Post 3403 - Thursday

In the last couple of hours, my throat has become scratchy. In order to forestall whatever is probably going to whup me arse in the next few hours I am going to turn in very shortly.

I spent some time today interviewing the friend of a man who was murdered nearly 10 years ago. For whatever reason, his case faded from the headlines very shortly after the murder. Meanwhile, other cases continue to get press. I don't get it. My article in an upcoming Frank will be the first ink about the murder in several years. Why?

Anyway, my throat is getting worse. I am turning in.

See you tomorrow.

Bevboy

Post 3402 - Wednesday

10:45pm.

After work this evening we attended the Ami McKay book reading at the Halifax Public Library. She read from her new novel, "The Witches of New York". After we got home, I revised my most recent Frank Magazine media column, adding a couple of paragraphs about tonight's bookreading.

I tweeted about the bookreading before it started. I used the hashtag #AmiMcKay. She saw it and thanked me for going and thanked me for the plug I gave her Tuesday night book reading at the Al Whittle Theatre in Wolfville. Pretty sweet, huh?

I sent off the media column a few minutes ago. It goes live on Monday. And then I start worrying and wondering about what to put in the issue two weeks after that.

Tomorrow promises to be a long day. I mean, it will still be 24 hours long, but a busy 24 hours, m'kay?

I think I will turn in. Newbie is giving me that look.

See you tomorrow.

Bevboy

Post 3401 - Tuesday

Pushing 11pm.

I have produced a very rough draft of my next Frank media column. We will, or at least hope to be, at the Ami McKay bookreading at the Halifax library Wednesday night, so I will have a paragraph or two about it in my column, along with a picture or two. I will use my press pass, so maybe I will be able to get up a little bit closer than everyone else can.

During my lunch hour today I also wrote a second article for Frank, which I hope will be in the next issue.

I need to leave work a little early on Thursday to conduct an interview with the friend of a young man who was murdered in Dartmouth in 2006. He sent me today a picture of him and this young man. I look forward to our discussion on Thursday, and to sitting down and producing an article about him in the next week or so.

The unsolved murders are articles I find especially hard to write. What to include, and what to leave out. How to start it? How to finisn it? What to include in the middle? You know, just stuff like that.

It is now past 11pm. We will both have a very long day tomorrow, so I think I will turn in. You keep having some fun, and don't forget to simile from time to time.

I hope you caught that. "simile", and not "smile".

See you tomorrow.

Bevboy

Post 3400 - Monday

Hey, happy post 3400, everybody!

Wow. Seems like yesterday I was only in the 3300 series.

Didn't write last night because my body shut down early. And tonight, pushing 9:30, I am prolly gonna turn in early, too.

We went car hunting after work tonight.

We are gravitating toward the mid-range KIA Soul. It has plenty of features and rides well and has storage and is higher off the ground than my Grand Prix. Nice vehicle.

All things going according to Hoyle, the funds will be available for us, together, to purchase this vehicle, or one like it, by the end of the week, or the 31st, Monday. We are trading in our two vehicles, my Grand Prix, and Patricia's Corolla, to put toward the purchase of the car we have in mind. Fingers crossed.

Anyway, we got home handy to 8pm. Ate something. Watched "Inner Space" on the pvr, and now we are settling in for the night.

No, I didn't have much of a chance to listen to Tom Power's debut on "q" this morning on CBC Radio One. There is a partial repeat tonight at 10. I will try to listen to that. But look: It's going to be so much better than when Shad was the host or when Candy Palmater was the host. I am not sure what emphasis the show will have on music over interviews, but time will tell, and soon.

By the time of my Frank deadline on Thursday I will have had a chance to hear more of Power's performance, and will provide some brief thoughts in my column. Deal? Okay!

I think I will turn in.  Buying cars is hard on the head!

See you tomorrow.

Bevboy

Post 3399 - Saturday

Just past 10:30.

