I don't want to rain on the Whedonites' weekend, because lord knows those poor miserable people have been through enough. (They cancelled Firefly! In 2002!!) But I'm just not on board with Dr. Horrible. Did no one else find it... kinda humdrum? There's a self-congratulatory air about the proceedings with this one, which I hope does not extend to Dollhouse, but probably could. Yes, the whole project is sorta adorable and there are songs and Doogie Howser has a death ray. But if this were made by a college kid - aside from the fact that we'd all be gawping at the fact that he somehow found fifty billion dollars for his budget - would we really be calling it all the great things it's been called this week? The story is flat, the genre innovations are a no-show, and the technical craft is bottom-drawer. There isn't a single note here that wasn't done better in any of the other superhero inversions of the past five years, and there's no ending. Honestly, I've come to expect more. Captain Napalm: strike!

Anyhoo. Rough weekend. I ate several grilled cheese sandwiches. Well, to be fair, one cannot really call what I grew up with as "grilled cheese" truly "grilled cheese," as there is no grilling involved whatsoever. It's more like "broiled cheese sandwiches." To whit:

1. Toast two pieces of white bread
2. Butter one side of each piece with the yellowest margarine you can find
3. Pre-heat oven on broil
4. Place both pieces of toast on a baking sheet, one with butttered side up, one with buttered side down. On the one with buttered side down, place two pieces of thin Kraft cheese singles, the ones that are not made out of actual cheese.
5. Put in the oven and heat until cheese is gooey and other piece of toast is notably browning
6. Take out of oven, put un-cheesed toast on the cheesed toast, flip the whole sandiwch, and re-broil until other side is as brown as the first side was
7. Serve and enjoy.

Comfort food is lovely, but I may panic soon and need to watch the entirety of The Lord of the Rings. It's a scale of escalation.

So, I am likely not going to be living in my dream home at College and Yonge come September first. This means I am shortly to join Toronto's homeless population. As predicted on this blog 18 months ago, my homeless personality shall be Captain Jack Sparrow - me and that Jedi guy outside the Scotiamount are gonna have a fight. Look for me - my hair is nearly long enough for dreadlocks already. Shiesh! How do people stand having hair in the summer?

Happy Potteaster! On this day in 2007, Harry Potter died for our sins and was reborn a complete franchise. Praise Potteresus.

Posted by tederick at 9:40 AM in foodin' & h-pot & joss
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Right now Matty Price is in Philadelphia having cheese steaks with his son, and I'm in Toronto, where even my stupid fucking horrible cat refuses to spend a modicum of time with me. Life: teh suck.

I'll say this for moving out: it forces the landlord to actually pay attention to the quality of the house. Stairs to the third floor? Fixed, two days after she found out we were leaving, and four weeks after she found out they were broken. People don't give a sweet fuck about you, ever, unless it costs them an enormous amount of money not to. Remember that, internet; let it scour your veins like oxaliplatin. Meanwhile, B-diddy (not to be confused with Bone Daddy) has successfully located her new home, Chris is Hugh Hefnering his way around the main floor, and I have not even started apartment-hunting. Should I be paranoid about not having secured a September 1 move-in date, when it's the fourth of July? I feel like I should, given that I'm so frickin' roped up about everything else these days anyway. What's one more slice of freak-out on the big freak-out pile.

You ever been to Sushi Train? Give it a try. A little conveyor belt brings the sushi to you. Ambulatory sushi is a thing worth having, even if it is indescribably precarious as a business model.

Right now, somewhere out there, Larry Hama is being awesome.

Posted by tederick at 12:56 AM in 3QF & foodin' & miscellaneous crap
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1. Deluxe original cheddar Kraft Dinner
2. Sprinkle with Dinosaur BBQ Cajun Foreplay spice rub
3. Drizzle lightly with Dinosaur BBQ garlic chipotle pepper sauce.

BUT YEAH.

Posted by tederick at 7:01 PM in awesomeness & foodin'
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Since our last installment, I inadvertently celebrated Canada Day by going for an impromptu 1-hour walk that became an impromptu 3-hour hike, which then required an impromptu half-hour climb out of the Don Valley through some rich guy's goddamn back yard, which then dovetailed nicely into an impromptu picnic, then an impromptu sunset lounging with Sarafinaprovised drinks, then an impromptu balcony barbecue till well after the firecrackers were pounding the night sky. Then impromptu sleeping at Sarafina's house when I had none of my things for work with me, necessitating an impromptu 6:30 a.m. wake up / stopover at 3QF to resupply before going to (promptu) work. Finally: back on promptu. But it was a grand way to spend a day, Canada. I like it here.

