Everyone remembers this post, right?

Oh wait. I just looked and only TWO of you commented on that brilliant post. What gives? I’ll give you a minute to read the other post, comment and come back here.

All right, moving along.

Yesterday was CutieDaughter’s first full day of school. LovelyWife dropped her at school in the morning – that backpack was so heavy I almost couldn’t lift it! – and she was to take the bus to get back home at night.

The bus ride is very short. Provided you don’t forget to get off the bus at some point.

Click to embiggify

• Green is CutieDaughter school
• Red is our house.
• Pink is where she got off.

This one shows the bus route.

Click to embiggify

• Green is CutieDaughter school
• Red is our house.
• Pink is where she got off.

Now if there was ever a doubt that CutieDaughter is LovelyWife’s blood…

AUGUST is almost over. I haz a sad.

BIG BROTHER was not on because of the Emmys. I haz another sad.

CHELSEA. We went to the old Chelsea Market to get fresh veggies over the weekend. We got there a little late, but it was okay. We’ll go earlier next week.

DRUNKS kept me up awake sunday morning from 3am to 5am. If they do that again next week, I might get angry. You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry.

EMMYS. I watched the Emmys while reading comments on Twitter. It was missing “Shiny’s made up facts about the Emmys” like we had during the Olympics. How cool was that?

FLYING in! Friends of ours we haven’t seen in a while are flying in at the end of September. I sense some time off coming…

GNOCCHI (home made) were made on Friday night. That sh*t takes a long time to make, let me tell you.

HBO. After watching previously mentionned Emmys, I realized that I need to get HBO.

I’LL BE BACK! I got sucked into a Schwarzenegger marathon on Sunday.

JEWEL. Is it just me or does Jewel looks like she’s not all there when she sings? I mean she looks like her hair caught on fire when she was little and they extinguished the fire by hitting it with a shovel. I loved her so much in Firefly.

KIDS are sad the summer is over.

LAWN needs to be mowed.

MOM is back home. I’m amazed at the miracles of modern medecine. Of course, it might just be all the gnocchi I made.

NAP. LovelyWife took a 3-hour nap on Sunday.

OUTDOOR activity: We hiked around Pink Lake. Pictures to follow.

PLATES were bought. We’ve been looking for rectangular plates for a while, and managed to find some. Sweet!

QUIET. I need to find a quieter computer, as my home computer’s HDD is making a noise that reminds me of a blender on pulse. This does not look good. I’m half kidding, all my data is on an external HDD, so if the computer dies, I just need to reinstall the OS.

ROULETTE Scotch glasses. I like them. A lot.

SOFT. I gained some weight while on vacation. Time to do something about it. I downloaded the C25K App. Gotta start running now. Or tomorrow. Tommorow-ish.

T-FAL frying machine. We finally got one and made awesome French Fries with mussels on Saturday night. This machine uses next to no oil, so I don’t have to feel too bad if I get some French Fries from time to time.

USED. My living room chair was delivered two weeks early (Yay!) but is broken (Boo!). The frame is crooked. I suspect this was a return of a used chair, as mine was supposed to be built today and delivered on the 16th.

VERDICCHIO. The wine we had with the mussel was delicious.

WTF? I went back to the furniture store to ask for a chair repair/replacement, and the manager started by offering me 10$ to “buy some washers at the Home Depot” to “Even out the legs”. I was not impressed, and told him so. If I’m paying 600$ for a chair, it will not look like ass the day I get it.

X-MAS. Less than four months before X-Mas. start shopping people! Don’t complain to me on December 23 that I didn’t warn you early enough.

YIKES! Zoé is starting High School today.

ZOÉ is starting High School today.

As some of you following me on Twitter and/or on FourSquare, you already know that I got an iPad for LovelyWife last Friday.

How sweet is this?

I originally didn’t plan on getting LovelyWife (or myself) an iPad, but as I walked past the overflowing Rideau Centre Apple Store, I casually asked one of the Apple Dudes** if all of these people were in line to buy an iPad. I mean it was ridiculous, I couldn’t even see the back of the store.

He said no, that all these people were just “browsing”. He then asked me which model I was thinking of getting, handed me a card that had a picture of an iPad and waved over an Apple Dudette*** that looks just like OhSarahJoy used to look. CloneFromPastSarah took me to the back of the store, parting the sea of “browsers” before me, handed me a box, swiped my credit card and wished me a great week-end. I was in and out in less than five minutes**** with a brand spanking new 32G Wi-Fi iPad.

For LovelyWife.

