Wizard Optical

About a week ago I sent electronic mails to a few places throughout Nova Scotia. I sent messages to the Wizard Optical Center (http://wizardoptical.ca), the Rental Wizard (http://therentalwizard.com), and The Dent Wizard (http://www.halifaxdentremoval.co.uk/), as well as to a Halifax band simply called "Wizard" (http://www.myspace.com/wwiizzaarrdd).

I got replies back from everyone, and, of course, no one knew much about anything to do with the coin or the Wizard or wands or spells or the location of Azkaban or anything magic related at all.
They were, however, very helpful in regards to removing my dents, fixing me up for some specs, renting me... something, and playing me some funky jams.

This G-9th chord is totally going to remove that dent in your glasses. And rent you... something.

Although - I just found a place online called the "Wizard Coin Supply" (http://www.wizardcoinsupply.com). They're not located in Nova Scotia, but I have to figure that if anyone is going to know anything about a Wizard coin, it's probably going to be a place that supplies said coins.

C'mon really obvious solution!

Lunenburg pt. 2 and the Tramp Schooner

I hit my first real Wizard snag today!

I took a trip about an hour southwest of Halifax today down to Lunenburg, the home of the Bluenose II.

This sign reads "Lunenburg" for anyone that isn't sporting a magnifying glass right now.

The Bluenose II is the baby of the ship that is on the back of the Canadian dime, as well as my Wizard Coin. Basically, it's a replica ship - more on that in a minute.
Now, how ships have babies I may never know, but what I do know, having found out today, is that Lunenburg, home of the Bluenose II, is definitely not the home of the Bluenose I, my Wizard, nor the home of anybody that cared to share any Wizard secrets.

It is, however, home of lobsters with pincers bigger than my thigh. Think - less 'pinchy', more 'hackey/slicey'.

I made it to the "Fisheries Museum of the Atlantic" around 2:30pm today. After paying my admittance fee I booked it straight towards the Bluenose, and was greeted by a friendly life saver letting me know that this was actually the Bluenose II, and not the Bluenose, which, up until right then, I thought I was going to see.

I've never hated the character 'I' more than I did right then. Double time.

At that point I wasn't too surprised when the person handing out information, Ryan, couldn't actually inform me about my coin. Ryan was very friendly though, and he did take a photo of me pretending to steer the Bluenose II into the wharf.

And check, and turn the signal to the right! Now turn to the right!
And check, and turn the signal to the left! Now turn to the left!

I guess I could have done my research earlier, but according to Wiki the original Bluenose...

Name:	Bluenose
Launched:	March 26, 1921
Fate:	Sold out-of-country in 1942 to become a tramp schooner in the Caribbean

A Tramp Schooner. I don't even care what a Tramp Schooner actually does, but c'mon Canada... You sold a part of our heritage to what sounds like a whore-house on water?!
I don't know whether to balk or cheer. That sort of rules.

Yo' momma! ...is now cavorting around the world as a Tramp Schooner, and is totally full of sea-men.

So, at the end of the day I guess I didn't really get any further in finding my Wizard. I did, however, think of the possibility that I could be in the wrong part of the World all together.
See, after finding out that the original Bluenose was sold to the Caribbean in 1942 I remembered back a couple months ago when I stumbled upon another 'rare' coin:

After googling and quickly finding out this coin's not-so-rare background I dismissed it as 'unimportant', and gave it to an unsuspecting customer at my work as change.
This, in hind-sight, could have been a horrible mistake.

I mean, I can't be the only one that thinks the ship on the Caribbean coin looks an awful lot like the original Bluenose, give or take a few doses of magic/pirate broads.


Also in Lunenburg -

The masts of the Bluenose II, despite not being the proper ship, are still pretty mastive.

At one point I heard a loud buzzing above me, in the 3rd floor of the museum, at a spot where I thought I could go no higher. Figuring this was the shape-changing or potion brewing of a Wizard I decided to sneak into the attic-like 4th floor ventilation room. I quickly discovered that the the loud buzzing was not so much a wizard transmorphographying, but actually just the ventilation system venting.

It's okay. I'm good with secrets. There's no reason you shouldn't be able to vent around me.

Lunenburg.

I got a few leads today. More than one. This is perfect.

First off, my new house mates told me to check out the book store up the street. I mentioned the book store idea to a few other people, and everyone was in agreement: book store owners know just about everything about everything, and that's a great place to start, even if it's only because it's the closest place to start.

The next tip I got was from our next door neighbour, Matt. Matt thinks I should take a trip about an hour south of here to a little town called Lunenburg.
Lunenburg is the home of the Bluenose, which at one point was the World's fastest sailboat, and is also the boat stamped on the Canadian dime, as well as on my Wizard Coin.

The Bluenose is also the name of this ridiculously sad little Panda bear,
which, according to his Wiki page, has never won any races, ever.

A new friend also suggested I take a look down by the Harbour, and that sounds fun and all, but now that I've written out the word 'harbour' I can't help but wonder why Canadians put U's into all sorts of words that really don't need U's.

We don't need 'U'! No, not you... no, don't start with the crying again, Bluenose!

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.