Paper Boy

Every Sunday, I make a run to the mailbox for the Sunday edition of the Albany Times Union ( or Times Useless, as it's known). Since I'm too lazy to put on anything more than what I was wearing in bed, my trip to the road and back involves a few procedures:

Step 1) Open door, listen or traffic. We have no neighbors across the street, or visible on either side, just trees, but the road is 150 yards away, and we have like 6 churches on the street, so we have Mormons and Episcapalians and all sorts driving down the road on Sunday morning. They're looking for spiritual enlightenment, not looking to see a guy in his boxers (possibly with his willy waving in the breeze) and bed head making a mad dash for his mailbox.

Step 2) After determining that the road sounds clear of traffic, gingerly start walking for the mailbox. The path is strewn with small stones that embed themselves into your foot, so it's a careful treading. This is why a clear road is important, you can't run on that stuff.

Step 3) Open mailbox, remove paper. Say good morning to the old lady walking her dog. She gets me every week, popping out of the bushes with her golden lab, like she was in there looking for something. In fact, I think she waits out there for me.

Step 4) Walk back to the house, not giving a damn anymore if cars drive by. Usually they give a little toot and I'll wave over my shoulder. If anyone asks who that half-naked homeless person was doing in my driveway last Sunday I'll just tell them it was my brother Tim.

Step 5) Back in the house, extract comics page and cut out Ziggy. Spit on it and throw it into the garbage. I effin hate Ziggy, have I mentioned that before?

Yet another way I don't want to die

In case you're following along at home, here are some more ways I don't want to take a dirt nap:

1) Falling Coconut
2) Eaten By A Crocodile ( or any animal, actually)
3) Effin Quicksand
4) Run Over By My Own Car/ Riding Lawnmower
5) Coma / Old Age

What brought this up? Carly sent me this, which is now also on the list.

Petite, si vous plait

I love a morning coffee, but I just want a small cuppa. I'm realizing that I never finish the ones I buy on the way to work because it's just too much coffee.

Being semi-addicted to Starbucks (the bold stuff) means I stop in there a few times a week and get their "small" which they awkwardly advertise as "Tall". Rhymes with small, but it's 8 oz. After a Tall, my back teeth are floating and if I have a 9am meeting, I'm usually very uncomfortable by 9:15. Meetings are bad enough than having to be distracted by bodily needs.

Dunkin Dounuts calls their 8 oz coffee a small, but it's still 8 oz. I need about half that, maybe call it a "kid's size" or a "wussy combo" and serve it with half a donut . That would be the prefect amount, enough to get your system rolling but not enough to jar loose anything unpleasant.

Does size equate to value? Sure, I can get a Tall for a buck and a half, but a Grande is only is only a dollar more! That's a hella lot of caffeine gushing through the pipes, but the more you can get, the better. Like shopping at one of those warehouse stores where you can get a box of ten thousand Twizzlers for $10. You're ready for Halloween for the next 15 years.

And a quick word about places that offer the "bottomless cup of coffee". What good is a bottomless cup when it tastes like it was filtered by an old sneaker? Yes, I'm talking to you, IHOP*!

Yeah, I know. I can make my own damn coffee at home and shut the hell up.I would except I don't have a 'single cup' brewer. So now you know what to get me for Festivus next year.


* International House of Pancakes

Copy Cat

I'll preface this one by saying this issue is entirely about me - my problem and I know that. Here's the scenario:

We're at a restaurant. The menus open up all around the table, and after a minute, somebody asks, "So, what are you having?"

Innocent question. I've even asked it myself. When I answer, I usually hedge and give 3 or 4 things I'm thinking of, even if I know what I'm going to order. When I finally order, I sometimes name a selection that I hadn't shared as one of my possible choices, like if I had talked about that selection everyone would have wanted to order it. Why do I do that? One word, copy cats.

