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The Ottawa Rabbit Hole |
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My old blog, featuring my 2006 European Vacation and other wacky adventures : Extras :
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June 2006 : Credits :
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Thursday, September 28, 2006Set your watch to itSeems like it's been a while so here's a few updates: 1) I went to Mullins' cottage last weekend with some fellas for a fishing derby. I didn't catch any fish of note although ther were a few decent smallies pulled out of the lake. Other than that we sat around and had some intellectual conversation over a nice bottle of wine. You can see some pictures in my Shutterfly. 2) I decided to finally get a haircut this past Monday. I was going to go to a young fella recommended by Mullins but he was closed on Monday, so I went across the street to Chucky the Barbar, who is an old Italian gent. He gave me a solid cut you could set your watch to and had me coming out of there looking like Johnny Sack from the Sopranos. Thanks for the trim Chucky!  3) My new pet peeve is people who don't know how to line up properly at the self check outs at Loblaws. There's clearly one line feeding all three machines. Why would you come and nose your cart right up to one particular machine? That does not give you top priority. Luckily one of the back machines became available, so I didn't have to deal with the situation. 4) I am knee deep into the new television watching season and my PVR is working out great. So far I have deemed Studio 60 to be the best new show I’m watching. I'm intrigued by Heroes and will continue to watch and enjoy. Jericho is an odd duck, as I still find the concept interesting but the execution is terrible. I might watch one more episode and if it doesn't improve I'll start reading episode summaries to find out the big picture. What I would like to see is a show set in the Jericho universe but told from a completely different perspective (i.e. interesting characters/storylines). That's it. Until something else interesting happens in my life…God speed Internet!!  
Sunday, September 17, 2006PVR WeekendFriday I found out that the ultimate bargain I had been waiting for finally arrived. The $499 HD PVR sale finally lined up with the $50 off of $500 sale at Future Shop. I had some last minute doubts and considered renting, but in the end decided I would rather not deal with a customer service rep so I just went and bought it. I had a bit of trouble getting the component video working properly, but now it's good to go. I was a little disapointed that the $50 in free programming only comes off of digital speciality channels, so I won't really capitalize on that, but so far so good with the unit itself. For a Tv junky like myself, the 8300 HD PVR is the only way to go. I picked that bad boy up on my way out to Barrhaven where the Ertlbachs had me over for a BBQ dinner. We were supposed to watch The Wire, but it hadn't come yet so we just killed time chatting about miscellaneous things and playing a little Top Spin Tennis. Saturday evening I went down to the Market with Mullins, Erin G. and two of her friends. We hit up the Honest Lawyer for dinner and then checked out Half Nelson at the Bytowne. This movie is incredible. It stars Ryan Gosling as a crack addicted teacher/coach in an inner city high school and follows him as he lives his life and bonds with one of his students. It's definetly not feel good fair, as we were all majorly bummed out afterwards, but Gosling puts in a stellar performance that shouldn't be missed. He has come a long way since his days on Breaker High and Young Hercules.  Today I was supposed to play beach volleyball, but it was cancelled due to lack of interest. Instead I decided to take advantage of likely the last nice weekend day by going for a rollerblade. This brought my total for 2006 up to 1 time, tying my record from last year. I had a lot of fun and wondered why I didn't do it more often this year, especially when I live about 30 seconds from the Ottawa River pathway. I guess there's always next spring. This evening I went out to Nepean and watched the Amazing Race premiere at my friend Val's house. It's shaping up to be another great year by the looks of things!
