Culture Club Round-Up

NOT Kanjiklub...although everything should be about Kanjiklub (this is a semi-obscure Star Wars reference...one that bonded me with Uncle Jesse for life).

In the last year, I went from going to zero concerts for the past...6 years...to EVERY CONCERT EVER.

It's been amazing.  I couldn't love it more.  I am reborn.

It started with Jack U last year, and then since this spring it's been non-stop.


Pusha T at the Danforth Music Hall.  I love me some Pusha.  I love that he's holding the flame for rap. I love his delivery. I love the production. I love the hooks. The last cocaine superhero might be courting controversy by stumping for Hilary (from the likes of Breitbart and similar), but seriously...if you're trying to get people registered to vote, why WOULDN'T you pick a coke dealer?  That seems like pretty sound logic, to me.  Every now and then, to the great embarrassment of the Dotytron, I practice doing a Pusha-style "yuuuuch" sound and let's just say...it needs workshopping.  That show was backpacker-y realness.  I love me a multi-ethnic Toronto crowd like nothing else.  When everyone has their hands in the air and knows every word to every tune.  Pusha had us sing the chorus to "Runaway" and it was magic.  My hands didn't leave the air for a nanosecond at that show.  His last album, Darkest Before the Dawn, has so many choice tunes: FIFA, M.F.T.R., Sunshine, MPA, in particular.

From then,  I went to see Rihanna with Dr. Rei.  Robin Fenty is a queen. Nothing more to say about that.  I love that RiRi DGAF about anything.  She's so herself.  She hangs out with her regular people friends, can't really dance, is just so special and perfect.  Like, really:

Then, I saw Kanye, TWICE.  Haha.  Went first with Dr. Rei, Hanbo, the Dotytron at the ACC for the Toronto show...which was NEXT.  Look: we all know I'm huge Kanye fan, but for good cause, because he is straight-up a musical genius.  No one out there is doing what he's doing. So yeah, maybe you hate him because he's married to Kim K and she's "got no talent" (except for being an astute and canny businesswoman).  Yeah, maybe you hate him because he's "egotistical" (except, like, how come you're not dragging oh, I don't know, JOHN LENNON for the same?).  Yeah, maybe you hate him because he was "mean to Taylor Swift" (except, number one wifey, Kim K showed us the receipts on that one).  The point is, you can't hate him for his music.  That concert, and The Life of Pablo is a non-stop hit parade.  My fav tunes are: Ultralight Beam, Father Stretch My Hands Part 1, Wolves, Waves, Highlights...basically the whole album.

Then, I went to Montreal, for one glorious night, to see Kanye AGAIN, that same week.  The last time I saw Ye in concert, was about 2007 or 2008, for his Glow in the Dark tour.  Dr. Rei and I went, with both my brothers.  It was a different time.  Rihanna was opening.  The show was at the Molson Amphitheatre, we still felt uncomplicated feelings of joy when Chris Brown appeared as a surprise guest (as opposed to now, when I'm nothing but conflicted when I get goosebumps during the chorus of Waves).  Then my youngest bro got into ravey EDM music and last summer we went to see Jack U.  Kanye seemed like a perfect show for us to continue the kid #2 and kid #4 bonding experience, but now CHova is a bigshot dentist in Ottawa, and he couldn't make the TO show, so we decided to meet in Montreal.  This meant I took the train to Montreal for one glorious night.

A few things:

1) Train travel is GLORIOUS.  Wifi, not having to pay attention, 5 hours of captive time to read and relax?!?  WHAT IS THIS LIFE?!

2) I got to visit with my friend, Montreal I, and it was super cute

3) the Montreal crowd for Kanye was kind of weak (lots of butts in seats), but it was magic being able to hang with my youngest bro and Aunt Viv.  I love those guys.

