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Sunday, June
15th, 2003
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| 9:10 pm - ctachin'
up |
Hmmmm. It's
been a while since I posted anything here, hasn't
it?
I've been "on vacation" for the last
week, and will remain so for the coming week as
well. I put it in quotes because since I generally
work from home, being "on vacation" doesn't feel a
whole lot different from being "at work", except
that I'm not spending quite so much time in front
of the computer.
So what have I done during
my time off? Well, last Saturday, Sheryl/ lilactime
and I took the dogs down to a big doggie festival
at the Distillery
District called Woofstock,
which was a great deal of fun. Sunday, we did a
fair bit of running around, including a visit to
an organic food fair presented by Foodshare and
a bit of shopping. I also paid a visit to the big
LCBO store at
Yonge & Summerhill in hopes of finding some
beers from the summer seasonal release on the
shelves - no such luck, but I picked up a few
things anyway. A list & mini-reviews are
behind the cut tag for those who
care.
( click
here for beer! )
During the
week, I've mainly been getting some personal stuff
done on the computer, like updating my feedback
monitor website and other crap like that. I
also bought some shirts in there somewhere - or
maybe that was Sunday? Whatever.
On Friday
afternoon, we went down to St.
Lawrence Market to do a bit of shopping
(mainly for the fancy and expensive chocolate that
we've become addicted to), and more importantly,
to check out the Craft Beer Show
that was happening in the courtyard next to the
North Market building. This is the third year it
has taken place, and it has improved considerably
every year. It now features booths from pretty
much every good microbrewery in Ontario (and a
couple of crappy ones, like Brick and Cool), plus
Quebec favourite McAuslan. All
that was missing to make it a nearly perfect
microbrew featival was a Unibroue
booth. And unlike the annual Festival
of Beer at Fort York, most the attendees at
this one seem to be interested in tasting new and
interesting beers rather than drinking lots of the
same old crap and getting drunk &
obnoxious.
Here's another cut tag for
people who want to know what I
tried:
( click
here for more beer! )
After
drinking lots of beer, we walked down to the big
Loblaw's at Jarvis and Queen's Quay to pick up a
few groceries. It was a typical visit to a large
grocery store, except for the fact that the musak
seemed to be tuned in to the Alternative Hits of
the 80s channel, as we heard "Robert DiNiro's
Waiting" by Bananarama, "World Destruction" by
Time Zone and "Love Will Tear Us Apart" by Joy
Division. We also used the new do-it-yourself
checkout machine, which seemed to work out OK even
despite the fact that we were kinda
tipsy.
Yesterday, we had a table at the Hive
Magazine Pulp & Plastic small
press/zine/indie music fair to sell Piehead
stuff as well as some discs & records from our
friend's labels, Noise
Factory and 2Top
Records. The selection of stuff on display was
really great and eclectic, but the turn-out of
shoppers/browsers was smaller than we'd expected.
But we still sold a few things, so it wasn't a
total waste of time.
Today, we went over to
the Danforth aka Greektown
so Sheryl could update some of her listings on Toronto
Underground. We had lunch at The Organic
Buddha Cafe which we were both looking forward to
trying, but we were really disappointed with the
food. My sweet potato, snap pea and cabbage
sandwich was lacking anything resembling a snap
pea, had more regular potato in it than sweet
potato, and lacked any sort of spices or flavour.
Sheryl's meal was equally disappointing. At least
my coffee & her smoothie were good.
After wandering around the 'hood for a
while, we went to Alex Farm
where I bought several tasty cheeses. I posted a
bit about them to  cheese_party,
a community that I discovered a few days ago.
Mmmmmmm... cheese!
And then it was up to
Yonge & Summerhill so Sheryl could update her
listings for that area, and so that I could make
another attempt at finding some the summer beers
at the LCBO. Only two of them were on the shelf,
both from St.
Peter's Brewery - their Lemon & Ginger
beer that Sheryl and I drank a whole lot of last
summer, and a Summer Ale that I'd not tried
before. We got a couple of bottles of each of
them, checked out the multitude of furniture/decor
shops in the area that all seem to have a French
Provinciale thing going on, and headed
home.
And now, looking back at this post, I
realize how long-winded and boring it is. Does
anyone actually read this stuff and give a shit
about how I spend my days? Cripes. |
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Wednesday, June
4th, 2003
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| 6:58 pm - rawk! |
I hearby
declare the first party anthem of Summer, 2003 to
be "Gay Bar" by Electric
Six.
You can listen to it here.
