First off, hit the play button there, it'll be yer soundtrack. It's done by a chap called Duane Pitre who is very definitely one of my favourites, not least because he used to skate for Alien Workshop, which is easily the best skate brand out there.
Yowzah. So it's entirely true I haven't updated in forever, but there's very good reasons for that. I've basically had two weeks solid of entertaining guests. It kicked off with Chris Williamson & co being in town, and whilst they were only here for a few days with a trip to a cottage up North in between, it was rad as hell to hang out. These folks were directly responsible for me witnessing one of the hippest things that's ever happened. There's a nice little park here called Trinity Bellwoods and they were hanging out there so they said to come along. I would have done it anyway, but my interest was piqued by the fact it was already around half 8 in the evening and that they were next to the baseball diamond. I rode myself down there at a leisurely pace (it was still inhumanly hot and humid at this point) only to come across the baseball diamond fully floodlit and playing host to a number of games. No problem thought I, a little rec league softball action, sweet. As I got closer alarm bells started ringing. A lot of fixed gear bikes around here. Quite a few tattoos. What in the hell? A full hipster as fuck softball league, where ball hats are eschewed for cycling caps and tank tops and skinny jeans are the uniform? What in the hell? Suffice to say it was pretty trippy and there was a veritable mountain of PBR cans for the strange men who collect your recycling to take home. I do have photos, but I left my camera in the car of one of my next guests, Mira.
Mira and Kristin are friends from first year of uni in London, despite them being Americans, and I hadn't seen Kristin in probably around four years. This made the whole situation super awesome, as I was pretty confident that fun times would be had. Apparently they were. One memory blank of an evening later and we were back in the groove of hanging out, talking shit and watching crap on the computer. Throw a trip to Niagara Falls into that mix and we're golden. A good time had with the ladies, just a bummer they had to go so soon, and that my camera made it's way to Detroit. Also, this was the first time I was able to surprise someone at the airport with a sign with their name on it, so that was super cool, and Kristin looked very shocked. Hyped. So, they leave Thursday, I go to work and come home to a plan to head out to Ancaster, a suburb of Toronto near Hamilton. It was one of the most entertaining lad's nights I've been on and I had the hangover to prove it. That gave me Friday to feel sorry for myself and sleep before picking up Helen on Saturday morning from the bus station.
The above is a file photo from her days in Edinburgh. She came and spent five days in town that were all awesome. A lot of walking, and a lot of seeing more of the city. A trip to the island (which coincided beautifully with an Indian Festival. 'Hare Krishna, move along please'), a walking tour of downtown and a brewery tour that included a six pack in the price and you best believe a good time was had by all. It's been pretty tiring, particularly as I was straight into two days of 'work' and then another party in the suburbs last night. I got a day off today and went grocery shopping, only to get absolutely soaked in the rain, what the hell? In spite of all this, it was an absolute pleasure seeing everyone and re-kindling friendships. It's a wonderful thing to know that I'm not completely isolated out here and there's always a link or two to the past that I can take strength from, rather than be weighed down by. My sincerest thanks to everyone that made the effort to get to Hogtown, and an open invitation to anyone else that wants to take up space on the spare mattress.As a little ta-ta, here's a video that's been getting pretty heavy play recently.
