Well, here it is!  Happy Holidays from Thunder Bay Ontario Canada!  Population, 113,000.  I"m here to tell you that the whole Santa Clause thing is a fraud - I was pretty naughty all year, and still got the best present ever - time with my family, some of whom I hadn't seen in 15 years.  Nothing like finding out that your cousin, whom you used to babysit, now has a son of his own to make you feel old!  The last couple of nights have been a blast - I actually went out carolling.  Playing guitar when it's 15 below zero (Celsius, which equals 5 Degrees Farenheit) gets a little tough on the fingers, but it was a lot of fun - and apparently it's a tradition around here to give out booze as payment!  After that I headed off to another party where I met relatives I haven't seen for 15 years.  Let me tell you something I've learned - don't let anybody tell you family isn't important.  I spent many years thinking just that, and last night was a real eye-opener.  I had no idea I'd missed out on so much over the years not being in contact with them for so long.  So hey - call your family and say hi.

The drive up was interesting.  Worked till 4:30 pm, then went home, loaded up the Family Truckster and bolted.  Had some nasty-ish weather in Northern Michigan - driving rain and some wild winds, and pulled into Sault Sainte Marie, Ontario at 4 am.  We tried to convince the clerk to only charge us half the normal room rate because we were only going to be staying for 5 hours, but no go.  Headed out of "The Soo" at 9 am, and drove through about 4 hours of nasty slushy snow and reduced visibility.  Hey, how come just about every car in the ditch was a 4x4 ??  We pulled into town about 6:30 pm, met up with my brother, headed out to a pub for a pint or 2 and some dinner, ran into some friends of his, and ended up jamming at my brother's place until about 3 am.  I haven't been to bed before 3:30 am in about 3 days now.  Woo. 

I'll get into some more details on the next podcast, which might be sooner then later if I can find a cheap little USB mic around somewhere.

Just for the heck of it, here's a couple of links for ya's:

Ice Racing Club in Thunder Bay

Painting of Thunder Bay in the Winter

PS - Love ya Mom!

You can thank Lennon for those words of wisdom (John LENNON, not Vladimir LENIN - Shut the heck up,  Donny)

Granted, it's not THAT close to Christmas yet - only December 20th as I'm writing this, but I'm leaving for my home town on Friday.  Yessiree, loadin' up the ole war wagon and driving 18 or so hours north.  For those curious, Thunder Bay is at Latitude 48 Degrees, 25' North, and Longitude 89 Degrees, 14' West.  That's roughly the same Latitude as Volograd, Russia, Ulan Bator, Mongolia, and Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine.  Neato.  It also has the world's highest concentration of Finnish People outside of Finland.  I'm not sure what that means exactly, but I think it's significant.

So, I've been spending the last week packing, and getting ready, and giving the truck a look-over, and getting presents together (but not getting my presence together) and trying to get caught up on Christmas-y things.  My brother and I are going to be the musical accompaniment for some Christmas Carols, so I had to do a lot of lookin' up stuff online for that.  Sometime I'll get into detail about the problem with Internet Guitar Tablature.  I've also had to see to the health and well-being of my cats, planning my route, gathering supplies, etc....oh yeah, and trying to calm my wife down.  I've spent a LOT of time trying to calm my wife down.  She's not a great winter driver, and a hell of a lot WORSE winter passenger.  I plan on giving her some sleeping pills just before we pull out of the driveway.  Enough to knock her out at least until Sault Ste. Marie.  Yes, that's the actual name of a place - it's pronounced "Soo Saint Maree" if you're curious.  It's about the halfway mark of the drive - 8 hours from here.  That's where most people stop for the night.  That's where I'll stop for gas on my marathon 18 hour drive.  Woo Hoo. 

Anyhoo, the entire above rambling isn't meant to garner sympathy.  I don't expect that in this day and age.  It's hard enough to get consideration, never mind sympathy.  The entire above rambling is meant to excuse the fact that I still don't have a new podcast out.  Oh, it's being worked on.  The elves are diligently hammering away on one.  And it's awesome.  Freakin' amazing really. Okay, maybe not THAT amazing, but better then some, worse then others.

At any rate, it's after midnight here, and I have to be up early to do 2 people's jobs tomorrow.  Good thing I'm so amazing-super-neato-cool-fantastic.  Yeah.

Look for a new podcast tomorrow-ish.  Or, this weekend - live from Thunder Bay! WoooooHoooooo!

And so, to bed.

Stevie Z

PS - I almost forgot a link or 2.

Link to my Home Town

Some Great, Weird, Last-Minute Gift Ideas

I read a book about podcasting.  It said that you should put your promo up for RSS download.  Okay.  Here it is.  This will make me rich and famous now, cuz the book said to do it, right ??  Right??

Just because I feel inadequate if I don't put up a link or two with each post:

Air Sickness Bag Collection

and something completely different:

Artist who makes some REALLY cool stuff out of, well, junk and garbage

I'll probably make mention of both of these in some future podcast, so check em out now, and you'll know what I'm talking about before I even talk about it!

Peace, Love, and Pez Dispensers,

Stevie Z

Well, it's comin' on Christmas, as Joni Mitchell once said (by the way, check out Holly Cole's version of that song - awesome.  Her Website

My wife, the luverly Michelle (check out her guest appearance on the 002 Trivia Challenge) builds these kickass little ornament-thingys.

They'd look great hanging on trees, mantles, or anywhere you need that festive touch.  This one's made of Red, Czech Fired Glass beads with clear multi-faceted accent beads.  There's a whole lot more technical stuff too that I'm sure bead-geeks would get, but I don't.  It's woven with braided fishing line too, so it'll can be handed down for generations.....or of course you could buy those crappy Sprawl-Mart ones and throw them out every year....

It even comes with it's own 2 1/2 " ball too, and Silver Ribbon, ready for hanging - you can throw out those cheap crappy little wire hangers.  They're also available in other colours too for monochromatic colour schemes, etc.

If you want one, let me know asap at badlybentpub@yahoo.ca - she's only got time to make so many of em, and each one is loving hand-crafted etc. etc.  Plus, if she can sell a few thanks to me, maybe she'll put in a good word for Santa and he can bring her something lacey and/or frilly......

Speaking of Christmas, I'm going to limit my festive podcasts - thought ya'll should know now - I'm not a huge fan of what Christmas has become over the years, so I keep it on the down-lo.  I'll feature a couple of Christmas tunes that have become near and dear to my heart over the years, and you can bet that Winter Wonderland ain't one of em!

So, Peace, Love, Joy and Understanding.....and as long as we're hallucinating, Tooth Fairys, Santa Clauses and drummers who can keep time........

Stevie Z