An American Day

im sitting in my beloved Grounds for Coffee with a full cup of coffee and IM PISSED OFF!  and ill tell you exactly why im pissed off.  i, graham bennett, just got STOOD UP! 10 seconds ago.  

heres the story...

im just hanging around my apartment (i woke up at 12:15pm by the way) just looooouuuuunging.  checking emails, looking at facesbooks, and listening to some sweet jams.  i walk over to the fridge and stare at a plate of tomatoes and some carrots and just wondering to myself, "what the hell am i going to do with those?"

i could make a sandwich i guess.....with cheese, tomatoes and carrots? oh wait, i dont have any bread.  great.  CEREAL! ill have CEREAL!  cereal never fails, especially if you rock some fruity pebbles.  oh wait, no milk.  great.

just then, iain and suzie called.  now usually that would sound weird because how could two people operate one phone?   well thats just what they do....its weird.  iain listens, and then tells suzie, and then suzie talks.  they had to get the old zach morris phone in order to fit their heads on it.  sweet? far from it.

the conversations last forever because ill say, "hey" and then i can hear iain tell suzie, but suzie usually says, "oh babes, i heard him, but i like when you tell me" and iain will respond, "oh ok good because i really like being just the ear in this phone operation and relaying the message....i feel really cool."

so this usually occurs after everything i say.

anyways, 30 minutes later, the plan was to meet at Grounds for Coffee and hang out....EXTREME STYLE!

so goody, yay, i get to go party!

while im walking down to Grounds for Coffee, im listening to bands like:  the minor times, this or the apocalypse, and trap them to get AMPED for devouring cinnamon rolls and politicking about everyday adventures and/or life lessons.  

once i arrived, i ordered a medium coffee and a cinnamon roll with icing.  the cashier lady then says, "so are you starting to make this a daily routine?"

oh no.  i come to this place all the time and they finally caught on and are now concerned with my wellbeing.  i respond with, "yeah, im trying to get diabetes by the end of the week."

this wont be hard.  

she hands me the coffee and the sugary poison cake...instantly, waves of shame began to penetrate my particularly zaftig body.  i sit down, and consume while waiting for the scottish duo to arrive.  then i get a call and they inform me that "our plans dont match up"

what?! what the hell does that mean!!??

i was so confused because it was THEIR idea to meet up and hang out.  this crushed me.  i feel like buying a second cinnamon roll with EXTRA icing to quench my sorrows.  who am i kidding....ive already had two...

anyways, they decided to bail on me.  this is CRAP!  i hate iain and suzie and my hatred to them will just spread to an irrational hatred towards all scotsmen.  NEVER trust a scottish person!  their mouths are full of gross lies and their hearts are full of poisonous spiders.

whatever, im over it...we will probably hang out later (probably a sleep over or something)....i just said all that to let you know that i turned a bad into a good! as usual, because im awesome, and i live life TO DA MAX!

TIME TO BLOG!!  (that was the good outcome of being stood up if you didnt catch on....get with it)

ill tell you about a fun day i had last week with a gaggle of friends.  the Incredible Delicious Insightful Open Team Sexy and i went to seattle for the day...mainly to "be american".  our choices were intentional and well thought out.  it was gini's bday and she wanted people to be awesome and go to an american baseball game.  

heres the team:

 

we meet at the nunnery at 9ish? i think.  and we started out way (with two cars full of sexy individuals) to seattle!  we immediately hit traffic with other motorist interested in entering the united states of america for some good times.  nomi informed us of a premium short cut that would take us on a side road to another border crossing.  the side road pooped us out almost at the front of the line.  apparently it was "poor form" to turn into the line via this side road.  by "poor form" i mean there was a big sign that said NO RIGHT TURNS! but someone let us in anyways.....half of us felt bad, half of us let the glory of beating the system tickle our insides.

we arrive to the border and present our valid passports containing horrible pictures of everyone.  the mister man with a badge (and probably a gun) asked us how long we were in canada, since we didnt have canadian passports.  very perceptive.  i like that.

luke responds by informing this gentleman that we were studying theology at regent college.  to which the officer asked if we studied greek.  i hadnt.  AND NEVER WILL! 

luke said yes.  which trapped him the officers web of investigation.   the officer starts speaking in greek and i immediately start thinking that if luke doesnt know what hes saying then he will catch us in OUR DARK LIES!!!  well we werent lying BUT THE COPPERHEAD COULD THINK THAT!

luke recognizes what he was saying and enthusiastically answers, "john 1!"

that was a close one.

the officer gets giddy as well and they start talking greek/studying/being awesome.  then another officer comes up and yells, "alright chatty cathy! you cant keep talking to every car!"

