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.

Weekend Update

The usual...

Friday night - I can't remember?! I think we stayed at home and watched the rest of The Films of Charles and Ray Eames, Vol 2 (maybe)

Saturday - I went to work on a design competition with some people. Since we have to present the thing this Wednesday, and had yet to really draw anything, we pretty much worked on it for most of the day. We did swing by Kensington for lunch, which was fun (despite the cold weather that stuck around all weekend).

That evening, Leah went to pick out a kitten with an Oakwood Cat Rescue lady. Instead of picking one, she picked two - which is cool, 'cause they are brother and sister, and keep each other company. Their names are Petrie and Mable, and they are pretty darn cute... (pictures will be forthcoming).

Sunday - I went to Nove Era and read Reservation Blues, while Leah went to work. I also started work on what will become my new website. It will be pretty cool, I think, if I ever get it done.

We then went to Jeremy and Pat's house for pancakes. Afterwards, we went to church. Rik Leaf led worship, which was pretty cool. Afterwards, Jen came over to see the kittens and have some dinner.

The end.

Weekend Update

So, it's that time again when I cast my memory back over the few days past and see if I can remember anything interesting from the weekend to relate to you all...

Friday night - Leah and I walked to two hardware stores, both of which were closed. I needed some wire cutters in order to finish building a small table for our record player.

Saturday - I went back to the nearest hardware store, and asked the little old lady (?!) running the store if she had anything that would cut through steel cable. We looked at what she had on display, and then she went into the back and brought out these tres expensive wire clippers. I figured I might as well spend the extra $15 and buy the ones that would actually work.
I then went to a meeting with some other U of T students/grads to talk about our design ideas for a competition we are entering. The process involved sitting and drinking coffee, walking around, joking a lot, eating some lamb sausage hot-dogs, root-beer, gelato, and a fair amount of frustration. We came up with some pretty good ideas though.

When I went home, Leah and I finished work on the table. Actually, we almost finished work on it, and as I was doing the last bit of tightening up the steel cable, two of the clips holding everything together slipped. I tried cutting them off of the cable, so that I could reattach everything, but there was just no way. I ended up cutting the cable, leaving it 6 inches too short to be of any use. I was extremely frustrated, and will have to trek out to Canadian Tire again, at some point... The up side is that the table was looking pretty sweet before it fell apart... you can check out a sneak preview here, if you wish...

To celebrate, we worked on tax forms and a letter of recommendation that a friend needs for his grad school application...

Sunday - I finished up said letter. I also had time for some coffee/reading/annoyingly-loud lost 80s weekend radio at Nova Era...
Leah and I then went to an organ recital at the Anglican church where Leah has been rocking the flute for the last 5 years worth of Sunday mornings. Dr Willis Noble tore up some Bach and Schumann fugues for the 15 or so old folks that were in attendance. It is weird - he could be one of the best organists in Canada, and his pay-what-you-can recital rocks a pretty close to empty church.

We ended up skipping a good chunk of church. Afterwards, we went home. I went to bed, and Leah went to Sneaky's to see Julie Doiron...

Sufjan Song Alert

I haven't even listened to it yet, but I will still recommend that you go here at once to download a free new Sufjam.

Thursday

Work is going OK today. I am working on a submission for the Ministry of Health - basically turning various plans into various diagrams, and throwing them into InDesign.

I am almost done with Surprised by Joy... it is pretty good. I will then read Reservation Blues, which I picked up at the library yesterday... ... ...

Sorry to bore you - I don't have much of interest to say.

Updated...

So...

I am back at work after a couple of days off. My annoying cough was joined by a headache on Sunday night, which was unfortunately still hanging around in the morning.

Occasionally, my head hurts until I puke. After that, I usually feel slightly better. I slept most of Monday morning, and then Leah and I did some laundry in the afternoon... We went for a short walk that night too, 'cause our place is too small to be in for the whole day.

