It's that time of year!

I went on my annual excursion to Canada the 20th through 22nd. Woohoo! It was probably one of the best trips I've taken there; for many reasons. For starters, an hour before leaving I received a generous Christmas bonus that pretty much covered the trip. As if that wasn't enough, I also received a 6% salary increase. My job rocks ;) I was also there with my favorite person in the whole world (girlfriend dummy). I took some pictures, but they're nothing most people haven't seen before. All the really good memories I keep up in my noodle ;)

The only thing that almost put a damper on the trip was some asshat hotel valet decided to finish off a loose door sill cover on my car (read: he broke off a piece of my damn car). Thanks to the raise/bonus, I broke down and drove straight back to Cleveland and ordered a new sill cover from the dealership. If you're wondering why I didn't make the hotel pay for it, the answer is simple: it was somewhat broken to begin with. They'd just waste my time and argue that it's my fault and I should have warned them about it. While that may be true, just handing my car back to me with the piece completely busted off like nothing happened is not cool. What's done is done.

"In west Philadelpha born and raised"

"..on the playground is where I spent most of my days!"/Fresh Prince. I went on a single day trip to Philadelphia on Saturday and feel like crap (click the picture to the right for a few pictures). A guy there was dismantling two cars that are the same as my model, so I decided to go score some cheap parts. Unfortunately, aside from two parts I did pick up, he wanted to pretty much sell me stuff that might not work on my car (heated steering wheel), or overcharge (i.e. one rim for $75.. I've seen a set of four go for ~$125). I ended up just buying a window shade and rocker panel (which was fun transporting back... ~7ft long, L-shaped, riding shotgun between a friend and I for ~450 miles.

We went and visited a "unique" part of town on South Street that can be be described as a ten block version of Coventry (pawn/consignment shops, salons, art & occult stores, etc). I got to eat an actual Philly Cheese steak from a place so popular the line never went below thirty people deep, even at two or three in the afternoon. It was good, but not "let's drive 450 miles to get another one" good.

One last bit... Dallas driver's don't have CRAP on these mofos. Holy F'ing crap. I've never seen people park and drive more jacked up than I did on this trip. Parking in the middle of the street (literally), double parking, blowing red lights, you name it. Some stupid b*tch almost rear ended me doing 60mph on the freeway. I swear if I didn't lunge my car forward a few feet, I'd be writing this from a hospital in Philadelphia.