Well, I’ve finally joined Flickr.

That’s it.

Go see some of the creepy pictures from the Toronto Fan Expo… a cat with one eye… a chick with two heads… OOOOoooooOOOOOOoooooo

Yep, it on this weekend.
Ever since DR took me to the first one years ago, I’ve been looking forward to the weekend before Labour Day for this event, this year is no exception.

Between mouth-gaping at all the ridiculous and ultra-detailed costumes on parade, we’ll run around all the different booths and stages and screening rooms and will remain on the lookout for the best the Expo has to offer. My best find last year was definitely this little gem: Marina Monster. Let’s hope the Ontario native has made a sequel in time for this year’s extravaganza.

If anyone want to meet up let us know, I’ll have my day old iPhone with me.

Here’s another reason why I’m glad I grew up in the 80’s
(Bonus for the zombies)

My friend Nick turned me on to this fantastic website and I was able to recover all my yearbook pictures through the years. They bring back so many memories:

1958

1960

1970

1976

1980

1982

1986

1990

1998

But if I would have been a girl, my yearbook pictures would’ve looked more like this:

1950

1960

1968

1980

1984

1996

Seriously, go to this site and have fun too… I want to see some of yours!

This is not a prison. This was our locker for the last 2.5 years. We first got it when it was decided that DR would move in with me and my roommate Mykull. We knew that between the 3 of us there would be a lot of extra furniture and robots, too much for this place, so the locker was the solution. In time, we also ended up putting our bicycles in there after the second attempt at stealing them from our balcony by some crackheads. Oh, and our Christmas stuff too since I was afraid to put up my tree with all its decoration after getting George Hamilton. So maybe it turned out to be a prison after all, one for the things we loved but didn’t have room to display.

This is the room vacated by Mykull’s departure this week. Mykull and I became roommate 4.5 years ago after both of us going through separate but dramatic events in our lives. He was a good roommate and we got through some fun adventure in our times living together. Good luck to you my friend. I know your new home will be a great one.

OK DR, roll up your sleeves, we have lots of work to do. Your robots will breathe again.

On Saturday, we took the streetcar to Home Depot at Gerrard Square to purchase some wood and hooks to built a bicycle “rack” in the little alcove in our hallway. We could have gotten all our material at the Home Hardware downstairs, but they didn’t have the big hooks we needed. See, we have just canceled the locker we have rented for the last 2.5 years down the street as our roommate is moving out. We need to empty the space before next weekend.

Construction on the bicycle “rack” started early afternoon and before dinner our bikes were proudly hanging from the wall… Yeh Us.

Half-time

Finished

Then yesterday, following in the footsteps of our little success, we decided to go back and buy supplies to build shelves in the kitchen pantry, it has been used as a closet for the last few years, but I really wanted to give it back its original purpose. Again, Yeh Us.

When you purchase at Home Depot, your receipt prints information on how to win $1,000 gift card by simply answering a shopping experience survey. The receipt also prints individual User ID and Password codes so you can enter only once per purchase.

Upon my return home I decided to enter the survey and here’s what I put in the comment section:

On my visit of August 10th, 2008 I simply needed 2 pieces of lumber: 1×2x6 Pine and 1×8x8 Pine. I wanted it cut to fit a small space as I needed to built 4 little shelves. I met up with an associate in the lumber department who was very helpful. I told him I needed the larger piece of lumber cut in 4 units of 19 inches each, then I took a piece of paper out of my pockets with the measurement to be sure and confirmed out loud that it was 19 inches. He started to cut as I stood back. He then took the smaller piece of lumber, I told him I need 8 pieces of 8 inches each, and he started cutting once again. When he was done he gave me all the pieces of wood and directed me to a cashier to pay. Easy peasy.

Oh, as you will see by my receipt#7080b0000746586, your customer service representative was working at station 11 and goes under #987. A bit more training and supervision is necessary in her case as I’m sure you do not want more people thinking that trash service is the norm for your establishment.

Do you think I still have a chance to win the $1,000 gift card?

On the same morning we left (see The Road – Part 3), Syl, Pogo (my brother-in-law), Max (my niece) & Shaun (my nephew) as well as my mom and my aunt, also left at grizzly 4 am time to go home, but they took a different route that would take them through Montreal. There was a lot of fog patches in the air and visibility was not always good. They were driving fairly slow, around 50 KM/H.

Out of nowhere, a deer came to play “chicken” with them. Guess who won.

The impact was so severe that the deer flew back across the road as if re-enacting Rudolph’s latest flight. The driver’s side headlights were shredded to pieces, the wheel well ultra broken rubbing on the tire, the driver’s door unable to open. After loud surprised screams AND the driver’s great control of the car, they came to a stop on the side of the highway. I’m told everyone remained fairly calm after the big impact. My niece and nephew went to see the carcass across the road, it looked to be a large female.

A taxi driver stopped to see if they needed help and told the story that this type of accidents now happens frequently as travelers often stop on the side of the road to feed carrots and such to the deer. The animals are now conditioned to not necessarily be scared of the traffic and will approach anyone not going too fast I guess: “Hey, this guy’s only going 50 KM/H, he must have carrots, last one there is a “fag-deer”!

