pony · tales

- Adorable family of four in front of us. The eight year old son kept on wanting to nap through the whole concert, but when Guitar Hero and Rock Band songs were played, he woke up to rock out.
- Heart covered the Who's "Love, Reign o'er Me" and when Ann Wilson started to sing the lyrics "Only love, can make it rain", it began to pour rain and then when the song finished, the rain stopped. It was unreal, like it was planned or fake rain for the song.
- Hardcore Journey fans beside me. 60 year old party lady slow danced with her husband to "Faithfully" and minutes later she danced with a group of 20 year old guys. I couldn't keep my eyes off this woman. First she was high-fiving and rocking out with the 20 year old guys, then swaying with them to Journey's slower songs and then grinding with her husband and then almost giving a lap dance to one of the younger guys.

Man, I love witnessing stuff like that. I need to go to more classic rock shows!

Oh, here's my favourite Journey music video. This might be my favourite music video from the 80's, minus "You Dropped a Bomb on Me" by The Gap Band.

Years before the Internet (so a friggin' long time ago!!), I saw a news segment on a Buffalo news station about a toy museum in the Western New York area. I wanted so badly to go there, but of course, it was years before I had my license and couldn't convince my parents to take me. Over ten years later, I suddenly had a flash back of watching this news segment, so I went to the net and researched this toy museum to see if it still exists. I found their website and found it was less than an hour away from my house!

Erin and I went to the Toy Town Museum, expecting that it would probably be super lame, but were surprised to find it was AMAZING!!! (My pictures found here) This museum is located in East Aurora, NY, which is also the birth place of Fisher-Price in the 1930's. The majority of their collection consists of vintage Fisher-Price toys, which is cool, but there's also many other toys and the robots and puppets from the Buffalo station, WKBW Channel 7 shows Rocketship 7 AND Commander Tom. My memories of these shows are super hazy even though I watched them every weekend until '91. I know they introduced me to Davey and Goliath, which I still watch to this day. I've been researching Rocketship 7, Commander Tom and the city of Buffalo in general and I can barely pull myself away from the research to write this entry!! 

Buffalo is a unique city because unlike many big cities, it's buildings have remained untouched after it's economic decline, rather than torn down. From 1900 to 1960, the city was economically booming, but after 1960, it basically went in a recession it's never been able to raise itself out of. So all the buildings built in the prosperous time still remain and have barely been touched since the 60's. Over the past year, I've explored many areas of Buffalo and felt as though I was in a time warp. It's really awesome!!

So, I've made it my new hobby to visit more of these areas in Buffalo and I found this website, Forgotten Buffalo, which has also become a great resource for this research. I plan to attend all of their Forgotten Buffalo Tours. I'm so excited!!

Man, I know this entry sounds so scattered, but it's just been such a chain reaction. Basically, everyone I know thinks Western New York is "sooo far away" because it's in a different country, but really, it's so close and even though the city looks as though it's falling apart, it holds so much history. I can't help but be completely fascinated by it all.

Don't get me wrong, I still love Welland, it's my home...but what's great about living in this area is that you're a short drive to places like Buffalo, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, etc. I've made it my goal to take advantage of this as much as possible until I decide to move somewhere else.

I'm sick right now. I haven't been sick in a while, so I'm trying to appreciate this. Like there's a million things I wanna go out and do right now, but I can't since I'm sick. I know when I'm better, they will be so much more enjoyable because I've been cooped up in my house the past few days.

It's not such a bad thing because I've been watching many episodes of Mystery Science Theater 3000. The best episode is by far Horrors of Spider Island. This movie would be hilarious even without the MST3K commentary, but with it, makes it 10x more hilarious. This one might become another bad movie obsession of mine.



I've been thinking of places I'd like to either live or at least visit in the next few years and I've decided that Austin, Texas tops the list. Here is a list of some of the reasons Austin appeals so much to me:

- it has the unofficial slogan "Keep Austin Weird"
- warm climate
- is a liberal city among a conservative state
- considered the "Live Music Capital of the World"
- is the home of a number of awesome festivals
- the Alamo Drafthouse (which shows lots of cult movies)
- is the city that first embraced Daniel Johnston!
- has many cool ratings like #2 Best Big City in places to live (Money Magazine), Greenest City in America (MSN), #2 city with best people (referring to personality and attributes, by CNN)

So yes, my next vacation will be to Austin.

I know it sounds crazy, but the closing of my neighbourhood gas station, Rebel has made me quite sad. This place is older than I am and what I consider an essential part of Welland. Man, I have childhood memories of getting gas here in our Skylark and LeSabre. I hate seeing my hometown change and local businesses go under. This is seriously a sad day.

Man, I watch too much TV and I haaate when the Home Made Simple Squad comes on. If you don't know what I'm talking about, go to this website an watch their commercials. However, what I DO like about the Home Made Simple Squad is Kim Woodburn's braids on the top of her head. How does she do that hair? I hope she makes a Hair Braid Simple Squad and let's me be a part of it.

Boy, I'm glad I didn't! Shaun and Leslie got me 2000 Wii points for Christmas. I bought a special Wii old school controller and had to wait for my Wii to acknowledge my wireless Internet (took over a month), but finally I got the Wii and wirelessness working and downloaded some of my favourite old Nintendo games.

First I downloaded Adventure Island, Bubble Bobble and Mario Kart 64 (definitely my favourite of all the Mario Karts, even more so than Double Dash). I was so pumped about having these new games, I decided to buy 2000 more Wii points. Now I have Metriod, Kid Icarus, Yoshi (the original puzzle game) and Super Mario 3 (so I can re-enact Video Armageddon in the Wizard).

I'm so hooked on these old games. They give me such a rush of nostalgia and just a rush in general. I've realized why I went through months without touching my Wii (haha, that sounds funny). I like kickin' it OLD SKOOL!

Games like Bubble Bobble, Metriod and Kid Icarus are ones I never owned as a kid, however I borrowed them from my Lucas Barton neighbour of the street, Andy Skin. I always wanted them, so now I feel like I'm building my childhood dream collection of Nintendo games I never had.

What's also awesome, is that when you play games like Mario 3 and decide to take a break, you can turn off the system and pick up back where you started. You could never do that on the original Nintendo. Sometimes I would play a game in the morning before I went to school, press pause and continue where I left off when I got home from school. Now that I don't have to do that, I think there's an actual chance I can finally beat Mario 3 - start to finish - without warping! BEAT THAT JIMMY WOODS!

Games the Wii Channel needs to release: Adventure Island 2 and DUCKTALES.

A trip to Target this weekend totally got me in the Easter mood. Look what I picked up:

Plush peeps for my Easter basket. Too cute!!

I also bought a couple egg decorating kits. Hello Kitty and this Star Wars one:

The Star Wars one looks too funny, so maybe I'll take pictures of my results after I make them this weekend. Speaking of this weekend, Erin and Nuno are hosting an Easter brunch and I decided I want to make the best carrot muffins ever!! However, I don't have a recipe. If anyone knows of a real great carrot muffin recipe, can you forward it to me? Or maybe I'll just make one up? haha.