Monday, June 18, 2007

~*...birthday week...*~

randnorm pikcha

sue, normurai, and karen...norm bday 2k6

randnorm mind grenade
growing old is mandatory; growing up is optional. ~chili davis

randnorm video


normdate 13.6.7

kale took me out for japanese this evening after sitting in a hairdressers chair for over 5 hours! she's making the first step to return her hair colour to blonde from dark red.

she is leaving for vancouver tomorrow morning to spend the weekend with her japanese boyfriend, hitoshi, so tonight was our night to celebrate my birthday together.

before our midweek drinking shenanigans got going, we stopped off at the source in kensington to participate in the first annual C1RCA/source staff ping pong challenge. the basement of the shop became the stadium for the most intense ping pong battle to ever hit the cspot.



fierce competition came from all around the city, looking to claim the most prized trophy of ping pong, the C1RCA GOLDEN LADY.



fueled by kokanee and indian short ribs courtesy of the source and C1RCA, the participants met on the ping pong battlefield playing through an excruciating round robin of ping pong mayhem.

















the intensity of the competition reached critical levels, with fierce competitors like LT SMASH, SCRAP DOG & MATT (PONY BOY) RAINE taking no prisoners on their way to ping pong victory.









in the end, it was the smooth style and masterful ping pong prowess of devin morrison that claimed first place and the coveted GOLDEN LADY.





second place was claimed by matt 'pony boy' raine.


third place went to newcomer and rookie brendan.


thanks to mike and zev from C1RCA for an intense evening of ping pong madness! thanks to my boss dave from the source for the libations.

good thing i wasn't driving. hooray, birthday week had started off right.

kale and i grabbed some more boozeahol and continued our celebrations at home. we got pretty rowdy for a school night. kale is normally in bed by 8:30pm. good thing she had a flight to catch in the morning.

"pshaw...you can just sleep on the plane."



i'm glad we had a night to get silly together, kale.


normdate 14.6.7


i woke up this morning with a killer hangover. drinking on a school night until 3 in the morning can really kick the shit out of you. thank god my job is ridiculously chill, cause i was one big bag of hurt. kale wasn't doing so hot either, but all she had to do was get on a plane.

angel and i had some fun taking pix at work.








there is a fresh fruit and vegetable market just down the street from my work, which is an anormaly in our area...it is pure industrial. its even more funny because of its name...



i saw no d.j.s there. perhaps they're not in season.




this market reminds me of kensington market in toronto. the produce is fresh and the prices kick the shit out of any supermarket...and its a 2minute walk away from my work. schweet.


kale is cheap. teehee.





as angel and i left work at the end of the day, we were walking towards the train station when i saw a pair of boots sitting beside a bus stop bench. i said to angel "are those boots?" sure enough, an almost brand new pair of timberland boots sat next to the bench. they even had the timberland tag still attached to them, and looked like they had only been worn once. and wouldn't you know it, they were my size. hooray boots. happy birthday to mii!

i met up with my friend sheraka at the oolong tea house in kensington. she had just returned from thailand where she spent the last three months studying thai massage. it was so good to see her again. she is such a powerful little jedi.

we shared a cup of matcha tea before heading down the street to molly malone's where my birthday celebrations would continue with more friends and of course more libations.







birthday shots for the birthday boyz, mike and normurai








i was blessed to celebrate with a great krew of people. i even randnormly ran into my friend ashley from toronto. she had recently moved to calgary with her husband. you never know who you might run into out of nowhere.



thank you to all of the incredible people who came out to celebrate my bday. its comforting to know that no matter where i choose to be, i surround myself with kewl beanz who love me.

bless


normdate 15.6.7

i woke up on the sofa at mike's place. one of the challenges of living way the fuck up in the nw is that i have to catch the last bus home or else i'm fook'd. the last bus leaves dalhousie station at 12:43am, and i have to take the train from wherever i am to get there on time first. thank god there are sofas more central to town that i can pass out on.

mike has a most impresseive collection of video game consoles, including an original coleco vision with the atari adaaptor, nintendo entertainment system, super nintendo entertainment system, and a nintendo wii.

yes, i'm a dork and took pikchaz of his consoles.




