Month: April 2007

Honeybee blues

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I guess this is why there’s a sign at the Nova Scotia border saying that no honeybees are allowed to enter the province.

With a mysterious disease or parasite ravaging beekeepers’ hives in New Brunswick, honey producers in the region are in for a tough season.

It’s been going on in the U.S. for a while, and has obviously spread to eastern Canada. I suppose the isolationist honeybee policy might pay off.

.:.

Memo to Bell: fix your bloody ‘Simple Move Form’ application. I don’t know what the userid is for my digital voice application, and it doesn’t appear on any of my bills. You also shouldn’t ask me to reply to two questions with one radio button. Finally, when people give up on the form and call — as most will — keep your call center open later than 5 PM.

Seriously, what is it with Bell? I’ve never seen a company — a technology/internet company, no less — change their website so often without ever actually improving it.

[tags]honeybees, new brunswick, bell canada[/tags]

The inner works

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Nellie uploaded a few more pictures of the condo to the condo photoset on Flickr. There’s one of me standing in the living room, admiring the view, typing on my Blackberry. How typical.

.:.

Best new song I’ve heard in a while: “No Pussy Blues” by Grinderman. Unfortunately the rest of the disc just isn’t nearly as good. If you’d told me that Nick Cave’s voice + guitar feedback = a good song, I wouldn’t have believed you.

[tags]grinderman, spire condominium, toronto[/tags]

Nine tenths

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We are standing in our condo. That’s right…OUR condo; we are now the owners. We have our own keys, and can come and go as we please. And please we do. Nellie’s busy taking pictures, measuring, checking light switches and the like. I’m admiring the view of the beach, St. Lawrence Market, the lake, the islands, St. James Cathedral, the Flatiron building, and the bank towers. This is fun.

And it only took 3 years…

[tags]spire condominium[/tags]

The universe rights itself

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The New York Islanders just beat the New Jersey Devils in a shootout (after giving up the tying goal with 0.8 seconds left), securing the final playoff spot and sending the Maple Leafs off to compete for tee times with the Montreal Canadiens.

.:.

Still on hockey, the attention for Montreal fans now changes to gutting the house for repairs. Sergei Samsonov will never play another game in the CH sweater, and David Aebischer found himself displaced by Jaroslav Halak. Sheldon Souray may well leave as an unrestricted free agent; Alex Kovalev will be traded if a buyer can be found for his huge contract, bought out if one cannot.

Still, the core of this team is very good. They have a ton of good young talent in Higgins, Ryder, Komisarek, Lapierre, Latendresse, Plekanec, Kostitsyn, Perezhogin, Gorges and Halak. They have some solid veterans like Koivu, Markov, Bonk and Johnson, and some solid role players. What they’re missing is a #1 center and a good mobile defenseman; if they can unload or buy out Samsonov, Kovalev and Aebischer and attract a few free agents, they could resume the form they had earlier this season.

.:.

Pool news: I believe I have 1st place in my hockey pool, but won’t know for sure until tomorrow. I picked up Islanders goalie Wade Dubielewicz last night and he recorded the win in today’s game, but more importantly Ryan Smyth didn’t score the game-winning goal, which might’ve made it close. I’m also creeping up dangerously close to 1st in my basketball pool, but I don’t see how I can make up any more ground (as it’s a roto pool).

.:.

My musical inbox is out of control. My brother is partly to blame, sending me half a dozen new albums to check out, but I’m no better. I keep grabbing new stuff even though I have no time to listen to it.

  • apostle of hustle . national anthem of nowhere
  • aliens . astronomy for dogs
  • bird and the bee . bird and the bee
  • brmc . baby 81
  • clinic . internal wrangling
  • clutch . from beale street to oblivion
  • dalek . abandoned language
  • dalek . absence
  • friday morning’s regret . when lost at sea
  • grinderman . grinderman
  • in-flight safety . coast is clear
  • kings of leon . because of the time
  • klaxons . myths of the near future
  • low . drums and guns
  • marissa nadler . songs iii: bird on the water
  • national . boxer
  • nine inch nails . year zero
  • ted leo . living with the living
  • worker bee . divorce your legs

So far I’ve had quick listens to brmc (good), clinic (not so good), grinderman (starts off strong, drifts from there), kings of leon (good), low (not sure yet) and ted leo (also not sure yet).

