Useless links

Zellyn posted this one - pretty funny.
And then there's this one... inexplicable...

If it ain't broke

Last Christmas, Delvyn told me about the fixed gear bike trend that was happening in California.

Looks like it is spreading...

and - IT SOUNDS TOTALLY FREAKING POINTLESS... Let's see - no coasting, and no brakes... ??? Clearly this is an improvement ???

Hopefully Canadians will be sensible enough to pass on this one...

Weekend Update

On Friday night we did nothing - instead of the two or so birthday gatherings we could have attended, we went to bed early.

On Saturday I slept in (this means getting up at 9!), and then went to Lisa's place to give her some Freedomize India CD cash. I also swung by the hardware store and the vet, to pick up random things we needed (to fill holes in walls, and to fill the bellys of cat-beasts).
I then did the rest of our Canadian taxes ( hooray - we get some cash back )... Now I just have to file our US forms and I'll be done (yes, I get an extension for living in a far-off land).

That evening, Leah and I went out for dinner, and then were going to go and see a movie. Because there was nothing showing that we really wanted to see, we ended up at Future Shop, where we purchased a portable DVD player. The sales guy was very helpful - and tried to sell us a TV and DVD player, 'cause it would be cheaper and bigger and have actual real speakers... but we have developed a dislike for TVs, and opted for something that can instead fold up and fit on a bookshelf when not in use.

And then we went home and watched Marie Antoinette from the comfort of our bed. (After talking to my parents, who left the next morning for 10 days in Mongolia!)

On Sunday we went for a run with some church peeps. It was sunny, and we met down by the lakeshore.
And then we went to church. Afterwards we went to Sushi on Bloor with Jen and Anne and Joel. Good times with good people.

The end.

All My Friends Who Play Guitar

I would recommend listening to My Korean Friends, if you can - which you probably can't.

Word up

Brother Jesse has been known to speak some truth.

First the bees...

...die, then the plants die, and then everybody dies.

David Byrne suspects agribusiness - whether he is right or not, everybody at Monsanto needs to be beaten severely.

Maddening

I recently found out about this site, which tracks and fights illegal billboards and other advertising in the public spaces of Toronto. I have been thinking a little about the massive pollution of advertising that washes over us every day, and how much it freaking sucks.

I know that the TTC, for example, pretty much relies on ad revenue to operate. The new street furniture contract for the city also involves ad space on benches. I really wonder if we should not put more TAX dollars towards a cleaner mental environment. Seriously, the noise of ads screaming in my face every day to buy sh...tuff makes me kinda angry. And it seriously messes people up.

The issue of illegal billboards is extra infuriating - at least the signs on the subway are helping to pay for my ride. These are just poisoning minds AND making bad people richer.



I'm surprised that there is not yet advertising printed on each square of toilet paper that I use to wipe my bum!!

Get to Work

For whatever reason, I have spent too much time today looking up info on the Pochinko method of clowning, instead of doing real work (actually, it was sparked by this blog post, if you wanna see how weird my thought processes can be). Turns out I haven't been able to find much on the old interweb, other than some pretty sparse info on its pretty pagan genesis (spirit guides and everything)... and the fact that clowning workshops are pretty freaking expensive.

Anyway - from my perspective (read: total ignorance), clowning seems pretty fascinating. I think it has something to do with the level of self examination and awareness required to clown well - if I ever made any moves in a theatrical direction (read: pretty freaking unlikely!), it would probably involve a white face and a red nose.



Maybe it's because I have clown blood in me.

Weekend Update

Check it out:

Friday night - we went to see some friends play at Clinton's
Saturday - I went to help with the painting of the Walmer Centre Theatre, with Kate and a bunch of other volunteers. The theatre looks so amazingly much better now..! That evening, Leah's flute student was playing in her high-school's production of Guys & Dolls. I was expecting, well, a high-school play - but it ended up being pretty sweet.
Sunday - church

In other news, Bradley is playing this Thursday, in his DJ/laptop outfit, Harsh/Mellow. Check it out here... Not sure that I can go (it's a school-night), but I might try to anyway.

