Ruins, Redheads and R.I.P.

Did you know that Mars Canada has cut all production of green & blue Smarties? Apparently synthetic dyes are on the out, so as of now, if you have a box with those colours, save it - they're collectables!

June 22 - Old Stones

Similar to my friend friend Bob's Ruined Niagara blog, I ran across this: Abandoned Places In The World. There are quite a few cool places listed there, starting off with an abandoned Japanese industrial island that looks to be straight out of a sci-fi movie. I hope that they update soon; Bob's blog has been remiss of late, so I can only wish that he'll stumble across some new ruins soon to share with us all...

There was a news story this month that notches rather nicely into the above topic: how the St. Lawrence Seaway was a Bad Idea. Having grown up next to the Welland Canal, I was used to seeing giant cargo ships passing by majestically on their way to deliver cargoes from around the world. The article talks about how bad the Seaway is for the environment of the Great Lakes, as well as the ever-diminishing cargo loads that are traveling through it - far below the projections that the original builders had for it to accomplish by this date.

Mondays - that's about it for me. Just relaxing and recovering - the doctor said that after this Wednesday, I can go back to biking to work as long as I don't push myself. In a month I can begin regular exercises, including light abdominal workouts - I plan mainly to focus on the cardio work, and leave the rest of it until after I return from Niagara. One nice thing about working where I have been for so long is that I have a ton of vacation time saved up. Even counting my trip in a month, I'll still have over two weeks of vacation time left, and that's taking into account the week I've already used at the start of June for my operation. Sweet!

June 23 - Hee-Haw?

Way, waaaay back in the day, when computers were just stumbling out of their monochromatic phase and games were able to fit quite nicely on a single 5.25" disk, there was a game called M.U.L.E. from a tiny company called Ozark Softscape. It came out in 1983, and proposed a novel idea: what it computer games were designed to bring people together to play, instead of just being a single-player experience? This novel concept saw M.U.L.E.( which stands for 'Multiple Use Labour Element )arrive on shelves to become a classic of classics, that rare game that is fun and new every time you play it. Several clones of the game were made( including one for the Amiga! Ha! )which are listed on this very informative page entitled Subtrade. There is even some concept art for the game here - very good, for a fan-made art sheet.

Since the arrival of the internet and much better computer hardware, a few fans have managed to create AMO, which is Atari Mule Online. Yes, you heard it right: you can now download and play a game of M.U.L.E. with your friends, online... something the original designers of the game could only dream of 25 years ago. Sweet! Anybody want to play a game...?

MMO's these days seem to be taking a new path: no longer are they behemoths charging a monthly fee to play. Instead, the game is free to play... but supported through microtransactions, meaning players can augment & customize their characters through small purchases within the game world. Add a hat, a bigger gun or some fancy boots to make you faster - the more you pay, the cooler the play, or so the idea goes. The new Battlefield: Heroes is one of these games, and I will be checking it out this week, should I manage to get it working - for some reason, it just doesn't want to connect me to a server... overload, perhaps?

June 24 - Brekkie with the Bear

I had breakfast at A&W this morning, of all places - and it was good! They open at 6am, which is nice, and they're located right across the street from the plaza I work in in Millstream. The toast was perfect, the eggs were sizable and the hash brown was light and tasty. The only letdown was the bacon, which seemed to have been unwrapped from a large spool and passed close by some flames for a few seconds - underwhelming. Maybe they need a little refresher course on How To Make Perfect Bacon... ? Sure, it's not fast, but why rush perfection?

For those of you out there who like comics a lot, I have a few links for you. ComicArtFans.com is a place where comic artists and fans gather to exchange ideas, post new comic series and do all the other fun things that comic fans do when they get together. A similar place is ComicSpace.com. for those of you who enjoy comic book movies, there is always ComicBookBovie.com, where the latest and greatest in reverse are foisted on the unsuspecting world.

One comic I hope to see return to semi-regular production is The Adventures of Newt & John - Two Roommates Take On The Universe. Mike has been very busy( as usual )for some time, including work on The Jinx Project... but I hope he will find some time in the near future for an N&J update. You can read all about what he's been up to here at his blog.

June 25 - Celeb-Apocalypse

Today marks the premiere of Stoked, a new animated TV series on Teletoon brought to you by the creators of Total Drama Island and 6teen. It also happens to be a show that two of my good friends worked on very hard for the last long while: take a bow, Mike & Brian. The is about a group of young surfers who arrive at a summer camp for surfer-wannabes... and find it is not exactly what they expected. The visuals are amazing; the waves and water( way to go Mike! )look incredibly realistic, all for being realized within the Flash medium - this is hard stuff to pull off, folks.

Sadly, today also saw the demise of the King Of Pop, Michael Jackson, whose music I admit I have liked on and off over the years - I think it depends on whether Weird Al did a cover of a song before I really took a liking to it. Back in grade school, I remember being at a school gathering in the gymnasium for( I think )school fund raising by selling chocolate bars - the usual scheme. When the prizes for top sellers were announced, one of them was a large framed photo of a Michael Jackson - before all the strangeness, so he looked somewhat normal. When I asked a classmate who this guy was, they gave me That Look, as in "Boy, are you behind the latest fad..." - I remember the scene more because of that look and the feeling it engendered than anything else... like who it was exactly that I asked the question of.

On top of that, Farrah Fawcett also passed on today from cancer, which she had apparently been suffering from since 2006. Known for her mane of amazing blond hair and stunning smile, the star of Charlie's Angels will be missed by millions, myself included - few knew she had a very cutting, dry wit. I do not believe that a star loved by so many could have had any detractors from a life lived so well. Hopefully her story will raise awareness of cancer in the public, much as Patrick Swayze's own 2008 diagnosis has prompted many to take potentially life-saving tests they might have otherwise wavered on.

June 26 - Of all the... ?

One of the things I love about life is the ironies: those little things that make you scratch your head and wonder if someone out there is having us all on. Take, for example, my moving from St. Catharines to Victoria - what are the chances they both would lay claim to the title of 'Garden City' ? For the record, Victoria wins hands-down... it has more green and more flowers than anywhere I have ever seen or heard of, bar none. Another chance occurrence: I now live in Langford... right near Niagara Creek, which you can see near the center of this map - no patch on the Niagara River, but then I don't have to deal with tourists at the Falls.

The laptop I've been happily using for the last year or so is running great: it's a Gateway FX model, which apparently have been damned hard to find in stores. It's one of those ironies: a great product at a great price, but you can't find it anywhere as the manufacturer made only so many and has moved on to other product lines - I was lucky to be in Best Buy when I was last September, as they apparently sold out within a few weeks across the continent - ouch! Good news though: the new models of the FX laptop series are coming, so those of you who are looking for a helluva bargain might want to keep an eye on Besy Buy's shelves in August...

