Dr.Unk's Office... in the Territory

It was a long-ass drive but everyone was so pumped that it didn't matter. Hardon was passed out for the first bit of the drive. He wakes up and is restless for a bit and in a groggy drunken voice says, "I'm too excited to sleep", a-la pudgy kid from the Disneyland ad. About a half-hour outside Hali, Ed calls his house to let them know we're coming. His mom doesn't believe him so we figure she's in for a good surprise.

Thursday

We arrive at the house which is literally on the Atlantic Ocean. We meet Ed's brother 'Duckie' and his mom, Heather, aka Triple-H. The Duckman drives us downtown to Pitchman's at about 12:30. Brentertainment asks how much for a bottle of Keith's -$4. Then he asks how much for a giant pitcher of beer -$13, "We'll have that". The beautiful part of this night - as soon as it turns 1am, the drinks are a dollar. This is where the trouble probably starts. Ed runs into a buddy of his who is pretty hammered. Twenty minutes later he's getting carried out of the bar like a sack of potatoes. Pitchman's closes at 2am, so we head over to the Alehouse. Things are fuzzier at this point but the highlights include meeting up with some Marines from Georgia who left the bar with a bucket, running around like schoolgirls singing "we've got the bucket!", and kicking it down the street. The live band kicked ass and there were some friendly ladies in the crowd. We left the bar at closing time (4am) and some guy on the street turns to me and says, "I bet you a thousand bucks I'm gonna tag the fattest chick in Halifax tonight!" I then explained that this bet was in his favour and that I didn't really ever wanna see the proof to confirm it. He went on to say that he loves the larger ladies, with his last conquest being 270lbs. At this I turned and walked away, wondering how he finds out how much these large lovers weigh? We end the night at Pizza corner eating the best after-bar food ever - Donairs. We tried to go to the KoD (King of Donairs) but they were closing so we had to head across the street. I tell the guy behind the counter we'll be back cause I've heard they make the best donairs.

Friday

Friday proved to be an interesting morning. At some point I woke up with a coffee in my hand, reading a newspaper, wearing coveralls. The rest of this story reveals itself later on. Ed had to air out his SUV cause it smelled so much like donairs and HHH had to use it for some errands. We toured downtown around 4pm to check out a Keith's brewery tour. The next tour wasn't til 5 so we went next door to Alexander's Pub. Quite and interesting place; there was a Molson promo going on and tons of Molson signs up in a bar that is in the same building as the Keith's brewery. Couple pints later we head on the tour. It's done all in period costume which adds to the experience of enjoying some fine ale in one of the original pubs in Canada. Afterwards, we head to Pizza corner for a fine dinner of donairs. We had some time to kill before heading to the pubs so we checked out the Halifax Mooseheads, a QMJHL team. They were retiring Alex Tanguay's number 18 and the energy in the building was incredible. They play in the building that hosted the world junior's a few years ago and it is beautiful. Good game, the Moosheads kicked ass against Drummondville and they were even a few good tilts in the match. In the end, the Timbits hockey in the intermission showed more heart than the Voltageurs. We next head to the Lower Deck, which is possibly the best bar in Halifax. It's a small place, where all the waitstaff are guys carrying giant trays covered in mugs of Keith's. It's really impressive to see them carrying a tray that must weigh a ton. There's always live music and that night we were lucky enough to see Signal Hill play. They are probably the best cover band I've ever heard. Definitely check these guys out if they are ever in the area. We met up with a couple girls who were having a good ole time, east coast style. Turns out one was from Burlington, out there for school, and her friend who was visiting goes to Laurier and is a waitress at McMullen's. Small freaking world. The quote of the night definitely goes to Eddie though. This cougar sitting beside him says, "so you gonna go home with that Paris Hilton chickie?" (in reference to the girl from Burlington), to which Ed responds, "Listen lady, I'm not interested in that ass, and I'm not interested in yours, so wipe that damned scowl off your face and start enjoying yourself!" Which, of course, is damned hilariously ironic if you know Ed or have seen him attempt to smile. The Lower Deck closed early and we headed back to the Alehouse. Highlights there included drinking with Bubbles of Trailer Park Boys fame and Brentertainment picking up a girl with a boyfriend. Of course, he only found this out after Hardon had run wingman with her 37 year old co-worker (she's the one in the photo with Bubbles, with the grandmother's haircut). Hardon disappeared magically from the KoD without anyone knowing he'd left. He went back to her place, made a sandwich and went to bed. We cabbed it back to Eddie's.

