Category: Daily life

I'm a real Torontonian now

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

I’m a little sore right now.

This morning I had to take a cab to a meeting north of the city. As we drove east on Adelaide, moving at a pretty good clip, we approached the light at Parliament. I could see that it was red, but we were driving like it was green. I don’t think the cabbie clued in; around the time that I started to say, “Hey, that light…” a dump truck came into view, heading south into the same intersection that we were about to cruise into. The cabbie jammed on the brakes and tried to curl left around the truck, but he didn’t quite make it. The cab slammed into the truck’s rear tires.

I had plenty of warning; I clearly figured out that the red-light situation before the driver did. I had lots of time to brace, and we were probably only doing 30km/h or so by the time we hit the truck, but I still went into the seat belt pretty hard. Fortunately I didn’t hit my head on anything, and didn’t feel whiplash-y at all. It didn’t even freak me out all that much; I just angrily told the cabbie (who was fine, but clearly a little disoriented) to call dispatch and send me another cab. The front end was pretty much trashed. I crossed the street to the south side and talked to the truck driver. He was fine, obviously, and so was his truck. He was just annoyed at being held up with the accident report. Anyway, I still had to get to my meeting, so I climbed in the replacement taxi and headed north.

Midway through the day some soreness started to set in. No muscular pain or pinched-nerve feeling (which is something that would worry me), just some soreness through my shoulder and chest muscles. Really, it just feels like I lifted a whole bunch of weight all at once, from tensing up and bracing like that. My boss sent me home from the meeting early; I decided against a sitting in the chairs at a walk-in clinic (or even Advil) and just laid down for a while to straighten out. Felt fine after an hour. My back hurts a little now, but I actually think that’s ’cause I don’t have my new chair adjusted properly yet.

Anyway, I guess being in a minor accident makes me just a little more Torontonian, even if I wasn’t driving. Thanks, Beck Taxi #725.

[tags]beck taxi, accident, adelaide, parliament, dump truck[/tags]

If there were a market for sleep, I'd be a buyer

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

I’m tired. More tired than I should be. We went out for dinner last night with my old friend CBJ and his wife. They swung by to see our new place first, then we supped at beerbistro. We weren’t out that late, but I just couldn’t get my ass in gear today. I’m feeling awfully lazy and run-down. Apart from taking out the recycling and starting some laundry the most ambitious thing I did today was watch Jaws. Nellie, however, went to the One Of A Kind Show with CB; now that they’re home GB will come over to join us and we’ll watch the new Battlestar Galactica movie.

Oh yeah:  an hour ago the Snowbirds were flying around over Lake Ontario, and they actually swung around right in front of us…closer than the air show planes in the summer. I guess they’re here because it’s Grey Cup Sunday.

[tags]beerbistro, jaws, one of a kind show, battlestar galactica razor, snowbirds, lake ontatio[/tags]

Seven lean years…

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

Thanks, Stephen Harper. Way to improve our image on the national stage.

MUNYONYO, Uganda – Canada appears to have got its way at Commonwealth talks on climate change.

The 53-member organization has produced an agreement stripped of any reference to binding targets for greenhouse gas emissions.

Canada and Australia had been the lone holdouts against an earlier resolution that would have included such targets – and the Australian government has just been defeated in an election.

.:.

The home improvement continues. Last night we picked up the framed poster that we bought in Paris (well…saw at a restaurant in paris, ordered here at home and had framed down the street) and hung it on the wall. The drill we bought finally came in handy; this sucker’s about 36″x48″ so we needed to sink some screws into the studs. We moved around some other picture, put up some shelves, through out some old pictures…it’s like we’re moving again.

Today we dropped a bunch of stuff at Goodwill, then picked up a counter-height dining table (which Nellie’s being eying for about a year) and a Herman Miller Aeron chair (which I’ve wanted since about 1999). My ass is firmly planted in it as I type this and I think it might just be the best thing I’ve ever bought.

Next up were some new chairs; a place just down the street had some that we liked so we ordered them in for next week. Time to get rid of that old cushy beige one and get some grown-up chairs. We bought some frames for our  diplomas too; after nine years I guess Nellie figures it’s time to hang hers up.