You
can watch the fucking hilarious video here.
(Or if you're on dial-up, here).
And
if you haven't had enough, check out the Viking
Kittens version here.
Whaaaaaow!
current mood:
rawkin'
current
music: Electric Six - "Gay Bar"
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| 3:44 pm - you want
fries with that? |
I somehow
stumbled across the Texas
Department of Criminal Justice website, and
found there a list
of final meals served to all 304 people who
have been executed there since 1982.
I'm
not sure what frightens me more - the fact that
this information is publically available, or the
fact that some of these guys requested some
completely frightening meals that I can't imagine
anyone being able to consume in one
sitting. Some examples...
"Two 16 oz.
ribeyes, one lb. turkey breast (sliced thin),
twelve strips of bacon, two large hamburgers with
mayo, onion, and lettuce, two large baked potatoes
with butter, sour cream, cheese, and chives, four
slices of cheese or one-half pound of grated
cheddar cheese, chef salad with blue cheese
dressing, two ears of corn on the cob, one pint of
mint chocolate chip ice cream, and four vanilla
Cokes or Mr. Pibb."
"12 pieces of chicken
(thighs and drumsticks), 2 double-meat
cheeseburgers on toasted buns, 1 large place of
brown french fries with ketchup, 2 large onions
(cut in slices), 2 large tomatoes (cut in slices),
6 sweet pickles, salad dressing, 5 sliced jalapeno
peppers, peach cobbler with extra crust, and
milk."
"2 double meat cheeseburgers with
all vegetables and bacon, french fries, 2 cans of
Coke, 5 jalapeno peppers, 5 pieces of fried
chicken (white/dark meat), 3 buttermilk biscuits,
and a steak."
"Twenty-four soft shell
tacos, six enchiladas, six tostados, two whole
onions, five jalapenos, two cheeseburgers, one
chocolate shake, one quart of milk and one package
of Marlboro cigarettes. (Prohibited by TDCJ
policy)."
(That's right, they won't even
give a dying man a last smoke!)
There are
also a few slightly more exotic requests, such
as...
"Salmon Croquettes, scrambled eggs,
french fries & biscuits"
"Steak (filet
mignon), pineapple upside down cake, tea, punch
and coffee"
"Venison steak, baked potato,
Lite beer & Camel cigarettes (Alcohol &
tobacco prohibited by TDCJ policy)"
(No
beer either?? Damn!)
And finally, my
favourite of the bunch...
"Justice,
Equality, World Peace"
If only...
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Sunday, June 1st,
2003
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| 6:46 pm - Holy
crap, it's June! |
Where the hell
did May go? And when the hell is the weather going
to stop being so fucking wonky? Arrr.
So,
lessee... yesterday, as predicted on Friday, was
wet and grey and cool, so our plans to hit the Small
Press Book Fair and/or the Taste of Little
India Street Festival were scrapped. We had to
stay home for the first part of the afternoon
anyway to wait for our landlord to come by with
the realtor to show her the place. I ran into him
out front before the realtor showed up, and he
told me that he's now thinking that he won't be
putting the place on the market after all, but
won' be deciding for sure for another couple of
days. GAAAHHHH! Just make up your fucking mind
already!
The realtor showed up, and she was
a fairly meek looking woman who spent a grand
total of about 3 minutes touring our place. Even
if he does put it on the market, she doesn't
strike me as someone who would do a great job of
selling the place.
lilactime
and I spent the latter part of the afternoon
watching Welcome
to Collinwood, which was a moderately
amusing crime-caper-gone-wrong comedy. William
H. Macy was in it & as great as always,
and George Clooney had an OK cameo. We were both
happy to see Luis
Guzman in the first scene and were hoping he
would play a big role, but sadly he
didn't.
When I returned that flick to the
store, I decided to keep the William H. Macy theme
going and rented Door
To Door, which is a "based on a true
story" made-for-cable movie in which he plays a
guy named Bill Porter
who worked as a door-to-door salesman for over 40
years despite the fact that he has Cerebal Palsy.
It was kind of sappy as you might expect, but had
good performances from Macy, Helen
Mirren and others that helped it from becoming
too saccharine.
After Sheryl went to bed, I
had a beer, dismantled part of the dishwasher, and
put it back together again. (It's a long story...)
I'm just hoping that it still works.
Today,
we went to the Herb Fair at Harbourfront, then
over to Little India for lunch, then to Canadian
Tire for some miscellaneous household crap. lilactime
already wrote
about it all in her journal, so I won't bother
with the details.
