New Year's Eve '05 = Hockey Day

Canada lost to Russia in the Spengler Cup. Boo.
BUT
Canada beat USA in the World Junior's. Hooray!

Vancouver Canucks lost to the Minnesota Wild. Boo.
BUT
Calgary Flames and Edmonton Oilers play, and they have such a fierce rivalry it's going to be an entertaining game.

It's a great-ish day to be Canadian!

Happy New Year's Everybody!

Vancouver Island is the place to be tonight. But I'll be hanging out with Miss K and all her friends. Movies and Scattergories, here I come!

I guess I took a week off

I haven't blogged for a while, because I haven't made the time to blog. I've checked other blogs though, and left the odd comment, but I just can't find the energy or creativity to blog about anything.

Christmas Day was uneventful. We had an impromptu party at our house on Christmas Eve. That was fun.

New Year's is still coming together slowly. Looks like we're Island bound!

Miss K doesn't ever call me back. I think I've been given the brush off. Time for me to move on.

I'm going to 2 more World Junior Games the next few weeks (I've been to one already). Go Canada. But now I need somebody to go with because Miss K isn't likely to get back to me about coming to them. Girls can be sooo frustrating.

I wish I were an Oscar Meyer weiner...

Jesus is the reason for the season.

Christmas is coming and I'M NOT READY!

I need more time! I've got too much to do! I barely have the time to post this!

But I am looking forward to "Winter Fun Day 2005" on Dec 22nd. Which will coincide with the "Mike H and TGP Gift Exchange 2005". The exchange has slowly become a tradition. We just made the fun day thing up because we always have fun when we hang out.

I hope Melvin can make it.

Saturday Night Checklist

Granville Island Brewing Lions Winter Ale is like, the best tasting beer I've ever had. But they only bring it out every Winter, so it's a seasonal treat.

Canucks lost a game they should have won.

I really don't want to work tomorrow... but I have an Ironman streak going right now. Only 2 sick days in over a year; before that it was none for 2 years. Compared to everyone else I work with, I'm Mr. Dependability.

Christmas is officially stressing me out. I still have gifts to buy, but I don't know what to get. I still have letters to write, but I can't seem to find the time to write them.

I'm too responsible for my own good.

"When you do things right, people won't notice you've done anything at all" - God to Bender, Futurama
...story of my freaking life.

Was it a date? I don't know...

I've completely forgotten about all the bad news this week, because it's finishing strong.

The Canucks won twice on the road against some really good teams. New York, #1 in their division, and Philadelphia.
Joe's Cheese, I'm not questioning Auld anymore after a standup preformance against Philadelphia. He faced 20 shots in the 3rd Period and only gave up 1 goal? That's amazing. I'm willing to let his Colorado games just be a bad memory, and not a skill indicator.

As well as the Canucks winning, I got to go see 'King Kong' with Miss K! It was awesome! The whole evening was awesome.
The movie itself was very good. It's no 'Narnia', but I still enjoyed myself. I kept laughing through the jungle parts, because it was all so ridiculous. Just when you think it's pretty cool, Jackson hits you with something else that's freakin' wicked. (I don't want to reveal too much.) I'd recommend everyone go see 'Kong', if you don't mind sitting for 3 hours.

We had a guy sitting behind us that was the highlight of the movie though. He was alone, and had obviously just gotten off work to come see this movie. He was wearing a nice traffic vest, some coveralls, and work boots. All through the movie he was saying funny random things, loudly, and I think he expected us to answer him? We didn't, we just laughed. Some of his quotes throughout the movie, there were more, these were my favourites:

"Is that Spencer Tracey?" I just looked this guy up. He died in 1967.
"Uh oh, here comes the T-Rex"
"It's not her!"
"...(singing) bluebird, (after realizing he sang the wrong lyric)... oh it's blackbird!"

It was very hard not to laugh at all this. Miss K and I both agreed that I had to blog about this guy. He was hilarious.

Then we enjoyed a quick dinner at White Spot, (you remember the place TGP likes to steal mints from?) and headed to the place where all the cool kids hang out. Joey's House.

These 4 guys were fun, I mean, they're the cool kids so obviously they'd be fun. They were all Miss K's friends and they all seemed to like me. But I mean, who doesn't like me? You've got to have a grudge against nice people if you don't like me. Nearly everybody likes me. And if they don't, oh well. I like me.
Right, back to the story. I liked "hanging" with these guys, because they're so funny. I don't really have a group of guys like this that hang out, play video games and fooseball, and drink beer. They're all really good friends and it's obvious.

