Change of scenery

I'm leaving Edmonton for 6 weeks, to see if I can work better somewhere else. I think I probably can, since the somewhere else looks like this:

Catching Up

Went to Roast (hat tip: AMT) to catch up with Chris + Olivia now that they're back in town. The cafe is palatial and just about as fancy as the braising on this green-tea latte.

Unreasonable

Naomi (bartender at Garneau): What's your last name?
Me:
Naomi: You're Philip ?
Me: Yes?
Naomi: You used to live at

.

Me: Yee..eees???
Naomi: I have a letter for you. Wait here.
[5 minutes pass]
Naomi: Here it is. I found you on Facebook and tried to get it back to you!
Me: Wait! You're Naomi ? When I went to the house to get it, nobody knew what I was talking about!
Naomi: Yeah, sorry, that was my roommate.  The letter looked so intense, I... we opened it. It had a wax seal! We waited so long to open it! We read it many times. We read it in different accents. When people came to the house, we said "you want to see something cool?" and we read it to them. I have read this letter so many times. Pippa will be excited to meet you.
Me:.... ..... ..... ................ I'll be here again.

The Beautiful Lady Faces

Got invited to a tasty BBQ for Labour Daybour! Chez one Mr. Wong, owner of the bistro! The Beautiful Lady Faces and I had some time to kill with photos while we waited for the bistro to close.

SPACE NAZIS

... Secret Moon Nazis, to be exact. Iron Sky was the kind of movie that could only be created by the internet. No, wait, the kind of movie that could only be done right by the internet.

PROOF

I need a picture of the hitching posts for Mennonite horse-and-buggys at Waterloo grocery stores, just to prove to myself that they really existed when I've been gone for too long. Just like I needed this  picture of a functioning (or at least moving) oil derrick in the McDonald's parking lot.

MONSOON!

Oh! The next thing on my things-to-do-in-Edmonton-before-you-leave list turned out to be "see green clouds"! We saw green clouds, then it hailed king cobb steelie-sized golf balls, then the road flooded, then the sidewalk flooded, then the rain switched to a drizzle, then it was only an hour after we first saw the clouds.

Well Hello.

I'm used to seeing strange things in dumpsters, but not a giant book of The Beautiful Lady Faces.

Fuck Yeah, Math.

Wait, this is right, isn't it? It isn't "an undefined amount more chicken"? Did the Chicken Sabji Wrap divide by 0?

Institutions

First The Commodore, and now my first taste of Burger Baron. What's next, I finally ride the waterslides at WEM? That is not a rhetorical question. Because the answer to it is yes.

Curiosity and Excitement

Stu and K* had the best Curiosity-landing-watching setup possible: TV coverage on the right, real-time simulation of the descent on the left, and beer in the hand. Or around the neck, as the case may be.

The Commodore

As a fan of greasy spoons and cheap-ass breakfasts, I am very embarrassed to tell you that it took me seven full years before I made it to The Commodore.

Sanctuary

I don't want my hard drive to get fried, or my bones to get rained on, so when a sudden thunderstorm hits Edmonton I head to the Garneau with some things to read.

Machine Parties

Any party involving a new drink-making machine will obviously turn out to be quite a party.

I miss science

I wanted to buy this and mix it with OJ right in the cafe. But instead of this, I would probably just get non-acidic OJ. Provided I remembered how to do molar... weight.... something... calculations. Where did my science knowledge go?

In Good Company

Followed by... wait, what?

Woo.

Hooray! I get to become an 8th-year PhD student. I celebrated with a beer so hoppy it needed a warning.

Sasuga Garneau

I don't visit the Garneau alleys much these days, but it's nice to know they're keeping up the trend.

This post is no longer titled "and Tyler too!"

I loved this graffitus, even before I read just now that it was "perhaps the first truly national fad expression" in the States.

:(

I couldn't help but see these as lost balloon animals.