week, the crime scene spans Miami and New York, so the Miami Team (Horatio et al.) Team up with New York (Mac et al.) to solve the crime. Aside from the crime scene being so big, it also spans 2 nights of television. It took the regular CSI Miami slot last night, and will take the Wednesday CSI NY time slot to finish up.

I know some of you don't like the other CSI's, cause Horatio is a fruit and Lieutenant Dang has no personality for example, but come on, cut them some slack. They're just trying to do their respective jobs, and they don't need fools like you getting in their way. There's no way they'll live up to the standards of Grissom, but hey, can you blame them?

Ah well, good tv anyways. Nothing better to do after LOST on wednesday, so why not?

All this time wasted... for tripping

So, last night, our church league hockey team won for the first time in a while. Good game, exciting down to the wire, and featuring my first ever Ice Hockey Penalty.

There goes my nomination for the Lady Byng trophy.

I was hooking a guy and tripped him, sure he went down easy, but I did trip him. I'm just sad cause I thought I'd get a better sounding penalty. Tripping isn't as cool as spearing, or boarding, or even gouging... ah well... got the monkey off my back so I can be what I always wanted to be... a goon!

I know what you did last weekend.

Do you like scary movies?

Me too... anyways, here's some pics from the Trebuchet Extraordinaire Day this past weekend. Matt has a bunch of videos posted HERE for you to peruse, so go ahead. We killed our previous records with a 292ft shot(prev. 252) and amount of counterweight 1200lbs (prev. 800lbs) We spent the morning fixing the dang thing, and calibrating a new firing mechanism, courtesy of Metal Head, Rudy Eigenheer. I got to play with the grinder, and do some chisselling, but mostly saved my energy for great ideas and grunt labour.

On to the pictures. First, there's a shot of the side of my hand-crafted sling blowing out and sending the 5-pin bowling ball lamely off to the side. The 5-pin ball was kinda a let-down, due to it's weight. Had it been 5 pounds instead of 3, I think it would have flown a lot higher. It seems our best projectiles are 5 lbs in weight, judging by our best shot last time, and this time.

Next is a pic of the master-crafted adjustable firing pin mechanism. If the pin is at less of an angle, the projectile will fire lower, releasing later. Conversly, if it's more of an angle, the projectile will release earlier, going higher. Kudos to Rudy on this design genius.



Apparently (according to the kitten) the trebuchet makes a better scratching post than anything else. Luckilly, the kitten stayed away during all the active points of the trebuchet's day.

Next is a picture of one of our larger projectiles, a 24lb pumpkin. These things flew a good distance, roundabouts 230ft, and made a mighty nice THUD sound when they hit the ground and exploded. You could feel the impact from a long way away, and the shards of pumpkin travelled as far as 40 ft from the impact point.

Anyways, good fun, managed to fire off 16 rounds in all on the day, and only broke a few parts. Good news was that our new axle didn't bend one bit with the more counterweight.

Again, for some more pics and VIDEOS, go HERE and give them a gander.

The Future is NOW!

Check this link, they've got a talking hologram.... what will they think of next...

Bowling for Combines

Well, I sure hope we don't hit a combine, cause they're dang expensive, but Saturday is the return of the Trebuchet.

And I've secured 2 projectiles of the bowling ball persuasion. I picked up a 10-pin ball (probably 14 lbs) at value village, and got a 5-pin ball (probably 4lbs) donated by Jamie and Jim at Towne Bowl in Kitchener.

My goal for the return of the trebuchet was to pick up some good weighted projectiles that would accel in the area of aerodynamics. What better than a cannonball! Alas, with no canonballs on the horizon, bowling balls were the next best option!

There will be pics and videos for all to see posted after the weekend. If you'd like to come along to partake in the festivities, email me and I'll hook you up with specifics.

Shootout! I love thee.

So, I've been swayed to the liking of the shootout, strictly because the Leafs won last night, but at least I'm honest. I missed all of the game up to the last 2 1/2 minutes, but what a finish! I don't think I've seen such a good active Overtime in a long time, and the Leafs held on to have the chance to win in the ol' shootout. A Tie would have been a let-down at the end of such a good game, although it's almost unfair that the Leafs be rewarded for hanging on by the skin of their teeth. However, Belfour played well enough to get that far, why not let him win based on stopping more shots..

