Wednesday, November 29, 2006

The Fountain and Lights

Okay, so a bunch of us went to see The Fountain lastnight. Beautiful movie, gorgeous, well-acted, good effects... but really, what the hell was that? Honestly, the movie was over and everyone just had that deer in the headlights look, including me. Don't get me wrong, I liked it - but really, I don't feel like I ever need to see it again. Kinda like Solaris - beautiful, well-acted, and what the hell was that?

Right, so after the movie, L and I walked over to City Hall to get the car, and Old City Hall looked kind of odd, like someone had painted it, so we walked over and realized it was lights projected onto it, very cool! We stood and looked at it for a while, and then turned to go and then some music started and the lights changed - we stood and watched for fifteen minutes while the lights and music animated and changed all over the place, it was so cool!

Of course I didn't have my camera with me, so tonight I went back instead of going to my stitch and bitch, and spent and hour and a bit taking pix - got about 140 of them, the best are on my flickr page (link on the right folks!)

Tomorrow night is Sloan! And my last Digital Photography class - I think I'll be skipping that actually, or ducking out early at least...

rescued from Draft purgatory

Sunday, November 26, 2006

Lazy days

Another lazy couple of days - J*&P&A were supposed to come in but a family emergency called them away, so L and I spent Saturday wandering around, eating gelato and windowshopping, which was nice. Met up with Xognya and went to Flo's for dinner - and took some really super cool pix of some guys working on a building (there are three more on my flickr page, see the link on the right-hand bar), then back to Xognya's to play with the kitties and watch Firefly, woo hoo! Overall, a really nice, lazy way to spend the weekend. L and I had a nap on Sunday - again!

rescued from Draft purgatory

Thursday, November 23, 2006

Happy 43rd Anniversary Doctor!

Yep, today is the 43rd anniversary of the first broadcast episode of Doctor Who, way back in 1963, can you believe it? Who's your favourite? What was the worst story? Who screamed the loudest? What baddie had you hiding behind the couch?

To celebrate, we held the Torchwood House Party last Saturday, which was fun and raised a bunch of money towards putting on a new convention, there was a darts competition (which I got beat at in the first round, but it was close!), trivia, animation, and carousing of course, yay!

What else did I do?

Friday night I went to see Flushed Away with T and Xognya - we were actually trying to see the new Bond flick, but it was all sold out of course! Anyway, Flushed Away was really funny, full of little in-jokes - I think my favourite thing was the casting of Sir Ian McKellen as The Toad and Jean Reno as his cousin, Le Frog *grin* I'll likely be buying this one the moment it's out on DVD, yay!

Sunday I went with L to a family thing, his cousin's baby's baptism, which was nice if a wee bit awkward (I felt a bit like I was under a microscope) and then we went to see my parents since we were more than halfway there already. Man, my Dad looks odd without his beard & moustache! He has to keep it shaved off until the radiation treatments are done so the mask fits him, see - and he's been hiding his chin for the past two decades! He really looks like his Mother...

Monday Xognya came over for TV night - Dr Who, Heroes and Life On Mars - and general lazing around. We're gonna keep that going I think, far too much fun.

Tuesday, however, wasn't as much fun - I was at the office until after 9:30 at night just trying to get stuff done, I'm drowning!

So yesterday I deserved fun - Sarah and I went to see Billy Connolly at Massey Hall! He's such a funny man - almost 2-1/2 hours straight, I don't know how his throat handled that! But I have to say, we had REALLY SUCKY SEATS! Yep, I know in the past I've said that there are no bad seats in Massey Hall. I guess that's because I'd never been up in the top tier, off to the right, with the chairs ahead of me kneecapping me - I didn't need a trip to the gym either, the stairs up to our level were a workout in themselves and after sitting for almost three hours with my legs stuck in one position I feel like I was on that adductor at the gym the whole time...

Friday, November 17, 2006

Thursdays.