Saturday

I'm awakened at 11am by a phone call from Hardon. He's been in a coffee shop since 9am and is too hungover to even read the paper. I tell him we'll be down to pick him up soon. Of course, HHH is out with the only vehicle so it's not until 1:30pm that we make it downtown to pick Hardon up. He spent 4.5h in a coffee shop but he was surprisingly happy. He even managed to get a shower (did he sneeze in it) at the cougar's place before he left. She was obviously not impressed. On the way downtown, Eddie asks me if I sleepwalk. I thought it was a funny question but you may clue in that I woke up drinking a coffee on Friday morning. Well the story that comes out of the event is that HHH found me scuffling around at 8am wearing Ed's stepdad's coveralls. It was at this point that I learned that I sleepwalk. My only response was that I was convinced it had been a dream. There are more details to the story but they are much more embarassing and incriminating so just ask one of the lads about it (Brent's response after 3 days). We return to Eddie's place where HHH has made us bacon'n'grill cheese sandwiches. Incredible! We finally meet Ed's stepdad, Jack Osmond, who has been around all the time but runs on the opposite schedule of us boozehounds. He's quite the character, sort of like Jack Lemmon and Walter Mathau combined. Jack and HHH take us out for dinner to Phil's (seafood joint, not the dirty ole bar). We close that place down and then head to the Split Crowe for a few pints...er, maybe it was pitchers. After that, it was still too early to head to the Liquourdome so we went to the casino for a bit. It's not the biggest place but it was full of 'talent'. Good scenery for those of us who aren't big gamblers...which Brentertainment is. He headed off to the craps table and Hardon hit up some roulette. The Boodler (Ed) and I just walked around lookin for some cheap blackjack. Couldn't really find any openings, although we did find $100 slot machines. We spent the next 10 minutes trying to figure out who would actually play these machines....cause most high rollers prefer to play classy games where they can show off. Slot machines are typically for old ladies spending their pensions one quarter/dollar at a time. I can only deduce that these $100 machines were for recently divorced, retired, redneck millionairesses spending their settlements as fast as possible. I settled down into something a little more comfortable - Nickel slots. Insert $5, and at least you get a ton of plays for it. It's actually pretty boring and I was getting tired of it, so I started betting the max just to spend the $5 worth of credits so I could leave. In the end, I was rewarded with a $20 pay-out. Now, that is a ton of nickels. I spent 5 minutes sitting in front of this machine while the tokens poured out, making a ton of noise. Everybody who walked by thought I was a big winner...then realized I was sitting at a nickel slot machine - talk about embarassing. To make things worse, the machine ran out of tokens and I had to wait for an attendant to replenish it before I could get the rest of my winnings. I'll stop complaining though, cause it's never a bad thing to leave a casino with more money than you entered with. Finally, Brent decided he had lost enough money, so we headed to the Liqourdome. This place is huge. Picture a central dance floor surrounded by 6-7 bars (not serving bars, but different atmosphere pubs) on 3 different levels. Definitely a giant entertainment complex. We headed to the top level, where Cheers was. Hardon was playing it cool, so he asked the bartender what a good drink was. She responded, "you wouldn't like what I drink when I'm out at the bar." Of course, this just sounds like a challenge to Hardon, who is never one to back down. Five minutes later, he and Brentertainment are enjoying two glasses of a fine red wine, while drinking double rum and cokes. We were a little disappointed to find out that we timed our night wrong and had missed the power hour earlier. Drinks weren't cheap but it turned out that shooters were. A waitress came up to us with a tray and asked if we wanted some shooters. Now, we don't typically hit up the shooters cause they're usually a waste of money....but these ones were only $1.50, so we got ten...and 5 minutes later got another ten...and this proceeded for a while until one trip where we took pity on the shooter girl for having to carry such a heavy tray. We did the whole lot of them. Things got fuzzy from here. There are flashes of doing four shooters at once and us continuing to act like tourists. It's ok though, that's the shooter girl and we were by far the best customers in the bar...and of course, the most entertaining. Now the only slight I see to East Coast hospitality is that bouncers out east are the same here...pricks with something to prove. Earlier in the night we had discovered that there was a no-hat dress code at the Liquourdome (I'm pretty sure they just couldn't handle the pure magnetism of Cowboy Clelland) so I had to check my hat and Hardon took off his toque. We were probably the last people to leave the bar - Eddie was talkin to his cute cousins who work there. We're standing at the door, obviously on our way out, and the bouncers tell us to take off our hats....give me a fucking break!!! It was like they felt we were threatening their authority by putting our hats on before we went outside - obvious case of hat envy. After leaving the bar we (obviously) went to Pizza corner to eat our last donairs of the trip. Here is a glimpse of some of the magic being made. We were pretty hammered when we got back at 5am and somehow a pillow fight started. It ended when Ed got stuck on the couch and we heard HHH wake up, at which point we all pretended we were sleeping. She came out to discover us giggling like schoolgirls cause we couldn't deal with Ed, crying for help cause he was stuck for no apparent reason, hanging over the couch.

Sunday

Ugh, hangover and a 17h drive home. Nuff said. Or is it....it's not. We discussed all our stories and couldn't believe that a place as magical as Halifax existed. The best part of the trip home was when we were telling Harden that the 37 year-old with grandma's hair was a grenade that he didn't have to jump on... cause the girl that Brent was trying to wheel had a boyfriend. Five minutes later, a lightbulb flashes over Brent's head and he pipes out (like a kid first finding out there's no Santa), "What if I was the grenade?"