Day: May 4, 2007

Last night after Vero got off of work we headed to her new pad to unpack some things.

First stop was her new roommate Mel’s place as she had the two keys to the new place. She will be moving her stuff this coming Saturday.

We get to the place and Vero inserts the key and tries to turn the lock but nothing is moving. Then she realizes that she can’t get the key out.

I try to attempt to jostle it from its place but this thing is wedged in there tight! It can only turn so much and it doesn’t even have one ounce of wiggle room when trying to pull it out. Clearly we are victim to a Wal-Mart key cutting experience. 😉

While I try and pull out my superhuman strength to remove this key, Vero goes downstairs to the superintendent and he grabs some tools and tries to remove it himself but it isn’t working.

Then, out of nowhere a police officer pulls up!

Officer: “Uh, what’s going on here?”
Vero: “Our key is stuck in the lock.”
Officer: “Do you live here?”
Vero: “Yes, we just rented the place this week.”
Officer: “Oh thank God, I thought this was a Break and Enter!”

Here I am with this giant smile on my face of the sheer hilariousness of this situation. The police officer had to call off her backup also. After taking some information down she was gracious enough to find some locksmith phone numbers and give them a call but she said they either were on the other line or busy.

At this point, I would like to thank the Ottawa Police for the kind service they provided in our predicament. When I think of police, I suppose I think of ‘movie’ police and how they are only interested in crimes, but she was kind enough to not leave us high and dry. Kudos to you.

So after she leaves, I head down to the bowling lane to use the pay phone. This is where my night hit an all-time peak.

Now, if you don’t know who Salad Fingers is, it’s this very insane character found in some animation clips on the Internet. It’s not for the weak of heart but if you’re interested, Google and watch some Salad Fingers episodes. I personally find him hilarious.

So I walk in the bowling lane and use the phone but to no avail so I grab some change from the cashier. On my way to the cashier’s desk I see these two teenage girls. One is walking, talking and just acting weird and the other is filming her with her digital camera. I then realize that she is imitating Salad Fingers! Awesome!

On my way back from the cashier’s desk they are eyeing me up and acting like Salad Fingers while taping it and they just want to see my reaction (which, if no one would know what the heck she is doing, they would probably think she was disturbed.).

Me: “Wow, cool. Salad Fingers!”
Them (mouths gaped open in shock/awe): “YOU KNOW SALAD FINGERS?!”
Me: “Yes, of course. Who doesn’t?”

I then walk away and let them revel in the fact that they aren’t the coolest cats on Earth. I am.

Locksmiths don’t pan out (where’s the 24 hour locksmith when you need him?) so Vero breaks the key so no one could get into the place (I say potentially considering we couldn’t even get into it) and we head home.

While I know Vero was disappointed in the night as she had high hopes for unpacking, I must admit that I thought the night was hilarious and you have to enjoy these random nights when they come your way. Especially when someone is doing an impression of Salad Fingers.

(work) Mike doesn’t like pink shirts.

More specifically, he doesn’t think pink shirts should be worn on men. We’ve heard rants, we’ve heard raves – the message is clear: “No man should wear a pink shirt!”

With this knowledge in hand, a brilliant idea was hatched between conniving Krista and Palmer as we decided to go for the gold and pick up a pink shirt for Mike for his birthday.

But knowing very well that he would burned it with a magnifying glass under the sun, we had to think of an ingenious way to get him to accept it, and potentially wear it.

I felt like we were spies on a mission with the prep work that was done to it.

We mailed the shirt along with a nice note to his wife. In the note we asked his wife if she would be a kind soul and ensure that Mike wore the pink shirt on his birthday.

Sure enough, his birthday comes along and we receive an email saying “Thanks for this birthday gift. I can’t believe I’m wearing this shirt!”

Turns out that his wife (God bless her soul) washed and ironed it and said “Mike, can you wear something for me today?” and passed him the shirt. Awesome.

