Can't Start a Fire Without a Spark....

I am being consumed by the fires of Derby..... And loving every second.

Last night was the most epic Christmas party I have ever been to, and I'm not just saying that because I was on the organising committee. Actually, the night before, while introducing the rest of the committee to Hendrick's gin, there was some anxiety as to whether everyone was going to enjoy the party as much as we were already pretty sure we would. Any nervousness we felt disappeared as we watched the full contact  portion of our silent auction. I, now, have a new gage for party awesomeness; The number of bruises counted the next day. If you are not slightly battered in the evenings events, you just weren't having as much fun as you should have been.

The Christmas party committee was never something I put my hand up for. I just figured I didn't really know how people like to party here. Canadians play games at wedding receptions and have "midnight lunch"(which, just quietly, is a little bit brilliant). Weird shit like that. It was all foreign to me as I felt most of the girls in the league were. I got involved after hearing that the party committee was looking at holding it at a hotel. Knowing that the hotel I work for would give me a discounted rate, I stepped forward to get some venue pricings.
Now, it is no secret that my work drives me a little nutty. This, however, is the one solid the hotel has done me. (of course, I can't tell said hotel that because I don't wish to give them the satisfaction.) If I did not work where I do, I would never have had the pleasure of spending the last month getting to know an incredibly smart, dedicated and hilariously funny group of women. Women that I now consider friends, in a town that has for much of my time here felt friendless.
I also feel some gratitude is owed the lady friend for breaking up with me. (This is fast becoming an Oscars acceptance speech. I should thank God and my Mum while I'm at it.) I am now free to invest in the relationships and activities in the city I'm living in. No more of this dreaming of being elsewhere (well, at least not for the moment) when I can enjoy what's right in front of me.... Don't expect me to stay in Edmo permanently though, because that's just crazy. It's effing minus twenty-two degrees right now!!

The party committee technically no longer exists, and while I'm sure we will all enjoy getting some small part of our lives back, I will miss the mammoth email threads that awaited me each day when I finished work. This is the only time I have ever been envious of a desk job. If you are in front of a computer all day you get to email people! I finally know what people with desk jobs do all day and it has nothing to do with what they are actually being paid for.
I'm sure, after some much needed sleep, we will get planning something else to fill this void but even if we don't, I know that my Edmonton is now filled with these wonderful people.

I Miss you Now, I Guess, Like I Should Have Missed You Then

Oh how I have missed you my, darling readers! I've missed writing for you about my crazy adventures, I've missed having, said crazy adventures and mostly, I've missed knowing you are out there.... Even though I know you haven't gone anywhere because my Mum emails me every couple of days and my other four readers I see on Facebook. But! Still!

I have been meaning to reboot this tired self of mine for months now. It was my New Year's Eve, though, spent at home watching Apocalypse Now Redux, that really brought home my current situation. I have been lonely and mostly cold (I'll get to that in a minute) and that blows. Oh the horror, the horror.

So let us kick this puppy off with a little getting to know you (and by you I, of course, mean me).
So much has changed since we were last here and yet its exactly the fucking same.

I am now living and breathing in Edmonton, Alberta. That's still in Canada, my little Squirrels. Edmonton feels a little like Wagga Wagga but less country and way colder. So far I have had the pleasure of -26 degrees Celsius and a whole big bunch of snow. I am going to promise you all, here and now, that I will not whinge about the cold. I may, however, whinge just ever so slightly about the Caribbean restaurant I live above. You see, they have the controls for my heating. They get stoned and tend to forget I exist and there for need to be not cold at night.

I am working here for a major hotel chain. It blows. I put up with it because they give me money. I am going to promise you all, here and now, that I will not whinge about the job. I may, however, find a new one.

The plus side of the job with the money and Edmonton being relatively cheap is that for the first time ever I have my own apartment. Caribbean restaurant not withstanding, I very much enjoy this. I enjoy being able mess shit up, all I want, and no one can say a damn thing about it!
My apartment is on Edmo's alternate strip, Whyte Ave. It wants to think it is King Street, Newtown, but as it has never seen King Street, Newtown, it succeeds in being about 10% as rad. Still, it has the hipsters from the nearby uni and independent stores, restaurants and bars all along it for ten blocks.

The other really rad thing Edmo has going for it is this! And by this, I of course mean an amazing bunch of girls that enjoy skating to the left and knocking each other down. The most awesome bit is that they let me do it with them (although, admittedly, I still have a ways to go on the knocking each other down bit).