Finally, when I got home
and walked the dogs, I went over to our local LCBO to pick up a
bottle of Liberty
Ale which I've been craving for the last
couple of days, and I was very pleased to discover
that they are now carrying the special seasonal
beer releases that I used to have to go to a store
halfway across town to find. Yeah, it's kind of
sad to get so excited over a few bottles of beer,
but what can I tell ya, my life isn't very
interesting otherwise... |
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Friday, May 30th,
2003
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| 11:20 pm - bleh. |
I'm in an odd
mood. Sort of crabby, but not really. Sort of
restless, but not really. Sort of depressed, but
not really.
"Bleh" is the only word I can
think of to describe it.
I think a big part
of it is the fact that our landlord has decided to
put our house on the market (as those of you who
read lilactime's
journal are probably already aware). The outcome
of this could be one of many things, but it's hard
to avoid thinking about the fact that we
might find ourselves having to move at some
point in the next few months.
Now, the idea
of living somewhere else doesn't really bother me.
As much as we like this place, there are enough
problems with it that we wouldn't entirely miss
it. Same goes for the neighbourhood - Parkdale has
a lot going for it, and is getting better, but
we'd both love to live closer to downtown if
possible.
What has me antsy, though, is the
actual process of moving. The hunting for a
new place that is comperable in both size and
price to our current apartment, that is in a
neighbourhood that we want to be in, and that
allows dogs. The packing and unpacking. The
countless phone calls and piles of paperwork to
deal with the address change. All that
crap.
And there's also the fact that we
will have strangers trekking through our apartment
on a fairly regular basis over the next little
while, starting with the realtor who is coming to
take pictures tomorrow, and it will continue until
the house sells or the landlord decides to take it
off the market. (He claims that they're only going
to have it up for sale for a month to see if they
can get what they want for it. We'll
see.)
Anyway, there's always the chance
that the place won't sell, or that the new owners
will keep it as a rental property and things will
stay pretty much the same. So there's no point
worrying about it too much for
now.
-----
In other news - we went
to Cinematheque
Ontario tonight to see the first of many
Marlene Dietrich films that we'll be seeing over
the next month or so. It was Morocco,
her first American film, where she plays a cabaret
singer (as if you couldn't guess...) who falls in
love with a private in the French Foreign Legion -
played by Gary Cooper - who is a bit of a bastard,
really. It wasn't very good, even by 1930s
melodrama standards, with the ending being
especially fromage. Hopefully, they'll get better
from here.
After the movie, my "bleh" mood
set in pretty heavily. Sheryl and I bickered a bit
about going to get a drink or coffee or something,
which led to me getting petulent, so we just came
home. We stopped by the video store and grabbed Welcome
to Collinwood, but when we got home we
unexpectedly found a couple of new episodes of Made In
Canada showing on CBC - unexpected because
we thought the season (and series) had wrapped up
a few weeks ago before the hockey playoffs, but
apparently not. So we watched those instead and
saved the movie for tomorrow, since the 90% chance
of rain pretty much blows away our plans of going
out to the street festival in Little
India.
And speaking of the rain, the
changing air pressure has given me a raging
headache, so I'm off to bed...
current
mood: bleh |
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Sunday, May 25th,
2003
|
| 7:50 pm - You
know... for kids! |
This has been
the weekend of Movies That Are Set In The Late
1950s & Are Tributes To Other
Movies.
On Friday night, we rented 8
Women, a very good French film patterned
on the old Agatha Christie stories like Ten Little
Indians, with hints of Hitchcock and George
Cukor as well. It stars several generations of
French fillm divas, including Catherine Deneuve
(who is still absolutely gorgeous at almost 60)
and Isabelle Huppert (ditto at almost 50). The
costumes and sets were great, very bright and
stylized, and the slightly modernized twist on the
classic "whodunit" films of the '50s and '60s was
very well done.
Plus there's a catfight
between Catherine Deneuve and Fanny Ardant that
ends with them making out. Rraarr!
Last
night, it was Far From
Heaven, Todd Haynes' tribute to the 1950s
domestic melodramas of Douglas
Sirk. This flick was all over the critics'
"best of" lists last year, and like most films in
that category, it didn't quite live up to the
hype. It wasn't a bad film by any means -
the performances of Julianne Moore and Dennis
Haysbert were great, and it was beautifully shot.
But I didn't really care for Dennis Quaid's
performance (I'm not a fan of his work in
general), and it was a bit too stylized in places,
like the constant shots of red and yellow leaves
blowing in the wind, even in the middle of winter.
