The Good, The Bad, and the Lunch.

It’s been a bittersweet 24 hours. Last night the lady and I checked out, and (I think) finally decided on a venue for our reception: the Dockside Lounge on Granville Island. The price is reasonable (for Vancouver) and within our budget, for the most part, and it has a very cool interior space with some patio seating as well, all of which we will probably be renting out for our private party. I’m pretty sure everyone who reads this blog can expect an invitation. The good news is that for the price we should also be able to include at least two drinks per person, on us! Huzzah.

The downer is that my pretend girlfriend — whose name, just yesterday, I had finally learned by formally introducing myself — will not be working at EA any longer. I suppose it’s only right that this will put an end to my shameless attempts to flirt with her, and I can guarantee my special lady friend will be quite happy to know that my silly workplace crush is gone. Nevertheless I told her I’d miss her, and thanked her for [undisclosed services rendered that I won't discuss in the event it reveals what her job was]. Well, that sounds a little risque, but I assure you it’s not.

The only other event of note was that, at work, I wrote my 50th lunch review. For those who don’t know, for the past year (I could hardly believe it’s been that long!) I’ve been writing reviews of lunches I buy from the company cafeteria, but the reviews are generally “funny” and end with some nonsensical metaphoric comparison. To celebrate the milestone I wrote a silly piece where I interviewed my meals. It became clear to me well before I hit 50 reviews that the “funny” tank has pretty much run dry. Thus the blog format of garrettknights.com was born.

City of dreams, city of old people.

There’s not many television programs I watch regularly. Last season I watched Grey’s Anatomy every Sunday night, but that’s in reruns until September. Trailer Park Boys used to be on the slate, too, until it became obvious that show is running out of steam faster than the clock in Gastown. These days the only show I actually want to see on a regular basis is Miami Ink. It’s a “reality” show about a tattoo parlour in (you guessed it!) Miami. The show spends a bit too much time telling clients’ stories about why they want each particular tattoo — there’s way too much “I want this tattoo because someone died” — but the people who run the shop are interesting and there’s a hot female tattoo artist on the show named Kat Von D. Watching the show makes me want to get tattooed, and if I can find a good place (and some good art) I might just do it, and it would probably be a classic Vargas style pinup girl on my upper arm/shoulder.

This past weekend my old friend Chris, who was my neighbour for about twelve years of my life, got married and had a reception/party at his house in Sidney (just outside of Victoria). I desperately want to live in Victoria, and someday I do hope I push myself to find a job there. I’m coming up on three years at my current job, which is the point where typically at the company for that period of time either leave or become “lifers”. A lifer in the video game industry generally means seven or eight years. The game industry has a habit of chewing people up and spitting them out, like I do when I eat cherry tomatoes. It’s too bad there’s no game company in Victoria.

Quick note: tomorrow the ladyfriend and I are checking out another possible wedding reception venue: a restaurant on Granville Island. At this point, it seems to be the leading contender in a place to feed guests.

One step closer to hipsterville.

Slowly I’m converting myself to hipsterism. There’s two years left before I turn thirty, the general age for men to cast aside their youthful ways and become hip consumers. Case in point: yesterday I bought some new eyeglasses, made by the good folks at Dolce & Gabbana. Now I didn’t buy them for the D&G brand name, because all eyeglasses at Lenscrafters are for some reason high-end fashion brand names. I bought them because they looked good on my giant head. Nevertheless I am one step closer to being hip, including the already-hip music I use to replace my early twenties’ industrial and goth-pop. Yes, gone are KMFDM and Front Line Assembly, and here to usher me into hipsterdom are the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Controller.Controller, and Mates of State. I think the next item on the hipster checklist is owning a Mini Cooper. I’m still working on that one.

Ten years changes people!

A couple of weeks ago, my graduating class held its ten year reunion. I didn’t go, mainly because the few people I still talk to from high school are the only ones I really care about. There are a couple of people I will gladly say hello to if I see them again, but for the most part, I don’t give a crap about people I went to high school with. Chances are they don’t give a crap about me, either. My friend Nigel did go, and I just saw the collection of photos from the event. I am amazed how a lot of my classmates have gained weight. I’ve got no theories why that might have happened, but it’s kind of weird. There are the select few who look pretty much the same as they did ten years ago, too. I’m not sure where I fit in; I think I’m doing alright compared to high school, since I no longer wear dumb looking glasses, actually bear a slight resemblance to the correct gender, and with my shaved head my hairstyle is a definite improvement.

I’m not sure if I’ll skip the 20-year reunion, if one happens. By that time we’d all be close to 40, and we’d all look pretty bad by then. Although, I have been visiting the gym lately, so if I keep it up for another ten years … yeah, not likely.

Tomorrow is another BC Lions game. This time I’m definitely getting a cheerleader calendar, and ensuring I get at least a half-dozen signatures. I hope the guys that chant for cartwheels come up with something new, though. At the last game, one group all did cartwheels at the same time, and they received a standing ovation. Can’t really top that.

A rare day off. Plus, armpits.

Tomorrow both my ladyfriend and I have the day off work, to be spent together. The plan was to go to Golden Ears Park with the dog, hike in the woods, let the dog play in the lake, maybe go for a swim, and eat turkey sandwiches. Naturally, the weather report currently says it will be rainy and dreary tomorrow. Our backup plan may be to go to some clearance outlet mall across the border. At this point I really don’t know what we’ll end up doing.

Recently my friend Erwin wrote in his blog about using talc. Monumentally interesting, I know, but coincidentally I’m also quitting my use of bog-standard supermarket antiperspirant on my armpits. The reason for quitting is simple: too many times I’ve ended up with stained or bleached armpit areas on my shirts. It must be a combination of the secret antiperspirant chemicals and my body’s own natural juicy secretions that somehow change the hues of my shirts as though they were Hypercolour. So today was Day One of Operation Armpit Alternative. I bought myself one of those curious solid crystals and a bottle of talcum powder. Now this will undoubtedly solve the discoloured shirt problem, but it must also pass the test of keeping me stink-free. So far so good: I experienced a mild bit of sweating today but I did not smell like butt by the time I got home. The crystal-plus-talc may be a winning combination, but I will need to experiment with amounts of talc applied to my hairy shoulder crease. Stay tuned.

Sore, sore, sore.

This past Monday I went to the gym at work to get some exercise and lift some weights. I haven’t done that in close to a year, and for the two days afterward I certainly was reminded of my feeble and lazy body. My pectoral area was knotted and sore until this morning and my arms still hurt. For a while even my range of motion was reduced considerably. However, the only way to get over the pain is to keep working out, so today I went back and did almost the same routine. I feel quite fine this evening, and I hope tomorrow I’m not in quite as rough shape as I was on Tuesday and Wednesday.

In other news, I finished reading The DaVinci Code. It was fairly uninspiring, although at one point the author includes some half-facts and conjecutre based on truth, in reference to The Last Supper by DaVinci. The tone of conspiracy reminded me a lot of Oliver Stone’s JFK, where holes or opportunities for interpretation were filled in to form parts of the story that could support a theory. Unfortunately, in the novel, the interesting part lasted one chapter. The rest was a lot of exposition without any emotional attachment to any characters. Perfect for a movie, I suppose.