ATTENTION EVERYONE

Most of you who read this know that my former fellow-blogger-turned-lazy-jerk Mike has been sans-blog for a number of months now. However, a few weeks ago he told me he'd be re-launching his blog for the new year...so that gives you about 8 hours bud.

I just thought i'd let everyone know so when it's not up soon, they'll know that you've failed miserably in your quest to rejoin the blogging community.

that is all. Have a good new years everbody.

Steve: My cat scratched me three months ago and I still have the mark.
Steve (singing): Cat Scratch Fever!!!
Me: I think I've been hanging out with you too much because that song is the first thing that popped into my head too.
Steve: Well, you're not quite at the point where you start singing them out..that'll come in 6 to 8 more months.....It's called musical tourette's.

It has been decided. If Mike gets holidays from the Vulcan Advocate-and he should-we are going to Europe. England, at least, and possibly other places. I get three weeks paid vacation starting Jan. 1, and I haven't really had a vacation in a long time, so I'm making this first one a biggie.

Me and Mike in a foreign country? That's got arrest and deportation written all over it.

It'll be sweet.

It's 3:49 a.m. This is the latest I've been up since...well, probably since the last time I was hanging out with Mike. Who, coincendentally, is here right now.

I'm now convinced that, if Mike and I ever lived in the same town again, neither of us would ever get any sleep, and we'd probably have the most fun ever.

Also, i'm pretty sure at some point we'd get arrested.

In other news, getting drunk and watching Shaun of the Dead is possibly the greatest night ever. (ok, maybe not, but that movie is fucking awesome).

That is all. Merry Christmas everyone.

:: BEAR-LY BLOGGING ::

Mike and I have spent far too much time the last two days talking about bears. It's quite ridiculous.
It started on my tagboard (to left)...

Random jerk: Your comedy is unBEARable.
Mike: My comedy is of the highest koala-ity.
Mike: In fact, you might say it's very depandable.
Mike: the ensuing laughter usually occurs after a slight paws.
Mike: Okay, I need to stop. This is getting rather grizzly.
Mike: These puns won't win me any po-polar-ity contests.
Mike: ..Though they might put an appreciative reader into kodiak arrest.
Mike: Did you know they made Jellystone Park into a golf course? Last week I shot a double Yogi.
Mike: What colour did the bear paint his house? Baloo.

Then I told Jeremy to "Go to Hell."

Mike: Hey, I bet it's pretty Smokey there.

Then the next-day emails...
Mike: OK I get to work today and pick up this week's paper (ours), and I look at the picture teasers...one is a teddy bear with the cutline "Can you bear it?"

Then I went into a blurb about the pissing bear, Hope, and how Darla "The Bleeder" from j-school works at my company's paper in Hope (and takes horrible pictures).

nick: how about that segway between bears and Darla? It was tough, but I bear-ly made it work.
mike: It was so downright awful you won't get a visit from Santa Claws this year.
nick: Dammit, I was going to use Santa claws in my next email. What'd you have to go and do that fur?
nick: Mike, you've bruined my day.

--------
In other news, last night we did our annual Christmas Cookie Icing Night, which we've been doing since we were about 5. We all missed out last year for the first time ever because Ian was in Prince George and I was in Peace River. This year was fun, and culminated with Ian eating a cookie with 4 inches of icing on it - and almost puking - and then getting the remains of the heavily-iced cookie shoved in his face and up his nose when Jeremy surprised him. Jer also ended up covered in icing - and had half a cookie stuck to his face too.

"Dammit, this poor cookie only has one chance at life and I went and bunged it up." - Me, after a poorly iced gingerbread man.

"Stop talking. You're using ten dollar words to make a five cent point." - Rob, arguing with a complaining reader who called in to our paper today.

"I don't want to be alone my whole life, I don't want to end up with cats. I hate cats." - Melissa, discussing the cons of never getting married."

Hello, again.

Well, it's been awhile since the last post - since the weekend of the car accicent. And to be honest, there was some stuff before that night that I wanted to post but never got around too. Consider this lengthy edition a Fall Cleaning of sorts.

First, the accident update. My injuries are slowly healing - although my ribs still hurt when I lie down to sleep. I've been to the doctor once since the accident, where he informed me it'd probably take 6-8 weeks for my ribs to feel completely normal again, since those rib muscles can't be rested- you gotta breathe, after all. So thats the scoop. Chris and Jenna seem to be doin' alright, both are getting back to work and/or hockey this week.

ICBC though, continues to astound and unimpress. They offered Chris $5400 for his written off car. A little low, we expected about $6,000, but the reasons behind it were baffling. Apparently his aftermarket mag wheels devalue the car. ICBC said the shitty stock rims/hubcaps in our garage are worth more. Secondly, they said there's a big rip in the driver's seat - which there certainly isn't, so who know what car they were actually looking at. So, not to my surprise, they've continued their reputation as fuckers. All of 'em.

Speaking of fuckers, Mr. Ronald Donnelly hasn't yet come forward to ICBC and bucked up for his hit-and-run, with considerably delays the proceeding. Even worse, the cops haven't even bothered to talk to him despite telling us the night of the accident they'd be talking to him "in about 10 minutes." I don't know what the fuck those cops are doing, but if they're content to let a guy go who should realistically be facing criminal hit-and-run charges, they're doing a good job. Either way, I know the guy's address, maybe I'll go drag him in myself.

In the meantime, other things are goin on around here. We had a Halloween party last weekend which was pretty rad (If my computer hadn't lost all programs, including FTP, when it was reformatted, I'd post some pics...now that'll have to wait). Some of the highlights, besides my 1970s Anchorman-turned-Angus Young costume, was Chris' 1980's rock star, Jenna's dominatrix, Katie's superhero (Captain Hot), and Lambie's...well, I'm not sure what he was but he had ridiculous shorts, and a cul-de-sac shaved head, and a mullet. Basically, his hair looked like he was run over with a lawn mower. So it was a good show, everyone got drunk, and for some reason the cops had our nice little shindig staked out pretty good. Not quite sure why, there weren't that many of us and nothing was really going on. Oh well, I guess they needed a break from tracking down ol' Ron Donnelly, which I can understand, because he's a tough guy to find (5975 176 St.).

Speaking of hockey (i was, earlier...just scroll up and check jerks), Chris had a heckuva game last night. His team got smoked 4-0, and two of the team's key players are now gone after getting jobs in Northern Alberta (will people not learn?!), but Chris was a one-man wrecking crew. He had hit after hit - he almost knocked a much bigger guy right out, and then, to top it all off, he crushed a poor sucker right through the glass. The glass didn't shatter or anything, but it popped right out and the guy went right through the space. It was huge. Then in the third, Gorski (goalie) got ran over by the same punk Chris almost knocked out earlier, and Chris jumped the kid and pummeled him a little bit before the ref's broke it up. He got booted out for fighting. As he was being escorted off the ice, the linesman said "Nice Job, 16. I'd have done the same thing."

In other, much older news, we went up to Whistler to visit Jer last month..seems like ages ago. In reality, this weekend deserves it's own post, but since the time is well since passed, I'll condence it for ya.

We were walking around the village on Saturday, and there was an abundance of hot women, many of whom were, well, let's say they were well-equipped. After a few minutes of me, chris, pat or jeremy trying to be sneaky and quiet while pointing a girl out to the others, Jeremy came up with a much more stealth plan- code words. He decided that whenever one of us saw a hot girl, we'd say "Cinnamon." The plan worked fine (except people probably wondered why the fuck three guys were wandering around the Village naming spices), until Jeremy kind of blew our cover...

"Jesus Christ, look at the cinnamons bouncing around on that one." - Jeremy

Real stealth, Germ. Nice and smooth, as usual.

There were other moments as well - Patty's "Leap of Faith" from the top of a fence right into a pine tree in an attempt to dislodge a frisbee (It worked). Jeremy picked a fight with some douche at the bar who suggested Jeremy was a little hefty. Then Chris puked out a 2nd story window (which Jer later got in trouble for from the hotel manager).

