Previously on last weeks episode...

A little late, but not as late as the post about my Co-op frying pan.  Last week's trip to Cranbrook was very short, so I didn't get much done.  I made it back with the Matrix, but it's still registered in my Mom's name and still have BC plates on it.  I seem to remember it being a lot easier when I brought the Cavalier from BC to AB.  Back then my mom signed it over to me and I bought 2 weeks of insurance from ICBC so I would have plenty of time to get it inspected and what not when I brought it back to AB.  This time they would take the plates off and only get me three days of insurance which sucks.  Since I was only back for three days I didn't have time to get it all figured out.  I signed the Cavalier back over to my dad before I left, so that is his problem now!  It needs work, probably more work that it's worth.

On the Tuesday I stopped the Scarff homestead and got the rundown what's going on lately because nobody tells me anything.  Mike and Sandy are expecting a baby this fall?  I may have heard this last time I was back, but just forgot, so anyways congratulations Mike and Sandy.   Cam and Cara are going to Scotland/England for a month?   Are you guys going to go to Keith?  You should go there and walk around loudly saying, "It's not THAT friendly."  Be sure to grab me a fridge magnet or something.  Thanks guys!  I also saw some newly painted parts for yet another motorbike.  Your dad is starting a motorcycle gang!

I also quickly stopped by Willie's to drop off a copy of PCU for him that I meant to bring back last time.  Turns out Willie has not one, not two, but three jobs.  What the hell!  Hell has frozen over, it's mass hysteria, cats and dogs living together, etc.  Who would've thought Willie would be such a workaholic?  Responsibility sucks doesn't it?  He also looks like he lost some weight, so good for him, I guess he really is working hard.

When I drove back I drove back the north route because I wanted to avoid all the road construction on the south way.  The road was pretty quiet and I took it easy on the drive because I didn't want to get caught speeding especially when I have an AB driver's license and I'm driving a BC car that's not in my name.  As I was going up the pass after Radium they had a sign up warning of bears on the road and I actually saw two bears.  They were both small ones and I saw one on the opposite site of the road and he was just chilling out in the grass.  I kept driving and just down the road there was some guy riding his bike up the other side towards Radium heading right for the bear.  I was like "Haha, that dude is in for a surprise!"  There is nothing like a bear scare to ignite the old turbo boosters.  Once upon a time, Steve and I were riding out mountain bikes down this old dirt road and were going to stop to take some pictures when we heard some crashing going on just off to our right.  It was a mother bear and her two cubs.  We both yelled "Keep going!" and I remember we were just flying down this road, bouncing all over the place and rocks flying out from my tires.  When we stopped we were like, "Holy crap!" and laughing.  That is my story.

I've been driving the Matrix around and it's not bad, but I'm still getting used to it.  After driving the Cavalier for 5 years, it's weird to be driving something different.  That black interior gets pretty damn hot which sucks after working all day to go hop in a car that is 35C inside.  Is summer over yet?

Since getting back from Cranbrook I worked seven days straight to get three days off in a row.  I don't really like have that many days off in a row because I will just do nothing and sit at home like a loser.  Today I was going to take in the recycling, buy groceries, get gas, go to Phoenix and get a hair cut and I didn't really do any of those.  I did get some groceries, but not everything I needed because I walked down to Co-op and couldn't carry everything home.  Hopefully, I will get a few more of those things done Friday and Saturday as well as doing laundry and cleaning my room.  The XBox keeps distracting me.

Think pink

Last year I wrote a post about the root beer ice cream from the Superstore.  As much I hate to promote products from there, I liked it and would buy it again.  This summer they have some new ice cream flavors including Pink Lemonade which sounds pretty good.

It sounds good, but doesn't really taste that good.  It doesn't taste bad, it just doesn't really taste like pink lemonade.  The root beer ice cream tastes like root beer the first taste, but pink lemonade you have to take a few spoons and if you close your eyes and imagine real hard it kinda sorta tastes a little bit like pink lemonade.  But not really.