SO WE MADE IT THROUGH!  and the officer didnt even know i was smuggling in THOUSANDS of canadian treats in my pockets.  fooooooools.

as we near seattle, we give the other car a shout to see where they are.  unfortunately they didnt take the side road cheat and were only just through the border.  they were so far behind.  fooooooools.

however, we couldnt get into the stadium because gini (who was driving the other car) had all the tickets.  so we decided to spend our time at a starbucks.  i think i need to define that 'we'.  our team, team winners, included nomi, luke, makana, and me.  

time passed.

the other team, 'team interesting smells', arrived and we were granted access to the stadium.  we had nose bleeds which was great because we had a birds eye view of the field.  let the american day begin! well i guess it began earlier, whatever, shut up.  

the day was perfect as we were enjoying the american baseball.  moments later, the american foods started to pour in.  we had american hotdogs with american ketchup and american mustard, american coca-cola classic, american fries with way too much american garlic on them.  it was so delicious and any sort of attempt at achieving a sexy summer bod in canada that week was annulled (the tasty kind) by my decisions in america.

oooooooook it is currently june 16th and i havent touched this blog since may 24th.  this is bologna.  i started this post so long ago and then school started with INTENSE reading and i was so swamped.  on top of the school work, i was helping out with a play so that took a bunch of my time.  anyways, lets see what i can remember and finish this dumb post.

so we were at a baseball game? right.

uhhhh ok that finished and i was filled with food.  the mariners won? i think so.  on the way back we stopped at a mexican restaurant to eat. ok im over it. PUBLISH.

oh wait, before i publish i WILL say that we stopped at target on the way back and that place is so awesome and canada SUCKS for not having them.  i bought so much hanes products that i should officially be sponsored.  nomi and i clowned laura for her "injury" pew pew pew (inside joke) and then i hated the ride back because luke and nomi decided to blast kelly clarkson.  OK BYE.

My Brother's Wedding: Vietnamese for a day

i am so far behind in my adventure/suspense thriller/informative/life writing because (ill give you a multiple choice question in order to find out my whereabouts):

is it....

a) ive been on so many awesome adventures 

b) ive started summer school 

c) im playing a few 'extras' in a play at pacific theater

d) im too busy running/exercising/not eating cinnamon rolls to write

e) all of the above

f) all of the above except for d

g) all of the above except for d, BAAAAAHAHAHAHAHHAHAA

(hint: im eating a cinnamon roll as we speak)

answer:  g

ok, i know you are thinking...."hey graham, you big goof, answers f and g are the same".   well you would be kinda right in life but totally wrong in multiple choice.  i, in my head, asked you to answer the "best" possible answer even if more than one are right.  so you failed.  unless you answered g, then you win.  you win nothing though, sorry.  look, i dont know why you are yelling at me right now, it was just a stupid question to inform you where i have been and why my writing hasnt been as frequent.  ohhhhhh ok, there it is! i cant believe you just brought that up! IM NOT A MACHINE!!!!! ok, lets just get in the bathtub and cool off......for realz......I SAID IM SORRY!!!!! (no i didnt) 

the end.

ok not reallly.  

a few weekends ago i went to santa rosa, california to partake in the wedding of my older (and only) brother.  this weekend was a unique one.  a lot of "firsts" for mr. graham.  i was supposed to leave vancouver at 5:15am via quickshuttle at an obscure bus stop that was too far to walk and too early to catch another bus to.  so luke, the generous one, decided he would drive me to the bus stop at 5am.

thursday morning came and i wake up to luke frantically yelling my name.  it was 6:15am.  my alarm didnt go off.  shit.  i figured out that when i was tired and setting my alarm the night prior, i accidently set it to the PM.  what an idiot.  

im freaking out because my flight flies out of seattle and not vancouver.  why did i do that? SHUT UP.  well its just cheaper.  the imaginary border in the sky increases the price up all willy nilly like. 

