christmas shopping

to my credit, this year i've started my christmas shopping already. when melissa and i were in new york, i picked up a little diddy for my mom. soon after we visited montreal and i was able to start and finish my sister's gifts, and then add something for skippy. it's not even december yet, and i'm over half-way finished buying for my family.

the tricky part comes now that melissa and i have been dating. obviously, i'm inclined to buy her gifts. and that part i've started too. but it becomes complicated when i visit her family for christmas. i'd like to have something (small) for each of them. so the strategy i've adopted is to find little diddys for each of the family members, plus melissa's sister's boyfriend, who lives in the house. however, not knowing their tastes and what others in the family might be purchasing for each other, this task becomes increasingly difficult.

i suppose this is where melissa would come in handy with recommendations, but i'm one who prefers to come up with my own ideas when it comes to gift-giving. luckily, i still have a month of shopping left.

quote(s) of the day

after speaking to a long-lost friend, i realized just how much influence i have on others. this, from homer, otherwise known as honehr.

homer: you and melissa going out?
mr jeff: that's the rumour
homer: man ur a real gangsta

--------

then, after agreeing to hook homer up with one of melissa's good friends, he shares this incite:

homer: in u, i have mi trust. im sure u will come thru....i finally realized that u r a ladies man and get all sorts of bitches. fuck i love u for that!

xMas Bowl VII

new york new york

start spreading the news... melissa and i just got back from new york city, and what a trip it was. i'll share all the great details of the trip after the weekend.

fantasy football

i have a new addiction and it's fantasy football. you've probably heard of fantasy sport leagues. it's a virtual league in which players, called "owners", each draft a team of real-life NFL players and then score points based on the players' statistical performance in the real-life games. our league pits two competitors against each other in a head-to-head format and ranks the participants by their win-loss record.

this is the first fantasy sports league i've played in of any kind, but i'm quickly getting the hang of it. i'm constantly flipping through the team injury reports to see if i have to drop any of my players due to injury, and hoping the blue chip prospect i picked up plays a big statistical game for me. it's an addictive game of chess played on a virtual sports field. and it makes every football game on sunday interesting, because i have 10 players on various teams to watch out for. plus, i have to see how the players on my oppponents' team are fairing.

it literally puts you as the general manager of a sports team, and now i can see how rewarding and disapointing that job could be. you have to do a lot of research to judge if a running back, for instance, might fair well against a team that has a poor defence. or make adjustments to your quarterback situation because that particular qb might be suffering from injury. i'm constantly tinkering with my lineup.

i play with a bunch of guys i used to play intramural flag football with at carleton. but next year i hope to start up my own league with some of my best friends. oh, and it should be noted, that i've incorporated the rock steady crew as my team name.

for those interested, here is my roster:

rock steady crew
qb - mark bulger, st. louis rams
qb - matt leinart, arizona cardinals
wr - jerricho cotchery, new york jets
wr - reggie brown, philiadelphia eagles
wr - hank baskett, philadelphia eagles
rb - warrick dunn, atlanta falcons
rb - fred taylor, jacksonville jaguars
rb - deangelo williams, carolina panthers
rb - jerious norwood, atlanta falcons
te - jeremy shockey, new york giants
k - jay feely, new york giants
team def - dallas cowboys
lb - scott fujita, new orleans saints
dl - scott kampman, green bay packers
cb - richard marshall, carolina panthers

currently we sit in 12th place out of 16 teams with a record of 2-3.

kinky football

while watching the musical vignette entrance theme for nbc's sunday night football, featuring musical artist pink, skippy and i share a lesson in pop culture.

skippy: who's that? i think i recognize her.

jeff: that's pink.

skippy: yeah, kink. i know her. do we have her cd?

jeff: check the videos for kink. if you're looking for pink, julie might have her cd.

quote of the day

angi says:

"the world of bacon is fast moving AND exciting, jeff. they should have a newsletter so we can easily keep abreast of all bacon developments."

