Feast

Last night, the pastors/elders/intercessors/deaconizors from church had our Christmas dinner. It was extremely delicious - and probably the fancy-pantsiest food I have ever eaten in all my life.

(other fancy-pants/notable meals in my life, off the top of my head, include:

Real-deal Hawaiian luau party for a one-year old. This is traditionally a big deal in Hawaiian culture, 'cause you didn't die as a baby. Among other things, I ate salad with raw fish liver in it.

Leah and I ate at a sort-of fancy place once - I think it was for valentine's day. I think I ordered goose, or was it duck..?

My one time ever in New York, some friends and I ate at this place designed by young famous architects, in a building designed by an old famous architect... I ordered mussels, and I managed to fill THREE large dinner plates with heaps of empty shells, before I finally gave up on finishing my meal.

Once Joe and Becky Kirby cooked the craziest steaks ever at their house. EVER.

Our friend Katherine's birthday party... we went with a largish group to an Indian restaurant, and her mom ordered enough food for roughly 3-4 times the number of people that were there. Eventually there was literally no room on the table for the dishes that kept arriving. It was like a feast from Homer/the Bible...

Eats, Atlanta. 1/2 chicken plate, with beans, rice, cornbread, and tea. OK, so it's not that fancy, but it still kicks booty, and served as the back-drop for some of my finest college eating.)



Tomorrow we leave for Texas... I am looking forward to the break.

late 90's

I was just wondering if anybody remembers Suck.com...

or, for that matter, Scribble.nu ???

The weekend...

...was busy.

On Friday we went to Jen and David's place - supposedly to help prepare food for a church feast. What actually happened is that Jen made all of it, with little or no help from the rest of us. We did, however, help to eat pizza and watch a movie.

Choosing the movie was kinda funny, 'cause everyone went through the McGhee library and picked something. We piled all the movies on the coffee table and then picked names from a hat. Apparantly under these circumstances, Harry Potter can beat both the Taxi Driving De Niro and the Road Warrior. I'm pretty sure he would have lost had we decided to settle things by arm-wrestling.

Saturday - we ran around town buying and mailing cards and things. That night the Loitering Heroes played a show at the Backpackers Hostel. Yes, the hostel at King and Spadina. Yes, weird.

The crowd consisted of bandmembers of the various bands that played, a couple of friends/spouses (such as myself), a rather animated hostel employee/'sound' guy, and a few backpacking/partying type folks who were more interested in drinking at the bar. There was also a slightly crazed DJ/bartender, who was as animated as the 'sound' guy, but in a slightly less psychologically stable way. I sometimes wonder what sort of twisted version of Toronto these people leave with. It was also the first time that the Heroes have played a show with Tupac and Snoop watching over them from a giant oversized poster on the wall.

On Sunday we went to Manfred and Amanda's for a Crokinole tournament. This is a strange Canadian game, sort of like curling, but with little plastic/wood pieces that you flick across a board. Of course if you don't know what Crokinole is, it's quite likely you're not familiar with curling. It is this even weirder thing, sort of like lawn bowls, but on ice, and with brooms. You have to remember that the winters are long and cold here. This is pretty much the first step in understanding anything indigenous to Canada.

Sunday night was a crazy church feast. We visited with another Toronto church (Grace Toronto), in their newly acquired but not yet renovated building. Everybody filled the basement, sitting on rugs on the concrete floor. The place was beautifully (if a little hazardously) decorated with hanging light bulbs, fabric, and projectors. We feasted on a multi-course meal prepared by the many small groups which make up our church. The food was great, especially the course masterminded by the guy at our church who happens to work in one of the top resturants in the city. After feasting, we trekked through the various empty rooms of the building for courses of carol singing, mini-homilies, and communion. It was great.

I met Leah afterwards (she had to work playing the flute at a much less glorious Christmas service... a lot of churches in the city seem like they are still waiting for Jesus to show up on earth, or worse yet, like they might not even care if He ever did) at a small cafe at Ossington and Bloor. Mike and Don where playing some crazy heavy music. I stayed for one song and then we went home due to tiredness/hunger.

And that is it.
If you made it this far, I reward you with the following. Click on this link, scroll down to the Bootsy Collins song, and let Santa's mothership touch down. Sufjan ain't got nothing on this...

Thursday

I have 4.5 days of work left until we head out to Texas...

We are still trying to find people to look after the Mabel and the Petrie while we are away. Right now the offer stands at $200 + two December metropasses... to feed them twice a day and scoop their litter when necessary... Pretty decent deal, if you ask me...

Check out the Loitering Heroes at Global Backpackers this Saturday night.

Yes, the hostel at King and Spadina... I didn't know there were shows there either

LOITERING HEROES, John Tielli & improv band, Slowking @ Departure Lounge (Global Backpackers), No Cover, 19+

USA

Zellyn posted an article on his website, about how the USA is all about doing some bullshit. This is more lame than all the accusations I've heard about fighting a war on terror, or how President Bush is masterminding the end of the world so that he can ensure that he has enough oil to drive an SUV. That's arguably a lot of people believing a lot of hype (and I get tired of it, frankly).

This is straight up human-rights violations.



It is sad given that the USA started like this:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

Weekend

I seem to have a hard time relaxing and enjoying the weekend. I don't know why.
Here's what we did.

Friday night, we went to the office Christmas party. It was the usual deal... and we ended up leaving pretty early 'cause Leah's eyes were feeling dried out from the windy cold weather.

Saturday was mostly about groceries and other chores at home.

Sunday, we did laundry, and then went to the market for more groceries. Then we went to church. Then we went home.

Pimp My Ride

On the subject of nerdcore-yet-cool things...
This is pretty sweet - LEDs attached to your bike wheel, that flash at the right speed to read as images.

Invaders

Coolest wrapping paper ever???

Friday

So, yesterday Leah had her eyes shot with lasers. It is pretty amazing. They slice a flap off the front of your eyeball with a laser. Then they zap your eye with another laser, changing the shape of your eyeball's lens. Then they put the flap back in place. Then they do your other eye. The whole thing takes about 15 minutes (including all the prep time). And then you can see.

Things are apparantly a bit hazy (like Monet, according to Leah), for a day or so, and then as your eyes heal, your vision becomes sharper. Crazy.

Last night I went to the library to see if I could find any books on CD for Leah to rock. I managed to track down The Great Divorce, and a copy of Angela's Ashes, as read by the author...

In other news, it is the yearly office Christmas party tonight. Good times. They have done away with the whole sit-down dinner affair (ever since joining the ever-profit-conscious ranks of the mega-corporate world), which is a good thing, 'cause you can show up, hang around for a while, and then leave fairly early if you want to (which I usually do).

This Saturday evening there will be a singing Christmas carols in Christie Pitts event. It will feature a bunch of local churches (including FT)... and hopefully there will be a bunch of snow by then somehow (doubtful).

Julie Doiron

While we're blogging Paul Simon cover's...
Here is Julie Doiron, reigning queen of Canadian post-grunge art folk, singing about Me and Julio.

Fashionably Late

If we ever need to make more money for the studio, I guess we can just run a booze-can out of the basement...

Casiotone for the Painfully Alone

Check out CFtPA covering Paul Simon's Graceland... fairly sweet.

If you are into the Casiotone, you can here some more lively recorded jams here.

Merry Christmas.

Weekend

Friday night we went and watched Factotum at the Bloor. It was pretty good... if a little seedy. Since the movie is about a drunk down-and-out-yet-ever-hopeful writer, and takes place in bars, my-hotel-year style hotels, and depressing blue-collar work-environments around LA, this was to be expected.
On Saturday we didn't do much... went out and bought some things that we needed.
Sunday - Leah played at church. I finished reading The Chosen, which is a pretty sweet book...
After church we stopped by Anne and Joel's place for tea. They are for sure the punk-rock-a-billiest folks at church, and they played a couple of their country songs for us. We definitely need to go out and see them play a show when we can.

Friday...

So... I've heard of having a 'case of the Mondays'... but sometimes its Friday when I just cannot buckle down and concentrate. This makes for a long day...

But it also makes for more links on this here blog, so let's see:

Here's an article on the phenomenon of burnout... somewhat interesting, although it did serve as a reminder that most industrialized nations give workers at least 5 weeks of vacation time a year. One groundbreaking US company is helping its employees avoid burnout by granting them an 8 week leave, every 7 years or so...

And here is one I am about to listen to... Ever since I learned about the phenomenon in Japan of kids dropping out of society, I have been kinda fascinated. I don't know much about Japanese culture, outside the odd article or two that I have read on the noise scene, or one that I read on archetypal heroes in Japanese stories... but everything that I do read is really foreign and bizarre...

Also, everything I read by Chaim Potok (which is about 2 books, one of which I am rereading right now), is seriously good.

Also, I obviously have nothing much to say... so have a good weekend!

