ChrisTalbot.com

This Film Threat feature is all about the current "crossover madness" that is gripping Hollywood.

Just imagine it. Freddy versus Jason versus Ash from Evil Dead. Apparently the film is being considered.

Groovy.

You know how it's hard to find a good movie sequel? Try finding a good movie prequel. :-/

Saturday afternoon was spent at Rawl's place. It was the Chan Summer Jam, which essentially translates into party with food and lots o' alcohol. I lost track of how much Scotch I drank ... and how much beer I drank. The wine was easy to keep track of. I know I only had two glasses.

Anyway, it was a good party. I drank too much. Then Jacquie and I stopped by my parents' place and we played dominoes until about midnight. All the while, I'm drunk out of my mind and not shutting up. I'm told I was quite funny. ;)

After vowing that the so-called Askewniverse (aka the Jersey Trilogy) was being to rest with 2001's Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back, director Kevin Smith has opted to return to the Askewniverse with a direct sequel to 1994's Clerks, the independent movie that put Smith on the road to stardom.

As a fan, I believed Smith when he first said that the Asknewniverse was being retired so that he could go on to other projects. Cool, I thought. I mean, how many years can dick and fart and stoner jokes last, right? All good. And to tell you the truth, it wouldn't really have bothered me if he revisited the Askewniverse after a few years. However, Smith has only put out one freakin' movie since Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back -- that being Jersey Girl. He's supposedly been working on a script for The Green Hornet, and he's also listed as being the director for the new Fletch movie (2006, according to IMDB).

So Smith has barely put the Askewniverse behind him and he's already coming back to it. That definitely says something about him. The full press release is on Movie Poop Shoot.

The Law was going to run the second session of his Mutants & Masterminds campaign yesterday, but as I pulled onto the highway to head for his place in the heart of the pit that is known as East York, it started to rain -- heavily. I couldn't even see more than thirty feet in front of me, and cars on the 401 were going at about 60 km/hour. Slooooooow. So I pulled off the highway near my parents' place (which means I didn't get far on the 401) and called The Law on my cell phone to say that I wasn't going to make it.

Oh well. No gaming this weekend. :(

A good read about the guys at Penny Arcade from the business side of the comic strip. Funniest thing is the picture of Gabe and Tycho themselves.

I'm a little behind on my comic book reading. And I'm definitely behind on updating and/or reviewing what titles I purchase. I've been continuing to read Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Tales of the TMNT, The Punisher, Superman/Batman and G.I. Joe: Reloaded, although I'm behind on the latest issues of a few of them. I bought them last weekend, but I haven't quite found the time to read through them yet. I've started reading the new Powerless comic from Marvel. While interesting, I'm not sure I'll stick with it for long. I have to keep the number of regular titles I read down to a minimum to save some cash.

I don't like the sounds of this. The only reason I can think of for NDAs (that's non-disclosure agreements for the layfolk) on the possibility of there being three more Star Wars movies is that George Lucas must be at least considering the possibility of making more of his trashy space opera flicks (which dumbasses like me will suck up while complaining all the while).

I had heard rumours of a Star Wars TV show that might go into production after Revenge of the Sith has been released, but I haven't heard anything more on that lately. It really could've been just a rumour.

Damn George Lucas!

This must be the most bizarre post-film conversation ever.

Breakdancing Transformers. 'Nuff said.

I'm writing a special report today about a rather dull topic, so I needed a few minutes to just take my mind off said topic and do some creative personal writing. The title of this post just kind of popped into my head. When a writer sits down to just start scribbling out some ideas or a rough draft of a piece, it's sometimes referred to as "regurgitating onto the page." Well, there are no physical pages when you're writing a blog, so I figured I'm regurgitating onto Blogger. Not a pretty picture, eh?

I've been pretty busy lately with work and with preparing for this past Sunday's D&D session, and I've been quite lazy in regards to my Vampire: The Masquerade play-by-email chronicle. Trying to gets things going again after a summer of little activity in the group is quite difficult. Add in the fact that I've committed to doing a couple of side projects for some gaming Websites, and I'm somewhat swamped. My priority list is also out of whack, and I'm having some difficulty sorting it out.

