This vacation is progressing exactly as I had hoped: quietly, and with a minimum of excitement. I am well-fed and well-rested. I have neither slept in an airport nor fended off surging coastal waves, so I count myself lucky. I’ve already gotten some cool presents. And I have lots more — family reunions, more presents, world junior hockey, our anniversary — to look forward to yet. Holidays FTW.
Category: Daily life
Strength in numbers
Yesterday my team (my work team, that is) and I spent a few hours at Toronto’s Ronald McDonald House. We brought food and toys and stockings for the families and kids staying there, and packed them up for the residents. We also got a quick tour, learned about the origins of the Ronald McDonald House charity and heard about the amazing new building being built here in Toronto. It was fun to get out of the office as a team, but it also felt good to help out even a little.
Voting with my wallet
Back in August I had one of the most frustrating customer experiences of my life. I won’t get into the great gory details, but suffice it to say Rogers really, really pissed me off. I told the unhelpful phone rep who spoke to me that I’d be canceling my (rather substantial) cable services in protest. He said he could do nothing. The folks manning Rogers’ Twitter account tried to help, and did solve one of the problems, but not enough to save my business. My white-hot rage had cooled to regular old anger, but I wasn’t staying with them after how they treated me. A few weeks ago I finally pulled the trigger.
So, as I sit here typing this, I’m watching the Montreal game in the corner of my monitor, piped through Bell’s new Fibe TV. Nellie’s in the other room playing with the new PVR, which uses the same interface as Windows Media Center. It’s all pretty slick and it looks great, so…so far so good. Meanwhile, I’ve just called Rogers and explained to them that I’m canceling my service…this agent seemed horrified that I’m leaving after thirteen years with Rogers, especially when I pointed her to the history of that conversation in their CRM system.
Of course, even though they’ll shut off my service in 72 hours, they’re still going to charge me for a full 30 days. Just because they’re douches. And so, one final time: eat a dick, Rogers.
"Just kidding."
I didn’t survive this week at work so much as I climbed out of it. Pushing through this cold (again? seriously? dammit!) I suggested a pub near the Ryerson before our second-last TIFF film. Much to my surprise they had several Unibroue bottles behind the bar, including #9 on the Project FiftyBrew list: Don de Dieu! Kickass. It was very nice, by the way…tasted much smoother than a 9% beer should.
We had time to kill and full bellies, so we walked home, dropped our stuff and then walked back to the Ryerson. I was so wiped that I needed coffee; our barista at Starbucks mistook my ‘sticks of shame’ t-shirt for an indication that I actually speak Japanese and tried to converse with me. My blank stare pretty much answered that question for her. We strolled up to the Ryerson and the oh-so-familiar line-up spot: the concrete wall running along church, a tired movie-goer’s best friend. Oddly enough we were shown in to the theatre 35 minutes before the scheduled start time. That never happens.
Speaking of Japanese, many of the people in the audience spoke it. That’s because we were there to see Confessions (tiff | imdb), aka Kokuhaku, Japan’s submission for best foreign film Oscar. I think I like it more now than immediately after I watched it…it felt a little long at the time, but now I appreciate all the story threads it had to pull together. The filtered slo-mo was beautiful for a while, as was the droning soundtrack, but it wore a little thin in the second hour. Still, very good. It deserves a B, says I.
Tonight is all about relaxing. I could only get about 3 hours of coherent work in at the office today, and tonight — while Nellie is off doing girly things with other girlies — I plan to do nothing more strenuous than write this blog post to the following soundtrack:
- Ida Maria . “Oh My God”
- DevotchKa . “How It Ends”
- Uncle Tupelo . “Satan, Your Kingdom Must Come Down”
- We Are Scientists . “Pittsburgh”
- The Tallest Man On Earth . “Graceland”
- FemBots . “Count Down Our Days”
- Vampire Weekend . “Ottoman”
- Rogue Wave . “Electro-Socket Blues”
Those last two were from the closing credits of Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist, playing in the other room, and about as highbrow as it’s gonna get around here tonight. Peace.