Ah well, 1-2 in shootouts this year, Jason Allison 0-3. Not sure why Quinn wouldn't put someone else in that #2 spot. I really think Jason's a wonderful player, more of a playmaker, but really, he's pickin slow, and hasn't seemed all that wonderful in the shootout. Put Domi in so he can just plow through the goalie and let the puck follow.

Wonder when teams will start running goalies in shootout and make it look like an accident. Strategy.

Guess that makes me a DIC

So, on a very tough day of work Friday, we did a personality test at our Day Program Breakaway Day. Ya, tough day... personality test, chinese food and pool tourney.

Anyways, I hate personality tests cause there's no way to lump people into 1 of 14 possible categories. However, I was being paid so I took my test. It was the DISC test, so you could be a D, I, S or C type personality, or a combination of all. Turns out that I'm a DIC, possessing 3/4 of all personality traits! Lucky me, most of the genaralizations for DIC's didn't really fit me, as I am much more complex than that.

Well, that was good for a laugh and a few cheap jabs from Pat, so, not all lost... Now I can claim to all who suggest doing personality tests that they only prove that I'm a DIC.

I ended up winning the modified 9-ball pool tournament, skunking Patrick in the first game... Booyah!

Ever Feel Like a Criminal?

Twice in the past week, I have. Last week sometime, I got to work and my key wouldn't work in the front entrance. I went to them back door to try it, subsequently setting off the alarm (a very loud one) which could be heard throughout the Christian Horizons Building (Corporate Office and West District office). I scampered quite quickly to the front entrance to punch in the code (4 8 15 16 23 42) and shut off the alarm. I called the security company to make sure I wasn't gonna get a visit from the police, and everything was ok.

Last night, I was teaching at Calvary Pentecostal Assembly School of the Arts, when I left the teaching area between lessons to use the washroom. Other teachers often share the same lesson time in the teaching area, but they had all gone home by then. My 9:00 lesson showed up just as I was realizing that I locked my keys in the teaching area. I scrambled and tried the ol' Bible College blockbuster card trick, to no avail. Apparently that only works on Chris Pudel's room. I was forced to send my student home as I had no idea when I was going to get back in. Oddly enough, the only thing I worried about was my computer left in the room and my bottle of Dr Pepper. I called someone, they came to let me in, and I was extra paranoid of leaving my keys anywhere after that.

It's a strange feeling, trying to break in to a place you're supposed to be, can't immagine what it would be like actually breaking into some place. That's my story

Festering away.

Seasons are a'changin... we are now (apparently) knee deep in the seasons of festivities. First was Turkeyfest last weekend, Oktoberfest is still rolling out their barrel, and all over KW I see signs for "Einsteinfest". Which prompts me to ask the questions:

"Who is this Einstein and what's so festy about him?"

The website claims Einsteinfest is a "celebration of the 100th anniversary of Albert Einstein’s annus mirabilis – “miracle year” – of 1905 when, at the age of twenty-six, he published several groundbreaking ideas that led physics—and thereby, the world—into the modern era."

Sounds like a lot of modern geekery or nerdcraft to me. It's been going on for 2 weeks now and will go on til Oct 23rd. Just how much crap can you fit into a 3 1/2 week span. Oktoberfest is only barely over a week long, and that's been going on for ages since the dawn of Kitchener when city planners sat around a barrel with crayons, wearing leiderhosen, drunk out of their heads, deciding what the map of Kitchener would look like... "lets make Weber and King street cross 3 times!" said one, to which another replied, "what if Weber and King street were the same..." They all gasped at the depth of this conversation.

Anyways, I have no idea how they can justify 3 1/2 weeks of Einstein crap, but there is one thing I do know. There sure are a lot of signs on the highway for it.

Cameo Appearance by Yours Truly!