Then, I went with Dr. Rei and the Dotytron to see Kaytranada and Anderson .Paak.  Kaytranada is a total babeshow who makes supremely danceable new house music and has the best back story of all time.  He also recently won the Polaris prize, and really, EVERYONE wins when that happens, because the internet is flooded with pictures of this babeshow smiling shyly in overalls.  Look: I'm obviously going to be all over a tall drink of water in statement glasses and overalls.  You can take the girl outta the Triple 5 Soul clothing but you can't take the Triple 5 Soul outta the girl, naw mean?

One more for good measure.

The show was at Echo Beach, which I personally love as a venue, but for some reason the sound wasn't as loud as it could be.  But the crowd was super cute and all respectful and loved up and I saw lots of beautiful brown faces and I was with two people I unconditionally adore, so what more can I ask for?  Not much.  I listened a bunch to the Kaytranada album in preparation, and we heard it a lot at Dr. Rei cottage times.  Anderson .Paak I was less familiar with.  That guy is pure charisma though.  I wasn't expecting him to be killing it on the drums and singing and performing his face off.  He definitely won me over.

Then, this past week was Lil' Chano from the 79th, aka Chance the Rapper, aka Chancelor Bennet, aka the love of my life.  I started listening to his latest mixtape, Coloring Book, in the early summer and I was instantly hooked.  HOOKED.  All you have to do is read like, 1 article about the guy and then you fall in love.  I am crushing HARD.  I love people who wear their hearts on their sleeves and are good people and he is all of those things.  I'm so freakin' into the guy.  It's not even funny.  Then I backtracked and listened to the previous 2 mixtapes and it was the icing on the cake.  I love the whole album, but my favorite tunes are: ...actually, I almost uniformly love every song.  The ones I like least are Smoke Break and Mix Tape.  My favorite tune is probably Summer Friends.

Dotytron and I went with our Discerning Coyote friend and we grabbed dinner and when we got to Echo Beach, it sounded like someone was already on, and I started freaking out because I was worried we were missing my boyfriend.  It turned out to be this ungainly, odd, gangly white boy with a shock of floppy hair and this kind of modern 80s, new-new wave, urban UK aesthetic singing his heart out and doing odd, jerky dance moves.  I grabbed my merch and we rolled up and within 10 seconds of listening to him, I turned to the boys and was like, "this guy sounds like a cross between David Byrne and Peter Gabriel" and we all kind of chuckled and then 5 minutes passed and I was like, "I kind of love this guy" and the Dotytron and the Discerning Coyote were like, "TOTALLY!" and I've been listening to his album, Farewell, Starlite! pretty much non-stop and I'm IN LOVE.  My favorite tunes are: See Her Out (That Just Life), Comeback, May I Have This Dance, My Citys Gone, and Friends (feat. Bon Iver).  Believe me, no one is more surprised to be into something that Bon Iver is associated with, than me.

Francis being a weird butt.

Earlier in the summer I'd watched his video for his song, Friends, which Chance's Summer Friends samples.  The video features Kanye.  Kanye and Chance are obsessed with Francis, which is good company to keep, as far as I'm concerned.  The video is so good, guys.  That dance at the end!  When he performed it at the concert, Chance came out and did the dance with him and it was magic. They actually performed it twice, once during Francis' set and then Summer Friends was the encore.  I LOVE THESE TWO PURE HEARTS SO MUCH.

Been playing this song at least 10 times a day for the past 4 days. I couldn't love this more.

It is warm, beautiful songwriting with like, totally warm 80s, new wave, almost Aphex Twin like production.  It's like Aphex Twin meets Peter Gabriel.  Which is a pretty awesome combination.

The most perfect person in the world.

And well, Chance is just a perfect person.  His show was really more than I thought it was going to be (I expected rapping along to a back track).  He had a full multi-media performance.  Live instruments, multiple puppets, animatronics...it was a whole quasi-religious journey.  It got a little *too* religious at certain points for the Dotytron and the Discerning Coyote, but it didn't bother me (obviously, I'm the ultimate Chancelor Bennet apologist).

Anyway, THAT'S A PRETTY RESPECTABLE CONCERT SCHEDULE FOR A PARENT OF THREE.  This isn't including all the films I've seen lately: Mustang, Mommy, A Separation, etc., and all the books I've read.  