No Place for Wimps

I have for a while thought that Detroit might well be the place to be for up and coming artists. I don't really know the city well, except that there is mad cheap space available in beautiful old buildings. Also, the city has roots and culture as deep as any city in America.

The entire downtown has always struck me as one big version of that slightly sketchy neighbourhood where all the artists live... the one that will sooner or later sprout hip sketchy bars, and galleries, and then cafes, and Starbucks, and condos...

(If I'm at all right, now is your chance to pick up a couple of cheap condos/buildings downtown)

Anyway - check out this article (and especially the slideshow) about a new art gallery. Pretty sweet.

Irony

Peace sign starts a fight...

Monday

I have a headache today.

This weekend was pretty good. On Saturday night we went to a Toronto Groove Collective house party at Jeremy's place. There were a few people performing, one of them being FT's own Andrew H... you should really go check out his website if you never have. For definite (if he and Reeve ever joined forces, the earth would not be able to withstand the force). It was also a fund raiser to send Esther P to Costa Rica. This is a worthy 'cause, and she made about a million spring rolls which she was selling.

Also, we watched about a million episodes of The (US) Office. It is a funny show, although I am definitely leaning more and more towards the British version as a favorite. It definitely stuck closer to the line of uncomfortable realism... although some of the less realistic moments of the US version are also the funniest. Since we pretty much lead a TV-free lifestyle, I figure the odd binge weekend is OK (esp. with no ads...)

Church was good yesterday. For whatever reason, I really enjoyed Cyril's sermon on Pilate. He was able to contextualize the trial of Jesus in the social politics of the time, and approach Pilate's ethics from a philosophical standpoint, and do it all without sounding like he was trying. (This is probably because he almost has a PhD, and isn't some know-it-all first year clown - he also isn't a pretentious academic...)

Leah skipped church and made a steaming pot of Indian food. Don and Jessica came over for dinner to help us eat it.

friday

So I seem to be hitting the end of the week update more often than the weekend...

This week I somehow became horribly ill sometime in the middle of Monday night. After puking repeatedly (and everywhere) all night, I stayed home with a fever and slept ALL day on Tuesday... and then stayed home and watched DVD episodes of the Office all day Wednesday.

Yesterday I came in to work, and went out to Humber. I am pretty tired, but soon it will be the weekend. If only it were a 4 day long holiday weekend or something...

Weekend

Leah and I went to Amanda and Manfred's great house on Saturday for a party. We played some songs, with Josh L. backing us up on accordian. It was really fun.

We also did some laundry, groceries, and other assorted chores.

Yesterday we did mostly nothing.

Friday!

So I haven't blogged in a good week or so... and I even skipped the weekend update... Let's see what you missed over the last while.

I played the drums in church. Crazy but true story of how you don't always have to know how to do something in order to do it.

I also helped build some giant dancing legs out of tuna cans. Crazier story about, um, building stuff out of tuna cans.

I pulled off some sort of personal best for getting stuff done at work. Like planning entire departments of a hospital in a single day, and then doing it again the next day.

We watched the Souvenir of Canada movie. It was pretty neat, in a low-budget, sort of boring, made for tv kinda way, but interesting to see Douglas Coupland and his parents. Being not Canadian, I guess I don't really get all of the Canadiana referencing. For that matter, being <30 and not from the west coast, there was even a lot of Canadiana that Leah didn't get either.

What else... I went and saw Citizen Cope on Saturday. I wasn't sure what to expect. The place was rammed with kids that looked like they were shipped in on some suburban frosh-week party bus, which was weird and somewhat annoying. The music was pretty good though. I was hoping for some more acoustic versions of his songs, and perhaps some Dylan era covers too... but judging by the guys behind me, who felt it was necessary to yell their, um, comments, after every song that wasn't one of the two radio singles, that would not have been giving the kids what they wanted.

What else... gave a short lecture at Humber on healthcare lighting design.

...and generally did way too many things for one week...

End Week

This was a busy week.

Work is getting a bit hectic - I am working on a job renovating all the heart imaging pieces of Toronto General Hospital. Last week or so I crawled around wikipedia for about a day, reading about all the ways they can feed tubes through your body towards your heart, to take pictures / patch you up / feed you with xray sensitive dyes etc. It was pretty neat, and gross...

On Wednesday I took the day off to take part in a design exercise at the Design Exchange. A bunch of people were put into teams, and had to come up with ways to improve some ghetto part of the city, along with a couple of 'youths' from that neighbourhood. It was pretty interesting, and pretty hectic, 'cause we only had a few hours to brainstorm, develop, and present the ideas. My team was working with two people from the East Scarborough Boys and Girls Club. All the work will be presented at the DX some time in February...

Yesterday I had to teach at Humber. I gave a 30-40 minute lecture on the building code. This is about as dull as it sounds. Thankfully, nobody fell asleep, and nobody caught on to my relative ignorance. I guess I know (relatively) more than the students do, and more than 96% of the general public, probably, so as long as I look like I know what I'm doing, people hopefully learn stuff. This is, I guess, what teaching is all about.

I am also working on the 2006 Canstruction competition at work. This sounds neat and exciting, but is really just a lot of work. It is for a pretty cool event, at least, and involves a buch of firms designing and building things out of canned food. The sculptures are all on display for a couple of weeks, and then dismantled and distributed by the food bank.

What else...

The studio is gearing up... people are moving in... stuff is starting to happen. If anybody has a bunch of carpets/carpeting that they don't want, hook Leah and I up at once.

Leah and Trent will be performing live acoustic jams next weekend at Amanda and Manfred's party.

That is pretty much all...

hmmm...

The weekend went something like this...

Friday - we took a bunch of stuff over to the studio, met up with Jen, who was dropping off her newly acquired jewelry bench, and then swept out the nastiness that was housed in the small basement room. All of this happened around the strange spectacle of Karl shooting endless pictures of a kid in a cape, and then more pictures of a crazy monster beast thing. Afterwards we went to Nova Era...

Saturday - not much, we ended up doing some more sweeping / vacuuming / mopping of the studio, and hung out with Mae (who was doing some major cleaning...)

Sunday - we discovered an urgent need for somebody to play music at church, so Leah ended up leading solo... I was doing sound, and got a really wicked headache. I seriously thought I might puke on the subway.

Oh yeah - we also watched Junebug on Saturday night - it was a pretty neat movie... Despite being kinda sad due to some major family dysfunction, it was one of the better depictions I have seen of American southern life in a movie (this is by no means saying much, given the usual mockery/caricaturing of anything 'southern' in movies). Also, the soundtrack is by Yo La Tengo, which is an added bonus.

The end...

Some links...

Check out this skate ramp...

(longer than a football field, 8 storeys high, and it ramps over a creek..!)

Trick/Treat

Last night I threw candy at kids from the balcony. It was pretty fun.

Happy Halloween

Weekending

So - I guess I should get to the weekend rundown...

On Friday - I was tired as all get out. After dinner, I slept for about 3 hours, before I got up to reluctantly accompany Leah to a Red Zeppelin show. For those of you who don't know, this is one of Toronto's own LZ cover bands, and we were lucky enough to witness them performing the entire LZII album. I think you got in for free if you wore a costume. You can probably imagine the scene - but if you need some help try to picture a frat-party-with-cover-band attended primarily by 'musical theatre types' - scary, no?!
Also, there was this one old guy who was way into it... he had a sort of homeless guy / J.Garcia hair and beard thing going on, and when he felt moved to get up and dance, it was the real deal.
I can't even begin to describe it.

Saturday - we made the long trek to IKEA. We had finally outgrown our cd shelf, so we went to pick up another BENNO. Going to IKEA is always like going international... It is like some vaguely socialist country where everything is bright and kid-friendly, everything is named after obscure LOTR characters, and you can get dessert for 30c when you buy lunch. Which I did.

That night we went to Team Hubble's place for a pot-luck pre-birthday party which happened in two shifts. We caught the end of the vaguely socialist dinner shift (kid-friendly, dessert, and a real-deal LOTR hobbit child), and then stuck around for the sitting around drinking tea in the living room part.

Sunday - we went for a walk in the park, opened a new bank account (for studio finances), and then went to church.

Somewhere in there we also bought groceries and picked up Leah's bike from the bike shop, and the time changed.

3d Sketch ---> Actual object

OK - another post for technology nerds... this time with a more direct industrial design bent.

Although the concept isn't that new anymore, to actually see somebody sketch in the air, and then have the sketch turn into plastic, is pretty crazy.

324

Last night, all participating parties of the 324 Oakwood Ave Studio showed up at our apartment.

It was great to finally meet everybody, and we needed to talk about a number of details, considering that we move in next week. It is going to be a pretty sweet team of people, and everybody is stoked about the whole thing.

Stay tuned for studio updates...

Idlewild

I still want to see Idlewild... although it looks like I will have to wait for it to show up in the reps.

