Toren Atkinson’s Absolute Blog

Yesterday I borrowed Stephane’s car to drive my sweet sweet Marlo to the airport and take some books into the used book store for some cash.

I took a wrong turn (I went down Oak instead of Granville and I ended up in Richmond) but I realized my mistake early so it only took an extra 5-10 minutes off the trip. Then when we got in the check-in line Marlo realized she didn’t have her wallet, which was a source of some concern. She sent me back to the car to look for it twice but while I was out she got called the information desk as somebody found it and turned it in. Phew! We waited in line for about 20 minutes and when we got to the counter the lady said we had to go and get a sticker for the ticket from a different counter because the itinerary changed. Oi! But we budged back into line and caused a riot. Marlo’s backpack is super heavy and I hope she doesn’t get a hernia, but it was tagged and went through the little luggage car wash never to be seen again (by me, that day). I got breakfast at Harvey’s downstairs in the domestic terminal and that was pretty good. I got a veggie burger and even though I’m not vegetarian, I was a little disgusted about how they slather mustard onto meat and then put the spoon back into the huge condiment bowl for the next veggie burger. Still – tasty and not expensive.

Back at International Departures I raided the candy store and then we sat in line. There were a half dozen or so flights that were delayed because of a “security investigation” and that included Marlo’s flight to Shanghai. Poor Marlo, all stressed out. But after about a half hour of that, they started letting the confused and irate travellers bound for Frankfurt, Hong Kong and other points through the gates. I kissed my Marlo goodbye as I watched her go to a better place.

I drove back to my house and started loading up four big bags of books. I couldn’t park right in front of the building so I lugged these massive loads one at a time down the stairs and block. I walked out of Pulp Fiction with a four books (including 2 Bizarro collections) and $171.00! The dude at PF told me that they have the best rates in town for buying books. Tanglewood turned me away because they said they’d already spent their book-buying money for the day. Even so, PF only took about half of the books I brought, but I didn’t have time to go anywhere else. It takes a lot longer to drive around than I thought it would! Another reason not to own a car. So I zipped back to Sherane’s with just a quick stop at the record label to pick up CDs for the gig that night.

Well the Thickets played at the ANZA Club last night and the question on everyone’s lips is, what is with the band lineup? And my answer was “yeah, what is with that?” I learned that Shane called Mario to say that he’s not going to play bass for us after all. So we decided that Merrick needs to step up to plate. He wasn’t in love with the idea but I think he can do it and that it will be good for the band. Also: what choice do we have?

Anyway, we played better than I thought we would have, and Jordan said that he played the best he’s played in years. So if you missed it, you missed it. But you’ll have another chance at the Pit Pub on the 29th. We tried out a new song and it went alright. We saw some old old fans – even a guy who played drums for us in the early 90’s happened by – and we got some new ones I think. CD sales were great and after the show some guy got the band to sign the wings of his Goth Cthulhu doll.