Voices in Quartz

My immune system has given into the flu, today I sit in the warmest corner of my house, drinking ginger tea and water, later I will make soup of sorts. Maybe chicken again.

Photo set can be found on flickr, here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/dunderbug/sets/72157622810978708/



( Onward )

I saw Dylan Moran do his stand up show What It Is at the Apollo last night. That man is so cynical, and hilarious. Made my week. Today There was whitechapple an actual dr who store and brick lane vintage shopping.

Tomorrow I am solo. And thinking of just hitting the library or a smaller park if it's nice and reading some art books.

I love that all the museums in London are free.

Matt got me a jar of Buckyballs.

Highly addictive. Must do work. Must stop making 3D shapes on desk.

Man I did a lot this past weekend, let's go for point form!

- had really tasty tapas and really good scotch at The Academy of Spherical Arts for my friend Mike's birthday.

- Saw the Zombie Short Film Festival, which included Curling Zombies, Barbies doing a home invasion, Keggers with dead people and some actual scary ones too.

- Closed out a pub in the Junction w/ Matt, Steve and Ben, while talking about a possible spring road trip to New Orleans.

- Made 3am grilled cheese (its always better at 3am y'know).

- Saw Wade Davis do a talk at Massey Hall

- Went to the Tranzac where the costumes were seriously top notch. Including a sack boy from little big planet (nice!).

- Enjoyed the comapny of Buchacas and friends while having a delicious cocktail.

- Had some serious brunch at Yasis's Place on Sunday.

- Went down to Canzine to check out the Torontron game machine meme project that I helped out on.

- Made a really good pot of Leek and Potato Soup

In short...awesome weekend.

Um...AWESOME



via @ghostpressbed

This weekend started by attending my friend DJ's play Godzilla on Sundays. Which is about 2 friends, a girl and their on-going bonding with Godzilla. It was quite funny, but also sad, and full of pop-culture / nerd references. Its playing at the Bread and Circus Theatre in Kensington, this upcoming weekend as well. Pop in.

After that, there was nacho making with Jen, Mr. Kim, and company, while watching a documentary about The Museum of Jurassic Technology. I am jealous that Miguel got to go there. Future adventure? I think so.

Saturday was too bloody nice to spend fighting crowds in town. So Matt and I made a field trip out to nowhere to hunt for specialty cheeses from the highway 27 European market, and to look for rocks and forests. I did not pull any Dukes of Hazard turns in the car this time, but wanted too. If you get the chance to drive around Caledon, do so...its pretty.

Train Car Diner. Biggest onion rings ever. Sooo good.




Abandoned Brickworks Building




Sunsets.



Saturday evening we took our hunted down cheeses (including an awesome ripened goat cheese with seasoning) to my friend Adam's place, where he was having a potluck. This included lobsters. I love lobsters, And yes, you have to cook them live. But they were tasty.

Today I'm tackling my fridge (Its scary) And doing work. Later I may go see Where the Wild Things Are.

Oh and finally, best sign ever? Yes I think so.

Today I trekked through a valley for about two hours and ended up working my way through a marsh. I emerged a few kms away from my family home with my pants covered in mud and burs. It was a crisp lovely day and the leaves were changing colour, and i didn't run into a soul.



I was then treated to thanksgiving lunch (sometimes we do lunch rather than dinner).

I also saw the scariest thing in a wall-mart in suburbia. Seriously, batter should never, ever come in this format...ever! lol...


I also got to go sailing on saturday afternoon, which was great, because saturday was so lovely out. Then later that evening ate sushi at Shogun, and drank beer while playing Pacman at The Tap with Mr. Kim, Mer, and Matt.



I am getting a YMCA membership this week. They have a pool, and they're close to my house, and they have no stupid year long commitment thing. The three things required for a winter gym. Parkour ended up being too hard on my knees to do all the time, and I'm not into jogging...so this winter, swimming and classes it is.

Now I'm going to go send an invoice and watch some pirate movies.

I would say this has been a good weekend.

Winter be a comin' and I'm looking for books to enjoy on days when its too cold for rational thought. So, LJ friends, what have you been enjoying lately?

Totally Kicked my ASS. Damn. Good. Bloody. Show.

blog TO review: http://www.blogto.com/music/2009/10/kid_koalas_the_slew_is_like_rap_rock_stew/
Adira Amram: http://adiraamram.com/
The Slew Album Download: http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?1qmkzzm0zjn


The rest of my nuit blanche night involved dancing construction cranes, the very awesome apology project, sound installations, pizza, and running into various people I like while wandering around with Matt. Good times! Much better organized than previous years.

Today was very lazy, and snoozy, as sundays should be.

I am in Liberty Village tomorrow (aka monday) are you? Let's get coffee if you are.

Matt: Apparently Jesus died for our sins, at least that's what the hand painted road sign told me over there.

Me: See, that's what friggin' happens when you take on too much responsibility.

Matt: Ha, I'm stealing that line.

Me: lol. Nice.

The best part about my Chicago road trip was the driving. Its always the driving. I enjoy my destinations when I get there, but for me, nothing is as fun as talking about random things in the car while making fun of street signs, and stopping at truck stops.



Chicago as a whole is rather interesting. Our hotel deal landed us in the middle of what is akin to yorkville (thanks Travelzoo!). Really nice boutique hotel, rather douchey area, so there was some subway juggling and google mapping and internet consulting to figure out where to flee to. :) We did however, manage to get a lot done in a few days.

