No snakes on a plane ... YET!!

Okay, I lied. This is going to be my last post on Canadian soil. I'm currently rolling in the Air Canada Maple Leaf Lounge in the otherwise shabby Terminal 2 of the Pearsons Airport. That's right folk, I'm still in Canada ... despite setting off on this journey since 10:30pm last night.

As I may have told some of you guys, I managed to cash my Aeroplan miles for a pair of sweet sweet business class tickets. According to my mom, this is the second time I travel business; according to my own memory, this is the first time I travel business since that trip happened like in the mid '80s back when I was 3. Anyway, I guess my parents secretly did want me out of the house, because they left me at the airport at 10:30pm for my 00:55am flight. Gee, thanks! Nothing special happen during those 3 hours as I tried to plow through the last 20 pages of The Crying of Lot 49 like 15 times and still not really getting it. (BTW; if any of you have some insights to that book, send it my way.)

The most exciting part was of course the traveling in business class. Remember the episode of Seinfeld where Jerry was upgraded to first class and the rest of the group was stuck in coach AND Elaine had to get a Kosher meal because that's the last thing they have? Yeah, it's just like that. Except the washroom isn't as roomy as purported. In fact, it's pretty much normal size with your normal hand soap and nothing else (cheapass Air Canada). But that still didn't stop the brief moment of satisfaction when the flight attendant chased away people who tried to sneak into our washroom. That's right, your washroom is in the back ... behind the drink cart! Good luck holding it in!

Knowing this is a redeye flight, I thoroughly expected reduced meal service. However, apparently that's only limited to the suckers on the other side of the curtains! 30 minutes after we took off, the flight attendant came over and took down our food choice before preparing our meals one by one. I was so excited that I briefly forgot that it's technically like 2am Edmonton time (4am Toronto time) and neither the teriyaki chicken noodles nor beef with mash potatoes are appropriate midnight snack options. But fuck that! I've been subjected to too many mealless flight to let this opportunity go away. Let those people in the back pay $6.00 or a ham and swiss sandwich. I'm getting hot food!

Food came on a little tray with table cloth. My chicken and noodles were nestled in a warm plate, there were metal utensils and real cloth napkin. Even my salt and pepper came in a little chic caddy. The highlight was the bread. Oh hellz no were we getting a cold hard bun wrapped in cellophane. Our bread came in a basket, with choices between foccacia and some other fancy bread. Most importantly, it was warm! Unfortunately, I couldn't take pictures with my cellphone camera, so the only evidence I have of this awesome meal is this little Lindt hazelnut praline.


That delicious meal was almost ruined when we encountered some wicked turbulence around Saskatoon. The in-flight movie, MI:III, almost ruined my appetite as well. No sightings of any snakes though. Then I wondered if the flight attendents have to deal with many snakes on a plane quips since the movie came out.

After I landed in Toronto, I braved the TTA and went to Leah's place. Then we met up with Chris and went for breakfast, and stimulating conversations, at The Drake.








It was perfect patio weather and we enjoyed our breakfast there. There was a crazy guy carrying a (half empty? empty?) paint can wandering next to the patio. He was swathed in fabrics and kept yelling at the traffic. Leah briefly wondered if this could be one of the many performance artists frequenting her neighbourhood. But we were convinced that the dude's just crazy since the mental hospital is also only a few blocks away.

Afterwards, we wandered around a bit and I saw a pair of crocheted underwear. Again, to show how hip Leah's neighbourhood is, I'm not sure if that's art or actual underwear. Should've snapped a picture of that. We also walked by the Candy Factory Loft, which appeared on The Designer Guys recently. So that, in my own weird way, is almost like my TO celebrity sighting.

Then I came back to the airport and that's pretty much it. Oh, and the paranoid freaks at security made me put my shoes through the X-ray machine even though they're open-toe flats. I promise I'll be posting from Boston the next time you hear from me.

Leaving on a jet plane

Well, here's my last post on Canadian soil. Meh, feel kinda ambivalent right now. Anyway, here are the few precious memories that I have of my home country of the past 11 years:

A pretty awesome party trick that Rozenhart taught me:


Look, Wilfrid is happy!


Now Wilfrid is sad. (Apparently this party trick can be applied to any Canadian paper currency. Try it yourself!)

Oh and this cartoon series on CBC called Lunar Jim that looks like a blond-headed bastard child of Tintin. It'd be interesting to note that Tintin have gone to the moon, and solved mysteries there, long before Lunar Jim did. So take that, "Lunar" "Jim." Dude, they even copied Snowy!




