BONUS POST! Transcript 1

So, for those of you who are wondering about my current MSN handle, it's from a conversation I had with Jay, who's the proud father of his first son Liam, who was born a week and a bit ago.

The conversation takes place a few days beforehand...(I am the green text, Jay is the black text...)

Silver Belt in Joga... says:

Big event?

Gaunt|et - Off work for the big event. says:

baby

Silver Belt in Joga... says:

Right!

Gaunt|et - Off work for the big event. says:

no sign yet, though.

Silver Belt in Joga... says:

No?

Gaunt|et - Off work for the big event. says:

we expect it thursday at the latest.

Silver Belt in Joga... says:

Maybe he's under the couch...

Gaunt|et - Off work for the big event. says:

we have a sneaking suspicion that he's in Maja's belly.

Gaunt|et - Off work for the big event. says:

we keep shouting "Baby! Get Out Of Her Belly!"

Gaunt|et - Off work for the big event. says:

but it doesn't work.

Silver Belt in Joga... says:

Three words for you, Jay: Bait. And. Switch.

Silver Belt in Joga... says:

Seriously, though:

Silver Belt in Joga... says:

Check the cushions.

Silver Belt in Joga... says:

That's where all my change ends up.

Gaunt|et - Off work for the big event. says:

good call.

Gaunt|et - Off work for the big event. says:

Lori suggested repeatedly shouting things like "Wow! Look at that! That's Awesome!"

Gaunt|et - Off work for the big event. says:

I suppose that's kind of like the bait and swtich approach.

Silver Belt in Joga... says:

"Man, baby! I'd hate to be missing THIS view! Good thing I'm not inside my mom's uterus!"

Silver Belt in Joga... says:

"Who wants cake? Everyone who's outside of mommy gets some!"

Silver Belt in Joga... says:

"Oooh, tough luck, kid. No cake for you!"

Gaunt|et - Off work for the big event. says:

excellent.

Gaunt|et - Off work for the big event. says:

if only we could taunt him over MSN in-utero.

I actually got this mailed to me by Astro, who died reading it and had to send it to me, not realising that I had it saved on my comp, as I usually do with conversations that I like.

Maybe later, I'll post some more good ones, if my audience is receptive...

Odd Transformations 18: The Novelization! (Special Edition)

I tried posting this a few days back, but Blogger decided to kill the post due to server maintenance.

So, here we go, with some extra content...

* * *

So I'm involved again with the National Novel Writing Month (or NaNoWriMo, or NaNo, or Nnnnnn...But I'll be referring to it as NaNo...)

Two weeks ago, I had a dream that involved me winning a scholarship to a pirate school. It was a pretty "Harry Potterish" dream, with pirate magic, and a huge archaic school building with golden banisters and staircases everywhere.

I remember buying some fancy pirate clothes with my scholarship. And then I woke up.

The next dream right after that involved a friend of mine who, in my dream, moved to France. I went to visit her, and a wicker chair was stolen from the store she was working at.

Since I had, as yet, no plot for my NaNo project (starting up on November 1st), I thought I could go a story based on the dream.

But the pirate school dream was, in my mind, WAY too stupid for a 50,000 word novel.

I brainstormed a bit, came up with three characters that would work well in a story about a guy who visits France to meet up with a female friend who suddenly moved there two years ago. It was to be revealed that there was a third character (the best friend of the guy, the boyfriend of the girl) who had died of cancer, which led to the situation that the two living characters were in.

When I posted on the NaNo message boards, I started getting messages from friends asking me to do the pirate story.

I realized, after a bit of brainstorming, that I could make the ludicrous pirate academy work.

I forget who said this, (if it was Peter David, or David Cross, or someone who might or might not have "David" in their name) but I remember telling a good trick to writing anything:

The audience will only believe one lie that you tell them. The trick is to make that lie SO big that within the context of the one big lie, you can cram as many implausibilities into that premise.

So make the lie so STUPID, so incredible, that the reader will go along with anything you tell them afterwards.

Also, if I make the main character real enough, and have him comment on the stupidity of pirate school, I will deflate anyone else who tried to naysay my story with that argument.

So I've got a way for him to get into pirate school and win a scholarship. After that, everything else can be the most ludicrous story ideas I've ever thought of.

Such as the rival school across the lake, the school that consists of ninjas...

* * *

So there's a lunar eclipse happening as I type this. Every now and then, I stop typing, go to the front door, and watch.

* * *

On Monday, the members of Kow FINALLY had their Fringe-end dinner, something we wanted to do right after our last show on Sunday. Then our show got rained out, and we didn't have the energy to go out right away.

We thought we'd do it the day of NoHarm. And then we realized we wouldn't have enough time after sound check. So we postponed it again.

