In a somewhat serendipitous parallel universe of self-initiated vice avoidance akin to Mr. Colin Pearson's situationally-legendary ten day anti-bender, I've been without my good ol' trusty cellular telephone for the last ten days. It started when I left the charger in the Downtown Chicago Hampton Inn on about May 24th or something like that. I then went with the Table Shox posse down to Cincinnati where we made the trade with Mark Herrmann, then we went to the Indy 500 for some well-earned fun. My phone was dead the whole time and it didn't really matter, but on my way back to Montreal from Indy, via the Hampton Inn in Chicago, I found out that the Hampton Inn did infact not possess my trusty little phone charger aka my contact to the world of one red paperclip. It probably fell out of my backpack at a gas station when I switched out my shoes for flip-flops for all I know - I really don't know where I left it really, I just felt like tagging the Hampton Inn with the responsibility of keeping a watchful eye on my charger. That's my motto, when in doubt, blame the Hampton Inn. Well, one of my mottos, anyhow.
I went to a store yesterday to buy a new charger and they quoted me $50 for a new one. Now, $50 is the kind of cash that you'll drop at the bar without blinking, but on a little cord for a phone? uh uh. Nope. I'm not having any of that. Sure, this is really nothing to talk about, and it's not like I'm complaining, but when your public fate and reputation rests upon the ability to communicate with potential traders, it's somewhat of a big deal. I guess.
Maybe I forgot it in Chicago by accident, and maybe the housekeepers "misplaced" it by accident or maybe I'm just too lazy to admit that I'm too lazy to buy a new charger. It doesn't really matter - I honestly think that I needed a little breather for what promises to be a strong finish to this project. Translation: potentially absolutely overwhelming amount of cell phone communication plus early morning radio interviews if/when I actually trade up to the house.
Now I love talking to people about really anything at all and the radio interviews are nothing short of an absolute riot - even the calls I get from radio staions in Quebec who call me up at 4am when I'm on the West Coast totally oblivious to the fact that it's the middle of the night and expect me to be perky on the radio, in French. Once again, no complaints, they're fun too. But if I can let you in on a little secret, it's kind of nice not to have a cell phone. But let's just keep that our secret - between you and me.
I guarantee my dad cringes when he reads this. If my phone wasn't juiceless I'd call him up and read everything up to here verbatim. I guarantee this is what he'd say: "Hey big guy, just go out and buy yourself a new charger. You need your phone. It's your business. Your livelihood. Your honor." Well, I probably over-did it on the honor part, and he's Canadian so it'd be spelled honour anyhow, but that's my dad for ya. My dad loves his new bluetooth headset-equipped Motorola RAZR. His reaction is invariably a mixture of confusion/personal offense when he can't reach someone on their cell: "What is it with mom? She never takes her cell phone with her anywhere?" with his head hung low and one hand in the air as a show of utter disbelief. And while I'm on this tangent of giving my dad the well-earned gears, what is it with middle-aged men and those bluetooth earpiece things? Always in public. Always loud. Always middle-aged. Always a man. I told Dom that if she ever turns into a middle-aged man and she gets into any sort of that nonsense I'm packing my bags. She looked at me with a blank expression on her face, then blinked. Twice.
Anyhow, I have no idea what this has to do with one red paperclip or my quest to trade up to a house, this is just a bit of a Sunday evening ramble. My dad is a great guy, I'm just having a little fun here. So, if you tried to call me at 310-689-8867 or 514-833-3980 since May 24th-ish and I didn't pick up, that's why. It's not as if I'm screening calls or avoiding you - its just that I'm too lazy to go buy a new charger and way too lazy to do that not-on-the-actual phone message check thingy and double way too lazy to then call you back. I'm sure this'll be the sort of thing that just sorts itself out, one way or another.
Hey, here's a thought: If you have a wall-charger for a Samsung X426 I'll trade you one red paperclip for it! Infact, if you have a car charger as well, I'll throw in another red paperclip.
Or, I'll just go buy one. Tomorrow.
