I failed to mention in my previous camping posts about seeing some fireflies for the first time since I was 13 yrs old or so. It really brought me back.

This weekend we saw:

• a real bunny by the side of the road, floppy ears and all
• a dead bunny by the side of the road, all of his body was floppy
• a mole (like…what? Who sees a “mole” these days?)
• a whole mess of mini-toads. Thousands of them. Like fireflies, I haven’t seen these little cuties since my childhood
• the most amount of Daddylonglegs I have ever seen in one spot. It was like our tent was Tom Cruise and we were in Minority Report

I am truly a city boy when these little animals amaze me.

Expect pictures soon. I need to edit heavy because I did some of the “Survivor” contest in the buff.

Two of my coworkers have confirmed the exsistance of a brand spaking new Toronto Icon:

I give you Zanta!

Unfortunately no pictures of Zanta are available…yet! You will know Zanta by his big, muscular shirtless frame, pec tattoo and jaunty Santa cap (“Look Mommy! Santa!” “NO! Not Santa! I’m Zanta with a ZEE!”). Zanta likes to produce flowing rants of personal freedoms and will demand that you watch Speakers Corner for his 60 seconds of informative fame.

One co-worker tells me of Zanta’s run in with the man during one of the performances that took place during the Eglinton street festival this weekend. Zanta was “Hulk-Hoganning” during a busker’s show which angered many a good folk, causing the police to show up brandishing batons of pain. Zanta was hustled away to a safe area and the show continued uninterrupted, thankfully!

The other co-worker speaks of his usual stomping ground at Queen and John, where he usually informs beautiful women that they are “princesses” and they should be aware of his free speech.

We WELCOME ZANTA to Toronto!’

UPDATE: Well don’t I feel out of the loop. Even CityTV’s forums have whispers of Zanta. That’s the last time I ramble off without Googling it. And my one co-worker was wrong, no chest tatt.

My 40th is coming up. I will gladly wear this out to dinner.

Of course, the Japanese are waaay ahead of their bulky American counterparts. Have a look at The Land Walker: the world’s first 340cm bipedal exoskeleton. And the efficient bio-suit soon to be dragging helpess humans around by their spines by 2006.

CRUSH!! KILL!! DESTROY!!

Wake up! Breakfast Television isn’t the paragon of morning TV but it’s the only show good enough to have on in the background while Sharkboy and I drag our asses around as we wake up (I know Hamtaro is usually on but I usually sleep through it).

(For our non-Toronto readers, its our city’s only stock “kooky” morningtainment news/info/live eye show with your typically mismatched pair of the blonde beauty, Liza, and the perpetually suspender-wearing Kevin. I’d link to their site but it’s scary.)

This morning Sharkboy and I were at seperate apartments (someone has to do my laundry) and I had the show on out of habit. Today’s email topic was “Bad summer fashions” and since I was up and at my computer I fired off this:

Bad summer fashions? Easy: capri pants on a man. Okay for women, creepy for guys.

And Liza, you would rock so hard if you could say “HI SHARKBOY” for me.

Sharkboy and I have had a running debate on how men in capri pants may or may not be flattering. I think that if a man wants to look like a 1960’s version of Betty Cooper then go right ahead. Expect me to be snickering though.

Despite all my badmouthing about the show, she read my email and to my suprise, Kevin agreed that he wasn’t comfortable with capris on a man. Then she said, “Because I never miss an opportunity to Rock Hard: HI SHARKBOY!”

EEEE!!! She did it! I wait. No phone ringing. I call and wake up Sharkboy. Damn it! The one time he sleeps in past 7am and he misses it.

I’ve spent waaay too much time on writing about this.

Owch. Slamming two toes into the leg of my couch this morning, I could hear the crunch of bone and sinew. “That’s going to hurt,” my animal brain said, nanoseconds before the pain arrived. It’s funny how we have these moments of clarity before the flood of pain comes to our brain like a late party guest.

Wiggle. I am totally macking (as you kids say these days) on Firefox Mouse Gestures. Its like magic! However, I have lost pages due to lazy dragging. If you’re like me and spend hours looking at pages, I suggest it. It’s like short hand for the internet.

Worry. Stupid, I know but I rode the subway this morning dreading a terrorist attack, despite the armed police they had on the platform. Actually I think it was them who triggered my angst. In the last 48 hours Canada’s media has been reporting that we should be ready for an attack because of our involvement with the “liberation” of Afghanistan. How the foosh do you prepare for something like that without becoming some paranoid freak or worse, fanatical, like the terrorists?

Trumped. My brother got my Da set up on high speed internet for his new iMac Mini with –shudder– Sympatico when I was days away from getting him a mid-range Rogers account. Without this turning into a big Rogers Vs Bell argument, I have never had any kind of satisfactory customer service with Bell, the company that when I was with them, could not produce a Mac tech support guy whenever I called in. Rogers isn’t much better but at least they seem to have their poop together when it comes to the technical aspect of the web. I think I’m upset because my Bro stepped on my toes. I mean, I would never supply anyone in my family with audio/entertainment equipment advice so why would he do so for Da and the internet when he knows thats my backyard!! Just kidding. But from now on, any technical support questions from Da will be routed to Ottawa…

Finally. There are new pictures up in the Camping gallery. None of them are work safe and if you’re family reading this, there are one or two of me nude. You are warned.

Haven’t made a post about my iPod in a while. As usual I am weeks late catching up to a meme: iTunes 4.9’s podcasting feature!

I’m listening to the following podcasts all available from iTunes:

The SciFi Channel’s Battlestar Galactica. It’s like listening to DVD extras for a tv show. Executive Ronald D Moore explains the “why” of this surprisingly good show. For semi-to-hard core fans.