like i said, luke, the generous one (i really cant emphasis this enough) decides to drive me all the way to seattle.  on the way down, we eat mcdonalds breakfast which i havent done in forever AND to top things off, the mcdonalds in the states (im talking the ones that exist right outside the border, not the south) have sweet tea now!! AND ITS SOMEWHAT ACCEPTABLE!!!!

then we continued to blaze through seattle like two bandits on the run from johnny law!  it was exhilarating until johnny law caught up.   a particularly zaftig police constable standing beside his official police equipped motorcycle pointed at us and flashed his lights from the side of the highway.  we were confused nonetheless but decided to pull over in the slight chance that he in fact wanted to "speak kind words" to us.  he thought he was sooooooooo great.  and in his "kindness" decided to give us a $93.00 ticket for going 65 in a 60.  the only redeeming part was that he started a sentence with: "and if i see you in these parts again...."

i didnt catch the end because everything fell silent when i saw the actual ticket and it did in fact say $93.00 for a 65 in a 60.

what the hell?

then we realized it was april 30th so at the end of the month the copperheads hand tickets out as if they were a flier for a crappy local ska band.  

we get to the seattle airport with plenty of time to spare and i arrived in santa rosa safe and sound.  a shuttle came to pick me up and i spent the next 7 hours either watching tv in the hotel room, reading, surfing the internets in the hotel lobby, or making friends at the hotel bar while eating the most expensive burger and watching the NBAs.  have you ever heard of the NBAs?  well its were these giants play basketball with what looks likes a tennis ball made to look like a basketball.  the video must have been in fast forward because these giants were so fast.  it was wild.  we yelled at the television.

finally, the rest of my family arrived that night and was a once again reconciled with my mom, dad, and sister.  it was the good times.  we visited for a bit but were all pretty tired so we hit the hay pretty quick.  i was actually pissed off that the beds were made of hay at this "fancy" hotel we were staying at.

i woke up friday to the most annoying telephone ring in the world as my mother was trying to "rally the troops" to meet for brunch....steve (my own damn brother) was meeting us.  along with steve, lynh, his fiance, was coming as well.  i was going to meet my future sister-in-law for the first time.  yeah thats right....the first time.

lynh is from vietnam.  the way steve and lynh got together is very interesting and totally rad.  kudos to him because i dont think i could pull it off.  so here is the summary of their dating adventure:

steve: california

lynh: vietnam

men and suu: lynh's aunt and uncle in california who are friends with steve

one day men says, "hey steve, do you want to meet my niece?"

steve responds, "sure"

so men gives him her email and steve and lynh start emailing back and forth.  this is about 3 years ago or something.  the communication progressed to more and more emails and then to phone calls etc etc.  they exchanged pictures of each other but had yet to meet in person.  so this relationship was based upon pure communication alone.  pretty rad.

flash forward to two thanksgivings ago.  steve is going to vietnam with men and suu to meet lynh for the first time.  crazy.  he told me that if everything is the way it is while he was there, theres no reason why he shouldnt get engaged.  so they did.  we got to see pictures and a video of the event.

event? why was there an event for just an engagement?  well thats because we are so used to the american engagements which are private and full of rose petals.  the only "public event" would be the newly engaged couple calling everyone they know (or now, just updating their facebook status or twitter)

however, in vietnam.....engagements are a huge deal.  and such a huge deal that when martha and i saw the pictures and video, we looked at each other and said in unison, "i think steve is already married"

to this day we have no idea.  martha likes to joke that he was vietnam married and not american married.  regardless of any sort of marriage status he created in vietnam, i know my mom would not allow a wedding ceremony to occur without her being there.....THUS we had a wedding in california.  so either steve had one magnificent engagement ceremony and one wedding OR he had two straight up weddings.....ohhhh the mysteries of life tickle me.

flash forward to me reading an email from my mom after she reads this post:

"graham, steve did NOT get married in vietnam, he only had ONE wedding with his MOTHER there.  love, mom    p.s. i saw a girl today, i think you should ask her out....im so desperate for you to have a wife,  you disappoint me."

anyways, after steve went over there to get engarried (yeah thats engaged and married combined) lynh had to wait like a million years for the stupid green card to come through.  so steve had to wait a long time in california for his wifiance (yeah thats wife and fiance combined, whatever im over it, you get the idea)