Wednesday, September 13, 2006A Few ThingsSome random information: - Since my exercise bike died (the metal frame on the bottom tore so eventually I'd just fall right off) I invested in a new recumbent bike at Canadian Tire. Online reported it was only in stock at two locations. First I went to Hull, and saw a demo model which was torn to shit and no in box models, so rather than deal with francophones I went to the other location in the east end. I dealt with some stupid employees, but eventually they found one in the back. Check this bad boy out. So far so good after two rides. I am going to rock this bike like never before. - I watched about 30 minutes of Dancing With the Stars and have deemed it unworthy of my television watching time. If I want to watch Mario Lopez shake it, I'll go back to old episodes of Saved By The Bell where they had a soc hop or some such thing. - I finally started watching my LOST Season 1 DVD set I got at Christmas after lending it out to a handful of people. I forgot just how good the first season was and am completely hooked all over again. I can't get through the episodes fast enough, even though I have seen them all before. - I continue to flip flop on getting a hair cut. I actually enjoy growing my hair out a bit, but I know deep down I look better with shorter hair. It is vanity versus my sense of uniqueness. For now, long hair wins out. I will probably get it cut at the end of September before the wedding I am attending so I am looking my best for all the single ladies! - A big congratulations to Mike 'Boogie', the winner of Big Brother All Stars. His Chill Town partner Will Kirby deserved to win it (just as he did in the second season) for being the ultimate puppet master of all time, but Boogie is a good second pick. - I forgot to pay my cell phone bill last month. What is the cost of forgetfullness? $1.11
Monday, September 11, 2006Fish Catch and Pig RoastFriday after work, Mullins and I headed up to his cottage to try and reproduce his bass catching success the weekend before. God was going to make us work for it though, as Mullins had to drive through a torrential rainstorm to get us up there. It was white knuckles for a while, but once we got about 10 minutes from Denholm the skies turned blue again. I assumed this was a sign of good luck, but unfortunately we only had about an hour of fishing time before the rain came back. Within this hour I did manage to pull a massive 5 inch bass out of the lake which goes on record as my first catch. I felt sorry for the little guy though, so I sent him on his way and will catch him again next year when he's a little bigger. We ate some chili fries and hungarian fajitas, watched the hilarious film Just Friends and booked it back to Ottawa. On Saturday, we headed up along with B-Rad and Jamie to Belleville to attend Skate's annual kegger/pig roast. Unfortunately, what has been Ottawa's worst summer on record continued and it was cold as hell all day. Still, the pig was delicious and many laughs were had by all. An incredible game of soccer almost happened, but the Italian team was too intimidated to show up and take us on. Here's a shot of the little fella waiting to show us how delicious he tastes...  In unrelated news, I installed a new DVD burner which I bought for $37 and it works incredible. Computer parts are getting so cheap it is ridiculous(ly awesome). My burns still error out if I get an MSN message during it which I find odd, but luckily with this 16X drive each burn is only 5 minutes long. In other news, my exercise bike is on the fritz so later this week I will visit Canadian Tire and throw some money on a new one so I can keep my smooth athletic build.
Tuesday, September 05, 2006Fall 2006 TV SeasonI've got a full slate of TV watching coming up this year. Luckily websites post lists of all the shows and when they start this season, so I have decided to share my list of what I plan to watch mainly so I can keep track of it myself. American Dad (Fox) Sept. 10 Family Guy (Fox) Sept. 10 Simpsons (Fox) Sept. 10 Wire (HBO) Sept. 10 Dancing With The Stars (ABC) Sept. 12 Survivor (CBS) Sept. 14 Amazing Race (CBS) Sept. 17 How I Met Your Mother (CBS) Sept. 18 America’s Next Top Model (CW) Sept. 20 Jericho (CBS) Sept. 20 My Name is Earl (NBC) Sept. 21 Office (NBC) Sept. 21 Everybody Hates Chris (CW) Oct. 1 Veronica Mars (CW) Oct. 3 Lost (ABC) Oct. 4 South Park (CC) Oct. 4 Battlestar Galactica (SciFi) Oct. 6 Rome (HBO) Jan. 7 The Shield (FX) Jan. 9 Shows in red won't air on Canadian Television and get the download. Shows in Blue I have never watched and may give a trial basis if I get around to it. Looks like everything kicks off next Sunday with some Fox animated television and gets out of control from there. I couldn't get a PVR soon enough!!
For Labour Day weekend I headed up to a ski chalet near Tremblant with 6 of my friends for an end of summer weekend of fishing and relaxing. The weather was beautiful Friday when we drove up, decent Saturday and the shits for the rest of the weekend. The place we stayed was huge, and much more ski chalet than rustic cottage. It had running water and electricity, a full kitchen, 3 full bathrooms with showers, 4 bedrooms, a TV/DVD/Satellite combo and dial up internet. I could live there.  Saturday Jeff and I took the rowboat out for the first time, where he landed a couple of tiny fish which we later determined to be Bluegills. Since they were so small we played good environmentalists and tossed them back. I felt like I was out of luck, til what must have been the biggest fish in the lake caught my line. I tried for about 5 minutes to reel that bad boy in, but eventually he gave up on my worm and swam away. We later dubbed him Jorge Forget, since we were fishing in Lac Forget. Sunday we took the boat out with Shanna as well, and caught nothing of consequence. Monday morning they started jumping, and Jeff and Shanna were pulling in Yellow Perch left right and center. I, as per usual, caught absolutely nothing. At one point I had my worm only a few feet deep and watched 3 of these guys circle it and slowly pick him off the hook. Sneaky little bastards. So, my streak of never catching any fish continues.  Other than fishing, the main theme of the weekend was eating. Luckily I was up there with 6 people who loved to cook up meals, so I sat back and let the food roll in. I like to think I did my part by cleaning up after the meals, making coffee in the morning and providing my loveable smile. It was tough leaving on Monday. I could have stayed up there a whole week if I had the opportunity. Here are a few photos from the weekend, or check all of mine out at my Shutterfly.   
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