Thinking a lot about pen-and-paper gaming over the last couple of months. I'm glad to be back on track with the Greyhawk campaign. Unfortunately, my Rifts: Escape From Lone Star campaign has fallen off the radar until I can find some more hours in the day. Ugh. And there's a couple of people who would like me to run a Mechamorphosis game. I definitely haven't been able to put anything substantial together for that.

We're having a barbecue on Labour Day weekend. It's happening on Sunday afternoon rather than Monday, mainly because Jacquie doesn't want to have people over the day before the first day of school.

Rawl and I recently lost our coffee shop. Just Desserts in Pickering has closed up shop, and we're scouring the area for something else that's similar. No luck so far. We spent Monday night at a Second Cup, of all things. And then the shop closed down at 9:00 and booted us out. Not good when we don't even get together until 8:30.

The new World of Darkness core rulebook and Vampire: The Requiem are both out. I saw them at Wyldstar on the weekend. It's nearly $30 for the WoD book and another $50 for V:tR. I have some interest in looking at the books, but I don't think I want to actually run the game (which some people are calling WoD 2.0). So it's a bit too much of an investment just to satisfy my curiosity. I noticed that DriveThruRPG has a chapter from V:tR for free download this week. I might download it and take a look. Haven't made up my mind yet. Funny thing is the chapter that's available for download is the setting information for New Orleans. My V:tM PBeM chronicle is set in the old WoD's New Orleans setting. I'd like to know what they did with the new WoD New Orleans setting.

There. Now that I've emptied my brain onto the page, I can go back to working on this article.

It's been difficult finding the time or the creative energy to write on my blog over the last several days. I've just been swamped with work and with getting prepared for this past Sunday's Dungeons & Dragons game.

On Sunday, I ran the first session of Monte Cook's Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil module. It was a good session, but we did get started even later than usual. Everyone arrived by around 7:00, but we didn't actually begin the game until about 8:30. Too much chatting, a few bookkeeping things to take of and just plain silliness kept us from getting going around normal time (that being around 8:00, generally).

Overall, the session ran well. You can find a half-assed play-by-play on my Greyhawk campaign site. No combat, a fair bit of roleplaying and some investigations. Like I said ... er ... typed -- a good session. Now we're talking about following that session up with an afternoon session on Labour Day Monday. I'm still waiting on a couple of people to tell me "yay" or "nay" to that idea, though.

And there you have it. A quick update.

Just truly bizarre. Just check out The Picard Song. Dumb as rocks.

Another good Apple switch parody. This time, Anakin Skywalker makes his own ... uh ... switch. Thanks, Rawl.

This EverQuest fan video is quite funny.

The last several days have been quite busy, work-wise. Outside of work, things are a little more relaxed, although I'm way behind on prepping for Sunday's D&D session. Not a good thing, considering I'm starting to run the Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil module. It's too big to go in unprepared.

Over the last couple of days, I've managed to get a lot of work done. I was mentally tired (but not quite exhausted) last night after I submitted the last of my stories for the day. Today I can actually see the end of my to-do list, which almost seems like a novelty. Since last Friday, I've just felt swamped.

Each day, I've been continuing to check in on the GameSpy Dungeons & Dragons thirtieth birthday stuff. I have to admit I learned a few things about the history of the game and the companies that have owned the property. And I'm definitely looking forward to Wizards of the Coast's D&D retrospective book this fall.

Frankly, I find the history of games to be quite fascinating, no matter whether it's ancient games played in the earliest civilizations or modern games creating in the last century. Well, this year is a landmark year for gaming history. Thirty years ago this year, Dungeons & Dragons was created. There's actually a book coming out from Wizards of the Coast (the current owner of the D&D property) in the fall, with an introduction written by D&D fan Vin Diesel (yep, the actor).

However, this week, GameSpy is running a series of articles about D&D and the history of the game in all its forms. Check it out
here.

This kind of thing just pisses me off. For those too lazy to click the link (you know who you are), the gist is this: A source at Fox has told the guy who runs manwithoutfear.com that there will be a director's cut DVD of the movie Daredevil released at the end of November, just a little over a month before Elektra hits cinemas.

This kind of thing gets annoying after awhile -- y'know, after you've been raped by Hollywood two or three times. It's getting to the point where I'm worried about buying a Hollywood movie, particularly blockbusters, when it comes out on DVD because it's all too likely that in another three, six, twelve or however many months, a director's cut or special edition DVD will be released.

