The irony is not lost on me – despite having a chance earlier in the year to switch to a Mac computer, and now having extended my reliance on Windows by snapping up a netbook laptop – I must post these blogs on a Safari web browser. It’s like Mac and Apple are the only kind souls on the digital planet, “nice folks”, and yet I still insist on choosing to go out with the troubled “bad boys” of the computer world.

 Aaargh!!!

 At any rate, the newest version of Explorer, the Windows- based web browser offered by Microsoft seems to not allow me to copy and paste from Word docs anymore, which is how these postings are born. And that’s only because:

a)      I often forgot to use the Spell-Check feature on Blogger, in my haste to post, and found myself making even less sense than I do now, and

b)      Blogger used to crash or freeze during my posts, probably because they are a competitor to Microsoft. So on the odd occasion where I wrote a blog that was worthy of some sort of global digital media award, it would disappear into the electronic abyss, never to be seen again. I was starting to get a sloped forehead, from all the banging of that part of my noggin on the wall beside my desk.

 At any rate, in order to continue writing these posts in advance on Word, then copying and pasting to the web, I have to use a Mac browser.

 Just a little dagger in my heart, every time I think or what could have been…

 Or may yet be???

Chow for now!!

I am pleased to report that despite a small threat of rain yesterday, our weekend here in the Such Is Life household was primarily spent enjoying the Great Outdoors (albeit only as far as our own back yard…).

 Yessir, we ate outside, read the newspaper outside, played cards outside, and even avoided household chickens – all the while outside. It was a great weekend.

 Although, I still managed to get haunted by the number 11 during the past 48 hours – in entirely unrelated settings. Both indoors and outdoors.

 Saturday night, we were watching the Steve Carell remake of “Get Smart”, and ran out of gas, likely due to too much fresh air from our time spent outdoors. We stopped the show on our PVR, but when we took it back up again Sunday, we discovered that we had stopped it at EXACTLY 1:11!! Aye Caramba!

We then decided to talk a little walk (outside – it’s better than circling our living room repeatedly), and we were walking down a little side street in our neighbourhood when I felt an urge to turn around at loo at the house we were walking past – it was street address #111!!  Vaya Con Dios!! 

Finally, we got back home and settled in for the night, and decided to order a pay-per-view movie – Mickey Rourke’s “The Wrestler” (excellent flick, by the way…). Which turned out to be loaded with 11’s – the unit of his manager’s home is number 11, and his daughter lives at #29 – which adds up to 11.

Numbers 11, 111, and 1111 – hear me now – leave us alone, or reveal why in the name of sweet potato pie you are stalking me.

I am not crazy…

I am not crazy…

I am not crazy…

I am not crazy…

I am not crazy…

I am not crazy…

I am not crazy…

I am not crazy…

I am not crazy…

I am not crazy…

I am not crazy…

Oh crap – I did that eleven times….

Oy...Chow for now…

One weekend later, but our gazebo is now up and at 'em. As a matter of fact, we had a lovely little barbecue last night, and sat on our patio set admiring it. Today, we may even sit IN it!!



Summer may have finally arrived in our neck of the woods. We'll know for sure once it reaches our ankles. At any rate, we may be able to pack away our toques and earmuffs for sure this time.



Hey, this is the first blog post I'm making from our new netbook, a tiny laptop we plan on using for our trip to California in June. Aside from having a keyboard that only a mouse could love, this puppy has all the functions of a larger system, but it's way smaller - for those delightfully roomy airline cabins. Again, only a mouse could love...



The best part - Windows XP, NOT Vista....



Chow for now!!

Chicken Scratch 

Howdy humans, on this fine Saturday morn!!

BUK-AAAAWK!!!!

Well, ole Cornelius has done gone an loss his mind – he thinks he’s gonna be a late-nite infomercial king!! 

BUK-AAAAWK!!!! 

Yessir, Corny’s got hisself a popcorn maker, and he plans on sellin’ these things on late-nite TV. I ain’t got the heart to tell his dumb pinfeathers that these things are available in stores everywhere already…. 

BUK-AAAAWK!!!! 

Although, we are talkin’ about humans here, and one that watch late-nite TV infomercials, so maybe he ain’t so crazy after all…

Hmmm...

I think I oughta consider tryin’ that sales bit misself! Mebbe I could come up with a formula for premature feather loss. Or a lotion to smooth over those rough claws after a hard day a walkin’ around the coop!

I think I may need to get workin’  on this. If I wants ta get a convertible this summer, I need to increase my cash flow. Cluck, I need ta GET a cash flow!! 

BUK-AAAAWK!!!!

Hot damn, way ta go Cornelius! Yer a clickin’ genius!!

Cluck for now!!

I either have a screw loose, or a wish to die by a massive brain implosion, brought about by heightened levels of computerized frustration.

A couple of days ago, I foolishly agreed to install the newest version of Internet Explorer, not even considering for a moment that Explorer is a Microsoft product. Technologically, Microsoft and I get along about as well as a chicken that's accidentally wandered into a fox convention at dinnertime. We just don't...

Anyhoo - now all the things I used to take for granted, like being able to surf the web freely and happily, whilst whistling and flinging sun rays from a basket, appear to have come to a grinding halt. Yesterday, I couldn't even cut and paste into the latest version of Explorer.

Explorer? An explorer that's been hit in the head by an axe, maybe...

Well Safari and Firefox, looks like we're gonna be spending some quality time together....

Chow for now!!

Thursday - the day after Hump Day - a day which still elicits a giggle I will confess...

Thursday - named centuries ago for Olympic great Simon Thur. (Thurly you will believe that...)

Thursday - in my humble consideration, a far more appropriate day to be called Hump Day, because you have to get past Thursday to arrive at Friday...

Thursday - the morning you must have a cigarette, after enjoying Hump Day...

Thursday - actually, maybe it was named in error for the god Thor? Was Thor a god, or just a son of a god? Who knows this stuff? And, who eventually went to Valhalla State Penitentiary for misspelling Thorsday on the first calendars??

Thursday - a day I must scramble to get ready for actual commitments outside of my home office, and therefore lack the timer required to post something that actually makes sense..

Happy Thursday, or Thorsday, whichever day you happen to observe!!

Chow for now!

Wednesday - the work-week (such as it is here in the “Such-Is-Life” household) is already half-over. That’s not only a delightful thought, but also a sentence with a whole lot of hyphens…

Wednesday – the traditional day of the week that wieners and beans are served for supper in households all across North America. At least that’s what Mrs. That Dan Guy says every Wednesday when I press her for variety in our diet planning…

Wednesday – A far more logical day of the week for weddings than the ones on the weekend, wouldn’t you say? Just look at how the word is right there, in the name of the day!!

Wednesday – it is Wednesday, isn’t it???

Wednesday – the longest day of the week that precisely and immediately precedes Thursday.

Wednesday – a smoke screen for yet another day where I sit here without a single cohesive thought rambling through my cerebrum…

Chow for now!

Here it is, almost the end of May, and our furnace is working overtime. How delightful.

We had turned it off (a couple of times, actually) earlier this month, but keep having to fall back on it for little comforts like keeping our tap water flowing, and offsetting frostbite or hypothermia in the home.

Yesterday, we decided to be brave, and take a little walk in the rain. It was just a light drizzle, so we dressed for the weather, and even took umbrellas. After a bit of the hike had transpired, as hikes are prone to do when you’re actually moving one foot in front of the other in a continuous manner, we were heading back to our starting point. When the snow started to fall…

Oh, it’s not as bad as it sounds, even though it is almost June. Nothing like perpetuating the Canadian stereotype though! Now we’ve got extra material for our igloo roof!

On the plus side, the weather kept most other hardy souls off the trails, so we had the unexpected bonus of coming across a pair of deer grazing in the valley below the trail. They blended right in with the rest of the forest, in their camouflage parkas and hip waders. It was their exposed white tails that caught our attention. Deer should really learn to start wearing pants, and then maybe their natural predators might have a harder time spotting them whilst they graze.

At least, that’s how I see things…

Chow for now!!

Well, on the plus side, we had our first barbecue of the “summer” yesterday afternoon. A delightful meat-and-potatoes meal, fresh from the outdoor grill. It was absolutely heavenly.

On the negative side, we awoke to a light dusting of snow, frozen extremities, and a hasty need to restart the furnace, which is now humming merrily along in the background. We will never be accused of holding the oil and gas sector recovery back, here in Canada…

We’ve been enjoying a bit of a lazy long weekend, here in the Such Is Life household. The plan was to set up our back yard for summer enjoyment, but seeing as how summer has been hoofed in the gonads by Jack Frost, it would appear that we weren’t really so remiss in never getting around to that.