Since this turned out to be so disappointing I had to go drink some pink lemonade just to get my fix.  I also saw they had a mango ice cream that looks good.  Right now I liking lots of mango flavored juices, so hopefully the ice cream will do it justice.  I just have to force myself to finish the rest of the pink lemonade ice cream first.

Enough already!

http://www.slicingupeyeballs.com/2011/06/22/nirvana-nevermind-20th-anniversary-reissue/

I thought they ran out of new material when they did the With The Lights Out box set?  The stupid thing is that I will probably be a sucker and buy it anyway.  RSVP me if you want a burn.

Yikes.

I meant to come on to write a wrap up of my very brief trip back to Cranbrook, but I got distracted by the XBox.  I will leave you with this until tomorrow.

I drove back to Calgary on the north route because there is too much annoying road construction through the south.  The road wasn't that busy and despite some bridge construction is was relatively smooth sailing until I got to this.

This was on the Scott Lake Hill and not that far from Calgary.  According to the news it was a collision between a semi and a truck and horse trailer.  I saw the truck and horse trailer, but couldn't even tell exactly what it was.  As I was getting closer to Calgary I could spot faint black smoke in the air and then as I went up Scott Lake Hill the very top was just thick black smoke and I could see tail lights of backed up cars.  Traffic was moving, but very slow.  I managed to dig out my camera and quickly snap that picture.  I past the wreck and continued driving towards Calgary where I passed two firetrucks who were on the way there, so the accident must've been recent.

After the accident most cars seemed to drive safer with less speeding jerks passing cars left and right like they were playing Pole Position.  Well for a least a few kilometers anyway.

Back in C-brook

I finished serving  my time of three weeks out in Airdrie and I have to admit I liked it and wish I could've stayed longer.  When I worked there before I was just stressed and burned out and couldn't wait to leave, so I was a bit hesitant about going back.  This time it was very laid back and "chill".  I mean I getting paid over $20/hr to do less than half the work I'd do at my regular store, so what's not to like?

I'd had originally planned to take a week off after Airdrie, but apparently when I told my supervisor that I'd be back to work on the 26th she ignored that and assumed I said 19th.  I managed to get three days off, and while it's not much I still had to come back to Cranbrook to drop off the Cavalier and pick up this.

The only time I get a new car is if my dad buy's a new one for my mom then I get my mom's old one.  My dad knows I'll drive whatever I have until it dies.  I get my mom's old Toyota Matrix while my mom gets a slightly newer Matrix.  What?  Her new car is a couple years newer, but it has power doors and locks and most importantly air conditioning.  Her old Matrix didn't have AC and that was one of her big complaints about it, but now she has AC so she's happy.  At least the Cavalier has AC, but the Matrix I get doesn't.  It's got the tinted windows, black interior and gray paint with no AC, so it's basically a sweat box on wheels.

Remember last time I was back and I talked about cleaning up the basement of my parents'?  It got cleaned and I helped my dad put in some dry wall.  He got some new shelves installed and then filled them with all my crap.

Yep, pretty much all those boxes are mine.  The ski boots and a couple of the smaller boxes aren't but everything else is.  Logan spied a box that said "Star Wars" on it, so I let him look through it.  I gave him this Darth Maul figure that came with a chip that when placed on the chip reader (sold separately) would say certain phrases.  Of course he wanted to know where the chip reader was and I had no idea at all.  I let him look in another box that had some Star Wars crap in it, but he didn't find anything.  I did however find a postcard that quite possibly may be autographed by David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson.  I remember writing to the show in the first season and getting a form letter and a postcard back.  I can't quite tell if the signatures on the back of the card are real or just copied, I'll assume they are real and totally awesome.  Don't ruin this for me and say otherwise!

Holy Shat!

It's that time year, time for the Calgary Comic & Entertainment Expo and this year's premier guest is William Shatner.  Other notable attendees are Jonathan Frakes, Matt Frewer, Summer Glau and a ton of comic book guests, but I still won't be going!  Yeah, I'm taking this year off mostly because there is nobody who I'm really excited to see.  Previous years always had a couple guests I was totally jazzed to go see, but this year I'm just like "meh".   It's hard to believe but I just keep getting lazier.