Check out this Andre3000 interview, with the NPR squares - pretty interesting...

Arm...

OK, don't click on this if you think it might gross you out, but this guy in Spain had his severed arm temporarily attached to his groin in order to save it.

CRAZY.

This is pretty cool (for nerds)

Check out this neato sketching/simulation interface from the hard-core nerds at MIT.

Also, the weekend...

On friday we travelled to the far reaches of Northern Ontario for a church meeting. Seriously, we had to take something called a Viva Bus. It was fun, we managed to get through some serious church business, and there was some seriously good food too.
Seriously.

Saturday - we pretty much did nothing. I got a much needed haircut. Um... that night Leah went to Rachel's housewarming. I wondered around the Annex aimlessly. I did find two used Innocence Mission CDs which I promptly purchased.

Sunday - we went to the Moon Bean and met Mike and Katherine and Joel for tea. Afterwards, Leah went to church for rehearsal/soundcheck. I did some more aimless wondering for an hour or so. I did get to witness a whole herd of zombies staggering down Queen Street. For real - there were a couple of hundred living dead kids dressed in their gothiest ghostliest pale dead make-up, dragging themselves towards the Bloor theatre for some Halloween/zombie movie night, all mumbling 'brains, brains, brains...' There was even a 'Where's Waldo?!' zombie, which I spotted in the crowd.

Leah and I had some pre-church sushi, and then church was pretty sweet. Leah played guitar with Josh on accordion. David preached a pretty sweet sermon. Then we went home and had dinner and went to bed.

The end.

Fridays

The weeks seem to wear me out these days. Or maybe it's the weekends?

Anyway - I'm glad it's Friday... despite having two church related meetings this weekend (not counting 'actual' church - probably skipping one of those meetings), I can hopefully do a little nothing for some of the weekend.

Skipped the TO.Groove.Collective event last night... one day I really want to go to one of these things, to see Jeremy and Co. in action.

What else?.. Booked some flights to Tejas for Christmas. It will be fun.
Thinking of entering this competition, if I get around to it...
Needing desparately to update this website, and this one... probably not going to happen soon.

That's all.

Caffeine is Ridiculous Right Now.

Sometimes at work, I listen to this clip. (I ripped the audio to my computer months ago). This was definitely one of my favorite scenes from the rather hit and miss Coffee and Cigarettes. I still find it pretty funny.

Also, check out the strange boring/entertaining Jack & Meg scene.

'Are you a bug, Bill Murray?'

No title

The weekend.

We went to Katherine's on Friday night. I was pretty darn tired, but it was fun.

On Saturday we slept in a bit, and then I went to pick up a rental car. We drove to Sarnia, and Leah and I played a few songs at a benefit concert of sorts for Ann Marie (from our church), who is going to Mozambique for a few months. Since last week was pretty busy, I hadn't really practiced much at all, which was bad. Luckily, the concert was attended mostly by older church-going people who I suspect were there more to show their support than to hear great music! Anyway - it was fun. Leah got a ride back to TO that night, and I slept in Sarnia.

On Sunday I drove back with Jeremy and Johanna. It was a little rushed, since the rental car was due back at 2. I went straight from there to church, and helped set up sound gear for the service. A lot of stuff went wrong, so it kinda sucked... but everything was working by the time church started. Unfortunately, Leah and the band did not really have time to even run through all the songs before church, but it ended up sounding OK, despite their frustrations.

And then today I came in to work.

I Power Blogger

Yesterday there was snow. Today I rode my bike and there was a tiny patch of ice on the Beltline bridge. Winter is pretty much in effect, although I am hoping for at least a few more weekends of warmish fall days.

Tomorrow we are going to Sarnia. I think I might have driven through once, on a school trip, instead of the usual Detroit/Windsor border crossing, but I can't be sure. This will be my first real visit... Leah and some other people are going to play some music for a fund raiser type event.

What else... nothing really, I guess...

I could use a vacation

Today on my way to work it started pouring. I turned around and went home, 'cause I was soaked. So I changed and took the bus instead. The TTC took me an hour and a half to get to work. I can walk faster. Seriously.

So this basically translates to an hour and a half of my vacation time, an hour and a half of sitting on a bus. I think I should have just not come to work at all today! =)

Weekend Longue

On Friday, we went in search of Turkey - the cook-from-frozen-'cause-you-are-a-lazy-fool kind...

On Saturday we took the cat to the vet, 'cause that's just what we do on Saturdays. Afterwards I found an old Justin Rutledge CD at the Goodwill. We also picked up a cool red home-thrown tea-pot. Then we went shopping to feed a multitude.

By Sunday Leah was getting sick. To celebrate, she played and sang at church until her voice was almost gone. Then we went home and I made pumpkin pies - one regular, and one wife-friendly.

On Monday I got up just after 5 am, and put the frozen, prestuffed (lazy fool) turkey in the oven. Then I went back to bed for a few hours. After that we made the largest bowl of mashed potatoes that I have ever seen. We also made a mess of other Thanksgiving fixin's. A whole bunch of people came over and we ate a lot.

After cleaning everything up, I went to Mike's house to eat some more (Leah stayed home). I couldn't really cut it, despite the fact that they had made a huge amount of delicious food.

The end.

End Week Update

Friday..!

Yesterday was my first day at Humber. I will be working there one class a week as a teaching assistant in the Interior Design degree program. I think it will be a good experience, and I am looking forward to the next project (the current project is more or less wrapping up, so I am coming in at the end of things). The one drawback is the time that it takes out of my day, with the hour and a half commute each way, which I am expected to make up at work.

Today I rode my bike again (the rains from earlier in the week have abated). I thought it was a bit cold (I have yet to get my hands on/in some biker-appropriate gloves), until I got to the office and found out that it is just as cold here. What is up with this total piece-of-crap building?! I hope our rent is low.

This weekend is fake Thanksgiving. To celebrate we are going to have 20 million people over for a Thanksgiving-is-on-Monday? feast. It should be good, and luckily Leah can actually eat most good-old-wholesome-meal type foods.

In other news, Zellyn sent me a link to these suggested shirt ideas for the TTC. Obviously, they are way too cool for the insanely square TTC to actually go for (they showed zero interest in the ever-popular and genius station pins), so unless some DIY hipster types get busy, these will never see the light of day.

I think my favorites are the black streetcar shirt, the white daypass shirt (6 or 6 or 2), the white ringer with the four different coloured line dots, and the white metropass icon shirt. Also, the You're Not Invisible shirt is HILARIOUS.

I still like my 70s era MARTA shirt.

Lecture synopsis

Last night I went to a lecture by Peter Eisenman, famed architectural writer, teacher, and practitioner, at U of T. The lineup to get in went around the block, and the lecture hall was rammed with students, profs, and an assortment of black-clad local designers.

I wasn't sure what to expect, being (as usual) less familiar with his work than I should be. I know of a couple of his projects, and I have waded through an essay or two by the guy. I was surprised by his relative straightforwardness, and his lecture was interesting and, unlike the building he presented, clear.

I will attempt to give you a brief (my version) synopsis of what he said, which I found both interesting and a little frightening (in that post-modernish nothing-really-matters kinda way).

Basically, the guy has spent years working on buildings that, upon a careful examination, reveal things about the story of their design. So some weird iterative computer algorithm twists and mangles a box, and when that box is built as some art-museum or other, you can read the story of the mangling process in the actual building. This idea has, as far as I know, been close to universally accepted in architecture schools everywhere. Process, process, process.

Now he seems to have reached a point where a few factors have changed his mind a little:
People don't care about reading carefully anymore; if your building has some hidden story to tell, I don't really want to spend the time and effort to find it. I want my MTV.
Also, when presented with a fragmented jumble of stuff, people no longer assume there is a mystery to figure out. Sure, the stuff is jumbled and fragmented because of some complicated complex reason, but postmodernism has taught us that you probably can't know the reason anyway, and so you don't really need to care about it.

And so, Eisenman's new agenda is to erase the legibility of his process from his work. The project he showed us was for a train station, and it involved overlaying real, extrapolated, and imagined lines on top of each other, and then exploding this jumble of lines into a shrapnel of form. He then showed a bunch of really cool 3d models (seriously, they were pretty neat), and said that he liked certain things about some better than others, but was very vague about his criteria for critique. The only enemy to avoid seemed to be having the building look like anything you have ever seen before, and the only characteristic that he seemed to value lay in finding figural shapes which were to his liking rising from the mess. Needless to say, the building will be pretty crazy when it is all said and done.

So that was that. People asked questions, and he gave some funny answers. Students were no doubt taking notes to be used in addressing nagging guest critics who want to know why you chose a certain process, why the process is not clear in the project, and how on earth we are to evaluate a design anyway.

And function? - well, to quote the guy - "I have always stuffed program like you stuff a turkey".

