It's a pretty common value we all have: killing people is not cool. Strangely enough, I've recently found that playing with the tools to do so, on the other hand, most definitely is cool. Examples: lighting fires, blowing stuff up, driving too fast and juggling chainsaws -- and have you ever swung a mace? Neither have I, but like jetpacks, I don't have to experience it to know it's awesome.

But also like jetpacks, if I had the opportunity to try it, I'd jump at it in a second. Which is why when the opportunity to try shooting guns came up, I promptly performed that usual emotional dance that I do before doing anything worthwhile: a moment of dizzying panic and then, "Yes!"

Medieval Times is a no-brainer stimulation-fest for kids -- if you've got 'em, take 'em. But as we learned last Sunday evening, Medieval Times just might be a good time for everyone. As an example, we saw several groups of older tourists who were well into the unique combination of dinner and acrobatic theater. Also, there were various inexplicable groups of College Bros sipping sips from cups equipped with flashing lights, or shaped like golden armour helmets having a great time, their voices often drowning out those of the kids sitting around them.

And even for us, a pair of cynical-but-wide-eyed explorers, Medieval Times was a thoroughly enjoyable trip. Where else in the city can you witness the art of falconry, eat half a chicken with your bare hands, shout "Wench!" or "Serf!" when you need a re-fill of your Pepsi and then watch six dudes on horses chop each other in half with swords and axes?

Speed dating. "It's not really my thing, but I thought, Hey! Why not? Life is short!"

The summer air is making us brave here at GTA Tripping. This week we're once again concerned not so much with the outer reaches of the TTC, but the outer reaches of our comfort zones.

Speed dating is something we all know about but probably haven't experienced. Like online dating and other matchmaking services, we think this sort of thing is for "other people". It turns out that this is everyone - everyone involved firmly believes it is out of character for him or her and that they would never normally do this sort of thing. We would put ourselves in this category as well, but like everyone else at Riva Supper Lounge last Wednesday evening, there we were...

I like Tom Cruise. He's been in a Few Good movies and for extra points he dropped that famous mind-bomb performance on Oprah, which I think we can all agree was awesome. But my affinity for the man probably lies more in the fact that, like me, he's short, dark and moody (the most charitable delusionals I've met have even said there's a resemblance between Katie Holmes's man and myself). Tom Cruise is pretty much my Spirit Animal.

But, like his religion, most people I know have denounced the man as crazy. But after a curious-but-guarded trip to a Dianetics center years ago, when I watched the impassioned actor speak to me via laserdisc about the untold, super-secret benefits of being a Scientologist, I wasn't satisfied with aligning myself with the common casting-off of the religion. Like communism, Scientology sounded good to me on paper. As a scientologist I could free myself from stress and anxiety, ascend the ranks into the upper echelons of a secretive hierarchy (this kind of thing is still attractive, what can I say?), and reap the benefits of being a super-human charged by some metaphysical thing called Thetans (midichlorians?).

Fuelled by reckless curiosity, I went to the Church of Scientology of Toronto last Tuesday to take their Free Personality Test, play with an e-meter, and dive right in...

Last Friday morning I found myself at Dodem Kanonhsa' - on the 6th floor of a federal government office tower on St. Clair Ave. East. Each office on that floor featured normal enough furniture and office materials and was full of regular officey people doing regular officey things. But the room I was in had no fluorescent lights, staplers or telephones. Instead, I was standing in a full-blown First Nations lodge lined with glowing cedar planks; the creation legend turtle inlaid in the bright wood floor.

I was surrounded by a circle of chairs, each one holding a person waiting for me to perform the ritual. A 75 year-old Potawatomi elder - Landing Hawk Woman - stood in front of me cradling a shell full of shouldering sage. She was looking at me expectantly, inviting me to perform the ceremonial smudge. The only trouble was, I had no idea what I was doing...

"You make your own fun." That annoying adage my aunts would repeat to me as a bored child at family gatherings stuck with me. Now, as a childlike/ish adult, I believe firmly that any and all boredom I experience is purely my own fault.

Gifted with this mantra (thanks aunts!), my partner-in-awe and I headed out this week to a place that most born'n'bred GTAers have been to at least once before. Remember when you were in elementary school, and you had to hand that permission slip in to the history teacher? Then you arrived at Black Creek Pioneer Village at Jane and Steeles to find a vividly animated 19th century village, which you greeted by yawning and turning up your Walkman.