A while back I discovered a blog that covers some of the cool things to see & do on Vancouver Island. It's worth a read... and eventually I'll get to a few of the places & events myself. Darn this time-sucking day job... another irony, really. I've lived here almost 2 years now, and in some ways I'm still a tourist. Heck, I've yet to go to Vancouver, which is only a little further away than T.O. was from Niagara - without the traffic headaches, but you have to pay to take a boat there. We'll see...

June 27 - Quarter-century clue-in

Who the heck is Haviland Morris, you ask? Well, considering that I saw her in two TV movies this week, I was surprised at the answer. She played Caroline Mulford in 1984's Sixteen Candles alongside Molly Ringwald, and Marla Bloodstone in 1990's Gremlins 2 - I only put those two roles together through IMDB.com where I clued in that she had covered her glorious red hair in Sixteen Candles with a blond wig, so as not to show up Ringwald's own auburn locks. Personally, I think she could have carried the earlier film, though she also could have done without the constant cigarette in Gremlins 2 - Phoebe Cates looked rather drab in comparison, even so. For those so inclined, this site has a listing of quite a few actresses you may recall from decades past, and what they've been up to now.

Part of my evening was spent setting up my Canon ip4500 inkjet printer to be accessible over the network - basically, either of the laptops here can see and print to it wirelessly. While it sounds easy, the fact remains that modern networking hardware still makes you buy a few 'extras' to get it alk talking. Fortunately, my new Dlink DIR-655 router has a unique feature called SharePort built in - a USB port that can be shared to any computer on your network. Plug in something like, oh, a printer and voila - it's available to any computer on your network. No fuss, no muss - you can do the same with hard drives as well. The good folks over at Butterscotch.com talk about NAS( Networked Attached Storage )which is the next Big Thing in home entertainment: no more switching DVD's around from the bookshelf. Instead, all of your media( movies, pictures, autio )is contained on one ultra-reliable home server box. Simply select what you want and play, just like a PVR. Not cheap yet though... but if current flat-screen TV sales figures are any indication, it's only a matter of time.

I actually scared myself tonight while watching the HD-DVD version of Blade Runner: the Director's Final Cut. Not that the film itself scared me, but while I was watching it I was constantly pausing the DVD to do one thing or another. After a while, I switched back to regular TV to see a show... and noticed to my horror that the 'pause bar' had left a burn-in mark on the screen! Normally only of worry with plasma-based screens, I was stunned that it had happened to my LCD TV... but it faded after a few minutes of regular TV watching as the pixels shifted with the show's motion - phew! Good thing I have a 2-year warranty... and you bet I won't be pausing things for overlong with the HD player. I must say I am disappointed with both, as I never expected an LCD to exhibit burn-in, or the HD player not to initiate a screen-saving mode after a few minutes on pause.

June 28 - Leave it for the weekend

today I spent quite a few hours outside doing yard work, specifically raking leaves which is not a lot of fun in the summer. The Arbutus tree, native to Vancouver Island and the lower Mainland, sheds its dead leaves in the early summer to make way for new growth. these leaves are quite acidic and so cannot be left on the lawn as they would damage it. So we freaking hand I spent four hours of an admittedly lovely Sunday afternoon raking leaves into plastic bags for later disposal; a total of12 bags later I was quite ready to chop down a few trees to avoid doing this next year... but I stopped as they will so darn nice compared to a wretched old elm, for example. I was glad that we had a hottub here, as I really needed it after all that - my first time in for over a month now, and it was fantastic.

I was engrossed in a game of Civ:Revolution for the remainder of the evening, playing as the Mongols vying for world domination against, as fate would have it, the Chinese. I won eventually through sheer economic might, but the funniest moment of the game came when the Chinese, headed by the avatar of Mao Tse Tung, threatened to go to war with me.... unless I parted with the secret of Communism! I laughed out loud, as the avatar was waving Mao's little red book right at me as he did it! After that, I ground them into dust, but I was quite put out - one of the game's glitches caused me not to end up with an ICBM, the most powerful weapon in the game, despite the fact I had built everything correctly to receive it. Bummer - no nukes, so the endgame was somewhat anticlimactic.


As I finish off this entry, I am writing it outside on the deck... watching the leaves still falling from the arbutus trees in nearby yards as the wind gusts. Looks like I will have a lot to do next weekend, again. *sigh* No leaf blowers though - those things annoy the heck out of me, and where do the leaves go? Nowhere.

Accents, Atlantis and Asprin

Well well well ... another week, another blog! Seems to be quite a few of these here; all the more to catch up on in one's spare time...


Sept 30 - Just Watch Me

YouTube - anything you want to watch, in ten-minute bites. As I've mentioned a few shows in the past in the blog, I thought I would share something different this time: spoofs. For your viewing pleasure, may I present Monty Python's Spamalot from the Holy Grail... done in Lego. Then there's ... Shining, which is a trailer that spoofs The Shining, all done with original clips. For those of you strong in the Farce, there's a never-before-seen clip of Darth Vader being a smartass - I can relate. Lastly, there is the incredibly funny Lemon Demon Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny...

The above video bring to mind old things made new... which of course can easily lead to a cliché. The Cliché Finder Database can help you avoid such things; as a writer I find it invaluable for testing my 'new' ideas to see if they've been done-to-death already. So, you're welcome.

I spent some of my time today outside on a patio at the local Starbuck's, soaking up a lovely sunny afternoon with a soy drink at hand and lots of people parading by. Being able to sit on a patio and not be smoked all over was a breath of fresh air, literally. Much as I espouse equal rights for those who want to commit slow suicide by cancer stick, I do not want to breathe in their chemical clouds from three tables over, thanks... so B.C.'s tough public smoking laws are a boon to patio-goers here.

Oct 1 - You Speak Me?

One of my interests is language; not to get too technical, but the fact that SO many different lanugages have developed on a single planet, among members of a single species, fascinates me. Accents among members of the same lingual family are an offshoot of this interest; this site lets you test what sort of American accent you have in the English language. Then again, you could always learn to speak Klingon or, my favourite: Atlantean!

Speaking of which, I've begun watching Stargate: Atlantis on DVD, which is great for enjoying both the writing and special effects at one's own pace. I've also just this week discovered the Stargate Atlantis Blog, which has tons of inside insights from the creators of the show. Too bad it just got cancelled. :-(

An old man on a bike caused me to experience a Scooby Doo Hallway moment today near my home. He was just another cyclist riding by, albeit on an old bike; not a classic, but likely from the late sixtie's and in questionable shape. He was by and gone in a few seconds as I crossed the street and waited for more traffic... and then he went by me AGAIN, from the SAME direction! I did a double-take, for I had last seen him turning into a driveway just up the street... and as far as I knew, there was no back alley or other laneway beyond. Yet there he was, the same old man with the same spaced-out look on his face, going in the same direction. Another day I am going to look into his route, as I want to reassure myself I did not experience some sort of spatial distortion...

