Wednesday

I had a nice few days there. On Wednesday Bob asked me to get him while they fixed his car. I followed him to the Firestone, to discover that they did state inspections. Since Homer was due, I dropped him off and we explored the stores around the Firestone. First we went to Fry's, where I got a live DMB cd to play... I generally don't like live cds (crowd noise irritates me, and even the best musicians can't seem to resist the urge to go off on some rather long, indulgent solos that are probably a lot more interesting in person) but this one is not too bad (I think it's 'Live at Red Rocks'). We also went to the K-Mart which has been threatening to close for months. Everything was on sale, but 10% off is not worth the frothing hype the ads seemed to convey. So there were things like $5 tiki torches on sale for $4.50. Big freaking deal. However, they did have a DVD player for $50, and after calling hub who looked up the brand name, we decided to get it. It's nice to be able to watch, um, grown-up dvds in the upstairs bedroom.

Although Bob's car needed more stuff done to it than mine, I got a slow guy so they were done at the same time. We went home and had tasty salad for dinner. It's amazing what some cranberry raisins and pecans will do for a salad.

Heh heh

Courtesy of Colin Mochrie as Anthony St. George from This Hour Has 22 Minutes CBC Television, dated 2/11/03 (thanks to todfox for the correction):

A truly Canadian Apology to the USA...

On behalf of Canadians everywhere I'd like to offer an apology to the United States of America. We haven't been getting along very well recently and for that, I am truly sorry. I'm sorry we called George Bush a moron. He is a moron, but it wasn't nice of us to point it out. If it's any consolation, the fact that he's a moron shouldn't reflect poorly on the people of America. After all, it's not like you actually elected him.

I'm sorry about our softwood lumber. Just because we have more trees than you, doesn't give us the right to sell you lumber that's cheaper and better than your own. It would be like if, well, say you had ten times the television audeince we did and you flood our market with great shows, cheaper than we could produce. I know you'd never do that.

I'm sorry we beat you in Olympic hockey. In our defence I guess our excuse would be that our team was much, much, much, much better than yours. As word of apology, please accept all of our NHL teams which, one by one, are going out of business and moving to your fine country.

I'm sorry about our waffling on Iraq. I mean, when you're going up against a crazed dictator, you want to have your friends by your side. I realize it took more than two years before you guys pitched in against Hitler, but that was different. Everyone knew he had weapons.

I'm sorry we burnt down your White House during the War of 1812. I see you've rebuilt it! It's very nice.

I'm sorry for Alan Thicke, Shania Twain, Celine Dion, Loverboy, that song from Seriff that ends with a really high-pitched long note. Your beer. I know we had nothing to do with your beer, but we feel your pain.

And finally on behalf of all Canadians, I'm sorry that we're constantly apologizing for things in a passive-aggressive way which is really a thinly veiled criticism. I sincerely hope that you're not upset over this. Because we've seen what you do to countries you get upset with.

For 22 minutes, I'm Anthony St. George, and I'm sorry.

Thursday

Since I helped Bob out with his car, he was nice enough to take me to drop my car off at Gailon's. Meaning the new car, so he can make sure there are no horribly glaring mechanical problems that would prevent me from driving it to Georgia. Anyway, we did that and then he got hungry. So we went to this taco place called Rosa's or something, which is apparently famous in south Austin. Since his girlfriend lives in south Austin he knows all the nooks and such, and looked smug when I remarked about all the anti-war stuff, from yard signs to billboards. Nice to know, especially after hearing cars are being defaced for having peace stickers- not in Austin, thank gods. So far, anyway.

He was going to take me back home before he went to meet a friend, but when I found out that his friend was like a mile from where we were, I offered to go along. He wanted to run some ideas by this fellow who is a blacksmith with all the tools- he's thinking artwork for Flipside, and this would involve welding and fire and such. So after I give a tiny bit of input I wandered off and enjoyed the neighborhood, which was at the end of a street and near a little stream. The weather was beautiful and sunny.

I talked to hub on the phone a bit- he's poking into some ideas about a second career in case he decides to ditch computers. He asked me half-jokingly to ask Gailon if he needed an apprentice. We discussed it, and I happened to mention that hub has a degree in gunsmithing. Gailon seemed to think that hub could make a lot more money doing that since he already knows how to do it, so this is now under consideration.

After that Bob dropped me off at home and I spent the rest of the afternoon getting ready for class. We're already on class 6- about half-way through them. Wow!