Jet D'ewwww

London's brand-spanking new flood-control system is deemed 'ineffective'. Sources inside City Hall blame the Metric system, a rusted compass, and Board of Control. More details as the story unfolds.

Balls? We Don't Know From Balls...

I went for a lunch-time constitutional through Harris Park recently and came upon a crew taking down a damaged tree. The only way to describe this tree is to confirm that was Ent-sized. The crew of 3 was taking it down piece-by-piece, limb-by-limb - without a crane. See for yourself below, and tell me if you feel a little less manly for having done so.


And in case things aren't clear, that's a guy climbing around with 2 (yes, 2) chainsaws in tow.

Taking Stock And Feeling Frightened

Tomorrow I have to go to Toronto for a meeting. It's not my favourite way to spend a Wednesday, but it's an infrequent-yet-necessary evil that comes with my job. The silver lining is that I always get to travel Via1, which means big chairs, decent meals, and lots of wine.

So here's the thing that is giving me pause to reflect: I apparently have a deep-rooted need to pack geek survival gear for even the shortest of trips. Tomorrow's sojourn will see me on the 6:30am train to Toronto and returning on the Noon train back to London - a journey lasting about 8 hours in total, with at least 4 hours involving 'sitting on trains'.

As I peer inside my shoulder bag (it's a very manly leathery thing) I find:

- a fully-charged iPod with an up-to-date selection of music, videos, Disney podcasts, and games
- a standby iPod charger
- the first 2 volumes of Sandman
- a plastic Mewtew (good luck charm - long story)
- a couple of thumb drives containing gawd-knows-what
- a disposable digital vidcam
- a couple of pieces of paper which I probably need for my meeting

Sure hope I don't get bored.

best. FCBD. evar. almost.

Today was a far more productive Free Comic Book Day than I had even hoped. My usual FCBD compadre, JediBoy, was at a school event (long story...) that kept him tied up until Noon-ish. This threw a major wrench into our plans in a few ways: (1) we wouldn't be hitting the streets until the afternoon and (2) JediBoy was coming off his first all-nighter (again, long story...) which I feared would sap his staying power.

Of course, FCBD is about the collective power of geekery, and JediBoy was able to roll a pretty decent Stamina score. In fact, we were able to hit all 6 participating stores in town, which is a first for us! Our FCBD bags came home absolutely stuffed with treasure. In addition to the freebies, we continued our tradition of purchasing a little something at every comic-book store we hit - just our way of saying 'thanks', I suppose.

A few of the highlights of the day:

- Standing in line at Heroes and hearing someone 10 line-minutes behind us offer a free pizza to the crowd - an offer that was quickly accepted.

- Running into a good friend (with his 2 little kids in tow) and having a few minutes for breezy chat

- Serious haggling in the basement of L.A. Mood with a fellow who just wanted to move merchandise out the door, price be damned

- Seeing Sailer Moon cosplayers sashaying up and down Dundas Street

- Discussing with Bruno the best strategy for avoiding crowded screenings of Wolverine

- Getting that last passport stamp....

So what about the 'almost' part, you ask?

Since I was on JediBoy's schedule and had no idea of how we would be attacking FCBD, I had little hope of a pre-arranged confab with noted geeks, Kid Dork and Jim Dandy. That was kind of disappointing on it's own. Karma wasn't done with me yet, however. As I pointed the red Matrix down Dundas Street at approximately 1:40pm in search of parking spaces, imagine the biatch-slap as I spied Mssrs. Dork and Dandy in the environs of Heroes. A third member of the party was spotted but not identfied. I'm assuming it was Mrs. Dork(?). A U-turn was not possible (and would have been slightly stalkeresque), so all I could do was watch green sneakers disappear into my rear-view mirror's horizon.

So guys, I still have my $1.45 for a large double-double. Maybe some other time, eh?

In the meantime, I have some reading to do.