August 9, 2007

-- We’ll be traveling abroad this weekend. On Friday we’re driving to Ottawa to visit Toney’s sister and her family, and to check out their new house. You know, stuff like that.

Not to be a wet blanket, or anything, but I have a few concerns. Ahem. At the top of my list is food. I’ll be damned if I’m eating Nancy's slimy garlic-marinated seaweed and carrot casserole for three days straight. I might have to smuggle in a few boxes of Pop-Tarts, just to maintain.

And, needless to say, they don’t believe in air conditioning. So there’s that, as well. I’ll probably need to buy a long-handled crack-swab somewhere. Wonder if IKEA carries those?

There won’t be an update on Monday either. So, in case I forget to mention it tomorrow… We’ll be driving back on that day, and I won’t be able to post anything new until Tuesday. But I’ll try to make it up to you folks, with lots of pictures and maybe a few good stories. 

And if you haven’t already done so, you might want to subscribe to our mailing list. I’m not sure why that idea just popped into my head…

On a more positive note, I’ll be putting to good use the guide to Canadian beer that Surf Reporter Chris made for us. And I also have a thick and glossy newspaper-insert, from the Liquor Control Board of Ontario, that’s loaded with information about local micro-brews, etc. Toney’s sister gave that to me last time she was here. 

So I’ll be, um, educating myself on unfamiliar beers all weekend. Strictly for informational purposes only, I assure you...

If any of you know of interesting things to do in Ottawa , I’m all ears. I know nothing, NOTHING, about it. I’ve only slept one night outside the USA in my entire 44 years of ridiculousness. And that was about five feet into Canada , on the northern side of Niagara Falls , back when I was twelve or thirteen.

Help me out, won’t you? I’m suffering from information deficit disorder.

-- Remember I told you about being contacted by a reporter at the Los Angeles Times? Yeah, she wanted to talk to me about something I wrote on my “blog,” some long-forgotten diatribe about the Goo Goo Dolls appearing on QVC. 

And if you recall, I mentioned a slightly hostile vibe I picked-up from the woman. I felt like she disagreed strongly with just about everything that came out of my mouf. 

Well, here’s the article, and you can be the judge. Pass the beer nuts.

-- Also, I received a package from Japan a few days ago. I looked at the return address, and all the strange markings on the outside, and had no clue about what it might be.

Throwing caution to the wind, I ripped it open and a book fell out. It was a paperback, with Japanese writing all over the cover. The crap?

Then I remembered: months ago, possibly more than a year, a guy contacted me and asked permission to use some of my Surf Report writings in a textbook designed to teach Japanese adults to speak English.

I’d completely forgotten about it, but here was the finished product. And the entire Chapter 25 is made up of excerpts from our little site, in Japanese, then English.

Here’s one of the selections featured:

Earlier this week I hired a guy to clean our gutters, and do a few minor repairs. A nail had come loose on the front of the house, for instance, and the gutter was drooping like Buddy Hackett's bottom lip. And I can't have that.

Is that not bizarre? I can just imagine a classroom full of smiling Japanese people reciting that stuff. It’s incredibly cool, and makes my brain hurt all at the same time... 

I’ll try to provide a couple of page-scans, as soon as possible.

-- And speaking of Japan, we’re getting loads of traffic this morning from this site. For the record, that’s the same sandwich that appeared in Rolling Stone, and long ago passed through my colon.

-- I’m trying something new with this so-called caption “contest.” I’ve always believed Surf Reporters are (for the most part) exceedingly funny and smart, and have great confidence you guys will come up with many solid explanations for what’s actually going on in the famous painting. 

Just one request: don’t ruin everything by showing us all how knowledgeable you are, and telling the REAL history behind it. ‘Cause that’s not the point of this exercise; we’re going for comedy. Hello?

I’ll leave it up until we return from Canada. So, have at it. Why’s that woman crawling across a cow pasture? We need to know, dammit.

-- Here’s a couple of new Smoking Fish sightings, captured for the ages by Kristin, at the Pocono Raceway last weekend. Thanks for that! Very cool. Did you see my friend Steve there, by any chance? He was the guy who looked like he was contemplating suicide.

-- And here’s something fresh and good from our old buddy Brad, way out on Exit 149. Apparently he had a flying rat inside his house. Sweet fancy Moses!

-- And finally, we have something new from the Stealing Clive Bull’s Topics desk. Those guys are getting pretty lazy over there, but they finally squeezed something out for us.

The question is fairly open-ended and non-specific, and it has to do with falling asleep behind the wheel. Clive’s callers told terrifying tales about nodding off and driving for five exits on the freeway, and that sort of thing.

Do you have any stories to tell about falling asleep while driving? Or, for that matter, falling asleep in any inappropriate situations? Use the comments link below.

And I’ll have more of this scattered, smothered, chunked, and covered crapola tomorrow.

See ya then.




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