So our verdict was: generally good, but not
spectacular.
After that ended, I was
flipping the channels and found The
Hudsucker Proxy just starting on CBC.
While not one of my absolute favourite Coen
Brothers flicks, I still figured it was worth
another viewing, so I stayed up to watch it. And
I'm glad I did, 'cause I enjoyed it even more than
I remembered. I've seen a lot more of the '40s and
'50s screwball comedies that it pays homage to
since I last watched it, so I think that made me
notice a lot of great aspects of the film that I'd
missed in the past. Jennifer Jason Leigh's
impression of Rosalind Russell (with a touch of
Katherine Hepburn) is especially brilliant. So
while it's still no Fargo or Miller's Crossing, I
think the Hud has moved up a notch or two in my
ranking of Coen movies.
(As a side note -
someone at the CBC has a good sense of humour, as
last night featured the Paul Newman double bill of
The Hudsucker Proxy and Hud.
Heh.)
Today, lilactime
and I took a trip over to the Queen-Broadview
Village and Leslieville
neighbourhoods to check out some stops on the Riverdale
Art Walk and to update some of the listings on
Toronto
Underground. We don't make it over that way
very often - maybe once or twice a year - and
every time we visit, I'm amazed at how many new
shops, galleries and restaurants keep popping up.
When I lived in that area back in the late
80s/early 90s, there was most definately nothing
cool or funky about the area - it was pretty
run-down, there were no interesting shops, and if
you wanted a decent meal, you had to go up to the
Danforth or head quite a way east or west along
Queen Street. The only claim to fame the
neighbourhood had was being the home to the real
life Degrassi
Street.
But now, there seems to be a
little cafe or bistro on almost every corner from
Broadview to Jones, and lots of shops selling cool
stuff at prices that are generally a bit lower
than comperable places in The Beaches or on Queen
West. We found a clothing store with very swank
shirts that would cost $70+ in places like Decibel
and Delphic selling for $40 or less. I grabbed a
stylin' lime green number, and plan to make a
pilgrimmage out there every few months to grab
some more.
This evening, we need to pick
our films for the summer season at Cinematheque
Ontario. They're doing a Marlene Detrich
retrospective for most of June, and their annual
Summer Of Essentials in July & August, so
methinks we'll be spending a lot of time at the
movies this summer... |
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Friday, May 23rd,
2003
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| 11:55 pm - beer
& weather, art & commerce, and other
stuff |
When I start
up my LiveJournal editor client, I usually get a
message box telling me that my password is too
easy to guess and that I should change it.
Tonight, however, I got a message box that said
simply "?lang?" with an "OK" button.
I
clicked OK. I hope that was the right thing to
do.
So can someone tell me why the weather
feels like October when it's almost fucking June?
I picked up a mixed pack of Unibroue fruit
beers a couple of weeks ago, as well as a couple
of German wheat beers, in anticipation of the warm
weather. But aside from a couple of days last
weekend, it has not been fruity beer weather by
any means.
Ah well, at least we've still
got some stouts, porters and bocks on hand. I'm
enjoying an Anchor
Porter right now, in fact. It's one of the
beers that I brought back from my trip to Hawaii a
couple of months ago, and I wish it was available
in Ontario, 'cause it's really yummy.
A
good local substitute, however, is Mill Street
Coffee Porter. Mill Street is a fairly new
brewery located in The
Distillery District which is a pretty amazing
new complex in the east end of downtown Toronto.
As the name suggests, the area used to be a
distillery - at one time, the largest in the
British Empire. Most of the buildings on the site,
which covers several city blocks, where built
between 1830 and 1900. It was closed for decades,
but a couple of years ago, a group of developers
bought it and have turned it into a self-contained
centre for arts, culture and
entertainment.
lilactime
and I went down there late last summer for an
outdoor art festival. Restoration work was still
in progress on most of buildings, but a few of
them were open, and the care that they have taken
to restore the building and grounds is
mind-boggling. They've kept as much of the
original look of the buildings and grounds intact
as possible, and in cases where restoration and
upgrades were necessary, they went out of their
way to ensure that any new work blends in with the
old.
They've also involved the arts
community as much as possible, offering artists
and organizations reasonable rents and long-term
leases, and have stuck with a strict "no chains or
franchises" rule for any shops and restaurants in
the district. As a result, the area will hopefully
be able to avoid the gentrification that has
destroyed other arts-oriented districts in
Toronto, like Yorkville and Queen Street
West.
