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Hey, up here [points to head], I'm on a beach, with no one around, and a glass of rum in my hand. The sun is setting, and it's nice, but my eyes are closed anyway.
(This doesn't necessarily matter to you, but I'm waiting to leave for dinner, have nothing really to do, and wanted to see if I could post this via my BlackBerry. I've already been mistaken for a loitering thief, and reported as such. That's something, isn't it?)
I now have what can accurately be described as a ridiculous quantity of rum. 2 more bottles last night, one of which has naked dancing girls on it (that one's from my mother). I have so much rum, if things ever got silly at my apartment, we could have a rum fight. And still have rum left over for sippin'. Mmm rum fight.
The rum will help: I'm not gonna lie to ya, it's been challenging. I had a shite week, and a shite weekend because of it, and I gloomed around a lot of the time and lay catatonic for most of the rest of the time, and started to feel better for about an hour yesterday and now am right back into weary disaffectation and a general lack of good mood. These times are hard; not insurmountably so, but they wear on you. I could do with a win, or at least a sunny hot vacation.
I guess I make that mistake every year: thinking I don't need a few days to get the fuck out of here and do something which is as meaningless as my day-to-day, but in an entirely different way. Righteous meaninglessness.
Speaking of righteous meaninglessness, OH MY GOD THE BORINGEST OSCARS EVER. The whole thing looked like a descent into utter crapitude till Anne Hathaway was brought onto the stage, and then it suggested the possibility of a good show for a few minutes, and then it died a thousand deaths again as they trotted out the "here's how we make a movie" approach to awards order. Add the Slumdog march to glory and it's actually as uninvolving a year as there's been in my memory. We did our usual live-podcasting thing and ended up with a 30-minute show when all the segments were combined, which is a bit longer than usual, but surely we were only so loquacious to combat the encroaching torpor. (And also because we are utterly in love with the sound of our own voices, and with each other, and with cinema itself.) Listen to the Mamo here.
I'm going to leave you with some collected pull quotes from the last 24 hours, along with a few tips to make living alone less awful.
"Do you call your boobs your 'killer whales?'" - Adam to Caitlin
"You know what I like? I like how, over time, Adam and I have switched personalities." - Me, not related to prior quote
"DON'T fall in love with me." - Steve Martin to Tina Fey
"Whoa! Her eyes are pretend!" - Sasha, watching commercials again for the first time in a year
"Right now Jack Nicholson is applying a thimblefull of bleach to Keira Knightley's asshole." - the answer to why neither were at the Oscar show
Do you ever want nothing so much as to go home, drink rum, and watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer?
"...but you don't, because you're in a hospital, with resuscitating equipment!!!" - Dorothy Zbornack
"Oh, fuck you in your black heart." - Me to the internet just now
It happens, and I am sure it has happened to you, that there are people I have known in my life who I might once have thought quite highly of, who I now tend to think of as the worst rank posers, thesaurus-hounds and dilettantes, et mightily cetera. (Don't worry: it's not you.) I think there are very few spots on my "you're in the good books for ever and ever no matter what" books, and they are filled by truly stupendous people, and I do sincerely hope I am not the sort of person who burns through all the other relationships in a few years, as at least one very good friend of mine described one particularly troubling frenemy of ours the other day. (Yes: frenemy.) But inevitably, my brain is neurotic and tends towards now-focused-ness, and sweet holy, give me five minutes and I will come up with something to worry. As this paragraph so deftly proves.
Switching tracks, I think my new expression of frustration or dismay will be "Temple of Doom!" Try it on. It's marvelous. I am also currently fond of such expressions as "top man," am quite glad my beard has finally grown back in, and am looking for opportunities for a bit of on-the-road adventure before the colour is drained completely out of the world. Right now I am sitting in couch-bed, doing some writing, downloading '80s U2 relentlessly from the internet, watching Penelope, and missing the lady, which is a tad greedy under the circumstances, but, I think, still indicates a good thing.
There's nothing wrong with wanting to sit at home and eat tunafish.
This year's Tuesday Night Freak-out: has been canceled. Stay tuned for further developments as they become available.
C'est pas moi, je le jure just broke my heart a little bit. Or maybe just cut me open somewhat, more like. But in the good way, I think... cathartic and satisfying and a bit sad and a bit happy and very, very good. That is a really sensational movie, and the kid in it is nothing short of scarily amazing. So there ya go: I am capable of not just sitting through, but enthusiastically enjoying, Canadian feature filmmaking. If Quebec counts? Who knows, I'm going into another one (Derriere Moi) right now, so I'll let you know.
I also saw the Hungarian incest flick, which was "that film," being the obligatory once-annually festival film I must encounter from Eastern Europe, where nobody says much, shots are held long, lingering shots of small animals are imbued with impenetrable thematic significance, and really fucking awful rapes happen in the middle of the day every now and again. Not that it went particularly sour in this case: like After the Day Before in 2004, I didn't really mind the languid sequences of the Danube Delta drifting on by and the lengthy, inexplicable procession of funeral boats underscored by the inevitable drone-hum of an all-male throat choir. And as incest stories go, a traditionally-damn-near-impossible sub-genre, it wasn't bad, just a bit sledgehammery towards the Lottery-esque ending. But there's no denying that between Delta and Achilles and the four hours of sleep that preceded them, it was a low-key-to-the-point-of-subliminality start to the day.
