Truly Outrageous

I couldn't get to sleep last night... probably because I drank too much (coffee) at the Monday night Gem jam.

Hanging out at the Gem every week was definitely a good plan. Lisa likes to think of it as being a bit like the Seinfeld cafe, where she hangs out with her crazy friends in the TV show of her life...

That is if there was a TV show about her life, in which case I guess I would be in it. Instead, it is where she actually hangs out with her crazy friends - which I think is better...

Unfortunately, our usual waitress informed us last night that she is being written out of the script. Hopefully the new waitress will let Andrew play his Led Zeppelin records.

Vacation

I just signed up to go away to Loyala House for a 5 day retreat. I think this will be a pretty sweet break and a good time of silence and praying and walking and eating good food.

Riding the Rocket

Today this older lady got on the bus and realized she didn't have her metropass. She sat down in the first seat and started digging through her stuff in search of change/tokens. I'm pretty sure she didn't have either, 'cause she was taking forever, and getting pretty freaked out. After a few minutes I gave her some change and she paid her fare. It was embarrassing, but I've done the same thing before (forgot my pass) so I figured she could use the help.

Weekend update...

Let's see...

On Friday we rented Dark Days. We've seen it before, but Leah wanted to see it again (Leah could watch pretty much any documentary on repeat). I happily agreed to a repeat viewing. If you haven't watched it, I would highly recommend it. It is pretty crazy, and the special features making-of is pretty neat too.

Saturday - we went to the Red Guitar to see the Don Scott Trio. It was fun, although the venue was a little stiff (a little more yuppie than we're used to). By the end of the second set, a lot of people had finished eating and had left, so things seemed a little more relaxed. The band seemed to be having fun, and sounded great.

Afterwards, we stopped by Elena's birthday party. Katherine came with us for moral support, since the party was billed as having a 'tropical island theme'. It was good to see Elena. Some of her friends must think of us as that 90s looking hoodie-wearing couple that must not have ever even heard of Sex in the City.

Sunday - Leah went to work. Afterwards we went to Tasties for breakfast. It was damn good. Then we went to church.

Stories...

So I just finished reading Blankets. I don't know what to say about it...

So the book is pretty much autobiographical. It is centered around the author's relationship with Christianity, as well as his flowering relationship with a girl during his high school years (there is a bunch of other stuff in there too, especially about his family and when he was a kid). I was nervous reading it... both of those major themes are pretty much sacred ground, so it scares me to see where an author will take things.

All I can say is that the book is beautiful and sad. Beautiful because of the directness and honesty. Sad, I guess, because of the same things. I don't want to ruin it for you, in case you want to read it, so I won't say much more. [I will say that the book is a little graphic here and there, so don't be shocked if you do decide to read it] More than anything the book makes me [a] want to cry (that doesn't mean much, since pretty much anything approaching art makes me cry), and [b] it actually made me want to pray for Craig Thompson, the author. Not in an 'I want you to be/believe like me', condescending way, but more in an 'I ache to know and see God, and your story makes me ache for you to know and see God too' kind of way.

Movies

I'm not hugely into movies... but any movie that looks like it could combine Keanu, Wynona, and that Waking Life animation style (but without the seasickness)...

AND potentially not suck, is one that I am definitely interested in seeing...

Friday!!

So last night I went to the House of Lords to get my hair cut. A lot of people don't like that place, but I do. Whether you get a good haircut or not, it is open late, and has crazy loud techno beats going non-stop. Also, it has a long history of serving Toronto's rockers.

I also learned that the more fabulously gay the person cutting your hair is, the more better your hair cut will tend to be. Not to pigeonhole people, but I'm just saying - the dude with the self-inflicted mohawk mullet gave me the haircut that I wanted. We talked about the fact that I'm South African, from Georgia, and that my parents live in Waco (always a good factoid to mention, if you want to freak out some folks).

Afterwards, I went to HMV where Leah was playing some crazy 60's era John Cage type CD. For some reason, customers didn't seem that into browsing music to the sound of a single word, repeated for like 4 minutes. After some of that weirdness, she put on some classical guitar versions of Beatles tunes.

Rambling

So after my hard day of work yesterday (2-5pm), I stopped in to pick up a slice of pizza on the way home. I ate this highly nutritious dinner, and then decided to go for a walk, since I was still feeling a little out of it from my +/- 13 hours of sleeping.

I stopped in at Salvation Army and Goodwill, to scope out the CD/vinyl racks. As, usual, there was nothing worth buying (yes, the Alphaville record that I didn't buy last time was gone...), so I continued on to the Second Cup, where I purchased a decaf Americano. This is the slightly more expensive but way more better version of a decaf coffee. It is way more better because the teenagers that run the Second Cup at Bathurst have to make it fresh, instead of just serving you the 8 hour old decaf coffee from the coffee pot.

I decided to walk home through Cedarvale. On the way there, I ran into Lisa, who was biking her way home. We chatted briefly, and I continued on to the St Clair West subway entrance at the beginning of the Cedarvale Trail.

