All I Want For Christmas Is A Quicksnap

I'm addicted to Dragon's Den on Monday nights. It is a mixture of great inventions and American Idol-style withering criticism.

Between the doggie diapers and underwater gold mines (literally), there are some really awesome things that I wouldn't mind trying out. Last week's final pitch blew me away, as it is something incredibly simple but also something that I desperately need.

I present... The Quicksnap!



"What is Quicksnap? QuickSnap is a two-piece, durable plastic clip that eliminates the need to ever tie your laces again."

I think I've whined a few times about how impossible it is for me to keep my shoelaces tied up. Sure, I can double-knot them, but that means I either have to fight with knots whenever I either put my shoes on or take them off OR I can just jam my feet into my sneakers and destroy the heels, which is usually what ends up happening.

This Quicksnap thingie looks like the answer to my shoelace woes. I see that they're going rather cheaply (~$10 after shipping & handling)... I might just have to grab one of these and see how they work. One of the inventors is a member of the Canadian Armed Forces and used them on his combat boots, so they must be somewhat decent!

What Not To Do - Vol. 289

Don't do what this guy does the next time you get a speeding ticket.

Name Our Fish!

I performed my one act of humanitarian kindness last week and bought a fish. But not just any fish. I bought a gourami that only has one eye. The guy was so thankful to find a home for the fish that he knocked a dollar off the price. The fish was destined for the great toilet bowl in the sky if I hadn't come along, so I was more than happy to give it a new home in our fish tank.

Of course, a fish with only one eye is no regular fish. We need to give it a name, so I figured I'd put a call out to everyone to see what people can come up with.

Still Waiting For Permission

Just wanted to post a little basement reno update here. We're still waiting for the permit from the city. We were able to get a hold of a real live human being this week and from what we gathered, the fact that nobody from the city has called us is a good thing. It's just that it takes them 10 BUSINESS days to find their rubber stamp and because a) they dragged their feet for 3 days at the beginning of this process and b) Monday was a holiday, well, 10 business days isn't up until Monday, at which point I should be able to go and collect my building permit.

Of course, now we have to wait for the contractor to finish up the jobs he's taken while waiting for us to get our permit, but it's actually ok. I wasn't really looking forward to trying to scramble the last of the stuff over to the storage unit this weekend, what with working today and tomorrow, and this gives us an extra week to get the last of the junk either taken off to the dump or boxed up for storage. We're down to the tools and paint on the work bench and a few boxes of computer parts and the old TV, so we're pretty close to being ready for when they come to start work on the 27th.

I'll take pictures of the process and keep people up to date. Woo!

Go And Vote!

Get out there and vote everyone! It's your civic duty!

Oh... wait... the election was yesterday. Hmm... I couldn't tell since the parliament looks ALMOST EXACTLY THE SAME!

I never did get around to making the few political posts I had planned to, but I'll just save them for the next election. I'd like to say it will be in 4 years or whenever the set election date law says it should happen but we all know how well THAT law worked...

Sigh.

It's Funny Because It's True

Cyanide & Happiness @ Explosm.net

Blood On The Stairs

I took Garrett to the Brigden Fair this morning for a quick little tour of the midway before the big turkey dinner this afternoon.

Garrett had two things he wanted to do. The first thing was to go on the big giant scary castle/house thing (there was one at the Acton Fair but he wasn't wearing shoes so he couldn't get on) and the second was the ferris wheel.

We learned quickly why Garrett needed to wear shoes in the crazy house. At the entrance to the house, there is a set of metal stairs that slid back and forth. Garrett fell and got his finger pinched at the edge of the steps. They stopped the steps and Garrett got back up and slowly made his way through the rest of the house to emerge into the sunlight sobbing.

I just figured he was shaken from falling at the beginning and not having fun for the rest of the house until I realized that the hand I was holding was covered in blood. It turned out that Garrett had a chunk of his finger taken off by the stairs. Well, not the tip or anything, but there is a big flap of skin missing from the side of his index finger.

The carney sitting in the ticket booth wrapped Garrett's finger up in a bunch of gauze and tape and we went off to enjoy the ferris wheel and headed home. I thought it was just a little nick on the side of the finger until later in the afternoon when we changed the dressing and I saw just how much skin got taken off by those bloody stairs. We'll just keep pouring Polysporin on it and keeping it clean and it should be fine but man... I'll take a picture of it tomorrow so everyone can see the gory wound.

So yeah. I felt bad about him getting hurt and never realized that such an innocuous 'ride' would be so deadly. If I'd gone through with him, it would have probably been fine but Garrett, while tall enough, was probably a bit too young for a solo trip.

Rancorous Temptations

Whoever thought up the Superhero Squad/Galactic Heroes toy lines deserves a medal for marketing and a boot to the head from my wallet.

Most of the toys on the market either look flimsy, look ugly or both. The ones that don't tend to be just borderline creepy instead. I'm looking at you, Bratz and other disturbing doll lines...

But the Superhero Squad and Galactic Heroes toys are both sturdy and insanely cute to boot. I've stuck mainly with getting the Superhero Squad toys because Garrett was really into superheroes for a long time there... And so was I.

Now that we have enough superheroes to save the universe 10 times over, I've started to cast my gaze towards the Galactic Heroes, which are the Star Wars equivalent of the Superhero Squad toys. These are even more cute in many respects, though there are a lot of repeats. Much like the way every third set of Superhero Squad toys would have Spiderman in one of his various costumes and doing a different pose, the Galactic Heroes toys have an abundance of Luke Skywalkers and Darth Vaders, though the Vader ones are neat (I even found one where his helmet comes off!).

