Congratulations to Amanda

My partner and sweetheart doesn't need this book because ...

... she's debt free today! Well before her 30th birthday.

After scrimping and saving, planning and plotting and forgoing some of life's luxuries, she's wiped out the last chunk of her student debt.

I'm so proud of her!

Random whatsits of recent weeks

Some notes on stuff that's been doin':

Amanda and I went Thursday to check out the dream homes being given away in the QE2 Lifestyles Lottery. The bigger of the two is ginormously huge. Like, huge huge. Almost-too-big huge. It has room in the basement for further living-space expansion. Either that or you should shoot some epic films down there. And that actually sounds like a good plan. The second home is smaller, but still kinda nice. The consensus seems to be that we'd keep the first one and live in it for a year upon winning, then perhaps sell it. The second one, though, would be a re-sell in order to buy something obnoxiously fantastic in the south end of peninsular Halifax, then renovate the heck out of it and buy me a little car.

I checked out the Music Nova Scotia open mic at The Seahorse last week. It's hosted by my friend and former coworker Laura Simpson (no relation, though her husband's name is Scott Simpson). Laura had been recommending I come check the place out, and seriously consider playing a few songs. Problem for me is that they don't want people playing covers. That's about all I do. So I'll have to get writing some original songs.

While there, I ran into the proprietors of onlinemusicnetwork.ca. I asked how it's even possible that my cover of Cub's "Ticket To Spain" is #3 on their all-time top 100 chart. Google their web site and find out.

I'm working on a heavy-rocking cover of Mika's "Big Girl". His original appeared here earlier via YouTube.

We've been barbequeing again off and on. I love steak. You can't hear how much I love steak through this medium, so ... y'know, think of a food you love that you make crazy noises about, and that's how I feel about steak.

More to come later, I expect! Be well, be happy, be healthy, and be in touch!

Hola from Cuba, mang

Greetings from the sunny shores of the Barcelo Marina Palace in Varadero, Cuba.

We're having a lovely time here. The food is fabulous (bacon bacon bacon, as promised), the staff is friendly, the amenities are plenty, and the weather has been decent. The first coupla days were H-O-T-T and humid like a sticky Toronto afternoon, but today it's a lot cooler and windy... too surfy to swim.

Tomorrow we're off to Havana for a tour ... next day is a half-day of snorkeling on the reef.

Lots of photos to come upon our return.

Many thanks to Laura for cat-sitting ...

The internet is slow, and for some reason the hotel appears to be using Vista on its two public machines with mucho security enabled, so I can't even get at my main email ... so ... I'm gonna wrap up and go get a sunburn.

Adios,
..bigass

Big Ass Christmas Haul

To boast about Christmas gifts is decidedly un-Canadian, but I want to extend my thanks to everyone this holiday season for their generous and thoughtful giving by hitting just a few of the highlights.

From my parents, a Roomba robot vacuum cleaner. I love vacuuming, but I also love robots, so to have a robot that will chase the kitties around during the day and clean up hair and crumbs will be really, really cool.

From Sandra and Byron, a donation-in-name-of to an organization that buys goats for the goatless and hungry -- what a neat idea! And a Buddha Board -- a nifty thing that encourages you to just blurt out your visual creativity on a page by painting with water in a medium that shows up for a while, then fades away. We saw these in Charlottetown last year, and I thought they were way, way cool. Thank you.

From Shannon and Chris, an item that could make my effort to quit eating cinammon buns easier or more difficult: body wash/shampoo that smells like cinnamon buns. Specifically, somehow, like Cinnabon cinnamon buns. Seriously, it smells f'ing awesome. They need more serious warnings not to eat this stuff. Also, a big Toblerone bar. My sister knows me well. Toblerone = awesome.

From Barb and Wendall, a super-cool lunch bag made of neoprene. It holds all my lunch loot and can spread out to make a placemat. Also, some cool books including the Borat book and The Onion book.

And from Amanda, a ceramic jar for holding my thoughts or change, or change of thoughts, or thoughts of change, or whatever. And a pair of ceramic mittens that are so sweet!

From me ... well, from "Santa" via me. A Nintendo DS video game machine with Nintendogs, and Brain Age and Brain Age 2. A whole lotta fun.

Thank you to everyone for everything! Sorry we couldn't be with you all in person, but we felt the love from far away!