( Here are some highlights.. )

Small digital silence break. Because...

Friday night is the Rated R show at The Gladstone! And you should come out and have a drink with us. You can check out the details here. For those not on the Book of Face, you can also go to the website.

It will be a hell of a good show.

So come out. :)

Sorting what is actually valuable and what is just hanging around for good measure. So far. Decent amount of boxes and bags.

Edit: God i hate clutter at this point. and it feels like no matter what...still cluttered. gah.

I find it neat that most of this movie is actually based on Cal-tech.

And now I have some INSANELY BORING work to do, for some corporate people. Guh.

Booooooooooo says I.

Once again woken up by the upstairs dudes stereo at 4am. don't care if it's 1pm, or even 12am. But really? 4am? Are you that inconsiderate?

The thing is, the rest of the time, there's really not any noise (except for the usual). But I really, really...REALLY dislike having my sleep disrupted.

I already use a rather strong fan that produces white noise, this I have used even most of winter to block out most apartment based noises.

But lately, its been coming in over top of that.

Blah.

Time for another set of words. Merh. Which of course I dislike doing.

Career person the fourth contacted. Let's see how this one goes. Waiting for an email package of sorts. I figure this whole basket is going to take me about a year to sort out.

In other news, last night I shared a bottle of wine and some conversation with my friend Reneé who moved back to toronto from victoria. I love Reneé, and its really nice to have her back.

She's one of the few people that I see eye to eye with when it comes to relating. Namely that, our friendship is not based on proximity, sometimes we each go our own ways for ages, but when we see each other again, its like no time has passed.

Plus now I have someone to nerd out about type specimens with again. Its rare when you can work the term descender into a potty-humour joke, and they get it. :)

btw....holy shit tornado in Southern Ontario yesterday. Oh hai climate change!

sirens.

thunder.

tinkling of cat dishes.

flickering light bulb.

phone call.

I am going to be tagging along a friend's biz trip to Asia in October, which includes a stop in Mongolia.

HOLY SHIT I AM GOING TO MONGOLIA.

I mean, its the Gobi Desert. That's kind of amazing.

After Mongolia, i dunno, maybe Singapore for a few days or something. Who knows.

Friday: The Rated R Fundraiser, @ The Central $15. Ms. Sternberg, and Mr. Kim have been working their backs off to throw an awesome show and a fantastic party to raise funds for the show. You should totally go. Not only have they put together some awesome prize packs, they've also lined up burlesque, AND a rockin' hand bell band called Pavlov's Dogs.




Woo!

On a side note, some other neat things going on this week:

Tonight! aka monday: Vampire Girl vs Frankenstein Girl at the Bloor Cinema. $12. Smultchy gorey japanese awesomeness, in school girl uniform no less. 7:00pm

Wednesday: I am Robot and Proud plays at The Tranzac. at 8:00pm onwards (price uknown)

Thursday: The Hand Eye Society social, at Unit Bar. Free! Come out and talk indie gaming.


and that's it for me, for now.

Yesterday I piled into a fully loaded Impala (score!) with Mr. Wheeler and, Ms. Hillier, and took off to spend the day in Niagara. I've been wanting to do a Niagara wine region run for a while now, and let me tell you...it was awesome.

The only shitty part was the BRUTAL QEW traffic. Oakville / Burlington is officially on my strike list for main artery driving. As that seems to be where the pile started. God. Toronto needs better alternative routes.

However, other than that, we had a glorious afternoon of wine tastings, which included finding Niagara's only Meadery (honey wine ftw!), and a lovely biting back and forth with the woman at the Organized Crime Winery (which we found by accident and had to go to because of the name alone), where I picked up a very bright Gewurztraminer, and a vintage red (which i was sternly instructed to not share under any circumstances). This place, was by far the highlight of my day.

We stopped for lunch at The White Eagle, which is a tiny "european / canadian" diner, that served some of the best cabbage rolls going. It was seriously as good as my grandmother made them.

I'm always amused / interested in how wineries present themselves architecturally. It varies a lot. Some places were grand, others were made to look like estates, some were in small houses, one of them had gates and a water display.

The best building award however, goes to Calamus. Not only are they located in a restored barn (so pretty) and hidden on a little byway, but they have an observatory on the top. Amazing.

We finished our wine run by getting handmade ice cream at Toute Sweet in Jordan, and then went off to St. Catherines to sample some deep fried pickles, where I also got to try an in house stout at the Merchant Ale House.

All and all I came out of the day with a full box of wines that included 4 reds, 6 whites (my favourite being a nice smoky chardonnay), a dessert wine that is actually sweet and dry, and one sour cherry mead. i found a new understanding of the niagara wine region, and a whole lot of laughing amongst my car mates, specifically about some of my dukes of hazard turns, and the amount of buttons in it.

I'd really like to do this kind of trip again in the fall, but maybe organize a full weekend, and do some breweries as well. I knew the region was pretty dense with wineries, but wow, we didn't even make it through half way through. :)

I may have to get a little wine cooler now. Seriously.

I did parkour at the monkey vault tonight. I have the biggest fucking smile ever right now. So much fun!! Will try and do more.

I vaulted over things! Me! Unheard of! It's like ninja training. :)