Don't Mess With the Family

For those who haven't seen 'em yet... Dylan took some pics of our 'dining room' and posted some of them here.

The Weekend

Elder's meeting after work on Friday.

Saturday - groceries and other assorted tasks. Also Jamie came over for dinner, which was a good time.

Sunday - I went for a walk and picked up some gravel from a nearby vacant lot, to use for some overdue planting. I also finally took some pictures of the table that I built forever ago - I will post some here once I get them organized. I ended up not playing drums at church, due to a lack of bass-players, which was fine by me. During soundcheck I went for a walk downtown listening to DJ Shadow's Endtroducing... after seeing Dark Days a number of times (my favourite documentary EVER), the music seems to work best walking around under the Gardiner - and at least it made the crappy weather we've been having seem appropriate.

I also burned a million CDs all weekend, which I started selling at church last night, for Freedomize India.

Freedomize India CDs

I finally burned some of the Freedomize India Cds last night. I have a LOT more to do (and a lot of covers to fold, too), but it is good to finally have some done.
You can see how they look here, and you can give me $5 to $8 if you want your own copy (all the cash goes to Freedomize India).

like 'suck' for architects...

I don't know how I haven't heard about this architecture site for so long.

Unless you have the years of education (indoctrination) that your average architecture grad has, you may not have the underappreciated, underpaid, misunderstood, and totally out-of-touch 'genius' necessary to find this site funny.

weekend update (easter edition)

I hope everyone had a great easter...

Friday - we took it pretty easy... we went out for lunch, and then went to watch the Host. It was pretty good, compared to your average Godzilla flick... but pretty disappointing if you're expecting anything more than that... (Leah HATED it).

Saturday - we did some non-stop grocery shopping (3 grocery stores + the LCBO), and started making food for the great annual easter feaster. I also managed to swing by Kinkos (the devil, in store form) and copy 100 covers for the FI³ CD.

Sunday - we continued to make a lot of food. And then we ate it. Afterwards, we went to church, and then to David and Jen's. We ate yet more food, and watched Breakfast at Tiffany's. Watch this one instead of the Host.

link

MailMeArt.

Posthaste

Random things

Last night I went on a crazy adventure with friend Anne, to pick up an air-organ from friend Josh. The organ is not large or heavy (I think I could have maybe managed it on the streetcar), but for whatever reason WOULD NOT FIT INTO THE CAR!
Luckily, Josh has dad skills, which include knot-tying, and he managed to secure the organ-sticking-half-out-of-the-trunk situation with some rope.

I haven't really had a chance to play it yet, other than plugging it in to make sure that it survived the trip - but it should be pretty fun times.

Also - I found out that the guy who runs this music blog (one of the only ones I check pretty much daily) has started another project. Being something of a casual R.E.M. fan, I find this one pretty neat... he is going to review every R.E.M. album track ever. Depending on who you are, there is a reasonable chance that R.E.M. is older than you are, so this is no small feat.

weekend

groceries, laundry, drumming, silk-screening some CDs, cooking, eating, sleeping.

WhooaohahHH!!! IT'S FRIDAY!!!

Our church is reading the bible this week, as part of our celebration of lent and easter. That doesn't sound unusual - but here's the deal.
We are reading it out loud and non-stop, creation to apocolypse, at St-Steven-in-the-Fields church.
I showed up for the 'beginning', but I couldn't stay for too long. It has been kinda cool though, for the past few days, to think that there is somebody there (right now!) reading out loud.
Stop by some time before Saturday evening, if you wanna listen. They should be getting close to the NT, so there won't be any chance of showing up for one of the long name-listing early books!!

Blogger ate my Weekend Update

So you get the summary. It was so good too...

Friday - pupusas and paperwork (health insurance forms, gathering together documents for the impending tax-filing). Good times.

Saturday - recorded a song, for the FI³ sampler CD, which I ended up not liking at all. Threw it out. Went to a DJ type event that Jeremy and co were hosting. Yelled at people over loud music. It was fun, even though we left before the party really started.

