On our way back to Canada before Christmas, we did stumble across the required small amount of duh-worthy amusement that seems to find one or both of us on every trip. This in the form of an overly inquisitive and way too curious customs officer who decided, after establishing that Jessica would be visiting her boyfriend–me–in Canada, decided to ask her twice if she was planning to move there. And if she was sure she wasn’t. And every time, she reasured the officer in the same manner that no, there were no plans to randomly decide once she’s over here to just sort of stay put. At least not on this trip. After the interview was over and it was decided both of us were neither terrorists nor future immigrants–apparently they’re on the same list, now, we both had to ask. what would have happened if she’d said yes? The way customs person was going about her questioning you’d almost think a wrong answer to that particular set of questions would have had her haulled off the bus and questioned in more detail in one of those little dark rooms you’re only allowed to see when you’re in the deepest level of shit. I get security. I get paranoia. And I get amusing as hell. This, ms. customs lady person thing, was amusing as hell. Thanks for this. Oh, and by the way. The terrorists are in the next car over.
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No, I’m not. Would you like me to?
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Canadians 3, Maple Leafs 2.
So let’s see if I can wrap my head around this here. I don’t think so, but let’s see. We fire nearly 50 shots on net, Jason “I can’t buy a goal” Blake nets one, and we still get killed by Montreal in overtime? Someone wanna explain to me how that happens? Were we being stupid in our own end again? Were we being stupid, perhaps, in the *other* end again? How in the hell do we have a performance like that and still end up taking it on the nose? I think I need a clue by four.
Last time
We didn’t have trouble beating them last time we played. And didn’t quite have the level of performance the recaps say we had in this game. So I have no idea what the difference is. Well, other than the fact the hockey team’s been taking the occasional day off and letting the amateurs play a game or 3 since then. Okay, so maybe I do have the answer after all. Okay, forget I asked. I already have.
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Maple Leafs 3, Islanders 1.
Did anyone actually see this game? I was otherwise engaged on this particular night. Not that it made a whole lot of difference by the looks of it. We kind of didn’t do a whole lot according to just about every report I saw about the game. And it’s against the bloody Islanders, of all teams. They took us out twice, including once on our own ice. Seriously. I don’t think we’ll be playoff bound this year either, folks. When’s baseball again?
Last time
Our only win against them came 2 weeks before that, when we somehow managed to sneak by them by a goal. Then, I thought we might be trying very hard to do something that vaguely resembled improving. Then they went and proved me wrong. Again, when’s baseball season start? This hockey season’s about to be written off.
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Things that make you go “Hmm”, the Canadian edition.
Being outside of Canada for a month, and used to the American way of doing things, these just hit me as true facts–mostly because I think I’ve done most of them since I’ve been back. And, because they probably need no elabouration, you get them in list format. Enjoy.
- Regardless where you are, or for how long you’re there, the return trip–and, optionally, the trip there–almost always includes a stop for coffee.
- The said coffee stop, almost every time, is at your local neighbourhood Tim Hortons–of which every community has at least one.
- It’s not a complete day until, whether you’re home or not, you’ve checked on the score for your local hockey team.
- A sudden change from virtually snow free to pretty well drowning in snow provokes little more than a thought of “Yep, it’s Christmas.”.
- The said sudden change in snow, instead of making you consider that maybe your hat and gloves shouldn’t have stayed in your suitcase, makes you contemplate how best to introduce the nearest person to you to the nearest snowbank to you.
- If not a snowbank, the idea of a snowball fight comes as both a very appealing prospect and, to most, a very natural one.
- A visit with relatives isn’t a visit with relatives until at least 1 of you has at least 1 beer.
- Similarly, beer is not beer if it’s watered down. Canadians don’t drink that other crap.
- Perhaps the most puzzling but not the most surprising of the observations. We don’t usually make them about ourselves. Who would like this post in their name?
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And just like that, we’re in Canada.
It’s amazing just how things tend to slip away from you when you’re in the middle of one of life’s chaotic moments. We had one such the past week or so. As expected we took off on the morning, early, of the 24th–about 20 minutes before 2, to be precise. The fun didn’t take very long to start after that. When we left Rochester, we were fairly well on time. Maybe 10 minutes late. By the time we got to Buffalo, we’d made that up. And By the time we got to the border, we’d lost it again and then some. We were about an hour behind when we hit the border, thanks largely to a changing of the bus drivers and the new one apparently not having a clue what in the 7 levels of hell he was actually doing. Jess and I cleared customs easily, as usual, and that actually took a lot less time than we thought. Our bus out of Toronto heading for Ottawa was supposed to leave at about 6:30 that morning. Pulling into the Toronto terminal at 7, therefore, was a very bad idea. But we did it anyway.
Sitting around the Toronto terminal for the 2.5 hours or so it took for the next bus heading to Ottawa to show up proved not to be as entertaining as some of the other times I’ve had to do that. We got caught up on at least a couple hours’ sleep, and were otherwise several different kinds of bored sitting there. By the time we saw the bus that would take me home and her with me, we were well beyond ready to get the hell out of there or risk death by lack of anything to do or comfortable seating.