SO FINALLY!!! WE HAD WEDDING TIME

wait no, before that.  this is still friday im talking about...the brunch thingy.  well thats not too much to say.  i met lynh for the first time and it was a lot of fun.  she is a vietnamese babedog with premium AZN fashion.  she is 26? martha, correct me on this.  i hate being late on my blogs because i cant remember everything.  

i DO remember my dad getting really defensive when we were recounting the story when our dog shorty ate a stuffed quail.  i wasnt there because of my whole canada situation but i heard through the grape vine (internets) that roy, my sisters dog, started to chew on a stuffed quail that my dad had.  then shorty, the elder dog, came in and ate the entire bird...then threw it up bc it was mainly styrofoam.  dumb dog.  well allegedly, my dad came in, saw the mess and flipped out because shorty has never done anything like this.  (i blame shorty's misbehavior on roy's immature lifestyle which is a direct correlation of the poor training skills of the owners)

well according to eye witnesses (my sister and mom), my dad started yelling obscenities and expressing deep disappointment as if shorty was a beloved friend or even child.  examples that martha reiterated in a perfect "mad dad" impression:

"AAAAAAHHHHHHH   I CANT BELIEVE THIS! YOURE A BAD DOG!! BAD DOG!!!........ I CANT EVEN LOOK AT YOU RIGHT!"

and then he ignored the dog for a while.  so while martha, mom, and i were laughing about this, my dad started to get all buggaboo.  super defensive for absolutely no reason and denying any sort of overreaction in his melodramatic response to shorty's ill choice of devouring the stuffed bird.  ohhhh and this just made his situation even worse when martha and i pressed the issue so much more and employing hyperbolic devices in reanimating the particular scene.  "NO I DIDNT DAMMIT!" yelled father as i, who wasnt even there, insisted.  it was great.  glad to be with the family again.

friday night dinner highlight:

my brother's friend who my parents just met that day talked about the "dutch oven".....incredible.  my parents had no idea which was even better.

the wedding:

was beautiful AND awesome because it was half in english and half in vietnamese.  it was the first vietnamese catholic wedding id ever been to.  the only sucky thing was that it was raining the entire weekend. 

the post-wedding lunch:

after the wedding, everyone and by everyone i mean the entire vietnamese community in santa rosa and then the handful of white people that consisted of me, martha, mom, dad, steve, and a few of steves friends.  IT. WAS. AWESOME.  though i was part of the wedding, i felt like a spectator the entire time because everything was different.  it was so cool to experience another culture's wedding festivities and it only got better and better as the day went on.

like i said, after the wedding, everyone went to men and suu's for a lunch.  now, this wasnt the reception....this was something between the wedding and reception because the reception is a dinner and the wedding was in the morning.  so i thought this was going to be small and just kind of a hang out. false. there was a huge spread and a pig walking around just talking out loud..."ohhh please eat me....you can pull bacon off my back.....meat just faaaalls off my body.....oh and dont mind my eyes, they are little tomatoes!"

tons of food, all the good times.  after we filled out bellies with various vietnamese delicacies, we departed to the hotel for some rest and relaxation before the reception.

hotel rest and relaxation:

martha and i wanted to have some premium brother/sister time and to maximize our fun.  so we decided to annoy a handful of our friends from the north carolinas with facebook videos.  im so happy that facebook has the option of recording a video on someone's wall instead of merely typing your message of information/appreciation/or criticism.  i wish i could link the videos to my blog, but i cant. SO please feel free to say to yourself, "oh, i guess you had to be there".  and then walk up to a mirror and give yourself the finger.  

reception:

the reception is the best part of this vietnamese vacation.  it was at a chinese restaurant at the mall.  incredible.  martha and i really hoped that we were taking over the food court but the restaurant was a legit restaurant that just so happened to be connected to the mall.  bummer.  

we had the entire thing booked out and to my sweet sweet pleasure, i notice a karaoke machine in the corner.  jackpot.

all the receptions ive been to have been buffet style and then you dance and party.  nothing formal or structured.  in the vietnamese culture, they have a sit down 9 course dinner for the reception.  by the way, whenever i say, "in the vietnamese culture" i sound like an awful tour guide or something who is sporting a fanny pack full of jellybeans.

anyways, the food was absolutely incredible and NEVER stopped so my body was full of chinese awesomeness and i was about to explode.  the MC of the reception led games, mainly trivia about the bride and groom, and i realized how little i knew about my brother.  i didnt know his height, weight, favorite food, most feared animal, or anything!!!

