ROYAL ONTARIO MUSEUM: THIS MUSEUM WILL BE TELEVISED

Our most recent visit to the Royal Ontario Museum, the ROM, was inspired by TV. No, not the history of TV, which pretty much consists of talking puppets, men in drag and horny spaceship captains, but by a TV program about history. Or, more accurately, a TV show about museums, which have just a little bit to do with history. And (you have to love this irony) the show airs on the History Channel. It's called Museum Secrets.
The show visits museums all around the world, relating stories not heard in a long time, and examining exhibits that have not been seen by the public in a long time, if ever. The series visited the ROM and to celebrate, the museum this month put on display a few of the exhibits discussed in the show.
The exhibit was small, but certainly diverse. They showed everything from a headdress owned (if not actually ever worn) by Sitting Bull ...

.. to a bull dog who's genes can be found in the majority of English Bulldogs in Canada today ..
.. to a rather a gigantic medieval cross bow, accompanied by some mysterious vessels that seem to have thermal properties ..
... some speculate that these vessels may have been an early form of hand grenades ..
.. and some fossil remains, never before displayed, of a "lost" ROM dinosaur ...
Perhaps the most compelling object in the exhibit was that of a baby mummy

Not a lot is known about the infant. It was a male, approximately 6 months old, perhaps from a wealthy family
The museum has never opened the elaborate wrapping for fear of damaging it, or the mummy inside, so they have only had X-rays with which to glean any information about the mummy.
After going through the Museum Secrets exhibit, we decided to spend some time in the ROM's Native Canadian Exhibit, a space that we haven't explored in some time.
Although the exhibit touches on the life of early Natives from all over Canada, much it focussed on the peoples who lived in this part of the world, around the Great Lakes.

One of the objects that really captured my attention and my imagination was a war robe, an elk hide robe that through pictures, told the personal history of it's owners life through the battles in which he had been involved.

You'll see the robe, along with other highlights from our visit, in the video below.

Royal Ontario Museum: Museum Secrets from Victor Kellar on Vimeo.

THE NEW ARRIVAL

Yes, we have a new addition to our family. And this time, it is not black and white and furry with a long tongue and a four legs.

This time it is red, with a long cargo area and four tires. And instead of being of English heritidge as are border collies, it is Japanese ...

No, we did not adopt an Asian child or give life to a character from anime. We bought a new car

Collete and I are the proud parents of a spanking new Subaru Outback. There is some irony in our purchase of this particular car. Eleven years ago, when we were looking to purchase our first new car, we liked the Outback; it was more a station wagon then and it suited us nicely but out our price range, so we ended up buying our Saturn which served us well for a decade. But we always looked fondly on the Outback.
Recently we've decided we needed a new car (Yes, two car purchases in over ten years, we're wild and crazy people) The Saturn has become too small to accomodate Collette, myself, Hayley and Terra .. seeing as how Terra seems to have the ability to give herself the exterior dimensions of a small pony at will. And although the Saturn was a swell little car, it's not something you can use to bring home a 7 ft long picnic table, unless you put it on the roof and used it as a sail
So when we began searching for prospective new adoption, we knew we wanted something roomier, something with a hatch, and something with all wheel drive. The Outback of course satisfies all these criteria but it has been a while since I've seen one and I still had this image of a little station wagon in my mind and wasn't sure if that was what we wanted
We were at the Ex this past summer and got to check out the Chevie Equinox. We liked the size, it had a back seat that could slide forward, giving more cargo space while we still had the girls in it, etc. But when I test drove one, I found it well appointed but essentially gutless. And by the time I loaded in all the features I have in the Outback, the Equinox was about the same price.

Also, we had made the decision to go for all wheel drive. I drive all year long and we go up north enough, I thought that would be beneficial. Of the vehicles I looked at, like the Escape and the Equinox and the RAV 4, the Outback was the only one with full time all wheel drive. I drove the Subaru Forrester but it felt small to me, and sort of cheap ...

So I ended up returning, as it were, to our first love

So we've come full circle, but it has indeed been a long slow circle. So far I am very happy with the new addition. And let's be honest: How cute will all three of my girls look in it as we go whizzing along?

