Peterborough trip

Tired and home from the ravages of the wild outdoors on this Sunday 26 September 2010 and I
won't even attempt to think of this day in history.

Took my baby brother Mark up to Peterborough for the Phantasm RolePlaying Gaming convention and decided to tour the sights. Peterborough is one of those places that produced industry and trade for about two hundred years untill economics started to take it's toll. Home to Trent university, Sir Sanford Fleming college, The Canoe Museum, the Lift-Locks, the Quaker
Cereal/Pepsi plant, G.E. lightbulb factory and a waterway that led to a railway that led to trade across Ontario, Canada, and to the u.S. of A. and not just beaver pelts. Really weird is the place has heavy irish roots and heavy african roots that black Irish seems to have originated here about twenty years before New York City. To me the place is a marvel for still having working lift-locks a hundred and some off years after being built. Oh course if I could have aranged a tour of the Quaker plant where many cereals are made and lots of fruit beverages I would probably gone with that. I did see Sir Sanford Fleming College which is on the same grounds as the Peterborough museum which just finished relaunching after an extensive renovation. I
Fleming feels a lot like the portables that used to be at the North West of Humber College.

As if the whole place is waiting to be moved into a larger permanent domicile. Don't let that knock the town to a learning annex feel it has a definate small town vibe like a training ground for bigger things. There is really nothing to do after 4 or 5pm on the weekends unless you want to see a novie or drink at a bar or try to eat at a grill. They even shut down the dancing lights on the Fountain in the reservoir when it's after labour day. Their walk of fame needs a pamphlet or a website to find out who all these so-called "famous" people are. Mind you with all the used book stores gone in Toronto, Peterborough is a goldmine if you are looking for some lost treasure from the 1970's to the 1990's. They also have a number of gaming stores and head shops and cultural stores which is to say it's a lot like a small college town.
They have a nice public library. Only one I found in the entire community. Some nice looking schools and the views are amazing. You want to see the fall leaves change colour you better make sure your camera has a panoramic feature because you will want to see it all. Oh and this is one of the hilliest places I have ever been to so be prepared to climb lots of stairs. That's right the place is highly wheelchair inaccessible so make sure your cane has a good stopper on it because it will get a work out. Mind you once you are in most buildings, the newer ones are very wheelchair complacent and sprawl out. It's just getting into one such place is where you need people to lift your chair. The town is very internet accessible with Wi-Fi just about everywhere and cable lines for fast secure connections.

There is also a seeming abundance of accountants, lawyers, and therapist's office around the town and lots of local art galleries. Well I may be biased you see yesterday was their annual Gay Pride Day and their annual doors open and the end of their Arts week so there was an abundance of the unique or at least artistically balanced. I will also jump up and say most of the art I saw was novice at best striving to be amateur.

Now while I respect the town and would love to hide away in it I realize that eventually I would grow bored to death without my big city amusements, cable TV channels, and freedom to pick a different thing each week. But if driving were no problem and I had a place to stay in the city this would be the place to retire to. Any place that doesn't bat an eye at a bunch of medival type LARPers chasing an open horse drawn carriage at midnight down busy downtown streets past it's greyhound bus station is the place for me to hide out my life.

Quintessentially magical and subtle quiet.
Now I haven't stayed in a hotel for a while and this comfort Inn was pretty darn good. Could use a bigger indoor pool and maybe a TV guide but considering for an extra twenty dollars I could have gotten a Jacuzzi tub in the room nobody is complaining. The all you can eat complimentary breakfast was fantastic with the belgium waffle maker, mini dainish, three pump juice machine, two kinds of eggs (scrambled and poached), hash brown patties, home fries, bagel toaster and choice of real jams and jellies it was very filling. I did not care for their choice of three cereals but then I prefer Rice krispies, Fruit loops, Goatmeal Crunch, or Captain Crunch in the morning not cornflakes, Special K or Rolled Oats and Oatmeal. They also need to make the free newspaper stand more visible and accessible but outside of that colour me impressed. One thing that got me in the room was I am used to actual glasses or mugs when I drink in one of the room but they have replaced that with cellephane wrapped plastic cups. Plastic cups are great for entertaining but I would not want my lips using it to rinse my mouth out in the morning.