Fin.

90s Settlers for Life

This is going to be one of those nonsensical posts that only makes sense to Dr. Rei but will be a welcome source of humour when we're old and grey and can't remember how funny we were and how many nights like these we had.

Real talk: I couldn't love 90s Settlers Night more.  It's so good.  We started our Saturday with a bunch of errands and meeting my mum at Congee Queen for some QT Chinese food.  They make this fried lo bak goh dish (the turnip cake that you get at dim sum) that's insane.  It's basically cubes of that turnip cake, deep fried so it's crispy, mixed with shrimp and scrambled egg in a spicy/XO-type sauce.  So boss.

That night we met up with Dr. Rei and Hanbo and Hanbo came over and reamed our finances and wowed us with models and spreadsheets that would have taken me, no lie, about 6 weeks of my life to come up with (and they would have been riddled - RIDDLED! - with errors) and I would basically have been doing all the calculations on a calculator and just using Excel as a glorified table (my ability to construct formulas is rudimentary at best, but I do like figuring it out - it's like a fun puzzle).  The good news is, in a nutshell, that buying Lil' Ugmo for the price that we did when we did was one of the best decisions that the Dotytron ever made.  He's been coasting on it ever since.  And that the twerps will (hopefully) not bankrupt us.  These are all good things, folks!

When your bff marries someone that you and your significant other get along with so well and is so funny and awesome, it's like, the best thing in the world.  Embiggening a crew this way is just a sure fire route to fun times and laughing so hard you think you're going to pee your pants.

After staring our finances in the face, we went to Duff's for wings and saucy fingers and basically turned ourselves into those salt rock lamps that you see for sale and that the Dotytron wants desperately for his office. This wasn't helped by the fact that we chased the wings, fries, and dipping sauce down with 2 bags of chips and Bits'n'Bites.

The night started with the Dotytron and Dr. Rei treating us to an air-drummed, hair-whipping sing-along to Alice in Chains "Would."  It couldn't possibly have been funnier.  Hanbo, regarding the Settlers board, "I don't know where to put my first settlement," Dr. Rei, strumming her air ukulele and whipping her hair around in a frenzy, "Who cares, just let the music carry you!"  LOL!!!

We also determined that Hanbo is going to start a website with made-up facts about Evan Dando from the Lemonheads, which will include Dr. Rei's suggestion that he include the nugget that Evan Dando's middle name is Ann.  Evan Ann Dando will never not be funny to me.  Eternal hilarity!

Then I played Spacehog's "In the Meantime," which resulted in a conversation about how the lead guy was married to Liv Tyler.  Dr. Rei didn't know they had divorced, but I was like, of course they did, because at a certain point, when you're married to a musician like the lead guy from Spacehog and every day he's like, "I'm just going to go to the studio," as his spouse, you'd be like, "Why."  And also you'd be like, "you're lying, you probably just walk around the block and sit at Starbucks all day."  Can you imagine having to have that conversation with your spouse?  Like, does Gwen Stefani ever look at Gavin Rossdale and be all like, "Uhhh, what do you do all day?"

We also determined that if you don't like this song, it means you're dead inside.  Somehow we also correlated this to mean that if you love the movie Blade Runner, you're also dead inside.   Newsflash: Blade Runner is not the kind of movie that you profess to love, unless you're trying to prove that you're one of those people who are dead inside.  The WHOLE ENTIRE MOVIE is in fact, about trying to figure out if people are dead inside, so it's kind of an apt metric.

Also, Linda Perry in the "What's Going On?" video might have a wardrobe that consists of TWO DIFFERENT top hats with giant aviator goggles affixed to them.  Check it out.  Check it out and then lament the fact that there's no such thing as high school Battle of the Bands any more and it's basically Katy Perry's fault.

It was an incredibly enjoyable afternoon/evening.  We wrapped at around 1 but we could have easily kept going.

