Today was a good day. I took some vacation time because my mother would be in town with a friend (they had a few hours to kill before their flight in the evening). They arrived around 11:00, so I introduced my mother to her grand-cats and then took them on a little shopping trip around Bloor/Yorkville. We visited Swarovski, HMV, Indigo, Whole Foods, Pottery Barn, Williams Sonoma, Tiffany’s, and several shoe stores. Finally, after a quick stop for some Green & Black’s (I inherited my love of chocolate from my mother) and some more shoes shops, we came home and relaxed. The cats entertained our guests for a few minutes until Nellie arrived home to say hi. We just put them in a cab to the airport; it was nice to see my mother and show her around my neighbourhood a bit, and to meet her friend. Now, to get Dad up here…

Not long after she arrived home, Nellie received an email that we got pretty excited about: we’d gotten tickets to The Daily Show! They’re in March, and the taping is on a Monday afternoon…which is perfect, since we can have 3 or 4 days in New York for just one vacation day.

Right now Nellie’s getting ready to go for dinner with CBGB, some of their extended family and a bunch of Buddhist monks. Seriously. I’m gonna stay home and have some introvert-recharging time. Sweet.

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Oh, and I forgot: it was 12 degrees here today. Felt like spring.

Oh good. It won’t be one of his *top* priorities.

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Yurk! “In a Wednesday filing in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, the Justice Department demanded that Google provide all queries entered on the company’s Web search system between June 1 and July 31 of last year.” [via Reuters]

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While the Calgary Sun is a joke when it comes to politics, Scott Fisher gets it right when he says that the Canadiens are Canada’s team. Toronto fans (and the CBC) have this delusion that the Leafs are loved throughout the land, when in fact they’re almost universally despised.

When the Vatican has become more socially progressive than the United States, things are truly out of whack.

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More proof than Don Cherry’s a senile twit. Look…Beckie Scott is racing in six events. The first one, just two days after the opening ceremonies, involves skiing 15 km. She’s the defending Olympic gold medal champion, and she’s done it without steroids. I think she’s earned the right to rest as much as she deems necessary. If Don Cherry thinks that, even at his most physically fit, he could’ve performed six multi-kilometre races in less than two weeks against the best in the world and still had enough spare energy to march around a stadium beforehand rather than rest up, he’s qualified to shoot his mouth off about it. Until then, he should keep his dumbass mouth shut.

Interesting. I just looked at the official list of candidates in my riding, and was surprised to find that there are eight. We have the usual parties (Liberal, PC, NDP and Green) and the not-so-usual parties (Communist Party of Canada, Marxist-Leninist Party of Canada, Animal Alliance Environment Voters Party of Canada) and an independent.

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I have many post-basketball bruises. Took an elbow in the chest, a knee in the thigh and another elbow in the ribs. I’m sure I gave as many as I got though.

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In case you thought the level of commentary in the Sun chain of newspapers couldn’t possibly creep any lower, I give you “Jack’s iPocrisy.” Enjoy. Try not to hurt yourself laughing.

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Oh, for Christ’s sake. And I mean that.

My 100% super-guarantee: listening to “Soon Enough” by The Constantines will put you in a good mood.

UPDATE: now, mit link.

Modern Mod points out the excitement at the Dupont subway station yesterday, the station which he uses and I used to. Given the number of weapons smuggled into the city, I assume there are always bundles of guns in transit somewhere; I just figured people would drive in that case…

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Two games, two wins for the Gainey-coached Habs after their win over Dallas last night. Convincing wins, too. I’m digging it. Still, this is probably the toughest stretch they’ll face all year, and may well decide their playoff chances, so the real test is still coming.