Vacation wrapup, way way late

Hola, amigos. I know it's been a long time since I rapped at ya. But life's been busy for the past month or so. Lots to blog about, so let's get at 'er, starting with this wrapup of the big Big Ass Summer Tour 2007.

Saturday, July 21, Amanda and I set out on a big drive, aiming to get to Riviere-du-Loup by sundown. First stop was Wendy's somewhere to try the new Baconator. Yes, two quarter-pound patties of fresh-never-frozen beef, six strips of bacon and two slices of cheese. The Baconator delivers. It's a little mushy, and the first half is best, 'cuz it's hot.

It was a cloudy, rainy day heading through New Brunswick. But more distracting than the rain was the accumulation of bugs on the windshield. I used the gas station squeegee to wipe off the slime each time we stopped for gas, but we could barely keep ahead of the insect carnage.

Arrived in Riviere du Loup and negotiated through the town courtesy of Mapquest's left-right-left-right-left-right-left directions, instead of going straight down one road. Ended up at Motel Boulevard Cartier. You'll note that the motel is attached to the local St. Hubert Chicken restaurant. In fact, the check-in desk is right next to the take-out counter. Check that... the check-in desk is the take-out counter. We checked in to the unremarkable but perfectly passable room. No non-smoking rooms available, unfortunately, so it felt like a real old-school experience, back to the days when all the rooms were smoking rooms. I promptly noticed a fly on the ashtray, turned around, and was delighted to find a flyswatter sitting on its own hook. Thwap! First amentiy used.

St. Hubert, in my mind, has always been the franglais equivalent of Swiss Chalet. And I luvs me some Swiss Chalet. So we ambled over to the restaurant to try out a quarter chicken and frites. This ain't no Swiss Chalet, kids. Tastes like cafeteria food. We added a bit of Nova Scotia flavour by purchasing some Keith's beer (Keith's Red, weirdly enough) to enjoy with dinner. Entered to win a Keith's guitar. Haven't won, so far that I've heard. Our friendly server Benoit told us about a fireworks show scheduled for 10pm down by the water. Cool beans! I luvs me some fireworks, too. If Swiss Chalet had fireworks, they'd be on to something, man. Fireworks show was better than the July 1 one in Halifax, I shit you not.

Next day was time for the killer drive of the trip, from Quebec to Bradford. Lunch was at McDonald's ("Mc Do'"), and the difficult problem of ordering a Bic Mac, no pickles, no sauce (my choix du jour on the rare times I go to the Arches) en francais. Amanda grew up in Northern Ontario (town of Swastika -- look it up) and actually worked her previous job in french, and we negotiated frickin' Paris together, so I figured ordering a Combo #1, no pickles, no sauce would be a breeze. But me, I learned Ontario core french, in which they teach you the names of things. French immersion, sure, you sound like you know the language, but you don't always end up knowing what stuff is called. Amanda was unsure what "sauce" was in french, even when I suggested that it may be "sauce". Pickles were a whole other matter. I asserted that "cochinons" was the word. She didn't know. So, between her and the counter man, I got a Big Mac sans sauce, but avec pickles. I could pick those off. Pickles, it turns out are "cornichons". Unsure so far what "cochinons" is, if anything.

Goddamn Ontario driving. The drive from the border to Toronto is ... is ... is ... no fun. Just no fun. The 401 isn't beautiful to drive on. Worse still when there's a collision and rubberneckers and idiots thinking they can get a tiny bit further ahead by cutting through the service station, then coming out four abroad into a one-lane merge, ending up driving on the shoulder, and ... anyway, Amanda convinced me not to shout anything out the window or hop out and slug someone in a Rav-4.

We crawled into Bradford quite late and found a Pizza Pizza open late. I don't miss Pizza Pizza pizza. Panzerotto Pizza and Wings, yes, I miss that. Toppers Pizza is good, too. But Pizza Pizza isn't the kind of pizza I miss, you know what I mean? Settled in for a nice night at Amanda's folks.

Off to my old stomping grounds on Monday. Bradford is just north of Newmarket, where I was raised. We hit Upper Canada Mall, where I worked at Compucentre as a teenager. Ate in the food court (Made In Japan/A Teriyaki Experience), shopped around, bought my nephew some cool sunglasses at some baby-stuff store. Saw my old house. Jee-zus, Newmarket has grown. Huge. Very different.

