June 2012
1 post
5 tags
Hill & The Sky Heroes Make My Monday
Readers take note: when someone tells you that they’re playing in an alien surf rock band and that you should come check out the band’s album release party, drop what you’re doing and run in the direction of the venue as if the zombie apocalypse has arrived and The Drake Hotel is the only place for thousands of miles that can offer you sanctuary from having your brain eaten by...
May 2012
2 posts
5 tags
April Reads
April was an atrocious month for me, reading wise. From a quantity perspective, I only managed to make it through 1 book, and on the quality front, I wasn’t overly impressed with the bulk of what I read. Nevertheless, in the spirit of keeping up with my monthly, literary documentation, here’s the skinny on what April had to offer.
The Road - Cormac McCarthy
In general, I’m...
3 tags
The Coolest Motherfucker
Last night I saw what was arguably one of, if not the, best concerts ever. Held at The Great Hall in Toronto, a few hundred people were treated to the awesomeness that is Lee Fields and The Expressions. If heaven exists, I assume that when I die I will end right back up at that show (or if I’m really lucky, in Mr. Fields’s dressing room…bow chicka….never mind).
Described...
April 2012
4 posts
5 tags
Resolution Check-in 1 of 3
It’s just about a third of the way through 2012, and as such I thought it might not be a bad idea to check in on my New Years resolutions and see how well I’m doing. As a quick recap, the promises I made to myself on January 1st this year included:
1. Read more 2. Take more pictures 3. Travel 4. Make music, lots of it 5. Write, often 6. Pilates, daily 7. Get dressed up for no...
4 tags
Build-a-Bar: Gin
Gin, a clear alcoholic spirit distilled from grain or malt and flavoured with Juniper Berries and other botanicals.
It’s been a while since I’ve posted about a liquor added to my cabinet via the build-a-bar challenge, but with good reason. I recently finished up my bar tending course, and have been spending a lot of my spare time studying for the exam by playing kitchen mixologist and...
5 tags
10 Not-So-Shitty Things About Today
Today was a long, stressful and - minus the fishbowl-sized glass of red wine that I had at a press conference mid-afternoon - relatively unenjoyable. However, I’m trying to make an effort to be a more positive person, so I figure what better way to start than to try and think of 10 non-shitty things about today. That said, in no particular order, here are today’s silver linings:
My...
4 tags
Havin' A Time
I’ve had a lot of great vacations in my life, and I’ve travelled to a decent number of interesting places, but I have to say, I firmly believe that the trip I booked yesterday is about to put all past vacations to shame.
Where am I going? Well, here’s a hint: it’s an island that smells of cod, and is home to this fine gentleman….
That’s right, I’m...
March 2012
8 posts
16 tags
March Reads
God bless March and what it did for me, reading-wise. Early in the month I spent a week on the beach in the Bahamas, affording me the opportunity to pack back a good six inches - of literary material, that is. Back home, the warm evenings that made up the latter half of the month were perfect for taking a book and a blanket up to my roof and getting my read on. The result? Seven books finished...
2 tags
10 Signs You May be Having a Mild Anxiety Attack
10. It feels as though there is a sumo wrestler, piggybacking Rita MacNeil, sitting on top of a pregnant elephant, standing on top of your chest.
9. Tears well in your eyes as you stare into the fridge and realize that you’re out of Thousand Islands dressing. And you don’t even like Thousand Islands. Nor do you have a salad to apply dressing to.
8. You’ve vacuumed all of the...
4 tags
Birthdays are so Last Year, and the Year Before,...
I think I’m done with celebrating my birthday. I turn 26 in just over two weeks, and unlike every other year, when I stop and think about the big day, nothing happens. I don’t get excited, I don’t want to start planning a party, and I especially don’t look forward to having my Facebook wall inundated with half-hearted birthday greetings from people who I haven’t seen...
