I AM BACK.

The Canada trip was a hell of a lot of fun. Aside from some car trouble, spilling shampoo in my duffle and getting rained on a little, it was my smoothest vacation ever. Robby and Relee were both excellent hosts, and I tried my best to be a considerate parasite- I mean guest.

I spent the first two days at Relee's. Relee is soft-spoken, but gives frequent, bonecrushing hugs! :3 He has a tiny apartment over a garage with terrifying stairs. It is full of cute things. We watched many episodes of My Little Pony, browsed through a half-dozen nifty resale shops downtown, ate at some damn nummy restaurants, and I was introduced to poutine. Poutine is french fries with cheese and gravy on top. Is good. Also, we went to the Children's Animal Farm and saw cute beasties, and I played completely through Portal 2. POTATOES AND SPACE.

Then it was off to visit Poe. This was a tad difficult. Relee's mom drove me part of the way, then I took a bus from London to Toronto, then I had to take a city bus to another station across town, then ANOTHER bus from Toronto to Port Perry, where Robby and his mom picked me up, we met his brother Dustin and then finally arrived at Poe's Pad of Puns.

Robby and I dicked around with gusto, walking all over downtown, shooting each other with dart rifles (I got hit dead-center in the eye! It was AWESOME!), watched a few metric tons of YouTube videos and constantly, CONSTANTLY joking about everything in our environment. I played through Portal 2 again in a day, plus I beat Postal 2 as well (I peed all over a church!). Mostly we just hung out and riffed off one another. Robby's whole family is possessed of some of the best comic chemistry I've seen. Also, on my last day we had lunch and dinner at Little Schnitzel House, a restaurant where dinner cost us sixty bucks and both of us thought it was worth every penny. OMFG. After dinner we just walked around in the twilight and had a quietly profound moment full of thoughtful conversation. Also, I got lucky as hell one day at Zeller's; they had a single Legends Megatron for sale, for $3.99. This tiny badass'll usually cost $20 on eBay. ...Damn scalpers. (Oh, and check out this Team Fortress 2 vid he put up.)

The plan was originally for Robby to accompany me back for a dual visit with Relee. This did not end up working out. C'est la vie. No matter. I went back and had more fun with Relee anyway. On Sunday me 'n him and his friends Trey and Ron joined us for a flea market adventure. Trey is as sweet, friendly and polite a geek you could ever want to meet. Ron looks like a wise old troll from a fantasy movie and was around at the literal creation of the furry fandom. Him and I talked a lot about books, movies and music. He was also our designated driver for the trip. But on the day I was supposed to leave, his classic Pontiac LeMans decided it didn't wanna work. We spent a whole day trying to fix it, but all for naught. At least we spent an enjoyable evening together, with dinner and a movie (and more MLP, plus a bunch of MST3K episodes).

Ron's car felt like not being a dick yesterday morning, so off we went. The new Transformer's movie's toys arrived in stores the 15th, so I bought a boatload on the way. (Shockwave is perfection.) We also ate at Golden Corral, the best buffet on Earth. We ate our weight. Back at home, I can't tell you how nice it was to finally sleep in my own bed again. :)

In summation, Canada's a pretty cool guy. Eh's polite and laid back and doesn't afraid of anything.