Stoopid.
So last night, I got out of work to see the bus leaving. I look around, and it doesn't feel that cold, so I have to weigh my options.

Do I:
A) Stand around in the cold for nearly 20 minutes, waiting for the next one to arrive, or
B) Do I brave the walk home, which is 25 minutes long, but at least I'll be moving.

So of course I choose B, ignoring the fact that if I had chosen A, I would have been in a wind sheltered bus shelter, or I could have gone and killed 15 minutes in the mall or so. RE: Title of this post.

So I walk home, and at about the halfway mark, I round a corner onto one of three east west streets I can take to get home.

It is, of course, like being hit with a facefull of frozen jet engine exhaust.

I struggle home, through about 8-9 blocks of this (about a KM or so), pulling my scarf up over my face, and making the best of it.

I pass one of the bus stops on my route, but it's quite exposed, and at this point, I have not been walking along the bus route, so I don't know if I've just missed another one. So I could be facing another 20 minute wait, without benefit of the bus shelter. I keep going.

I get home, my cheeks and thighs tingle merrily, and everything seems ok - until the coughing starts.

Now, years ago, Noelle, in a fit of - well, fitness - decided, I think it was for a New Year's Resolution, to start jogging. And Noelle being Noelle, that meant that Jan 1st, she was out jogging - in Calgary. In the winter.

To make a long story short, she still suffers from the way she exacerbated her exercise induced asthma, by basically freezing her lungs in the cold air.

Do you see where I'm going with this.

So today has been fairly uncomfortable, and I mentioned to a few people at work why I was hacking like what Tom Waits once called "The Tuberculosis old man, at the Nelson Wheeze and Cough", and colourful adjectives leapt to their lips to describe what they thought of me walking home last night.

Reports vary, but several facts have emerged:
1. Westerly winds (you may recall the east west roads) were gusting up to 60 km/hr.
2. Temperatures at that time of night with the wind chill, were either -32 C or -36C, depending on who you ask.
3. I'm not all that tough after all, in fact, I'm a moron.

So I said to Noelle when I left this morning that I was going to take it easy today. I think you all know how that turned out. I left an hour early, but am now officially fishing for sympathy.

Well?

Stupor Bowl
So the much vaunted Super Bowl is on right now, and I'm - well, I'm in the kitchen blogging and surfing the BBC news.

I tried to think up a match up that I cared less about than the Colts and the Bears. Maybe the Phoenix Cardinals and the New Orleans Saints? Or perhaps the Houston Oilers (are they still around?) and the Kansas City Chiefs.

Either way, I couldn't care less about the game. I turned it on at halftime to see Prince, and was forced to endure the highlights - if that's what you want to call them, of the first half.

So I have friend in Rome...(I've always wanted to say that, or should it be, "I have a fwend in Wome") who often teases me about my love of the CFL, and how because of how little they are paid, the players will never be at the "level" of the NFL.

My question, Darren, is level of what? Ass slapping? Grunting? Because judging from the highlights of the first half, it sure as hell isn't football. There were, what, nine fumbles or turnovers in the first half?

Not that I'm an expert, or anything, but isn't the goal of the game to hang ON to the football long enough to get it to the other end of the field.

And, not to be critical, but isn't this the most important game of the year? Perhaps of many of these players' lives?

At least when a Canadian player drops the ball during the Grey Cup, he's probably only insulting his fans to the tune of about $50,000. It's easier to forgive.

It's one thing to say that the players didn't come today with their game faces on- but the reality is that they seem to have showed up wearing Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck masks.

Don't stop me, I'm on a roll.

Anyway, enough trash talking. Once again, the Super Bowl is predicted to be a relatively boring ground assault, and we can all sit back and wait for this November for the real game to begin.

:)
Sorry Darren.

Centre Mall
Just got back from the innocently named "Centre Mall". To say it was "down on it's heels" would be a generous characterization. It is, in fact, ghetto.

But it is the location of one of those handy dandy automatic license plate sticker renewal machines - the one in Hamilton that never seems to be busy.

So I go there, and am surprised by the fact that this is the only indoor mall that I have ever been to, that sports not one, but two (2) Head shops. That's right, right out in the open, Marijuana pipes, accessories, the whole thing.

So that pretty much says it all. But it's that part of Hamilton, so what can I say. I think my Dad will agree that the only redeeming part of areas of town like this is that they almost always have at least one surplus store. And that's why a 20 minute trip to renew my plates took nearly an hour and a quarter.

The worst part, is that I didn't even buy anything. I just wandered around this little shop for about 1/2 an hour. Ok, so the WORST part is that the store was no more than about 500 square feet. It was tiny. And still I managed to kill half an hour, without committing to a single purchase. I will, of course, be going back.

The one redeeming feature of the abovementioned mall, however, and the point of this whole thing, is that it had (beside the Head Shops) the only "S-Mart" I have ever seen. Wally, you know what I mean. Shop Smart, shop S-Mart. It was a little junkie giftie kind of store, with cheap cheap items from offshore, but I totally expected to see some guy on a skateboard with a shotgun fighting off a screaming undead hag.

The really disturbing part, is that in that part of Hamilton, nobody would have batted an eye.

On a totally unrelated note, Isaac has a new game. He is, it should be explained, in love with flashlights. He has played with them as long as I can remember (which to be honest, is about 20 minutes or so), and now owns about four of them.

His new game, is to turn the flashlight on, grab a parent for company on the trip, and "go hunting for boo boos"

The challenge, is that we have yet to ascertain what a 'boo boo' is.

At first, we thought it was what most kids call boo boos, namely injuries, or damage of some kind.

The problem with that theory is where most of the boo boos seem to be. On the dishwasher, in the oven, on the walls, etc.

So we're really not sure, but sure as shootin', once or twice a day, Mommy (Noelle), or MommyDaddy (me) will be called on to go 'hunting for boo boos."

We're going along with it for now, but see it as a pretty good sign that by the time Sam is ready to walk, Isaac will have just a powerful enough imagination to create all sorts of little games and adventures that will in a deep and fundemental way, mess with Sam's head.

After, all, what else are brothers for?