Specifically, my better half, who 9 times out of 10 will order what I say I'm going to order. And the thing is, she doesn't even notice that it happens, or that it bugs me. Probably because it is so illogical. I should be flattered that she likes the same thing, it just proves we're that much more compatible for each other, right?

Yesterday at a fancy meal at this upscale joint called Friendly's, it happened again. I've been trying to be better, telling her what I REALLY am going to order and not giving a list of fake possibilities. So when she asked me, I said, "Turkey Melt". I told it like it was. When the waitress came to collect our orders, she started with the ladies and when it was my wife's turn, she says, "Turkey Melt". Since I hadn't prepared a "backup meal", I had to order the same thing.

I wonder why that puts a bee in my bonnett, so to speak? Who the eff cares what someone else at the table eats?

I kinda miss albums

As a kid, I used to spend hours at a record store in the Semiahmoo Mall looking at all the cool album covers. It wasn't always an indication of a great musical effort, but I liked to check them out none the less. CD's have wayyyyy superior sound and are easier to carry around, but the jewel case size does limit the impact of cover art today.

The metal bands usually had the best cover art. The Scorpions leaps to mind as one of the bands that others tried to copy. They had a German photographer named Helmut Something or other who used to do them and it was always attention-grabbing.

There are too many to make up a top ten list, but I thought I'd throw some out that I remember as being pretty damn memorable.

Rush - Permanent Waves

I always wondered how they thought up this one. "Hey, let's have a hot chick walking through an exploding neighborhhod, and let's have her underwear peek out." Nice.

Doors - Strange Days

In this case, this album fits the music. Morrison loved freaks.

Police - Ghost in the machine

Simple, yet creative. The Police usually put pictures of themselves on their covers, so this was a cool change. It's still them, but as digital numbers.

Blink 182 - Enema of the State

Oh man, Janine Lindermueller. There's a reason that chick is a port star. Even in a picture where no skin shows she's effin hot.

Prince - Purple Rain

This is only here because "Darling Nicky" is the wildest song ever.

Nirvana - Nevermind

I like this one because they had to re-release the cover with the baby's unit removed. They claimed it was "enlarged". Effin censorship.

The Who - Who's Next

Genius!

Green Day - Dookie

Lot's of funny cartoons on this cover. You can look at it over and over and still find more.

underwear goes inside the pants

Stick with this one, it's long, but worth it.

There was a song on the radio a few months back called "underwear goes inside the pants". It's a catchy tune with a guy doing a comedy routine over the music. The new guy at work hooked me up with the lyrics, which are damn entertaining on their own. Chalk one up for the new guy.

The singer is Lazyboy, the routine was written by a stand up comic called Greg Giraldo.

Underwear Goes Inside The Pants

Why is marijuana not legal? Why is marijuana not legal? It's a natural plant that grows in the dirt. Do you know what's not natural? 80 year old dudes with hard-ons. That's not natural. But we got pills for that. We're dedicating all our medical resources to keeping the old guys erect, but we're putting people in jail for something that grows in the dirt?

You know we have more prescription drugs now. Every commercial that comes on TV is a prescription drug ad. I can't watch TV for four minutes without thinking I have five serious diseases. Like: "Do you ever wake up tired in the morning?" Oh my god I have this, write this down. Whatever it is, I have it. Half the time I don't even know what the commercial is: people running in fields or flying kites or swimming in the ocean. I'm like that is the greatest disease ever. How do you get that? That disease comes with a hot chick and a puppy.

The schools now: It is all about self-esteem in the schools now. Build the kids' self-esteem, make them feel good about themselves. If everybody grows up with high self-esteem, who is going to dance in our strip clubs? What's going to happen to our porno industry? These women don't just grown on trees. It takes lots of drunk dads missing dance recitals before you decide to blow a goat on the internet for fifty bucks. And if that disappears, where does that leave me on a Friday night with my new high speed connection?

