toronto trek report

Had fun at TT. Highlights include: watching Allison take care of her tamagochi Lazarus all weekend (she had him hanging from a cord around her neck so she would be able to hear him when he beeped), Saturday night filk, Allison being offered gum by B5 GoH Claudia Christian in the hotel elevator (Claudia Christian, incidentally, has just been fired from B5), the Xena panel (I've never watched the show, but it was interesting to see how intense the discussion got sometimes), seeing Lyanne Quirt (and she showed me pictures of her rat!), getting our CDs/tapes (yay!) from Dodeka. Jeff got home from his canoe trip with "the guys" yesterday, very hairy (i.e. didn't shave the entire trip). He reports that one of the guys came home with over 120 mosquito bites! Anyone having trouble connecting to this site (or my email address) last week might be interested in seeing this article about the "week from hell on the internet".
Today's website is courtesy Allison: Dinokun Page (the life and times of a pocket dinosaur). Lots of info about Allison's tamagochi...and it looks like her little guy doesn't have much longer to live! :(

[6:23:58 PM ] Check out Buffalo Online's review of Ookla The Mok's new album, Less Than Art!

quatro studios

Recorded some flute and vocals for Scott Snyder's album last night at Quatro Studios...many thanks to George, Sean and Rory! We added vocals and flute to Cuz She's A Guy and vocals to Karmic Retribution. Also did some fun recording with some friends visiting from Ireland and England...Chris Marsh, one of the guys who went on the canoe trip with Jeff (and the one with the 120 bug bites), wrote a song called Mulligan Stew about the event and we recorded it yesterday on our little four-track. Chris did vocals and piano, Scott was on the bongo drums, I played flute (he had scored out a part for me), Brad Morden did backup vocals, Jeff did the engineering. Allison's tamagochi is now a very cute dinosaur! She was tending to him during lulls in the recording session at Quatro last night. I fed him icecream while she was in the booth. >:-) Today's Site: Barnes and Noble which touts itself as "the world's largest bookseller online", which is interesting since Amazon.com claims to be "Earth's biggest bookstore".

herb garden r.i.p.

My herb garden is officially deceased. I haven't had the heart to throw out the container yet, so my wilted basil and chives lean limply against my office window. Got a package in the mail yesterday from Lissa Allcock (or so it said on the label). The customs sticker had "cookies" written on it which made me very excited, of course, since Lissa was the one who got me hooked on Walker's Chocolate-Covered Ginger Cookies. I ripped open the package and was delighted to find a box of my favourite cookies nestled among styrofoam peanuts. A colourful little post-it note proclaimed: "ENJOY! Hope they travelled OK." Imagine my dismay when I opened the cookie box and found...FIG NEWTONS INSTEAD. What a cruel joke! Especially since I recently wrote a song mentioning my dislike of Fig Newtons! As wracked with mental anguish as I was, however, I still can't help but appreciate the evil genius behind this prank. Today's Site: Nabisco School: FAQ about Fig Newtons.

1000 e-mails

I got over 1000 emails yesterday; a new record. Off to the northern hinterlands today. We'll be flying up from the island airport in one of those seaplane thingies (does anyone know the proper terminology?? I'm referring to the small planes that can land in water). UT practice was cancelled yesterday because Jodi was sick. Did some extra work online as well as going shopping for a birthday present for our niece Sara (who turns 3 on Sunday). Here's a picture of Sara and Annie. We got her some fun stuff including three cans of Silly String. :-) I'm sure her parents are going to love us. Today's Site: John and Allison's page!.

seaplane

Turns out the seaplane I was on (thanks to David Goulden for clearing up my confusion over terminology), a Cessna 206. Take-off was fun, and we got a fantastic view of downtown Toronto from the air. Quite a bit of turbulence on the flight, eek! Managed to hang onto my lunch until we made a safe landing in Oxtongue Lake. The trip home was even more exciting, believe it or not. Through a set of extraordinary circumstances, we ended up hitching a ride home on a Lear Jet from the Muskoka airport to Pearson International Airport. Very, very cool experience! Site of the Day: InternetNews.com (mostly because I want this on the sotd archives so I can find it again, sorry). Also check out Computer Virus Myths before you decide to send out that massive groupmail warning people about that Good Times virus...