.:.

Last night, post-apocalypse, we started to purge the old crap out of our apartment. I love the “throwing shit out” phase. LOVE it. It’ll be difficult to stop me now. “Do we really need towels? I mean need them?”

[tags]islanders, maple leafs, nhl playoffs, montreal canadiens, hockey pool, nasketball pool, brmc, clinic, grinderman, kings of leon, low, ted leo, moving[/tags]

Kyle Wellwood 1, Montreal 0

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The Leafs just eliminated the Canadiens from the playoffs. The Leafs themselves haven’t clinched a playoff spot; the Islanders could still take 8th with a win tomorrow.

The game itself, while tense, was terrible from a skill standpoint. 3 of Toronto’s first 4 goals were flukey, retarded bounces that just found their way in. Montreal couldn’t clear their own zone for shit in either the first or the third period, and couldn’t muster any offence when it mattered.

Really and truthfully, what this game came down to was one guy: Kyle Wellwood.With the Leafs trailing 5-4 late in the second, with Mike Johnson in the penalty box and 0:00 on the clock, Wellwood had the presence of mind to skate face-first into Steve Begin’s stick. The referees called that a double-minor, and Toronto scored on a 5-on-3. Wellwood then had the smarts to fall down when Saku Koivu’s stick neared his legs, resulting in another 5-on-3, and on that power play Wellwood tipped in the go-ahead goal on a point shot. Montreal never recovered from having their legs taken out like that, or from a late-game injury to their best offensive defenseman, and sputtered for the final 18 minutes. Two shitty teams played a horrible game, Toronto got back-to-back 5-on-3s in the third period and Montreal grasped defeat from the jaws of victory. Now the Leafs are forced to wait for the results of tomorrow’s game to see if it’s they or the Islanders who’ll finish eighth.

I have never, and will never again, cheer so hard for the fucking New York Islanders.

P.S.: Anyone wanting to chat with me about the game should think twice. In fact, anyone wanting to talk to me about anything at all for the next couple of days should probably just keep their distance. Unless you’re in my immediate family or sign my paycheck, I’m likely to be unpleasant for a while.

[tags]montreal canadiens, toronto maple leafs, new york islanders, nhl playoffs[/tags]

Cry havoc and let slip the clichés of sports

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It’s do or die. For all the marbles. A game for the ages. It’s crunch time, gut-check time, win-or-go-home.

It’s come down to this: the Leafs vs. the Canadiens, in the final game of the season, to see who gets to go to the playoffs…unless, of course, the Islanders squeak past them both. Anyway, considering it’s the first meaningful game between these two teams since 1979, the CBC must be thanking their lucky stars.

It should be noted that if the Leafs beat the Canadiens and knock them out of the playoffs, I will be hurling myself off the nearest parapet.

.:.

Meanwhile, the Toronto Raptors are officially no longer the Craptors. Long after clinching a playoff spot, they clinched their first division title last night by beating the 76ers. Granted, they’re in an atrocious division, but a 43-33 record is a heck of a lot better than how they’ve fared the last few years. Bryan Colangelo deserves a ton of credit.

.:.

The Onion AV Club pleads for the survival of Friday Night Lights. Seconded; it’s definitely one of the best shows on network TV these days. Salon made the same case a month ago, and Matt Roush from TV Guide seems to agree.

Bring it back, NBC.

[tags]leafs, canadiens, cbc, hockey night in canada, raptors, bryan colangelo, friday night lights, nbc[/tags]

If you add some facial hair and an Adam's apple, maybe

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Just got home from the Auld Spot, where we had dinner and a couple of drinks with CBGB. I hadn’t seen them for a while; they were away in Europe and my scarlet fever kept me housebound upon their return. By the way, CB, this is what Sabrina Lloyd looks like. –>

.:.

