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From today's Toronto Star: As stupid as it seems to make a frivolous comment on this horrific case, I can't help but not understand why this artists rendition of the guilty and her family has blacked out boxes over the eyes. I just needed an excuse to get back onto xanga. Next entry will be more reflective. | | |
| As a kid I don’t ever remember going to the CNE. I think the first time I went was 5 or 6 years ago when I was already solidly in my 20’s. My opinion of the CNE was that it was a glorified local fairgrounds, a temporary erection of rollercoasters that were the ugly cousin of ones that would be found at Canada’s Wonderland. Any amusement park that makes you pay individually for rides was inferior to those of the other kind. Does Disney or Six Flags make you pay for each ride? Does the local traveling fair (where the carnies dwell in their parking lot campgrounds) make you pay for each ride? Yes, I was an amusement park snob, but for good reason. The two times that I’d gotten injured or very ill at an amusement park came at visits to those pay-as-you-ride parks. At Centreville on the Toronto Islands, I came off of a ride with a bloody lip and a nearly lost tooth, after smashing my face into an unpadded safety bar. At a fair in Montreal, I rode something similar to a human centrifuge and fell ill for the entire day. (The blood in my body probably separated, plasma from red blood cells) It didn’t help that it seemed that every year there would be some well publicized equipment malfunction that would toss some poor kid out of his seat or strand riders for hours in mid-air. For the CNE though, all of these opinions of mine were preconceptions made without having actually visited the grounds. On my first visit several years ago, my ideas were verified. The end of the night was punctuated by the sight of a whole pack of young asian hoodlums swarming and beating on a white dude. How fun… Nevertheless, I have since returned to the CNE almost every year, to gorge on corn dogs and roasted corn, but not much else. One year we watched a dog show, which was amusing. Another year we saw the animal farm, which was smelly. This year, we bought the Sham-WOW!, which was exciting. There is something that draws me back each year. Actually, this past weekend, I’d done something never before accomplished in my lifetime. I went to Wonderland on Saturday and the CNE on Sunday. It actually made me realize why I’d only gone to Wonderland as a kid, but as an adult have gone to CNE more often. Wonderland is just more fun for kids! The rides, the atmosphere, and the variety of entertainment is just more appropriate for kids. The CNE on the other hand has more stuff for adults: the shopping, the food, it requires less walking, the casino-type games. Wonderland’s rides and long waits just leave me in pain now. So there you go, mystery solved! So am I still an amusement park snob? I still think that the Wonderlands of this world are much better than the CNE’s. They are safer and less cheesy and the staff are visibly less Carny-like than their CNE counterparts. But I do appreciate that all of these “inferior” components give the CNE that much more character than the comparably sterile Wonderland. The CNE is the real world. Wonderland is Hollywood. (So yes, I bought a Sham-WOW! Actually I just bought a “WOW,” so it’s not the one from the TV commercials. Despite the TV commercial guys warning “Do not be fooled by an imitation!” I purchased the imitation. This was one of the main reasons why I wanted to go to the CNE this year. I assumed the Sham-WOW! would be sold there and just needed to see the demo for myself. If the demo was kosher, I’d buy it. So even though it wasn’t an authentic Sham-WOW!, after a few minutes of watching the man pour a litre of cola on a mat of carpet and soaking it up with the WOW, I was sold. It took even less time for Richy to become convinced… he already had his paid for before the demo was half over! So me and Mikey split the cost and shared. Each of us are proud owners of 2 sheets of WOW, bought at the low low price of $10. Apparently, we’d spend that much on paper towels in just 2 weeks, so we got a deal. This much I know, you couldn’t find a Sham-WOW!, a WOW, or anything remotely as kitschy, at Canada’s Wonderland!) | | |
| this has been a most lazy week and i feel restless. having no plans for the entire week just doesn't end up leaving me feeling so great, even though the thought of it makes me so happy going into it. I think that the rest will serve me well, but in the end i usually feel sorta rotten about it all. lazy and unproductive, like that potato in the fridge that's been there for over a month. It isn't quite rotten, but is soft and wrinkly and essentially inedible. that's me, Mr. Potatobody.
well, the week wasn't all a mess. on civic holiday, hstick and i met with mister and missus caleb wong, as they are visiting from china. it was fun to hear their stories and nice to see them. thems the type of folk who come home after a year and you feel like you just saw them a month ago.
also on tuesday at work i was treated to the sight of my little niece Claire. Judy and Eddie came by campbells to buy some stuff from the company store. Claire just wanted to eat the goldfish crackers and kept making little pouty mouth sounds that was supposed to imitate a fishy. She's my favourite.