Currently set on battery-out-of-the-phone - Kyle
**UPDATE**: Bruno read this and scored me a car charger...that he just happened to have laying around the house. And just happened to fit my phone. So that ruled.
Bio
Originally from Belcarra, British Columbia, Canada, Kyle MacDonald has planted more than one hundred thousand trees, delivered more than one thousand pizzas, but eaten only one scorpion. He has also traded one red paperclip for a house only once.
He coordially invites you to edit his wikipedia bio as creatively as you desire.
When he's not stealing a flag from the Prime Minister's office or promoting Alberta Beef by hitch-hiking in a parade, you might find him leaving his wallet in El Segundo or hanging out in Bangkok modeling Italian Soccer jerseys to fund 4am Red-Bull and Rum-fueled urban hitchhikes. He also enjoys writing third-person bio pages for his website and loves to stand on street corners in Montreal hawking shoddily-bound English literature to Francophones in sub-zero temperatures.
His mom still cuts his hair.
O Coinada
I just wrote a petition to the Queen of England: ocoinada.blogspot.com
I guess you can think of this as kind of like an internet petition version of the American Revolution - albeit with less spilled tea and without all those midnight horse rides. Hey, if anybody has a few spare horses and wants to organize some late night equestrian activites, be sure to let me know.
Kyle
I guess you can think of this as kind of like an internet petition version of the American Revolution - albeit with less spilled tea and without all those midnight horse rides. Hey, if anybody has a few spare horses and wants to organize some late night equestrian activites, be sure to let me know.
Kyle
Corey Hart Drives a Fiero
Apparently Corey Hart Drives a Fiero and he's a blogger, which is awesome. He seems to be blogging like it's 1990 or something, which is rad.
http://coreyhartdrivesafiero.blogspot.com
Facts:
-Corey Heart invented awesome.
-Corey Hart invented the Fiero.
-Corey Hart invented Corey Hart.
http://coreyhartdrivesafiero.blogspot.com
Facts:
-Corey Heart invented awesome.
-Corey Hart invented the Fiero.
-Corey Hart invented Corey Hart.
En Why See
New York was fun. We did lots of stuff, sold lots of Table Shox, and my Mom even gave me a haircut. Good times.
Scott saw some pigs
We saw this guy.
My car's the red one in the middle.
My new super-hero name is "Bag of Chinese food Carrying Steam Man"
The name says it all.
We saw this guy.
Evian lived on "the wild side".
Scott's first bite of Peking Duck....ever. Rachel was very proud of him.
Jeep makes "off road" vehicles.
Subways are fun.
Dom got a new bird shirt.
Scott saw some pigs
We saw this guy.
My car's the red one in the middle.
My new super-hero name is "Bag of Chinese food Carrying Steam Man"
The name says it all.
We saw this guy.
Evian lived on "the wild side".
Scott's first bite of Peking Duck....ever. Rachel was very proud of him.
Jeep makes "off road" vehicles.
Subways are fun.
Dom got a new bird shirt.
Not Many Posts
Yeah, been kinda busy with oneredpaperclip.com
You can follow along there for more info on my whereabouts and miscellaneous happenings.
I'll post some good pictures and stuff here at kylemacd.com over the next few days.
have fun.
kyle
You can follow along there for more info on my whereabouts and miscellaneous happenings.
I'll post some good pictures and stuff here at kylemacd.com over the next few days.
have fun.
kyle
Canadian Cigarette packs
Heading south tomorrow on good ol' I-87 to NYC. Gonna be there till next Wednesday. Table Shox stuff.
Probably won't be seeing any of these wonderful Canadian Cigarette packages for nearly a week!
I don't smoke or anything, this is just a roundabout way of bringing the ridiculously-awesome Canuck smoke pack warning labels to your attention.
Later, Kyle
And it's only Nov 10th
Ok, I'm not sure if you're into web design or whatever, I'm not, but I'm slowly being sucked into it. This is my traffic for goingpostal3000.com, my old site. This traffic is because pretty much all of my pictures are hosted there and 25 000 people a day just started showing up to these sites instead of the usual 100 or so. Up until yesterday, I only ever went through about 10% of my max-allowable bandwidth a month.
