We went to Allentown Athletix for the first time after signing up over the weekend. It is really clean and the lockerroom/showers actually do not smell bad in any way like they do at the downtown BAC. The showers were really clean and the water pressure was like Hotel amazing.

We will see how motivated I am to keep going but it will help that it is only 2 blocks away. I miss the stomach twist machine from the BAC. Maybe they have one too. I kind of had a hard time finding my way around at first.

Don't forget to check out my previous post about Artist and Models. We went to Tandori on Transit for Indian Buffet today. The buffet costs $12 but is of a much higher quality than the Buffet on Elmwood at Taste of India. The rice was amazing as were all the food choices. I really enjoyed the curry goat.



They had this amazing pickled vegtable condiment. I love pickled anything. This one fruit, however, remained a total mystery. I am hoping maybe (e:tinypliny) can identify it for me. It had the consistency of a green, unripe plum but a totally different kind of pit. Anyone know what it is? It was just slightly smaller than a golf ball.






At the end they give you rose water to wash your hands I think. I hope it wasn't supposed to be some sort of dessert soup, because I washed my hands in it.



Also, here is a cute picture of (e:matthew) with jesus hair

On Saturday night we went to the Hallwalls Artists and Models fundraiser at the Central Terminal. (e:Terry), (e:matthew) and I went with (e:imk2) and (e:mike) went with (e:jill). We all met up there. Saw a bunch of other peeps there.

There were thousands of people. Check out these shots of the crowd. Here I am standing in the middle and took a pic facing each direction.




Most of the art was really lame. Some of it was pretty cool. One of the most interesting pieces in the show was the release of all these red, white and blue balloons onto the veiling. Each one had the name of a soldier that died in the war. They slowly descended to the ground over the night. People were hitting them around and playing with them till they realized what they were. It was interesting to see the number quantified in something other than digits.



I decided to take the picture to look him up afterwards. It is creepy weird that I could find his funeral on youtube. Are all the soldier's funerals on youtube?



(e:imk2) and I had fun in the asbestos closet that was not an actual event but a closet that was just gross. It had a label on the door that said Canadian Customs.





Then we had fun in the bi-polar room. (e:imk2) explains it well with her facial expression. I just like the way the other pic came out with the slow lens speed.



(e:holly) and her boyfriends Brian did a pretty sweet interactive, multimedia experience piece. I forgot to get a picture of (e:robin)'s video but it was great as always. Somehow, I realized as we left that I missed (e:liz)'s piece or at least I am not sure which one it was? Anyone know?


There was another interactive installation that involved nurses, I could never get close enough to figure out what they were doing.


The highlight was the burlesque show. It was at that point that I discovered how much better (e:imk2)'s camera was than mine. I am now going to get a new one. Her pics were crytal clear while mine were blurry and crappy. We were the same distance away, both with all auto on but her camera is like 2 years younger that mine.


I captured this amazing performance for (e:metalpeter), I thought he would enjoy it. They did a blond vs brunette dance to the tune of "Dueling Banjos"

::Download Flash Video::

If you have already seen this before, it is because I just took this chunk off my last journal and moved it into it's own journal.

Lunch
We ate yummy mung bean noodles with veggies for Lunch. I strived to eat five vegatables in one meal and exceeded it: sweet potato, onion, chive, zucchini, summer squash, tomato, carrot, and garlic.


Turkey Baster
So last week we were making 6 racks of ribs for a family bbq at our house with (e:matthew)'s family. This was one of two platters this full. There were 16 people.



That day I went to Walgreen, Rite Aid and Tops on Niagara street but none of them had turkey basters and we ended up using a spoon and pouring which was super inconvenient for so much food. So when I was at wegmans this week, I looked for some and they had two varieties. The $1.49 variety and the $9.99 variety. I am a spend thirft and I am a sucker for luxury items but this one struck even me as totally fucking ridiculous. What could it possibly do that made it worth so much money and why is the sticker red like its some fire hot bargain.

So I was emptying my camera in order to make room for Artists and Models shots. As a side note I cannot believe we are going back to the freakin' Central Terminal on another chilly night after all the swearing and bitching we did about how much we hate the place. remember when I got death threated for hating on it (e:paul,31900)

web
I noticed that the Elmwood Village /Forever Elmwood site took down their link to us. I was never really into them anyways.

police
I got pulled over this morning coming down main street and turning left on North. Normally, there is a green arrow for the folk coming from downtown, but there wasn't today - maybe not on weekends. Luckily, the guy let me go - I was like 40 yards from my house.


The rental property
We are having the rental property's upstairs kitchen linolified. The previous tenant decided to take down the splashboards and stucco the whole freakin' kitchen. White stucco sucks for a kitchen, so now we have to do something with it. One thing I hate more than tenants that do nothing are ones that try and do things they are not capable of. This is the same kid that tried to fix the lights on Christmas eve and caused the big christmas drama (e:paul,42649)




The Church and parking
Well, they never actually moved pakring to the north side of the church like they said. They did, however, finally get the parking sign (you can see it in the pic below) and the parking guard but it didn't really work all that well.


The best was when the people didn't park across driveway but parked across the driveway two houses down from us, while the people in the house were trying to get a dumpster out of the driveway. The woman was all screaming and bitching about how crazy it was to get a parking spot when they made her move it. Seriously, when is it even ok to park your car across a driveway and leave it. People are fucking ridiculous. How are you goping to explain their anger Father Armand, more rascist neighbors, lol (e:paul,44401) That whole rascist is so ironic considering the way estrip started (e:news,29677)

The Jewish Card
I saw this card at the coop. Maybe some Jewish person can explain why his head is in a curved box. I get the whole Torah part, but the head part totally throws me, does it have meaning?