Patricia did day one of her stained glass class today. I hung around the house all day. Got caught up on the tv show The Blacklist. Started figuring out what crap to toss out on recycling day on Tuesday. I think there will be quite a bit going out that day.

So, I am using a fairly old desktop computer tonight. I bought it in early January of 2009 when my work laptop was crapping out. I would lug it home nights I was on call at work as I didn't really have a decent computer here.

This was in the dying days of Boxing Week sales that year. I went into Staples in Bayer's Lake, because I love Staples. Looked through the list of computer equipment they were still marking down and saw this HP Slimline. It had 2gbs of ram and a 500mb hard drive and was running Vista. They had one out back still in the box, and it was $297.

I got it.

Over the years, I have put Ubuntu and then Linux Mint on it, as Vista was choking the life out of this little desktop. I bought a card for it to give me two extra usb ports in the back.  It is still running with 2gb of ram, and I am hoping I can find the proper ram to go all the way to 4, so I can get another couple years out of it. But I am still using the computer, a lot. Same hard drive, same everything else. The computer has been a real work horse for me.  I have had to replace a couple of mice, but that's about it. I think I am still using the same DELL keyboard I attached to it all those years ago, as I wasn't wild about the keyboard it came with.

Earlier this evening I was looking for another usb mouse, and found the cardboard box that this machine's peripherals came in. I opened it and found the external wireless antenna for the machine, which I had never bothered to install. About an hour ago I screwed it in the back of the computer, but I am not sure why, because I use a cat 5 network connection. I guess I just like the computer being "whole" for the first time. Even without the antenna, the built-in wireless never had a problem pulling in a good signal from my fibre op network, but it is only about 5 feet away, so I guess I am not being fair.

Not sure where I am going with this other than to note that HP makes excellent computers, so if you are ever in the market for a new machine, particularly a desktop, then you could do far, far worse than to buy something from HP. I have had this computer for nearly 8 years now, and it still fires up without any problems whatsoever.

Newbie is at my feet. I think he's snoring.

No, wait.

Sorry.

It's Patricia.

You guys have a good evening. Talk at ya tomorrow.

Bevboy

Post 3398 - Friday

Nearly 11:30pm.

Another long day.

I have been thinking more and more about what car to get. We will not get a North American vehicle. Increasingly, KIA's are looking interesting. The Jeep Cherokee's we looked at last weekend are pricey, but for much less money, there are comparable KIA's that look really good and apparently ARE really good.

Next question is, do I buy in the city? A guy at my work drives to the Valley to get his vehicles because he feels that companies down there, because they will have lower sales, will work that much harder to reduce the price of the vehicles. I have no reason to think he is wrong. I just haven't really looked down there yet is all.

I do know that while I want to do a good job searching, I want to end up with a damned car, not search and search until my life has been exhausted in a Sisyphean quest with no vehicle to show for it.

So, it's almost as important to know what vehicle you don't want, as it is what one you do want.

Patricia is taking a stained glass course all weekend at the stained glass place not far from here. She will be taking my car, as hers has a flat tire. I guess that means I will be stuck around the house. That's fine. I am facing two Frank deadlines for next week and really have to get off me arse and do some writing on them.

Or maybe I will just sleep all weekend.

Depends.

Which is more work?

See you tomorrow!!

Bevboy

Post 3397 - Thursday

Past 11pm.

Had a pretty neat thing happen to me today. Tom Cook called me after lunch. He is the father of Troy Cook, who disappeared from Truro in 1998, and who's the subject of my most recent missing persons column in the current Frank.

I thought I was in trouble or something. That perhaps there was something in the article that was so wrong, so disrespectful to Troy, that Tom and maybe his other son Mike, would want to punch me in the nose or something. "You're not in trouble", Tom assured me.

He met me in front my work around 1:45. Mike remained in the car. Tom greeted me warmly and offered me a card in an envelope. I looked inside and learned it was a gift card to a local restaurant, for an amount that would likely pay for a decent dinner for Patricia and me.

