Now you are all caught up.

Today's story begins last Wednesday when I had to go to a training seminar/thing for work. It was basically to teach us the new methods of training other employees. That means that I will be training current and new employees which sucks. Why can't they just automatically know how to do everything? It was the Best Western Port O'Call out by the airport and we even got fed lunch which turned out be really gross. Lunch was served in those metal warming trays and probably was cooked about five hours before we were ready for it. We were fed hamburgers and chicken burgers with the usual accompaniments like fries, salads, and beans(?!). When I went to garnish my burger the top of the bun fell off on the floor. I went and took another whole bun because it wouldn't be cool to take half a bun. The lunch wasn't very good and if you paid for it you'd probably be asking for you money back. The training thing was boring and waste of time but it was better than working 8am to 5pm and work.

The next day on Thursday I woke up and went to work with my stomach feeling a bit odd. I always skip breakfast and thought maybe I was just hungry. As the morning wore on my stomach hurt more and more with shooting pains. I came home for lunch and only managed to eat a bagel and banana. I went back to work and asked to go home and my stomach was still hurting and making weird noises. I didn't each much that day as my stomach was still hurt. Curse you Best Western and your poisoned hamburgers!

I woke up Friday morning and my stomach was still hurting. I didn't have vomiting or diarrhea, but wish I did because then I could puke and get it out of my system and feel better. It was day off, so I still went out and did stuff and tried to ignore my stomach. I ended up spending a bunch of money on a bunch of stuff I don't need. I bought a 19" Samsung widescreen LCD TV and a DVD player for my room. Now I can lay in bed and watch TV and never have to get dressed again. First I had to clean and then re-organize my room so I could wheel in my old TV stand. My room is all full of crap now and I have to try and keep it clean. I bought a HDMI cable to hook up the DVD and TV to give it the best quality AV possible!

That is current set up. I'd like to state that Spider-Man is for Avery, not myself, and was on clearance at Toys'R'Us $10. I probably shouldn't have the TV sitting directly on top of the DVD player, I'll try to remedy that soon. I went and bought another Philips because they're cheap and they play divx, mpeg, and wma files. One problem now is that I have three remotes sitting around, one for my stereo, TV and the DVD player. The stereo and DVD remotes are the same colour and same size and look the same as I've already got them mixed up.

Most of the stuff I've watched on the TV so far has been full screen stuff, like the above image. And if you ID the guy in the picture you win a fabulous prize! Willie might be able to do it, but he doesn't read my blog, so too bad for him. The TV has a 4:3 settings and a few widescreen settings and well as some pre-set display settings. I haven't bothered to mess with the display settings yet. The picture quality looks better than the picture I took leads it to be.

In Calgary this weekend they also opened a new Future Shop in Beacon Hill and all other FS had deals going on to celebrate. The best deal to be had was it was 10% off all movies and music. I went there to get Trailer Park Boys Season 7 anyway, so 10% off was a nice bonus. I also picked up the Sonny Chiba Collection which has six movies in it. I'd like to complain the outside looks nice, but the inside is crap and totally broken! One disc just comes in a paper envelope, its like they made the package and then forgot they had another disc to put inside. I may return it because of the broken case.

Saturday morning I woke up (stomach still hurts!) and then sat in bed watching my new TV. Eventually I got up and we went out and watched Iron Man. I don't think I've been to the theatre since Rambo came out and did I ever miss the nachos. Unfortunately I ended up getting cheese on my shirt.

The movie was pretty good, probably the best Marvel movie to date. Robert Downey Jr really nails Tony Stark and is pretty funny. Most of the Iron Man action takes place at the end, but you don't really notice. As with all Marvel movies Stan Lee makes a cameo and this is his funniest one yet. I know this is a crappy review, but if you want to know more just read all the other positive reviews out there. It's good! The one bad thing is that the credits are way too long to sit through to see the secret scene at the end. No wonder it takes $100 million to make a movie, you gotta pay like 50,000 people to make it. But I won't ruin it for you, unless you want me to.

FREE!

