I concider myself to be a very good driver. I believe that I may have proven that last night. There was quite the storm in Nova Scotia yesterday resulting in flooding and miserable driving conditions. I took on the adventure of driving from Halifax to Sydney in such conditions. Perhaps I shouldn't have but I am very confident in my abilities, as well as I am quite nutz. Or so I'm told. My poor car doesn't have the best tires on it for snow conditions but amazingly enough they hold the road for water. Well as much as to be expected when your not hydroplaning. I've discovered that hydroplaning is quite fun and exhilarating. This is of course as long as you stay on the road. The radio reported quite a few people not being able to make it up hills or going in the ditch. I didn't see any of them thankfully. I was not the only brave soul on the road however. By far I wasn't the craziest either. There were two frantic drivers that passed me doing in excess of 120kmh. Granted they were driving trucks but that is still a bit crazy, even for me. My excitement was greeted in the early leaving of Halifax. It was extremely dark and I come accross what appeared to be a very large wolf/coyote. Luckily there weren't any other cars near me or one of us would most likely have hit the poor creature.

Crisis averted fortunately. Without any further troubles I reach Cape Breton to find that Townsend Street in Sydney is flooded. Unfortunately I didn't think it was very deep so I drove through the 3 feet deep water. As I get halfway through the river my car starts to slow down and I fear that I will be stuck in the lake. Quickly I gear down and luckily the car keeps going. I notice on the left accross the street from the Steele City (bar/grill) a tow truck is waiting for the poor sucker that gets stuck in the middle. Smart fella I say.

I was fortunate enough to go on a small trip to Halifax this weekend. The trip started off with a 4 hour drive. I decided to take it easy because of my recent altercation with a traffic cop. The trip itself was uneventful but I must inform everyone that it was the first time I drove there without a storm in progress. When I mentioned that to Koley, she exclaimed to 'shut up!!' for fear that I just delayed the storms arrival. The trip itself wasn't really planned much, though it never really is, so we started off with the usual. A mission.

Missions for us normally mean that we are going for a specific purpose but that purpose, more often than not, is never fully completed. I forget the reason for the first mission but liquer was high on the list. Mission accomplished very easily. I dont rightly remember much else other than driving around Halifax was much easier than last time. Koley has learned her way about haha.

Back at the house we delved into the awaiting meal and proceeded to get our party faces on. Mine is always on but Koley was still swirling from the prior night. Koley's cousin shows me how she plays dress up the Monkey. This may sound quite dirty but I assure you it's innocent. Well as innocent as it can be. Apparently this happens quite frequently. I wont describe it other than displaying a picture.

Afterwards we manage to get our asses to town with a suprisingly uneventful cab ride. First stop, Cheers (also known as the dome) where we went through the costomary pat down security check. I had also forgotten that I could not wear my hat in the building resulting in a comedic exit from the building. (I'll get to that later) Inside we get drinks and find people Koley knows. Sadly these people had been there since early hours and are already tanked. It's a thursday and the place is otherwise dead. The tanked people leave shortly after we get there so we decide to take a gander to the rest of the bar. Nothing eventful anywhere. We shoot a few comedic comments to the remaining drivel of people in the bar and decide to leave.

It is absolutely freezing outside so we are both bundled up. I have recently shaved my head so I think to myself that I should have brought my touque. When I reach inside my coat to put on my regular hat, I discover that it is missing. This itself isn't really funny but it results in comedy at the next bar. I'm wearing my hoodie thankfully so I put up the hood and we continue on our way to the palace. I have never been here before so I'm looking forward to being in a new place. My first experience? The bouncer at the front tells me that I must take off my hoodie. Koley in front of my has on a rather large coat with a huge ass hood. My jacket has a hood on it as well but it's not offensive to this bouncer. My plain black hoodie however, is. I start to question the bouncer with stuff like:

Me: what? I have to take off my hoodie but I'm alowed to wear my jacket around that has a larger hood?

Bouncer: yes.

Me: I have to take my coat off then my hoodie but I can put my coat back on and enter the bar?

Bouncer: yes.

Me: does this make sence to you?

Bouncer: I dont make the rules.

Me: I bet not

Bouncer: you can put your coat with your hoodie in the coat check

Me: This is just a way for you to get more money out of me isn't it?