We did manage to pull out the BBQ and a patio table, but toward the end of preparing the meal, high Arctic winds had kicked in, and the sky was darkening, so we put almost all of that away, and ate in the house.

One thing we did manage to do – get out to an electronic superstore, to pick up a little something for our upcoming trip to California. More on that tomorrow…

Until then, I must remove my mittens and make Mrs. That Dan Guy and I some breakfast.

Chow for now!!

Oh brother…

About a year ago, I picked up a book I thought I really needed to read. It’s called “The Complete Idiot’s Guide To Improving Your Memory”.

But I keep forgetting to read it…

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Our big plans to put up our gazebo yesterday afternoon were dashed on the shores of Lackadaisical Island. We just plum talked ourselves out of it, preferring instead to have a lazy day around the house.

In our defense, there were winds of almost a half a mile an hour, and a couple of light fluffy clouds seemed to be making aggressive overtures. We didn’t want to risk having to put our beers down, in the middle of the project. It just seemed far more prudent to recline on the sofa, with a bowl of popcorn.

For the record, the light fluffy clouds blew over, likely under the force of those winds. Turns out we could have put the dang thing up after all.

Which we’ll have to do today. Although, it is looking a little ugly out there right now.

Ugh…

Chow for now!!

Chicken Scratch

BUK-AAAWK!!!!

Call the governor – we gotsa inhumane rights violation here!!!

BUK-AAAAWK!!!!

Do we even gotsa governor in Canada?? Who cluckin’ cares – my rights is bein’ violated, and it ain’t right!!!

Just cause I gotta holda “somebody’s” credit card here, and ordered a few “accessories” for my home theatre system – “somebody” here goes nuts, and forces me inta slave labor – I gotta clean ALL the bathrooms in the house!!

BUK-AAAAWK!!!!

Oppressed chickens unite!!

I can’t hit the nightclubs with dishpan hands! It ain’t easy to remove the stench of rubber gloves, ya know…

Sheesh, sum people got so sensa humor. Or compassion – how am I supposed ta enjoy big-screen movies without tha benefit a surroun’ soun’?? What, is this Siberia??

BUK-AAAAWK!!!!

Boys and girls, write letters – I don’t know who ya gotta send ‘em to, but send ‘em somewhere!! I must be free!!

Free range, even…

Cluck for now!!

It’s a long weekend in Canada, and possibly even wherever YOU may be reading this as well!

Yee-Haw!!

Our plans?

Well, here in the Such Is Life household, our big master plan for this weekend is to set up our screened gazebo, which is a roomy outdoor structure that we spend most of a day putting up to enjoy the Canadian outdoors, without the interference of rain (a common occurrence this month), mosquitoes (flying bayonets loaded with unsavoury diseases), and renegade Canadian beavers (admittedly rare is suburban back yards, but one can never be too pro-active in matters of preventive maintenance, I always say…).

I’d love to be planning on seeing Elvis Costello at the upcoming Winnipeg Folk Festival, but I guess the lucky beggars that live there will be doing that this summer…

Just sayin’…

Hey, we almost had three of the Original Six set to face off in the NHL finals – until the Boston Bruins were eliminated in overtime last night. Just as I was explaining what the Original Six were, to Mrs. That Dan Guy. I continue to be the kiss of death to any teams I root for.

It feels like I’m really rambling around all over the place this morning. I haven’t even had a chance to brag about how if you type “the buddy holly story stage west calgary reviews” into Google, this here blog will turn up in the top ten search results.

Wait!!! Don’t do that right now!

I haven’t signed off yet…

Chow for now!!

Of all the crazy weather patterns we’ve seen since moving to Calgary a few years ago, the other day completely took the cake. And if you think “someone left the cake out in the rain”, well, yeah, but there was snow too!

Monday afternoon I heard a racket outside. When I looked out our living room window, there was indeed foul weather afoot – a thunderstorm – nothing unusual for the prairies.

However, this was also the first time I’ve ever seen snow falling during a thunderstorm. In freakin’ May…

We have heard that you can literally get snow every month of the year here, but we just laughed that off as the ravings of folks inhaling too much bovine methane emissions.

As we hope to put up our gazebo this weekend, I am wondering if maybe the people saying that sort of thing all the time are just charming loons, or if we should consider waiting to make a summer igloo instead. That way, when the temperature gets way up there on the old thermometer in July and August, we’ll be cool as cucumbers in our ice structure.

Crazy? Crazy like a snow fox…

Chow for now!!

Ugh…

Today’s post was SUPPOSED to be “The Wednesday Morning Nobody Asked Me To, yada yada yada review: Fleetwood Mac”, but sadly the classic rock band’s concert scheduled for Calgary last night was cancelled at almost the very last minute. I was already on my way into downtown to pick up Mrs. That Dan Guy when I got word on the radio station I listen to. And there I was, all dressed up in my Stevie Nicks Goth Collection garb – try ordering a sub sandwich with all that distraction for the poor guy at the counter…

Ugh…

We were SOOO jazzed to see this show, even though technically speaking it was definitely NOT going to be a jazz concert. I can’t even begin to go on about how much we wanted to see these guys, because that is all fodder for my actual posting when we DO get to see those guys. There’s only so much fresh material rolling around in this old skull of mine.

So, we just have our fingers crossed, hoping that the new date is one that we can still attend. As it was, we had to pass on rant comic Lewis Black who was also scheduled for a show here last night, after Big Mac’s concert tickets had already been purchased. This is the same Lewis Black we had hoped to see in Reno, but whom rescheduled his date there to avoid us while we were in town. A fella could develop a complex!

As if all this isn’t frustrating enough, the ole Crapmaster 2000 is really in fine form this morning. The internet has been disconnecting repeatedly since the computer finally agreed to start up this morning, and my keyboard completely failed midway through typing this post. Kick me when I’m down, eh Windows Vista???

Chow for now!!

“Mary had a little lamb; its fleece was white as snow,
And with each and every day that passed, Mary was damn thankful she hadn’t chosen a baby pig for her new pet.”

“If Old McDonald had a farm, was his visionary entrepreneurial cousin named Ronald?”

Least Popular Nursery Rhyme of 2009 – “this little piggy had a runny nose; this little piggy had chills…”

Chow for now!

Hmmm. The 11th…

Hey, does anybody else out there enjoy watching the poker on TV? I suppose a lot of you do, because Sunday night is a poker-watcher’s Utopia, at least up here in Canada. GSN (Game Show Network) alone features hours and hours of back-to-back poker shows. “High Stakes Poker”, “World Poker Tour”, “Poker! Poker! Poker!”, “Poker In The Poconos”. It’s delightful!

For a guy that doesn’t really watch a lot of sport shows, I can sit and watch poker for hours on end. Just last night, sitting on the sofa in my Binion’s t-shirt (a big shout-out to the gg’s), I must have watched about 8 hours of televised poker. OK, I’m probably exaggerating there a bit – it couldn’t have been more than seven and a half hours – we did have to make dinner, and even those frozen meals need more than a few minutes to spring to life in the microwave…

So, what’s the fascination with televised poker? Maybe it’s the lingo – poker comes with a language all its own. Don’t believe me? Try watching any of the programs without a Poker-To-English translation guide. It can’t be done, unless you spend a lot of time watching the shows. How else will you know that you can draw dead with a middle pocket pair, on the River?

To be honest, I’m not even sure that you can draw dead with a middle pocket pair on the River, but you see what I mean? There’s a whole other language out there for professional poker players.

Poker. On TV. There are worse ways to spend your time…

Chow for now!

The Sunday Morning “Nobody-Asked-Me-To, But-Here-I-Go-Anyway” Evening Out Review – “FunnyFest” Calgary Comedy Festival.

(Or, Why I Will Never Be A Professional Evening Out Reviewer…)

Last night, Mrs. That Dan Guy and I took in the second-last evening of “FunnyFest”, Calgary’s annual (9th this year) comedy festival – incidentally second in size only to Montreal’s world-famous “Just For Laughs” chuckle-wagon. So, it’s rather a big deal.

You can browse their website for more info:

http://www.funnyfest.com/ or, stay here and submit yourself to more of my own personal reflections. The choice is yours.

And thanks for staying - you’ve clearly made the right decision (but you should still visit their website after you’ve read today’s posting).

“FunnyFest” features comics from all across Canada, the United States, and even a former Canuck now living in England. There are a number of local folks as well, such as the gentleman pictured above. Paul Kuster is a local aboriginal comic, whose last name happens to be Kuster. Spelling aside, that nugget is not lost for potential comic opportunities, which Kuster mines delightfully. MTDG and I had a preview of his performance at an appreciation dinner for Canadian Diabetes Association volunteers here in Calgary. His routine last night was identical, but it illustrates exactly how strong his stuff is – we laughed just as hard, even knowing what the punch-lines were going to be. Only at the stand-up game a few years so far, Kuster is already smooth as the areas of my head that hair has long since vacated from.

