Day Zero.

I made it!
My Quest for Wizard Coin Knowledge can finally begin now that I'm here.
Or... well... there:

There.

Or, I guess, not exactly there... I mean, I'm not standing at that sign as I write this, but I am in Nova Scotia, which, according to the friendly little sign that welcomed me/told me everything I know about this crazy place, is home to at least one lighthouse.

Although I assume the King of Nova Scotia (or whatever it is they call the president here [Sea Captain?]) wouldn't have a lighthouse on the welcome sign if there wasn't already at least one solid lighthouse in the province. With that assumption set in place, I think it's safe to say that Nova Scotia is home to at least two lighthouses.

Are multiple lighthouses called 'lighthouses', or would they be called something different? I could see them being named in a similar fashion to the 'moose' for some reason. Would that mean that more than one lighthouse is called a series of light-hie? Now that I'm thinking about it, what is the plural form of 'moose'?

Are we not Meese? We are DEVO.

Oh, the questions, oh, the questions....

---

Oh! 3am side note - my roommates also just informed me that there were 3 gun slayings here last week. Last week. I don't mean to criticize my new home, but there were 153 gun-related deaths in all of Canada last year.
That means, according to my calculations (3 deaths per week x 52 weeks), Nova Scotia is responsible for 103% of Canada's gun crime.
So, I guess there's always that.

Crackpipe Wizardry

I've spent the last four days of my Wizard hunt relaxing at an immaculate old 5 bedroom mansion about an hour outside of Montreal, QC.
I've been getting three-wine-bottle-deep drunk every night, eating more food every day than I normally take in in a week, and just generally readying myself for the last leg of my travels across the country.

Doing nothing, so I'm ready for anything.

This mansion hasn't been quiet, however, and has seen more overnight guests than Lindsay Lohan's last visit to the local WMCA. It's been great. I've had huge steak dinners with drug dealers, drank fresh orange juice with retired sports heroes, and I was even taught how to roll a one-handed joint by a thalidomide baby. And I think, just maybe, that the Wizard himself may have even stopped by for a visit.

It was 3 nights ago, around 10:45pm, when there was a knock on the door. I answered it, expecting it to be the local police wanting to know why there seemed to be a steady stream of new people coming in every 15 minutes and leaving shortly afterwards, but instead it was an older gentleman and his young lady friend, carrying dessert for a dinner they were, if they had been invited, 3 hours late for.

They came in, we had drinks, we had tea, we had conversations. I asked the 72 year old, grey haired man about the coin, and he shook the question off, almost as if he were hiding something. He had an odd look about him. He looked very much so like a Wizard would look, if a Wizard was going out for a casual night of dinner-hopping with a younger lady-friend. We had dessert, we had more drinks, and we had some pot, though we had no way of smoking it.
Within 30 seconds flat the grey-haired man got up, went into the kitchen, rustled through some things, and came back with a tinfoil pipe, which, I admit, made him seem a lot more like a crackhead than a Wizard, though I was impressed.

Solid one piece construction. Totally to crack-code.

After the old man had come and gone I spent a solid half hour trying to recreate his pipe. I couldn't do it. His was flawless, while mine was totally full of flaws, including its main flaw of 'not actually working at all'.

I started to think back on our conversation and all the Wizard-like clues I may have missed, including the fact that at one point he was totally walking around with a wand, pretending to zap plants, while talking absolute gibberish. (In his defense, I was pretty drunk, and his 'gibberish' could have been french.)

Old man: "Voulez-vous couche avec moi, se-soir?"
Me: Utter look of terror.

Wizard or no wizard, crackhead, or regular old man that carries around a wand, I realize now that it was nearly infinite times more likely that the old man was a Wizard rather than a crackhead, if simply for the fact that I don't think I've ever heard of a crackhead living past the age of 28.

Escape From McGangBang Island.

I feel like Snake in that old badass 80's flick "Escape From New York", or, possibly even Snake in that less badass 00's flick "Escape From L.A.", except that instead of fleeing from explosions and bad guys while trying to rescue the President, I've been fleeing from greasy food and strip malls while trying not to let my meals slide through me faster than what should be humanly possible.

Like this, if this were my butt.

But I made it! I'm in Toronto, on my way to Montreal, New Brunswick, and, finally, Nova Scotia to track down, tie up, and kill the Wizard that made this coin that made me go 4 days without real food.

Thankfully, being back in Canada means a whole lot less of this:

McGangBang Burger

... seriously. I wish I made that name up.

And a whole lot more of this:

Poutine. Canada's response to KFC's Double Down.

I think the only reason poutine doesn't fly too well in the States is because when you order it the person behind the till usually hands it to you in styrofoam, rather than meat.

Rethinking My (Blatently Ignorant) Design

Wow.

I grossly underestimated the population of Nova Scotia... by about 800 000 people.

Apparently my plan of simply asking every single person in Nova Scotia about the coin isn't going to work out so well after all.

My perception of how I thought (all of) Nova Scotia would look. Colours to scale.

Wizard free in Missouri.

I just arrived in Missouri, and all the songs on the radio are about guns and god, and how they're related, (mainly due to the fact that they both protect your loved ones, and how if you come where you're not welcome, brother, you might just meet them both,) and it's freakin' incredible.


America. Fuck yeah.

No wizards in sight.
Probably too afraid of being gunned down by the local trigger happy backwoods folk of this oddly beautiful state.


*note - After talking to friends that actually have tidbit of geographic knowledge about the States i've been informed that it's a thousand times more likely that I'm in Montana, rather than Missouri... my ignorance is going to be the end of me....


Current location: Somewhere... in there.

Josh Martinez

Last week my band played a gig in Tacoma, WA with Nova Scotia born and bred hip-hop star Josh Martinez.

Now, this looks like the type of dude you wanna situate yourself with if you're trying to find a freakin' wizard.

We've played a few shows with Martinez over the last couple years, so he was more than willing to answer a couple of questions I had. Here's a rough transcript of a vague memory I may or may not have actually been a part of.

Me: Do you know anything about this coin? (shows coin)

Josh: (looks at Wizard) No... (flips coin around) Nova Scotia, eh? (shows more interest) I don't know anything about this coin, but it's cool. Where'd you get it?

Me: (explains story) I heard from a couple 'Scotians themselves that I should have a poke around Upper Clements Park. Know anything about that?

Josh: Upper Clements Park? (looks confused, then, as if a memory strikes) I do! I haven't been there in ages... Since I was 12 at least.

Me: Notice any Wizards while you were there? Or, perhaps, any really ugly guys with really really good looking girls? You know, something that might have made you think that there was a little potion slanging going on? Walk into anything that didn't really seem to be there? Perhaps as if said thing had a vanishing potion dumped on them?

Josh: What? No.

Me: ...Do you know where I can go to get a good donaire while I'm in Hali?

Josh: Just about anywhere, man.

Don't dig it? Donair even go there.