It's that reason I haven't run out and bought Hellboy. No sooner had the masses that bought on release date made their purchases than a director's cut DVD version of the movie was announced. It's due out around October. I refuse to buy that movie twice.

Or hey, do you remember the really mean trick that was pulled on Lord of the Rings fans? There were ads on each LOTR DVD for the extended edition DVDs. What kind of cruel joke is that to play on the fans? "Hey, guys, you just ponied up $30 for this DVD, and now you can fork over another $60 for an extra hour of footage in two months." I know at least one person that refused to buy the LOTR DVDs after that.

Worst of all, this type of thing seems to be happening more and more. Why? The reason is simple. Dumbass consumers are willing to fork over the cash for each and every new DVD edition of their favourite movies.

Jacquie and I had no idea it was the Metro Toronto Zoo's thirtieth birthday event when we set out for the Zoo yesterday around noon or so. However, when we arrived, we knew something was afoot. The main parking lot was filled to the brim, and we had to park way back in the gravel lot. It was a bit of a hike to the main entrance.

Not much to report on the zoo. It never seems to change much, which could explain why it's been in financial troubles for so many years. Once you've seen it, you have to love going there to want to return any time soon.

We wandered around a bit, stopped in some areas that neither of us have seen in awhile, like the Australia area. I forgot all about the kangaroo walkabout. Heheh. I find it pretty cool that some of the animals are as curious about us as we are about them. The 'roos are one such animal, and they always look quite inquisitive.

Aside from the zoo's birthday, it was also my father's birthday over the weekend. Friday, specifically, but we had dinner plans for Saturday night out at Tucker's Marketplace. I ate too much.

Other than that, it was quiet weekend. I got in some DVD watching, including throwing off sleep to watch the whole ALF: Season One DVD set.

If keyboards looked like this, l33tspeak would just get out of control. Still, damn funny.

Amazon does it again! Woo hoo! I placed my order for ALF: Season One and Cube only a couple of days ago. I got shipping confirmation last night around 7:00. This morning, the ol' ALFer is in my mailbox. Amazon kicks ass! Canada Post kicks ass! ... Never, ever thought I'd give kudos to Canada Post, but they deserve it for being uber-quick.

I've never been so tempted to blow off work to watch DVDs. However, it's going to be a busy day. The ALFer will have to wait.

I made my way to Just Desserts to meet up with Rawl last night, and when I arrived, I noticed the place was closed. Okay, well, maybe something had come up that required them to close, right? It's a small operation, and I could family funerals necessitating a closure for an evening. However, then I noticed a sign on the door, and I knew what it was going to say before I read it. Simply put, Just Desserts has closed up shop.

Calling Rawl on his cell phone, I asked, "Hey, man, are you sitting down?"

"Well, I'm driving," he said.

"Oh, okay. Well, you might want to pull over. I have some really bad news," I said. I paused and then decided to just drop it. "Just Desserts has closed down ... permanently."

Rawl had just been there two nights before, and he said nothing had seemed out of place. For whatever reason, though, the place was gone two days later. Both of would like to know what happened.

However, more importantly, we now need a new coffee shop to hang out in. We discussed this over a pint of beer at the nearby King Richard's, where we both decided we didn't want to become King Dick's barflies again (mainly because it's too damned expensive). Unfortunately, Just Desserts will be hard to replace. It had a good atmosphere, friendly owners, excellent service (not to mention table service) and a high level of tolerance for us (we were regulars, after all). Starbucks, Second Cup and the like just aren't going to cut it, but we may not have much of a choice but to switch over to one of those coffee shops. We don't have a lot of options. To prove how few options there are, we even discussed just doing the coffee/tea thing at my place from now on and forget about going out.

One other little thing to add, which doesn't really have anything to do with the rest of this post. The townhouse Jacquie and I bought is on a crescent, and because of that, it's a neighbourhood filled with children. We're not parents, nor do we intend to become them, and I'll say that most of the kids on the street are pretty good when playing on the road (as in, they get out of the way of cars). However, there are two kids on the street (I think they're brothers, and they're both fairly young -- one has training wheels on his bike, after all) that just seem to be oblivious to the fact that roads are for cars and it's the cars, not the kids, that have the right of way.

