{"id":715,"date":"2006-11-06T00:02:21","date_gmt":"2006-11-06T04:02:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/archives\/2006\/11\/06\/while-you-were-out\/"},"modified":"2006-11-06T10:49:09","modified_gmt":"2006-11-06T14:49:09","slug":"while-you-were-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/2006\/11\/06\/while-you-were-out\/","title":{"rendered":"While You Were Out…"},"content":{"rendered":"

So, I’m back.<\/p>\n

A great vacation. Seeing the various aquariums, zoos, museums, etc through the eyes of a two-year old really brightens them up. Hell, just riding the Red Line from Alewife into downtown Boston suddenly becomes an adventure.<\/p>\n

As I’m catching up on all this stuff that happened while I was away, I see that my friends have had a very busy week.<\/p>\n

Take, for example, the release of this year’s Best Of Halifax<\/a> awards. (I talked about this last year<\/a>). I see that my pal, Mike Drake<\/a> has once again earned the Best Salesman in Halifax award:<\/p>\n

Best salesperson, Winner<\/b>
\nMike Drake<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThat smarmy little bastard could even sell me comic books, and I’m the owner,\u201d says Calum Johnston, about the multiple Best of Halifax winner, Mike Drake. Nice words from the boss. But don’t be mistaken—it’s hardly a Glengarry Glen Ross<\/i> scenario at your favourite comic book store. All of the Strange Adventures staff stand behind their product. \u201cWe have faith in what we’re selling,\u201d says Johnston. \u201cThere’s no need to be pushy because we have great books that you can’t find anywhere else.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

You know, “smarmy little bastard” is pretty good. I should make a t-shirt or something. (Although it wouldn’t be as good as the “I used to be somebody” one I was going to make if Mike didn’t win this year.)<\/p>\n

\"Drake<\/p>\n

Speaking of people repeating their accomplishments, I see that my pal Iron Doug<\/a> had a very impressive showing<\/a> in the Florida Ironman<\/a> this year: 674th overall, in a field of over 2000, and he was 20th in his age class.Normally I would make a joke here about Doug being an old man, but since he can apparently sustain intense physical effort for 12 hours, and I can barely manage to be awake<\/em> for 12 hours, I think I’ll just shut my mouth.<\/footnote><\/p>\n

I am this<\/strong> close to actually sending Doug a shirt this time:<\/p>\n

\"Doug
\n\"Doug<\/p>\n

And, I also see that my pal Alex<\/a> has spawned<\/a>. We’ll see if his wife actually follows through on her long-standing vow not let Alex actually have any interaction with his children, for fear that his mindgames would permanently damage them. I suspect she will weaken, and consequently young Lizzie will end up either ruling the world, or inspiring cult t-shirts in questionable taste<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Of course with Freakboy being a parent, me being a parent, Roach being a parent, and now Alex being a parent, I guess the question is who’s next from the old Sybase gang: Biff or George? It’s a tough call, actually, since I think George probably doesn’t want to ever have kids, and Biff has animal husbandry to help sublimate his partner’s maternal instincts…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So, I’m back. A great vacation. Seeing the various aquariums, zoos, museums, etc through the eyes of a two-year old really brightens them up. Hell, just riding the Red Line from Alewife into downtown Boston suddenly becomes an adventure. As I’m catching up on all this stuff that happened while I was away, I see that my friends have had… Read more →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-715","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","xfolkentry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5UQvw-bx","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/715","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=715"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/715\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=715"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=715"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.chrismclaren.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=715"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}