Weekend

Friday night we went to see the Science of Sleep. If you've read any reviews, you probably know the deal - the plot is not all that great (compared to Eternal Sunshine - so that's not really fair!), but the movie is still pretty cool, what with all the Michel Gondry magic of dreams and imaginings running rampant on the screen. It is more of a twee character study, where the characters are creative and crazy and the scenes are all equally creative and crazy.

Saturday - we went to the Goodbye April party. It was at the Catholic Worker house, down in the Parkdale ghetto, and was fun. Afterwards, we walked around Queen West for a while, checking out the Nuit Blanche festivities. My favorite things were probably the girl sleeping in the display case and the Trinity Bellwoods insane asylum tents... although we didn't really stick around to see too much of what was going on.

Sunday - church, and then JFL.

The Gem

Monday night is once again the night to go to the Gem. I especially like the place in the fall and winter, 'cause it just seems more appropriate somehow. Hopefully we can maintain the critical mass necessary to keep it up - for the last few weeks it has been us and Rachel, with a rotating guest fourth person in attendance...

Last night, as we were getting ready to leave, the waiter/host/busboy/DJ/cash guy put on Gary Jules' version of Mad World, by Tears for Fears. I don't think I had heard it before (I have yet to see Donnie Darko...) Anyway, it is a pretty sweet song, and you can check it out at dude's myspace page. The music selection at the Gem is always pretty nice, since they have a stack of old vinyl at the cash register... (and it is probably the only place I have ever heard the Drive-By Truckers being played.)

Afterwards we went home, and I put on Songs from the Big Chair while I did the dishes.

Wee Ken Dup Date

So, let's see...

On Friday, our 'plans' to get together with some people and watch a movie kinda fell apart. Instead we went to see a play that friend Kate assistant directed (I think that's right!), Tiny Dynamite. It was the first night of previews - so not the official version quite yet. I enjoyed it and think that you should go and see it.

Saturday was Jen's party! It was a good time.

On Sunday I rode my bike down to the lakeshore. I was hoping to go out to the Beach(es), but didn't think I had enough time. Instead I headed through Liberty Village, and down to the giant wind turbine. It is weird that I never see Lake Ontario. It is also pretty weird that I live on one of the Great Lakes. And one more thing that is weird is that you can't really swim in it 'cause we pump so much poo and other junk into it. That is messed up.

I then negotiated the Scotiabank marathon, and related traffic craziness, to church. I ran sound, which did not go smoothly - so it was hard work from 2:30 - 7:30.

After church, I biked up the hill. I cut up to Loblaws, which basically closed their doors in my face. Oh well, at least I got to try biking up the hill around Casa Loma, which is crazy...

Leah and I went for a Sunday night date to Nova Era... of course, she couldn't get anything more than a tonic water, but it was fun.

Weekendupdate

Friday - we watched not Joe vs, but Dark Days instead. This movie, even on its third or fourth viewing, is a good one. We also did a mess of dishes, laundry, and grocery shopping.

Saturday - we had a (church-ish) meeting in the morning. Later Leah made cookies, we went to feed the beast (Binky), and then went to feed ourselves at KOS.

On Sunday we went to the park. Later we went down another park for a baptism service and picnic. It was fun.

Friday

Rick at work told me that he heard that everybody's working for the weekend.

Some plans:

Watch Joe vs The Volcano tonight, with some friends. That movie was ahead of its time - the name alone shows that it came out about 15 years too early (and that it should have really been an indie band, or dance remix by some LCD Soundsystem type entity, rather than a movie...)

Attend an elders' meeting. It is still funny/scary that our church is essentially run by kids. Idiot kids like me.

See Mates of State. They are sure to go on stage about 6 hours after I would usually be in bed... however, Leah and I are tired of missing shows for this reason, and this one is on a Saturday.

Hopefully pick Mabel up from the vet. Hopefully survive the shock of being given the bill for 3 weeks of kitten hospital care, 2 as-yet-unpaid-for surgeries, and a bunch of lab tests. Mabel's new nickname may be 'The Million Dollar Kitten'. She will for sure have one wicked scar.

Groceries

Laundry

'Clean' Graffiti

This guy is a genius of sorts...

J vs t V

I have been wanting to rewatch Joe vs the Volcano for quite some time now. Partly I want to see if it is as good as it used to be, and partly I am pretty sure that it is, which is reason enough.

And then Reeve posted a J vs t V quote on his site, and I will take that as a sign that I should track it down and rent it. Anyone else wanna watch??



Bonus factoid: Now you know where my hotmail address (jumpsoda) comes from...

Weekend

So - we went to Katherine the Teacher's house on Friday night, which was fun, even though everybody was tired and stayed up too late.

On Saturday we went out for Indian food with Don, and then watched Everything is Illuminated. It was pretty good. I liked the story that the guy was trying to uncover, but not as much the story about him uncovering it (which was pretty much the whole movie). It seemed like maybe a good story that wasn't told all that well. Keep in mind that a lot of people think this movie is great, so I guess you can take my opinion for whatever its worth.

On Sunday, we went for a walk in the park. Then we went to the Andy Warhol exhibit. It was pretty cool to actually see some of his paintings in person (I never thought of a lot of them being as big as they are).

And then church. Afterwards we stood outside Roy Tompson Hall for a little while (could it have been fifteen minutes!?), in the hopes of seeing some famous people on their way from whatever movie was showing there. (The guy in front of us had some pictures on his digicam of Samuel Jackson, from earlier in the evening.) Then we got bored and went home.



That is it. Why do you people even read this??! =)

That logo's a no-go!

Sometimes at work, I take a break by spitting out a logo or new desktop wallpaper. Since my graphic design skills are pretty weak, and since I spend about a minute on them, they are usually kinda bad, and often amusing in how much they bite directly from other logos..! Here are a couple that will likely never be used.




So the first one has a kinda generic Chuck Taylor thing going on - maybe that's just the star - but I figure you could switch out the symbol in the middle for whatever wing-ding you prefer... a skull, a heart, a flaming something-or-other...

And the second one has a certain datedness to it (if I had real designer-tude, I might say timelessness!)... and its funny how it puts the string DMZ into our church name. Sadly, I'm not sure that I like it any less than our actual logo (my apologies to whoever did that one - it's just not my style, is all).

etc...

So if you don't go to Frdmz, you might not have seen this link to 100 Huntley St...
[Big File]
[Small File]
(You might wanna Right-Click, Save-As that piece)
But if you don't go to Frdmz, you might also not care... 'cause you won't recognize half those cats as people that you know. You might see the wife in there playing some guitar though... (oh yeah, it's all RealPlaya format; my apologies if you're a hater.)

In other news, Mabel did indeed go under the knife one more time... They cut all of that mess out on Monday, and sewed her up like new. Leah says she is also getting fat from her weeks at the vet, but it could be that she just looks fatter, since she is now squeezed into half the amount of skin.

And lastly, I forgot to mention some more things from the weekend. My bike got a flat tire (boo), I fixed it (yay), and I pickup up Slowdive's Souvlaki, with bonus disc of EP/remix stuff... (yaaaaaay)

Weekend

Update of pertinent events:

We watched Brick with David and Jen. Good movie - stuck in my head all weekend. If anyone wants to watch it, I'd be up for a re-screening... (maybe I can catch the other 50% of the dialogue that I missed the first time).
I will warn you that there are 1 or 2 scenes that I found a little violent (although if you watch any movies these days, you probably won't be phased).

We learned that Mabel may need a 4th operation; this one would basically be to physically remove some nasty infection.

We went to Jamie's birthday party. She is 21.

We went for a walk in the park.

Church was sweet.

We found another restaurant where Leah can eat. This is good news, even if the place has a slightly flaky/peace cult vibe to it.

Lady Catherine ended her 5 day visit.

Masta Killa - Street Corner

[Looking on various street corners, I'm sure you've seen it yourself, standing on the corner is an alleged brother, dressed in blue, or green, red and black, and spouting the news that the revolution is coming, and you'd better get ready, sort of like the end of the world is coming.
Unfortunately the world is just going to drag on and on.]

...It's me and you, son
Forever in the struggle
No doubt we hustle
Survival is the motto...

Masta Killa [with GZA & Inspectah Deck] - Street Corner

blah

Sometimes (not too often) I wake up with a headache. Usually it will fade away sometime between showering and 9.30ish.
Sometimes it doesn't.

In other news, Mabel still has her stitches in her. This is good.
We have a visitor at our house. The Lady Catherine de Burgh is spending a few days with us. Petrie doesn't quite know what to think, and neither does the Lady, but I suspect they will be friends soon enough.

Update

So Leah took Mabel back to the vet. The deal is that she can somehow get at her stitches with her back paws - she is some kind of kitty-contortionist. Anyway - they are going to patch her up, and keep her there for a week. All we have to do is pay for it. But at least she will be OK.

