The losers are like redwoods in Edmonton...

Man, was it ever a drinky night at the Dog yesterday, as what started out around 8pm as a few editors hanging around and having a few pints in honour of Mr. Paul Matwychuk's leaving Vue for greener pastures gradually turned into a full-out Vue Weekly staff party, complete with far too many free drinks courtesy of Ron. It was a night full of conversations about newspapers, true ghost stories, how to shuffle a deck of cards with one hand, how Lyle actually did get fucked by Liberty Mutual, trying to figure out why the poker set we bought for Paul was so fucking unbelieveably heavy... though I think I was handling myself well on the outside, by about 1am I was far too drunk on the inside to be in a bar anymore. And I was just about to leave when who should walk down the stairs but Dave Alexander. That forced a few more pints down my throat. And forced Fish to shoot this picture.

Anyhow, long story short, there's a magpie that's been visiting my bedroom window pretty regularly for the past few days at 9:30 in the morning and doing that thing where they screech like an abandoned baby at nothing at particular. Which, when you went to bed at 4, isn't too hot. So yeah, I got that going on.

life as a one-bedroom basement apartment that needs vaccuuming

Sup, fools! So this is the first day of Kristine being in Quebec City for her month-long second-language program, and already I'm really, really bored. Not that I have nothing to do, of course; I do--but I also totally don't feel like doing it. It's 10:30 right now, and I should really be working on this gig review of The Fever show at New City that I convinced Exclaim to give me a shot on, but so far the muse has failed to move me. I'm probably just too nervous to start on it, I guess; it only has to be 300 words max, but I should also make it totally fucking awesome so they'll want to give me some more work in the future. Despite the ease of the workload, I'm finding the pressure to be kinda high. I'll quit being a big baby soon, though. Oh shit, and I just remembered that I have to do some Bestest of Edmonton entries for Paul tonight, too, which also seemed so easy that I left them to the last minute, at which point I discovered they're actually quite difficult.

Anyhow, instead of getting any work done, I used my newfound time to clean up this dump a bit and, uh, play a metric fuckload of XBox. GTA Carl and I are having some good times these days. We just made it to San Fierro, which unlocked the Gap-esque Zip clothing chain, which means I can now wear khaki shorts and a blue plaid bucket hat while I run around and kill strangers with a pool cue I stole from a bar up the street. I tell ya, you just can't buy that kind of happiness. Except, you kind of have to.

Also, Calgary third-string goaltender Dany Sabourin just held my mega-powered, 67-6-3 Canadiens to one goal on 47 shots in NHL 2004. Seriously. What the fuck is that. Needless to say, controllers were thrown and swears were swore, much to the presumed discomfort of my upstairs neighbour.

Okay, back to work. Or back to starting work. And oh hey, be sure to check out Rue Morgue's August issue, because I sure wrote the Travelogue of Terror on the Tower of London, and it sure is awesome. Yay, first thing I've written for a professional publication other than Vue! Take that, long-time employer!

And finally, Canada Day here was really boring. In fact, people are starting to treat the police presence as more of a novelty than anything else, if all the wandering bar girls posing for photos with cops were any indication. Clearly, fear has not been sufficiently struck in the hearts of Edmontonians.

Things sure are smoke-free around here now, too. If you're bored, check out the cover stories Darren and I wrote on the issue. Huh!