T-Bone claims that a guy just checked me out on our way to get a croissant from Holt’s. I highly doubt this. If he was straight, he was checking her out; if he was gay, surely he’d have better taste in men.
[tags]broken gaydar[/tags]
Category: Friends
Tarragon & black pepper
Stanzi was back in town today, so T-Bone and I got to have lunch with her. We decided to swing by JS Bonbons on the way home. OK, it was completely out of our way, but it was worth it. I’d almost forgotten how tasty the salted caramel and gianduja truffles are.
.:.
More new music that I’m trying to get to: Ships by Danielson, Valhalla by Danny Michel, Ecce Homo by The Hidden Cameras, Bottom Of Barrels by Tilly And The Wall, Eraser by Thom Yorke, and Springtime Can Kill You by Jolie Holland. I’ve already decided to buy Rather Ripped by Sonic Youth, Awoo by The Hidden Cameras (when it’s released) and Begin To Hope by Regina Spektor.
[tags]js bonbons, danielson, danny michel, hidden cameras, tilly and the wall, thom yorke, jolie holland, sonic youth, regina spektor[/tags]
T-Bone's on fiyah!!
T-Bone has slain the white whale. She has somehow (I think she has evil South American voodoo running through her veins) gotten us summerlicious reservations at Canoe. And not just Canoe…but Bymark as well. OK, this’ll be our third time at Bymark, but still…she was on fire, no doubt about it. I swear I tried a hundred times yesterday and today. No fire for me.
[tags]summerlicious, canoe, bymark[/tags]
Yup, "porcini" sounds about right
I just happened to glance at my economics textbooks, which I haven’t looked at since I finished the course in March. The name of one of the authors seemed familiar…I had to think about it…Bernanke, Bernanke…Oh.
Yes, that Bernanke.
Huh. Who knew the guy who co-wrote our economics textbook would go on to be chairman of the Fed?
.:.
Posting’s been light (and rather airy) lately ’cause I gots International Business coming out my ears. However, I’ve managed to get ahead of my work plan, even while getting some extra gym time in. Trust me, I need it; yesterday I saw a picture of myself taken on Friday. Not good. Something must be done.
.:.
Summerlicious is nearly upon us. We booked Goldfish for dinner with a couple of friends, but I’d like to get Canoe for our dinner with T-Bone. Indeed, I’d like to get Canoe every year and never do, so fooey to that. Perhaps Bymark; I notice they’ve made the wonderburger part of the ‘licious menu (as opposed to the required upgrade of ‘liciouses past).
.:.
Sigh…the afore mentioned burger is “8 oz. USDA Prime beef with brie de meaux, grilled porcini, truffle aioli and crisp onion rings.” And I wonder how I gain weight?
[tags]ben bernanke, tubbiness, summerlicious[/tags]
Personally, I think she may have lots of babies in lots of places
I had a pretty good day. I got a lot done at work this morning (partly because I did a lot of prep work last night), and then at noon our department had a barbecue and team-building thingy outside. Ate a burger, drank some water, found some shade and then took part in the little team competition. I caught and returned a soccer throw-in, identified some flags, figured out the world jumble (the trick: don’t look at it for a few seconds) and kicked a penalty shot (using a winnie-the-pooh ball) past my VP. Alas, my team came in second, but we won some chocolate medals. Score.
I then had coffee (well…frozen icy chocolate beverages) with my friend Amy. She was the first person I met at this company, back in 1997, and after all the different roles and different departments for both of us (including a two-year stint at another company for me and a year of mat leave for her) we’ve ended up working on the same project. She’s like a big sister to me, but she also happens to be a very trusted colleague, so it’s great that we’ve ended up working just a block apart.
.:.
From Yahoo: Britney Spears may have baby in Namibia.
If you care about this story at all, I fucking hate you.
.:.
I am both excited and guilt-ridden about what I am about to do: turn off the computer and just watch a movie. How sad is that?
[tags]team building, britney spears, namibia, protestant work ethic[/tags]
The Auld Spot
Last night, since Nellie didn’t feel like cooking and I didn’t have the energy to do it either, we decided to head out for a bite to eat. We called CBGB and decided to meet up at The Auld Spot, a pub on the Danforth I’d heard much about and which they’d visited once. Despite being dog-tired, I had a great time there. The food is much better than your typical pub meal. I had some huge, spicy shrimp to start and the fettucine jambalaya for my main; no chicken fingers or club sandwich here.
I dare say we’ll be going back. Perhaps with TimmyD and SWMNBN when they visit; I think they’d dig it.
[tags]auld spot[/tags]
Sex, gambling and bullshit
Kinsey (imdb | rotten tomatoes) was yet another “biopic”, that semi-dreaded genre which has been getting a lot of critical acclaim the past few years, but this one was a little better than most in that they focused on Kinsey’s passion — the questioning of convention and preconception through science — rather than on the intricate details of his life. Instead of swelling on childhood torment and drawing ham-handed parallels to later triumphs over adversity, the movie touched only briefly on Kinsey’s childhood sickness; his troubled relationship with his father actually became an important plot point as opposed to a clumsy emotional suckerpunch.
