Sunday, October 30, 2005
Shaun visited last weekend, we went around and blew around Vernon for a while, got screamers. We went to Triple Burger on Friday night to try it out, very good burgers for cheap. Shaun ordered first and they asked him if he wanted ketchup or "Red Sauce" and not knowing what red sauce was, he got that. He couldn't figure out what it was. And it was sorta orange. The closest we could figure was that it seemed like a mix of ketchup, relish and mustard.

We didn't go and see a movie, seeing as the only possible choice would have been DOOM. Instead we played lots of games, including one that is supposed to be just awful, called Flat Out, a racing game where when you crash, your body goes flying through the windshield, limp as a rag doll. Needless to say we loved this game and played it for hours, including spending an hour on a single jump where we could crash into a building in mid-air and see who could launch our driver the farthest.

Last week I began thinking of what I could do for a halloween costume, since Melissa J and I were going to go to Jay Hewlett's Halloween party on Friday night. I wanted to go as something really annoying. I thought of Burger King's "The King" but it would be too hard...so I decided to go as the Ranch Tooth from the Wendy's commercials. Or more specifically, the guy with the Ranch Tooth. So I spent every day after work last week making a 2' Ranch Tooth out of chickenwire and paper mache and spraypaint. It looked pretty good, and I had a speaker inserted inside hooked up to my mp3 player, which was loaded with sound clips from the commercial. So at the party, everyone laughed when they saw the tooth, and laughed even harder when they discovered it actually said RANCH RANCH RANCH.

Speaking of the party, Shaun decided to come too, but we couldn't come up with a cricket bat for him to go as Shaun from Shaun of the Dead. So Friday evening we picked him up and we checked the car for props he could use to whip up a costume. He ended up having a Steven Seagal movie poster, for the movie 'Today You Die' taped to his chest, a pair of huge pink sunglasses, a Mike Eng - Vulcan Advocate business card taped to his hat, and a discman with a bizarre mix cd of ABBA, Simon & Garfunkle, and other weird, weird tunes. His costume? BAD TASTE. It was surprisingly popular, considering how last-minute it was.

And just in case the Ranch Tooth wasn't annoying enough, we ended up putting Shaun's discman with the ABBA/other weird stuff in the tooth, so it was an ABBA-playing Ranch Tooth. Talk about horrifying.

And as of last night, I'm still in 1st place in my work hockey pool.

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The Ranch Tooth commercials, online!
TELL YOUR STUPID RANCH TOOTH TO SHUT UP!


[posted by Rades at 8:49 PM] LINK ||
Friday, October 21, 2005
Things I plan to do this weekend:
- Go to TRIPLE BURGER with Shaun, a gas-station-looking hamburger shop whose claim to fame is three burgers for $3.33. When I first saw this place, I immediately said to myself "Okay, that's unquestionably where me and Shaun are going when he comes to visit."

And that's about it, in terms of planning at least. I'm not real big on the whole "planning ahead" concept. I'm sure we'll check out a movie though. Hopefully better than the great blazing bags of crap we've been seeing lately.

An update on pools. I will begrudgingly and bitterly put it to record that John B. Spigott did indeed live up to his braggadocio and emerge victorious in the baseball pool. As soon as I lost my playoff match and was out of the running for 1st, I stopped paying attention, and came in 4th overall. So standings:

Regular Season (out of 10 teams):
Mike 1st, Spigs 2nd, Mark 4th (which is amazing...for Mark), Nick 9th

Playoffs: Spigs 1st, Mike 4th, Mark 5th.

So while I am disappointed Spigs won the pool, I can at least take consolation in the fact that I once again soundly trounced Mr. Greenizan.

ON THIS DAY
In 1883, the inventor of Dynamite was born. Also in 1982 DJ JAZZY ED was born! Ed's currently going to school in Hartford, former home of the indomitable Hartford Whalers.

* * * * * * * * * * TRU MOCKERY DAY * * * * * * * * * *

The TRU Omega
Updated regularly! And by regularly I mean not at all since September 14.

The TRU Soccer Uniforms
A number of points. 1) What, did TRU get a discount on some used prison uniforms? 2) Five-year-olds playing soccer have color-coordinated shorts and shirts. Orange + orange is not color-coordination. 3) This is TRU's logo. It's nice to that they didn't just grab the uniform colors completely randomly out of thin air or anything. 4) Wolves: Brown, grey, white, black. And now, apparently, bright neon orange. 5) Orange & Black. Great look, if you're a lifejacket or a road sign, and 6) Seriously, they're just ugly. Really, really ugly.


[posted by Rades at 12:14 AM] LINK ||
Wednesday, October 19, 2005
Heard an interesting bit on the radio today about the BC Teachers Strike situation. There was a special prosecutor appointed for this case, as most will know. I'm not sure if this is WHY there is a special prosecutor, but it turns out the BC Crown Counsel said they could not prosecute the teachers. Why? Because their arbitration agreement with the government from a while back (no idea how long back) was ALSO thrown out the window by the government. Basically the guy from the Crown Counsel said, in much legalese, "We got screwed over too, and our contract was broken, so we're not prosecuting anyone for protesting broken contracts until ours gets un-broken."

What will it take to get rid of these bums? Man.


