Touch You Last

I went cross-country skiing yesterday for the first time in about two years. Briefly summarized: I suck. Less briefly… We were out at an NCC trail in Kanata (the name of which I forgot three seconds after it was told to me), and it was a perfect day for it. The cast included Dave—your friend and humble narrator— Isha , and Cathy, with Sarah there in spirit (but in body, felled by sickness and sacking out at home). The path was a more-or-less flat 10K, and well groomed except for the last kilometer. From start to finish, I’d say we saw twenty people, which isn’t bad at all for an hour’s worth of skiing. To be honest, I really enjoyed myself for the first fifteen minutes. Experiences like this make me get winter sports. It’s actually worth putting on your nine layers, and dropping all that cash for your skis or skates or snowshoes or sled-dog team. And cold weather endorphins feel strange and interesting to this old man’s body. Now then, what didn’t I enjoy? Mostly the falling. Thirty s...

Let me tell you what I love right now: Rogers Cable . It’s not often that you’ll hear someone sing the praises of one of their service providers, but watch me. The reason: because they added Turner Classic Movies and the Independent Film Channel to our package, unprompted and at no extra charge. It’s like they bugged our house to find out how the could make me happy. (They didn’t throw in HBO too, because that would have been too obvious.) Right now I’m watching Paul Newman not have sex with Liz Taylor in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof , and it’s awesome. Earlier, I caught Inherit the Wind and Cabin Fever , and waiting in the queue I’ve got Waiting for Guffman and All the President’s Men . I may never leave this apartment again. Dinner for Five is fantastic, too. It’s a show where Jon Favreau and four random celebrities just shoot the shit over dinner and drinks. It not bad when everyone gets along and seems to be on the same wavelength, but it’s way better when someone nuts is ...

You’ve likely already noticed that Jorge has posted the photos and videos from MM2 over at his site . The Department of Redundancy Department tells me not to just borrow his code and post it all over again on my site, so I’ll just speak on my three favourite videos. (And yes, I know this is like a week late, but I’ve been waylaid with the croup for many days.) 3. Fast, Cheap, and Out of Control – Aside from everyone in this making me laugh, I remember the video coming together very quickly. This could be a sleep-dep-induced falsehood, but I think the time between initial conception to completing the entire shot was about fifty-eight seconds. And I also love that Moe lets out a tiny unscripted yeeeoooowroooar just before the camera moves away. 2. Dirty Harry – You can’t hear Isha laugh and not want to laugh with her. I also like that a pink lint-roller was a perfectly acceptable substitute for a .44 magnum. Throwing my voice (totally unplanned and unsolicited) into this one, I ...

The place has long since cleared out and I’ve had about four hours sleep now. All in all, I’m starting to feel human again. I think I’ve already said it, but the latter half of yesterday was very different than the previous year. I remember hitting a sour-stomached few hours of despair in ‘06 at four in the morning, but ’07 was smoothing fucking sailing all through the night. Better movies, the energy was just higher, and we had a lot of between-movie action (of the non-sexy time). Now, about the flicks: On the Waterfront – My third or fourth time seeing it. Played decently, though we were all only semi-attentive. Until everyone pointed it out, I’d never realized how overblown the score was, which is the fault of Leonard Bernstein, the same guy who scored West Side Story . “You was my brother, Charley, you shoulda looked out for me a little bit, so I wouldn't have to take them dives for the short-end money. Furthermore: ba-ba ba, ba-ba ba-ba-ba, ba-ba ba-ba, MAMBO! ” Dirty Harry ...

Right now, this is a very different experience than last year. We had three shite movies back to back last year around this time. At this particular moment, we were jowl-deep in Faster Pussycat, Kill! Kill! and we were totally exhausted. This year, we all hit a fatigue wall around 8pm, but since then it’s all been gravy. Probably because the movies have been great since then. Lebowski —rockin;’ Oldboy —squiffy; The Descent —scary-ass scary. I am fraking wide away right now, and drinking again. This is both the earliest and the latest I’ve ever had a drink before. We’ve made some nerdy-ass videos and taken nerdy-ass pictures, and maybe the humour might not translate to you non-participants, but we laughed off making them. Just you wait and see. BTW: this movie is making me feel very claustrophobic right now!

Yeah, so, we’re still alive. I haven’t been so much about the updates today. For a lot of reasons, really: been busy hosting (though Sarah’s largely responsible for our being fed, comfy, and happy), been watching the movies (crazy, I know), and been working on other… multimedia pieces of the day. More on that tomorrow, I think. Sorry for totally neglecting messenger, and for not making the webcam more exciting (meaning: sexy). Jorge is a far better secretary than I, so check his site over mine. We’re on to movie five right now, Fast, Cheap, and Out of Control . Sarah’s way freaked out by the naked mole-rats, with good reason. Also, it’s about nine-thousand degrees right now. More later.