The gym
We went and joined the gym today thanks to (e:james,44431) The place seemed clean and nice - I am excited to go back. Ww promptly got into a fight about when we would go. Here you can see (e:matthew) looking thrilled to join.



Dibbles Hardware on Ferry
We do a lot of our hardware shopping at Dibbles Hardware on Ferry and at the Bargain Market across the street from it. From these keychains, you would guess they mostly have spanish speaking clientelle.



Why is Adolfo ok as a name while Adolph isn't - did it not translate over after WWII or have they already made reconciliation with the forever damned name.

When does the friggin passport requirement start? Mine is expired I can't seem to find any consistent/accurate info online. Someone told me it was this month but I really wanted to go to pride in Toronto and there is no way I am spending $200 for passports to go.

This page updated Mar 21st, 2008 says

Passports will be required for all land and sea border crossings into the US as of June 1, 2009.

So was the person telling me June just wrong or is that site wrong, anyone know. If not I am going to go to Toronto tomorrow for one last time.

I would imagine this is going to hurt trade a lot as it makes it ever more inconvenient for Canadians to shop here.

I can't decide if this is the saddest or coolest story ever. According to this article on yahoo news, there is this tribe in South America that has never been contacted by modern humans. In the pictures below they say that the natives are trying to attack the aircraft with spears. I can't help but laugh at the thought of this, however, culturally insensitive that is. I mean what do they think it is? They must have this wild stories about the outside world. It makes me wonder why none of them has run away to find out what is outside. Maybe they are so scared by outside. Is it really possible that there are people that have no idea about the rest of the world. I thought that was so over.

Members of an unknown Amazon Basin tribe and their dwellings are seen during a flight over the Brazilian state of Acre along the border with Peru in a May, 2008 photo distributed by Survival International.

Survival International estimates that there are over 100 uncontacted tribes worldwide, and says that uncontacted tribes in the region are under increasing threat from illegal logging over the border in Peru.

I think the saddest part of the whole thing is that their houses aren't half as nice as the bower bird nests. Here you can see David Attentborough showing one of their nests

I had the most amazing current glazed quail with side of scallopped potatoes at Europa Bistro on Elmwood with (e:mike). We sat and ate at the bar. I think it was the best food I have had in years. I wish the picture was better but it was really low lighting and I didn't want to use a flash.


Ont the way out, we were standing near one of those blinking cameras when homeless thug guy approached us and asked if he could have $5. $5 - what the fuck is going on there. I mean I know the Elmwood Village is in the top ten places to live in the world or something, but really $5? No homeless person asks for $5 in my neighborhood. If these guys really get $5, do you think that they start to "own" corners and fight each other for turf. Glad to see that the cameras were doing there thing, lol.

We started growing hay and clover for the tortoise in part of the backyard last year. The clover leaves are so big, check out this picture. He loves to eat them.


We also have these crazy looking purple and white irises. I kind of like the yellow and purple ones better but they are also very pretty.


We went to eat at Cozumel with Gaylin on Monday - Memorial Day. She is leaving buffalo soon ;( We ate those yummy rock shrimp. It is by far one of the bst appetizer's in the city.


I have this obsession with convenient stores that have become houses of worship - they look so fucking tacky. Does anyone else think this? If I was god I would be offended - maybe its my catholic upbringing.

Its not a new kitchen, but its the next best thing. It was such a super deal but it was so hard to deliver it ourselves, move the old fridge out, clean it all, move the new fridge in. I love it though. It has a door alarm, although the doors self shut anyways and water filter for the ice. Plus it has this great turbocools mode, that turbo cools the fridge after its been open a while. Best of all it only costs $60/year to run.

The old refrigerator goes out.


And the new one comes in.

Six of us went canoeing yesterday down the Oak Orchard Creek in Media. (e:matthew), (e:terry) and I, pat, terri and dave. Two canoes and two kayaks. Unfortunately, the one blow up Kayak had a funky oar. (e:terry) decided to just paddle with it take apart which is a little different than you would normally kayak.

::Download Flash Video::

We made a couple of stops along the way to play frizzby, reshuffle beer, etc

At one of stops there was this beer tree and I asked Dave if he thought it was inspired by the beer tree at St. Patrick's Day beer tree (e:paul,43734) and he said that, that particular beer tree was there for at least 10 years. So now I have to ask myself - is this a coincidence or did this beer tree inspire the other one - or are beer trees, a dime a dozen and I just never saw one.



Dave in the creek.


(e:terry) with some fancy rolled shorts


I found some clam shells that looked way prettier in the sunshine of real life than in this pic.


Most of my trip looked like this:

::Download Flash Video::

(e:terry) decided to test out standing up in the canoe when dave shouted drop your shorts and (e:terry) mooned the whole gang.


There were lots of other canoers during most of the trip and you can see from this pic that Terri - not (e:terry) - had no shirt on, which was of major interest to the straight canoer guys we past.

This tree house on the water, was the coolest one I eve saw. The one disappointing feature of our house is the lack of tree-house capable trees. This means we will need a cottage at some point.


We are almost at the end of the road.


Between hiking, tree chopping, refrigerator moving and canoeing, my body is so sore. Now we have to get the new refrigerator in place, argh.