That night we had steak and caesar salad. I luvs me some steak, y'all. Then Barb and Wendall took us out to the movies. We saw Hairspray starring John Travolta. Amanda turned to me in horror during the opening sequence -- "Oh my god. I forgot to tell you, this is a musical." No bother. I knew it was a musical. I spent part of the movie trying to figure out where they shot it -- Toronto, obviously, but it was neat to figure out all the locations. Good flick, despite Travolta, drag or not. The popcorn was fan-tas-tic. Fantastic.

'Manda's mom took us to Ikea on Tuesday. See, the first Ikea in North America was across the harbour in Dartmouth, but they closed it down years ago. Shame! So it was a treat to go to Ikea for the first time in more than two years. We didn't buy anything huge, but it was fun to dream. Ikea actually serves good food in its cafeteria. Meatballs and soup and little potatoes! By this point in the trip, I was getting very tired. Nearly fell asleep in the car to and from Ikea. Dinner was burgers and corn and more caesar salad. Good times.

On Wednesday, we had a surprise lined up for my parents. We'd been swerving my mom and for weeks about our vacation plans, based on my sister's suggestion of arriving unannounced. It worked. We pulled in to Stratford and visited with my sister and baby Ewan for a while, then rolled over to the 'rents abode and walked right in. My dad looked puzzled. Mom was in the basement doing laundry, so I just walked right down and surprised her. Clearly she wasn't expecting it. Oh, I forgot to mention -- a Baconator for lunch. We indulged in Dairy Queen after a dinner of BBQ chicken at Chris and Shannon's.

Amanda drove off to London the next day to visit her sister Amy, while I walked around town with Shannon and my dad. Stratford's a beautiful place. It was nice to spend some time with family seeing their town again. We took my folks out for dinner at the nice hotel -- prime rib for all! And DQ to follow! A fireworks show down by the water was supposed to cap things off, but it started inexplicably early. Who starts a fireworks show at 9:15pm in early August? Just ridiculous. So we missed the whole show. Back to Shannon's to hang out with them and the baby some more. That baby is such a hoot. Hilarious. Babbling and screaming and freaking out and making faces. Tons of fun.

The tour resumed Friday as we dined on nachos at Shannon's, hung out at mom & dad's a while longer, then hit the road for Toronto! We found Sandra and Byron's new house -- eventually -- I had the wrong address. Had the wrong address for a few weeks, apparently, as I sent her birthday card to the wrong place. Their new place is delightful! A renovated place north of the Danforth with lots of room and high ceilings on the main floor. Just fabulous. We went down to the Danforth for a filling and tasty Greek dinner. Byron even ate octopus, or squid, or some tentacled beasty that was in the middle of the plate of dips. It was great to see my friends again; it was like we hadn't been apart for long.

Amanda went out early the next day to visit with a relative, and I went to breakfast with S&B. Good food, good company.

Off to Quebec City! We managed to find a Lick's Homeburgers restaurant on the way out -- one of the things we really miss about Ontario. Big, juicy, garlicky burger. Yum yum yum.

The drive to Quebec was a long, long one. We took an impulsive detour through Trois-Rivieres in an effort to take the "scenic route." We should've learned from the Banff trip that the "scenic route" is just a narrower road with more trees. As we arrived in Quebec City, it began to pour rain. Like, seriously, lots of rain. Somehow, somehow, we got to our hotel, parked, and checked in at the Hotel Auberge du Quartier.

We learned that the beautiful breakfast room was no longer the breakfast room, and no longer beautiful. The man at the desk told us that a guest had recently returned to his room thoroughly drunk and puked all over his sheets. He pulled off the sheets and put them in the shower for a rinse. He left the water running and passed out on the bed. The shower flooded the place, and thus, the breakfast room was ruined. Shame. On the up side, we'd get breakfast around the corner, gratis. We hunted down a local pub in the rain and ate a well-earned meal -- some kind of fancy panini sandwich for me, chicken caesar for Amanda.

Br....

... (Oct 3 2007) okay, this post has been "in progress" for a month and a half now. Let's just say that the Quebec vacation was wonderful. We walked a lot. A lot. Walking and walking. Saw lots of beautiful stuff, and ate some great food. Took a horse-drawn carriage ride. I'm gonna rush through the rest of this.