Masterminds are another word that comes up all the time. You keep hearing about these terrorists masterminds that get killed in the middle east. Terrorists masterminds. Mastermind is sort of a lofty way to describe what these guys do, don't you think? They're not masterminds. "OK, you take bomb, right? And you put in your backpack. And you get on bus and you blow yourself up. Alright?" "Why do I have to blow myself up? Why can't I just:" "Who's the fucking mastermind here? Me or you?"

Americans, let's face it: We've been a spoiled country for a long time. Do you know what the number one health risk in America is? Obesity. They say we're in the middle of an obesity epidemic. An epidemic like it is polio. Like we'll be telling our grand kids about it one day. The Great Obesity Epidemic of 2004. "How'd you get through it grandpa?" "Oh, it was horrible Johnny, there was cheesecake and pork chops everywhere."

Nobody knows why were getting fatter? Look at our lifestyle. I'll sit at a drive thru. I'll sit there behind fifteen other cars instead of getting up to make the eight foot walk to the totally empty counter. Everything is mega meal, super sized. Want biggie fries, super sized, want to go large. You want to have thirty burgers for a nickel you fat mother fucker. There's room in the back. Take it! Want a 55 gallon drum of Coke with that? It's only three more cents.

Sometimes you have to suffer a little bit in your youth to motivate yourself to succeed in later life. Do you think if Bill Gates got laid in high school, do you think there'd be a Microsoft? Of course not. You got to spend a long time in your own locker with your underwear shoved up your ass before you start to think, "You'll see. I'm going to take of the world of computers! I'll show them."

We're in one of the richest countries in the world, but the minimum wage is lower than it was thirty five years ago. There are homeless people everywhere. This homeless guy asked me for money the other day. I was about to give it to him and then I thought he was going to use it on drugs or alcohol. And then I thought, that's what I'm going to use it on. Why am I judging this poor bastard. People love to judge homeless guys. Like if you give them money they're just going to waste it. Well, he lives in a box, what do you want him to do? Save it up and buy a wall unit? Take a little run to the store for a throw rug and a CD rack? He's homeless. I walked behind this guy the other day. A homeless guy asked him for money. He looks right at the homeless guy and says why don't you go get a job you bum. People always say that to homeless guys like it is so easy. This homeless guy was wearing his underwear outside his pants. Outside his pants. I'm guessing his resume isn't all up to date. I'm predicting some problems during the interview process. I'm pretty sure even McDonalds has a "underwear goes inside the pants" policy. Not that they enforce it really strictly, but technically I'm sure it is on the books.

One Mystery

I was thinking how cool it would be if you could find out that answer to one mystery.

They could send everyone a coupon when they reach their 30th birthday and you can cash it in whenever you want after that for the answer to one (1) mystery.

Like what, you ask? Well, there's lots of mysteries out there. Perhaps you're curious about history, so you'd really like to find out who killed Kennedy? Or if you're using your noggin you could ask to know the location of some undiscovered buried treasure. You could become a rich dude. Yessir.

Or maybe you're like me and you go for more practical things, like what the hell is in one of those hot dogs they have at Stewarts. How can they rotate under heat for a week and still look so awesome?

So you can see I would waste that coupon.

Give Disney Your Finger

Did you read the latest news from the Magic Kingdom? Yep, Mickey will be collecting your finger scan to "help keep track of who is using legitimate tickets"

Uh-huh. I'm not really buying this, are you? It's just so obvious what they are up to - human cloning.

Here's the scenario:

Fred Jenkins and his lovely wife Barb head for a day at the happiest place on earth. In tow are their sassy but loveable children, Susie and Fred Jr. All four purchase their astronomically-priced super-saver tickets and head for the brightly -colored turnstiles. In turn, each one presses their index and middle fingers to the new scanners with the friendly Mickey face on it.

"Have a Disney Day!" the automated voice says as the turnstile releases them into the park. Off to Space Mountain!

