Going to the Ex with the Dotytron is no joke - in the sense that it's ALL jokes. That guy's unbridled enthusiasm for the CNE and the accompanying running commentary is the best. Sample snippets: "That's the ride my sister almost died on" "Whoa. Unsponsored mist tents are way generous with the mist." And a million comments of randomness at the International Pavilion which has a million vendors representing various countries/regions selling their "local" wares that were all made in China. The Dotytron loves his International Pavilion, hard. The butter sculptures were very impressive, mostly because there was one of Dobby the house elf:
The sand sculptures were totally insane. This entry, from Japan, was called "Fukushima, after the melt down" (a bit of a downer, IMO):
I'm convinced there must be some kind of binder in the sand - how do they prevent the moisture from evaporating? Check out the blindfold suspended between the figures here:
This one was called "Ghost in the Machine" which made my insides shut down from displaced embarrassment. I also thought it was way too sexy:
The food was kind of meh. The food stalls in the food building are pretty corporate and lack a lot of charm AND execution by craftspeople. They're mostly all staffed by disaffected teenagers with diffident hygiene habits. It's not inspiring stuff. I got snookered by the allure of a "hot waffle sandwich" expecting some kind of Belgian liege waffle all crispy and robust sandwiching a slowly melting vanilla-flecked ice cream. My misgivings started when I saw the bags and bags of no-name bulk "waffle/pancake" mix piled haphazardly in the stand. Regardless, I bought one anyway and it was disappointing. As I ate my sandwich and we made our way to the International Pavilion, the Dotytron turned to me and said, "where's the stroller?" UH-OH. I had left the stroller with the diaper bag (containing my wallet, my Blackberry, and our camera) at the stand!!! I bolted back and luckily it was still there. Holy cats, that was a close call - I can't believe I was so mind-f**ked by the thought of a hot waffle ice cream sandwich that I almost lost a bajillion dollars.
We also had a pretty lacklustre, extremely overpriced funnel cake. Why do people think they can charge $10 for a funnel cake with icing sugar and ice cream? Why??? I was also super-looking forward to eating one of those tornado potato things (see photo below for reference) but they didn't have them! There's also an egregious lack of deep-fried things. The big talk this year was about deep-fried Pepsi - which sounds stupid to me for several reasons: a) it should be Coke; b) deep-frying Pepsi doesn't ADD anything to the soda experience. I've never had a cold, refreshing, pop and thought to myself, "You know what this experience needs? Deep-frying" because very often, I want the pop to CLEANSE the deep-fry from my palate. Deep-fried pop sends mixed messages.
So Bey and the Jigga Man are having a baby. This is one of the least interesting celebrity babies to me - I just can't respect them as a couple because they're always doing boring rich people things like partying in the Hamptons and like, vacationing in Monte Carlo. I just think Monte Carlo (especially on a yacht) is snoozerville old white people fun. Also, I think the Jigga Man is too old to be a first-time father. He was born in NINETY SIXTY NINE, guys. THAT'S OLD. I'm also going to go out there FTR and say that I'm into calling Bey, Bey, but I'm not into Kanye as 'Ye. There. I said it. I also think about important stuff too...but not very often. SHUT UP.
There's been ongoing drama with the City of Toronto and our walkway. Basically, 2 years ago when we moved in we had the City upgrade their end of our water line to increase the water volume going into our house (people generally confuse water pressure with water volume - we have a water volume issue, not a pressure one.) In doing so, they tore up some of our walkway and the sidewalk in front of the house and replaced it with crappy asphalt which was so soft that my kickstand for my bike would make deep divots in it on semi-warm summer days. Last month, they finally came and fixed the sidewalk but forgot to fix the walkway. After as series of back and forth calls, the subcontractors came to fix the walkway. I was sitting outside with the neighbours when it happened and I warned the guy to be careful because we thought there was a wasp's nest under one of our plants, but he was all tough-guy about it and said, "that's no problem," started mucking around in there, and the wasps went ape-s**t and stung the crap out of him. It was kind of hilarious to watch. So then they abandoned ship and left it alone for like, days and days and the neighbours called the City and I started to feel bad that maybe I should get rid of the wasp's nest - but my neighbours were like no, the City pays those guys made luche to take care of stuff like that. The worker had the gall to ask me to borrow our fire extinguisher to use on the nest. I was like, uhhhh no. First of all, a fire extinguisher costs like, $50 and second of all, those are one-time use items, so that would kill it and we'd be screwed. Go buy a can of Raid, you Neanderthals!
Anyway, our walkway has been torn up for the past week but when we got home last night, they had poured the concrete in our absence and the wasp's seem to be gone. Win-win! So we immediately set out to deface the concrete. Best! It now says: M.L. + I.D. + T.D. 2011 I love vandalizing concrete!
Fin.