So that's the scoop folks. I'll try to post a little more regularly - lots of stuff coming up: Patty P-Styles' birthday this weekend, Tragically Hip concert (Nov. 14), Michael White and the White concert (Nov. 20) and Vancouver Giants game (Nov. 28). Then we're straight into Christmas...busy times for sure.

"Any day above ground is a good day." - Chris

This blog post was supposed to be a light-hearted one.

I was going to talk about our party on Friday night, and how Ian spend most of the evening wearing our newly christened "stupid helmet" (a 1980s style Jofa) because he invented the dumbest word ever while trying to get someone's attention - "Whippety-Whip".

It was supposed to be about the hockey game I went to on Saturday night, where a fellow reporter there, commenting on an ugly player in a fight, said "It's always dangerous to fight an ugly guy because they've got nothing to lose."

Instead though, this blog is about how, late Saturday night, me, Chris, and Jenna almost died.

Seriously.

At midnight, after I got home from work and the rest of the crew got home from losing their cash at the casino, the three of us decided to go to Boston Pizza. So we drove along, and then, out of absolutely nowhere (and going over 100 km/h) some fucker in a 1984 Lincoln Town Car rear ended us, crushing Chris's car into a cube, with me in the backseat. We all got out with minimal injuries, although my ribs feel like they're broken - emergency room says they aren't though.

Then, to add insult to injury, the bastard who hit us took off. Thankfully, the cops found his car abandoned 3 minutes up the road. His insurance info - address, name - is written on the police report, and it was all I could do not to go over to his house and pound the living shit out of him. Instead though, I was in the hospital getting checked out - and thanks to our wonderful health care system we were all there til 5 a.m.

Chris' car is, unfortunately, a total write-off, which fucking sucks because I loved that car. So did everybody. But when the car's trunk is in the backseat, there's not much that can be done to fix it. My glasses got busted too - a fireman found them, along with my hat, 50 feet behind the car. I have no idea how they got there.

Everyone I talked to - firemen, paramedics, cops, tow truck drivers - were all shocked that the three of us walked away from the accident. Absolutely shocked. If you could see chris' car, you'd probably think somebody died in there. That's what a paramedic, who no doubt has seen her fair share of accidents, said to me as I sat in an ambulance.

So that was my weekend. Now, I'll sit and hold my ribs. And whine. And hope that Chris gets a lot of money for his car, and hope that we all get enough cash for our sufferin', and that I get my $1000 for my glasses relatively quickly.

Oh, and if R. Donnelly gets hauled off to jail for hit and run, and fucked in the ass with a broken broomstick while he's there, that'd be OK too.

Fuck him.

Today, my blog-reading friends, is Mike's birthday.

Now, you probably haven't seen Mike mentioned on here quite as often as in the past, and the reason for that is simple: He was kidnapped by a band of crazy hillbillies and taken deep into the forest, where he was tortured and covered with ladybugs.

OK, maybe that didn't happen. Truth is, Mike's not mentioned here much because he doesn't post on his site anymore, and since he's lived in Alberta for the last while, we haven't had the chance to go on any Sifton Avenue-esque adventures, which truly is a shame. Anyway, he is alive and, unfortunately, still kicking - even if he's doing it way the fuck in the middle of Southern Alberta where no one can find him amid farmer's fields and, soon enough, metres and metres of snow!

On the plus side, we don't care too much. Well, maybe a little bit - after all, I can't steal street signs on my own.

On my birthday, back in April, Mike's present to me was, among other things, him hurting his leg playing soccer (A truly fantastic gift!). Now, on his birthday, I have a throat infection and have felt shitty for the past week. So happy birthday, jerk. I guess we're even now.

:: On the Clock ::

I had some spare time on my hands tonight, lots of it in fact, courtesy of my lack of a social life between monday and thursday, and I realized something: My life is ruled by the clock.

I've worked a few jobs in my day - chinese food busboy, auto parts delivery driver, labourer for landscape companies, but in no other job have I been such a slave to time as the job I've got now. Sure, there were deadlines at other jobs, but not like this. I have to have all my stories written by Monday at 5 p.m. for our Wednesday paper, and Thursday at 5 for Saturday's. There are a billion other deadlines that I won't bore you with, but those are the main ones. I'm constantly checking to see what time it is, constantly reworking schedules to make sure it all gets done on time, etc etc...

Sure, that's not unlike many jobs, but none that I've ever had before. And this on-the-clock existence has made time absolutely fly by - almost to the point of being ridiculous. Having such strict deadlines, my week has basically been cut into three parts - there's Monday to Wednesday, Wednesday afternoon to Friday morning, and then the weekend. And when things are cut down into smaller pieces, it seems like they go by quicker. Much quicker. For example, I cannot believe that I've worked at my "new" job for 5 full months now. It's baffling to think about.

When I was in Peace River, things were the same way. With deadlines here and there, and being so focused on them, time went by at a fairly quick clip, which was fine at the time, because I had an ultimate goal to get a new job in a certain time frame, so the faster the better.

Now though, I have a problem. I'm in a job that I'll have for a fairly long time - for the next handful of years I have no place I'm trying to get to, no "end result" that will occur after X amount of hours, days and months. Basically, having time fly isn't a benefit. Instead, I'm worried that i'll just wake up one day and realize that I'm like 35-years-old. That's not a bad thing, neccesarily - nothing wrong with being 35, I'm just saying that time seems to be going too quick for my liking. I need to find a way to make it feel like things are moving at a normal pace, not a lightning quick one filled with press deadlines and clock watching.

There's a guy I work with, a freelance photographer, who is on the same deadlines I am, but who doesn't care at all what time it is, aside from getting work done by 5 oclock, of course. If he has to work late one night, he doesn't care that he'll get home at 8 instead of 6. Just doesn't bother him. Meanwhile, I'm still racing out the door at 5 p.m. and I'm angry if I get home at 5:40 instead of 5:35. I don't know what I'd do with those 5 minutes, but I don't like losing them. My goal is to be 10 minutes late for something and not give a damn.

I don't know why I'm in a big damn hurry all the time - it's not like there's anything in particular waiting for me when the clock runs out.

As Al so aptly pointed out over in the tagboard, I haven't been posting as much lately - and nothing since Melissa's birthday.

I figured, since I was due for a post, I'd explain why the posts have been few-and-far between.

First of all, there haven't been a ton of interesting things going on lately - at least none I remember when I'm sitting at my computer. And secondly, since nobody else other than Melissa blog on a semi-regular basis, I'm never very motivated to write anything, nor do I have to respond anymore to some insult or remark Mike has made on his blog, since well, his blog is on hiatus while he "recharges his batteries of evil." Truth be told, he's just become a video-game addict - batteries of evil, my ass.

And this week, aside from blogging, I haven't been online much at all, and for one simple reason.

NCAA Football 2004 for PS2.

Absolutely fantastic game and I was lucky to find it since it's only sold in the U.S. - I got it in the Used Games section of a store in the mall. And I'm quickly becoming addicted to it. God damn I love sports games.

Dale: I promised Melissa that I'd get her the biggest possible random thing for her birthday.
Me: So what'd you get her?
Dale: Twenty bucks.

"Tonight we're gonna get loaded then have a plum eating contest." - Dale

:: Give it away now ::

Things I got free today, or at least was offered:

1. Surrey Eagles hat and keychain

2. Vancouver Giants tickets

3. Ticket to University of Washington Huskies football game, and transportation to the game this Saturday. I can't go though, because I'll be in Kamloops.

Ahh, the perks of the job.

What a good fucking party, or shaker, if you will.

The following things happened after we started drinking during the Canada-Czech game (awesome game by the way, for obvious reasons!).

