Category: Injuries & Illnesses

"Just kidding."

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I didn’t survive this week at work so much as I climbed out of it. Pushing through this cold (again? seriously? dammit!) I suggested a pub near the Ryerson before our second-last TIFF film. Much to my surprise they had several Unibroue bottles behind the bar, including #9 on the Project FiftyBrew list: Don de Dieu! Kickass. It was very nice, by the way…tasted much smoother than a 9% beer should.

We had time to kill and full bellies, so we walked home, dropped our stuff and then walked back to the Ryerson. I was so wiped that I needed coffee; our barista at Starbucks mistook my ‘sticks of shame’ t-shirt for an indication that I actually speak Japanese and tried to converse with me. My blank stare pretty much answered that question for her. We strolled up to the Ryerson and the oh-so-familiar line-up spot: the concrete wall running along church, a tired movie-goer’s best friend. Oddly enough we were shown in to the theatre 35 minutes before the scheduled start time. That never happens.

Speaking of Japanese, many of the people in the audience spoke it. That’s because we were there to see Confessions (tiff | imdb), aka Kokuhaku, Japan’s submission for best foreign film Oscar. I think I like it more now than immediately after I watched it…it felt a little long at the time, but now I appreciate all the story threads it had to pull together. The filtered slo-mo was beautiful for a while, as was the droning soundtrack, but it wore a little thin in the second hour. Still, very good. It deserves a B, says I.

Tonight is all about relaxing. I could only get about 3 hours of coherent work in at the office today, and tonight — while Nellie is off doing girly things with other girlies — I plan to do nothing more strenuous than write this blog post to the following soundtrack:

  • Ida Maria . “Oh My God”
  • DevotchKa . “How It Ends”
  • Uncle Tupelo . “Satan, Your Kingdom Must Come Down”
  • We Are Scientists . “Pittsburgh”
  • The Tallest Man On Earth . “Graceland”
  • FemBots . “Count Down Our Days”
  • Vampire Weekend . “Ottoman”
  • Rogue Wave . “Electro-Socket Blues”

Those last two were from the closing credits of Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist, playing in the other room, and about as highbrow as it’s gonna get around here tonight. Peace.

The only thing that I got's been botherin' me my whole life

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Ugh. I sat down, all ready to write a nice long blog post about something frightfully interesting, but my brain is so foggy from this cold and all the DayQuil* I’m taking to deal with it that I can’t string together a coherent sentence. I’ll get back to you on…whatever it was I was going to write about and have already forgotten.

In the meantime, I can muster some thoughts about the two books I just finished: Pygmy by Chuck Palahniuk was one of his better ones, I thought. It took me some time to get used to the writing style, but once I did I flew through it. I actually wish it had gone on a little longer, a rare sensation for me with books. I then whipped through Deliver Me From Nowhere by Tennessee Jones, ten short stories written as companion pieces to each of the songs on Bruce Springsteen‘s excellent Nebraska album. Some were good, some were tedious, but only the first two felt like they added to the songs that inspired them. Still, a worthwhile (and quick) read for fans of the album.

* By the way, is it no longer possible to get DayQuil in liquid form? I stumbled out to a drugstore yesterday for provisions, and can find lots of liquid NyQuil, but DayQuil seems to only come in capsule form now. I have to take 2 or 3 just to feel anything, whereas a little gulp of the liquid stuff and I was giddily altered for a good four hours.

A rite of passage in my left thigh

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There are certain events in a man’s life which make him feel more like a man. Today I experienced one of those.

Today I suffered a mild groin pull, and I became more of a man. Specifically I became more of an old man, as I’m sort of hobbling around now and look as if I need a cane.

Since none of you were there when it happened, here’s a official story I’m giving people on it: I suffered the injury rescuing a kitten from a drainpipe while also kicking a game-winning field goal.

Sinuses > self-actualization, apparently

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

Sorry. I know it’s been drab and boring here lately. It’s just taking forever to get out from under this goddamn cold. Maslow was right, it’s hard to be spontaneous and creative when your body just wants to lie down and ingest unholy medicines. It’ll get better — I’ll get better — soon, I promise.

In the meantime, I want to draw your attention to a widget you might not have seen, especially if you only read this blog by RSS feed: the bottom widget on the right side of the page shows which book I’m reading right now. Clicking on it takes you to the excellent Shelfari, which you should use if you’re at all into books.

omgsick

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

Never before have I strung two cold together like this, almost back-to-back (I had a two-day reprieve last weekend). This is a completely different cold than the last one…sore throat, chest congestion and coughing this time, unlike the exploding sinuses of the last cold. In both cases, though, I felt like chicken-fried ass.

