Category: Daily life

Spicy chicken = biggie sized. If you know what I mean.

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The Distillery District

Today was very busy, and yet somehow very relaxing. I got a metric whack of Christmas shopping done, ate a Wendy’s spicy chicken sandwich (ohh…missed you SO HARD), bumped into my buddy Brad, met my new doctor (who is surprisingly young and alarmingly attractive), tried some yummy Costa Rican chocolate with roasted hazelnuts from Soma, bought some shirts at my new store crush Lileo, and generally enjoyed walking around the city, even if it was a little busy with shoppers. Even late on a Monday morning, I guess I have to expect that with less than three weeks ’til the big day.

A couple of observations:

  • I love my new winter coat. I am never cold outside (even venturing out on days like yesterday, which Tom Purves compared to a Shackleton expedition), but I don’t get warm when wearing it indoors. Note to Canadians: a winter coat is the wrong thing to skimp on.
  • There is a special layer of hell reserved for a) people who look one way and walk another in crowded environments; b) people who stop dead at the top or bottom of an escalator; and c) cashiers who cough violently into their hand just before they reach into the till to hand me my change. When I am king PayWave and PayPass will work everygoddamnwhere.
  • The Distillery District (see above) is a really lovely place, especially in the winter, especiallyespecially when they’re decked out for Christmas, and superespecially in the middle of a weekday when no one else is around.
  • Overheard in the PATH: Lady #1: “I have nothing in my wallet but I’m still going shopping.” Lady #2: “I have nothing in my wallet but I’m still buying a car.” Downturn? Quel downturn?

Tomorrow it’s back to work, but right now the most stressful thing I feel like doing is putting my undefeated Wii Tennis streak on the line.

Less Joe Mauer. More Ryan Howard.

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I’m still trying to get some work done — brilliance often strikes around midnight, right? — so no interesting blog topics tonight. This week has been bad for imagination and insight. Too much happening at work, not enough brain downtime at home, let alone time to get non-work stuff done. We haven’t had groceries in the house since Sunday morning. We’ve been on subsistence pizza for days.

Meanwhile the weather’s turned to shit, which normally would turn my mood black as pitch, but it’s not like I’m paying attention to what’s outside. Still, though…I don’t hate my days. I hate some of what happened at work today, but not most of it. I think having the right co-workers, and especially the right boss, makes up for a lot of down.

That’s it. Enough. I’ve been trying to hit for average all week. Tomorrow I’m swingin’ for the fences.

"Please don't lick my makhani."

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Got Indian tonight for the first time in ages. Sooooooo good. Nellie has discovered that the Biryani House’s shrimp makhani sauce is just like butter chicken sauce, and I think if she could float in a pool of it on a naan raft, she would.

It was a long, loopy day at work, so it’s been nice to come home, eat a delicious dinner and watch things unfold south of the border. I wish I could blog something more interesting, but…that’s all I have. Sorry. Go about your business. These aren’t the droids you’re looking for.

Right in our own backyard

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For over a year we’ve lived around the corner from a restaurant called Mercatto (literally: it’s 200m away, on Toronto Street) but haven’t tried it. Last night, after leaving an overstuffed beerbistro where the wait was 45 minutes, we decided to try Mercatto instead. It’s actually a pretty decent little spot: nice, not flashy, friendly servers and very good food.

I had a grilled gamberi (shrimp) appetizer with chickpeas, lemon and some kind of fiery demon excrement called peperoncino. It wasn’t that hot, except that I wasn’t expecting it, and just shoveled the appetizer in my mouth, not knowing some or all of it had been soaked in this hell-broth, and so my mouth caught fire. Nellie had the calamari: very tasty, equally spicy. Then the mains arrived: Nellie’s was a spaghetti semplici with mushrooms thrown in; mine was an orecchiette pugliesi with rapini & olive oil, but no sausage, alas. The pasta seemed homemade and more doughy than I’m used to, but still very tasty. For dessert we split a pumpkin creme brulee…very tasty, if a little runnier than normal creme brulee. All this was, of course, accompanied by several glasses of wine. Nellie showed her usual flair for inadvertently picking the most expensive by-the-glass wine on the list, something called a Super Tuscan. At least we didn’t order by the bottle…there’s a $500 bottle of Amarone on there.

Pretty good spot, all in all. Nice to know it’s there.

Stop 'n go

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We arrived back in Toronto today, just in time to do some laundry, perform some emergency triage on the PVR and pack for two days away at a conference. I leave tomorrow morning and get back Wednesday evening. It’s going to be a tough two days, mainly because of how behind I am on my sleep, but it’ll be fun too.

Graduand –> graduate

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It might be a bit quiet around here the next few days since I’ll be in Halifax — for the third time in as many months — to take part in my MBA convocation. Trying like hell to get everything done, at home and at work, before I leave.

Have a good weekend, y’all.

Squeak. Thump.

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I love me some long weekends. Since we’re going away next week we didn’t really plan anything for Thanksgiving, save getting a bunch of stuff done, having a nice big turkey-less meal on Monday, relaxing and enjoying the abnormally beautiful (for mid-October) weather.

After shaking off the work week at Smokeless Joe last night and sleeping in this morning, we bought enormous amounts of produce and other groceries, dropped a bunch of stuff at Goodwill, had a beer and a bite to eat on the wonderfully sunny Volo patio, ran a few errands, bought a few things, and came home. After a quick nap Nellie was fired up to do some cleaning, and when it involves throwing stuff out I always get excited, so we did that right up until the hockey game started.

Watching the Canadiens manhandle the Leafs 6-1 (in their home rink, no less) was like watching my old cat torture mice in the yard, just swatting at them as they cowered and shook, until I went outside and killed them with a shovel. I almost felt bad for them, right up until I heard Don Cherry giving Montreal coach Guy Carbonneau shit after the game for having the gall to play his usual power play units late in the game. I watched the game. They weren’t even trying, and they still almost scored, but apparently Cherry knows some unwritten rule that used to matter 30 years ago, and this had him angry. It made me wish Montreal had scored five more goals.

More relaxation and patio-sitting to come tomorrow. Yep, I do love me some long weekends.

Dan

The great migration

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I took a break from setting up the new computer, during the only few hours of the day it didn’t seem to be raining, to see our last Toronto FC game of the season. Things didn’t look good for a long time…an FC defender headed the ball into his own net in the first half, but with just 15 minutes left in the name Marvel Wynne made an amazing run to the middle and blasted it over the Houston keeper to gain a 1-1 tie.

Back home and back to setting up the new hotness, with another long break to order pizza and watch The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (which I really liked) and how here I sit, surrounded by boxes, watching an amazingly clear TV picture in one corner of my screen while I blog on another and watch my Samurize stats in yet another.

[tags]new computer, toronto fc, houston dynamo, the assassination of jesse james by the coward robert ford[/tags]

Dude, you got a yeah whatever snxxxzzzzzzzz

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

The new computer arrived today but I’m far too wiped to do anything about it. Much as I want to start playing with the new hotness I’m not looking forward to moving all my crap over and doing all the requisite setups and installs. Going out for drinks last night with some MBA friends just made me sleepy, and a long day at work followed by a pile of thai food has pretty much put me in a sweet little coma.

However, there’s nothing on the agenda for the upcoming weekend, save the Toronto FC game tomorrow afternoon, leaving me with plenty of time to set up the computer and deliver the boxes to their inescapable destiny: cat fortress.

[tags]new computer, dell desktop[/tags]