Hey, I ripped the new Danko Jones CD and put it up on Megaupload, so Murray could get it. I'm pretty sure he did, so if anybody wants to download go right ahead.
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=38VJOHXX

In other music news, June not only sees the release of a new Sloan record, but also a new Weezer record. I think they are getting lazy because on June 24th Weezer's new "Red" album drops. First is was blue, then green and now red. Just make up a name! This album is supposed to be a bit different as every member gets a chance to sing lead vocals. I wonder if the other members also got to write some songs as past records Rivers has written everything. Hopefully, the new album will kick some ass because I wasn't that impressed with the last couple albums, they couldn't even touch the Blue album or Pinkerton.

Lots o'stuff

First off I'd like to complain that I didn't receive any mail at all this week. Why not?! I didn't even get any bills and I'm expecting my Enmax bill. It's sad when you are looking forward to getting something in the mail even if it's a bill. I guess I'll have to order more crap online, just so I can get something.

Last weekend was the comic show which was good, I look forward to next year. The funny thing is that after the first day I was thinking I had everything I wanted and didn't need to get anything else, but when we back I kept finding all this stuff I liked and at the end of the second day I left with only $1 in my pocket. I wish I had more money for commissions from some of the artists, but that stuff usually runs $80-$100. I was at Cameron Stewart's table and he had a book of original art and inside was this super cool Blue Falcon and Dynomutt drawing which was $100 and beside him was Jim Mahfood's table where he was doing this cool drawing of Peter Parker. I wanted it so much! I didn't even bother going to see any of the "media" guests like George Takei, Michael Rosenbaum, Kevin Sorbo or Tricia Helfer. I did see Kevin Sorbo as I was walking by his area and that's good enough for me. I didn't actually see Tricia Helfer, but I did see her hair and it was pretty. They also had Daniel Logan there who played the annoying young Boba Fett in Attack of the Clones. There were a few people in costume too, but nothing really cool. Lots on anime characters, but I did see as I was leaving on the first day a Spider-Man and Black Cat duo, but it was the "Ultimate" Black Cat. Meh. But for next year I must remember one thing...BRING MORE MONEY.

More comics! Saturday May 3rd is free comic day! I guess I maybe should've posted something about this earlier because it's too late now for anybody to go out and get some. I went down to Another Dimension in Kensington because they have the best free comic book day. I have my comic book file at Comickazi and they only offer one free comic per customer. I only go there once a month now and only because I feel obligated to keep buy some stuff from there. Most of my comics I get from Phoenix now because Comickazi has dropped the ball too many times. Anyway! At Another Dimension you get two free comics and extra comics only cost 25 cents each.

Those are the books I got for free, but I was mad I forgot to get the Bongo Comics issue. Bongo Comics publishes the Simpsons and Futurama comics. I suppose the Iron Man/Hulk/Spider-Man comic is there just to get people interested in the new Iron Man and Hulk movies out this summer. Iron Man is already out and supposed to be really good, I will have to see it...maybe. I picked up that all ages comic Owly just because it looked funny. The art is all cutesy characters and stuff. Characters that cute just scream to made in cute toys and such.

It seems that the past couple years Free Comic Day has always been the day after a big Marvel movie release. This year Iron Man was out and last year it was Spider-Man 3, I wonder what it will be next year? The only Marvel movie in production that I've read out is Wolverine, so I guess that will be it. Look for Wolverine on screens next May!

After getting my free comics I headed to A&B in Sunridge looking for a CD. We watched the 80's teen movie Valley Girl earlier in the week. I was hoping for something a little zanier, but it did have some funny moments. The movie opened with some valley girls in the food court of the mall and they were talking and I was like "What are they saying?" They were using all the 80's slang valley talk, it was hilarious. Also the soundtrack was pretty cool, lots of early 80's new wave stuff. I went to A&B in hopes of finding the soundtrack, but no such luck. I had looked in other stores, but couldn't find it. A&B usually has good selection, but they still didn't have it. In fact, they didn't have much of anything! Everytime I go there they have less and less stock. I mean if this keeps up they will be out of business in no time. Then again I don't think I'll be going back anytime soon just because they pretty much got nothing. The CD and DVD sections keep getting smaller and smaller. I think their "Horror" DVD section only had about 10 titles in it! That is sad.