My main point in rambling about this
is that the Distillery District's official opening
is this weekend, coinciding with both the Distillery
Jazz Festival and Doors Open
Toronto (the latter being an annual event
where dozens of buildings all over the city that
usually have restricted public access are open for
tours). So for any Toronto folks who haven't been
there yet, this is a good opportunity to check it
out. You can also read a bunch of articles about
the District on the website of the Toronto Star -
start with this
article and follow the "Related Links" to the
rest of them. |
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Sunday, May 18th,
2003
|
| 5:10 pm - the last
few days... |
...have been
pretty busy.
Thursday night, I went to Lee's Palace
to see Broadcast,
who were excellent. They have a sort of
60s-infleunced electro-pop sound and a deadpan
female vocalist, which leads to a lot of Stereolab
comparisons, but I think they have a lot of unique
elements to their work as well. They really rocked
out in a couple of places, and combined with the
groovy visuals and the female vocalist with long
hair, bangs and go-go boots, there were points
where it was almost like the Velvet Underground
with Nico.
Opening the show was a one-man
project from Quebec called Montag.
Most one-man electronic bands can be kind of
boring live, but he put on a great set with decent
visuals, some nice live instrumentation including
violin and melodica, and he actually spoke to the
audience between tracks. So all in all, it was a
good night.
Friday night, lilactime
and I met up a girl named Stephanie who has been
doing some writing for toronto-underground
and went for dinner and a show. Dinner was at our
old favourite Epicure,
where I was happy to discover they are currently
featuring a "Seafood Festival". I had a seared
tuna appetizer that was pretty disappointing - the
serving was tiny, and the fish was overcooked -
and a seafood ravioli dish that was tasty, but
also really, really rich. I managed to eat it all,
but gave myself a bit of a bellyache in the
process.
After dinner, we went around the
corner to Theatre
Passe Muraille to see a one-woman show by Cathy
Jones of This Hour Has 22
Minutes and CODCO
fame (which will probably mean nothing to most
non-Canadians who are reading this...). Much like
the one-man performance we saw last year by
Cathy's brother & fellow CODCO member Andy
Jones, the show had some funny moments, but it
didn't flow very well and had a lot of references
that you just wouldn't get it if you weren't
Catholic and/or from the east coast of Canada.
We went for a coffee after the show, and
then Sheryl and Stephanie went home, and I went to
meet some friends at an art opening at Sis Boom Bah,
after which we walked down the block to the
Gladstone Hotel to see French laptop-pop group
DAT
Politics who were a lot of fun. Various
local artists opened the show, including Billy
Pollard aka Knifehandchop.
I hadn't seen Billy for a while due to the fact
that he's become pretty popular in Japan and
Europe and has been doing a lot of touring in
those parts. He's also gotten a lot of attention
in the UK - much of it due to the John Peel
Session that he recorded a couple of months back -
and is relocating to London in a couple of weeks.
Not bad for a geeky gabber-hardcore kid from
Scarborough. :)
Yesterday, Sheryl and I
headed up Roncesvalles to do some shopping, and
stopped for lunch at C'est Cheese, a very
cute little bistro and food shop. I had a grilled
cheese made with Havarti and sundried tomatoes,
and Sheryl had a crepe with fruit compote,
meringue and raspberry coulis, and they were both
completely amazing. We'll be back. Stops were then
made at various places, and we bought way more
stuff than we intended, including a six dollar
loaf of fig & almond bread which ended up
being worth every penny.
Last night, we
went over to blankboy
and crimsonsketch's
place for a little get-together. We were there for
a couple of hours and would've liked to stay
longer, but Sheryl's allergies were flaring up and
she was also nodding off early due to being awoken
at 6 AM by the Sargeant Major (a red-winged
blackbird that lives in the tree outside her
bedroom window), so we made an early night of
it.
Today was spent doing spring cleaning
and yardwork in the back yard, which Sheryl/lilactime
already wrote about in her journal, so go read it
there.
Now, I need to go feed and walk the
dogs...
current mood:  tired
current
music: Various Artists - Talisman: Interchill
Dub Vibes |
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(5 comments | comment on this) | |
Thursday, May
15th, 2003
|
| 8:36 pm - money
money money! |
What's better
than getting a big income tax
rebate?
Having the government recalculate
your tax return and find that they owe you $200
more than you were expecting!
Woo hoo!
current mood:  happy |
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(comment on this) | |
Sunday, May 11th,
2003
|
| 5:16 pm - beer,
beer and beer |
Yesterday, I
joined a bunch of fellow beer geeks from the
forums on The Bar
Towel for a beer-themed road trip. And
sweet Jebus, I drank a lot of beer!