In which I fall asleep during my own dinner party
Yes, yes, I’m aware. I’m sensitive to the fact that this blog has turned into little more than a diary of shit I do daily weekly, or a dump of what songs I’m listening to or movies I just watched, instead of what I’m thinking. I had to go back almost five months to find a blog post that took the real live brain cells required to form an opinion. This stems from the fact that I have no time to actually think any more, just run around like an idiot, rest up for the following day and go back to reacting.
I should have more than this. I should be able to formulate interesting thoughts and analysis out of the books I’m reading, like The Imperfectionists or Blood Meridian or Ill Fares The Land. Or the music I’m listening to like The National or Titus Andronicus or Mates of State or Sleigh Bells. Or the TV I’m watching like Treme or Friday Night Lights or True Blood. Or the movies I’ve been watching, like Wanted or The Taking of Pelham 123 or Public Enemies. Okay, maybe not the movies. But still, work hours aside, I’m getting outside stimuli that should be fostering thoughtful writing. Even the G20 or a trip to Halifax or a day visit to the islands…but nothing. Actually, that’s not true; the G20 gave me plenty of ideas to write about. It’s just that every time I thought about writing I didn’t have time, or I just didn’t feel like it.
So maybe that’s it. Maybe my appetite for blogging is just dead. I started doing this nine years ago, before I even knew what blogging was and I had to write custom software to automagically transfer my thoughts to the interweb, so perhaps ze magic has disappeared. I feel like…like…oh, fuck it. Aaaaaaaaand VENN!!
Quel weekend
Oooh, that was nice. Every weekend should be a 4-day long weekend. I know, I know, then they wouldn’t seem as special, but think of the bar sales!
Wednesday night we picked up two bottles of Rosewood Estates wine (the 2008 Semillon and 2008 Süssreserve Riesling) and some Cumbrae’s steaks by way of provisions, before kicking off our long weekend at Beerbistro (too crowded inside, too cold outside) and Duggan’s (just right). Not a long night, though…we were pacing ourselves.
I’ve already talked about Thursday — Canada Day — over here.
By Friday the weather was really picking up…good timing, as we’d decided to take the day off work. We began the day watching the orange jerseys parade along King Street toward Betty’s for the Netherlands-Brazil match before finding a less crowded seat at the Jason George from which to watch. Holland won and King Street went mad; we did a little furniture & art shopping, raided St. Lawrence Market, cleaned up our place (finally!), went for a run, made some ploughman’s lunch and drank a bottle of Firesteed Pinot Noir from Oregon.
Saturday started much like Friday: back to the Jason George to watch the Germany-Argentina match before hitting the farmer’s market and taking a stroll to the Distillery District. I needed a walk, Nellie needed wine glasses, and we both wanted to check out some art. Naturally we ended up sitting in the Mill Street brew pub, watching the excellent second half of the Spain-Paraguay match. When we arrived home Nellie completed her preparations for barbecued ribs, which were a tad on the spicy side…by which I mean they tasted like Satan had pissed hellfire in the sauce. Tasty, but they hurt my ever-so-delicate mouth.
Somewhere in there, between enjoying the outdoors at ground- or balcony-level, we watched a bunch of mediocre movies: My Best Friend’s Girl (imdb | rotten tomatoes), Green Zone (imdb | rotten tomatoes) and Thirst (imdb | rotten tomatoes). Actually, My Best Friend’s Girl was shit, but it was free, so I feel less bad about watching it.
Sunday was, sadly, the beginning of our return to reality. While we had fun taking pictures of all the hubbub of the Queen’s visit to our neighbourhood cathedral and relaxing on our balcony for the morning, it was back to work for me in the afternoon.
