Mexanese Mumbo Jumbo

Ah debauchery. How I've missed you. It'd been a while since I'd had a truly debaucherous night and apparently Serendipity thought I was long over due.

Bailey and I have a mutual friend who owns a restaurant, so we thought we'd head over there and show our support. He's a lovely man and notorious for buying regulars rounds of shots. Since he loves us, because we have boobs, he bought us a round.

Two rounds of shots later, and a couple of beers, we were pretty buzz and heading to one of the local pub that recently opened. Our initial thoughts when we walked in was "OMG this is a young crowd". We're talking 19yr old baby faced boys surrounded by hooched out hussies. Ok, so maybe I'm exaggerating - but it was young.

We cozied up to the bar and decided to stay for at least one beer. We must have looked very out of place because both bartenders bought us a round of shots at 2 different times. I fully blame the mystery shots for putting us over the edge.

By the time we'd had a few more beers, we had run into Matt and his brother who was visiting from T-dot. He promptly bought us another shot and beer and by this point I was starting to forget the events of the night. Thankfully I had the wherewithal to make a quick, stumbly, yet graceful exit when the GIB boy appeared.

A couple of days later, I realized my foot was really sore and I began to have vague recollections from that night. Most notably, some girl stomping on my foot at the bar, Bailey had getting hit on by a Michael Bolton look a like and apparently I was dancing in the middle of the bar with some bald headed stranger.

Ah debauchery...good times.

In drinking of course!

It's currently day 13 of the Olympics and I have seen one sober day, motivated primarily by the need of clean socks. I'm not saying I've been debaucherously drunk every night, but I've manage to sustain my liver with a steady diet beer and caesars over the last week and a half. I think it hates me.

With only 4 days left, and Canada in the running for a gold medal in Men's Hockey, I'm not sure if my liver, let alone the rest of my body, can sustain this pace much longer.

But like any true Olympian, I'm going to power through the pain and fatigue for the next 4 days.

Ever notice how no one in NYC follows pedestrian signals? It's a phenomenon that's taking over the West Coast.

The other day I was walking to the bus stop that now, thanks to the Olympics, is at Granville & Davie. Given that I cross a couple of one-way streets, and a narrow 2-way street, I will often just check traffic and cross if there's an opening.

You'd be shocked at the number of people that will start walking simply because I did. Except they don't bother to look at traffic, or the lights, or the pedestrian signals. They just follow like blind sheep.

I watched a woman the other day almost get hit by a car because she decided to follow my lead but instead of walking at a brisk pace, she sauntered through the cross walk as if she owned it.

I guess that saying is true:

People are smart, crowds are dumb

I know there's mixed feelings about the Vancouver 2010 Olympics. Some people hate them, some people are indifferent. Some people, like me, are kind excited about them.

Yes, I'm sure the city has spent too much money, we're probably triple the budget and funds are being spent on frivolities that could be spared and the money gone to teachers or something more worthy. But how often can you say "I was at the Vancouver 2010 Olympics?".

There's so much going on in the city, in Whistler, in Richmond - it's enough to send one into an epileptic shock. It's a once in a lifetime event to be sure, and the world gets to see how amazing Vancouver really is. Ok sure, Mother Nature is currently wreaking havoc on the local mountains, the cherry blossoms look ready to bloom in Feb and it looks like we should be hosting the Summer Olympics instead. But really, we're the warmest city in Canada, so it seems about right. Besides, maybe it'll finally dis-prove the stereotype that we live in igloos and dress like lumberjacks.

Anyways, the city is starting to buzz, there are a ton of free events going on around the lower mainland, I got to hold the Olympic torch thanks to a co-worker and I got a free ticket to go to the opening ceremony dress rehearsal - jealous? How about the fact that I get to go to 2 curling events, even though I know nothing about curling? Or that I'm going to a Women's Hockey pre-lim game? Ok, I digress.

With all this excitement, what I'm most anxious to see are the hockey games. I mean, how amazing is it going to be, watching the Men's Hockey Gold medal game, downtown, when Canada wins?? It will be a night to remember...provided I don't get lost in the crowd.

I've had my car, a red & white Mini Cooper, for about 4 years now. And ever since I've started working downtown, 3 yrs ago, I've been thinking about selling it but never quite able to get over the love I have for my little SUV and how much fun I have driving it.

Well the time has come to finally let go. What's that saying? 'If you love someone, let them go'. We're just gonna apply that to cars too.

I figured if I sold it privately, I could get away with asking for a little bit more moola, but then I started to think about the logistics:

• Meeting people by myself? Not a fan, so would need to make sure Wayne was around whenever someone came to see the car
• Test drive? What do I ask for as collateral? Do I go with them? Do I potentially endanger Wayne's life and send him on the test drive?
• Certified cheque? The hassle of meeting them at a bank during working hours...pain the arse

Thankfully my mom's mechanic, a nice little old Japanese man named Yoshi, stepped in and saved the day. He agreed to deal with all the hassle involved with selling my car, for a whopping fee of $300.

So if you know anyone who wants a 2004 red & white Mini Cooper with only 38,000km leave me a comment and I'll send you the deets :)

A couple of weekends ago I headed up to Whistler with a mishmash crew of peeps. Streefy, Justin & Uldis.

Before I proceed to regale you with stories of our weekend, it should be noted that Uldis is probably the tallest man I've ever met - he's 6'9". I refused to stand next to him all weekend. I was at navel height. Awkward!

I was pretty stoked to go riding since I wanted to test out some new gear I picked up during the boxing day sales - helmet, goggles, boots & bindings. We woke up early on Sat morning and hit the mountain. It was sunny, warm but not too warm, great snow and amazingly enough, not as crowd as we expected. The perfect day. That is, until Uldis took an unfortunate tumble whilst trying to avoid a rogue child in pink who cut him off and ended up hurting his shoulder. Sadly his day ended, but ours continued on to be a great one.

That night was supposed to be our 'drinking night' however some of us were struggling. I was ready to call it a night until Justin gave a very amped, very inspired speech with a hint of ultimatum - we either get up at 7am the next morning and hit the mountain again or we drink. Not being one to wake up at 7am for anything, I voted for drinking.

The rest of the night was spent basically watching Justin become "Crazy Justin" (name still a work in progress) while butt-rubbing all the women in the bar and even trying to bite someone's hair. Just imagine what our night had been if he didn't give the speech.

I love to paint walls. I don't know why but it's one of those weird quirks I have.

I decided that the Christmas break was an ideal time to finish painting my bathroom that had been sitting unfinished for more than a year. Sadly, my artistic talent doesn't go further than the painting itself, so instead of agonizing over paint colour selection, I got Ali to come over and choose for me. Which she did. In 10 seconds.

Even though the bathroom isn't a very large room, it took a couple of hours to paint everything, some of them requiring 3 coats and only one re-do was necessary...I accidentally tore a chunk of paint off of the sliding door when I foolishly tried to leave. I then proceeded to confine myself to the bathroom for about a hour while I watched paint dry. Literally. I watched the paint on the the door and my nails dry because ironically enough, painting my nails was the only form of entertainment I had.