But, damn, that was a meal to wait for. We went to Tom Goodchild's Moose Factory, where it happened to be "30% off steak" night. And such GOOD steak! My mouth waters just thinking of it. I was completely satisfied with the ribeye, but I think I'd try the bison the next time I go there...

Dev wasn't too happy about not being able to eat half his mussels due to not being able to pry them open, but they managed to give us a huge amount of foccacia bread and garlic loafs. And the Honey Brown was great (probably the best on tap I've had in a while...).

Dev and I were considering dessert, but the rest of the guys wanted to leave. So I bought a peach Boston cream cake at Safeway when Dev and I went to D!'s for wrestling action later that night.

* * *

I'm just getting off a case of illness, one that left me bedprone and sleeping for about 16 hours over the course of yesterday.

I think I'll be back to work tomorrow, since I'm able to sit at my computer and type this...

* * *

I've decided to get tested at the hospital and see if I'm a match for my dad. He's going to need a new kidney, and my aunt Kim is a match as well.

I thought, "What the hey?" Dad's helped me out so much over the course of my life, the LEAST I can do is attempt to extend his life.

I'll wait until after Christmas for the surgery, but I'll have the testing done on me soon.

I was waiting to see what my company would say to me missing 6 weeks of work, and they said that I'd be eligible for temporary disability for donating a kidney. Which is good.

Odd Transformations 17: Nightmare

It snowed overnight. Time to bring out the gloves and toque..

* * *

For the first time in a while, I remember a dream that turned into a nightmare pretty fast. Granted, the fact that I tried to fall back asleep for the remaining half hour before my alarm was to go off and couldn't might have something to do with it.

First of all, I was supposed to go to some night class as my old elementary school, St. Margaret's. Dev was taking a bus and wanted to know if I'd accompany him. I thought, "Kill two birds with one stone. Sure."

We took the 5 north, and it was only when Dev and I got off the bus that I realized that I was supposed to go south from where I lived, not north. So I was a lot further away than I needed to be.

(Apparently, my old elementary had switched locations from Moose Jaw to somewhere like Mill Woods. And apparently the 5 goes from Westmount to Coliseum. Obviously, I was pulling numbers out of my head.)

When I was trying to figure out how to get back to where I was needing to go, the bus rocketed up into the air, and into a 20 story high bus barn. Apparently where it's parked for the night.

Instead of waiting for a bus to catch, I decided to walk home, instead of going to St. Margaret's, since I'd certainly miss whatever workshop/class I was going to.

I tried taking a shortcut that led me through houses. Once I realized this. I started backtracking, and found myself (now with a bike) confronted by this French guy sniffing glue out of a bag.

I tried to outrace him on my bike, but I couldn't go fast enough. He was wanting to hang with me, and even though I was trying to flee by biking through red lights and taking impossible tasks, it wasn't working. I do remember having access to a radar screen which showed me how close this guy was.

My plan was to bike to D!'s apartment, and seek sanctuary from the French glue-sniffer.

I passed by a kid hanging by his underwear on a street sign. A car screeched and stopped behind me, and the kid's mother yelled at him to get into the car. He also had a drug problem.

The mother, kid and I got on a bus, and I was apparently part of the family or something.

It wasn't until about five minutes or so dream time that I realized I was the kid's 40-year old white-trash father, trapped in Jago's younger body and liking it, while Jago's mind was still trapped in there with him.

The white-trash man started hitting on this girl who was on the bus, and asked, "Hey, baby. Where's your boyfriend?"

When she replied that he was out of town, the man inside my body picked her up.

That was about the time I woke up, freaked out.

* * *

I watched a feed of Crossfire where Jon Stewart showed up and really took the hosts and American media to task about the presidential election.

It was amazing. And I've got the segment on my computer now, if anyone wants to come by and see Jon Stewart plead that shows like Crossfire just "Please. Stop."

I remember why I admire Stewart so much...

* * *

On the recommendation of my manager, Chris, I downloaded LimeWire for my filesharing needs.

Man, it's a great program. A lot better than the iMesh I've been using for a while now.

It's quicker, there's a lot more files, you can have multiple searches, and there's no spyware in it whatsoever!

Great, so I have to memorize three more numbers?

I was waiting at the bus stop beside D!'s place last night after our weekly Smackdown viewing when I decided I had to buy a Journal due to an article teased on the front page.

"Ten-digit local phone numbers coming."

Immediately, I thought: Wait a tic, didn't we get a new area code five years ago?

Well, yes we did. But we're running out of numbers already, thanks to the huge explosion of cell phones, fax machines, and pagers in the province.

At this rate, Calgary and Southern Alberta will run out of numbers in the 403 code in 2009, while Edmonton and the rest of the 780 area is expected to run out in 2011.