The Church of the Banana project took another big step forward today, which I am glad to see. With a number of talented people working on it feverishly, new and good things are happening - stay tuned!

Oct 2 - Hit Shows

YouTube can give new life to many an underrated show long after it has vanished from TV channels. One such is Duckman, starring the voice of Jason Alexander from Seinfeld TV fame. The writing is sharp, satiricual and scathingly funny, much as many a good show is that gets cancelled too early due to audiences not knowing about it - this episode is a great example. Another show I enjoyed was (brace for the title, it's a doozy) Roughnecks: The Starship Troopers Chronicles, which was an early CGI sci-fi cartoon with some surprisingly mature themes underlying the saturday-morning appearance. Which would explain how the show is developed quite a following despite being off the air for nearly ten years and despite the series ending before all the episodes were completed.

The Hit Counter for this blog reached 400 today, which was a milestone. Since I started the counter in February, it has tracked an average of 50 people per month checking out the blog. Not huge numbers, but it is gratifying to see that people are reading what I write. With a few comments scattered here and there too, for good measure.

One thing I haven't done in the last month is play Civ: Rev at all... seeing as nobody else is playing, getting my civ smacked about by the computer isn't nearly as much fun as attacking a human opponent. I suppose I could find some online gamers to fight, but it's not my thing to take strangers to task unless it's in something like Halo3 or COD4 ... less talking, more shooting, really.

Oct 3 - Smallest Houses

Seems I am stuck working every friday evening this month, which thankfully does not impact my social calendar much - yet. All things considered though, I like working the morning shifts better; there is less a sense of wasting an entire day working when you can be home by late afternoon - lots of time to do other things. Like laundry - apparently someone has discovered yet another amazing new way to do it.

The leaves have started falling from the trees along St. Charles Ave this week, meaning that Fall is inevitably here. It is odd though, seeing so many trees still green, and gardens that will remain in bloom throughout the winter months here - the City has planted pansies in many of the public gardens, so those will be colourful right through and into Spring. Nice thoughts for the chillier months.

Something on my horizon is home ownership - sooner or later, we all put down roots, save for the inveterate travelers among us. One concept I am keeping in the back of my cluttered head is Tumbleweed Homes, which can fit almost anywhere on lots too small for traditional homes. An added advantage, apart from the much lower cost of ownership, is the house can be moved at a later date if necessary - just try that with a 2000sqFt bungalow! Considering the sky-high cost of homes in Victoria in the current market, a small, personal-sized dwelling that isn't a condo has great appeal to me.

Oct 4 - Hey, where did...?

I continue to be impressed by the capabilities of my laptop - yes, it's the geek in me, but I try only to let myself G33k out at home. Really. *ahem* So what has my inner geek grinning? HDMI. Yep, the laptop has an HDMI port... and since it ALSO has a top-notch dedicated video chipset from ATI, I can pop in an HDMI cable and get 1080p - true HD output - from the laptop to my big-screen. Not only that, but the little laptop can use BOTH displays simultaneously... something even the techs at BestBuy said it could NOT do. So stick it, you wannabe-g33ks.. I got it to work with a minimum of electric shocks, soldering and cursing. Boy, does it look good!

I had the day off today, and as always it vanished FAR too quickly. I was out for lunch and about town until well into mid-afternoon... just in time to be REALLY rained on, more rain than I have ever seen in Victoria to date. The expressions on people caught outside without umbrellas were priceless... unfortunately, the sudden shift in air pressure meant my head wanted to explode - again, just like last week. I managed to get some work done in between doses of asprin, with two more articles for Cyberwalker.com nigh completed and more work for the CoTB.

Oct 5 - Sun-daze

Nothing really amazing today, just went to work and back again. The sun peeked out a few times during the day, then vanished again as quickly, but at least the rain held off save for a few drops here and there. People's moods were generally sunny today though, for some reason, despite the weather; something I appreciated given a few other days this week.

Sometimes you really need a good sense of humour, as well as patience. How else would you learn the many ways to shoot elastics at the Guide to Shooting Rubber bands? Seriously, there's just a little TOO much information there. So instead, to put your curousity to bed, there's the Red Button Page. Just try to stay away...

One thing that may knock your mood a-kilter, is this. What are people thinking in the name of fashion? Tattoos, piercings... those things I understand. Even the fad from a few years back for dental jewellery, along with other funny stories from the world of teeth.


Soldiering along towards Christmas we go... no comments last week, so I must be doing something right. Soon enough it will be time for ghouls and ghosts to roam the streets, and I still am not sure what I am doing for Halloween. Maybe I should go as a blog writer... all pale and twitchy?

Planes, Pirates and Peanut Butter

The weather this week was rather blah for the most part. I went from grey skies in ON to grey skies in BC... but the sun popped out as usual on the weekends to mock me. Nice to know some things don't change, despite being in another province 3500km away...

Sept 16 - Going Rogue

Whew! I slept in today until 11am - guess I needed it. Spent a lot of the day running around getting groceries and the like. Nice to have a car only when you need it - saves parking and repairs - thanks to the folks, such is my case. I even splurged on a new backpack from Targus, though the price made me cringe as usual - necessary though, as my other bags cannot safely carry the laptop and are falling apart besides. The thing has more pockets than the other two bags combined though, as well as many other features that make it (almost)worth the price, in all.

I logged a little while of gaming in COD4 with Dave tonight, and did surprisingly well. I seem to have found a combination of 'perks' and weapons that keep me alive long enough to claim a fair portion of team kills, which I find very gratifying. The Xbox360's controller is STILL nowhere near as accurate as a PC mouse and keyboard, but then that also means the OTHER guy is less accurate too - there's far too many headshots as it is!

One thing I also installed on the new rig is Rogue Trooper, a game based on the old 2000 A.D. comic strip that had some of the best storytelling I have seen... well, I read the Heavy Metal:War Machine issue with it in it (and stupidly loaned it to someone who lost it)so that's close enough. Authors like David Drake and Joe Haldeman are ones whose work I read avidly, as they both had brief-but-intense stints in the military that shape the course of their work even decades later. In some ways, I am quite glad that I do not live in a country where conscription is a fact of life, but when one reads about the camaraderie forged among those who have seen battle, the wise know that this is something that no other bond in the world can compare to... and also for which no other bond carries so high a price.