And, I'll miss you guys! Especially my blog roomies. Post often!

Like sands through the bars of the cage you'll sleep in...

Not sure how credible this is, but I found it to at the very least be entertaining. We need to talk about this at the Osama pow wow, Iris.

Highlights of this story include: Osama's dreams of killing Bobby Brown to get Whitney and his willingness to break the colour rule to marry her.

My favourite part of the whole thing, though, comes when it's revealed that Osama's former mistress went on to be a writer for none other than Days of Our Lives. I wonder how much of her influence was involved in the storyline where Phillip was captured at war and Shawn, Lucas, Brady and Rex went to the Middle East (on their own) to get their boy back. The amazing part was that they did it (despite the efforts of a cross-dressing Sami/Stan). Well, they got almost all of him back. It was after his capture and rescue that Phillip learned that the cost of being an American freedom fighter can sometimes be one of your legs.

**Update**

I forgot to make the following comments:
Osama wants to do to the world what Bobby Brown has done to Whitney's career. Probably with not as many DUI's.
Is OBL a step down from Bobby Brown? He's richer, smarter and probably more stable than Brown, and much more successful.
Every tape Osama makes gets worldwide attention. Bobby Brown's last album sold under 100,000 copies.
Finally, you'll never see Osama wearing a leather suit like this:

They won't let you bring booze, but you can bring this?

I have been checking the Transportation Security Administration's website quite religiously lately—for good reason of course, seeing that I will be heading towards USofA in a week. Included amongst the list of perennial banned items—such as knives, meat cleavers and sabers—are some newly added hazards such as toothpaste, liquid mascara and shampoo. And they still won't let you bring booze. However, a closer look at the list revealed this interesting passage:

To ensure the health and welfare of certain air travelers the following items are permitted.

• Small amounts of Baby formula and breast milk if a baby or small child is traveling
• Liquid prescription medicine with a name that matches the passenger’s ticket
• Up to 5 oz. (148ml) of liquid or gel low blood sugar treatment
• Up to 4 oz. of essential non-prescription liquid medications including saline solution, eye care products and KY jelly
• Gel-filled bras and prosthetics
• Gel-filled wheelchair cushions
• Life support and life sustaining liquids such as bone marrow, blood products, and transplant organs carried for medical reasons

Well, good to know that during these times of TERROR, the TSA is being surprisingly considerate towards couples/threesomes who prefer their kinky sex in closed quarters well lubricated. Unless I'm very ignorant of the secondary uses of KY jelly—in which case, feel free to educate me, please—this mention is quite specific and interesting. I guess the TSA would rather you occupy you mind with ways to seduce your neighbour than, say, ways to blow up a plane midair.

Also, in conjuction, gel-filled bras are permissible as well. This is probably good news for the lesser-endowed ladies who'd like to attract men into participating in the aforementioned kinky activities in the cramped bathroom.

However, if you scan further down the list, you'd be surprised to discover that corkscrews and cigar cutters are not part of the banned items, which makes absolutely no sense to me. Won't it be more logical to ban corkscrews, which can, I don't know, impale people?!

Joint house blog roadtrip

Recently, as in merely 24 hours ago, 2 representatives of the house blogs have embarked on a trip to Saskatoon—which I have been describing as the middle America of Canada. The official reason is to attend my friend Deanna's wedding. The unofficial reason is the chance to wear kickin' dresses, buffet dinner and open bar. (The open bar did not happen though since the bride and groom didn't want to deal with drunken relatives. But that still didn't stop me from getting thoroughly foxed with the complementary bottles of white and blush wines. =_=*)

The beginning of the trip was a smashing success, as in we totally missed the exit to highway 16 and turned into highway 14 instead. After 10 minutes of driving, we decided to stop by the gas station in Tofield to ask for directions.

As we turned into the gas station, Kim commented on how sketchy it looked. I was just enjoying the fact that "Country Boyz" is perhaps the most appropriate name for a gas station-strip bar establishment. Disappointingly, there were no strippers there. Just gas. And lots of wasted potential.

The guy at the gas station said we were still on the right track. So we thanked him and continued our adventure.


And by "adventure," I meant this:

500 or so kilometres of the flattest landscape I've ever seen. There are times when the highest altitude point would be the top of a hay barrel. Thank god we borrowed Chloé's iTrip. If not, I probably would have fallen asleep behind the wheels. Instead we chair-danced to Britney's I'm a Slave 4 U. (Look, those 1700 or so songs on my iPod can't all be good.)



