Toronto and back.
This past weekend I went to Toronto for a couple of days. I took my niece and her boyfriend with me so they could visit the sister of the boyfriend.
I then head over to the Beguiling and bought a few trades. 2 of them were old TPBs of underground material. The other was Herbie Archives Vol. 1. I virtually never buy expensive hardcover books unless it's at a large discount, but this one was different. A few years ago Dark Horse editor Diana Schultz was at a Paradise convention. I knew Dark Horse had acquired the rights to Herbie and done reprints in comic book format in the 90s. I had suggested to her that Herbie would make excellent Archive material. Now I want to be clear that I'm not claiming it was published that way due to my suggestion or anything, but since I did suggest it I felt honour bound to buy it. Which isn't a big deal as I do really, really like those Herbie comics and I'd have likely bought it anyway.
I then spent the rest of the day with my friends Tim and Lonni. We watched Hellboy 2, read comics, watched TV and spent the day yaking about everything. Sunday I went to the 1 day comic convention that hobby star put on. While there I bought some books. They included 3 Wonder Woman trades, which I finishes off the Rucka run on the character. Empire (Waid) and Fortune and Glory (Bendis) hardcover. After the con I picked up my niece and her boyfriend.
Then the drive home. I discovered my windshield wipers, while fine for city driving, are absolutely horrible for driving on the 401 in heavy rain. Especially at night, with plenty of car headlights beaming at you from the opposite lane. I pulled over twice, once for supper (hoping the rain would let up) and again to buy some WD40 to spray on some napkins and wipe the blades with. This typically helps, but my wiper blades are quite old and I've done the WD40 trick too many times and it just doesn't work anymore. For the vast majority of the drive home all I could see was a bit of the yellow line to the left of me on the fast lane (couldn't see shit on the slow lane) and some blurry red tail lights. With that bit of info I was able to stay in my lane and not run into anybody.
During my 2nd stop (in Trenton) I did drive on Highway 2 and thought about just taking that home. Problem was I couldn't see the lines on the road (no bright yellow lines), highway 2 has a lot more sudden twists and turns than the 401. Also parts of highway 2 were very slippery. It also snowed prior to raining and while you didn't see any snow on the 401, you did see it on Highway 2. A few times while going through Trenton I could tell the car was over snow and the wheels lost traction with the road. I had to keep the car straight to not end up in a ditch. Had that happen during a turn (that I may or may not have seen coming) I could have ended up in a tree or worse. That lead me back to the 401, as it was the lesser of two evils.
Anyways, I did make it home safe and sound. The moment I got off the 401 my niece blurted out "Jamie, I don't know how the FUCK you did that!" I'm sure she and her boyfriend were shitting bricks the entire way home. I did stick on some Weird Al/comedy music to lighten the mood part way through the ride. Still, I came away both tensed up and exhausted from the ordeal. It was the scariest driving I've done in a long time and certainly the longest prolonged experience.
And yes, today I went out and bought new wiper blades for the car.
I then head over to the Beguiling and bought a few trades. 2 of them were old TPBs of underground material. The other was Herbie Archives Vol. 1. I virtually never buy expensive hardcover books unless it's at a large discount, but this one was different. A few years ago Dark Horse editor Diana Schultz was at a Paradise convention. I knew Dark Horse had acquired the rights to Herbie and done reprints in comic book format in the 90s. I had suggested to her that Herbie would make excellent Archive material. Now I want to be clear that I'm not claiming it was published that way due to my suggestion or anything, but since I did suggest it I felt honour bound to buy it. Which isn't a big deal as I do really, really like those Herbie comics and I'd have likely bought it anyway.
I then spent the rest of the day with my friends Tim and Lonni. We watched Hellboy 2, read comics, watched TV and spent the day yaking about everything. Sunday I went to the 1 day comic convention that hobby star put on. While there I bought some books. They included 3 Wonder Woman trades, which I finishes off the Rucka run on the character. Empire (Waid) and Fortune and Glory (Bendis) hardcover. After the con I picked up my niece and her boyfriend.
Then the drive home. I discovered my windshield wipers, while fine for city driving, are absolutely horrible for driving on the 401 in heavy rain. Especially at night, with plenty of car headlights beaming at you from the opposite lane. I pulled over twice, once for supper (hoping the rain would let up) and again to buy some WD40 to spray on some napkins and wipe the blades with. This typically helps, but my wiper blades are quite old and I've done the WD40 trick too many times and it just doesn't work anymore. For the vast majority of the drive home all I could see was a bit of the yellow line to the left of me on the fast lane (couldn't see shit on the slow lane) and some blurry red tail lights. With that bit of info I was able to stay in my lane and not run into anybody.
During my 2nd stop (in Trenton) I did drive on Highway 2 and thought about just taking that home. Problem was I couldn't see the lines on the road (no bright yellow lines), highway 2 has a lot more sudden twists and turns than the 401. Also parts of highway 2 were very slippery. It also snowed prior to raining and while you didn't see any snow on the 401, you did see it on Highway 2. A few times while going through Trenton I could tell the car was over snow and the wheels lost traction with the road. I had to keep the car straight to not end up in a ditch. Had that happen during a turn (that I may or may not have seen coming) I could have ended up in a tree or worse. That lead me back to the 401, as it was the lesser of two evils.
Anyways, I did make it home safe and sound. The moment I got off the 401 my niece blurted out "Jamie, I don't know how the FUCK you did that!" I'm sure she and her boyfriend were shitting bricks the entire way home. I did stick on some Weird Al/comedy music to lighten the mood part way through the ride. Still, I came away both tensed up and exhausted from the ordeal. It was the scariest driving I've done in a long time and certainly the longest prolonged experience.
And yes, today I went out and bought new wiper blades for the car.