Singh is King

Saw this sticker on this guys truck on the way home...

Free Food, Power Tools, Nice Car. I'm happy

Today I saw a crazy cracker on crutches cross the street while traffic was coming full speed (thought i'd mention that because of the alliteration)

I also didnt take lunch to work. But somehow, the guy who doesnt really say much asked if i wanted to go get free food and check out some tools at a hardware store. Sold.

Go outside and see a new car in the parking lot. Sheepishly, I ask, "who's car is this?". He says "mine". 1965 orange Mustang.

and then i got paid at work.

SAWEEEET.

Wasalu to you too

so last friday i was browsing the intrawebosphere to see what was up in the W-peg. Turns out Lupe, yes, Lupe Fiasco was making an appearance at the University of Manitoba. So i checked ticketmaster and there were still tickets available. So after work, I rushed straight to ticketmaster outlet to try and buy some tickets...but the tickets had been taken off the system about 20 mins before i got there. crap

but, the girl said there were still going to be tickets availble at the door. Getting my hopes up, i rushed home, ate and then drove down to the UofM. The line was huge. I asked around to see if there were still tickets, but no one knew. I asked this one girl by accident on two different occasions and she tried to ask people too, but no luck. anyways, i kept asking people in line if they had an extra ticket just in case  someone had bailed, but nope, these winnipegers are committed people.

after 1.5hours of asking around, and almost convincing a guy to go home and selling me the ticket, i ditched. It was 30mins past the time the doors were supposed to open and the mosquitos were becoming a bit of a pain.

somehow, i thought of watching a movie and the movie timing was perfect for the time i got home. when i went to the cashier, she asked me for $3. WTF, thats the cheapest movie ticket i've ever bought at a cineplex - the cheapest drink was more expensive than the ticket. Watched Funny People, had a good laugh and went to sleep. Solid night.

1 Egg, 2 Yolks

In Rainbows

On my drive home last week, the weather couldn't make up its mind, sunny, rainy, windy, cold, hot...everything. Perfect recipe for Mr Roy G. Biv:

I'm goin for gold

2 Rainbows!

Step into my office

Everytime a bus or truck goes by the building, everything inside shakes and pieces of the paint fall off.

My workstation. Pentium 4 rockin AutoCad 2010.

You'd have to film mtv cribs for a week

...here's a 5 second condensed version:

Thanks for visiting, now GTFO!

Drive through Downtown

To kill some time yesterday and get a feel for the city. I live in the north party of the city on Main St. Turns out that the city is so small that you can drive across the entire the city in about 25 minutes (on city streets). In this short stretch, the city changes drastically.

My area is pretty nice, not awesome, but not totally sketch either. The view from my parking lot:

Golf Course

Motel and Beer

Drive a few blocks down and get into the sketchiest and most dangerous part of town:

Why are there classes in an alley?

If you zoom in, they Pawn Shop (the first of many in this city), sells GHETTOBLASTERS!

Then a few minutes later, start getting into downtown:

Ok, these signs are EVERYWHERE. Is child pornography really that big of a problem in this city?

Union Station

The fancy hotel downtown opposite Union Station. Copy Toronto much? Last time i drove by here, i saw the only fancy car in the city - a white lambo.

Crossing the Red River

Wish I could afford to go here...

Then made a random turn into a neighborhood to come across some more doll houses. All the houses here are so cookie cutter and tiny. 

The "little italy". The only thing Italian i saw was several Galleto stores. 

Ha, theres a building with the word Rice on the side

The MTS Center. I think its like the ACC in Toronto. 

After making some more turns and adventuring around, I ended up in the south side of the city at the University of Winnipeg. It is nicer than Waterloo. That is all.

Awesome. Cereal Research funded by the government

Wet Socks

I had no idea that drying wet socks out of the wash on a wooden chair would stain the chair. Whats going on here? 

Weekends are kinda boring

Last weekend I had no internet and the 25 channels i was getting on TV were kinda meh (now 4.5 channels - they removed my TV privileges when they setup internet) . After watching Melanie Oudin in the US open beat some russian girl, i hit the links (across the street from my apartment). It was a solid way to kill 4 hours and played with two random guys. As it was getting dark, i got to ride around on the back of their cart. Just a heads up, its fun, but freaking dangerous, especially after the guy who's driving has had about 6 beers during the game.  Also, got eaten to death by the mosquitoes - vicious little bastards they are. No joke, got bit over 15 times in the few hours i was outside.

Hit a very solid drive. Maybe around 250 yards, straight. 

There's a lot of chairs but not enough tables

So i built a table using two Trail Mix boxes i picked up from Costco and then taped it together with Packaging Tape. To weigh it down, i used 12 containers of apple juice. Not glamorous, but functional. 

Day 2

This day was filled with adventure. Never have I seen the sights that I saw this day. We drove through the great states of Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Dakota and Manitoba. As we progressed north, the less and less of civilization we saw - it was just farmland as far as the eye could see. Even the horizon line was farmland.

There really isnt much else to say. Pictures say a thousand words i guess (maybe a a bit less in this case, they're kinda blurry, i was driving and taking them):

Not sure what this. Its only significant because its a feature thats not flat, in otherwise very flat lands.

YOGI BEAR'S JELLYSTONE PARK!

Entering Minnesota

Sunflower fields

Spinach (?) - It looked cool with the wind blowing because it looked like different shades of green were moving through the field. 

For lunch, we stopped in Fargo, ND (we were the only colored people in this city). We ate at 

It was basically a hybrid between Taco Bell and Subway. Better food than Taco Bell, and they assemble your food in front of you. Outside this restaurant, there was another restaurant called "Space Aliens - Earthlings Welcome" - i just found the name and tagline interesting.  

Just because.

More driving, the more scarce people became.

The speed limit was approximately 120 kmh (75 mph). I decided to push the van to its limits. I pushed to about 155 km/h before feeling it shake, and found out an interesting thing. The car will not go into cruise control above 148 km/h. 

Ah, the Canadian border...the first building in miles!

Crossing into Manitoba was not more exciting than driving through North Dakota, in fact, more depressing - mostly because it hit hard as to what my reality was going to be. And any plans of getting away to the States for a weekend were not going to happen because North Dakota isn't exactly a happening place.

What I found hilarious at this point was this sign:

There's just something about that sign and its surroundings that didn't add up. Funnily enough, the first "attraction" of Manitoba that was marked was a fossil museum.

Well there you have it, over 2000 km later, finally arrived in Winnipeg, aka Winterpeg aka The Peg aka Peg City aka SHIT I MIGHT GET SHOTOWN aka IM GOING TO GO OUT OF MY MIND CITY

As we drove into the city, things got a bit better (there were people around). Drove by the Canadian Mint:

And then right after that (at 6pm, Saturday), there was a road blockage. Wondering what it was, as we approached, it turned out to be a spot check by 6 cop cars. Who is drunk at 6pm on a Saturday!? Winnipegers i guess?