Sunday - recorded some melodica for a different song. Leah re-recorded some vocals for a song of hers. Mission accomplished. Church was good - we didn't have to do anything! JFL with Jen and Jeremy. Delicious.

Today - rode the subway all the way to work WITH MY FLY UNZIPPED!! Good times indeed. Finally updated Immigrant Design - went for easy-to-update (ie Blogger) over sexy and flashy (ie that draggable thumbnail flash thingy that I action-scripted about a year ago but never used...)

Wednesday

So last night I watched my first ever real-life (not on TV) hockey game. I got a pair of Leafs tickets from work (>$150 each!) for coming up with a (fairly crappy-looking) header for an internal newsletter.

Despite having a stupidly annoying headache and not really knowing all the rules of hockey (icing, off-sides, etc???) it was good times. The place was packed, and the whole event was one giant spectacle. The game was pretty good, with Toronto winning 2-1 over the NJ Devils.

There was even a fight, which lasted about a minute and a half. I couldn't believe that the refs just stand by and let these two fools pound on each other's helmets. (I found out this morning that the NJ guy apparantly almost knocked out a Leafs player last time the two teams played - so they sent there biggest dude in last night to punch him for a few minutes...) Everyone in the crowd got really excited, and it was one of those moments that made me feel kinda gross... like humans are really just a bunch of savage idiots. Apparantly it is 'all part of the game' though.

I heard once that the average person in N America is exposed to something like 3000 advertisements per day. Leah and I must have each tripled that in a few short hours at the ACC!

-----
This morning I walked a half hour to St Clair West because the streetcar wasn't running.

Lilith

If you want to read a good book (assuming you don't mind what some would call fantasy), I direct you to this one.

Weekend

Friday... bought groceries
Saturday... went to the archives again, to pick up some pictures that I ordered. I also stopped by College & Spadina to buy some white (silk-screenable) CDRs for the FI³ fundraiser CD.
That night we hung out with Jen, and stopped in at Sonic Boom.
Sunday... we went over some songs for church, and then we went to church, and then we went to a church meeting after church.

Link me

Check out this wireframe car...
And also this guy's house...
!

Weekend

Friday...
We went to eat dinner at Ka Chi.

Saturday...
I did laundry. I then went to the Toronto archives - were I discovered they had not pulled the stuff that I requested last weekend. I did talk to a very useful employee, who directed me to the Ontario archives - it turns out they might have a lot more useful info.
I also discovered the Furniture Bank. Turns out Toronto has a place where people just out of shelters, or immigrants with no cash, can get donated furniture and stuff. Also - on the second Saturday of each month, there is a fundraiser/sale on old furniture. Not as cheap as Goodwill furniture - but way better stuff. Who knew?
Bought some groceries.

Sunday...
I went to buy some more groceries.
I also spent a bit of time trying to record a song. I was late for church, 'cause I lost track of the time. Turns out the song sounds pretty bad - and I will have to do it all over...




Leah's parents are coming to town.

Those That Care

Yesterday evening I ran to catch the bus just before the traffic light changed. It was pretty full, and I expected that we would pull off right after I got on.

After waiting for a while, the driver declared rather loudly, 'I'm still waiting to see a student card.' He was apparantly talking to a young lady, who was maybe fifteen, who did not have a student card to accompany her student metropass.

The funny thing was that she was clearly with a huge group of her school friends (who I assume had the necessary cards), and what's more, WAS WEARING A SCHOOL UNIFORM! The driver, on hearing that she didn't have her card with her, bluntly gave her the options of paying $2.75, or getting off of his bus. I found out that the bus had been sitting there for five minutes before I even got on. He eventually threatened to put the bus out of service, and she eventually got off, and I assume walked the mile to the station.

