Category: Daily life

"The blues is when you love someone don't love you"

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

.:.

Last night was a great Toronto night…lots of snow, a (relatively) quiet downtown and some comfort food after a trying week. We took Nellie’s mom to Smokeless Joe which, despite the fairly empty streets, was packed to the ceiling. We finally got three seats together and put down some pasta and some beer before hitting the wall. We’d all had a long day so we just came home and watched some TV (The Wire…so good!!) before crashing.

I have to say, after a week of corporate finance, it did me some good to sit in cozy little Joe’s with my wife, drink a good beer, have some good food, chat with the excellent staff and listen to Leadbelly on the stereo. My recharging has continued today; with the snow now stopped we had some breakfast at Over Easy and I now have the place to myself as Nellie and NellieMom have gone to see Dirty Dancing. Me, I’ll be staying home and watching the Canadiens game on TV…oh, right about now.

.:.

United 93 has been playing on TMN lately, and I’ve watched bits and pieces of it over the past couple of weeks. I thought the film was unsettling and brilliant when I saw it, and thought it was one of the best of 2006, but I simply cannot watch it again. It’s too hard on me. Every time I watch it, even just a few scenes, my guts twist into a knot. It’s probably the most physical reaction I’ve ever had to a film, and it happens every time I see it. I want to watch it — Paul Greengrass is a master at that sort of emotional recreation — but I get apprehensive just thinking about it.

I guess I’ll just have to lot it from a distance.

[tags]berczy park, smokeless joe, leadbelly, united 93[/tags]

"I want no part of a world that refuses to congratulate itself."

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

Exciting news: I’m going to go for a run tomorrow. It’s the first time since my killer cold last week that I’ve felt up to it (and didn’t have an early meeting to get to). Sad that the idea of a 3 mile run is attractive to me at this point.

.:.

While I’ve quite enjoyed the television writer’s strike — network is for shit anyway — I had to laugh at Conan O’Brien’s strike diary.

With little to sustain me, I am forced to subsist entirely on Reality Television. I gorge myself on marathons of The Real Housewives of Orange County and Flavor of Love, then collapse in a wretched heap. If this is living, I welcome death.

It’s short. Go read.

.:.

I hear a lot of complaints about Starbucks & music…exclusive sales agreements and such. This week, as I walked by the Starbucks every day on my walk to work (actually I walk by three, but there’s one I pay particular attention to) I heard Sia, James Brown and Radiohead. I don’t recall Monday, so either I wasn’t paying attention or it was bad/generic enough not to grab me. In any case, if a Starbucks wants to push decent music to coffee junkies, I’m not going to criticize them. Maybe it’ll counter the Wal-Mart influence.

Speaking of music…what in the sweaty hell happened to Bob Mould? I have no problem if someone mellows out in their old age, I don’t. That’s not my problem. My problem is that the music is (to steal a line from High Fidelity) generic pappy crap, and the man’s used more voice modulation  on his last few albums than Cher. This morning “Jesus Cradle” from the Sugar album Beaster came up on my Zen, and I was momentarily stunned by how good it was. Compared to what I’m listening to right now — a leaked copy of Mould’s latest, District Line — it’s just tragic. Genre differences or not, they’re still worlds apart.

.:.

My brother sent me this link yesterday in an email titled “There goes your day.” He wasn’t lying.

[tags]conan o’brien, starbucks, bob mould, cher, tony-b[/tags]

Banality, thy name is blog

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

I have absolutely nothing interesting to say. Haven’t looked up from work long enough to do anything, let alone read anything. Last night I did work while I watched the hockey game, and stopped long enough to watch the latest episode of The Wire (which, by the way, holy crapmonkey!) and then go to sleep. Gonna be the same tomorrow.

Heeeeeeeere Friday Friday Friday…C’mere boy.

[tags]the wire[/tags]

"Not your God. Mine."

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

The sun actually came out today. The wind still made it bitterly cold, but it was nice to at least see some sunshine for the first time in weeks, even if it didn’t help warm things up.

.:.

Just as I’ve pretty much gotten rid of my cold, Nellie’s gotten sick with one of her own. It’s a different cold than what I had — all in the throat, this one — but she’s no less miserable. Last night she had just enough in her to enjoy a couple of drinks and some dinner at beerbistro, but this morning she was worse. Scrapping our original ambitious plans, we ran out just long enough to pick up some food, a book at Nicholas Hoare (Cormac McCarthy’s The Road…I got one without an Oprah sticker, thank Gutenberg!) and some movies.

.:.

Two of those movies we watched this afternoon:

I thought Sunshine (imdb | rotten tomatoes) was quite good. I’ve liked pretty much everything director Danny Boyle’s done, and while this wasn’t exactly new cinematic ground, Boyle made it interesting without being too “sci-fi” at all. Definitely recommended.