Last night, on my way out to meet up with Rawl, these two kids were in the middle of the road a few from the stop sign where I had to go to get out of the crescent. One of them moved, but the younger one -- the one with frickin' training wheels and no parental supervisor! -- just sat there on his bike staring at me like he couldn't figure out what was going on. To make matters worse, the other kid started making the motion to say that I should go around him. I shouted to tell them to get off the road, but I don't think they heard me. Either that or they just didn't give a shit.

A nice bit of parenting, eh? Unfortunately, I believe these kids live right across the street from me. I'm not sure how to handle this, but I might have no choice but to start voicing my complaints to their parents and then hope it doesn't turn into a big fight.

Fun stuff.

Y'know, I love Amazon. I've used the service for a few years now, even before they launched Amazon.ca (which I now faithfully use for most of my online ordering -- hell, I even bought D&D books from the site). In all the time I've used Amazon, they've been very prompt. In some cases, it feels like its personnel have a sixth sense that tells them to start bundling my package before I even place the order. My last order arrived within three days after me placing it; and I placed it on a Sunday.

So since the ALF DVD distributor that serves at least HMV, if not all stores in Pickering, Ajax and maybe the rest of Durham Region, couldn't be bothered to get the first season of ALF on DVD to stores on the day it was supposed to come out, five stores lost my business in turn. If just one of them had had it, I would've jumped on it like a cat on a mouse. However, now Amazon.ca has my business, and I can just kick back and wait for the shipment to arrive. I don't know if I can reasonably expect to get it this week, but next week more than likely. It's a little later than I would've preferred, but at least I don't have to run around wasting gas visiting stores any more.

And it's this reason I love online shopping. A lot of people tell me that they like to "browse," and for that reason only, online shopping just isn't the same. When the e-commerce sector first started off, I would've been inclined to agree with them, but I'm a tech geek and I spend a good chunk of my time on the Internet. Using the Net to place orders for things has many benefits, and now I prefer to take advantage of them. I don't have to deal with pushy or ignorant salespeople. I can do price comparisons quickly and easily, and if I find out the first online store I visited had the best price of them all, it's a quick two seconds to get back there. I get to avoid malls -- a top reason for me, while others might like walking through malls. Once I decide what to order, I click a few buttons and then someone else does the job of finding what I ordered, putting it in a box and shipping it to me -- and it comes straight to my front door.

Yeah, I can browse quicker and more efficiently online, and then also quickly and efficiently place that order and wait for my products to arrive. Eventually the majority will start to see things my way, and then all those brick-and-mortar stores out there will slowly start to fade away. That is my dream. :)

However, there's one thing that gets me each and every time I visit Amazon. It's that whole free shipping if you spend $39 or more. Well, do you have any idea how often my order comes to more than $30 but less than $39? All the frickin' time! And there's just no way I'm paying for shipping if I don't have to. I don't have to pay shipping at brick-and-mortar stores, so I'm not paying shipping online. So I sift through my extensive Amazon wish list to find something else that I wouldn't mind having right now. Last night, I decided on a Canadian film that I haven't seen in a few years. Cube is a great movie. If you haven't seen it, correct that oversight.

Unfortunately, instead of spending the $35 (plus tax) I had intended to spend, now I've charged a total of $55 to my credit card. Heheh. Gotta love that Amazon. It really knows how to push my buttons. But I'm not really complaining. ;)

Unfortunately, my running around this evening looking for ALF: The Complete First Season has ended in failure. I went to Future Shop. Nada. Then Best Buy. Nope. Then Wal-Mart. Yeah, I voluntarily went to Wal-Mart. I was getting desperate. No luck. Then I went off to the mall in Pickering. Music World didn't have it. HMV didn't have it. Finally, at HMV, I asked about it. Apparently the distributor in charge of moving the ALF DVDs just plain sucks and is quite slow. That is why HMV didn't have it, and I can only assume the same reason for every other store.

Well, I guess I'll just have to order it off of Amazon.

According to various sites, today is the day that the first season of ALF hits DVD, so I have to hit a Best Buy or Future Shop or something either during lunch or after work. Excellent.