So, over on this blog, Matt seems to have changed the look of ye ol' blog stylings. Nice simple look with a photo banner on top featuring moi in the far right behind the ladder. Kinda creepy eh...

Correction Notice: Matt's blog turns out to be very sophisticated and challenging to even comprehend. To think that it would be simple would be like saying Einstein is an idiot.

- The Management

At Least My Blog's Back to Normal...

After a long wait, my hair has grown in and my bLog has gone through an ugly phase with it's links section. Ah well.

Turkey day comes and goes, and somehow the only turkey I consumed on Sunday was on my Subway Club sandwich. We went to Grandma's in Corunna on Sunday to find out that Turkey had been taken away from us and been replaced by ham. The ham was good mind you, but it sure wasn't Turkey. Oh well, life goes on.

Garrett seemed to recognize me after a little bit. I don't see him all that often, and last time I saw him was when I had my mullet... he's a good kid, almost makes me wanna have a 1 1/4 year old, but I want to skip the time leading up to that. I also got the urge to get a little dog over the weekend. I won't act on that impulse, but have made some simple guidelines for any dog wishing to join my household.
1. It must have short hair (allergies)
2. It must be small enough to give the cats a fair fight.
3. It must not be ugly

I know I'm limiting my selections, but I really don't want a dog... not until I get a fence around the yard. I don't like walking a lot, dogs do.

I hope all had a wonderful Turkey Weekend and a beautiful Oktoberfest season.

Deep Thoughts

by Jack Handey

I think a good gift for the President would be a chocolate revolver. and since he is so busy, you'd probably have to run up to him real quick and give it to him.

da da da da da...

Hockey Night in Canada is back!

It's about pickin time.

and thanks to an 11pm church league game, I can watch the whole thing... Gonna see quite a few yougsters in the game tonight, which is ok. I've been waiting a long time to see some of the kids get a chance...

Prediction: Leafs 4 -- Canadiens 2

Go LEAFS Go

Shootout Shmootout

While I found the shootout to be a pillar of excitement, I can't help but griping about the results. Go figure though. First game in a long time, good set of rivals (Ott and Tor) and possibility to be controversial (with lots of new rule changes)... had to be the Leaf game...

I missed most of the game, although it turned out I didn't miss much, with the game being 1-0 for a long time. It was real good to see the newbies in action for the Leafs, seing a lot of Lindros and Allison (both putting up defenceman type minutes). Hopefully Sundin isn't that badly injured... he should be wearing a visor anyways, right mom?


It was good to see the game again, although it conflicted with episode 3 of LOST. Something to be said about the shootout though. I went to a different room and opted to watch it over the end of LOST, which was very good last night. I caught most of the story at commercial breaks, but there was no way I wasn't gonna be glued to the set for the shootout... If the Leafs won, I'd be happy, otherwise, I feel cheated by the new rules... "games shouldn't be decided this way" I'd grumble...

Inset pic: Barenaked Ladies singing national anthem... who's the guy second from the left? I recognize the other 4 dorks, but this guy seems too dorky (like a ringer)

The Beginning of the End

So begins another downward spiral for me, myself, I. McDonalds has come out with the yearly Monopoly game, my secret gambling addiction if only for a few months. I've been relatively good as of late, opting for more 'healthy' fast food options, and haven't eaten much McDonalds.

Then they go and do this.

So, like the chump I am, I will go a few times a week in search of the illustrious Boardwalk or that last Railroad so I can win a dodge viper and work to pay the insurance... this is the life.

I was gonna buy Subway today for lunch, but for some strange reason I felt the urge to go into that left turning lane, and end up in the drivethru staring at the "You could win $1,000,000.00" sign... heart-burn and heart-ache--HERE I COME

Make your own kind of music

LOST last night was something else. I feared that they would drag me through yet another hour of television without elaborating on the storyline with Jack and Desmond, and BAM, here we are with nothing but more info on the leading up to that point. While I could have gone without Michael's back story part II last night, I really liked the different perspectives shown from the time that the hatch was blown to present, albeit very frustrating and annoying to have to wait another week to "figure things out".