Sunday was a lazy day of outside time and errands and being chill.  Is it wrong to love your house?  I love my G-D house so G-D much, especially when we've just given it a clean in preparation for people coming over.  I love being in my home.  I revel in it.  We are thinking about digging down the basement to open up another floor and I was talking to a SAHM from the drop-in centre about our plans and she nodded sagely and said, "Yes, you're going to definitely need a playroom" and I was like, wait - what?  The Big Yam was over at our neighbour's house and their basement has been annexed and turned into kid land.  Another neighbour was talking about how toy storage was such a huge issue for her (she had loaned us an easel and I was asking if she wanted it back and she said she didn't have room for it right now).  I don't really get the idea of a playroom - it's certainly not how the Dotytron and I prioritize the limited space in our house.  Really, we want to dig down the basement so that we can put the TV down there and then have room for a piano upstairs, so that our living room will be more of a classic living room/music room/quiet study/reading space.  We've managed to keep the glut of toys at bay thankfully (so far) and storing them hasn't turned into a real big issue as of yet.  We have a 2x2 Expedit in our living room and it has a storage bin in each cubicle and that's basically all he gets (each storage bin is only 1/3 full at this point).  I might get a few more storage containers for downstairs that will be hidden under our coffee table but I don't anticipate wall-to-wall toy armageddon, unless I end up switching bodies with a nicer, more maternal person somehow.

I never grew up with a play room.  The Dotytron certainly didn't.  The idea of a whole room in your house devoted to the pursuits of someone who is UNDER THE AGE OF FIVE is completely foreign to me.  I mean, if that's your bag, by all means, you do you.  The idea of all that plastic and disposable stuff makes me break out in hives.  Especially since our house is so compact, the space has to be really edited down, and if anyone's interests/comfort are going to be prioritized, it's the people paying the billzzz.  I do acknowledge that this means that our house isn't the "fun" kid house - but I guess it depends on the target audience.  I'm hoping our house will strike the balance where it's a nirvana haven for kids like this:

So the goal is to straddle the line between immigrant-style discipline and then having just enough toys and imagination and fun so that for kids who are the products of REAL immigrants, our house is Disney World.  We'll see how we do.  Basically, the bottom line is that according to Lagerfeld and Dotytron's Hierarchy of Needs - our needs supersede kid needs (and it's debatable whether a playroom constitutes a "need," really).

Here's what I've been eating/making lately:

Green beans, tofu, scapes, ground pork and tofu in a purchased ma po tofu sauce over brown rice.

On Friday I skipped lunch and went direct from my RMT to chiro so I stopped mid-way to appease the twerps with a bacon butty (sandwich) from Rashers, this bacon-sandwich emporium in my 'hood.  The basic sandwich is 6 pieces of griddled bacon piled on soft (but not soft enough!) white bread with either a traditional British brown sauce or ketchup.  I like neither with my bacon so just went straight hog.  There are a number of variations on this theme (peameal, eggs, bun instead of sliced bread, etc.) but my overall impression was that you are paying for something that would be criminally easy to replicate yourself.  Like, pathetically easy.  It was good, but nothing to get yourself worked up over.  Nothing I would ever consider craving.

Friday night's dinner was a veal, beef, and pork lasagne with ricotta and a blanket of mozzarella cheese on top.  I tried to make it healthier by adding grated beets to the tomato sauce and then adding the beet greens to the ricotta layer.  I sided this with a raw kale salad with avocado and tomato in a sweet balsamic vinaigrette.  This was good, but I was feeling guilty from my bacon sandwich and thus didn't eat as much as I wanted to, which resulted in a 9pm Dotytron convenience store run where he bought me chips and a Klondike bar.

Sunday supper was beer-braised pork loin chops with caramelized onion and apple, alongside a mashed kabocha squash, and roasted garlic mashed potato and cauliflower.  I am ALL ABOUT putting cauliflower in my mashed potatoes lately.  So good and so healthy!  

Tonight was freezer turkey tetrazzini with more raw kale salad.  

