Category Archives: Hobbies
He Looks Good in a Dress, But Does He Saugatuck?
We ventured past our westerly borders (actually, south, but that’s another story) to Saugatuck, MI to the very popular campsite Campit! I was expecting an exclamation point on all their literature but was disappointed there.
I wasn’t disappointed with the campsite itself, however. It was a great facility with clean bright modern washrooms and twisty, explorable lane ways. The sites were nearly on top of each other and could probably benefit from removing one site and distributing it evenly through the row, but what they lost in space, they made up in personality. We found the people (staff, seasonals and weekenders) at Campit were exceptionally welcoming, but that could just be because we were fresh meat. Of course one night we were kept awake at 3am with a neighbourly twink demanding that someone pee on him and, SharkBoy swears, someone else was outside the back of our tent whispering “ssssuck meeeee”. Stuff like this puts a lot of things in perspective with regards to camping on busy weekends.
The drive to Campit was a fast 6 hours direct drive, right across 401, 402, 69, 96, 6 then 196 to Ganges. Easy peasy! We decided to cut the trip in half and left Friday night to crash in Sarnia (the least crowded border crossing in Southern Ontario, I’m sure) and made it there before 10am on Saturday.
We met up with Evil Panda, Grizz and Big Red THOR. THOR is a big guy with a big personality, who could switch from porn/cop voice to Cupie doll voice within seconds. I could see how he was taken in so quickly by the boys. He’s a gregarious man who was very welcoming. I bonded quickly when he gave us foot massages in the pool with his big meaty paws. Owch! but a good owch. He makes a head-spinning Margarita and a mean dish of Okra.
Outside the park, there was an over abundance of tchochkas shopping in and around Saugatuck. The village itself is much like any nondescript Rhode Island sea side town, packed with beautiful cottages and quaint shops but without the ocean. Saugatuck sits inland on a busy waterway off of Lake Michigan. Quaint is an understatement. But outside the village, “fashion” and “trend” falls off dramatically and you’ll overhear conversations regarding crop rotations, Chuch and snake taming. No lie. While eating our cornmeal hash (yark!) we were treated to an extensive HowTo about removal of snakes from one’s property. I kept my shoes inside the tent from that moment on. And, when ordering dinner, remember to say “Freedom” fries with a straight face. Oh and don’t eat at Big Boy’s no matter how much of a bear you are. GROSS!
Will I go back? Unfortunately probably not this year. Yes definitely next year, on a personally manufactured long weekend. It’s worth the trip.
Pictures to come…
Wretched Hive of Scum and Villainy
What a day! I love this convention when it comes to town. It’s like straight-boy Halloween. I love seeing the fan built costumes lovingly recreated just for this day (I talked to an orange and white Clone Trooper who’s outfit was so detailed, it could have been used in any of the first three Star Wars movies. Okay, he was 6″ shorter than me, but hey…).
Alarming amount of Furries, fluffies and other sexual deviants. From iPhone to Flickr pics here
Hell I love the ones that just make you say “Uh. Ok. WTF?” Like the Brazilian-waxed girl dressed as Ivy (Batman villain) who really should have been called Cottage Cheese Thighs Girl. Or the poor kid in line ahead of us, wearing…I have no fucking clue… that would manouver himself towards anyone who had a decent camera. In the future, we shall all have 15 frames of fame.
Swag got: My Halloween costume (no hints, SharkBoy!), a gay GI Joe t-shirt, a cool Rock Em Sock Em Robots shirt and this delicious video below:
Weak End
Friday, I finally got to see the guy doing my tattoo over at King of Fools Tattoos. After a month wait, I get to see… artwork that I helped develop? Nothing new? I was kind of pissed that I had to wait so long to talk with this guy, but he made up for it by showing me some of the work he’s got in the pipe now. I am very, very excited. Then off to Borne Ultimatum. Good movie. If you haven’t seen it yet, or are going back to see it you big fanboy, pay close attention to all the “extras” looking right at the camera or Matt Damon. The thing about filming commando as they did in Tunisia or Piccadilly Station, is that they weren’t too concerned with background wrangling. Or editing out the people taking pictures of Matt Damon with their cell phones.
Saturday SharkBoy and I drove up to Elora Gorge to go tubing. However, it took us over 2 hours to get there and I can tell you I was ready to go tubing… but that wasn’t going to happen due to all the rentals being sold out. So we went to the quarry and swam in water that I can only describe as being “oily”. Nice but I wouldn’t want to put my head under, if you know what I mean. We watched Flash Gordon (Rod! It’s as bad as I remember!) and to say that SharkBoy disliked it, would be an understatement. But I was taken back to Memoryville. I think this movie sealed my fetishism for hairy men. I mean come on… Topol!)
