Great Glebe Garage Sale Tomorrow

Saturday is the Great Glebe Garage Sale.

You should stay home.

The weather forecast is A mix of sun and cloud. Wind north 30 km/h becoming light in the evening. High 16. That is sunburn weather!

It’s also Ottawa Race Weekend [see Notes below].


But if you insist on going anyway, you might want to:

• Follow the excellent advice from Adam Slight at Ottawa Rickshaws;
• Read the excellent advice I provided several years ago in Garage Sale - My Schema (but where I say to stay west of Bank Street, I've changed my mind. You should stay east of Bank Street. Just don't expect to find me there);
• Consider Zoom’s well-written but misguided response: GGGS: Breaking Scrimshaw's rules; and
• Listen to Real Grouchy’s The Great Glebe Garage Sale Song!

Notes:

• Ottawa Race Weekend always falls on the GGGS weekend. Saturday road closures that affect the Glebe start after 3pm when the sales are over.

Creepy Puppets at Dollarama

If you want to get into cutting edge performance art like Astronaut Love Triangle, you should get yourself to the Dollarama on Merivale. They've got creepy puppets on sale for only $2 each!
 

And did you know that Dollarama sells gift certificates? They're available in denominations of $10, $25 and $50. Just saying.

Lightbulb Art - Shade 2

Last weekend, I put together a new lightbulb shade out of burned-out Christmas lights. It is similar to the one I made for the bathroom in 2007, but it has several innovations.

• Instead of filling the bulbs with oil, I filled the bulbs with fruit-flavoured gelatine - cherry, lemon and orange. I want something non-toxic and inexpensive with a high index of refraction. The oils I used last time have these properties, but even after 5 years, the oil still sweats out of them. Also, if a bulbs smashes, I figure a blob of jelly will be less messy than a puddle of oil. But, maybe mold will grow in them. I hope if it does it will be artistic. Either way: Science!
• I used fewer bulbs, but this time, I was more careful about placing them to block the light of the working bulb from people's sight-lines.
• Little jars with coloured marbles - very popular with certain fans of lightbulb art.    

Restaurant Ordering Tip: Use the # sign

Here's a fairly typical order for Manon and me at the Pho 99. A number 37, vermicelli with grilled chicken and spring roll, for me ("like always," as one of the waiters used to say); A number 41, vermicelli with grilled beef and spring roll, for Manon (because she feels like having beef today and doesn't feel like having soup); and a number 54, coffee with condensed milk for both of us.

But do you see what I did? I put a # sign in front of the 54. Because I don't want them to get mixed up and bring us 54 orders of number 2, that would be 108 rolls with shredded pork and salad because there are two per order.

I'm thoughtful that way.

Big Savings at the SuperStore

You'll want to hurry down to the SuperStore in Westboro. I don't know how long this big sale on chocolate covered almonds will last.

PC Milk Chocolate Almonds | was 8.99 | Save .02 | now 8.97

 

Bowling at West Park

If you're looking for a fun outing, bowling two or three strings at the West Park Bowling Centre on Wellington Street West might be just the thing for you.

For a group of four, renting a lane for an hour will probably let you bowl two strings.

The lanes are behind and connected to Fil's Diner. This means you can have a round of coffee while you bowl or even a burger and fries.

On two recent daytime outings, Manon and I have been really impressed with the friendliness of the staff.

As for the other patrons, on a Saturday, we shared the alley with two groups of kids celebrating birthdays. They seemed to be having a good time, but we didn't interact with them much except for when one little guy went to roll his ball down our lane instead of his.

On a weekday, we were just finishing up around 1 pm when a group of retirees started coming in for what was clearly their regular league time. They looked like serious bowlers - some of them with the wrist braces you see pros wearing on TV. But they were a friendly bunch, asking us how we were doing and not one of them made fun of me for not breaking a hundred on my last string.

Another bonus at West Park is the modern automatic score-keeping system. I kind of miss filling in the scores with a pencil, but it cuts down on controversy and confusion. The cutting edge technology even has special graphics:

• for a spare: a big flashing slash
• for a strike: a big flashing X
• for a gutter ball: (a special treat for the other players, but not for you) a mocking cat!

My brother Paul demonstrates that you can't take the mocking cat personally

New Sculpture at Algonquin College

I spotted a new sculpture at Algonquin College yesterday on my way to the bus stop after work. The sculpture was erected between the new Algonquin Centre for Construction Excellence and the Transitway.

I believe these three shopping carts of different sizes are making a statement about consumerism and elevated expectations.

I would have taken more photos and studied the sculpture longer, but the 95 came and I had to run.