5 tags
Bloody Painful
The weather so far this week has been phenomenal for mid-March. Highs in the mid-teens, and predominantly sunny skies. Not that mother nature provided us with much of a winter this year, but this week’s record-setting temperatures have caused me to trade my winter coats for spring jackets - and shoes.
My office is about a ten minute bike ride from my house, but in addition to acting as the...
5 tags
Build-a-Bar: Rum
Rum, noun: an alcoholic liquor distilled from sugar cane residues or molasses.
I’ve completely given up buying my liquor in the order originally outlined in the build-a-bar challenge, but in all fairness, sometimes you just have a craving, and given that I just returned from the sunny south, I’ve been craving rum. (This has a lot to do with a little drink called the Goombay Smash).
...
5 tags
The Rationale Behind Job Hopping
I’ve been in the official, grown up working world for just under four years now (46 months, to be exact), and in that time, I’ve managed to work at four different companies, not including any of the miscellaneous part time positions I’ve held on weekends. Tomorrow, that count jumps to five, and despite the warnings, I’m not the least bit ashamed to admit it.
When I was...
11 tags
February Reads
While January’s reads nearly all fell into the non-fiction genre, I can’t really say that there’s any kind of thread tying my February reads together. From a novel by the founder of the beat generation, to wine-soaked misogynistic ramblings and children’s fiction, February was eclectic, to say the least. Oh - and I threw in some Kafka for good measure.
The Dharma Bums -...
6 tags
The Epicentre of Nice
I think I’ve found the friendliest place on Earth - Harbour Island, Bahamas. I’m here for a week on vacation with my family, and since landing in North Eleuthera yesterday afternoon, it’s been nothing but island hospitality.
Take Wallace, for example, our cab driver from the North Eleuthera airport to the water taxi station. He found out we were from Canada, and proceeded to...
February 2012
12 posts
7 tags
Build-a-Bar: Bourbon
Bour-bon, noun: a type of American whiskey, barrel-aged and made primarily from corn.
After enjoying several particularly delicious Old Fashioneds the other day - well muddled and with just the right amount of orange rind - I decided to skip down to number 5 on my build-a-bar list and pick up some bourbon this week.
The pure fact that I’ve been drinking a lot of Old Fashioneds and other...
6 tags
Social Butterflies in My Stomach
For the most part, I appear to be a fairly socially adroit individual. I can strike up conversations with complete strangers, and mingle my way through parties and social gatherings, meeting new people and having a few laughs along the way. However, these gregarious actions come about as naturally to me as self-control did to Whitney Houston (…too soon?)
I firmly believe that people are...
4 tags
Seriously? You Call That A Facial?
For Christmas last year, my boss gave me a suitcase and a gift certificate for a facial. I tried not to read too much into the meaning of the gifts (i.e. I’m tired of looking at your ugly face. Pack your shit up - you’re fired), and instead just thanked him kindly and put in a few extra hours at the end of the day on the off chance that he was actually considering sacking me...
3 tags
Mr. Dressup vs. Mister Rogers - Who's the Bigger...
If you grew up in Canada or the northern United States between the late 1960’s and the late 1990’s, with parents who relied on the television set as a babysitter from time to time, chances are you were befriended by two, seemingly kindly, older gentlemen - Mr. Dressup (Ernie Coombs) and Mister Rogers (Fred Rogers).
Mr. Dressup aired from 1967-1996, and Mister Rogers’...
4 tags
Build-a-Bar: Vodka
Vod-ka, noun: An alcoholic spirit of Russian origin made by distillation of rye, wheat, or potatoes.
After a sleepless night, a particularly ridiculous day at the office, and arriving home to a cat with explosive diarrhea, last night seemed like as good an evening as any to begin my build-a-bar challenge, starting with number 10 on my list - vodka.
With the challenge’s only rule in mind...
4 tags
Haircuts and Horny Goats
I moved to Toronto about four years ago, and though I am settled here in practically every way, there is one thing - aside from visiting my parents - that I insist on heading back home for every six to eight weeks. Haircuts.