I was at Toys R Us this morning with Garrett to get a snap-together TIE fighter model for us to work on. Unfortunately, it was way too expensive (I refuse to pay $20 for a snap-tite model!) and I also saw the cutest Rancor in one of the TrU exclusive sets...



I mean, the thing not only looks adorable but it can eat other toys! And poop them out! How awesome is that?

So suffice it to say, I broke down and got it for Garrett to play with and we've had fun with it today. They also had a 2 for 1 sale on lightsabers, so I got two for $10 and Garrett was able to have many a duel with both me and the little boy who lives next to Ralph & Louise. It was a small price to pay to keep Garrett occupied and running his little butt off all afternoon :)

Doing a bit more digging, I'd also love to find this set:



And I was sorely tempted by these two sets, but went with the uber-cute Rancor:

My 360 Is Stalking Me

Hee hee. My 360 knows me too well...

I got this on the latest posting that it writes to my 360 Blog.

"I have a feeling Guboo (that's me) went on vacation without telling me... At least he could have taken me with him... last time I checked Xboxes weren't illegal in your carry-on."

All Hail Canadia!

We're home in our native land... Hooray!

We played a lot of games of Hurry Up And Wait this afternoon. We ended up hanging around at the Ft. Lauderdale airport for about 4 hours while we waited for our plane. Due to some of the bad weather down Florida way, it was delayed about 10 minutes or so, which meant that we had a really tight connection in Charlotte.

I tell ya. We knew we weren't going to have a lot of time during our connection but it was ridiculous. Our plane arrived at gate B16... our flight to Toronto was leaving at Gate C16 in 20 minutes. C16 is at the absolute opposite side of the airport from B16. Add to that mix a whole slew of people who were determined to either cut in front of us, stand in the middle of the concourse or just block the entire walkway while walking VERY SLOWLY and you had a couple of pissed off Canucks coming your way. I was starting to use my rolling suitcase as a battering ram and had to leave Julie behind so I could at least make it to the gate to have them hold the plane for us.

Julie didn't fare so well. Next time you talk to her, ask her about her faceplant in front of the ticket counter...

But we got on board, got our bags stowed and were in the air on time and arrived in Toronto just before midnight. The sad thing is that the cool, crisp fall air is probably warmer than the absurdly cold lobby at the hotel or worse, the airport in Ft. Lauderdale. I know it's warm down there, but I was getting the feeling that I'd inadvertently signed up for a cryogenics research project this afternooon.

Anyway, Julie's already hit the hay and I'm just running on adrenaline, so I'm going to go crash. Long story short, we had a great time down South and it was nice to get away (without the kids!) for a time and just have a nice vacation with just the two of us. That said, I'm looking forward to seeing the kids tomorrow when we go to Sarnia in the afternoon. I need to have a chat with some people about some destroyed pillows...

Plumbing The Depths Of Boredom

Note to self: Next time I go out for dinner with Julie's conference crew, DON'T!

Sure, the meal was nice, but we were out for about 3 hours... 3 hours where I had nobody to talk to and nothing to talk about. Sigh. I got so bored I was typing an imaginary blog entry on the tablecloth... and actually hitting backspace when I made an imaginary mistake.

Otherwise, yesterday was just a day for me to slug around the hotel room and relax, read, play some games and basically zone out. Ah, it was so nice...

We're heading home later today. I've got to kill time until about 3pm and then we'll saunter over to the airport for our first leg of our flight home. It has been raining and somewhat thundery down here most of this morning, but I'm hoping that it will blow over by the afternoon/evening and we'll have a smooth trip home. We don't actually fly out of Ft. Lauderdale until 7pm and the weather is already starting to brighten, so I think we'll be ok.

More Money Than Sense

That's the overall feeling I get from Ft. Lauderdale. These people sure aren't going to be living in shacks when the economy tanks...

Anyway, we woke up this morning, threw open the blinds and this is what greeted us outside our window.



Stupid yachts. We're tripping over them everywhere we go down here.

We then headed down the road to have some bagels at this place we passed on our walk to dinner last night. I have to say that they were the best bagels we've ever had. We bought a half dozen (and some honey almond schmear, er, cream cheese) for snacks and breakfast tomorrow. Mmm... They even had a pumpkin bagel that was amazing. If you ever get a chance, go to Einstein Bros. Bagels if you're ever near one. Oh, the coffee was fantastic too.

Then we headed out to the ocean to get a little swimming in.



A half an hour later, we were both scorched, soggy, salty and covered in seashell shrapnel but it was a lot of fun. A trip back to the hotel on the Water Taxi and a change of clothes and we were back out on the Water Taxi up to the mall at the northern end of the canal.

Along the way, we passed the coolest yacht on the water. The Water Taxi driver called it the James Bond yacht and for a good reason. Just take a look at this thing.



I got a cool Megaman t-shirt at the mall... a mall which, by the way, further illustrated the fact that we were far outside our usual tax bracket. I mean, they had valet parking and I think every car out in front of the mall was a Lexus, Infiniti or Hummer.

On the way back down the canal to the downtown part of town, a family got on board with a little 2 year old boy who was not very impressed with being on the boat. He kept saying, "Out! Out! Out!" Thankfully he calmed down and later on we had a nice chat with his family and I gave him one of the glo-sticks I got from my martini at the mall. Oh, did I mention that you can't turn around down here without tripping over a mojito, margarita or martini? It's crazy!