for favorite food i yelled out "AMERICAN CHEESEBURGER" while suu, lynh's uncle, kept yelling "LYNH!" which made everyone laugh and my mom confused. 

most of the vietnamese community that was at the reception were older so i was wondering if the karaoke was going to be popular or not.  i was unsure of the enthusiasm from the vietnamese elders to this "playful singing machine"

i was dead wrong.  once that thing turned on, every person got up to party.  group after group got up to sing ridiculously insane vietnamese songs that sounded like a cross between the 80's, techno, and hiphop.  it was awesome.  my jaw open and i was just taking in the glory the entire time.

martha, steves friend, and i sang "lean on me" whatever, we're over it.  we were pretty professional.  and by "we were pretty professional" i mean that steve forced us to be professional.  while we were looking through the karaoke book to pick a song, he came up to us and exclaimed that we could NOT make fun of this and be "funny".  ive never seen him this serious before while he was explaining that this karaoke business is NO JOKE in the vietnamese community and we COULD NOT disrespect anyone.  needless to say, we were frightened by his request.

sooooo we sang like we were good.  but i was confused because how do you make karaoke NOT funny?  ohhhh the mysteries tickled me once again.

a nice little highlight for me was whenever i saw my mom and a small asian child, all i thought of was:

"oh, look at lucille bluth and annyong"

and if any of you dont get that joke then you should stop whatever you are doing and watch every single Arrested Development episode.  you should be ashamed of yourself!

well, my mom looks like lucille bluth and because im american, every asian child looks like every asian child.  

ok.  this post is long.  sorry. ill stop.  

bottom line: go to asian weddings. the end.

Jeffron the Immortal part 6

aaaaaaalright, this is going to be the final jeffron the immortal post!  i dont care if i miss anything, ITS GONE ON TOO LONG JEFFEY BABBY!!

ive been painstakingly working on this jeffron novel since march 28.  ARE YOU SERIOUS!!??  ive been working on this masterpiece (only to be fully appreciated many years after im dead like melville's moby dick) for 43 days!  i think my math is right...i dont really want to waste time on that crap.  honestly jeffron, these 6 chapters (though one was not really about you) has really made me hate you and regret our friendship.

but for the sake of my regular readers (martha and mom2) i will finish this quest of literature.

side note:  last weekend when i was in california (again, ill fill you in later) and saw my sister, she whined and whined like a little babby about not being mentioned in my blog enough.  ohhhhh im sorry MARTHA, i live in CANADA now so the frequency of our hangouts have been reduced to ZERO and thus the probability of you appearing in one of my adventures IN CANADA are about 1 in 234567898765432456787654.  it was really sad, ladies and gentlebabes, she came to me with a picture she drew in class.  it was a picture of me (she used a red crayon so it just looked like a crimson blob) on my computer writing in my blog and the quote above me said"

"ohhh i miss martha so much, ill write about her everyday, my fingers are sticky because of this cinnamon roll, martha loves chocolate, her dog sucks, it should have been named after me, graham the dog, thats what it should have been named, sam cant take pictures without closing his eyes, hes weird, i look like a fat thigh."

aside from her inability to NOT use a comma, i hated the picture.

i took it from her hands, ripped it in half and yelled, "MARTHA! you are 26! GROW UP!"......and then i pushed her.  she cried, of course, because shes a crier.

dammit, so far i have written nothing about jeffron.  OK GO GRAHAM!

couple highlights:

1) during jeffrons wonderful 12 day stay on my couch, we turned out to be professional movie watchers.  one of those movies was Watchmen.  it was very exciting and epic.  i remember it like it was a couple months ago, when jeffron woke me up one morning by heavily breathing on my face.  i woke up and he said, "graham, i want to witness something epic today."

i, of course, agreed and we set off to the internetz database to browse several options.  swinging bridge?? OH YEAH! wait, how much is it?........next.

so after house of searching and a dozen of tim horton donuts gone, we decided to just go to the watchmen which was playing in a big fancy theater in the middle of downtown.  we walk in and i go straight to the self serve (independence) machine to print my own ticket out.  i get my ticket and we go to the escalator to get them rrrrrripped and go upstairs.  since the theater is downtown, its several stories so save room.  i think theres like 4 stories of theaters, its pretty rad whatever 2009 vancouver, eat it everyone else.  my ticket it ripped and jeffron is right behind me, just admiring the view.  we go to the snack bar to LOAD up on carbs and soda so that our energy level is to the max while we watch this movie.  we have to wait in another line going into the actual theater.  dumb lines.  we get to the entrance and notice another meticulous worker checking tickets to this fine viewing so that no tricksters go into it for free. 