Booked a whole great big bunch of travel stuff today, so that’s effectively off our plate. I can now focus on getting all my school work done before the 20th, and then I can concentrate on packing for a few days. Then I have five days in which to help unpack and set up before I bugger off for book learnin’.

[tags]auld spot, sabrina lloyd[/tags]

"Crack & hookers. That's how to keep reformed suburbanites out and prices low."

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Dropped off the paperwork & cheques at the lawyer’s office today, for which I expect we shall receive an impressive invoice. Monday we will have keys!

.:.

I’m sorry…Ice Girls? Ice girls?!?!? Look, nobody deserves to get spit on, but…c’mon. There should be no bare midriffs on the ice.

.:.

Great post on BlogTO about the shift, if only a slight one, toward Torontonians requiring less living space. Whether to save money or spare the environment, it seems like a few more people are foregoing the suburbs for the downtown.

The ever rising cost of housing in the city, along with increasing concern on how our lifestyle and choices affect the environment has got a lot of home buyers asking themselves, ‘how much space do I really need?’.

The National Post is running a three part series this week that examines the backlash against ‘living large’. People are coming back to the city by choice, and their leaving their white picket fences and second cars behind.

I’m of this mindset, obviously. For the last five years we’ve lived in a 650 square foot (it’s not like we have kids or a car to park) apartment downtown. My love for living downtown ruled out buying in the suburbs, and I never wanted to own a house (or a car) anyway. I grew up surrounded by hundreds of acres of farmland, so living an hour from the city so that I could own a tiny patch of walled-in grass never appealed to me. We could’ve bought houses in mature, just-outside-the-core neighbourhoods like our friends CBGB and T-Bone did, I guess, but I like being right in the core…and I love my new view.

[tags]henrik lundqvist, blogto, toronto urbanation[/tags]

The conscientious objector

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Attention, everybody who keeps sending me Facebook invitations: I will not do it. I don’t want to join the club. I didn’t like the club when it was called Myspace or even Friendster, and I don’t like it any better now just because they’ve fixed the style sheet. I sure as shit don’t want to “catch up” with 99% of the people I went to high school with, and I don’t want to take part in the online clique-building. If you want to keep a blog or post your pictures, please use a site that doesn’t require membership in a cult just to view it. I decline. I forestall. I abstain.

Thank you.

.:.

This blog post by Matt Brown sounds almost exactly what was going through my mind the first time I visited Vancouver. I left miserable weather (and a fairly unhappy life) in Toronto to visit Vancouver on business. As I flew there I read The Water In Between by Kevin Patterson, a book about a guy who leaves his shitty life behind, moves to BC, buys a boat and just starts sailing. When I got to Vancouver it was sunny and warm, and I sat in my hotel room overlooking English Bay, wishing I had Kevin Patterson’s guts. I had my phone in my hand, ready to make my resignation phone call.

Of course, I didn’t. I returned to Toronto a few days later, and stuck it out there, even though I pretty much had a job offer in Vancouver. In the end, of course, my life turned out pretty well indeed. I don’t for a second regret staying here in Toronto, but I can absolutely understand what Matt’s feeling.

I guess I’ll just keep living Vancariously through Stanzi.

.:.

It’s my mom’s birthday. I’d point you to her blog to leave a congratulatory comment, but she doesn’t roll like that. Given the current trend she’ll no doubt be on Facebook soon though, so maybe y’all can say bonne fete next year.

[tags]facebook yawn, vancouver, english bay[/tags]

One lone bright spot in a locker room full of tripe

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OK, as much as I hate the Maple Leafs, I’ll now find it hard to hate at least one player: Boyd Devereaux.

Very few Maple Leaf fans likely know how passionate Boyd Devereaux is about Canada’s indie rock scene. A playlist he gave to the Star included offerings from the likes of Joel Plaskett Emergency, Black Mountain, Godspeed! You Black Emperor, The Sadies and Fu Manchu.

Wow. Well done, Boyd, especially considering you’re surrounded by Slayer (Bryan McCabe) and Christopher Cross (Todd Gill).

[tags]boyd devereaux, leafs playlists[/tags]