In other news - I just got a message that the bike shop is done fixing my wheel. They ended the message by suggesting that I get a new wheel, since this one isn't going to last much longer.

Wouldn't it make more sense to tell me that before they spent the time and parts to fix the old one?? Hopefully it will last me the rest of the biking season...

Shoegaze

I have recently been listening to these Slowdive songs a fair bit.

Weekender

Oh man

The weekend was fun - Zellyn and Bevin came up to visit. It was great to see them, and we basically just walked around Toronto, and ate at JFL a few times.
Good times.

In other news, Mabel managed to fully de-stitch herself on Friday night. I took her in to the vet on Saturday, and she had to have more surgery. They cut out the old wound, and re-stitched her - this time with internal stitches. They also put a cone on her head, and put her on a course of antibiotics.

Turns out that something is up with that cat, 'cause yesterday her newly fixed wound started opening. Leah is taking her in to the vet today - so we will see what happens.

Last night we went to bed at around 11. Zellyn and Bevin had to get a cab to the airport at around 3am. I was also sleeping with Mabel right beside me, and trying to make sure that she wasn't messing with her wound all night, so I was getting a pretty crappy sleep.

Also, at 5 or so, the sketchy bar a few doors down caught on fire. It wasn't bad, 'cause the fire dept. was on the scene putting out fires, climbing through upstairs windows, and generally making a lot of noise...

If we're lucky, maybe they will be closed for a good month or two.

Petrie owns Kittenwar

Jen put this picture of Petrie, which she took when he was little, on the Kittenwar website.

While we may never know how a Petrie 'The Kitten' Hunter VS Scotia 'The Ferret' Hubble cage-match would turn out, at least we know that young Petrie can hold his own in an internet kitten battle royale.

Good work Jen.

I do not like the term 'Grups'

Some interesting, although perhaps slightly uncomfortable, thoughts about why you and your friends can't just get a job...

With unsettling frequency, I find that my generation can only identify and embrace success if it stems from self-expression, to such an extent that people are numbing and abusing themselves through drink and drugs to suppress frustration and a crushing sense of failure over having a 9-5 job. Unheralded, productive labor – a paycheck – is a drag because it's not fun and it's not "me." Individual recognition is such an enormous part of our models for success and accomplishment that we derive no sense of satisfaction from our jobs. We are in conflict because work is ordinary, and we are supposed to be extraordinary. Mom said so.


So we were told that we are special, and we aren't.
Although I still suspect that we really were meant to be...

More than one way to Skinner Cat.

Since there seemed to be a general amount of response to the cat related post below... here's a follow-up:

Here's how I see it.
Cat does undesirable action while you're watching - cat gets punished in some fashion.
Cat does undesirable action while you're not watching - nothing happens.

Since there is only enough space in a small cat-head for a peanut sized cat-brain, I can't think of a way to make them realize that the activity itself is bad, not just the doing it WHEN YOU'RE WATCHING.



Unless you use robots.

Oh yeah, and +100 dylan points if you got the Skinner reference.
Um, or Trent points, if you like - but dylan points are cooler (and his blog is more interesting)...

Red

This morning at work I learned this cool trick where you get red ink on your shirt.

Super Mario...

You've probably seen this already. Someone just sent it to me - and it rocked my 8-bit world.

Bits and pieces...

Today we took Mabel and Petrie to have their respective bits lopped off. We have been planning on doing it for weeks, but I'm telling them its because they didn't stay off of the kitchen table.

Speaking of bits being lopped off, I took my back bike wheel off during lunch, and somehow the whole valve had been sheared right off of the tube... which would explain why my tire went flat yesterday. How the heck does that happen?? The only thing I can think of is that I tore it off whilst locking the bike up (without noticing?!?..?)

Either that or it was ripped off when I got some wicked air ramping over that BMW in Forest Hill on my way to work yesterday...


Oh yeah, one of the spokes is broken too. So maybe I will get to buy a new tube AND a new wheel.

Here go the weekend update...

Added a 3rd coat of paint to the orange/rust bathroom.
Pushed the cat off of the kitchen table.
Watched Rebel Without a Cause.
Pushed the cat off of the kitchen table.
Bought new jeans.
Pushed the cat off of the kitchen table.
Went grocery shopping.
Pushed the cat off of the kitchen table.
Went to work at church.
Pushed the cat off of the kitchen table.

Hooked up...

Today I have a few links for you to checkout / ignore at your leisure...

First of all, Zellyn somehow found this view of a place we used to go camping in South Africa. It is amazing. We had to drive for hours along dirt roads to get there, and is is pretty much 'the wilderness'. Those stretches of beaches have about 3 people on them at any given time...

Secondly, Reeve posted a song on his site that is 'kind of stupid, kind of funny'. I have to agree. Some of the lines are hilarious, especially later in the song, and it is definitely the best gangsta take on buying groceries that I have ever heard.

And lastly, if you haven't seen them before, this guys kinetic sculptures are definitely worth checking out (unless you're not into amazing giant bug-like wind-powered walking 'beach beasts'.)

[edit]
Here's one more link for y'all. I didn't like this Sally Shapiro song so much at first (scroll down a bit to find it)... but it is growing on me.
[/edit]

Reeve Hunter blows up on MySpace

Well, not quite. But this guy from my church took a listen, put one of Reeve's songs on his page, his buddy heard it, told his friends... and who knows what could happen...
Reeve Hunter could become a household name amongst people's friends.

Myspace is so weird.

ps. Reeve - Whatsup?! I guess your band fell apart by now... (I listened to the rough mixes - pretty sweet) Hope that your impending move plans are going well. Peace. T.

Weekend Review

Another busy weekend...

On Friday - I had to work a little later than usual. Afterwards, I went to VV and SA, and bought some pants...

That evening, Leah and I went to see The Godfather. I have seen it before, so it wasn't quite as shocking, but still a CRAZY movie. I haven't figured out exactly what I think of it, since it is SO good, yet pretty much as dark as it gets...

On Saturday we cruised around the city on bikes. We had to do a bunch of things, like exchange Leah's helmet for one that fits her undersized head, and buy paint.

Sunday - I went to Kensington for groceries while Leah stayed home and picked some church songs to play at church... and then we went to church... and then we went home...

Pre-weekend Update

It's Friday.

Since Monday was a holiday, and for various other reasons, I don't get off at lunch today, which is a bit of a drag. Also, it got cold last night... the real-deal summer days are definitely over... =(

This week we:

Did not go to see Sonic Youth on Tuesday. I didn't really feel like it, and tickets were around $30... Instead we went and had what turned out to be a rather disappointing meal at Juice for Life (or ...Wife, as we often refer to it).

Last night I went to the Victory Cafe, since Kate is back in town, and some folks were getting together there for a welcome-back-Kate-hanging-out session. It was fun indeed.

Weekend Longue

On Friday I left work before noon and booted it down to U of T. I met Sue there, picked up the key for the storage closet at church, and then rolled down there to grab a bunch of sound gear, with Rachel's help. I loaded the gear into a milk crate, strapped it to my bike, and rode on home...

On Saturday, we headed out to Kitchener with a car FULL of people and guitars. We arrived at Nidus in time to set up for the FT worship session. Nidus was all about the hippy vibe, with outdoor pavilions as stages. Leah and the gang played a great (short) set, followed by Mike and the other gang. It was a little weird, since some people didn't seem aware that the point was to worship God, not sit and listen to some songs. Needless to say, there were plenty of FTers in the back getting their praise on.
Bradley was WAY more confident on guitar (this was his 2nd church appearance), and despite the ghetto setup, his shoegaze sensibilities were sounding pretty sweet... Also, Colin did a great job as guest drummer. Needless to say, Andrew and Leah were solid as usual...

We stuck around long enough to see the Aradhna set (always amazing), and catch the practicum part of Cyril and David's freestyle prayer tutorial. If you missed it, you may never again get a chance to hear David freestyle, or Jen McN..!

Other highlights included the full out tea tent set up and run by resident community-mongers Sarah and Chris Hale...


Sunday - we had pancakes in the park. Church was good. Leah, Andrew and Luke held down the music end of things, and David preached a great sermon on Psalm 130. Afterwards we booked it home for dinner, and then headed down to Lee's Palace.

Starflyer 59 was pretty darn sweet. I have never seen them live, and it was fun. Despite a slightly disappointing prerecorded bassist, it was a great show. I discovered during the last song that they sound about 1000 times better without earplugs... their sound somehow requires maximum volume, and the natural reverb that earplugs seem to cut. Anyway - it was way too loud, and I am way too old, to endure an entire set with no earplugs, but it was great anyway...

I also picked up Talking Voice vs Singing Voice, which I never bought before 'cause I never knew if it was actually good (which it is), and a new 4 song EP called I Win.

