Author: Dan Dickinson

I Will Not Sing A Hateful Song

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Spring has a downside, one that sometimes makes me want to vom. Smokers, on the whole, are disgusting assholes.

.:.

Dinner last night at Tutti Matti was pretty good. I had a caprese salad* and the grilled swordfish and a dessert called the Gino, a semifreddo covered in chocolate sauce. Damn.

Nice atmosphere, good service, and we all enjoyed our meals. Fieramosca is the undoubted comfort zone for us in terms of Italian food, but Tutti Matti may now be a good alternative, a more “downtown” option if needed.

* It’s hard to believe, sometimes, how much my tastes have changed over the past few years. Not long ago the idea of eating a giant pile of buffalo mozzarella and tomato covered in olive oil would have turned my stomach.

.:.

Last night Montreal beat Boston for the eighth straight time this season, and eleventh straight overall going back into last season. They won in the shootout, which was the best possible scenario: Montreal stays where they are (tops in the east!) and Boston earns a point to stay ahead of the chasing teams like Toronto. There’re two reasons why this is good for the Habs; if Boston holds on to the 8th (or even 7th) spot, there’s a good chance Montreal will play them in the first round and…well, eight in a row. The Canadiens have owned the Bruins this year.

The other reason why a Boston point last night was beneficial: it makes it harder for the Leafs fans to hold on to their mass delusion of making the playoffs. With eight games left they’re four points out of the final playoff spot, and they’d have to leapfrog four teams to get there, but the delusion lives on. Rather than shutting down their veterans, letting their young players get some much-needed development and securing a spot in the lottery, they’re playing themselves into a lower draft pick.

But hey, if they want to keep it up, that’s cool. I kind of hope they win both games against the Bruins (the team they’re chasing) this week and get their hopes up even higher, so that when Montreal plays them next Saturday, I can watch live as the Canadiens crush their playoff dreams once and for all.

Wait a second…goddammit, I won’t be able to watch that live after all. Stupid climate change…must you ruin everything?

.:.

My buddy Joe sent me the new Constantines album yesterday. I’m only a few songs in but I already love it.  “Million Star Hotel” in particular is brilliant. The last two ‘tines albums were amazing and under-appreciated; if you like the rock and roll, do yourself a favour and check them out.

[tags]smokers, tutti matti, fieramosca, montreal canadiens, boston bruins, toronto maple leafs, nhl playoffs, earth hour, constantines[/tags]

Bratterscained

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Sorry I haven’t been writing much. Normally my brain is spinning with so much delicious wit, razor-sharp criticism and profound innovation that I find I need to spill some of it onto the blog, but lately I find I have only two modes: “work” and “recover from work.” I’m glad it’s a long weekend; I may yet be able to reclaim one of the other settings on that dial.

.:.

And how will I do that? By watching hour upon hour of college basketball, interrupted only by sleep and rich food. Yes, it’s March Madness time and while I haven’t been able to give it the attention I’d like, I’m still doing pretty well in my pool, so there’s that. In between games: dinner with M2 at beerbistro on Thursday (which I think made me sick in some weird way) and dinner tonight at Tutti Matti with CBGB.

.:.

Also in between games we’ve been trying to clear off the PVR. We have it down to about 50% now, having watched two movies and an episode of Extras. We waited a long time to watch the second season — not on purpose, we just never got around to it — and so far the episodes have been fairly funny, but this episode with Daniel Radcliffe killed me. Not because of Radcliffe (though it was pretty funny to watch Harry Potter throw a rubber at James Bond’s wife’s head) but because of a scene between Stephen Merchant and Warwick Davis. That might’ve been the funniest 60 seconds I’ve seen on TV in months.

Anyway, the two movies we watched were Bobby (imdb | rotten tomatoes), a terribly dull movie about a terribly interesting man, and Beowulf & Grendel (imdb | rotten tomatoes), not the recent rotoscoped film with Ray Winstone and Angelina Jolie, but the one with Gerard Butler and Sarah Polley. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t that good either. As much as I love Sarah Polley, she seemed out of place here.

[tags]march madness, beerbistro, tutti matti, extras, ricky gervais, daniel radcliffe, harry potter, stephen merchant, warwick davis, bobby, beowulf, grendel, sarah polley[/tags]

Mannish god

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Since it’s 7:58PM and I’m still at work, this is about as much original, interesting thought as I can muster: while listening to The Last Waltz by The Band, it occurred to me that if there was a god, he would sound like Muddy Waters.