I’ve already said that I’m not part of the target clientèle for the iPad – I got a laptop that I carry around all the time and an iPhone – but I gotta admit that’s a pretty cool toy to have.

The screen is brilliant, the weight and feel is awesome. The apps are pretty cool, but I already knew that from the iPhone. I think it makes a lot of sense for an in-house use and replaced the older laptop LovelyWife was using to browse the web, read the news, watch some tv on the computer or get recipes.

Let’s not forget Sudoku.

So I’d say this is an all-around great buy. I’m guessing it’ll get even better as we discover new ways of using the device.

Now if there was only a user-facing camera integrated. That will be the second generation iPad. That one will be mine.

__________

*I figured that I’d get the “pad” joke out of the way as quickly as possible.

** I know they’re called Apple Geniuses, but really the Dude was just handing out business card sized pieces of paper identifying the model of iPad you were buying. I’m  sure he’s not really a Genius.

*** Dudette did a little more than the Dude, and did it efficiently. Closer to a Genius. Almost.

**** This setup is for BluePaintRed. I owed you at least one, Blue. How’s that chin of yours, BTW?

This is kind of a rebirth edition. With pictures / graphics. Enjoy.

• The Phoenix: So Hilly decided to reinvent herself. I can’t wait to see what she’ll do next. Just so you know, I’m totally stealing the Hilly Sundays and making them Mikey Sundays. I kid, I kid. I never blog on Sundays anymore.

• The Dark Phoenix: I’m thinking about this. Again. I already did this and that, so I’m thinking about making it official. Again. Feel free to gimme your thoughts, opinions and assvice.

• The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again. In one Age, called the Third Age by some, an Age yet to come, an Age long past, a wind rose. The wind was not the beginning. There are neither beginnings nor endings to the turning of the Wheel of Time. But it was a beginning. So I completely missed the release of Gathering Storm, the 12th (and final) book in the Wheel of time series. Well, true to the Robert Jordan experience, the final book has now become a three book saga. So the ending is really a beginning. As it should be, I guess.

• Galaxies are Colliding: I look good in black.

In a slightly modified Call of Cthulhu tradition, I’ll keep the last two bullets for myself – the madness is here and I’m not going down without a fight.

That is not dead which can eternal lie.
And with strange aeons even death may die.

This year, instead of saying that we’re not giving each other gifts – but we always end up exchanging gifts anyways – we simply decided to upgrade our knives. And when I say upgrade, I mean really upgrade. Our knives were 15 year-old no-name bought at Wal-Mart type knives. They really had to go. The difference between the knives we had and the new ones is tremendous. Funny how we kinda knew we had crappy knives – I’ve been complaining about them for at least the past 10 years – but now that we used a real knife we will never go back to the other knives. Plus they look great!

Beautiful, right?

We went with MAC Knives, because those are the knives Ricardo uses. LovelyWife loves Ricardo, so she naturally wanted the same knives he is using. Actually, we had been trying to figure out which knives he was using for the past year, but he never mentions the name and the brand is never seen in any shots. Until last week’s Christmas Special (in French) where he did mention the name. Turns out they are based about 30 minutes from here – in Kanata. I phoned the place to ask if they had some stores in downtown Ottawa carrying them, and was told that there was a demo on Saturday at Chef’s Paradise.

We went with the Professional Series and got a chef’s knife, a paring knife and a bread knife. We also got a nice knife block (one with the fancy spaghetti-like insert) and a sharpener. We’ll keep adding a few knives over the next year, not because we need more than those three knives, but because there will be less fighting if we can both have a great knife to work with. Also, I’m a sucker for weird things, so I must get their cheese knife and black sushi knife.

Anyways, I have not been paid to do this post, but there was a 20% discount on the knives because we bought at the demo. Honestly, we didn’t need the demo to convince us, but getting a great deal is always a plus.

What about you? Are you a knife enthusiast? What kind of knives do you use?

Did I ever mentioned I love XKCD? Only like always, right?

The original is here. Go visit!

p.s.: LovelyWife is Susie.

I married a Rockstar.

*Two scores, that means two kids, right? *Wiggle Eyebrows*

Last weekend, we went for a walk at the MacKenzie-King Estate. For those who don’t know, William Lyon Mackenzie King was the Prime Minister of Canada off and on between 1921 and 1948.

It was fun. You can see the whole set on Flickr.

You say it’s LovelyWife’s birthday

It’s my birthday too, yeah

They say it’s LovelyWife’s birthday

We’re gonna have a good time

I’m glad it’s your birthday

Happy birthday to you.