I also would like to re-iterate here that I still really like Miss K. She told me she was nervous that things would be awkward, and was happy that they weren't. Hopefully things keep going well. But she reads this (Hi Miss K!), so I don't think I'll be revealing too many details. She knows I like her though, so it's all good I continually remind you of that.

You know, in case you forgot.

Frustrated, incorporated.

"The whole f***ing world's against us dude, I swear to God." - Jay, Dogma


Worst News Week, EVER!

I found this article while on a break at work. It's quite possibly the worst thing I have read this week.

I mean, replacing Christopher Robin? What the H?

This is right up there with redoing the Looney Tunes into some X-treme crime fighting superhero team. Which they've done, by the way.

Why can't people just leave well enough alone? Winnie the Pooh is doing just fine, as far as I can tell. I just watched the movie (again) tonight, and it would totally suck if they phased out Christopher Robin.

Not that I'm against the fact that they're introducing a new character. That doesn't matter so much as the fact that they're virtually eliminating the sole reason for Pooh's existence. It's all for the boy. Doesn't anybody realize that?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

One more thing. The Vancouver Canucks have now lost their #1 goalie, Dan Cloutier, to knee surgery that will have him out for the entire season.
You know that Canucks Stanley Cup prediction Phats? I just downgraded it from a real possibility of them going all the way, to just barely making the playoffs. I guess we'll have to see how backup Alex Auld is going to fare during the next 6 home games. Then we'll see if they have a shot.

Anybody else have more bad news they want to tell me? It's only midweek, so you still have a few more days to break it to me.

It's okay, I can take it.

Take Off, to the Great White North!

As I sat at lunch today I realized that I was eating A&W poutine for the 4th time in a week. (It's delicious!) My coworkers must have noticed too, because they all started talking about how I eat it a lot and still maintain a svelte figure. What's wrong with that? I wrapped up their judgmental conversation by saying "I want poutine for Christmas" in a little kid voice. I can be so silly sometimes.

This got me thinking. I'm so typically Canadian, and here's why.

I eat poutine. At least once a week, if not 4 times a week.

I wear a toque... not a beanie or a skullcap. A toque. On my toque is the logo of my favourite hockey team, the Vancouver Canucks.

I like hockey, and not just my favourite hockey team. I like all of hockey. I'm very excited to see who they pick for the Canadian Olympic Team now that Steve Yzerman AND Mario Lemieux have taken themselves out of consideration. Crosby? Spezza? Staal? Who's it gonna be? These are the conversations I have with other Canadian hockey fans.

I like drinking beer when I watch hockey. I like drinking beer when I don't watch hockey. Canadian beer is much better than American beer. I know this as a fact, because when we were in Disneyland we tried 3 different kinds of beer. They simply don't stack up to a simple bottle of Sleeman's Original Draught.

I use the word "eh" frequently and subconsciously at the end of sentences, usually questions. And if someone else says "eh" I barely even notice. Unless they're making fun of me. Then I drop the gloves and pull their shirt over their heads.

I enjoy snow, and the cold. I don't enjoy BEING cold, but I do enjoy the process of warming up with a girl when I AM cold. Cuddling is the greatest pastime in the world. And if you make fun of me I'll drop the gloves, you see that I don't! Hosers.

I apologize when I've bumped into someone in a crowd. Not profusely, but it's definitely a quick apology as if to say "I'm sorry I couldn't get out of your way more quickly, I didn't mean for us to bump into each other"

I know all the words to over a dozen Tragically Hip songs. Every true Canadian citizen can sing along to at least one or two.

My Dad's name is Gordon. Seriously.

I find the beaver to be a proud and noble animal.

OK, so that last one isn't entirely true. It's partly true, but not entirely. I just get a kick out of saying it sometimes because it was in a beer commercial once. A CANADIAN beer commercial.

PS - I am tall. Here's picture proof. And TGP likes to steal mints from White Spot. Here's picture proof.

Optimus Mike is back, baby! And better than ever!

Alright, I'm back.

Today was an extremely productive day for me.

1- I finished editing and formatting the family Christmas letter for my Mom. Now all she has to do is mail it off to everybody.