Now Nellie’s off shopping for a dress for my company’s xmas party next weekend, while I unpack the new stuff and wait for the cleaning service to finish up. It’s been a busy 20 hours!

I think we’re going through this mad decoration phase for two reasons: first, we’re entertaining tonight and next Saturday, which gives us some incentive to finally do something; we’d been too busy and complacent after moving in to finish everything off. Second, we went years without buying any new furniture, or painting, or hanging new art, because we were waiting for the condo to be built. I’ve been sitting on the same $40 office chair since my fourth year of university, so I don’t mind dropping the dough for an Aeron to make up for the 11 years of sore-ass.

[tags]canada, commonwealth talks, climate change, stephen harper, condo decorating, herman miller, aeron[/tags]

To be fair, everything looks like twaddle under an electron microscope

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

I’ve been too busy to blog (or think) much lately, so no sparkling insight or stunning revelations from me right now. Sorry.

.:.

I am shocked — shocked and appalled — that those Q-Ray bracelets I’ve been seeing in late-night infomercials for years are completely worthless. Wendy Mesley, why do you hate America?

.:.

One lesser-known blog I like to read is Laura Bogomolny’s. She’s a former writer at Canadian Business magazine who’s now doing her MBA at Columbia, and occasionally writes about her classes, the program, life in New York, etc. Today she wrote about a negotiation exercise she did side-by-side with law students:

When the law students were asked if it looked like fun to be the business person in the negotiation, over half of the law students raised their hands. When the business school students were asked if it looked like fun to be the lawyer, not a single hand went up.

OK, I’m not shocked by that one.

.:.

The musical inbox is piling up again. The more recent additions:

  • Annuals . Be He Me
  • Jealous Girlfriends . Comfortably, Uncomfortable
  • Puscifer . V Is For Vagina
  • Robert Plant & Alison Krauss . Raising Sand
  • Sigur Ros . Hvarf-Heim
  • Sigur Ros . Svarf
  • Various Artists (Stereogum) . Drive XV
  • Weakerthans . Reunion Tour
  • Yeasayer . All Hour Cymbals

I need to find a way to listen to this stuff. My job doesn’t really allow me time to listen to music at my desk anymore.

[tags]q-ray, cbc, wendy mesley, laura bogomolny, columbia university, mba, jealous girlfriends, puscifer, sigur ros, weakerthans, naysayer[/tags]

Ten-year-olds and shut-ins.

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

On the plus side, we had the day off today. On the other hand, it was an ugly day outside, so we didn’t venture beyond our doorstep much…just shut it down and conserved our energy for the week ahead. We did manage to put up a few pictures, and we just watched a movie: Hollywoodland (imdb | rotten tomatoes). Meh. Not bad, but I’ll forget it by tomorrow.

.:.

I’ll do the Toronto Star one better: it’s time to retire the national embarrassment that is Don Cherry. He is far from an impartial analyst (he openly cheers for the Leafs, “good Canadian boys” and anyone who doesn’t wear a visor), and his opinion is stuck in the goonish 1970s/80s.

“If the instigator rule wasn’t in you could get this guy and wipe him out,” Cherry thundered, apparently not sated by the first-period fisticuffs. “This is what’s bad about hockey when you have a little guy yapping around and you can’t do anything about it.”

Indeed. Retire him, CBC. There’re plenty of cavemen on TV to go around.

.:.

Oxford American magazine has a great article about the nature of indie music. It intersperses the history of a 2006 buzz band with a description of the tastemaking machine that turns out these hot new things with dizzying speed. It talks about the fever that infects these tastemakers, where the discovery of something new becomes more important than the music itself:

“But the second time,” he went on, “well, now it sold out early, and it’s at a bigger club. And I’m not that guy anymore. I’m not the guy discovering them. I’m just a guy who is with everybody else who also knows who they are.”

