Today

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Today is St. Patrick’s Day. I do not care about this so much since I’m about as Irish as pineapple, and my tolerance for drinking cheap draft in crowded bars is pretty much down to nil. However, a shocking number of people (many of whom I know for a fact are not Irish in any way, shape or form) are wearing green today, so maybe this is a bigger deal than I thought. Having grown up in a place named New Scotland, in a non-drinking family, the importance of March 17 may have been lost on me.

Today I am 89% of the way through my MBA. I have 157 days left. If the entire program were put on the timeline of a single day, it would be about 9:22 PM. I am officially phoning it in at this point.

Today my brother is in town again. He was here just last weekend; I guess he really missed the place. Anyway, we had a bite and a couple of pints at Smokeless Joe last night (I believe we have now taken pretty much everyone we know there) and he’s off to meetings today and tomorrow. Soon he’ll know the city better than we do.

Today’s it’s cold again, which is deflating after the semi-warm day we had on Saturday. Supposed to be above freezing & rainy tomorrow and Wednesday, which bodes well for removing some snow.

Today I’d like to be working for VanCity, like my friend* William Azaroff.  He got to meet Muhummad Yunus and he does some cool stuff at work.

Today is gonna be the day that they’re gonna throw it back to you. By now you should’ve somehow realized what you gotta do. I don’t believe that anybody feels the way I do about you now.

* It feels odd to call him that, since I’ve never met him in person, but rather have communicated only a few times over email and phone. Still, blogs & Facebook & Twitter give a strange sense of familiarity. Hmmmm…there’s a whole other blog post simmering there…

[tags]st. patrick’s day, mba, smokeless joe, toronto weather, william azaroff, vancity, muhummad yunus, oasis, wonderwall[/tags]

"Half of his readership was lost to a cholera outbreak…"

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

Last week The Onion did a brilliant piece making fun of Marmaduke (my favourite line was “Today, almost six decades later, this plucky octogenarian continues his tireless work, bringing laughter and joy to millions of readers long since dead of old age.”) which I sent to a co-worker. This prompted a discussion of other comic strips long overdue for death. He sent me a link to the King Features site and pointed out that most of the offending strips live there.

Honestly, I’m baffled. People still read Beetle Bailey? Blondie? Dennis The Menace? Hi And Lois? Mary Worth? Rex Morgan M.D.? Sweet tubercular Moses, The Family Circus!?! Were these ever considered funny? Granted, they’re all 48+ years old (Blondie being the oldest, having started in 1930) and taste in humour certainly changes over the years, but that raises the question: how many fans of these strips can possibly still be alive?

.:.

Those of you who know her should check out Nellie’s new blog. It’s the same address as her old blog, but she’s switched topics. Photography is her latest interest, which I’m all for ’cause I think she’s got some real talent. She’s taking a class to help her learn some technique, and she has a shmancy new camera from which I keep expecting to hear a HAL9000 voice. Anyway, link/subscribe to nelliedee photographee and have a look.

[tags]onion, marmaduke, king features, beetle bailey, blondie, dennis the menace, hi and lois, mary worth, rex morgan m.d., family circus, nelliedee[/tags]

Max Payne is attacking my city

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The upcoming Mark Wahlberg movie Max Payne (imdb) is being shot in Toronto right now, and today from our balcony we could see some helicopter scenes being filmed. Actually, the helicopters have been buzzing around the sky above us pretty much non-stop since the early afternoon. You can see from this shot that helicopter #1 (which is part of the movie; the other chopper is unmarked and, I presume, has a camera and/or the director in it) was hovering over Yonge & King, roughly. If you click the next picture you’ll see the helicopter was marked “NPYD” so the people in One King West and BCE Place who weren’t informed of the movie shoot must’ve been awfully confused.

Eventually they peeled off from the downtown; they then set up so that the black helicopter hovered over the waterfront while the “NYPD” chopper did a high-speed lap around it. It circled out over the island, over the DVP and right over our building. Nellie got this great shot of it as it appeared overhead.

Hours later they were back at it, swooping back into the spot near One King West (which was lit up). Sadly, Nellie hasn’t quite figured out the nighttime settings on her new camera, and thinks she’d need a tripod for the shots anyway.

Anyway, apart from getting my haircut and buying a new garbage can, that was our excitement for the day.

 

[tags]max payne, mark wahlberg, one king west, bce place, toronto, helicopters[/tags]

All 4 ratings

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

Oh god. No. Please, please no.

The popular 1990s TV series Beverly Hills 90210 — the numbers refer to the wealthy enclave’s zip code — may be getting a spinoff. The CW network is said to be developing a contemporary spinoff of Aaron Spelling’s teen soap, which starred Canada’s Jason Priestly and Shannen Doherty as Minnesota teens who move into L.A.’s richest community.

The rumour is that Rob Thomas — creator of the excellent (at first, anyway) series Veronica Mars — is supposed to direct. Culturally speaking, I’d say this is the rough equivalent of Weezer covering the debut album by Color Me Badd.