To close out the evening, we had supper at The Cheesecake Factory, which is my new favourite restaurant. Not only did they have amazing cheesecake (natch) but they also had food that was both good AND plenty. Julie had some kind of chicken and I had spicy cashew chicken, both of which were delicous. Not only that, but there was enough left over for at least one whole meal each by the time we were done.

And that was our day! We saw everything you can see down here on the intercostal waterway and had lots of yummy food and heard lots of awful jokes. Did you know they named the local highway for Canadians? It's the A1A... get it? A1, eh? Sigh...

Julie's got her conference starting tomorrow which means I get to just lounge around for the whole day. Ah, bliss...

The Blimpmobile!

No, it's not a method of conveyance for fat superheroes. It is a very neat mobile/clock in the center concourse of the airport in Charlotte, NC.



Ah, while I'm at it, I'll put up a few other pics from the trip so far.

Here is the view out of our hotel room. That's the canal that leads to the ocean (which is about a mile away).



And here's our messy hotel room. Note the lack of alligators, crocodiles, college students and wombats. You know you're in a quality place when they can keep the indigenous wildlife from invading the room while you sleep.

Kids: The Ultimate Brainwashers

And of course I'm up at 6:15 am.

The kids have us programmed well. I think it will take another day to fully purge our systems of their evil nanobots. A walk on the beach might help...

Florida is nice and all, but it's too hot. I miss the fall chill back home already.

Anyway, I'm going to let Julie sleep a bit longer. The sun is coming up and I should see if I can find us a greasy spoon to have breakfast at. We're definately not eating in the hotel. Hmm... I think I still have my raisin tea biscuit from Tim Hortons stuffed in one of these bags...

Nom nom nom...

Frondly Thinking Of Home

Sorry for the late update, but we did indeed make it safe and sound to Ft. Lauderdale.

We arrived around 6pm and after settling in, we had a delicious (and expensive) dinner at the China Grill down in the bowels of our hotel. Great food and a nice way to end a long day.

The weather is supposed to be somewhat craptacular while we're down here, but that's ok. We're just happy to be on vacation ON OUR OWN!

I'll keep everyone apprised of our adventures over the next few days. I will say that the Charlotte airport had some cool stuff. You know you're in the South when you have rocking chairs in the main terminal of the airport. I also took a picture of this crazy blimp mobile. I'll post it tomorrow.

Anyway, I'm off to bed. Julie's been snoozing for an hour or so and I should hit the hay soon too. We need to find somewhere for breakfast as the hotel's restaurant is WAY too pricey. I'm talking about $16 omelettes and $6 bagels w/ cream cheese. No thanks.

They did have amazing mojitos and sakitinis though. Who would have thought to use sake as a base for a martini? Not me! But it was yummy.

Huh-Yuck

Just wanted to tell everyone that we made it to Charlotte, NC. I had the worst 'meal' at the Burger King in the terminal, but I'll live :)

We're just waiting for the connecting flight at 4:15pm to Ft. Lauderdale. I'll update once we're settled in the hotel.

I tell ya, having a PSP and iPod to kill time really helps.

Oh, and the accents down here are funny :)

Pie Graphs Are Yummy

If you're looking for something to keep you occupied during those long days while I'm on vacation, look no further than the very amusing GraphJam. It's done by the same guys who do Lolcats but it's much more witty.

Old Ads Are Awesome

I saw this over at Extralife and I knew I had to share it.

Check out these incredibly awesome and creepy old ads.

Scuttling The Underbelly Of The House

The basement is almost completely empty now. The hardest part was getting the pool table out but thanks to a few intrepid brothers-in-law (thanks Dan & Tim!) we were able to get it out and into the truck and then into the storage unit. We still have a bit more stuff to unload from the basement before the renovations start, but that's not slated until at least Oct. 20th, so we can run a few more carloads of boxes over before it's time to start.

It's frightening to see how much room there is in our basement now that it's essentially empty. I always thought that our basement was this cramped, crowded space but it has a lot of room. I can't wait to start lounging around down there once the work is finished.

Now to go relax and get ready for our trip tomorrow. Woo!

Guzzlin' Foam With My Crumb Crushers

One of my favourite parts of one of my favourite movies is the scene in The Blues Brothers when Cab Calloway sings Minnie The Moocher. It's also a scene that I view in a completely different light when I see it now than I did when I was growing up. Back then, it was just a great song sung by this old guy.

Now, I can see the way the perspective shifts from reality to the fantasy of Calloway having one last hurrah. It's yet one more brilliant thing in an already brilliant movie.

ANYWAY, that's all to say that the Cab Calloway Jive Talk Hepster Dictionary is a handy tool for decyphering what all those hep cats are jivin' about down at the club.

It's Not Easy Being A Law-Abiding Citizen...

I've spent three days this week banging my head against the wall with the Town of Halton Hills, trying in vain to get a building permit to get this basement renovation done. Well, not in vain, as I think I've finally fulfilled the byzantine requirements and performed enough Herculean tasks to satisfy the dark lords over at the Town's bylaw branch, but ye gods...

If getting a building permit for a relatively simple renovation is always as much of a hassle as this week's travails has been, it's no wonder nobody bothers to get them. It's like playing tennis... in the dark... with bricks. I'd have to keep going back and forth to the town and my poor contractor ended up drawing up about 3-4 different floor plans before I finally got one that satisfied all of the things the guy at the Town wanted.