Even though there's a potential 10 million numbers (granted not every combination would work, as there's no 0 is the prefixes, usually) in all the permutations of phone numbers we could have in our area code. (Taking out all the numbers that start with 0xx, 911, 866, 800, 611, and 411, we get 8.95 million potential phone numbers in Northern Alberta.)

Crazy, isn't it? There's just over a million people in Alberta, and I know that these are including corporate numbers as well. But that's saying that the average Albertan has at least 5 different personal numbers, which is kind of scary.

In any case, since it's a HUGE pain in the ass to cut up the areas again and give Alberta four area codes, we're looking at a new area code overlay, where they'll just add this new code to the front of numbers. Which means that we'll be using 10 digit phone numbers to get someone in the same city that happens to have a cell phone or a new number come three years from now.

Vancouver and the Lower Mainland had to go through this already, where they've got two area codes, and it seems to have worked.

And it is easier to do all of Alberta simultaneously, which is why it's going to happen so soon.

So buckle up, Alberta. It'll be time for remembering to add 780 or whatever other code we'll be getting to the front of any local number we dial.

Also, do you know the reason why most of our prefixes have lower numbers in them? Rotary phones. I could elaborate if you want to know...

Canadian Regions that will run out of numbers in the near future:
780 Edmonton/Alberta North - Nov 2011
403 Calgary/Alberta South - Sept 2009
250 B.C. (excluding Lower Mainland) - May 2009
519 Southwest Ontario - Oct 2006
613/819 Ottawa/Hull - June 2006

416 Toronto ran out in 2001
905 Toronto area ran out in 2001
514 Montreal ran out in 2002
604 B.C. Lower Mainland ran out in 2001

Odd Transformations 16, and a great Thanksgiving dinner

Just woke up from a dream where I went back to Moose Jaw for the Christmas holidays, and took the rest of Kow along with me.

It was December 21, and I was wondering why my family was still getting ready for school.

Mom asked me if I needed a ride from school today (for some reason, I was going back to my high school, Peacock), and I said, "Nah, I'll take the bus home. It's only a two block walk to the bus stop, and I'm used to walking a lot further than that. Besides, I've got my book to read."

Before school, though, some radio station had set up a live unit in my front room, because Kow was doing a media appearance, along with Quintessential, who had decided to add a woman to the group.

At one point, I, along with the female Quintessential member and another guy, did an impromptu version of Moondance, and I somehow sang lead, even though I didn't know the words to the song, and tried to muddle my way through it.

My friend Romy was in the audience, sitting at my dining room table.

Afterwards, EJ and Brade were in the living room watching TV, while I was frantically getting ready for school, trying to find Dev, who was also going to go to Peacock along with me.

I remember thinking, "If it's the 21st of December, wouldn't we get the week off for Christmas?"

Dev was getting a ride to school from a neighbour, and I was trudging my way through broken ice to get to the car before they took off.

I woke up then...

* * *

On Monday, Canton and I were gearing up for a season of video hockey, when I got a call from Marauder.

"I hear a rumour that you didn't get a turkey dinner."

"That's right. My family dinner was in Wetaskiwin yesterday, and I was working."

"My parents are offering to cook you a Thanksgiving dinner, if you're interested."

So I took him up on his offer.

Before Marauder, Neeta and I went to St. Albert, I made sure to stop off at the liquor store for a nice bottle of white wine. I picked up this good-looking South African chardonnay.

Before the dinner, the three of us watched The Impostors, one of my favourite movies. There's just something about a movie full of stars that wants to be a thirties comedy and succeeds, pratfalls, mistaken identity, singing and all...

The dinner was delicious. Mrs. Marauder went to the store to find some turkey parts so she could cook over some leftovers, but could only find a full turkey. And they made me a pumpkin pie, since there were no store-made ones.

So I gorged on turkey, buns, mashed potatoes, peas, dressing, cranberries, and of course, a crapload of gravy, along with a few glasses of milk and a great wine.

I was much appreciative of the Marauder family for going through all that trouble of making sure I had a Thanksgiving dinner this year.

Axler invited me to his family's dinner, but I had to decline since I was working until 5:30 on Sunday.

And there was no Heath this time around to come in from Prince Albert to visit his girlfriend, since she now lives in the same city as him.

So it's nice to know that the Marauders, who, while I've met them a few times, but wouldn't say were like family to me, were willing to go out of their way for me.

Thank you.

A better-than-expected movie, shmoozing with small-c celebrities, and yelling at people...

So I've been a little slack in posting here. Not that there hasn't really been nothing to say, there has and this post will kind of show it...

It's just been, well, between work, sleeping, relaxing and sheer sloth...

Eh, in any case, here we go. Bah. One week. No probs. It's a lot more prolific than other people I know (looking at you, Marauder. And Nova. And, well, everyone other than Dev, Dan and Dave...

