someone please squeegee my head...

in my quest for adequate fitness, i went for bike ride up to the airport on monday. man, it was a beautiful day. really hot. well, relatively hot (24 C). the airport is a marathon away from home in sundance. considering my flabbiness, the trip up was ok. it took 2 hours. had a little snack while scoping out airplanes in the main waiting area. i need a snack or i'll just hit the wall on the way back. it's happened before. it's not a pleasant feeling...

took a bit less than 2 hrs on the way back. instead of following the bow river, i detoured onto the WID canal path. they've shut off the diversion from the bow. so, the canal was in fact a giant elongated slough. ducks and geese were having their fill. how the hell can they suck up that scum off the bottom?

anyways, i make it home just as the sun went down. my knees locked up in the garage and i staggered into the house. before anything else, i hit the bathroom to wash off the bug kill on the top of my head.

did i mention the flocks of bugs out there. they're annoying. i usually suck in, accidently, alot of bugs. surprisingly, they have no taste to them. once in a while a bug would land in my mouth and my tongue would go numb for an instant. cool...

i had supper in front of the tv. the cbc was showing LOTR 1. LOTR gets better everytime i watch it. the special effects and overall craftsman were even more fantastic this time. good on cbc for showing it.

the dilemma of the night came at 9 PM. LOTR was building mo' for a blockbuster end. then NBC had the gall to put on an all women's fear factor. what is a guy to do?

dude, johnny thrash sucks...



the liberry now has dvd's for public loan!!! ok, they aren't the current releases you'll find at your local video store but there are the occasional jewel on the liberry rack. for instance, i came across "ski bums". ok, i would normally overlook this title at the store but hell it was free and surprisingly good.

filmed in whistler BC, the documentary was loaded with spectacular, sorry that's gnarly, clips of out-of-bounds skiing, heli-skiing, and ski mountaineering. but i thought the most interesting aspect of the show was the cameras following the rather motley group of ski bums during their "off" time; their constant struggle to live the "lifestyle".

just seeing that title on the shelf conjured up visions of slackers in my head. and, to be fair, each and every "character" was a slacker. each have a nickname and a story to tell. here are just a few.

crucial mike: a 40-50 year old ski bum who i'd call a definitive wasta. a complete wasta who resembles grizzly adams. to save money, he scavenges rich folk leftovers in the lodge cafeteria. towards the end of the film he moved out of his van and rented a dilapidated shack. this way he could entertain the "ladies". hilarious.

punchy: a really cute snowboarding wasta in her 20's. to get by, she works as a go-go dancer in a whistler bar. her priorities in life? the next meal and a ski pass. not necessarily in that order! hilarious. i forgot to mention that she loved to punch people.

johnny thrash: the wildest guy in the show. thrash was clearly an psychotic exhibitionist. there were numerous clips of him in the buff hanging off various architectural structures in bars and while skiing. his greatest accomplishment was rolling down main street naked while strapped in a gyro-sphere. part of the punishment was writing a letter of apology to the mayor. in disgust he said, "the mayor didn't even see [me in the gyro machine]". he greatest revelation came when he confessed that excessive easy sex is over-hyped when it came to ski bums citing that the chicks just don't dig smelly guys in dirty clothes. dudes, can he ski though. by the way, he loves the "wacky". hilarious.

the common threads amongst the characters were their love of skiing and the lifestyle that comes with it. they live for the moment and the feeling of freedom they get from skiing. they're realistic about they're sport particularly when faced with inherent dangers such as avalanches. instead of backing off when someone dies, they are driven even more to find the next perfect run.

it's not often people get to do what they want to do in life. i can identify with living for the moment and the feeling of freedom that comes with traveling. it's absolutely addictive. try it.

it struck me as watched the film that i'm a bum. i am doomed.

do yourself a favour and rent or sign out "ski bums" from the liberry.

rating: 5 overdue fines out of 5.