Tuesday was a little better. I pretty much just felt really tired the whole time. In the afternoon, we decided to go and see a movie... again, pretty much just to get out of the house.

Turns out it was one of those 'Moms and their babies' matinees. We had no idea; the movie listings in NOW said nothing about it... So we ended up watching a Woody Allen film with a bunch of babies. The whole time I was trying not to cough - I didn't want to be attacked by zealous mothers protecting their babies from infection. I'm pretty sure I was the only guy in the place over the age of 2.

Turns out the movie was nothing like I expected. It was good, but really dark, and not at all funny. I don't see how a baby could have enjoyed it at all.

Architecture career advice...

I've been going about it all wrong...

Heroes

Go to the Loitering Heroes myspace page at once. If you like what you hear, then go to Sneaky D's this Sunday; they will be rocking a jam.

Next...

I finished reading The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven. I recommend you do the same.

Long Weekend Update

Hope everyone had a good Easter weekend. It was a long and busy one...

Thursday night - Leah played the flute with Ohbijou, at the Boat. It was a good show.

Friday night - Leah played with Ohbijou again; at a house party / fund-raiser for a dog who needs surgery. I stayed at home. Since we were not able to use St Andrews for a Good Friday service, our church held small Easter services around the city. We hosted one at our house, at 2am. It was simple and candlelit; communion, reading through the passion story, and a hymn. Then we had tea and banana-bread, and went to bed later than I have in a long long long time.

Saturday - we had an Easter barbecue at Don and Kevin's house.

Sunday - we held the second annual Easter Feaster for our church small group. And then church. Afterwards, Leah and I went out for Korean food, and then bought a couple of used CDs. I finally bought Automatic for the People.

Today my throat kinda hurts...

In less boring news...

You can/should come to the Boat tonight, for two reasons.

The first is to see Ohbijou play (and Leah playing flute with them...)
The second is to witness the absolutely freakish venue that is the Boat...

Taxing

Sometimes when you are filing taxes, you have questions. This is especially the case when you are filing multiple sets of taxes, for multiple people, for multiple countries.

So sometimes there are numbers that you have to phone. And not just the regular automatic 1-800 tax question numbers. I'm talking about obscure long distance numbers to someone in some cubicle in some grey government building in Pennsylvania...

And apparantly they do not have any sort of answering machine, or any way to put you in line on hold.

Their line is just busy.

All the time.

The good news is that I suspect that I can make up to US$80,000 before I have to pay tax on it in the US... (since I already pay tax on it here...)

[edit] I finally got through (after phoning every ten minutes or so for about 1n hour), and after about 30 minutes on hold (long distance), I was promptly told that they would need to speak to my wife, and not to me. Even though I do all of the taxes, our return is filed jointly, and I am her freaking husband... I don't mind paying taxes, but I wish I didn't have to waste my time and effort wringing answers like blood from a freaking rock... And now I have to get Leah to phone and ask them questions that she doesn't even know anything about... [/edit]

Wednesdaze

My blog is getting more and more boring each day, as I seem to have less and less to say...

Last night we went to Don and Kevin's house for tacos... in celebration of Jenn's birthday. I went to the Beer store across the street from their place (it is still funny that you buy beer here from a place called 'The Beer Store'). I passed an old lady pushing her old-lady-shopping-cart down the sidewalk. She was frail and bent over, and had a huge case of beer in her cart.

I finished reading Cold Sassy Tree yesterday. It is a pretty good book, I think. Especially if you just want to read some stories...
Today I started reading The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven.

I wish I had some good new music to listen to.

Weekend Update

The usual...

Friday - we had someone from church over for dinner... it was really fun.
Saturday - we went to Sears and bought a baby gate. Later that evening we went to a house-warming/birthday party.
Sunday - I slept until 10:40, so I was kinda out of it the whole day. We stopped in at a baby shower that afternoon (hence the baby gate). And then we went to help set up church at around 2.30. I ran the sound, which went OK.
We tried to go to a concert after church (Final Fantasy and some other people), but since we never seem to be organized enough to buy tickets in advance we couldn't get in. So we went to the Moon Bean, and then rented a movie. We watched some of it and then went to sleep.

