A Day in the Life of Ben

I borrowed a friend's truck (Ford Explorer) to move some furniture yesterday. The trip to Waterloo and back used 40 L of gas. My cavalier uses about 20. More proof that SUVs are evil.

Well I'm trying to avoid writing my work-report so I guess I'll write in this instead. The weather was great last weekend, I think it was the best we've had all summer. It made my trip to London / St. Thomas / Port Stanley even more enjoyable. Mike and I (mostly Mike) made a pizza on the BBQ on Friday night, for those of you who haven't tried it, you should. It's kinda like making a pizza in a wood stove, but with a BBQ (Mike doesn't have a convenient wood stove in his kitchen). We went to a bar in London called "The Barking Frog" it's an OK bar, probably more enjoyable to sit down with friends and have drinks rather than dancing. Personally I can't stand most top 40 music, sometimes I do tolerate it in the car, but I don't like dancing to it very much. I'm more into electronica and 80's or 80's remix for dancing. Saturday was spent mainly watching Mike play video games, but we did go to beautiful downtown London for beer and lunch. I especially enjoyed finding a pubic hair in my caesar salad. After enjoying my replacement salad we went over to "A Taste of London" and watched HOT firefighters do a firefighting competition - they ran up stairs, dragged dummies, aimed fire hoses, took their shirts off - let's just say it was fun to watch. I guess the second last weekend of August is popular for weddings, we saw 3 or 4 of them, lucky they got such great weather. Back at Mike's we had trout, potatoes, red wine and cheap cigars. On Sunday we went to the "beach resort town" of Port Stanley with Mike's friend Becky and her boyfriend Mike - we enjoyed greasy food, ice cream and a walk up and down the beach and around town a little.

I borrowed my Mike's "Six Feet Under" 1st season DVDs and I've been watching them in every minute of free time. I had watched a few episodes on TMN last year, but the series really makes a lot more sense when you watch them in order from the beginning. It is probably the best TV show I have ever watched and I would recommend it to anybody. The show is a commentary on life and death and has really improved my perspective on events in my own life.

I'm really looking forward to being back in Waterloo. I miss the bomber and I hope rumours about the liquor license being renewed are true! Momma, you gotta come down on the 10th, it'll be a blast.

Our landlord is letting my roommates and I move into our new place next Thursday, which is a big relief; we won't have to pack our stuff into a truck on the 31st and sleep in a parking lot over night.

TGIF. I've been at home sick most of the week and today was my first day back, but it's been a long one and I'm looking forward to driving to beautiful St. Thomas, Ontario for the weekend. Mike and I and some of his girlfriends will be venturing to the "Barking Frog", a lounge/bar in London tonight and hopefully rollerblading tomorrow afternoon.

Ok, if you're at an intersection, you have a green light and there are cars at the other side making it impossible to cross without blocking the intersection you wait. Especially if you are driving a huge tractor-trailer. You don't drive into the intersection, wait for the light to turn red and then make 30-40 cars sit through their green! I am sick and tired of people who don't give a shit about anyone else!!

The weekend was fun and exhausting. After surviving "Blackout 2003" on Friday (I wish I was in New York so I could buy one of those "I survived Blackout 2003" T-shirts) I took my chances and went out clubbing at IT. There were no power cuts but they did play that song that goes "blackout - a compulsory period of darkness": how apt. Saturday I drove to Waterloo for some partying at Mike Schmidt's house (a.k.a. gamma gamma homo) and then club Renaissance. I stayed at Matt and Mark's place and watched some great porn on pride vision. On Sunday we got Wendy's - Waterloo people, have you ever noticed how hot the guys working at Wendy's are and how gay the manager is? - I wished Matt and Mark good luck on their move to Ottawa, drove back to the 'Hill and went to bed at 9:30.

Tori Amos was awesome as usual. Ben Folds' opening act was great - he entertained us with humorous lyrics, high energy piano playing and even some audience interaction. Tori played some of her best music from Scarlet's Walk, The Choirgirl Hotel, Boys for Pele and others. After two expected encores she finished off with "Hey Jupiter", Mike's favourite Tori song.

On the way home I failed to see my gas light - I don't know how, I think I was still full of Tori energy and didn't notice. So after driving 60km round trip downtown and back my car ran out of gas literally 15 feet from my house. I must have been suffering from SARI (Severe Acute Reduced Intelligence) because I thought to myself "oh it's ok, I'll push it into the garage and then tomorrow I can fill it up with the gas for the lawnmower and take it over to Esso" I decided to push my 1 ton vehicle up the street and into the garage with Mike at the wheel. I realize retrospectively what a dumbass I am because it would have been just a tad easier to have walked to the garage retrieved the gas can and filled up the car down the street so I didn't need to push it.

I had a good weekend. I went to my favourite hole in the ground on Saturday night (Fly) with Matt and Mark (plus siblings). I ran into a lot of other friends there. On Sunday David and Dwayne had a BBQ at their house, I had a good time as usual - it was a relaxing end to a busy weekend.

Last night I went to “Epic Fitness” with Shaun. I had never been to a “gay” gym before – it was great. I like working out with dance music, it makes me feel so much more energetic than the R&B they play at my gym. And of course there’s a great advantage to working out in a gym full of mostly gay men: eye-candy. Other bonuses include: less attitude, protein shake bar, and people actually put away their weights – what a concept!

Mike’s coming over tonight, I’m so excited. We’re going to the Tori Amos concert at the Molson Amphitheatre tomorrow night (yay).

Rice crispy square ingredients translation: marshmallow (sugar, sugar, water, sugar, gelatin, artificial flavour), crisp rice cereal (rice, sugar, salt, sugar, sugar), margarine, sugar, sugar, artificial flavour.

Yum

Shanley's cottage was great! Unfortunately the weather was pretty bad, but we managed to make the most of it - bonfire, marshmallows, beer, skinny dipping, "spoons" (and other drinking games). It was nice to spend a whole long weekend with Mike, but I don't get to see him for another 9 days now :(

I really have to get started on my work report, I'm having trouble coming up with topics, I'm thinking "Software Marketing from an Industry Specific Angle". Sounds frightfully interesting, I know. I just need to get it out of the way and get this co-op business over with.

I HAVE TO GO TO THE GYM TONIGHT!!

Tip of the day: don't cook "magic" mushrooms - they won't be so magic.