Champagne Supernova

So, yeah. From the 22nd or 23rd until the 25th, me and my parents were staying in Vancouver for the weekend. What follows is a post I wrote in MS Word about my trip, since all we had for an internet connection was very unsecured Wireless access. No encryption what-so-ever. Dude. No way am I sending out any passwords, etc. Maybe I’m paranoid, maybe I’m awesomely sleuthy. Is sleuthy a word? I don’t know. Anyway…

We’re staying at the “Accent Inn”–a chain of Inns, I’d guess –just outside of the Gilmore SkyTrain station, and the Vancouver Movie Studios, where they film Stargate SG-1, Stargate Atlantis, and a few other shows. Apparently we are also quite near where they film Smallville, which sends a tingle up my spine.

My room is awesometastic. It’s perfect and right on the edge of the building above the ABC Restaurant. I love it. My parents’ room, however, is on the other end of the building, between a bunch of others. Mine has two TVs; one large, one small. Theirs has one that’s smaller than my small TV. I have a queen-sized bed, a separation wall, a couch/sitting area, chairs, a coffee table, a very nice li’l kitchenette thing, and a GIANT computer desk. My parents have a king-sized bed, and a chair. They’re not exactly happy about how much more awesome my room is, but at least they have a gigantic bed, eh?

The other thing I love a about my room compared to this is my cleaning lady. While there’s is apparently okay, mine has gone above and beyond the duty of cleaning. I left a note asking for some extra soap to take home, since I love the brand so much—a small note, the soap is not advertised on the brand’s catalogue website! They sell spa products, and I guess the soap is just a plus. Luckily, I’ve got quite a stock of bars of it. –and she obliged by leaving fifteen bars! Awesome, eh? She also cleans up the stuff I leave around everywhere. I had a pile of DVDs I bought on the couch, right? She sorted them by genre and then alphabetical order. DUDE. Nice.

She also sorted out my CDs, moved the Doritos bag I had left partially open over to the food-storage area, and put a bag clip on it to keep ‘em fresh. DUDE. Seriously, I’m leaving her a tip of $10 when I checkout tomorrow, since that’s really all the cash I have left. I wish I could leave more though, since she’s awesome. If I leave socks somewhere, she throws ‘em into my dirty laundry pile. I’ve seen her coming in and out of the room before, and she’s really very nice. I can’t believe she does so much extra though. If I catch her name –I believe it was Lita, but I don’t know –I’mm’a leave a suggestion with the manager that she get employee of the month, or something, man.

Anyway, enough about the awesome cleaning lady. I’ve done quite a bit o’ shoppin’ since I gots here. I bought upwards of five CDs, and more than ten DVD. What follows is a list as of the night of March 24th. I cannot say that I’ve not bought more as of the 25th, but, who knows. Anyway…

DVDs

CDs

Games

Out of all of that, you think I’d have enough, wouldn’t you? Well, you’d be wrong. I still want to find ELO’s “Discovery” and maybe their Greatest Hits, for “Strange Magic” and “Mr. Blue Sky.” Other than that, I’m pretty much good. I’d like “The Definitive Lennon“, but $32 for a pair o’ CDs I’ll listen to six songs off of isn’t worth it. Not that Lennon’s music isn’t good, It’s just some of it is a lot of bad live recordings. I also bought quite a bit of music on the iTunes Music Store—I don’t care if Apple rebranded it the iTunes Store. I buy nothing but music from ‘em, it’s a music store. –before I left to fill up my new iPod. A few albums by Belle & Sebastian, some Apoptygma Berzerk, Tom Petty, Elton John, a few Mozart recordings, and a helluva lot of singles, like “Here It Goes Again” by OK Go.

The only non-CD/DVD stuff I’ve bought that wasn’t food or clothing since I got here was an Abbey Road poster, and a small volume adjustment thing for headphones, so that me and Ben can listen to the same stuff, but me at a reasonable volume. Anyway, there’s the detail of my shopping experience. But there’s much more to my travel stories than that. I’ll spare you the mundane details of finding streets, etc, but I will tell you about movies I’ve seen, Howie Mandel’s performance –yeah, that’s right, I saw Howie Mandel! –and even the best of my meals, in just a few minutes. But first, I’d like to bring you this message from my new sponsor, HMV:

“BUY OUR CDS, BIATCH!”

Now that that’s out of the way, first I will give you a small review of the two (three as of Sunday) movies I’ve seen. I might see one tomorrow when I head home, so, if so, I’ll append that at the end of the post, or something.

  • Night at the Museum: Not the best movie I’ve ever seen, but I did enjoy it. Many silly li’l jokes here and there. I saw the last showing that was held over due to so many chilluns seein’ the movie. Honestly, I don’t know what to say about it. Ben Stiller goes into a museum, and takes mind-bending drugs, and then everything is alive. The best part about the movie is the fact that there are two giant Anubis Guards overlooking a Pharaoh’s tomb. They’ve got attitude, man.
  • 300: What do you want me to say? “THIS IS SPARTAAAAAAA!!!!”? Well, it isn’t, but the movie was pretty good. I thought it would suck complete ass, due to it being nothing but large angry men grunting at each other and killing each other, etc, but then I remembered it’s based off of a Frank Miller comic, and I knew it had to be worth seeing. It was. I’ll be buying it on DVD when it comes out. I wonder which Hi Def format it will adopt…
  • Reign Over Me: My god, this movie was so moving. I don’t even know what I can say about it. Adam Sandler’s performance was perfect, as were all of the other actors/actresses, especially Don Cheadle. The whole movie just left me breathless. When I left the theatre, everyone was wiping tears from their eyes as they all headed for the washrooms, and threw out their pop cups. ;) I’d easily give this movie 11/10, and I plan on buying it when it comes out on DVD.

