That is, unless you have predilection for ants, a distinct lack of hot water, and truly atrocious customer service.

I don’t know. That may be your thing.

And I have a question.

Is it wrong to feel slightly offended when your ability to successfully utilize instructions to the coffee shop fails and you are forced to return to the Giver Of Instructions for a second attempt?

And prior to elaborating on the instructions, the Giver Of Instructions ever-so-slightly scolds you for not being able to follow such a simple set of directions?

As if she were gently — oh, so gently — rubbing your nose in the poop you left on her nice clean floor?

And once the Giver Of Instructions begins to break the instructions down further — using one syllable words, expansive gestures, and a whole lot of volume (like a tourist in a foreign land) — I realise something?

That when she said “Go down the stairs and there you are”, she didn’t actually mean “Go down the stairs and there you are!“?

Instead, she honestly believed that it should have been obvious — even to me and my little brown-stained snout — that “Go down the stairs and there you are” actually meant “Go down the hall, take the unmarked door, walk forty feet down a hallway, enter an open atrium, go the stairs hidden behind the plants at the back of the atrium (not those plants — THOSE plants), go down the stairs, discover you are in a second subterranean atrium, walk through the scrum of people, look for the unmarked white wooden dividers — unmarked white wooden dividers that TOTALLY AND UTTERLY HIDE THE COFFEE SHOP FROM THE SIGHT OF BOTH MAN AND BEAST — and then look behind them and there you are!“?

Is it wrong?

…

I’m not saying that I’m going to take her children and then cook them in a pie and then feed her the pie and then tell her what was in the pie and then watch her regret eating the pie or anything like that.

It’s how I roll.

Damn. Damn. DAMN.

I did it, you know? They said it couldn’t be done, but I did it.

After years of effort, I finally came up with the BEST BABY NAME EVER.

Really. It’s the best. It’s got verve. It’s got moxie. It’s got ZAZZ.

And just when I was basking triumphantly in the glory of my achievement…

Me: Ohmygod. I did it. I really did it. I came up with the BEST BABY NAME EVER.

My Lovely Wife: [Sigh.] What is it?

Me: You ready for this?

My Lovely Wife: Yes.

Me: REALLY ready for this?

My Lovely Wife: Yes.

Me: You sure? ‘Cause it’s AWESOME.

My Lovely Wife: Just tell me.

Me: [Imaginary drum roll.] “KA-POW!”.

My Lovely Wife:: “Ka-pow?”

Me: NO! No lower-case letters.“KA-POW!” All-caps! Exclamation point! Especially no question mark! Ha! Nobody questions “KA-POW!”.

My Lovely Wife: I see. [Pause. Deep breath.] No.

Me: “No” what?

My Lovely Wife: No. We will never name a child “KA-POW!”.

Me: But-

My Lovely Wife: No.

Me: How abou-

My Lovely Wife: No.

[Dejected pause.]

Me: Middle name?

My Lovely Wife: No.

Me: Come ON! Listen to it! “KA-POW! Sweeney”. It ROLLS off the tongue!

My Lovely Wife: No.

See? Thwarted.

…

GOD. It could have been AWESOME.

…

Bud-nipping postscript:

No. We are NOT “expecting”.

This is ALL theoretical.

Gotta cool that rumour down post-haste.

[Shifty eyes.]

Probably about the next two hours were spent training BBEdit to do text replacements the way that I want it to. And it agreed very nicely. And then made me a very nice latte with lots of foam. And rubbed my feet. Holy crap is it nice using software designed to be user-friendly and powerful. I do believe this trial period will end with me paying for a BBEdit License. Unless someone knows of a comparable Mac text editor with FTP capabilities and the ability to totally hack the keyboard shortcuts…

And the last hour was spent doing actual work. Yay.

I do feel like I’m working with about one arm, two fingers, and about 1/3 of my regular brain capacity. I NEED MY INTERNET! Damn damn damn damn damn… I’m crawling out of my skin up here… I can make it though. Landing in Calgary in about half an hour and then I have almost three ours in which to find a clean vein and shoot up some pure grade INTAWEB straight to my central nervous system.

Whoops. Seats up in the full upright and locked position. Gotta go…

…

Awwww CRAP.

Stupid Telus. Stupid stupid Telus.

I’m in Calgary and I have no internet.

I was willing to pay for internet access. I was ready to pay through my freaking NOSE.

But NOOOOoooOOOOoooo… Telus Hotspot Service is “temporarily unavailable”. Phaw. Telus service is a big dodohead an he likes to eat stinky poos. Really stinky poos. Like, when my sisterwhoeatspoofor two eats poo, the poos that come out of her. Poo MADE from poo. That stinky.

Crap.

Oh well. At least I get to recharge.

And drink coffee. Mmmmm… coffee.

…

Later. Still Calgary. (The Rockies! In the distance. Hi, Mountains!)

Telus is up now.

At $10.00 a freaking hour.

Considering that my flight is boarding in 2 minutes… my nose is less willing to be a conduit of payment than it was previously. So, I must wait until Vancouver to pay through the nose.