Today it is sunny and, well, warm, I guess. You wouldn't call it warm unless you live in Canada. But I didn't wear long-johns or a hat or gloves or a scarf... just a sweater and a coat...

Maybe I will do all my taxes tonight. Maybe.

Indie-world gossip update...

It was a joke... there is no baby, but there is a new Sufjan album on the way (Illinois Part II, kind of...)

Indie-world gossip

Did I mention that Sufjan Stevens and Rosie Thomas are having a baby?..

Wednesday

It's 2.30ish. The productive part of my work-day feels like it is over... I have spent the whole day so far working on the same building elevations, and there is only so much I can do before my brain starts going in circles.
So unless I can bash my thoughts out of a rut, and try to approach things from a different angle, I don't know if I will get much further.

Yesterday we carried a futon frame to Rachel's house. We seem to go through occasional bouts of clearing stuff out, getting more organized, and rearranging furniture/pictures/stuff... We also took some of Rachel's old cushions, and ripped out their guts to stuff some cushion covers we got as a wedding present (yes, 2.5+ years ago).

Blah, blah, blah...

Oh yeah... I realized a while ago the interesting fact that I have accumulated a handful of REM cd's (OK, 6 is maybe even more than a handful). I also own a half-read book of Flannery O'Conner short stories, and am currently re-reading Cold Sassy Tree (from the library). I never really left the South, I just kind of didn't go back, so it is funny to catch myself subconsciously collecting odd stuff from Georgia. I seem to have also, for the past 3 years or so, always had a half-full container of corn-meal in the kitchen, even though I pretty much never use the stuff for anything.

Cold Sassy Tree reminds me of an old store near Cohutta, one that is probably shut-down by now, across the street from a straight-up farmer's restaurant that my Dad took me to once. Inside the general store, on the wall, is an old picture of an airplane, standing in front of the same old store. The owner can tell you of how his father (or was it even his grandfather?) bought the plane, and ended up having no real use for it. They eventually took the wings off of it, and would ride it up and down the street.

The end.

Weekend+ Update

Friday - Rented I Heart Huckabees. A darn funny movie (despite the odd tasteless moment here and there).

Saturday - Leah went to record all day. I went to Sneaky D's with the White Stripes (Dr & Ac). None of us could finish our freakishly large Mexican inspired breakfasts. I had to be at a meeting at 4, so I didn't really have time to go home. Instead, I looked for sneakers along Queen street. Once I discovered that the meeting was cancelled, I went to Home Depot instead.

Sunday - Church.

Monday - Work. The Gem.

Throwies

My weekend update will come later... but in the mean time, I found a new reason to visit Active Surplus.

Too much rock (need to sleep)

On Wednesday, Leah and I went to see a show at Massey Hall. Her flute student's high school band was playing in this massive Toronto District School Board band extravaganza. I'm talking about three hours of high school bands and choirs, featuring everything from your standard band medleys, to a steel drum band, to four hundred kids singing songs from Evita.

And then last night (after dinner with Leah's boss and his family), we went to the Rivoli to see some bands from Guelph play. I think it must be the nineties in us that appreciates the vaguely hippied-out beard rocking indie scene, as opposed to the slightly stuck-up and trying oh-so-hard to be artsy cool Toronto music crowd.

Or maybe its just that, without all the pretentiousness, the music tends to be better.

Unfortunately, we didn't get to see the last band play, which is really the one that we wanted to see... but that seems to be the usual story when you are a working stiff. Also, Katherine showed up unexpectedly, which was fun.

In other news...

Da da da da da da...

The great thing about iTunes is that everybody at work can share their music. And for some reason I keep listening to early/mid-nineties Snoop Dogg and Dr Dre... (and the odd Sean Paul jam too.)