2- I helped out at the After School Program at the Church my Mom goes to. It was interesting. I was basically there for crowd control. But since there were only 7 kids. I thought, How badly can I be needed for crowd control with only 7 kids? It turns out a lot. There's this one boy who purposely tries to push every limit put in place. He hits, he's insolent, he's cheeky, and he doesn't listen when anyone tells him not to do those things. At first I thought he was autistic. I had the opportunity to sit in the dreaded "Time Out" with him and we came to an agreement. "Time Out" is really boring, so anytime he gets close to getting there, I was going to tell him to 'be cool' and he'd try and stop. Of course, this worked for about 30mins, and then it was back to the insolence. At least he stopped hitting the other kids. My Mom was just really impressed that I had most of the kids listening to me. Normally they don't listen to anyone, and I had them lining up single file barking orders at them like I was a drill sargeant. I wasn't going to take any guff!
We got to play in this wicked cool maze for part of the afternoon. It took up a whole room and was made of wood about 4 feet high. It was covered on top with tarplike black material, and inside were Christmas lights so the kids could see. Honestly, I think it was the coolest homemade maze I ever experienced for free. (But I had to crouch the whole time, and now my quads are a little sore.)

3- I watched the new Chronicles of Narnia movie. It's rad. I loved it. I'm probably going to have to see it again. Centaurs are probably, like, the coolest thing ever! And so are animal battle scenes. At least now I know which animals are evil and which animals are good. This movie is Lord of the Rings Jr. I hope they make sequels.

4- We had a bunch of work people over to watch the Vancouver Canucks vs Ottawa Senators game. It was an intense game. I loved every minute of it. We won in the first round of Sudden Death Shootout. Canucks rule.

Based on all these things, and what happened yesterday (oooo mysterious!), I can unequivocally say that I feel like the cool, well-rounded, self-assured Mike H of the good times again. Top shelf Mike H is back to play again.

Watch out Blogosphere. You ain't seen nothing yet!

I'm only 6'2". That's not tall is it?

I had a fabulous time last night with Cran, as she refers to herself. It was an excellent day too, so let me start at the beginning.

Yesterday morning was as boring as any other. I woke up, blogged a bit, checked out the X3 teaser trailer for the 5th time and had some lunch.

Then, when my sister's boyfriend came home we got to doing some errands. We hadn't been to the bottle depot since the summer, so we had accumulated quite a collection of beer and pop cans and bottles. After all was said and done and the money collected, we were up $22.03. That's a lot of beer people. I know there are probably those out there with a better story, with a higher amount returned. But for me this was a lot.

After the bottle depot, we went to my Mom's house to pick up an old coffee table she'd like us to take off her hands. This meant, she didn't want it anymore, get it out of her house and burn it. Well, a coffee table doesn't fit into a fireplace all that easily, so we had to smash it. Oh and smash it we did. You know how I said that playing X-men Legends was good for getting out aggression? Smashing up a coffee table is even better. I'm totally aggression free. Seriously. The Cheat is beginning to worry I don't love him as much anymore.

A quick dinner in my tummy and I was off to Vancouver to meet Cran for the game. Now, getting out of Maple Ridge at 5:30pm proved to be more difficult than one might expect. There is only one bridge out of the place, and at 4pm they put counterflow in so only one lane can be used to leave. It took me 30mins to leave Maple Ridge, and 20mins to get to Vancouver. The traffic didn't bother me much because I was going karaoke style on my tunes in the car. But I would have liked to have spent more time before the game chatting with Cranberry. She's way cool.

In between the first and second period, they have little kids come out and play a little hockey game for the fans. I can honestly agree with Cran when she says that these kids got more cheers than the big kids. They were too cute for words, so here's a pic.

They all were just barely able to skate, and everything was very much in slow motion. The best part was when the one team scored, and when the little kid was celebrating his goal he fell over. Oh so cute!

Of course, when I drove Cranberry home I also got to see the Rainbow Palace. It truly lives up to its name. That's right, I know the secret location of the RAINBOW Palace! Taking back the 'bow!

Now, I've got a backlog of letters to write.

Cher - Apparently you didn't read my last post about my hellish week. And the fact that I'm sick. I find I sound too whiny when I write letters while in a poopy mood, so that's why your mailbox is lonely. But don't worry, I'm writing a Christmas letter this year, so you shan't be disappointed.

Mike H Update

Wow, I've been told I need to update. I didn't know you needed to see new things so frequently Cranberry!

After looking at the last few posts I realize that I haven't really been tracking the new business in my life. It's all just been fun stuff to look at.