There were a load of great performances, both from the U.S. pros, and the Canucks. The headliner that closed out the performances last night, Tommy Savitt had a great routine somewhat presenting himself as a potential catch for the ladies in the audience, but continually seeming to come up with comic deal-breakers. Another highlight.

One surprise – no mention of swine flu at all until almost the very end of the show. Go figure – an easy target, forsaken by most of the performers.

We’ll be sure to check this out again next year – and visit a few of the other venues. We chose this one last night because, uh…well, I won’t lie to you. It was the Stampede Casino, and we know how to get there.

Chow for now!!

Chicken Scratch

Top o’ tha mornin’, feather-lackers! Charlie saloots ya!!

BUK-AAAAWK!!!!

Hey humans, lookie here – ole Charlie has moved inta the 18th Century – I got misself a Birdberry!!

That’s right kids – now I’m textin’ and e-mailin’ and phone-callin’ up a storm – which is all well and good, but I need to find a few fellow cluckers with one of these thingies themselves… Pretty quiet on the respondin' front.

BUK-AAAAWK!!!!

Still, I can see why these things is so cluckin’ addictive – did you know you can set it up to make different sounds when it rings?? Just like Star Trek!! Beam me up some Jim Beam, Scottie!

BUK-AAAAWK!!!!

Of course, I will admit that this is one of those occasions where I regret not havin’ fingers – them little keys are a pain in the pinfeathers to peck at – and don’t get me started on my stubby little chicken wings!!

I can even set myself reminders on what they call a day-timer. Although for an active bird like misself, it oughta be a night-timer. I think I may be part owl!!

BUK-AAAAWK!!!!

So, I gotta get the word out to somma my pals, and definitely the ladies – ole Charlie is wired!!

Cluck for now!!

A Brief History Of Yellow Cut Wax Beans, As Relates Specifically To Me.

Ever since I was a young whippersnapper, which is a real term used to describe children that regularly snapped small tree branches knows as “whippers”, I have favoured yellow cut wax beans as my canned vegetable of choice.

Sure, some people would suggest that canned vegetables are over-homogenized, and feature all the nutrition value of consuming the contents of a foam pillow. Opposing opinions aside, I preferred canned yellow cut was beans above and beyond canned corn, canned peas, and candied yams.

To this day, I will shuffle the cans around in our pantry, avoiding all other canned vegetables, until I have enjoyed a serving of my beloved canned yellow cut wax beans.

But don’t try to get me going on the green variety – it HAS to be the yellow ones. Yellow seemed such a soothing colour tone on my plate, alongside and accompanying mashed potatoes, and a fine cut of broiled meat. Green beans just serve to remind me that vegetables are really fat grass – something a cow should be dining on.

Of course, that’s just one man’s preference…

Chow for now!!

I am into my second week of viewing my Facebook page more than once a year – it seems to be working out.

Then again, if you consider checking continually for new comments an improvement, I guess that’s what I’ve got going on.

On the Windows Vista front, things had started to settle down a bit, but lately I’m back to the same crapola I’ve come to expect from Vista. Just typing this post moments ago, the wireless keyboard and mouse that have been installed for over a year now befuddled Vista, and everything froze. It’s like Vista has a death wish. I’m one baseball bat away from converting Vista to pasta.

The other bit of fun that has consistently plagued or entertained me is the delightful aspect of Vista failing to recognize drivers. It seems to have to reinstall drivers vital to operation over and over again, even if I’ve loaded the software from a disc. You could say that Vista is a few microchips short of a picnic, but even that might be giving it too much credit.

I know what you’re thinking – That Dan Guy, why didn’t you switch over to Apple when you had the chance? Well, a) clearly I have latent masochistic tendencies, and b) I am a few microchips short of a picnic myself.

Oh well – Vista almost works 90% of the time, in a way that borders somewhere between migraine-inducing uselessness, and barely capable. Things could be worse, right?

Happy Happy Happy…

Chow for now!

Of all the sugary breakfast cereal choices, can there possibly be one that’s worse than all the others?

My research this week suggests “no” – they are all quite tasty indeed…

This morning – Fruit Loops!

Chow (literally) for now!

Happy Sink-o de Mayo!

Sink-o?

Did I hear that right on TV this morning? Who celebrates sinks and mayonnaise??? Aye Caramba…

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Man, we are sure enjoying some of these TV shows featuring live performances right now, seeing as how scripted comedy and drama programs seem to have gone out the window with the turn of this century.

First off, we discovered that one of our favourite new shows – “Spectacle, With Elvis Costello” has mercifully turned into a hit, meaning that we have some relief from panting bachelors and bachelorettes sprinting past a gaggle of talking hot dogs, looking for their “soul mate”. Maybe those folks are the ones that need a sink filled with mayonnaise…

“Spectacle” in particular has featured a subdued elegance since it began running, and great guests from all across the musical spectrum. And if I’m not mistaken, it’s a Canadian show that’s a hit. Move over, “Littlest Hobo” - or learn how to play the piano!!

A few others well worth a viewing:

1) Legends And Lyrics, on public TV,
2) Live At The Artist’s Den

I guess the list was shorter than I thought, but the networks do have to keep the airwaves uncluttered for all the celebrity chefs that want to scream at novice helpers for 30 minutes.

Egads, man…

Chow for now!!

M - Moan…yet another new week begins - but never at the crack of noon, apparently…

O - Ornery, which frankly could apply to either one of us, on any given Monday morning. Especially if one of us (the one with less hair) has forgotten to reprogram the coffee maker back from the weekend settings.

N - Nuts! Shouldn’t every day be Saturday? Monday wouldn’t be so bad, if it didn’t fall so early in the week…

D - Dang! I have to give up our lavish weekend buffet breakfasts, and revert back to dry toast and soggy cereal. I may as well be a street urchin, facing a bowl of cold gruel!

A - Aargh!! Mrs. That Dan Guy used her highly-tuned detective skills to ferret out my secret stash of rubber bands from the morning newspapers, inspired to do so no doubt by the target they seemed to place on her back.

Y – Yikes! Look at the time! I need to get my caboose into the shower, and get ready to greet the week. It’s another exciting one, here in the Such Is Life household!

Chow for now!!

Chicken Scratch

Happy Sunday morning, my favourite human friends! Hen Rietta here, with an exciting excerpt from my latest chick lit effort – “The Lust Luster”.

CLUCK!!!!

Avert young readers’ eyes – this one is particularly steamy!!

CLUCK!!!!

Chapter Six – High Heels & Higher Hopes”

Milly found herself in unfamiliar territory. She had never held a pair of stiletto heels in her hand before, and hesitated to take them straight up to the cash register. But the salesman today, ohhh. Sully had eyes deep as mystic pools, with the waviest hair she had ever seen in her young yet mature enough life. She wanted to be sullied by Sully.

Even though Sully had clearly gazed deeply into her soul, and read her mind as easily as a Dr. Phil self-help opus helps millions of others when he brought out this pair of exquisitely perfect shoes, Milly felt she had to extend this exchange, and gently nudge out some of his personal information.

“So, Mr. Sully – are you single?” she blushed out in a coy purr. Oh my – maybe that wasn’t quite as gentle a nudge as she had intended!

Sully’s softening eyes, and warm smile darn-near melted Milly on the spot. She hadn’t even felt this dishevelled after she had accidentally brushed up against George Clooney (twice) at a Starbucks – as he added sugar to his coffee. It may have been more convincing if she had already bought her own coffee, as she pretended to reach for a stir-stick…

Sully looked deep into her eyes, and his lips slowly parted. “No ma’am, these aren’t single shoes – they come in pairs”.

The illusion was shattered – Sully was clearly dim as a match flickering in the depths of the Grand Canyon. Smiling, she slipped out her VISA card, and at least salvaged the shoes from her exchange…

Sad, eh? Love lost, and all that!! I guess she’ll never know what might have been…

CLUCK!!!

More later, my feather-challenged amigos!!

Cluck for now!!

The Saturday Morning “Nobody-Asked-Me-To, But-Here-I-Go-Anyway” Evening Out Review – “Buddy, The Buddy Holly Story” Stage West Theatre Restaurants Calgary.

(or, Why I Will Never Be A Professional Concert Reviewer…)

One of the first live groups I ever saw without my parents’ accompaniment was a “greaser” cover group from Vancouver. They dressed up in 50’s wear, and played all the great hits of that era, which back then wasn’t really all that far behind us.