So here you have it – Mike in all his glory in his pink shirt. I’d like to also point out that he already spilled coffee on it in defiance of the monstrosity which adorned his hairy chest. I do enjoy the fact that he was getting compliments on it all day.

While I could have gone for a more vibrant colour, it is pink nonetheless and here is proof that Mike did indeed break his credo.

2006-12-06-2035-36_edited
Originally uploaded by palm0014.

Many moons have passed overhead during my friendship with Carol. So it is fitting that on her birthday, I should write something about her.

Carol is actually anxiously awaiting to see what sort of birthday greetings she will receive via this virtual networking Frankenstein creation called Facebook but I know that secretly she was waiting to see what I would have to say on this space right here.

Let’s first talk about how I now realize how a lot of you are disappointed when there isn’t anything of substantial…Palmer inside these postings. For example, Carol said she was craving some good postings this week and all she got was a posting on how CD sales are dropping! Lame! Mike also piped in and told me how Palmer’s World is his sister’s drug of choice – she can’t get enough.

Well, this has redoubled my efforts into making this an entertaining space for the masses! Not only shall I redouble my posting efforts, but I will once again just spew random thoughts onto this page; more than you wish to read about!

Anyhow, back to Carol’s birthday.

Fast fact – Did you know that Carol’s phone number back home corresponds with her birth date? That is awesome.

Carol and Danny arrived last night (which I didn’t know about or else I would have taken the day off) and we had a few beer and called it a night. Carol was talking about how it’s been a decade since we left school. This is true…it’s been ten long years since we’ve left the good halls of KDHS. I can probably pinpoint that ten years ago around lunchtime I had a grilled cheese sandwich and some fries along with Carol. Or maybe she was laughing at me printing out a t-shirt with the Palmer Platter. Carol, if you’re reading this today and I’m not around, go into my bedroom and in my top drawer you will find the Palmer Platter t-shirt. Perhaps I’ll wear it out tonight.

Carol is one of those hidden gems in life where she is this great person who is caring and fun to be with but you don’t realize how MUCH you depend on her until she goes away. This is how I felt when we went our separate ways to college. She’s the one who not only thinks about you and wants to know what’s going on in your life, but makes you feel good about yourself (and rightly so!). I just hope that everyone around her (including me!) make her feel the same way. Because she’s THAT good.

Now, seeing that it is her birthday, I suppose we should come up with some random memories of Carol.

• Let’s us not forget the fabled time where I visited her in Oshawa and her roommates bed was empty but Carol would not allow me to sleep in it, or on top of it, hence I had to sleep on the floor. Watch it Carol, this may happen to you tonight!
• Carol + Internet were the same word essentially back around 1995-96. Let’s be honest. We all were into it. But I bet Carol had a gazillion friends via the IRC channels which blew me away.
• I remember how she introduced me to I Mother Earth by having the Scenery and Fish album on one day and I caught Earth, Sky and C and was blown away. Heck, while we’re on it, she also lent me her Siamese Dream album which created the monster which we know day (aka the Smashing Pumpkins fanatic that I am).
• The constant times where we were hungover at Wal-Mart and she had refuge in the back room of the shoe stocking area. I definitely hid out there a few times in my life. Let’s talk a little bit about Wal-Mart shall we? We were reminiscing last night about our times at Wal-Mart and Mike told us of how one day he was covering Sports section early in the morning and was feeling pretty rough so he unrolled a sleeping bag and slept ON TOP of the counter and then the manager comes by and asks what he’s doing. Classic. Man, I had a good laugh last night when he told me that!
• Flashback: Oshawa circa 1998 when I was in a club and Carol told everyone to keep an eye out for a crazy dancer and they would find me. Pshaw.

The coolest thing nowadays is the fact that we see each other a little more. I think we stumbled upon the fact that just because we went to different towns during college doesn’t mean we have to stay separated all the time. So I occasionally end up in her town and she occasionally ends up in mine and all is good in the world.

Happy Birthday Carol! I invite everyone to trade tales of Carol on her birthday. Or, (as she would prefer) send her a birthday wish via FaceBook!