The others actually exist, and look like cavemen. Weird indeed. Maybe Locke can trade the razor-blade that he uses for shaving his head to one of the others for his safety. I've got to stop watching the previews for the next weeks show. They only consistently show the "scenes from the next LOST" on ABC, whereas CTV doesn't always show them. I find that it takes away a lot of the mystery of the show, after all, they've left enough loose ends to drag people back next week without the need to remind them about what they are going to see. bah.

He thinks everyone is sick outside the hatch and inputs the numbers to reset that clock thing to 108 (which is the sum of the numbers 4+8+15+16+23+42). His washer and dryer look new-ish and his blender too, although everything else seems from the 70's.

Ah well, I'm hooked. Counting down those hours til the next episode, seems there's about 108 hours left... oh NO! The NUMBERS!!!!!!!

Can you tell we're related?

Technology saves the day!

Well, the power came back on, and how did I find out? On my new Cell Phone. I bought a phone last week, Pay as you go from Virgin Mobile, in hopes of it working past North Bay on our trips to Cochrane. It worked like a charm, all the way to the house in Clute with digital coverage. It seemed like the best deal of all the big companies, having the best per minute feature and offering extra features like voicemail with no contract or monthly fee. Very easy to setup, quick and on the internet! If you want my number, ask me for it.

In other news, I did get to see the LOST premiere... the same old cliffhanging endings that kept me wanting more until the next Wednesday. That can't be the same guy... can't be... nutty stuff. Good to see the background behind Jack's fiance. Hurley can't get anyone to take him seriously. And don't you find it odd that QUARANTINE was stamped on the inside of the hatch, as if to say that everything outside was being quarantined, not what was locked inside... Love that ABBA!

Well, bed soon

Just when I thought...

...it couldn't get any worse...

Thr friggin power is out in Cochrane, seriously hampering my plan to watch the season premiere of LOST. I'm sure we'll see it somewhere, just not at Faith's parents place. Boo-urns to power outages!

The Fabulous life of...

My Head!

I've gone through many a phase in the past few years, as far as my head goes. I've always enjoyed doing strange things with my hair, so here is a phot journal of what my hair's been through in the past few years.

First shot is January 2004, quite short then, I think I had started from scratch the fall prior and that's where I was at. I had decided to grow my hair until I could have dreads. I had never grown my hair all out, having a year or so of forgettable hairdo's courtesy of Dave.

The next shot is as Grandma's place, October 2004 when Faith teased my hair enough to make it stand up and almost walk out on me. They straightened it before they teased it, and somehow my hair didn't fall out due to shattered self esteem.


Next is January 2005, my nephew, Garrett, is seeing how big my mouth can open. My mom didn't much like me with loing hair, but she did like my curls.


Next was the age of hair extensions. Final Count: 104 braids, instant length. It was cool to have hair that long without putting the effort or time into growing it that long. I really enjoyed the month I had these, but man, did those stupid things smell. They smelled like a dirty dishcloth, and took forever to dry. Plus, my hockey helmet had a real tough time getting on my head.


Next up is the old shorty long... Business in the front, party in the back... the soccer shocker... the kentucky waterfall... the ape drape... the safety cut... on and on... I sported a full-on mullet for 5 days spanning trips to Wonderland, Marineland and the Acton Fall Fair where I posed with silver Elvis. This was fun, but agonizing. I got a lot of funny looks and reactions, but really didn't like not being able to pull all my hair back. I wanted to wear a hockey hair for the first game of my Church league hockey season, so I did and skated around the rink without my helmet during warmup.

Which brings me to today, coming full cycle to the uncle fester look. I chopped it right down to the "wood", scaring most of my music students today and not being recognized by my wife. I'm liking the "Powder" look, and just hope I don't get bad razorburn. Been there, done that. There ya go MOM, I cut my hair. I hope you enjoyed my synopsis of my hair's do's.

At least I didn't pick the old guy to win.

So seems I've only been ruled out on 1 of my picks so far, and 1 has been pretty much confirmed. I reckon my first out pick would have been right had we seen the other tribe at council, so I will consider it still active pending the other teams tribal council.