I told Tom that it wasn't necessary to do that, that Frank pays me millions and millions of dollars for my articles;  but Tom and Mike (and cousin Dakota) would hear none of it, and I reluctantly accepted the very kind and very generous gift. I did not want to insult Tom, who clearly was grateful for the article in the Frank that hit newsstands on Wednesday.

It made my day. Maybe my year.

Tom is a gentleman, and too much crap has happened to him over the years separate from the terrible disappearance of his son. The man deserves closure. I can only hope that the article in Frank can reach the right person who can provide information that leads to the resolution of this mystery.

Thank you for the gift card, Tom. It will be put to good use.

You guys have a good evening. Talk to you tomorrow.

Bevboy

Post 3396 - Wednesday

Past 9pm.

Home from another super duper Toastmasters meeting. Yay. Super yay.

When we pulled into the driveway this evening, we decided not to go into the house just yet. We walked around the block once again, covering the end of the street, then left, and left, and a final left to bring us right back to the driveway again.

I had my shower and now I am ready to watch the 3rd Trump Clinton debate at 10 for a little while at least.

On my Facebook timeline I see plenty of people complaining about Trump. I see people complaining about Hillary. My feeling is that as long as they don't cross a line and start threatening the safety of someone, then I don't really care. My world is big enough to accommodate people who have diametrically-opposed opinions. It is not big enough to find room for those who will not tolerate even the concept of an alternative viewpoint, though. I have begun to consider the possibility of dropping some of the more intemperate people, both Trump supporters and Hillary devotees, who cannot be nice about their opinions.

As Canadians, non-Americans if you will, I must repeat that this is the American election. How things turn out on November 8th will affect us, but it is none of our business how our American friends choose to vote. If someone got in my face and yelled at me and threatened me if I voted a certain way, I would make it a damn point to vote that certain way, if only to spite that person and reinforce my right to vote any way I want. It is my vote. My decision. Not somebody else's. Period.

But, no matter who wins on November 8th, the aftermath will be ugly and bitter for months, maybe years, afterward. I am glad I will be able to see it from my relatively safe vantage point.

Think I will go get a good seat for the debate. Newbie is making popcorn.

See you tomorrow.

Bevboy

Post 3395 - Tuesday

Past 10pm.

Went back to work today, after a sick day on Monday. Feeling much better.

When I got to work this morning, I discovered that someone had left me some magazines as well as a paperback book. It was one of Max Haines True Crime Casebooks. Much appreciated.

I haven't read as much true crime in book form as someone with that interest might be expected to have. Much of that genre is overwritten and overwrought. But Haines is a newspaperman. He had word counts and column inches to worry about. Not much room for frills.

I don't know who left me that stuff, but thank you, whoever you are.

After dinner tonight, before I started washing the dishes, we tried something different. We decided to go for a walk around the block. We were gone for maybe 10-12 minutes, but that short walk re-energized us. I won't say that I can remain up and going for hours yet, but I am not tired tonight like I am lots of other evenings. I like that. I hope that we make this a part of our regular activities.

Listening to the repeat of "q" on CBC radio this evening. Candy Palmater is interviewing Myles Goodwyn from April Wine. He has a new memoir out, which I think I want. It is a good interview despite the fact that Candy is doing it. I can't wait until Tom Power takes over the show, which is any day now.

I think I will turn in. Not that tired, but I should at least stare at the ceiling for a while.

See you tomorrow.

Bevboy

Post 3394 - Sunday

Past 9:30.

Feeling really off today. Just generally unwell. I got up late. Cooked breakfast. And tonight, I cooked dinner, but didn't eat nearly as much as I usually do. Like I said, I'm a little off.

Unless I wake up tomorrow morning with the flu or some kind of fever or something, it is time to return to work. It was an interesting working vacation, with plenty of down time but quite a bit of frenzied activity, too. We will see what the morning brings.

I think I will draw this blog post short, if you don't mind. Glad the bathroom is nearby.

See you tomorrow, my lovelies.

Bevboy

Post 3393 - Saturday

Hi.