So I'm taking an introduction to digital photography course with my co-worker SS. Last week our class was cancelled as our instructor was off sick, and the week before that we spent the whole class learning how to get pictures off our cameras and into the computer. So basically I was falling asleep for the whole class, as this is something I've known how to do since about five minutes after getting my camera. Anyway, this week we reviewed that (*yawn*) and then talked about how to do basic manipulation of the pix in Photoshop (again, *yawn*), so that's four hours I'll never get back. I think next week I'll ask her right away what we're going to be learning, because being there for two hours to be shown how to do really basic stuff I can already do is just a waste of my time. At the beginning the class was good, I was learning stuff I didn't know before about composition and technical stuff, but at this point I'm feeling like I either need a more advanced course or none at all.

After class L and I went out with a selection of the Kitchener Contingent - $3.50 chocolate martinis at Wide Open and boogying at Velvet Underground! If I hadn't broken out in hives, we could have stayed very late, but as it was we left at 12:30, ah well.

So I've been quite tired at work today, but at least I got one good thing - we had a United Way bake & book sale so I bought Léon The Professional on DVD for $1!

Tuesday, November 14, 2006

And so we catch up!

Okay, so now that's done... what, exactly, have I been up to?

Well, August was a bit of a whirlwind, I took cM to see Spamalot as a late birthday present, visited my doctor and my dentist, reaffirmed my fondness of kissing *grin*, went to see The Descent (oh man, that was spooky - well, same director as Dog Soldiers, so only to be expected - my heart didn't calm down until I'd been home for two hours!), and had drinks with friends, some old and some new, until the wee hours. Of course, I came down with something just before leaving on vacation, but I fought it!

Then came September - after I got back from vacation, I found out that the temp that was in covering for me didn't work out (in fact, she had to go after only a few days) so there was lots for me to do (and, in fact, it hasn't slowed down since, I'm exhausted!). But that didn't keep me from being a bit more social! Had a great Tavern the very next night, no rest for me! Went to a fun housewarming party, visited the ROM with a new friend, went on a bit of a camera safari with S, bought a new printer and an old tape deck and iron (yay, I can finally iron things!), went to the Clothing Show (new t-shirts and shoes for me!), went to see Crank with T - which was SO MUCH FUN! One big goofy adrenaline rush! I love Jason Statham... um, what else? Oh, my grandmother turned 90 on October 1 so I went to see her and some other relatives for a few hours, that was a nice visit.

Which brings us to October - the month of me not having the house to myself! PK came to visit from London for a week, completely on the QT, we didn't tell any of the Tavern folk he was here, he just showed up, it was hilarious! We went over to the island his first day here and wandered around, and I took a day off work and we went to Niagara Falls, which was really cool. We saw The Illusionist, which was really cool - Ed Norton just rocks, period - and then went to see my brothers play (they rock as well - every Wednesday at the Unicorn, folks!). Topped it off with a trip up the CN Tower, and of course we *tried* to see Sloan but the show was postponed.

Is that enough? Nope, 'cos then it was thanksgiving and I was in Welland visiting my folks, which was a nice couple of days just lazing about *phew* - but not for long, 'cos as soon as I got back I had EC in visiting from London as well for a week! We went to see Regina Spektor, what an excellent show! Only Son opened, and he was fun too. I decided I needed to have darts again, so I bought some and we played a couple of nights, and I must say my luck is improving (not my aim of course)... Went to see Man Of The Year (pretty good), had brunch with Xef, went up the tower again, went out to Neu+ral with Xog (very cool, must do that again), visited with J* and cM and eBaby and QoWP, and had a final lunch before he had to go - overall a nice visit!

In the middle of all that, I started a digital photography course with my coworker SS, which has been cool but a bit hit-and-miss as I know lots of the things our teacher's telling us. But I've decided I need to buy a new camera, the low-light performance of my current one is driving me nuts and the battery door is chipped anyway, so I'm researching...