Lunch break

Today I walked up to the library during lunch. The weather is nice. On the way back I walked down a residential back street. At one house, the wooden stairs up to the front porch had fallen down. An old lady was lying face down, her body stretched awkwardly over the steps and porch, with her head resting on the bottom step.

There was a young man crouched down beside her. I asked if they needed help, and he told me that her husband was inside calling the ambulance, and that the stairs had obviously collapsed.

It was so weird because the whole scene was so calm and out of place. It looked almost like a film set or something. Since I couldn't really see any way to help, I kept on walking...

Weekend update

It's Monday...

Friday - I don't think we did anything. I can't really remember.

Saturday - We went to Goodwill and Salvation Army and bought some clothes. We also went to get Leah's guitar from Mike's house. He showed us the kickass review and writeup he got in the paper for his album. 3.5/4 stars.
That evening we went over to Jeremy's to pick up an 8mm camera.

Sunday - Laundry and church. Church was a lot of work, since it was our turn for setting up and tearing down, Leah was leading worship, and I (due to my lack of organizing/scheduling abilities) ended up running sound. It all worked out OK though (despite my lack of skillz). Sometimes I forget how so many churches often tend to miss the point, and forget that ours is pretty darn neat (we actually refer to 'the Bible' quite a bit, for example...)

Rebar

I had not heard of this group, but their Park(ing) project is pretty neat.

Idiot people...

This morning I found out about these two separate incidents of infuriating stupidity...

The sidewalk carving outside St Andrews subway station has been ground away by the city... (I especially like the response from St Andrews church, as they proudly encourage everybody's idea of Christians as dumbass uncultured rich white people who don't give a crap...)

[edit] I don't mean to ignore the work that St A's does feeding and helping to house people... I just don't know why this is presented by them as an either/or scenario - as in we can house and feed this guy OR we can respect him and his art.[/edit]


And, on the other side of the world, more rich dumbass white people paint out massive chunks of a thriving street art scene.

Hallelujah

Hostages freed!!! We were just praying for these guys last night...

Tuesday

Hmmm... Not much to say today.

Last night at the Gem was fun, as usual. If you live anywhere near Davenport and Ossington then you should try to make it out occasionally.

I hope to be able to go to this festival, if only to see Danielson, SF59, and Miranda Stone... (a little expensive though).

What else?
I keep listening to a Dear Nora & CFTPA cover of a Missy Elliot song called Hot Boyz. It is strange and good. I want to hear the new CFTPA album...

It's Monday...

so that means it's time for the weekend update.

Friday - we went to Don and Kevin's to hang out with the team, minus Kevin and Jen. I was really tired, so it was less fun than it should have been.

Saturday - We went to the library in the morning - I checked out a couple of books. After stopping in at Nova Era, Leah had to go to Mike's to play music. I went with her, just to help carry gear. After listening to some of the Loitering Heroes recordings-in-progress, I took off. I wanted to go to Mitchell's (Christian bookstore) and IKEA, and I thought I could do both by heading over to Islington. I made the trek out to the middle of nowhere, only to discover that Mitchell's is pretty lame and mildly depressing. At least that's how I found it this time.

For some reason everything is arranged according to some bizarre cataloging system that means you cannot find ANYTHING that you are looking for without asking for help. Also, I'm not convinced there is much there worth looking for. There were a few books on post-modern emerging church stuff that I couldn't be bothered with, and one on contemplative prayer, that held my interest for about 2 seconds, until I realized it was a 'new', 'contemporary', 'contextualized' version of The Practice Of The Presence of God, by Brother Lawrence. Of course, they didn't seem to have the Brother Lawrence version of the book (which, I might add, is probably 5-10 times shorter).

Afterwards I got back on the bus in the hopes that it would take me to the terrifying blue and yellow world of IKEA. Instead, I rode the bus around the Islington and Lakeshore area for about an hour, finally ending up back at the subway station. I didn't really mind though, and I managed to finish Paul Auster's Red Notebook.

