Weekend At Gerry's
May. 23rd, 2006 08:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jamesqSaturday, after helping ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
hadriel set up at Pan Faire, I went to worship at the altar of Consumer Whoredom - West Edmonton Mall! Despite taking a few wrong turns on the way there, I managed to arrive 45 minutes before they opened. I wandered inside anyway and took a quick stroll around both levels of the mall to get the lay of the land.
I'll spare you a play-by-play of the actual shopping. Suffice to say that after six hours, I got my fill of the place. Only managed to spend $50 bucks too! It's not like Cowtown doesn't have malls of its own.
About midway through my mall adventures, I decided to rest my feet for a few hours by going to one of the two local theatres. I watched Poseidon. So how was it? Let me put it this way - the character's were stock, the set pieces well-designed and also well-telegraphed and it was performed by a group of B-list actors adept at scenery-chewing. Those by themselves would be sufficient for me to give it a hardy see it in the cheap theatre recommendation. On balance though, they did surprise me a little with who lived and died - often with these ten-little-indian disaster movies, it's obvious, but not here. Also the F/X are pretty decent - not once did I think I was watching CGI. On the downside, when characters were in a menacing situation, it had the god's out to get you feel of the Final Destination movies. That is to say, more then a little ridiculous. Basically, decide if the the rogue wave sequence is worth your money. If it is, go see it, if not, avoid - there's not much else to watch.
After the movie I managed to sate my desire for a good Montreal smoked meat sandwich. They even gave me my choice of mustards!
Leaving the mall I went back to Pan Faire and took over the table for an hour or so, givinghadriel a chance to stretch her legs. During that time I fell in love with at least three of the pagans. We'll call them Red, Blonde and Brunette. Blonde I didn't actually get to talk to. She was giving off serious get away from me creep vibes though, so that's just as well. Red introduced herself to me though and she seemed quite nice. Later I discovered that she had had three kids, the oldest of whom was 15! This makes her both older then I thought (closer to my age, wheras I thought she was late twenties / early thirties) and remarkably well-preserved for a woman who had born and raised three kids! As far as I know both Blonde and Red are in relationships.
Brunette also introduced herself to me. I've no idea if she's single or not, so I'll just pretend that she is. My one regret of the weekend was not asking her out Saturday night. She seemed pretty nice.
I was reminded of the problem with pagans - they're nice, intelligent, thoughtful, kind. Great people to hang around with. Then they'll say something that's just off in left field.
I was asking one vendor about the lamp oils they were selling - they had names like Oil of Apollo or Oil of Artemis. Did the names mean anything or was it just marketing. Well they tell me about the ingredients they added to the oil - stones sacred to this or that god, colours associated with this or that god. All well and good right? Then one of the woman says "And I was channelling the god while I was making the oil". Inside my mind went WTF, though I'm pretty sure there was no outward sign of it. I did ask.
While I consider evangelical christians and pagans to be about equal on the rationality scale, at least the pagans don't proselytize. That by itself makes them good people in my books.
Me? I'll keep my atheism to myself while hanging out at something called "Pan Faire". Anything else would be rude.
Afterwards, we got together withnosarious and hit one of the Whyte Avenue pubs. ours was an allegedly authentic Irish pub, except it was playing pop music and had a definite meat-market atmosphere. Having parked the car for the night, I opted to get a little drunk. Sadly the only cider they had was Strongbow (the cider for people who'd rather be drinking beer), and I could only stomach 1/3 of a bottle of that. Ugh. Maybe next time.
Sunday,hadriel and I went out for breakfast (she'd never had Egg's Benedict - can you believe that?) and talked about Pan Faire's disappointing nature. Saturday they had a handful of customers (Sunday would repeat this). The problem being that it was not well organized or well advertised. It was in a community center that was near Whyte Avenue, but there was no way for the people on Whyte to know that.
We brainstormed a bit and came to the conclusion that they need someplace with a high amount of foot traffic. Either on Whyte Avenue itself or by the Old Strathcona farmer's market or along Gateway (where there was a convenient park). Now ideas are cheap - what would be required to turn these great ideas into a concrete, profitable, Pan Faire would be research and preparation. Given that the vendors spent $70 each for a table, I think they could do a lot more for them then a venue that produces a dozen people worth of traffic.
I dropped her off at Pan Faire then fetchednosarious and we looked for something to do, eventually opting for the Royal Alberta Museum. Glenbow has neater stuff, but the RAM tried to make a more educational exhibit. For example, the Glenbow has an eclectic bunch of native artifacts, but the RAM had a broad overview of native history from 10000 BCE to the present day. Glenbow says "Here are a bunch of neat looking rocks", RAM says "Here are a bunch of neat looking rocks and here is what makes them unique". You'll see more stuff at the Glenbow, but you'll leave the Royal Alberta Museum knowing more.
We went back to Pan Faire and helped everyone pack up, thenhadriel and I went back to Cowtown. We stopped at Red Deer to get some Donut Mill donuts. We slowed down near Carstairs because of an accident that caused the powers-that-be to detour everyone to a side highway. Thus our Friday karmic debt was paid on Sunday.
All in all it was a good trip, I'd do it again.
hadriel set up at Pan Faire, I went to worship at the altar of Consumer Whoredom - West Edmonton Mall! Despite taking a few wrong turns on the way there, I managed to arrive 45 minutes before they opened. I wandered inside anyway and took a quick stroll around both levels of the mall to get the lay of the land.I'll spare you a play-by-play of the actual shopping. Suffice to say that after six hours, I got my fill of the place. Only managed to spend $50 bucks too! It's not like Cowtown doesn't have malls of its own.