* * *

Last Wednesday, I was asked to participate in a choir event, singing at the opening of the new Churchill Square.

It was cold for the girls, not so bad for the guys (especially when you're like me, and have something like four layers on when wearing a tux).

A decent time, other than seeing Mayor Bill Smith pimp for the camera like his job was on the line. (Oh, wait. It is...) My old coworker Mike Jenkinson was there in Edmonton Sun capacity (EDIT: He says he wasn't there that night. Odd. Someone in the city looks eerily similar. Granted, he could be mistaken, although not usually when he looks like his Sun pic...), and my old GMCC Video News Writing teacher, Steve Hogle, was the MC.

Afterwards, the choir was invited to join in on the finger food and wine at City Hall. Very good wine, yummy snacks, and I was able to shmooze with Steve for a bit. Talked about what I've been doing since Grant Mac. And I've got an in for publicity for Kow's Christmas show. Not that I'm worried about publicity for it, since we were No Harm's media darlings, but it's always nice to be able to think ahead for a change.

* * *

Last Saturday was Marauder's birthday, and D!, Canton and I went to celebrate along with a crapload of theatre people. Highlight was the video Lee made featuring Marauder's best Edmonton Sketch Conspiracy moments, which must have been every sketch Lee taped that featured Marauder.

Including the infamous Bubba Bomb that D! sold like a madman two years ago.

* * *

Yesterday, Dev and I picked up The Girl Next Door, since we both wanted to see it, and didn't think it would be too appropriate if either of us watched it alone. We just imagined it being too much of a "sitting in the dark, lusting after Elisha Cuthbert" kind of way.

The ads all show the film to be a typical teen movie, in the style of Road Trip or American Pie.

But when Dev and I first heard the opening song (Queen's "Under Pressure"), we knew this wouldn't be what the ads promised.

The best way I could describe it is as the sort of "coming of age" film that Risky Business and Something Wild are: A high school senior realizes he's spent all of his school life studying for college, and when Elisha, a former porn starlet, moves in next door, his studious little world is blown apart.

Some great acting from Elisha, who Dev and I are used to as the dumbest girl on the planet, Kim Bauer.

Tim Oliphant, as a porn producer, was probably my favourite character, but everyone in this movie with a better-than-average part was pretty well-written and characterized.

If you're looking for a good "coming of age" film, you can do a lot worse than The Girl Next Door.

Back up and running...towards bed...

So the renovations are done. Which means I won't have to yell at customers to leave my store because we're closed. Now I have to tolerate them once more.

Seriously, these past few weeks have made it so I'm needing to get back on the horse, retail-wise. For the past two days, I've been trying to keep myself in the back room away from customers, because I don't want to look at them.

And will they get off my freshly waxed laminate floor already???

Unfortunately, my co-worker Ammon, who's a new hire, has fallen into the habit of doing what most new hires do when they don't know much about the product: Say "You know, I'm not sure. But Kyle will be able to help you out, since he's sure to know."

And so, I usually come out of the back room to find a lineup of customers waiting to talk to me. Or I'm helping one customer for a long time because they need the help, and I hear Ammon tell his customer to ask me about fuses when I'm trying my hardest to sell a set of speakers with no box.

I, of course, straightened out Ammon by telling him that that's my least favourite thing to have to deal with when I'm already dealing with my own crises...and that the catalog is his best friend.

It was when I started out...

* * *

Went to the No Mercy PPV tonight. I happened to have the line of the night. (I know so because I got a standing ovation by some in the room. Or at least a sitting-up-straight ovation...)

When Dawn Marie, Smackdown's resident lustbunny, came out wearing a "Charlie Haas [heart]s Dawn Marie" shirt, Elimination was stunned by her usual lack of clothing.

Elimination: "Oh! Hey, wait! Dawn's shirt has writing on it!"

Laughter from room.

Me: "Oh! Hey! It's written in Braille!"

Two minute laugh break.

* * *

I've been having odd sleeping habits these days. I mean, I've ALWAYS been borderline narcoleptic, usually falling asleep in the moment WHILE I'm putting my glasses on the nightstand.

Usually, I can't stand less than ten hours of sleep. I can make do with eight, but I thrive on more.

So ever since the week of Northern Harmony, where I was renovating and being bored for eight hours a day, and going to so many media stops, I've been falling asleep a lot earlier than usual, hitting the sack before midnight. (Before September, I wouldn't consider going to bed before one a.m.)

So these days, I' d get into bed, read a magazine, and two paragraphs in, I'd be out cold. Not so bad, until I wake up at three in the morning, realize my lamp was still on, find my reading material half-crumpled beneath me, and locate my glasses at the foot of the bed, sometimes folded neatly.

God, I've got to stop falling asleep before I fall asleep...