there's nothing much more deflating than eating something and later finding a bug in it. that happened to me at work this week. I brought some harvest crunch type cereal to work, mixed it with some yogurt and started happily munching away. then i saw a sesame-sized bug crawling about in the cereal. i think my reaction was as calm and collected as one could imagine. Don't get me wrong, i'm not okay with eating bugs, but I didn't want to make a big scene about it, so i silently spit out whatever was in my mouth into the trash can, tossed the remaining cereal and yogurt into the bin, and walked to the washroom where I rinsed my mouth several hundred times. I recognize that bug though. I've seen him before in the kitchen. (not that particular bug - all bugs of a certain type look the same) Actually, one of the cupboards in the kitchen was teeming with these walking sesame seeds. Christina told me to ignore it, as it wasn't our problem. It's her mom's house, her mom's kitchen, and her mom's food...well, ok, but WE EAT THAT FOOD!!! sigh. i thought that the cereal would be safe from the WSS's (walking sesame seeds) as it was in a different cupboard, but that wasn't the case.
so i wonder if bugs get offended by me saying that all of those bugs look the same to me. Is that the same as me saying that all black people look the same? I don't say that by the way. I ain't ignant.
but seriously bugs are all over this freakin' house. Spiders large and small, those millipede things, the sesame seeds. I bet a few have crawled into our gaping mouths as we sleep. I didn't know what those millipede things were actually called, so I just google-imaged it. I think I found it (it's commonly called a "house centipede"), but nearly barfed looking at various images of bugs.
Here it is...
I recently watched a film called "Scaphandre et le papillon."(The Diving Bell and the Butterfly) the film was excellent. i recommend it wholeheartedly.
Can you tell i had nothing really to write about in the first place?
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| Shoot. I knew I'd have to face Xanga again. Plan: Look him straight in the eye, don't blink or back down. He'll throw up your last posting in your face and say jeeringly, "sooo? are you a lean mean cycling machine yet?" that glint in his bastard eye...
so frig. ok, the bike has been used, though sparingly. We did get a rather cool and wet June right? And they're renovating the shower stalls at work, so I can't clean up so well in the mornings.. ah whoo cares. I still lik my bik.e!
The summer has been very satisfying so far. I've tried to be serious about golf for the first time ever. It's expensive to be serious about golf. But I love it, even though i'm still sucky at it. I'll post a few of my favourite pics of a recent "super fantastic cross canada trip" to PEI with some super fantastic friends. Some highlights to accompany the pics...
- 45 hrs of driving, over 30 rancid (and I mean RANCID) pangoo's by Ms. Yoo.
- being swarmed by black flies and mosquitos at the Confederation bridge (and everywhere else on the dang island!)
- Three and a half large plastic buckets of mussels (about 175, we estimate) consumed at one sitting (along with 6 bowls of chowder, 5 lbs of lobster, a whole pie, about 8 of the most delicately delicious puffy buns one could ever imagine, and a few plates of salad)
- the inordinately high number of pictures of people leaping into the air
- Kayaking: Mikey quoting his new best friend Victor (our kayak tour guide) like 18 times, sunburns, jellyfish and the little cove we picnic'ed at.
- Me and Mike's giddiness as we thought about golfing at Crowbush
- many lomantic beach sunsets
- building and playing in the sand like we were 5 yr old again
- over 1300 other beautiful, fun, stupid, hilarious and sometimes wasted pictures of us jumping, sleeping, driving, eating, farting, laughing, swimming, painting, golfing, kayaking, posing, sneering, snoring and gazing
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| So not long after my last entry, I did buy a bike. It still took another week of humming and hawing before Hstick started to express an unusual interest in my purchase. She started asking if she could go with me, and if we could go that very day, etc. I thought she just caught onto the excitement and wanted to be a part of such a momentous occasion, but I realized that she was just sick and tired of my preoccupation with the bike and wanted it to be over and done with. pish! I love her very much. Her involvement actually turned out to be a blessing in disguise as she did point out a bike that I wouldn't have noticed, which I eventually did buy.
I've very happy with it. It wouldn't be a stretch to say that I'm in love with it, although I know that will sound weird to some of you. ok ok, i'm not in love with the bike. but i do like it quite a lot. the first day that I got it, Hstick genuinely became interested and wanted to go for a spin with me. I love my wife to bits. We dragged out an old jalopy from her parent's shed and I wiped all the dust and spider webs from it, adjusted some stuff, and off we went to put some air in the tires. When riding just for the sake of it, I really feel like a kid again. It's so fun to putt around the neighbourhood, look at houses, ride through parks, and so on. But riding to work (which i've done now 3 times) is a bit of a different story. Some roads are very busy, some very dusty, some very cracked and potholed. It's a trial and error situation and I've pretty much found my optimal route back and forth that is both relatively safe, clean and quick. One thing I'm perturbed about though is that I can't ride with no hands. I feel so unstable and I'm not sure if it's the bike or me. I feel like a loser when I try and start wobbling and have to grab the handles. It's like i'm 6 years old all over again.
Here is my lovely bike. I need to name it. Suggestions?
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