- For once all of us (minus Jeremy in Whistler) were in one place at the same time.
- Slutty girls showed up.
- Hundreds of beers were drank.
- Gorski puked, then left to "walk home" which was far away. I don't know if he ever got there.
- Ian spilled half a beer on me.
- Ian got his ass kicked, including one hell of a punch to the left nut (by me).
- Ian passed out in my backyard on the grass then disappeared to, assumably go home.
- Despite leaving, Ian left his shoes at my house.

What a great fuckin' night.

Just making a friendly point...

Meghan, now that a) school is in where there are computers and b) you have a new place with internet access, there really is no reason other than extreme laziness and slothery that is keeping you from updating your blog, which I think may be in danger of being designated a Heritage Site by the Canadian Government and DUMB - the Dammit Update More Blogs Society.

I don't mean to call you out, because there are others too, but I have a lot of spare time on my hands - gimme something to read here! I mean, June 2nd for God's Sake!

:: The Weekend, work, and extra large cheques ::

Well, it was a hell of a weekend, I'll say that. A hell of an expensive one, but a hell of a fun one too. Very fun.

I already went into detail about Friday night on a previous post, but Saturday was the real crazy night. Seven of us - me, Chris, Ian, Gorski, Jenna, Scott and Pat took a limo downtown to the Plaza Club for Jenna's birthday, which was the preceding Monday. We had been chugging beer (and Scott a mickey of vodka) on the drive down, so we were all pretty hammed when we got there. Pretty very hammed.

Once inside, I met some old buddies of mine I used to work with at Dams who I hadn't seen in about 3 years, so it was cool to see them for a bit. Now, as for the rest of the night, I'll break it down for you right quick:

- Pat and Scotty got shot down by numerous women (although P got one number)
- Gorski got loaded and wandered outside into an alley behind Granville St. and puked on a stack of phone books before giving his cell # to a homeless guy
- Ian got kicked out of the place at about 1:30 after he puked all over the place
- Sean and his girlfriend briefly showed up although I barely remember
- I don't remember seeing much of Chris or Jenna. In fact, I don't remember a whole lot about anything that went on inside the bar - I just sat and drank.

Quite a night. Quite a night indeed.

Work: "It's nice to finally have someone else in the office who watched the same shows as I did when I was a kid." - Steve

Today was a decent day at work - for a monday. Me and Steve realized that some of our recent conversations have been pretty weird - we've talked about Fraggles, Optimus Prime, and what the name of the bad Decepticon Transformer was (I finally remembered it was Megatron). Everyone else in the office thinks we're idiots, but they're all too old to remember any good '80's, early '90's stuff like that. He's 25 and I'm 23. The next closest person is 32. They're all old farts.

In other work related news, due to some backpay I was owed, I got the biggest paycheque I've ever got before in my life. It was sweet. I like money.

Well, despite it's initial problems, tonight turned out to be pretty fun. Me, Chris, Jenna, Danny and Pat sat in the backyard with a fire and drank beer - although Jenna, then Pat, called it a night earlier/passed out. But after that was actually the funnest part. There's a guy -Kyle- who's lived at the end of my street for the past 16 or so years - he's a year older than me and when we were younger we never really got along that well. In the past few years though, I've seen him around at bars and we get along pretty good. Well, tonight him and his buddy wandered up the road and hung out at the fire with us, where we spent a bunch of time catching up on people we knew in high school - some his grade, some mine. As it turns out, some of 'em have led rather colourful lives....

- One of them turned into a pretty good speed skater, moved to Calgary, and actually dated Olympian Catriona Lemay-Doan for awhile before she married some cowboy.

- One guy, who I played hockey with for years and was extremely good friends with in elementary school, and saw as recently as a year ago, is apparently a porn star.

- One guy, who I was good friends with in elementay school, got expelled from/dropped out of my high school due do certain problems (ie: wrong crowd) but now he's a linebacker for the Winnipeg Blue Bombers. This didn't come as a surprise to me - I already knew, but it's a sharp contrast from porn star.

- One guy, who I didn't know (except the name sounded familiar) but Kyle did, moved to L.A. after high school graduation and became a drug dealer down there. He got busted and is currently serving a 7-year stretch in some California prison. He must almost be out by now though.

Those are the notables, but there were plenty more. Kind of weird when you think about it actually - I mean, porn stars and L.A drug busts? A little extreme for some Canadian suburbanites, don't ya think?

The egos amongst my Walnut Grove friends is just fuckin ridiculous, and quite frankly, I'm getting god damn sick of it.

Nobody will do anything unless it's a plan that they themselves have come up with because everyone thinks their plans are so much better than everyone elses. Take tonight for example, for the past week and a bit I've said today we were getting a bunch of beer and having a party on the new patio. Okay, everyone says.

Now, in the 45 minutes since I've left work, everyone's decided they are going to The Mirage, some dress-code bar in Surrey, because thats' a better idea. And of course, the usual people follow along. So whichever one of you fuckers came up with the Mirage plan when you knew damn well I was having a party, you can just go fuck yourself - And you know who you are. All you followers can go fuck yourselves too.

The last month my friends have pissed me off so much it's not even funny - sometimes it really makes me wonder why I stick around.

"We should just sell out and be called Coca-Cola University...The choice of a new education." - Silv, discussing new names for UCC once it becomes a university.

I actually thing that "Choice of..." slogan was Pepsi's, but I'll give Silv the benefit of the doubt because it was funny.

VICTORY IS MINE!

After many delays, and a fair amount of stress on my part, the job is mine. For good.

'bout fuckin' time.

:: Ian Strikes Out...Again ::

"I don't know what I did this time. I remember her saying 'Your drunk' and I said 'Yeah, so?' then I must've said something that wasn't the smartest thing to say, because she turned away."

"When I'm drunk I grab more things than I do when I'm sober."

"It's like I went to the store for the full-size pillsbury pizza and only came home with the minis."

Poor Ian, fucks up his chance again. And too think, he could've been camping instead.

"If Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was re-created in this day and age and they set it in Surrey, there'd be cops surrounding that house in 15 seconds and social services wouldn't be far behind." -'A', a co-worker, concerned about 7 "creepy, vertically challenged guys" living with one hot, young teenage girl.

Rob: So, Canada finally won a medal eh?
Nick: What'd they win in?
Rob: Oh I don't know, some ridiculous made-up event. I think it was the 'Synchronized diving for quadripeligic athletes whose mothers were anemic' event.
Nick: Ah, a real classic.
Rob: Yeah, I hear four people were there to see it.

Tomorrow I should find out about my job once-and-for-all. Or, if not tomorrow, then Wednesday at the latest. I swear to God this has been the most fucked up 3 weeks. At this point, it's all so damn sad that I don't even care one way or the other. Just gimme the job, or don't. Either way I'd just like to know what the hell's going on. I'll either stay gainfully employed, or I'll fuck off to Mexico or someplace for awhile.

Or maybe I'll try and become a stand-up comic just to prove to Jeremy that I could do it, since he insists that I'm not "stand-up comedy" kind-of funny.

*P.S: This was my 300th post on this blog. Hooray!

"I'm like Jesus except it's only deeper," - Lorne, walking through, not on, water.

"Punk ass kids!" - Melissa, after Chad, the "King of the Thompson River" came around looking to bum smokes.

"I haven't been this upset since the credits came on at the end of The Never-ending Story," - Dale, upset about false advertising.

Well I haven't arrived back from my weekend jaunt to Kamloops, and I return with no sunburn, and a liver in slightly worse shape than before I went. It was great to see everyone. It was not great to sleep in Melissa's living room - with the 50 degree heat. Holy Fuck was it hot. H-O-T. No breeze of any kind to speak of either. But it was still good.

Friday was sweet, I got pretty loaded. Passed out on the couch. It kicked ass. Saturday would've been much of the same, but we spent the day at the beach, and were all suffering from heat exhaustion I think. At 1 a.m. we went down the street to Denny's just because it was air-conditioned.

