What a week!

Hey everybody,

Sorry it's been so long since the last post, but I just wanted to keep the Charlie/Kermit post on until Christmas. Since then quite a bit happened, so I'll just talk about it chronologically.

Tuesday December 21, 2004
Had lunch with Dimitri at the Bowl, lots of fun. Then he came over to the condo for dinner where we discussed a multitude of interesting things, my favourite being about how society would be better off if the bureaucrats ran the government and we did away with the political side of governance. As we were knee deep in Absinthe, we couldn't end up figuring out how to change leadership if and when necessary. We'll figure it out, it's just a matter of time. We've both got world leader as our career goal:) He's got a cool blog too, go check his out at:
http://dimitrim.blogspot.com/

Thursday December 23, 2004
Cold, snow, cold, snow, cold, snow. Mary didn't even make it in to work because the street cars were not running along her street. I didn't even get to see her that night as we were supposed to do our gift exchange that night. I was sad. Because I didn't get to see Mary!! Not because I didn't get to open my gifts. Actually, I was more excited to give her her gifts this year anyway.

Friday December 24, 2004
Again with the cold, barely made it into work for our Christmas Eve holiday breakfast. I had many croissants w nutella, & others with Smuckers jam, I love smuckers jam. Went home at noon which was good as I got to shower & do laundry before the weekend at my parents.
Simone & Brandi came to pick me up (thanks guys) & we went to Bolton (small, useless home town, no charm, nothing, just a bunch of houses used for sleep in between going to work & slowly dying - no, no animosity at all). Eventually, in a round about way got in shit for there being traffic on the road & not getting a formal present for the hosts. Great, starting off the evening well.
Went to my aunt's house just down the street from my parents. Ate lots, drank lots of wine, then some shots (sambucca - yes, guess I'm over it now, vodka, B-52's), danced a lot - yes, with family I dance, I'm just odd that way.
Then home to open presents, then to the much needed sleep.

Saturday December 25, 2004
Up in the morning to find a stocking full of much needed chocolate. Then just lazing around the rest of the day.

Sunday December 26, 2004
Back to the condo with Mary to do our official gift exchange. She gave me the coolest present ever! It's an awesome gargoyle that you hang from the wall and it's got a place to put a candle, it looks all great and evil. Pretty sweet, man she nailed it right on, very cool. Then watched some Family Guy episodes (I got them for her), laughed a bunch.

Monday December 27, 2004
Went shopping for a winter coat. People are parking lot savages, nothing new, just wanted to state it again. No coat. Oh well.

Tuesday December 27, 2004
Shopping with no car for a winter coat, no parking lot savages, but a new coat: yay.
Talked with my Swedish expatriate friend (Joakim - or Jocke) in Australia (that means he's a Swede in Australia right?). Lot's of fun, we're both really jazzed about his North American tour this coming June. I hope it all works out. We've got to get a picture with Mats Sundin at the College St. subway station (where his picture hangs - he is really, really young in that picture), and also go to the Hockey Hall of Fame. Then if we're lucky, off to a cabin north of Montreal for some fun with mozzies, caribou & canoes!!

Wednesday December 28, 2004
Wrote this blog and waiting your comments.

Charlie Brown & Kermit, the Christmas Heroes of My Time

As much as I love the Grinch and his last minute character turnaround, I can't help but feel some sort of connection between myself and Kermit the Frog and Charlie Brown. In each of their Christmas movies, and in their character in every episode I've ever seen, both of them are always living out life according to the theory, the principle of whatever is good for the greater good. Kermit, always playing the true host that he is to the extent that if one person (or muppet) in the audience did not enjoy the show, then it was a failure and something could be done better. His whole life devoted to making others happy simply because that's a good thing to do.

Charlie Brown in his quest to prove that the good life is attainable and good, tries to use the Christmas theory in principle and apply it to the most dilapidated ("prohibitive to repair tree" - term here at the ministry - better off to build new than to repair), i.e. give hope to the less fortunate, but he is scoffed at by all his peers. He turns because he knows he cannot change himself, and he cannot possibly make a difference to society, so maybe he should leave, as he does. Of course at the end of the 1/2 hour, all his peers have redressed the tree with love, care and the Christmas spirit, but has anything at home for the viewer changed?

We love, well I do anyway, Charlie Brown and Kermit the Frog for their never ending hope that society will get better, at the very least at Christmas time, but how many of us are actually ready to emulate even some of their wonderful characteristics (albeit they are muppet and cartoon characters)?

So for this week, maybe some of you, instead of asking WWJD? As those are big shoes to fill, why not ask WWKD or WWCD? Both have never done anything extraordinary, well maybe except living their ordinary lives, yet they do it with this hope in humanity that is undaunted, even by the harshness of reality.

So here at Christmas time, and throughout the year, I look to Kermit and Charlie as my heroes, although Spider Man is pretty high up there on the list as well. Man, I just can't keep anything serious.