I wanted to mention that on the first day, I noticed that Scientology was front-page news in the paper. Apparently the "Church" is trying to improve its image in the city by expanding its storefront operation. The paper had a two-page spread. Nothing about Xenu.

We also spent a delightful weekend in Annapolis Royal, staying at the King George Inn. The place is effing gorgeous, and Faith the innkeeper is a whirling dynamo of a host. Highly recommended. I think we'll stay there again. Having never heard of Annapolis Royal before, we were blown away by the rich history and quaint feel of the small town. It was the capital of Nova Scotia before anyone dreamt of Halifax. The oldest English-marked grave in the country is there.

We also went out on the Digby Neck, along the Bay of Fundy. We went on a disappointing whale-watching trip -- only saw a few whales, it was cold, and Amanda was sea-sick. Ate scallops of several varieties. They was good.

On the last day, we went to visit the famous Balancing Rock. A whole lot of stairs -- seriously, a lot of stairs -- and a nice view. Pretty cool.

Okay, this post sat unfinished for a long, long time. And it's, IMHO, still unfinished. But now you have a small idea of what we did on our summer vacation. For pictures worth several tens of thousands of words, check the appropriate gallery on my flickr page.

Yes, the inclusion of virtually everything I ate was intentional. Two weeks of eating and travelling, two weeks of morning-show shifts with dinner right before bed, and a recent habit of eating cinnamon buns at work have pushed my weight up to "before un-weighted" levels. Crap.

Scott meets the baby

Scott and his newphew
Originally uploaded by BigAssSuperBlog.

Big Ass Superstar meets a superstar-to-be, Ewan.

A heart-warming, gut-churning trip to Ontario

Hey, what a trip.

We flew out to Ontario on Saturday for a week-long tour. We flew with Westjet, and really enjoyed it. The price was on par with Air Canada, and a lot more fun. The satellite teevees in the seatbacks made the time fly. The cabin crew cracked jokes and sang. Free cookies. Lots of fun.

My dad picked us up from Pearson and drove us to Stratford for a quick visit with mom, and then over to visit my sister Shannon and her hubby Chris, and their new baby Ewan. Chris and Shannon are taking to this parenting thing really well.

My folks hooked us up with a mack-daddy suite at the Arden Park Hotel, which was our base for the first half of the week. They also kindly lent us the pick-up truck for easy and reliable transportation in the cold and snow. Cold (!!!) and snow! What a novel concept this winter!

Amanda drove us in to Toronto on Sunday. She went to Ajax to visit family while I spent the afternoon with my good friend Sandra. It was nice to spend time with my buddy, talk, and play some video games like in the old days. Amanda and I went out for a classic dinner with Sandra and Byron at Swiss Chalet, then headed back to Stratford to rest.

Spent lots of time hanging out with Shannon and the baby. I got to hold a baby for the first time. It was sweet. Such a little tiny person. Y'know, cats are great. I love my kitty. Kitty is fun to play with. But it's not the same as holding a baby and just watching its face. And this baby certainly has Simpson in it -- it can fart like a cannon.

Dinner at the the Boar's Head was cold (air, not food) but nice. The baby kept quiet through the whole meal.

Got some hearty exercise from shovelling my parents' driveway. Holy crap, apartment living has its benefits -- indoor parking and no shovelling.

Back to Shannon's for dinner on Tuesday, with some tasty lasagna. Things took a churn for the worse later that night, though, as you'll see in the Un-Weighted entry below. Dinner with mom and dad Wednesday at the hotel was nice, but would've been nicer if I'd had an appetite to eat more than a few forkfuls of the tasty stir-fry.

We got a whole bunch of fantastic pictures and videos from the Stratford leg of the trip. The baby and family are photogenic, for sure. I panicked when my camera choked on the new memory card, though. I bought two 1GB CF cards on sale at Future Shop during the boxing day sale, and tried them out on this trip. Somehow the camera believed there were no photos on the card at one point. Then, the pictures showed up. Then, memory card error. Then, no pictures. I went back to the old card for safety. Thankfully, all the photos have been recovered. Check the galleries later to see what gets put up.