I have noticed though that we don't drink nearly as much as we used to. I figure we're just getting old, and everytime I go to Kamloops I do my best to get people in a crazy, drinking and partying mood, but it usually doesn't work. One day though, I hope it does - just once and I'll stop trying.

Hopefully, work schedule permitting, I'll be back up in a month or so for Melissa's birthday. For that occasion, I garauntee (sic) you I won't have to do much to rile up the troops. It'll be a gong-show, for sure.

"The graphics are up! As sure as the sun sets in the West, as sure as there will always be an England, the graphics are up!" - Jeremy, from Sports Night.

That's right, folks. After much procrastination and lack of webpage knowledge (and an unwillingness to gain any knowledge) on my part, the pictures are up and online at www.nick.swapphotos.net

I probably owe some thanks to Mike for giving me the space on the swapphotos site, and also for putting up with my incessant droning - "Is it done yet? Is it done yet?" I'd offer more gratitude had it been anyone other than Mike, because it's Mike, he only gets minimal thanks because, well, he's a jerk.

A link to the photos along the left hand side of this blog has also been added.

Let the rejoicing begin!

:: Some notes ::

1. I've decided when I blog about my job, I'm only going to use initials for people. I fear Google. Alan Bass once found my site, and I don't want 'R' to do the same.

1. I learned the following things at work today:
a) Everyone in the editorial department thinks the way I've been treated in this whole job situation is disgusting.
b) With that in mind, on Friday after I left, one reporter, 'S', tried to convince others to go talk to 'R' and tell him they'd better keep me or else.
c) It's widely known and discussed throughout the office, apparently, that 'A' (old sports reporter) is trying to screw me around behind the scenes because she's extremely threatened by me because I'm a much, much better writer than she is. That's not me bragging either - this is what I was told today.
d) Nobody likes or respects 'A'. Everyone likes me.

2. Also, speaking of work, a fellow reporter told me today that everyone thinks that me and 'S' are the two best writers in the office, and are two of the best young writers in the whole company. ('S' is only 25.) That was nice to hear.

3. I never have to work weekends and two weeks from now we were going camping for Jenna's birthday. Of course, just to kick me in the ass, I have to work that weekend for ONE FUCKING HOUR, thus killing my camping plans. What a kick to the groin that is.

4. I've posted every day for most of this week now. EVERY. DAY. And Al thought he was so great with his once a month routine.

5. Mike, hurry up and get your blog online. I like having blogs to read. Especially ones that are updated consistently. Speaking of consistently updated blogs, I've got to hand it to Melissa, I didn't think you'd keep it up - usually the novelty of blogs wears off quickly (see: Low, Meghan).

6. My photos site should have been up by now, but the the ftp server is acting inexplicably weird, and things aren't getting uploaded properly for some reason. Hopefully soon though.

7. I apologize for this being the second 'list' blog of the week.

Celebrities taking over as journalists
Oh good, maybe Rob can hire one of them to replace me....

On that note, "my" job posting closes on Thursday. My boss said that most resumes he's got start out like "I have no experience but I love to write..." so it does look brighter for me. What doesn't look bright is that said boss is an unpredictable fool.
With that in mind...

Reasons I'd like to keep my job:

1. I like money and getting paid $20/hour is nice.
2. I won't have to move.
3. I won't even have to consider moving. We all know what happened the last time I was forced to consider it.
4. At the rate I'm going, with my current job, I'll have enough to buy a townhouse in Walnut Grove in a year or two.
5. I got bills to pay. And I'd like to keep my car.
6. Being unemployed is lame. It's only fun in the summer (like last year) when there's camping etc to do. If I was jobless in November all I'd do is watch Fresh Prince of Bel-Air reruns on TBS and eat pie.
7. mmmm.....pie.

Reasons I don't care if I'm fired:

1. Sleeping in
2. Fresh Prince of Bel-Air reruns
3. EI
4. I have enough cash that I could go on a vacation for once. I'd head to Mexico the first chance I got.
5. I could do whatever I wanted to, and visit my friends as much as I feel like.
6. Speaking of which, plane tickets to Calgary are only $69 right now.
7. Hahaha, 69.
8. No more putting up with idiot, self-absorbed, arrogant co-workers.

Reasons I made this list:
1. I'm bored.
2. I like lists.

FINALLY!

After a much-too-long-wait, Seinfeld will soon be out on DVD. Each set is $50, but it's one thing I'd probably blow a whole bunch of money on all at once.

:: The Invisible Friend ::

*warning: Angry Rant Ahead

I've mentioned this in earlier post, but nothing pisses me off more than "friends" who NEVER fuckin' pick up a phone. Right now it's 9:40 p.m. on a Saturday - I should be drinking right now, or doing something cool, but I'm not because nobody ever includes me in any plans. I don't want this to sound like a whiny "nobody likes me" speech, because it's more of a "screw you douchebags" kind of speech.

I know people are busy tonight - Chris and Jenna are at a concert and some people are at the fireworks, which I don't like, so that's fine. But it's become very clear to me that unless I pick up a phone, nobody ever calls to say "Hey lets do (insert activity here)."

Take today, I called Ian three fucking times and each time it was "oh I don't know what I'm doing i'll call ya and let you know." Fine. But if you're gonna call me, then fucking call me. I haven't had an unsolicited phone call from Ian since April. And this is one of my best friends who Ive known for 15 years who called me pretty much every day last summer. In fact, he's called 9-1-1 more often this summer than he's called me.

Then there's last night, when I was dog tired and doug called me and I said I was just going to bed because I was tired. Here's the rest of the conversation:

me: Well what're you doin' tomorrow night? We'll do something then.
him: Uh...I'm busy tomorrow.
Me: Doing what?
him: It's a surprise or something.
Me: Right.

Just 'cuz I bailed out on Friday - with a good reason - the rest of the weekend he's "busy" as some form of punishment or something.

Damn, just since I started writing this I realized that I guess I'm more pissed off than I originally thought.

I don't mean to be a complete dick - and I don't mean to call out Ian and Doug, but c'mon guys, stop being idiots. How would you like it if everybody stopped calling you for no apparent reason?

I don't know when I become this "extra" in our little group, but clearly that's how it goes now I guess. If I'm there I'm there, if I'm not, well no big loss I guess. I'm glad I'm headed to Kamloops next weekend - at least there people are happy to hang out with me and actually care whether I'm there or not. Maybe I should stay awhile.

By the way, since i'm sure Jeremy will if he reads this, don't fill the comments box with 300 comments telling me to fuck off, once is enough.

:: Back to the grind ::

"I'm surprised I don't get arrested more often." - Bucholtz

A 2 a.m. drunken conversation...
Bucholtz: Hey Nick!
Nick (asleep): ...what?
Bucholtz: Fuck you!

"Take off would ya?...I hear the Great White North is a beauty way to go." - Bucholtz

"Why is the sky blue? I always wondered that." - Chris, very drunk.

Well, I guess it was bound to come to an end. My weekend, which was four-and-a-half days long, is pretty much over, which sucks because I really don't want to go back to work. This weekend was pretty damn fun, and camping kicked as much ass as it usually does. We went out to Agassiz/Harrison, and spent most of the time at the beach, playing frisbee, eating ice cream and getting sunburns.

We also drank a lot of beers, were constantly annoyed by some little 6-year-old girl who was camping next door, and we were also hassled by the idiot owner of the place who one day told us to be quiet by 11 p.m. only to show up the next night at 9:45 and tell us to be quiet. No dice, amigo, which is why Chris told him to take off.

Some of the highlights included: Chris diving for frisbee in about 1-foot of water at Harrison Lake and doing a complete faceplant (movie to be available soon, along with photos); Pat somehow climbing a 15 foot high gazebo to get a frisbee, and I beer-bonged two bottles of some Smirnoff green apple drink, which wasn't that tasty, to say the least.