Monday - we went to Trinity Bellwoods for a picnic with the team. It was fun.

And that is it. It was a good weekend, although I do need to learn to RELAX more during my days away from work...

Muzak

Of course we didn't go to see Danielson last night. We were too busy on the phone, trying to organize this weekend. Besides, we also had to buy groceries. (No time for fun.)

And I don't know who we will see tomorrow, since we are not yet sure of who we will be riding with (or when they will be returning)... we will probably get to see everyone BUT Starflyer.

But I will try my hardest to make it to Lee's Palace on Sunday night for their TO show. Otherwise I would be a serious loser. They NEVER come to Toronto, and it's something like $8.50 to get in. You don't want to be a serious loser, do you?

Not Afraid of You

After yesterdays long postings on various blogs, I will follow up by simply pointing you to some freshly available YLT... Blaze it out.

Also, Danielson will be playing at Lee's Palace on Thursday night. Since we will only be at Nidus on Saturday (we get in that day for no money, since Leah & Friends will be rocking some church music), this gives me a chance to maybe catch the high-pitched dude anyway...
And yeah, Saturday should be pretty sweet... Miranda Stone, Aradhna, Drew freaking Brown...
and SF59.

Break Dividing Walls...

One of the things that Anna mentioned last night was that she misses things about her Black Baptist church back in Portland. I was just thinking about some churches that I used to attend (one of them regularly, and one whenever I visited my parents).

Blood n Fire in Atlanta was literally located in the projects. I used to sometimes ride my bike there, and every service was an amazing experience. There were more homeless / poor / drug addicts at church each week than at any other church I have ever been to. The pastor had given up a successful career in order to work with the poor, and one day that I was there he gave away one of his few remaining cherished possessions, his Harley Davidson, in an offering to be given to Jackie Pullinger. After that week, it was no longer parked up front in the warehouse/church building each Sunday.

This church regularly gave away more money than possibly any other church I have ever been too. Massive amounts, given to other ministries and outreaches, from possibly the poorest congregation I have ever seen. Massive amounts. (If I recall, I think one particular offering was in the thirty-something thousand dollar range).

Anyway - forget about the money... Some of the happiest, most radiant people I have ever met lived at that church. I'm talking about people that were crack-head crazy street folks before Jesus was involved. They lived in an old crazy building beside the church, and ran a ministry for homeless / drug addicted men getting their lives turned around.

Also, I helped out a bit one summer with a kids program. Once a week I went and helped some insanely patient people run an insanely crazy kids program with neighbourhood hood-rats; kids with names like 'Peanut', that would literally climb all over you if given the chance. One week we took them all to a public pool - half of them couldn't even swim!, so we would wade around the crowded noisy pool with three of the smaller kids clinging to each of us...

And church each week was definitely a 'clap-and-sway' kind of event. That was the minimum, actually. The first time I ever went, the pastor had all the young people (20's and younger, I think, 'cause it included me!), run around the big warehouse building, as part of the worship service. So we did; all the kids and the college folks like myself, running at full tilt in a huge loop around the building, while everyone was singing church songs. It sounds crazy, and it usually was, but it was all a part of the amazing exuberance that was in people's hearts... It just exploded out of them, and they knew how to express it outwardly, as praise back to the God that had done SO much for them. Actually, I don't know if half of them even had an option!

Anyway - I should do some work now...

Let's see...

Friday night we went to the One by One art (and fashion) show. It was a good time, and some of the art was pretty darn cool. Also, the fashion show was hilarious, since a good few of the models were folks from church. Luke was especially hilarious, with his eyeliner and Zoolanderesque poses.
I think they made some pretty good bank too, which will be passed on to an orphanage in Africa...

Saturday we took the pets to the vet, and ran some other errands... I stopped in at the Fluevog shoestore, since they were having some huge sale, and I seriously could use some new shoes. Turns out all they had was ugly, and on sale for hundreds of dollars. Seriously, this one pair was marked DOWN to, I think it was something like 700 dollars. And that was 300 bucks off the regular price...
Needless to say, I will continue to rock the white Nu Balance/flipflops for a while yet.

Sunday... laundry, Rice Bar, church. Leah played at church, and I had a hard time running sound. I finally got everything sounding good by the last song. Bradley had his first go at playing guitar in church too, and it sounded pretty sweet.

After church we went to Brian and Anna's for dinner. It was really fun, and cool to hang out with them, since we hadn't ever really. Brian showed off his mad cooking (Leah friendly) skills, Anna showed us their wedding pics, and a good time was had by all. Needless to say, I am tired, since we went to bed at around 12:30...

One by One...

Marty!!

This guy from Montreal has started a petition...
to get Nike to make that Back to the Future sneaker - yeah, you know the one!

Yay!!

Two things...

At lunch a found an old lady trying to mow her lawn. It was super hot, and she was having trouble with the mower. Her usual high-school yardworker was away at camp, and she was worried that the grass was getting too long. I mowed the rest of her yard and she gave me 10 bucks. That's more than I make at work, if you figure it at an hourly rate!

Also, I glanced through the new Canadian Architect, and there is a teeny picture and paragraph from our Orphan Spaces competition entry. Just look for the paragraph with my name at the top of it!

So that's that. One step closer to world fame, and 10 bucks closer to being independently wealthy.

Weekend update

So, the weekend.

On Friday, we went and picked up a rental car, dropped the cats off with some friends, and then drove to Indiana.

It was a pretty long drive, and I was ridiculously unprepared in terms of maps, addresses of where we were going, and phone numbers. Nevertheless we managed to find our way to the Elkhart County fairgrounds, in the middle of Amish-country, Indiana.

All we knew was that My Korean Friends was supposed to be playing at a battle of the bands, along with the Owens' band, Thurman. We got there around 8, and had to pay 8 bucks each to get into the fair. We walked in and saw my dad's truck, with a U-Haul trailer behind it and a tall-bike stowed in the back. We entered the fair, and found a stage amidst the carnies, middle America families, and hardcore/Avril-ed high school kids. Our timing was amazing, 'cause there on stage was my brother Reeve, and the rest of the band, finishing up there soundcheck.

They proceeded to run through an award-winning 3 song set, after which Thurman played another sweet three song set. I say award-winning, 'cause they ended up winning first place (Thurman came in second), and $100. It was kinda funny, since the kids in the crowd flocked to see the other, younger, screamier bands, but the older indie beard kids schooled the fairly uniterested crowd in how to play some freaking good songs. Turns out the judges knew where it was at...

We crashed at Jeremy and Greta Owens' place, and the next day we just hung out. We went to the farmers' market downtown, and checked out the Amish/Mennonite produce and some crazy bluegrass/country folks. We barbecued some lunch, and then that evening went to a cafe where MKF played a much longer set of sweet tunes, followed again by Thurman.

The next day we drove a long long way back home. We got back in to Toronto, and after an unfortunately eventful evening, involving, among other things, picking up the cats and dropping off the rental car, we went to bed at 1.

That's the short version of the weekend. It was fun, and I will post some pictures sometime, and maybe some more details about Amish buggies, award-winning rock shows, tetris, free bikes...

Almost the weekend...

Last night we went to Paul and Becky's house for church (Dining Room). Their place is pretty darn sweet, with a dope back yard and everything. They share the house with another couple, and seeing the place made me miss living in an actual house.

We also checked out their homemade bed (which makes Leah and I trendsetters! Yeah, we invented homemade beds...) and their sweet homemade desks. They also have homemade wood flooring in their room, homemade soap, homemade awesome food...

Furthermore, we took Petrie and Mabel along, since they were going to maybe spend the weekend. We wanted to see what would happen when they met Scotia Hubble (Scotia is a ferret-beast). Turns out they will not be spending the weekend afterall.

I don't know that they wouldn't be friends, given a bit more time, but they were nervous enough to be dangerous. I didn't want the kittens to get spooked, and swipe Scotia's face off, or for Scotia to get feisty, and disembowel one of the cats.

Oh yeah, Mabel can growl!?

Tomorrow we pick up a rental car and get the heck out of the Tdot for a day or two... We will be checking out some MKF action in Indiana... It is going to be sweet.

Weekend blah blah blah

Friday:

Friday night we went to Katherine's friend's cat's condo, where Katherine was cat-sitting for the weekend. There were quite a few people there and it was crowded and noisy. Katherine made some amazing food for us all.

At this party/dinner we were introduced to the game Guitar Hero. It is a pretty ridiculous videogame, and involves a little plastic guitar interface, with five buttons on the fretboard. You get to play along to a wide selection of classic guitar-rock anthems (everything from Joan Jett to Black Sabbath to Franz Ferdinand...)
There is also an internal sensor in the thing that can tell if you lift the guitar to a vertical position (this is occasionally required, if you manage to rock out hard enough)

Needless to say, you should check this one out if you ever get the chance.