Everyone was shaken up, but ultimately OK. The SUV is in the garage and my sister is now driving a red convertible mustang. There she is playing Hot Mama while Bambi’s lying on the side of the road.

Have you ever driven your car on a highway and feeling totally scared that the next car to pass you will try to take you down? Yes? Us too!!

We left the Laurentians at 4am on Monday morning knowing that the traffic on the 401 on a Monday of a long weekend would be terrible and I didn’t want a repeat of the previous Friday. I started at the wheel through the twisty mountain road and made our way to Ottawa in less than 2 hours, we stopped for gas and decided to drive a bit further for breakfast, it wasn’t 6am yet. As we left Ottawa to make our way to the 401, DR took a nap so he could take over the driving a bit further on. 45 minutes later, we switched and I fell asleep in the passenger seat within the first two breaths…

I woke up as we were passing Kingston, it was 7:45, I was suddenly very hungry and I had to pee like a sonafabitch. We decided to stop at the next rest area, it was a McDonald’s, not a Tim Horton’s (I secretely thanked the gay god from the Church of Broadway). As I ran to the washroom, DR went to order, I screamed that I wanted something with a sausage and cheese and a large coffee… When I came back, I joined DR in the line as he was ready to order, it wasn’t really busy but the service seemed slow, there was this family of 2 parents and 2 teenagers taking forever to order, next to them, an East-Indian family wanting a deconstructed egg McMuffin (why didn’t they just order the English Muffin on it’s own instead is beyond me…). The thing is I didn’t really pay attention when DR’s turn finally came, but I did hear him say: “Large coffee with one milk”, so it was all good to me.

Once our coffee and tea were brought to us, we were asked to wait to the side as I’m sure another customer was ready to bark his order. The employees that morning really looked like they loved her job. All of a sudden, this other employee just back from the latest emo convention comes to me with a paper back and start reciting some chant: “bla bla bla bla bla, sausage mcmuffin, bla bla bla bla bla bla”. “Sure” I said taking the bag and then turning to DR to say that I hadn’t heard a word she had said. Once in the car, priority was to replug the iPod, music is the best companion next to your husband, people, take note. As we were zooming down the ramp to rejoin the 401 direction “la maison”, I finally opened the bag, it was a McDonald’s Treasure Chest of Food, I think there was one of everything, I mean: 1 burrito, 1 BLT bagel, 1 egg McMuffin, 2 sausage McMuffins, hashbrowns galore.. the works. I only felt guilty for a second when I realized that we were given someone else breaky, a breaky twice a expensive as ours, a breaky precisely chosen by a very particular family made out of 2 parents and 2 teenagers that studied the menu carefully to choose only the best it offered. I decided to eat the Mom’s choice first: BLT Bagel and DR took the daddy meal: Burrito. Then we ate the teenagers’ choice… sausage McMuffins, which is what I really wanted. All the while we were eating, we were nervously laughing at all the cars passing us, thinking it was that vengeful family looking for the assholes who stole their breakfast.

Lesson learned people, don’t leave a McDonald’s on the highway without looking into the bag, especially the morning after an emo party. I once prayed to that same gay god of the Church of Broadway that we didn’t end up with the deconstructed choice of the East-Indian family…

Today’s episode finds us the day after the long drive from Toronto to the Laurentians. It is Saturday and my uncle was kind enough to invite us all over to his summer cottage across the river, a cottage we can see from his house where we are actually staying, it would take us 5 minutes with a motor boat, but it will take us 45 minutes to drive over to the extremely secluded location at the base of a small mountain, no neighbours in sight.

Having no neighbours is a plus, but the one-car-wide-dirt-road-full-of-curves-and-hills isn’t, especially when you have 45 minutes of driving on it. But, it is a small price to pay for the amazing view and tranquility it gives. After a nice lunch, we decide to trek to the top of the mountain and take in a bird’s eyeview of the village and all the lakes surrounding it:

The gang on the way down, half-way

A trek like that warranted a swim. DR and I took the challenge and were dragged behind the speed boat on a tube, lying on our stomach, holding for dear life. Refreshing.

After a short break and a huge BBQ,the rain started, not really heavily but steady enough for a good 30 minutes. Big deal we all thought. The amazing colours that followed were unbelievable, as shown in DR’s blog. It was awe before AAAAHHHHH! (that’s me screaming on the drive back when we came face to face with “the horror”.)

Around 10 PM, after a full day, and still tired from the long drive a day before, we decided it was time to go to bed. We packed both cars and started the ride back to our weekend home up that narrow and extremely dark path, only lit by our headlights. Up. Down. Left. Right. Left. Up. Right. Up. Right. Down. Flat. Down. Left. We weren’t driving very fast as we knew the area was full of crazy wildlife which could fall upon us at any turn. Up. Down. Left. Right. Left. Up. Right. Up. Right. Down. Flat. Down. Left. SCREEEEEEEEEEEEECH! Well, at least that’s the sound it would have made if were wouldn’t have been on sand and rock when I suddenly noticed that there was no more road in front of us:

Gone is the road, and yes, that’s a tree fallen in the middle of it.