I have been out of town for the last few days. Let me tell you about my many adventures.

First of all, my editor at Frank has kept me busy. A few weeks ago, he asked me to cover the sentencing hearing of Amy Hood in the town of Pictou. Amy was a bad girl. She is a former elementary school teacher who was fired from that position after it was learned that she had orally copulated two of her former male students, who were teenagers.

Frank has written at length about Amy over the last couple of years. My editor did not want to miss the sentencing hearing for the world, but that hearing was on the 13th, which being a Thursday on a deadline week, meant that this was difficult. All articles for a given issue of Frank must be written and edited and assembled by that day.

He gave me lots of advice and help. The first thing was to get me an actual press pass with my name on it. Here it is:

I was to be at the Pictou Court House in plenty of time for the 9:30 hearing start. I did not have to stand with the rest of the media, which is why when the CBC's Blair Rhodes shot some pictures of Amy walking into court, he got me in the background.

My only experience with a court room trial was from watching television dramas, all US-based. I kept expecting objections, and for the judge to say "sustained" or "over ruled". Never happened. The Crown attorney and the defence attorneys all sit at one long table. The accused sits behind the defence, and the media behind her (I was told to sit on the left, behind the Crown, and did so, because it was a Sheriff telling me to do that, so the rest of the media were separated from me.)

I took plenty of notes. Plenty. Six and a half pages. I also recorded audio files in court. As long as they are not broadcast, used for the purposes of producing an article, then that is allowed. Other media were live tweeting. My editor told me that it would not be possible to take too many pictures. I could literally take 100 pictures, that they might only use 8, but they would be good pictures. My camera has a rapid shooting mode, so I ended up taking 369 pictures during the course of the morning.

The full details will be in the issue of Frank that goes online on Monday. My editor wrote the article using the audio files I recorded, which I uploaded to dropbox and which he downloaded, plus the pictures I used. I am hoping he was able to get a few good pictures out of all the ones I shot.

The hearing finished around noon time. You can read about what happened online, or in Frank on Monday.

The Crown attorney agreed to a scrum, so I got myself next to him and stuck my voice recorder toward him, and took pictures as well. That night, on the CTV supper time news, I saw my left shoulder and left arm holding my voice recorder, during Kelland's piece about the trial.

The defence attorney, Joel Pink, took one look at me, knowing that I was reporting for Frank Magazine, and declined a full scrum, but I did see him speaking individually with CTV's Kelland Sundahl and the CBC's Blair Rhodes. When I attempted to join this mini scrum with Blair, Pink just glared at me and walked off. I looked back at him and he affixed me with a look that told me that I was not going to be invited to his home for a holiday party any time soon.

Why was he this way with me? Read the new Frank out Monday, and you will see why.

After court was out, I grabbed my laptop from the car and got myself over to the Indigo Cafe and whatever the hell it's called on Water Street in Pictou, just up the street from the court house. I called my editor. I copied the audio files to the hard drive and zipped them, before uploading them to  Dropbox, after which I shared that zip file with him. This saved a lot of time over emailing the files to him, taking into account gmail's file size restrictions.

The pictures took up over 400 megabytes once I had zipped them up. Uploading those to dropbox via the internet connection at the coffee shop would take forever, so I opted to drive to the River John Library, 30 minutes away, to use their fibre op connection. I did that, but when I uploaded it still took another 25 minutes, so my editor didn't get the resultant zip file until after 3pm. He would likely have been well to work on the article by then, anyway, and could just sift through the hundreds of images and select the few he wanted for the piece.

My day started early, and was over by 3:30 or so. I grabbed some dinner for us at the Chinese food place in River John. I have no idea what keeps that joint in business, other than the fact that it is the only restaurant in town. The wonton soup was pretty good, but the chicken and broccoli tasted like snot, and the beef egg foo yung had about as much beef in it as a pig does. I paid very good money for that food. Never again. The place is vile.