Yes, it would be awesome to get Jonathan Frakes to sign my Commander Riker collector's plate and Matt Frewer to sign my DVD of Senior Trip, but I'm also cheap!  All those genre actors all charge an autograph fee, so you are going to be paying $25 just to say hi and get an autograph on a DVD.  I'll pass.  The comic book dudes sign for free!

In past years the Expo was at the end of April, but this year they moved it to June because they needed to book even more room at the BMO Centre.  It's cool that they are adding more events outside of the regular Expo.  George Romero was supposed to attend and have a special screening of Night of the Living Dead, but he hurt his arm and cancelled.  Instead they got Linda Blair who will introduce a screening of The Exorcist at the Plaza Theatre.  Other events are the Macabre Masquarade, a cabaret hosted by Ed the Sock, Superheroes vs Zombies rollerderby and finally the 2011 Shuster Awards.  The Joe Shuster Awards are an annual awards presented to Canadian comic book writers and artists.  Local legend Fiona Staples is nominated this year and despite her lack of pocket change (see last year) I really hope she wins.

I'm sure I would've liked if I had gone, but I'll be sleeping in and relaxing.  Next year I'll be back with a vengeance.

Maybe another time...

Better late than never?

I had planned on writing this last year, but then just kept putting it off for various reasons.  For various reasons as in I'm just lazy.  Even though I work at Superstore I usually buy my groceries at Co-op or sometimes Safeway because Superstore is too busy and the employees are jerks.  Last year at Co-op they had a promotion running that when you bought groceries you earned stickers and could cash in your stickers for different kinds of cookware by Thomas Rosenthal.

Basically how it worked was that spending $10 would earn you 1 sticker.  The rewards I think started at 65 stickers and went all the way up 120 stickers.  A small saucepan required the least amount of stickers and 110 stickers got you a big roasting pan.  I think, that was a year ago remember.

I saved up 90 stickers for the 11" stir fry pan with lid.  I think Thomas Rosenthal is a good brand, so I though I made a good choice.  Out of all the sauce pans, frying pans and roasting pans the one I got would probably be the one I would use the most.  Am I going to be roasting turkeys on a regular basis?  I don't think so, so a stir fry pan it is.

I thought I made a good choice until I stopped to actually think about it.  I used 90 stickers to get it, so that would mean it cost $900 to get those 90 stickers.  Damn, what $900?!  Luckily, I found 5 stickers in the alley behind Phoenix Comics, so I saved some money there.  Still I could've just bought groceries at the Superstore and I would've saved enough money to buy a couple of those pans.

Fast forward to this year where instead of pots and pans they have kitchen knives from Thomas.  Okay, knives are something I can use!  Maybe even for cooking!

So many shiny knives and they all look so pretty!  I had decided to get the cooks knife and the large santoku which both cost 35 stickers.

So I filled two cards with 35 stickers and the forgot to redeem them!  Oops.  Yeah, I kept putting off redeeming my cards and when I actually got around to it I was three days too late.  How I going to cut/chop/slice stuff now?  If I did get the knives I probably wouldn't have even used them.  See below.

The picture of my frying pan (above) is the picture I actually took last year and this picture of the frying pan is one I took half an hour ago.  As you can see I'm not really putting it to good use.  It's hanging out under the kitchen table with other past blog post stars such as the severed leg and the Little Caesar's pizza bag.

PIZZA PARTY!

On one of my trips back to Cranbrook, in February I think, Willie and I visited Liquidation World.  While checking out the toy isle I found something I couldn't resist picking up.  It only cost $10 plus was 70% off, so it was pretty cheap.  Behold the Chuck E. Cheese's EZ-2 Make Pizza Maker!

