Has it quieted down yet? Can I take a breather now? Okay, good.
This past week has been quite a frantic, yet fun week for myself. I'm usually not this busy when I go away on vacation, but the past 7 days were spent within my general vicinity. But I'm getting ahead of myself here. Let me rewind to the beginning.
Last Sunday, my old computer decided to "bite the big one" when the power supply went up and died on me. I really shouldn't complain because it did last me almost eight-and-a-half years, but I was long overdue for an upgrade. Let's face it, trying to survive in today's modern computing world is very difficult when you have only 512 MB of RAM, an 80 GB hard drive, and are running Service Pack 3 of XP. There was only one slight problem: at the time, I had no real means of financing the new package.
Monday: On a whim, I decided to hit the slots at Woodbine Racetrack in the northwest end of Toronto. I was taking a huge risk in the process as there was a good chance I might lose my shirt, and to be perfectly honest, I don't always have the best of control whenever I'm in a casino. I had just worked myself back up to about 50% of my original bankroll when I decided to play one last machine. It was a nickel slot and I was betting max lines at 1 credit per line. I eventually hit the bonus feature and I start playing one of the three bonus games it triggers. I start playing, and I notice the potential bonus payout keeping getting bigger and bigger. Long story short, I ended up leaving the casino with my biggest winning day EVER, to the tune of $845! The new computer was now nigh.
Tuesday: Headed up to the Best Buy near Scarborough Town Centre to shop for the new computer. I didn't need anything overly fancy: just the tower and the accompanying keyboard and mouse. My monitor was still good and I had just bought a new printer from there a couple months previously. After much perusing, and eventual waiting for them to get it set up and ready to take home, I walked out with a brand new Acer with 4 GB of RAM, a 750 GB hard drive, and Windows 7 Home Premium loaded on it. This puppy is fast and the difference between the old and the new is quite noticeable. An investment that is well worth it.
Wednesday: Most people treat birthdays like any other regular day, but with everything that had happened so far this week up to that point and everything else I had planned in the few days after, my 39th was something I wasn't bound to forget. This was probably the most mundane day of the week as all I ended up doing was redeeming a voucher for a free "Like It"-sized Signature Creation from the Tim Horton's/Cold Stone location near Bloor and Dufferin. I ended up indulging in a "Birthday Cake Remix" with combines cake batter ice cream with fudge sauce, rainbow sprinkles, and a brownie. I remember 10 years ago I had a tastebud orgasm when I sampled some peanut butter pie at a country inn restaurant outside of Roanoke, Virginia. I think after this ice cream, my tastebuds lost their "born-again virgin" status; it was that good.
Thursday: The first real planned day I had of the week. I had scored some free passes to opening night of the Toronto Festival of Beer down at the Exhibition Grounds. I had expressly told my roommate that I wasn't going to take him. Not that I didn't want to, but after his "escapades" last March, I didn't want to risk him having a relapse. It was a good thing he didn't because I ended up drinking so much, any attempt on my part to "poo poo" on his parade would have been grossly hypocritical. 10 samples of beer, a sample of Jack Daniels and Cola, some melted vanilla ice cream with some Bailey's splashed over it, some loaded chili fries, a yam done like a baked potato, and a very dry smoked beef brisket on a bun later, and my stomach and liver were tapping out. Good thing I limited myself to just three and a half hours there instead of the full six. No telling what damage I would've done to myself had I been there the full time.
Friday: Had a short rest during the morning and afternoon before I headed to the Tattoo Rock Parlour on Queen West between Spadina and Bathurst in the evening. A couple weeks previously, I had won a pair of tickets to see the rock band, Fozzy, play there. This was going to be my first ever hard rock/heavy metal concert I had ever attended, and wasn't sure how deaf I was going to be by the end. I knew it was going to be a good show because Fozzy is fronted by one of my favourite performers from professional wrestling, Chris Jericho. Jericho and his bandmates did not disappoint as it was a very entertaining show. My ears were ringing a bit when I got out of the club, but it wasn't as bad as I thought. I eventually walked through my apartment door at 1 in the morning, and was thinking of staying up all night as I knew I had to be up early the next day, but my eyes slammed shut about 2:15. Wonder how much sleep I'd end up getting.
Saturday: About 5 hours later, I ended up waking up and getting ready for what was bound to be a full day. I had scored an extra ticket to the Ti-Cats/Blue Bombers CFL game in Hamilton in the evening, so I invited roomie to the game with me. He had mentioned previously that it had been years since he's visited the Steel City, so we ended up making a full day of it. The only problem was we ended up leaving to go there too early and had to kill a ton of time in downtown Hamilton before the shuttle bus left at 5 PM to head to Ivor Wynne Stadium. We eventually made it to the stadium and decided to kill time before kick-off by hanging out in the "Carling Zone" at the northeast area of the lot. The Ti-Cat cheerleaders were selling their new swimsuit calendars, so roomie and I ended up buying copies for both of us and got some of the girls to autograph them. Naturally, roomie posed for a few photos with them, but one of the gals conjoled me into getting my pic taken with some of them. I'm never one for having my own photo taken because I usually end up looking like a complete dingus, but I'll let you be the judge of that.
After the autographs and photo posing, my roomie and I were approached by a couple spokeswomen from Carling and we were asked if we would be interested in participating in an on-field event during the game. We both said yes, and were asked to report back to the northeast part of the stadium before the end of the first quarter. The event ended up being a race between myself, my roommate, and one other fan where it was, in essence, a 25-yard dash where we would be collecting three beer boxes along the way before crossing the finish line. Two catches, one of the three beer boxes we had to collect had weights in them, and all three of us were dressed up as beer bottles. I hope I don't see any photos of how dorky my roomie and I looked in our costumes. But in the end, my roommate won the race. The word going around is that his prize will be either mailed to him or he'll have to pick it up at the next game; which it turns out to be a pair of tickets to said game: The Labour Day Classic, four weeks from now against the rival Toronto Argonauts. As for this game, in the end, the Ti-Cats ended up beating Winnipeg 29-22.
So to say that I'm not winded after everything that's transpired over the past seven days would be an understatement, but I wouldn't have traded it for anything in the world.
Until next time, the views may be from the outside, but I'm debating about crawling back into bed for a bit of a nap.