Of course, I always COULD have just foregone all of this hassle but if I've learned nothing else from watching Holmes On Homes, it's to always, ALWAYS get a permit. This isn't just a little job... We're having the whole basement finished, so I want to do it right from the start.

Sigh.

Band Members Needed

As you might have noticed, my 360 came back home to me on Tuesday of this week. I probably haven't blogged about it because I have been so busy puttering around with it.

In celebration of its return, I was able to pick up Rock Band 2, which is AWESOME!

Unfortunately, my drummer has been sidelined due to injuries for quite some time but since RB2 has online band tour mode, I can finally hook up with other Rock Band players out there. So... anyone interested in joining my band? I need a vocalist, drummer and another guitarist (I'm easy).

Bubbling Advisory Panel WANTS YOU!

Seriously, Bubbling Advisory Panel is the name of my band... Sigh... I think I'll call the next band I create: Stalin's Moustache.

Hug A Robot Today

Happy Binary Day, everyone.

10/01 is the official day where you can go and hug a robot or computer and not feel guilty... Not one little bit. Get it? Bit? Ha!

Fall: When The Paths Run Red With Blood

I'm a bad influence.

Julie was pointing out the leaves changing on the trees yesterday on the drive home and asking Garrett about the seasons.

Of course, I pipe up and ask, "Do you know why they're red?"

"Why?"

"Because they eat people. If you see a red tree, it's because it ate someone. But that only happens in the fall when the trees get hungry."

I probably shouldn't have told him to tell his teacher this when they learn about the seasons in school...

Anyone Want A Pool Table?

Sorry for the lack of updates recently. We've been a bit busy doing some stuff for the renovations.

What's that? Renovations, you say?

Yes. We're getting our basement done, starting in a week or two. In the meantime, we need to purge that thing. Most of the stuff down there will easily fit in the storage unit but we have one wee little problem.

The pool table.

I'm loathe to part with it as we've had it for ages but it's been buried under crap for the last 5 years and there won't be anywhere to put it once the basement is finished, so we're going to have to get rid of it.

Is there anyone out there who is interested in a non-slate pool table? Comes with balls and cues. We'll negotiate the price, but it won't be much :)

Something To Think About

Would someone arrested for abetting the robbery of a McDonald's be a Hamburglar Helper?

Ba-Doop

Threat Number 4: BEES!

After a morning spent at the Early Years' Center, I fed the kids, put Kara to bed and tried to get Garrett to play out in the backyard for a bit.

All was going well until we opened the umbrella that shades the little plastic playset in the backyard.

That's when it started raining bees. I've found the odd proto-hive in the folds of the umbrella's fabric before, but there's usually only one or two bees and they're easily persuaded to leave (after a few swats with the fly swatter).

Not today. I quickly marshaled Garrett back into the house and tried to decide what to do next.

One of my buddies suggested I go this route. I'll wait until Julie gets home and see what she thinks. If that is a non-starter, we'll just try spraying them with bee killer (aka Death Honey) until they stop twitching.

How Many Points Is Insomnia Worth?

I Can See Clearly Now

Remember a year or so ago when Garrett poured window cleaning solution all over Julie's cousin's laptop? Remember how we had to buy her a new one?

Well, after a year or so of having a perfectly fine laptop sitting in a box in my basement, I decided that it was time to get it repaired.

I'd concidered not bothering to fix it and finding some other use for it as it was going to cost me about $350 to repair the screen. After taking some time to scout out the cost of a new laptop with roughly the same features, I realized it would cost me about $1000, easily.

So off to the shop the old lappy went and I FINALLY got it back on Friday. WOO!

In fact, this post is being typed on the laptop AS WE SPEAK!

If nothing else, it will be nice to not have to borrow Ralph's lappy whenever we go to Sarnia to visit. I can't really run a lot of games or anything on this machine, but it's a fine little DVD player and works pretty well for the general web-surfing stuff. I'm also interested to tinker with Vista a little as I've never really sat down to fiddle with it until now. It's not the evil incarnate that it has been made out to be and it is pretty from a visual standpoint, but there are enough things that it doesn't do as simply as XP that will keep me from wanting to switch over whole cloth.

Trampled!

My kids are magnets to wierd stuff (almost as wierd as the way I spell weird!).

I took Kara to the free day at the Acton Fair yesterday and she had a blast. She LOVES animals and it almost took a crowbar to pry her out of the livestock tent. I took her over to the petting zoo.

That's when she got trampled by a llama.

Seriously.

We were having fun, looking at the lambs and pigs and so forth, when this llama shows up, head-butts Kara, knocks her down and then starts stepping over her like she's little more than a speed bump... which she probably was to something as big as a llama.

I realize now that the stories of little old ladies lifting cars off of their grandkids is true. I grabbed that llama and lifted him over and moved him off of Kara so I could extricate her before he decided to finish the job (or spit on us).

Thankfully she was more scared than hurt. She even went back to the petting zoo today and, if the stories I hear are true, she punched the llama in the nose.

I kind of doubt that though.

More Friday Ephemera

I could survive for 1 minute, 19 seconds chained to a bunk bed with a velociraptor

I'll spend the extra 16 seconds trying to feed Luke's corpse to the velociraptor.

Put Your Smile On

This comic just brightened my whole day, esp. with the Acton Fall Fair starting.


Cyanide & Happiness @ Explosm.net

This one over at XKCD also rocked my socks.



I love the alt-txt. "Staple Guns: Because duct tape doesn't make the ka-CHUNK sound."

Garrett Goes To Kindergarten

So... Yesterday was Garrett's first full day at school. He took the bus all by himself too!