- this, in reference to the turkey bacon and chicken bacon phenomena.

not so labour-intensive labour day

some might think i'm being a tad tardy with a post detailing a recap of my labour day activities. for those who criticize, i will say that i chose to recap my labour day weekend rather than write about my canada day festivities. now that's a little out of season. so on to the story...

my new girlfriend melissa and i had planned a weekend alone together some time now. it is a little difficult to see much of each other due her residing in the newfangled suburbia that is orleans, and me shacking up in the dreadful town of cornwall. however, with the long weekend upon us, we made a point of taking advantage of it. [on a side note: can anyone explain the relevance of labour day? are we celebrating a break from labour?]

friday was spent in pajamas. after a shopping spree of m&m's meats, and fine pastries from the dutch store on merivale, we spent the rest of the evening relaxed in our comfies on the couch, watching movies. considering the work load we had put in that week at our respective jobs, it seemed to be the most fitting way to celebrate the end of the work week.

saturday morning came quickly and we were up for adventure. still in our comfies, we picked up a copy of xpress and headed to bridgehead. we made friendly with the quasi-gay cashier who hooked us up with more than the requried stamps for our bridgehead coffee card. free comes early when you're friendly - and when the gay cashier is infatuated with my newly purchased h&m jacket i was wearing. melissa claims he was hitting on me, and let me tell you what i think about that .... i'm fine with it. i'll do what i have to do for free brew.

after coffee we hit up the brown loaf bakery on elgin st. for some freshly made breakfast breaderies and pastries. i decided another coffee was in order so we scooted back to bridgehead, winked at sir sexy pinky, and off we went.

breakfast of scrambled egg-omelettes and chicken bacon (which, as it turns out, is cheaper than turkey bacon!) was followed by a quick shower. we were on the road to glory by 10:30am.

and where does glory lead to, you ask? the hershey chocolate factory in smiths falls, of course! though the production facility was inoperative that day (they only make chocolate on a 9-5 sked), we took a quick tour of the joint anyway. not as exciting as you might think - the tour - the real highlight is the gift shop! at the pull of a lever, an outpour of chocolate streams through the funnels of chocohappiness and into a plastic bag. all for an incredibly low price. melissa and i came away with 5 bags full of chocolate, totalling a mere $45. we thought we might have gone a bit overboard but the cashier assured us that earlier that week a family of 3 had spent an incredible $289 on chocolate. rumour has it the average weight of a typical canadian family doubled that day.

next stop was the lift locks of smiths falls. we spent a significant amount of time walking along the rideau river (yes, in smiths falls) and along the locks. to our luck, a boat appeared ready to be lowered through the lift lock (or sink lock) just as we walked up. let it be known that the locks at smiths falls are the biggest of any on the rideau river at a breathtaking 26 feet. it's quite the spectacle to see an engineering feat as this live.

with no schedule in mind, melissa and i decided to check out the quante town of merrickville on a recommendation from skippy. merrickville has recently been dubbed "canada's most beautiful village", and though i have little to compare it to, i would not argue with it's title. the town is a unique victorian-style village with plenty of "delightful restaurants and shops" [quoting the website here]. we were surprised to find one particular 2-storey shop dedicated entirely to christmas. in fact, this store operates year-round with only christmas merchandise. it was a tad overwhelming for melissa and i, but the tourists seemed to enjoy it. it was incredibly busy in there.

we took the scenic route back to ottawa, through manotick and awed over some of the luxurious houses there. we rented coffee & cigarettes from blockbuster and got 3/4 through the movie before nodding off around midnight.

on monday melissa came down to cornwall to visit the folks. we've been dating for little over a month now, so it seemed to be an appropriate time for her to meet skippy and mom. skippy didn't dissapoint either, goofing around and only living up to the expected crazyness that is his reputation. after dinner, we headed back to ottawa for a nightcap.

save me jesus

i came across a website today that was selling bandages. this website offered three types of bandages: funky coloured ones, scooby doo aids, and jesus bandages. who is the brave sonofabitch to come up with the idea of marketing the poster child of catholicism in a package of bandaids? and what about jesus action figures? or "jesus is my homeboy" t-shirts? hell, i've even seen belt buckles with various inscriptions of the ten commandments on them. believe it or not, jesus christ is a pop icon.

a simple google search of jesus toys brings up countless results of jesus paraphernalia. these include jesus dashboard companions; bobble heads, action figures, air fresheners, and patches. in a twisted, sarcastic way, jesus is cool.

one really has to wonder what the church has to say about all this. i would have thought they'd be outraged that god's only begotten son has suffered from trademark infringement. on the contrary, however; most religious groups seem content with the latest jesus revival. in a post-post-modern western world of youth showing off their favourite logos, the face of his holiness plastered on t-shirts and ball hats is almost slightly refreshing. after all, the church needs all the help they can get in rebuilding their image these days. and what's more fitting than having their poster boy grace the cups of starbucks coffee?

cleaning out my closet

no, this isn't going to be a crying rant ala eminem in which i bash my mother and ex-wife in a choppy rap over screaming tears. today, i literally cleaned out my closet. how about that? since moving back to cornwall for the summer, i found myself continually living out of my suitcase and laundry basket. i suppose i was somewhat in denial that i was even living here for an extended period of time, let alone the thought of establishing permanent destinations for my clothing seemed a waste of time.