The Peterbourgh tourism office relocated to the outside edge of town and closes at 5pm Saturday until Tuesday morning. My guess is unless it's summer time your tourist dollars are
not welcome on the weekend. Shame really as I have stated it's a really nice town.

Phantasm is an annual Role Playing Games gaming convention to capitalize on the fact that there is so much gaming out here just no real organized place to centrally play. They have been around for twenty years and are fairly diversified in their time just seasonal in the playing. Much of the games are either refurbished scenarios from Anime North, Polaris, and FanExpo or they are moderated testing for ad Astra and the previously mentioned conventions.

Still for two days of condensed gaming play and sales this is the place to meet new people, try new games, and get caught up with changes in the industry. Would I go again? Yes I would like to think I would even though it's not my type of gaming of the moment. For example while I like the idea of mixing The Sopranos with Call Of Cthulhu the fact is as He Who must not be Named enters the plane Madness would effect all so it doesn't play my sympathies well enough to get involved. Similar to the idea I don't care how interchangable the tiles are for your board game it's still a board game just with a mixed board. How are you susposed to get into a generic Hero Card game if there is no preview story to enrapture you in their history? Pretty art on a card will not be enough to sell a Generic Hero Card Game just ask Phil Foglio and his XXXphile Fantasy card game which came out gangbusters then crapped out flat after two years. Still if you are looking for some niche game to play this is the place to try before you buy.

Well that's enough for Peterborough and Phantasm and my long drive home in the dark from the
home of Trent University. Need to wind down and get some sleep so I can find out what I
missed in the morning.

Billy Joel songs

Egads it's been months and now it's 22 September 2010 the anniversary of the first issue of National Geographic was published in 1888, ITV went live to air in 1955, Debby Boone and Joan Jett and Andrea Bocelli were born, and Martha Corey was the last witch hung at the Salem Witch Trials while this is also the anniversary of the deaths of Marcel Marceau, Dan Rowan, Isaac Stern, it's also the Autumnal Equinox and Trumpet Day. It's also the day after DC Entertainment announce it was closing it's WildStorm Offices and cutting 20% of it's 250 staffers and moving just about everything but the actual comics from New York to L.A. so Warners can make media with it. Zuda the digital comics is gone too. Marvel is streamlining as well but no where near as drastic. So what's been happening in my life? Well Mark has been going for all sorts of medical tests and has returned to college for a couple of days a week. I| have been busy doing the shopping for the family and visiting the local farmer's markets because Mum really enjoys the bacon from the local farmer's market. I have taken pictures everywhere I go which includes those Farmer's Markets and various street Festivals including Taste Of The Kingsway, and Ukrainian Festival on Bloor West not to mention TIFF celebrations downtown.
Then there was Rob. Rob Chin whose Comic Shop I have been patronizing since a month after it opened in April 1987 has decided to close at the end of October this year due to high rents, and diminishing returns. The next nearest place is another 2.5 kilometers away. On top of that Rob's dad died on the Labour Day weekend so he shut the store for a week. It was the week I ordered the newest HeroClix and because Rob's was closed for the funeral the order came went back and they distributors canceled it. I had to make the trek all the way downtown to get my brick of Web Of Spider-man HeroClix. One in five of those clicks were doubles leaving me wanting for 25 others most Super-Rares. On a lighter note in collecting I am only missing 4 figures from the Brave & The Bold set and 9 figures from Hammer of Thor set.
Oh did I mention my very late arrival to the Terry Fox Run at West Deane Park and no spare working batteries this past Sunday? mind you i think i did my best time yet except that by the time I got to the finish line a little after 1pm they had shut down and left for the day. So no one to see me complete the run well walk actually.