After spending as much time as we could with my side of the family, it was off on the VIA train to Toronto on Thursday for a visit to the folks at my old station, 680News. It was nice to be recognized and welcomed by so many familiar faces. Howdy to Leah, Anne, former bandmate John, Kevin, Peter, Sultan, James, Ron, Thomas, Cara, Taiwo, Marlane and anyone else who I got to see again. The place looks the same as ever, but with more awards on the walls and new faces in some of the seats.

Wendall picked us up and took us up to Bradford for the next leg of the trip. We were greeted at Amanda's mom's place by two of the most enthusiastic dogs I've ever met. Smoochie and Molly love to play. As much fun as I wish the cats would play catch with us, I still prefer kitties.

After chilling with Amanda's sisters Amy and Ruth (who's heading off to Australia for six months) and family members visiting from the west coast, we all got dressed up Saturday for a wedding. Amanda's cousin Stephanie married Phil at The Doctor's House in Kleinburg. It was a lovely ceremony. The four-course dinner was delicious -- cream of broccoli and asparagus soup (yeah, yeah, but it was good!), spinach leaves with almonds (yeah, yeah, but it was .. spinachy, but good), those little miniature chickens stuffed with wild rice (yummmm) and cheesecake for dessert. I got to chat with some regular BigAssSuperstar.com readers -- apparently this blog is a popular read with Amanda's family, including one prominent member who reads while at work for the Peel Police. Well, that explains some entries in the server logs! The Derbyshires were warm and welcoming folks.

Sunday we visited Amanda's granny at the Sunrise Senior Living home in Aurora. Nice place! They have a separate family dining room that Barb booked for the whole clan to have lunch. And lunch was delicious. It's a pricey joint, but appears to be well worth the money.

Amy and her boyfriend Kendall drove us back to Pearson for the return flight home. By then, Amanda was quite sick with a cold and unable to fully enjoy the Westjet experience.

We arrived back at BigAss HQ in Halifax and sat down to some grub before unpacking. It was nice to be back in our own beds after a wonderful, rewarding trip to see friends and family who are far away but not forgotten.

It'd been more than a year since I'd seen my mom and dad. Months since seeing Shannon and Chris. Longer still since seeing Sandra and Byron. Bloody ages since seeing many of the folks at 680. But it's heartwarming to feel that things are still the same after all this time.

Thanks to everyone who helped make our trip so special! I love you all and miss you. We look forward to seeing you again, whether here, there, or on the infernet.

And special thanks to Laura for taking care of Kitty and Kitty while we were away. We think they missed us, but they're not as easy to read as dogs.

I'm an uncle!

Yay! I'm an uncle!

Tonight, my sister gave birth to Ewan James. My first nephew! Nearly two weeks overdue, and probably well worth the wait.

Eight pounds, two ounces. I don't know anything about baby weights, but that sounds pretty cool.

New birthday, then, to add to the BlackBerry!

Congratulations to my sister and my bro-in-law, and my parents who are now grandparents. Whoa!

The dangers of living in Mennonite Country

Here's the scene after my sister's car was hit by a Mennonite buggy. Shannon says she was driving her Honda on the highway, came around the corner doing about 60km/h, and saw trouble ahead: a runaway horse and buggy tearing down the road without a driver. She stopped. The horse didn't. The horse crossed in front of her car, grazed the passenger side, and the buggy, down to just three wheels by that time, collided with the vehicle.

The horse continued trotting down the road before collapsing, exhausted, in the ditch. Apparently the farmer's son was unbridling the horse in the barn when something spooked the beast and it took off.

Shannon called 911. Of course they can't charge the horse. Or the farmer. The cop asked for the farmer's "Mennonite Brotherhood insurance card," and he said he had none. No insurance on the farm, either. She figures the body work will cost at least $1500. The Honda's bumper is cracked underneath and there's some scratching and denting elsewhere. She's going to let her insurance company handle the rest.

Yes, that is a stray boot in the picture. Yes, Shannon is okay. I hear the horse is alright, too.

Lucky for everybody this wasn't their new car, a zoom-zoom Mazda 3 Sedan.

Hey fat boy! C'mere!

