Got back yesterday from a short trip to the Îles de la Madeleine with [[Catherine]], [[Oliver]] and my [[Mom]] and [[Dad]]. Which answers the question “where do you go to get away from it all if you already live away from it all?” It was great.

Recorded on the Magdalen Islands during a family vacation in 2006. We both had stuffy noses.

When [[Catherine]] and I first moved to [[Charlottetown]] in 1993 we lived at 50 Great George Street, right across the corner from Saint Dunstan’s Cathedral. As such our life was regulated by the ebb and flow of parishioners and our ability to secure on-street parking was determined by where in the ecclesiastical week our search fell.

Despite having lived so close then (and only a block away now that we’ve moved to town), somehow I’d managed to avoid actually going inside the Cathedral. At some point it became an odd point of pride, like Harry Baglole with the Confederation Bridge or Catherine Hennessey with the trans-Kent pedway.

Today, however, [[Oliver]] and I were driving home from the [[Charlottetown Farmer’s Market]] and had a little time to kill, so we ventured in:

Once you get over the whole “monotheism” thing, and the prohibition against in-line skating, it’s actually a rather pleasant space, at least in a “bow down before me you foolish and vain humans” kind of way.

The owners of the Rodd Charlottetown hotel have been running ads on the CBC trumpeting their 75th anniversary. One of the shots in the commercials is of what appears to be a roof-top deck. I’ve always had a fascination with the notion of this deck, especially since seeing archival photos of it. But I’d never heard of anyone actually going up there.

This afternoon, bolstered by a hearty meal from [[Interlude]] and the fearless moxie of my sister-in-law Jodi, we walked over the see what we could see. I stopped at the front desk and asked if we could go up and take a look; they happily handed over the secret code that unlocks the door to the roof, and provided instructions for navigating our way there. Five minutes later, we had a panoramic view over the city:

Something tells me that I have to organize some sort of party for this space sometime very soon.

It looks like Air Canada’s website has just undergone a major upgrade. And the warnings that users of Firefox used to see are gone, suggesting that it’s more browser-friendly.

We took a quick trip over to Halifax on Wednesday, stayed overnight, and then came back yesterday. Here’s a quick recap of the trip:

• The Hilton Garden Inn Halifax Airport is a wonderful modern hotel with excellent rates. It is, however, not actually in Halifax. I knew this going in, but I underestimated the hassle of the 40km drive from downtown out to the hotel. Next time we’ll bite the bullet, pay $100 more a night, and stay downtown.
• [[Oliver]] and I test drove a Smart Car: here’s the photographic evidence. Verdict: in first and second gear it drives like a lawn tractor; at higher speeds it’s fine. The transmission — a sort of manual/automatic hybrid — is the weak point of the car. It’s positively roomy inside — lots of head room, and it doesn’t feel cramped. There is almost no storage space, however — not even a glove box. The sales guy O’Regans, which appears to have the car market in Halifax pretty well tied up, was very helpful, and very low-pressure.
• Talay Thai, on Barrington Street near the train station, is an excellent Thai restaurant. It was packed on Wednesday night (every other Thai place we’ve ever visited in Halifax has been deserted) and the food packed a wallop. Service was on the slow side, but transcendentally nice.
• The ferry is a much more pleasant way to travel to the mainland than bridge. And the photo ops are better too.
• Cabin Coffee on Hollis (it’s tucked into the side of the parking garage) is a great place to hang out with kids. They also serve great food and drink. Very comfortable armchairs.
• Brio is the best soft drink going.
• Frog Hollow Books, inside the mall on Spring Garden Road, has an excellent kids books section, and a great selection of “armchair travel” books that I haven’t seen elsewhere.
• Pete’s Frootique still rocks after all these years.
• …as does The Italian Market.
• Gasoline is very expensive. $53 to fill up!? See also Smart Car above.

Plazer for Mobile Phones came out of beta today.

Air Canada announced its latest seat sale this morning, and the Halifax, Nova Scotia to London, England route is down to its low-season $498 return — a fare that, give or take $30 — is as low as this route ever gets on Air Canada. On the London route the rules are: “Tickets must be purchased by December 14, 2006. Travel period is valid from September 28 - December 14, 2006. Minimum stay Saturday night/Maximum stay 12 months.”

[[Catherine]] and I, unable to stomach any of the movies playing in town on Saturday night, ended up enjoying a dinner at [[The Noodle House]] followed by an exciting tour through the Charlottetown Mall.