We all
met at noon at Union Station and piled aboard The Magic
Bus. There were a couple of dozen people in
all, including several cute women, helping to
deflate the myth that all beer geeks are
middle-aged, overweight men (although there were a
couple of those in the group as well).
Our
first stop was in Oakville at Cameron's
Brewing, one of the most popular
micro-brweries in the Toronto area. They greeted
us with free servings of two of their beers,
Auburn Ale and Lager. I've never been a huge fan
of Cameron's beers - they're not bad by any means,
just sort of unexciting - but having them fresh at
the brewery was nice, and I gained a new
appreciation for the Auburn Ale in
particular.
After touring the brewery and
hanging out chatting & drinking, it was back
on the bus for the short trip to Black Oak
Brewing for another tour and tasting
session. I've always liked Black Oak's stuff, and
I was completely floored by their Pale Ale and
Lager served straight from the bright tanks in
their fresh and unfiltered state.
Mmmm-mmmm!
Next stop was a quickie at Trafalgar
Brewing, another micro in the same area as
Cameron's and Black Oak. There was no tour or
tasting there, we just bought a bunch of their
beer. I got a nice selection of 6 of their beers,
several of which are pretty hard to find via the
LCBO or Beer Store.
After a couple of
hours of drinking, some food was in order, so we
headed into Burlington for a late lunch at the
Pepperwood
Bistro, a nice little restaurant and
brewpub on the lakeshore. They provided us with
some complimentary finger foods - a good
percentage of which were vegetarian, which was
nice - and we sampled their house beers, which
ranged from a Brown Ale and a Best Bitter that
were quite nice, to a Framboise and a Cream Ale
that were so-so.
Next in line was a visit
to Augusta's
Winking Judge, a renowned pub & beer
bar in Hamilton. We had dinner there, and due to a
communication screw-up the veggie burgers that
were supposed to be there for the few vegetarians
in the group didn't materialize, so I loaded up on
salads and french fries which was OK. For beer, I
had a couple of pints that I'd been looking
forward to trying - Scotch
Irish's Corporal Punishment and Mill
Street's revived version of
Denison's Weissbier which was a favourite
of mine at the now defunct Denison's Brewpub. Both
were outstanding, definately the highlight beers
of the day for me.
With an hour or so to go
before we had to get back on the bus for our
return trip, we made a quick visit to Chester's
Beers Of The World, a bar with around 200
bottled beers available - plus a single draught
tap offering Molson Canadian for the less
adventurous folks. I split a couple of nice beers
with a friend - an American beer I'd never heard
of before called Old West Amber Lager, and Ebulum
Elderberry Black Ale from Scotland.
The
ride back to Toronto was raucous to say the least.
Everyone was feeling pretty fine, and a couple of
bottles that had been purchased at Trafalgar were
cracked open and passed around while we all sang
along to Led Zeppelin, Neil Diamond and other
cheezy classic rock hits that were being blasted
through the sound system.
Dropped off at
Union Station, it was decided that some folks were
heading to Smokeless
Joe for a nightcap. Since SJ is one of my
favourite bars in Toronto, I couldn't pass it up,
so off we went. I polished off a couple more pints
of that heavenly Denison's Weissbier and a few
oysters, and ran into blankboy
& crimsonsketch
and a couple of their friends who were having a
nightcap of their own after seeing a movie across
the street. I introduced blankboy
to Corporal Punishment, which he seemed to enjoy
immensely.
And finally, after a drunken cab
ride home, I staggered in around 1 AM and
crashed.
Today has been pretty quiet as
I've been dealing with a mild hangover. No major
nausea or anything, thankfully, but I've had a
dull headache and not much appetite for most of
the day. So aside from running a couple of errands
and helping Sheryl with a bit of gardening, I've
just been vegging out and catching up on email.
There are a couple of good things on TV tonight,
so I will likely be a potato for the evening. And
what the hell, maybe I'll have a beer!
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Monday, May 5th,
2003
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| 3:20 pm - grey
day |
I have oodles
of work that I should be doing, but the crappy
weather out there has sucked my motivation to
think about much of anything, so I've been wasting
my afternoon conversing on the new parkdale
community.
Had quite a busy weekend. On
Friday night, lilactime
and I went to our last Hot Docs
screening, which was a feature length film about
Rockets
Redglare, a grossly overweight, alcohol
& drug addicted actor from New York City who
worked with Steve Buscemi, Jim Jarmusch and lot of
other indie film folks. While his life story was
interesting (although somewhat exaggerated, I
think), the film was about 30 minutes longer than
it needed to be, and by the end of it we were more
annoyed than entertained.
