And on the Seventh Day I Rested

After a few weeks straight of working at it every day, there are a few more doors to be painted for my room, and I can wash my hands of this renovation project. But we're finally getting some proper summer weather, and in time for a long weekend for once, so its time to kick back and take a few days off, and instead of sinking money into tools and trim and pain, carefully invest in beer for the weekend.

I say carefully because I got a call this morning from Steve letting me know the details for meeting up with him and his wife at Algonquin in a couple weeks, and am not going to have a whole bunch of money to play with for that excursion. Not working for a calendar year is starting to hurt. So long as I don't go ahead and fuck myself over like last time around when I forgot, among other things, a sleeping bag, and spent a night shivering, an exorbitant amount of money on a blanket, and the rest of my trip feeling slightly jaded with the experience.

Not all of my money lately has gone to the renovation though. The latest White Stripes album is fantastically written, and complete with the typical catchy beats and riffs that they rock out so well. My favourites from it are Rag and Bone, which has a great fun energy, and Cause and Effect which can be interpreted any number of ways and to me is a great closing track for the album.

And of course, a legitimate candidate for album of the year so far, Matthew Good's latest, which I managed to score a signed copy of 5 minutes before selling out. Hospital Music, knowing the story leading up to the writing of the album, is one of the most open and honest collections of music you could ever expect to hear, with some excellent covers of Daniel Johnston's True Love Will Find You in the End (which was also covered by Beck on one of his recent albums) and Moon Over Marin by The Dead Kennedys. I honestly hadn't heard the Dead Kennedys version until after hearing Matt's version, so I'm likely biased in describing it as a much better put together rendition, but I'm saying it anyways. That's something that can't be said for most cover versions of songs ever done, with the Jimi Hendrix version of Bob Dylan's All Along the Watchtower and Pearl Jam's take on Last Kiss being other cases that come to mind.

I'm sure now I'll think of a number more though while I kick back with a few beers on the balcony for the weekend and attempt not to sweat it out as fast as I drink it. Dunno what this whole 'Civic Holiday' is about anyways, but I'll take it!

Drought Over

After not winning a night of poker since around the christmas season, I finally managed to make it out of heads up and not get burned by some ridiculous card on the river, thus making myself a hard earned $6 richer. Of course poker makes me thirsty, and I drank more like $15 worth of beer in playing, but that, and the lingering headache this morning were a small price to pay for the glory.

On top of that, I may have some work lined up for later in the summer, pending a meeting with the department's resident paleoclimate professor. Today would have been my convocation, had I had the interest in attending, or had I yet completed my still outstanding thesis. Instead I'm looking just far enough past all that to get some money in my pocket, and dwell on what exactly it is I want to do for at least the next 2 years.

While sitting around not writing more important, but less entertaining things, I ended up stumbling across a do-it-yourself improvement for wireless routers that might as well have come straight from the 3 'Lone Gunmen' nerds from the X-Files. I have yet to test it myself, although a buddy of mine has already tried a similar approach, and found a dramatic increase to the strength of his wireless signal. It costs about a half hour of time, a few pieces of cardboard, and some tinfoil, so for any of you out there with issues with getting a good signal to your laptop wireless card, or to a remote PC, I'd give it a try before dropping money on antennas and other crap they'll try to push on you at Future Shop or Best Buy. Its not a technological marvel on par with say a 'gay bomb', but its something.

I'll post the successfulness of my attempts later, but now its time to grill some meat while continuing my march towards skin cancer.

A Fart That Shakes The Nuts

Thursday night was poker night with the guys, and I found that lady luck is still off on a Bahamian vacation or something for me. But when you're playing for laughable $2 buy-ins, the idea is just to sit and drink some beers and have a good time, and in that light I'm a pro comparable to any of the best. Thursday night after the beers however I slept (yes infact slept, not passed out) in a position for which my neck has let me know about it since with some kind of pinched nerve or something. Being stubborn as I am, I refuse to seek an actual diagnosis, instead offering my own prescribed remedies as I see fit. Hot showers, heating pads, stretching, ignoring, and self medicating with alcohol all have provided at least temporary relief, and the ache is slowly going away. Hopefully by morning its to the point where I can sit at the computer for a period beyond a half hour to accomplish some formal writing.

This weekend, instead of coddling my neck like I tried to no avail on Friday, I opted to try not to let it get me down. Last night was board games and beers in what might as well have been called couples night, but thankfully was not quite so contrived. After a humiliation in Pictionary, we moved on to a loose game of Balderdash.

For those of you unfamiliar with the latter, its a game in which real, but obscure words are listed on cards, and those playing attempt to create a definition that matches the true one, or to make the other players believe theirs to be the real one. Invariably, the game degrades to nonsense and badgering within 4 or 5 words. From 'a gay duck' to 'for the cleanest snatch in town' to 'Dave blows goats' the game degrades quickly sober, and exponentially faster when drinking. This leads us to last night's new hall of fame quote with:

balthazar (n.) - a fart that shakes the nuts

Now, the true definition is infact a wine bottle holding 13 quarts, but by the time that came up, its true meaning was beyond all repair forever, with a whole new can of adjectives and adverbs opened up.

Yes, this blog has resorted to toilet humour. I'm shocked I managed to hold out this long.

I also managed to get out of the house for a while this afternoon to nerd out on some more geocaching, but mostly to get some sun. After driving around in the country for a few hours, it was decided that we should hit up the town of Fergus for their Dairy Queen and use of a bathroom, since some of us (clearly not myself) are opposed to using a convenient tree or bush. We ended up coming across a BMW car rally in the parking lot of the new big block store plaza found on the outskirts of every self-respecting town of 5,000 or more these days. Some sharp looking Audis and Porsches were also parked in their midst.

And then, of course, framed in the most perfect of backdrops, your requisite Honda Civic with the hood popped showing off the turbo kit and whatever else thrown in to give the illusion of having the same performance as the lower end of the nicer cars there for the same combined price. Also requisite is the flat grey primer colour with rough patches of some half-assed body work until money on the pimp my ride project ran out.