Saturday - We went to the Festival of Clowns, to see Jen McN's show, Primal Broads. Since Jen is brilliant, it was great to see her in clown action again.

Sunday - Church.

The Bohemian Dreamian

Last night at Living Room (that's the embarrassing name that my church uses for small groups that meet in people's homes to pray and stuff), Becky told us about a dream that she had some time around January...

In the dream there was this space with big white walls. On the walls were canvasses and paintings, and there were people painting and people playing music and it was a big freaking artist commune type co-op studio gallery deal. It was all about a space for people to share and focus on worshipping God through art and music and community, with space for events, and a place for people to sell their art and music too.

It was extra interesting, because what prompted her to tell about this dream was when I asked people to pray about a couple of places that some of us are looking at renting, pretty much to set up as a shared studio type space. Her dream just pushes what we were planning to a whole new level.

If this sounds interesting to you, and you are in the habit of praying (or even if you aren't!), you could pray that we would be given wisdom and guidance and direction about when/how/where this whole thing could go down...

Metal

So I figured somebody from church might actually want those metal tickets, and I posted it to our church website... Sure enough I had a bunch of hands go up, and I hooked up a couple of metal loving church kids (a nanny and a barrista) with some free 40 dollar tickets, thanks to my work.

Email

I just got a mass email at work from one of our admin assistants (she always ends up with any free tickets etc. that make it into our office)... here is an excerpt:

I have two tickets available to see Sounds of the Underground featuring As I Lay Dying, In Flames, Trivium, Cannibal Corpse, GWAR plus 7 additional metal and hardcore bands!

That is funny, if you know the type of people that work here...

Yup... the weekend

Let's go in reverse order.

Monday morning - Got to work and found an AMAZING mp3 posted at the One Louder blog...

Sunday - yes, Italy won. Congratulations to all fans. Now please stop driving past our apartment with your hand firmly planted on the horn!
Church was great.

Saturday - we went to Ronelle's place for a church gathering involving singing and praying. This was after we walked around the city for hours.
For breakfast, we made crepes, but first I rode my bike to Loblaws to pick up some wife-friendly rice-based ice-cream. Crepes, with loads of fruit, and ice-cream, for breakfast... Yes.

Friday - we went to the Rice Bowl on Augusta for dinner. You should go there too. Seriously.

Werner Herzog

“You shouldn’t mix up fact and truth,” Herzog says. “I do not trust facts so much as I trust human ecstasies.”

Forget Superman, I want to see The Wild Blue Yonder...

Happy Independence Day

The long weekend was pretty fun, and now I am back at work on the 4th of July...

Friday - we went out for dinner with Jen and David - the Rice Bowl (check it out...), and then Mars for coffee/tea/pie. Everybody was tired, but it was fun.

Saturday - we went to the AGO, which was pretty unimpressive, since the whole place is a construction site. (It was also free, thankfully, or else it would have been a total rip-off). We also went to Kensington...

Sunday - I went to Value Village, and then I went to church (Leah was there early 'cause she was playing). Afterwards, some church folks all went to Lisa's for after-church pizza / hanging out. This was our last chance to hang out with Lisa and Dylan before they disappear for a couple of months to their respective distant summer homes... and it was very fun.

Monday - Leah did some recording. We also did some grocery shopping. That evening, we went down to Bloor street and walked around...

As you can see, it was pretty uneventful... which is by no means a bad thing.
Oh yeah, Reeve also called us this weekend. Hopefully, we will be driving to see his band play in Indiana in a couple of weeks...
Wanna come??

Hi-Five

Today I am scanning documents into PDF files, and then uploading them to a web-based database.

At lunch I picked up Scott Pilgrim Vol.2 - it is much more interesting than using a photocopier...

In other news, it has been raining like crazy for the last while... the whole sky turned dark and there was lightning everywhere - should be a good bike ride home today.

The Weekend

Friday - I ended up having to work an extra three hours at work. On my way home, I stopped in at Loblaws to acquire food goods for my birthday party. In fact, I bought enough stuff to make riding my bike impossible, and had to walk home with shopping bags hanging from my bike like a pack-mule.

The party was fun - we have never had so many people in our apartment at one time.

Saturday - Leah and I went to the market. We bought some stuff there, and then ended up getting a drum kit at Steve's music. It takes up about half of the lifing room... That night we went to see Brendon's band play at the Oasis, or whatever it's called now.

Sunday - Leah had her first Sunday off in 20 years. She did some recording, and then we went to Ka Chi for lunch... afterwards, church...

Tired

The theme for the week has been 'being really tired'.

I finished reading Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Life yesterday, and handed it on to Lisa at Wednesday night church... I'm not a huge graphic novel person, but it was a pretty entertaining read, so I ordered the second issue from the library.

What if I was a huge graphic novel person?!..

Tonight Leah and I will undertake the most epic cleaning of our apartment ever. Mabel and Petrie probably won't even help, even though they are quite good at making things dirty.

And the USA is out of the world cup in the first round. This is not a huge bother, as I have not really been following the games with any amount of zeal. I generally just watch whatever game might be on as I am doing laundry each week, and sort of pick a side to support as I am adding detergent...

I really do need to finalize the details of our apartment insurance before the next Portugal game...

Random things

Yesterday I went to Trinity Bellwoods after work to play ultimate frisbee with some church homies. It was fun.

Today I picked up the first of the Scott Pilgrim books at the library. I'm not sure what I think yet, although so far it is pretty good... It is also set in Toronto, which is pretty neat - it seems like quite a bit of the Toronto lifestyle/culture comes through, along with the usual more universal nintendo/thrift store cultural familiarty common in a lot of books and movies about twenty-something kids... I have only read a bit though...

Tonight will be Mike's birthday party barbecue.

Weekend blah blah blah

I guess I better get to the weekend update, for all of my loyal weekend update followers...

Friday... I did laundry, and watched Angola vs Mexico with Bruno. We had a church meeting that night...

Saturday... We took Petrie to the vet to get his shots. Afterwards, I went to Mitchell's Christian Bookstore land... I was trying to find a new bible, since mine is in pieces, and ended up buying a hideously bright yellow faux-leather one, with guilded silver-edged pages. They didn't have my first (more conservative) choice, so I decided that I might as well go with that... Mike and Don came over to visit the kittens, who pretty much hid and slept the whole time. Later, we went for a walk through Cedarvale.

Sunday... Leah played her last ever service at SMM Anglican church. To celebrate, she walked around the block playing the flute. Actually, that part had something to do with celebrating Corpus Christi (?)... I don't quite get everything that goes on there, but I'm not sure that anyone does. She played again at our church, so it was a long day for her...

The end.

Weekend - take 2

Blogger just ate my weekend update...

Here goes... you now get the abbreviated version...

Friday:
>sheetloads of laundry at Bruno's laundromat... watched soccer with Bruno
>watched Dr Strangelove - learned to stop worrying, and love the bomb

Saturday:
>took the kittens to get their shots. P ended up with antibiotics for his cold instead, and will go back next week to be jabbed.
>went to Wal-mart. Not only is it evil, it is unpleasant. Also went to L&M for a mic stand.
>that evening we went for a walk in Cedarvale - we bumped into Lisa... she was finishing up her 10 mile run right as I was finishing up my decaf americano. She is hard-core, I am a white-collar yuppie...

Sunday:
>finished my US taxes, finally. As a perpetual immigrant, I get a two month extension, so I can procrastinate for an extra two months... I'm not 100% sure they are filed 100% correctly, but I am sure the government will tell me if I am wrong. Since we are way under the allowable foreign tax exemption amount, I am pretty sure I owe nothing, no matter which residency test you use to determine my residency status. Confusing? Yes. Boring? You bet...
>church was good, despite the crapping out of Leah's patch cable right as the service began... The guitar, bass, accordian combo sounded sweet... And I learned about how pastor/rapper Cyril met genius physicist/rapper Stephen Hawking (I'll go ahead and warn you that some of his lyrics might offend...)

That is all...

Time wasting...

So I read this 'meta'-article over at Pitchfork this morning...
and then I found a link to this Flash animation. Meta indeed.

To the moon...

This guy is crazy...

The Weekend

This Sunday my brother, Delvyn, came in to Toronto for a couple of nights. He and a posse were in Kitchener for a wedding this weekend, and a whole bunch of them stayed at our place on Sunday and Monday night.

It was awesome to see him, and the crew that were here are hilarious. I took yesterday off work, and stayed up way too late, but it was such a good time...

A summary of weekend higlights (in more or less reverse order) include:

hanging out at the Beaches last night (why don't I go out there more than about twice a year?)
crazy rooster jazz at Wavelength (what was that?)...
the Red Room on Sunday night.
playing music with Leah at church on Sunday - I thought I wouldn't like it at all, but it was pretty fun...
hanging out with Katherine on Saturday night.
meeting Leah and April for lunch on Friday...