Bouncer: (gives me a dirty look)

Since I dont really want to be kicked out of the bar, I comply without making a scene. But I make my complaint to the coat check lady as well. I wont repeat the conversation because it was severely similar to the bouncer, except she didn't bive me the dirty look, she actually laughed. I figure to myself that I was in actuality correct in my assumption.

The bar itself was quite cool except for the horribly huge first step going upstairs. It wasn't a problem going up them but later on when I was searching for the toilet, I nearly fell on my face because of the extra height when I was stepping down.

I cannot remember anything else of excitement from the night other than when we got back to the house. Koley decided to put on a movie. Two minutes into the movie she said something about it but discovered my response was a bunch of snoring. Gee I'm exciting!!

Friday we were supposed to go out again but it seems that all the ladies involved fell assleep. I spent the day and night watching movies. Again I'm very exciting!! We did go on a Walmart mission. I had to get a hat to replace the one I lost in the bar the prior night. The Superstore mission was unsuccessful. Their meat was too small.

Saturday I was meeting up with Katrina. I hadn't seen her in over a year and she wanted to take me dancing. It seems that the bar of choice is the best dance bar in Halifax by reputation. That is correct, this night I did the unthinkable, yes, I went to a gay bar.

The night started off with a drive accross town to her friends place. This trip was rather exciting as we pulled U-turns, went in circles and took some detours. It was much like the first time I drove around Halifax with Koley in the navigators seat. It was very comical but I now have a basic understanding of downtown Halifax. When we got to her friends place, we were met by two very friendly, super excited dogs. We ordered pizza and sat around chatting till it was time to go to the bar.

We get to Reflections and I take a look around while I'm waiting for my turn for the coat check. The bar is set out very nicely. There is a full stage and huge dance floor with bars on every side to make it easy to get a drink. We are early so there aren't to many people there yet. I'm expecting to see many hillarious things and I am not dissapointed.

The first is while I am getting my coat checked some guy tells the lady behind the counter he has lost his coat tag. She greets him with a middle finger. Remind me not to piss her off.

After, we are standing around chatting when a few people begin to dance. The first of many is a tall guy. This tall guy is seemingly pretending he is on a Dance Dance Revolution game pad. He's jumping up and down turning and spinning just as if he were actually playing the game, except without the mat and game.

There was another fella walking around with light up pants. The pants were super baggy but had strips of either glow stick material or actual lights hanging from his pants. I wish I had stopped him to take a picture.

Then comes the part I was dredding because I have an overly uncontrollable mouth sometimes. The super drag queen walks into the bar. I probably would have missed it except Katrina gets excited and does the pointing thing for me to gander. Luckily I maintain my composure this time as it's not the first time I've seen a drag queen. I called her/him a disco ball because of the super red flashy sweater he/she was wearing. Later in the night however I saw the worst drag queen ever. Yes even worse than Kurt russell dressed up as a fake woman as an undercover policeman in one of his movies. The fella was just a kid though. He/she may grow into the part someday.

All in all I have to admit the bar was quite fun but would have been even more fun if Koley had been able to come along. The music was overly fantastic. I was quite impressed with the mixing and general new feel to it. Except they did play some of the stereotypical "gay" music. Course I spose it is by popular demand for the most part.

I must admit I was quite impressed with some of the women acting like men. One in perticular was leaning against a wall checking out the various people walking by. She was eying them up and down as if she were one of the guys doing it. Very comical.

Not much else happened other than the 20 minute walk through the freezing -30 or so weather to the car. I just wish I could get the song out of my head as I type this post. (Dancing Queen - Abba)


After I got back from my adventure to Reflections, I curled up to sleep with the monkey. Lucky Me.

Recently I put it to someone to create an animal much like the creation Napoleon Dynamite did in the movie. She created a Uni-Sea-Corn. Nice job Princess. In the process, I mentioned that I would create one myself.