Trolling the LCBO web site this morning (as is my practice), I discovered that a store very near me has not one, not two, but seventeen bottles of the El Dorado 15-year-old Demerara rum that I spoke of so fondly back in February. So needless to say, I plundered that secret cache and made it my own. It's a little thank-you present to myself for being so awesome, and also to the world for making great rum. But mostly, I want to thank Pirates of the Caribbean, for selling me so many toys. Shit, I'm babbling.

It's Wednesday! Buffy! Astonishing X-Men! Burritos! Oh, 'tis good.

Posted by tederick at 3:31 PM in comix & foodin' & jedi antics & the rum diaries
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With Matty Price's road trip imminent (and he's not taking me!), we knocked off another Mamo, our last before The Dark Knight. Which makes this anniversary season: we actually crossed the three-year threshold last week (and MP and Leah and Sarafina and I had a generally stupendous dinner at Mercato to celebrate... buffalo mozzarella flown in that morning from Italy, mmmmmm), and given that Batman Begins was our first show, expect the TDK episode to be... gushy. You know, I haven't actually gone back to listen to that first podcast in a good long while. I should do that, just to see how completely clued out we were.

I must also regretfully report that I am completely lost when it comes to the subject of frappucinos.

On the subject of The Dark Knight, Christopher Nolan currently owns 88% of my brain. I can hear his voice in my head right now. It's calming.

Posted by tederick at 11:34 AM in batman! & foodin' & podcastery
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Well, here comes a big motherfuckin' storm. Rock on, Toronto!

Being now quite thoroughly besotted with all things Scott Pilgrim, I went searching through the stacks this morning for the Free Comic Book Day issue I picked up back in '06... and found it undeniably gone. I AM SO PISSED. Admittedly, there was a "get rid of the FCBD garbage" comic stack purge earlier in the year, but being as Free Scott Pilgrim is one of the three FCBD titles I can actually specifically remember enjoying, I'm sorta irritated that it's missing and stupid shit like the Viper Comics sampler survives. Stupid piles of garbage and nonsuch! They foil me.

So what else is going on? Well, it was goddamned hot over the weekend, that's one thing. The natural answer was: barbecue. But the problem with that was: I don't know much about barbecues. So I did proceed to, if one is looking at it technically, purchase the briquettes that go with a non-gas BBQ, and then used them on a gas BBQ. The result was... er... significant. Fortunately, nobody got blowed up or died, and there were iced creams enough for all. Praise.

Plus! Soccer! It was a hot sonofabitchin' humid mosquito-infested oh-god-are-dinosaurs-coming-out-of-those-trees-to-eat-us? game last night, but we held a decidedly excellent 4-4 tie in spite of being outnumbered 148 to 1. It was our Crazylegs vs. their Crazylegs (ours won), Everywhere She Needs To Be Stacey like a goddamned psychic defensive dervish, and The Man With No Name Whose Name Is Actually Demetre with seemingly boundless energy and laconic squinting. The memories more than make up for the morning ouches.

This BlackBerry Pearl deal is crazy! Did you know I can receive my email while on the go? The world is insane, and sushi is delicious.

Posted by tederick at 4:27 PM in comix & foodin' & jedi antics & sockey
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Thus far in June, I have:

• A broken TTC metropass
• A hot rock star girlfriend who can cook a dinner where the main matches the walls and the side matches her dress
• Enough stickers to mail away for that ultra-top-secret crystal skeleton that Indiana Jones kept looking around for
• Tickets to a Jays game where they will serve NO BEER!
• Scott Pilgrim, Volume 2.

Plus, I saw Sex and the City and Troll 2, which are comparably fascinating cultural documents. SATC because it was exactly like going to see a fanboy movie - only it was for girls! I mean, the entire audience actually gasped aloud when Big showed Carrie her new walk-in closet. Kinda like how all the dudes in the audience for Hellboy 2 will go "YEAH!" when Hellboy brings out his new big shotgun. And as for Troll 2... well the good news is that Sarafina won it on DVD at the Bloor on Saturday night, so I think there are going to be trips to Nilbog aplenty this summer. A bit of smoke, a bit of wine, a bit of soup, a bit of perfect if you ask me.

I have re-Feng Shuied my cubicle and bought myself a Seven Samurai poster. Tonight I am attending what could actually be described as a family reunion. I need a haircut, but otherwise I clean up pretty nice. It's a Tuesday. Davy Jones is coming.

