As the reality that we’re moving in six weeks (!) sets in, I’ve begun thinking about what I’ll miss in this neighbourhood.

• The Varsity theatre Hands down the best theatre in the city. Big, comfortable, great sound, good selection (not as indie as the Cumberland, not as mainstream as the Silver Cities), super-close and hardly any kids. The lack of good theatres downtown will make this loss even more painful. link
• Fieramosca Obviously our favourite neighbourhood-y place. They know us there, and give us shit when we let 2 months go by without visiting. We’ll have to make special trips up here just to see them…and to have the delicious food, of course. link
• M0851 The best clothing store around, on a quiet little street off the Bloor strip. Simple, well-made, understated clothing that I won’t see on GAP-clones. link
• Whole Foods I don’t shop there for the organic produce (well, except for raspberries). I shop there for the ready-made salads, the corn-bread that’s almost as good as my mom’s, the Green & Black’s chocolate and the delicious little pakoras. link
• Roy’s Square Jammed into this little alley around Yonge & Bloor are three of my favourite take-out restaurants — the Salad House, the Biryani House and Ritz Caribbean — as well as my main dry cleaner (shirts only; my suits go to Dove) and a whole bunch of other restaurants and shops that I don’t visit. link
• The Dessert Lady The cappucino cinammon cookies, the espresso brownie bites, the pies, the mousse, the truffles…actually, yeah, it’s probably better than I move away from this one. link
• Summerhill Granted, it’s not technically in my neighbourhood, but it’s a 20-minute stroll (or 1.5 subway stops) north and once I’m living south of here it won’t really make sense to pop up there like I can now. But between the ginormous LCBO, the Rebel House, and stores like All The Best Fine Foods, I might just spend the odd Saturday up there.
• Hot Docs Again, this festival mainly takes place a few subway stops away from the neighbourhood — around Bloor & Bathurst — but since we have no intention of not participating, we’ll miss being able to zip home from a late-night screening in 5 minutes. link
• Nick & Ralph These two funny old European men cut my hair and keep me entertained for half an hour every month or so. I’ll miss Nick teasing me about being some freak Maritimer who doesn’t like fish. link
• Drunk guys stumbling out of the Brass Rail at 2AM Just kidding. I will miss them like I miss plantar warts. link

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While perusing Ron Shevlin’s blog this morning I clicked on this link, and proceeded to laugh my ass off. Jessica Hagy draws little graphs and Venn diagrams about life; it sounds weird, but they really are hilarious little bits of life. One of my favourites is on the right.

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Die Hard reference of the day: there’s a band called Nakatomi Plaza. I haven’t even heard their music, but I’m fairly certain they’re the best band ever to pick up instruments. You don’t pick a name like that unless you own.

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The Onion’s AV Club lists some of the more interesting movies coming out this year, and it looks to be a good’un. New work from David Fincher, Quentin Tarantino, the Cohn Brothers, Paul Thomas Anderson, Ridley Scott, Wes Anderson, Noah Baumbach, Francis Ford Coppola, Kimberly Peirce, Michel Gondry, Neil Jordan, David Cronenberg, Ang Lee, Danny Boyle, Robert Zemeckis and Steven Soderbergh (even if it is Ocean’s Thirteen) make 2007 look pretty promising. Plus, as they say, Spider-Man 3 and the Simpsons movie.

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By the way, I just remembered that the title to my post where I talked about Me And You And Everyone We Know should have been “)) <> ((“. If you’ve seen the film you’ll understand why.

[tags]yonge and bloor, ron shevlin, indexed, jessica hagy, die hard, nakatomi plaza, onion av club, 2007 films, spider-man 3, simpsons movie[/tags]