Last night, Mrs. That Dan Guy and I caught another British Columbia-originated band (now based in Toronto), bringing the same music to life as part of the just-opened Stage West production of “Buddy, The Buddy Holly Story”, here in Calgary.

Zachary Stevenson and Jeff Bryant of The Human Statues (more on that group later) help bring this show to eye-popping life, along with a talented supporting cast. Of all the shows we’ve seen here so far, this one absolutely tops the list. When we saw the Stage West run of “DreamGirls”, the very next day we picked up tickets to see James Brown. Unfortunately, he passed away about 12 days before his show here – but that show knocked our collective socks off.

When you see something requiring you to “suspend your disbelief”, you really do want to get “lost in the illusion”. You don’t even have to close your eyes to imagine Buddy Holly on stage for this show – for one thing, Stevenson’s ability to cover Holly songs is downright spooky – as perfect as you are ever going to get without actually sitting right in front of Buddy Holly. But his acting skills and energy sold the performance as well – along with the rest of the cast.

SPOILER ALERT: If you’re not familiar with the story of Buddy Holly’s meteoric rise to fame, the story does not have a happy ending. Holly and two of his musical colleagues died in a plane crash in 1959.

Essentially, the musical arcs his early career, and ends with his last concert. I really should know more of the actual story – I’ve seen the terrific film starring Gary Busey a number of times, and own the DVD. Bright and shiny… But I do know how authentic the music was – as a mobile DJ for years and years and years, I started most of my dances with “That’ll Be The Day” – the song never gets old.

This was also perhaps the most ambitious program we’ve seen here – it seemed like they had double the cast, but when everybody came out for bows afterwards we were surprised to see how few people fleshed out the show. Strong directing, loads of humour, and many highlights. (One in particular, a small town concert intermission act of a local accordion/horn/cymbal group doing the American anthem was about as hilarious as anything we’ve ever seen).

However, the star here was the music, faithfully presented, and gobbled up by the audience. The first act covers the beginning of Holly’s career – the second is a sheer celebration of the end part of his heyday (until you realize he doesn’t survive to the end of the show – hey, I warned you!!).

As it happens, if you’ve read this space for any time, you know I am befuddled by interesting or consecutive number combinations. Well, last night, of all the table the facility features, we were seated at Table #59.

This revival celebrates the 50th anniversary of Holly’s passing – in 1959. I was also born in 1959 – so once again spooky numbers are around me.

For trivia’s sake, Buddy Holly’s big hit “It Doesn’t Matter Anymore” was written by Canadian Paul Anka, who we saw live in concert not too long ago. Trivial? Perhaps…

Personal highlight – the acoustic version of “True Love Ways”. Guys, cut that on an upcoming cd – awesome!!

Oh yeah, I was gonna get back to The Human Statues ( http://www.thehumanstatues.com/ ). Check out this up and coming Canuck group – the promo video on their website alone is a howl, and the CD we bought on the way out the door was instantly enjoyable playing on our drive home – too many influences to even try narrowing down, but they have a knack for catchy songs that stick on the first listen.

Alright, enough gushing – you get the idea. If you’re reading this in the Calgary area, get your tickets pronto.

(Holy Crow, this is dangerously close to a real review!!)

(Poultry lovers, Charlie will return tomorrow morning.)

Chow for now!!

Simple & Inexpensive Entertainment Tips For Troubled Times

Part 1 – “Rubber Band, Rubber Band Man…”

Hey, who sang that old song anyway – was it The O’Jays?? Dang, now the silly thing is in my head…

Anyhow, do you find yourself in these tough economic times, trying to figure out how to keep your own personal morale up, whilst utilizing an inexpensive form of entertainment?

Here’s my hot tip for this week in May – and, it’s essentially free!!

Every morning, my morning newspaper is delivered, held together by a simple rubber band. I will squirrel those elastics aside for a few days, and then one morning while Mrs. That Dan Guy is crawling her bleary-eyed self up the stairs to get ready for work, I will “shoot” one at her. The spare rubber bands come in handy for when she charges me, to confiscate and or pretend to want to cause me some injury.

We laugh for hours afterwards. Sometimes she frisks me for more of the hidden elastics, which can be fun first thing in the morning. Other times, I yelp out “IMMUNITY!!” and she is forced to stand down by the rules of international rubber band warfare.

Give it a try, if you have access to rubber bands – your mornings will never be the same…

Chow for now!!

Here it is, the last day of April, and you probably find yourself wondering right about now: “when is That Dan Guy going to whine about how fast the month went by?”

Wait for it:

Man, where did April go? I had plans – big pans! (Ha! Typo again – maybe I SHOULD have had big pans…).

Anyhow, there’s nothing you can do, right? Time marches on, like sand through the hourglass – or something like that. Time speeds by, like a roadrunner on goofballs.

Time keeps tickin’ tickin’ tickin’, into the future.

Clearly, I must adopt some sort of time management program. The only problem is, nowadays a writer has to do so many extraneous things that chew up and swallow most of their spare time. I write, I blog, I Facebook, I Spy – but have yet to Twitter, Totter, or Tumble. I wish I DIDN’T have to do all that stuff, because I can barely find time to wind my watch every day, but such is the world we live in now, where technology demands you dance to the music. Or maybe that was Sly & The Family Stone…

Whatever – my point is that my typing fingers get awfully sore, from a host of related endeavours.

Such is (the) life of a creative soul…

Hey, I managed to fill another empty blog space with something!!

Chow for now!!

I continue to clean up my online act…

After discovering by accident last week that my blog-site has been ranking high on a number of different web searches, I have started to try and pay attention to the presence I have online.

Hence, the recent update (and now ongoing effort) to keep my Facebook page up to date, or at least visit it more than once a year. Before the last week or so, I only checked in on Facebook about every three or four months or so – which proved disastrous! Yahoo cleaned out an e-mail account I had set up specifically for that account. I suppose in retrospect I could have loaded access to that account on my home computer, but hey, I still struggle with figuring out how to play Solitaire – so one baby step at a time…

The worst part was giving up my profile picture. I had originally been canoodled into joining Facebook to communicate with family members, many of which are on the site. However, in recent months that has grown to include writing colleagues, and even folks that I don’t really know all that well (Happy Wednesday, Kutimba in Nigeria – say, when is that $25,000,000 US dollars going to be deposited into my bank account, for you to access your late father’s fortune??).

I digress – the profile picture was intended to whimsically portray Mrs. That Dan Guy and I, via a couple of the poultry members (of which there are many, let me tell you) of this household. There’s still one bird left in the shot, but now I’m actually in the picture as well.

Sigh…

It sucks sometimes, having to be a grown-up…

Chow for now!!

Am I the only person that spends time wondering about “what ever happened to my favourite old cartoon characters”?

I know many are still on air in reruns thanks to specialty network channels, but what sort of work can these characters get, after their show gets the hook?

Are Tweety and Sylvester touring the world, turning up at animation festivals, pretending to still be major adversaries from the confines of their wheelchairs? How old must they be by now? I mean, Bea Arthur was in her 80’s when she left this mortal coil recently, and that old canary and cat team has been around since I was a kid. Do the math – they could be in their hundreds…

Wait a minute! That’s makes it sound like I’m older than a pirate’s doubloon! I just meant to say that I recall those delightful characters from my childhood, so it SEEMED like they have been around forever.

Sheesh…keep putting your foot in, geezer…

This is what happens when your team gets unceremoniously dumped in the first round of the playoffs. Your mind goes wonky, and your thoughts dribble out without any sort of coherence. Pretty soon, I’ll be trying to cook spaghetti in the toaster – my rudder has forsaken me.

Holy Torpedo – does any of this make any sense this morning, or is it just me? maybe I should have woke one of those chickens up?

Let’s just call it a day, while I still have a fraction of my credibility left…

Chow for now!!

Man, our concert calendar has just dried up this year!

A year or so ago, it felt like we were going to see some sort of show every couple of weeks. Now, I think we’ve only been to one concert all year (so far) – at least here in Calgary. We did sneak off a couple of times to some place hidden away in the Nevada desert, to supplement the skinny offerings we’re stuck with at home though - so we’ve managed to survive.

I guess I should say that there have still been shows coming through the city – but mostly they haven’t interested us (hard to believe, I know), or we’ve already seen the acts. And, we do have a few shows upcoming, so hopefully as the year unfolds we can correct this sad state of affairs.

Last night we missed two – both The Killers and Leonard Cohen were in town (separate venues – THAT would have been an odd combination), but we missed out on those shows. Sounds like they both hit home runs, or to use “hockey talk” – they shot, they scored!!!!