Given that slightly differentiated approach, the interesting subject matter (you’re tempted to think that we’ve come a long way in how we deal with human sexuality, but a quick glance through the news shows otherwise) and how well Liam Neeson, Laura Linney and Peter Saarsgard performed, I enjoyed it. Recommended.
.:.
Last night T-Bone had us (and half a dozen other folks) over for a barbecue and some poker. Since neither Nellie or I had played before we got our asses handed to us, but it was all good fun. Perfect weather for a barbecue too…finally. In fact…we’re heading over to CBGB’s in a little while for some more! GB’s celebrating his birthday by, uh…cooking. Annd I say, all the power to him.
.:.
The marketing textbook is dead. Long live the marketing textbook. Granted, I still have some additional readings to do, but I’m glad to be rid of that monstrosity. If I had to read one more time about what a “hip website” some company had created, I was gonna heave it into the construction site across the street.
[tags]kinsey, barbecue, poker, marketing[/tags]
R.I.P., Connor
CBGB had some folks over to their place last for night for a housewarming…ironic, since yesterday was an unseasonably cold & windy day. Still, GB fired up the barbeque in style and dashed off more than enough food for all. There were even some thai appetizers that I avoided…wisely, as it turns out; Nellie had one and spent ten minutes fighting off tears. A good time was had, etc.
.:.
I know a few friends who could use the services of LBA (Lip Balm Anonymous). Time for an intervention.
.:.
We watched The Wild Parrots Of Telegraph Hill (imdb | rotten tomatoes) over the weekend after it sat on the PVR for months. It was yet another documentary that deserved to win the Oscar more than March Of The Penguins, but whatever. I figure I must be getting soft in my old age, ’cause the personalities of the parrots and the dedication Mark Bittner showed to them were pretty touching. It sounds like it’ll be a boring movie but it’s not. Highly recommended.
[tags]lip balm, wild parrots of telegraph hill, march of the penguins, documentary[/tags]
In A Soldier's Footsteps
Our fourth documentary was In A Soldier’s Footsteps (hot docs), the story of a Ugandan refugee who’d been a child soldier in the rebel army (which eventually formed the country’s government). A Danish film crew followed him on his return to Uganda to retrieve his son, and then tried to track him after his sudden disappearance. After that the plot thickens, as they say, and the intrigue builds as in any political thriller. I gave it four out of five on my ballot; through no fault of their own the filmmakers couldn’t really wrap things up or answer many questions for us, but they told a hell of a story.
.:.
Walking down Bloor on our way to the movie we ran into pacman and his lovely wife. Funnily enough, just two seconds before he’d yelled “Dan” (I’m still not sure what that was about…they said something about a nametag). Anyway, it got my attention and I saw them when I looked around, just before they saw me…so I couldn’t figure out why they seemed surprised to see us if they’d just been yelling my name. Yeah, it was probably funnier if you were there.
.:.
[tags]hot docs, uganda, denmark[/tags]
CBGBBQ
The Star has once again started dumping free newspapers outside my door. They do this a couple of times a year, unprompted. Normally a free newspaper is a good thing, except that I feel compelled to read a newspaper if it’s put in front of me (well…unless it’s a complete shitrag like The Sun) so I end up getting to work late every day. My own fault, I suppose, but dammit, they’re enabling me.
.:.
Carl Bernstein, a guy who knows a thing or two about impeaching presidents, asks in the HuffPo if the president should be impeached. I have a recommendation, but I don’t think I get to vote on this.
.:.
I’ve won tickets from Now Magazine for the second time in as many weeks. This time it’s for The Sentinel, which probably won’t be quite as good as Brick, but hey…it’s free and I was gonna see it anyway, so 3 shy little hipster hoorays for Now.
.:.
This month’s Toronto Life, in addition to humorous letters, contains an article about the Don Valley Parkway. They make the point that further north — near Eglinton or Lawrence — it feels like a big, dead, cold highway, but the further it gets into the downtown core, it paradoxically becomes more and more green…more trees, more grass, better conformity to the landscape. Near the Bayview extension you can see the Don River, trees, fields, and the downtown towers pulling up over the trees. The first time I rode down the DVP with a friend, shortly after moving here, I was blown away as we neared the bottom of the valley at sunset, shocked by how green space I could see (I lived at Yonge & Sheppard, so I wasn’t used to seeing any), and then suddenly we were on the Gardiner and I was looking at the incredible cityscape. I remember it was the first time that I liked looking at Toronto.
.:.
CBGB had us over last night for a barbeque, which was pretty sweet. It’s never a bad thing to have friends who own meat grilling equipment and live within the city limits in quick transit distance. And, of course, are nice enough to invite us over on a whim on a sunny Sunday afternoon for some red wine & red meat. It made us [sigh] look forward to the day when we have our own barbeque.
Skirl | Dan Dickinson 