What we did not realize until recently was that quietly growing in Sarafina's back yard over the course of the summer, deceptively coy in their cheerful redness, were in fact the Insanity Peppers of Quetzlzacatenango, which are nominally grown deep in the jungle primeval by the inmates of a Guatemalan insane asylum. We bought the seeds at the Party Farms near her house. Who knew? Suddenly bereft of my Thursday night plans I decided to make tacos, tossed in a single such insanity pepper because I've yet to find suitable chili flakes at a grocery store near my house, and found the resulting taco stuffing virtually inedible due to its extraordinary, tongue-flaying heat. Gulping spoonfuls of plain yogourt I was able to survive, but it was a harrowing ordeal. I made it through the third episode of True Blood and the sixth of Californication, and then passed out, as high as a Christmas-tree pie.

Neither series, incidentally, is what I would call "good." The former is turning into a guiltily enjoyable trash novel (kind of a Southern Gothic Melrose Place with fangs) and the latter is just some sweet pimpin' Duchovny porn (ironic, no?), so it's not like I'm not rabidly enjoying them; just that my enjoyment comes with snide attitude and above-it-all arrogance. As it should.

Once Upon a Time in the North is making me ache quite a bit, but otherwise I'm enthusiastically adoring it; it was exactly what I needed, being an adventure story featuring cowboys and bears. Cowboys are dead interesting when transplanted into unfamiliar climes. (And re: young Lee Scoresby, I have but two words: Nathan. Fillion.) I'm on page 50 and doing my best not to run through the whole thing at a gallop, but so far it's my favourite book of the year. I suppose that wasn't surprising.

It is chilly as a son'bitch in Toronto, and Nuit Blanche is tomorrow night. This year's philosophy is "pick a zone, stick to that zone." But which zone?