First Post

The Bleak House of Blahs, circa 1992.

Captain's Blahg, Start Date 02/19/03...

Welcome to The Bleak House of Blahgs, the blog of Earl J. Woods. Here you'll find Earl's daily mutterings, from keen insights into the human condition to aimless meanderings that will drive you into hopeless ennui. And to be honest, there's going to be a lot more of the latter than the former.

To begin: what's up with the title of this blog? Well, in the halcyon days after I graduated from the University of Alberta, I moved into a ramshackle grey house on the corner of 118th street and 118 avenue in Edmonton. In the beginning, four intrepid Gen Xers were full of optimism and mirth: myself, and my friends Ron Briscoe, Allan Sampson, and Carrie Humphrey. Carrie moved out after a month, and Ron, Allan and I, bereft of a moderating female influence, were left to carry on.

It was a grim time. Ron was working as a grocery bagger at Safeway, Allan was unemployed, and I was working as a parts driver, hauling camshafts and batteries and engine blocks to garages all over the city. None of us had girlfriends, or lives of any sort, really. Each day oozed mercilessly into the next. As Ron memorably put it, when musing that our lives would make a very dull book: "Chapter 28: More of the Same."

And so we christened our dreary home The Bleak House of Blahs. Three grey souls trapped in a hell of their own making!

Actually, we had a lot of fun. Socially, it was probably the second-best period in my life, right behind the glory days of Lister Hall (the dorm I stayed at during my university years). We had lots of friends, worked on some films, smashed some appliances, and had many cooking adventures. We existed in a kind of purgatory, trapped between hopeless dispair and unbridled hilarity. We only lived in The Bleak House of Blahs for a little over a year, but it was a time none of us will forget.

And so, to honour those memories, I've created this blog - or "blahg." One may argue that my life is more interesting now than it was then, but I couldn't resist the pun. So a blahg this shall be.

As for today, I just dropped off the infamous Bulb book at the lithographers'. Soon, the lust-addled public will at last have the book in their yearning hands. Watch for Lois Hole's Favorite Bulbs: Better Choices, Better Gardens in bookstores everywhere sometime in March...I hope.