Happy: Canada Day
Oh my, but it’s been a nice Canada Day. We were up pretty early — improbably, Nellie get out of bed before I did — and walked down to the waterfront to catch the ferry to the islands. First we rented bikes (crappy ones, too…next time I need to find a better place from which to rent) from Centre Island, rode to the far end of Hanlon’s Point for some pictures and rode back to the pier. Nice.
Next we walked along the boardwalk toward Ward’s Island, looking out over the lake and the Leslie Street Spit. We stopped for lunch at the Rectory Cafe, which we’ve been meaning to try for years. Man, was it worth the wait. My pulled pork wrap was fantastic, Nellie’s pasta with shrimp, tomatoes and olive oil was simple and tasty, and we had several Ontario wines (Malivoire pinot gris and rose, and Fielding White Conception) throughout. We wrapped it up with an amazing sticky toffee pudding.
As we got up to leave we looked out over the lake and saw one of the tall ships we thought was coming into the harbour for the waterfront festival, but was in fact a ship that sails around the harbour all the time. Still…pretty! Then we walked across Ward’s Island, taking the pictures I’d hoped to get in my ill-fated excursion three years ago. A little good timing with the ferry and we were back on dry land, surrounded by hordes of families decked out in red.
Not quite done with the day yet, we sat on the sunny patio at Bier Markt and had some Canadian beers: Beau’s Lugtread and Denison’s. Then…well, I needed a nap. We came home and I made the couch my lover while we watched a crap movie, and then Nellie grilled up some amazing steak to go with yet more Canadian wine (2008 Rosewood Semillon and a bottle of L’Acadie Alchemy) while we watch the city light up with the minortillery of fireworks.
Happy birthday, country!
I'm okay with frogs. Not so much with the boils.
On Friday I’ll be flying to Nova Scotia. While I’m happy to get away, to see my family and celebrate a dear friend’s wedding, I have to admit that I’m a little disappointed to be missing the G20, though I suspect it’ll all just fizzle into a big billion-dollar pile of nothing.
Then again, with the earthquake today, massive police force in the streets and tornadoes in the area, maybe it’s best we get out of the town before Lake Ontario turns to blood.
Avast
I’m getting too old for this.
Last night wasn’t a late finisher so much as it was an early starter. Dinner at Fieramosca (with a bottle of wine), then drinks with co-workers at The Pilot, then more co-worker drinks at Volo, and finally dinner at Origin. I think our meal was good. I know it was long. The ending gets a little fuzzy. The next morning was even fuzzier.
How fortunate, then, that we were scheduled to get on a boat and cruise around in the hot sun for most of Saturday afternoon. Our friend CB had arranged a little celebration for husband GB’s birthday, so nine of us piled on a catamaran and prepared to enjoy the weather. My stomach wasn’t quite ready for that, though; the first few minutes while we were tied up made me queasy, but as soon as we were underway I felt better. A little nap below decks helped.
We reached Centre Island, had a bit of a stroll and (somewhat inadvertently) took in the sights at Hanlon’s Point Beach. Then the skipper cooked lunch, which we ate on the grass, by the water, in the sun…pretty awesome. Back on board and birthday cake in hand we set back out, cruising through the harbor and all the way around the islands. It gave me a look at parts of Toronto I’d not seen before, like the north side of Ward’s Island and a bird colony on the Leslie Street Spit. I got to relax on the deck of a boat for a few hours, a cool breeze tempering the hot summer sun. Shaky start and a little sunburn aside, it was a brilliant day.
Yeeeeeaaaaah, I need a rich friend with a boat.
Paddles up
I went dragon boating today. First time, probably last time. It was actually kind of fun, even if I did end up wearing more of Lake Ontario than I would have liked. Couldn’t have picked a better day though…sunny, hot and water like a pane of glass.
Not much question whether I’ll be sore tomorrow. If my shoulders could give me a look both quizzical and annoyed, they would.
Skirl | Dan Dickinson 