In other news, the lady friend and I have very recently parted ways. That's about all I have to say about that for now.
It does mean, however, that Edmonton, being the means to an end it was, now needs a new end. And while I have a few ideas of my own, I would be ecstatic to hear your suggestions (and no, mum, coming home is not a valid suggestion at this time).

So here's to 2011!  May you be full of frivolous adventure. May you be full of crazy characters. May you not blow. Regardless, of you 2011, I promise to blog you with my usual irreverence for the amusement of whoever cares to read. Please care to read.

One way or another, I'm going to find you...

I have recently been introduced to this secretly awesome underground nerd-burgery thing. I'm not even sure if I should say, it might be like Fight Club and i may get dead.... Probs not.
It's called Geocaching and it goes something a little like this.

Imagine the Easter Bunny was real, but instead of a bunny it was thousands of strangers all over the world, and instead of hiding chocolate eggs - because lets be honest, what was a bunny doing with eggs or chocolate in the first place? - it's containers of various sizes that hold no more value than the personal satifaction of finding them. Add in a bit of gps gadgetry and cryptic clues and thats geocaching.

These thing are everywhere, literally. You know that tiny hole of a town you live in? There is probs one there. That park you used to play in as a kid or the car park you visit every week to do your shopping? Bet there's one there too.

These pictures would totally make sense if you were a geo-nerd*

The Big Ev is on the hunt. Current tally: 9 found.


*Not an actual acceptable term for  a Geocacher 

Wouldn't it be nice if the world was LEGO....

As a child, LEGO was one of my favorite toys. Sure I had Barbies but it was LEGO that I kept returning to. My Barbie narratives revolved largely around getting married to one of my Brother's He-Men figures (I never did get an actual Ken doll. Read into that what you will.) Even in the case of my favorite Barbie, the independent and professional Dr. Barbie, she still went and got herself married to this guy, time and time again.
With LEGO though, my avatar was a scientist, a detective, she built her own house, albeit without walls, and all without the help of a cowboy or a spaceman, sometimes she was even the spaceman too.

So given this admiration for the wonderful and empowering imaginative substance that is LEGO, you can understand my excitement when I was invited to go to LEGOLAND in Carlsbad, California.

This place is big, but as we were there with children we didn't get to all the rides. Having said that, the roller-coaster-loving four year old went on more rides then any of us, while the seven year old was happily occupied in a giant room of Xbox.
What most excited me, however, was the miniatures, and you know how I love me a miniature.
Look its a tiny LEGO Hollywood Bowl;

   
and a tiny LEGO Guggenhiem;

and a tiny LEGO Sydney Opera House;

and a tiny LEGO chick getting pulled over by the Po-po.

A-Mazing.

But it wasn't all tiny LEGO things. There were GIANT LEGO thing too.
Look, he's Giant LEGO Einstein;

and Giant LEGO dancing giraffes;

and a creepy italian man with a camel;

Look here, I made a car!

I remember going to LEGO exhibitions as a kid somewhere in Sydney when the city was still a magical and geographically confusing place. The exhibitions consisted of rooms and rooms of entirely LEGO tableaus. Then we got to ride the monorail. Weeeeeeeeeeeee. Thanks for that, Mum.

To cap off a lovely rainy day at LEGOLAND I found the most awesomely cool bit of LEGO merch ever invented. "Cooler than LEGO man ice-cube trays?" I hear you say. Yes, kids. Oh yes.

My new LEGO Mp3 Player

Get up, a get, get, down...

Last night I had my first skunk encounter. I stumbled across it in some ones front yard, mere blocks from my house. It was very exciting until it started to puff itself up and I had to run away.

Amidst all the bread and cold, I also found time yesterday to go to the Vancouver Police Museum. The place was deserted allowing me to run slightly amuck although I did get yelled at for trying to open the "morgue" body draws. I can not help being naturally curious and their warning signs were posted above my head. Who looks up these days? That's so 1998.

I clearly have forgotten how to express myself through proper sentences so today you shall be treated to a photo blog of sorts.

Firstly, This is creepy:

Secondly,

Things I have Learned About the Vancouver Police Force.

The Vancouver Police have Robots. Robots for Justice!

Canadian Police Officers have blue sclera, poorly illustrated by this photo. Trust me, the whites of his eyes are a lovely baby blue.