The article mentions how Pitchfork likens a band to, among others, Animal Collective. I thought for a long time that I just didn’t get this band, but I think now I do. I still don’t like them; I think I’m just on to the scam. I ranted on my friend Joe’s blog about them a while ago; rather than repeat myself I’ll just paste here what I wrote there:

Animal Collective is one of those bands that indie hipster nerds (by which I mean those people who want the label more than they want to listen to the music) profess to love because they know the band will never be mainstream and no one will, as a consequence, question their indie cred for having once liked a mainstream band. Nobody actually *likes* their music. It’s like a secret indie handshake. “Hey, you like Animal Collective? Yeah? Cool, we can hang out then.”

It’s like film students who claim to love Un Chien Andalou…no they don’t. But no one else ever will either, so they keep it for themselves so they can have their little club.

Indie became a scene not because it was a genre of music but because it wasn’t popular and mainstream. Now that indie music is just as mass-produced and marketed as any other genre, the indie hipster nerds who crave exclusivity more than they crave good music have made the pursuit of the next great secret thing more important than the discovery of a life-changing album. It’s to be expected; whenever there’s a little money or prestige to be had, there’s little that can stop people from trying to be the king.

[tags]hollywoodland, don cherry, oxford american, indie music, animal collective, indie music[/tags]

We could call it MentaliTivo

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Today was the kind of day I wish I could erase from my own memory. Not a catastrophe…just a constant low level of ugliness that I’d just as soon wipe out, like a bad show off the PVR. Hmmm…a brain PVR? I think there’s a product there.

.:.

The other night, on my way home, I saw a lineup outside the sales centre for the shmancy new condo scheduled for the southeast corner of Yonge & Bloor. I wondered why there was a lineup. Now I know.

A line stretching about 100 people long has formed outside a Toronto condo office — a full week before the units are to be released for sale.

Touted as a prime piece of real estate at Yonge and Bloor, 1 Bloor St. E also holds the distinction of being the first 80-storey residential tower planned in the country. Construction is expected to be completed by 2011.

I hope all this money pouring into the corner convinces someone to fix all the rest of the ugliness at that corner. I’m looking at you, Royal Bank.

.:.

Wondering which book you should read next? Wonder no more.

[tags]mentalitivo, 1 bloor, what should i read next[/tags]

"This is my first torture."

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

The weekend of awesomeness continued today. We both slept in a little before going for breakfast at Fran’s and picking up groceries on the way home. We dropped the bags and walked over to the Scotiabank theatre to see Rendition (imdb | rotten tomatoes). It was ok…a little heavy-handed and too scattered to really flesh out most of the characters, but worth watching. Weird part was the couple in front of us. They alternated between fooling around and taking phone calls. It was distracting and, frankly, confusing. And the dude had Sideshow Bob hair. Anyhoo.

After the movie we decided to stop at Smokeless Joe’s for a couple of beer (Great Lakes Pumpkin Spice Ale for Nellie, Hacker-Pschorr Dunkel Weiss for me) and a late lunch. We got there at 3:40 and the place was empty. I mean, literally empty…even the staff was nowhere to be seen. Finally a guy showed up; turns out they don’t open until 4, but he let us stay. When we left 90 minutes later only one other customer had come in, so it was like we had the bar to ourselves all afternoon. Fun.

.:.

Late last night we finally watched The Last King Of Scotland (imdb | rotten tomatoes), and I’ll say the same thing every other critic and person I know has said: pretty good movie, but Forest Whitaker was amazing. Pretty decent performances all around, and a good job recreating the Uganda of the time, and Kerry Washington is my girlfriend du jour, but really, it’s Whitaker who steals the show. As usual. Looking at the man’s imdb profile it’s almost hard to believe he hadn’t won many awards until this film. He should have won an Emmy just for his role on The Shield two seasons ago.

.:.

Christopher Hume, the Toronto Star’s architecture critic, wrote up our building yesterday. He gave it an A, which is nice to hear.

Sitting on the northwest corner of Church and Adelaide Sts., this is one of the most elegant condo towers in Toronto. It isn’t fancy and the materials – glass and steel – aren’t expensive; what makes this building attractive is the elegance and simplicity of its form. At 45 storeys , it’s one of those rare structures designed to take advantage of height, indeed, height is what makes it so appealing.