The trail is kind of sunk below the level of the city, and tucked behind and beneath the back yards of rich peoples homes. It is like a sunken back alley filled with trees and earth. The sounds of the city are still everywhere, but they move slightly towards the background.

Pretty much the entire trail was a solid path of ice. Some parts were the slick smooth ice of a rink or frozen pond, but large stretches were half melted crunchy ice, and much less dangerous. Even though there are busy streets overhead, and streetlights shining through the leaves, it is a beautiful place. You can smell the earth.

Today, I forgot my lunch at home. I will eat it for dinner instead. I bought a sandwich at Subway, and I picked up a book that I had ordered at the library. Tonight I will get a hair cut. My life is exciting! You should keep on reading about it... =)

Let's say (part ii)...

Let's say you woke up at 3am with a headache. And then let's say at 6:30am, when it was time to get up you still had a headache...

So I came in to work at 2pm, after sleeping until around 12:30. Whilst having a headache sucked, not coming in to work until 2pm is something that I should do more often...

Last night I spoke with Reeve. It was cool. I have been listening to his songs quite a bit over the last few days. I have great brothers and parents all of whom I never see.

Let's say...

Let's say you woke up one morning and decided that you weren't going to go to work. And let's say that instead of going to work, you decided to go out for a large, leisurely breakfast.

Spread out in the booth, several newspapers to read, comics to linger over with all the time in the world. Eggs, bacon, pancakes, sausage, and strong coffee, the works. This despite your concern for the cholesterol.

But let's just say.

And let's say you had a booth by the window. And let's say that the day was overcast, but there was still some sun, enough sun to make the day feel young and ripe. And let's say you finished eating and left the restaurant feeling light and easy, and you decided to just kick around. Just the way kids in the movies do, kids who walk along the train tracks with walking sticks and no appointments to keep, the world filled with an undefinable feeling of anything-can-happen.

What would you do then?

Let's say. Let's just say.

Jonathan Goldstein, Wiretap - A World of Possibility (2006,02,10)

Type a question for help

I just noticed that Outlook has a little box in the top right corner that says 'Type a question for help'. I'd never noticed it before, so I gave it a try.

I was surprised to receive, almost instantly, 30 results from Office Online, all of which I assume offer some insight into the question at hand; 'why am i here'.

I have yet to read any of the full articles, but I will give you the titles of a few...

Send and receive messages
Create and print a single envelope
Delete a record permanently
Display tips and messages through the Office Assistant
Create a contact
Don't prompt me to work offline

I'm not sure whether that last one was an offer of advice, or some sort of protest. Either way, I am fairly sure that we don't have to worry about robots developing self-awareness and enslaving us all for at least a few more years.

Weekend Update

The short version:

It was damn cold.

The long version:

Friday night - we hung out with 'the team', essentially an assortment of past roommates. Mike gave us a copy of his CD, which is really damn good. I can't wait for the official CD release at the REX; if you want to hear some great music, you should come to the show with Leah and I. The band is great, Mike's songs are great, and Dave Binnie (a sax player from NY) will be there as a special guest. You will most likely freak out, even if you aren't really into jazz.

For real. Check out Mike's site... two shows in Toronto, and then one in Ottawa and one in Montreal.

On a side note, the CD artwork was all done by Steve Byram, who you probably know best as the guy that did that Beastie Boys CD cover with the plane on it back in the day. Anyway, he's done a bunch of other packaging design too, and Mike's CD looks freaking awesome.

Saturday, we went to Kensington and bought groceries, despite the sick weather. We also went to the grocery store near our house - and then made lasagna... Mike and Don came over and I ate an uncomfortable amount of food.

Sunday - After Leah's work, we went to Queen street, where Leah bought a darn fine pair of converse all-stars. They are black hightops (the extra high ones), with olive green laces. And they also have flowers on the inside. Then we went to hang out at Chapters, where I read the first chapter or so of Blankets. It seemed pretty sweet, but I am suspicious because of all the rave reviews the book got...
(not that I am too cool for rave reviews, but when the subject matter of something is largely spiritual, and more specifically addresses issues involving western Christian culture and the church, then I find that the more vague and fuzzy and, well, anti-Christian a book is, the more favorable the reviews...) Anyway - I think I'm going to order it from the library, so I'll let you know how it goes...

Friday!

Last night, Leah and I went to eat Indian food with her boss. He is a really nice Korean professor/genius who does things involving plastics.

Afterwards, we went to see Kate's play. I think I could do with seeing it at least 5 more times, since I found it hard to understand all at once. It was adapted from a poem by her dad, so once I thought about it, I realized that it was appropriate and cool that it operated at an emotional level as much as an I-can-figure-this-all-out-in-my-head level. But I'm not that good at reading poetry (I lack the skills and the practice that reading a lot of good poetry takes), and I also have to read things multiple times to start to digest them. So it makes sense that I wanted to see the play again!

All in all I really enjoyed it - and the more I think about it, the more I liked it. Also, we got to see Kate dance, albeit briefly!

In other news, Steven Bates should be on air in a few minutes.

Blah Blah Blah

Not much to say, but I'm trying to post a little more frequently...

