Dude, where's my car?

I hate the Library Parkade.

First off, it's ugly and claustrophobic.  Seriously, would it have really cost that much more to dig down another foot or two so it doesn't feel like the roof is crushing you with its gargantuan weight?  Also, there are not wide lanes here - if you make a mistake and go the wrong way, it's a 20-point turn to get back facing the other way.  And back to the ugliness (which, really, is systemic in Edmonton) - I do like how they tried to pretty it up with some lame-ass technicolour bison paintings on the walls.

Also, what's with the level naming.  P1, P2, P2S, P2N, TPS (report).  Good thing I have excellent spacial awareness and can visualize, from street level, exactly when I'm standing on top of where my car is parked.  Also also, it's like a labyrinth down there (dance, magic dance) - multiple entrances that lead to parts of the Parkade that are seemingly inaccessible to other parts.  I like the Russian Roulette of where you're going to come out when you exit as well.  Side story on the exits - I do love the sign that says "Lights?" on the wall as you exit.  I always expect (and am disappointed by the lack of) their counterpart signs - "Camera?" and "Action?"

Anyway, my biggest issue with the Parkade is the stupidity of the exiting process.  They pay some dude (read douche) minimum wage to sit in a booth and take cash only upon exiting.  Have you ever been to an event downtown and then waited for 40 minutes in an endless line of cars and carbon monoxide while dude (douche) figures out how to break a $20?  I swear that I've had to pay for an extra 1/2 hour while waiting to leave the place.  I don't understand why they don't get with the 1980s and have pay stations that you visit before getting to your car.

The other night, we went downtown for the lighting of the Christmas Tree in Churchill Square.  It was a cool fireworks display, but we did have to sit through Lynda Steele and Nicola Crosbie doing an extended mix of news banter.  Wow, that was awful.  Anyway, it took us half an hour to get out of the Parkade.  When we got to dude (douche) - our total charge for parking???  ONE DOLLAR!  Seriously?  It was worth someone's time for ONE DOLLAR?

I wish all parkades were like the Volkswagen parking garage, which makes me think of what parking would be like in the Matrix.

Landmarks

I did it!  This is post 69 on my blog.  Woot.

In honour of the momentous occasion, watch this bodacious clip from an equally bodacious movie.  P.S., when this movie came out, I was too little to get the joke - I wondered and wondered for years how the future Bill & Ted knew the right number.



Regular programming will resume shortly.

So Happy It's Thursday

There was an article in the Journal the other day that quoted a source who mentioned something about "all this sh*t", except it wasn't as cleverly censored as I have it here.  This caught Kathryn and I off guard - is it okay to print that now?  I know that newspapers are written in a grade 3 - 8 level (depending on what source you believe) - and I guess, to most grade 8 kids, that's just about the only language they know... (but I digress).

Then we reflected that Strombo and guests quite often use the word, un-bleeped on his show.  Of course, it runs at 11 pm, which is waaay past the watershed.  (P.S. good on Canada for giving us an extra hour of nudity and coarse language a day over the US).

That night, we watched Being Erica, another Canadian TV show (which, by the way, is pretty good for CanCon, except the episodes where they drive in their new Ford Fiestas right before cutting to a commercial for the car).  They used the word twice (!) in one episode. I tried to find some decision by the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council indicating that you're now allowed to broadcast / print the word - but couldn't find much.

Not that I'm really complaining - we watch a lot of HBO shows, where really, anything goes.  Also, do you remember when Dr. Greene died on ER, and how momentous it was that he swore during that episode?  Oh memory lane...

Maybe the Canadian media producers are taking Lindsay Blackett's quote about Canadian TV being sh*t out of context.

Weekly cooking - crepes Suzette

The girls wanted crepes for dinner as part of their fun week off school, so, as the good parents we are, we made them for them.

Then I decided to try making crepes Suzette.  I was seriously impressed with myself with this one.

We'll start with a recipe for crepe batter:

4 eggs
2 cups flour,
2 1/4 cups milk
1/4 cup margarine, melted

Blend, refrigerate for 1 hour.  Or, if you're our family, you're in too much of a rush to refrigerate:  use immediately.

