Icemaking, Rideau Canal

Friday night with Fourth Dwarf

Being the generous fellow I am, I took a break from meta-blogging Friday evening to give a young lady a night on the town. Overall a fine evening

#1: Pub-Blogging the Atomic Rooster

"Let's try this place," I suggested figuring the name indicated a chance I could get a well-cooked chicken. My companion spotted a veggie burger on the menu she thought she could get along with.

A responsible restaurant reviewer would give the Atomic Rooster a few more tries, but I'm neither a restaurant reviewer nor responsible.

The food: Being not so hungry, I only ordered half a chicken with Garlic Smashed Potatoes and grilled vegetables. To my surprise they gave me the front half of the chicken. A white meat fan would be pleased by this, but I'm not a white meat fan. Alas, when I pointed this out to the waitress, she told me that it was all the cook had and it would take too long to cook a hind quarter. Have I been ordering whole chickens so long that I've missed this new trend in half-chicken cooking?

The Garlic Smashed Potatoes were not well-named unless a fellow named Garlic did the smashing.

The grilled vegetables were tasty.

My companion reported her veggie burger was ho hum and the salsa tasted like it came in a bottle.

Decor: Nice bright paintings on the wall. But something was missing. Can't quite say what. The space felt too much like a cafeteria. And nothing said "atomic" to me.

Extra touches: Other diners apparently had nice napkin rings and received free grapes after their meal. We did not.

Verdict: Not a replacement for the usual spot.

#2: Sexapalooza

Waiting in line to get in, a young security guard checked everyone's identification. Other adults in the line thought this inappropriate, especially for me with my long beard that has a touch of grey in it. "No, no," I explained to the incredulous attendees, "if we look like we may be 25, he has to ask."

For $15 each, we received a coupon for 30 minutes of free adult movies from the internet and had the opportunity to wander around the crowded basement of Lansdowne Park and see:

• Various items for sale that I understand are readily available in several downtown and suburban locations;
• Fully dressed woman disinterestedly demonstrating a form of dance that relies on a vertical pole;
• Other woman standing on stage and impersonating Meg Ryan at the delicatessen in
  When Harry met Sally; and
  
• A large woman tapping the naked breasts and stomach of a smaller woman who was strapped to a wooden frame. ("Very nice breasts," my companion overheard another woman say to her friend.)

In short, it was a waste of $30 because I don't need to go to Sexapalooza to find any of that. "What they needed," suggested my companion, "was lots of semi-clad beautiful men and women walking around handing out free samples."

#3: Celebrity Night at Spins'n'Needles

Aside from yours truly, I didn't spot any actual celebrities at this event. But the art was all about them. For people who didn't bring their own project to work on, the organizers had supplies for:

1. Celebrity paint by numbers
2. Celebrity collage
3. Celebrity finger puppets

I probably don't need to tell you that both my lovely companion and I decided to make finger puppets. This was a special treat for me because it was my first time using a glue gun. Wow!

People sitting near us did puppets, but also the paint by numbers. The results were stunning although we couldn't tell if the woman was Britney Spears or Lindsay Lohan and the man was either J.F. Kennedy, Matt Damon or Brad Pitt.

No question about it, Spins'n'Needles was the best part of the outing.

Denouement

On the way back to the cave, a woman who got off the bus behind us called out, "Excuse me, you dropped these, do you want them?" She held up the adult movie coupons from Sexapalooza. They had been in my coat pocket with my mittens.

"Um, uh, yes." I took them from her. "I guess they fell out of my pocket when I took out my mittens."

"I thought maybe it was your way to invite me to a movie," she said.

"Ha, ha, no," I said. "Unless you want to go to a movie..."

Welcome to the Blogosphere, Bank Street Irrelevants

Press Release:

The Elgin Street Irregulars(ESIs), today announced that they welcome the Bank Street Irrelevants(BSIs) to the Blogosphere and extend their friendship and goodwill to this new group who have taken meta-blogging to a new level of meta-meta-blogging. "Some people say Ottawa is not big enough for two metablogs," reported spokesperson Fourth Dwarf:

Bilgewater! says I. Bring'em on, the more the merrier. As my friend, the Chair, explained it to me, while we may have enjoyed our meta-blogging monopoly, it's led to a deadweight loss for our readers.

The Dwarf went on to specifically compliment the BSIs for:

• Taking obscure self-referential wanking to new heights: "We thought we were good at the obscure SRW, but with posts like My Most Horriblest Day and the Pssst series, we've met our masters."
• Coming up with such clever and appealing pseudonyms: "Especially 'the Third Elf', said the Dwarf, "who is he exactly, Hermey the Misfit Elf? Hank the Tall Elf? Boss Elf?
• Responding to criticism with art.

The Fourth Dwarf also clarified the ESI position on various challenges alleged to have been made by the ESIs to the BSIs:

Obviously, we didn't issue any challenges to them. See who can have profiles for all their members first? Would we issue a challenge we can't possibly win? Never! But I'll hear none of this nonsense that the Bank Street Irregulars are a pack of liars. It's surely our old nemeses Minty and Lana sowing discord between us with phony emails or something.

On top of everything else this week...

... we're a nominee in the Best Group Blog category of the Canadian Blog Awards.

And unlike some bloggy-come-lately wannabes that for obscure reasons have recently begun to ape our franchise slavishly, we didn't need to nominate ourselves. Thank you, Zoom, you're a lovely person. We think everybody should click on over, get clear on the rules, then vote for you in every category in which you're nominated. We already have...

Other Ottawa bloggers represented in Round One of the voting include, but are not limited to, many of our very favourites: Megan Butcher's compelling and personal Asteroidea Press (we're huge fans); RobinK's arrestingly good photoblog, Watawa Life; our very own Aggie's angst-and-craft-ridden Elgin Street Muse; the gimlet-eyed local political commentary of Miss Vickie's Offhand Remarks; Jo Stockton's Also a Talker; David Scrimshaw's Blog about life and binder clips; Andrea's No More Decorators; and finally, Mission:Control (worth checking, though we understand he's peeved with us at the moment...) We've almost certainly forgotten someone we'll regret omitting later. And of course, the scads of mainstream national political bloggers all over this city. We don't regret omitting them at all.

If you like us (you know who you are...), head on over and give us props. If you hate us (ditto...) then vote for someone else. It's all (meta)bloggy goodness.

Living Like a (Reformed) Addict

A few things have inspired me in the last few days that I'd like to share with you. As you have probably gathered, I've been in a creative rut. I have not been crafting. I'm trying to write, but not getting anywhere. I can barely get my ass out to exercise. I have been going to some free meditation classes down the street in a desperate search for inspiration and enlightenment. The meditation helps me just softly and gently embrace the rut rather than dig myself deeper in the rut, which I am rather good at.

I've come to realize that I'm an addict. I'm not pathologizing myself here. In fact, I think there are lots of us out there being addicts of something. We are a culture of addicts. Good for you if you manage not to be one.

Because I'm an addict, I've decided I should strive to live like one. This means, I have to adopt the "every day is a new day" attitude that addicts do. It also means I need to change the way I do things to accommodate my addictions. Chuck Close is a good example of someone who has done this. He rejects the idea of "inspiration" and just gets down to business, grid-by-grid. Julia Child is helping me, too. She could not be more passionate- or addicted - to French cuisine, but describes how it could take hours of work and plenty of failure to get the sauce just right -- or at least good enough to move on to the next recipe.