That night we ended up watching Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Kazakhstan, with Don and Mike. It was my first exposure ever to Harry Potter, and I thought it was pretty decent.

Sunday - laundry, and then church. Setting up all the sound gear was smoother than ever, and church was good, as usual. Afterwards we went to see this band that a friend is in - so today I am tired, as usual.

Kalimba Rock

I was happy to find this feature about Laura Barrett in local trash-rag Eye Magazine today.

Reading, 'riting, and rocking out...

I finally finished GenX this morning on the bus... I was getting tired of rereading it, so I had to finish it in order to be done. I agree with sentiments that Dougie C. tends to write stories along similar parallel lines. I still think that LAG whoops the papery buttocks of his other books.
I am looking forward to seeing the park he is co-designing for downtown TO.

Next topic...
I have started a writing project of sorts. If it goes anywhere at all, maybe you will one day hear more about it.
If all goes well, I will be part of a design team taking part in a design charette competition at the Design Exchange. It will be good to engage the cob-webbed spatial design corners of my mind, assuming I can find my way back to them.

And Rocking...
Last night L and I went to see Dan Howlett and Joe Grass play at the Red Guitar. Danger rocked out on bass guitar. Although I regret not sleeping as much as I'd like to, it was worth seeing them play - they are all darn good, and occasionally there songs reminded me of James Taylor / Mark Knopfler / Bruce Cockburn... even Bob Dylan. Just that old-guy vibe of writing and playing good songs, telling good stories, and in this case, appreciating the landscape of small-town Canada.
Today I am listening to U.S.E.'s album, turned way up.

Recording

Leah and I both woke up in a bad mood. I don't know why - maybe grey and windy and cold has something to do with it. I put on some Tom Waits while she was in the shower, and it seemed to fit the weather perfectly.

Last night we did not make it to the Gem. I hope to get back there soon, as I haven't been in two weeks now. I miss it.

Instead, we went to an apartment down on Queen West so that Leah could play some flute parts for an Ohbijou song. It is a great song (in the key of twee...), and Leah had fun playing. It sounded good. Turns out the guy doing the recording produced the Final Fantasy album. His apartment is a crazy mess of computers, mics, and assorted gear. Owen's harpsichord is even sitting in what I think was the bedroom, amidst instruments, posters, and more gear. It was neat watching him record; he seemed to make it effortless.

I sat in the corner, by the window-sill of ironically ghetto beer cans (the can design reminded me of store-brand diet cola - all cheap and gold and silver...), and answered questions about what I do and how Leah and I met. It was fun.

Week update

So, last week was pretty great. I left on Monday afternoon for Guelph - I took the Greyhound, which is not unpleasant when the sun is shining and the bus is pretty much empty. I listened to Sufjan's Michigan album, which seemed like the perfect soundtrack...

I got in to Guelph, and then took a cab to Loyola House, which is about 10 minutes from downtown. It is on some farmlands that have been owned by Jesuits since 1916. The house is basically a residential wing of small bedrooms, a wing of offices for staff, and a kitchen/dining/lounge section. There is also a chapel. The whole place is furnished in a simple style that reminded me of pictures of Shaker farmhouses. The lounge has a fireplace, large windows overlooking farm fields, rocking chairs, and blankets. The dining room is always open, and is stocked with coffee, tea, cookies and fruit. My room was basically a bed, a sink, a desk and chair, some drawers, and a rocking chair.

Everyday you are served 3 meals of amazingly good, simple food. There is mass at 11:30 each morning. And you meet with a director once a day for about 20 minutes. At this meeting you talk about each day, what you prayed about, and where you thought God was speaking to you and directing you. The directors are all old Jesuits, and they suggest scriptures to read and pray through. This meeting is pretty much the only time you talk every day.

For the rest of the time you can do whatever you want to. Mostly people pray, sleep, and write. I also went on long walks through snowy farm fields, and then later in the week through really wet thawing fields. I took a bunch of pictures too, which I will post once I get my film developed (yes, old school pictures).

