Kings: Oh Brother, St. Patrick’s Day

All right, you vultures. Stats are showing that these photo posts get roughly three times as many page visits as do my other posts. This leads me to a couple of possible conclusions. The first says that visitors to this website are more interested in viewing pictures of my (handsome?) self than they are reading my (handsome?) self ramble on about love and old-men-dying. The second says that most of you are not able to read very well and would prefer to just mash your mouse button such that you get to view a funny picture! Decide for yourself which best describes you, and then read on, because, yes, I have more photos for you.

This set covers both my brother’s visit and St. Patrick’s Day. There are even a few shots from special guest photographer Sarah Jones! I am so excited I almost want to click this link myself!

The Highlights

• To kick things off, Here I am, wearing a hat. It is not, of course, my hat. Rather, it is someone else’s hat. I am just wearing it. Reasons I won’t wear this hat again include: i) it makes me look like a cancer patient, ii) it was kind of itchy and iii) Mike Weir thought it was hilarious for some reason.
• March Malaise differs from the January Daze in that it strikes in March instead of in January. Also, you have a lot more essays to write.
• My brother Chris, who has appeared on this site before, decided to visit me in Halifax a couple of weeks ago. He did this for two reasons: 1) He thinks I am an awesome brother and wanted to spend time with me, and 2) He had just turned 19 and wanted to get really drunk. So his visit was a beautiful tapestry of brotherly bonding, family togetherness and getting plastered.
• And, here he is, doing Vodka shots with Erin and Kristine. I swear, I ended up drinking like I was in first year. The result was that, while I didn’t take a lot of pictures and have giant gaping holes in my memory of the night, I am pretty sure I had a good time. Here are some pictures of some girls. I am pretty sure I am dating none of them. Also, for posterity, here is lower half of the girls. I am still pretty sure I am dating none of them.
• After that rather crazy night, I was ready to call it a weekend. My brother, however, has the energy of youth flowing through his veins, and after recovering from what looked like a painful hangover, he was ready to hit the town again. So we, of course, went to Freeman’s because that’s what we do when we ‘hit the town’. We walk down the street and go to the bar next to the video store. In that picture, we are showing the waitress our IDs.
• The aforementioned waitress proved particularly feisty. Marcie is a Dalhousie graduate who does not own a computer yet was fascinated by my digital camera. She took several shots including, this one of Chris gambling, this one of some guys sitting near us at a different table, this one of our good pals looking rather unnerved by the drunken ramblings of my younger brother, and several shots of nothing. Oh, Marcie. I’d make fun of you but how would you read this? You have no computer.
• St. Patrick’s Day this year was relatively low-key. A simple gathering involving some drinking, some music and some good conversation. We started at Rory’s apartment, but soon moved to the world famous Ward Room where St. Patrick’s Day mainstays Colin & Ross & Ben played their usual Irish music.
• Sarah Jones was kind enough to send me her pictures from the night. Which was great, because in my pictures everyone looks sad.
• Seriously, check this out: my picture (yikes), then her picture (yay!). Again, my picture (booooring) versus her picture (hilarious!). Sad! and then happy! I mean dear lord, this confirms it: I’m a miserable photographer.
• We were joined on the night by Rory’s old buddy Adam Keylor who, I guess, is putting his glasses on upside down in this picture. I’m not really sure. It’s arty, though! Arty like my pictures could never hope to be. My only contribution to Sarah’s photos was fixing the red-eye on a couple of them. The rest? Pure artistic force. Or whatever.
• Kristine’s been a bit tired this month. This was at about 7 o’clock. Thankfully, she’d experience a burst of energy later on that night.
• Erin looks remarkably troubled in this picture. I feel sort of bad for laughing at it, because she could be worried about something really serious like child poverty or Terry Schiavo.
• I know how much Sarah likes to be mentioned and also to see her pictures places (she LOVES it!) so here she is. And here is what she (and her friends) would look like were you to pass her while moving at a high rate of speed. And here is what she would look like were you to shrink down to atomic size and then jump into the bottom of a beer glass.
• In conclusion, the band.

All the pictures.

Well, then. Now that we’ve covered all that jazz, we can move on to what I really want to talk about: My trip to Shelburne, NS. That’s right, the home of GraphicMatt regular and the guy I would want to take my place were I unable to attend the big dance contest, Rory J. O’Sullivan. It was utterly magical.

Those pictures, and more, in the coming days.

I sure am,
Matt