But alas, the fun is over and it's back to work for three days until the next weekend...until of course I have no job and everyday seems like a Saturday.

Photos and a couple movies will soon be posted on a new site. A link to them will be posted soon.

:: Long(er) weekend ::
 
Well, it's almost Friday, which means it's almost the long weekend, and after the stressful (to the point of ridiculousness) week I've had it can't come soon enough. Not that we're doing anything super great, mind you. In a rare occurence, I've managed to catch a break too - I get Tuesday off, making my long weekend longer than most other people's. The stars must be aligned or the God's must be smiling or something, because I haven't had a day off work, or a real holiday or any kind, in about 2 years. Not that this is a real holiday either, but 4 days off is still better than 3.
 
We were going to go camping in Kelowna, or somewhere cool, but we didn't get our shit together on time. Then we were planning on going up to Whistler to hang with Jer for awhile, but now he's decided to come home for two days this weekend instead (Nice goin' Jer, ya asshole, ruining our plans! jus' kidding.) So now, on Thursday at 11 o'clock we've got to what I'll tentitively call Plan E, or maybe we're at F now, I'm not sure.
 
Either way, this plan insists going out to Agassiz/Harrison Hot Springs and staying at the only place that (for now) still have vacancy - a big empty field behind some motel, pretty much right in town. It's still a campsite, and we'll still have beer, so I'm sure it'll be fun. Either way, it sure beats working.
 

:: Where's the booze? ::
 
I would hazard to guess that every Friday since I've been back from Alberta - and a lot of Fridays before I even moved there as well - I had at least one beer. It's just what we do. The question on Friday after work is never "What are we doing?" it's always "Where are we drinking?" My point is that, yesterday, for the first Friday in many moons, I didn't drink a drop of alcohol. I just hung out with Doug, and while we did go out, I just didn't feel like drinking.
 
Now, to the point. Almost without fail, I've never felt hungover on a Saturday morning, and I've rarely puked in the A.M. either - except once or twice years ago. But today I woke up bright and early for baseball, after a night of no-alcohol, and I puked. Sure a lot of it was phlegm from having allergies etc, but still, I've come to one conclusion: My body needs alcohol. It loves it. Not to the point of being an alcoholic or anything of the sort, but after being conditioned to feel woozy every Saturday morning, I'm sure my body was not impressed when it woke up this morning stone-cold sober, without a Gary Busey-esque level of toxins in my body.
 
"Where the fuck's the beer?" it asked me, before imploring me to run to the bathroom and hurl up something that, rest assured, wasn't booze.

:: Details, details ::
 
Me and Doug talking about this really hot chick he sort of knows and likes and was talking to online..
 
Me: You should nail her.
Doug: I know, but she just found out that she's pregnant.
Me: So what? That's perfect - she can't get more pregnant.
Doug: That's a damn good point.

::The exciting life of a road construction flag-person in a predominently white neighbourhood ::
 
"I was so bored I counted how many black people drove past all day long...There were seven." - Jenna.
 
In also news, my current favourite song: "Dock of the Bay" by Otis Redding. I just like how he drags out the "Waaaaasssting Tiiiiime" line. Also good: Pearl Jam cover of the same song.

"It's like an orgasm for my feet!" - Gorski, after putting his blistered foot up against the air conditioning in the car.
 
"Hi, I'm Scott. You may remember me from such things as 'Yesterday' and 'Brad's party on Friday.'" - Scott, doing his best Troy McClure impression when he met us at the beach today.

I haven't been posting as frequently lately, mainly because of laziness and also because I just haven't been in the mood to come up with anything interesting. However, here's the scoop as of late.
 
It was another expensive weekend - a lot of cases of beer bought, went out for dinner a few times, including tonight when we went to The Keg, which was good as always.
 
Friday night was a write-off for most of us, especially for the party-host Gorski, who drank a bunch of vodka and remembers absolutely nothing about the night. Not who was at his house, not what he did. Nothing. Pretty sweet. It was a fairly low-key party, we just drank and sat around watching Seinfeld - and terrible porn thanks to Gorski, Kyle and Gorski's little brother Scott - but it was still not too bad at all. We were at Gorski's on Saturday night too and it did make me realize that we certainly aren't as rowdy as we used to be, or maybe it's just me. That may be a good thing, but I'm sure things will be interesting again in no time, complete with much drunken debauchery.
 
Today we went out to White Pine beach in Port Moody. It was pretty damn fun - although it started off just shitty as hell. We got up late, the traffic was the worst I'd ever seen it due to people coming back from Merritt Music Fest and a bad accident on the Port Mann Bridge. What a joke that was - especially when you consider that me, Gorski and Kyle were crammed into the back of a Jetta, which made for a tight fit.
 
In Cannons news, we continue to lose. (Hey, that rhymed!) We've got a handful of games this week because playoffs are starting - although I've got to miss our second playoff game and possibly our third because of fuckin' work. God damn it. Work's going alright, I'm fairly sure I'm staying beyond my three months, which is nice. Although I had a dream that I won the lottery and quit, which is nicer. Probably not going to happen though. Fuck.
 
Me, Jenna and Brad were talkin' today at the beach about our potential trip to Mexico (The East Coast, right Jenna?) We want to go in January or February, so people start saving your god damn money. You free-spenders know exactly who you are. Speaking of which, Chris you owe me money. So do you Buchs.
 
The sun and the lake tired me out today and I crashed on my bed for an hour and a half tonight at 8:00, and then I got up and had a shower and now I can't fucking sleep. Dammit Dammit Dammit.

Happy 20th Birthday Chris!

I'd write something more here, but I'm hungover and tired and soon have to work.

Bah! Working hungover sucks.

Busy, busy last few days.

Worked quite a bit - especially with the Canada Cup taking up a lot of my time. Then of course we had three slo-pitch games - all 'L's of course. We gave the two best teams in the league a run for their money, but we'd always have one shitty inning that'd kill us. On the plus side though, Chris knocked one over the fence last night, which was awesome. And I'm slowly remembering how to hit.

In other news, Jeremy got a new job - an plumber/pipe-fitter apprenticeship in Whistler, where he'll be for the better part of the next two or three months probably. He'll make a shitload of money which is good, and I won't have to see him very often, which is even better - Good Riddance ya prick! Just kiddin, we'll probably miss him.

It's also Chris's birthday tomorrow, so we're going to Roosters tonight to just get loaded. It'll be an absolute gong-show, I can guarantee (or GARAUNTEE if you're mike).
I also saw Anchorman today which was fucking hilarious. What made it better was because, like Dodgeball, it had great cameos - Vince Vaughan, Luke Wilson, Ben Stiller, Tim Robbins. Great movie.

I also bought, this morning, tickets to Matt Good's august show at the Commodore, which is without question the best place in Vancouver to see a concert. I'm goin with Chris, Jenna, and Blatz. I've seen Matt Good play twice before - once at Edgefest years ago, and once even before that, when the Matt Good Band opened up for Aerosmith back when they were rookies.

So it's been an eventful, busy couple days, and tonight's the capper. In the words of The Simpson's bit character Jasper: "What a time to be alive."

Meghan, talking about some old political science class she was once in:

Meghan: It was a good class, we got to form our our caucus- hehe, I can't even say that word without laughing.
Nick: It's like the word titmouse.
(Laughing)
Meghan: It's a good thing we're grown adults.

Things that seemed like a good idea at the time:
- Communism
- Asbestos
- Lead paint
- eating 24 mini donuts at the Canada Day fireworks.

We just got back from the fireworks. It's 12:24. I just remembered I have to be at work early tomorrow - by 7:15.

Fuck.

:: Lodging an official complaint ::

You know what really chaps my ass?

People who don't call you to do anything. Now, my old high school pal Mike Smith was the king of never calling people back, but this is a bit different - this is not calling people in the first place.

