BIRDS: back from The Vault

As my first entry from The Vault (a place where good anecdotes from the past are safely kept until they mature and come out at the appropriate time), we visit my house last year during a tumultuous time..

Last summer, July 21st to be precise, birds became my new foe.

I wake up that morning, hear something funny like a distant flutter, go about my business, hear something funny again.. I look for the source of this noise but can’t find one. As I’m getting ready in the kitchen, I look in the living room and see a little tweet tweet bird sitting up in our tree!!! I yell to the Lord “There’s a bird IN the tree!” He sleepily replies something about that being what birds do.. and I yell again “in the LIVING ROOM TREE!” He runs downstairs as I stare in disbelief and says “AH! Am I seeing double? There’s TWO birds! No no.. THREE!” The three little birds were just chilling and pooping in our small living room tree. Our yelling must have scared them as they started flying around everywhere. We open doors and shoo them all out one at a time, then leave for work.

I come home that night and I hear a little tweet tweet. Oh. Dang. Another one must have gotten stuck in the fireplace shaft when we closed it after figuring out their entry way. We open the shaft and down plops a bird, yet again in our living room. Other roomie pulls the ol’ scream-scram as the bird flies out and I videotape the incident.
Then… another one falls and pulls a repeat performance.

Half an hour or so passes by, and I hear another high pitched scream from upstairs. Ah crap. Roomie went to loo and was surprised by yet another bird in the shower. It flies around, and we finally coax it downstairs and out the front door as I yell for it to “get OUT and don’t come back, YOU!” then shut the door on my hysterically laughing neighbor who witnesses the incident.

The next few weeks went by in much of the same fashion, with a total of 12-or-so birds entering the house.

…

As I say my goodbyes to our real pet this morning, Bailey the little man Chihuahua, (that’s not an oxymoron, he’s quite manly) I hear the unmistakable sound of a bird falling down the chimney… I can’t say I was surprised, but the little turdlinger was, and I bet the bird was too. I had to leave it there until I return tonight, video camera in hand to tape the sooty tweeter’s escape from chimncatraz.

Easter 2007

In need of a major break from this city and work, I headed up to Toronto in Via One (first class) for a nice weekend of R&R. I sat next to someone who must have had a hearing issue as she didn't understand the question "excuse me, I'll just be a moment to settle down, I have to place my bags in the overhead compartment. Would you terribly mind standing up for a minute?" I don't know how else I could have said it.. so I politely waited for everyone to board, cramped in my seat with all my bags on my knees, hoping there would be an empty seat I could take. The last thing I expected was for a friend of mine to walk on board and relieve me of my boring seat partner.

Toronto brought one some great adventures, eating more cheap (and tasty!) sushi than one person can handle, dancing like a rock star, street meat, and knowing that best friends always make everything better. I also crossed another accomplishment off my list: acquiring the ruler of all lip glosses, the fiery punch, the possible end to my glossession (m).. the Two Face "lip injection". (it's just a name)

(m) glossession: Gloss. Obsession. Smash 'em together why dontcha.*

*on a side note, I can never understand why the auto-correct function tries to replace some nonsensical words with their own suggestions. In the case of "dontcha", which is obviously "don't you" to us, Mr. auto-correct is suggesting we replace it with Pontchartrain or Chardonnay. Uh, what?

I won

I can no longer say I've never won while rolling up the rim. So far my tally is 3 coffees and 2 cookies. Not a bad year at all. Now where's my iPood?

A concert for me?

March 22nd.

I've known about this concert for a couple weeks. It seemed too good to be true. David Usher, my favorite artist since 1995, was going to play at Zaphod's, this little club for the unpretentious with a concert stage no bigger than a small bedroom and no higher than a gnome.

Moist's first album was readily available in 1994 for people like me to eat up. Creature came out in '96 and by then people were taking notice. They played the closing concert at La Foire Brayonne in Edmundston on August 2 nd in 1997. I was in town then, visiting my mom and extended family. I remember my older cousin was going to attend the concert with her friends, but I was too young to go unchaperoned, so Mom was brave enough to take me. We stayed outside the concert fence, I could see the stage, the sound was loud and clear, and that was enough for me. At the time, I didn't want to be in the pit anyway. Two folks who left the concert before it was over give us their tickets so we could get in. We popped in for the sole purpose of buying an early birthday gift for moi, a burgundy tee with a silver Moist logo. (I still have it.)

I saw them again at Summersault '98, the best concert of my life. The Can Am Speedway in Shediac hosted the outdoor concert with two stages. The small stage had up and coming bands like Bucket Truck (who?) and Treble Charger, while the big stage featured Esthero, I Mother Earth, Moist and Our Lady Peace. I even got to talk with the IME basist for a while (Emilie can attest to this!) then met their new front man. (Remember Edwin's departure?) Other memorable moments include running from the loo to the stage at high speed through a field of muck as soon as we heard Moist, swaying to OLP's mega-extended version of 4am, and Andre crusted with mud from head to toe.