Little Sister and her husband Chris were in town this week for a lovely visit. Amanda was at the wheel for plenty of driving, plus we did a lot walking, visiting Point Pleasant Park, the Casino, the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic, Halifax Public Gardens, Peggy's Cove, Lunenburg, Herring Cove, Sir Sandford Fleming Tower at The Dingle (no relation to HTPC Little Eddie), some big-and-beautiful house viewing, and the general downtown environs including Chris' first donair. Photo highlights are in the Big Ass Super Gallery at flickr.

A few entries ago, I mentioned a show called X-Weighted. Good show, very entertaining, and inspirational, educational, moving, bla bla bla. Turns out they're doing a casting call this weekend in Halifax. I think I'm gonna be there.

Maritime word of the day: Elsipogtog (el-see-BOOK'-TOOK').

How to totally bury the lead

Double the power, double the fun! Staples had the Hauppauge PVR-150MCE on sale last week for $100, so I picked one up and slapped it into the HTPC. Now we can tape Ultimate Fighter and ER at the same time. Or Cops and HNIC. Or the trickiest one, My Name Is Earl and CSI. Tape two shows at once while watching another, or tape one and watch another. Good deal. Staples has the plain PVR-150 (minus the remote and IR blaster, which I won't be using anyway) on "hot buy" this week for $100, so pick one up if you wanna get into the TV-on-yer-computer era.

Got an email from register.com recently, telling me that bigasssuperstar.com was about to expire. I re-regged for another two years, and wondered when my old, stinky domain cygnals.com was going to expire. Turns out it was the day before. Problem was, Network Solutions still had my ancient email address on file. The @home network died ages ago, so I couldn't get in and tweak stuff. Their 1-800 support staff helped me sign back up for another two years, at prices well above what I thought I'd be paying. I know I should be paying less, but I don't have the patience or knowhow to transfer the stuff to another registrar. Maybe I'll be smarter in two years.

Best wishes to regular bigasssuperstar.com reader Mom in hospital. And congratulations to my little sister Shannon who called me last night to tell me that I'll be an uncle in 2007.

It's off to the rasslin' tonight for the first time in several years. The Maritime Cup is coming to the Halifax Forum tonight, featuring Randy, Mr. Lahey and Cory from Trailer Park Boys. Sarah "Sarah" Dunsworth will be shooting a documentary at the show.

Update on the healthy eating/weight loss effort: as illustrated, the eating is working. Walking home from work is also beginning to yield results, as several people have offered me unsolicited compliments on my shrinking size. Inspired by the show X-Weighted, we took some "before" pictures recently. Check in toward the end of the year for expected "after" shots, hopefully with magic morphing imagery.

A loss for the family

George Quibell, 1920-2006

---

Grandpa died in Lindsay this morning after a heart attack.

He was a hard-working man who raised five kids and was married to my grandmother for 64 years. Used to call me Joe-Joe The Goon. Shannon and I spent lots of time as children at his cottage near Coboconk. He'll be missed by a lot of people.

My condolences to the whole family, especially my mom.

Update:

QUIBELL, George Edwin Passed away peacefully on January 7th, 2006 at the Lindsay Extendicare Home in his 86th year. George Quibell, beloved husband of 64 years to Margaret (Moore). Dear father of James (Beth) of Oakville, Brian (Linda) of Deep River, Kathie (Mrs. David Simpson) of Stratford, Richard (Mary) of Pickering and Jane (Mrs. Mark Ewen) of Katy, Texas. Treasured grandfather to Martine, Andrew, Geoffrey, Scott, Shannon, Justin, William, Matthew and Sandy, (Andrea and Adam predeceased). Great grandfather to Alanna, Christopher, Bruce, Storey, Jack, and Nyah. Predeceased by his brothers Jack and Ted and his sister Grace Beggs. George was with the RCAF from 1941 - 1946, and served his country overseas during WWII. He was a member of the Royal Canadian Legion, Lindsay, for 52 years. Visitation will be held at the MACKEY FUNERAL HOME, 33 Peel Street, Lindsay on Thursday from 7 to 9 p.m. and on Friday from 1 to 2 p.m. The funeral service will be held in the chapel on Friday, January 13th at 2:00 p.m. Interment Riverside Cemetery, Lindsay. In lieu of flowers, memorial donations may be made to the Lindsay Branch of the Alzheimer's Society. The family wishes to extend their appreciation to all the staff and care givers at the Lindsay Extendicare Home for the care and compassion.