I call people all the time...well maybe not all the time but a fair amount. Then today, on Canada Day when cool things are happening, nobody calls me. Not once. I did see Chris this morning when he was going to some beach in Vancouver, but then he said they weren't going and he left. In the end they went to Allouette Lake for the day. Jeremy, Bucholtz and Gorski went to some Canada Day Festival in Port Moody.

Thanks for the phone call fuckers. I appreciate it.

"You know what I want to do right now? I want to go over to that D.J, Russ or whatever his name is, and go to shake his hand and say 'Nice job, way to download songs off the internet for a living' and then when he's expecting the hand shake I'll stick a chloroform rag in his face, drag his body under the table and then take over the music and play nothing but New Kids on the Block and line dancing songs." - Bruce, further enhancing his awesomeness.

Just got back about an hour ago from Ken and Jessica's wedding. It was lots of fun - once I found the place. I got a little lost because I screwed up my directions. But I got there on time, all was well.

I realized something about weddings tonight: They're pretty fun, as long as it's a close friend or family member getting married. I had a great time tonight, and I had a great time at the last wedding I went to - Tracy and Kyle's last September.

I used to not like weddings very much - not that I've been to a ton of them or anything, but usually they're boring, you only know like 6 people, and it's taking up precious time you could be using to sleep, download porn or light off firecrackers.

But I realized the reason they're boring is because it's usually your uncle's cousin's neighbour's aunt who's the one getting hitched. So basically it's not too exciting and your interest level is minimal. And by minimal I mean none. But when it's your friend it's just like one big party.

Plus the last two weddings were the only one's i've been too since I turned 19, and I like open bars.

But I doubt that has anything to do with it. At least not much.

During a big thunderstorm in White Rock on Thursday...

Advertising woman: Oh no, my cats are just going to be so scared. They hate thunder. My poor babies!
Rob: *scoffs* You know what I'd do with a cat in a thunder and lightning storm? I'd take it outside, staple it to a tin roof and hope for the best.

"You know what I like? Boobs." - Ian

Heather: Let's go to Darby's Pub.
Bruce: Oh sure, we'll walk up there and nobody will come up with us and
we'll be like "Oh they got us with the ol' 'let's go to Darby's Pub gag' and
then instead of going in the pub we'll go to John's knife shop and pick up a
couple of big knives and come back here and say 'hi here are some knives,
it's a peace offering for your little trick. No hard feelings.' Then after
they have the big knives maybe they won't try and trick us again.

It's been an eventful few days - went to Ken's bachelor party on Thursday night in Kits, then didn't get home til 2:00 and had aboot 4 hours of sleep before work, which wasn't cool.

Then tomorrow I'm going to Ken and Jessica's wedding, which should be pretty fun I'd imagine. I met a lot of Ken's Nova Scotia family the other day, and his brother Bruce, from the above quote, is awesome. He's just hilarious.

Tonight we were just drinking in Sean's backyard but I'm just exhausted so I called it a night early. It's been a weird day - I was dead-tired, then pumped because we had a ball game, then pissed off because our game was cancelled, then I was sad after that when i heard some very not-cool news that happened to one of my best friends. Normally, the emotions would've been up and down a bit today, but so far I've been pretty even-keeled, which I suspect has much to do with a lack of sleep and a few beers.

You know what's awesome? Being drunk.
I'm fuckin shiffaced right now, but thankfully Ian was less shitfaced and was able to drive my car home. What a great night a slapshots even if the power did go out for awhile.

Tomorrow should be good - some of us are going to sean's dad's wedding (Chris, Sean, jenna, Jeremy) and the rest of us are goin camping in Chilliwack. Also in the plans tomorrow is a trip to the ol' movie theatre to see dodgeball, which looks awesome.

In other news, Danny and Amanda had their baby - a 5 lb 14 ounce baby girl named Harmony Grace. Congratulations guys, that's awesome, we're all happy for you.

Well, I'm loaded so I should probably call it a night. Later folks,

Postscript: According to Ian, I also fell off the couch last night when we got home. I vaguely remember it. I am PURE AWESOME.

:: Back from the 'loops ::

Well I'm back from my short trip to Kamloops for Mike and Melissa's grad. It was quite a good weekend - a decent amount of drinking, and I got to see everyone again because we were all briefly back in the same town. Now I'm in Langley and Mike's back in Alberta, so it was a short but sweet reunion.

Friday night was prett good - I got into town at around 8:00 and we drank some champagne and then went to Sherlock's for a couple of hours to meet up with some of the few remaining j-school stragglers.

Some of the weekend highlights included Lorne buying 'Hoe Garden" beer (actually some weird belgium beer Hoegaarden; Meghan cramming many marshmallows into her mouth; and Mike and Shaun destroying a Calgary Flames flag for me (including throwing it off a bridge and lighting it on fire.) Also equally important (or more important if you ask her..haha) was Melissa making sure everyone, from family to friends to strangers at the bar, knew that "IT'S MY GRAD!!"

I took about 90 pictures so I'll be posting those in the next little while - most likely on one of mike's new sites once he gets them up and running.

:: Tasteless joke alert ::

Today Ray Charles died at age 73.

He didn't even see it coming.

I cracked the whole office up with that one this afternoon.

Tonight I pumped up the ol' DVD collection with some kick-ass movies - Family Guy seasons 1-3 and both Wayne's Worlds. So if anybody needs me, I'll be in my room watching hours upon hours of tv. Except for Friday of course, when I'll be in Kamloops drinking my god damn face off. I'm headed there after work on Friday to meet up with Melissa, Mike and Meghan after the grad ceremony. I think we're going to some kind of foam party at the bar - which sounds interesting to say the least. We'll be drunk, regardless.

The last time I was there with everyone was on my way home from Peace River and our little reunion didn't really go as planned and some or all of us were a little bummed about it. Well, with Mike in Vulcan and me in Langley this might be our last shot at it for awhile.

So let's not fuck this one up.

"The Internet sure is getting neat." - some woman at my work today.

Good insight. Welcome to 1995 lady.

Jer: aaaoooooooohhh.
Nick: What was that?
Jer: I was yawning. Yawning, you know? It's the past tense of yawn.
Nick: No Jer, it's not.

:: When I saw how big my paycheque was I pitched a tent ::

Okay, I lied. Before you think I'm some perverted freak who gets turned on by money (see also Smith, Anna Nicole), I didn't actually pitch a tent when I got paid yesterday.

I did, however, buy one.

I decided that, aside from paying some of my Visa bill I'd prepare for the many weekend camping/drinking trips that will/better happen this summer. While I'm not exactly one to get all excited about a tent, it is pretty cool for one reason: There is no setup to it. All you do is spread it out, pull up on this top piece and the whole thing pops open and its finished. Takes 4 seconds. No fucking around with tent poles and all that garbage. Why is this important? Well, for starters, I'm incredibly lazy and hate setting up tents. Reason #2: By cutting down on camping setup time, I've now increased the camping drinking time by a good 10-15 minutes at least. And when it comes to drinking an entire weekend away, there's really no time to waste.

I was going to blow some of my money on a bunch of dvds - Family Guy seasons 1-3, Wayne's World 2, Dumb and Dumber, you know, the classics - but decided a tent was a better plan. DVD's can wait til next payday, or til tomorrow if I'm feeling rich.

I'm trying to save a lot of the money I'm making now, but there's so many things I want to buy it'll take some willpower because, like Mike, I really want to get my hands on a giant inflatable octopus or a cactus shaped pinata.

How much do those go for anyway?

"Beer me up Scotty!" - Ian

There's been a Denny's in Walnut Grove for awhile now - somewhere between 6-8 years I'd guess. And there's one thing I've learned from going there: Everytime you go there, you're convinced it will be better than the last time you went there.

It's true. The last time you went there you could've got food poisoning from the chicken strips, some drunken gang of misfits could've started a fight with you at 2 a.m., the $1 crane machine where you try to pick up stuffed animals could've screwed you out of your last few dollars, and your car could've got stolen as it all happened, but you'll go there again because, well "It's Denny's" and really, what else is open at that hour?