HOW TO GET BEAT UP BY THE UFC WITHOUT EVER ENTERING THE CAGE

For those of you who regularly read this blog (I will stop asking why, we all have mental health issues) you will know that Collette and I both fans of the combat sport know as Mixed Martial Arts, or MMA. You may also remember that I have been a big supporter of this sport being sanctioned here in Ontario and that, of course, I take full and personal responsibility for making that so

Ahem

At any rate, it did not take long for the UFC to announce a major MMA card here in Toronto. They wanted to break an attendance record for the fight and were careful to load the card with Canadian fighters, including the reigning welterweight champ, George St Pierre

UFC president, the urbane and erudite Dana White (that is so a joke, this guy has all the class and manners of a drunken 500 pound gorilla from the Ozarks and yes, that is an insult to people from the Ozarks) selected the Rogers Centre, formerly the Sky Dome as the venue, hoping to sell at least 40,000 seats. No, that is not a typo. Forty thousand seats
Collette and I wanted to go. Not just because we are fans of the sport but because we have been waiting for this for a long time. We've never before been able to see a big scale MMA event and we wanted in on this one And for once, we were in a position to grab really good seats, even with an announced price range from 800 dollars (ringside and close enough to identify which fighter's blood you have just been splashed with) to 50 dollars (in the upper 500 seats where you not only good nose bleeds but you are given free oxygen.
We knew these tickets would go quickly. MMA and the UFC are hugely popular here, Ontario regularly buys more UFC pay per view events than other location in the world. But this is also Toronto, where if something is new, if it's the first, people have to jump all over it, just to say they could. And if it costs money, like an inordinate amount of money, they have to get in on it, just prove they have more money than brains. That is like a badge of honour in this city.

So we knew we had a fight on our hands. But I never thought it was a fight that would make me feel as if I had just gone a round with the champ

OK, Mr St Pierre could make me cry with a stern look, but you get my point. One thing I did to gain an advantage was to join the UFC Fight Club, which would allow me pre buy tickets a few days before the general public for the oh so lovely low low price of almost 100 bucks. Yes. It's true. During this whole endeavour, I may have lost my mind

Or lost more of my mind

Or the rest of my mind

Or something

Now, for this pre sale, the only way to acquire tickets was online, via TicketMaster. You know TicketMaster, otherwise known as the Anti Christ. I hate Ticket Master. I have never had a satisfactory experience dealing with them. It always seems to me that no matter how diligent you are, jumping through the hoops they establish, I never get the seats that I want, seats that always seem for sale on the street the evening of the event. Whenever I can, I deal directly with the box office of the venue, but that option at this point was not available.

So there I go, my 100 dollar pre sale code in hand, at my computer right on time, hovering around the Ticket Master site as if it was going to do something miraculous, like part the Red Sea or turn my ponytail brown again ...

I connected with Ticket Master right away. Less than a minute after the tickets went on sale, the best I could do was the 200 section at the Dome. A minute after that, only 500 level seats were left. Five minutes after 10 am, no tickets were available ...

I know some people through this offer were able to get the floor seats I was yearning for. Part of the problem was that you were allowed to purchase 8 seats per order. I know for a fact that many people did this even though they did not have that many people in their party. So golly, we aren't much encouraging scalping are we?

At first "only" 40,000 seats were available. They were sold out by the time the public could purchase, a couple of days later. So they opened up the rest of the dome. For kicks, I went online again. Public tickets went onsale at 10 am. I was offered a couple of seats 10 seconds after 10 .. and only 500's were available

At first I was disapointed and certainly pissed off. All is not kosher here. There are lots of floor level seats available on Craiglist and sites known for scalping. There is no doubt in my mind that Ticket Master "loses" large blocks of tickets that show up for sale elsewhere

But I know many many many many people, who paid their 100 bucks and did their due dilligence were not able to get seats. And I know at least half a dozen people who "lost" their tickets in the electronic Hell that is Ticket Master

So I am not so much disapointed. Not pissed off, but I'm disgruntled. Hell, I'm almost always disgruntled. I think that is part of my charm.

Ahem. Shut up

But it actually does piss me off that one company can have such a monopoly. Who's policing it? Probably not police, there isn't a Summit to patrol and young women with soap bubbles to intimidate ... but I digress. Which is pretty much the point of this blog anyway

But for all my whining and moaning I did buy tickets. And for more money than what they are worth. And we will go see the fights. And buy the overpriced beer and fart out the overpriced food ... Will we go to see another? That remains to be seen

I'm going to start saving now. And waiting in line for my tickets