The Jenkins family has a day of non-stop thrills and chills, aside from the hours standing in line with the thousands of other fun-seekers who have come to the Magic Kingdom looking for fun. After hitting all the rides and catching the afternoon show of the Country Bear Jamboree, the family decides it's almost time to head back to their theme-hotel. Fred Jr., makes a plea for them to take a last visit to the Haunted Mansion. The parents role their eyes. That Fred Jr!

Their magical day ends when their ride in the Haunted Mansion car takes a hidden passage and they arrive in a sterile white laboratory. They are ushered to a small holding room, stripped of their personal belongings, and placed in clear cell as they watch four people who look identical to them are led to the ride, handed their belongings and placed in their car, then disappear through the hidden passage back to the other side.

That's right, human cloning. The Jenkins family watches in horror as they are been replaced by four clones resulting from their little finger scans at the front gate. The clones will assume their identities, slowly breaking ties with all relatives, then after a few months moving to one of the
pre-fab Disney housing communities in the Orlando area. It's the Invasion of the body snatchers story, except that the enemy isn't some ugly alien, but a cute mouse with a girlfriend called Minnie.

You can laugh and call me a nut, but look what happened to the damn Jenkins family.

Crackheads Make Lousy Criminals

A week ago, a family friend, Bob, had his Honda Civic busted into. It was parked in a well-lit lot of a hotel. The thief used a slimjim or a master Honda key to open the passenger door. They carefully unplugged a 2-year old cell phone from the charger, and pocked it. They located a spare ignition key located in a magnetic key box under the dash. Then, they left.

Left behind was the car (since they now had the key, they could have drove off), the loot in the trunk (golf clubs, etc) booty from the drivers side door pocket (passport, video rental cards, etc) and a swing band collection that Louis Armstrong would have given his left nut for.

We theorized about what the scenario was. Why did he only take the cell phone? And why not the charger? Why NOT just take the car? It appears he may have tried to pop the trunk, as the gas port was open, and the lever is right next to the trunk release.

In a wise move, Bob borrowed a car from my sister that night so that his car was in a neighborhood far from the hotel, just in case the dude came back to finish the crime.

Bob was told by the RCMP (who didn't come to the scene, they had 130 otherlarceny incident reports to take down from the previous night, and this one just wasn't that significant) that the key was worth more than the car, and could be shaved down to be a master ignition key for Honda's.

After debating the possible motives and scenarios for hours the next day, I realized I didn't buy the RCMP's take, since you can get old Honda keys at any junkyard. I thought it was probably just some crackhead looking to call his dealer and didn't have a quarter. The key could have been missing for a while, and Bob just noticed it when inventorying items after the break-in.

Me? I would have taken the passport. Bob is over 65 years old, so I could use and pose as him to get all those sweet senior citizen discounts. Choice.

Effin Fan Belt

My fan belt is squealing.

I don’t have any neighbors, so I’ll wait until the weekend to address it. If I had neighbors, I would probably do something sooner, because nobody likes to be woken by the sound of a squealing fan belt. I should know.

In a previous apartment, I was rudely jarred to consciousness over a 2 week period by a Ford Escort with the affliction. The driver would rev the engine to get rid of the noise, but that only contributed to the cacophony of noise. After 2 weeks, I lay in bed staring at the ceiling as the noise rang in my ears. “Sweet Hasus with grape juice!” I burst out. I didn’t have to be at work until 10am, so why did I have to get up at 7am with that racket? I’d had it.

I considered my options. I could stick a potato up the guys tail pipe, like Eddy Murphy in Beverly Hills Cop. That would send a message, though maybe too subtle. Spray paint a message on his windshield? Too radical.

That night I located the offending Escort. I scrawled a message in pen on a piece of cardboard. It read:
“I cut the fan belt next time I hear noise.”

Bad grammar, I know, but the apartments were heavily habitated by Russian ex-patriots. I thought if I made it sound a bit ethnic, (however stereotypically) the Escort owner may take the threat a bit more seriously than if it was from that beer-swilling yahoo in apartment 2B.