Have a great week everyone, have fun with your family where ever you are or with your new family in Los Angeles, Austin, Wollongong, Cannes, York (England), Andorra, Norway, Sweden, Strasbourg and have yourself a merry little Christmas.

The Cool AGE:)

More Adventures in a Steam Room

Man, I think I may have to open a blog site just for the topic of "Adventures in a Steam Room!!

Ok, so last night, I enter the room, which for some reason is more steamy than what I'm used to, but so much the better as it helped me avoid quite the site. Once again, there was this guy (I think a different one this time) who was in the buck, just sitting on a towel. Only this time he was shaving. Don't worry, just shaving his face. But I'm sure this has to be against some regulation some where as I can't see this activity as being remotely hygienic. At least the guys was wearing his sandals.

Two minutes later, another guy walks in, and he's as wiry as a fence, but that's besides the point. He sits in between me and the shaving exhibitionist, as I willfully put a great deal of space between the two of us. And this new guy, who, if you've seen any "Mutual of Omaha's: Wild Kingdom", or any other animal nature show, you would interpret what this guy was doing as 'presenting'. In reality he was stretching out his legs, but was it really necessary to do it with his butt so close to me??

Thankfully, they both left shortly thereafter, and I had the whole steam room to myself for a good minute before I could not take the heat anymore and had to leave. Oh well, maybe I'll have a relaxing steam next time.

Once again the magic number is 7, have a good one everybody.

The Cool AGE:)

Man Beans and Didgeridoos

Thanks for the man bean reference Simone, I'm sure the staff @ Disney in the Eaton's Centre would have been kopacetic with that kind of display:). Although, maybe tonight when I'm in the steam room, some of the other steamers will get a little trouser snake display. For all the new readers to this post, please check the last comment on the previous post for the origin of this wonderful metaphor.

Onwards & upwards.

I heard a sound last night from the oddest of places. Well, not that what made the sound doesn't make sounds, in fact it makes quite a bit of noise. So much so, that I have to plan it so that it is on long enough before I go to sleep, or I won't fall asleep. My dishwasher. Now, I would never have expected my dishwasher to give me flashbacks of any kinds of memories othere than loading or unloading of a dishwarsher. But instead, last night it gave me a flashback of, as you can guess now by the title of this blog, Australia. The last I heard, dishwashers are not supposed to make didgeridoo noises, but I enjoyed it none the less because the didgeridoo has a particular sound, similar to the bagpipes, not specifically, but more in theory. Anyway, this blog's content is kind of sucking so I think I might save you the details of my dishwasher's didgeridoo concert last night and end this blog.

I'm nesting for a few days in order to take care of my brother's birds. They were good last night while I slept. There was plenty of food & water when I left for work this morning, there was no teflon left on the stove burning, plenty of newspaper on the carpet, so I trust all will be well when I return home tonight.

Man, keeping a web site up to date and relevant is hard work. As you can tell by today's relatively weak post. Oh well, you're still here reading this last line, so I must of done something right, or you're just being polite. In any case thank you. And as always, the magic number is 7.

The Cool AGE:)

One more picture & The Madness of ... Disney?

Hey everybody,

ONE MORE PICTURE
There was one more pic to add to the curling web site that I just got this morning, so I've added it to my pic web site, see address below.

http://groups.msn.com/TheCoolAGE/pictures

THE MADNESS OF DISNEY
Now, being another weekend, it wouldn't be complete without a holiday shopping story. And since I'm quite the good little capitalist supporter, I was shopping this weekend for more 'stuff', because you can never have enough 'stuff'.
So, Mary & I are in the Disney store because they had a great 2 for 1 toy deal that was "ending today". Still a great deal even if it wasn't ending yesterday. Anyway, after some hard core searching for the right toys for Mary's niece, I leave the store as my backpack keeps hitting people in the face, in the child, and knocking things over, and I'm generally overheating (as I've disobeyed one of my rules - see previous post on Christmas shopping rules) so I go outside the store to cool down.

Well the line up Mary was in took forever, but there was a good reason; some lady decided that today, today of all days, she was going to return over $200 worth of toys at the 'Disney Store - Eaton's Centre' location! Then she was going to buy things, and then pay with a bunch of gift certificates!! Ok, I understand, you don't think that the purchases YOU MADE were the correct ones for the children in your life, but do you have to chose a Sunday afternoon to endulge in this mad act???

Anyway, it wasn't all that bad, I mean, I did get to watch some guy, in his mid 20's or so be reckless on the bench spreading his legs wide open, to make it uncomfortable for the older couple who just wanted to sit for 5 minutes and thus had to scrunch together just to sit down.

The branch Holiday Party is this Friday, so I'm excited about that, and except for Mary, I'm done all my Christmas shopping!! Hooray for me!!

Kudos AGE, Kudos

The Cool AGE:)

Adventures in a Steam Room ... sort of

I guess I'm lucky there are no pictures for this one huh:)

So let me set the stage; after my first workout in 2 weeks exactly, I decide to take a well deserved steam bath which looks like... well remember the Blues Brothers when they're trying to get that promoter to help them get a gig at that big hotel, and they remind the promoter of the favour they owe him; well, the room is something like that, except a lot smaller.