We eventually reached North Battleford where we got gas. Kim competed with the gas station attendant for the chance to clean my disgusting insect-speckled windshield. Thanks Kim!







Of course her efforts were largely wasted as the strip of the road between North Battleford and Saskatoon had perhaps the highest population of cabbage butterflies around. Do you know that when butterflies smash again the windshield, they produce this slightly audible "splosh" sound? We got used to the massacre after a while. We took a look at the car when we reached the hotel. The killing count was spectacular:





We stayed at perhaps the nicest room in the Radisson Saskatoon. There's a super fluffy bed, a sitting area and a pretty view of the river.





The bed is one of those fancy sleep number beds that you see on infomercials. Kim discovered that her sleep number was 25 and she proclaimed that she has the best sleep EVER on that bed. I agree. That bed was pretty damn good. In fact, that became the highlight of the trip. It's that comfortable!

We then went to the ceremony at the church. It was an intimate ceremony with mostly relatives there. It was sweet.

After the ceremony, we met up with Raynor and Sean. They're the bridesmaids' boyfriends.

Sean, whom I met in passing once before, re-introduced himself. Upon hearing that I used to work at the Gateway he asked if I knew Steve Smith. And I'm like, of course, duh! Then he told me that he's the co-inventor of homosexual chicken! Look at this face—this is the face of the man who's responsible for those precious retreat memories! What an interesting discovery.











This is Raynor. He's recently engaged to my friend Janet, which I totally saw coming. Raynor, lapsing into his nasty habit of matchmaking, was trying to match Kim up with his brother. He even tried to show Kim pictures of his brother, Kyle, water-skiing. She wasn't impressed at all and I think a little freaked out by it. (BTW: Raynor will be at the turducken party. Feel free to bring this up in his presence. Also, for some reason, he hates David Berry. That should be an interesting night!)





This is what Kim and I wore to the reception. I don't think anybody did better than us at the wedding. Then again, the party was mostly middle-aged relatives and there aren't too many young people there. Kim and I planned to crash the party next door, which Kim declared that it had "potential." That didn't happen as I ended up passed out on my side of the sleep number bed. I think I missed the speeches, which I somewhat regret. I missed the cake, too, which I didn't regret as much.

The next morning, we went to the gift-opening brunch. Very much like the wedding itself, you pretty much can only enjoy it if you're the ones getting married. Here's Deanna and Cam, the reason why we're in Saskatoon in the first place.







We left after scarfing down a few mini quiches. We stopped by Lloyd on our way back because this time, we found highway 16. (Look how disgusting my windshield is.)









This was the last thing we saw before we left Saskatchewan:



The End

What drove Abe and Sexy Lexie apart (aka boredom breeds DOOL posts)

While watching Days recently, I noticed something peculiar. There Abe Carver and his estranged wife (sexy) Lexie sat in Brady Pub, Abe belittling Lexie for her inability to be a faithful wife. Nothing out of the ordinary here, right? Wrong. Behind Lexie was a cutesy poster thing that said "Peacock" and had a picture of said bird on it (probably someone at NBC thinking it was clever/subtle branding). From where Lexie was sitting though, some crucial letters were blocked out, making the sign look like a hilarious obsenity. I grabbed my camera (my real one, in light of my phone's drowning death last Thursday at soccer—RIP, Treo 650. You were gangster), but couldn't get the full hilarity of the picture. My attempts at capturing it are below.




If I had an ounce of faith in the intelligence of the writers, I'd think they had Lexie sit there on purpose, to imply what it was that drove her and Abe apart, but at this point, after sitting through the ridiculousness of twin aliens who were implanted in Kate Roberts, Marlena being locked in a giant bird cage and communicating with John telepathically to plan her escape, and Kristen DiMera faking her pregnancy and fooling people for six months with a pillow under her shirt, I'm going to think it was just a careless oversight. Either way, it was funny.

Also, check this Bo Brady face. It looks like he's about to drop a massive F-bomb on someone. Proabably Chelsea, or Patrick, cause you know, he knocked up Bo's wife. That always puts a strain on your marriage.

My Peaches post

Here are a couple of pics from the Peaches show last night. Sorry, but you'll have to pick up a copy of Vue to read about how awesomely radtacular it was. But yes, that is a giant inflatable penis in the background.