The menu at The Noodle House as been dramatically expanded over the last few weeks, and now runs to almost a dozen pages. In addition to a whole new range of Cantonese dishes, the back page features two new categories: “sizzlers” are served on sizzling-hot cast iron platters and “sizzling hot pots” are boiled-not-fried concoctions served in a small clay pot. On Saturday Catherine had the “ginger beef sizzler” and I had the chicken one. Both were very tasty, and a welcome addition to the menu. The only downside to the meal is that we forgot to tell the new owners to hold the MSG (the original owners had our non-MSG preference memorized years ago); they were very nice about this, and told us that they will cook without MSG if requested.

On Sunday we headed to Summerside with visions of Belgian-style french fries dancing in our heads. Ever since said fries were promoted by a [[Compass]] feature on Flex Mussels a few weeks back, I’ve been dreaming about the day I might make it all the way to Summerside for a sample. I should mention here that I didn’t actually know what “Belgian-style” french fries were, and I don’t really like mussels; I’m just addicted to the notion of anything novel.

It’s hard not to like Flex Mussels: they’ve got such a clever little brand, a cute website, and a setup on the water in Summerside that’s very “Ikea in Stainless.”

The Belgian-style french fries turned out to be thin-cut, about the size of McDonalds’ fries, but, unlike McDonalds’ fries, they had a recognizable connection to potatoes. Mine were a little on the cold side, and somewhat too salty (which might have been Catherine’s fault, as she supplemented the house salting with some of her own) but were otherwise very tasty, especially when dipper in the optional mayonaise; I’d rank them just behind those from the [[Water Prince Corner Shop]] in [[Charlottetown]] in the Panetheon of french fry excellentness.

Catherine said the mussels were excellent too; I sopped up enough of her tasty ” ginger, lime, indian curry, fresh mango puree, and cream” sauce with the thoughtfully-provided baguette to see where she was coming from.

In addition to the fries, I ordered a lobster roll, which is the only other non-mussel item on the menu. This was plesantly unlike the “lobster bits with celery and mayo” lobster rolls we’re used to: it was a deep-fried battered lobster tail served with mayo (one of five varieties; I choose wasabi) on a bun with lettuce. While I appreciated its iconoclastic qualities, and it was well prepared, something didn’t come together in the end; I’m not sure what it was, but it needed an extra oomph. But I’d order it again.

When added to the (transcendent) blueberry pancakes that [[Catherine Hennessey]] served us on Sunday morning, the chocolate-covered potato chips we sampled at Avonlea and the chocolate-covered ginger we had on the way home, we probably took 4 years off our lives this weekend. But it was worth it, I think.

I want to find out what’s playing at the movies tonight in Charlottetown, so I surf on over to Empire Theatres’ website.

All I want to know is what’s playing. I don’t need to be convinced what to see, I don’t want to hold a birthday party, I don’t want a Subway breakfast sandwich. And yet look at their website:

One of the smallest things on the page is the link to “showtimes by theatre” — but isn’t that what theatre websites are for? It gets worse: I click on “by theatre” and go to:

So here I get a jazzy Star Wars-style graphic telling me that I can go to Empire Theatres FROM COAST TO COAST. As I’m not considering going to the movies in Alberta tonight, this is of little relevance to me. I locate the link for Prince Edward Island and click, leading me to:

Note that on this page I can’t actually click on the icon placed on the map over Charlottetown, I have to click on “Empire Studio 8” (a name I have never heard uttered by anyone — there is, after all, only one multiplex in the city). Note how the “Empire Studio 8” is located several inches from Charlottetown, just to further confuse me. Finally I end up at:

Finally, showtimes! And Subway sandwiches and Ant Bully ads. But that’s okay, I’ve got my showtimes now. The clever amongst you might be thinking “you should bookmark this page now so you can quickly return in the future.” Alas this isn’t possible: the URL for this page is inanely constructed so that it’s good for today only. There is no way to construct a hyperlink to the “Empire Studio 8” showtimes page; indeed attempting to make the URL “universal” by stripping off the date results in this unhelpful page:

Not entirely useless, I suppose, as you can use it to plan your cinema outings for New Year’s Eve Eve.

I wonder whether anyone at Empire Theatres has ever actually tried to find out what’s playing at their theatres.

Disclaimer: I maintain the website for City Cinema, which is an Empire Theatres competitor. Indeed normally I’d be looking to go to movies there, but I just can’t abide Garrison Keillor tonight, or, actually, ever. I’ve always prided myself that finding out “what’s playing” at City Cinema takes no clicks at all.