My roommate was a more tactful guy (and an early riser himself, so not a stakeholder, as I pointed out) and didn’t approve of my tactic, but he had to admit it got results. The dude got it fixed or moved his car somewhere else.

Once again, the pen is mightier than a potato up the tailpipe.

Pride

I’m not certified in any mechanical repair, but I can do some stuff.

So when my Uncle had a Wrangler Pride scooter that wasn’t “going”, I jumped in.

He uses the scooter as a golf caddy for the local course. It allows him to keep getting out there despite the advancing years and bad knees.

No owner manual? No problem. I poked, prodded, moved levers up and down. I did some other stuff and finally breathed life into the Wrangler.

So I took it for a test drive. It’s pretty sweet.



With gas prices rising, I figure these babies are going to start showing up everywhere soon, and I'll be right there, ready to open my repair shop for Wranglers, which I plan to call "Shamus' Corral".

Welcome Back NHL!

In case you missed the news, The NHL owners and players pulled their collective heads from their arses and settled the lockout.

Now, I don't want anyone to jump to conclusions, just because I've just flown back from Canada TODAY and this news comes out, I really had very little to do with it. Really.

But you're welcome anyhow.

Easy To Please

So it was on a fun note that it all came to an end. Last night we went over to dinner with some childhood pals of mine. Amazing meal, non-stop laughs and pound cake for dessert. Can you ask for anything more?

Dan is the toughest sell when it comes to fun. After all our adventures, the waterslides, the Aquarium, BC Museum, feeding wild seals, Victoria Petting Zoo, multiple beaches and trips to the pool, I ask him what he thinks.
It's always some form of "great".

"Not so great" = bad
"Great" = OK
"A little bit great" = pretty good
"A lot great" = real good

And after all of those events, the best I got was "A Lot Great" from feeding the wild seals in Victoria.

Now, the house we had dinner at was home to two boys about his age, who also have an avid interest in Thomas the Train, and so Dan had been playing and watching Thomas all night with them. He also had his meal favorite, speghetti, for dinner while there.

So as we're leaving the house and I'm going to ask him if he had fun, he turns and blurts, "Dad! That was awesome!"

Awesome. So all I ever had to do was bring him over HERE for an awesome afternoon, eh?

Doh!


Thanks to everyone who put us up, or put up with us this trip.
Cheers!

Shamus McPatches

She was just trying to help.

My bathing suit was a speedo, surfer edition. It even has a watertight little pouch for carring things that should not get wet. We’ve been swimming a lot out here, and I threw the suit in the dryer for a few minutes to toast it up before packing it on a day trip we were heading out on.

Something nasty happened in that dryer, and the suit came ouut looking like a cougar had swiped at my bottom. The slashes were not on a seam, they were not “natural”. Something in the dryer had cut up my swimsuit. Dammit.

I casually mentioned to my Mom that her dryer was a speedo-eating hunk of junk, to which she indignantly denied it. I must have done it myself. Oh yeah, I took a steak knife to my bathing suit just to blame her for having a defective dryer.

But, being a Mom, she offered to stitch it up. Yes, I’m an idiot. I said OK.

Later on, I’m lying in bed about to go to sleep and my Mom comes down and says, “Shammy, I’ve fixed your suit.” she’s holding it so I can only see the front, not a good sign.

“Now I tried thread, but that wasn’t going to hold, so I used a patch on the inside.”

“Let me see it!” I said, laughing.

“But those patches wouldn’t hold, so I had to add some smalllllllllll ones to the outside. You can barely notice them they blend right in.”

I’m laughing now because I should have seen this coming. “Lemmie see it!”

“You can just use it in your backyard pool, it will be fine for that..” she says, turning it around.




I was crying I was laughing so hard.