Sept 17 - Foul for the Environment

Back to work today for an evening shift, after my all-too-brief and all-too-busy (but in a good way) vacation last week. I am not one for long vacations, but even this one seemed just a little too short - I am used to at least a few days of total relaxation, but I suppose I can still do that; with the number of vacation days I have banked, I HAVE to take some 3 and 4 day weekends in the next few months. I hope to get a lot accomplished / caught up on those weekends... but if I do, does that not negate the fact that they are 'vacation' weekends? Again, irony raises its voice in laughter.

A strange thing: There is NO Drive Clean program here in B.C. as strange as that sounds. Cars belching copious clouds of black exhaust are far more common here than in Ontario. Which annoys the crap out of me on a personal level, as I have to suck in their fumes while climbing the hill to work every day - there's always at least one beater chugging up the hill next to me, making me stop to gasp for fresh air in a driveway or side street. It's amazing that the air can be so fresh one moment, then swimming with fumes and the stench of unburned hydrocarbons. For a province that claims the high ground in so many environmental fields, this is a glaring omission.

Sept 18 - Costumes

Halloween is coming up, and I am not sure what to do this year. I never seem to get around to costume design in time for the 31st each October, though many a great idea has stayed lodged in my head. Certainly I could shop for some great Halo3 costumes here, or even try for a matching set.

One of my friends is in the 501st Legion, a respected and well-established Star Wars costuming club. They're so popular, they have often provided security at many a convention, which of course is a sight to see - nothing like a squad of stormtroopers to settle disputes peacefully... The reason I mention this is that I recently recalled that the 2008 Canadian Action Figure Expo is coming up. I attended the 2007 show with Mike H. to sell off most of my beloved toys of years past in preparation for the move out to BC. Amazingly, someone with a camera managed to document almost every vendor present - my stuff (the table with the tall white shelf) is shown here and here, plus you can see a few shots of the 501st members who attended, including a female Royal Guard.

Which brings up the subject of female Stormtroopers, whose outfits although pleasing to the eye are somewhat impractical for battle. Heck, you can get into such topics as chainmail bikinis, female fantasy armour (or the lack therof) with some great recreations here, as well as the many stereotypes that abound in fantasy and fiction regarding barbarians and the like. One of my favourite series on the topic is the 'Chicks in Chainmail' series edited by Esther M. Friesner which has its authors exploring the many, er, cracks in the genre regarding women's stereotypes. She writes about the latest book in the series here. Of course, you could just take matters into your own hands about stereotypes, such as in comics...

Sept 19 - Pirates, yahar!

Today is International Talk Like A Pirate Day, which has several of my neighbours excited - they're big pirate fans, and I can guess fairly accurately what they're dressing up as this year. There is the Official Site, the Bus Pirates site, How To Talk Like A Pirate and even some Pirate Fonts to turn your PC into a buccaneer sailing the strange silicon seas of the internet. Plus a few more sites where you can spend yer gold on pirate booty and swag. Reminds me a little of BucCONeer'98, the World SciFi convention I attended in 1998 in Boston, whose theme (as the name implies)was piratical. Boston and pirates seemed to go well together.

One of my favourite pirates of all time is Captain Capacitor, which is odd as he is both fictional AND a CGI animated character... but that perhaps, is why I like him best. As I mentioned in an earlier blog, he was voiced by Long John Landry, whose salty tones did much to sell ol' Gavin.

Sept 20 - Don't Miss the BoobTube

It's been two months now with no TV, and I have to say I am more productive for it. It's no effort at all to pop in a DVD of my favourite series, or find something on YouTube that I've not seen in a while - despite the 10-minute limit, which is annoying for a 42-minute show, I'll grant you. One of these days I will get around to uploading ALL of my DVD's to my PC, but that will have to wait for a) the time it takes (2hrs per DVD on average) as well as b) the storage space - I figure I will beed about 5 Terabytes of storage, which is well beyond both my current finances and current tech on the market... but the gap is closing. I can recall when 1 gigabyte drives were 'too big to fill' even when installing ALL one's games, pictures and a few videos. Look for far we've come along since!

I was wiped when I got home from work, so much so that even dinner seemed a daunting task. Luck for me the microwave was invented, or I'd have had to resort to a PBJ - it's Peanut Butter Jelly time!

This week I also managed to get NWN to run on my new laptop, which was no mean feat in and of itself - Vista64 is NOT friendly to older programs, and since NWN dates waaaay back from 2002, I had little hope. Success put a smile on my face though, as now I can run the game on hot days without worrying about frying my main PC, which gets VERY toasty with no A/C nearby - I miss my office at The Prince, where I had an A/C vent pointed right at the back of the PC desk...

Sept 21 - Planes and Mechs

The Snowbirds are putting on a show today down by Dallas Rd, where nearly 25,000 people are expected to attend. Unfortunately, I am stuck working today, which I find manifestly unfair... I love seeing aerial acrobatics, and attending airshows has always been a highlight of any given year. At least I managed to catch a glimpse of one plane through a gap in the buildings to the south - sweet!

One thing I would love to do is attend Air Combat USA, where one can fly prop-driven aircraft in mock combat, complete with lasers and smoke dispensers to simulate hits. I have always liked flight simulators, so much so that I purchased one mother of a controller back in the day to play Tie Fighter - one of the greatest space combat sims ever created, for any platform. Though I did not do so well at things like Microsoft Flight Simulator, one of these days I will sit down and really learn how to fly... or at least how to avoid the ground for a good long time. Same thing, right?

This reminds me of the old Battletech Center which was located in the CN Tower in Toronto years back. This was a 'virtual world' of 16 linked 'battlepods' which simulated the interior and control layout of mechs from the Battletech universe. Each pod was linked in a network( pretty high tech stuff 15 years ago )where up to 8 players at a time could battle each other in tactical combat using the latest graphics at the time - pretty dull by today's standards, but it beat the heck out of the Nintendo64 at the time. As I recall, the whole setup was running on a Mac Quadra, which was incredibly funny to see; all these huge battlepods linked to a tiny Mac sitting in a corner that spat printouts from an old HP inkjet. The future meets the Mac - sounds like a commercial, actually!


I am using a Blog editor called ScribeFire this week, in the hopes that it will cure the annoyances that have drawn out each entry for FAR longer than it should take to enter some simple text. One thing it has done already is making links a LOT easier to enter, hence the link-heavy blog this week.

Niagara Trip 2008

Prepare yourself… I had a bit more free time this week, while on vacation. Which means I managed to pack a LOT more into the blog – a lot more happened too, so there’s balance! To help out, I have highlighted the wedding-related entries in blue text.

Sept 8 - The Saga Begins

My first day of vacation, finally! I made a nice relaxed breakfast( with turkey bacon of course! )and just tried to chill for a few hours to unwind from the long weekend.

