Our trip to Austin, TX

We had a great time visiting the "Live Music Capital of the World"! Austin is truly as cool a city as it's made out to be. There's vintage Americana art all over the place, neon signs, steel statues, and weird sculptures like this thing pictured above. Live music is everywhere. The BBQ kicks major ass, as does the TexMex, a wide variety of beers and wines to satisfy the palate and the pocketbood, housing prices rival those in Montreal. It rarely snows. And it's smack dab in the middle of Texas, one of the greatest states in the Union! Definitely plan to go visit Austin again, the sooner the better.

Checking out the beers at HEB

What a great grocery store, the HEB Central Market in Austin, TX. There's really so much I didn't capture on tape but I was impressed with the wide selection of beers and their great prices. Ultimately, I chose to go with the local fare.

In and out of Cambridge

Driving into Cambridge from Newton, shots of Harvard Square, taking the T back out.
Music by The Human League.

I'm becoming increasingly frustrated with the crap quality of YouTube videos. To download a much better, 40 mb version of this video, click here. Sorry it's .wmv format, but for some reason it gives me the best quality-to-file-size ratio. If you have helpful video encoding advice, please email me.

And thanks for watching!

Awwww....

Our cat loves to hunt sun beams.

Repruhzent!

Don't see these stickers too often in Massachusetts, so when I do it's worth noting. I think the driver of this Saturn was a little freaked out by me tailing her and taking pictures of the vehicle. But see? It's all for a good cause!

Turkey in the office park

Cell phone video of a wild turkey I found meandering around the office park where I work in Newton, Massachusetts. Not sure if he was lost or looking for a job.

Things I will not miss about Quebec

I do hold La Belle Province fondly in the warm light of memory, but one thing I won't look back on (unless otherwise forced) is the insanely bad customer service standards held by virtually all major companies there. We should have known that even in a different country, Videotron would somehow find a way to fuck with us. If you click on the image above you can read all about it: A $738 charge for "failing to return" a cable box. Turns out the retarded teens at the Videotron video rental outlet on Parc Avenue who took our box back in December failed to return the expensive piece of equipment to headquarters. And of course Videotron sent us no bill, no warning; they simply ordered a full-throttled attack by Global Collection Agency.

Fortunately all has been sorted out, but not after an annoying hour on the phone, the majority of which was spent listening to on-hold music - the same 5-second loop of vacuous elevator crap Videotron sadistically forces customers to listen to every time they call. It angers me intensely but thank goodness we won't have to deal with Videotron again. Or will we?

King Me

These are usually the cheapest cigarettes sold in anywhere in my town. I thought I'd try. They actually remind me of $2 a pack smokes from the Native reserve outside Montreal.