Hey, Rawlio, it's been announced that Seinfeld is coming to DVD in the fall. The first set will be the first two seasons, and it's due out around the end of November. ... Rawl's a Seinfeld fan. Me, I just find the show and the characters annoying, although I will admit to watching a lot of episodes after it first became syndicated. Usually an episode would end and I'd just feel frustration that I couldn't kick the crap out of each character on the show. That said, Michael Richards is a fabulous actor. ;)

The summer has been busy, and I haven't really had a lot of time to do things that I said I would. For instance, I've got two games here that I'm supposed to be reviewing, and I really haven't had a chance to do anything more than install one of them on my machine. D'oh!

I get in a little bit of EverQuest here and there, and I've taken a quick look at Doom 3 for fun, but my PC gaming has been more or less shelved throughout the summer. Weekends have been booked solid, and that's generally when I have the most time to take a close look at games. There are probably a few people snickering over this, as for a year-and-a-half, I was able to play games during business hours and call it work. Not anymore, unfortunately. Now if I play games during business hours, it's called slacking.

Steve has been buggin' me about hosting a barbecue, and my goal is to aim for Labour Day. If you're reading this and you know that I trust you enough not to steal anything from the house (heheh), try to keep Labour Day open for some beer and barbecue at my place. I'll aim to start in the afternoon and make sure to do the cookin' before the sun sets. More details to come.

Speaking of barbecues, I think Rawl and his parents are soon going to be having their Chan Summer Jam parties. Note to self: Check with Rawl to see when this is happening. I think one is on the 28th, though. Not positive about that, however.

My weekend was interesting, at the very least. Saturday was spent at a Roman Catholic wedding. Although I've been to a Catholic wedding before, it might have been the first time I've been to a Roman Catholic wedding. Not sure about that. Thankfully it wasn't one of the three-hour high mass thingies, but only an hour-long service. Still ... Catholics are bloody weird. They're like cultists. They even have the cannibalism. *grin* The twenty-foot high painting of the happy, smiling, crucified Christ was just a little ... absurd. Okay, enough of that. If y'all haven't picked up on my aversion to religion by now, you never will. ;)

Sunday was D&D day. Yay! This was the first session leading people into the Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil super-adventure. Through a letter to Logan's paladin, I re-introduced an NPC bard from the first adventure I ever ran in this campaign (almost four years ago). The adventuring party is now traveling to the Village of Hommlet, but last night's session took place during a layover in a small farming region. It also allowed me to introduce Gareth, an NPC warrior serving the Dyvers Temple of Heironeous. I'd been planning on this for about three or four weeks, and the gist is he was delivering the letter to the paladin and telling him he'd been instructed to act as his squire. ... Sorry, Logan, I just really liked the idea, and I think he'll fit in well -- in addition to acting as comedic relief ("I'm coming, Sir Damoth!").

One more first: It was the first time I whipped out my new D&D miniatures and created grid-based maps of the combat encounter zones. I think using them worked out fairly well, and it really opened up the tactical aspect of combat. The only downside is that our table is just barely big enough for six people, so I think a couple of people might have felt a little crowded. I'm hoping to find a way to open up more room at the table -- perhaps through the use of a little table beside me to hold all of my DM's gear. I'll have to keep thinking about that.

Two weeks until the next session.

Who knows how many people are playing Doom 3 this week? Probably a lot. I'm one. I installed the game yesterday and spent maybe half an hour testing the game out and trying to get it to function as well as possible on my system. I haven't even seen combat in the game yet, but I'm impressed.

The graphics are, in a word, stunning. And there's a lot more story involved in this newest instalment of the game than I'm used to seeing from id. The Doom games have generally been fairly piss-poor when it comes to story but high on the excitement and gameplay. This has all three aspects rolled into a beautiful-looking game. And those are just my first impressions of the game.

I didn't even know that a second Dungeons & Dragons movie was in the works. Well, now I know. Just picture me rolling my eyes. That'll give you a good idea of what I think of it.

I'm sure a good portion of my readership (all three or four of you) have seen the first D&D movie from 2000. If you didn't, how about a really quick review from me to you. Think of it as a warning: It sucked the sweat off a dead donkey's balls ... and then came back for more. ... Here's hoping that wasn't too graphic for you. ;)

The first D&D flick came out of New Line Cinema, and it's something that Director Courtney Solomon and everyone else involved should be utterly ashamed of. While fantasy films are generally of pretty poor quality, this one lowered the bar significantly.

