A knife fight broke out, and someone pepper-sprayed the Apple store. As we were leaving I a grabbed a picture of the  police and fire unit who showed up to bring 3 people to hospital. Pretty sure I’m _NEVER_ going to go boxing day shopping again.

When we first pulled up outside, I commented that the building looked familiar, and when I mentioned it to the volunteer inside she confirmed that it is in fact modelled after the success of the beautiful state-of-the-art facility in Winnipeg – a trend that Winnipeggers can be proud of starting.

No luck meeting the dog for us – from all the publicity during the move last week, they were fresh out of dogs for the day. But that didn’t stop us from mauling the kitties for a while in the playroom. Pumpkin and Blackie (inspired names for an Orange and Black cat) were particularly enthralled by my chin rubs – and flopped down to barricade the door so we couldn’t leave. Too cute.

We’ll be back, and maybe I’ll take some photos – the web didn’t turn up much beyond this spooky blue dog pic.

The book’s got a number of clever twists and unexpected turns, but most of the stories rely on a blend of zombie & war movie tropes you’ve seen before. At times I recognized parts of the Alamo story being retold, later there’s a scene reminiscent of Behind Enemy Lines.

The zombies, slow, relentless and ghoulish, make for a pretty limited enemy and I have to admit that I think the author bends credibility a number of times to give the zombies the upper hand. The millions of unliving, unthinking, bitten New Yorkers somehow manage to overwhelm the combined military might of the US in the battle of Yonkers – I’m thinking a well-fuelled tank with a hedgetrimmer on the nose might have made short work of shambling invaders.

Thanks to the short story format, the author has the opportunity to hop around a number of locations. At one point a survivor tells the tale of the panic-stricken exodus of the central States to northern Manitoba. Having been there – I think the author has vastly under-estimated humanity’s chances in the enormity of the frozen north and the ruggedness of it’s terrain, but it’s amusing to think about Hecla Park as the last holdout of humanity.

The Ghost Plane of Charron Lake

This is a pretty exclusive picture (Thank you to the awesome volunteers in the workshop!) of part of the “Ghost Plane of Charron Lake“. Thought lost after sinking through shallow ice in a snowstorm in 1931, “The Ghost” sat at the bottom of Charron Lake (how appropriate!) until recently, when a WCAM exploration team managed to pin it down on sonar, parked at the bottom like an eerie skeleton.

Since raising the plane, they’ve decided to rebuild her and put her on display. They’ve got a ghost hanging on her fuselage to remind everyone helping of her 65 years in the abyss. She looks a bit of a mess right now, but I’m told a lot of the frame is in fantastic shape and she’s a great specimen, especially considering her history.

Getting a personal tour isn’t much more complicated than showing an interest, there are a bunch of enthusiastic guides who want their visitors to get the most of the exhibition. Ask a couple of questions, and suddenly you’ll find yourself getting a tour through the interior of the display planes. The place is full of iconic Canadian aircraft, I managed to sneak pictures of me next to a couple of great ones.

I had a blast! If you like airplanes, you have to treat yourself to a stop by the hangar!

Air Canada Viscount - Check out the huge windows!

The incredibly cool (and unstable) Avro Aircar!

So now I can make -lots- of noise and have clean carpets. Which is really good, because the dust in my apartment was starting to get to me. Carpets are bad for all those little bitties that get in the air.

I give the giant nutcracker dude a little high-five as I walk past, and wonder how anyone can like those horrible icicle string lights, when I see a sign in front of me:

“Why do we have our Christmas Decorations up? We’re filming the movie Christmas Rush in this mall!”

What’s sad is that was at -that- point that I realized it’s -not- christmas, and that all of that stuff was about 4 months out of season.

Man… somebody’s messing with my mind.

“Now I’ve heard there was a secret chord
That David played, and it pleased the Lord
But you don’t really care for music, do you?”