That's it: a hundred and sixteen shortlist picks. I'm so fucking proud of myself. Every spare minute today I was in that book. And today was by no means a light day at work, and slogging through 350 descriptions was thirsty work at times, but every once in a while I'd hit a description of something that would make me gasp out loud or cackle with glee or just plain feel like the air's worth breathing again. And being that this is the first year I actually went and bought the book... I am so glad I bought the book. The smell of it. Cracking the spine again and again and again. Putting an asterisk on every single page that even remotely made any kind of logical sense to me. I was worried that I'd come in too little or way, way too many, but in the world of horseshoes and hand grenades I'd say 116 towards an even hundred first- and second-choice tickets is about as good as it gets.

Especially given that the general "plan" (and if I could make those air quotes any larger by means of some sort of "HTML programming," believe me, I would) is to not follow any Midnights with a morning screening. Which, given that it now looks like I'll try for every single Midnight this year, makes it a p.m.-only festival for the most part. Well, we all know how long that "plan" will last.

But honestly. The Midnights this year. By the time I was on the last page of the Midnights, I was actually pumping m fist in the air outside Burrito Boyz going "COLIN! COLIN! COLIN!" Best. Lineup. Ever.

I finished the aforementioned 116 on the seat outside Burrito Boyz and then ran across Wellington to meet the blogTO contingent, because I guess I wasn't hyper enough already. There's something about these meetings that speaks of the finest kind of quasi-religious fervour. By the time the meeting's over I've got notes on about thirty posts I'd like to write and I've committed to five or six ongoing items. Best, though is when the subject of the sex/love column (which I remember whinging about all the way back in December) got brought up again and not one but two new blogTOers are interested in getting some chatter going on how we could get that started. I've got my first post half-written already.

So: it pays to socialize.

Oh, and the other good news: the podcast got sponsored. Hardcore. So for the first time in the year that I've been doing this, blogTO is sort of in the black. We literally spent ten minutes tonight trying to figure out what to go do with ourselves, because it was a whole new sensation.

The really weird thing was when I realized that at some point in this process, I became one of the old guard on that blog. It was just me, Tim, Tanja and Katherine that have actually been at this thing for a year or more; everyone else has been added since, and many quite recently. Now moviesTO's birthday is on Sunday and newer bloggers are looking at me like I pre-date Jesus Christ. I can't quite shake the ongoing feeling that I'm still the new kid at the table looking in, but whatever. The gang's all here, and it feels like September's gonna be one big kickass month.