So there you go. Movies.

Now, onto Howie Mandel. He rocks. 600% more than you do. Seriously. As you can probably tell, I’m pretty much sick of writing about this right now, and I’m just “summin’ it all up” so I don’t have to type as much.

Perhaps I need a break… I’ll just quote the current song playing:

“It was nine-twenty nine, nine-twenty-nine, backstreet, big city. The sun was going down, there was music all around; it felt so right. It was one of those nights, one of those nights when you feel the world stop turnin’. You were standin’ there, there was music in the air… I should have been away, but I knew I had to stay… Last Train to London… Just headin’ out. Last Train to London, just leavin’ town… But I really want tonight to last forever, I really wanna be with you… Let the music play on down the line, tonight…”

There, that’s better. Anyway, before I get to Howie Mandel, I should set the stage a bit…

“It was a cold and rainy night in Coquitlam. We were outside the Boulevard Casino, or rather, in their restaurant, the Back Stage Grill. My parents and I were sitting, waiting for our food, after having waited for the seat for forty-five minutes. Just after we sat down, so did four semi-inebriated rowdy adults. They were making little to no sense, and they were all going on and on about how they were going to heckle Howie Mandel at his performance tonight. I knew I was in for a show. As we waited for our food, and had some chicken wings as an appetizer, they ordered more and more liquor. Tequila, Vodka, Whiskey, and eventually just plain’ o’l fashioned imported Mexican Beer. These people would go to jail if they drove anywhere. Why were they to be allowed into a public performance? Anyway, they had gotten so loud that I wanted to go over and smack their ring-leader, but I didn’t. I just waited for my $29 Rib-eye steak that I had been awaiting for quite some time. I was treating myself. I figured if I was going to see Howie Mandel, I might as well be full and happy. When our food finally arrived, I was mere minutes away from throwing my steak-knife at the other group. I figured if they took it as a threat, they were so drunk I could look at them and they would fall over, and I could eat in peace. Anyway, the food came, and I dug into my steak, thinking it was going to be grandiose. But not only was it severely undercooked—I had asked for it “very well done”, and I instead got it medium rare. I believe the serving lady thought I was giving her a compliment… –but it had been ogled by the miscreants beside us. They were going on and on about how much they wanted my steak. I wanted to give it to them. It was still mooing, for crying out loud… Anyway, I ate about half of it, since it still tasted good, and just had a horrid texture. I then went onto my mashed potatoes. Dry and garlicky. Great. I should’ve known. At least I had those chicken wings, which were awesome. My dad was full after half of his hamburger, so I ate most of his fries. My mom offered me some of her salad or salmon, but I wouldn’t eat that if I was starving in a desert. Finally, we left. I would’ve sent back my steak, but we had little-to-no time before the performance started at the theatre just outside. We went there, found our seats, and sat down. Now, if I reveal much more about what happened before the first performer came on stage, I would ruin any Howie Mandel performance you went to. So I shant. But let me tell you, it was funny… Anyway, all through-out the performance this one man –who happened to be the ring-leader jackass who was sitting beside us at the gorram restaurant –kept yelling crap out, just like he said he would. He thought he was heckling Mr. Mandel, but he was merely saying things like: “I’m an INDUSTRIAL trainer!”, “You live what you teach!”, and “I’M A GYNECOLOGIST!” it was merely fuel for Mandel’s act, which was superb. I had never been so entertained in my life. This imbecile kept going and going, fueling the fire of comedy, and Mandel outdid him every time. Anyway, the performance was magnificent, especially after Tom –the inebriated imbecile heckler –was kicked out by the security guards, and their “special skills.” I’d give the performance a 10/10, easily.

So, there you go.

That’s ma’ post, as updated for Sunday. I added that I bought Barenaked Ladies Are Me, and PREY Limited Collector’s Edition for $19.99 CDN without tax, brand new, “unopened” (EBGames/Gamestop opens every damn game and takes out everything, and keeps it locked up behind the counter. All the boxes are empty. Unopened my ass. I’d ask for an additional 10% off, but, dude. Twenty dollars. Niiiice.) and in perfect condition. I’ve not yet installed it, but I will.

P.S. I also got $135 extra cash when my mom won some monies at the casino. I haven’t spent it. As soon as I got home and published this, I got the Little Miss Sunshine soundtrack on iTunes, and also “Love Reign Over Me,” and “Boulevard of Broken Dreams.”

March 25, 2007 · Filed Under Announcements, Journal, Mjolnir, Nasir, Projects

Comments

Leave a Reply