The whole thing was a little shocking and a little humorous. I guess the driver could be commended for sticking to the rules... except that he was clearly more interested in the rules than in the people they are meant to serve. A few stops later, an old man was getting off the bus, and he asked the driver why he had kicked the girl off the bus. The driver responded by loudly reciting that bylaw number one clearly states blah blah blah... and the old man responded by telling him to have some respect when speaking to a senior. This guy should have been a book-keeper or something, and should definitely remove himself from the service sector, and perhaps the general public.

Weekender

OK, here goes:

Friday -
After work, I met up with the wife and with Jen, to hang out with some people at Walmer Rd Church. Afterwards, I stopped by the McGhee's, and found out that other people have also been rocking the Slowdive recently... maybe it is seasonal??

Saturday -
In the morning I went to the city archives, to look up some info. I hadn't been to the archives since 2000, and I forgot that it is pretty cool. It is where the keepers-of-the-past for the city of Toronto work... while I was there, I picked up a copy of this picture of the Bloor viaduct bridge. This is the bridge that stars in a chapter of Michael Ondaatje's book, In the Skin of a Lion, which I recommend less for the story, and more for its legendary imagery of Toronto past.

I then came home and did some laundry. Jen came over for dinner, and then we went to a fun fundraiser for a trip to India that some folks from church are organizing. Check out some more info about the trip at this (nice) FI³ website. Props to all those involved in putting this thing on, esp. Dylan and Adrienne, for silkscreening a gazillion shirts, and to Pants, for rocking... and to Lisa, just in general!

Sunday -
I did some cleaning, and then went in search of a photocopier, to copy some songsheets for the wife.
Church was hard work for Leah - sound gear was tricky, lights were missing... I am pretty glad I was not drumming, 'cause that would have been one more musician (and 4 more mics for Bradley to troubleshoot)...
I was on 'prayer-duty', as I call it... which was a pretty good time.
Afterwards, we had pancakes for dinner...

Photographs

I really like these pics...

Story time

Find the right tree and you can hear a story.

Public Transit

I am a fan of public transit.

But I am a bigger fan conceptually than I am realistically. Riding transit means you never know if you'll be half an hour late, so if anything is really important, you give yourself enough time to show up half an hour early.

And, when a streetcar dies on the way to work, and you wait forever, and then you give up and walk half the way, you don't get your money back. All you get is really late.

But you also don't have to deal with getting it fixed.

Weekend

Friday - I was mad tired. We hung out at the studio and had dinner with Mae.

Saturday - I purchased some CD's (see previous post). We did some grocery shopping. Bradley came over for dinner, and to rock out.

Sunday - Church.

Young Folks

I have this stuck in my head today...




[more?]

The Innocence Mission

The new album by the Innocence Mission will be out on March 13th.
These guys are heroes, and you can download one of the new songs here...

Metropolitan

Last night we watched Metropolitan. I have seen this movie before (a couple of times, actually), and have been wanting to watch it again for a while.

This time around it seemed slightly stiff in parts, but still ranks as a favorite. For a movie shot on a cheap budget, consisting pretty much entirely of dialogue (and American high-society prep-school teenage dialogue, at that), and for a director's debut...
I can't think of too many first projects that would be more difficult to tackle as a writer/director. And for the most part the characters are pulled off naturally and sympathetically.

If you like unusual movies, and dont find 90+ minutes of dialogue/character-study boring, then check this one out.



And I kind of want to watch the Last Days of Disco now (I watched part of this one years ago, I think on TV, but I don't remember making it through the whole thing) - since I just found out that it not only stars the same actress, but has her playing the same character...

Weekend

Friday night I crashed your party...
Saturday I said I'm sorry...
Sunday came and...

Actually...

The weekend was not all that eventful, from this end...
Leah and the Heroes rocked out at the Brampton Indie Arts Festival.
I rented, but did not watch, Metropolitan.
I played drums (this time it was pretty shaky, kids) at church.
That's about it.