What else is happening in my little self absorbed world? I had a Churro at the Ukrainian Festival and it was good but no where worth the value they charged for it as opposed to a true Canadian doughnut.
Halo Reach finally came out and I literally gave up on it 30 minutes after starting. My brother Mark loves it and cannot stop going on about the story.
We also finally visited the OLG Slots at Woodbine racetrack. Most of my winnings were lost by my brother but to be fair I started with five dollars. I know my limit and more than play with in it.
Dad had some real slow days at the beginning of the month and as a result took to infrequent napping which has resulted in starting one program and then asking if it's repeated later in the night so he can see how it ends. I have to tell him no it was on regular network TV alot. I think that's why he's gravitating to AMC and History Channel so much they tend to repeat more than their fair share. Of course it doesn't help if he falls asleep during Death Wish original and awakens during middle of Death Wish Two. Ditto the Dirty Harry films.
Mum is same old stuff. The hair on the back of her head is a nest of one large knot. She refuses to have it seen to and figures it will just grow out. She has the same plans for many months now for me to take her out to a jeweler to get her a new watch band and a new watch battery and earrings. Except I got her some nice gold stud earrings for her birthday last month and she keeps slipping as I got her two different pairs. Then there are places of people she wants to see
(doctors to drop in on out of the blue that she hasn't seen in five or more years) and she backs out of going at the last minute. Although her last minute can drag on for a couple of hours. Just the other day I made Pancakes for breakfast for everyone and she took half an hour to come down the stairs. The actual stairs were less than a minute. It was the get up and go and prep to come down that took most of the time. Oh and there is the paper piles. She goes through the newspapers and cuts out various articles and then piles them up with the fliers and brochures and free weekly magazines and mail and all sorts of other notes that the table is sometimes one big loping pile. After a period of time she goes through it and we end up with a lot of stuff recycled and a bag or three of assorted notes. Okay sometimes it's a manila envelope but still. Sometimes what spurs her to clear the table is company coming or we need to find some important document amongst the piles. It can end with screams of we don't respect her and are mucking her system when we taper or try to straighten things out for our selves. Rarely a good time. More so things need to be done. Maybe that's where I get the hoarding mentality.
On that note the home renovations seem to be as done as they are ever going to be. We had a gentleman come in and take out our upstairs bathroom window screen and returned promptly a week and 5 hours later with the replacement. During that time the window was open and I killed over 17 moths that had flown in to take residence in our upstairs bathroom. They still haven't comeback to repair or replace the toilet paper holder which fell out of the wall the day after they installed it. It took a month after the inspection and the plumber repair to clean up the lobby of the fallen ceiling. The Janitor just dumped the debris from the fallen lobby ceiling out by the corner fence.
What's for the future for me is I think a visit to Peterborough for the Phantasm RPG Convention this coming weekend or a visit to CTV studios openhouse or Woodbine Center mall's 25th anniversary celebrations or maybe a visit to the new studios for Q107 who moved out of the Hard Rock Cafe ten days ago. Then there is ScotiaBank nuit blanche and the following weekend there is the annual Toronto Zombie Walk and Thanksgiving then the Loblaws strike and then two weeks aft5er that my birthday and Halloween. Oh and maybe a trip to visit my Aunt Marilyn and see the Oktoberfest Parade in Kitchener-Waterloo but that will be for another entry.
Well that's all for this time hopefully I won't take so long to make a post in the future.

Me and me vices real and psychological

Okay back after a long time and it's now September 9th, 2010 and the anniversary of the first Terry Fox Marathon and the anniversary of Elvis Presley making his first appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show. So since my last post I have been busy with carribana, visits to Montgomery's inn, various Farmer's Markets, seeing the summer stock play The Taming Of The Shrew, to having the police visit me for suspicious behavior at The Taming Of The Shrew, to seeing some summer films, to going to the annual Canadian G.I.Joe Convention (met Larry Hama Go Joes), to visiting JerkFest 2010, to seeing World Ukranian Day, to going to three and a half days of Fan Expo, some innukshuks in the Humber River near Etiene Brule Park, and my mother's birthday, my brother Paul's Birthday, and my parents 44th Wedding anniversary. So in spite of all appearances it's been a very busy summer.

