Wayne D's Blog

I have so much to write about, my canoe trip to Killarny, the sale of the cottage but just don't have the energy to put pixels to virtual paper. I just finished watching Clerks II and am compelled to at least type out a few lines.

I've always liked Kevin Smith's movies. The only one I haven't seen is Jersey Girl and I didn't watched it yet because I thought it was too conventional.  I implore you to check out Clerks II. Only Kevin Smith could work a donkey show into a plot about almost lost love and make it work.  Go see it in a theatre, buy or rent it when it comes out on DVD but watch this movie with an open mind and you will not be disappointed.  A warning the MPAA in the United States rated this movie R for "pervasive sexual and crude content including aberrant sexuality".  IMDB's Clerks II page says that Joel Siegel walked out of this movie after 40 minutes because he couldn't take it. This is not a first date movie unless your date has tatoos and piercings. One other movie tidbit, in the minivan on the way to and from  Killarney the guys watched Alien vs. Predator at least four times.  Based on that fact I've decided to take a look at it.

P.S. Clerks II is very, very funny.

On the way home from work a few weeks ago I saw two scary cell phone people.  I saw one man talking on his cell phone while at the same time reading some papers while we both drove slowly around the fire truck that had been called at an accident that had probably been caused by someone else talking on a cell phone.  A little later I saw a guy in a cement truck making a left turn while carrying on a conversation on his cell phone.


I decide to make a trip back to the King Henry's arm one recent night as I continue my quest for a pub I can call my own.  As I walked from the parking lot to inside I noticed that it seemed a bit foggy.  A few minutes later a fire truck pulled into the parking lot and drove slowly around, finally stopping at the far end of the lot where the former Canadian Tire store was located.  Not too much later a police car pulled into the lot, the officer got out and asked us that cliched question "Where's the fire?"  Next to arrive was the police helicopter, spotlight ablaze, I assumed they to were trying to find where the smoke was coming from.


I soon lost interest in hanging around the parking lot and returned to my beer.  I never did find out what happened,  within half an hour they had all left.

There used to be this pub close to our house. It was frayed around the edges and looked better at night than in the daytime.  Bands performed there on the weekends and for a while they tried having performers on Sunday afternoon.  My kids loved it there because they had a Lord of the Rings pinball machine there that gave three plays for $2 or seven plays for $3.  It was fairly easy to get free games and the regulars would often get good enough that they would get bored before running out of plays and leave the machine with credits on it.  After smoking was banned in bars without seperately ventilated smoking rooms they put in a $1.99 kids menu to attract families.  I was cheaper to take the kids to Limericks than MacDonalds.  Unfortunately one day a sign went up in the window "Closed for Renovations".  A few weeks later the notice from the landlord appeared announcing that the locks had been changed for non-payment of rent.  The space sat empty over the summer, when fall arrived it reopened as a All Star Wings and Ribs.  About the only thing that stayed the same is the wood bar.  The stage is gone and each table has a flat screen showing sports.  The staff is friendly, the food is good but it's not the same.  The pinball machine is history and there is no more live music. 


Another place we used to visit was Shoeless Joes.  It has inexpicably changed it name to Scrappy Joes.  The kids liked it and my brother and I almost saw a fight break out there one night.  I used to occasionally visit a pub called the King Henry's Arms that was located in the same plaza as our local Canadian Tire store.  Then Canadian Tire moved to a new, bigger location 4 kms further away and I stopped visiting the plaza.  Come to think of it since Canadian Tire moved I haven't been to Canadian Tire either.  A few weeks ago I had to go to the plaza to deposit a cheque in the bank that is located there and I dropped by for old times sake. I had a pint and an order of curry and fries, the bill came to $8.88.


Now I am in a quandry as to which bar to lend my allegience.  Stay tuned for the resolution.

It's amazing how time flies. Two weekends ago it was canoeing near Parry Sound, last weekend was Canada Day long weekend at the cottage.  This weekend is chock full of stuff too, football game on Saturday, helping with church on Sunday.

Surprise, surprise, people do read my blog. I got a nice email from the people at the The Lutheran Magazine thanking me for linking to their site in my  Davinci Code article.   They also pointed me at the ELCA's page called Culture Comments.  This is where the ELCA Communication staff and networks review, evaluate, and comment on films, books and other media events  in our culture with religious implications (their words, not mine).

I'm beginning to wonder whether courtesy is over-rated.  Twice in the past couple of weeks I have been shocked when a courteous gesture has been met with, well I'm not sure how to describe it.  In the first instance I was heading off to my regular Tuesday night out a Jakes.  Jakes has a parking lot behind the restaurant and a long single driveway beside the building from the road to the parking lot.   As I pulled in the I saw the lights of a car at the other end of the driveway.  I thought I'd be nice and let them pull out before I pulled in.  The other car came half way down the driveway. The driver got out and started to chat with someone who was waiting at the curb.  Just as I was getting ready to honk my horn in righteous indication I saw an older gentleman approaching the car in a walker.  By the time all were safely ensconced in the car and all the chatting was done five minutes had passed.  I think if I was planning on blocking the driveway for five minutes I would have flashed my lights and let the Good Samaritan at the other end of the driveway in first.  In case number two I stopped to let an older lady cross in front of me in the supermarket parking lot.  She was moving pretty slowly and I could have gotten by her before she got in front of the car but instead I stopped.  She walked across in front of me, stopped in the centre of the , turned around and began to converse with another younger woman who was probably her younger daughter.  Sigh, sometimes being courteous taxes one's patience.

I had a few more rants that were rolling around in my head but they all disappeared between the time I thought of them and now.  Maybe next time I should write them down.

I don't actually live in the city but I love summer in the city.  Wandering around downtown on a summer evening is great.  My secret plan is to buy a boat to live on during the summer at one of the Toronto Island marina's or at Harbourfront.  Winters will be spent in a  concrete box nearby.   Of course first I have to get all the kids to move out.


After the Argo's home opener Jason and I walked up University Ave. to look at the new Toronto opera house.  As we walked across Richmond St. we could see a number of large trucks parked on the street so we continued across to see what was going on.  It turned out to be a free outdoor concert called Blockstorm sponsored by GM Canada.   While waiting between concerts you could check out GM cars, play Playstation games.  The only thing missing was a beer garden which is not really that surprising considering the target audience and the negative associations between drinking and driving.  As we were walking both to and away from Blockstorm we saw women completely covered with silver body makeup. At least I think they were completely covered because they also wore a few strips of strategically placed green fabric which preserved their modesty. They were standing outside a motor home parked closeby the concert site.  I suspect that they were dancers, but didn't stick around the event long enough to find out.  I'd already been downtown all afternoon at the football game. I was also the only one there wearing an Argonotes jersey, which I think slightly embarassed Jason. We would have had to wait 1.5 hours until the next band came one and other than the police who were there I was probably the only person over 30 on the site.


Speaking about drinking and driving, I read an article in the paper about a woman who decided to drive for her fiance who had been drinking.  She had never had a license and had never taken any driver training.  She managed to crash the car and kill her fiance.  Driving is not as easy as it looks.


Though I complain about the lack of a spell checker in Yahoo 360 and in the Yahoo mail beta,  one feature that I do like is the ability to recover you last blog entry.  I have managed to crash Firefox twice while writing this entry because of things I have done in other tabs.  See, my blog isn't always a rant.


My favorite Google video right now is magic sand.