PORT ALBERNI:

Monday night, after I blogged, I ordered the last of the Orient Expedition sets I needed to finish the collection from the Lego website. At 50% off, I kind of figured I had to. I stayed up kind of late getting packed, which was good because I was in a real rush tuesday. I came home from work, had some dinner, sold my gear, showered, loaded up the car, deposited my cash, came back for forgetten directions, all within an hour. Jenn and I wound up being early to the ferry, which was good. After the ferry, the drive was long, wet, and boring. We arrived around 1am, and I crashed pretty much immediately, having only been up for 20 hours. Despite this, the bed was so uncomfortable I was awake at 7:30 the next day, and that was that. Steve (Jenn's dad) gave us the grand tour, and we went into town to check stuff out. It was very much the typical small town. We went to the pub in the quay for lunch, where I was feeling bold enough to try eating a hamburger. It arrived, and the patty was really thick, so I had to ask for a steak knife. Even cutting off small pieces, it proved to be quite a task, and I think it took me around half an hour to eat it. That evening I took a stroll around the property, had some dinner, and Steve, Robin, Jenn and I played Creationary (see Jenn's blog for details). Thursday morning we left really quick so as to see my aunt in Nanaimo before boarding the ferry. We only got to visit for an hour, but it was nice to see her and she gave us some chicken salad sandwiches for the ferry that were quite delicious. We came home, and Jenn had plenty of time to prepare for work, ending our island oddysey.

AGAIN WITH THE CRACK:

So last night, I was woken up by my cell phone ringing. It was Kevin, from the A shift at work, obviously drunk out of his gord, and proclaiming it openly. I wasn't sure what he was after, but he started calling me an idiot, so I let him go and went back to sleep. Shortly thereafter, Carl, the lead hand, called me and told me Kevin had been murdered. "Oh no!" I said. Carl went on to explain Kevin had been murdered by his own mustache, as he was so blind drunk that he passed out and suffocated on it. In fact, Carl had been concerned for his safety, and had put Kevin up to calling me and insulting me so that I would go over to his apartment (as, unbeknownst to me, Kevin lives in the same building as I do!), seeking to pick a fight, but instead keeping him safe. Carl demanded to know what kind of coward I was that I wouldn't protect my honour, so I explained that while I was sorry Kevin was dead, I don't pick fights with people who don't know what they're saying, and if I had known he was in danger I would have gone only to help. That ended the conversation, but it was very difficult to get back to sleep, thinking that I could have just half an hour ago prevented the death of someone I knew. This morning I woke up not wanting to go to work and look Carl in the eye, then I wondered if I had dreamed it, because why on earth wouldn't Carl just ask me to look in on Kevin? Then I realized that there is no Kevin on the A shift, let alone one with a mustache, let alone one that lives in my building. Finally, I checked the call log on my cell. No calls last night. Definately a dream.

FRIENDLY NEIGHBOURHOOD SPIDERMAN:

I've been watching my brother's copy of the old Spiderman cartoons, just a couple to unwind before bed. Despite their crappiness, they make me want to do a supers roleplaying game, as does every other superhero show I watch. But I can't get plots together. People can't get together. Some of my friends are GURPophobic. Then I realized that if I formatted the game like a Silver Age superhero cartoon, with ridiculous villians, terrible dialogue, and predictable plots, I could use TOON to play a supers game, and details like what was actually happening and character continuity would be irrelevant! I'll pitch the idea to tea (through Jenn or a note) and see if anyone besides Rick bites.

Yesterday was the first annual official vampire day in Brazil. Why? Because only 2% of the poplulation gives blood, and the government figured this would help.

Boy, long time no update, huh? Nothing much to report really. The Leo party was fun, although I showed up late because I was busy assembling the Wild West, and drinking ensued. Drinking was followed by drunken dream. It was the day of the wedding for Jenn and I. Dinner was over and it was time for Jenn and I to cut the cake, but Jenn was somewhere else. The head cook dude told me that this cake was supposed to be tart, but how tart it was could be adjusted immediately before being served, so after cutting and tasting the cake, we would position our plate a certain way to indicate how we wanted the tartness adjusted. Then he showed me the cake, and it looked like it was made from equal parts bread pudding and boiled peas. I ran off to find Jenn, told her what was going on, and asked if she knew anything about it. She told me that she had requested a Soggy Cake (what, you've never heard of that? it's traditional british type thing), and the lady she had spoken to brusquely said "we'll give you (this), and it will cost (this)".

