Canada Won!
Canada Won!
i am happy.
Canada Won!
What?  Huh? Won what?
oh yeah, the fireworks.
If you are not aware, every summer Vancouver has a fireworks competition/festival.  four nights over two weeks are filled with fireworks.  Different countries occupy a night and a winner is declared at the end.  For the past three years i have watched, well, most of them and i have never seemed to agree with the results of the voting, or, if you like, the winner.
  Part of the reason for this is that i have always been watching from the balcony of my friends.  a truly marvelous patio that looks out over a park, the beach and the most fantabulous english bay.  In fact, i took this picture last night.  (The boats are out there to view the fireworks.)  And while it is a marvelous place to be, and to watch fireworks from, an inconvenient couple of trees make it such that we can not see the short fireworks all that well.  So perhaps we miss what is sometimes an important piece of the show. 
  Another part of the reason is that the judges are idiots.
  So this year, when i saw Canada for the first time and they knocked my socks so far off the got put on the person beside me, i was very much hoping that they would win.  But since spain was once again here, and they had just won 3 years running, i didn't hold up much hope.  but as you may remember from the start, Canada, she won.

 where did this spate of unnatural patriotic pride come from you might ask.
i'm not sure. i will not say that it is completely out of the range of the norm, i do find that i am somewhat of a Canadian patriot.  i mean, it s not like i care if you say something bad about my country, or even think bad things about them, but i do take pride in who Canadians are, and even our stereotype.  ya know, the type of people that we are perhaps mocked for being are the type of person that i like being.
now where did i put it, where is that igloo?

   not much has gone on since the last time we spake.
   which is good. not having much going on is often a very nice thing to have going on.
   i saw signs.  it was a lot better than i thought it was going to be.  my viewing of the trailers had made me believe it was going to suck donkey nuts.  just be one big trite cliché after another.  however, it did not, it was sort of fresh, and kinda well done and i enjoyed it quite a bit. 
   Then again maybe my taste is going for hell. i finally saw Austin powers the next aberration last weekend. i found it to be funnier than the first two put together and doubled. i'm not saying it was a great film but where as i pretty much felt the first two were juvenile and silly and not worth my time, during this one i could not stop laughing. 
 

   Oh, i guess it's not like i have done nothing Friday night was a very good night for me.
it started with seeing 'signs' on the way home from work.  and then i wandered aimlessly about the streets for a while looking for something to take pictures of.  i did not find anything to take pictures of, which is not particularly usual for me, i can usually find something.  but i was not daunted, because at the end of my meandering wander i ended up at my good friend S's.  She's heaps of fun and we hung out while she made some fresh pasta and we played with some intriguing house painting software that she has. remember how i was complaining a while ago about not having enough friends i can just hang with?  well S is perfect for this. we always have loads of fun together. 
   after eating the scrumptious pasta we gathered up a couple of friends and headed out to steveston to see the tall ships.  apparently there is currently a tall ship festival on in vancouver and we wanted to see it.  before we went we used the almighty web and found out what events were open and etc.  event after event scrolled past our screens and they were all closing at 9.  fo course sine i had spent all that time meandering, movieing and hanging it was almost nine now.  we didn't' care though, we just wanted to see a tall ship or two, not do events.   and that's not true either, there was a beer garden still on as well as the captain's ball.  i don't know who this captain is but he was sure going to be having a ball.  but we weren't into either of those events so we skipped them.
   after a few trip-like trials and tribulations we arrive at the festival to see it basically in a form of mass exodus.  not to worry, less people are better.  we wander around, looking for stuff.

we find a giant ronald mcdonald, which one of my friends swears had someone trapped inside.  we find about 4 miles of roped off line up space, which is later what we find out is the intestine that people have to spend hours in before they can pay $20 to go and see the outside of the ships.  we find out that there are tall ship natzi's that wont' let you past gates.  that dasanji is a gift from the heavens.  we find out that if you walk down enough dark middle of the night paths that the man can not, in fact, keep you down and that you can see a tall ship.  your patience will be rewarded.  not rewarded well or anything like that but rewarded none-the-less.  we also learned that the large size of a DQ soft serve is the same size as a medium sized Chihuahua, not to mention that eating that much ice cream all at once makes me a little ill.

   all in all a great night.

and now...i go. try to miss me.

oh yeah....tonight was the first night that i got to bring things home from pottery. the first time that things are actually done with glazing and everything. 
they aren't really anything special but they are nice enough and they are mine. I made them. 
they are so very cool because of it. 

ok. now it is late. 
i am going to sleep.