Don't lick the window!


Kara's happy to see him go, but Mom's a little emotional...


And he even made it back on the right bus. Will wonders never cease?

Darwin Award Winners In Training

Skip to the 2 minute mark and watch these guys do something absolutely insane. I am both in awe and filled with thanks that I am not these guys... or one of the drivers on the road with them.


Adam Kimmel presents: Claremont HD from adam kimmel on Vimeo.

Another Sign Of Someone With Far Too Much Time On Their Hands

This just made my day. Absolutely stellar work by people who have a lot more free time than I do.


Portal - Still Alive typography from Trickster on Vimeo.

Paying For Your Crimes

I went in today with my carefully prepared explanation for why I was speeding last Friday.

After I found the office/courtroom thingy in Guelph, I was informed that the only thing that I could do by pleading guilty w/ explanation was to get the monetary amount reduced. Getting rid of the points would involve pleading not guilty and coming back some other time to see if I could convince them I wasn't going as fast as I probably was going.

I might like to try to skirt the system at times, but if I get caught, I believe in paying my dues. I was speeding. I got caught. I pay my fines.

Of course, the NEXT time I get a ticket, I'm fighting that bad boy! Hopefully it won't happen for another 6 years.

Plague House

Kara has had the snurfles for the past few days and last night it was getting into fever territory. After she came home today, she was very lethargic and was running a fever around 104F, so Julie took her to the walk-in clinic.

It seems Kara has Red Ear. Not Pink Eye, Red Ear. I hope that the meds she's on will help bring the fever down quickly. I can handle the snot. It's the fever and listlessness that always concern me.

Better Days Are Coming My Way!

Well, this weekend has been much nicer than the crapfest that was last week (esp. Friday).

Sure, the weather was hot and it's been rainy, but I love rainy, yucky weather, so I'm happy!

Tomorrow will be busy as I have to do a bit of mailing in the morning and then see about this ticket at 9am. We'll see what's up after that. I've been skirting the edges of whatever dreadful illness has overtaken Garrett, Kara and Julie, but I know I'll likely end up sniffling and snurfling tomorrow.

As long as we're not all sick at once... that's the important thing! And on that note, I'm going to bed.

At least I have my 360 going back to Microsoft for repairs tomorrow. Yay!

We Went To The Zoo... Zoo... Zoo...

Julie's work had a staff outing day at the Toronto Zoo on Saturday so we braved the elements (which wasn't that hard, as it was pretty much overcast all day) and saw a lot of cool things.


Kara LOVED the zoo, though according to her, every animal is a doggie.

Garrett had a blast this year too. We hadn't been for a few years and I think he was a bit too young to appreciate it then. This time around, he was able to actually understand what he was seeing and he seemed to love a lot of the new exhibits.

I've got to stop filling his head with nonsense though. I had him convinced that the burbling jets of water in the river at the zoo entrance were really the bubbles being let off by a sea monster. If the ropes that were holding the sea monster down were to snap, the only bridge out of the zoo would be destroyed and we'd be stuck there all day. Suffice it to say, this earned me an eye roll from Julie.

I also had Garrett scouring the woods by the tiger enclosure to see if he could spot any of the rare invisible tigers that roam the woods. He didn't, but we did find a kid on the bridge who was having a temper tantrum (or had had one). The kid was obviously a victim of the invisible tigers, or so Garrett and I were led to believe.


There were a lot of great aquarium displays this year.

Garrett & I got to pet a stingray or three at Stingray Bay. It was pretty cool. They feel like you'd imagine a snake would feel if snakes didn't feel the way they actually feel. When Garrett was finally able to pet the stingrays (they seemed to avoid us for a while), they freaked out and splashed him. Suffice it to say, he was a little leery about trying to pet them again.


Garrett sizes up his nemesis.



Kara got there just in time to see the hippo take a dip.

According to Garrett, his favourite thing at the zoo were the zebras, which leads me to this, my favourite picture of the day.


One of these things is a zebra. Can you guess which one?

Oh, and did I forget to mention the all-time coolest thing at the zoo?


JELLYFISH!!!

Garrett also got to go for a camel ride... .



And Kara was able to hang out with some kids her own size (get it?)


All in all, it was a great, though long, day. As long as the kids had fun, that was what mattered. According to Kara, it was definately worth the trip.

OH COME ON!

I don't know what I did to piss off whatever it is I pissed off, but this day just won't stop sucking.

"But why, Brock?" you ask, "What could have possibly gone wrong now?"

MY BLOODY XBOX 360 JUST DIED, THAT'S WHAT!

I mean, what next? I'm afraid to turn on the PS3 because THAT will probably start shooting death rays or something now.

I know the 360 has a pretty well-earned reputation for crapping out and I've had mine for a year and a half with pretty much no issue, but did it have to die today of all days?

I'm going to go cry in the corner for a bit.

It's Friday The Thirteenth, Isn't It?

Ok. Today has just been a cavalcade of crap, at least where I'm concerned.

The day started off ok. I got that election post out of the way and headed off to work with a skip in my step and a smile on my face. Everything was going great...

Until I got pulled over by the cops. Grr... They said I was doing 71 in a 50 zone, but they also kind of gave me the wink-wink, nudge-nudge and said that I could plead guilty with an explanation and that they're really good about things like that in Guelph.

Sigh. So now I have to head to traffic court next week to contest this and hope that my stupid excuse holds water and that the fact that this is only my second speeding ticket ever (and the first in about 6 years) helps me get a reduced fine and no demerit points.