I was zonked after my day's labours. All that running around. All the photo taking. All the audio. The phone calls. The dropbox experiment. But it was exhilarating. I felt so alive running around like that. My editor told me to "enjoy myself", and I wondered how that would be possible. Now, looking back, I did enjoy myself.  I had a ball.

As far as I know, this was a one off experience for me. Never to happen again. So I want to thank my editor for giving me this opportunity. It was a blast!!

You guys have a good day.

Talk to you soon.

Bevboy

Post 3392 - Tuesday

Pushing 8:30.

Had a quiet day. We did not to go the cottage today. Tomorrow morning, for sure.

After I cooked us some brekky, I settled down in the living room, with a laptop in its appropriate place, and produced a somewhat shorter version of my next media column for Frank Magazine. I sent it off around 3:30, and as far as I know, my editor has finished editing it for publication. Usually, those media columns run much closer to the magazine's deadline of Thursday, but because I will be out of town for a couple of days starting tomorrow, I had to move things up.

We still haven't got rid of the buffet and hutch combo.  The folks who picked up the dining table and chairs did not have room for the other things on Saturday. It would appear that their efforts to secure a buddy's truck were for naught. Ruddy shame, that. Others have spoken up for it. Let's hope one of them can drop by over the weekend.

Flash starts shortly. Think I will wrap this up.

You will likely not hear from me tomorrow. Let's shoot for Thursday, when my big day is behind me.

See you then.

Bevboy

Post 3391 - Monday

Past 9:30pm

Did very little today.  Being the Canadian Thanksgiving, we were off work, so sleeping in was appropriate. It was also appropriate to take a long nap after lunch, getting up in time to nuke left over roast beef from last night.

Tonight we finished watching the second part of season one of Netflix's "The Ranch". It was not as funny as part one, but the characters are resonating more with me. I look forward to the first part of season two, probably sometime in the Spring.

Tomorrow, I think we will go to the cottage. At least, that is the plan as things stand at the moment. I will let you know if that plan changes. Because, you know, I know you all care.

I think I will turn in. Even though I will be on vacation I will be fairly busy tomorrow, Wednesday, and... especially busy on Thursday. Very excited and nervous about what is coming up on Thursday. You will hear about that very soon.

See you tomorrow.

Bevboy

Post 3390 - Sunday

Past 11pm.

Had a quiet couple of days. Saturday we gave away a dining room set that my parents bought me when I got this house in 2001. I mentioned this before, but it was just too big for the house. Getting rid of it yesterday opened up an entire room for us.  Alas, the folks who picked it up yesterday could not fit the buffet and hutch combo in their vehicle. We are hoping that they can pick it up before we go to the cottage in a couple of days.

After they folks left, we went into Bayer's Lake to the Value Village to get rid of some things that had been stored in the hutch. One time I actually purchased a punch bowl because I had once been at a party where there had been a punch bowl with those little glasses hanging off of it. I wanted one. So I got it, and it languished there, along with a bowl to keep potato chips (which I did keep) until Saturday morning. Now, it is at Value Village and someone will end up buying the stupid thing, get it home, and never use it.

Within a couple of days, I will have forgotten about the things we deposited at the VV yesterday. I already am, as a matter of fact.

Afterward, we grabbed a snack at the McDonald's in Bayer's Lake before spending some time at the Chapter's across the street. Massive renovations flank the building. After they are done, the store will re-brand as Indigo. I have always thought that was a dumb name for a bookstore chain. Chapters, then Chapters-Indigo, and now just Indigo. Why name a bookstore chain after an obscure color? Why is that a thing?

We weren't ready to go home yet, so we drove out to Otis and Clementine's in Tantallon. It used to be a Books Galore 2 store until it was purchased from the man in the Valley who owned it (he still has the Valley store in Coldbrook). The woman who bought the store lavished some TLC on the place and added several new sections. There is a whole section at the back of the store for children, with plenty of children's books, and a YA section. They sell coffee and pastries and cold beverages. I haven't met the owner of the place, but the lady who works there when we go in always warmly greets us.