Okay, I take back that bit about not getting any mail because after I got home from A&B I found a package waiting for me. I didn't even know they delivered mail on Saturday.

First of all anybody who knows me knows that I love beer and that I LOVE Kokanee! Kokanee is currently running the "Live or Die" campaign for the Ranger who protects the glacier fresh Kokanee from that damned meddling Sasquatch. The viewers and beer consuming public get to vote and decide if Kokanee's Ranger will live or die. I liked the Ranger ads and last time I was back in Cranbrook I checked out the website and discovered you can get free stuff! It's not entirely free because you still have to pay $4.99 for shipping. It's not a bad deal because you get a lawn sign, button, sticker, and t-shirt. You get to pick from the "Save the Ranger" or "Kill the Ranger" sets and I of course picked the Save kit. It would just be mean to kill him.

I had been anxiously awaiting my stuff and it finally came and it was huge! You can tell from the picture that the package was pretty big. I opened it right away to see the junk. I was expecting the sign to be paper or at least flimsy plastic. It's not like I was actually going to put it up on my lawn, but I was planning on my sticking it on my fridge or something. The sign looks really good and it made out of thick corrugated plastic. I don't think they make magnet strong enough to hold this thing on my fridge. It does comes with a metal stand for sticking it in your yard. The button was pretty big and shiny. I was a little disappointed by my sticker because it had some weird black smudge on it and it wasn't made from the glossy stuff. I guess they used up more money on the fancy sign and stand.

There is all the free stuff. When you order your kit you can't actually pick the size of your t-shirt which means that it will be XL. And it was! It fits like a (itchy over sized) glove. If you want to check out the site, vote and order your own kit check out RangerLiveOrDie.ca Here is me and my new shirt and new haircut just for Cam.

DRINK KOKANEE! SAVE THE RANGER!

BZZZZZZZZZZZ

This afternoon I got my haircut because it was getting long enough that it could be combed. Not cool. I went to my usual place and sat down and the guy asked if I wanted the usual and as usual I said yes. So he starts cutting. I looked in the mirror and was like "That's not the usual." It was a little shorter than what I'm used to. Yes, my hair has pretty much always been short, but I don't want it to be too short. He used the #2 guard on the razor instead of the #3, so now my hair is too short. Having real short hair just makes my fat head look even fatter. Hey, it'll grow back, but I guess I'll have to wear a hat until it does.

DAY TWO

Wow, three posts in three days! Make you scroll down to read the older posts because you don't want to be missing out on any of the excitement! I also switched up the music player, so please enjoy The Tranzmitors who are from Vancouver.

Day two of the comic show and we ended up going back and we got there early again to avoid the "crowds". This time I even showed them my ticket and get my hand stamped. I mean I paid the ticket, so I might as well use it. I thought I had done pretty much everything on Saturday and wasn't even sure if I was going to buy anything. I was totally wrong.

The Expo puts out an artbook containing western themed pictures submitted by artists attending the show and then the artwork it auctioned off. Sales from the artbook and the auctioned art is then given to the Calgary Boys & Girls Club, so it's all for charity. I picked up my book on Saturday and this year it's a hardcover and looks really good. Sunday I went to a few artists to get them sign their work in the artbook. I didn't go to all the artists because I was lazy, but I did a few of the ones I liked.

I went to see Carolyn Lawerence who does voice work in cartoons and video games. She does the voice of Sandy Cheeks in Spongebob Squarepants and in Resident Evil 4 she does the voice of Ashley Graham
.

It's a little hard to read but it says "Help me Leon!" which is pretty much Ashley's catch phrase for the entire game. I had the game and brought the cover just to get signed for the hell of it, so why not?

I went to Whilce Portacio's table to get my Batman signed and while I was there I also picked up his sketchbook.

The sketchbook is limited edition and hand numbered 233/1000. Limited edition! Hand numbered!