Rafe is such a fruit, so that's 1/6 so far.

I was pretty pleased with the tougher challenge to start off. The only realy overnight challenge I can think of was on Survivor UK, so this one was pretty good. It was cool to see them bring the CURSE OF SURVIVOR PAST to join the tribes. Sure, Steph's tribe did win immunity, but heck, those two were cursed, and will bring bad to anything they touch this season. They'll have to call in the Brothers Grimm to take care of things.

Anyways, I didn't manage to watch it til 11:00 cause it got shot down the priority list this year, and I've seen my share of puke this season, so now it's time for some real drama. or something like it.

Survivor Starts Thursday

So, after much deliberation, I have made my early picks for the New Survivor... If you can remember, my pick last year didn't even get to play, so I've spread my picks out.

Most likely to be:

Final 3: Brandon (Redneck), Brooke (curls), Brianne (cheerleader)
Early Winner Pick: Brooke
First Out: Amy (Police Sargent)
Gay: Rafe ... what a name
Funny: Judd
Sketchy: Brian

Seems they abandoned their formula for having a "JUGS" girl. There's a few cutesie girls, but no girls well endowed enough to be considered for the JUGS award.

We'll see where this one goes, Thursday at 8pm.

Birthday-o-matic

So I'm old... 27 to be precise. Faith got me a beer machine for my birthday. It's pretty cool, and quite stylish. The best part--IT ACTUALLY COOLS DRINKS. I know, craziness. It fits 12 cans of whatever is a standard can size, such as: most beer cans, pop cans, can of worms, mccain concentrate juice from a can, those stupid souvenirs with stuffed moose in a can. You get the point.
My birthday was great overall, consisting of me sleeping in til 10:30 which is unheard of these days, and getting 2 free meals. I milked the system on my birthday, going to Caseys for Ribs and Wings FOR FREE, and going to the Whale and Ale for supper, having the Rib-eye steak FOR FREE! I returned home, well fed, to cake and icecream with a bunch of strangers in my living room. Booyah!
I got a few "paper gifts" which helped with the purchase of the Complete First Season of LOST. I've gone through some of the 8 hours of extra crap and some of it is pretty cool. There's some pretty neat stuff with behind the scenes stuff and making of crap. There's also a funny spot from Jimmy Kimmel live where he was on location. Pretty Funny.

I'm old, feels good.

Sure can't sleep....

I've somehow managed to get about 3 hours of tossing turning/restlessness in so far. I've been surfing ebay and whatnot for 1 1/2 hours which brings me to now, not tired one bit... sucks. Gotta wake up for work in a couple hours. That'll be pretty tough since I probably won't have slept by then.

Last time I laid down, I couldn't get my mind off re-arranging the computer room. I should probably clean the fish tank anyways.

You know what I blame? My afternoon nap. I usually try not to take the Sunday nap, but today I slept from 3 til a bit after 5. Best part of afternoon naps, feeling like you go straight into deep sleep. Worst part, waking up with that fuzzy feeling, and being all sweaty.

I think I may be boring myself to sleep... I can only hope so.

It Just shows to Go ya.

It turns out that if you're persistent enough, you can acheive the impossible.

for example: a while back, I was trying to find a way to hook all my laptop up to my C64 monitor to do the dual display. I didn't feel like just using an extra monitor, I wanted to use the c64 monitor which only has composite(rca) video input. My computer only has VGA out and s-video out.

I set out in search of a converter, be it an RF modulator, or converter cable. I found a few and tried them, to no avail. One night, in Futureshop, I asked one of the sales people if they had anything. He told me that it was Impossible to switch S-video signal to RCA. Can't be done. I walk away unsatisfied, but my frustrations were confirmed.

A few weeks back, in The Source (formerly radioshack), I found a little converter by Nexxtech that claimed to be able to switch rca to s-video and visa versa. I was very sceptical, but went back tonight and bought it. I brought it home, and VOILA! It works. Looks not much different from anything I had tried before, but it works. I acheived the impossible because I kept looking...

The Source by Circuit City... the place where dreams come true!