and now, even though my return to ottawa is coming closer, i became frustrated with tripping over laundry baskets and belts lying haphazard on the floor. so i finally broke down and started organizing. for this i had to clean out my bedroom closet and rid myself of my old high school notebooks, ex-girlfriends' memorabilia, and toys that sadly i am too mature (and i use that term loosely) to play with anymore. the final tally includes: 2 garbage bags of unneeded clothes for the local agape center, 2 garbage bags of useless (but a-minus average) high school assignments and countless rubbish. and best of all, i won't be face planting into the door as i stumble towards my morning coffee.

e-retail

it's been a great week for mail. finally received my broil king bbq that i won through the tim horton's rrrrrrrrrroll up the rrrrrrrrrrim sweepstakes. i also got a call from part source who have found the bug deflector i had ordered for skippy's honda accord for father's day. we're installing it today. and i received my clothing order from urban outfitters.

online clothing shopping is becoming my new bad habit / guilty pleasure. i've found recently that my wardrobe consists of the same safe selections that i've purchased at the gap and american eagle. after my shopping excursion in montreal (h&m, urban outfitters), i realized that there is much more to clothes shopping than what's available at bayshore shopping mall.

montreal, however, is still a couple hours away. so, i've found solace in the fact that both h&m and urban outfitters have extensive selections available at their online retail shops.

what's even more exciting is that urban outfitters has a great selection of shoes online. being a size 13, i have a difficult time finding the size i need in the particular shoe i like most. online shoe shopping saves me a lot of disappointment.

i've yet to master the ebay phenomenon however...

ring tunes

as mentioned in a previous post, i share the same cell phone as david hasselhoff. it's almost inevitable that 2 men as wise as us would pick such a feature friendly phone as the motorola v551. one of the best features that i'm currently enjoying is the realtrax (rogers, tm) ringtune option that allows you to use true songs as ringers.

lately, i've gotten sick of the standard pearl jam - given to fly tune that plays for all of my incoming calls, so i've started to personalize the ringers for those that call me the most. here's a sample list...

matt - xzibit - multiply
dave - beastie boys - ch-check it out / brass monkey (undecided)
goron - 50 cent - window shopper
melissa - metric - poster of a girl
julie - britney spears - i'm a slave 4 u
tracy - twins - ba xing bao xi he xi
mano - ricky martin - livin' la vida loca
david hasselhoff - baywatch theme

at $3 a tune, it's getting a bit pricey to custom everyone's ringers. but it keeps me entertained when my phone rings. and i suppose $3 is a small price to pay for the subtle smile that crosses my face when my best friends give me a call.

turkey bacon

my fellow friends, you must join me in my quest to expand our language just slightly. from now on, i ask that you now refer to all rent-a-cops as turkey bacon. for those who don’t know, turkey bacon is processed, smoked turkey meat cut into strips that resemble, but only barely function as, bacon.

montreal calling

this past saturday i took a road trip to montreal with my friends goron, lindsay and melissa. montreal holds a special spot in my heart. home to my beloved canadiens, quante bistros, excellent shopping, and great memories of my high school buddies and i highjacking my parents minivan for our first encounter at club supersex. and then there was youpi. who could ever forget the expos lovable mascot?

i woke up earliest saturday morning to shower, and pick up some genuine trade-free organic coffee from bridgehead coffee house, and some fresh pastries from the brown loaf bakery, both on elgin st. soon after, we loaded up the car and made our way down the 417. i had to make a quick cameo in casselman to lend an assist to my co-worker, but all in all, we were on schedule.

at 10:30, we rolled into montreal. the most distinguishing and stereotypical characteristic that would clue you in to being in quebec is that suddenly the drivers around you get increasingly more aggressive. though we made friendly with a family driving a ford tempo, who continued to wave at us for at least a good 17 kms.

the biodome was our first stop. i had never visited the biodome before saturday, a revelation to which most of you might be thinking "what?", but i'm glad i was finally able to make it. crocodile exhibits were followed by tropical toocans, which preceeded the monkey jungle, which led to the lovable penguins. all were fun to see, but most impressive was the sleepy lynx tiger, paws up, snoaring. zzzzzzzzzz....

after the biodome tour, we headed downtown on the metro for some lunch. we stopped in at a unique montreal bistro. pint of stella was the perfect rinser for my smoked salmon salad.

lunch was followed by a blitzkrieg of shopping that i had never experienced before. we visited numerous malls, independent shops, and accessory stores, plus a hudson's bay store, and even made it across town to hit up h&m. with only 23 minutes til closing time, we managed to spend a combined $400! i came out of there with a new fall jacket that i'm totally psyched about.

after the flurry of shopping, we decided a pitstop for drinks was necessary. we found another uniquely montreal bistro, but this time ordered 2 great sample platters - prosciutto, smoked salmon, roast beef, and a variety of cheeses that would make king out of a mouse. one thing i will say is that the french know how to eat! and that day we were francais a le maximum, oui le!

rumour spoiler!