28 Weeks Later (imdb | rotten tomatoes) was Nellie’s pick…she wanted something a little dumb and action-y. It wasn’t terrible, but just couldn’t live up to 28 Days Later (also directed by Boyle, and starring Cillian Murphy who also starred in Sunshine…come to think of it, Rose Byrne was in both Sunshine and 28 Weeks Later…I guess Danny Boyle likes continuity) and fell back a little too much on cliche. Not bad, but you’re better off just watching 28 Days Later again.

[tags]toronto sunshine, nicholas hoare, cormac mccarthy, oprah, sunshine, 28 weeks later, 28 days later, danny boyle[/tags]

In which my sinuses resume negotiations with my brain

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

I’m starting to feel ever-so-slightly better. I went to work today but I was still in pretty bad shape and my boss sent me home. I was about to enter a meeting room full of executives and had I gotten them all sick I would’ve been personally responsible for at least $0.50 off our stock price. Nobody wants that.

Tonight rather than doing work (did that already), doing schoolwork (nothing to do until the 27th) or watching a movie (Nellie’s not in the mood) I think I’m just going to…wait for it…read a book. Like, a book book. Not a textbook. I’ve been reading Naomi Klein’s The Shock Doctrine since September but [overshare] the only time I really have in which to read it is when I’m on the can [/overshare] so it’ll be nice to just sit quietly and read a book…on a couch.

.:.

We watched episode 3 of The Wire last night. Every episode is producing classic moments (e.g., the look Bunk gave Fremon last night) and the tension took a big jump last night at the end of the episode, so I just can’t wait for what’s coming. Seven more episodes just doesn’t seem like enough to pack it all in.

[tags]the shock doctrine, the wire[/tags]

Insufficient bandwidth

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

I want to write something witty. Really, I do, but after a 3-mile run this morning and going pretty much non-stop all day and then leaving work at 7:00 and working on my corporate finance assignment all night, I’m tapped. I have all kinds of cool stuff in my starred Google Reader items that I want to read and blog about, like an article about the knowledge economy and a Chuck Klosterman piece from Esquire and a Mark Kingwell essay from The Walrus about Toronto fauxhemians/bobos and a Vanity Fair article about George Lucas & Steven Spielberg and a chunk of Macbeth…but I’m just not up to it. I need to go get my shit ready for tomorrow’s run and try to wind my brain down into sleep mode.

Sorry, internet listeners. I’ll try to do better another day.

[tags]insufficient bandwidth[/tags]

She rolled her Rs…her beautiful Rs.

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

I just got off the elevator with a mother and her little girl. The girl saw the elevator button marked “R” (which opened or closed the rear doors — we were in the larger freight elevator) and started playing the word game: “Ar is for…rabbit!” The mother, although appearing incredibly tired, encouraged her to keep going.

Little girl: “Ar is for…ice cream.”

Mother: “No, honey, I is for ice cream.”

Dan [inside voice, thankfully]: “Actually, ‘Ar’ could be for ‘Arse cream’, which technically is correct and, let’s be honest, much funnier.”

Good thing I’m an introvert and don’t talk to people, otherwise I might’ve thought that was funny enough to share and found myself being beaten with a diaper bag.

[tags]elevator, ice cream[/tags]

Like a thief in the night. Actually, it was exactly like that.

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

Well, some joker got hold of my credit card number last night and used it to buy a bunch of stuff online. Mainly kids things, probably all highly fence-able. Luckily it was my “online” card, the one I use if I’m buying from a smaller online store that I don’t trust the way I trust, say, Future Shop. I’d noticed a fraudulent (or possibly mistaken) transaction on my card yesterday from the International Spy Museum in Washington D.C.; clearly that wasn’t me, so I called my card issuer. The agent took my info and sent out the paperwork they need from me, but apparently didn’t put a flag on my card or anything ’cause this morning the guy racked up a ton of purchases. Another call to my issuer and the card was canceled.

That’s the first time I’ve ever had fraud on my own card, to the best of my recollection. However, the secondary card worked exactly as it was meant to, so I guess it was the best possible outcome of a bad situation.

I get the sense that I’m unusual for having gone this long (buying as much stuff online as I do) without experiencing fraud. Is that true? Anyone care to share?

[tags]credit card fraud[/tags]

Happy holidays, everybody!

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

A work day that was supposed to end at noon actually didn’t end until after 3:00, but that’s ok. It wasn’t exactly a tough one. I had one little errand to do in Yorkville, and it took about 15x longer than it should have, but I pretty much expected that.

.:.

Ah, the Liquor Dome. Craptacular then (by which I mean my university years), craptacular now.

.:.

R.I.P., Oscar Peterson, a true Canadian music legend.

[tags]liquor dome, oscar peterson[/tags]