At some point in the next couple of days I won’t be able to talk…it’s that kind of cold. My wife and co-workers believe rare occasions such as this to be tiny miracles, brief instances of peaceful zen in their universe. I view them as a personal attack from mother nature.

How do I get Rideau this cold?

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As my brother has been blogging, his wife surprised him by flying him to Ottawa for a long weekend with friends and, as an added surprise, Nellie and I. He flew back to England this evening; Nellie and I returned to Toronto yesterday. It was a fun few days for us. I’ve known many of his friends since 1996 when I lived there with him for the summer, and it was good to hang out with all of them again. It was good to see Ottawa again too; I’ve not been there in a while, but it still feels a little like home. Best of all, though, was getting to help celebrate my brother’s 40th birthday in such great circumstances.

Highlights: an awesome Porter flight to Ottawa; surprising (kinda) my brother at our hotel; the food and drink at the Wellington Gastropub, including the Beau’s and a 2005 Raymond Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon (also overheard a great Grant Lee Philips cover of Echo & The Bunnymen‘s “The Killing Moon” on the stereo there); getting silly (where exactly did “chicken sodomy” come from anyway?) and reliving some memories at a Royal Oak (warning: awful, obnoxious music embedded in site); struggling the next morning until I could get some sausage and toast into me at the Elgin Street Diner; Winterlude ice sculptures; marveling at just how far Lego has come since we were kids; awesome homemade pizzas at mblogler/imspycat‘s place; playing the Wii with the kiddies; breakfast at the Metropolitan Brasserie with our aunt (where we loudly berated the Senate, even as Art Eggleton dined next to us); more pizza and beer at the Prescott where people who used to work with my brother were invited out to see him (funnily enough, three of them walked up and started talking to me, thinking I was him…by the third I just said, “Hey, how are you? That’s Tim over there.”); cheap pub breakfast at the Aulde Dubliner in the market; walking (not skating…couldn’t be arsed) down the Rideau Canal to the hotel before flying home.

That’s obviously an abuse of the word “highlights” but it really was a great weekend. My biggest problem with it was that I got very, very sick. Saturday night I felt a cold coming on; by Sunday morning it was severe, and by Monday morning it was brutal. It kept me in bed most of Sunday, made me miserable for all of Monday, and made our plane’s descent into Toronto excruciating. But it could have been worse: I could’ve been sick the entire weekend, or worst of all, my brother might have been sick. So it all turned out for the best. I didn’t even mind the cold; chilly as it got, the sun stayed out most of the time.

It was a great weekend. I’m really glad I got to be part of it.

[UPDATE: Ooh, ooh, almost forgot: the brother and sister-in-law brought me some Pierre Marcolini chocolate from Belgium. Zowie.]

Things I've learned in the past 24 hours

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  • I’m getting sick. Not enough to make me feel like I need to stay in bed, but enough to drain me of all energy and motivation to, you know, move.
  • The Rob Zombie remake of Halloween (imdb | rotten tomatoes) started off better than I expected, in that it gave us a Michael Myers preview, but the remake part was just standard slasher fare. The only thing I liked better about it than the original was that Myers moved like a normal guy…fast sometimes, normal speed the rest of the time, instead of at a slow zombie pace.
  • Sometimes our cats will sleep quietly through the night. Other times they will stage a Bob Fosse revival on our bed at 3AM. Last night was the latter.
  • We need a new coffee table and over-sized (but not too over-sized) chair, but aren’t having much luck finding them. Lo and behold, I read this in Thursday’s issue of Now, and figure we should give it a try.
  • Even when the Canadiens are down 4-1 going into the third period, I should still finish watching the game, especially when it’s against a soft team like the Islanders. The Habs scored 4 goals in the third period and won. They’re playing .850 hockey so far this season, the best of any team in the NHL.
  • The Raptors look pretty good, having won their third in a row to remain perfect in this young season. Bosh looks better with O’Neal there to take the pressure off, Bargnani looks better coming off the bench than he does starting, Calderon looks better without the T.J. Ford of Damocles hanging over his head, and Kapono just looks better. But the defense is what seemed different last night…not all the time, but a lot of the time. Players like Michael Redd and Richard Jefferson have carved through the Raptors like butter in recent years, but last night, the Raps seemed to challenge more. Anyway, we’ll see how they fare against real competition like the Celtics or Lakers.
  • John McCain isn’t funny.