Leah and I went out for Hungarian food last night. Not your typical Valentines Day fare, but that's alright with me. The restaurant has a wood-paneled-like-your-grandparents-house atmosphere, and the menu is made up of meat-and-potatoes-like-your-grandmother-made dishes.

The last few days have involved going through a new emergency department and specifying a number of things for each and every room. Things like what the flooring is made of, what size the door is, how many toilet paper holders the room needs, whether the glass in the door frame should be tempered or regular glass (if there is a door frame, and if it has glass in it...)

For some reason I didn't learn how to do any of this in school. Most of what we did in school involved at least low-level brain functions.

In other news, we are going to see Kate's play tomorrow. It is probably going to be really smart and cool, so I may or may not understand it!

The Last True Punk Band in America

So this is where I would usually post my 'Weekend Update', but instead (since nothing of note happened this weekend, really) I am posting some news that I found out about today, which may or may not interest you.

Apparantly the band Havalina is no longer a band. The likelihood of this meaning anything at all to you is probably pretty slim. I don't remember why I ever bought their album Space, Love and Bullfighting, but it is well worth a listen (especially if you have a tolerance for the, um... slightly unusual). If you have high-speed internet (90mb), you can download We Remember Anarchy, a 26 song collection spanning their 12 year history, here. If you like what you hear, they have their album Russian Lullabies available there too.

Winter Music

Since winter is back, I decided I would post this song. I need to rerecord it at some point, and make some changes here and there, but you can listen to it as is, for what it's worth.

In other listening news, it's been a while since I fired up some Friday morning Steven Bates, over at the WAWL.

Break Like That

I couple of days ago I went to the post office after work, to pick up a package. I didn't know what to expect, since I was pretty sure it was from Jesse.

The customs declaration label read something along the lines of 'the greatest LP record ever', and I must say that when I got home and opened it, I was inclined to agree.

Thanks Jesse!! The pictures on that poster fragment inside leave me speechless.

Why?

Some days are so long...

Logo Design

So last year I entered a logo-design competition for the New Orleans Restoration Fund, an entertainment industry charity raising money for NO. I thought that some of the winning designs were pretty weak (ie not as good as mine!), but since I am not really a graphic designer, I didn't waste too much energy on it.

I kept checking back, 'cause they said they were going to post all the entries in December, and I wanted to take a look. In December, nothing was posted, and I forgot about it. Anyway - today I went to take a look, and I am listed as one of the third place winners. Now - since this is not on the main page, which clearly states that there were 9 winners (I would be sliding in at number 11), I'm going to assume that I was at least considered/short-listed as a potential third place winner!

The other funny thing is that the design shown was my initial concept, which I submitted before refinement (you could submit multiple designs, so I figured I'd submit my initial idea, as well as future iterations of it). The design which I preferred is nowhere to be seen. In retrospect, maybe the simplicity of the first one was better.

The Weekender

Friday - beer etc. with some people from church. We met at the FreeTimes, where there was some sort of function (bar mitzvah?!) happening, so we relocated to the not-so-nineties-anymore Oasis. The dirt and wax-dripping-encased bottles/candle-holders were replaced by a less slacker-era interior. The evening was fun, and Leah managed to drink a pitcher of sangria (at least according to the bill, before we sent it back to be corrected).

Saturday - The great weather (wet, cold, grey, and windy) continued. We did laundry (fun!), and then went to see that Johnny Cash movie that everybody watched at least a month ago. It was pretty good, I must say.

Sunday - I finally bought some speakers for our record player. I visited a couple of secondhand stores, but eventually went to Wal-Mart (evil). I did find some good records, but I didn't have any cash on me, and couldn't bring myself to use Interac for a 99c purchase, even if it was to pick up Alphaville's Forever Young. I realize now that this was a grave misjudgment - I can only hope that the album is still there when I go back (otherwise, I will have to borrow it from Pat, who owns at least one copy of every record released in the eighties).

Church was great. Jeremy and I set up sound, and everything actually worked. Leah lead worship, and it awesome. Our pastors teamed up for a tag-team introduction to the book of Revelation (not one of my favorite books of the bible, but I suspect their 4-week series will help me to get something out of it. Apparantly apocolyptic literature was a standard genre in the Jewish tradition of the time, and the book follows a fairly structured form...)

That is all. If you live in the St Clair West hood, see you at the Gem tonight...

February

On the streetcar this morning, I 'excuse me'-and-pushed my way to the back, where there were a couple of empty seats. I was reading Blue Like Jazz (recommended, by the way - as if you haven't heard, or read it yet, for that matter), and drinking my flavoured, cheap coffee.

A kid and his dad got on, and the kid got the last empty seat next to me. The dad kept worrying that his son was being too loud, and that he was hitting me with his kid backpack, 'cause he kept turning around to look out the back window, and then back again to say stuff to his dad. He was pretty excited at one point by the multitude of birds sitting on the powerlines along the side of the street. He told his dad to look, and, as his dad was responding for him to not be so loud (the kid was not loud at all - so it was pretty funny) and to sit down, I heard saying to himself as he stared up out the window - 'all those black dots' and then I kind of laughed when he wondered, 'what are they doing?'