Brushes with fame

Before we got married, Belinda and I were living in different cities (different countries, for that matter), which meant a lot of airline miles got racked up going to visit each other. During that time I had opened her eyes to the wonders of the First Class Upgrade…for $60 and a little bit of luck you could fly in the lap of luxury, sipping bottled water and complimentary wine the whole way. She soon discovered that one of the side-benefits is the chance to rub elbows with the occasional celebrity, which to me is about as exciting as meeting the US Embassador to Bolivia…but sometimes it does make for a fun story to tell.

Belinda has had the good fortune to fly with, among other people, her adolescent heart-throb John Schneider, who was flying from LA to Vancouver to shoot another season of Smallville. My elbow-rubbing experiences totally pale in comparison, of course…the only two “celebrities” I’ve ever flown with are Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Chris O’Donnell. Do I get to meet Jan Smithers, Valerie Bertinelli or any of my many adolescent sweethearts? Noooo…I get Roger Murdock and McVet!

So this got me thinking about other “celebrities” I’ve encountered over the years, as well as how many people I actually know who are listed on IMDB…turns out, quite a few!

“Celebrities” on IMDB who I know, knew, or at least have met more than once (in no particular order):

• Paula Francis
• Nicola Crosby
• Tariq Jalil
• Tamara Taggart
• Tom Warden
• Coleen Christie
• Mi-Jung Lee
• Teresa Quevedo
• Sergio Urquidi

“Celebrities” I have met in person, flown next to, stood next to, or otherwise encountered:

• Jimmy Smits
• Tony Plana
• Chris O’Donnell
• Kareem Abdul-Jabar
• Jay Leno

“Celebrities” I have actually seen in person, from a distance of, say, fifty feet or less:

• Sonny Bono
• Danny DeVito
• Arnold Schwarzenegger

“Celebrities” I may have seen, but can’t be completely certain because I barely knew who they were at the time:

• Ellen Pompeo

If I think of any others, I’ll add them to these lists…so check back soon!

Oh where does the time go?

Holy snappin’ arseholes, Margaret…it’s been over a year since I last posted something! Did I mention I suck at blogging? Just making sure…

So just today I was doing a little “house cleaning” on my laptop when I came across a file with the beginnings of several blog ideas, and one of them looked like it was pretty much ready to go…so let’s see if you find it worthy of your time, shall we?

An equinotical constitutional perambulation…

In celebration of a couple of things (ie nice weather, first weekend of spring, and because we just plain wanted to), Belinda, Sean and I went for a photo-walk in a nearby park yesterday. It’s still a tad early in the year to see a whole lot of foliage, but we did manage to snap a few colourful shots here and there…

 

Sadly, the lighting conditions weren’t what you’d call optimal for our trademark goofy-faced, arm’s-length-self-portrait:

 

…but I did manage to get a couple of decent shots of us, once I fiddled with the manual settings a bit:

The rest can be viewed here.

All that work…

Arrrggghhh!!! I was working on a REALLY neat mashup, but I forgot the Golden Rule: Save Early, Save Often! Yeah, I got the White Screen of Momentary Dispair, complete with the message ”This program has stopped responding…click here to close.” Damn you, Windows Vista!

Ah well, I’ll try again tomorrow…in the meantime, I found a couple more from the archives:

 

 

 

Phun With Photochop

Hate to think I’ve shot my wad this early in the game, but it’s been a couple of days since my last blog post and I’ve been struggling to come up with something clever and witty. I know that you, my discerning readers, have come to expect a certain level of creativity, and I don’t want to let you down.

So to fill this uncomfortable lull until the creative writing juices start flowing again (eww), I`ve decided to post a gallery of photo mashups I`ve done over the past couple of years. And if the mood hits me tonight I`ll work on creating a new one…it`ll give me something to do while my wife watches that Next Top Model show.

Without further ado, I give you Phun With Photochop:

What is fame?

Okay, do this…go to google image search and type “Evan Williams Single Barrel.” Go ahead…I’ll wait.

As of this writing, down at the bottom of the page you’ll see some dorky guy holding two bottles of bourbon and grinning like a maniac. That maniacal dork is none other than yours truly!

Thanks to (in no particular order) my wife, her blog, her Flickr account and my dorkiness, I have gained a very, VERY small web presence…it’s not quite like having your portrait hanging in the Louvre, but I still think it’s kinda cool!

Other searches that come up with my face are (again, as of this writing):

• Stockard Channing Photo (page 10, but it used to be higher)
• Uhh Honey (page 1)
• Mom’s Booty (page 1)

WARNING: Depending on your “SafeSearch” settings, you could end up seeing things you don’t generally want to see, or want your boss/spouse/kids/neighbours/federal government to find you gawking at. Guess I should have mentioned that first, huh?

My second attempt at blogging

I’ve been here before (okay, not HERE here, but you know what I mean)…started a blog about two years ago, wrote a couple of posts within the first few weeks, then…nothing. A few months went by, and I’d go back to it occasionally, but it’s probably been a good eight months or more since my last post.

So, okay…I suck at blogging (and of course that ended up being the theme of the majority of my previous posts!), and getting a WordPress account is no guarantee that I’ll make it work this time around…but like the song goes, ya gotta have high hopes! I’m willing to give it another shot, no matter how lame it could end up being.

Alright, let’s set a few ground rules right off the bat…in this blog, I promise:

1. I will try to post at least once a week…hopefully as much as 5 times a week (but let’s settle for something in between, shall we?).
2. I won’t kvetch about my lack of writing skills too much (as long as you don’t, either!).
3. I’ll try to be entertaining, even if it’s just in my own mind.
4. You won’t hear me whine about celebrities (there might be one or two blogs out there already taking care of that business).
5. There will be little, if any, talk about raising babies, puppies, kitties, or vegetables in my garden (see #4).
6. I will spell-check, grammar check, and make damn sure you won’t see those annoying errors like “in it’s place” or “their coming to take me away.”
7. I’ll keep the profanity to a minimum (sorry about #6).
8. I’ll try to avoid using too much internet slang, like BTW or LOL or DTMawPF.*
9. I will try not to make too many lists, as I just realized I used them as a crutch in my first blog.
10. If I DO feel the need to list things, I will try not to let them go too long.
11. I had five more promises, but well…(see #10).

Wish me luck!

 

*okay, so I made that one up