About midway through my mall adventures, I decided to rest my feet for a few hours by going to one of the two local theatres. I watched Poseidon. So how was it? Let me put it this way - the character's were stock, the set pieces well-designed and also well-telegraphed and it was performed by a group of B-list actors adept at scenery-chewing. Those by themselves would be sufficient for me to give it a hardy see it in the cheap theatre recommendation. On balance though, they did surprise me a little with who lived and died - often with these ten-little-indian disaster movies, it's obvious, but not here. Also the F/X are pretty decent - not once did I think I was watching CGI. On the downside, when characters were in a menacing situation, it had the god's out to get you feel of the Final Destination movies. That is to say, more then a little ridiculous. Basically, decide if the the rogue wave sequence is worth your money. If it is, go see it, if not, avoid - there's not much else to watch.
After the movie I managed to sate my desire for a good Montreal smoked meat sandwich. They even gave me my choice of mustards!
Leaving the mall I went back to Pan Faire and took over the table for an hour or so, giving
hadriel a chance to stretch her legs. During that time I fell in love with at least three of the pagans. We'll call them Red, Blonde and Brunette. Blonde I didn't actually get to talk to. She was giving off serious get away from me creep vibes though, so that's just as well. Red introduced herself to me though and she seemed quite nice. Later I discovered that she had had three kids, the oldest of whom was 15! This makes her both older then I thought (closer to my age, wheras I thought she was late twenties / early thirties) and remarkably well-preserved for a woman who had born and raised three kids! As far as I know both Blonde and Red are in relationships.Brunette also introduced herself to me. I've no idea if she's single or not, so I'll just pretend that she is. My one regret of the weekend was not asking her out Saturday night. She seemed pretty nice.
I was reminded of the problem with pagans - they're nice, intelligent, thoughtful, kind. Great people to hang around with. Then they'll say something that's just off in left field.
I was asking one vendor about the lamp oils they were selling - they had names like Oil of Apollo or Oil of Artemis. Did the names mean anything or was it just marketing. Well they tell me about the ingredients they added to the oil - stones sacred to this or that god, colours associated with this or that god. All well and good right? Then one of the woman says "And I was channelling the god while I was making the oil". Inside my mind went WTF, though I'm pretty sure there was no outward sign of it. I did ask.
While I consider evangelical christians and pagans to be about equal on the rationality scale, at least the pagans don't proselytize. That by itself makes them good people in my books.
Me? I'll keep my atheism to myself while hanging out at something called "Pan Faire". Anything else would be rude.
Afterwards, we got together with
nosarious and hit one of the Whyte Avenue pubs. ours was an allegedly authentic Irish pub, except it was playing pop music and had a definite meat-market atmosphere. Having parked the car for the night, I opted to get a little drunk. Sadly the only cider they had was Strongbow (the cider for people who'd rather be drinking beer), and I could only stomach 1/3 of a bottle of that. Ugh. Maybe next time.Sunday,
hadriel and I went out for breakfast (she'd never had Egg's Benedict - can you believe that?) and talked about Pan Faire's disappointing nature. Saturday they had a handful of customers (Sunday would repeat this). The problem being that it was not well organized or well advertised. It was in a community center that was near Whyte Avenue, but there was no way for the people on Whyte to know that.We brainstormed a bit and came to the conclusion that they need someplace with a high amount of foot traffic. Either on Whyte Avenue itself or by the Old Strathcona farmer's market or along Gateway (where there was a convenient park). Now ideas are cheap - what would be required to turn these great ideas into a concrete, profitable, Pan Faire would be research and preparation. Given that the vendors spent $70 each for a table, I think they could do a lot more for them then a venue that produces a dozen people worth of traffic.
I dropped her off at Pan Faire then fetched
nosarious and we looked for something to do, eventually opting for the Royal Alberta Museum. Glenbow has neater stuff, but the RAM tried to make a more educational exhibit. For example, the Glenbow has an eclectic bunch of native artifacts, but the RAM had a broad overview of native history from 10000 BCE to the present day. Glenbow says "Here are a bunch of neat looking rocks", RAM says "Here are a bunch of neat looking rocks and here is what makes them unique". You'll see more stuff at the Glenbow, but you'll leave the Royal Alberta Museum knowing more.We went back to Pan Faire and helped everyone pack up, then
hadriel and I went back to Cowtown. We stopped at Red Deer to get some Donut Mill donuts. We slowed down near Carstairs because of an accident that caused the powers-that-be to detour everyone to a side highway. Thus our Friday karmic debt was paid on Sunday.All in all it was a good trip, I'd do it again.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
Dadeos
Date: 2006-05-24 02:38 pm (UTC)I'm also typing this on my Mom's computer, accessible through Dialup. Wow. I forgot how slow that can be. Flipping through some old photo albums and seeing Edmonton and Calgary represented in family photos from the 50's and 60's is certainly an eye opener.
Thanks very much for helping liberate Munich, By the way. The movie, not the city. Just watched it and may not have done so if you adn't made it so easy. An incredible movie from a very unspoken-of time.
Gerry (sorry I couldn't log in. This is a very strange setup she has here)
no subject
Date: 2006-05-25 01:11 am (UTC)So, what have I said recently?
no subject
Date: 2006-05-25 02:46 am (UTC)