I think the terrorists might have won

Because there isn't another morale-killing act as effective and as depressing as preventing all airline passengers from purchasing duty free liquor. Hello! I know that extra large, extra cheap bottle of Absolut is the only thing I look forward to when I'm faced with the prospect of crammed seats, a smelly fat guy down with the flu who'll inevitably sit next to me as dictated by Murphy's Law and overpriced sandwich that somehow costs $2.00 more when they're sold away from the ground. Discarding a few bottles of shampoo or prescription drugs isn't going to faze America. Being forced to put their laptops, cellphones, Blackberrys, iPods in their checked-in luggage isn't going to faze America. But the prospect of a dry DFS?! Blasphemy!

Fuck! This better stop by the time I head off to Boston. I need my vodka for my housewarming party.

Here's the latest Everyday Osama. Actually, I think I'm going to channel this rage into another strip.

The untimely demise of Nancy Grace?

The remote for my TV is a mess. The 3, 6, 9 and the volume-down buttons don't work on it; I have no idea why. The remote doesn't mesh well with my love for Showcase's quality weeknight programming. When I want to get to Showcase, the fastest thing I can do is turn to channel 28, then click up three times as fast as possible. Tonight, I went to 28 as usual, clicked up, and at the last second, registered what I had seen on CNN's headline channel. Sitting high atop her mountain of self-righteousness, judging those beneath her, was Nancy Grace. So far, so good, right? Nothing out of the ordinary here. Until you see her holding a fucking rifle! I went back in time to get a pic of her holding the gun, talking about how some lady who shot her minister husband deserves to die in jail or something. No real explanation of what the reasoning was behind giving Nancy Grace a gun, other than right-wing America trying to scare the holy living hell out of the rest of the world.

In honour of her conservative views, I've placed the pic to the right of the page.



Man, she has a piggish face.

Requisite Strangers With Candy post

It's Sunday and I've already seen the Strangers With Candy movie twice since Friday. Obsessed? A bit. Call it Liz Phair syndrome, but I'll consume anything Amy Sedaris puts out: the good, the bad, the indie, the mainstream. I just love her that much. Saying that, like any TV show made into a full-length film, the Strangers With Candy movie was a bit disappointing. Now I'm not going to bore you all with a full-length review or anything, but it was good enough, if only for the fact that almost every scene, line and character in the movie reminded me of something funnier that happened in an episode of the TV show. The movie was still funny and not in the you-have-to-be-a-fan-of-the-show way, though. And it was filled with more high-profile guest-stars than a season of Will & Grace (Best? Kristen Johnson as a gym-teacher in a motorized wheelchair. Worst? Sarah Jessica Parker as a grief counselor). Just completely over the top, random, over-dramatized humour in the vein of those good, bad movies like Superstar and Romy and Michele's High School Reunion. And yes, I'll probably go see it a third time before it gets kicked out of the Princess, but only so I can take another uninitiated soul (the first was my sis) and try to turn them into a SWC fan so someone else knows what I'm talking about when I quote Jerri Blank. Hi-larious!

O'Leary's field trip (aka the depths of my prick-dom)

Sometimes university life becomes monotonous, and you have to step outside of the campus world and its surrounding area. The break in monotony can be refreshing. It's always good to keep the big picture in mind, to remember that there's more to this city, more to life, than two LRT stops, some places to get drunk, and Foosh (my new favourite sneaker spot).

And sometimes, you have to go to Wal-Mart.

On Friday, my aunt and cousin from Grande Prairie came into the city for the day to straighten out some passport stuff. My aunt has never driven in the city, so she asked me to meet up with her on the outskirts of town so that I could drive them to the government building downtown to do their passport-paper-filling-out-stuff. I didn't mind; I thought it would take a few hours in the morning and I'd have the rest of the afternoon to catch up on some schoolwork. My aunt asked me to meet her in the parking lot of the Wal-Mart on Stony Plain Road, so on Friday morning at 10:30, there I was. This is where my day (and hopefully, this post) gets interesting.

By 1pm, there was no sign of my aunt. I had been sitting in my car, listening to CJSR's replaying of Ralph Nader's speech on the U of A campus from 2001 (pre-Sept. 11th, I'm assuming) for over two hours, through a massive rainstorm, with two check-in calls unreturned. My patience wore thin and my appetite grew by the minute. I couldn't take it anymore. I abandoned Nader's warnings on growing up corporate and did something I absolutely hate doing: I made my way into Wal-Mart, in search of a cheap snack.



