Skip to main content

Riders for My Vacation

Riders are little notes that an act will give to a venue specifying what they need. Some examples. ChrisD came up with the brilliant suggestion to write one up for myself.

  • One (1) gas station attendent who will be nearly indistinguishable from the 'squeegy kids' that hang around the Shell station, the only difference being a dull, dirty name-tag worn in an innovative part of the body.
  • Twenty-three (23) life-harrowing experiences while on the highway with the family that will make me question why we ever left the comforts of our home to visit some corporate nightmare of fibreglass cartoon animals and hazardous carnival rides .
  • Three (3) feelings of incompetence as I miss our turn-off.
  • Fifteen (15) meals at fast-food restaurants I have back home.
  • One (1) meal at 'some place local' only to be scared by their lack of ketchup and insistence on selling RC Cola.
  • Seven (7) sensations that the skin is crawling off my body due to some indiscernible 'dirtiness' in the hotel
  • One (1) air conditioner that performs as expected if it were renamed Tepid Humid Mover of Funky Air.
  • One (1) really bad sunburn in an embarrassing or disproportionate body part (e.g. on the one arm that's hanging out the driver's window, only on the left side of my neck. ankles, etcetera).
  • Eleven (11) realizations that this city is almost exactly like the city I took a vacation from. Minus the RC Cola.
  • Two (2) attempts to 'walk cool' in the shopping district of new city, only to break the illusion of coolness soon after (stumbling into a coat rack, tripping over a carpet runner, mistaking the fitting room for a washroom, etc).

Comments

Chris D said…
You're too kind, niteowl!
Chris B. said…
Man, almost everything in this list struck me as a teenager traveling to California with my folks. Got off the plane and went to McDonalds. Strip malls everywhere. My dad even rented the same kind of car he drove at home so he'd be used to it.

Big difference was the beach and a few mountains. Oh, and I did get to see the Del Mar Skate Ranch before it became condos.
Niteowl said…
D : anything for a SUPERFAN

B : are you sure they became condos? Maybe it's just an elaborate condo shaped covering for a wicked sick skate park within?
Chris B. said…
Next time I'm in the area, I will knock on some doors and take random stabs at the secret password. Casting a bit of a pall on correctly guessing would be the fact that I'm fairly obese and waaaaay out of practice on a skateboard. Still worth it.

Popular posts from this blog

Insults From A Senile Victorian Gentleman

You SIR, have the hygeine of an overly ripe avocado and the speaking habits of a vaguely deranged chess set. I find your manner to be unctuous and possibly libelous, and whatever standard you set for orthodontal care, it's not one I care for. Your choice in news programs is semi-literate at best and I do believe your favourite news anchor writes erotic literature for university mascots. While I'm not one to point out so obvious a failing, there has been rumour that the brunches you host every other Sunday are made with too much lard and cilantro. If you get my meaning. There is something to be said about your choice of motor-car fuel, but it is not urbane and if I were to repeat it, mothers would cover their children's ears and perhaps not a few longshoremen within earshot would blush. How you maintain that rather obscene crease in your trousers and your socks is beyond me, perhaps its also during this time that you cultivate a skin regime that I'm sure requires the dea...

People You Meet on Transit #5

Thanks to Jay Morrison for the photo. Transit Drivers Bus drivers are an archetype in North American culture. In the imagination they are generous in girth, have staunch opinions about unions and eat 300% the recommended intake of red meat. The odd one adheres to a strict conspiracy theory, which they manage to work into the most innocuous conversations. At least, that's what's been ingrained in our collective subconscious along with "Han shot first" and "Dukakis, 1988". But transit drivers, like everyone else, are individuals. Unique, utterly one of a kind from the 5 billion others who roam this spinning mass of molten iron with the cool, carbon life-form infested shell. Sure, you see the reticent ones, who have a 100 yard stare and coolly watch passengers get mild hypothermia while they take their union-sanctioned 15 minute break inside their cozy bus. But there are other, more colourful characters as well. In my city, there is one that calls out every st...

Cyberpunk 2077

 Like a late 90's webring, replete with link back and hints at an actual relationship with other authors, this is a piece I'd like to say in.. rebuttal is too harsh a term, in reply, to my very long standing internet friend, zompist, where he posts his various gripes with that great sprawling hot mess, Cyberpunk 2077. Now I say hot mess because that's what the internet at large thinks of it, but me, playing on the worringly over-powered computers on GeForce Now, have experienced nearly no problems. Or at least not problems that bother me enough. Keep in mind I'm the Homer Simpson when it comes to critiquing alot of things. I just like, alot of things. Cheap date, as it were.   It might be my hundreds of hours in Bethesda titles and regularly having to look up console commands to debug yet another janked out quest, but it takes a rather large bug to befuddle and begrudge me. Like if a bug repoed my car, maybe, or  told me how much weight I had actually put on during ...