“I’m wearing it everywhere.” I said, wiping the tears away. “Everywhere!”

So invite me over to your pool and you’ll see Shamus McPatches in action.

Then again...

OK, so I came off sounding like a complete dick on that last post. A massive oversimplification if I ever wrote one. I promise to expound on it better soon. Meanwhile...

Here are some pictures from the Vancouver area. Thanks to Steff for letting me use her shots, as mine are still on my camera!

2 More, and 10 Reasons I'll Never Move Back

Two other things I missed about BC...

9) The Mountains. I live at the foot of the Catskill Mts, but it's such a joke compared to here. They are everywhere, and they are friggin majestic. It was so clear the other day it looked like Mt. Baker was HUGE. Well, it is, but you usually can't see it so clear.

10) Creascent Beach - I mentioned the park, but down by the water is a semi-hidden community that has remained largely untouched by all the changes. It is still the best place to see a sunset around here, and the least chance of bumping into Japanese tourists. Not that there's anything WRONG with that. I'm just sayin. Plus, the beach always reminds me growing up, I can see the tennis court where we used to play street hockey, the beach where I had my first make-out session (yes, it was with a girl) and where we used to stay out all night drinking and talking with friends about things we thought mattered but ended up being complete bullshit.

Now, onto the 10 Reasons Why I Could Never Live Here (again)
1) Cost of Living - It ain't cheap here. A 2 bedroom shack is on the market for $336,000. I'm not surprised all but one childhood friend has fled for the Interior, the Island, or Alberta.

2) The Radio - They have a rule that a certain percentage of the music MUST be Canadian. As a result, the mix isn't so hot. BUT there is some excellent Canadian music, and I love to head down to Zulu records when in town and check them out. However, that stuff doesn't make the radio, and I just don't find "The Guess Who" relevant any more.

3) The Crowds - Ay Carumba! Sometimes you feel like you're in Hong Kong, or as the locals sometimes say, Hong 'couver. Nuts. Just don't like the masses.

4) Pay Parking - Probably as a result of #3, but it's a friggin annoyance to be pumping coins endlessly into meters. Give me an effin break. I love the fact Creascent Beach is still meter-free.

5) Loonies / Toonies - These are the 1 and 2 dollar coins. Your pockets feel like you're carrying your quarter collection around with you after a day. And also, it makes going to strip clubs a lot less fun.

6) Car Theft - Almost every local I talked to had a car theft story. The lower mainland is number one in Canada and second or third in North America. Scarry shit.

7) The Crime (overall) - Our friend Bob had his car broken into last night. All they took was his cell phone, but that sucks. Everybody seems to have a crime story here as well.

8) The Rain - It's raining right now. It brings back many memories. I prefer 4 seasons to raining or not raining.

9) The Taxes - GST, PST, FST... holy crap. A 50 cent can of beer costs $3 as a result. Shamus just don't like them.

10) The Rain - did I already mention this?

8 Things I Missed About B.C.

1. Photo Radar
The RCMP are sneaky. I blew through one of their little setups out by the Massey Tunnel and sent them scurrying. Either I caught them as they were setting up or something because they didn't come after me. If they try and mail me a ticket, it's a rental. Nice try guys. But as you say up here, "Sorrrrrrrie!"

2. Slush Cats
Macs is like 7-11, but they do the slurpee better. Plus I used to work at one, so the memories are there. Hmmmm, Coke flavored is the best.

3.French Bashing
It's hilarious to hear the ads on the radio that blast the french. They had one on Canada day that had me crying I was laughing so hard.

4. Polite People
It's true. I noticed it most at the waterslides, but generally eveywhere. It is so NICE to be bumped into.

5. Stanley Park on Sundays
Words will fail me here, but I'll post some kickass pics when I get back. Thousands of people on bikes and roller blades riding on the seawall, enjoying a beautiful sunny day. It almost makes you want to live here.