Vancouver Police Officers are bandits for the human pyramid.

Sometimes they like getting stoned

So do their Ponies.

At such times, the ponies get the munchies for small children.

Sometimes, dogs find them tiresome...

...except for this one,

who was trying really hard to be selected for the Dog Squad.

Poor puppy didn't quite make the team.

Owls are the scourge of the criminal underworld.

Next,

 Quaint Curiosities from the Vancouver Police Museum

The Coroners Candy Cane of Death.

Each layer of pills has caused a death.

Home Made Weaponry

The Mace has a certain rustic charm but why, if you had a hand gun

would you pull it apart to turn it into a knife. Silly Criminals.

A Hand Smeered with BBQ Sauce.

The tempting Morgue Drawers that got me into trouble



The contents of the body bag.
(It was already unzipped, I just peered inside)

Clearly realism wasn't important to this particular exhibit

and yet, they did attempt to give the "body" a cause of death,
albeit a fairly poor one.

And lastly, there is this:

There is so many things I could say about this amazing image that I'm lost for words. If I had more than three readers this would, indeed, be a caption contest image. There are just so many question I have about this one.

I feel I should point out that I have no issues with the Canadian Police Force. I am sure they are doing a bang-up job. It seems clear, however, that the curator of this Museum has a sense of humour as I hope the Police Force does as well.


Also,  giant beaver:

Hey now, don't dream its over.

Hello my little squirrels! Apologies for leaving you adrift in the big, bad world for so long.
I am now, settled in Vancouvie, after several tumultuous weeks of sad good byes in LA and a cold, rainy hello to Canada. I spent my initial time here canvassing for work and a home. I now have both. I start tomorrow at a lovely bakery/cafe that already thinks I'm the shiz and wants to make me supervisor and I am busy getting comfy in a lovely house in Kits (that's Kitsilano to the foreigners) with two lovely cats and their two lovely people.

Here is your first glance of Vancouver:

On the weekend my homies took me mushroom picking on a nearby mountain. We were hunting for Chanterelles. We did not find any. More to come, squirrels. I really promise this time.

There'll be time enough for counting...

Today, I walked around for about an hour with my fly undone, but we're not here to talk about that. We're talking about my weekend in shiny shiny Vegas!!

We walked the Strip, saw a naughty Vegas show, lay about a roof top pool, and of course, got our gamble on where we actually made money! Seems we know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em, except we weren't playing poker but wonderful wonderful craps. That's the one where you throw the dice down the table. Turns out I'm not a bad little roller.

The girl swears we ended at least one hundred dollars in front. To me, the weekend was a blur of twenty dollar bills and five dollar chips, so I'll trust her mathematics. These are my Benjamin's:

While we're on the subject of silly American money, check out this dollar bill I got somewhere around San Francisco:

It's a keeper.

The dealers at the Stratosphere - our hotel, that looks rather a lot like the Seattle Space Needle - were super friendly, as were most of the men playing at our table. I, may or may not, have had a slightly low cut t-shirt on at the time. It is also quite possible, that one of the dealers got all flustered and confused resulting in us getting more money. Of course, it is also very possible that we didn't quite know all the rules and he was just doing his job.

Unfortunately, with all the excitement I left my camera in the hotel room when we walked the strip. I picked up a disposable camera along the way in hope of grungy yet artist photos. But all I got was dark. Here is the Flamingo to illustrate said photo quality.

On Saturday night, we saw Zumanity! Finally, finally, I got to see the naughty naughty adults-only Cirque Du Soleil. It was quite enjoyable and had much more of a cabaret format than the other Cirque's I've seen (think I'm up to five now) but truth be told, I feel I've become a little jaded. It was all very polished and practised of course, but this somehow made it feel a little tame. For a passionate subject matter the passion had wilted away into routine. It seems Zumanity has represented yet another aspect of sexual relations, albeit unintentionally. As usual though, fabulous costumes and production values. Also the clowns were not the usual, confusingly strange French-Canadian kind and actually were quiet funny...

Too harsh? In case it ever comes up, remind me never to become a critic.

(Actually, the link on the second Zumanity is a "making-of" which is getting interesting. I may have more opinions on the show once I finish watching the 4 parts. Watch this space, as they say.)

On a completely different note, do you like Pirates and Homeless people? Yes? Then you will love this guy. I met him while working downtown. He gave me his card. It was a surprisingly professional looking business card.