Outside the store they have a cart full of books. She will give you a plastic grocery bag, and you can cram as many books in that bag as you want from that cart for ten dollars, taxes in.

The... I think it's the 3rd Thursday of every month, they have a book club. Locals go in there and discuss that month's book and they sell plenty of coffee and tea on those evenings.

Damn, I love Otis and Clementine's! Why not check out their website?

We got some snacks and returned home. We finished watching Luke Cage on Netflix and started watching the second part of season one of The Ranch.

Today, I cooked French Toast for breakfast and threw the roast we bought on Friday night, into the crock pot. It was our dinner tonight, and it was frigging awesome, partially because of the local garlic we got a couple of weeks ago at the garlic festival. We spent the rest of the day relaxing and taking it easy.

Tomorrow, will probably be more of today, but I have a looming Frank deadline I want to work toward.

Watching the Trump/Clinton debate on the tv. It is considered so important that CBC radio has broken away from its normal crappy Sunday night programming and is carrying the debate so that people in cabs and so on who want to see these old people talk over each other can tune in, realize what is on, and switch to another station.

Think I will turn in.

See you tomorrow, my lovelies.

Bevboy

Post 3389 - Friday

Past 10pm.

We are off work until October 17th. We are heading into the Canadian Thanksgiving weekend. Next Friday is my schedule day off. So, it seemed natural to take 3 vacation days to complete the week.

Monday, no later than Tuesday, we will go to the cottage. We have to get the place ready for Winter. Thursday night, because of some other commitments, we need to return to the city. Friday, we have some other things to do. And Saturday the 15th, there is the annual Nocturne event, where downtown Halifax and other parts of the city display art in unusual and interesting places and contexts. We don't go to it as much as we should. Went last year, focusing on the North end, and that was a mistake because there wasn't that much to look at. This year, we will stick with the downtown again. Far more interesting.

Anyway, that's what we'll be doing.

If you have seen my Facebook, you'll know that I am starting to look for a new car. I have a budget of about 25K to work with, likely not including whatever trade in I can get on my 2008 Grand Prix. Considering the amount of work the car requires, I do not anticipate getting much of a trade-in.

It's so funny. You can ask 10 people what kind of car you should buy, and you will get 12 answers, many of which contradict each other. Get a Ford. Stay the F away from Ford. KIA. Hyunda. Don't buy either KIA or Hyundai. Honda's are great. Honda's are good, but you can never get a deal on them, ever. Toyota's? Same thing as Honda's. One's head swims. Liquor, to be consumed in the safety of one's home, may be required to quell the headache.

In sifting through the many comments on my Facebook, I am seeing more of a trend to people like KIA and Hyundai products. Honda's and Toyota's, too, but the positive vibes for KIA and Hyundai were surprising. Not many years ago, I was told up and down that KIA's were crap, and Hyundai's were the butt of many jokes. I do not pay much attention to the trends and to things like Consumer's Report, but over the last 10-15 years, both of those makes have improved tremendously, and it is showing in people's enthusiasm.

A co-worker has had the same KIA car since 2007 and still loves it. Others have sung their many virtues.

So, maybe I will start my search in a KIA lot.

Maybe.

I just know that my last two cars have been GM products. The '05 Malibu caused me a great deal of grief. There was a problem with the signal lights. When it rained, they stopped working. There was a factory recall over that. Not long after I got it, the instrument cluster decided to short out, so half the instruments were no longer working. I couldn't tell how much gas I had, for example. Cost me hundreds of dollars to get it working. Things like the instrument cluster and the signal lights (except for the bulbs, of course) have no business breaking down on a car, ever. I was happy to trade in that car for the ...

2008 Grand Prix. I liked that car. I was with my dad getting the Malibu undercoated next door.  We wandered over to the dealership where a family friend was the sales manager. We looked at the cars. I noticed the Grand Prix. Richard threw us the keys and told us to go for a drive. When we got back he and I could chat.