However, the
short film that played before the main feature was
great. Called Terminal
Bar, it's based around photos taken by the
director's father in the 70s and 80s when he
worked at "the toughest bar in New York City"
across from the Port Authority Bus Terminal. The
editing and music was fabulous, although the sound
mix was a little off, making it hard to hear the
interview clips with the father in some
places.
Saturday, we went to the Clothing
Show where I bought a couple of vintage "Cuban
cigar-rolling shirts" for 8 bucks each. Came
home to walk the dogs, and then I went up to The Beguiling
for Free Comic
Book Day, where I picked up a few cool things.
After that, I went to have a beer at Pauper's
while waiting for the doors to open at Lee's
Palace, where I went to catch a set by Nathan
Wiley, a singer/songwriter from PEI who is
friends with my family out there. I don't usually
care for the rootsy sort of stuff that he does,
but he's got a bit of a Tom Waits influence in his
work which I like.
Sunday, Sheryl went to
the new Toronto chapter of The Church of
Craft at Tequila Bookworm, while I walked
along Queen Street on a futile search for a new
pair of black Dunnit sneakers (I found red, green,
blue, brown, grey - but no black!) before meeting
our pal Rik
for brunch at Fressen. As always, the food was
tasty and the service was sloooooow. We completely
geeked out and talked about music and comic books
for an hour and a half.
Then it was off to
meet Sheryl, and we headed up to the Bloor for our
first screening at the Toronto Jewish Film
Festival. The film was a very entertaining and
informative documentary called Shalom
Ireland, about the small and little-known
community of Jews in Ireland. Not only did it talk
about the current community, but it gave a lot of
history about the political situation in Ireland
and how the Jews were quite active in the civil
war in the early 20th century. And the shot of a
bottle of Guinness with Hebrew lettering was
amusing. :)
It was preceded by The
Bombay Jews, a short film about the
similarily small and little-known Jewish community
in India - an interesting topic, but the film
itself was kind of dry.
Came home for
dinner and The Simpsons, followed by a dessert of
Sheryl's homemade butterscotch brownies with
chocolate chips and chocolate icing, served with a
glass of Rogue
Chocolate Stout. Mmmmmm...
current
mood: avoiding work
current
music: Samsa - The Laurentian Divide
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| 1:17 pm - new
community |
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Saturday, May
3rd, 2003
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| 4:41 pm - FATMOUSE! |
FATMOUSE
IS COMING AND HE HAS A MESSAGE AND YOU ARE NOT
GOING TO LIKE IT. FATMOUSE WILL CONSUME YOUR POOR
THIN WORLD AND REGURGITATE IT IN HIS OWN IMAGE.
FATMOUSE DOES NOT WORK FOR YOU AND HE DOES NOT
ACKNOWLEDGE YOUR MEAGRE HOPES AND DREAMS. IT IS
BETTER TO WALK WITH FATMOUSE THAN TO BE IN HIS
PATH, FOR FATMOUSE MUST FEED.
FATMOUSE
DOES NOT USE MONEY. FATMOUSE EATS MONEY. FATMOUSE
SHREDS MONEY FOR BEDDING. FATMOUSE REQUIRES VERY
MUCH BEDDING. YOUR MONEY BELONGS TO
FATMOUSE.
FATMOUSE!
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Wednesday, April
30th, 2003
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| 11:00 am - SARS in
Toronto? Infidel lies! |
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Monday, April
28th, 2003
|
| 1:50 pm - mp3 of
the day... |
...is by The Rogers
Sisters, and it's a song called "I Dig A
Hole". Click
here to get it.
"THE
ROGERS SISTERS hail from Brooklyn, NY, and have
been taking the city by storm with their unique
mix of garage/soul and post punk. Think a mixture
of early B-52's/TALKING HEADS/WIRE and THE SONICS.
This truly unique blend of sounds works perfectly,
and they have become a crowd favorite over the
past year. They have called them the "first
no-wave party band". The tracks are loaded with
soulful screams, sultry harmonies, and hot-shit
dissonant guitar licks mixed 1960s-esque soul-new
wave get-downs. Time Out New York called them "the
best new band in NY," and Rolling Stone mentioned
them as one of the top current NY bands along with
the YEAH YEAH YEAHS and THE STROKES. Definitely a
band not to be missed!"