That's about it. I got back on Saturday afternoon. It was a bit of a shock to go from such quiet right back into Toronto. I am trying to keep a little bit of quiet inside of me! I think God directed me in certain ways, and I am going to try to continue praying (listening) for these areas of my life.

Anyway - I will post more later. And pictures. I would recommend checking out the Jesuit retreat scene, if you ever get a chance. Zellyn and Jesse C., I think you guys would especially be into it.

Vacation / Retreat

I will be at Loyala House for the week. If you like, you can pray for me while I am there. That would be cool.

I will miss my wife.

Church

Last night we had our weekly church small group meeting, known at our church as 'Living Room'... It was, as usual, hilarious and fun. Everyone seems a little worn right now; maybe because we're in the last weeks of winter, maybe because school (for those in school) is dragging into the post reading-week stretch of the semester. Anyway - it was great to get together and pray and sing and eat.

And laugh. Dylan told some hilarious stories of his encounters with the world of hard-core music; illustrated with some informative dancing/flailing move demonstrations. He also told us of some crazy punk friends and there casual attitude towards decorating the house that they rent (spraypaint), and there casual attitude towards learning how to tattoo (each other and themselves). As usual, his animated story-telling style made things about 12 thousand times funnier.

It is great to go to a church that is fun, where you can talk about things like guys buying girls pants, knitting, the myspace emo factor, portfolios and interviews, mouth-breathing nerds, 'mouth-breathing nerd' hipsters, hipster typologies in general, the city sketch factor, baby beavers, 'spirit fingers', and pretty much anything at all of interest, and also be encouraged/uplifted by it all.

Here We Are Now...

I recently got around to replacing my lost library card - so I have been reading again. I seem to go through cycles where I read a lot, and then go illiterate for months at a time.

Anyway - I just picked up Gen X at lunch time. I have been wanting to reread it for a while, and a copy must have recently rotated into the local library branch up the street.

Every now and then I seem to find myself up against the idea of Generation X again. I'm barely old enough to qualify, so I feel a half step removed from the concept. But maybe not far enough away from it to be able to get a good overall look at it. What I do know is that Gen X seemed to have a lot to shout about at one point, and that all of that shouting somehow ended up being turned into cool music, books, and movies. While I like cool music, books, and movies, and think that they are important (we listen/read/watch to know we're not alone), I sometimes wonder what happened. I mean, Gen X issues were expressed a lot, but never really addressed in any real way, were they?! Everyone eventually moved on to the next thing. I guess I need to be a little more specific; maybe I will in a future post...

Anyway - I'm sure I will be finished reading the book shortly, so if you know of any other books that you think I should read (not necessarily about Gen X, just good books in general), please comment accordingly...

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?'

Flash

Today I taught a Flash tutorial for the Graduate Architecture, Landscape and Design Student Union. I met Leah at the Cellular and Biomolecular Research building for lunch. The building is pretty neat, and has trees inside it.

The lecture went pretty well, I think - and I managed to cover everything I planned to. Definitely enough to get people started.

Weekend Update

For some reason, I seemed to have a headache and a foul mood for most of the weekend. Despite this sucking, there are a few higlights worth mentioning.

Lots of sleep. Although it seems I could always sleep more, I went to bed early every night of the weekend.

Leah had Saturday off. This seems like it hasn't happened in forever.

I went to the dentist. This isn't that exciting or fun, but it is notable, since I haven't seen a dentist in a very long time. Instead of reprimanding me, the dentist complained that there was nothing wrong with my teeth for which he could charge me extra, and how this was ridiculous considering how long it had been. Also, somewhere in the last 5 years, dentists (like everybody else) went all digital (film-free, and pretty much instant, x-rays).

Indian food all you can eat buffet.

Church. The new associate pastor rocks the pulpit with a pretty sweet lecturer/rapper style. The guy has a Master's from Cambridge, and is finishing up his PhD, and it shows. He preached the entire book of Jude.