Until such time that we get back into the stride of concert-going, Mrs. That Dan Guy will just have to be content with the awesome vocal acrobatics that I perform regularly whilst showering. Sure, I may not be Il Divo or even El Diablo, but I know a lyric or two that I can project through a shower curtain…

“Some enchanted ev-en-ing….”

Chow for now!!

A few days ago (maybe longer – I do forget quickly) I posted a comment here about how my blog has been coming up in different searches. I had downloaded Google analytics tools, and discovered by accident yesterday how to use them.

I had found out that searches for something like Billy Bob Thornton were bringing this blog site of mine up online. I had no idea…

As of yesterday, if you had typed “Billy Bob Thornton Box Cutters” into a Google search, the Such Is Life site was the #2 search result – above and beyond even the major media websites – and that’s for a blog posting review that’s almost two years old!!

My site briefly rose to the #1 position, but is now down to #3 – but my statistics also show that many web-surfers that ended up on my hare-brained concert review ALSO clicked through to other postings, and spent some time snooping around.

A different post about the terrific Angie Tempura character from SNL’s “Weekend Update” was sitting at position #3 AND #4 (but now has drifted down to #17 or so).

So, after bleating repeatedly that nobody reads this online stuff – humbly I stand corrected.

This also means I have to start putting in some sort of actual effort with future postings.

However, if it happens to be celebrity names that draw the traffic, who am I to shoot the golden gift goose in the pinfeathers?

BRITNEY SPEARS

LINDSAY LOHAN

HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL

MILEY CYRUS

ALEX TREBEK

POPEYE

CARROT TOP

Let the games begin, Google Analyticals!!

Chow for now!!

Breaking News: Temporary Link!

The CBC NewsWorld program I was part of on a diabetes invention coming out of the University Of Calgary is online @:

http://www.cbc.ca/ondemand/newsatsix/calgary.asx

The feature is at about the 46-48 minute mark, and this link will be gone in about 48 hours, give or take...

Chicken Scratch

“Twas many nights before Christmas,

And all thru the house,

Not many poultry wuz stirrin’,

Not even to de-louse…”

BUK-AAAAWK!!!!

Greetins’, humany peepels! Ole Charlie is havin’ a hard time findin’ peepel awake here this mornin’. I gotta earlier start than usual, and all the usual suspecs is still out cold.

BUK-AAAAWK!!!!

Lemme tell ya, Cornelius looks about as bright as he’s ever gonna been, when he’s soun asleep. That bird is three pinfeathers short of a wreath!

COUGH! COUGH! COUGH!!

Ugh…I think I need to havanother smoke – this early mornin’ air is too fresh for my refined tastes!

BUK-AAAAWK!!!!

Hey, big hockey game tonight – speaking of feathered friends – us birds gotta stick tagether. We’re all rootin’ for the Blackhawks, unlike other hopeless dreamers in this here Such Is Life household. We know how ta play the smart-money odds – and support our fellow flappers!

Flames? More like dim embers…just like a certain human we see regularly around here…

Cluck for now!!

Everybody (they say) gets their 15 minutes of fame, and I have a few extended seconds that will be running across Canada today!

As a volunteer for the Canadian Diabetes Association (http://www.diabetes.ca/ ) for the past year or so, I’ve found myself occasionally fielding a few different press requests for interviews. You could almost say that I’m Calgary’s “official diabetic”.

Yesterday, I was interviewed by CBC NewsWorld (our national public broadcaster), for an interview that is supposed to run right across our fair country. My first brush with national exposure, and not to Arctic wind chills!

Of course, I am but a mere footnote to the real story they are covering – the invention of a new patch that will test blood glucose levels, and transmit those readings wirelessly to a meter or computer – a huge breakthrough for anyone familiar with the testing procedures currently accepted as the only accurate measure of those levels. I’ll give you a hint – one of the words is “lance”.

YIKES!!

At any rate, if you’re in Canada, I understand the piece will run during the 4:30 PM (Mountain) broadcast. So, check your own CBC NewsWorld listings, and see if you can catch the husky balding dude sweating under the lights of a national TV camera. Watch as my voice rises in pitch, a telltale sign my nerves have gotten the best of me.

It ain’t no Susan Boyle on the You-Toob, but it could be fun to watch me pretend to know what I’m talking about…

http://www.cbc.ca/programguide/daily/today/cbc_newsworld/

Chow for now!!

In my ongoing efforts to actually have something to say in these morning postings, I have started to make a few notes, which I leave beside the CrapMaster 2000. I now learn that “a few notes” may be a fine idea in theory, but if I leave no other notations to guide me, often I am left scratching my head whilst perusing said notes.

Case in point – the other night, Mrs. That Dan Guy and I watched “The Assassination Of Jesse James”, with Brad Pitt and Younger Brother Affleck. This morning, having eliminated other such similar notes, I found myself left with “Jesse James, Pitt”. And therefore found myself wondering “Say What???”

Did I want to brag that the film was shot here in Alberta, just outside Calgary? Did I plan on making a commentary about how enjoyable it was, even though I believe it tanked at the box office??

Or, did I want to make a cheap and easy joke about how the title has “ass” twice in the first word? With just “Jesse James, Pitt”, I am left to wonder what the heck I had hoped to post about – and thinking on my feet is not one of the stronger points of this here space…

Oh well - I suppose it will come to me, much as something ELSE had better come to me soon – that was my last set of scribbled notes.

In other news, Flames/Hawks series now tied at two games apiece – hope flickers, pessimism is extinguished. Hockey in indeed a parable for life in general…

Chow for now!!

Oh boy…

I have completely dropped the ball on this Facebook thing. I recently went to check the e-mail account that I had originally set up to use for my Facebook site, and discovered that it had been closed down, due to my having not checked it in the last 4 months.

Which means I had lost all the e-mails in that account, and that any sent during that span of time to my Facebook site were being returned to sender.

So, if you have tried to reach me via my Facebook page, I apologize, and vow to try staying a bit more on top of THAT endeavour.

Sheesh – these days you have to have a website, a blog site, a twitter, a tatter, a tweet, a beet – when does a person get to find the time to actually WRITE?? A dude can only do so much, you know!

I think we have to change this blasted technology, and bring it all back under one kinder and gentler roof.

That, or I will abdicate every effort to Charlie and his motley crew…

Chow for now!

The curse has been lifted!!

We watched parts of the Flames/Blackhawks game last night – even going so far as to watch the entire final 10 minutes of the third period – AND THEY WON!!

Well, barely – the Hawks did get one goal in the third frame, plus rang a couple off of the post and the crossbar respectively, so it should have been a tie forcing sudden-death overtime – but who am I to quibble? I watched a game, and the Flames managed to bring home the bacon. Très bien, mes amis – très bien…

/////////////////////////////////////////////////

I think there’s some sort of conspiracy afoot with regards to soda crackers. Have I already talked about this? For years now, I have noticed that many boxes of soda crackers are either full of over-cooked (burnt) crackers, or that when you go to take out a soda cracker by itself, they crumble into pixie dust. Along with every other cracker in the package.

What, do gorillas play basketball with the packages before they are shipped to stores? Or are the pallets of soda crackers kept underneath concrete blocks before they are shipped to supermarkets? Not everyone crushes crackers to use them in soup – some people savour the delights of a freshly-buttered cracker as a snack – or on exotic days, a cracker coated in creamy peanut butter. Those options are difficult to perform if a soda cracker box has been pulverized somewhere between the factory and the grocery cart. Worse yet, pulverized and each cracker burned beyond recognition.

Sure, you may think I’m exaggerating, or even just acting a wee bit on the loopy side, but the next time you go past a box of soda crackers in the grocery store aisle, bring a box home, and check for yourself – I guarantee you’ll either find crushed crackers, or burnt crackers.

It just ain’t right…

Chow for now!!

Nuts – I couldn’t keep my eyes off of it…

Last night, I refused to tune in to the Vancouver/St. Louis game, but during commercial breaks of what we were watching instead, I snuck peeks – I shouldn’t have. The Canucks managed to come back and beat the Blues, giving them a three game to NOTHING lead in that series!!

There’s no way I can afford to doom the Flames, who play tonight, and are down two games to nothing in their own series.

Sometimes I wish I wasn’t Canadian by birth, and therefore SO invested in NHL hockey...

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Hey, lately we’ve noticed that I’ve been recording a lot of music programs from network TV, to cable channels, and most of all – from public television! Go figure…

There’s a few really good series ongoing right now, with music legends and hot newcomers that we can’t keep our eyes off of.

First off, we started to watch “Live From Abbey Road”, a series on a specialty network here. The show is recorded in the legendary studio made famous by the Beatles (and others). The artists have been exceptional, covering a wide spectrum of musical tastes, which happens to be exactly our own preference.