Actually, on further reflection, god’s voice would probably sound like Mark Lanegan‘s. I think the almighty would be a whiskey & Marlboro kind of guy.

[tags]the band, last waltz, muddy waters, god’s voice, mark lanegan[/tags]

Today

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Today is St. Patrick’s Day. I do not care about this so much since I’m about as Irish as pineapple, and my tolerance for drinking cheap draft in crowded bars is pretty much down to nil. However, a shocking number of people (many of whom I know for a fact are not Irish in any way, shape or form) are wearing green today, so maybe this is a bigger deal than I thought. Having grown up in a place named New Scotland, in a non-drinking family, the importance of March 17 may have been lost on me.

Today I am 89% of the way through my MBA. I have 157 days left. If the entire program were put on the timeline of a single day, it would be about 9:22 PM. I am officially phoning it in at this point.

Today my brother is in town again. He was here just last weekend; I guess he really missed the place. Anyway, we had a bite and a couple of pints at Smokeless Joe last night (I believe we have now taken pretty much everyone we know there) and he’s off to meetings today and tomorrow. Soon he’ll know the city better than we do.

Today’s it’s cold again, which is deflating after the semi-warm day we had on Saturday. Supposed to be above freezing & rainy tomorrow and Wednesday, which bodes well for removing some snow.

Today I’d like to be working for VanCity, like my friend* William Azaroff.  He got to meet Muhummad Yunus and he does some cool stuff at work.

Today is gonna be the day that they’re gonna throw it back to you. By now you should’ve somehow realized what you gotta do. I don’t believe that anybody feels the way I do about you now.

* It feels odd to call him that, since I’ve never met him in person, but rather have communicated only a few times over email and phone. Still, blogs & Facebook & Twitter give a strange sense of familiarity. Hmmmm…there’s a whole other blog post simmering there…

[tags]st. patrick’s day, mba, smokeless joe, toronto weather, william azaroff, vancity, muhummad yunus, oasis, wonderwall[/tags]

"Half of his readership was lost to a cholera outbreak…"

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

Last week The Onion did a brilliant piece making fun of Marmaduke (my favourite line was “Today, almost six decades later, this plucky octogenarian continues his tireless work, bringing laughter and joy to millions of readers long since dead of old age.”) which I sent to a co-worker. This prompted a discussion of other comic strips long overdue for death. He sent me a link to the King Features site and pointed out that most of the offending strips live there.

Honestly, I’m baffled. People still read Beetle Bailey? Blondie? Dennis The Menace? Hi And Lois? Mary Worth? Rex Morgan M.D.? Sweet tubercular Moses, The Family Circus!?! Were these ever considered funny? Granted, they’re all 48+ years old (Blondie being the oldest, having started in 1930) and taste in humour certainly changes over the years, but that raises the question: how many fans of these strips can possibly still be alive?

.:.

Those of you who know her should check out Nellie’s new blog. It’s the same address as her old blog, but she’s switched topics. Photography is her latest interest, which I’m all for ’cause I think she’s got some real talent. She’s taking a class to help her learn some technique, and she has a shmancy new camera from which I keep expecting to hear a HAL9000 voice. Anyway, link/subscribe to nelliedee photographee and have a look.

[tags]onion, marmaduke, king features, beetle bailey, blondie, dennis the menace, hi and lois, mary worth, rex morgan m.d., family circus, nelliedee[/tags]

Max Payne is attacking my city

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The upcoming Mark Wahlberg movie Max Payne (imdb) is being shot in Toronto right now, and today from our balcony we could see some helicopter scenes being filmed. Actually, the helicopters have been buzzing around the sky above us pretty much non-stop since the early afternoon. You can see from this shot that helicopter #1 (which is part of the movie; the other chopper is unmarked and, I presume, has a camera and/or the director in it) was hovering over Yonge & King, roughly. If you click the next picture you’ll see the helicopter was marked “NPYD” so the people in One King West and BCE Place who weren’t informed of the movie shoot must’ve been awfully confused.

Eventually they peeled off from the downtown; they then set up so that the black helicopter hovered over the waterfront while the “NYPD” chopper did a high-speed lap around it. It circled out over the island, over the DVP and right over our building. Nellie got this great shot of it as it appeared overhead.

