Apologies for quoting bad pop music as my subject line but I have to face facts: I like bad pop music. As per Chuck Klosterman, I am not ashamed any more.

I'm in St. Catharines in the family compound. It's nice to be home for a few days instead of in hotel rooms and it's nice to see my family. I had a good week or so in Niagara Falls though conditions weren't optimal, hanging out with industry friends and catching up with my friend BJ and his wife when they came down into town.

On my day off I at first thought I was going blind and then after walking down to the Falls started feeling like vertigo. So I went back into my hotel room and felt awful for a couple hours, which had an adverse affect on my enjoyment of my day off. But I took some drugs and perked up some when BJ came through and we had a good time wandering around Clifton Hill and eating at the Fallsview Buffet (though we forgot to tip and I had a crisis of conscience about it later).

Anyways I'm off for a few days before I move on to Connecticut for my next adventure. Work went alright and it was nice to have backup. Before I went blind and got vertigo I decided I like my life. So that's a plus.

I miss my car though. It seems like lots of people (friends) I talk to are pleased for me but seem to be tempering their feelings but sitting back and waiting for the car to break down and for me to get hit with some huge maintenance cost. Which is a little weird - jealousy? What a vapid paragraph. I miss my car insanely.

Apologies for the scattered nature of this entry. I'm a little rusty when it comes to blogs.

I'm reading Empire Falls by Richard Russo and watching the final episodes of the Sopranos. Empire Falls is great and maybe my next project will be to read only Pulitzer Prize winning novels, or at least those that are written by men about small towns and disintegrating family life. Actually The Shipping News was great so maybe I'll open the floor to female authors and just try to get my hands on as many Pulitzer Prize winners as possible.

I've been slightly obsessed with poker and upping my stats on Sharkscope lately. Playing tons of $3 SNGs on Stars and trying to get back into the swing of the 90 person double-stack SNGS on Full Tilt just for variety. The Stars SNGs have been going decent, although I've had a couple days where I've lost overall and blamed it on getting extreme suckouts. I'm wondering if I can chalk that up to variance or if I've just been tilting. But both days I've seemed to get terrible runs of cards so. Anyways I have a 20% ROI in both tournaments so that's not terrible; it just won't make me rich. I guess I'll have to work hard for my money.

Today Andrew and Mike and I went over the border to do some shopping in Niagara Falls at the outlet mall. Was fun; the mall was crowded with Canadians and an almost laughable proportion of douchebags. I didn't buy anything although I found an incredible white linen suit for $496 at Saks Fifth Avenue that fit me perfectly and that I would have worn to oblivion on every trip to the tropics. It is my deepest regret in life that if I wore a suit to work people would look at me strange. Obviously.

Anyways after buying nothing, both my brother and I, and Mike buying a coat, we headed back across the border and into St. Catharines for dinner with my parents. Ate at a Mandarin Chinese buffet which was clootz. Dropped Andrew and Mike at the bus station and watched a damn good episode of Grey's with my mom, went for a walk with my dad and watched the Avs game - racked up 10 points in my hockey pool but the Avs lose, not clootz.

I've been pretty good over the last month or so about not being lonely/depressed/etc. And I'm still not depressed. I'm not missing Erin or anyone else. Just kind of had the thought the other day that it would be nice to have someone to share this stuff with.

I think I'm fundamentally an independent person and I could, can and do function well alone for certain periods of time but at the end of the day it's nice to have someone waiting for you when you get off the plane or on the other end of the phone line when you get off work at the end of the day. For whatever reason I started feeling like I was missing that aspect of life a bit a few days ago. It's no big deal and I don't see how I can rectify the situation (as we've established, this gig doesn't really allow me much opportunity to maintain a relationship), but I just wonder whether I'll get sick of traveling and living a life that interests me without that aspect of my life being present.

/end goofy introspection.

Alright, again I apologise for this fragmented blog and for not writing lately, although I'm not convinced I've been missed. Tomorrow I'm going to an OHL game with my mom and then watching the Colts/Pats and whatever other TV I can. Also frantically trying to choke down my collection of David Foster Wallace short stories so I can leave it at home.