Oh yeah I guess I need a title too

Chick made an incredible discovery today. I had told several people it's impossible to add videos to my blog without going through all the hassle with youtube, but turns out it's not! Thank you, Chick! Also, thank you Dan for taking me to an Indian restaurant with a buffet and not telling me to stop when I reached and then passed the point of stomach-explosion-imminent, thank you soo much! And since I'm on a thanking spree... thanks Don, the steroids you gave me are totally working for the poison ivy blisters!

OK, the last one sounded a bit weird.

What I won't tell you though is that the button to upload videos was right next to the 'upload picture' and I simply hadn't noticed it before, because that would be really embarrassing, wouldn't it.

Anyway, Chick and Carole took me to an awesome place today. It's a spot a certain individual would absolutely detest, because they happen to have nightmares about what happens here, but I really loved it. I can only imagine how amazing it looks at night, but even during the day it was so cool. This is the place:



Doesn't look like much, eh? I guess you're right. Here's another shot that might give you a little clue of what it's all about:



No? Don't get it? Look closely, what's that thing near the end of the road?

Yep, that's right - an aeroplane. So what's so strange about it? Well how about the tiny little meaningless fact that it's about two metres above ground! That's what's so strange about it. The guy sitting on the chair in the pic was a total pr0 btw, he eveb had like a shortwave radio to listen to the air-to-ground radio chatter. Maybe planespotting is the local equivalent to trainspotting.

Anyway, here's what it looked like from where we were standing.








Iiiiiiiiiiieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeouuuuuuuuuuuuuhmmm!! Somehow our four-flights-a-day airport in Joensuu doesn't quite pack the same punch. Oh, if you're wondering about the weird change of angle there in the pics above, it's not only because I used a different pic for the right-above-you-shot because I missed the plane in that particular progression as you can see in the last one (it wasn't easy to get pics of the planes, trust me!) but also because every single plane came down strafing weirdly like that, at an angle due to the strong wind. They only aligned themselves with the runway just before touching down and hence the weird shift.

EDIT: Interesting, I seem to have found a little language quirk. To me, strafing has always meant lateral movement, but apparently it actually has nothing to do with movement and instead means shooting people with machine guns from a low-flying plane. And while that too might fit this situation, it's not what I meant. In videogames from early 90s onwards, strafing meant side stepping or moving laterally in general. It seems like that's where it crept into popular use and that's certainly how I picked up the word. I had no idea whatsoever it actually means something else. Lovely how language changes, eh?

Anyhooo, there were planes landing pretty much every two minutes and they were literally going just above your head. I mean just look:



The planes were right there in your face! Surprisingly though it wasn't as loud as I thought it'd be. Or then that's just more evidence of me going deaf.

Oh yeah since I now know how to upload videos let's see if it actually works.



Well, it took a while, but at least there seems to be something here on the editor. Probably looks horrible though, my camera is most likely a pre-WW2 model. Also, the plane on the video was a rather small one, doesn't really look as impressive as the biggest ones I saw. Also #2, I was an idiot for recording the video while standing in a tunnel. I should have recorded it up there on the road seen in the first few pics, because there you could actually see the planes landing.

Anyway, sorry about the lack of updates as of late. I've been busy/tired/lazy/unmotivated, take your pick.

The bitter ramblings of a nearly-deaf Finn

You know, I've started to hate, no, loathe going to restaurants. Not because the food's bad, not because it's too expensive (well sometimes it is), but because it makes me feel like I was stupid. Like an idiot. A total moron. No, in fact more like a dribbling, mouth-breathing, pants-on-head-wearing retard. Wow, that must have been the most offensive thing I've written in this blog. I am well aware that one should never ever use the r-word, it's a horrible thing to say. I know, and I apologize. But honestly though, going to restaurants makes me feel stupid.