Not only do I have an amazing stylist (who I’ve promised to take on the road with me should I ever become famous - a status that dictates the necessity of weekly...
3 tags
Heel, Toe
For most little girls, the first time they wear high heels comes as a result of a trip to the Tickle Trunk to play dress up. They put on a floppy hat and an old string of pearls, and clomp around the living room in a pair of their Mums’ old, oversized pumps, while their Dads snap photos that will be inevitably used in the “Now and Then” slide show at their high...
5 tags
Build-A-Bar
I don’t have a grown up’s liquor cabinet. In fact, I don’t even have a dedicated cupboard to put my liquor in; why bother when a bottle doesn’t last longer than a night in my house? I suppose this is also a sign of not being a proper adult - that is, buying booze on an as-needed (read: binge drinking) basis. Surely as I close in on age twenty-six, it’s about time I...
7 tags
January Reads
As a self-professed bookworm, I’ve decided that this year I’m going to start documenting what I’ve read and why I liked or disliked it. The reason for the documentation is simple - I seem to lack the ability to recall the plot lines of books more than 48 hours after reading them, regardless of whether I loved or hated the writing. Maybe it’s early onset Alzheimer’s,...
6 tags
Tit for Tat
Exactly one month from today, I’ll be kicking off a week of sun and sand in the Bahamas - Harbour Island, to be exact. It’s a family vacation, the first in roughly ten years, and probably the last before either my sister or I get married or pregnant. (I’m sure my mother is praying that the former precedes the latter, but with Pfizer’s recent birth control pill recall, I...
5 tags
Brown "Bad Boy" Davis
One of the most interesting blogs I’ve been reading lately is Tim Quine’s Rubber City Review. It’s a weekly(ish) publication focused on obscure and/or under appreciated music - a lot of blues - and is a constant source of auditory gems. Rolling Stone magazine may have referred to him as a “Blues Snob,” but in my opinion, Tim is nothing less than an encyclopedia of...
6 tags
The Complete Performer Completes My Night
Having just returned from a weekend all by myself in New York City, I have countless tales to tell (ok, probably more like 12-16 tales, most of which I don’t recall the endings to as I was blitzed). That being said, there’s one in particular I think deserves special attention not only because I recall it clearly from beginning to end, but because...
January 2012
16 posts
4 tags
They Don't Call it Fun-Employment for Nothing
So far this week, I know four people who have been laid off; three from one company and one from another. I also know that the layoffs at these two places of business are by no means complete, and when all is said and done, there’ll be more heads rolling than George R. R. Martin could possibly write into a chapter of Game of Thrones. So, with that thought in mind, I figured...
4 tags
Hi! I'm the ENJO Lady!
Of all the things I never thought I’d become, an Avon lady certainly sits near the top of the list. Nevertheless, over the past few months I’ve found myself engaging in a very Avon-esque side hustle, and doing it with a degree of success that I just didn’t think was possible considering how my dislike for sales is akin to RIM’s dislike for innovation and...
4 tags
Is There a Chinese Version of Dick Clark?
It’s Chinese New Year’s Eve! Gung Hay Fat Choy, everyone, and to those of you whose careers require partaking in offshore manufacturing, Happy “Nothing’s-Getting-Done-For-The-Next-3-6-Weeks!”
January 23, 2012 marks the beginning of Chinese year 4709, the year of the Dragon. As opposed to 2011, the year of the Rabbit, I think we’ve made a definite step forward...
4 tags
Checking In to Check It Out
After using Foursquare intermittently for the past two years, I decided recently to give it a real shot and check in to my destinations on a consistent basis. There’s lots of people out there doing it, so I figured there must be some value to the service, right?
Wrong.
In reviewing my check in’s over the past couple of weeks, what has become abundantly clear is that if I’m...