Yesterday, I picked up the Udon Comics 2007 sketchbook and had it sketched by Omar Dugan and last year I got the 2006 book, so just to complete my collection I got the 2005 sketchbook which Alvin Lee sketched. The deal is that if you buy any of their sketchbooks you get a free sketch from one of the artists.

BTW that would be Misty Knight from Daughters of the Dragon and Heroes For Hire.

Then I checked out Canadian artist Cameron Stewart's table. Stewart has drawn for Marvel, Dark Horse, and more recently Catwoman for DC. I picked up a sketchbook from him and it came with a head sketch.

I like sketchbooks just because they usually have limited print runs and are something you can't buy just anywhere. Usually, the only way to buy them is from the artists themselves which make them more collectible.

See what did I tell you! Two more sketchbooks, one from Kaare Andrews and the other from Dale Hayward. The picture on the front of Dale Hoyward's book is of Chewie. Chewie is cropped for the cover of the book, but there was a full size picture for sale as a print. It looked cool, but by the time I made it to his table I was poor.

So far I had been at the comic show and haven't even bought single comic! Most of the stuff I was buying was artbooks, sketchbooks, prints, art, etc. I was too lazy to actually look through any boxes or anything. I just walked around and looked at the stuff laying out that was visible. I did get that Star Wars comic for $1, but when I got home I found out I already had it. That Gen 13 #3 (Vol. 4) is the alternate cover done by Adam Warren. I actually already have it, but it was pretty cheap and it looks so good I had to have another copy.

I bought three comics at the show, but only because I felt I had to! But I did buy that Ultimate Marvel Team-Up just so I could get it signed by artist Jim Mahfood. The other book is his sketchbook numbered 191/200. Mahfood has a definite style that could sorta of be described as urban graffiti. Check out a page from his sketchbook to see what I mean.

I met Japansese Canadian Takeshi Miyazawa artist a couple times at other Calgary comic shows, but unfortunately he is currently living and working in Tokyo. Luckily a rep was there from Vancouver selling his artwork as well as art from Kaare Andrews and Steve Rolston. This was at the end of my day at the show, so I had run down my cash flow, but I still wanted a page of art from the comic Spider-Man Love Mary Jane. Any pages with Spider-Man or action cost more because they are more detailed and look better, so buying those would be out of the question. I wanted a page with Mary Jane and/or Peter Parker and ended up getting this one.

There is no action and no Spider-Man, but I still like how it looks. I guess it's more about Mary Jane and Peter. The following page was nice too, but I went with this one.

Okay, now I'm down to my last $11, but what do I spend it on?

A Star Wars sketchcard by Amy Pronovost who is from Penticton. Amy draws cartoon styled pictures and has done a lot of Star Wars work for Lucasfilm. She offers pictures done on cards (hockey cards) in pencil, inked or color. I asked for a inked Biker Scout picture as it was $10. It didn't need to be colored because stormtroopers in general are black and white, so who needs to pay extra for color! I also didn't have enough money for a colored card. She had some pre-drawn cards and cool color version of Indiana Jones.

After a few hours there and only $1 left in my pocket we called it a day. See ya next year!

DAY ONE

Okay, here is what went down on day one of the Calgary Comic & Entertainment Expo, be warned there are lots of pictures. The doors opened at 10am, but we left the house at 10am which was still early enough. There was lots of other stuff going on at the Stampede Grounds like the Women's Show, so parking was filling up even though it was still early. We had pre-bought our tickets, so we wouldn't have to wait in line or anything. The thing was I just walked right past the booth got my free baggie and that was it! Nobody asked me for a ticket and I didn't even show it to anybody, I swear I had one though. Cody played by the rules and showed his ticket and got his hand stamped and all that. What a square!

After passing the entrance we came upon a huge line up and had no idea what the hell it was for. We waited in it for a minute out of reflex until some guy said that it was the line for George Takei photo ops and then I delcared "Forget that! Let's go." After being pointed in the right direction was walked into the show. It was still pretty early, so there weren't that many people there so you could actually walk around and look at what you wanted to. We walked around just to see what was there and what was going on before talking to anyone.