This may ruin the previous article...

US Weekly is reporting that Jeff Lahey and Jessica Alba are back together for the third time this year. It was only a few months ago that the twosome decided to call it quits. At least that's what everyone thought when they publicly bashed each other and said it was really over for good.

This past week, Lahey was spotted with actress and pop princess Holly Pelky, sparking rumours he had permanently moved on. Meanwhile, Alba, who is completely incapable of being alone for even a day, quickly found herself in the arms of Ryan Seacrest. This must have set off Pelky, who has had a history with Seacrest.

This morning, however, Lahey and Alba were photographed in Brazil on a sudden getaway. Fueling more to this hot rumour is that Pelky was seen partying with Ryan Seacest last night!

gossip alert!

Holly Pelky and Jeff Lahey have been getting cozy: The pair was spotted kissing in South Keys this weekend, PEOPLE reports. This, after a lengthy conversation about Holly's trip to Las Vegas to visit Ryan Seacrest. The rumour surfaced at Melissa Lee's BBQ! Gossip columnists across North America are in panic about this one, but only we have the details here!

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On Saturday, Pelky, 29, and Lahey, 25, the soon-to-be ex-husband of Jessica Alba, arrived at the BBQ in the Craig Henry Village neighborhood outside Ottawa at about 5 p.m. in separate cars. In the parking lot, the two kissed then walked hand-in-hand, smiling and chatting the entire way as they headed for the backyard.

There, they shared a table on the patio where they gazed into each other's eyes and held hands. Eventually, Pelky planted a kiss on Lahey's hand – and he returned the gesture, kissing hers. They then kissed again on the lips.

They left the BBQ at 8:45 p.m. in the same car together! Lahey has a home in Westlake Village.

On Friday, Pelky filed a 17-page court document claiming that her estranged husband, Brad Pitt, had threatened to kill her. The actress also claims that during their marriage, Pitt abused prescription medication, had violent mood swings, was a compulsive gambler and visited pornography Web sites featuring "very young girls." Pitt has called Pelky's claims "vile" and "baseless."

Pelky originally filed for divorce in March of last year, when she was six months pregnant with the couple's son Jamal. The pair appeared to briefly reconcile after Jamal's birth in June, but on Jan. 4, they requested that their divorce proceed with a private arbitrator.

In February, Lahey – who's the lead singer for the Backstreet Boys – split from Alba, his wife of 3 years. The couple has an 1-year-old daughter, Ava.

Pelky and Alba are pals who grew even closer during Pelky's split from Pitt. Alba, who starred with Pitt in the remake for One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, attended Pelky's baby shower before she gave birth to her son Jamal – and helped take care of the baby after he was born.

how cool is that?

"sorry to cut this interview short, bubba, but i think lahey's ringing me!"

i know i'm cool. my mom says i'm cool. my cat merton hanks rubs up to my leg due primarily to me being cool. i melt of such cool machismo. my friends admit to my coolness too. but the one definite reason that confirms how cool i really am is that i share the same cell phone as david hasselhoff. that, my friends, is cool.

what would uncle jesse do?

came across a great link to a site dedicated to the legend of uncle jesse. check it out here.

get ready to rock steady

this past sunday the rock steady crew (my co-ed soccer team) extended our impressive unbeaten streak to 4, with a 5-4 win over the individuals. we now sit at the top of the division with a 2-0 record for the second half of the summer league.

seems i've found the golden boot lately, as i've totalled 8 goals in our last 4 games. my season got off to an unimpressive start, but i've been coming around lately.

in fact, the team has really come together as of late. though the core of the rock steady crew (goron, dave, mel, and myself) still remain from it's original incepetion, we've gone through quite the roster overhaul in the last 3 years. this season, we fielded probably the most inexperienced group we've ever assembled. and although we got off to a rocky start, the crew has kept their heads up high and perceviered through the lows. now we're riding the high train!

btw, the logo above was done up by my talented sis. quite the photoshop superstar!

we all scream for ice cream

there's something to be said about catching up with a loyal friend over an ice cream cone in ottawa's byward market at 2am... ice cream is good. friends are good too.