I'm going to do my gestational diabetes test tomorrow so I'm loading up on sweet, sweet, simple sugars (and boiling a million eggs to eat afterwards).  I made this tiramisu for 90s Settlers night and it is my LIFE right now.  

Fin.

In the grand tradition of me being a sucker

...for a pop lick, I'm currently obsessed with this song:

LOL!  WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME?!?  Meanwhile, I'm the one pooh-poohing Gotye (or as I call him, Peter Gabriel lite), like, every second I get.


It's like the second coming of Party in the USA.  Now I'm going to play that on repeat.

Finally, because I'm eternally a sucker for country harmonies, I'm ready to admit that I'm kinda seriously into Mumford and Sons:

Looks like me and "moochie face" Carey Mulligan have something in common!  Ha! Although I seriously have issues with the giantness of Marcus Mumford's face.  There's just a lot of face going on there.  I know, I'm a horrible person.  


Think I found my summer jam, kids ("Call Me Maybe" not "The Cave")  Phew.  So glad I have that in the bag.  I was getting kinda worried for a sec.


Tonight was me and the Yam all day. Just us. Real talk.  

I made us a dinner of macaroni tossed with peas, mint, creme fraiche and lemon.  And a big helping of my "Olive Garden" salad.


Fin.

One month

One month from today, I will be flashing my I.D. card at security and starting back at work. I have mixed emotions about this. Poppa D is quite ill at the moment and I think there will be a lot of additional upheaval in the months to come, in addition to the regular baggage of starting work and dropping off Master T with Jeannette, his daycare provider. He's been taking small separations in a stride. When we see Jeannette at the drop-in centre she takes him off my hands and he's been fine with it. Another caregiver at the drop-in centre calls him Mr. Independent. He's just so chill. He's fine just sitting and hanging out and he doesn't really notice that I'm not within eyesight unless I happen to pass into his field of vision. I'm sure it'll be different once he realizes that this is his new reality, but all told, he really is a very unclingy baby.

Yesterday, in addition to it being the 10th Anniversary of the First Time Americans Realized That Their Foreign Policies Make The Rest Of The World Hate Them, it was the Big Yam's 11 month birthday. How crazy is that? Super crazy, that's what.

Despite the ongoing stress of Poppa D's sickness, we had a pretty good weekend. Dr. Rei came by on Friday and we feasted on pizza pide:

We also had some serious talks and big laughs at the same time. Big laughs about the weird sexual proclivities of one of my exes, which we call "the thing" and periodically, when we're hanging out, Dr. Rei will remember "the thing" and lose her mind. Big laughs about how any time conversation turns to the gifted program, I will sit an quietly whisper "I'm gifted" until someone notices. Big laughs making up lyrics to Chocolate Rain.

How cute are these two? Especially the Big Yam in his striped jim-jams.

Saturday morning we woke up and I made the family a fat baby with cinnamon apples. We did a bunch of errands and the Dotytron spent some time with his da' at the hospital and then we girded our loins to attend our friend L's pig roast. Ummm...pig roasts are amazing. I'm totally all fired up to invest in the pig roast infrastructure. Basically, they cooked a 50lb pig over a split drum charcoal bbq on a big spit. L's friend bought the whole rig for $400 and rents it out for $100 a pop and it's booked solid every weekend!!! Amazing!!! I'm totally going to do that. I was considering doing a pig roast for T's 1st birthday, but with all the stuff happening with work and Poppa D, I figured we'd hold off until next year. Hopefully we can get our yard fenced in and our deck done and then do it up proper. The rig is going to come in handy for lobster fest and pig roasts and lamb roasts and all the rest. Hooooeeeee...I'm already so pumped for this I can't even talk about it.

It was a pretty ideal evening. We didn't think we'd get there in time to even eat the pig (L is notorious for running late) - but the pig was ready for 7:30pm - we got there just after that, ate some pig, visited with peeps, drank some beers that weren't ours, and got home by 9:30pm with our bellies full of pig, and our beers AND our dessert accidentally brought home with us. What what!

