I'm trying to watch the Sopranos. Obviously it's groundbreaking and brilliant and blah blah blah, but I just can't get into it. Maybe it's because I'm using really old crappy quality .avi files, but this is the second or third time I've tried to watch it and I just get distracted. If anyone loves this show, tell me when I should just give up (I'm on episode 3 now), because I'm going to persevere and try to get through at least 6 episodes before I call it quits. So far it's just been a lot of stuff about ducks. And then someone gets killed. And there's some weird 60s music. That's all I've gotten so far.
I've been looking for a good edition of Trivial Pursuit for a few years now, and a few weeks ago a lovely friend of mine picked up the 80s Master Edition for me at a second-hand store. Since then, I've spent hours just reading the cards. I take a handful on the metro with me and test myself, seeing how many answers I can get. As always, I suck at the sports questions, I'm decent at politics, and I do well in music and news stories. I have noticed that there are a few reliable answers that I can fall back on:
-hockey questions are almost always Wayne Gretzky.
-anything about cars, and the car business, is Lee Iacocca.
-piano or musician questions are, 2/3 times, Liberace.
-anything about scandal? totally Iran-Contra.
There you go. Now you know the secret to me winning at this game for the rest of my life. I love board games. I love playing them, probably because I'm pretty good at it. My Achilles Heel is Risk; I refuse to play ever again. I am TERRIBLE and it is stress city. I've been trying to find a copy of A Question of Scruples for a while as well, but with no luck so far (if anyone ever sees one, plz pick it up and I will totally pay you back!). My best friend and I used to play it all the time growing up, and it always made me giggle. It's not even that great of an exercise in board game prowess, but the hypothetical situations those writers have come up with are hilarious. If you're unfamiliar with the game, it's basically a bunch of cards with "morally questionable" situations on them. Each player has 5 "question" cards (example: "You are walking down the street and a blind man in front of you drops a $5 bill. Do you stop him and give it back?") and 1 answer card with Yes, No, or Depends on it. The cards are read to another player that will hypothetically answer with a yes, no, or depends - you choose the person you're asking based on the answer card (y/n/d) you've got in your hand at that point. For example, if someone who knew me pretty well had that card, they'd ask me if they had a "no" answer card, and they'd ask a nun if they had a "yes" answer card. Get it? It's awesome. I don't know why it slays me so much, but it does, and if you ever get a chance to play I suggest you do it. If you get it for me for my birthday in a couple months, you can even come over and play with me.
This city is getting a lot nicer again. I love Montreal springtimes. Everyone decides that it's time to get outside, which (ignoring the assholes and inconsiderate idiots who don't understand how to walk/drive/bike) is pleasant. This is the 2-month window before it gets unbearably hot, so I'm trying to enjoy it as much as possible. I've got friends coming into town next weekend, then I'm hopefully off to Toronto the next weekend for NXNE. I'm not big on music festivals, but I realized that I've gone up this time of year for the past 3 years and I want to see some of the delightful people I know. It's unlikely that I'll be around again this summer, and this might be the trip I take instead of going back East again. I have many reasons to go back there, but right now I'm just not in the mood to deal with it. Funny how one person can ruin an entire trip, but I don't want to see that happen. Keeping it light and fun is the way to go, and I know that won't happen this time. That means I'm going to have to encourage everyone I like to come up here, but I think it's worth it. Besides, who doesn't want to take a trip to Montreal? That's right. No one.