I can't believe it's not meat

The other day, Kathryn came home from grocery shopping with some yummy-looking stuffed chicken breasts. Only, once she got home, she realized that they were vegetarian chicken. We ate them anyway, and despite being kind of chewy, they looked and tasted like real chicken, even though they were made from some form of vegetable slurry.

Which makes me wonder, why is there a market for these things? What self-respecting vegetarian wants to buy fake chicken? To me, if you've decided to be a vegetarian, you should fill youself with vegetables, not fake meat. Learn to cook tofu properly or something.

If you want a hot dog, then go and buy a hot dog - stop wasting my store shelf space with your faux-dogs.

If anyone actually read this blog (other than my non-vegetarian family), I'm sure that this would anger them. Too bad. I like meat.

I like to ride my bicycle

Here's a healthy warning to those of you with kids: Don't decide on a whim that you want to go for a bike ride.

BAD DECISION!

The first bike ride of the season is always an exercise in frustration. First of all, it means climbing over the mountains of crap in the shed to extract the bikes. This didn't prove to be all that hard this year - maybe I put things away properly last year. (which, by the way was done AS the first snowfall was happening)

Ok, fine... next step is to put the trailer together. That was pretty easy this year too (now that I've done it a million times)

Then I realized that my front tire was flat. No problem - we have a compressor... only Georgina has borrowed it to fix their car tire. D'oh. Ok, so I can load the bike into the van and drive to the gas station. Except that with 3 car seats and the usual piles of crap in the van, there's no way the bike's fitting in there. Alright, next option - remove the tire. Done and done.

Ok, so now, back from the gas station, it's time to put the tire back on my bike. Hrmmm - the brake cable is so tight that I can't get the tire back on and have the brakes connected. Will solve this later. Next step - attach the trailer - no problem.

Now we're ready for kids to come outside. Helmets at the ready. Turns out that Becca's head doesn't fit her helmet anymore. So it's time to switch with Eve.

This is a process that involves cramming helmets on heads, swearing over the straps, dealing with one baby who hates helmets and one 3-year-old who complains when getting her hair brushed.

Ok, we finally get all helmets adjusted. By this time, Eve has lost it - hates the helmet, hates being in the trailer, has already gone through an entire bottle.

Almost ready to go, and I remember that my brakes aren't connected. Kathryn and I try to work together to re-attach. No luck. So, I have to go grab a ratchet from the basement. Which means unlocking the house (for the fourth time). As I'm pulling the cable through the screw, it schwings (technical term) back and the nut goes flying.

5 minutes later, we find it in the grass and re-attach the brakes. Ok, finally ready to go (after re-filling the milk bottle).

Turns out that it's an incredibly windy day. Eve screams the whole way to Sobeys. The tires on the trailer are low, so are the other tires that I didn't pump up. Kathryn goes in to Sobeys to buy treats while I head over to the gas station. Woops - their air hose is broken.

By this time, all we want to do is get home. Eve is placated with Malteasers for most of the way home. She actually makes a happy sound at one point. We finally make it home, sore-assed.

Next time will be better????

(Author's note - this was only slightly exaggerated, but in the end, it was still a good time).

Poor Betty

I read in the paper today that Archie is going to propose to Veronica in an upcoming issue. Totally wrong choice Archie. My money's on Ronnie having an affair with Reggie the first time the jalopy breaks down. Betty would never do that.

The people that you meet each day!

Here are a couple of downtown sightings:

1) I waited in line at Sobey's behind Fidel Castro. Here's how I know it was him:

a) He had the beard

b) He was wearing a tracksuit

c) He looked sort of crazy
d) He was wearing a local union hat (how's that for socialism!)

2) The other day, I was on the bus downtown, sitting near the back. The guy several rows behind me kept muttering / yelling "Natural Born Killers! mumble mumble... Natural Born Killers". The bus was pretty empty, so I started to get scared for my life. I didn't want to turn around, since making eye contact would put me at the top of the list of victims once the killing spree started.

Luckily, my stop came soon enough. As I got off, I looked back to see what dude looked like. Turns out he had a cast on one leg and crutches. I felt a little silly, because I'm pretty sure I can outrun a knife-wielding man on crutches. But then again, Richard Kimble couldn't stop the one-armed man from murdering his wife.

New fave website

Ok, so I've been wasting a lot of time recently on Broken Picture Telephone:

http://www.brokenpicturetelephone.com

Basically, it's like that old telephone game you used to play as a kid. Only in this one, you either get some words and then have to draw a picture of the words, or you get a picture and have to write a description. As the website says, hilarity does often ensue.

My goal is to know enough people with accounts on the site to start some private games and have just people I know play them - so go sign up, and let me know your username. Mine is diids.

While you wait, some of my favorites:

http://www.brokenpicturetelephone.com/view?id=1946
http://www.brokenpicturetelephone.com/view?id=72
http://www.brokenpicturetelephone.com/view?id=7093

Dharma terrorists

The other day, I had to take the courtesy shuttle from the VW dealer to work. (Long story involving Georgina and Matthew's car and their trip to Europe).

Anyway, the shuttle van was the new VW minivan. One of my fellow shuttle denizens started talking about how he owned one of those old VW mini-busses. I immediately thought about the vans the Dharma Initiative drives around on the island on Lost.

Then I got to thinking (because really, who wants to listen to some old man reminisce about his old car), that before Lost, VW busses made me think of the Lybian terrorists in Back to the Future.

Just another area where Lost has taken over everything I think about.

P.S. After I added the images, I noticed that the vans are very similar... maybe the Dharma Initiative is trying to buy plutonium from Doc Brown!

News banter

One thing that annoys me is news anchor banter to fill up the dead air at the end of a broadcast. Actually, I find it funny, especially if you watch it while thinking that the anchors hate eachother, but are forced to be nice on camera.

Anyway, last night, we caught the end of the CBC Edmonton news, and their feel-good story was about some people in Sweeden who made a life-size statue of Jesus out of Lego. At the end of the story, one of the anchors says "I'm sure that Jesus would love it".

I almost fell out of bed laughing....

On that vein, I wasted some time on youtube today watching news bloopers. Here are two of my favourites:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0eINGyJHz8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6IvsSyhCaM