Yes we’re going to a party party

Yes we’re going to a party party

Yes we’re going to a party party

I would like you to dance (Birthday)

Take a cha-cha-cha-chance (Birthday)

I would like you to dance (Birthday)

Dance

I would like you to dance (Birthday)

Take a cha-cha-cha-chance (Birthday)

I would like you to dance (Birthday)

Dance

You say it’s LovelyWife’s birthday

Well it’s my birthday too, yeah

You say it’s LovelyWife’s birthday

We’re gonna have a good time

I’m glad it’s LovelyWife’s birthday

Happy birthday to LovelyWife.

EDIT: LovelyWife came back around midnight and proceeded to have Tequila shots and play GH5. You can see pictures on Flickr.

EDIT EDIT: Smells like 35 year old Spirit – The video. LovelyWife turns 35 and she had some Spirit…

Like I wrote earlier, I’ve never been able to top this. This is where you come in. I need you to come up with the bestest icebreaker ever. One that I can pull on LovelyWife’s guests.

So LovelyWife has decided to throw a dinner party for two of her employees and their spouses. Of course, when she told me about inviting those people over for dinner, her main concern was that I would embarrass her in front of them.

This stems from the time I met my dear friend Claude. I had the best icebreaker when I met Claude, and I have never been able to top it. I’m sure you want to know how I met Claude, right?

How I met Claude

It was 1992. I was living in Montreal with LovelyWife in a nice little apartment at the corner of Jean-Talon and DeLorimier. Now if you know anything about Montreal, you know that apartment buildings look pretty much the same. Look at these:

Aerial view of my apartment. Click to make it bigger.

Street view. Click to make it bigger.

Anyways, Claude was a friend of a friend (Patrek), and was interested to join our D&D game. I had never met him, but Patrek talked him up: He’s a really smart guy, a little on the geeky side, he loves Star Trek, etc. Claude was perfect for our group. He only had one major flaw: He was extremely shy.

Now as a little side note: Patrek didn’t lie about any of those things he said about Claude. If anything, saying that Claude was really smart, geeky, knowledgeable about Star Trek was a major understatement. Claude is now publishing stuff like “Fluctuation induced drift in a gravitationally tilted optical lattice”, “Simulations of Sisyphus cooling including multiple excited states” and “Ground state of the time-independent Gross-Pitaevskii equation”. The guy is simply brilliant. Unfortunately for him the same can be said about his shyness.

And this brings me to the famous icebreaker story.

Around the time I met Claude, I was out of work. I had a few geeky friends and we basically played D&D all night and slept all day. It was a normal thing for me to get up around 2 PM and spend the rest of the day in a bathrobe. I had long hair.

That picture was taken a few months before I met Claude. Picture the hair a tad longer, but I was wearing the exact same bathrobe.

So anyways, the day I’m to meet Claude, Patrek gets to my place around 3 PM, I wake up, put the bathrobe on, he comes in, we start shooting the shit about something or another. Normal day. About an hour later, there’s a buzz at the door. I unlock the outside door with the intercom and open my apartment door. As I’m standing in the doorway – bathroke, disheveled hair, unshaven, Claude makes his way up the stairs and stops on the landing, about 10 steps below me.

He looks at me. I look at him. A beat.

“Are you Mike?” He asks.

Being the idiot I am, my brain yelled “He’s shy! He’s shy! SHYYYYYYYYYY!” So of course I said:

“Godammit. I asked for a girl, but you’ll do. Come on in a take your clothes off.”

I could instantly tell that Claude wanted to flee. But he couldn’t move. He was stuck there, face getting redder by the second. I was doing my best not to laugh. From the kitchen, Patrek started laughing. Claude recognized his laugh. I started laughing. Claude started laughing. He came in and told us his side of the story.

“All those buildings look the same! I thought I was at the wrong place! Who knows what weirdos live in these parts!”

We laughed for hours. We’ve been friends ever since. Claude has never been shy around me after this.

Why did I tell you this story?

Like I wrote earlier, I’ve never been able to top this. This is where you come in. I need you to come up with the bestest icebreaker ever. One that I can pull on LovelyWife’s guests.

At this point, I have these:

• One of the guest was presented to me as a wine enthusiast. Of course, I told LovelyWife that I was going to call him a drunk “by mistake”, or make vague references to his drinking problem.
• I told LovelyWife I was going to ask the guests to put their keys in a bowl on the counter.

So LovelyWife knows I’m joking but there’s a small part of her that still believe I have the balls the idiocy to pull those stunts. I need you to feed me some other crazy ideas. So shoot, what do you have for me?

P.S.: As I’m writing this, I just received an e-mail from Claude and Caroline. They just had their 2nd kid! Congrats buddy!