Amphibian Ark

Frogs are dying... =(

Wabi Sabi

The other day I was thinking about 'green' architecture. Actually, I was thinking more about the concept of redemption, and the idea of using old buildings. I wonder if even the greenest of new green buildings is more wasteful than re-using (with appropriate system and insulation upgrades), old unused buildings. Even if just the structure of an old building can be salvaged, and reinvigorated, the old energy embodied in that skeleton (materials AND construction) is significant.

I was paging through this week's EYE magazine on the (infuriating) bus-ride to work this morning, and noticed a short letter that someone (Graeme Stewart) had written in response to an article. I never read the article, but I gather that it was some sort of critique of a lot of the failed modern architectural ideas of the 60s. This letter called for an environmentally sound approach of re-use, rather than EYE's suggestion of bulldozing ugliness.

A new architecture that exists within the skin and bones of dying buildings, reclaiming, reinterpreting, redeeming the past. This is quite a beautiful concept.

And what sort of aesthetic expression would suit this architecture? I have usually seen this sort of problem approached from a slightly grotesque, prosthetic, parasitic angle... (see: the ROM)... I don't really mind this sort of harsh juxtaposition of new and old, but I suspect there is a more sympathetic and sensitive alternative - one which values the old as much as the new, and turns even the scars and failures of the past into something beautiful...

Snow

Weekend Updated

This weekend was kinda lame. For some reason (I am silly), I spent most of it feeling kinda bored and restless. Here are some highlights:

Friday night - we went to the McGhee's. This is always a good time, and especially so when you watch American Splendor. If you haven't seen it, do yourself a favour (or a favor, if you prefer).

On Saturday I went to the dentist. This is supposedly everybody's least favourite (or favorite) thing to do, but it's not that bad when there are clouds painted on the wall around the skylight above the dentist chair (United Smiles of Kensington - I'm not kidding, that is the actual name of the dentist!)

Afterwards I went to the Moonbean for a coffee and bagel. I always found the Moonbean a little silly. Well, not the place, more the people that tend to hang out there sometimes. I can be too judgmental, and easily annoyed by people who try too hard to talk loudly about screenplays/novels that they are 'working on'.

BUT - if you go there early in the morning - the slackers are still in bed, and any writers/artists in the room are the kind that ACTUALLY write and make art - and they are less noisy - and it is quite a pleasant place!

Sunday - I tried to buy a decaf Americano from the guy at the new cafe near our place. I am a little torn between buying coffee from them (styrofoam = pure evil) and not buying coffee from them (I want them not to go out of business - and I appear to be their only customer). Usually the guy's daughter is there (speaks english, knows how to make coffee), but not this time. It was fun trying to explain to him what I wanted...

Church was cool.
And afterwards we had sushi. I also talked to my dad and mom, which was cool.

Wavelength

Kevy P (well, the wavelength crew, featuring Kevy P) made the feature music story in this week's (sex issue) edition of one of Toronto's finest smut-rag weeklys.


Hooray!!

Tuesday?!

Seems I missed the Weekend Update yesterday... must have been due to the 10.5 hours I worked (5 hours of meetings...) Can't complain, since I have to make up the time I spend teaching each week - so that puts me in a pretty good position for the rest of the week.

Speaking of... teaching was pretty fun today. Students did informal presentations, and then the whole class had a chance to critique each project. It is great practice at learning to think critically, and pretty darn quickly too.

This evening is church. Good times.

Oh yeah, the weekend.

Saturday - we had an actual meeting involving all members of the 324 studio. This involved a million pancakes, and lots of talk about insurance, signs, etc. Along those lines, if you know of anybody who would like to share cheap studio space with a bunch of Christian artists - please holler back.

Sunday involved a crazy drive to church. We were on setup/teardown, which is usually pretty fun, actually. Also, I played a few notes on the old melodica (Q: 'what is that thing?!' A:'it's called a melodica; you blow in here and play notes'... REPEAT) during a couple of songs... the highlight being the end of the service when Leah played a Suf-jam. It worked so well within the context of the service, and it sounded sweet with everybody singing.

The end.

Going FREAKING Awesome

This Ghost Ride It video is especially for Leah, but I'm fairly certain you will enjoy it too!

