"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.