Sunday was a damn near perfect day. Ate breakfast, did some reorganizing, labelled a bunch of bins for storage, cleaned and reorganized our vestibule, cleaned up the back deck area, went to the Farmer's Market, took the Big Yam and biked to the Leslie Spit and back, finished quilting my quilt, hung with the neighbours, had the roomie over for dinner, watched an FNL and we were still in bed by 9:30pm. I love those weekends that have that balance of socializing, crossing things off your to-do list, and lots of fun family time.

I made us chicken Milanese for dinner, on top of a salad of arugala tossed with lemon juice, olive oil, and grated parm. Fresh farmer's market corn on the cob on the side.

The Big Yam likes to do this thing with the lid of his silicone storage containers where he holds it in his mouth and he looks like a demented clown. It's pretty hilarious.

We've been listening to this mix that we grabbed off The Rub's page pretty consistently. It's slick. It starts off with some pure early 90s girl group awesomeness, which inspired the Dotytron to ask me, "Who does that 'No Scrubs' song?" "TLC" "...it's a pretty good tune!" DUHHHHH. That is a jam, son! RIP Left-Eye! Then the mix goes into some new stuff and ends with a remix of Prince's 7, which is SOOOO GOOD. Here's a refresher in case you need to remember the original:

The mix has a bit too much Lauryn Hill into Fugees for me, but other than that, it's freakin' amazing. The mix also has Mary J's Real Love, which has inspired me to want to learn how to play it on the piano. HOW AMAZING WOULD THAT BE??? Like, if you could just roll up into any hotel lobby and start banging out Real Love on a baby grand? I feel like my ticket to popularity lies therin.

Fin.

80s hair metal

tonight is going to be about this:



and this:



and maybe some of this:



all leading up to this:

isn't the lead singer super-charismatic and a hottie? i'm totally pumped for this.

i'm also totally pumped for an M-R-I reunion with dr. rei sleeping over cuz she's done the first draft of thesis hell AND unfortunately hanbo is out of town. but if that means a sleepover with the bfffff then we'll have to make do with a hanbo-less weekend. yay sleepovers!

i woke up just shy of 6am this morning, so we'll see how i last. i predict some post-dinner pre-spin gallery napping might be in the cards.

i'm LESS enthused that last night was the last dodgeball game of the season, and do to my burgeoning belly, of my foreseeable future. not happy. at least i went out on a good note - i rocked a solid game with some key catches and got some people out with the much sought after "foot shot" but i'm so sad i can't play! this is the first season i've taken off in like, 4 years, since i started. it's balls i tell you. the only thing making it easier is that summer yields SO MANY physical activities. we haven't played a single game of "no rules tennis" and we've only played a couple rounds of frisbee. haven't hit the driving range yet and once the pool opens, i'm sure we'll be there quite a bit - at least for senior citizen lane swim time.

last night we ate leftovers, but on wednesday we went a little buck and ordered pizza and a meatball sandwich to split from this new place, recommended by cousin al, who incidentally is the former drummer and now 2nd guitar player for the diemonds. the new place is called colombo's pizza. the food was pretty good! you could tell it was homemade. they're known for their "neapolitan" pizza, which is a no-sauce pizza with fresh tomatoes, sausage, oregano, and mozzarella. the toppings are super-tasty, especially the sausage chunks which are redolent of fennel. unfortunately the crust needs some work. the crust is very much like a slightly less cardboard-y pizza pizza crust. if the crust was just a little bit thinner and greasier, it would be perfect.

the meatball sandwich is legit. tender, soft meatballs gently nestled in a perfectly crusty-yet-yielding bun with a sweet tomato sauce and cheese. we'll definitely be ordering from there again:

 

 

tonight will probably be leftovers or some freezer-clearing pierogies, before cleaning the house takes over and a pre-show nap.

fin.

