So I saw two movies on Friday and one on Saturday.

First I saw The Happening. Really, don't even get me started. In fact, I just read THE most brilliant review for it ever here. Go read it, but only if you have no intentions of seeing it because the review is chock full of spoilers. It's hilarious and made me realize even *more* just how absurd the movie concept was. Trust me.. at best, it's a rental. Don't waste your time in the theatres if you insist on wasting it at all.

However, the Incredible Hulk more than made up for my disappointment over The Happening. I went in with very low expectations (if you saw the Hulk movie in 2003 you'll know why) but was very pleasantly surprised by this new one. Great writing, decent special effects (I don't think there will ever be a computer generated Hulk I will be completely satisfied with) and just a well thought out movie. And a tie-in to the Iron Man movie! Awesome!!! Go see it, it was a great film and needs to be seen on the big screen. Oh and as an added bonus? It was filmed in Toronto! We locals really enjoyed seeing all the familiar landmarks of the main drag in Toronto during the big final fight scene.

I also saw the second Chronicles of Naria movie... er.... but I have no idea what happened in it. I really wish I had watched the first one over again because I had virtually NO recollection of it and it seriously impaired my enjoyment of the latest sequel. I'm not saying it was good or bad, I just didn't enjoy myself because I couldn't follow along (and it's a children's movie!!).

But enough about all that. There is something infinitely more exciting to discuss. For those who have been following lately, I have been gearing up to get a tattoo on my back sometime in the coming weeks. Today however, I went to a big tattoo convention going on here in Toronto with a couple of my friends and took along a few other tattoos I was interested in getting. I have a tattoo on my right ankle I want to cover up and I had some ideas I wanted to bounce off some tattoo artists there. Before I knew it.... I was gettin' inked! And I LOVE IT!!

Let us not mistaken "I LOVE IT" with "I LOVED GETTING IT!" because I really really did NOT. The guy doing my tattoo (I love you, Perry!) had the genius idea of going over my ankle..... as in that bone that juts out of your ankle with little more than a thin stretch of skin over it. No "meat", as it were. And can I just tell you? My language has *never* been so colourful. Mother*@ker was the word of the day and I called poor Perry that name more times than you could possibly imagine. I did not enjoy the process one iota and after all is said and done my ankle, though beautiful and colourful, is very very swollen.

I also learned some important things about my body and gettings tattoos. First, when a very sensitive spot is inked, repeatedly, it may cause you to twitch for a moment, quite involuntarily. Nothing like jerking your leg around and giving your guy a moving target. At least we soon learned which two spots were the nastiest and we both prepared for the inevitable reaction.

Second, and a much more important lesson, is to EAT before you sit down for a tattoo. It may seem counter-intuitive, but trust me it's not. I hadn't eaten for probably about 5 hours and even on a good day that's bad news for me; I tend to get shaky and nauseous if I don't feed the need and if left long enough I get a migraine.

In this case I indeed left it a little too long because I was so nervous that I didn't really feel hungry... in fact my body skipped almost completely past the shaky stage and went right into the nauseous stage. As Perry was working on the outline and the most painful part over my ankle (insert ridiculous amounts of swearing here) I noticed I was feeling.... not quite right. I lifted my arms and held my hands out and saw that I had the shakes. Uh oh, I thought. Then my head started to swim. I began looking around for one of my two other friends to beg them to get me food, and eventually one did come around to check on me. I told her I needed sugar, pronto, and I didn't care if it was a coke or a chocolate bar, I just needed it quick. Perry stopped the tattoo right away and asked if I was ok. I tried playing it cool and said I was just gettin' the shakes and would be fine as soon as I got the food; meanwhile, I'm checking out the garbage pail beside Perry and thinking... if I had to... I could puke there. But did I really want to do that in front of ALL these people? In front of the 16 yr old kid beside me who is being shockingly cool about getting his first tattoo (and it was BIG)? Not so much.

My friend returned with a muffin and a granola bar, but as she began to hand it to me I turned to her and said: "... I think it's too late..... I think I need to go puke now". Perry stands up immediately and announces he's going to walk with me to the bathroom because it is a long way away and he wants to make sure I get there ok. Once I started walking I realized why he said it... my head wasn't just a bit dizzy.... I was starting to get tunnel vision. Omigod, I thought, I'm going to pass out on the way to the bathroom and cause a scene. Little did I know until later that as I was making my way through the crowd, growing greener around the gills by the second, Perry was behind me motioning to the people ahead to clear the way. Such a sweet guy.

Anyway, by the time I got to the bathroom (after considering every garbage can along the way) and got myself locked into the stall and crouched in front of the toilet... it would not come up. I suppose it was because there was nothing TO bring up, but still. At this point I wanted it to, if nothing else than to give me some relief. But it was not to happen, so I picked myself back up, splashed some water on my face and headed back.

Perry gave me a few minutes to eat my muffin and within 5 mins my colour came back to my face and my stomach settled right down. Duh, I am such an idiot.

Anyway, below are some pictures and a video of my tattoo, before and after (pay particular attention to the one where I'm giving the thumbs up... that was before he started. my mood would shift rapidly after that. LOL!) Click on the images for a bigger size. I LOVE my new tattoo and all the detail and shading, even if my ankle is now swollen to twice it's normal size.

THANK YOU, PERRY!! You rock and you took my abuse and name calling like a trouper. And your work is beautiful; you were SO nice and patient and fabulous to work with. See you next year!!












































UPDATE: Got these pics from my friend Phil who was there to document the goodtimes. Go ahead and laugh at my pain, Phil did too.