All Good Things...

And as the year grows to a close, so too does our vacation here in the Greater Sarnia Area. We had a pretty great time this year, with lots of visits with family, some fun toboggan runs and lots of yummy food.

I was also happy to be able to actually see a couple of friends who I have missed the last few times we've come down here. I had a coffee at the old New Trish In location where I spent a few years bussing tables, washing dishes and serving yummy food. It was interesting to see how much the building had changed since it turned into a Coffee Culture shop and how much it stayed the same.

Last night, my buddy Tony & I went out to the local all-you-can-eat Chinese/Japanese place (it was surprisingly good for mediocre western-style Chinese food) and then saw the truly excellent True Grit in the truly uncomfortable Lambton 9 theatres.

As a final adieu to 2010, I'll leave you with this comic, which strikes far too close to home :)



Let's hope that 2011 treats us all even better than 2010 did and be safe out there!

Tron

Go see TRON: Legacy if you can. Preferably on an IMAX screen in 3D, but just go see it. It was awesome and it blew Garrett's mind.

It's Almost Christmas Time!

I've got 2 days of work left and then I'm ON VACATION!

Unfortunately, I might not survive these next two days. Between fighting off this cold/flu thing that has been dogging me since Sunday and some last minute year-end crunches coming down from on high, I'm going to earn that vacation!

At least all of the shopping is done and we just need to wrap the last few presents and pack. Woo!

Tron: Snoozacy

So on a happier note, tomorrow (today?) I'll be taking Garrett to go see Tron: Legacy in 3D on the IMAX screen. I'm stoked, since I've been a Tron fan since waaaay back in the day and from all accounts, the movie is a visual delight. I've been listening to Daft Punk's awesome soundtrack for most of this week and love it to death.

Heck, I even watched the original with the guys from work last week. It has been a couple of years since I last watched it and I have to admit that it hasn't aged as well as I wish it could have, but the fundamentals are still there. If you can cast your mind back far enough to appreciate just how groundbreaking the visuals were for their time (and how prescient a lot of the ideas introduced in it were), it's still amazingly impressive for what it did almost 30 years ago.

My only grumble is that I got called in to do the overnight shift and here I sit, trying to stay awake, knowing that I have tickets bought for the movie tomorrow morning and that I'll be running on very, VERY minimal sleep. Sigh.

Anonymous Cowards

I kind of miss the old Haloscan comment system for der olde blog. Ever since I had to drop it and go with the built-in Blogger system, not only does nobody leave me notes (sniff), the only comments I get are from this Anonymous guy who seems to have a wide ranging interest in blog posts from years past and who wants to sell me lots of mail-order goods.

And to the latest Anonymous poster who decided to leave a rather vitriolic screed (that has since been pulped into the spam filter), get bent. Man up and deal with your problems directly instead of trying to strike out through intermediaries. I've got better things to waste my time with! (You know who you are.)

If you're going to leave something like that, at least put your name on the comment so I know who to take off my Christmas list.

Prayers: Answered

I just want to give a big THANK YOU to everyone who prayed for safety for my brother while he was overseas. I just got the news today that he is now in Cyprus, which means he should be home sometime next week, if all goes well.

I've tried not to worry about how my little brother is doing while in Afghanistan, but every so often you get that worried feeling and I tell ya, it's a huge relief to know that he's out of the sand and on his way back.

Happy Birthday Dad!

My dad became a member of the Over-60 club yesterday. I think he celebrated by having a nap, yelling at some passing kids and eating mushy peas :)

He's going to kill me now...

My Toof: Revolutions

So I was munching on a candy cane the other night when I noticed something missing in my life. More specifically, something missing in my mouth... namely, the filling I just paid good money to have installed when my molar shattered while I was eating popcorn!

Thankfully my tooth had a warranty on it and my dentist didn't charge me anything since he had just put it in 2 weeks ago.

I had to chuckle a bit as he and the dental hygenist debated prostitution and bondage laws while he had his fingers in my mouth and I was choking on drool. They didn't seem to get the irony of debating the moral boundaries of inflicting pain on someone for money.

Sigh.

Doin' The WagJag

No, the WagJag isn't a new dance my family invented. Julie & I have been getting some awesome deals via the WagJag service and I feel compelled to spread the word. It's a neat system.

Every day or two a new deal is posted. If enough people buy into it, it is activated (and most of the time the deal only needs 5 people to activate it). Then you get a coupon or code e-mailed or mailed to you and off you go!

I jumped on the one the other day that was $25 for $50 worth of artisianal cheese. Julie grabbed a few spa deals and also snapped up some that gave us $40 worth of Home Hardware bucks for $20. The deals are really good and they've spread out pretty widely across Ontario, so I'd check out the site. If you sign up,tell them I referred you!

My Toof: Reloaded

I was able to get my tooth repaired last week. Stupid popcorn!

My Toof!

I was eating some popcorn tonight and when I spat out what I thought was a kernel, it turned out to be chunks of tooth and silver filling!

Thankfully it was the tooth I had a root canal done on years ago, so it doesn't hurt or anything, but it's really annoying to have half of a tooth (my back molar, at that) in my head and half of it in my hand. Now I have to try to schedule a repair job tomorrow (hopefully) before this gets worse.

I think the gaming gods are punishing me for actually exhibiting some willpower and not buying the collector's edition of a game I really wanted to buy today. Things were going just dandy until then :P

This Strikes FAR Too Close To Home

Penny Arcade put up a comic the other day that really struck home. Take a gander.