There was some other just generally annoying stuff going on today but it was just exacerbated by the annoyance I felt at myself for this stupid speeding ticket.

So, to top things off, I get home and put my headphones on to listen to a video on YouTube only to feel something tickling my ear. I yanked off my headphones to discover that an earwig had made its home in my left ear canal.

Much squirming and stomping ensued, along with further tearful calls to Julie.

Speaking of Julie, I blame her for all of this mess. She had $666 in her bank account yesterday. She's just such a good person that the roots of all that evil made their home in the fertile soil of my day. ARG!

Did I also mention that Kara is sick with some kind of snurfley cold, Garrett is off fighting the zombie hordes of imaginationville and I've somehow managed to buy the only claustrophobic, agoraphobic, non-vegetarian plecostamus in all of Halton Hills?

Yeah, the hits just keep on coming. We're also supposed to go to the zoo tomorrow... Oh, look at that! It's going to RAIN ALL WEEKEND!

Grr...

In case you're wondering, you can consider this post to be your own personal invitation to my pity party. Cake and punch will be served.

This Is Not An Election Post

I know that in the past I've had some pretty strong views regarding elections, the parties involved, etc.

I just want to let you know that this is not going to be one of those posts. That's still burbling away in my brain and will probably spew forth sometime over the weekend.

No, I just wanted to touch on two things.

1) How about a round of applause for everyone involved for pulling their collective heads out of their asses and letting the Green Party have a seat at the debate? I'll wait while you finish screaming and clapping.

2) While almost nothing besides a free million dollars to every household would ever get me to vote Liberal, I'm so tempted to get an election sign for the local Liberal candidate. Why?

Because it's (Bruce) BOWSER!



I want to make up slogans about freeing the Mushroom Kingdom and rescuing the princess and put them up on my lawn...

I Think I'm Turning Japanese...

For someone like myself who really likes things like comics, anime and Japanese videogames, I have to admit something.

I've never read a manga before. Oh, I've flipped one open here and there but I've never really had any urge to start reading them.

Well, I have officially started to read my first manga. I figured I'd start with something that I know will be good so I am reading the first volume of Naruto. I've read about half of the book so far and I have to admit that it's pretty decent. I saw a Fresh Ink segment from a few weeks ago that dealt with a bunch of interesting manga that have come out recently and I might have to look into them.

Crap. Just what I need... a NEW addiction.

Becoming THAT Parent

Garrett went to school for his half-day yesterday. It's starting to gradually sink in just how old Garrett is and that he's not just a little guy any more.

His teacher seems to be very nice and Garrett is having fun at school so far. He goes for his first full day next week, which should be interesting.

All of that said, I'm less than impressed with the secretary, bus company and the school in general. I don't want to be THAT parent (you know, the one who bitches and moans about every perceived slight that their child undergoes) but between the delay in getting us any useful information (it came about a week before school started) and now the issues we're having with Garrett's busing, I'm rather underwhelmed with the back-office stuff going on at Garrett's school.

A lot of the problems we've had are the sorts of things that, if we'd been told about them in early August or so, we could have worked out something long before classes started. The fact that we're just dealing with them now and that the school has, in the case of the busing, stated that they're not even going to begin to do anything until late September, just drives me up the wall.

Sigh.

At least Garrett's teacher is good. I can deal with the behind-the-scenes crap if I know he's in good hands otherwise.

It's Not The End Of The World As We Know It

The Large Hadron Collider fired up today and since we're all still around to make new blog postings and read them, I guess the world didn't end.

I often let my paranoid imagination run rampant with worst-case scenarios and I'd been kind of dreading today at the back of my mind for a few months. I know that the likelihood of the world being gobbled by a black hole or exploding upon contact with antimatter was pretty unlikely. That said, I've read or seen enough cataclysmic sci-fi to give my brain ample fodder to speculate what it might be like the day the world goes ka-pow.

But it looks like we didn't all die and that means that I'll have to pay my Visa bill after all. And here I thought I had a way out of doing that :)

The Voice Is Silenced

I just found out (by way of one of the sites I visit) that Don LaFontaine died sometime over this past week.

Bah. On the one hand, he'd become almost a parody of himself, but you have to respect the guy for rising to the pinnacle of his profession.

Who's Don LaFontaine? He's the guy who does the voiceovers for almost any movie trailer you've seen in the past 15 years or so. You know, the guy who says, "IN A WORLD WHERE MUTANTS EAT BABIES, ONLY ONE MAN... AND ONE WOMAN... CAN SAVE THE HUMAN RACE!"

Or he would have said that if he hadn't gone and died (and if my script was ever accepted by the fine people down in Hollywood!).

I Need To Carry A Tape Recorder Around...

I thoroughly expect to have conversations like this with Garrett someday and they will probably be just as awesome.

Heck, I was gone for a week and the kid seems to have picked up an entire thesaurus full of words as it is. Even Kara was showing off her expanded vocabulary this afternoon. We were waiting in the Mazda 5 in front of Giant Tiger while Julie ran in to get something and I heard Kara say, "Daddy."

I turn around and she's pointing out the front window and starts to say, "Lion, lion, lion," while pointing at the Giant Tiger...er... tiger.

I was suitably impressed with my little muchkin's wordsmithing.

I can't say I'm feeling the same about my own though. This post is almost incomprehensible. I'm going to go to bed, if I can make myself fall asleep. I was so wiped earlier but now I'm wide awake and barely even feeling tired.