Then his solo career took off, and I attended his concert in 2001 in Moncton, then for free in the summer of '02 at the X in Ottawa. The point is: Big fan.

I was called crazy for going to a concert by myself, but I never once regretted it, especially when the girly girl next to me told her friend I was a loser. I wasn't aware I'd lost anything! Anyway, opening act was great. I thoroughly enjoyed how the singer and her band mate had to disassemble their own gear and walk through the crowd with their equipment. (There's no backstage entrance at Zaphod's.) She later saved me from the classic embarrassment of walking out of the loo with a long trail of T.P. stuck to my shoe.

Then came the headliners.. David Usher! ..And most of the former Moist. Was that Kevin Young and Jeff Pearce?? They too walked through the crowd, hopped on stage, and blew everyone's minds from start to finish then to finish again. The crowd went wild when they left the stage, and they encored for about 45 minutes thereafter. It was Nelly hot in there. Wow. For such chitty chatty prior to the actual event, I don't have much else to say about the concert! My mind's was blown to pieces! I never expected to see my favorite artist play in such an intimate venue. If you can try and imagine how unreal that would be, I assure you that it was.

Gotta thank BC for being that genius he is and turning to Ticketmaster. If it wasn't for you, I would have trusted the sourciest (m) source at said venue who informed me the show had been sold out for months...

(m) Sourciest: Most trustable source, the one who should be giving your the most accurate information. It's in the Emtionary. (because who's dic? and what makes him so knowledgeable of the English language?)

the lost bloggeries

It happens, things in your life change, events happen, most of them worth mentioning, but you procrastinate on posting. Well this is that time where I decide to backlog multiple unwritten bloggeries at once. (Don't say I never used the term bloggeries!)

A simple KnockOut

It was a little too easy for Wladimir Klitschko to knockout Ray Austin, but it was enjoyable to watch. I thought Ray stood a chance against Dr. Steel Hammer. They were almost identical in measurements, except for a 2" longer reach on Austin's side. Nevertheless, the handsome Ukrainian champion delivered four blows in succession for a knockout early in the second round.


Vitali Klitschko is apparently re-entering the world of boxing now that his back "ain't broken no mo" (as Tyson would have said).


Let me just wipe the drool of my chin..


Here's the real reason for a post: My pimped out GH controller! eeeeeeeeeee!!!


http://picasaweb.google.com/myraaume/PimpedOutGHController

Rummy: (adj.) beyond or deviating from the usual or expected

I'm at my 15th coffee, and still no win. I even tried to get other people to get me a winning cup, and that didn't work. However! It's been the best Tim's week in history. They remembered my order for three days in a row this week, right down to the toasted bagel with nothing on it and a knife. Also, zero fudgeings. It's unheard of. It almost makes me want to send them a card.

My roomie (not to be confused with Roemie) finally introduced me to his current lady. She'd been in my presence at the house for the seventh time. For those of you who placed bets, I'm sorry, that makes me the winner. (where's my reward?!) The Lord intervened on said situation (short for landlord) when it became a little ridiculous. When roomie asked us if we had met, I think he was surprised we both quickly answered with a giant NO! Now the deed is done, but I 'm left wondering how long it would have gone on without intervention.

Today in Nerdlinger news:

The Dude is a genius. Google spread sheeting all our GH high scores has proven to be the best idea designed in the smartest of ways. (GH is short for Guitar Hero in case you're in the dark about my latest and greatest attempt at becoming a rock goddess). Now I get to compete with peeps on my level who aren't around for me to whoop their beehinds in person. Our high scores are displayed for each song, while keeping tabs on the number of top scores for each player.

To celebrate my recent domination of high scores, I decided to pimp my GH controllers proper. The original Ol'Blacky is getting a funky lime paint job, while Mr. Red's been given the Paul Wall treatment. That's right. If my guitar had a mouth, it would smile and declare a sparkle war. Just because my controller's jewel encrusted doesn't mean it wouldn't kick your macho candy ass.


Fun movie projects announced: Tin-Tin. Prince of Persia: Sands of Time. What's not to like?

Press pause on life Saturday March 10th at 10pm. Dr. Steel Hammer aka Wladimir Klitschko will fight Ray Austin in Mannheim Germany. I'm ticked that Heavyweight championship boxing matches aren''t watched enough to be on pay per view anymore. the upside is that I get to enjoy the match at home, away from creepy drunkards at the local sports bar. If you're lucky enough to have HBO, the match is playing live at 4:45pm. Otherwise, avoid stumbling onto the results online and wait until it reruns on TSN at 10pm. Don't try to ruin it for me by talking about it either, nobody likes to make a girl cry.