Red Eye

Good movie

Getting Medieval on your arse.

So, the trebuchet was a HUGE success. It took us about 14 hours total to build, planning all along the way.



Left to Right: Matt, Rudy, Me, and Jeff built this sucker with special consideration going to Patrick for helping before the hard work started. Jeff (Master of the Chainsaw) worked his wizardry on the forest while Matt (Jungle Math) calculated all the angles and lengths using a stick on the ground in the forest. I was there, obviously for my good looks, but mostly cause I was bigand could carry heavy stuff. Rudy supplied the farm courtesy of his wonderful parents, and miscellaneous girls provided food and criticism. We used trees for the frame, I think they were mostly elm, and used "Ironwood" for the swing-arm. My contributions were the concept for the firing mechanism, which worked wonderfully, and building the sling. I made the sling out of a scrap of carpet, attached it to 7ft of rope on either end and gave it a custom sewing job for strength. The counterweight was provided by the tractor weights, 100lb aprox each, which we slid on as we went.

We got 6 shots off before the thing almost busted (notice the bend in the axle in the top picture). Here's the details in order. (shot #, projectile weight, distance, and counterweight)

1 - 5lb - 151ft - 400lb
2 - 20lb - 32ft - 400lb
3 - 20lb - 68ft - 600lb
4 - 5lb - 252ft - 600lb
5 - 11lb - 166ft - 600lb
6 - 11lb - 215ft - 800lb

*note that there was one throw that was stricken from the record for being tremendously anti-climactic. The baseball was much too light for our setup and barely got out of the sling.

It was quite something to watch the thing take off, as it was quite quick and very smoothe. Probably the most remarkable part was the spin that the rocks had when they left the sling. LEFT is a pic of the crater left by the 20 lb rock on it's first throw. It only went 32 ft forwards, but it was probably 150 ft in the air. The hole it left was at least 6 inches deep. All of our shots were quite accurate, the first 4 landing in a straight line from the trebuchet, and the other 2 deviating slightly due to the bend in the axle.

Good times had all around and great anticipation for the day soon to come, Pumpkin throwing at Halloween... I will post videos if I can figure it out.

Trebuchet Day only hours Away

So, tomorrow we're off to Rudy's farm to build a trebuchet. If you're not familiar with trebuchets, check this link out. It's a medieval type of catapult used to hurl things through the air. The basic concept of the treb is to load something to a long arm and swing the arm by using big counterweight.

Yes, we will be careful, and yes it will work.

We will post many pictures afterwards and hopefully some videos... I can't wait.

Sure, Hockey's back...

BUT, today I heard news of one of my favorite "former" Leafs, Alexander Mogilny has signed in New Jersey. The Leafs had no more money to keep him although, I was really hoping they could work something out.

This is the NEW NHL, teams not able to hold onto stars like they used to. The Leafs couldn't come anywhere near to the $3.5 million he got in Jersey. I was hoping that the season would have been salvaged so I could see Mr. Mogilny in a Leaf uniform again, but no dice.

The real kick in the crotch for the Leaf nation was that since he was under contract and got surgery on his hip after the last playoffs, he WAS paid while recovering, by the Leafs or their insurance, and they don't get return on their investment...

Ah well, good luck in Jersey, Alex. May the reporters ask you many a stupid question, and may your responses baffle them like days of old... And may you never score a goal against the Leafs again.

oh, and I hope to see more gay pictures of him and Pavel Bure... tee hee

Oh, to be old. This made my day.

I was in a variety store this morning, when an elderly lady walked in to buy some chocolate bars. She was shaking a lot, probably parkinson's or something. She asked the attendant, with her thick german? accent, for some plain chocolate. The attendant, a woman elderly to a lesser extent, came around to assist, and was interupted by the first lady every time she offered any help. Once she had found the chocolate, it was time to pay.

She pulled out her purse and asked the attendant to "count please" and dumped out her change pocket revealing nickels and dimes. The attendant showed some frustration at the growing line and having to count $2.15 in change, but got it done and gave the woman her change back, quickly shuffling to the other side of the till to take my purchases.