1 x 1

Homies who make art should check this out...

Wednesday...

In Toronto, it goes from winter to summer in about a week. Actually, it goes from winter to spring, to winter, to summer...

All that to say, last week was freezing, and this week is HOT! I hauled out the old window unit AC the other day, so that we can sleep at night. Our landlord assures us that there will be new skylights in our place at some point, ones that vent... Perhaps I should show him the following diagram, in an attempt to move the process along...


That front room, with the door to the balcony, is our living room. The back room is our bedroom... That would be the one with absolutely no airflow through the room at all. With one little opening in the roof, we could be living large...

In other news, Leah picked up this mic yesterday. Stay tuned as she starts putting that bad boy to work...

Morning

So, as part of the biking to the work week, I can get into the Goodlife gym downstairs from my office for free, so that I can shower before work. Today I figured I would go in early and use the gym too.

However, since my chain came off my bike twice, and since one of those times it got horribly caught between the gears of my bike and took quite some time to remove, I didn't make it in quite as early as I planned. Also, I walked around in the gym for a few minutes, and remembered that I don't really like gyms at all. This one is shiny and new, and is crammed really full of machines. The fake lighting and the gym muzak and the gym people...

Anyway - I just took a shower, and since I was about 15 minutes early for work, I decided to just get a coffee and go and sit in the park for about 10 minutes.

Blah blah blah

So today, for bike-yo-ass-to-work week, my office had this guy in to do bike tune-ups. He parked his van outside and set up a mobile bike tune-up shop. He makes a living by fixing bikes in Toronto during the summer, and fixing boats in Florida in the winter. Pretty sweet deal, if you are into bikes as much as this dude is.

Also, its a pretty sweet deal for me - since I had the bike-man pimp my ride for free. He raised the handle bars, tuned the gear cables, stopped the brakes from squealing etc...

In other news, the elders meeting that we went to on Friday night meant that I missed out on a site visit to the new wing of Pearson airport. I wouldn't generally care too much, but this one would have been pretty sweet - there is a new Richard Serra sculpture in the new wing that folks got to see...
Judging by pictures, it looks pretty cool.


Of course it is only a matter of time until the rest of the world (those that fly, at least) will get to see it too.

Monday

Today is one of those days that I forgot to bring my headphones to work.
It is also the first day of bike-yo-ass-to-work week in Toronto. To celebrate (not really, I think it had something to do with unions fighting managements), the TTC staged a surprise Monday morning strike. This means that all the of the inexperienced bikers (like myself) had to deal with bumper to bumper irate drivers. Luckily I take the 'back roads', and I didn't even notice a difference until I emerged from the cemetary onto Mt Pleasant. The endless stream of southbound traffic actually made it easier to cross the street and continue on my northbound way.

So - the weekend!?

Friday - running around... groceries... elders' meeting...
Saturday - running around buying a juicer (used), a bike helmet (necessary), a microphone (except the store was closed... so no microphone), visiting Debbie at her new apartment (pimped - rooftop patio overlooking Future's bakery)... etc...
Sunday - more running around, to Kinkos (evil), buying a bike lock (expensive), and then to church (good, as usual, and I didn't have to run sound 'cause Justin wanted to - special bonus was listening to Johnny Cash sing his devil-music for most of setup)... Afterwards we went to Fresh (with the yuppie/artster/hipster crowd) for dinner...

That is all...

Bring the God Rock

A somewhat interesting interview on the uncomfortable subject of 'Christian' Music.

Why does Pedro the Lion keep coming up when he clearly told us in Toronto that he is 'not !@#$%#*& Christian'?

Long Weekend...

Here goes...

Friday - heaps of laundry, and then we went over to Kevin and Don's. We looked through Kevin and Jen's sweet pictures of France. Don and Mike never made it back from playing frisbee with some teachers...

Saturday - Jen (a different Jen) and Adrienne came over for brunch... pancakes, fruit and coffee. Other fools that didn't make it missed out on that deliciousness. Afterwards we went to Yorkdale and watched Poseidon. It is about a ship that sinks, and every nightmarish underwater scenario that you can imagine. We also picked up Other Songs, by Ron Sexsmith, and Johnny Cash live at Folsom Prison...

Sunday - we went to church, and then a birthday party...

Monday - we rearranged the kitchen, and moved the desk and computer out of our bedroom. There is actually a little room in our bedroom now. Leah went to teach the flute, and I went shopping for Leah-friendly food for dinner. I also managed to make some Leah-friendly cookies, which is no mean feat... they are gluten, dairy, and sugar-free (they do have honey and maple syrup), and they actually taste good. After dinner, Leah went to Don and Kevin's to 'lay down some tracks'. I threw the new Danielson onto my walkman, bought a decaf coffee, and went for a walk. I managed to avoid getting my face shot off by fireworks wielding maniacs.
Ships is pretty sweet, by the way, in a Danielson kind of way...

Oh yeah - it is freakin' winter in Canada, folks.

Radiation Vibe

Lists like this are kinda scary...

I don't currently have a cellphone. Of course, I sit about 18 inches from a CRT aimed directly at my head for about 7.5 hours a day.

Thursday

Currently listening to 'Busting up a Starbucks [live at KEXP]', by Mike Doughty.

I can't seem to shake the tiredness of this week. I overslept today (I got up at 7.34 and managed to arrive at my desk by 8.34... pretty impressive, if you ask me.)

Tomorrow is the first Friday of our summer hours - which means I will get off work around lunchtime. I predict that the afternoon will be spent on laundry and other such activities... and then it is the long weekend.

Let's see... anything interesting to tell?...

Yesterday on the bus to work, this old black man was quietly singing songs - 'Then sings my soul, my Saviour, God, to Thee, how great Thou art...'

Also, check out the ghetto recording of a new Leah Hunter song here...

Sufjan interview

For those who didn't see this yesterday...

The Weekend

Friday night we went to Dylan's apartment to watch a movie with a bunch of church folks. At Blockbuster, the video-store girl took my Blockbuster card, and before I realized what was happening, she was on the phone with the store in St. Elmo's, in Chattanooga. I guess she wanted to verify something or other... anyway - while she was on hold I told her that I hadn't been to the Chat-town video store in about 7 years... so she hung up and called our usual Blockbuster (in Toronto...)

On the way back from the video store, Adrienne realized that she was not wearing the diamond ring that was from her grandmother. When we got back to the apartment, we searched everywhere for it. Eventually she and D took the flashlight and decided to retrace their steps...

Being a bunch of church kids, we prayed quickly before they set out, although I felt a little bit silly doing so. The rest of us kept looking around the apartment while they were gone. After about half an hour, they returned WITH THE RING! They found it lying beside the curb where we had crossed Spadina. Nobody could believe it. I'm pretty sure it was a real-deal miracle. A) they found it, in the dark, along the half a mile or so stretch that we had walked... B) nobody found it before them, on Spadina, on a Friday night.

Eventually, we watched the movie - the Jacket. It was a pretty good time-travel movie (despite the few holes and unexplained/irrelevant things that could have been tied together a little more.)

Saturday - we went to Jamie's housewarming party, which was fun.

Sunday - I ran sound at church (which means church took up the whole afternoon and evening...) It's funny that all of the non-volunteer sound running at my previous church prepared me for helping out at Freedomize...

Game

Check out this game.

The day that is Thurday

So we presented our proposal for the Orphan Spaces design competition at the Design Exchange yesterday. I was pretty pleased with our project, overall. I think we managed to pull off a fairly interesting idea, after being assigned a rather uninteresting site. Our panels looked great and our presentation went well. I definitely thought that we were one of the best 3 projects... (one of the other 2 actually ended up winning).

Afterwards, I was part of a discussion panel moderated by Ian Chodikoff (editor of Canadian Architect). Overall it went pretty well. I was pleased that Matt Blackett, of the m@b comic (and Spacing Magazine creative director and publisher - the guys that came up with the genius subway station buttons) was also on the panel.

Oh yeah - the whole event was kicked off by a photo-op visit and short speech by David Miller.

In other news, check out Pitchfork's review of Danielson's latest effort (9.1!)

Tuesday

Yesterday the fire alarm went off at work. I grabbed my wallet and an apple and headed downstairs.
Within the next twenty minutes, five fire-trucks showed up, as well as at least 2 ambulance vehicles, and every police car on this side of the city. A while later, news people started showing up with giant cameras.
Apparantly there was some sort of fire, and an elevator had some sort of problem (I still don't know what). Anyway, we sat outside for about 2 and a half hours, and then when it finally became clear that we would not be going back into the building, I went home. I had to buy some tokens, 'cause all of my stuff was inside, including my Metro-Pass...

After the days' excitement, I went down to U of T to work on some presentation stuff for a design competition. My team will be presenting our proposal tomorrow at the Design Exchange. Today I am tired.

That is all.