Since there has been so much rain this summer, we take it that it had accumulated over the months and that the last little downpour earlier that day was the “last drop” this side of the mountain needed, it had released an enormous amount of water being held by rocks and dirt and therefore creating a flash flood big enough to take part of the road with it and unearth a couple of medium size trees, which of course needed to fall right smack in the middle of this hell hole. After examining the damages to our only way home and calling my cousin so she could come make sure we would be able to continue on after this hellish mess, we all started to pick up large rocks and fill out the biggest hole, giving us enough room to drive the cars slowly to the other side of the washed out road where at this point only one tree was blocking the way, too big to lift, but small enough for a whole gang of people to hold back to the side for the cars to drive through.

When my cousin arrived with her ATV, she was able to go ahead of the chaotic mess and verify that this was the only area affected, once we passed this hole, we would be safe to drive all the way to the main road without any incidents, well, hopefully without any incidents, it was still a fair ways from that location. She mentioned that in all her years living there, this was the very first time she had ever seen something like this… oh joy, lucky us.

Syl’s husband decided to pass in front of me and was the first to drive his SUV across the way with the thinking that if I got stuck, he’d be more able to pull me. He succeeded. I followed slowly hoping the area we “repaired” wouldn’t give out and send my rental down the newly made 2 feet deep ditch. Luckily, our “engineering” held and both cars safely made it past that hurdle. Now on to the tree obstacle, easy peasy, slowly. Done. Not a scratch. Hurray!

As we drove on after the mini-scary adventure, we saw a deer on the side of the road, just curious about who the hell was crazy enough to travel this road at that late a time. I waved. It was then that I reazlized we had just spent almost one hour in the middle of the deep dark woods with only our car headlights for light, a deep dark woods full of black bears… Oh MY!

We’re freshly back from our road trip to the Laurentians, I say road trip because we spent most of the weekend driving:

The Road – Part 1
We left on Friday night shortly after 8 PM, wrongly thinking that the Toronto exodus’ heavy traffic #28 would pretty much be done, and also with the intention of stopping along the way once we started feeling like 2 big sleepy heads. We had no hotel reservations for that night, no goals, we just wanted to get as close to our destination as possible so that on Saturday morning, we’d have very little driving and start enjoying our family reunion of sorts. Well, it sounded like a good plan at the time.

Although the city was fairly deserted with its streets very low on traffic, it changed drastically once we hit the “Highway of Heroes” itself, it totally felt like we were the last guests arriving at a party. It was bumper to bumper, cars, trucks, buses, anything with a motor, with no signs of letting go anytime soon. I heaved my first sigh! After 1 hour of going between 20 and 50 KM/H, we finally caught a little break and started moving a tad faster, say maybe 80 KM/H until Belleville where we went back to 50 KM/H or slower. I sincerely think we created a new hole in the ozone layer over Canada that night.

It was 11:30 PM by the time we reached Kingston, 3.5 hours after our departure, a destination we normally reach in less than 2.5 hours, and since we weren’t really that far from Toronto we continued on as the there were fewer cars on the road and we were finally moving at a good pace. By the time we reached Brockvegas at 12:30 AM, the yawning had become much more frequent and we decided to take the next exit and try our chances at very visible Comfort Inn. I’m not sure if the night clerk laughed at us, but she definitely had a wicked smile when she said they were sold out and that the only place around that had vacancy was on the way to Prescott, a neighbouring town to the East. Like champions, we drove on only to find out that they did have a room left but that it went for $200/night!!! FOR PRESCOTT??? I peeled out of that driveway.

At 12:45 AM, on the 401… go to sleep people

We were so close to Ottawa by that time that we decided to make that our new goal and take a chance on a cheaper room. At that point I was getting ready to just sleep in the car.

By 1:15 AM we finally saw a sign with 7 different motels/hotels in the town of Nepean, just before Ottawa, and although the sign with all the sleeping places pointed to one direction, we couldn’t find any of them. After driving around for 15 minutes, lost in the industrial area south of Ottawa, truly the saddest place on earth, DR recognized a street that he thought might lead us downtown Ottawa. I was tired, my jaw aching from too much yawning, we had been up since 6 AM. As we drove on, it turned into a little residential area, then into a business-like area. We found a McDonald, then a Pizza Hut and then a “7-11″. No one has these 3 types of businesses around without having a cheap motel nearby, no way in hell.

Suddenly, rounding a bend in the road, there it was, on the other side of the road, Ye Old Place of Sleep, I truly have no idea of the name anymore, but it was made to look like an old medieval type little castle-ish building, we did a U-Turn and zoomed in to their front door. They did have a room for $75 and we snatched it right away. I think I probably could have rented it by the hour if I would’ve insisted. It looked like that kind of place, but with the carpet vaccumed.

It was 2:10 AM by the time we put the key in the room’s doorknob, too tired to laugh at the decor, that is until DR pulled back the sheets and noticed a black hair on it. He couldn’t stop himself from suddenly role-playing Senator and Secretary. Ye old Place of Sleep might very well be Ye Old Place of Tchekamowmow (insert 70’s porn music).