Fortunately we didn’t have the usually required incident on the way from either end of the trip–once it was weather, once it was a broken down bus, once it was just plain stupidity on the part of Grayhound–and things actually managed to go off perfectly without a hitch. Well, with the exception of we got in at 2:30 when it was supposed to be closer to 12:30, but we got in. We didn’t do much touching the computer that afternoon when we got home, and even less the day after–hello, Christmas. Welcome to Canada. I don’t think we even said a word on Twitter until Saturday–sorry to folks who actually expected updates this time. After an awesome, as usual, Christmas get together involving much visiting and much foodness, we came back here, went comatose for a few hours, and took the rest of the weekend thus far to just be lazy and relax. Hey, for the first time in a year and a half we were actually both on vacation. We deserved it, dammit. Now, post-trip to the grocery store to restock the fridge, it’s back to more relaxation. And, more random blog posts from the both of us. Including some random observations I keep meaning to actually toss up here. As for new years? All I know we’re doing is whatever comes up at 11:55 on Thursday night. It will probably involve alcohol. It will probably involve a blog post. And it will probably involve hillarity. ‘Til then, have the first attempt at a post since Rochester. I’ll be back with another one later. Maybe.
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I’m a huge fan of conversation.
That’s a large part of the reason I’m on Twitter. Until recently, my blog’s been a very poor reflection of that. Sure, it has comments, and they’re on–posts are commentable for up to 90 days, but unless a habbit was made to check back on a particular post, it’s a little difficult to see when someone decides to reply to you. Particularly since most folks still haven’t quite gotten the hang of RSS feeds–there’s one for comments as well, in case those that do are interested. So, I’ve finally gotten around to fixing that minor malfunction. Now, if someone, including me, replies to a comment you leave on the blog, you’ll get an email with your original comment and the reply. Coming whenever I can find time to do it, receiving entries by email. Because I’m also a fan of lazy. Quite possibly also why I’m on Twitter.
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DreamHost, we need to talk. Now.
I get that you’ve yet to actually meet your quota for network failures this year. And, I get that you’re running out of time to do so. But that doesn’t mean you should, while I’m in the middle of doing something to this or any number of sites/features/services I run on the server, decide to randomly and partially crap out so everything but the site/service/feature I’m currently working on stays up. That’s a really really good way to piss a geek off. Now, if you’d like to stay up and actually working for more than 2 weeks, I might not feel so dirty paying you the $19 or so you ask me to pay on a monthly basis. Can we talk about maybe possibly doing that now? Or am I just gonna have to play baseball with a tech support person’s head? I can do that too, if necessary. And if stability doesn’t start becoming a priority here, it might just end up being necessary. I’d hate to have to contemplate moving… I just got things set up the way I like it, mostly. At least until next month.
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Best of the season to you and yours.
Whatever it is you cellebrate and whenever it is you cellebrate it, here’s hoping the holiday’s as good to you as it’s very likely to be for me. I look forward to seeing your continued readership of this still very much in development blog in 2010. Be responsible, be safe, and most of all, have a little fun. It’s what we’re here for. And remember, it may be happy holidays to you, but it’s merry Christmas to others. Let’s not get *too* politically correct here. That’s how good moods get ruined real fast.
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And sometimes, the party comes to you.
Our second last day here in Rochester was yesterday. Conveniently, it also doubled as Jessica’s birthday. In cellebration of the latter, we decided to do the bbq thing. So we hit the Dinosaur Bar-B-Que, also known as quite possibly the best I’ve had since the last time we did it at my parents’ place. We’d been there before, though never for a special occasion like a birthday or anything, and only once before–back before Jess started her massage therapy courses. We left here at about half past 8 last night, or thereabouts, and by about half past 9 we were stuffed beyond belief, relaxed from various alcoholic beverages, and roughly $50 poorer than when we arived–all in all, not a bad outcome considering what we got out of it.
As always, the food there was beyond awesome. And, as always, neither one of us had room for dessert. Or, for that matter, breakfast this morning. And probably not for much of lunch later today. While we were ordering and subsequently eating, we heard a band setting up for a live performance so decided to stick around for an hour or so afterwards to check them out. Neither of us are into blues music, but the performance last night, by the Beale Street Blues Band (MySpace profile is over here), was actually pretty good. I caught myself almost dancing in my seat to a couple of their songs and I think Jess was ready to as well. The concert itself was free, and it being unexpected by either of us, made the outing just that much more worth the $50 we paid for it. Another thing you don’t see all too much of in Pembroke.
We came back at about 11 or 11:30, somewhere thereabouts, and proceeded to unwind. She says she had an awesome time, which was the end goal, so I guess my work here is done. I wasn’t really planning to make a real big thing out of it, just dinner, conversation, and relaxation. But sometimes, it rocks your socks when the party decides to come to you. And did it ever come to us last night.
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I’m eating these chips to stay healthy.
If things get approved within the halls of Health Canada, I have a suspicious feeling we’ll be hearing a lot of folks saying that. And they actually won’t be bullshitting this time. Health Canada’s considering making it mandatory that anti-cancer drugs, assuming those even exist in the first place, be added to bags of chips. Ignoring the fact there are a hell of a lot better ways to medicate folks against cancer, um, someone wanna clue me in on exactly what that’s supposed to accomplish beyond making the severely anti-medication folks reconsider what snack foods they buy? My brain stopped processing after I read that. For the record, the article in question’s on the CTV website if folks want to take a look. I think I need help wrapping my head around this concept. Or maybe I just need food. Well, at least I can test one of those theories.