The day was spent packing, on and off, as I dug things out of corners and cupboards to make a tidy pile for stuffing into luggage later. I took a break in the late afternoon, forced to do so by work - was there any surprise?

I was dropped off at the airport in plenty of time, a little after 9pm. I checked in at Sunwing, remembering only AFTER I had parted with my luggage that I was supposed to lock it. Oops. So I spent over an hour worrying about it, then forgot to worry as I sipped on a Tazo Chai latte, courtesy of the nice lady who opened up the sole Starbucks counter early just for me – I love B.C. folks more and more. I was so relaxed that I almost forgot that I had not yet passed through Security, so at 11:30pm I snapped out of my torpor and trundled to the checkpoint to partially disrobe in the hopes that flashing detector lights would not point out my ignorance of change in my pockets – didn’t happen, I was happy. Then only a few minutes waiting in the Departure Lounge before boarding, almost on time. It was amusing to watch the other passengers in various states of semi-consciousness, considering that I was rather stoked on caffeine which I never drink after 6pm, just because it keeps me up far after midnight if I do.

I was sandwiched into the window seat, per my request… forgetting yet again the law of averages. My two seatmates were a lovely, quiet older couple… who were quite disabled in terms of mobility. So, I was trapped in my seat the entire flight, as the man took at least ten minutes to work up to the effort of hauling himself from his seat – he was unable to do up his belt without help too, for that matter. Nice and quiet the entire flight too, I have to say. I was especially pleased to see that the only crying baby on the flight was far to the back, barely in earshot – I would have knelt to give thanks right then, but the fold-down tray blocked my attempts.

The short hop from Victoria to the Vancouver stop was barely an eye blink, and reminded yet again that ALL of my flights to and from B.C. have been in the dark – I have yet to see my new home or the surrounding area in daylight. Odd, but there it is… Vancouver was a sea of lights, spread out light jewels in the perfect night that glowed with the yellow and cold white of the sulfur and sodium streetlights. I was amazed at the clarity of the night: no clouds marred the tiny perfection of the scenes spreading out below as I arrived and left a city I had yet to set foot in – the mountains and waterways were of course invisible to me, sadly. Maybe another time.

Sept 9 - Back In Niagara

We were in the air again shortly after 1:30am PST, at which point I set my watch forward 3 hours to EST. I managed a few hours sleep from 5am to 7am EST, then was gently elbowed awake by my seatmate in time for breakfast – I chose the poached eggs over the waffles, as syrup and I have always had a messy history, especially in close quarters. Delicious too – who would have thought that a hot breakfast would have been part of such a low ticket price I paid?

The flight landed on time, and the shuffling horde made it out of the plane in decent order… except for me, as I was still trapped next to the nice-but-motively-challenged couple. The gentleman eventually managed to haul himself out of his sea far enough to let his wife and I pass, which was great as I had not planned on spending my first half-hour back in Ontario trapped in an airplane seat. The baggage claim was much faster, as I managed to be one of the first people to grab n’go – there's a first time for everything, I guess, and some balance too.

The airport shuttle was another matter; since Enterprise was off-site, I had to find their shuttle pickup spot… which turned out to be as herculean a task as snapping a picture of both Bigfoot and Jimmy Hoffa together. After taking a pedestrian tour of the entire Pearson Parking Garage’s lower level without spotting any sign of an Enterprise shuttle( heh, Star Trek… )I relented and called them for further clarification. Turns out that the ‘designated pickup point’ was an unmarked, glass and grey-panel bus stop in the furthest corner of the garage, with NO arrows, signs or other markings leading to it or on it. Intuitive, I guess, for the psychics among us. In any case, I walked all the way BACK there, and All Was Well. The trip to St. Catharines was uneventful too, with the sun shining and traffic flowing like a sparkling steel river along the QEW as I left T.O. at 10:30am. Though I do not miss travelling on the QEW, I do recall with fondness many a trip to the Eaton Centre as a kid - a trip to the Big City was always exciting.

I rolled into St. Catharines before noon, going straight to Rene’s where the trooper had stayed up from his night shift to greet me and make sure I arrived all right – thanks, bud. I settled myself in, then headed out to make a few stops.

Barely an hour in town, and I got a call from Shawna asking about how to fix her computer… see any patterns here? Turns out it just needed a dusting, easy to diagnose over the phone. Simple fixes; love that.

I stopped in at The Prince early in the day, to say hello to the Supers there. They were surprised to see me but very pleased nonetheless, so we spent a little while catching up in the office. I have to say the place looked great, with numerous cosmetic upgrades that added touches of class to the building. Great folk.

On my way to the Falls to get measured for the first tux of my life, I stopped first at the Welland Ave M.Mart to say hello to the girls. As I pulled up to park, a stylish and shiny black car zoomed into the spot next to me. With visions of Yakuza gunmen, I warily exited my car… to be greeted with a squeal of “Peter!” – it was Katie! Apparently she had spotted me turning into the lot, recognizing me despite a goatee, a rental car and not seeing me for nearly a year. We chatted for a bit, delighted to have run into each other so soon, and I had a look at tiny Annabella in the back, asleep… much as I felt I needed soon, having got 2 hours in the last 30 myself. That car seat looked awfully comfortable in the shady sunlight – lucky kid.

The tux measuring in the Falls went well, with the clerk commenting that the measurements I had sent in( that I had don myself )would have better suited a skinny gorilla than a human being. I agreed, and asked if he had ever measured a gorilla – we both got a laugh over that.

Once I was back from my measuring, I settled into my room – the air bed was comfortable, but had an odd tilt to the left. After a nap of a few hours, I had dinner with Matt L. and his wife Suzette at their place on Roehampton, only a few doors down from my old haunt at The Prince. It was a great dinner( thanks guys! )and we all had a blast in each other’s company.

I arrived at the Kilt a little after 8pm; Brian was already there. Amazingly, within a short period of time many people showed up: Dan, Mike, Pierre, Al… even John and his new beau Amber. We took over two booths under the projector screen and had a blast until midnight – I was touched that so many had come out just to see me on my first night in town, even with the ‘official’ Kilt night being Wed.

Sept 10 - Lunch, and Kiltage

Well, I wanted to sleep in today, and I did - with a vengeance. I hit the hay last night around 2:30am, which with the time difference was an early 11:30pm for me PST. I woke when Rene rolled in from work around 7:30am, then went back to sleep for what I thought was a few hours... But the clock read 11am when I finally opened my eyes!