According to the official D&D site, this next disaster-in-the-making is being done at Warner Bros. It sounds like Jeremy Irons' Profion will be back, but it's not intended to be a sequel. Yeah, whatever. So if the same villain is back, it's being set in the same world as the first movie, which means it's still not D&D. It's just a fantasy movie that uses the name of the popular RPG to try to bring in the gaming audience. Give me Greyhawk. Give the Realms. Or give me nothing.

The Batman Begins teaser trailer is now online at the Warner Bros. Website. Lookin' good.

Well, GameSpy has the first real preview of the upcoming MMORPG Dungeons & Dragons Online. This is one game I've been waiting since E3 2003 to find out more about. While the screens look good and the author of the preview seems to be pretty impressed with what he saw, I have one real beef that will probably keep me playing EverQuest even once D&D Online is released. The bloody game is set in the new campaign setting of Eberron, not in any of the more well-known settings. I would've loved to have this be a Greyhawk MMORPG. Wouldn't that kick ass?. I could've lived with the Forgotten Realms. It would be fun to visit the Dales or any other part of the Realms. Heck, I would've even tolerated DragonLance, a setting that I have no love for (but it's still a traditional D&D world). Eberron, though... Come on! Why?!?!? It's brand new and doesn't even have a following yet. And it very well might not get a big following. It's not like there haven't been D&D campaign settings that utterly flopped.

Oh well. I'll try to keep an open mind, but what I was really hoping for in D&D Online was a world that I was already familiar with and knew the history of. I'm not picking up the Eberron campaign setting, so I might as well play EverQuest or jump into any number of other new or upcoming medieval fantasy worlds -- maybe World of WarCraft.

I got my copy of Doom 3 today. MWUHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! I feel giddy just looking at the box. And that's when the evil feelings set in. I just want my BFG and some demonoid targets to offload on.

Tom sent me a link to The Singing Dumb Ass Bass. Too funny. Thanks, Tom.

This bit of news is interesting. However, more interesting is one paragraph that I just happen to really, really like:

In an interview from Vancouver, she emphasized that great newspapers not only 'write the first draft of history,' but more meaningfully, serve their communities.

Yeah, that's what journalism is all about. I sometimes wonder what my career would be like if I had pursued a job at a daily newspaper rather than the specialty media.

While on vacation, I kept little notes each day about what went on. So here they are, spelling mistakes and grammar errors intact (italicized notes were made as I typed this in):

Saturday, July 24th
~11:45 a.m.
Still packing the car. Should be leaving now to make it to Rick's and Pauline's by noon. Cooler still isn't packed. Decided to leave inflatable raft and paddles, as they were taking up far too much room. Not sure why Jacquie hasn't packed cooler. She's getting bitchy because I'm getting annoyed that it's not yet packed. Starting to understand why some couples take separate vacations.

~12:25 p.m.
Finally leaving the house! Had to leave second fishing rod.

~1:50 p.m.
Not a good start. The trunk locking mechanism is now buggered up and the bikes are on Rick's and Pauline's truck. Very annoyed at trunk. Probably the fault of the bike rack. Trunk now shut with bungie cords. Beginning to worry this will read like a comedy of errors when it's all over. Heading from Rick's and Pauline's house to get lunch. Hoping food in back seat isn't spoiling.

~3:15 p.m.
Arrived at Golden Beach Resort. Waiting in car while the others check in. Anxious to unload car and see if meat survived trip. Doubt it. Is food poisoning on the horizon?

~4:30 p.m.
Rick kicks ass! The trunk is fixed. Also, the food seems fine. Mostly unpacked. Itchin' for fishin'.

~5:15 p.m.
Dipped first line. Woo hoo!

Sunday, July 25th
~11:10 a.m.
Cooler day today. Thinking maybe the fish will bite today. Bastards were taunting me last night. Forgot to mention two rules set down by Pauline yesterday. No fighting. And no loud sex. Apparently quiet sex is okay, though. Slightly sunburned from yesterday. Kind of happy there's not much sun today.