What is with the whole paying for Wifi in airports? Is it really that expensive for them? Is gouging us really that fun? (“Whee! Let us sing the Gouging Song! Gouge gouge gouge gouge gouge gouge gouge gouge gouge gouge gouge gouge gouge gouge goooooooooooooge… GOUGE! GOUGE! GOUGE! Lovely. Good job everyone. Gerald, a little less vibrato next time, thank you very much. This is a fight song, not The Barber of Seville. Don’t look at me like that, Gerald. Gerald. Gerald. Please don’t cry. Oh, Gerald.”) Just imagine how much happier people in airports could be if they didn’t have bullcrap Wifi fees rammed sideways up their poopchutes.

…

Heh. “Poopchutes”.

…

That’s it. I’m watching Battlestar Galactica on this leg of my journey. I can work later.

…

Well… it seems that Banana can’t suck up the juice too fast. I’ve got about 15 more minutes of juice until I can charge her up in Vancouver. Thus concludes my BSG watching extravaganza. Oh well,

One awesome thing: MOUNTAINS! MOUNTAINS! MOUNTAINS!

Please join me in a rousing chorus of “Woot!”

After gazing slack-jawed for a couple of minutes, I did have the presence of mind to grab my camera to take a picture of the Rockies from above… just as we hit the cloud cover. So. Sorry No photo.

I’m signing off again. For a bit. I got me some podcasts to listen too.

Getting hungry too. Mrph.

…

Vancouver. Fog. Cloud cover. No view. Expensive internet. Should I pay for it?… Nope. The end of the road is near. I’ll log in at the hotel.

…

Review: Harvey’s hamburgers suck.

…

Landed in Prince George. I’m in the complimentary shuttle that the conference has set up, waiting for the slowpokes to get their luggage stowed. It’s 4:40 local time. My body thinks it is 8:40. Supper is gonna be weird.

I want to get in my room. And eat. AND GET ONLINE. YAAARGH.

Nice side effect of the new keyboard — it making me unlearn my pounding keyboarding habits. Maybe I won’t wake up the neighbours anymore.

(Nice Banana. I love my Banana. I would never hurt my Banana.)

…

I’M HERE! I’M HERE! I’M HERE!

Especially if by “here” you are referring to the middle of nowhere.

And for the one person from Prince George that reads this in two years doing a search for “free banana poopchutes in Prince George”, I’m not saying that Prince George is in the middle of nowhere.

My hotel is in the middle of nowhere.

There’s a gas station across the street. And a Chinese restaurant. About half a mile down there are a few tractor dealerships.

Oh, and the hotel has a casino.

As I have on occasion offered to win a bear for My Lovely Wife at the fair and left having spent over $40.00… this could be a bad thing.

Whatever the case… I need sustenance. I’m signing out for now. Will report more later.

…

One more note. I tried to take a picture of the view from my hotel room, but my camera turned itself off in protest. Sorry. The view really is that boring.

Frustration, thy name is Jason.

…

Well… actually, I guess Frustration’s name would really be… “Frustration”. That’s sort of the point.

Maybe Jason is his middle name. I guess that makes sense.

Frustration’s friends would call him FJ. Or Frusty. Or Curly. If he was bald.

His mother would use his full name, but only when she was really mad at him. “FRUSTRATION JASON HOLLINGER! GET DOWN HERE THIS INSTANT!”

…

Huh. I actually didn’t know until just then that Frustration’s last name was Hollinger. Weird.

…

Okey-dokey. Back on message here.

Too many creatures are asleep in the house right now and I still have hours to go before I can join them.

Sigh.

I’m getting a cookie.

[Sudden frantic scurrying sounds, then silence. Pause. Calm walking sound.]

I have discovered that I haveDAMN-

[Even more frantic scurrying sounds. A loud BANG! as a human body collides with a filing cabinet, followed by silence. Another pause. Grumpy walking sound.]

IhavediscoveredthatIhaveabladderthesizeofagummibearDONE.

[Expectant pause.]

I think we’re good.

[Sound of drinking. Pause.]

AWFRIGGINHELL-

[World-record-breaking scurrying noises. Silence.]

1. Baby spider infestation.
2. Pulled calf muscle.
3. Food poisoning.

Please excuse me if I am minus the funny.

[Rests head gently on keyboard. Serenely drools.]

I mean, really? Who the HELL thought that one up?!

I GOT NO ACCESS HERE, PEOPLE. Just fun fun nostril-pimple pain.

And something tells me that I shouldn’t expect the arrival of nostril-pimple elves in the foreseeable future.

[Pause.]

Oh. Wait. Here they are.

I have them pencilled in for next Tuesday.

My bad.

…

This Moment in Too Much Information has been brought to you by The Delahunt Centre for Bitching & Moaning and The Uriah Meyer Foundation for Things That Suck.

And Viewers Like You.

Killing people is not even pencilled in my day-planner for the day.

And WHY won’t I kill people today? Because I have WILLPOWER.

And no desire to be the charming yet doomed villain of an obscure Jacobian revenge tragedy.

So…

No killing.

Not even one person.

Nope.

There will be nary a lifeless corpse in my immediate future.

This I do declare.

I will write my memoirs in later years, and when I get to the point that I need to recall the events of this date, I will begin by stating that “no killing occurred on this date”. It will not be the most interesting passage of my memoirs, but it is something I can predict with certainty.

ME + THE KILLING OF PEOPLE = NOT TODAY

…

However…

This will ALL be made easier if people would leave me the fuck alone.

I’m just saying.

…

Yeah. That kind of day.

Send cookies.

Am I the only one?

‘Cause it makes me feel dirty inside.