Stupid comments of the day:

• CBC: “Liberal Leader Paul Martin attacked Conservative Leader Stephen Harper on Monday, saying the Conservatives’ platform doesn’t add up.” In fact, he attacked the economic policy announcements that Harper had made, not Harper himself. But I guess this makes a better story.
• CTV: “The controversial new movie about Karla Homolka shows her as desperate and calculating, but not as truly evil.” Perhaps some horns and a barbed tail would have done the trick?
• Stephen Harper: “We’re going to remind the Liberals that in Toronto the Maple Leafs are blue.” Words fail me.

Since TimmyD did one…

Our cats snore. This is a problem.

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As my brother points out, Stephen Harper is likely to be our next Prime Minister. This is a problem.

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It’s cold out there, and the forecast calls for freezing rain. This would be a problem if I had a car.

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That sucks. Really.

OK, it seems I haven’t blogged anything since Friday afternoon. Lots to catch up on.

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Nellie, T-Bone and I had Friday evening reservations for The Strand, and were really looking forward to it: we’ve noticed it walking to our condo-in-progress, and T-Bone had it on her list of places to try. There was, however, a small hitch: a message waiting for me when I got home informing me that they were having some complications with their liquor license. I guess they were in the midst of removing some of the old brewpub gear (it used to be Growler’s); anyway, the manager informed us that he wouldn’t be able to serve us alcohol. Happy Friday the 13th. We hemmed and hawed for a while, considering other options, but decided to keep the reservation. We had a drink and made our way downtown.

Apparently not everyone was as flexible as we, since the place was empty. And I mean empty; save for one other couple, who didn’t end up sticking around to eat, we were the only customers in the place. There were no servers, only the manager. But he was nice — he even made a Shirley Temple for my giggling wife — and the food won us over. We all had steaks, and while nothing was mind-blowing or spectacular, it was a very good, very satisfying meal. We’ll definitely go back, especially once we’ve moved to the neighbourhood.

Still, we needed a drink to wash that down. We took a cab to College Street and ordered a bottle of wine at Sotto Voce; after many rounds of psycho gunman (it’s a curious feeling to find out that your wife thinks Chewbacca is sexy) and a final drink (Nellie: grenache; T-Bone: espresso martini; me: 12-year-old Macallan; Finchy: lager) we hopped into cabs and went home. Nellie and I couldn’t help ourselves, and watched another episode of Veronica Mars.

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The warm weather we were having earlier in the week seems to have disappeared, replaced by chilly temperatures and arctic winds.

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I heartily agree with much of what Ben Rayner said in yesterday’s Toronto Star (which I can’t seem to find online). I endorse his cries of death for:

• Saturday Night Live (except for Tiny Fey and Amy Poehler)
• David Jason Howie James John Jack Gray Mraz Day Blunt Mayer Johnson (or, put another way: “secretary rock”)
• Pat Robertson
• 50 Cent (BR: “C’mon, world. Wake the f— up.”)
• The Arctic Monkeys
• Radio, satellite or otherwise.

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The Canadiens fired coach Claude Julien yesterday, then thumped the San Jose Sharks 6-2 last night. 4 points from defenseman Andrei Markov, including 2 short-handed points, helped bump me back into a slim lead for first in my hockey pool.

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I watched Fubar (imdb | rotten tomatoes) piece by piece over the last week. It had some funny moments (“Woman is a danger cat” being one of the funniest sentences ever written/spoken/cast into HTML), some of which only because I recognized the behaviour of people we grew up around. Ah, skids. They’re a good time. Giv’er.

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Last night friends of ours had us (and M²/H²) over for dinner. They made a fantastic meal (rare beef, two nights in a row…mmmmmm…), showed us their beautiful home (which we haven’t seen since they first moved in and there was a frog mirror in the upstairs bathroom) and let us hang out with their hilarious son. Now *that* was a happy kid! It was good to see them, and good to catch up and compare notes on former colleagues. It was also good to actually have a glass of wine with dinner.

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The plan for today: Whole Foods, grocery store, laundry, Raptors game, economics textbook, The West Wing and the 24 premiere. Hopefully there’s time in there somewhere for eating and exercising.