"I guess the closest thing women have to Indiana Jones is Carrie Bradshaw."
- Sarafina

Posted by tederick at 8:45 AM in foodin' & jedi antics & movies
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I feel goddamned odd, dizzy and oddly-perspected. My head feels like a gaping space where a migraine would be if I weren't popping Advils like tic-tacs right now. This might have been generously helped along by the coconut rum and Terrifying Girls' High School: Lynch Law Classroom last night. More likely it's just be the up-and-down-and-cawayyyyzy weather. After all, last night also featured Magic Oven pizza, and a lot of girlfriendly adorableness. Those things don't cause headaches.

Fun fact: did you know that the median human penis size is smaller than the average human penis size? (The median size, for those of us who slept through middle school, is the number right in the middle of the scale - i.e. if there are 1,000,000 penises, the mean-sized one is the one at number 500,000 on the scale.) So basically what this information tells us is that the majority of men on the earth have a penis that is smaller than what the textbooks and Dr. Sue tell them is "normal." I think this explains an enormous number of things, not least of which being why every single episode of Sex With Sue contained at least one male caller phoning in to ask if his penis is "the right size." Let's round up and say, six times out of ten, those callers went away feeling inadequate. Then they built churches.

I took one for the team and tried the Angus burger at McDonalds earlier this week, and also choked down a Starbucks breakfast sandwich this morning. Something bad has happened to the meat products of the planet Earth. All in all, it has not been a good week, food-wise. I feel like my insides have been scraped out by a melon-baller, and I sorta just want to sleep for a year.

Posted by tederick at 12:04 PM in foodin' & sex (theoretical)
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James Fucking Bond.

How ares ya, Internet? I am cruising such a high wave right now, this blog and my personal journal have both de-volved into utter happilany gibberspeak. Every word has a rainbow comet tail and every punctuation mark is a punctuation... of love. The world is RGB CRT, the currency is vanilla bean scones, and everything is robots and glee. Fuck! I'm even annoying myself, I'm so goddamned giddy.

On Friday night, Sarafina and I celebrated by dressing in finery and trolling around Little Italy in the almost-springtime warmness, looking for a place to eat. We ended up at Olivia's at 53 - which, holy crap Internet, nicest candle-lit dinner for two with delicious wines ever. Then, 48 hours later and to round out an absolutely perfect Sunday afternoon, we celebrated again - at Swiss Chalet, with quarter chickens and Jackson Triggs acid-o-wine. Y'know, you spend a day talking about robots and Slave Leia fetishism with a girl that you like a whole lot, and it makes you feel like stepping out: in style.

Here's my cousin being all successful n' shit. Which rather painfully makes me want to upload a copy of that picture of her taking a bath in the cottage sink when she was a baby, but I don't have a copy of it on this computer.

Goin' well. Goin' very well.

Posted by tederick at 3:49 PM in foodin' & jedi antics & movies
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Funny how that looks like "sword" to me, given the number of extra letters.... anyways. Springtime. Comic books. Fresh air. It's all happening now; even Big Brown Mountain is melting. I dreamed of whips, blood, and quickening rivers. Glaciers moving, but slowly.

Fortifications: holding. So tired was I of the various off-project interruptions that plague my day, and so delighted was I to find that my trebuchet is finally a useful piece of artillery, that I set it up on my cubicle floor. Then I sent an instant message to my brother: "C'mere, I gotta try something." He strolled through the door and PAZOWWWW!!! there was a rubber eraser flying exactly at his head, launched by the ancient technological powers of ballistics!

This, to me, makes it all worthwhile.

Continuing on with Y: The Last Man, and into the meat. The Wizard of Oz issue was just tremendous. Sex and death, sex and death... Bondage and baptisms and my blood in my ears. All snuggled up reading last night, and then wandering around the rainy streets looking for something to eat... we ended up going to an Ethiopian restaurant at Bloor and Ossington, and fuck-damn, it was awesome and solved the whole night for me. I have bad associations with Ethiopian food, like that time Mark tried to make it and I said (rather memorably) that it tasted like a shirt. Or the inevitable reality that no child of the '80s can hear the words "Ethiopian food" without a single-frame nightmare-flash of Sally Struthers feeding a kid paste. But last night's meal rocked my socks clean off and around the block, and I only wish I hadn't left the leftovers in Sarafina's fridge this morning. I'm hungry as a bastard.

The noises coming out of my big project are finally, officially, the rattles of imminent death. I shall dance into the mist. I'm going on vacation in 20 days. You can't come.

Appropriately (somewhat), my work on Captain Napalm and the Legions of Havoc began with arts and crafts - glue sticks, specifically, and tiny piece of paper.

Posted by tederick at 3:13 PM in blogTO & blood & comix & dreams & foodin' & j-o-b & sex (practical) & tederick films
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