So they have come and inspected the kitchen twice and just finished the upstairs bathroom over a week ago. There are no drawers in the bathroom and the mirror/medicine cabinet is half the size of the previous one. The shower curtain is half a foot lower and the tiling is slapped on that it will eventually buckle from the wall. Well it's awkward but the one good thing is they redid the ceiling so no more mold hanging down from peeling paint. One bad thing (of already several) is mum's bench is major source of water leakage so we have to mop the floor during and after with a bath towel. So what's next is they haqve someone coming in to fix all the window screens and then it's done. complete, finished, finito.

Oddly I find my self pondering a new TV Show called hoarders where they come in a clear out people's homes who cluster it up with too many things they can't let go or organize. The reason I ponder this is sometimes I think there is something wrong with me as I feel one step away from being a hoaqrder. Nothing gives perspective like cleaning up a house hold and shifting items around the home. You see I collect comicbooks, posters, pulp novels, buttons, keychains, cereal toys, HeroClix, HorrorClix, brochures and magazines and specialized catalogs. All this accunulates and has to be organized and stored. You see I noticed a decade ago that while I collect some things I don't always pay attention to them like a collector should. You ever read the book or see the film High Fidelity by Nick Hornby that starred John Cusack. Both great works but I digress so let me focus on the film version. In the film John Cusack portrays Rob who has just been dumped by his long time girlfriend Laura and decides to go and rank all his break-ups in life so far. Then Rob decides to revisit these break-ups and starts ranking other things in life. You see Rob was a DJ then moved on to running a new & used record store and when you deal with that sort of thing in life you are constantly ranking things and in this case it makes a great soundtrack. Collecting things will make people constantly rank things and list them and discuss them with like minded or even curious strangers. Like Top Five songs to spy by which would include Secret Agent Man by Johnny Rivers, Spies Like Us by Paul McCartney, You Only Live Twice by Nancy Sinatra, Wanted Dead Or Alive by John Bon Jovi, Live And Let Die by Axl Rose. Now that's off the top of my head not from the film but if you collect comicbooks you will accumulate as your collection grows hits and misses and you will have favourite titles and favourite stories and favourite characters and hated characters and hated stories and you will inevitable tie them to points in life. I bring this up because Rob's collections or music from life and DJ led him to open his failing business and with it failing along with his relationships he goes on this voyage to reorganize his personal record collection not by title or artist or chronologically even alphabetically but instead biographically. Now when you deal with thousands of titles like that it can turn a scene when you really think about that in September 1980 you can like Starting Over by John Lennon just months before he was assassinated at the same time as Queen's Flash Gordon and Dolly Parton's Nine To Five you were suffering the indigniti3es of grade six. To put this to a comicbook collector I know that I was at a Voyager Restaurant and service station at the end of August 1980 driving between Brockville and Toronto two months after my maternal grandmother's funeral when I picked up Avengers 201 and Uncanny X-men #137 the death of Phoenix. I can trace from that point to a year later Uncanny X-Men #151 and the start of the Brood Saga with showing off my collection in Mr Ashenhurst's Grade seven class and being asked to public speak before the class five months after that about Spider-Man and having my father scrimp so I could get some classic specials of Spidey to allow me to display to class. Biographical is not necessarily linear since it ties to your life experience and if nothing else can be very emotional. Forest Gump is a very linear story and is told chronologically but is also biographical and emotional. I like to think Stupid is as Stupid does and I would like t5o stop doing stupid by just accumulating things and get my life in order if I can just figure out how to do that.

So before I got so far off topic on the fact I feel like a hoarder for lack of practicing my organizational skills let's refresh with a list of the previous paragraph.
- shifting things to clean up during renovation of home.
- I collect things.
- I list things.
- i collect comicbooks, and assorted other items.
- I like Nick Hornby and High Fidelity and John Cussack.
- My grand mother's death and Grade seven and uncanny x-men.
- I don't want to be a hoarder.
- I think of myself as Forest Gump.
- I am still lazy.
- I need to change.
That's a top ten list of what I think my life has become. Isn't that sad?

With that my life has to move on at the moment and I will get back to this blog for the moment I feel tapped out so until next time stay free.