I had "The Sampler" - which sounds good in theory until you realize all you're sampling is 4 different strains of salmonella.

God damn chicken strips.

We're going there again next weekend right?

:: The World has turned and left me here ::

The blogging landscape has suddenly gone barren. Mike is in Vulcan with no internet, and his blog has been under renovation for some time. Melissa, who is a new and frequent blogger, doesn't have an internet connection at her place as of yesterday, thus also leaving Meghan cut off from cyberspace. Even though Meghan's blog hasn't been updated since about the time Super Mario Brothers was new on the market.

And as usual, Al and Shaun's blog's are updated infrequently, as Shaun is too busy dealing with crackhead customers during the Super 8 nightshift, and Al is too busy working and, I assume, drinking his face off at weddings and such.

I guess it's up me to hold down the fort for awhile.

"Carnies get me every time!!" - Chris, after carnival games kicked his ass.

:: Playing catch up ::

I've been meaning to post for a few days now but haven't really had the time. Even now I'm rushed because me, Chris, Jenna, Gorski and maybe Seaner are going camping for the night in Chilliwack and we're leaving pretty soon here I think. Either way, I figured I'd get you caught up on what's going on. Also there's some random thoughts thrown in for good measure.

- The Cannons lost again. We played alright except our defence sucked. And there is now a little dugout dissention between those who don't care about winning and those who are ultra-competitive and hate losing. I'd just like it if everyone actually hustled all the time and we had a good time. I'm sure it'll get better. On a positive note, there are new pictures in the Cannons Pictures section.

- I hate people who park on the side of the road and then leave their driver side door open while they sit in there. I drive down Marine Drive in White Rock quite often - it's a narrow street to begin with, and you add in tons and tons of beach-going pedestrians, and cars parked on both sides of the road, you've got limited space. Last week I had to drive past about 6 cars with doors open, narrowly missing a few. Close your fuckin doors you idiots.

- Mike's officially gone to Vulcan, AB. This time for good. Although I'm guessing he'll have to buy all new stuff because by the time he gets there everything will be broken, considering he's already down a discman, computer, rollerblades, and god knows what else. See what happens when you move to Alberta? It's pure evil I tell ya. Pure Evil.
Just kidding, have a good time, even if you'll be homeless for a day or so.

- The Cloverdale Rodeo is not what it's hyped to be. Unless you go for the bull riding and stuff, which we didn't. that costs extra anyways. But we went last night to the carnival portion of the Ro-dey-o and it wasn't much fun. Granted, the weather was shitty, which probably had a lot to do with the place not being very full. But most of the crowd were 14 year old skater kids and a bunch of slutty looking young-year-olds. The only highlights were Chris losing $30 on obviously rigged carnival games. Once, on a ridiculously easy looking softball toss, Chris blew the first throw and was so mad he whipped softball #2 into the back of the carnies tent type thing. It was funny. Highlight number two would have to be Chris offering a cop a bite of the fudge he bought. Oh, also they had mini donuts, so I guess it wasn't all bad.

Well, I gotta go pack up a bit o' stuff for camping tonight, leaving a lot of room for beer, obviously.

:: Who needs sleep? ::

"Tonight has 'Mess' written all over it." - Ian

"Hey Nick, guess how many beers I've had? I had seven, then four...and seven and four is 62...so I've had 74 beers." - Gorski, completely hammered, obviously. (wouldn't you be after 74 beers? or 62? or 11?)

Wow, this weekend blew by.

But I gotta tell ya, it's weekends like this that make me happy to be back home. I got off work on Friday at 3:30 - came home and took a quick nap, which would prove to be the most sleep I'd get all weekend, then I went out with Doug, Christine, Chad and Erica to Las Margaritas, a wicked Mexican restaurant in downtown Vancouver. We had to wait about 45 minutes for a table, but if there's a better place to blow $40 on margaritas and burritos I'd like to see it.

Then I finished off the night by hitting up Slapshots (of course) for a beer with Jeremy and then some hacky-sack in the parking lot with the rest of the crew. Well, some of them.

I got home late but didn't even get to sleep in, as the Cannons had a 10:40 game. So we had to get ourselves organized, search out a beer store that still actually had beer, and head over. We also had a game at 4:00 so In between games we all went out for lunch and then had some pre-game batting practice, except for certain unnamed lazy people who just slept on the grass all game instead of trying to improve. God knows it couldn't hurt.

Anyways, on the downside, the Cannons lost both games - we got SMOKED in the first one. We played awful. And there was NO hustle, which pissed most of us off. Things were better in game 2 but we still lost.

After that game we hit Sean's house for a team BBQ that turned into one hell of a little shaker, including Sean's dad drunkenly singing old navy songs and his step-mom introducing her friend Fiona to us about 30 times. She was also a little inebriated.

Sunday, instead of sleeping of the last night's drinking, I got up at 7:00 to head to the hills around Chilliwack Lake for some ATVing with Doug and company. It was awesome. That was the first time I'd seen Doug's new ATV, and the first time I'd driven one at all. It was wicked. Also we saw a bear - it darted out in front of Doug as he barelled down some logging road going about 75 km/h. We were right behind him in the truck, doing a little unintentional 4X4ing of our own - some of those logging roads are deadly - not to mention narrow. Especially for an old Ford F350 - We only broke one hubcap though.

So that was my busy weekend. It was a lot of fun, but now i'm tired. I've gotta work tomorrow though, then we have another ball game. We'd better not lose 3 in a row.

"Every three to six months I come back here with a big box and just clean house. Last time we found Jimmy Hoffa." - Rob, talking about how messy some people's desks were. Mine was nice and clean though - which is what started the whole conversation in the first place.

:: KABOOM! ::

The Cannons are back with a .500 record after tonight after winning an 11-10 squeeker over the Leis Expos. We were up 11-6 in the last inning, but some shaky defence let them back into it. Thankfully we held on for the win to halt the three game losing streak.

And because Justin was late getting to the game, I got to play the first inning in right field. With my blazing speed (Ha!) I also batted leadoff, and got an infield single due to some stone hands from the opposing shortstop.

It was another shaky, nerve-wracking one-run game, which we've gotten accustomed to.

Just call us the Cardiac Kids I guess.

Either way, a win's a win. Next up: A Saturday double header with a MANDATORY team lunch in between games. We're gonna bump the record up to 5-3 - and if you're a Cannons player and you think you are skipping the lunch on Saturday, well you may as well use that lunch time to pack your bags, cuz you're cut. Just kidding.

:: Are you kidding me? ::

I finally got last week's copy of my old paper, the Record-Gazette, in the mail. Because of the distance I usually get them a week behind schedule - since the newest paper comes out again tomorrow.

Now, when Ken left the paper, it suffered because Ken knew what he was doing. However, without sounding too arrogant, I knew what I was doing too, and I managed to put out 2 papers that were very good - and I got them done very quick too. But when I left, there was nobody there who knew anything about layout etc - I'm still convinced that this new editor, despite his long, very impressive list of journalistic accolades, doesn't know how to turn on a computer. Also, english isn't his first language..and it shows.

This weeks paper was AWFUL. I can seriously say, without exaggeration, that this is the worst published paper I have ever seen anywhere in my life.

EVER.

On Wednesday mornings, the office manager there used to take sadistic pleasure in pointing out to me and Ken the one or two mistakes we had in the paper. She used to think she would've caught them all, and never hesitated to tell us.

This week there were 29 errors. Including 6 on the front page. Hey Marie, where were ya on that those ones?

The sad part is, I haven't even read the stories. These are layout mistakes. 29.

Headlines? Fucked. Photos? Fucked. Columns lining up properly? Nice try. Photos? So bad I wouldn't even have downloaded them off the digital camera. Those pictures are what the 'delete' button is for. I would've said "DELETED!!!" so many times that week that you'd think that I'd turned into Strong Bad himself.