Because I've been busy this week with other projects I've had some time to think about it. The mixtures I've come up with, on the whole, freaky. I know that my creation must be part Lemur of course so rather than have a bug eyed freak on my hands, my creation will have a Lemur striped tail and be able to hop in comparison. It would be cool for my creation to fly as well. I imagine that it should have wings like the hippogrif from Harry Potter. (so much for my creature not being mystical) So with these two cool features, I figure we could put them on a Humans body. (not that I'm really looking forward to having a tail on my backside)

Now I just need to have a head on its shoulders. I cannot choose something that would look odd but I also wouldn't want it to be labled a freak. Well not any more than it already is of course but who wouldn't want to be able to fly or hop like a Lemur. Ha ha. So with this being said I will put it out there for you to help me with my animal creation. Help me choose a head. (I have an idea already but I figure user interaction is more fun)

So what do ya think of my Leemangriff-stir:

I have forgotten how boring it is when I'm not working. Well ok I didn't forget but I was hoping that it wouldn't be so bad when I got home. It seems that things around here are horribly worse than before because most of the interesting people have moved away. The bars are full of either really old people or really young people. Sadly very few of which I would mind being around. I went around to a few bars tonight but there just weren't any interesting people around so I ended up going home. A night out in cape breton seems to have dwindled to babysitting young people or chilling with a movie. That is of course if it isn't a holiday. For some reason the bars are super packed during a holiday as people come from all over to be here. Then they scamper out of here the first chance they get. Makes ya wonder, well ok it makes me wonder.

Since I really dont have anything interesting I figure I will just make something up as usual. The topic? Stamps! I dont mean the kind ya stick on a letter to send to someone. I mean the ink kind that you get branded with when you go to the bar. I understand why they do this but there should be an easier thing to use. Like no cover charge lol. The reason I bring this up? That's right, no matter how much you wash the damned thing it never comes off till about 3 days later. I think all the bars got together to ensure that they all use a type of ink that doesn't wash off so that when their patrons go to work the next day (or wherever they go) everyone can see that they were out partying last night. Upon closer inspection they can see exactly where they were too.

That's just what most of us need, especially if they happened to get a little beyond their limit. It's kinda hard to hide the unweatherly conditions of sick when you have been branded by the bar stamp. You also can't hide the fact that you were out instead of that meeting you were supposed to attend. You know you made that really bad excuse that you had to babysit your dog and couldn't cover for someone, but you have that stamp on your wrist because the dog wanted to play stamp fever.

I figure that the bars that use the stamp method of branding should quit that and take up the method I've recently seen in a bar. The super bracelet that you can't get off unless you either burn it off or have really, really sharp scissors. I recommend the scissors because if you try to burn it off you will most likely receive a very nasty plastic burn scar. If you use a knife (depending on how much you've had to drink) you could be looking at the same thing. Then again you would have a new story to tell wouldnt' you. Just dont go around blaming me because I came up with the brilliant idea. Have fun people and remember..... I didn't tell you to.

I wish I could say I had a decent story but nothing interesting is going on with life at the moment. I haven't been able to get out to do anything because of lack of constant cash flow. I'm not used to not knowing when my next paycheck will come. This coupled with my car breaking down is not a good combination.

I was out for a drive because of how bored I am, when I tried to shift to 5th something strange happened. The gear wouldn't take and for some reason I was put into 3rd instead. Because of the speed I was travelling my car did not like that at all. I figured I just missed the shift so I tried again. Sadly my poor car shouted at me not to do that again with an over revving engine. I pulled over to the nearest place I could park and tested things out. I had lost 5th and reverse gears. Luckily everything else was ok. I travelled home, but because I couldn't back up, I parked in the neighbours yard.

After making an appointment for my car to be fixed the following day, I had plans that required my car. I was still able to drive I just couldn't use reverse. This is a problem for most people, well ok even me, but I managed just the same. I was able to get around and get stuff done, I even got gas. This is where the story becomes funny.

I pulled into the gas station, parked behind a car ahead of me. This was ok because it was facing the same direction and would most likely be leaving before I was done. This was true but just as I was starting to put gas in, another car pulled in front of me. This guy was facing towards me. Nice one. I finished pumping the gas then headed towards the building to pay. I noticed another car pulling in behind me. Great now what the hell do I do?