Why? Well it's partly because things tend to work in ways I'm not used to, but mainly because my hearing's all messed up. If there's a lot of noise in the background, say radio, chatter, cars going by, that sort of stuff, I can't hear jack. And this leads to plenty of embarrassing situations. It doesn't even matter if it's a (supposedly simple and straight-forward) fast food joint. Like today when I went to Tim Hortons. Of course the radio's on (loud!), it's 16:15, the place is packed and people are chatting away like no tomorrow, so my gut reaction is pretty much to flee. However, I needed to grab a quick bite before my movie-marathon, so I decided to stay, knowing full well that getting out of there with a meal and my sanity was pretty much Mission: Impossible 4. Here's more or less how it went:

Guy at Tim Hortons: "Mumble mumble!"
Me: "Bonjour, could I have the Ham and Swiss combo with a coffee and donut XYZ?"
(I think I may have stayed true to my Finnish roots at this point and forgot to say 'please', again. Thinking back this might actually explain a few things...)
Guy: "Mumble mumble mumble?"
Me: "Sorry?"
Guy: "Mumble mumble coffee mumble mumble that?"
Me: "... sorry, I couldn't hear you..."
Guy: "WOULD YOU LIKE SOME COFFEE WITH THAT?"
Me: "...uh... you mean like another cup of coffee? One cup's fine, thank you."
Guy: (blank stare)
Me: "... sorr-"
Guy: "Mumble mumble mumble mumble coffee mumble?"
Me: "... look I'm really sorry mate, but I-"
Guy: "MEDIUM COFFEE OK?"
Me: "Yeah medium's fine, thank you."
Guy: "Mumble mumble sugar mumble mumble?
Me: "Uh... yes please?"
Guy: "Mumble cream mumble mumble?"
Me: "Yeah, sure?"
Guy: (blank stare #2)
(Uncomfortably long pause here, I'm hoping I just said 'yes' to cream and sugar)
Guy: "Mumble mumble a donut mumble that?"
Me: "Yes, I'd like the donut XYZ please."
(BTW, why on earth do they keep asking me whether I want coffee/donuts when I clearly announced my desire to get coffee and a donut right at the beginning! And it's not just a fluke, it has happened to me like 3-4 times already. It's like it doesn't even matter what you order... you could go there and order a coffee, a newborn baby and a chainsaw and they'll ask if you'd like some coffee with that.)
Guy: "Is this mumble mumble?"
Me: "Yes, that's the one"
Guy: "Mumble mumble else?"
Me: "Err... no thanks, that's all."
Guy: "That'll be mumble mumble mumble."
(So I give him the money and he gives me the change. I haven't received any of the stuff I ordered yet.)
Guy: "Mumble mumble mumble."
Me: "Sorry?"
Guy: (blank stare #3, looooooooong)
(At this point I'm like 'God, kill me now...')
The guy stares at me, points toward the end of the counter. I say thanks, trying my best to hide my embarrassment while I move away from the counter. How was I supposed to know I needed to pick up the stuff elsewhere? What made the whole exchange even worse was the fact that there was a line behind me. I mean I could feel their eyes burrowing into the back of my skull, that's how much they loved me back there. I felt like just throwing my hands up in the air screaming "Look people, I am sorry, I truly am, but I just don't know how these things work AND I CAN'T HEAR ANYTHING PEOPLE SAY TO ME!!!" In hindsight, I'm kinda glad I didn't.

When my order was ready, I didn't even try to listen to the mumbling of the girl. Since she is looking at me and saying something while holding a tray full of stuff looking more or less like my order, I figure it must be for me, so I grab it, thank her and quickly flee to the farthest corner of the place and hide from the angry mob that had formed behind me.

You know it's even worse when they happen to have a very thick French accent. I once went to Dagwood or Dagwoods or Dagwood's (honestly, the use of apostrophes here (or lack thereof) sometimes makes no sense whatsoever!), ordered a sub (or well that's what I thought I did, anyway) and the guy asks me "Mumble mumble you mumble joust?" Of course, not having the slightest idea of what he's saying I naturally launch my regular 'sorry?/pardon?/excuse me?' -assault, but he just keeps repeating the same sentence. And I'm like what?? Oh god I have no idea what this guy is telling me this is so embarrassing I've asked him to repeat what he said at least 6 times and he keeps repeating it over and over again and I don't get it help me please someone help me!!