Church also featured some pretty sweet post-service praying with Jon B.

SARS3

It is crazy when you meet with hospital staff, and they start talking about designing for pandemics. Apparently, some places are installing medical gases throughout the Emergency department. By throughout, I mean that even the corridors have Oxygen/Vacuum outlets, so the hallways can be lined with patient stretchers.

For the day when SARS3 hits, 'and it is coming'.


...nor the pestilence that stalks in the darkness, nor the plague that destroys at midday...

Coolio...

and my brother...

4oclock

The work day should be 1 hour shorter.

Last night marked the first weekly St Clair West Freedomize Drink/Eat Night at the Gem. There was a decent turn-out and it was good times. Conversation ebbed and flowed, but always seemed to return to the topic of how far away you had to live before you were no longer welcome at the weekly event.

It also marked the dawning of a new age of Canadian government. Everybody seems quite excited about how the old government sucked or how the new government will suck.

Today at lunch I purchased R.E.M's Out of Time and The Mission Film Score, by Ennio Morricone.

Weekend

I think this blog needs retiring, since it no longer serves any useful purpose...

This weekend was weird; I didn't have to do much, but then I ended up feeling kind of aimless and anxious, like I was wasting my free time.

Highlights... Dinner at Mike's (he and Leah spent Friday afternoon and Saturday recording Leah), and then going to Clinton's (not great) with the whole gang (great). I had coffee while everyone drank beer etc.

Saturday - we went to a show/party at Don and Kevin's. What can I say about the show?.. Leah and I (and Mike and Kat, for that matter) felt quite old. We did get to see Laura Barrett, which made the whole evening worthwhile. She played one of those thumb pianos, and it sounded amazing. Everything else was closer to performance art than music (Yes I understand that that's probably the point, but I prefer my music as music). Also, I tend not to like entire sets of covers, and the unfortunate 'I made most of this at home so I'm singing to a CD' phenomenon of Karaoke shows. Actually, the Blankket guy's cover songs sound good, but there's a lot going on that's not about the music.

It made me realize that I like music as self-expression - music where people put themselves out there in the songs. Art about art, or art about the medium of the art, or art about the viewer's experience of the art; all of that stuff can be interesting, but I can rarely connect at any deeper level. I think people are scared to be themselves, and especially scared to do so in any artistic medium. Easier and safer to do something weird and unusual, and maybe ironic, and keep your heart where it's safe.

Other highlights included lunch at the Moonbean, and of course church.

The Hook-up

Yesterday Leah put her freshly developed employee discount to work and hooked me up with the Microphones' "The Glow" pt2. She also expanded her ever growing (in chronological order) Joni Mitchell catalog, and hooked up some jams from the classical music dept.

Sweet.

Blah, blah, blah

Music at church last night was great... the new worship leader tore it up.

I this interesting article today, about Japanese kids who don't get out much. I also rediscovered the work of this kinda creepy artist, who makes giant statues - it would be neat to see in person, I think (especially the boy at the bottom of the page).

Also, if you've never tried Clover Leaf Flaked Light Tuna - Spicy Thai Chili flavour, it makes a good lunchtime snack (recommended with a roll and some chocolate milk)

Weekend Update

Last night was the last night for our founding pastor and his wife to be at church. He got to preach, play the drums, and lead us into communion one last time. Afterwards there was a great party for the two of them. It was like a big wedding reception/ awards show.

Today he starts into his movie-making career full-time (he just secured funding for his first feature film last Thursday.)

We will miss the Cantelons, but it is great to see them following God into their crazy future.

Happy New Year

OK - so a long overdue update on vacation, Christmas and the New Year. I will try to keep it short, and just go over the noteworthy stuff.

We flew to Halifax, where we had dinner with Matthew at a pub. People were dancing to the live band, which I'm sure must have something to do with the Irish blood out east.