[tags]beverly hills 90210, rob thomas, veronica mars, weezer, color me badd[/tags]

With my feet in the air and my head on the ground

Dan Dickinson3 Comments

Sorry internet, I’ve been too busy to blog lately. Work is devouring most of my time, so it’s probably a good thing I’ve dropped any pretense of putting effort into the MBA. Also, daylight saving time is wreaking havoc on my brain-clock, making it hard to keep up with my usual distractions.  Thus, you shall get brief notes instead of piercing insights.*

  • I don’t really know how two Kara Keith songs ended up in my inbox, but I like the songs I’ve heard so far. I suspect I downloaded them via Chromewaves.
  • The last time Montreal was first in their conference this late in the season was 1993, which was also the last year they won the cup. I’m just sayin’. Weird thing about that year, though; they wound up finishing third in their division (let alone conference) behind Quebec and Boston, both of whom were powerhouses, and then won the cup.
  • Last night we took the cats to the vet (which I kind of enjoyed, ’cause it gave me an excuse to leave work at 5) and found out that Sonny, the one we refer to as “fatty”, “fat boy”, “sir fatness”, etc. has lost weight. He’s now a sleek, slim 17 lbs. I guess all those nights of threatening to kill him as he howled for food have paid off.
  • Thanks to ModernMod for sending me the Frames‘ cover of “Where Is My Mind.” I’ve been listening to it constantly.
  • My toe is…well, weird. It’s still the color of violent rage, but it’s not hurting. I ran two miles on it this morning, in brand new shoes, and hardly felt anything. This is my first broken pinky toe so I’m not really sure whether this is standard, and just ask me if I can be arsed to look anything up on WebMD.

* as if you ever get piercing insights here.

[tags]kara keith, montreal canadiens, fat cats, the frames, where is my mind, broken pinky toe[/tags]

"Don't just sit there and decompose. Go throw on some summer clothes."

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I love spring. It is, by far, my favourite time of the year. Some of that has to do with the association of spring with maple season (truly one of the best times to live on a maple-producing farm), but mainly it’s the promise of those first few days when it’s so warm, you can go outside without a coat. Just thinking about it makes me all tingly.

March 20 is, of course, the first day of spring. As chance would have it, this year March 20 also happens to be the kickoff of March Madness, surely another of my favourite days of the year. If it’s sunny and semi-warm and I get to watch 16 college basketball games in 12 hours, I may just go into happy overdose. Stay tuned.

[tags]first day of spring, march madness[/tags]

"Because, brother, when you were good, you were the best we had."

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The Wire is dead. Long live The Wire.

I agree with the critics who say it was the best show on television during its run. Each of the first four seasons was the best show I’ve seen related to whatever topic they were portraying that year: police, blue collar workers, politics, schools.

If you haven’t watched it, I beg you to go rent season 1; by the time you finish watching season 4 the final season should be available on DVD.

.:.

So while my toe does appear to be broken — or at least really badly sprained, ’cause it’s the color of an angry plum right now — it’s more or less stopped hurting. I might actually try running on it tomorrow or Wednesday if I can get it into my new shoes without hurting.

.:.

If you have ten minutes and thirty-five seconds to spare, I recommend downloading and listening to “Ghost Blues” by Ladyhawk.

[tags]the wire, broken toe, saucony running shoes, ladyhawk, ghost blues[/tags]

This is how behind I am

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As is so often the case, I am acquiring media faster than I can consume it. I now have 22 films on the PVR:

  • Elementary Particles
  • Catch A Fire
  • The War Within
  • For Your Consideration
  • The Notorious Bettie Page
  • Venus
  • The Fountain
  • The Science Of Sleep
  • Bubble
  • Free Zone
  • One Last Thing
  • Bobby
  • The Lives Of Others
  • Beowulf & Grendel
  • Edmond
  • The Journals Of Knud Rasmussen
  • The Three Burials Of Melquiades Estrada
  • Monkey Warfare
  • Tsotsi
  • Six Figures
  • Grindhouse (both Planet Terror and Death Proof)
  • Fido

I also have a bunch of music piled up in the inbox:

  • annuals . be he me
  • black keys . attack and release
  • devotchka . a mad & faithful telling
  • devotchka . little miss sunshine soundtrack
  • duke spirit . neptune
  • elbow . the seldom seen kid
  • gutter twins . saturnalia
  • ladyhawk . shots
  • raveonettes . lust lust lust
  • shack . time machine
  • siberian . with me
  • sigur ros . hvarf-heim
  • sigur ros . svarf
  • silver mt zion . 13 blues for thirteen moons
  • sons and daughters . this gift

Gotta finish that MBA. Or at least stop caring…

.:.

Oh yeah, and I think I’ve broken my baby toe. But hey, at least the snow’s stopped and the sun’s shining.

[tags]broken toe[/tags]

12 days 'til Spring, my ass

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Another day, another snowstorm. How typical.

Actually, this one caused some consternation as my brother et al were scheduled to fly back to Halifax this evening. They ended up going to the airport a little early in the hopes of getting an earlier flight, and were able to do so. The early flight ended up leaving nearly an hour behind schedule, but that’s about all you can expect on a day like this, and there’s no reason to think their original flight wouldn’t have been similarly affected.

I’m glad they got away successfully. It was a nice visit, I’d hate for it to have been ruined by problematic weather.

.:.

I can’t believe I have to set the clocks ahead tonight. Ridiculous. Thanks, Dubya. Swell idea.

[tags]toronto snowstorm, pearson travel, halifax flight, daylight savings[/tags]

2 days, 4 Dickinsons

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It’s been just over 36 hours since some members of my family arrived: my dad, my brother and my nephew. Since they got here yesterday morning we’ve had some breakfast at Sunset Grill, walked around Toronto a bit, played some crib (while my brother & nephew went to the CN Tower), watched some Planet Earth, had dinner at The Keg, shopped at St. Lawrence Market, had breakfast at Over Easy, visited the ROM, relaxed (while my brother & nephew swam in their hotel’s pool), ordered some Pizza and went to a Raptors game (while Nellie bought herself a Nikon D-60).

The question now is whether they’ll be able to fly out tomorrow evening because of this storm.

[tags]sunset grill, cn tower, planet earth, the keg, st. lawrence market, over easy, ROM, raptors, nikon D-60[/tags]