Sunday we ventured early into a mass of 40,000 children to watch “Walking with Dinosaurs” which I thought was very good. Expensive, but fun to see. These animatronic/puppet beasts were pretty cool. However, I think we’re conditioned to have John Williams music swell in our heads whenever we see a dino of any sorts. SharkBoy fell asleep (as did a few parents around us) during the big T-Rex growling ending.
Off to Tarragon to see my brother in Tarragon’s final production of “Terminated”. Ironically (?) I was totally creeped out when Mike was being seduced by his gay boyfriend in the play. And talking about anal sex. SharkBoy said watching the play was like watching me for 45 minutes rant about something.
So that was my weekends. What up whichoo, peeps?
Warchalking Avec iPhone
I’m starting a new list over on the side bar. Something less ‘bitter’ than the Tim Horton’s page.
I’ve decided to start logging interesting router names around town, a practice called Warchalking in hackerspeak. I got hooked on what people call (and broadcast) their router names when I found “Inyerbum” while walking the perimeter of the gay village.
Go and look. I 100% promise that all these names are for real. I’ll let you know when I update the page.
Enjoy!
(inyerbum!)
Weekend Update
Holding SharkBoy’s hand when he gets his tattoo! Bike riding and pick-nick on the Island! Wii-ing with Big Brain Academy! Folsom Fair North (expect pictures galore!) in the Sunday sun!
And some laundry. It’s a full life, really.
To leave you I found that Apple seems like it has more documentaries than movies in it’s trailer park. This one caught my attention.
Over on HOWTO wiki: advice for all you lovelorn attending AGITATOR at the Opera House.
New York City Boy
We’re planning a trip to New York on the Labour Day long weekend with the Photogs (and possibly others?). SharkBoy’s main goal is to see A Chorus Line (hence the R2 dance vid a couple posts back). Photog #2 wants to hit the main kosher camera shops (but they’ll be closed on Saturday, he suspects). Photog #1 and I seem to be coming along for the ride. I’d like to see a couple museums and maybe look for Wii games/accessories. We may do a bar or two in there too… who can say?
I was there back in the late 80s for 2 nights. My boyfriend at the time had to go through Canadian immigrations (you have to have an interview outside Canada to get into Canada) and we did it on the extreme cheap, staying at a University residence in NJ. We did a few shops and took in an off-off Broadway production and some mild sightseeing, so it wasn’t all bureaucracy and paperwork. It was when I got shoved aside by The Italian Stallion himself, Sylvester Stallone, while he was going through a deli we had stopped in so the BF could use the loo.
So… what’s good to do in NYC for a long weekend?
Big Trak
When I was a kid I pestered my mom for months prior to Xmas for this lovely tank. I had convinced her that owning one would somehow make me a computer programmer because it was one of the first toys on the market where you punched in commands and pressed go. That’s debatable, of course, the Japanese were making wooden tea servants long before Big Trak, but I digress.
Xmas came and I tore into that gift like Tom Sizemore at a hooker convention. Within 15 minutes I was jabbing commands into it’s touch pad arse. By the end of the day, the batteries were worn out and it had already jammed up an axle on the shag carpet by crawling around in the livingroom. My family breathed a sigh of relief (the thing made a huge “Ka-Zort!” noise from it’s laser cannon that would give a migraine to pencil).
Toys! What was your fave growing up?
Ping Pong Head Stewardesses
BoingBoing links to someone who’s selling his Pan Am Clipper model from the movie 2001. I still have this model, but without the viewable engine room part.
If you’re here in Toronto, I know of a small hole-in-the-wall shop over in Chinatown 2 (Gerrard and Broadview, north side of Gerrard, east of Broadview – sorry I don’t know the name) that is selling this model and a thwack of other great nostalgic sets, like the Space 1999 Moonbase model kit and a couple Big Daddy Roth’s Hotrod models. Save yourself the duty/shipping!
Monkey’s Last Summer Show
This Sunday, the Happy Monkeys will be performing their last show before summer break (back by September).
The first half of the show will be short mayhem with games (Party Quirks, Scene Three Ways, etc) and something new for the last half called Montage: a collection of small scenes all based on 2 suggestions from the audience. At rehearsal we had “time” and “shoes” which resulted in Valley Girls attacked by pulp fiction time travellers as well as various other rifts on that concept!
So take your Dad to our show! It will be showalicious and dad will be appreciativalicious.
Victory Cafe, Sunday June 17th, 8pm PWYC