so, last wednesday night i found myself at the lamplighter hotel in beautiful sioux lookout, ontario. it was the night before we flew into our fishing outpost in (further) northern ontario; we spend the night at the lamplighter so we can get as early of a start as possible the next day.

anyhoo. sharing a room with the FiL. watching the discovery channel on a TV so old you had to get up to change the channel. feeling slightly hungry, i make my way to the “lobby” and find a vending machine. and find… this:

it was worth the $1.25 (canadian) i had to spend just to be able to tell wadE about them. oh, and to share the story with simpleprop nation. in summary: they taste about as bad as you would imagine. kind of a vaguely caustic tomato-esque flavor, but more sweet than savory. it kind of made my mouth hurt, to be honest. granted, i am a ketchup amateur; i’m sure wadE would have a different take entirely. since i didn’t want my duffel to stink like gross ketchup chips by the time i got home (the fish smell was bad enough, thank you), i pitched the mostly-full bag in the trash. something for wadE to keep in mind, though, the next time he visits brother mark in toronto. hoser.

I had wanted to write a long indepth analysis/commentary on two specific sports stories. One was the resignation of Terry Ryan, other was the Patriots being busted for cheating.

Sadly, life (both work and non-work) have gotten in the way. As they have for much of this year. Look for me to increase my SP output a bit this fall as I hopefully will find a bit more time to entertain you with my witty repartee.
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check it.

interesting. it’ll be fun to follow this to see if this is a legit retirement or more of a suggested one. i’ve questioned some of ryan’s moves pretty openly on these pages, but agree with alex in thinking that he’s made the best out of a bad situation (read: pohlad’s tightwaddedness.)

in other news, i’ve returned from a week in northern ontario, where i pulled in many walleyes while dodging waves, snowflakes, and many jabs from the neo-cons that i went with. more on that later (including a new version of this old chestnut). but as i unbury myself from e-mail, a thank-you to the other gents for keeping this place up and functioning for the past couple of weeks…

I deliberately did not post yesterday. I didn’t think I could do the anniversary justice, without getting too much into politics and other things that make me rage up when I think too much about it. However, if you need a 9/11 reminiscence, I urge you to check out Michelle’s blog entry from yesterday. It hits all the right notes, IMO.

On to today. And a subject that I have only recently embraced. It’s one that we’ve covered here before, although somewhat tangentially. You see, I snore. So what with one thing and the other, I have for the last week or so been experimenting with using those damn breath strips that were all the rage at the turn of the century. I should have known better than to poo-poo an item that professional athletes use despite the fact that it makes you look like a weenie.

Honestly, I did not expect to see such dramatic results in myself. For years I’ve taken it for granted that I’d wake up in the morning and be fairly congested. I thought that was just how it works. But since I started using the strips I’ve had virtually none. I’ll leave it to others to confirm or deny the effects on my snoring, but if nothing else I will continue to use them just because it’s such a noticeably better feeling in the mornings for me. So perhaps if you’re one of the people who has their spouse beating the crap out of them each night (Hi Wade!), you might want to consider this here testimonial.

We’ve been getting new location signs put up outside the rooms here at work. You know the ubiquitous blue sign with sterile white lettering, letting you know exactly where you are in the organization. Fun, right?

So down the hall from me we have a group who’s name starts with the word “Extended”. Imagine my amusement when I notice that the blue sign trumpets their presence with the almost-word “Extented”.

Even better, I got to point out the mistake to our building super, who is a wonderful man, and who’s reaction should not be printed in a family magazine (or even here).

The signs have been re-ordered.