So, for those of us too dumb to understand what the hell is going on without some Hyphy 101... I recommend reading all about ghost ridin' here, yadadamean?

The Secret History

'I think there is something we were supposed to do before we lost our memories.'

I recently checked in to the never-updated blog of Michael Grace Jr. He's the guy from now-defunct My Favorite, the band that 'could be your life'...

Turns out he updated - about his new band, The Secret History, and their new record, an autobiographical-ish set of songs about a fictional band known as the Haunted Hearts. It sounds to me like the perfect recipe for the filter of nostalgia/longing/sadness/joy that My Favorite was able to sing over your teenage life.

Steam

Yesterday, I felt like I just ran out of steam. It seems as if I have been pretty busy lately, although not THAT busy...

Anyway - I got home and we made dinner. And then I half fell asleep on the couch. And then I went to bed at 9.




Luckily, the weekend looks as busy as ever!!

Recall This??

When we were in Texas for Christmas, Reeve told us about a short-lived band, made up of a rotating crew of people. The band was called Quaid, and they played instrumental electronic/keyboard-based music - the only lyrics were Arnold Schwarzenegger quotes ('get your ass to Mars') culled from his fine films.

So last night, Leah and I watched Total Recall... What I remembered about this movie is the great plot, and of course the classic Arnold scenes (see image above!). What I didn't remember was how violent that piece is! A bit on the bloody/senseless gore side...

'Start the Reactor; Save Mars!'

Weekender

Lemme see...

Friday night we went to the Central - the Loitering Heroes played. It was a pretty good show. Those who were not there (pretty much everybody) missed seeing, among other things, Danger Herring snap a string on his upright bass. This is indeed a strange and unusual occurence.

Saturday - we went to the mall. Leah went to the gym (at the mall), and I finally bought some new pants. I wore the pants all weekend. I also bought the Wolfmother CD. This is for Leah, and not for me. I blame Jen.

That evening we went to see the notorious production of friend Kate's play. I actually enjoyed myself, although I won't deny that after a while I got kinda bored. It was fun to see Kate do her thing, albeit in probably the worst play.

Ever.

In the history of plays.

We also got to meet Lisa's cousin, Carolin, who will be in town for a while.

Sunday - we practiced for church. Then we went to church. Nothing was ready, so our sound-check/song run-through was enormously abbreviated. This made things a bit stressful for me... since I was singing, drumming, and melodica-ing... and sometimes trying to do more than one of these at a time.

Also, we had a guest speaker kick our arses for us. Dr David Barker gave an introduction to the OT prophetic books, which we will be focusing on at church for the next while. During his sermon he mentioned that the primary measure, in the whole bible, of people following God (with their hearts and not just their rule-keeping), was whether they took care of the poor/marginalized.

Yikes.

Studio stuff

Check out the newly launched Paul Cox website...
This is one of the guys that we share our studio with, and his paintings are money.

While you're at it, Maegan Guerette also has a website (although it is not as newly launched!) She also shares our studio space. Her photos are the sweetness.

Snap!!

In other news...
Blank is the new Blank!

Heroes

The Loitering Heroes (with Leah on flute & some vocals) will be playing the Central this Friday.

Now you know.




p.s. picture fragment ganked from apertureenzyme.com

Ideas

I always have more ideas than I put into practice. Here's another one that may or may not end up on a t-shirt... I have been thinking about modernism-as-iconic-image for a while (see my somewhat successful villa savoye shirt), and this is about as iconic a chair as you could find.

That is all.

Le Corbusier

I just finished reading the first third of a book on Corb, Mies and F.L.Wright, so I was extra interested to learn about this building. It was just finished at the end of last year, forty odd years after Corbu's death. Still crazy after all these years...

Before I went to a graduate school run by young Harvard grads (where I learned the phrase 'what would Rem do?'), I went to a more established undergraduate school, where Corb was still king. Occasionally, we would 'modulate', striking a pose in mock/real homage to the 'master'.