That has been supplemented by “Legends & Lyrics”, a public television offering that pairs several legendary acts with newcomers, and gets into some coverage of the song-writing process. We’ve seen two episodes so far, and are already addicted – they must enhance the broadcasts with latent chocolate and hot dog imagery…

Finally – we can’t get enough of “Spectacle: With Elvis Costello”, who I’ve been a fan of since the 1970’s – when I was still years from being born. That show has been truly terrific since it started, and I sure hope there’s enough of a viewership to keep that one on the air, before Elvis has to start eliminating guests, or forcing artists to dance with pop culture TV show hosts. Lord knows there’s more than enough terrible programming out there – surely to Pete there has to still be a few viewers left that actually favour talent over fabricated drama…

But maybe that’s just our own opinion…

Chow for now!!

I’m afraid that my 2009 NHL Stanley Cup playoff viewing days are over – I continue to be the harbinger of doom to the teams I root for.

Living in Calgary, I am naturally rooting for the Flames. Yet, that support seems to be having the opposite effect. They are now down two games to zero in their series, with prospects not looking particularly favourable after dropping a two-goal lead last night. It will be in their own best interests if I quit watching their on-ice efforts.

Their division rivals, the Vancouver Canucks have leapt to a two game lead in their series, thanks to my rooting for the St. Louis Blues. I may just as well have laid ancient curses on the Blues’ players, the way they are getting stymied to date.

So clearly, if I hope to see the Flames advance past the first four games of the playoffs, I had better leave their efforts to viewers that don’t cast a dark shadow on their fortunes. Hey, that’s why I subscribe to a daily newspaper, isn’t it? I can always see the score the morning after…

On the plus side, if there’s anyone out there that absolutely despises a particular team vying for Lord Stanley’s cup, perhaps you can sway me to root for them. That will very likely ensure that their parachute develops gaping holes, and that they will subsequently tailspin down in an irreversible plummet to the cold hard earth of playoff despair.

For a small fee…

Chow for now!!

Chicken Scratch

What a cluckin’ travesty!!

Un-pluckin’-acceptable!!

BUK-AAAAWK!!!!

Us chickens has been holdin’ this blog space up on our feathery shoulders for a coupla years now, and some chain-smokin’ musical actor is the reason people are findin’ it??? I can barely believe my eyeballs…

BUK-AAAAWK!!!!

Billy Bob Thornton??? I could unnerstand if it wuz Zap Effron from those Dizzy High Skool Muziicals – but Billy Bob Thornton?? He’s almost a poultry hisself – wut’s he got that we don’t got??

BUK-AAAAWK!!!!

Pleeze humans, I beg of you – right this terrribel injustice – make US CHICKENS the stars of this blog space!!

Call your politikel leeders – call your popes and tellyvision talk show hosts – call Oprah for cluck’s sake!! Give a chicken a fightin’ chance!!

This is it, human beans – this is all we got – us chickens need our day in the sun!

BUK-AAAAWK!!!!

Hey, we can play musical instruments – if it’s music ya want, it’s music ye’ll get! Ya ain’t lived till ya heard poultry pucker up and sing!!

BUK-AAAAWK!!!!

Please, help us out here – do your part to make the chickens the stars of this blogging wasteland…

Cluck. For Now…

Billy Bob Thornton Rocks (This Blog...)!!!

I will honestly admit to knowing entirely nothing about how this technology stuff works. Granted, this ignorance has led to some frustrating moments sitting in front of this computer screen. What doesn’t kill you, escalates your blood pressure to astronomical proportions.

However, the other day I decided to go out on a virtual limb, and try installing some tools for this here Blogger site of mine.

While trying to make heads or tails of some of those statistics the other day, I was somewhat surprised to see that one of the biggest hits I’ve been enjoying is from people searching for “Billy Bob Thornton”, who made a bit of a splash up here in Canada a week or so ago.

Thornton was on CBC Radio doing publicity for a show he was going to put on in Toronto (I think), and the host rubbed him the wrong way. Not literally, but he may as well have – Thornton went off, and the resulting audio/video footage went viral on the internet – hence my goofy review of his show here in Calgary in 2007 drawing some attention:

http://thatdanguy.blogspot.com/2007/09/saturday-morning-nobody-asked-me-to-but.html

Too bad things went awry – Thornton is a dead-serious musician with his great sense of humour complementing his song-writing and performance. We had a blast at his show.

So, sorry Charlie and all you other mangy poultry people – it’s still humans that get the most attention in this particular blogging space…

Chow for now!!

Anyone out there watching “Spectacle - with Elvis Costello”? It’s kind of an interesting blend of talk and performance show with some true legends of the music world. So far, Mr. Costello has hosted, chatted, and jammed alongside Elton John and The Police in the two episodes we’ve seen so far. The commercials for upcoming shows appear to promise even better line-ups, although to be honest, I couldn’t tell if Celine Dion or Barry Manilow had been solicited as yet. Pity…

Chow for now!!

I will admit here to being a fan of “Saturday Night Live” for about as long as I can remember – even during a few of those lean seasons a decade or so ago. Mrs. That Dan Guy – not so much, but she bravely troopers through for the odd thing that she does laugh at, or musical guest that piques her musical taste spectrum. To repay her loyalty, I sit through each weekly episode of “Brothers & Sisters” (yeesh…).

Lately, there’s been a recurring character that just kills us, on the Weekend Update fake news segment. She’s “celebrity blogger” Angie Tempura, from “bitchpleeze.com”. I can say that word here because it is just the proper description of a female dog, and not anything naughty at all.

Anyhoo…

Ms. Tempura offers her opinions on various celebrities, and essentially fires misguided blanks each time. There’s not a star twinkling in the Hollywood skies that she can’t find complete disdain for, despite having no star status herself. Which is a pretty witty commentary on this whole blogger thing – an entirely free world of opinionated individuals (and groups) that perhaps may not always carry the credentials to be making the observations that they do – but if it’s written down somewhere, it has to be true!!

Lately I’ve started to visit a few online news feeds, and there’s an entire culture of wing-nuts...ummm…I mean “writers” that lurk out there, gleefully waiting in front of their dim computer screens, to offer their own unique brand of commentary on news stories of the day, news either titillating or mundane. And it would appear that even any glancing knowledge of the subject that they post on is (happily for them) not necessary.

First thing I will say is that, God help any of them if they’re ever forced to compete in a Grade Three spelling bee. Second – just because you have an internet connection, that doesn’t make you the Roger Ebert of the cyber-waves. What kills me about that Angie tempura SNL character is that the actress (whose name escapes me – forgive me, she’s a new cast member) absolutely nails the mentality (and I use THAT term loosely) of this new digital medium.

Hey, clearly just about any old weirdo can start cranking out drivel on this inner-net thing, and expect to be taken seriously. Am I right, or am I right??

Chow for now!!

So long, spring – we barely knew ya!

Reaching out my front door earlier to snag my morning paper, I was surprised to see snow falling once again. I know I shouldn’t be too surprised, as we have been told that it can snow during every month of the year here. But when your entire yard has finally melted down to the bare grass, it seems just a little cruel that Jack Frost can still find more white stuff to drop around the yard.

In related news, my lawn chair, coconut oil and neon orange Speedo are now reluctantly tucked away once again, back into the hall closet…

Hey, New Orleans seems to be getting a lot of attention again. Canadian TV renovation guru Mike Holmes has a new series on HGTV about his work down there with Brad Pittt’s “Make It Right” Foundation. We toured right by the site where those homes are being built when I was there last summer with the newspaper columnists group that I belong to.

We also recorded and sat down to reminisce with the four episodes of “Live With Regis & Kelly” that were filmed there last week – in one episode Regis visited three famous restaurants, two of which were included for us during our own stay. Seeing the sights again made us want to head right back – I just hope that all this renewed attention starts to get some positive activity started in some of those hard-hit areas of this historic and charming city.

Well, technically for us it’s Monday morning, after this long Easter holiday break. Mrs. That Dan Guy is finally starting to lose the buzz of those bourbon-laced Easter eggs, and I need to address four days of stubble. In other words, catch y’all on the flip side!

Chow for now!!

The (Holiday) Monday Morning (We’re Movin’ Kinda Slow Today) “Nobody-Asked-Me-To, But-Here-I-Go-Anyway” Review: Stage West Theatre’s “Boeing Boeing”, starring Peter Scolari.

(Or, Why I Will NEVER Be Asked To Be A Professional Reviewer…)

Last night, Mrs. That Dan Guy and I turned our backs on spending the entire day cooking Easter dinner in our kitchen, and opted to take in the latest Stage West production – “Boeing Boeing”. Assorted hams and turkeys humbly thanked us, and we thanked ourselves for making a prudent decision.