jeffrons hands are full of bags of popcorn and enough chocolate to guarantee my diabetic coma so he was unable to reach for his ticket.  not to worry! i was ahead of him and because i had a wheelbarrow full of malt balls and butternnaise (combo of butter and mayonnaise) i was able to park my gluttonbarrow and grab my ticket....jeffron just pointed to me and we got in.

we found some professional seats and began our pre-movie gluttonfest.  before the first preview was done, i had downed (extreme style) 2 liters of american mountain dew so my baby bladder was about to burst.  unfortunately i couldnt find my ticket stub (must have fallen in the butternnaise) so i asked for jeffrons.  jeffron looked at me with a glazed look across his face.  both in the sense of "graham, what ticket stub" and that his face had a centimeter layer of popcorn butter.

"come on jeff, you know, the ticket stub....your ticket that allowed you to be in the seat you are in now."

"uhh you bought my ticket, you have it"

"i didnt buy your ticket!"

after several variations of this exchange, we realized that jeffron some out slipped by not one but TWO ticket stops and made it to see Watchmen FOR FREE!!!1111onewon.

now, as you know, i get a lot of things for free, but theres no way around this one.....

oh well.  we didnt feel bad since we gave them a hundo-spot for 10 minutes under the slushy machine.

2)  SNOWSHOEING!!!  

one of the epic things we did was snowshoeing.  luke, jeffron and i took a day trip to cypress mountain to violate its show covered mountain side with our muscly white thighs and calves.  women love calves.  male calves for women are like air to anything that needs air to survive.  

so this day, the three amigos decided to work our calves HARD!  it worked.  i almost threw up.

it was so awesome going from the city that was nice weather, not that cold, and then 40 minutes later be in a place where theres 10 feet of snow.  HORRAY! THANKS VANCOUVER!

we hiked forever and made it to the TOP! BECAUSE WE ARE AWESOME.  ok, instead of writing about walking around, ill just let you look at pictures:

 

it was amazing.  at the top of the mountain, it was SO bright that i was useless at taking pictures.  i couldnt open my eyes to save my life.  exhibit a:

 

on the way down.  jeffron and lukey took the adventure to the next level.  and if anyone knows anything about BZL levels....then you will know that BZL levels and clothing are inversely related.  exhibit b:

i see no better way to end the JEFFRON CHRONICLES than with a picture of two dudes showing off their sexy summer bods IN THE WINTER!

for further pictures, check out:

my flickr

jeffrons picasa

Jeffron the Immortal part 5

RESUME!

i need to finish this whole jeffron mass posting because i got more and more STUFF to talk about.  so lets just talk about a million activities that jeffron and i owned HARD.

GRANVILLE ISLAND!

this magical place is a little place underneath the granville street bridge and is home to restaurants, theaters, art galleries, and the famous granville island public market.  its a nice little date spot to bring your significant other...in this case a rough and touch male named jeffron the immortal.  

we walked around, lookin' frrresh, all throughout the market.  it was packed with EVERY fresh food EVER!  i swear the strawberries were the size of softballs.  mutants really.  there was a chocolate fountain that flowed sweeet milk chocolate the entire time but what unfortunately encased in a protective glass that was "guaranteed fat proof", which is actually a couple grades more durable and furious than bullet proof. 

sidenote:

ok, i am currently sitting in the seattle airport waiting for about 3 hours for my shuttle to go back to vancouver.  "oh why is graham in seattle?" says the avid reader, concerned parent, or interested friend...THATS EXACTLY MY POINT!! i have SO much to talk about and why im in seattle or, get this, why i was at a vietnamese karaoke party for the past two days......ohhh yeah, i need to quickly finish this jeffron novel so i can move on to, no offense jeffeypoo, MORE VIETNAMESE THINGS!

