TGIF

I just woke up from dreamy sleep.
Dreamed that I met Bob Euchre (former baseball player and butler employer) and that he follows my blog and likes the ones that are about sports and halloween the best.

Bitten by the Twilight Bug

I will freely admit to the fact that I have read the entire Twilight series in the span of approximately one month. I will not admit to the fact that I liked it.



For those of you who aren't familiar with the Twilight series, here's a brief plot summary.

Benevolent vampires
Forbidden love
Werewolves
Malevolent vampires
Werewolf/Vampire battle
blah
blah
blah
Mutant baby
blah
blah
Outsmart granddaddy vampires
Happily ever after, except for the eternal craving for human blood that will forever be unrequited

For those of you who think this sounds good because you like Buffy-esque sexy teenage vampire stories, I will tell you right now that it's a very poor substitute.

I compare reading the Twilight series to running a marathon. You get tired part way though, then you get a surge of energy and excitement, then you get tired again, then you feel like you're going to vomit, then you're like "what the f*ck am I doing???" and then you finish it - you feel exhausted, hungry, tired, nauseous and at the moment when you cross the finish and someone wraps a tinfoil blanket around you, you're satisfied. Then you start planning for the next one. Unfortunately, I didn't have anyone to wrap a tinfoil blanket around me at the end. I did, however, find this album cover to share with you. Who wants to go as ABBA for Haloween next year? The costume is totally recession-friendly.



After reading the Twilight books, I decided to watch the movie, which I will admit liking, but I think it would have been awful if I hadn't read the books.

While watching the movie, I couldn't stop thinking that the oh-so-dreamy Robert Pattison looked like someone I knew. Someone who sang a haunting melody from my youth. Then it came to me. R-Patz looks like none other than Feargal Sharkey! You remember Feargal...he was looking for someone with a good heart once the Undertones broke up. How this crap from my childhood remains in my brain will always be a mystery to me. Check out the resemblance below.



I had to find a picture of Feargal where he looks significantly more attractive than he actually is in order to demonstrate the similarities between the two.



If you watch the video, you'll notice that Feargal is partial to female drummers. We all know someone else who is partial to female drummers...

Prince! He and Sheila E loved to lead the glamourous life.



How do we complete this circle? Robert Pattison looks like Feargal Sharkey, who likes female drummers. Female drummers have often graced the stage with the Purple One. Good thing I found the gif below so that the circle could remain unbroken.

Everything is Amazing, Nobody is Happy

I was telling a new acquaintance, Shelley, about my blog a while ago and she asked, "Is it negative? So many blogs are too negative and cynical for my liking". I assured her that my blog is mostly observational and pretty neutral, but then I got thinking...is my blog cynical? Does my sarcastic humour come off as petty cynicism? I hope not. I don't set out for my blog to be inspirational, but I certainly don't want it to be something that Debbie Downer would quote at just the right moment (I love the fact that no one can keep their shit together in that clip). Shelley was right to assume that my blog is negative. There are so many negative blogs out there, but there are some positive blogs out there and they're not all Stewart Smalley daily affirmations. I heard about "1000 Awesome Things" recently on CBC and I have become a fan (it's the only RSS feed that I have). 1000ATs is a blog that delivers pure positive goodness to its readers and caps every post off with a resounding, all-caps "AWESOME". I've pasted one of the posts below

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
August 20, 2008...12:01 am

#957 The telephone

What’s this? I can talk into a clump of plastic and wires over here and you can hear me from the other side of the planet a millisecond later?

AWESOME!

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

The writer of 1000ATs should call up Louis CK - a comedian who has a similar outlook on how awesome things are, and the fact that we often take the amazing conveniences we enjoy for granted.

Thank you, Louis CK, for giving us some perspective on the world. Some glass-half-emptiers would say that the Internet is full of garbage. Others would say that without all that garbage, you'd never be able to experience miracle that is Sexy Breadman or Pickle Surprise. Take that, cynicism and let's all say a big thank-you to the Internet next time we see it.

The Opposite of Homeless

What is the opposite of "homeless"? "Homeful"?

If that's the case, I sadly found myself "homeful" about a month ago. Sean and I returned from our vacation at Big White (which was amazing, by the way - thanks for asking) on a Saturday around midnight. We had a lazy day at the house on Sunday and then I was set to work at home the next week. That was the week that my lost my senses and became "homeful" - I didn't leave the house at all from Sunday to Friday! My senses slowly returned over the course of the week.

Smell - I realized on Wednesday of my work from home week that I hadn't showered since Sunday
Taste - I realized on Thursday that I had been wearing the same PJamz pants and t-shirt round the clock since Monday
Hearing - I didn't hear Sean's hints that maybe I need to sit on a special pillow so I wouldn't get bedsores or ulcers on my pressure points
Touch - You know you're out of touch with reality when you realize it's Friday and you haven't left the house since Saturday!!!

