Saturday, January 08, 2005

Sunday January 9, 12:57 p.m.

Well, sure enough, Movie Buddy was the sole visitor for hot pot last night. Good stuff we whipped up. Our double feature of "The Bourne Supremacy" and "The Manchurian Candidate" took us into the wee small hours so that MB ended up sleeping it off here. We both liked the first movie with Matt Damon, but he was very unimpressed with the second movie. When it was decided that he would be crashing here, we ended up watching the specials on the Star Wars DVD which more than made up for his disappointment with Denzel.

However, my heavy DVD viewing since my return from Canada has been on SCTV. According to the IMDB, the DVD sets have been getting rave reviews. Not being one of those folks to laugh out loud at every comedian or sketch, I've been looking at the ol' episodes with as much nostalgia as humour. There are some great sketches, though. But the biggest hit for me is Eugene Levy's classic impression of Perry Como for his so-called special. In fact, the sketch was doubly hilarious when it was shown as a clip at the 1981 Emmys. Could remember seeing Alan Alda laughing up his intestines in the audience, but the corker was seeing the real Como himself give the award to the SCTV crew. I'm sure Levy stood way back in the crowd.

The specials on the discs have been pretty enlightening as well. It's been an education seeing the roots of SCTV and the tribute to John Candy who seemed to have had a pretty sad life despite all of his success.

Well, I'll be heading out pretty soon to Akihabara to do some recon for Chip Guy and maybe even search out a digital camera for myself.

Friday, January 07, 2005

Saturday January 8, 8:15 a.m.

Looks like it'll be the usual duo for hot pot tonight. Movie Buddy will be the sole guest of honour. The ladies have either not responded or given their regrets (kinda feel like Garfield's master). However, the Chipmunk should be coming by to drop off some receipts and my revised premium schedule for NHI. Sure enough, I have a bit to pay but it doesn't sound as lethal as I had feared. I do wonder if I'm in the tax office's doghouse, though. Well, I'll get that tax return application sent in next week.

With just MB coming in, I'm wondering if he'll just settle for delivery pizza instead of hot pot, but I'm OK either way. Looks like he's set up his own blog as well. Very similar title to my own as well. I wonder if he actually discovered my little world.

Thursday, January 06, 2005

Friday January 7, 9:45 a.m.

Well, Happy New Year! It's my first entry of The Year of the Cock. You can take that last statement for whatever it's worth. I'm keeping my options open considering the people of last year.

I got back from Canada last night after a pretty arduous 14-hour flight, thanks to some mighty headwinds and the consequentially emergency stopover in Vancouver for extra fuel. However, once again, the movies helped to keep me surviving. I caught CATWOMAN, ROCKY and I, ROBOT. CATWOMAN was a pretty lame movie but I have to admit that Halle Berry did try her best with her rendition of a conflicted superhero...certainly she succeeded more than Michael Keaton's BATMAN.

Had a guardian angel from Air Canada. Felt pretty woozy after sitting in Economy for several hours, and my eyes were as red as rubies. I was just getting off the plane when I heard someone call my name. This Japanese lady approached me in AC uniform; it turned out to be my former student from the school. She informed that she'd seen my name on the passenger list before I took off and made sure that I had a relatively decent aisle seat in Economy (just the second row away from First Class) so that I could get off fast. She also helped me in that after all the great times with family and friends back in Toronto over the Holidays, those post-Holiday blues were starting to impinge upon me. It was great to have a friendly face greeting me at Narita.

And on getting home, I was happy to find out that GC, who did a bit of housesitting for me, was very generous to have done some house improvements during his brief time here and he even left me a lot of food supplies. Still, I was feeling pretty exhausted. I couldn't even keep my eyes open to watch the first disc of SCTV...one of my favourite shows ever. So I finally hit bed at about 1:30 this morning (yes, I put up a terrific fight with The Sandman) and got about 7.5 hours of shuteye.

Just got my suitcase from ABC Delivery right now so I'm free and clear to get some other stuff done. Looks like my idea for hot pot has gotten one person to come out. Movie Buddy will be heading here tomorrow afternoon. I'll send e-mail over to Arwen and Skippy postwith. I'll see if the Chipmunk can come out as well since she lives nearby.