3 tags
Multiple Choice
Whoever said laughter is the best medicine:
a) Had never heard of Percocet
b) Was clearly a seeing a naturopath at the time
c) Wasn’t a complete idiot
4 tags
SelfControl, the Cure for the Rabbit Hole
The more I say I’m not going to do something, inevitably the more I do it. Today’s task was to stay off of Facebook, or, at the very least, stay off of looking at a few particular Facebook profiles that are really no more than poorly disguised social network rabbit holes to hell (not Wonderland, sadly). Since I appear to have either a) no self control, b) a sadistic side, or c) a...
6 tags
He'll Have a Water, I'll Have a Wine
An interesting question came up in conversation the other night - would you date a guy who didn’t drink? For the sake of not looking like a judgmental alcoholic, I made sure to take a contemplative pause, complete with reflective stare, before responding with an unequivocal, “no.” In an effort to reassure myself that my answer wasn’t entirely outlandish, I’ve since...
3 tags
Why, What Do You Do on Sunday Night?
My whole life I’ve participated in sports that are slightly left of centre. For example, I grew up show jumping, fencing, and air pistol shooting (at one point doing all in the same day, plus swimming and running - modern pentathlon). So, when I was introduced to the sport of axe throwing a few months ago I knew I had to give it a shot. I’ve been at it for six weeks now, and I think...
4 tags
I Have Many Leather-Bound Books
After stumbling across this incredibly awesome stop-motion video by Sean Ohlenkamp and co., depicting what I’ve always suspected goes on inside a book store at night (based on the education I received watching Today’s Special as a kid), I can’t stop thinking about books and, more importantly bookshelves.
For the most part, I don’t like clutter and I try to purge my...
7 tags
How to Become a Rock Star
I have always had dreams of being a rock star - tossing my wild long hair back and forth on stage while shredding some mean riffs on my guitar, all the while dropping the jaws and raising the undercarriage of every man in the audience. And hey, if I happened to induce the occasional, mean lady boner with my skills, I’d be all for it. Here’s the problem - I don’t have wild long...
3 tags
I Don't Think I'm Doing this Write
I only recently lost my Tumblr virginity, and I’m still trying to figure out exactly how this site works (read: how do I get people to follow me, like my posts, re-blog them, and eventually make me famous).
It would appear that text I post is longer than what you might find on the average Tumblr account. Sure, I could have picked a more traditional blogging client like Wordpress or...
3 tags
Rich Kids, Poor Me
My office is located right in the middle of a rather affluent neighbourhood. It’s really the only business of its kind through the ‘hood’s main artery - everything else is restaurants, fashion boutiques, and knickknack stores full of decorative umbrella stands, awkwardly shaped glass jars that are too small to hold anything meaningful (read: booze), and other useless crap the...
2 tags
The Spectrum of Parking Suck-age
For as much as I am a decent driver, I will admit that parking is not my strongest skill, particularly not the parallel variety. I completely blew a perfect score on my road test when I was seventeen by somehow ending up in the middle of the street after a botched parallel park attempt. I still managed to pass the test, but before handing me my certification, the examiner did make a point of...
2 tags
yes. Yes. YES.
One of the many New Year’s resolutions that I made for 2012 was to not turn down social invitations, to anything, provided that I had no other prior engagements. I promised myself that I would be open to trying new things, going new places, and meeting new people. Based on yesterday’s blog post, I’ve already slipped up at making good on this resolution by refusing a dinner invite...
4 tags
Excuses, Excuses
I think it’s fair to say that the majority of people currently in their twenties and thirties have tried internet dating at least once. And those that say they haven’t? Well, they’re probably lying. At the very least, they’ve crept as far through an online dating website as possible without actually having to make a profile or pay. A variation of getting the cow for free as...
3 tags
Express Yourself
If I had a dollar for every time I’d started a blog I’d have, well, I’d have six dollars. Sure, it doesn’t seem like a lot, but that’s two rides on the TTC (assuming I’m still paying cash - thanks Rob Ford), a bottle of domestic beer plus tip, or the better part of the cost of a Dr. Oetker’s frozen pizza. And I love frozen pizzas. A lot.
Yes, I’ve...