Monday, July 26th
~10:05 a.m.
Technically first day of vacation. Yay! Just got out of shower. Shower head wins utterly craptastic award. Water can also go from boiling hot to freezing cold instantly. Ouch. [This reminded me of the apartment Jacquie I lived in for a year before buying a house. The plumbing was similarly craptastic.]

~2:20 p.m.
Rick may have touched poison ivy. Ouchie. Or itchy. Whatever. Starting to feel the effects of drinking nothing but beer, coffee and Yukon Jack liqueur since Saturday afternoon. Thinking I should probably drink some water. [Turns out Rick's poison ivy was just a lot of blackfly bites.]

Tuesday, July 27th
~11:15 a.m.
Rained last night. Weather is supposed to suck until Thursday. Going on boat tour of lake at 1:00. Gotta dress a bit warmer for it. Been playing [games] in the evenings. Reading, fishing, cycling and chillin' during the day. Expected Internet withdrawal to have kicked in by now.

~1:15 p.m.
Boat ride postponed until Friday.

Wednesday, July 28th
~12:15 p.m.
Hump day. Just did some laundry with Jacquie. Weather still sucks. Not a lot of rain, but everything is wet and sky looks miserable. Thinking of going into Cobourg. Finished reading through Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil adventure. Damn Monte Cook and his use of half-breed creatures. About 270 or more combat encounters. Lots of time required to play it out. [Jacquie and I did, in fact, go in to Cobourg in the afternoon. We just wandered around and then had a late lunch at some seafood restaurant.]

Thursday, July 29th
~9:05 a.m.
Renting boat and going out fishing today. Also will cruise around lake a bit to have a look-see. Jacquie and I have been talking that it'll be nice to have a trailer and boat up here in ten or twenty years.

~2:30 p.m.
Back from fishing on the boat. Both Rick and Jacquie got [fishing] licences. Rick caught a small bluegill. I got nothing more than nibbles and weeds. Fun outing, though. I got to drive the boat the whole time. Jacquie was afraid of Rick's bluegill when he pulled it into the boat. You'd have thought he'd pulled in a giant spider.
[Jacquie writes:] I wasn't afraid. I just didn't want it to touch me or me touch it. Night.

~8:45 p.m.
[Jacquie writes:] Jacquie caught two fish. A Perch and a Pumpkinseed. How many did Chris catch? I still love him any-way.
[My turn:] As Jacquie wrote... I've been outfished. I didn't haul anything into the boat. The closest I came was with a little perch that hit right near the boat. The hook wasn't set and he barely was out of the water before he dove back in. With Jacquie's two fish, the worst thing was they were maybe fifteen minutes apart.

Friday, July 30th
~10:00 a.m.
Last day here. Hoping to do a bit more fishing and then pack everything up by tonight. Must be out bright and early tomorrow. [Ended up not doing any more fishing.]

~3:25 p.m.
Back from boat cruise around Rice Lake. Nice place. Trudy Jo, captain of the boat and one of the Golden Beach Resort's owners, gave a lot of good fishing trips for next time we come up here. Turns out pink is the thing for bluegills. Explains why Rick had some luck with that pink and white fly. Jacquie is complaining about the beds. She hasn't slept well all week. She says she doesn't know if she can bear one last night sleeping in them. I've slept just fine. A few light showers now. Not much to do but hang out.

~7:30 p.m.
Packin' up now. Brought too much food, methinks.

~10:15 p.m.
Last night. Had lunch and dinner at Boathouse Cafe. Jacquie keeps calling it the Outhouse Cafe -- not an appetizing name at all. Good food. Kind of a lazy day. Played some Sequence tonight. Didn't do anything more fishing today. I think Rick went out for awhile, though. Thinking I might get up and go fishing on Lake Ontario shore on Sunday morning. Maybe ask my father to join me. Maybe Rawl, too. Jacquie will probably when she reads this. [Fishing on Sunday didn't happen. Dad had to work and Rawl was on his way to Quebec City, it turns out.]
[Jacquie writes:] Good time. Relaxing. Except for uncomfortable bed -- so not good sleeping. Didn't get to paddleboat or really swim in the lake. Didn't play badminton. But had lots of games nights, fires and looked at stars when out. Best thing was spending time together and growing deeper in love. [Women are so sappy.]

Saturday, July 31st
~8:30 a.m.
Just had brekky and checked out. Bye-bye, Golden Beach!