I based the Suzette part on this recipe - but really, who has the time to make the orange butter beforehand.  Screw that.  Here's what I did:

Melt some margarine in a pan on high-ish heat.  Add some orange juice and a few tablespoons of sugar.  Combine all of that and boil it up, stirring constantly until it thickens a bit and turns a little syrupy.

Then, add the crepes.  You'll probably only be able to fit a couple in the pan.  Fold them up into quarters, making sure they're saturated with the syrup.

Next comes the fun part.  Add some orange liqueur.  I poured it over the back of a spoon without really understanding why this is necessary.  This tastes way better if you've stolen it from a friend's house.  (yeah, shout out Lovedays).  Depending on the heat in the pan, and if you have a gas stove or not, you may or may not need a barbecue lighter to ignite the alcohol.

Once it's flaming away, spoon some of the sauce over the crepes.  Wait until that bad boy stops burning and serve - drizzling the yumminess over the crepes.

Next step, text your wife to tell her how awesome you are.

Gossip, the musical

Last night I had a crazy dream.  This in itself is not a strange occurrence - I usually have a crazy dream every night - maybe I'll write about lucid dreaming sometime in the future.

This dream was crazier than most though.  In my dream, I was composing a musical.  Here's the general plot line.  If Andrew Lloyd Webber is reading this, feel free to use my idea, as long as the royalty cheques start flooding in.

The musical starts with a group of students at an arts school.  Everyone has big Hollywood dreams.  Cue a big musical number (in which I was designing sets, writing lyrics, choreographing dances, etc).  All of the students but one realize that they aren't going to make it big, and decide to go to journalism school instead.  (That's a logic progression, right?  Stupid subconscious).

Anyway, in my brain, this was an awesome musical number... but then I remember thinking to myself (my conscious speaking to my subconscious) that the staging was less Jubilee and more Jubilations - whatever - those shows still make money for the author.

Our protagonist, Jack Bramble, becomes a gossip columnist, mostly because he was smitten with a former classmate and now Hollywood ingénue, who shall remain nameless because I didn't dream up a good name.  The story was filled with unrequited love and jealousy on the part of Jack, who used his gossip column to denigrate would-be suitors of the young starlet.  There may have been paparazzi-induced murders as well.  (Think Sweeny Todd).

Anyway, the second act of the play turns things on its head, as Jack becomes an advice columnist, like Dear Abby.  The young starlet, becoming jaded with the Hollywood lifestyle, writes for advice on how to deal with the hollowness of Hollywood relationships.  Jack responds, drawing from his own hollow experience, without realizing that he's writing to the source of his sorrow.

Unfortunately, I woke up before the ending, so I didn't get to find out if this was a tragic love story like Romeo and Juliet, or more of a comedy, like Clueless.

Maybe tonight, I'll get the rest of the story.  I'll be sure to take my blank music sheets with me to bed.

Like a virgin

Madonna aside, today was one of those special days.  At breakfast time, it was the day when the new peanut butter jar got opened.

I love these days... everything's so fresh and new... with that machine-extruded PB nipple (for lack of a better word), just waiting for the first kiss of the butter knife.

A few months ago, this event was trumped by the ultimate in newness experiences - not only was the peanut butter new, but also the Nutella, and ALSO the soap in my shower.  This was a red letter, blue moon, once in a lifetime day.  I felt that I could do no wrong that day.

But come on, who can't resist opening a new bar of soap... first you have to open that little wrinkly package, then take off the little paper (aside:  what's the paper for, to make sure the soap is clean?).  Then, you have a nice bar with crisp edges and a hefty weight to it.  It's specially great because for the past week, you've been trying to lather up with a bunch of mashed together soap-chuds you found at on the floor of the shower.  Not fun.

Take a look at this - gives me shivers!

Another aside - can you imagine how much better the experience must have been when you had to open a BOX (!) to get your soap.

But back to today, with the peanut butter.  I found this image, which summed up my feelings.