school of bob villa, lesson 1:

if you apply ENOUGH of many different types of wood glue, one of them is bound to work and will make the joint stick. !!!!! success! i'm not gonna lie, things were looking pretty grim there for a bit, exacerbated by the fact that the home depot mission that i had been (wrongly) priding myself on (i should have known that it was eerily too well to be believed, what with me finding everything on my list with only a minimum of waiting and grade 9-style pantomiming to a bevy of pleasantly disengaged orange-aproned staff) yielded the wrong web clamping. BOO! i injected about four different kinds of wood glue into the joints of my practice telephone table and finally, in a fit of desperation, completely flummoxed by the workings of the web clamping (or what i *thought* was web clamping), i grabbed a crate of records and balanced it precariously on the upended table to put some weight on the setting joints. i'm supposed to let it dry for a good 12 hours, but when i went into the room (which i have hermetically sealed against all interlopers in a superstitious appeal to woodworking karma) and gingerly wiggled the joint, it didn't wiggle at all. it's too soon to tell, but i'm cautiously optimistic.

i also went to town with my brand-new upholstery staple remover on the existing seat covers, peeling off god-knows-how-ancient cheap filling and a tacky, "cream" (i think it must have once been cream) coloured naugahyde fabric. i did all this while wearing safety goggles and breathing through my mouth. i get that from my mom. my mom has a very strange habit of breathing through her mouth whenever she's put in situations like: being on public transportation, using a bathroom in the developing world, on the (rare) occasions that she does the dishes. it's kind of weird to me because as i have learned, smells are actually particulate matter, which means when you mouth breath around off-putting odors, you're actually EATING them. this didn't stop me from fulfilling my lagerfeld genetic destiny by mouth-breathing like a mofo as i lifted one staple after another. i procured some foam ($10! for 2 seats!) and now i just need a staple gun and i can go to town.

i'm documenting the whole process. i likes me a good crafty before-and-after like few other things.

so, yesterday's meeting with our lawyer was...um...interesting (if not exactly confidence-inspiring) to say the least. he works out of a barebones storefront across from a subway station on the danforth. it's like, one room, with no privacy, so when his next appointment walked in while he was dealing with us, he had to ask them to wait outside. on the street. when i had called to book the appointment i had tried to get something during the day but he had told me that he was "in court" all day and wouldn't be able to see us until after 7pm. so we get there and i noticed that on his right hand, he had a FRESH scrappy doo wonderland stamp. !!!!! i surreptitiously pointed this out to the dotytron who responded with raised eyebrows and suppressed LOLs. i can't BELIEVE how cheap this guy is. he looks like a cross between the dad on "american dad" and troy mcclure. the lowest rate i had been quoted from other lawyers was $695 for the house and $295 for the mortgage, plus disbursements. this guy charges a flat fee of $500 for both the mortgage and the house and that's INCLUDING some of the disbursements! i am SO GLAD my mom is a real estate lawyer right now (she can't represent us because it's a conflict of interest). she's going to be checking over everything that happens and she's totally in our corner so it's a nice insurance policy. lawyers nowadays (for real estate transactions) are hella lazy and don't do their due diligence and rely on title insurance to cover their butts. it's crazy.

"scene not herd" was a complete 180 from last year's selection. while last year was super indie, with like a billion new pornographers' videos and like a billion emily haines videos, this year was total hipster, with an almost all-electronic music card. it's disappointing what this series has become. it's really poorly curated. even three years ago i saw some AMAZING videos. the international selection is so lacking and it seems to be used as an excuse for the curator to show how much street cred he/she has. show me videos that ENHANCE the music video genre! show me videos that are doing something crazy! there's so much re-treading of ground that it's shocking the creative rut that people are in. my favorite of the night was this one:

it's pretty cute. it's also really hard to lose with stop-motion animation.

tonight we're having dinner at the roomie's new place. i'm not sure what we're getting to eat, as usually "cooking" for the roomie means ordering takeout. i made a banana cake with cream cheese frosting for dessert. after that, depending on how ambitious/motivated we're feeling, we might go to a party at one of my dodgeball teammates' house...but that's VERY far away (well, st. clair and oakwood) so we'll see.

fin.