Let's see, what else? Got together for late-night drinks with some friends, hassled some camels at the zoo, wandered through an old graveyard, had lunch with an out of town friend, went to see The Prestige with T (also good, but of the two I think I liked The Illusionist better - although it should be pointed out that any movie with Nicola Tesla as a character automatically gains coolness points with me), went to Kitchener to visit with everyone there and see M&N's new house (which has the coolest attic space ever, it should never ever have furniture in it!), went to Aberfoyle and bought a bunch of zinc printing plates with insects on them (yeah, I know, but I like 'em), went to a friend's engagement party (which was really nice, go them!)

Oh, and I finally got to see a specialist. She had them take blood from me for 11 different tests and I still have to go into a clinic for an 8am bleeding *grin* to top it off, but I haven't been able to shift myself early enough...

Which brings us to November! I've been stuck in the office quite a bit this month - I've made it to Tavern of course, and saw some faces I haven't seen in a long time, and went on a fun photo safari with S over to the Brickworks, and my ex-roomie and his bf hosted a Guy Fawkes party that was quite cool - but of course I've come down with something again! This time it's been really nasty too, I'm just getting better now but I spent a whole week feeling like death. This past weekend I went to a very relaxed birthday party and made banoffee pie (mmmm!)

See? Now we're all caught up...

...or are we? See, I've been sort of seeing a friend of mine now for about a month, it's been nice. Not sure how serious it is yet, but I'm enjoying it, we have odd things in common and we like slouching together on the couch watching BBC stuff so it's all good.

Oh, and photos of the touring about with PK and EC can be found on my flickr page, link on the right-hand side there - those flying pix, see 'em?

Wednesday, November 08, 2006

Um... and the rest of the UK trip

Okay guys, I totally suck. Yep. I've been back for two months and still haven't finished blogging my vacation. And the whole point of the damned thing is that I could have done this while I was there!

Okay, anyway, quick recap of my last few days overseas:

Monday, September 4 - I took it generally easy, went for a walk into Sowerby Bridge (very very hilly, I should point out!) and then went into Halifax. Very pretty little town - bought books and walked through Woolshops lanes with a ham & cheese pasty, sat down and people watched for a while, then bought the coolest ever brown jeans - for £5! How cool is that? And after saying I didn't need anything else brown... I got a t-shirt and a bag in brown too, and a tote bag! After all that financial flooding, I found a Nero and sat with my book and a mocha, mmm... Then I was VERY bad and bought DVDs (Twin Peaks and Allo Allo) and Tigermilk on CD! But they were cheap, so it's not that bad. I even managed to get back to L&O's house on my own without getting lost, flaked out on the couch with my knitting and went to bed zzzz...

Tuesday, September 5 - I went to Leeds! Yep, got up early, took the train into Leeds, planned on meeting up with MT but we missed each other - but that was okay, I ended up wandering around downtown a bit, bought another DVD (My Kingdom) and snapped some pix and then got back on the train - but stopped in Bradford to go to the National Museum of Photography, Film and Television, which was very cool! They even had a Dalek! By the time I got home I was so exhausted I thought I was going to pass out! Liza had gone into London while I was gone, so Ollie and I got pizzas and watched TV. Packed everything up and went to bed...

Wednesday, September 6 - Time to go home! Ollie dropped me at the train station in Halifax and I took the train into Manchester Airport. There the confusion started - the check-in desk told me I could take my purse and my backpack, so I checked my luggage and looked around the shops, then went to the security check area. Where they told me I could only bring one bag. So I had to go back to the check-in desk, where they put a sticker on my backpack and directed me to the luggage inspection counter - where I was told their machinery was broken and directed me to another inspection counter at the far end of the entryway. Where they told me theirs was also broken, and directed me down a hall, around a corner, through a room and down a flight of stairs to yet another inspection counter, where they took my bag. Okay, away I went! Got on the plane after milling around for a while, took off. Found that my headphone jack wasn't working, of course. Figures. Other than that though, the flight was nice, got home with no problems... and that was the end!

It took me weeks to get over not being there anymore - don't get me wrong, I love it here, I love Canada, but I had such a wonderful time! I want to go back!

And don't forget, there are pix from my entire vacation on my flickr page, see the link on the right-hand side of this page...

Okay, coming soon - an update on my life since then, I promise!