I ended up buying the car that very day. That was a Friday, December 5, 2008.

Monday morning, December 8th, driving to work, we went through a green light, and Buddy went through the corresponding red light and t-boned us. I have written about that before here, but I still wish the car had been written off. But it wasn't. It was fixed at no cost to me, and that is the car I am going to get rid of, lord willing and the crick don't rise, before the end of October.

I don't want another GM product. Not the Grand Prix's fault. It has been a good car, over all, though expensive to maintain, and the car has reached the point of throwing good money after bad. But the memory of the '05 Malibu so tainted my perception of GM products that I don't want another one of them, probably ever.

So, let's at least consider a KIA or a Hyundai before I look at a Toyota or a Honda. Why the heck not?

Someone's dropping by Saturday morning to take that dining room set off our hands. Will have to get up comparatively early to give them a hand. Think I will turn in.

See you tomorrow.

Bevboy

Post 3388 - Thursday

Pushing 10:30.

My next true crime column for Frank Magazine is very close to done. I printed it off the other night and extensively revised it until after work this evening, when I typed in the changes, and did some more changes this evening when I got home. I printed it off again just now and will give it a quick go over before sending it to my editor tomorrow. I have already sent him a bunch of pictures to use.

This case has grown more intriguing and complex the more I got into it. I hope that I have struck the right note with the story. I hope it will see print, the week after next.

We grabbed some dinner on the way home as nothing here was cooked. Shame on us.

So, in 2001, when I bought this house, my late parents helped me out with a few things. I had selected a combination washing machine and dryer. My parents found separate machines for less than half the money. The dryer worked until last year, and the washing machine still works. They bought me a freezer. And they bought me a dining room table with 6 chairs and huge buffet. Far too large for the house. Too dark. Too... everything.

After all this time, I have decided to get rid of that stuff. I have offered it on the Halifax giveaway mailing list. Several people expressed interest. Looks as if it will all be gone Saturday morning. Can't.Hardly.Wait. Loved my parents and everything, but these are old and out of style and too large for the house.

The plans for the long weekend are firming up. I will tell you about them tomorrow. Okay?

See you then.

Bevboy

Post 3387 - Tuesday

Past 8:30.

We checked out one of those diners in Halifax for dinner tonight, one of those places that have been around so long that people don't realize it's there any more. We had a pretty acceptable dinner. Patricia had chicken kebabs with rice lentils and tablouli salad and hummous and pita bread. I had the chicken shawarma plate, also with rice lentils, hummous, but I had another kind of salad whose name is hard to spell, and I didn't like that salad very much. 

I realized half way home that I had kept forgetting to buy Newbie's catfood. He is an ornery cat. If you don't feed him what he wants, when he wants it, it is not a good sight to behold. Best to keep him happy. So we went to the Superstore on Quinpool. While there, I ran into a Facebook friend, Allana. We chatted for a while. As we walked off, Patricia looked back at her and noted how long Allana's hair was. Apparently it goes all the way down to the small of Allana's back. I hadn't noticed at all. I have been trained that you don't look at another woman's anything, and maybe even avoid direct eye contact. Nothing personal, Allana. I'm sure your hair is lovely and all.

Hey, it turns out that she is looking for a roommate for... December, I think it is. If you need a roommate and live in the Halifax area, let me know and I can let her know. K? Your best bet is to email me and give me your deets.

We got home. Newbie greeted me with the same degree of condescension that women used to accord me when I was single and I asked them out. Not even the new bag of food I waved in front of his face made any difference. It will be a fun evening.

I haven't done anything tonight with the draft of the next true crime piece because the police contacted me today and let me know that they will have some information for me on the case tomorrow or  Thursday. Might as well make those changes in one swell foop.

Even though it's not even 9pm, I think I will turn in, and soon. I am definitely fighting something. Throat is scratchy. Nose is running. I will probably get good and sick for the long weekend. Yay for me.

You guys have a good evening. See you tomorrow.

I hope.