oh wait, that wasnt the sidenote at all, ok REAL sidenote:

im in the seattle airport and i just watched a group of 20 pilots walk by HOLY SHIT THEY ARE BACK AT IT AGAIN.  ok, i feel pretty lucky to get two "fly bys" from 20 pilots wearing their formal navy blue pant suits and rolling their state of the art baggage behind them.  it was such a great sight...there precise groups and steady/confident strides made it seem they were professional choreographers (speciality: walking)....now, would a group of pilots be called a "fleet of pilots"?

ok, back to granville island.  the walking around with the stop in the hammock store for a "let me act like im seriously going to buy this hammock but really im just lazy and want to lay in a hammock for a while" adventure was great BUT the highlight of the granville island experience was the KIDS MARKET!!!!!11111onewon

the kids market was full of games, toys, small toilets, art tutorials, arcades, annoyed parents, boogers, and most importantly.....GRAHAM AND JEFFRON!!!

we hit that place like we owned it!  as we were immediately denied access to the jungle gym/tunnels/ball pit we decided to drown our sorrows first in the toy store.  as the children we are, we got pretty bored pretty fast so we traveled upstairs through the sticky handrail staircase (stupid kids) to the arcade.  

game on.

there were kids screaming and running around but jeffron and i took the arcade with the utmost seriousness.  its business time.  makin' the monies......or in this case...makin' the little pieces of paper that you have to annoyingly hold on to and then exchange for cheap plastic goods that you will lose in 5-10 minutes.  now, im not going to brag but ill just type a, unnecessarily inflated self-promoting account of what happened...

MY SKILLZ WERE DA BOMBZ AT THE MACHINES!! THEY WERE MY MACHINES!!

HUNDREDS OF TICKETS FOR GRAHAMMY B!!! it was magic as i manipulated every token in order to produce as many tickets to fill a bathtub up.  ecstasy caressed my nubile flesh so intensely that i know that cobra felt the aftershock in nyc.  children were cheering my name as i was a GOD to them.  an ARCADE GOD!!! I TELL YOU!!!  as i squeezed every ticket out of the machines, i never once touched the dirty common-folk ground with my feet because i was hovering the whole time due to the 20 kids holding up my throne made of gold plated arcade machine parts.  the seat cushions were constructed of the finest balls from the ball pit....filled with mayonnaise for the perfect buoyancy

I WAS LIVIN' THE DREAM!!!! (see picture)

as i was being showered in the blood of all the firstborns, i looked over to jeffron to touch base on his success.  it was pathetic.  he had one ticket in his hands, which was given to him by a little girl who saw him crying in the corner chewing on his industrial hiking boot.  for a split second i felt bad but then i realized that the heavy feeling on my shoulders wasnt a sympathetic feeling towards jeffron...but rather the millions of tickets that were covering me like a royal cloak!! THE TICKETS WERE SO HEAVY BECAUSE I WON SO MANY TICKETS BECAUSE IM SO AWESOME AT THE ARCADES!!!!!!!!!

i told you i wouldnt brag.

we went to the counter to cash in out tickets for some sweet stuff that would make all the cool kids jealous.  i didnt think that jeffron would be able to afford anything from his one ticket but apparently he stole a bunch of tickets from a small child sooo goody yay for him.

we looked at the prizes and saw all the most premium winnings such from plastic spider rings to bouncy balls!!! it was incredible.  BEST. DAY. EVER.

my reign quickly came to a halt when i realized that one bouncy ball was 345678765432 tickets.  dammit.  alright, well ill take a couple spider rings, a chinese finger trap, bouncy ball, and a popper.  jeffron was able to get a couple of stuff and when the girl at the counter said that he had 15 tickets left....he just pointed at her....winked.....and said, "hey, how about you get yourself something nice"

she laughed and im pretty sure she just took a stick of gum or something.

high rollers.

we took a prize photo shoot which brought the attention of a curious child.  we made friends:

after playing with the prizes for about 4 hours, we decided to put them away and keep wandering around the stores.  oh kids clothing store? dont mind if we do!

this store, though advertised for children, was really created for jeffron and i.  i mean, the magic filled t-shirts came in little boxes THAT LOOKED LIKE T-SHIRTS!!! OMG!!!111onewon yes please a million of those for me i will wear them everyday.

yeah these are lookin' frrrresh:

so now you know where jeffron and i got our magical t-shirts full of power (touching power).  now it was time to leave the kids market:

 KIDS MARKET = INCREDIBLE LAND 2009!!

i will buy this place, kick all the kids out, and make it my home.

here are some random pics throughout the granville island adventure: