My flight left about an hour late but that’s to be expected at this time of year. My brother and my two nieces were waiting at the (very tiny) airport. “Uncle Dan!!”

We grabbed some Wendy’s on the way out of town; we’ve stopped in Woodstock (I think) to grab some things. Not sure how much further it is from here but I’m about ready to be done with moving vehicles for today.

A few minutes back we drove past the town of Meductic, a place I’ve always wanted to visit. The Sabian cymbal factory is there (or was, at least, the last time I paid attention to such things) and I always dreamt that it must be like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory there…except with, you know, bronze discs. And fewer oompaloompas.

All checked in at the airport, and just waiting at the (very crowded) gate. My shopping bag full of gifts actually tore open, but I ran down to Lush and begged for one of their sturdy paper bags. The cashier gave me two, bless her heart.

As of tomorrow, early in the AM, I’m off to Nova Scotia. I’m quite excited. Here’s the agenda:

• Fly into Fredericton and spend a couple of days with my brother and his family. I think there may even be a Christmas holiday concert involved. My parents may come up and join us as well.
• Drive to the farm in Nova Scotia and spend Christmas eve and Christmas day there. Nellie (having flown into Halifax on the 23rd) and her mother will have driven up to the farm to meet us. We shall open gifts and grow fat on homemade strawberry ice cream, apple pie, peanut butter balls and macaroons. Crib shall be played. Couches shall be napped on.
• On Boxing Day we’ll go to the annual reunion (of my father’s side of the family) about 90 minutes away where we’ll continue to gorge, most especially on my aunt Liz’s amaretto cheesecake, and Nellie and I might try to repeat our Trivial Pursuit win from last year, if we have time.
• Then on to Halifax for some more family (Nellie’s this time) cheer, then to our hotel, hopefully in time for the first World Junior’s game.
• The next day should mostly be shopping (since there’s *still* no boxing day shopping in NS) and praying for moderate weather so that Da Maurizio will be open for our anniversary this year.
• Finally, we’ll return to Toronto, relaxed and ready to be smothered in our sleep by over-affectionate cats.

Happy holidays, boys and girls!
.:.
Farewell, Girlfriend Du Jour. It was fun.

This is funny. My technorati feed tells me who’s linking to my blog, and I noticed a link from a blog written in German (though originating in the US): Jochen.us. I could see from the links that he was talking about Girlfriend Du Jour, and also mentioned this blog and radioDan, but without understanding German the rest didn’t make much sense. So I put it into Babelfish, whose translations are usually pretty comical. Here’s what Babelfish thinks he said:

Girlfriend you Jour is NO more. Originally discovered by Michael, the Blog for me became within shortest time a genuine “favorite” in the actual sense – a mad idea, super converted. Only before a few days I had taken up it to my own Blogroll. Today as per Dan for the last time a picture of a prominent admired one placed on-line. And also for it my respect is entitled to it: Instead of dead-riding the idea and the level of his contributions inevitably water in the long term, er’s simply stopped. Thus: Chapeau, as per Dan! Because this action pleases me so well, I recommend hereby without closer inspection its personal Blog skirl and its Musik/Film/Buch/TV Blog radioDan. And I could imagine – there I was naturally curious – that it am also worthwhile myself, in the future more frequently times with Boyfriend you Jour to vorbeizusurfen

I have no idea what “vorbeizusurfen” means, but it sounds kickass in that German-sounding kinda way.

.:.
Welcome back, Alexei Kovalev!

Looks like my mom’s not the only one who loves Emmet Otter’s Jug-Band Christmas.

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We finally got around to watch Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf? (imdb | rotten tomatoes) the other night. It’s hard to attach the same kind of significance to movies that were groundbreaking forty years ago but seem mild now. Still, despite a few minutes of wondering “Can we sit through two hours of this?” we stuck it out and I’m glad I did. I loved the dialogue (especially George’s) and Elizabeth Taylor just chewed so much scenery that I practically forgot it was her. It’s certainly stuck in my head since we watched it; the temptation to call every woman I see “monkey nipples” is nearly overwhelming.