Wal-Mart's always an infuriating, if not interesting experience for me. The parking lot is an organized chaos, with expensive trucks, SUV's and Mustangs parked far away from the entrance of the store, so that these vehicle owners don't have to worry about the wreckless parking techniques of those who are jealous of the sheer awesomeness of these vehicles. Just to make sure no one parks next to them, they cover up at least two stalls when they park. I call this a classic prick-job. In the more populated area of the parking lot lies a delicate arrangement of sedans and minivans: the official transporters of Alberta's whitest white trash. Inside, past the naivete of a genuine greeting that can only come from a borderline handicapped person, I found a museum in the making; a tribute to working-class pop culture. Here's a pictorial tour of what I found:

First up on the list was what every man wants/needs in his life: beer-related products for the home.



Nothing says, "I've made it in life" like a beer can lamp and a matching beer cap lamp. When people walk into your home and see these things, they'll know that you have a phenomenal understanding and appreciation of Miller Lite and all that it stands for. Along with the velvet portrait you've got of Cheech and Chong smoking a joint, or any pornography that may hang on your walls next to these lamps, people will come away from their visit to your home knowing what matters to you the most: good beer, adequate lighting and drugs (or naked chicks, if that's what's being lit up by the lamps).

Believe it or not, there may be some people out there who don't share the same set of values in your life. If you voted, you'd call them people that don't vote conservative. Since most Wal-Mart shoppers don't vote (fact? Sure...) you can call them idiots that bother voting...fucking government. Naturally, these people live far away from the average Wal-Mart consumer, so where can you find them? What can you do about them when you do find them? Thanks to Wal-Mart, you can do a lot. When you use this trusty scope for your rifle, you can get your enemies, or just some 18-point bucks in sight, and let them fucking have it. 80 bucks for a problem solver is a good deal. No wonder Wal-Mart writes "SATISFACTION GUARANTEED" on the front of their store.



Now, when you're sitting around the house with the Stones' Paint it Black blaring out of your open windows for your neighbours to hear, cigarette hanging out of your mouth, reading porn under the light of your beer lamps and admiring the awesomeness of your truck that you park 300 feet away from the front entrance of Wal-Mart, what should you be wearing while you're polishing your guns and trying to decide which scope to put on it so that you can kill stuff better? Why not this pair of Rolling Stones boxer shorts?



These things are cool for two reasons: One, The Stones are the fucking best band, like, ever, and two, there's a tongue (presumably a woman's) on your crotch. You know what that implies, right? Oral sex, brother!

Finally, what's a trip to Wal-Mart without picking up something for the rugrats? For the young shit-disturber in your life, why not get them something to let their little asses get fatter on while they're playing GTA: San Andreas instead of learning how to read better...or at all?



Could there be anything more appropriate for the young bad-ass to play vids in than a beanbag chair that has the devil on it? Fuckin' A boys, fuckin' A.

This concludes the tour. If you'd like to buy any of these products, be prepared to stand in line for 30-45 minutes, then be ready to wait another 5 minutes for the managerial staff to figure out what it is that keeps setting the alarm off at the door as you're leaving.

"We're sorry, but even though you just spent your money on our crap, we think you may have stolen from us. Please find a Wal-Mart associate who will go through your purchases to make sure you paid for them all."

Post-tour entertainment will be provided by those who parked far away finding out that their doors were keyed by someone while they were inside the store.

And I quote:

An actual printed comment from a reader in the Edmonton Journal in regards to that A&W commercial where the woman clearly says the word "jizz":

"I'm disappointed the couple on TV who end up at A&W after a bad experience in a fancy restaurant aren't a real couple. I just love them. I never get tired of watching that commercial."

Let's move on to something lighter

To balance the YouTube link of Nancy Grace humilating a kidnapping victim on TV, here's a YouTube video of a celebrity baby shower that only a comedic mind can envision. This is is actually funny—instead of the unintentional and rage-inducing kind of funny in that Nancy Grace clip. Even though it is just some girl parodying various actresses, I think people besides Tyson should see this. The Jennifer Aniston impression is particularly dead-on. Now if SNL can channel that level of funniness, it probably won't need a 1-hour drama and a 30-minute comedy to justify why nobody is watching SNL anymore.



The best line: I respect my abdominal muscles far too much to ever really have a baby. Word!