Both Rene and I went to meet Tim at Coppola's for lunch, very conveniently located at a 2 minute walk on Carlton Ave. My old school-mate Luigi runs the place, and I have only heard good things - today's lunch did not disappoint either! A chicken club on foccacia was delicious with a a Caesar salad, and the other guys were both ecstatic about their meals. The waiter was very attentive, refilling drinks before being asked and amazingly, spotting that I hailed from B.C. - without being told! He said it was my happy and relaxed attitude... something that I apparently picked up after leaving ON. Without trying, I might add.

I was at the Kilt again for 6pm, and again Brian was there soon after – I envy him the ability to make his own hours, as I hope to do so for my own career sooner rather than later. Working for The Man stinks, most days.

People. TONS of people. Almost everyone I had sent an email to arrived tonight. Brian, Lucas, Shawna, Nigel, Katie, Dan, Simon, Matt L. plus the M.Mart girls: Rose, Tyra, Jackie, Ashley and her friend Amanda. The most lovely surprise was seeing Jen again, who has taken the plunge into real estate after leaving M.Mart a few years ago to get married, among other things. Being an idiot, I forgot to post my Itinerary to F.Book, but Jen figured it out anyway... smart, smart girl, she is.

Honest Frankie was playing tonight, and we caught up in between sets – it was great to see and hear him perform again live – a bit of Niagara I had missed greatly in B.C.

Sept 11 - Emotional Gifts

It is strange being a tourist in my old home town. In many ways, it feels as though I have never actually left – all the major bones are there, the trees, the views, all that. Yet surgery is underway on the QEW, quite a few other small changes are taking place across the city as well. Some stores are closed, new ones open... the streets are still crowded at the usual bottlenecks.
Plus, it feels DRY here – not the humidity, that’s much the same soupy-feeling air. No, after the lush foliage of B.C., even the thousands of trees I see fall short of the riotous splendor that fills Victoria from end to end with a million shades of green and all the colours in between. At least the weather for these two days has been beautifully sunny, though the forecast for the weekend is sadly for showers… such is the luck of weddings this time of year. Though considering the wet summer they have had in Niagara so far, it may not have mattered much this year anyway.

Part of my day was spent dithering, about spending. For some time now, my home PC has been hampering my work efficiency, as its relative antiquity means I can perform only a few tasks at a time and other things take far too long overall as it is. So, I have been debating getting a new PC, though the expense has had me balked for the last long while – after all, I am a master at making my current stuff stretch to avoid expensive upgrades. The Blue Frankenstein currently has parts from six different computers in it, and has served me well... but its time has passed.

But, today I fell in love… well, had my jaw drop anyway. Over at Best Buy, my eye was caught by a snazzy Gateway laptop - there is a favourable review of it here. Now, I am the last one to say “I need a laptop” as it usually means a compromise, AND a whack to the wallet but this thing had my number – it could do everything I wanted it to for getting my work done more efficiently, not to mention being about ten times faster AND smaller than my current PC. Heck, its portable – meaning I can do my work anywhere, much as I had been doing with my PDA to get blog ideas down… and then fighting to transfer them to my PC without enabling all sorts of errors( see previous blogs for that ). The clincher in the deal today? I could walk out the door with this beautiful machine, for a price that had me blinking in shock, and not pay anything, not even interest, for a whole year. I was sold, so was the laptop, and I cheered. Then I felt an awful twinge of phantom pain near my wallet, so I limped to the car, still grinning like a fool.

I also shopped again for a wedding gift today, but was hampered by the fact that all of the gifts at The Bay were already purchased from the Registry there. I did not find anything I liked at the Pen, but like an idiot I did not check Sears to see if they were registered there as well – I found out on the wedding day that there were, so I could have saved myself some searching. Ah well… not like I do a lot of weddings, but I will chalk this one up to ‘learn for Next Time, dork.’
I picked up my tux in the late afternoon, at Caswell’s in the Falls. It was amazing; I felt like an ad spokesman for Gary Waters when I looked into the mirror after the fitting was done. I expected to look like the classic ‘penguin’ tux wearer: a lot of black, some white, and lots of shiny. Instead, an elegantly-trimmed man stared back at me, done up to the nines as though for the Oscars. Wow!

I had dinner at my aunt’s in the Falls shortly after, where we spent a lot of great hours reminiscing about the family history. There is a lot of history at that house in particular, where most of our italian family gatherings have been held: birthdays, Easter, Christmas, etc... dozens of times in my life that place has been packed to the gills. Especially the couches after dinner, where all the older uncles snoozed after the heavy feasting.

What I loved best though, was going through my grandfather’s poetry, the works that he had written to my grandmother during their courtship and other pieces too. They have both since passed on, with his death shortly before my birth in 1973. I was stunned to see so many similarities in our writing styles: the same unconscious choice of verse and measure to the poems we both wrote, much as my own father wrote poetry to my mother – and still does. Even our handwriting was similar in many ways, down to the little quirk of running out of room at a line’s end and cramming the words in as catch can. A bold hand, looping and sacrificing refinement for speed to keep up with our thoughts. Again, I felt saddened that I never had the opportunity to meet this wonderful man, my namesake, who must have posessed many of the qualities I value in myself today. That lack is one of the very few things I regret in my life, and his.

As I left the dinner, I noticed that the two gas stations on Thorold Stone Rd & Montrose were lined up. Luckily, two motorcyclists were talking next to me at the light, and I overheard how gas was predicted to spike thanks to Ike( heh, it rhymes! )tomorrow. So I pulled in and filled up, next to a guy with an SUV who was complaining loudly about the cost at $1.25 cents. So I cheerily explained that gas in B.C. was up to $1.45, so that snapped his mouth shut in a hurry. The cyclists were right too; gas went up to $1.38 the next day… which stinks, because after this trip is over I will have had to put an entire tank into the rental – but at least it was cheaper tonight to fill.

Later that night I went to Faith and Pierre’s place, where I met Mike’s girlfriend Lisa, who was still nice to me despite being warned by Mike – she seems VERY nice. Dan was there, as was Brian, and a chocolate fountain. After some herculean efforts, the chocolate began to flow, to the delight of all who dipped various fruits and confections into its sweet dark drippings. Talk turned to tech, of course, including discussion of putting up the website they had all created for my birthday a few months ago. As well, Pierre pointed out a great, inexpensive quality microphone that I can use for my voice acting work – since I have a nice, quiet laptop now to work with, I should be able to create MUCH better recordings than with my loud 12-fan Blue Frankenstein PC.

Sept 12th - Retro Games Night

Rene had kindly made enough breakfast for two, so I dined on a splendid omlette that really got the day off to a good start. Room service with a smile! Thanks!
I headed out ‘early’ today; well, early for me, as the 9am start here was still 6am for me PST. I went straight to the pen Centre, determined to get a worthy gift for the wedding and still not deterred by the fact that the tiny Registry had been 99% bought up already. After some searching, I found a multitude of perfect related gifts and had them wrapped together at the Customer Service desk, where the nice lady commented mine was the heaviest gift she had ever wrapped… but that her expertise was such that she never once had to lift or flip it. She deserved the tip, as that was one HEAVY box, I tell you… and I hope, HOPE that the newlyweds can make use of the items. You never know...