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As I’m off to Nova Scotia tomorrow I probably won’t be posting much, unless I score loads of sweet gear on xmas morning and feel the need to brag about it.

Happy holidays, kids!

I’m usually pretty smart about downloading stuff off the net. However, I was so excited to find this MP3 I’ve been looking for forever that I opened it too quickly. It must’ve built the filename dynamically from the search query string ’cause what opened…well, let’s just say it opened four very interesting browser windows, one of which was playing what looked like a weird farcical copy of the paris hilton sex tape. I didn’t really stick around to study it further as I’m now convinced that a bunch of spyware is on my machine. Dang. Dang dang dang.

Running ad-aware *and* the MS anti-spyware beta now…

To go along with my favourite discs of 2005, here’s the 2005 mix…just to give you a sampling of what I thought was the best music of year. It’s just the best song from 20 of the best 25 discs; I didn’t delve into all the single tracks I picked up over the year.

• And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead . “The Rest Will Follow”
• Black Mountain . “Don’t Run Our Hearts Around”
• Bright Eyes . “Road To Joy”
• The Constantines . “Soon Enough”
• The Dandy Warhols . “Down Like Disco”
• The Duke Spirit . “Hello To The Floor”
• Elbow . “Mexican Standoff”
• The Fiery Furnaces . “Single Again”
• The Heartless Bastards . “Onions”
• Ladytron . “High Rise”
• LCD Soundsystem . “Losing My Edge”
• Low . “When I Go Deaf”
• Metric . “Monster Hospital”
• The New Pornographers . “The Bleeding Heart Show”
• Nine Inch Nails . “With Teeth”
• Rogue Wave . “Salesman at the Day of the Parade”
• Sleater-Kinney . “Let’s Call It Love”
• Spoon . “I Turn My Camera On”
• The White Stripes . “Instinct Blues”
• Wolf Parade . “I’ll Believe In Anything”

Just in time for the holidays, I’ve come down with a cold. Hooray!

.:.
Scheduling a meeting between two VPs and a bunch of senior managers around the holidays might be one of the most frustrating tasks ever invented.

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And now the debate: new stereo? Or new suit? New stereo? New suit? Normally the stereo would win hands down, but I’m reluctant to buy something until we move lest it doesn’t meet with the new entertainment section design specs. Then again, my black suit is almost six years old, and that’s pretty much the end of life for an off-the-rack suit.

Gawd, I feel like an ass for even having that argument with myself. Maybe I’ll do neither and give some money to a charity. Hey, that’s an idea. I’m now taking votes on what charity to donate some money to. Unless someone convinces me otherwise it’s going to the humane society.

Well, this’ll be handy to know when we move into our new place (which is actually on the 24th floor).

The Americans have lost their nuts. And their constitution, by the look of it.

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Interesting to see Paul Martin coming out so aggressively against Stephen Harper. It’s a good tactic; as sad as it seems, many Canadians will choose between the media-fuelled outrage they feel at the Liberal party and the media-fuelled creepiness that Harper gives off. If Martin can remind them that Harper’s views largely don’t really match their own, he should eliminate this biggest threat; Jack Layton is as much an ally as an opposition party leader, and Gilles Duceppe is an afterthought in federal politics.

.:.
I fly back to the Maritimes in a few days. Seems like everything here is well in hand, except for the packing which I’m sure I’ll do at the last minute while watching Die Hard and scarfing down a festive special. That’s about the closest thing I have to a tradition.

.:.
Nellie and I swapped anniversary presents yesterday, even though it’s not for another nine days. I already knew what my gift was (a spring/summer jacket from M0851, which is currently a hipster fashion staple, but in five months, when I actually wear it, it’ll be a plain jacket again), but she was surprised by the giant magenta Holt’s box that I came home with and the uber-soft bathrobe therein. So we both managed to stick to the traditional 2nd anniversary gift of cotton; next year (leather) should be interesting. Who knows, we might both end up at M0851…