I was thinking, it has probably been over a decade since I’ve ridden a bicycle. It feels strange to know this. I had bikes as a kid, like, most of the time, I think. One of my first jobs involved me riding from place to place on bicycles. But then there was this Summer when I was seventeen or so where I had two bikes stolen from my shed, mere months apart, and after that I just didn’t get another one.

I live in the city side of the city now. There are more cars here than there were in Eastern Passage. I’m not sure how comfortable I’d be riding a bike on these streets. I am confident that I would still be physically able to ride a bike though. Remembering how to ride a bike is so easy that there’s an expression about it, after all.

It has also been bizarrely long since I have:

• Been to a dentist
• Eaten cereal
• Seen an episode of any Star Trek

What is the world coming to?

I wanted to see if my Early Morning Snow Sculpting skills had improved any since I made the Snow Duck, so when I got off work to see a layer of fluffy, packy snow was on the ground and the weather was pleasant, I went back to the Halifax Commons with a vengeance to make an animal I like even better than ducks. Stegosaurus!

I certainly don’t have the skill to make a standing Stegosaurus. I wasn’t even stupid enough to try that. But it turned out, I actually have no idea how the best dinosaur would have slept. I elected for “head down on forelimbs like a dog” because it seemed easier than “On a pile of notes from other dinosaurs admitting that Stegosaurus was the best”. Note are had to make in the medium of snow.

So anyway, this is my guy. He’s pretty small, but that’s okay, because he is clearly just a baby. He would definitely have grown into a mighty Snowgasaur whom even the Ice Age would be powerless to stop. He’d be eating all the snow peas and iceberg lettuce that I assume would have been around.

I like him, but I know I could have done better. If I’d planned this ahead of time I could have prepared. Even beyond reminding myself what they actually looked like, let alone seeing how they would have slept or how their legs bent. Also, I could have used carrots for that thagomizer spikes. That would have been sweet. Also, maybe wearing a pair of gloves. My hands are cold.

But anyway, the weather is supposed to get warm today, so this won’t be in town long. Bye snowgasaurus, thanks for dropping in.

Now, I consider myself to be the sort of person who doesn’t make a connection with something just because it is from the same place I am. Just because a movie or television show or book or a band is made in, or by people from, Halifax, I don’t give things any extra credit for being from here. In fact, if someone is telling me about something and they bring up its local origins before convincing me of the thing’s quality on its own merit, I’m likely to hold it against the thing, telling myself that if it’s localness ranks so high in its importance, it must not have much else going for it. Unfair? Probably, but this is how I am (That is, always looking for something to complain about).

That said, I don’t think I can separate the Halifax Explosion Heritage Moment from my being born and raised in Halifax. I have no specific memory of when I first was taught about the Explosion, but there is a good chance this was the only Heritage Moment about an event I knew about before I saw it. In fact, it is one of the few that I can say with certainty I was taught anything about in school (Though, the Underground Railroad is another of those few. If I was ever taught anything about Irish immigrants to Quebec or the struggles of women trying to learn medicine, I don’t recall it. And I know for sure that the Canadian school system doesn’t teach enough about Superman.). So, as a child, it was neat to see this one.

It’s a simple story, Vince Coleman see that the ships are gonna blow, he warns everyone he sees to get as far away as possible, then he remembers a train is coming into town and he sends a Morse code message for them to maybe not come into town, on account of the explosion that’s gonna happen.

Someone sacrificing his or her own life to save others is always the sort of thing I like in a protagonist, so I’m behind Vince. I guess, in real life, some of the facts were not quite the same as depicted here, but the message he sent (“Hold up the train. Munitions ship on fire and making for Pier 6… Goodbye boys.”) does make it sound like he knew he was going out, but he still managed to keep his cool and get the message to the trains. So he’s a good guy, even if the commercial did kinda feel the need to fluff him up.

Still, historical accuracy has never been one of my criteria for these reviews. As an entity unto itself, the commercial tells its story quite well in the minute. We get the set up, the struggle to get the message out, the success, and the tragic end all at breakneck speed. As for quotability, I could see “C’mon Vince, C’mon” being the sort of thing I’d say if I knew a Vince (which would likely annoy Vince). But “C’mon, c’mon, acknowledge.” is the real star. If I’d been asked before re-watching, I would have been sure that line played a much bigger role. Anyway, we should all use it on computers when they’re taking too long to load and stuff.

So anyway, it’s entirely possible that there was a time in my youth when I would have called this my favorite Heritage Moment (with the possible exception of the Superman one), but that was just my regionalism. But still, I do like this one even looking at my new, bitter-about-everything eyes.

Made at 4:30 in the morning in the Halifax Commons while listening to Led Zeppelin. Because if I didn’t do it, who would?

My plans for after-work times today included getting a hamburger and returning a DVD movie I had rented to the DVD movie rental place. These hopes were dashed when I got home to find that one side of my street was without power. It was the side that has the place where I would have ordered a burger, so that means I get no burger. It is also the side of the street that holds the DVD movie rental place, but if there is a slot for dropping off DVDs while the place is closed, I have no idea where it is. I’m fairly confident that there was a slot there years ago, but since the store is open twenty-four hours a day usually, I haven’t used it and I can’t find it in the dark. And this shows that even the most mundane dreams a man can hope for that be shattered with ease by capricious fate.

But hey, at least it isn’t the side of the street with my apartment that is without power.

So, moving from the situation of Quinpool Road to that of Spring Garden road, I discovered the other day that they don’t have a Dairy Queen there anymore! What the chunks? Now how am I supposed to buy Dairy Queen on Spring Garden once or twice a year? I remember it was only last October the last time I was there.

And continuing the theme of food discussion, I saw a guy delivering pizza the other day and you know that bag they keep the pizzas inside to retain the heat? On it was printed “It’s hot or it’s not!” Is it my imagination or is that a pretty pathetic slogan? It’s not “It’s hot or it’s free!” which I could expect from a pizza joint. It is just a literal description of the states the pizza’s temperature could be. And that seems pretty pointless. Ah well. Whatever.

I really was looking forward to having a burger just now, though…