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Tonight was our last summerlicious dinner with T-Bone (who brought along the lovely JC), Lobby being our final stop. I was very pleasantly surprised; every time I’ve walked by I’ve laughed at the pretentious white sofas and velvet rope out front, but I enjoyed tonight a lot. The food — I had carrot & ginger soup, molasses and mustard brick hen with jalapeno corn sauce, and crème brulee for dessert — was very good, the server was…well, hot, but so was the temperature inside the restaurant. That was my only complaint: the heat…but that’s hardly their fault, ’cause it’s hot enough in this city to melt the paint off a car. Ooh, and it was also fun to watch Nellie and T-Bone try to climb into the tall, heavy chairs.

We’ll definitely be going back there, maybe for dinner, maybe just for drinks. I have to say, for a summerlicious lineup that seemed pretty underwhelming, I think we’ve done pretty well thus far. Square was great too, and we still have one left: Bruyea Brothers.

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Yeesh…in four days we’ll be back on a plane, headed for the family farm. I think I’ve seen just about enough of airports and exit rows lately.

Stupid Air Canada cancelled our flight and moved us to a later flight too, meaning we won’t arrive at the farm until 2AM. I called yesterday to tell them that we want to be put on an earlier flight, but after half an hour on hold I just gave up.

Shocking

Despite the rough-sounding title, Martha Wainwright‘s “Bloody Mother Fucking Asshole” is one of the most captivating songs I’ve heard in a while. It’s like an softer version of Sleater-Kinney‘s “Turn It On”, in that I can’t figure out if it’s meant to be a love song or a giant fuck-you.

And really, that’s what makes it good.

The Animatrix

Man, why didn’t I watch The Animatrix (imdb | rotten tomatoes) sooner? It’s got all kinds of useful information about things leading into the second Matrix film, and the animation is pretty impressive. The last few (it’s nine different vignettes, for those of you who haven’t seen it) I didn’t care for too much, but it’s worth watching, especially if you want the backstory about the war and some pieces of information that are referenced in Reloaded.

Birth

We finally got around to watching some of the stored-up Zip movies last night. Last night it was Birth (imdb | rotten tomatoes), that Nicole Kidman film that came out last year and then quietly disappeared. Given the majority of ratings, I can see why it slipped silently away so that more crowd-friendly Kidman vehicles like the lingering Stepford Wives could be promoted, but I liked it. It was creepy and stark. Icy.

In the end I didn’t get any feeling of passion or heart from it, no real inspiration or loss. I think they had breathing room between where it ended up and where it might have become a cliche, but they didn’t venture there.

Too bad. I’d liked to have seen what it was like.