The first guy I went and saw was director David Winning who has done movies and TV. A Canadian originally from Calgary he's directed stuff like Stargate: Atlantis, Andromeda, Sweet Valley High, Are You Afraid of the Dark? and Friday the 13th the TV series.

And he also directed Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie. I had bought this a long time ago from Cash Converters for like $5, but never bothered to get around to watching it. When I read David was coming to the show I figured that I'd better watch it if I was going to get him to sign the cover for me. Actually, the movie is co-directed by David Winning and Shuki Levy and David said he did 9 weeks of shooting and then Levy (also the producer/writer) came in and shot the last week and then gave himself a directing credit. That's pretty cheap. I'll be honest, the movie was horrible, but I didn't tell him that. I did saw they did stray from the basic Power Rangers formula and he said they wanted to try something different. Don't they know that different is bad!

After that I went to Fiona Staples' table to get my Hawksmoor issues signed. Fiona is a local artist from Calgary that is currently drawing the Wildstorm book Secrets of the Authority: Hawksmoor and has another Wildstorm book lined up after that.

Then I went over to see another Canadian artist Stuart Immonen. Immonen is currently drawing Ultimate Spider-Man and has done other stuff for Marvel like X-Men and Fantastic Four.

The little book there is called "50 Reasons to Stop Sketching at Conventions" and it's real stories that have happened to Immonen as he did free sketches at comic cons. It's pretty funny and well worth the $5. BTW he doesn't do sketches anymore.

After I went to the Udon Studios table where they had Omar Dugan, Jim Zubavich, Alvin Lee and Jo Chen. I bought the Udon 2007 sketchbook with a Streetfighter Sakura headsketch from Omar.

Then I went on over to the other side of the table where I had to wait in line to get a couple books signed by Jo Chen. Jo usually just does covers and posters, but still her line was pretty huge.

She also had some prints for sale and they all looked really nice, and I couldn't really decide on which one to get. I got a Nico print from Runaways and of course it was the last one and had crinkled corner. Still cool though.

I keep getting all these cool posters, pictures, and art but I got so much stuff that I'd need an art gallery just to hang it all up. It sucks when I buy something I like, but I got nowhere to put it, so it just sits in my rubbermaid container with all my other stuff.

I bought a artbook from Canadian artist Matt Stewart and yes, it is all girly art. He did a rough head sketch on the front page which looks nice.

More interior art.

After that I went over to Bill Pressing's table to get my Rex Steele Nazi Smasher book signed and get his Cheesecake: Belle Du Jour sketchbook re-signed. I say I got it re-signed because I had ordered it off his website about a year ago. He did a quickie sketch in it and also signed and o did a quick Rex Steele head sketch in my other book for me.

He had the French editon of Rex Steele on hand and it looks nice. The original Rex Steele book is black and white while the French version is color and has added stories to it as well. Hopefully, this make bookshelves here soon.

On the way out I stopped by the candy booth that sells homemade chocolate pops of cartoon and movie characters. I've written about these guys before when I bought some Star Wars pops at a small comic thing a couple years ago. I wrote about how I let my Chewie pop sit around for like 9 months before I ate it and when I did, I got sick. This time I will eat them!

As you can see I got Superman, Power Ranger and Darth Vader choco pops. In case you don't know that one on the right is the Darth Vader pop. If you look at the close up of it you can see his feet and the lights on his chest. After the show we went to Bianca Amor's Liquidation Superstore and the Vader melted while we were inside. The corner of the Red Ranger was a bit melted and the Superman symbol is cracked a bit. Since the Vader was a melted glob I ate it and it was good! I was thinking the chocolate wouldn't be that good and might taste a bit waxy, but it was really good.

It was after 12pm by now and was getting busier and harder to get around and look at stuff, so we left. Since we were in the area we went and checked out Bianca Amor's. It was the usual cheap tacky crap with the exception of tons of DVDs priced at just $5 each.