Toronto folks -
they're playing at The 360 on
Thursday, May 22nd. Other tour dates can be found
on their website.
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| 1:40 pm - busy! |
Had a pretty
busy weekend. On Saturday night and Sunday
afternoon, lilactime
and I went to some Hot Docs Film
Festival screenings, including the amazing new
Werner Herzog film "The Wheel of Time" and a
couple of not-so-hot things. You can read Sheryl's
thoughts on the films here
- they're pretty much the same as my
own.
We also went for brunch yesterday at a
place called Marlowe's on College Street where I
had the Best Fritatta Ever! It had a whole bunch
of my favourite foods in it, including shrimp,
scallops, asparagus and goat cheese, although the
smoked salmon that was also supposed to be in
there seemed to be missing. They were really busy,
though, and it was really tasty as is, so I didn't
complain.
I also amazed Sheryl by naming
the pint of beer that was brought to me as being
Stella rather than the Hoegaarden that I had
ordered. (I must admit that I had a bit of an
advantage since the two of them usually appear
next to each other on tap due to their being owned
by the same company, so it was really just a lucky
guess.)
Anyway, it looks like things will
remain busy for the next couple of weeks. My
schedule looks something like this:
Mon Apr
28: seeing a couple more Hot Docs films
Tue
Apr 29: my radio show
Wed Apr 30: a quiet
night at home
Thu May 1: DJ gig at Operation
Desert Aid, an electronic music night at
Tequila Lounge supporting the Canadian Red
Cross
Fri May 2: more Hot Docs
films
Sat May 3: during the day, we'll be
checking out The
Clothing Show, and at night, going to see Nathan
Wiley at Lee's Palace. He's a
singer/songwriter guy, not usually my kind of
thing, but he's also a friend of my family out in
PEI, and he has a bit of a Tom Waits vibe to some
of his stuff.
Sun, May 4: some shopping
while Sheryl goes to check out the new Toronto
chapter of the Church of
Craft, and then a screening at the Toronto Jewish Film
Festival.
Mon, May 5: another TJFF
screening
Tue, May 6: early evening DJ set
at a CIUT
benefit concert at The Music
Gallery, and then my radio show
Wed,
May 7: morning screening at the TJFF - dinner at
By The Way Cafe with blankboy,
crimsonsketch
and their son Aaron in support of A Taste For
Life
Thu, May 8: Saturation
Bombing at Savage Garden with s:cage and
Antigen
Shift
Fri, May 9: a couple of afternoon
sreenings at the TJFF, and I might check out the
Avant_Mutek
gig at the El Mocambo that night
Sat, May
10: all day road trip with folks from The Bar Towel,
a Toronto beer geek website - we'll be checking
out a few breweries, brewpubs and good beer bars
east of Toronto including Black Oak,
Trafalgar, Cameron's,
Pepperwood
and The
Winking Judge.
And of course, I need
to find some time in there to work at my real job.
Yikes! |
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(2 comments | comment on this) | |
Friday, April
25th, 2003
|
| 5:28 pm - WHO sez
"Toronto has cooties!" |
(from a
mailing list I'm on...)
WHO issued a
worldwide warning to travellers to avoid Toronto
strip malls. "We stand behind our decision to
issue this warning based on the fact we heard that
a strip mall exploded there this week. That
totally freaked us out." WHO chief Gro Harlem
Brundtland. "Yes that is my real name," she later
added.
"Based on the fact we saw this story
on the internet we feel secure that we are doing
the right thing in issuing this very vague warning
that will cause unnecessary panic."
WHO is
also expected to issue warnings later this week
against swimming after eating and a warning that
Coca-Cola can dissolve a penny. "I know a friend
of a friend who completely saw that happen." Gro
Harlem explained. |
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(comment on this) | |
| 1:14 am - regime
change begins at home! |
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Thursday, April
24th, 2003
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| 11:26 pm - mp3 of
the day... |
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Friday, April
18th, 2003
|
| 3:19 pm - ew! |
I just spent
an hour cleaning my computer keyboard. Took all
the keys off, cleaned out the inside of it,
cleaned all the keys, put 'em back on.
And
godDAMN there was some gross stuff in there! I
guess that's what happens when you allow two years
worth of animal hair and food crumbs to gather.
Bleah.
But hey, my keyboard is
working better than it has in ages! No more
sticking keys! Woo hoo!
current
mood:  accomplished
current
music: Tim Bowness & Peter Chilvers -
California, Norfolk |
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(1 comment | comment on this) | |
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amused 