Sight - On Friday I saw the light...the natural light, that is

...and this is what I looked like that week before I came to my senses...BRAINS!!!

I have since made sure that I get out of the house during my work-from-home weeks. I don't want to end up being like the Edies from Grey Gardens.

If I did turn into one of the Edies, I wonder who would play me...Jessica Lange or Drew Barrymore?

Actually, Pete Doherty would be my preference.

In an abrupt turn of topic, I'd like to take a moment to talk about Michael McDonald. Now, I'm not talking about the Michael McDonald of MadTV fame (or shame, depending on how you feel about MadTV). I'm talking about the dove-voiced, floppy-haired, blue-eyed, soulful singer of Doobie Brothers and solo fame. I'm always amazed when I meet someone who doesn't know who Michael McDonald is, because he has somehow stood the test of time when it comes to parody. I don't know exactly what it is about Michael McDonald's voice, but it has some unique and comedic quality that I can't quite put my finger on, but attention to that comedic quality has been drawn upon on over many years to make funny moments funnier since before the days when I was too mesmerized by the dead eyed children from the Circle Square ranch to notice.

Here's a live performance of "What a Fool Believes", one of the most well known of MM's songs to set the baseline for those of you who don't know what MM's voice sounds like. If you're not familiar with this song, I have to ask, WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU?

Now here are some examples of the parodies of MM through the ages

SCTV



Conan O'Brien (this is my all-time favourite)



Sound clip from "40 Year Old Virgin"

Jimmy Fallon Show (you'll have to suffer through some John Mayer impressions before the MM gold begins)

30 Rock



Needless to day, he's everywhere and if you ask him to pick you up from the bar because you're too drunk to drive home, you know that he'll say "Yah mo B there".

PS - while I was looking for the opposite of "homeless", I decided to do a google images search on the word "opulent". I thought these image hits were amusing.

Team Opulent? I would have suggested "Team Homely"



Now, seriously. How many legs does a chair need? I'm having trouble deciding whether I think this chair is greedy because it has too many legs or if I feel bad for the legs because they don't have enough seats to go around.

Unexpected Visitor

No - I'm not pregnant, despite the excitement that the title of this post may have caused.





Apologies for the lack of posts lately. I wish I had a good excuse, but there hasn't been anything interesting happening.

We did have an unexpected visitor on the weekend though. Remember Blossom the Possom? Blossom visited us at our old house in Kitchener, but has not visited us in Thunder Bay. She says she's waiting for better weather, but I don't think she'll acutally visit. She has a new boyfriend, so we don't hear from her much anymore.

On Saturday morning, Sean commented that Robo had been preoccupied with the fireplace for the last couple of days. I suggested that it was just wind coming down the chimney and stirring the ashes, but Sean and Robo decided to do some more investigation.



This is how much Snoopers cared about the investigation...Borrrrrring



While Professor Cat and his lab assistant were conducting their analysis, Sean yelped and exclaimed, "Whoa! There's something in there"!! Upon further inspection, Sean realized he was nose to nose with a bird. So we had a bird in our fireplace. What do you do when you realize you have a bird in your fireplace. Call your ornithologically inspired friends. We called our friend James. He must have tought we were crazy. He's a bird watcher, not a bird rescue unit. He didn't know what to do. We called Sean's dad. He said we have three options:

• Close the flue and let it die slowly
• Light a fire and kill it quickly
• Open the fireplace and hope for the best

We chose option three because we disagree for the killing of birds (except if we then bake it and feast on its flesh and skin).

At the point when we opened the fireplace door, the bird had flown up into the chimney and we weren't sure if it was still even in there. Per Sean's dad's advice, we started hoping for the best.

Within a minute or so I heard Sean whoop again, because the bird had flown out of the fireplace straight at his his head. It flapped around the window a bit and then got caught in the curtains. That's when the video started rolling.

Here's a picture of the bird and a picture of the bird poop it left on our window frame. Don't feel bad, birdie. You're not the first guest to shit themselves at our house, but usually it's due to laughter or drug use.

Note, that Sean and I used to be under the impression that we're people who can react to situations appropriately. This situation proved otherwise. Emergency medicine is definitely out of the cards for Sean. We reacted about as well as the folks in this horrifying bird attack video (auntie P - you may not want to watch this)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rt8RDjlx9V8

I guess it was a learning experience.

• Learning #1 - if you're going to let a bird loose in your house, close all the blinds because the sound of a bird flying into a plate of glass is not pretty
• Learning #2 - Do not try to pick up a bird with your bare hands. It's impossible. And you may get avian bird flu
• Learning #3 - Your fiance is a man despite the fact that he screams like a lady

In other relatively uninteresting news, I found a 1-up hidden in the woods by the highway.