I had lunch at Café Amore with some relatives, which turned into a have-to-go-now-its-3pm visit – nice, but I did not want to overstay my welcome, much as I love them all.

It was raining spiritedly on the way to the Falls as it is wont to do in Niagara. Unlike Victoria, whose rain is almost apologetic in how it falls gently then vanishes, rain here in Ontario is like that neighbour next door who likes his wrestling on TV: loud, annoying, and lasts FAR too long.

It must say as well that I am less than impressed with my rental car, a Pontiac G5 – the Info button on the steering wheel tells me that I am averaging 8.8L per 100 km… which is sad. It’s a nice little car, but I have been watching the gas gauge drain with something akin to horror, given the current gas prices. By the time I return to T.O. I think I will have to put another half-tank into it, which is frustrating compared to my old ’94 GrandAm’s gas-sipping ways.

The Guys Games Night was a blast. Jason had printed off some old arcade game cabinet shapes, complete with art that we cut out laboriously with scissors… and did not end up using due to a lack of solid posterboard backing. Ah well. My Galaga score came close to beating Jason’s three times, but I gave up as I developed a habit of reaching for a nearby raid can as the pressure mounted in the endgames. We switched instead to Forgotten Worlds, another old Capcom game that I had missed with a vengeance – Jason and I made it through to the end, which elicited much cheering on my part – it made up for my utterly hopeless attempts at conquering Ghosts and Goblins, which remains to this day one of the trickiest arcade games one can try to master.

A brief interlude had me trying out the Nintendo Wii in a few games of tennis, where I have to say I was impressed with the ease with which one can ‘jump into’ the game with the Wii’s motion-sensitive controller. Slamming a backhand to spin a ball just inside the line, far out of reach of your opponent is a thrill when you DO it, not just slapping some buttons and moving a joystick. Cool!

I also hooked up my laptop to the LCD projector during the break and played a few videos: Kiss a Wookie, Star Wars Hands, and a few others too.

We ended the night with a three-person adventure in Gauntlet II, where I cracked up the other guys with my dead-on impression of the ‘game voice’ saying things wholly inappropriate to the game… “Wizard needs food, badly!” We played until we were cross-eyed, and called it a night.

Sept 13th - Rain and Rehearsal

Breakfast today was at the Sunrise Café on Bunting Rd. Brian was there of course, as was Scotty – great to see him, as I had not seen much of him in the last few years. We used to hang out downtown at the Celtic Knot, before it became The Office – their Meat Pie Special was an amazing deal and always tasted great with a ton of hot gravy on the fries. Not that I would be able to eat it anymore, but some good times, especially one time at New Years… ah well. I ended up taking a tour of Scott’s place to see all the renovations he has done – it looks great, and of course it eats up all his spare time… which is just Scotty SOP, as usual. Ah, homeowners…
I was in the Falls before 4pm to help out with some of the final things for the wedding, including neat fans – this involved stylish fake leaves, ribbons and lovely paper cardstock that somehow combined into a tasteful and functional gift for the wedding guests. Combine that with a bottle of spring water each, and they were set for the hot weather tomorrow. Good planning, K2K’s !

Around 5pm all of us, the wedding party and family, went for a convoy drive out to Jordan for the rehearsal, as well as to familiarize ourselves with the route and destination too. Turns out that the Cave Springs Vineyard is on the very same road as Camp Cave Springs, where my entire Grade Eight class went for a few days in late spring. Memories of green hair, arrows fired straight up into the air and firelight tales of horror made me grin – too bad my camera was back at Rene’s or I’d have snapped a few images for the album.

Everything looked great, though the raining grey skies were ominous above the gentle green rows of vines all around. It was very quiet and peaceful… too quiet as it turns out, for the CSV folks had forgotten to open the reception hall for us to practice in. A phone call soon had that sorted out, and we all went in out of the rain to toss umbrellas into a large dripping corner pile.
Rehearsal went well, as things were fairly simple. I only had to worry about seating the guests and looking pretty, both of which should not be mutually exclusive. There was room for all.
We were done dinner before 9, and I was heading back to St. Catharines before 10pm. I met up with Lori, Brian and Rene at the same Ontario St. Timmy’s, where we jawed until well after midnight. I was pleased to see Lori doing so well; her new high-tech pump seems to be doing her a world of good.

Sept 14th - Wedding Day!
After a somewhat fitful sleep( a little too warm, actually )the hour was but 8am( 5am PST )when I broke from my slumber to get a rush on the day. I was ready and in the car by 9:15am on the way to the Falls, all my gear in a travel bag and my tux hanging smartly in the back. After changing at Jason’s mom’s place, I followed him up to Jordan, where we parked in the very smart lot of the Inn On The Twenty and then boarded the limo. By sheer co-incidence, the driver of the other limo, a Rolls-Royce, was none other than my former high-school principal! We caught up briefly after the ceremony... small world.

Amazingly, on the way to the vineyard the weather cleared! It was humid as a rainforest, but the skies were blue and the sun shone down clear on the gathering shortly before noon. Wisely, the decision had been made last night for an indoor ceremony, and that kept us out of the mud in mid-vineyard today. A constant, heavy breeze cooled everyone inside the building, though it meant that we had to pile rocks from a nearby drain to keep the tent outside from leaving on its own!

The ceremony itself was beautiful. Myself and the best man Bob led the bride’s mother up, followed by the bridesmaids, including several cherubic young flower girls who also brought up the rings to give to the two mothers. Then the bride was led to the altar by her father and given away, all the while among rapt attention of the crowd. Did I mention that most of the musical tracks playing for the wedding were Enya? THAT made me grin… seems I am not the only one who finds her work tugs at the emotions, as well as helping one to relax in such a stressful world.
Jason only managed to get halfway through his vows before he started misting up from the emotion, but he soldiered on and kept steady to the end. Ruth did not waver, but they were both very emotional yet hung on to retain composure before having to face towards the gathering. The minister was very good, keeping things going smoothly and helped by both a palpable yet gentle presence and a carrying voice. Ruth looked lovely in her dress, smiling radiantly after despairing last night that it would be a dull and grey wedding day. Jason looked happy too, grinning from ear to ear, though he too was suffering in the torturous personal sweat-suit of a tux.
Pictures outside were splendid in the shining sun, though I discovered later that I had managed to get a mild sunburn despite my sheen of sweat. Did I mention sweat? It was hot in that tux. I had rivers of sweat coursing over me, so much that I could feel myself dehydrating just standing there. I managed to cool down a little from the oven I was in on first arriving with a combination of shade, water and removing my layers down to the shirt and suspenders before the main ceremony started and I had to layer it all back on. I have NEVER been that hot before yet been unable to do anything about it except sit and take it, though nobody commented that I started to look like a red tomato, so I managed to give a graceful impression, I guess. I was also impressed with the tux shirt I was wearing: despite the massive sweat injection, it did not show any of it – turns out it was some kind of microfiber polyester. Which explains the heat and lack of breathing capabilities, like cotton has… ah well. It looked good regardless, and that’s all that counts.