Once she had started ringing me through, the woman asked for a "bag please", repeating it until she got a response. "Just a minute" replied the cashier, forcussing on my purchases. The woman asked again, like a small child badgering her mother for something, each time getting more frantic. The cashier finished with my purchase and got the woman her bag.

As I was leaving, I (being the gentleman I am) held the door for the old woman. Much to my amazement, as the old woman exited the store, what did she put in the garbage can outside the door of the store?

The bag... after all that, she threw out the bag.

Snap!

Another prime shot of me half naked

I thought I'd leave another pic with y'all before I go camping for the weekend (in the rain). This is a picture of Rudy and me at a synchronized canopener contest. We certainly won 1st plce which is an amazing accomplishment for a) men our size, people of our gerth don't enter watersports contests often and b) social workers, as social workers have proven 49% less likely to win anything compared to the engineer being 93% more likely to win something... This was photographed by Trish Curry, another social worker... what are the odds. Notice the alignment of our lower feet... perfection.

They're for my athsma

Well, we wrapped it up last night, winning the B-Cup finals in churchball with a whopping 21-5 win in Listowel. Last time we played, the score was quite the opposite, so this was somewhat anti-climactic. We won the series with a forfeit on their part and a 21-5 drubbing, not nearly as difficult as expected. Hats off to Listowel, they went out with class, having fun til the last at bat, and commenting on my obvious steroid use throughout the night, to which I replied, "they're for my athsma!"

Big E, big deal...

I never figured it would ever happen, but alas... it is finished. The Big "E" (and I don't mean Enema) has landed in town. I have to say I like his price tag and his point production last time he played, it's just he's bound for another injury, which worries me. If the Leafs have too many eggs in their injury prone basket, like last season when they had too many eggs in the geriatric basket, they could be in for trouble if/when someone gets injured. But that's not gonna happen, right? Finally a player for Antropov to look up to, so hopefully he can learn something and start getting concussions and retire early... stupid Antropov.

A rousing melodramatic hooray and a loud "show me what you can do" comes out for this move. Here's to the big E!

He's back, and it's for good this time...

Like an abused woman, I was ready for more abuse, hearing that the NHL is coming back, saying to me, "I still love you, baby" and "Those other leagues meant nothing to me..."

I don't care, I'm pumped about hockey.... Civic nation, I mean Leaf Nation is back! Should be interesting. I'm happy with John Ferguson's early moves, bringing in Jeff O'Neill and letting the fossil brothers go (Roberts and Niewendyk). It's long overdue time for some young'uns to get their chance... Stajan and Wellwood meet the NHL.

Ready yourselves, folks for a flurry of strange free agent signings, and sit back and enjoy the wonderful new NHL

Hair today, gone tomorrow.

Look at him, he's dazzling...I thought I'd put up a sultry pic of me at Rudy's parents pool. I thought that if Cindy Crawford could pull off the look, I could. There you go.
Ok

Brat Camp

The following is an actual letter from Jooje the cat to Faith, when she was at Petcetera for her haircut. She thought she had been sent to Sagewalk for the TV show Brat Camp. This was a very emotional time for Jooje, and I think it straightened out her deviant ways...

--------------------------------------
Dear Faith,

I am here at phat, I mean brat camp, and I don’t even know why you sent me here. I mean, gosh, what the frig. I only used catnip once by accident. Dang… like, you were the one who put fruit in pistachio pudding, which should be a crime. I’m cold and about to die, for the second time today. My spirit hurts. With pain. Ouch. Ow.
Jooje

I've got a golden ticket!

We went to watch Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Friday night, and I was quite happy with it. Let it be known that the oompa loompas music sucks worse than the first movie, but who cares, the characters we just as funny.

Johnny Depp did a marvelous job as the creepier Willy wonka, a character they developed a lot more in this movie. It was quite satisfying to see them build on parts that didn' see much action in the original, and cut out the parts that dragged or just plain sucked.

Well worth the price of admission, or at least DVD purchase... Thus sayeth me.

It started off good.