Matt's apartment is like a burglar's worst nightmare. The front entrance is filled with boots and Brink's security jackets, and there are bullet-proof vests on the kitchen table.

Middleton was fun. We watched TV and movies, ate a lot, hung out with the family, and got loads of loot for Christmas. We where even given a new suitcase, to get the extra stuff home, which turned out to be very necessary. I ended up with a whole new batch of music to listen to, which is sweet.

I talked to my whole family on the same day, which these days is about as crazy as everybody being in the same room. Everyone seems to be doing fine.

We visited Jacqueline Faber, who lives on a lake in the middle of the woods. I got to drive along about a mile of dirt road that was one solid sheet of ice, which was pretty exciting. Dave was unfortunately in Ontario visiting his family, so we did not get to see him.

We did some other stuff too.

Then we came back to Toronto, and picked up everybody's favorite cat, Binky. He seemed very happy to be back in our apartment, and didn't even hiss at us or try to bite or anything. He is getting soft.

For New Year's Eve, we went to bed at around 10. It was exciting.

And then yesterday we went to church, and then a New Year's Day party, where we sat on a couch and watched an instructional cooking video that came with Kevin's Christmas present from his grandmother. It was good to see everybody.

Holidays

Let's see...

Last night Leah and I met after work and went to the Festival of Lights, in Kensington Market. This festival/parade is basically a pagan celebration of the winter solstice. Giant puppet-mask costumed actors stage various crazy scenes in the street, involving the cyclical life and death of summer and winter. Stilt walkers and fire-breathers do their respective things. And various shadow shows, costumed singers and paper-mache creations play out on rooftops and sidewalks. All of this is accompanied by the drumming of the crazy marching/dancing band that winds its way through the market.
We missed the grand finale in the park... Leah tells me that mostly it involves more drumming and the burning of giant effigies. Partly, this is a little too pagan for my liking, and partly it was freezing and I was hungry... so we went to Tastys and ate blue-cheese burgers.

The parade was fun - although it is a little scary when you overhear someone telling their kid that this is what Christmas is really all about. I am glad that we get to celebrate something a little more significant than the shortest day of the year.

After all of this, we went home and finished watching the Office. If you don't mind some pretty crass humour here and there (there are only one or two spots where they go way over the line), I highly recommend it. Hilarious, but with much more depth than anything I have seen on TV in a long time. (OK, so we haven't even had a TV for a long time, but trust me...)

In 4 hours I will be on Holiday.

Ouch

Today I burnt the mess out of my tongue whilst eating some delicious Tim Horton's turkey and rice soup.

Quick

This last weekend we were involved in a chaotic dinner event for new immigrants to Canada. Ironically (for me at least), we played the part of the Canadian hosts. It was fun.
Also, we had people over for dinner on Sunday, after church, to help us eat a lot of left over turkey.
For the rest of the weekend, we did dishes.

My silk-screened cards turned out OK, despite being a bit frustrating. It all comes down to having the right tool for the job - or in my case, never having the right tool for the job.

Also - The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom is a crazy book. I highly recommend.

I haven't decided if I fully recommend the TV show The Office (the BBC version - I have not seen any of the US version)... I will say that the few episodes that we watched last night were funny (and sort of not funny)

Happy Holidays

This is what it looked like waiting for the streetcar this morning...

Unfortunately, we are going to be quite busy the next few days, otherwise I'd be hitting up the giant hill at Cedarvale Park with some cardboard. Maybe if there is still snow everywhere on Sunday...

Some animal links...

Scientists discover what might be a new mammal - it is crazy that there are still things on earth that we haven't found yet.

Also, this guy creates some pretty neat things out of chairs and nikes.

December

So, three weeks until the holidays... I am looking forward to a week off. Somehow, 10 days of vacation a year seems a little unreasonable to be a socially acceptable and widely practiced norm.

We made a big breakfast this Saturday for 11 people... pancakes and fruit for everyone. It was just the warm-up for this coming weekend. Turkey for 10...