I mean it was a sandwich place, not a medieval fair or anything; no horses, no lances, it just didn't make any sense for him to challenge me to a duel. Then the guy pointed at the bowls full of toppings in front of him and it finally dawned on me: "How would you like it dressed?" I blushed like a school girl. I asked him to just stuff everything in, hanging my head in shame.

I dunno what's wrong. I really should get my hearing checked, but it's always been fine. It's still fine as long as there isn't a lot of other noise. It's like I focus too much on the irrelevant stuff in the background and miss all the important bits. My dad's just like this too, maybe it's genetic? This is one of the few things Taina seems to get annoyed with when we're together. We're walking on the street, cars going by, and our conversation is like
Taina: "Should we warm up the sauna tonight?"
Me: "Yeah I read about it, it was pretty terrifying."
Taina: "... umm what?"

Anyway, I just needed to vent. Sorry! Truly I apologize. I know some of you have been desperate for more updates, you know who you are, and I'll try to post some pics tomorrow as I have a day off from wor*COUGH* Fantasia.

Also, REC 2 - the best horror movie I've seen in ages. Then again I never saw the first one.

Itchyyyyyyy!

It appears that I have been horribly blighted by poison ivy! The toes on my right foot are covered by small blisters that are sometimes pretty itchy. Looks pretty funny too, there are plenty of small, red blisters and white, dried-up old blisters, seriously it's a mess. It's been like that for a while already, but only today I realized it's poison ivy when I asked Carole about it. I have no idea whatsoever where I could have been in contact with this foul piece of flora, especially bare feet, but I guess anything's possible.

On a bit lighter note, I tried Coaticook ice cream today! It's a local brand, made somewhere here in Quebec. I bought the maple + walnut one and it was pretty good, not the best I've tried but still ranks up there with some of the Valio stuff.

Fantasia's been awesome so far, only very few genuinely bad movies. Tomorrow at midnight I shall experience the stupidly amazing Re-Animator in its full glory with 1000 other fans. It's gonna be earth shattering, can't wait! Oh and if Jon wants to leave before the Q&A with Stuart Gordon and Jeffrey Combs I will ask Combs afterwards if Herbert West could reanimate Jon's mauled, dismembered corpse.

OH MY GOD I DID IT!

I finally did it! I found a way to upload several pictures at a time! I am a GENIUS! I will now celebrate this magnificent discovery that will no doubt grant me the Nobel Prize by uploading several pictures at a time!



Today I went biking with Don and Pat. This is where we started from. No, it's not a church this time, it's the Atwater Market. I was told it's full of Americans but all the people I saw kept saying 'eh' so I had obviously been lied to. It's not a very good picture because my skills in photography are as good as my skills in mathematics. Anyway, there's like a market hall and a market place with...



...vegetable/fruit/flower stands. They sold FINNISH BLUEBERRIES there. Except they were grown somewhere in Quebec.



This is the Lachine Canal. Another name I probably just butchered. We started our trip by crossing it. Oh we did use a bridge.



This may have been on the first island we went to, Nun's Island or something. Yes, yes, butchering it again. Apparently they really like bicycles here, enough to whip up a bicycle made of FLOWERS anyway.



Then we crossed an ice bridge. As you can see, the river's quite wide. Although you can't really see it due to my amazing photography skills, the colour of the water was all wrong, it was turquoise like the sea. Rivers shouldn't be like that. It's just wrong. Also, being the stupid idiot I am, I didn't take a picture of the bridge but I assure you it took quite a while to get across to the other side.



This is the other side I mentioned just two seconds ago. It's called the sea way or something like that. It's deep enough for bigger ships to get through, I think you can get all the way down to the Great Lakes, but don't quote me on this one.