I just finished one of the most hellish work weeks since the last time I did overtime. My regular Team Leader, Mstile, was away in Cancun on an all expenses paid trip. I guess there's no one else who can fill in for him but me (I asked), so I had to be TL for 8 days. Yuck. I even told my Supervisors that I didn't like it, but they still made me do it anyways. At least my December cheque will be bigger than it normally is.
I worked so hard over the last few weeks that my health began to suffer a little bit. I'm a bit under the weather. Not debilitating-lie-in-bed-all-day-wishing-I-was-dead sick. More like, sore-throat-sound-sexy-on-the-phone-don't-kiss-anyone-I-overworked-myself sick. There's a big difference.

My sister's boyfriend and I have discovered a new obsession, and a new way in which to "hang out". X-men Legends 2, the video game. Now, I'm not a gamer nor have I ever been a gamer. It was a major ruination point for my last relationship so I usually steer clear of playing them too much. But this game is really fun for me.
It may be my nerdlike knowledge of the X-men characters and storylines. It may be that I've needed an outlet for my pent up aggression that kicking The Cheat just wasn't providing. But I love playing this game, being Wolverine, and beating on the bad guys. It's totally unlike me to be so into a video game. That's why it's newsworthy.

Cranberry invited me to a WHL game tonight. I'm stoked. The Canucks don't play until Friday and that's a very long time to go without a Canuck game. So I'll get my hockey where I can. And tonight, it's by invite only with DJ Cranberry. I've been to a few Vancouver Giants games last season, when there was no NHL. But it was always with my family. I think that tonight will be much more worthwhile. Because the tickets were free.

Everything feels better when it's free.

Letters are my anti-drug

OK, as promised, here are a few of the many awesome things I have received by writing to people.
A colouring book page? Coloured to the exact specifications of a gay robot? This is seriously cool. Who would have ever thought a robot could be gay? I know I didn't, until I got this in the mail. And my whole perception of robots was turned upside down! But then again, just because I like rainbows doesn't mean I'm gay. Straight people gotta take back the 'bow sometimes! Seriously though, this robot is definitely gay.

This is the postcard that cranberry sent to me. It's ridiculous. I wonder what happened 2 seconds after this picture was taken? My theory is, mayhem of course.

This is a cheating a bit. I didn't actually receive this in a letter. It is a little comic that my friends drew. We were up at good ol' University, um, studying, yes that's it. They bet me whatever they had in their pockets that I wouldn't put on my new scarf, some crazy goggles one of them had for some reason and fly up and down the hall like a fighter pilot. I even made airplane noises, and pretended to drop bombs! (For some reason they thought I was a helicopter. Silly girls!) I ended up with $1.87. But it was worth it, because as I dive bombed the other table in the area, we started talking to them more, and it inevitably wound up with TGP and I becoming friends.

And the finale, from the best letter I've ever received, from fellow BC blogger Cher. This is just the bottom of one page, but it's mostly all like this. A motorcycle and flames! That's awesome. Nobody has topped this. At least, not yet.

There was an article in the paper today about some stationary store having a BC Letter Writing Club. I felt so trendy. It was like, I'm not alone in the Snail Mail Revival! There are others taking up the cause.

Letters are the Greatest!

Stupid tags. I usually rip 'em right out!

Ok, I was tagged by TGP to do this silly thing that seems to be circling around blogs like the 24 hour flu.

Here goes:
Mike H needs to step up and do what he knows in his heart is right
Mike H needs a life outside of his television
Mike H needs some cheese for his whine
Mike H needs to go
Mike H needs you as a catalyst
Mike H needs help
Mike H needs a copy ofthe insurance rider for CCRCNA
Mike H needs to clean his ears

Ouch, that wasn't fun at all. I'm using that googlism thing that TGP used:
mike h is back in the us
mike h is the man
mike h is drawing portraits
mike h is attributing to the anti
mike h is producing
mike h is that he's one of the few people who actually does what he says he is going to do
mike h is his name
mike h is the all american guy
mike h is the bestest
mike h is on an imac
mike h is a dork
mike h is doing a windows ide for div2dos
mike h is helping someone by pushing their wheelchair
mike h is concerned
mike h is there and am i coming over? so i went and watched videos
mike h is now known as mike
mike h is obfuscating again
mike h is probably right
mike h is 100% correct about "let's hang on"
mike h is of course right
mike h is replying to this message

Ah, much better. Now I feel happier about who I am, rather than what I need. Mike H needs to stop being tagged is what Mike H needs.

Now shoo, all you taggers, shoo! No more tagging for today!