Here's a few last notes for this weekend's participants and for those of you who'd like to play along at home. First, here are the start times for the movies. There has been a slight substitution ( A Night at the Opera in place of Duck Soup , but it's still the Marx Brothers so it's still all good). Hey, it won't be the movie marathon if one of the movie mysteriously became unavailable exactly when I needed it. (Fucking Dolemite .) On the Waterfront 10:00 Dirty Harry 12:03 A Night at the Opera 2:15 Way of the Gun 3:38 Battle District B13 5:53 Fast, Cheap and Out of Control 8:18 Forbidden Planet 9:52 The Big Lebowski 11:55 Oldboy 2:22 The Descent 4:27 Roadhouse 6:16 I Heart Huckabees 8:20 I'll be especially anal about start times in the beginning and the end, but I'll play it a ...

In approximately 80 minutes, Beth will be thirty. (This is a little Ontario-centric of me to say, because way the hell out there on the West Coast, she’s still got hours of I’m-still-twenty-nine-so-it’s-all-good time left, but in my defence she was born in the Eastern time zone.) Anyhow, Sarah and I are having a drink in your honour right now. Sadly it is not a Jager Bomb, but I believe I’ve promised my J-bomb v-chip to you at an earlier date, and I’d hate to renege on that. Sarah here – just want to let Beth know how much we love and miss her, and that we are confident that this next year (and decade) will be her best yet!! And that we’ll call to express these same wishes, too. Back to Dave – So, we’re going to come and see you soon, we promise. Now, go out and rip Vancouver a new one. In a good way. And kick a hippie while you’re at it.

It’s Saturday night, and I’m on the couch, rocking the internet from my laptop (more on why this is remarkable in a second), and I’m watching a show called "Sexy Cam." Well, for the record, I’m not really watching the show; it’s just on in the background. Turns out, it’s just like the Just For Laughs gags show, except that the gags all end with some woman in her underpants. God bless French language TV. So, this is really meant to be a shout-out to Grandma’s Buddy (who doesn’t actually read this, so it’s more for Sarah’s sake). We picked up a wireless router many moons ago, but we (or at least, I) ran into problem after problem with it. Dropped signals, couldn’t connect, the desktop (directly connected to the modem) would shit the bed… When it comes to stuff like this I’m really just winging it, and my winging it was not working . Time and time again. So after months of this GD router totally not working, Sarah’s dad came and fixed everything in about twenty-five minut...

It’s a huge treat for my when I pop in a classic movie and end up enjoying it. It’s not as typical an occurrence as you’d think. Like sitting through Strangers on a Train —I’m glad I saw it but I didn’t have fun watching it. Or Giant ; I was glad to cross that one off my list, but I watched the clock just as much as I watched the movie. It seems that I’ve adopted the same attitude towards watching a movie as I used to have towards reading a book: you will finish this, goddamn you. Just grit your teeth and plow through it. Don’t get me wrong—most of these Wednesday Movies are films I really wanted to see. This wasn’t one of them. I was overly familiar with the story going in, and Gregory Peck (no matter how deep of voice and cleft of chin) was neither a draw nor a turn on for me. Of course, I was all wrong about this movie. Having now seen it, I’d count it among my favourites. I loved the kids in this movie; they were just perfectly cast. And I haven’t traced their careers o...

I’ve made a few resolutions this year, and most of them have been going along swimmingly (apparently, one of these resolutions was to sound more like a dandy). But the one I’ve been absolutely dragging my feet on—also the one that should be the easiest—is the resolution that involves writing. Are you ready for this monster? Will you be able to fathom the sheer ambition of it? I resolved to write at least one hundred words every day. Do you know how fucking short that is? When you see the asterisk, you’ll know I’ve reached it. What* makes it even worse is that it doesn’t even have to be serious writing; from the start I decided that it could be a blog entry, or even correspondence of a ‘certain significance.’ I really don’t know why I’m screwing the dog so badly on this one; the dog keep crying out, but I just keep given’er. I worked on a story (for now titled: “Bohemians,”) for the first two days, and churned out one hundred decent words and just over one hundred shitty ones. ...

I forgot Leanne in my list of love last night! Dammit, dammit, dammit, dammit! Exactly what I said would happen, happened. Me sorry. Me love Leanne. Me miss her.

So, had a New Year's at home, which seemed vaguely unglamorous, but turned out to be one of my favourite New Year's Eve's. It turned out to be a not-unsurprising yet surprisingly love-filled shindig. I think that one of the ways you know that your permanent relationship is real, and full-time, and absolute, is that you keep being surprised by it. If you can have a discussion about the future—and talk about kids, and child-rearing,… and wallpaper, and lawn maintenance, and aluminium siding replacement… and almost cry—then all is good in Relationship Land . Hmm. What would make it better? Let's just name a bunch of people to throw into the mix. This New Year's would ideally have included (note: this is a shit-trap; I will inevitably leave someone HUGELY important out, but here goes anyways) : my brother, my wider family, Jorge, Isha, Beth, Brady, Bill, Blaine, Colleen, Pat, Chris, Steve, Cathy, Kris, Mark, Tania, Tanya, Rob—FUCK IT! There is no way I'm NOT going ...