After paying for the gas I went out to my seemingly boxed in car. I figured I'd have to wait for bozo ahead of me to back out then I would be able to move. Well at least I would have some music to listen to. Upon walking back to my car I notice that the car behind me is back at least a car length and there are no cars in the lane next to me. Yes the lightbulb goes on. Behind me the parking lot has a decline so it would be easy to back up with a little push. I hopped in the car, took it out of gear and hopped out again. The door is open I begin pushing the car backwards. The station attendant, the guy pumping gas in front of me and the girl in the car behind me all have puzzled looks as my car begins rolling backwards with me outside of it pushing. The car picks up speed as the decline starts so I jump in the car and quickly apply the break. The car behind me still hasn't moved an inch. You'd think that a car rolling backwards towards your car would give a person an idea that they should probably get out of the way. Not that girl. I'm not even sure if she freaked/panic or anything. I started up the car and pulled away ignoring all the strange looks I recieved.

It gets better.

Later in the evening I decided to go to a friends place. Being lazy I took the car. Her place doesn't have much of a spot for me to park (without backing up) because of all the snow from the past week or so. However there is an incline on the road that leads to her place. Again the lightbulb goes on in my head. This is starting to seem like I shouldn't listen to the little voice anymore. I drive around the block facing up the hill, take the car out of gear and let it roll down the hill gradually picking up spead. I blow through the stop sign and start rolling into the driveway. There is a huge puddle at the top of the driveway full of slush and ice. This puddle sadly slows the car down and I am now in the middle of the driveway. Knowing I can't leave the car here I put the car in gear and pull out. Luckily I am not stuck on the ice in the puddle and park the car on the road.

I go inside to say hello and see if there is anyone there to help me get the car into the driveway. luckily a couple of the kids are home. We all go out to play in the snow. My friend ends up being in the drivers seat and I rhyme off instructions for everyone. Me and the kids push the car but sadly not enough. The car is once again in the puddle. I tell my friend to get out of the car so I can pull it forward to try again. She says she'll do it. At first I think it's not a good idea but think it will be kinda funny so I let her go. My friend looks for the gear shift and becomes suddenly alarmed because the car is a standard instead of automatic. After the slight panic is over, I describe how to put the car into gear an stuff. (foot on clutch, put in gear, ease on gas while easing off clutch) Her first attempt rusulted as follows: (in writing it may not come out as funny as it should)

Me: Ok ease on the gas as you ease off the clutch
Her: Ok....
Car: vvvvrrrroooooooooooommmmmmmmmmMMMMMMMM (not moving anywhere)
Me: STTTTOOOOOPPPPPPP!!!!!!!!!!
Her: what??
Me: you have to ease on the gas .... not floor it

Me: Ok lets try again
Her: Ok....
Car: vvvvrrrrrooooooommmmmmmMMMMMMMMMM (again not moving anywhere)
Me: OMFG GET OUT OF THE CAR!!!!! (OMFG = oh my fucking god)

The car is still in gear when she takes her foot off the gas and then she takes her foot off the clutch. She does this slowly so the car begins to move forward. I begin to laugh as she moves ahead she begins to squeal. The car doesn't like the lack of gas and stalls. After this maybe she figures out how to do it now. If it weren't so cold I'd have her try again but all I want to do is go inside. I get in and pull out of the puddle. She gets back in the car and we push it back into the driveway, this time past the puddle and nearly into the house. Luckily I was right there to ensure we didn't and everything was good. The outcome: a half decent story to tell people and maybe a little education for my friend. I doubt she'll be attempting a standard any time soon lol.

Out with the old and in with the new. Or so they say.. but who is they? I say: Who cares!!!

This has been a great year for me and I look forward to a better one with the coming year. For the past two I have made it a mission to meet new people and help friends when I could. This has turned into, some would say, good karma. I'm not one to really believe in such things but life for me seems to go with the flow of karma. Perhaps someday I will be convinced in something but for now, my way of life will most likely be all I ever believe in. Good things come to good people. For me to say this, I will have to explain. When I say good people it doesn't mean perfectly good. Nobody is after all and we all know this. (no joking from you clowns) Good is people living their lives for themselves but including others within their lives as well. In other words we do have to take care of ourselves but we cannot do it totally alone.

I wish to extend my greetings to the people in my life this past year. Most especially the new people I met, you helped me get through a strange time in my life, even if you dont realize how much. I look forward to many more years like this one. Full of fun and interesting new people and adventures. You never know when something is going to happen so take a second look once in a while. You may have overlooked a small thing that could change your life forever. This of course does not mean to second guess everything you do. Just go with the flow of things.

Happy New Year to everyone, most especially the new people I will meet this coming year. I will most likely be blessed that I met you.