I woke up and had waffles. Tea was supposed to be cancelled, but it happened anyway.

Wednsday Jenn, Derek, Rick, Sean, Colin and I met up for fish and chips at Cockney King's. It was good. Then we played Deadwood, using Wild West minifigs for pawns. We had to stop early because I offered to drive Jenn to work, and on the way back I picked up the Lego Studios set with the webcam and movie software from Toys R Us, where it was marked down by $150. Unfortunately, the software is incompatible with Windows XP, but Lego has made new software and I'm just waiting to hear from them on how to get my hands on it.

Thursday night Jenn and I stayed in and rented Hellboy and Kitchen Stories. Hellboy was good, but Kitchen Stories was the movie of the night. Good old Norwegian art film on crack, about a swiss study on the kitchen habits of batchelors. My Dad must see this movie, so folks, if you're reading this, go rent it (it's a new release) and watch it together.

That's about it. Time for dinner.

Interesting dream last night. I was at home, downstairs, looking into the back yard, which had been recently mown, but not raked. The clippings were quite long, as the lawn hadn't been cut since the fall. As I looked I noticed a large gray tarantula with electric blue eyes (which I knew wasn't actually a tarantula, since they don't live this far north) under the clippings. Once I recognized what it looked like, I spotted another. And another. And another. And an entire colony. The whole backyard was crawling with neat looking giant spiders, which I thought was kind of interesting. My Mom was at the PC in the family room, so I called for her to look, but when we looked back out with closer scrutiny, it turns out they weren't spiders at all, but a variety of cute little mammalian critters, like bunnies and squirrels and field mice. And they were all pregnant. Fortunately for them, though, there were a couple wide, shallow cardboard boxes lying around, so they had somewhere clean and dry for their babies. I went to get my sister to see the baby critters, since that might appeal to her and her growing menagerie, but when I got back I only saw three hyenas on the patio. Three anthropomorphized five foot tall bipedal hyenas with long, spiky, lamborghini yellow fur, who were just kind of milling about. I opened the sliding door and poked my head out, which was when I noticed the hole that was filled with the bones of the critters and their babies. With slow curiosity, one of the hyenas walked over to me, and I shut the door. He put his paw on the handle and started to gently slide it open, so I shut it again and locked it. The hyena just looked at me, still more curious than aggressive, which was unnerving because when I looked in his eyes I got the impression that what he was curious about was how I tasted. So I called for my Dad to get his gun (in the dream, my Dad had just bought a handgun for the purpose of picking off pesky birds or rats or whatever), and the dream ended with me wondering how I was going to open the door and shoot one of the hyenas in the head without getting attacked by the other two.

This was the first time in three nights that I didn't knock myself out with NyQuil. Go figure.

And now, a contest for my vast hordes of readers! Interpret this dream! The best interpretation submitted by the end of the week wins a prize! I won't say what it is, except that it's a chocolate covered, pure silk, solid gold, extra beef, tax free, super happy lap dance of WOW!!

Not much new stuff to report, just this dream I had last night. I was the proud father of a baby boy, and we were just hanging out together. He was in my arms, all smiles and giggles, so very cute. Except for the fact that he was a little hairy. He had these little patches of sparse, soft, brown hair on his cheeks, just under his jaw, and a little bit on his chest just below his neck. Kind of like pubescent peach fuzz, only darker and slightly longer. So as much as I loved my son (which was very much, of course), and as much as I wanted to give him a great big kiss on his chubby, happy cheek, he was just too damn ugly for that kind of thing, which would have been heartbreaking if he knew, but being a baby he didn't know that he was ugly, and kept gurgling in a funny little baby way. So I wondered if I should shave my baby. He'd look a lot better. Of course, the hair would grow back darker and thicker, and I'd have to shave it again, and by the time he was six he'd be the only kid in kindergarten sporting a goatee. I'm not sure if that would be good or bad. There other depilatory methods, like elecrolysis or creams, but those can burn a bit, which would be bad to start with, and he might not be able to grow a beard when he was older, and he might want to do that. The dream ended before I could actually do something, which I'm kind of glad for. Now I'm hoping that I won't have to deal with a little Wolverine type kid in real life, because then I might have to name my boy Logan like Mr. Guenther did.