I've caught myself doing the same thing a few times :)

Keep These In The Eisner File

Garrett has been working hard at making comics and drawing things for the last few days. He's been a busy beaver and made a giant mural poster and then started filling one of the characters with another comic that he made. It seems that the comic workshops at The Dragon are rubbing off on him.

Pay special attention to all of the veins on... everything. He learned that at last month's workshop.



I think Garrett uses Kara as a model...

This is Hallowe'en... doo doo doo...

We braved the cold on Sunday night to go Trick-Or-Treating. We were actually out there for a good hour and a half to two hours, which was much better than last year. There were lots of kids out but we noticed that more houses than usual weren't handing out candy.

That said, the kids each got at least two bags full of candy, so they're happy. I'm conditioning them to pay the daddy tax of one piece of candy whenever they go spelunking for treats. Mmmm...

Here are a few pics from that night. I'd put something witty under them but I'm too pooped to think of anything.

Cable (With No Deadpool)

Yesterday we had the lightpost (and its built-in transformer) yanked out of our front yard by Hydro as they are in the midst of upgrading all of the transformers in the neighbourhood. This meant that last night was the first time we've had a pitch-black house at night, as we've had that glare in our house for the past 7 years or so.

Now that's all well and good. I like darkness as much as the next nighthawk. But what we weren't so happy about was whatever they did to our cable while they were digging up the lights.

Standard def cable channels are working fine, but all of our digital and HD channels are glitchy at best or outright not working today. So I get to hang out here at the house for the day and hope that the cable guy will show up before I have to go and pick up my parents from the airport.

I thought the cable had done some kind of self-repair but by about 9 or so this morning it was back to barely being watchable.

Woe is me. Whatever shall I do with only 100 channels to watch?! At least I got a day off work without having to call in sick or anything :)

Tantrums And Thunderstorms

I was going to take Garrett out to the local electric railway museum for their annual haunted train ride. Alas, it's pouring rain out there and with it being as chilly as it is and with Garrett still coughing like a TB patient in a sanitorium, I decided to hold off until next weekend.

Garrett wasn't so understanding. It wasn't a fun evening. Sigh.

We're instituting the 3-strike rule now for the rest of the week. He's got to keep his nose clean this week or else he's not going next week, rain or shine. Hopefully he does well because it is a fun evening, but I've got to stop caving whenever he gets in trouble and might not be able to go to something that I want to go to :)

The Coolest Thing You'll See Today

Check out this video for an amazing piece of technology that you'll want to hang on your wall. Holograms are cool!

Ni Hao, Mom & Dad

My parents are in China. I would call them and see how they're doing, but that would cost a fortune.

I'm still trying to wrap my head around that first sentence. China is the LAST place on Earth I can imagine my parents being at any time in history :)

This Just Sold Me A 3DS

I was already saving up for a 3DS because of the Professor Layton game that is coming out for the system. Then I saw this and it absolutely sold me on the sytem.



That's Professor Layton and Phoenix Wright together in one game. For those who don't know, both games are probably some of my favourites on the DS (I bought the first Ace Attorney game about a month or two before I even owned my first DS!) and having them both in one game is Geek Heaven.

Of course, I have a while to wait and put my pennies aside. I don't think we're seeing the unit over here until about March or so of next year at the earliest.

Something's A Little FIshy About This...

I just wanted to let everyone know that as of a day or two ago, I became a millionaire. Seriously! I have an e-mail from Coca-Cola stating that I won 1 million British pounds, so I expect everyone to bow down and grovel for scraps!

I'll even show you the letter. There's nothing at all suspicious about it and once they finish processing my banking information, I shall be RICH!

THE COCA COLA COMPANY PROMOTION/PRIZE AWARD DEPT

COCA COLA AVENUE STAMFORD BRIDGE LONDON.

SW1V 3DW UNITED KINGDOM

THE COCA COLA COMPANY OFFICIAL PRIZE NOTIFICATION

CONGRATULATION:

We are happy to inform you of the result of the just concluded annual final draws held yesterday by Coca-Cola Bottling Company in conjunction with the British American Tobacco Worldwide Promotion; your email address has won GBP£1,000,000 (ONE MILLION BRITISH POUNDS) on these years Coca Cola Company Promotion 2010 Promotion

However the results were released yesterday and your email address was attached to ticket number (CC6904523) and winning number (BT:12052006/20) The online draws was conducted by a random selection of email addresses from an exclusive list of 39,031 E-mail addresses of individuals and corporate bodies picked by an advanced automated random computer search The selection process was carried out through random selection in our computerized email selection machine (TOPAZ) from a database of over 10 email addresses drawn from all the continents of the world. This Promotion is approved by the British Gaming Board and also licensed by the International Association of Gaming Regulators (IAGR).This Promotion is the first of its kind and we intend to sensitize the public.

Note that your winning and ticket numbers fall within our Southern African representative in South Africa. In other to claim your £1,000,000 prize winning, which has been deposited with our registered bank in South Africa? However, you will have to fill the form below and send it to the Promotion manager of The Coca Cola Company in South Africa for verification and then you will be directed to the paying Bank where a Cash of GBP£1,000,000 has already been deposited in your favors.

Please you are advised to contact our Promotion manager through email for prompt collection of your winning fund. Or call with the following details:

See! All legit and above board. Nothing at all peculiar about that e-mail. Or the badly formatted logos that were stretched all over the attached .doc that they sent. Or the fact that Coke's prize department is located in South Africa for some reason... And Coca-Cola is a busy company that doesn't have time for things like spell-check or grammar...

I'll be on my yacht.