And I found out that people from Manitoba are not afraid to unabashedly "one up" the fishing in Ontario. Well, FU Manitoba!! I'm not sure who you're referring to as the "Manitoba Monster" on that billboard. Is it the fish or is it that hideous creature that's holding it?




I just realized where I know that bird from!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBLhYLAfozU&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fvideo%2Egoogle%2Eca%2Fvideosearch%3Fhl%3Den%26um%3D1%26q%3Dclarice%2520starling%26ie%3DUTF%2D8%26sa%3DN%26tab%3Div&feature=player_embedded

Q: How many Silence of the Lambs references can one blog have?

A: You can never have enough. It's such a light-hearted romp.

Lousy Smarch Weather

From http://www.weather.ca/ this morning.

WINTER STORM WARNING: City of Thunder Bay

Issued at 11:39 AM EDT TUESDAY 10 MARCH 2009
MAJOR SNOWSTORM BEGINNING THIS AFTERNOON NEAR THE INTERNATIONAL BORDER..AND OVER ALL THE ABOVE REGIONS THIS EVENING. NEAR BLIZZARD CONDITIONS EXPECTED. THIS IS A WARNING THAT DANGEROUS WINTER WEATHER CONDITIONS ARE IMMINENT OR OCCURRING IN THESE REGIONS. MONITOR WEATHER CONDITIONS..LISTEN FOR UPDATED STATEMENTS.
AN INTENSE COLORADO LOW PRESSURE SYSTEM IS EXPECTED TO SWEEP ACROSS THE GREAT LAKES THIS EVENING AND MOVE THROUGH CENTRAL AND NORTHERN ONTARIO BY WEDNESDAY MORNING. IN GENERAL SNOWFALL AMOUNTS OF 25 TO 40 CENTIMETRES ARE EXPECTED WITH THIS STORM ESPECIALLY ALONG A SWATH EXTENDING FROM NORTHWESTERN SHORES OF LAKE SUPERIOR TO KAPUSKASING. EXTENSIVE BLOWING AND DRIFTING SNOW ARE ALSO FORECAST GIVING NEAR BLIZZARD CONDITIONS AT TIMES. HEAVY SNOWFALL WILL START TAPERING OFF FROM THE THUNDER BAY ATIKOKAN AND VICINITY REGIONS OVERNIGHT AND FROM THE REST OF THE WARNED REGIONS WEDNESDAY MORNING.

I'm in Waterloo this week, thank goodness.

We all remember what happened last time there was lousy Smarch weather...

Homer accidentally turned up the thermostat causing Groundskeeper Willy to turn into an homage to everyone's favourite neighborhood bad guy (Freddy Krueger) and Katie, Wayne, Sarah and I invented a horrible girlie drink called "The Tool Belt" out of scraps of booze from my liquor cabinet. It made me vomit.

You can watch the Simpsons episode referenced above at the link below (in Russian at minute 6:35). I wonder how you say "lousy Smarch weather" in Russian? Fortunately, there's no video footage of me getting re-acquainted with my Tool Belt.

http://rutube.ru/tracks/1078179.html

PS - for more entertainment in the realm of random, check out the google images results for "Lousy Smarch Weather". It's been a while since I've seen such a specific query return such random results.

Sean - let us know if you need any help digging out. We'll mail you a tool belt.

WIFE SWAP!! Hot Pork Sandwich Edition

A few weekends ago (the day after Valentines Day), I starred in an upcoming episode of WIFE SWAP!!

While Sean and our newly acquired friend Sarah studied for their med school exams, Sarah's husband and I went WIFE SWAPPING...I mean SNOW FUNNING!! The episode will never be aired because the swappers got along too well and then the two couples ate Beef Borguianon at the end of the day unlike the unfortunate wife swappers below.

A couple of the runs at Lutsen had amusing names.

If "Caroline's Challenge" is anything like Caroline in the City, the run is full of wacky neighbors and introspective loathing.

Brule Run!!! For your health!!

Brules Rules - Funny home videos are a click away

"Hot Pork Sandwich", "Gooney Birds" & "Cats Under the Stars" and the bassist from "Kung Fu Hippies".

Kimber from Jem & the Holograms on the Keytar...

Glenn Danzig on vocals (hopefully he and Kimber can put aside their differences from his days with The Misfits).

Glenn is backed by the ladies from "Hot Sundaes". Hopefully Jesse has kicked that caffiene habit. Glenn doesn't tolerate any substances in the band.



and Miley Cyrus on drums

My cousin Fiora is the band manager and I am their evil overlord who will lure them into a world of sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll never fathomed by our grandparents or your creepy uncles.