After all he did change the world... and make me love concrete... and is pretty much responsible for all the fat black framed glasses across the world. Also - he is the only architect for whom I have made a pilgrimage.

Weekend

Here's the story...

A large part of the weekend was spent getting ready for church on Sunday. I played drums, and Leah made her plugged in debut... It was kinda scary, but fun.

On Friday, I called Delvyn to leave him a birthday greeting... He never answered his phone - after all, it was call-in-sick Friday...

On Saturday morning, I went for a walk in Cedarvale. The entire park was a sheet of ice, and there were plenty of kids having insane fun sliding down the massive hill. They would slide half the way across the cricket field. There was also a mom and toddler with an old-school toboggan - they were a strange mix between a Norman Rockwell painting and a Roots catalogue photo...

We spent most of the afternoon/evening at the studio. Mae and Jen came over that evening to take pictures and make stuff out of metal. I locked us out of our apartment, so I had to do the spider-man/sketchy-guy-in-a-hoodie-and-flip-flops/Paul Hubble thing, and break in. Also - I made some actually good vegan/wife-friendly cookies that day - out of tofu and tree-bark (not entirely untrue, I guess, since they did involve cinnamon - no tofu though...)

Sunday - I called Reeve to wish him a happy quarter century. He was sitting on his porch eating breakfast.
Church was good. Afterwards we ate at KNB. That place is sweet. After afterwards we went to Second Spin. Leah was inspired by the Ongoing History of New Music Goth show, so we purchased the Crow soundtrack. I was inspired by heaven knows what, so I picked up some Southern Culture on the Skids (see above picture).

That is all...

Peace.

Silly...

...??!

Doomsday

We're two minutes closer to atomic fallout, and to celebrate, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists got evil design superheroes Pentagram to redesign their Doomsday Clock logo.

Well, at least we'll go out in style!!





(Also, did you know that Pentagram repackaged books of the bible? - these look pretty sweet, actually...)

Weekender

So - let's get back into the weekend update habit...

Friday night was a cancelled church meeting - so we ended up at the Gem with church people... even better.

Saturday, Leah and I went on an ill-fated mission to IKEA. Man, that place is kinda evil... we ended up not buying a closet.
That night we watched most of Capote. The good people at Blockbuster (man, that place is kinda evil) rented us a copy of the DVD that somebody must have chewed on. But they only chewed on the last half hour or so... just at the point where it would be most frustrating for the movie to stop playing.

Sunday - I tried to hang some shelves from the wall in the bedroom (instead of the non-purchased closet). It was a complete failure. Now I have to patch some rather large holes in two walls.
Church was good. Well, I think it was... I was in the back praying during the service, which is always cool. Afterwards we went to Fresh (JFWife) for dinner, and I also picked up the Cold War Kids CD on the way home.

Monday - I had a kinda crappy day at work. Things started out badly on the TTC, and then proceeded to go kinda badly at the office. After work we had a postponed meeting at the studio. Since we are unorganized, Aaron showed up for the postponed meeting, and ended up coming over for dinner. This was fun.
Afterwards we finished watching a new copy of Capote. Philip Seymour Hoffman is so good in this movie that it is actually kinda frightening.

Peace,

Sparrow Love Crew

Unfortunately, I am not permitted to visit Myspace at work.
I am therefore unable to download any Sparrow Love Crew music.
You, however, have no such similar excuse.

Weekend

Looks like a busy week ahead. I start back at Humber College tomorrow as a teaching assistant. Seems like if I had some sort of professional license, and the desire to teach interior design, they would throw a lot more hours at me. Of course, I would have to have a much more flexible full time job too - like a part-time job.

Let's see - this last weekend... Highlights included, in a non-chrono order, church (it's been about a month since a straight-up FT-style church service, and this was a good one), seeing peeps at church (peeps = church, after all), playing Cranium at Don and Kevin's, buying a drum stool (the plastic chair I was using was killing me...)

Anyway - that's about it. It's about 5.30, so I gots to leave...

