Messages from abroad, not massages from a broad

So before this becomes irrelevant, I wanted to note that I made it out to the National Mall again on Tuesday.  I really wanted to be part of the crowd to watch and witness Obama making history.  It was a really surreal and wonderful experience.  It was such a huge crowd.  Picture fireworks night on English Bay, times 10.  No drunks, but a lot of very happy cold people.  I took a bunch of pictures, and if I haven’t shown them to you yet, you can check them out from my picasa album.

Also, here’s a video of the nation’s favourite President and the warm reception that he received:

The crowd was also singing the Na-na-nah Heyy Goodbye song.  Funny stuff.  As I alluded to, it was another cold friggin day.  It wasn’t so bad until the sun hid behind the Washington Monument for about 40 minutes.  That’s when my ass nearly froze off.  It was supposed to be about -4, but with the wind, it was more like -12.  When the moment was over, we thought about heading to Pennsylvania Avenue to check out the parade, but considering it took us over an hour to break away from the crowd, we didn’t bother.  We got some food, got some hot chocolate from Starbucks, and headed home.

I was most impressed by the way Metro was able to handle the volume of people. I believe they estimated that ridership was close to 1.4 million people that day. It wasn’t that bad at all.  Rush hour on a regular work day can be much worse or even coming out of a sporting event from the Verizon Center can be way crazier.

Anyhoo, I’ve got some more topics to cover, but I’ll wait a few more days.  I promise that it won’t be 6 months again.  Peace!

Today is MLK Day, the eve of Barack’s inauguration to be the 44th President of the United States.  It’s been fun to work and live in this part of the world as it’s been a unique situation.  Did you know that Barack has a lookalike?  This guy could make a tonne of money.  It’s been ass cold here (it’s snowing as I’m typing) and there are a tonne of extra people in town.  1.2 million people is the record to beat for inauguration day, and we should be able to shatter that tomorrow.  Yesterday I stood for 9 hours to be part of the We Are One concert outside of the Lincoln Memorial.  I virtually got as close as I a civilian could get on the mall.

My vantage point early on.

They barricaded access to the memorial and unless you had a special ticket to watch on the elevated platform, you couldn’t get within 120-150 feet from the show.  We got to watch on giant screens amongst hundreds of thousands of people though.  It was a fun event and most people were very pleasant.  People started climbing trees and taking pictures with other people’s cameras.

Not a protesting tree-hugger

There were, however, some disrespectful people, kids swearing and being little fuckers.  Where we were standing, it was really crowded and there were tonnes of idiots trying to get a spot near us.  There were LOTS of people wearing fur coats.  PETA would have had a field day yesterday.  Two such people were right behind us.  There was a family of 4 that had laid out a couple of blankets and they were taking up a lot of space, just so they could literally lie on the floor and nap while waiting for the concert to start.  Here’s a picture of the two adults:

Remind anyone of Coming to America?

These two fur coat wearing bitches were nasty, selfish, unpleasant people and I was glad as shit when someone decided to walk right over them and onto them.  The culprit (hero) decided she needed to get through them.  It was hilarious to see a huge dirty footprint on the black fur coat.  Man, the woman wearing the black coat was pissed.  And the offender was giving them shit for wearing fur coats too!  Haha!  I wanted to clap in applause and I wasn’t the only one thinking this too.  The other people around me thought the same thing.  To further describe how brutal this family was, when the concert was about to start, they stood up, packed up, and left the spot.  They pushed their way past us to get closer.  The audacity!  Everyone started looking at each other to ask if they were for real.

I was a little choked about the organizers and security because they had issued a list of items that were prohibited at the show; things that would have made life easier while waiting in the cold.  I complied and did not bring anything that was not allowed, but apparently I was an idiot cause everyone was allowed into the venue with all sorts of these prohibited items.  And I know they weren’t sneaking them in either because they were items like: tripods, thermos’, backpacks.  WTF??!  You weren’t allowed strollers, but I’m sure there were some that got through.  Chairs weren’t on the list, but why let a chair in and not a stroller?  Then again, I didn’t see too many young children/babies there.  But anyway, I would have brought a tripod, and a backpack, and a thermos if I knew they weren’t really enforcing their bullshit list.

Anywya, for those who didn’t hear about this free show, there were a lot of big names that showed up: U2, Beyonce, Tom Hanks, Tiger Woods, etc… Even George Lucas was in the crowd.  If anybody has seen footage of the show, did anyone notice the little girl sleeping being Barack?  When someone was performing a song, they would cut cameras to Barack every once in a while, and directly behind him, was a little girl in fuschia colored jacket, snoring away.  The crowd got a kick out of that.  I think Usher, Shakira, and Stevie Wonder was my favourite collaboration.  Overall, it’s cool to think that I was able to see all of those great performers, as well as the soon-to-be President of the United States.  It’s probably as close as I will ever get to seeing one.  That’s good enough for me!

Hours before show started

So I had originally started this posting about two months ago.  I never really finished it and at this point, I’m not going to bother.  Time to move on to more current events.  Anyway, I’m going to publish it for you to read.  More to come as there’s been a lot going on these days.

I kept putting this off, day after day, week after week, and suddenly it was four months later.  I think that I’ve kept in touch with everyone over this period of time anyway, so I don’t feel too bad about slacking off.  And not that the world has stopped moving in the process.  America finally smartened up and elected Barack Obama a few weeks ago.  Two years ago, I thought that it would be mighty interesting to be in town if it came true.  Well, we’re less than two months away from the inauguration now and word is that there might be 4 million people descending on Washington, D.C. to witness the historic day.  My understanding is that every hotel is booked around January 20th and people are starting to rent out their homes for big coin.  I am more than likely going to check it out myself and I’ve put my name into a draw with my local Congressman for a ticket to see it up close and personal.  Worse comes to worse, people are allowed to watch it on big screen at the National Mall.  All I know it’s gonna be nutbar crazy that day.  Long lines and jam packed public transit.

I just came back from Toronto for the US Thanksgiving long weekend.  I was lucky enough to go to a Leafs game cause good ol’ Henry scored some tickets from work.  Thanks again Henry!  All the rumours are true.  All the people that show up to Leafs games are stuffy corporate adult bores.  The arena is very similar to GM Place, but they have plenty more luxury suites.  There aren’t many families there either.  Families cannot get tickets or they cannot afford them.  It’s a damn shame.  Anyway, they won.  Big whoop!  Losers!

I was watching Survivor a couple of weeks ago, and someone accidentally knocked over some uncooked rice and it landed on the ground.  And these nimrods felt that it had gone to waste cause it touched the dirt.  These people are retarded.  I don’t know if it’s an Asian thing, but they could have just washed it or give it a nice rinse when they were ready to cook it.  What a bunch of idiots.