Z100 Phone Taps. Not much new here in the way of creative phone pranks but its super funny to hear NYC accents try to talk over each other. “Yooah deaahd to meah!” “No! Yooah dead to meah!”

Dawn and Drew Show. I listen to these two faithfully. They’re not much on content, in fact they ramble quite a bit but they have a spark that is infectious. Its like eavesdropping in on a couple deep in love, chatting away behind you. They’re candid, playful and chatty and completely addictive.

Zug. (not from iTunes yet. Get it here. Drag and drop the link into your Podcast folder) On his site, John Hargrave pranks up big business which borderlines on culturejamming. For his podcasting, he only has three past articles converted to audio but expect more from him. He needs to step back from the microphone a bit but he’s going in the right direction.

These aren’t podcasts, but I am loving this collection of Gerry Anderson/Barry Gray MP3s. Space 1999 to Thunderbirds (highly reccommend you download the theme to UFO, it’s frikkin groovy!), including some wicked remixes. FUN!

Any reccommendations, kids?

ROTC tried to open the event. Why were they performing in the beer garden where nobody could see them? It started to rain pretty hard and we stuck around as long as we could, which in the past, seems to always kick off FFN. Maybe next year they could start it later and give themselves more time to recoop from the dance the night before? Bitsie performed her act for all of 5 people.

Mike, dilligent volunteer when the rain started to come down. Thunder and lightning forced us back to Sharkboy’s and we returned after 3pm. As we were leaving, a homeless guy asked one of the security volunteers what was going on. “Folsom Fair North,” says the volunteer. “Falcon Fair?” asks the rubbie. “Yeah,” says the volunteer.

We came back after the rain stopped. Public displays of S&M. The booths were plentiful and the location was great. Much better than a parking lot.

Blair, a manager at Woody’s, possibly the nicest man on Church Street. Great idea of having live stage apart from the dance area. It seperated the hard core punk/s&m crowd from the tweaking circuit kids.

Kids On TV: the best thing about Folsom. I publically take back everything I ever said about them last year. They brought life to the party. Crackpuppy was a messy live band. We didn’t stick around for Lesbians on Ecstacy.

I’d give the day a B.

Isn’t it weird how something comes to your attention and suddenly you can’t stop seeing it? Once a friend of mine ranted and raved that he wanted an orange VW van and now I see them constantly.

The last couple days I’ve had muevo hits from people searching for Zanta. Its like Torontonians want a hero.

Great series of articles just starting up on Salon.com about a straight man enrolling in Ex-Gay therapy sessions (requires you sit through some ads before/while reading it, but the article is worth it). Funny and at the same time horrific.

The whole thought of being “cured” sickens me (participants aren’t allowed to wear Calvin Klien) and I am saddened that people actually think they can change themselves through these outmoded belief systems. Unfortunately the Church won’t take a lesson from history (yeah a cheap plug for my brother’s book) or listen to current psychological proofs . After reading that article I am reminded of when I first started to cruise the internet and came across a cache of anti-Scientoligst sites, my favorite (and most popular) being Operation Clambake and I dove into these sites. Slowly I had my bemused curiosity towards this destructive cult changed into anger. I would hope that some closeted person would read the Salon article and have their mind changed. The right way, that is, by deciding for themselves after informed research.

Mind control comes in many shapes and sizes, kids. Now if you excuse me, I have to go unlock my Hot Coffee.

Where were you when they landed on the Moon? I was in the creek beside the cottage, the usual place, with my rubber boots (I hated leeches) and plastic boats when my sister yelled at me to come in and see something on TV. I was 4 and was anticipating my 5th birthday. Its one of my earliest memories. Google Moon is pretty funny. Zoom in close!

Sadly, Scotty left us this day. He was one tough some-beeach:

At 11:30 that night, he was machine-gunned, taking six hits: one that took off his middle right finger (he managed to hide the missing finger on screen), four in his leg and one in the chest. Fortunately the chest bullet was stopped by his silver cigarette case.

Well that’s just great. All we have left now is Geordie LaForge. I don’t count Chief O’Brien because he deserted to that crappy space station.

In just seven days, Sharkboy and I take off for a week long celebration of camping with extra special guest stars Grizzly and Evil Panda. Also starring is The Busdriver and The Mailman.

The first weekend, the theme is “Boxers”! Sharkboy and I are prepared to be the Paris ‘n Nicole of the evening with outstanding underwear acquired from intensive shopping excursions into the heart of Toronto. Home made jewelry cheapens adorns our outfits as well!

During the week we will be taking day trips to lovely and historical Tillsonburg to show the boys various Tobbacco Museums, greasy spoons and German berry picking outlets. I can hear their excitement rise from here!!

The weekend after is The Point’s popular and sold out “Bear” weekend. The pool filters will be filled to the max, hairily, as hirsute and burly men float, cavort and chortle their weekend away. Here’s hoping we can convince Griz and EP to stay an extra few days so they can actually see the pool go from pristine blue to emrald green. And see Mr X go mental with rage since he has to clean it!

Here is a partial list of things I am brining:

• My telescope. Gotta see a moon.
• Barbie. An extra special Burning Barbie episode. Think “Lucy Lui” in Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle. With American guest stars too!
• An extra bed pad. I love the sound of bullfrogs at 3am but if I don’t get at least 7 hours of sleep I will purchase some firecrackers and shove them in their grenouille asses. Feh! It’s not these little critter’s fault for calling out at all hours for a mate. I can’t sleep because of the bouncy air mattress we have.
• Booze. That’s right. The liver problems I was having a while back are gone and it’s Daquiris by the pool, sommabitches!

For those of you who will not be attending, expect images of the highest calibeer… uh …ber.

While I am away, DR will be “down” (readable, but hobbled). To reduce the constant referal attacks, I will be stripping it of comment/last referal entries. Sorry kids.