Bevboy

Post 3386 - Monday

Past 9:30.

I have spent the evening producing a rough draft of my next true crime column. I have about 1500 words. I will spend my lunch hour editing it and will do my best to have it in to my editor by Tuesday night.

This one has been hard to write. It is hard to be objective about this one, so I am not sure if there is any point in trying. When I think about what the family has gone through since the loved one went missing, and how someone frigging knows something about what happened, and doesn't come forward, it makes me angry.

Today being Monday, it was a challenge to get up. My body told me to stay in bed, but my bank account told me to get up, so I heeded it for a change and got up.

People at work teased me about my hair cut. I told them that I was tired of strange women running their fingers through it at all hours of the day and night. That I was tired of getting strange knocks at the door at 3am from women wanting just 30 seconds to run their fingers through my hair. How I couldn't walk down the aisle of the local Superstore without persistent harassment. I had to call an end to it, and my trip to Helen's Barber Shop on Kempt Road Friday morning was my response. It will work until it grows back in a couple of months.

On that gentle note, I think I will call it a night.

See you tomorrow.

Bevboy

Post 3385 - Sunday

Just past 10pm.

Sorry I haven't written the last couple of days. Friday night, I fell asleep on my recliner around 7:45 and was done for the night. Saturday night, I turned in relatively early as well.

The main news on Friday, besides trying to get over Patricia's cold was the following.

Well, here it is before:

And about 45 minutes later:

Yes. I got my hair cut. I could no longer abide the long hair. As glorious and beautiful as it was, I was growing tired of women jumping out of nowhere and running their fingers through it. One time, recently, a woman espied me and crossed three lanes of traffic, in heels, on Young Street during rush hour just so she could mob me and tousle my hair. It made me feel like a piece of meat and was causing so much disruption in people's lives other than my own, that I decided the best thing to do was to get it cut, so I did.

Don't worry. It will grow back.

I will be saving a fortune in product from now on. I am grateful for that. 

So, that was Friday.

Saturday we started to watch episodes of "Luke Cage" on Netflix. Mid-afternoon, we finished an episode and immediately tried to watch the next when we got a "404" error. In the world of computers, a 404 error means that a file or a something is not available, not there. I jumped over to the Roku and fired up the Netflix app there and that worked. A few hours later, I read on deadline.com that there had been such a demand for Netflix across the world, likely because of Luke Cage, that it crippled their servers. I wonder how they will spin this story during the week?

The series is good, but has the same issues with pacing that other streaming services have. Because there are no commercials, the stories are structured in such a way that there doesn't have to be a mini cliffhanger every 12 minutes or so, to make people want to come back after commercials. The stories can be told more organically now, and that doesn't settle well with people who expect those mini cliff hangers. It is a different form of storytelling, and people aren't used to it.

Episode length can vary, too, to accommodate the story. Some episodes are over an hour. Some are 48 minutes. Season 5 of "Longmire", which we finished watching on Saturday, had episodes well over an hour, but a few in the 50 minute range. All about servicing the story rather than feverishly chopping bits and pieces to fit within an arbitrary length. It is the way of the future, and close to the way of the present as more and more streaming services move to original content.

Anyway, enough of that. We still have 3 episodes of the show to go. Hope to finish them this week.

I have spent the last couple of hours finally wrapping up summarizing the contents of a 2.5 hour conversation I recently had with the brother and father of a missing person. I will do my best to produce some kind of draft for my editor of an article for an upcoming issue of Frank. Want to get that done before I go off on vacation after next week. We will be at the cottage the week of Thanksgiving. For those keeping score, that will likely mean I will not have a media column in the next issue of Frank, as it is too difficult to produce one when I do not have an internet connection. Sorry to disappoint, but let's see if there can be a true crime article to take its place.

It is pushing 10:30. I think I will turn in. I will not say it will be a long day tomorrow, because I always say that. I will just say that after two days of sleeping in, getting up at 5:30 will be a challenge.

See you tomorrow, my lovelies.

Bevboy