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A bunch of years ago today (are we old enough to want to not remember yet??), my wonderful wife was brought into this world, a little wriggling, crying bundle of joy that only her parents could love. Mainly because they were the only ones that had met her.

And now they’ve handed her off to me.

Lucky me! (hahahaha, take that as you will!)

Happy birthday sweetie!

Apparently, in a nod to our primal roots, we humans enjoy relocating from our comfortable rows of homes to less comfortable rows of campsites. There we practice our survival skills, by making fire (with a blowtorch), roughing it (by sleeping on air mattresses inflated by battery powered fan) and by cooking MEAT (on the George Foreman grill, personally endorsed by George).

Ah well, at least we smelled of smoke and fed the mosquitos.

Harrison 2005

I kept waiting for my hygienist to say “You sly dog, you got me monologging!” as she carried on her (understandably) one-sided conversation.

Drinking for Tom’s stag last night. And a fine evening it was. It’s been a long time since I was last at the Cambie (where the bathroom seems to have deteriorated and oh my I’d never actually looked at the medusa-like coils of plumbing before), and I’ve never been to The Pic or the Speakeasy before. Many toasts were raised — To Tom!!

I retreated just before the last scheduled stop, wandered over the bridge with 2D and OJ, searching for OD — who was nowhere to be found. (If we don’t hear from you, we’ll tell your wife that you love her.) We met up with SlantyByMarriage and went for a quick bit of dessert before I made it home and crashed out.

And at some point, the morning came and I had to face the music. Percussion played by a gorilla with an alarming emphasis on “more is better”.

These days, I know that its been a rough one when I wake up — I have some serious requirements. I thirst for water, my head wants drugs (or earmuffs to shut out the gorilla) and my stomach craves the rich hot broth of a bowl of pho. Every piece of fruit I eat seems to burst with vitamins and life, reminding me that deep-fried potatoes are not really a vegetable (they just play them on burger platters) and that at some point during a binge, I should consider spacing the beer with something that might be considered healthy. And the celery sticks that come with bloody caesars don’t count.

Bard on the Beach has been a Vancouver tradition for 16 years. (Or more correctly, at some point in the last 16 years its become a tradition.) Last year, Blondie and I got there early and picnicked a little in the late summer sun, sipping our wine and eating our cheese before heading back to our seats and thought “this is the way that Shakespeare should be enjoyed”.

Usually, there’s at least one of the plays that catches my fancy, spurring guilty feelings if we miss going.

This year, that play is Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, so not really Shakespeare at all, rather Shakespeare held up to a fun-house mirror. The movie was thoroughly enjoyable and the energy of live theatre should make it moreso.

Anybody interested in going?? I’m throwing down two dates — Friday, July 22nd or Tuesday, July 26th.

Fresh peas from one’s own garden on a summer evening. Pictures to come.

Update: pictures of peas

“Honey, we don’t call them black people. We call them Afro-Americans.”

That’s overheard in MY life (or, my extended life, as I live vicariously through others).

If you wanted more crazy stuff though, you could check out Over heard in New York.

Fanfic, in my mind, is most often associated with people wanting to write about events that could never happen inside the fictional canon — usually sexual encounters. Kirk/Spock and Mulder/Scully come to mind.

However, some fan fiction has the ability to expand the universe that the characters dwell in. One recent example is the Darth Vader blog. Originally online as a blog written by Darth Vader from Empire Strikes back and onwards, the full PDF version (in proper chronological order) includes scenes from A New Hope.

I highly recommend it and I wouldn’t be the only one. From the author’s blog:

Thousands of people have by now dropped me a line to tell me that they will never be able to watch Lucas’ saga without hearing my Vader’s voice in their heads, and that in the end they were caused to feel real pity for him.

That about sums it up. Darth Vader blog — read it! My preference was the PDF version.