So basically it was just a narrow strip of land in the middle of the water, going parallel to the river. There was nothing there but this road and some trees and plants, and water on both sides.



There were all kinds of weird plants in there.



This was a cotton something.



They had a map of the longest biking/walking(?) trail in the world, basically it goes across Canada and then some. Or maybe it was for cars, I dunno. Sounds a bit unbelievable anyway.




There were bridges everywhere, old bridges.



After a while we arrived at another island. It was a peculiar place shrouded in mystery! What could it be?



That's right, a Formula 1 racing track!



I'm pretty sure those skid marks hadn't been caused by bicycles. The blue creature in the picture is not Don, I swear.



In the middle of the F1 track they had a really nice park.



A rather odd tree, wouldn't you say?



Oh yeah, there was a casino too! Btw, am I the only one who thinks that casino looks a bit like the ferries we got cruising between Fin and Swe?



Oh yeah they had an artificial lake and a really nice beach there too. Not a bad F1 racing track, eh? The weird thing is that here going to a beach seems to costs you, 12 bucks for this one.



This is where we had ice cream. Not in the tower but if you could turn 180 degrees you'd see the place. But you can't. Neener! Oh, I was brave enough to buy a strawberry slushie too and survived to tell you about it.




This is a bixi bike stand. It's a rather nice system. You either pay a monthly fee ($29, you can use them as much as you'd like) or a one time fee ($5) and you can just grab one of the bikes, ride around for 30mins before you gotta kind of sign it in at another stand somewhere. Then you can just go again and again and again. The stands on top of hills are often empty whereas stands at the bottom of the hill are packed. I wonder why?



As you can see, the current is quite strong.



This is Biosphere. It used to be the American Pavillion in the world expo of '67, the opening ceremony of which, btw, would have been totally ruined without Chick's amazing contribution of getting totally freaked out by jets flying over alll of a sudden. Yes, you have to show me the newspaper clip. Hmm I don't know where I was going with this. Anyway, it's the Biosphere.



The robot they stole from the Beastie Boys music video with the help of a time machine.



They even had a nice little waterfall there. Purdy, eh?



Oh and Art(tm). Who could live without some Art(tm)?



Certainly not these two.



More winged dudes were just chilling in the water.



Another bridge. At this point we were already leaving the last of the three or so islands we went to and started to get closer to old port. Yep, that's downtown in the background.



Now this is definitely one of my favourites from the expo '67. It's called Habitat '67 and it's made of solid awesomeness.



I mean just look at it. Marvel at its magnificence!



Yeah it's so awesome it's not even funny any more. I mean it has holes in it! Holes!



Oh yeah, another park. We must have been to at least 87 during the day.



I like it how they often have tables and benches in the parks. I hear people often come here to BBQ.



Oh look, someone's fishing! I guess the river's not that polluted after all. Or maybe they just like the taste of glowing fish.



Here's another view of the Biosphere and the Art(tm), from across the river.



See the colourful things in the distance? That's La Ronde or something, an amusement park. I might go there at some point.



What the deuce? Who is this stupid idiot and what is he doing in my picture? And look at that thing on his head! What a dork!



This boat just let the current carry it away. It said 'zero pollution' on the side of the boat and I guess that's why.



There were some industrial areas along the river, too.



This is amazing. See those tags up there? The graffiti? That thing is like 50-60 metres tall if not more. The folks actually climbed all the way up there, wrote some of that stuff upside down. I'm not sure if I should applaud their incredible dedication and call them crazy. Maybe I should do both.



This is the Lachine Canal again. We rode along the canal back to Atwater Market. Downtown in the background again.

The whole biking trip took us at least some 4-5 hours. After that we went back to Don and Pat's place for some BBQ goodness. I left at around 11am and came back after 9pm so it was a pretty long day. Definitely worth it though! More biking to follow, I'm sure.

Oh, it seems like I can only upload 5 pics at a time and as it naturally takes 5x as long for it to upload the pictures, it's not like I save that much time after all. There goes my Nobel. Boo!