See, i told yousssssss'''zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

I'M BACK!

7 hours of driving... 1 pit stop...

I'm back!

I'll post more later, but I'm going to spend tonight playing Spore and going to bed.

On The Road Again...

Well, tomorrow is a big day and I don't know if I'll get a chance to log in here before I head out, so if things get a little quiet around here over the next week, well, it's because I'm gone.

I'll be up in Manitoulin for the week and won't be home until Sunday afternoon. Keep us in your prayers as we have a lot of new staff heading up this year and it's always interesting to see how they react in the wild :)

You might want to keep Julie in mind too as she'll be managing the wee beasties on her own while I'm gone.

Tomorrow is also Garrett's first day of Kindergarten! Well, it's not his first full day but he is going to meet the teacher and have a little classroom time with one or two of his classmates. I can't believe he's already heading off to school. At least I'll be home for when he starts to attend for the full days.

It should also be interesting as this will be one of the first times Kara will be at the sitter's without Garrett around to amuse her.

Anyway, see you in 6 days!

He's HOW Old?!?!

Man... I officially feel old today.

Dave turns 30 today and here I am, older than he is!

Eek!

Happy birthday, little brother!

Now to watch out for Grant... He's only got two more years until HE is 30 and then I'll REALLY feel old.

How old? All-caps OLD!

You May Now Resume Poking The Brocky

Don't ask me why, but it seems that doing the overnight shift really gets me in a good mood the next day.

I am in a MUCH better mood than I was yesterday and, as long as I get off to bed soon, I should be in a pretty good mood tomorrow too. Yay!

I blame this accursed sunshine. I do want it to be nice and sunny this coming week while I'm up at Manitoulan, but it has been too sunny (and thereby hot) this week and I think that must be making me grumpy.

Don't Poke The Brocky

Today has been an exceedingly long one for me and for whatever reason, I am in an incredibly bad mood.

To top things off, I'm working the overnight shift tonight. I'm going to go have a nap and see if I'm a little more pleasant in a few hours...

These Are All Real

I found this great list via Dubious Quality yesterday. It's a top 15 list of images you'd think were photoshopped but aren't.

Here's a prime example.



Speaking of which, Cracked.com is really good these days. I used to read the magazine waaaaay back when I was a kid but the online portion is fantastic for adults.

The Power Of Paintballs!

I want the Mythbusters' job.

My Pokemans!

Garrett has been on a bit of a Pokémon kick of late, which was probably not helped by the fact that when we were cleaning out some bags of toys given to us by one of Julie's co-workers, we found a bunch of relatively cool Pokémon toys and cards, which he has grown quite attached to.

(Phew, how's THAT for a run-on sentence?)

Anyway, I think it's time to cut things out after tonight. I was giving Garrett a good-night kiss when he said, "My Pokemans. Let me show you them!"

Either he's surfing the net FAR too much for his own good or he's been listening to me whenever I mutter that around him.

Where Are Frank And Gordon When You Need Them?

I've had to call Bell twice this week to try to figure out why my internet connection keeps flaking out.

In the past I'd have to reset my router every month or two when it would just stop sending a signal to the net. No biggie. But twice this week I've had instances where the net just went down for 20 minute or longer and no amount of switch-flicking would rectify the situation. It would eventually reconnect to the net but the second incident in as many days had me thinking that my modem was dying.

I finally talked to someone higher up the food chain at Bell than the lowly Tech Support weenies and they ran a few other tests that seemed to verify that the modem was dying. On the upside, that means I'll have a new modem in a day or two. On the downside, I have to hope that my net connection stays stable for two more days.

Oh well. At least I fixed this before I head out of town next week!

Baldy-Bald Needs Your Hair!

Dear Japan,

Keep on smoking that crack.

Your best friend,

Brock

Batman Meets The Joker - SPOILARZ!

I can't stop laughing at this video.

Must Avoid Spousal Death Stare

I've been having fun warping Garrett's mind of late, though Julie seems less than impressed with my efforts.

Example 1

Did you see the closing ceremonies of the Olympics yesterday? Remember when they were about to douse the torch and there was some young chap holding a scroll that represented the events of the past 14 days?

I did my damnedest to convince Garrett that he was actually a wizard reading a spell that would put out the torch's unholy fire.

Julie was not amused.

Example 2

I took the kids out to Hillsburg today to go for a walk along the little trail that we go on from time to time. It's a nice flat path that used to be an old railway line and is now used by bikers and hikers in the area that don't want something as treacherous as the Bruce Trail.

Garrett brought his zombie kit, which is a toy from McDonalds that is, in Garrett's mind, a set of pens, a spy camera and a pair of zombie-killing guns. The whole time we walked through the woods this morning, he was peering into the darkened underbrush, scouring the woods to ensure that his sister was safe from any encroaching zombie hordes.

We got to the part of the trail that went past the lake and I told him that the zombies couldn't get us because they can't swim.

To which he said, "If the zombies go in the water, then their blood will make the water turn into bloody water."

Sigh. I just told him not to drink the bloody zombie water...

It didn't help that this guy had biked past us when we started the hike and then we couldn't see him after a while. I told Garrett that we couldn't see him because the zombies got him.

"Oh... did the zombies smash up his bike?"

"Yes son..."

"Oh..."

When the guy rode past us on his return trip, we had a little victory celebration because that meant that he had escaped the ravenous zombie hordes and we'd probably have a chance of making it out of the woods alive too.

Suffice it to say, when I mentioned this to Julie, I could hear her eyes rolling over the phone...

