I met up with Dean late on Friday morning and we went to the National Arts Centre for a cool event: a CBC radio interview with Rick Mercer. I forget the name of the show and host (and am apparently too lazy to check), but any listener of the station probably knows who I’m talking about, it’s the live lunch time show and likely has a fairly sizable audience. I was expecting some sort of auditorium/stage set up, but it was more like a club atmosphere: little tables & chairs on the floor, and a small, raised stage area at the front.
It was first-come, first-served seating and the logistics were horribly handled, but we got a decent spot in the seating area (some folks had to stand during the show). As expected, the interview was very funny, but Rick also had a lot of interesting things to say about Canadian living and politics, and of course how things compare to the US. For those of you not familiar with Rick Mercer, think of the Canadian equivalent of Jon Stewart. Check out Rick Mercer’s Monday Report at 9 on, strangely enough, Monday nights on CBC.
Not having our fill of Canadian politics for the day, we did the ultimate Ottawa touristy thing and went on a tour of Parliament. We actually started off by going up the Peace Tower, which gives a great view of the city. Too bad I didn’t bring my camera with me that day – not only for some skyline shots, but I could have gotten a picture of us with Rick Mercer earlier.
The actual tour was pretty lame. Anthony: worst tour guide ever. Poor guy. It also didn’t help that since the House and Senate were in session those areas weren’t accessible. Plus the library has been closed for renovations for a while now. Too bad, I wanted to see that book about birds worth $14 million. So basically, the three main parts of the tour weren’t available.
Aside: what’s up with all the shwarma places in this town? Have I just never noticed such restaurants in other cities, or does Ottawa have a disproportionate amount of shwarma vendors? Maybe it’s because they all have “shwarma” in their name somewhere.
Anyway, that evening Dean introduced me to an amazing theater in town: the Mayfair. It’s like a cross between the Capital in London (”re-opening soon” for how many years now?) and the Princess here in KW, topped off with a specialty in double features. So you’ve got the classic 1930s theater atmosphere, excellent selection of movies, and two movies-for-one admissions. As a non member I only paid $9 for both movies (yeah, I’m getting to those). A membership is $18, which allows you in for $6, but also includes 3 admissions. So as long as you go three times, it’s paid off, and then after that you’re laughing.
The double bill we saw was Napoleon Dynamite and Garden State. We talked to Billie in the afternoon and her and Ryan were supposed to come, but they never showed up. Part of the point was that she’s a big Zach Braff fan and wanted to see Garden State, besides the fact that I’m encouraging everyone to see it anyway. It was my third time seeing that movie, but it’s been worth it every time. Napoleon Dynamite was fantastic in its own right. It’s a hilarious ode to losers … big time losers. Part of the humor is that I see elements of some unfortunately awkward kids I remember from elementary school, and this seems just like what they’d be like as teenagers. The movie works so well because it doesn’t try to make anything of the dorkiness of some of the characters, or is really mean about it, or in particular tries to “cure” it … that’s just the way they are. I like that I also seem normal and well-adjusted by comparison. Oh man, tether ball.
When Dean dropped me off at Billie & Ryan’s, it turns out they had already gone to bed (it was barely past 11:30 when I got there!). They had been too tired to make the trip down to Old Ottawa South (granted, it’s a long journey from their place) after work. Wimps. Oh well, I had that week’s episode of Lost to watch before heading to bed myself.
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