Movies

We watched a few movies over the Christmas break. I would recommend two of them, and the rest ranged from terrible to not that great. You can guess which two are worth seeing.

Tremors
On a Clear Day
Borat
Little Miss Sunshine
Maid in Manhattan (!)

Christmas news

So, you can expect any news from the Christmas holiday to come in bits and pieces.
Here's a piece about music...

Hanging out with the brothers usually means ending up with some new music news. The first piece is about the Sparrow Love Crew. This is a rag-tag hip-hop collective which I believe was founded by Reeve, Delvyn, and one Timmy Carter, in a kitchen in a house in the foothills of the Appalachians. They went on to perform live the next day at North Georgia's best annual Halloween punk/country bash...

Since then the group has gone on to perform and record in various collaborative guises, shoot a ridiculous music video, and generally confuse a bunch of people across the south.

Anyway - recently, a West Coast version of the Crew came into being... and ended up playing one of their first shows ever at LA's Troubadour, opening for the Cold War Kids. Keep your eyes peeled for upcoming shows, one with the Hawaiian Tropic girls, and one run by Vice magazine. I hope these people know what they're in for. Delvyn spent some time in Texas working some SLC logos for shirts and other stuff. Check it out on Myspace...

In other family music news, Reeve snagged us a copy of the new Waco Co-op CD. This one is actually real, unlike the last two which were only virtual (and which you can download here). Reeve has a new song on it, which is pretty sweet. There is also a My Korean Friends song on that thing, and an American Sasquatch number... so Reeveheads everywhere can get their fill. That is, if they can snag a copy somehow...

Reeve also spent some time working on a new and improved MKF website, which, when done, will feature an unreleased-album-load of songs for your listening pleasure... as well as never-before-seen-by-you artwork. If you missed the world tour, you will at least have these songs to carry with you...

Also, we snagged a couple of CDs for our own listening pleasure... the new(ish) Yo La Tengo, some not so new Radiohead, the older Sun Kil Moon album, and a new Bonnie Prince Billie disc...

Year End Update

Well folks, it's 2007.
I Hope everybody had a great Christmas.
Here is a picture from Texas. These people do not find themselves in the same room all that often, so it was a good time indeed. I heart my family.

Feast

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



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

late 90's

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

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

The weekend...

...was busy.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thursday

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

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

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

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

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

USA

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

This is straight up human-rights violations.



It is sad given that the USA started like this:

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

Weekend

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

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

Saturday was mostly about groceries and other chores at home.

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

Pimp My Ride

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

Invaders

Coolest wrapping paper ever???

Friday

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

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

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

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

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

Julie Doiron

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

Fashionably Late

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

Casiotone for the Painfully Alone

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

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

Merry Christmas.

Weekend

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

Friday...

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

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

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

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

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

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

No Place for Wimps

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

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

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

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

Irony

Peace sign starts a fight...

Monday

I have a headache today.

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

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

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

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

friday

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

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

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

Weekend

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

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

Yesterday we did mostly nothing.

Friday!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

End Week

This was a busy week.

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

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

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

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

What else...

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

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

That is pretty much all...

hmmm...

The weekend went something like this...

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

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

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

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

The end...

Some links...

Check out this skate ramp...

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

Trick/Treat

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

Happy Halloween

Weekending

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

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

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

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

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

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

3d Sketch ---> Actual object

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

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

324

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

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

Stay tuned for studio updates...

Idlewild

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

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

Arm...

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

CRAZY.

This is pretty cool (for nerds)

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

Also, the weekend...

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

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

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

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

The end.

Fridays

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

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

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

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

That's all.

Caffeine is Ridiculous Right Now.

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

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

'Are you a bug, Bill Murray?'

No title

The weekend.

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

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

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

And then today I came in to work.

I Power Blogger

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

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

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

I could use a vacation

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

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

Weekend Longue

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

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

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

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

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

The end.

End Week Update

Friday..!

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

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

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

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

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

I still like my 70s era MARTA shirt.

Lecture synopsis

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Weekend

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

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

Sunday - church, and then JFL.