My Krazy Kidz

Here's Garrett getting a trophy during the medal ceremony at Blast Ball a week ago. I think they finally spelled his name right this time.



Here are a couple of pictures of Kara looking her devilish best.





And this is just to show that Kara has a fine future ahead of her as either a roofer or trapeze artist...

Gilding The (Evangeline) Lily

Whenever we see a new baby, Julie always starts to mumble things about having another one... Eek!



Though they are rather cute...



Kara thought that Evangeline was a new baby doll for her to play with...

The Dark Side Of Google

I just wanted to share what is probably my favourite strip from the last few weeks worth of various webcomics.

Enjoy.

WARNING! Explicit Post Below!

I swear... well, I try not to, but my kids sure do.

The other day, Garrett was playing with a few of his Spiderman superhero Lego guys and I heard him say, "I'm gonna kick your ass." I did a double-take and listened closer and he said it again.

I asked him what he was saying and he said, "Uh... Nothing."

Upon further grilling, he repeated what he said. I told him that he shouldn't say that word but that he is more than welcome to say, "Kick your butt."

That seemed to make him happy and he spent the rest of the day kicking butt and taking names.

Now Kara... she is saying a few words (the clearest is 'Garrett') but lately it sounds like she's swearing.

I'm not sure what she's trying to say, but she keeps saying something that sounds like "Shit" over and over and over again :) I know that's not what she's actually saying, but anyone who hears her say it has to ask if that's the word she's actually saying.

Sigh. I guess I'll have to stop having our nightly Sopranos screenings before bedtime. (I kid!)

Mmm... Firefly...

Woohoo! I just saw the announcement that Firefly will be released on Blu-Ray come this fall. Yummy.

That is all.

Hee Hee

Too Human Is Fun

I picked up the first game of the fall rush yesterday. I've had a good summer, only getting the occasional $5-10 downloadable game, so I rewarded myself with the Diablo-esque excursion into cyber-Norse mythology known as Too Human yesterday.

Of course, if you're following the reviews, it's scoring quite low. That said, I think they must be playing a different game than I am. This game is doing exactly what I want it to do... let me kill lots of monster robots with my overpowered medic and find loot galore.

I like this gif, despite the fact that I think the review scores are overly harsh.

Star Wars: Clone Wars

I saw this today with my friends and Garrett. I will say that I liked the look of the film, at least on a technical level. And the battle scenes were cool, though much more limited in scope than I'd hoped. Plus I didn't care for the fact that instead of seeing all sorts of Jedi doing crazy things for 2 hours, you're stuck watching Anakin and Punky Brewster go tromping around in a plot that might have been sufficient for a 22 minute cartoon episode but not for an hour and 40 minute movie.

And don't get me started on the 'roger roger' battle droids. They did have some truly funny scenes but most of the time I just wanted to throttle whoever decided that a bunch of robots whose sole purpose IS WARFARE would act that incompetently. Of course, I can see who they must have put in charge of the Stormtrooper School Of Marksmanship after seeing those droids miss a clone trooper AT POINT BLANK RANGE.

While I didn't like Ziro and thought that his character and the entire scene with Amidala was pointless, I liked the look of both Ziro and the black-light bar that he owned. Again, on the artistic/technical side of things, I thought the movie was great. The way that everything had a painted look, from the backgrounds to the textures on the characters and even the control panels... I loved that. But I just felt empty after watching the movie, esp. because I'd hoped that it could have been so much more.

It's still a million times better than the entire prequel trilogy, but still so lacking from what it could have been. I think I'd basically pinned my hopes on this movie essentially being a 3D adaptation of the Tartakovsky series and unfortunately, it wasn't.

ACTUALLY, what really pissed me off was the fact that General Grievous wasn't in the movie at all. He was mentioned in passing once, but that was it.

Oh, they also changed the opening fanfare just enough to have it be very jarring to those of us who are used to the big opening to, well, EVERY STAR WARS MOVIE EVER...

I didn't mind the fact that they got rid of the crawling text at the beginning and replaced it with a newsreel-style voice-over but the fanfare just sounded wrong.

Party... Pizza Party!

There have been a couple of new pizza places opening in Acton over the past month or two and we've found that there is a wide range in quality betwixt the two newest entries in the cheese and tomato wars.

On the one hand, we have Grillers. It opened about a month and a half ago and it is amazing. It's one of those places where you can get a plain old pepperoni and cheese pizza and it not only has more cheese than most places have on their double cheese pizzas, but lots of yummy pepperoni too. That's the indication of a quality pizza place. Add in the fact that their wings are really yummy and the prices are reasonable and you've got a place that has become our default pizza place in town.

On the other hand, we have A George's Great Pizza. It's a new place that just had its grand opening today.

Let me put it this way. They had a special where you got a medium pepperoni pizza, a salad and some dip for $3.99... and we felt like we were ripped off. Garrett and Kara didn't even want to eat their pieces.

It seriously tasted like they'd baked an off-brand freezer pizza from Giant Tiger and put it in a cardboard box for us. It wasn't even at Delissio levels of pizzaness, and that's a pretty low bar to surpass. Suffice it to say, we'll be warning people about this place and won't be ordering from them again!

Congrats To Dan & Faith!

They had a baby girl just after midnight this morning. Her name is Consuela Ortiz Falava Grace.

Or maybe it isn't... But she is a girl!

Congrats you two. Good luck explaining to Silas that babies don't go back to the hospital after you finish your week rental.

Notice Anything Different?

Just wondering...