Up close, there’s just enough detailing to maintain a sense of engagement. Glass Juliet balconies, perforated banding, operable windows and other touches enliven surfaces that could otherwise be sterile and boring. Just as important, the utilitarian functions have been hidden away from the main facades on Church, Adelaide and Lombard. Keeping in mind that the original proposed site was the park surrounding St. James’ Cathedral (which would have been disastrous), the final location across the road and slightly north is perfect; a rare happy ending.

The design and integration to the neighbourhood were almost as important to us as the unit itself. We’re glad it turned out so well.

.:.

  • Original weight: 233
  • Weight last week: 222
  • Weight this week: 221.5

I did get to the gym three times this week and did lots of walkin’ around the city this weekend; I believe what kept me to a scant half pound dropped was the steady influx of Hallowe’en candy to the office

[tags]rendition, smokeless joe’s, last king of scotland, forest whitaker, girlfriend du jour, spire condominium, christopher hume, toronto star, fatblogging[/tags]

Dan Dickinson's Day Off

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

Yes, just like Ferris Bueller, except I wasn’t pursued around the city by a sex offender.

Around 2:00 yesterday afternoon I got the best news I could possibly have received: my class got an extension on our assignment. I had my weekend back! Oh, frabjous day! Calloo! Callay!

After plowing through a bunch of work and a last-minute crisis (deftly handled by T-Bone and, in a supporting role, myself) I arrived half an hour late to meet Nellie and CBGB at beerbistro. A glass of Stiegl Pils and some frites later I put the Blackberry away and settled into the weekend. I had butternut squash ravioli with sliced plums (delicious!) paired with a Brooklyn Brown Ale (ditto!) and a piece of chocolate swirl cheesecake for dessert. We all called it an early night after that; it was a long-ass day and we had plans for the early morning.

Today’s been both productive and relaxing; it’s like found time for me, so I’ve enjoyed every minute of it. We got up early and hit St. Lawrence Market for some pastries, seafood, tofu and vegetables, then grabbed ingredients for dinner at the Dominion on the way home. We sucked back the pastries while we watched Friday Night Lights and The Office on the PVR. Next leg of the trip was to walk up to Henry’s and collect some prints we’d ordered online. We’re planning to put some of our pictures on our walls, so we got some B&W prints from recent trips.

After dropping those back at home we struck out for MEC to buy me a jacket, stopping at Chapters on the way back and then grabbing lunch (all-day breakfast, in truth) at
Over Easy. On the way home we bought some picture frames for some of the afore-mentioned pictures and picked up dry cleaning. Back out we went to the {shudder} Eaton Centre, grabbing some more picture frames and a very nifty little charging station at Pottery Barn before escaping the mall as rapidly as possible. One last stop at The Bay for towels and our credit cards were begging for mercy.

Home again we gave the place a much-needed clean and then turned to neglected email accounts and feed readers. Tonight we’re laying low, enjoying the pardon (ok, reprieve) and looking forward to tomorrow.

.:.

Good luck, Atlantic Canada. Hold on tight.

[tags]ferris bueller, beerbistro, st. lawrence market, friday night lights, the office, over easy, eaton centre, pottery barn, hurricane noel[/tags]

Is it spring yet? How 'bout now? How 'bout now?

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

January’s gonna be a big month for me, TV-wise. Two of the best shows on the air — The Wire and Battlestar Galactica — start their final seasons.

.:.

Tonight was a welcome break from schoolwork…a night off to just relax, watch hockey and not think about school. It’s short-lived, though: I have an assignment due Monday which I’ve not started yet, so the next five days will be spent in a finance textbook.

.:.

I’m enjoying Brijit, a handy new service that summarizes recent magazine content in 100 words or less, and assigns a rating (though they they arrive at their ratings I’m not sure).

.:.

Because we can’t help ourselves and we can’t wait to go back (and also because some things require booking way in advance) we’ve already begun planning our Rockies trip in the spring. I bought a book about the interior of BC the other day; I think, after a few days in Yoho (hiking the Lake O’Hara region again) we’re going to drive to Whistler, and then on to Vancouver. I want to go NOOOOWWWWWWW!!!!

[tags]the wire, battlestar galactica, brijit, rockies, yoho, lake ohara, whistler, vancouver[/tags]