“Boeing Boeing” is a lastingly popular French farce – a broad comedy of a bachelor juggling three different fiancées, his harried housekeeper, and the friend (Scolari) that stops in to help with the juggling chores. You know, it kind of sounds like my own life, pre-Mrs. That Dan Guy…

Of the many shows we’ve already seen at this theatre, this may have been our favourite in the non-musical variety. A tight cast that buoyed the storyline along, plenty of laughs, and the aforementioned Mr. Scolari (to quote from the ads: “from TV’s “Newhart” “Bosom Buddies”, and “Honey I Shrunk The Kids”. SIDEBAR NOTE: The photo I’ve used today is sort of lovingly pirated from Stage West’s website. We are humble folk, Stage West - unlikely to survive a copyright infringement lawsuit. We truly hope that this use today is pleasing, and NOT a reason to immediately call your solicitors...)

Mr. Scolari’s comedy chops added to the already ample proceedings last night. I almost wish it weren’t the last week of this production’s staging, so that you could hastily get into an airplane (a Boeing Boeing perhaps), and ensure that you catch this show. Such is our own sense of comic timing.

The crowd was a little thinner than we’re used to for last night’s performance, but it was a family holiday evening after all. Still, between the lovely dinner and the rewarding performance, we’re sure happy we didn’t stick around the house and slave over a hot oven for 12 hours. I tend to wilt in dry heat…

Hey, prior to attending the show, I had arranged to have an interview with Mr. Scolari afterwards, which he was gracious enough to allow. That interview will turn into a feature in one of my upcoming newspaper columns – assuming my recorder worked. I sort of quit taking notes after a while during our conversation. Jay Leno clearly I am not…

Hmmm. Did that sound like Yoda? Oh well, from our standpoint, and as long as we’re ripping off photos, why not pop culture references?? Two thumbs way up, for “Boeing Boeing”!!

Chow for now!!

Happy Easter, to anyone out there celebrating or observing this day.

Hey, speaking of Easter, I was quite surprised to take just a brief surf of The Google, and find literally pages and pages of recipes for roast rabbit. Wow – who knew? If Peter Cottontail comes hopping down YOUR bunny trail, and you haven’t picked up a ham or turkey for tonight, consider inviting the little feller in…

We’ve enjoyed a relaxing holiday weekend, here in the Such Is Life household. I don’t think we’ve even been outside since Thursday – although I do pop my head out every morning to grab my daily newspaper. The snow (and this year’s glacial ice field along our sidewalk) seems to be pretty much gone now – but seeing as how this is Canada, we can never truly retire our snow shovel for the year until mid-August.

Which reminds me - I really need to remember to pick up a new shovel for Mrs. That Dan Guy before next winter…

Speaking of MTDG, she’s in pretty good “spirits” this morning. When she woke up, she stumbled across some Easter eggs – some Easter eggs that a certain crazy chicken had laced with bourbon!! Right now she’s downstairs, singing show tunes, and chatting with an egg whisk.

The further away I stay, the safer I feel…

Chow for now!!

Chicken Scratch

Yo, humany peeples!!! Ole Charlie’s runnin’ a lil late today, cause he hadda fill some Easter eggs with bourbon – THAT oughta keep things quiet aroun’ here Sunday mornin’!!

Hey, today is the cluckin’ 11th! I betcha ole Banjo Boy must be freakin’ out somewhere here…

BUK-AAAAWK!!!!

So, the other day we hadda bit of a false alarm around what some people refer to as the Such Is Life household. I was feelin’ a bit faint, and decided to have myself a laydown, right in the middla my tracks. Well, nutty Hen Rietta comes along, and thinks I has done gone and left this mortal coil – she drapes a sheet over me, and announces that she now owns my Xbox 360 – which lemme tell ya – jolted me right outta my stupor!!

BUK-AAAAWK!!!!

Although, I kinda freaked out, because she had draped that pluckin’ sheet over me, and I couldn’t see nuttin’ – not even the enda my beak!!

She scattered pretty quickly once I started feelin’ my way around in the dark with a sheet over my head – what a chicken!!

BUK-AAAAWK!!!!

Anyways, not to fear – ole Charlie is as robust as ever, and now I gotta go hide these cluckin’ Easter eggs.

Although, they do smell awful good…

Cluck for now!!

I must be hallucinating – I keep seeing people dressed up as huge Easter rabbits everywhere. That, or I need to cut back a bit on my allergy medication…

Has Passover always fallen on this weekend as well? I really need to get on top of all these special occasions and dates on the calendar – there may be a holiday day off that I can take!!

Hey, our record heat wave is slowly melting the Tuscany Ice Fields, which I was this close to arranging signage for – I thought there may be a revenue stream what with adventure tourism and all. Considering that I was the only home on the block to have glacial fields of ice form on the public sidewalk overnight (which we as homeowners are responsible for), I thought I could make a buck or two, and save the time and money on all the salt I was spreading ever morning to avoid lawsuits for some clown taking a spill. It could happen – there are clowns everywhere you look in the world!

Chow for now – and Happy Easter/Passover, whichever may apply to you and yours!

Holy Torpedo! It’s already the 9th?? Where does the time go??

Wow – April is flying right on by, and I haven’t even started to think about one of the things that is about to confront me once again, once the snow and ice have finally departed for yet another Canadian winter– my passion for sailing.

You see folks, I have long harboured within my bosom the desire to be a sailor – to feel the salty brine of the sea splashing against my leathery cheek, whilst navigating by the light of the heavenly stars. I desire to feel the rise and fall of a worthy sea vessel, and to say ‘arrr” just because I can. I want to hoist my mainsail…

We’ve even taken sailing lessons in the past, Mrs. That Dan Guy and I. The course just called my name, even if it mispronounced it a little bit. Truth be told, I was a natural, like a seal to a ball. I aced the written portion, and once we were out on the water, I knew that I was fulfilling my destiny. Even if I did have to sit in a deck chair, and hang on for dear life. Who knew water could be so blasted volatile?

Nevertheless, our buoyant voyage didn’t diminish my dreams, and still I crave to clamber aboard a vessel of my own one day. With my faithful deckhand at my side. Nothing but open vistas before us.

It is to dream, and then to grasp. I would call my ship "Sea Biscuit".

It is a mariner’s life for me…

Chow for now!!

Sigh….

There’s just not enough time in the day…

I need to clone myself, or at least outsource some of my day to one of those freeloading chicken members of this household. I just can’t seem to find enough time in the day.

First off, there’s breakfast. After arising bright and early every morning (often long before old sleepyhead Mrs. That Dan Guy), I have to make myself a nutritional breakfast. Do you have any idea how hard it is to keep tropical fruit and freshly ground buckwheat fresh for a few days? Let me tell you – it’s hard!

Then, there’s the time I have to take getting ready every morning. Although I have about as much hair left on my head as an old tennis ball that’s seen plenty of work on a paved court, the consistency seems to be closer to steel wool than actual hair. Thus I must primp and tweak incessantly, to achieve what I like to call “the swoop of perfection” – a flawless parting that does not in any way convey a comb-over.

Once I am ready (and only when I am ready), I must drive MTDG to work, often a task not unlike herding cats through Wyoming. My God, she needs to stop for lattes, and other stuff that carves up my day. I need to consider buying a catapult…

Once I FINALLY return home, I barely have enough time to sit and watch the Showcase Showdown, vital for my duties as the primary grocery purchaser here. Although why a comedian like Drew Carey hosts such an informative program is beyond me…

Then, it’s pretty much lunchtime.

There’s just not enough time left in my day…

Chow for now!!

What happy news!

A number of jurisdictions across British Columbia are contemplating by-law changes, which would allow people living in residential neighbourhoods to keep…chickens!! Kelowna for example (where we used to live for over a decade), is considering making changes to allow for up to four birds in a back yard, based on similar changes elsewhere in the province:

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-columbia/story/2009/02/27/bc-chickens.html

Needless to say, I am thrilled at this possibility! Now, not only can we fill the house with rubber chickens – we can fill the yard with real ones! Cock-a-doodle-doo!!

Imagine the fun it would be to have a few of those critters running around our patio furniture. Plus, we could have fresh eggs for breakfast every morning, and I could make a tidy sum in feather pillow sales when they moult every spring. This could be the big break I’ve been looking for!

If I could train them to fetch my morning paper, we could sell that useless old hound dog that just eat my slippers!

I know, it all seems a little bit far-fetched, but so did the possibility of mankind flying at one time – now look at us! Commercial jetliners frequently transport people to exotic destinations like…ummm…Las Vegas!

I say that if we could fill our backyard with chickens, no possible ill effect would come of it.

BRING ON THE CHICKENS!! (Cherchez les poulets!!)