dude even pulls out the ol skewl keep the game in with another game steez on his nes. noice.


czech his game collektion.

yes, that is frogger in there!

mike and i went out for bday breakfast together. hooray geminis.

i spent the rest of my day bloggin' and waiting for my good friend graham to arrive from edmonton. i was so excited to see him. he was my saving grace. as much as i was blessed to have so many people come out to share my bday with me, i've known all of them for less than a year. to be able to look at my own history in the face of an old friend was a comfort that i am used to having on my birthday, and graham was on his way to town to share that with me.

i was so happy to see him. i've known graham more than half of my life. he and i are also big geeks, video game geeks. we would often spend friday nights in toronto drinkin' beers and playin' video games together.

graham brought his ps2 with him. we went to the mall, grabbed me a network adaptor, a network cable as well as another copy of burnout 3 takedown. our goal was to link up our ps2s and race. can you smell the geekiness?

after an awesome steak dinner, graham and i put two televisions beside each other and attempted to link up our playstations. graham's silver ps2 was about 1/3 the size of my old skewl ps2.





and we were not successful at networking our consoles. *grrrr* why couldn't it be as easy as linking up multiple xboxes? so instead, we played split screen. it was good to chill with an old friend and be uber geeks for a night. thanks graham. i'm gonna miss you when you leave this province.


normdate 16.6.7

graham is quite skilled in the kichen, and cooked one mother of a breakfast this morning...a hell of a lot more than two people could eat. i wasn't about to complain.

with our bellies full, we jumped into graham's car and began an hour jaunt southwest or calgary towards the beautiful kananaskis country. dae, mike, and krew were camping out there for the weekend.

the weather was overcast and rather shitty, but a few clouds was not about to stop us from spending a day in the woods.

driving to the mountains is always such an incredible experience for me. they are just so huge! i never cease to marvel at their majesty, their beauty, and wonder what it would be like to shred the shit out them when they are covered in snow. hell, even when they're not covered in snow i imagine that they are. fuck do i ever love snowboarding.



we arrived at the beaver flats campground and began our search for our friends. yah, we didn't really know where the hell they were camped. after running up to a few random campers screaming out dae and mike's names, we finally arrived at the walk in camp area where they were camped. stoked to have found them, we kicked back and enjoyed a cold ale. nothin like a kokanee when you're surrounded by mountains. stoopid branding ;)





mike was busy choppin firewood




the mountains were calling us, so we gathered the troops and began exploring the vast and beautiful landscape that surrounded us.









stop. strike a pose.








go flames go


our hiking krew


even though the sun was hiding behind the clouds, the rockies are still breathtaking.






taking the low road




taking the high road back, we decided to throw a frisbee around on the road. a car drove by and then pulled over. we thought the driver was mad at us for playing in the street and wanted to have words with us. it turned out to be our friends lisa and crystal. they were driving around trying to find the campsite and came across us on the highway.

sometimes the universe is good like that. ok, all the time ;)









hooray frisbees!


daemond had some portable speakers attached to a cd player...eggselent for randnorm dance sessions in the forest, especially with some james brown.









back at camp, graham gave his brand new throwing a toss or few.







knives and kokanee...a winning combination.


jiffy pop over an open fire...genius!


normurai has just poked you


the sun poked its head out for a little bit of saturday afternoon light. hooray! but it was time for graham and i to head back to the cspot. we said goodbye, and made a beeline to tubby dog for birthday dinner. there's something about eating a 1/3pound all beef hotdog that is deep fried and covered in ham and maple syrup that takes its toll on you. the yam fries and mega thick onion rings kinda add to the slap in the face. it takes a lot of energy to eat that much food, and we were already exhausted from a day hiking in the kananaskis.

so we took a two hour nap before heading out for the night. our destination was a bar/lounge called the well. some good house beatz and sexxxy peeps made for an awesome night of dancing. the after party was just down the street, also full of awesome peeps...more specifically the steamers, a group of burners from calgary.

it was a great way to end off my birthing day. tired and exhausted, we retired back to the nw and passed the fuck out.

thanks for sharing my bday with me graham. you fukkin rool!


~*...normaste...*~

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