Emilio Estevez must be so happy

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The Stanley Cup has been won by the Anaheim Ducks. I’ll bet there are a lot of people who never expected to hear that sentence. At least they dropped the “Mighty” from their name and ditched the dopey logo.

.:.

I almost never remember my dreams. Maybe once or twice a year I’ll wake up and actually remember something, even just a few seconds. But when I do, it’s always about the same thing: a plane crash. Big plane, small plane…here in Toronto, back on my parents’ farm…it’s always a plane crash and I always see it happen. Every single time.

Let the psychoanalysis begin.

.:.

In case the civilized world needs another reason to ban the death penalty:

At Christopher Newton’s execution by lethal injection last month, it took 90 minutes and at least 10 stabs of the needle for the execution team to find a vein. The procedure was so drawn out the staff paused to allow Newton a bathroom break.

Sickening.

[tags]stanley cup, anaheim ducks, dream interpretation, death penalty[/tags]

Working full time

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

I just submitted the term paper. What a steaming pile of crap. I’m almost embarassed to put my name on it, but time just didn’t permit a stellar offering this time, so I’ll happily take a 9/15.

.:.

If you haven’t heard the 2005 album Tournament Of Hearts by The Constantines, go find it. You owe it to yourself.

.:.

Today was an interesting day at work. One of our senior executives has taken ~40 people and locked us all in a bunch of conference rooms with some strategy consultants. Most of the people in the room are fairly senior, and we’re all meant to be pretty smart, so some interesting ideas came up. You can tell they’re driving us toward something bigger (we’re there for two more days); hopefully my brain’s still in it come Friday at 5PM.

The most amazing thing is that they managed to get all these senior managers, directors and VPs to focus. No one was running off to take phone calls or dash back to the office. No one’s Blackberry went off in the sessions. It was like we were all teleported back to 1992 when attention spans were in vogue. Crazy.

[tags]strategy paper, constantines[/tags]

"Ow! My tailbone!"

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Not much to post tonight. Too tired. It was a long day at work. When the cleaning staff is waiting for you to clear out it’s time to go home. Clearly I didn’t play basketball tonight (it was cancelled anyway on account of how fracking cold it got outside), and clearly I didn’t finish my paper when I got home either. Guess I’ll have to do it all tomorrow night or else I’m out 15 marks. All I had the energy to do tonight was eat something, read a few feeds and watch the penultimate episode* of The Sopranos.

OK, need some sleep. It’s gonna be another long one tomorrow.

Is it July yet? If I paid someone enough, could we make it July??

*holy crap, by the way.

[tags]sopranos[/tags]

I wonder how her husband feels about that

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Today is my friend Marney’s birthday. Today is also Old Maid’s Day. I’m sure those two things are just coincidence.

.:.

Sad, Rebecca Eckler, sad. Only someone deep in the throes of hubris could think that someone stole the plot of Knocked Up from them. Quill & Quire offers their own take on the [ahem] story:

“A warning to comedy writers out there: if you’re working on a gag in which someone has to buy something embarrassing at the supermarket and the cashier calls for a price check on the store PA system, you better make sure Eckler hasn’t used that one – if she has, she’ll think you nicked it from her.”

Tee hee.

.:.

For the sake of my blood pressure, Christopher Hume needs to stop writing articles like this one about the Toronto waterfront.

[tags]old maid’s day, rebecca eckler, christopher hume, toronto waterfront[/tags]

The people living in 1304: doomed.

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Our patio furniture has arrived. Well, most of it anyway; the the table & benches were delivered this morning, but it’ll take a while to make the cushions.

.:.

While it makes sense that our building has a 13th floor, it’s going to take away a little of my happiness. It always made me laugh a little that people superstitious enough to be upset by a 13th floor would also be dumb enough to not figure out what the 14th floor really was.

If I lived at Cityplace, where there are no 4th, 13th, 14th, 24th or 34th floors, I’d probably laugh myself silly every day.

.:.

There are two types of people in this world: those who find singing animatronic puppets funny and/or charming (past the age of six, anyway) and those who find them a devilish scourge upon the earth. You can probably guess where I stand on the issue. Visits to my local grocery store checkout have become trying as there are whole racks of these things just waiting to tinnily excrete “When I’m 64” or “Roll Out The Barrel” when some kid jostles them.

.:.

Something that got lost in yesterday’s missing post that I feel is worth repeating: last Friday, June 1st, was 10 years to the day since I moved to Toronto. I clearly remember getting off the plane, taking a cab to my apartment at Yonge & Sheppard, being met there by my friend & roommate CBJ and immediately heading downtown to meet friends for brunch at the Movenpick on York Street (which is now a Keg). That seems like…well, 1/3 of my life ago.

[tags]patio furniture, unlucky numbers, movenpick, the keg[/tags]

Best music of 2007

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5/12 of the way through the year, anyway.

  • arcade fire . neon bible
  • besnard lakes . …are the dark horse
  • neko case . live from austin, texas
  • explosions in the sky . all of a sudden i miss everyone
  • kings of leon . because of the times

[tags]best music of 2007, arcade fire, besnard lakes, neko case, explosions in the sky, kings of leon[/tags]

Stoopid WordPress

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

Gar. I had a long post all written up but WordPress (or possibly my host?) decided to cack and it disappeared. I can’t be bothered to remember it all or write it all again, so here’s the summary version:

  • We had dinner last night at Fieramosca with CBGB. That was great.
  • I got my hair cut today and ate some gelato. That was great.
  • I realized today that I have a paper due next week, and I haven’t even started it. That sucked.
  • Darth Vader’s a jackass.

Blargh.

[tags]fieramosca, gelato, darth vader[/tags]

Fire in the sky & day 2 of mesh07

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Ummm…what the hell is going on over there? And what’s going on with the moon?

.:.

Today was day 2 of mesh, led off by keynotes Richard Edelman (consensus: kind of boring, but eminently quotable…which is about right since he runs a huge PR firm) and Jim Buckmaster, CEO of Craigslist (consensus: half of the people in the room thought this dude was an alien, since he seems to care little for the profit motive, and a lot about the ways his company runs is antithetical to established business doctrine. Me, I wanted to hug him.).

My optional sessions for the afternoon — “New Media – Teaching Old Markets New Tricks”, “Building a Community – How and Why it Matters” and “Is Fake the New Real? Transparency and Trust” — were all okay, but all kind of ran together for me. Good thing I took notes; I can’t remember anything specific about any of them.

Right after the conference finished many of us went to a pub just down the street, which a) was already packed, b) wasn’t expecting us, c) seems disorganized at the best of times and d) had malfunctioning draft taps. As a result I stayed for only one drink, with the eminently delightful Amy Rae who is beyond any doubt the coolest, most interesting, most fantabulous living being ever to inhabit the earth. She’s smarter than you (whoever you are), she can juggle swords and I believe she invented the monkey. She also goes by the name LiquorPig; look her up.

I’m not sure if I’d go again next year. I’m not learning a whole lot of new stuff and, given my introversion, I’m not meeting a lot of new people. What I am getting is a lot of quotes that I can use to persuade my company to get on this bus, so maybe that’s reason enough to keep going. It doesn’t hurt to be re-energized once a year, being surrounded by people who get it.

[tags]mesh07[/tags]