I think I got a sweet deal of the Teen Wolf/Teen Wolf Too double feature, John Carpenter's The Fog special edition, Exit the Dragon Enter the Tiger, and Kids in the Hall season one for $20. Kids in the Hall season one for only $5?! That is insanely cheap, I love it.

We returned home and since I had barely eaten all day I made some Kraft Dinner, but not just any Kraft Dinner, Scooby-Doo Kraft Dinner imported from the United States of America. It just as bad as the Kraft Dinner in Canada.

More burgers...

TGIF! It seemed like this week has just crawled by, but it's Friday and I'm off for the weekend. Oh yeah, the entire weekend! I got Sunday off, but only because I asked for it and I asked for it because this weekend is the big comic show and this year they've gone to two days. I got a two day pass, but I'm not sure if I'll go both days. Last year we went and was there for a few hours and then left and after I left I was kicking myself for not picking up a couple things. If the same thing happens this year, I can always go back on Sunday. Anyway, I'll give it a write up and let you know the scoop after the weekend.

This afternoon we went and had some more burgers, this time at CB Hamburger Inn on Northland Drive NW just off of 14th St. It's not an actual restaurant, but more of a drive in like the old A&W (later Burger Island) in Cranbrook. The front has the big covered section where you can pull up and park. Nobody comes out to take your order, so you have to go inside. Inside it's pretty small with a few stools to sit while you wait for your order, but no actual place to sit and eat. There were quite a few people working in there and when I ordered my double cheese with fries and pop it was ready in no time. After we got our orders we went and sat outside at picnic table with some sun exposure. I'll remind you that it is colder here than normal and there is snow on the ground!

I'll give CB props for packaging/presentation of the food, I totally love it. They put your burger and fries in a plain old brown paper bag. The same brown bag I used to get my lunches in when I went to school, it's just this bag has translucent grease spots on it. The burger is wrapped in a plain foil wrapper, but the fries are in a pouch that reads "Best Fries At CB Drive Inn". Most small mom & pop places don't have custom cups, bags or anything like that, so I was impressed by the printed fry pouch.

Yes, I brought this fry bag home with me, it smells good.

CB's does offer combos (take that Burger Inn!) and you can even choose between pop or a slush for your drink. The fries weren't hand cut, but standard crinkle cut fries, but they put some special spice on them that makes them really good. The burger was nothing special, just the usual, but again the fries were good.

CB's does have a drive thru. I was paying at the cashier by the drive thru window and noticed this picture they had pinned on the wall and I looked closer I noticed it was autographed. I took a few seconds before I recognized the guy in the picture, but it was Paul Dunphy, the weather guy from Global channel 7. That guy isn't even a celebrity! The picture is pretty funny because of the angle it's obvious who ever took the picture was inside the CB's looking out the drive thru window and took the picture of Dunphy sitting in his car with his dog.

CB's Hamburgers gets high marks for good fries, cool packaging, and speedy service. Unfortunately, the burger could've been better and I wasn't too thrilled about sitting outside and freezing. I would eat there again, I'm already having a weird craving for more fries.

They're back

I guess it's official as Sloan have announced that their new album, Parallel Play, will be out June 10th. It won't have as many tracks as the last album, but as usual everybody contributes songs. Chris, Patrick, and Jay all put in three songs while Andrew adds four songs for thirteen in total.

In Canada it's from murderecords and in the USA it's from Yep Roc records. Yep Roc has a pre-order special right now where the first 200 CD pre-orders get an autograph copy of the album. They also have a CD+LP combo deal too. I decided to take a chance and pre-order it in some hopes of getting an autographed copy. No doubt I'll probably the 201 pre-order, but you don't know unless you try. Yes, it'll cost more than buying here in Canada at Future Shop or HMV, but I still had to try and maybe they'll be more bonus stuff. When Yep Roc also distributed Never Hear The End Of It, they put in an online code to download two free Sloan tracks from the Yep Roc website. These free tracks were not available in Canada, so they were US exclusive. Hopefully, they'll do the same thing again with the new album. Anyway, it's a new Sloan album, so we all win!