[posted by Rades at 5:23 PM] LINK ||
Sunday, October 16, 2005
So Thursday was my birthday. Which of course, means that it was time to



Came back to Kamloops again this weekend. Me and Shaun went to see History of Violence on Friday, and my oh my was it absolutely terrible. It was almost beyond-words cliche, contrived, and just plain bad. My rating: 1/10. 0.5 is for Aragorn's habit of chopping people in the throat viciously, and the other 0.5 is for some pretty graphically violent scenes.

Two weekends, two bad movies. Not a good track record, although last weekend Shaun and I also watched Mindhunters on DVD, with Christian Slater, Val Kilmer and LL Cool J. It's a decent plot, with a team of FBI profilers going to an island for a "training" session, but their "trainer" starts to kill them off one by one. It's very similar to And Then There Were None, one of my favorite novels. Some decent deaths (the first one isn't that surprising but it's an awesome visual) but some really bizarre plot events. Overall a decent and at times pretty graphic scenes - a 7/10. Nothing too special in the end plus, as everyone knows, LL Cool J cannot die in movies. He just doesn't.


[posted by Rades at 2:37 AM] LINK ||
Wednesday, October 12, 2005
First visit back to Kamloops last weekend, enjoyed some quality hanging with friends and some quality sleep and oh yes some quality Thanksgiving food. Good times. Shaun also gave me, as "return to BC" gifts, a "The Longest Yard" metal football keychain, a "Sahara" wallet, and a Movie Gallery id tag that its workers wear, with "DECO" as the name. Awesome.

We saw Serenity on Friday.

Not so awesome.

It's an okay movie for the most part, but then Joss Whedon goes total cheese and, in a space-cowboy-adventure movie, gives us a teen girl fighting what appear to be orcs from Lord of the Rings. Mr. Whedon, I'd like to inform you that the horse is dead, and you're no longer beating it, you're now defiling its corpse. Stop, just stop.

Since the NHL season is once again underway, it's time for the online stuff:

Puck You! - Our hockey blog, created during the 2003-04 playoffs, but resurrected for general hockey talk! Get posting, Nick, Al, Mel, etc.!

Daily Deco, NHL Style - Like the Gretzky/McSorley story in the previous post, I'm going to start posting Daily Deco NHL stories on a regular basis, on this blog. So far I've done one major story and a few short ones, but I like them all so far.

Also, with hockey comes Sports Pools. I entered a hockey pool at work with 19(!) other people. Eight players each, $40 entry, snake draft, total points only. I got pick 13. LUCKY THIRTEEN? We shall see. My picks were:
1. Heatley
2. Palffy
3. Prospal
4. Zetterberg
5. Vborny
6. Shanahan
7. Kvasha
8. Ribiero

So far I'm doing well. After Monday's games, I was in first. I dropped to second after Tuesday's, but still kicking ass.

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Sexy in Milwaukee: An online journal in a "Carrie Bradshaw" style.
And of course, within six months, she's pregnant. Go figure.


[posted by Rades at 11:59 PM] LINK ||
Wednesday, October 05, 2005
PLAYERS NO LONGER INTIMIDATED BY GRETZKY, NOW TERRIFIED

By Carlton Forman

Last week Coyotes winger Brett Hull told The Arizona Republic that his teammates are intimidated being coached by hockey legend Wayne Gretzky.

The next day, Gretzky announced the hiring of his new Assistant Coach, former teammate Marty McSorley, who greeted the Phoenix players by dragging Hull behind Glendale Arena and beating him with a lead pipe for 17 minutes.

McSorley, who finished his NHL career with 359 points and 3,381 penalty minutes in 961 games, was most well known for being Gretzky’s enforcer, protecting him on the ice from physical abuse for ten seasons. However, McSorley was suspended from the NHL following an ugly incident in 2000, when he slashed Vancouver Canuck Donald Brashear in the head with his stick, knocking Brashear unconscious. McSorley was convicted of assault charges.

Ten years later, McSorley is back to his old tricks, making sure everyone gives The Great One the respect he deserves.

"I ain’t afraid of getting my hands dirty, or bloody," said McSorley. "I owe Wayne a lot, for giving me this chance. I was working as a garbageman part-time when he called me up, saying he had a ‘job’ for me to handle. It was like old times."

Since McSorley has stepped onto the bench beside Gretzky, there has been zero complaints from the remaining Coyotes. Gretzky attributes his team’s new solidarity to hard work, good team bonding, and the giant battle axe McSorley prowls the bench with.

"Brett’s comments were damaging to the team’s overall cohesion," said Gretzky to media after Hull was taken to the hospital. "While I respect his willingness to speak his mind, I hope this shows that our new team will not tolerate insubordination." After a few moments of stunned silence, winger Oleg Saprykin sneezed and McSorley hit him in the face with a wrench.

Vancouver Canuck Todd Bertuzzi, who missed the last 20 games in the 2003-04 season and was fined for a brutal attack from behind on Colorado's Steve Moore that left the Avalanche player with a broken neck, said Gretzky's creative move was inspiring.

"It's nice to know that no matter how thuggish you were as a player or how many players you nearly killed, there's always a spot for you behind the bench," said Bertuzzi.

Gretzky, who owns the team, also announced that the team name was being changed from The Phoenix Coyotes to The Horrible Phoenix Gore Hounds.

"We’re getting Rob Zombie to design our new team logo,” said Gretzky. “So far it has a maimed dog, lots of blood and some skulls. It’s pretty sweet."


[posted by Rades at 9:20 PM] LINK ||