Hours later they were back at it, swooping back into the spot near One King West (which was lit up). Sadly, Nellie hasn’t quite figured out the nighttime settings on her new camera, and thinks she’d need a tripod for the shots anyway.

Anyway, apart from getting my haircut and buying a new garbage can, that was our excitement for the day.

 

[tags]max payne, mark wahlberg, one king west, bce place, toronto, helicopters[/tags]

All 4 ratings

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

Oh god. No. Please, please no.

The popular 1990s TV series Beverly Hills 90210 — the numbers refer to the wealthy enclave’s zip code — may be getting a spinoff. The CW network is said to be developing a contemporary spinoff of Aaron Spelling’s teen soap, which starred Canada’s Jason Priestly and Shannen Doherty as Minnesota teens who move into L.A.’s richest community.

The rumour is that Rob Thomas — creator of the excellent (at first, anyway) series Veronica Mars — is supposed to direct. Culturally speaking, I’d say this is the rough equivalent of Weezer covering the debut album by Color Me Badd.

[tags]beverly hills 90210, rob thomas, veronica mars, weezer, color me badd[/tags]

With my feet in the air and my head on the ground

Dan Dickinson3 Comments

Sorry internet, I’ve been too busy to blog lately. Work is devouring most of my time, so it’s probably a good thing I’ve dropped any pretense of putting effort into the MBA. Also, daylight saving time is wreaking havoc on my brain-clock, making it hard to keep up with my usual distractions.  Thus, you shall get brief notes instead of piercing insights.*

  • I don’t really know how two Kara Keith songs ended up in my inbox, but I like the songs I’ve heard so far. I suspect I downloaded them via Chromewaves.
  • The last time Montreal was first in their conference this late in the season was 1993, which was also the last year they won the cup. I’m just sayin’. Weird thing about that year, though; they wound up finishing third in their division (let alone conference) behind Quebec and Boston, both of whom were powerhouses, and then won the cup.
  • Last night we took the cats to the vet (which I kind of enjoyed, ’cause it gave me an excuse to leave work at 5) and found out that Sonny, the one we refer to as “fatty”, “fat boy”, “sir fatness”, etc. has lost weight. He’s now a sleek, slim 17 lbs. I guess all those nights of threatening to kill him as he howled for food have paid off.
  • Thanks to ModernMod for sending me the Frames‘ cover of “Where Is My Mind.” I’ve been listening to it constantly.
  • My toe is…well, weird. It’s still the color of violent rage, but it’s not hurting. I ran two miles on it this morning, in brand new shoes, and hardly felt anything. This is my first broken pinky toe so I’m not really sure whether this is standard, and just ask me if I can be arsed to look anything up on WebMD.

* as if you ever get piercing insights here.

[tags]kara keith, montreal canadiens, fat cats, the frames, where is my mind, broken pinky toe[/tags]

"Don't just sit there and decompose. Go throw on some summer clothes."

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

I love spring. It is, by far, my favourite time of the year. Some of that has to do with the association of spring with maple season (truly one of the best times to live on a maple-producing farm), but mainly it’s the promise of those first few days when it’s so warm, you can go outside without a coat. Just thinking about it makes me all tingly.

March 20 is, of course, the first day of spring. As chance would have it, this year March 20 also happens to be the kickoff of March Madness, surely another of my favourite days of the year. If it’s sunny and semi-warm and I get to watch 16 college basketball games in 12 hours, I may just go into happy overdose. Stay tuned.

[tags]first day of spring, march madness[/tags]

"Because, brother, when you were good, you were the best we had."

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The Wire is dead. Long live The Wire.

I agree with the critics who say it was the best show on television during its run. Each of the first four seasons was the best show I’ve seen related to whatever topic they were portraying that year: police, blue collar workers, politics, schools.

If you haven’t watched it, I beg you to go rent season 1; by the time you finish watching season 4 the final season should be available on DVD.

.:.

So while my toe does appear to be broken — or at least really badly sprained, ’cause it’s the color of an angry plum right now — it’s more or less stopped hurting. I might actually try running on it tomorrow or Wednesday if I can get it into my new shoes without hurting.

.:.

If you have ten minutes and thirty-five seconds to spare, I recommend downloading and listening to “Ghost Blues” by Ladyhawk.

[tags]the wire, broken toe, saucony running shoes, ladyhawk, ghost blues[/tags]