It's sickenly awful to think about because, as much as I don't like that paper much, me and Ken both worked hard to make that paper good. And it was. I got more compliments on my sports section than I can count.

Now the receptionist is writing the sports section.

I'm not fucking joking. Out of all the stories in the sports section, there is only one tiny one that would be suitable to run - the rest are either not stories at all, or are taken from other Bowes papers that are so far away from Peace River that it's not funny.

What a complete mess. I cringe just thinking about next week.

Well, ladies and gentlemen, she has finally done it. Melissa, who everyone knows and loves, has started a blog. Go read it right now, or fear my wrath.

Actually, you should fear my wrath anyways.

"Okay, I'll read you the riot act now about photos. No cheque presentations. No team pictures. No trophy presentation pictures. You'll get a million calls and e-mails about them, but just say no. We don't do that. Those pictures suck." - Brian, photographer at work.

Did you hear that? No cheques. No teams. Greatest. News. Ever. I hated doing all of those things at my old paper, but we had to do 'em. It'll be nice to have a sports section that doesn't just look like a god damn yearbook.

It's been two days at my new job. So far so good. It's so incredibly different than what I'm used to that it'll take awhile to get accustomed to things. Shorter deadlines. WAY bigger editorial staff. And editor who isn't a good friend of mine like Ken was and who is more hands-on. Plus there's extra pressure because it's a bigger paper at a bigger, better company. (Everyone there makes fun of Bowes. It's got a pretty big rep for being a cheap company by the sounds of it.)

I really feel like a rookie, and it'll take awhile for me to get into the groove I'm sure.

I've also been fighting a cold the last three days, and despite not being stressed about the new job like I expected to be, I've been incredibly tired lately. Fighting off yawns at work. Crashing and burning almost as soon as I get home. Going to bed WAY earlier than usual. I just feel shitty. Hopefully a bunch of medicine and vitamin C fixes things, because I'd really like to have some energy by the weekend.

On the plus side, the paper comes out tomorrow and I'm anxious to see what my three stories look like. In other news, the Record-Gazette is going to hell in a handbasket without me and Ken. The paper this week looks bloody awful according to people I know in Grande Prairie, and from reading the sports section online, I can tell you that its just terrible. I'm not just saying that because I want to feel like nobody could do as good a job as me, but it's really bad. They've got stories on people from all over the damn place, I'm sure they just pulled them all from other far-away papers. Oh well, it's not my problem. Thank-God.

In other news, Mike officially departed for Vulcan, Aberta tonight via everyone's favourite mode of transportation - Greyhound. I'm sure there were a few sad people in Kamloops who won't get to see him for awhile, and I like Shaun's MSN name today: There's no use crying over spilled Mike.

Good luck in Alberta. Also, enjoy your LOOOOOONG bus ride there.

A couple leftover Gorski-ism's from the last day or two.

Brad: I know exactly why I say everything I say.
Nick: Okay, why is that?
Brad: Uh, I'll tell you later.

Also, it's Gorski's grand plan to start a new TV show, CSI: Ninja Unit, starring Charlie Sheen, Emilio Estevez, Johnny Depp, Macaulay Culkin and either an animated Peter Griffin (Family Guy) or long-dead John Candy.

I bet CBS would buy that show's rights in a second.

:: Garski Falls ::

As Ian spilled beer on the deck...
Someone: Ian, you're wasting beer!
Ian: Well at least it's going to a good cause...getting a dog drunk!

"You know what's great about our group of friends? We can just sit around doing absolutely nothing, and then all of a sudden we've got a big fire going and it kicks ass." - Sean

Last night, in lieu of our usual night at Slapshots, we decided to mix it up and take advantage of the kick-ass weather. So we spent a few hours drinking in Jenna's backyard, then Brad said we should go have a bonfire someplace, so we did. We drove out into the middle of nowhere down past Fort Langley by the river and sat around finishing off the last of our beers. We all decided to name our new spot "Garski Falls" not because there was a waterfall of any sort, but because Brad fell in the river about 3 seconds after we got there. He was trying to move a big flaming pallet closer to the river, then he slipped, then Chris accidently dropped another pallet that hit Brad in the head, then he went knee deep in mud and water.

It was funny to about everyone but Brad, who spent much of the rest of the night trying to convince people to give him their pants.

I also drank 13 beers (including shotgunning one) yet somehow didn't even get slightly buzzed, let alone drunk. It was very odd. I guess my alcohol tolerance is better than I thought. Next up this weekend, before I start work again, is probably Sean's garage, cuz there's a TV there now and hopefully a little bit of space left to write something clever on the wall.

As I sit here at 9:30 in the morning that feels much later (still on mountain time I guess), I figured I'd try and sum up the last few days. I've got some time to kill since I'm still waiting for Chris to move his car and let me out.

There has been a lot of news lately - it's been a very hectic, stressful, yet happy week. I'm home now, my three day journey from Northern Alberta is complete. And I really couldn't be happier to be home. It might take some time to get used to living with people again - no drinking straight from the carton (when people are looking), it's now necessary to wear pants at always all times, etc etc... But they're minor details - I'm still glad to be back. And I've already seen most of my friends - we went to the usual spot, Slapshots, last night for a few beers. As is the custom with these friends I've known for years and years and years, nobody either noticed I was there, or noticed I hadn't been there for the last 7 months. It took Jeremy a good three conversations before he said 'hi', and all I got from Bucholtz was a "Still got that same haircut eh?" I'm not complaining of course - it's nice to be able to slide right back into things without missing a beat.

I also stopped in Jasper on my way through and saw Dustin for a night, which was nice. I hadn't seen him since he took off for Vermillion over a year ago. We didn't do a whole lot of interesting stuff - we went for some beers then watched Kill Bill, but it was still good to catch up.

Then the next day it was on to the Main Event - Kamloops, my second favourite city. I had a pretty good time drinking and hanging out with everyone I hadn't seen in forever - Mike, Melissa, Meghan, Carlos, Neal and the rest of 'em. Although, like Mike mentioned a few days back, it wasn't quite the same as before - it was hard to do a lot of catching up really, but that's because there were just so many people there - and really, the Max isn't exactly the right place to 'catch up'. It is, however, the right place to fall down, as Melissa can attest. Oh well, might not have been exactly as-planned, but it was still nice to see some familiar places before we all go our separate post-j-school ways.

Speaking of that, Mike - the only one of us who's been in Kamloops longer than 3 years - is off to Alberta. This is good news for a number of reasons, the obvious being that he has a job and won't have to be unemployed all summer long like I was until I went to Alberta. He's going to the wonderfully quirky town of Vulcan, to do layout. I have a funny feeling an upcoming front page of the Vulcan Advocate will have a photo-shopped picture of the Star Trek Ship engulfed in flames, with townspeople running for their lives.

Or maybe a picture of Spock getting hit by a bus.

I'm glad Mike's happy about the job and I'm glad he's not nervous. From my experience I can say that while my Alberta experience was sometimes lonely and not always the most fun, going there was one of the single best decisions I ever made. Without that job - I never would have got the job I have now. I had originally hoped that Mike would've found a White Rock job so we could get a place together, but I'll be happy living at home for awhile and saving some money, and I'm happy Mike has a job. Also, it seemed like the 'loops had turned into quite a little soap opera at times - and as much fun as we've all had there in the past, sometimes it's good to just start fresh.

I gotta admit though, It will be weird not to have Mike in Kamloops - last summer we each made a trip or two back and forth and it was a good time, but they'll be plenty of time for that later I'm sure. And one day dammit we're going to live in White Rock - I just got beat by the clock this time. Also, like Mike said, it's probably good to move on. I was glad I did, even for a little while. It's good and often necessary to leave certain things behind, and it makes coming home that much sweeter whenever you get that chance.