We headed back to the Inn On the Twenty for the reception soon after 1:30, after all the requisite pictures had been snapped. The reception went smoothly as well, with everyone seated and even the small children co-operating for the most part – high energy, extreme youth and weddings are not a great mix most days.

Jason had created a multimedia presentation set to music, showing images of himself, Ruth-Ann, friends and family from all the stages of their lives. It was beautifully done, with stunningly professional wipes, dissolves and other media touches that had the whole room sitting in rapt attention. He even had a pic of me in there, though it was just my Facebook one – it has been so long since we last got together that he has no digital pictures of me at all!

Dinner was great, and not too involved, which I loved. Being used to massive Italian weddings with far too many courses of far-too-delicious foods, it was great to see a simple, elegant menu of delicious food that did not take hours to dig through yet still left one smiling and satisfied. I also managed to gravitate from usher, to Best Man, to Groom in the course of the reception – when entering the room, the M.C. announced ME as the Best Man( oops! )and at one point, with the guests clinking their glasses for a kiss, Ruth-Ann looked around and since Jason was out of the room, planted the kiss on me! Talk about whirlwind romances…

It was all over by about 5pm, with the guests leaving with grins on their faces as the bridal party and family transferred across the street to the elegant Inn On The Twenty. I lugged my gift around a few more times, and wished whoever had the job after me luck with their back. It was just starting to rain as I left, the big fat drops spattering my windshield as if to say “See? We waited as long as we could and BOY are we glad we could get on with things now!”

I headed to the Fairview Starbuck’s soon after 8pm, to sit for some hours and type up this blog – at almost 6,000 words, it took a while to add and edit it. The wind was gusting rather fiercely, flinging tree limbs about and lashing the passing rain at me as I ran to and from my rental car.

On the way back, the wind was still in full force. So much so, that as I turned onto George St off Carlton, a tree branch cracked and fell in the street about fifty feet ahead. Now, when I say tree branch, I meant limb. A BIG limb. Say, about thirty feet long / wide as the street, weighing in the several-hundred-pound, crush-your-car-roof-like-tinfoil category of limb. I pulled up and stopped, then got out to ask if another guy standing at the end of his driveway was OK, as he looked a little stunned. Turns out he had just turned UNDER that very limb to pull into his driveway and park – seconds later the limb lost its battle with gravity. He soon calmed, and after I took a picture or two( see below )we parted company, with me telling him to buy lotto tickets ASAP! Talk about car-ma!
Damn, I hate being reminded about my own mortality like that. So I took advantage of Rene’s cable TV and watched most of Tank Girl on Teletoon – Lori Petty’s wacko over-the-top performance always cheers me up, despite the poor plot choice of the Ripper’s zoo origins. One of these days I am going to have to pick up the original comic, which I have heard is ten times better than the movie adaption. Go figure.

Sept 15th - The Wrap-up

Up and bleary-eyed for 8am…. then 8:30am after a failed attempt to rouse from bed. I met Brian, Pierre and Josh at the Sunrise Café less than an hour later. It was like old times, save for the fact that Mike was not there… but that’s a 9-5 job for you. We talked about quite a bit of tech, including our thoughts on the Church Of The Banana and how to develop it into something that may one day, with luck, provide some kind of income for us. Of course, we bandied stories about of the various ‘Got Rich by Luck and Skill’ internet multi-millionaires, and I have to admit I heard a few new stories. One such was the guy who parlayed a cell-phone ringtone site into a blog site worth tens of thousands per month. Another was TechCrunch, a blog that gets over a million hits a day. – you can imagine the kind of revenue THAT generates from ads on their site.

I delivered the tux in the Falls then hit the QEW around 2:30pm, passing over the Skyway and getting a fantastic sunlit vista of St. Catharines. Brock slouching on the Escarpment far to the left, panning towards the lake across a vista of pale buildings poking through a sea of green treetops. To the right, Lake Ontario sparkled a deep blue and far across its azure surface Toronto gleamed tiny and bright in the sunshine. Beautiful, even with the scars of local construction appearing ahead.

Travel time was excellent; as I had expected, the traffic jams were all going OUT of Toronto – the ride in was smooth and jam-free. I stopped for an early dinner at the Erin Mills Town Centre just off the 403, minutes from the airport. I remembered a restaurant there called J.J. Tapps, which was unique in that it was a multi-level eatery that took up both the upper and lower floor of a section near the food court. Sadly, things had changed somewhat since my last visit of ten years past – it was now a Pickle Barrel restaurant, and though it still sprawled over several levels, the upper had been disconnected from the lower so that the unique glass-block stairs would not take you winding through the place until you emerged on the second level of the mall. A pity; the design made for a light and airy restaurant, with a waterfall dropping through the entire height of the place – it was now a 'water feature' and much shorter. Change can be cruel to fond memories... but the maple salmon dish was fantastic, and so much could be forgiven on a happy, full stomach.

I took the rental shuttle to the airport after dropping off the car, and settled in to wait near the closed Sunwing Airlines counter around 6pm. After about 45 minutes, I realized that the counter was NOT going to open, despite the many lights. So I trundled quite a ways away, following a tiny electronic sign to discover the actual, active boarding lines, which moved quite quickly. Security was a breeze, despite my glasses falling off my tray and almost being crushed by the rollers. A quick stop for a tea from Tim Horton’s, and I settled into the lounge with well over an hour before boarding began. Despite the lingering smoke in the air from the nearby cookery( quite strong, actually )I dragged a chair over to the only power outlet in the entire lounge and set up to type this remaining entry as my laptop sipped at the tasty current as it typed awkwardly.



Whew! That’s it… a week packed into one blog. Thanks again to ALL of you, my friends, who went out of their way to spend some time with me this week in Niagara. A very special thanks to Rene, who lost sleep in order to host me comfortably and actually get some talk-time in there too. Jen, it was amazing that you were able to make it to the Kilt – your deductive powers triumphed over my innate lack of preplanning to get ahold of you. Thanks to Rene too, for his great comments about this week's blog - miss ya bud! Pics will be updated once I finish learning how to get Imageshack to do thumbnails...