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Itchy Feet

aka the travel bug. This is all of Canada that I've seen. Watching the Over Canada video doesn't count. Maybe I'll fix it when I eventually get around to driving across Canada. Nova Scotia and Newfoundland are definitely on the list.



create your own personalized map of Canada

I've let opportunities to go to the Yukon and Nunavut slide. Maybe it's time I start looking at things a little differently...It's a big world and we don't have much time.

East Van Culture Crawl

I keep forgetting how much I enjoy this event every year. One year, I concentrated on glass artists. This year, it was mostly paintings and prints that I was interested in. Next year, I'm going to try to get to some of the artists that are a bit out of the way. I'll try to post a list of the artists I really liked here later.

I miss having a creative outlet. I like painting, photography and pottery, but I'm not very good at any. I would love to try sculpture or woodworking. Sometimes I think I should just take a year off to explore and find a hobby I can really call mine.

The Tea Party at the Commodore

P bought tickets to The Tea Party concert for my birthday. It was a pretty awesome show. It opened with Todd Kearns, who looks and sounds like a young Axl Rose. The next band had a more professional sound, energy, and possibly had some talent, if only every other word were not a swear word. If I was listening, I found myself laughing because it just seemed like a spoof.

When The Tea Party finally came on, they sounded better than I ever could have imagined - just brilliant. Jeff Martin has great voice that suits the dark, brooding lyrics, and played on several guitars, a mandolin and a sitar. They opened with a set of songs from their new album, including "One Step Closer Away" and the acoustic "Oceans," dedicated to their manager, Steve Hoffman, whom they lost last year. They returned to the stage with well-know favourites including "The Messenger" and "Temptation." The crowd was energetic, and we knew there would be an encore - the show finished memorably with Kearns joining the band for a cover of GunsNRoses' "Welcome to the Jungle."

Hmm...apparently more people may be reading this than I though (Hi K) -- all because at some point, I had a webpage, that had a link to S's webpage, and he found it by using some tool that shows pages that link to your page. So he included a link to my blog on his page. Ah, the web, where you can be famously anonymous, or anonymously famous, whichever you prefer.

But that doesn't mean I'm going to start writing anything intelligent or worth reading anytime soon.

AirCare

I got my car AirCare'd last week. I always wondered why they ask what the mileage on your car is, and it has always bothered me slightly why they collect this information. It just occured to me that it's how they collect information for their reports, specifically how much air pollution is emitted per year. How valid is this information anyway, if everyone is filling up at Mohawk before testing, if that's not the gas they normally use. I did that this year and my emissions were significantly lower (90% lower in some areas) than last year, when I just was using regular gas from Chevron.

Also, on the website, by simply entering your registration or VIN number, you can see the results history of your car, even before you owned it. After a moment of "That's cool..." paranoia kicks in and I start to think it's too much information available about me. (Says the girl with the blog.)

Someone mentioned to me that they buy only 11 months insurance if they are due for AirCare that year. It effectively gives them an extra year without getting AC'ed for just a little extra cost in the licensing fee (averaged). It wonder if anyone else does this to save a few bucks. Or is is well known and I'm the only one who doesn't do it?

Vampires in our midst

My neighbour has 3 adorable daughters. I asked the middle one, who is 2 or 3 years old, what she was going to be for Halloween and she replied, "a vampire princess."

I raised my eyebrows and looked at her mother for an explanation. To my relief, there was a perfectly logical one. She wanted to dress all her daughters as princesses, and the middle one said "No! I want to be a vampire." Mom:"No, you're going to be a princess." "OK, I'll be a vampire princess."

See, it all makes sense.