Yesterday I went through 50% of my enite bandwidth for November.
So I signed up for a flickr pro account and now have the painstaking task of recoding everything away from the Going Postal 3000 site. I'm sure there's an easier way to do this but flickr seems to be rad and tredy and all the mega web geeks are in there, so it's gotta be good.
Check out my flickr site and comment and stuff if you like. I'll post lots of really sweet pictures there now that it's way easier to do so.
Later
kyle
Black cats are good luck: PROOF
A couple of days ago, I made a post about a black cat that crossed my path and how this means good luck to me. I then made an attempt at 'humour' by trying to shine a positive light on all the FREE or YOU JUST WON or DEAR RESPECTABLE SIRS Nigerian email scam stuff that ends up in my, and everyone else on the planet's, email box every day. I thought it was funny, and I had a little chuckle to myself.
Then a few big time blogs somehow got their hands on the site feed for one red paperclip, posted it, and the next thing you know my phone rings and I hear: "Hey Kyle, it's so and so from (enter media outlet here) in (enter city here) in (enter coutry of choice here). Do you want to go on the air and tell you story about the one red paperclip to (enter number here) million listeners?
Needless to say, this was a bit better proof that the black cat was good luck than those shallow attempts at shine-the-best-light-on-those-spam-emails style humour I tried on Tuesday.
If you wanna fan the flames to help the whole 'trade from one red paperclip up to one house' thing actually happen, feel free to post a link to http://www.oneredpaperclip.blogspot.com at as many of these websites as you can!
In related good luck news, I always take it as a sign of good luck everytime I see a white goat. White goats are cool.
There's this lady that lives at the outskirts of Dom's village, St-Alexis-Des-Monts, who has this crazy stash of white goats, and everytime we go up to St-Alexis, I look to see if her white goats are out of the barn. If they aren't, no biggie, it's not bad luck, but if they are out - oh boy, it's blues skies for the foreseeable future.
It'll be cool to see if the white goats are out of the barn next time we roll into St-Alexis. I'll keep you posted - maybe I'll take a picture of them.
Bye for now,
Kyle
Then a few big time blogs somehow got their hands on the site feed for one red paperclip, posted it, and the next thing you know my phone rings and I hear: "Hey Kyle, it's so and so from (enter media outlet here) in (enter city here) in (enter coutry of choice here). Do you want to go on the air and tell you story about the one red paperclip to (enter number here) million listeners?
Needless to say, this was a bit better proof that the black cat was good luck than those shallow attempts at shine-the-best-light-on-those-spam-emails style humour I tried on Tuesday.
If you wanna fan the flames to help the whole 'trade from one red paperclip up to one house' thing actually happen, feel free to post a link to http://www.oneredpaperclip.blogspot.com at as many of these websites as you can!
In related good luck news, I always take it as a sign of good luck everytime I see a white goat. White goats are cool.
There's this lady that lives at the outskirts of Dom's village, St-Alexis-Des-Monts, who has this crazy stash of white goats, and everytime we go up to St-Alexis, I look to see if her white goats are out of the barn. If they aren't, no biggie, it's not bad luck, but if they are out - oh boy, it's blues skies for the foreseeable future.
It'll be cool to see if the white goats are out of the barn next time we roll into St-Alexis. I'll keep you posted - maybe I'll take a picture of them.
Bye for now,
Kyle
hits
My websites got about 100 unique visitors yesterday.
Then last night, while we all slept, Boing Boing and digg caught wind of one red paperclip and posted a link to it on their sites.
My websites got more than 20 000 unique visitors today.
Needless to say, this makes blogging a lot more fun. Later. Kyle.
Then last night, while we all slept, Boing Boing and digg caught wind of one red paperclip and posted a link to it on their sites.
My websites got more than 20 000 unique visitors today.
Needless to say, this makes blogging a lot more fun. Later. Kyle.
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