So I'm in there, the steam comes flushing out of the little drain things that are at the bottom of the floor, and a guy walks in. Oh oh, I've never been in there when someone else is in there, what's the protocol? Is it like the stand up stalls in the men's washroom where you just stare ahead of you and not say a word? ... "Hey how's it going?" or something to that effect. "Good, how are you?" just one of those rhetoricals and he understood as there was no reply. Or did he make it a rhetorical by not replying? Chew on that one for a while:)

We got into chit chat, and another guy walks in and conversation continues about the differences between the various clubs in the GTA (Greater Toronto Area - for all you outside Toronto types), and how at another club the steam room is actually like the one from The Blues Brothers and how, apparently, steam rooms are incredibly difficult to maintain because the steam just wreaks havoc with the foundation as it gets behind the tiles etc. And that's when I found out there was a dry sauna downstairs. YES!! I love those things, but I'm growing more and more fond of the steam room the more I use it. Oh well, maybe next time I'll venture downstairs for a new adventure.

Anyways, I guess it's not really an adventure, but this is the most that's going on lately, you know apart from movator frenzies and lessons in curling. Point is, I learned that you can talk in the steam room with strangers, but not at the urinal.

The Cool AGE:)

Skipping, Sweeping & Curling

Well my fears of falling off balance on ice wearing running shoes were completely unfounded. Oddly enough, it turns out that running shoes stick really well to curling ice. What, what did he just say?? Seriously, you actually have to put a piece of tape (similar to the kind you wrap around your socks to keep your shin guards up in hockey) to skim around on the ice.

Well cheers to a really cool sport that is incredibly easy to learn, but insanely difficult to master and a pleasure to play. All my rocks went flying down the 'lane?' or whatever it's called. But that's ok, I had great support from my team when I was 'Skip' ("heya skip" Darryl Strawberry in Simpson's baseball episode) including one CFLer who plays for the Calgary Stampeders.

I won't bore you with the details of my ugly play, although I did have one really good shot where I took out one of the other team's rocks, and hard too, it made a really loud bang:) Heh heh heh, that'll learn em. Of course if I mention that shot I should also mention the 2 or three shots when I was attempting the same thing but knocked out my team's rock instead of theirs:( Oh well, that's curling.

Oh yeah, it's sooo tough to gage how fast the rock is actually going once you've released it. Sometimes, it looks like it's going fast, but then goes slow; other times it looks like it's going slow, but is, in fact, going fast. It plays havoc on my sweepers.

Ok, I'm going to add a link to a photo album on the web where I'll post some pictures here and there. For now, there will be just a few of the curling tournament last night.
http://groups.msn.com/TheCoolAGE/pictures

sorry everybody, I can't figure out how to make it an actual link. I tried to use the actual icon they have for me, but when I did that, the text didn't even show up on the post. Maybe Jeffie-Boy can help me out. Anyway, just copy, paste in a new browser to get there.

Jacob, I'm still as shocked as you are that we have yearly office curling tournaments (or bonspiels as they like to call them). I can't wait for the next one.

The Cool AGE:)

Surviving Christmas Shopping

Hey everyone,

First off, let me thank all those that welcomed me to the this big pool of personal manifestos and pictures of very remote relevance & importance, well unless that's your thing. Anyway, I digress, thanks for the support.

Now, as for surviving Christmas, I don't have too many recommendations as my personality keeps me from having to deal with most of the trials and tribulations that abound during this time of year, but over the past week as I spent every waking hour (which was not at work or sleeping) at the local mart which replaced a "k" with a "wal", I learned some valuable lessons.

1) Everyone is the same, yet different. Therefore, you cannot say you have gone and not found what you are looking for, because you just haven't been to the right one, i.e. Strawberry Shortcake tops for toddlers. The more locations you attend, the more likely you will find what you're looking for.

2) "Movators" are great places to watch frenzies, be they piranas around fresh meat, or parents who have just been told on the overhead speaker system that the toy that the soon to be beleagered teenaged employee is taking out of the box is now only $10.99. The odd thing is that when the toys were $10.99 on the shelf and no one came on the speaker, nobody was interested.
P.S. The toys by the movator are now long gone, but those on the shelf are still there, in abundance!

3) Bring comfortable shoes. You will be standing for an inordinate amount of time.

4) Dress accordingly & grab a cart. You will overheat and need some place to stash your heavy winter gear.

5) Early December is the only time to get this out of the way. I wouldn't want my face to be a casualty of a movator frenzie too close to holidays and thus many family pictures. "Oh no, my face, my face" (Moe, Simpson's episode when he's on the soap opera)

Well, those are my lessons, use them well young ones. In the meantime, I'm looking forward to an office curling match on Tuesday and we've got a ringer!! Although its from the wrong sport, CFL football...that's still a sport right?

Over & out...for now

The Cool AGE:)

No longer a parasite!!

Hey everyone,

I've made it to the tripple W, and this is my first test post.