Yeah, you know you want one too!  Me and Willie figured that it had long expired, but I checked the back of the box and it was still good until October of 2011.  Since it was so cheap and still "good" I bought it.  I dragged it back to Calgary with me with plans to get around to writing a blog about it eventually.  Welcome to eventually!

After getting it back Calgary I finally got around to reading the box and that was then I got my first disappointment.  I thought the big Chuck E. Cheese thing was an oven, like an EZ Bake oven with a light bulb in it.  It's not an oven, in fact it's not actually anything at all!  You can put some of the "cooking" utensils inside it and the cooked pizzas sit on trays on the top in front of good old Chuck.

Here is what is inside the box, mixing bowl, utensils, Chuck E. Cheese stand and the all important ingredients.  That's right you have to make your own dough, sauce and even cheese.  Since the mixing bowl is so small, I used a real bowl in hopes it would be easier.

So far so good.

Well, it didn't take me long to screw that up!

It wasn't easier, I couldn't even make that damn dough!  I put the packet in the bowl and added the correct amount of water and mixed it by hand just like the instructions said, but the stupid stuff just stuck to my hands and was all messy.  Needless to say that was the end of the pizza party!  Chuck E. Cheese Pizza Maker I hate you!

Fuck you!

I was extra pissed at this damn thing because I was hyped to make my own pizzas and I even went out and bought some sliced pepperoni, green pepper, and more shredded cheese to put on my pizzas.  Then it all went in the crapper.  Probably a good thing though because the sauce required you to add ketchup to a powder and the cheese wasn't actually cheese, but a powder that you added water to and then added to the sauce mix.  Yummy?

 

 Refills?  Screw you!

I didn't get my pizza and got stuck with a bunch of pizza ingredients that I didn't even get to use and then I had to eat cereal for dinner.  Good old cereal, never lets me down.

KOOLOWNA

This was on my internet the other day.  I've never heard of the place, so maybe I should've clicked the link. 

I know it's nothing special, but it gave me a reason to try out my new Firefox add-on.  You can take a screen shot of a webpage and add notes and most importantly add ARROWS!  I doubt it will be something I'll use on a regular basis or maybe ever again.  The drawing tools are very simple and you can text, but can't change the size or font.  Hey Mozilla, how about a new version with that in it please?

It's your right to vote.

I didn't vote in the recent federal election, but I might vote for this.  Although, I won't because it's on Facebook, so Mike you'll have to go vote for me.

That picture is funny.

Cam and Mike on a Sunday drive

Not this shiat again!

Remember how I used to be the department supervisor out at the Airdrie store?  Well I'm back!  Luckily, it's not a permanent thing as I'm just there for three weeks helping out while the real supervisor is on holidays.  I started on Monday and so far it's going okay.  I forgot how boring it is out there and a 9 hour shift seems to drag on forever.  Especially in the afternoon when I've already done everything, I have to look for stuff to keep me busy.  I could do a lot more, but then the kids who close would have nothing to do and I'd rather I have nothing to do then them.

The drive is still as crappy as I remember it.  I don't mind the drive out in the morning as it's pretty mellow, but the drive home sucks.  It doesn't help that the cooling system in my car is acting up too.  As long as I'm driving it's fine, but once I stopped for periods of time or getting into slow moving traffic it's starts heating up.  Maybe the cooling fan isn't working or what, I'm not the mechanic.  I keep forgetting to have my dad look at it and it's not really a problem because usually I'm not stuck in traffic.  Yesterday, I had to crawl through six blocks of downtown gridlock with my heater cranked on to help cool it down.  At least they are paying for my gas, so that means I will be filling up with PREMIUM!

Back at my old store I was working part time, but out at Airdrie it's full time, so I'm getting a few more hours.  I'm also working Monday to Friday with weekends off, so that's kinda weird.  I never get weekends off unless I ask them, now I'm getting three off in a row.  I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do.  Once I finish here I'm going to go back to Cranbrook for a few days.  I'll just tell my supervisor that they need me for another week and then take that time off.  Hopefully, nobody will notice.