6. The Smell of a rain forest
I went to Crescent Park, down the street where I grew up and the aroma of the park was amazing. It brought me back in time. I'm going to go back there and put some leaves and dirt in a ziplock bag to see if I can capture the fragrance. It's amazing.

7. Ferries
They are a lifeblood of the area, since there are some many islands around here. After a while I'm sure they are boring to ride on, but kids love them and they are fun especially through Active Pass. One ferry lost power last Friday and smacked into a marina, crushing several pleasure craft. Opps, Sooorrrrie, as they say here.

8. Gravy on French Fries
Yes. It's awesome. When you order it in the states they look at you weird, but here, it's ASSUMED you want it that way. Sweet mother of Budda, it's awesome.

Trailer Park Boys - Pure Genius

One thing I do when I get back up North us catch up on the Canadian TV shows that don't make it to us in the US. The best one out there is called the Trailer Park Boys.

It's a hugely popular sitcom/mockumentary which started in 2001 focusing on the misadventures of ex-convicts living in fictional Sunnyvale Trailer Park which is located near Halifax, Nova Scotia.



The main characters are Julain and Ricky. Ricky is fond of knock-knock jokes that don't usually have a punchline so much as a stream of profanity. Julian is the smarter of the pair and the leader of the group. His main goal in life is to get rich quick (usually from drug related activities and stealing items of value under $1000) and retire. He is never seen without a drink (almost always rum and Coke).

Bubbles is Julian and Ricky's best friend and conscience, known for his hoarse voice and coke-bottle glasses (hense the name, "Bubbles"). Abandoned as a child, Bubbles lived in a shed for 18 years of his life with his cats, who are his only family. He had made a living in the meantime by the generosity of his friends and a semi-lucrative shopping cart theft scam (he calls it re-marketing) with the nearby malls. He gets a go cart and tears around picking up things in his trailer, including Ricky when he passes out in the road.

Bubbles is the best character. The first time I say his picture I laughed for 10 minutes. I rented season 3 last night and almost sprayed my Slush Cat several times. The episodes are not slick like a sitcom, but rough and you can tell they are ad-libbing. But it's all good.

In fact, it's hilarious. It's the best Canadian TV since SCTV.

Splashdown

Happy Canada Day! This holiday celebrates when the Canadians fought for independence from the British overloards, only to give up and decide to let the French run their country.

The vacation has been cool so far, though the trip out was a bit rough. But I'll start with something more fun, like the reason why Canadian waterproof are 10X better than the US kind. One word, INSURANCE.

In the US, you can't get the coverage you need to build a kick-ass water slide park. We went yesterday to one of the original parks in the lower mainland, Splashwater Park in Tsawassen. We caught a great day as far as the weather, and an off-day for crowds, so we had the park to ourselves for the most part.

The park has a good mix of slides for different age levels, and a bunch of inner tube rides. The slides are plastic tubes, and you don't need carpets or anything to ride them. I've seen places in NY where you ride on stuff and it just isn't the same as when you can go "as is".

What really sets them apart is the big drops, the dips and the speeds you can attain. There is a place in Cultas Lake where you freefall drop down a slide and you LEAVE the slide for a bit, then you land back on it as you fall several hundred yards. Yahtzee!

My kids are small, so I didn't think I'd get them on any of the big slides, but by the time we were leaving, Emily had hit all the big blue slides and Dan had worked his way to the yellow ones. They couldn't get enough.

My brother Pat was along, so we left the kids with their Grammy and hit the massive tube slides on the back part of the park. I had never been on these before. It takes 10 minutes to walk up, but it's a good long ride, mostly in a semi-dark tunnel so you don't see all the drops and turns. Kickass.

Then we had races on the big blue slides to see who could make it to the bottom the fastest. I gave myself a nice water-wedgie that way.

The part of the waterslide experience I totally forgot about was that at night, when you close your eyes, you will still feel like you're going down the slides. Freaky. Cool, but freaky.