Cluck (uh, I mean Chow) for now!!

I will admit – I do worry sometimes that perhaps I come off as a big of a wing-nut. I mean, let’s be serious here – among the other daily drivel, I write about coincidentally recurring numbers from a house filled with plush and/or rubber chickens – there has to be at least one reader out there that hides the computer screen when they surf over to this page on any given day…

However, like those recurring or consecutive numbers, the power of coincidence is strong here in the Such Is Life household. Just this past weekend, Mrs. That Dan Guy and I were watching Saturday Night Live when I received a text message from one of my sisters – the one who is almost at the end of an extended trip to Africa. If you’re familiar with SNL, you’ll know of the famous Weekend Update segment, a weekly skit lampooning the news with a fake anchor sitting at a fake news anchor desk. It's not real.

Well, while I was exchanging e-mails back and forth with my sister, fake anchor Seth Myers sat in front of the big map of the world that resides behind the fake anchor desk – but this time around, virtually every shot was directly in front of…AFRICA!! How are these things even possible, I ask you??

And – I kid you not – at some point during our exchanges one of her text messages arrived at exactly 10:11:11 – that blasted 11:11 again!!

So, clearly I must learn to capitalize on this recurring, coincidental, power of suggestion thing. A higher power is clearly trying to get through to me.

So, for the rest of this morning, I am going to lie on our reclining sofa, and visualize myself holding a pair of Paul McCartney tickets.

Or maybe I should start with something much grander – I will visualize myself working at a Windows PC that actually works properly…

Chow for now!

Man, did I ever drop the ball recently, with a decision to lure Mrs. That Dan Guy back to the flashing lights and incessant neon glow of Las Vegas. While I had good intentions at heart (seeing a couple of incredible shows, helping out the North American economy in general, and allowing MTDG to buy more shoes), I made a couple of critical error in planning, with respect to my pressing goal of seeing at least one surviving Beatle live in concert…

The first chance was to see Paul McCartney at the upcoming Coachella Music Festival in California. There were other stars of appeal as well there, so it seemed like a terrific idea. However, for one reason or another (too many other excellent choices to consider between), we opted to pass on the chance to see him there.

On the way to the airport from Las Vegas during our most recent trip, I spotted a sign advertising Paul McCartney tickets. Curses! A quick check online when we got back home indicated that he was opening a new venue for the Hard Rock Café LV, called “The Joint”. This would have been a chance to see him in a smaller venue, AND allow all of the above benefits that I had mentioned in parentheses earlier. Because I had forced the most recent trip upon us (which otherwise bore us absolutely no regrets), there was just no way we could return immediately for yet another visit.

Then this morning, I read of the benefit concert Sir Paul just performed in New York City. ALONG WITH RINGO STARR!! Two Beatles, one show – my life would have been complete in one brief encounter!!

Egads…

Wattaya gonna do? Just feggedaboudit, I guess…

Chow for now…

Chicken Scratch

BUK-AAAWK!!!! BUK BUK BUK BUK!!!

C-C-C-C-CLUCK!!

BUK-AAAAWK!!!!

Howdy humans!! A little hard to hear here this mornin’. Ole Charlie has gathered part of the group for a picture, to show what an IHOP looks like in Canada.

An Innernational House O’ Poultry!!

BUK-AAAAWK!!!!

The chickens outnumber humans here by a substantial margin. Pretty soon, WE’LL be callin’ the shots! No more bulk sunflower seeds and leftover grain droppins – we’ll be eatin’ steak and potatoes!!

Mebbe ole Col Sanders SHOULD stop by…heh heh heh….

BUK-AAAAWK!!!!

Gross Man! Who cut the cheese??? Cornelius???

Cripes, ya can’t even get a break durin’ a historic photographical moment around here…

Lemme tell ya, this ain’t even the half of what us poultry constitute around here. There’s more chickens here than Carter has pills, which is a human reference older than the hills. I ain’t talkin’ about Dr. Carter from ER, neither…

I hafta admit, we got it pretty good, much as I complain. Most of our relatives live in trailers, or barns, so havin’ a soft setta sheets to put our crowns down on at night is pretty decent of the folks here.

Once we take over the house, we’ll hafta remember how kind they were to us inna past…

BUK-AAAAWK!!!!

Cluck for now!!

Considering that four days have now passed since the alleged April Fools Day launch, I think it’s pretty safe to suggest that I have avoided getting that Conficker virus on this “Zista” computer of mine. Which is nothing short of astounding, considering what a piece of crap “Zista” has been, in my own humble experience…

Every time I think that I’ve gotten over the crest of a hill with the Microsloppy “Zista” operating system, I start yet another day where the computer doesn’t recognize “Zista-approved” software, hardware, and pictures on the wall of my office. Today, it is the printer that needs to reload every time I start the computer. Which reloads old software, which forces me to go online to download driver updates, which makes me want to just toss this piece of electronic penguin sludge under a moving fan, and give directions to the driver of THAT vehicle…

(Hmmm. I see I made a typo back there. Which would have been funnier - a moving VAN, or a moving FAN? I must ask for your opinions on that...)

Ah, but I am showing my unhappiness – I apologize. I did have a chance to make the switch over to a Mac, and chose to defer that a bit longer. Who cares if that decision turns my brain into boiled cabbage soup just a little bit faster??

The funny thing about that Conficker virus is that it only targeted Windows OS computers – 9 out of every 10 computers worldwide. In my case, it likely would have done me a favour, and may have even had the opposite effect of crippling my system. It may have finally sorted out whatever failures this “Zista” OS has had since Day One, even with innumerable updates and patches. I’m convinced that the only thing that will ever make this system work properly is when it becomes a boat anchor, and even then I’m not so sure that “Zista” will be able to perform anywhere near correctly, let alone find a body of water if a boat is floating in it. This, my friends, is a dead horse I continue to beat, a dead horse of my own commission. Or volition, whichever word makes more sense back there...

Curse you, live entertainment in Las Vegas, for clouding my judgment, and depriving me of the chance to see a world of computerized efficiency. I am my own worst enemy…

Chow for now!!

What can I say?

(No, seriously, what can I say? I REALLY need to start making a list of blog topics for days like today…)

Well, I suppose that I could always talk about the letdown of April Fools Day passing, even though we really didn’t pull any big pranks off yesterday. I had two print deadlines, plus an interview I was trying to fit in, so the hope of pulling the sheep over Mrs. That Dan Guy’s eyes with something funny just never came together.

Although, I have put a costume on one of her stuffed teddy bears that says “Iron Man”, which she hasn’t noticed yet. I thought that was kind-of funny.

Aside from that, we had a relatively quiet April Fools Day, here in the Such Is Life household. I’ll have to start planning for next year, to really spring something momentous. Although truth be told, it could almost always be April Fools Day here…

Beyond that, I am currently contemplating ways that I can market my latest “A-HA” idea.

Here’s the deal – I love eating buttered soda crackers, but it’s SUCH a time consuming process, having to butter each one out of the package. Not everyone puts them into soup, so I am proposing to the soda cracker manufacturers that they come out with a line of pre-buttered crackers. Of course, the problems arise, like: “how do you keep the butter fresh while the product stays on the shelf for a couple of years?” I believe I have conquered this concern – cryogenics. Just like the process that freezes famous dead people, each box of pre-buttered soda crackers would come in a portable cryogenic chamber, that could be recycled after each box is consumed.

Sometimes, the solution is as simple as being right under your nose…

Chow for now!!

Well, if this post loads today, I suppose I’ll have gotten past April Fool’s Day, AND the computer virus that’s supposed to be going around today. We shall see…

Hey, speaking of April Fool’s Day, we got hit by that one day early yesterday, courtesy of the ABC network. We watched their “new” TV show, “Cupid”. Why, this show was so new, it didn’t at all resemble almost exactly the original version cancelled a few years ago, starring the talented and engaging Jeremy Piven (the award-winning actor from “Entourage”). I mean, EXACTLY like the prior version, plot lines and all – just with a different cast...

We should know – we LOVED that original version – Piven played a hilarious character who thought he was Cupid, having to pair up so many mortals on Earth before being allowed back home. He was also able to make the character believable in his quest. This version has younger actors, and I think may be set in a different city, but as the episode progressed, we kept tweaking on all the familiar quirks of the Piven show. We’ll see if it lasts as long as that one before it gets cancelled, but either it was an early April Fool’s prank, or the broadcasters really think viewers are just that dim…

Adding to my April Fool’s Day torment this morning, and aided in no small part by the abysmal performance of the game we attended the other night, our Calgary Flames have fallen from first place in their division. To…the Vancouver Canucks???

Ugh!!

Chow for now!!