Game 2, division finals, we got a 2-0 lead, then squandered it in the second period. Any number of excuses, missing our captain due to suspension, losing a few more Defencemen to injury during game, we blew our lead. I played all but 30 seconds of the last 5 1/2 minutes leading into OT... They smothered us in OT, and the winner for them ended up being a curveball from centre, squeaking off our goalies blocker and in.

Friggin heartbreaker... season over like that... ah well, had fun...

Season Stats
GP G A P Pim
15 2 6 8 6

Playoffs
GP G A P Pim
5 3 1 4 2

Friggin Eh!

Heyo, it's about flippin time... the deal is ready, and looks like it will all be done soon... Now lets focus on Toronto winning the draft lottery and getting Sidney Crosby.

The Leafs will be in trouble, having a lot of money locked in and needing to sign a lot of players... hopefully they won't ditch too many players. I'd really like to see Alex Mogilny in blue and white again...

This brings me to the real point.... how long can my TV last without turning Hi-Def?

Yippee!

Went and saw Bewitched tonight at good ol' cineplex. We've been wanting to see this movie, and movie theatres have a/c, so tonight was a logical choice. Solid movie all around. Will Ferrell is at his nutty best and Nicole Kidman seemed quite healthy for her age... good combination, funny characters.

Speaking of remakes, I am totally pumped to see Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, which hits theatres this Friday. I forgot how much I liked that movie when i was younger, but it all came back Sunday when it was on YTV. I usually have a policy on musicals, which is NO! I have another policy on children singing, which is also NO! This movie has both, yet I didn't run screaming, but basked in the goofy characters and oompa-loompa culture. I even read the book when I was younger, which is a big thing... I hardly read anything... Should be interesting, Johnny Depp and funnier looking oompa loompas...

Game 7 Heroics

Yesterday was gme 3 of our semi final ball hockey playoffs. Tied 1-1, this game was the deciding one. We were up early, 3-2, then they scored a few quick goals. bringing us to 3 minutes left in the game, down 5-3. We scored a goal, pulled the goalie with about a minute left, then comes my glorious moment. Kelly won the faceoff back to me with about 30 seconds left, I just put as much mustard on the shot as I could and I curved right into the top shelf... tie game! A few minutes into overtime, we scored to win the series, beating the first place team who only lost 4 times all year.

It feels nice to win something.

Next week that puts us against the second place Stingers for the D division championship. If we win this, we'll go to Provincial Championships in Hamilton in August.

Booyah!

Next game is This weekend, July 16th at 5 or 6pm, with the next tourney at the garagio following the game at 7:00-7:30... Will I repeat as big winner this time, or is if time for a new champion? We could have a new points leader after this week...

Superstar!

CSI star, Gary Dourdan (Warrick Brown) was on stage with DMC in Barrie for their Live8 performance... Is there anything this guy can't do? Their performance was ok... I caught a bit of live8 on tv, really enjoying Coldplay and U2. Deep Purple really stunk, and to top it off, Dave Matthews was playing in Philly at the same time, and they didn't cover it, they just flaunted it on split screen without sound... friggin Smoke on the Water... I can play that... it's not hard.
Anyways, good times.

What's up?

Not much, you? Oh ya... things pretty dull round here. Went to Sarnia for the long weekend, which consisted of losing at golf, revisiting Paddy's and having a few lengthy naps.

Again, why must Ben Mulroney be the representative for anything to do with Canadian music.?!?!? At least he didn' host Live8 here in barrie, but he was on my tv... Ben Mulroney is an idiot... more than Ryan Seacrest.

My hair is in braids again... anybody guess how many this time? They're real braids instead of the twisty things like last time.

I see little bits of NHL news not pertaining to the CBA on tv here and there, which makes me think that maybe there'll be NHL this fall. Which means, I want a new TV... I'm not sure how long I can go without taking advantage of HD broadcasts of Leaf games... it will be agonizing... not only TSN HD and Sportsnet HD, but Hockey Nught in Canada on CBC HD... We'll see what happens.

Church ball against the other good team tomorrow. I'll try and hit another dinger for all y'all.

peace out