C'est pas moi (my first trip to the Winter Garden, which made me positively purple with disappointment that I didn't get to see J.K. Rowling read there during the Hallows tour) ran 20 minutes long, so I missed the first 15 minutes of 35 Rums. That's easily 6 or 7 rums! So I didn't bother, and instead stayed for the Q&A, which I never do (because of the inevitable questions: in this case, "where was it shot?" and "did you change much from the book?").
An effortless rush of Rocknrolla damn near turned today into my only 7-flick day, but with Rums off the schedule, 'twas not to be. Oh, and Rocknrolla... hella awful. Or just stupid and pointless, really. Oh, if I could undo the damage that Lock, Stock has done to the world. I would be a happy man.
You ever have that thing where you're all alone in a whole row of theatre seats and a guy comes in and sits immediately beside you? And then, 15 minutes into the movie, you hear the horrifying ZZZZIPPP? Cuz I did, today. (It was his fanny pack. But that doesn't explain the needless proximity.)
Right-o.
Well, and officially, it's summer and everything sucks. Any intimation of having to do anything at all is met by me with a massive IDONWANNA IDONWANNA IDONWANNA IDONWANNA IDONWANNA!! And I am not alone. This entire jive-ass turkey town is staring out the window (wistfully). If I were Ferris Bueller, I would take the Day Off. I am petulant, emasculated, dyspeptic, and blasé. It's something's-gotta-give mode at Tederick Central Command. (TCC: kicking the TTC's butt!)
If I were a fruit fly, I would be bumping lazily against the fruit, accomplishing nothing.
Ugh. To be on a beach, naked, with a bottle of rum...
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.
I just took my phone to the water cooler to fill it with water. I gotta get off this project I'm on, it's totally fucking me up. And it's not even 2:00 on Monday yet!
Oh the places I've been! The things I've done! It's like that book Bex gave me back in the day, only in reverse. I am anti-Seuss. Ever been crazy-carpeting in Christie Pit with cinammon whisky in the middle of the night? Cuz I have. And then (several hours later, no influenced-driving here) I drove to Brantford and back with the lovely ladies DiFelice. In the past four days I have defeated the Gatekeeper, returned triumphant to the Big Stretch (with a partner!), seen Good Hawskley Workman transform (live on stage!) into Evil Hawksley Workman, reshuffled my Obishelf yet again, had two consecutive coffee shop order screwups, crawled into my car through the back window, received a stupendously awesome bottle of rum, and had a son of a bitchin' terrific breakfast. The world quakes beneath my lightning-spittin' fingertips. (I mean literally: these lazy final days of winter have turned me into a walking electric charge. Arcs of power connect me to the walls of 3QF from distances of up to 15 inches.) And did anyone notice that I'm in last week's Powers? Bendis is good, Bendis is wise.
I need a vacation.
El Dorado Finest Demerara 15-Year-Old rum. Just roll that around on yoru tongue for a minute and enjoy it; I do. So, y'know, someone buy it for me or something, because of how wonderful I am. I have a Jar Jar Binks on my desk, and a laissez-faire attitude about my work.
In the meantime, I am working on moving the world away from e.learning, and straight into f.learning.
All right, I've had it; reading The Rum Diary all week has pretty much destroyed any ability on my part to not be fantasizing constantly about getting the hell out of this town and spending several aimless weeks knocking around some anonymous beach in Dominica in the near and immediate future. Fifteen-degree Tuesdays notwithstanding, I have had it with this cold weather shite. I want to be wearing minimal, loose clothing (if clothing at all). I want to wake up covered in sand-flies. I want to watch the sun rise and only then begin considering finding a bed. Oooh, I like that last part most of all.
Speaking of The Rum Diary, I had the best rum evah last night. We went to Scaramouche for my dad's birthday, and after dinner I ordered a shot of a 15-year-old Demerara rum from Guyana... and holy sweet fucking crap, it tasted like cream mixed with vanilla. Enough of this cheap LCBO shit I've been pumping through my veins - I gotta get me some of that. Although I admit the allure would be greatly enhanced if I was buying it myself somewhere on or near the aforementioned beach.
OK, enough griping. As far as "happiness is": walking hand-in-hand before sunrise, and finding a Lobster Johnson in my bag that I hadn't read yet, have pretty much already made my day.
"The monkeys don't speak, but they move like ninjas."
You know what Bex gave me for Christmas? A goddamned rum jug. An actual earthenware jug, for rum. Obviously (as the title of this post indicates), she also gave me a rug. Together, these things make a fine little roll-off-the-tongue phrase which would be suitable for an album name or perhaps a sex act. I'm quite pleased.
More good news: Bex and I finally got around to Suck It: Two! OK, I admit I didn't quite twig to the fact that it has actually been nearly three months since we did Suck It: One. That's shameful. But it's out there now.
While on the subject of podcasting, right after I wrote that thing about how moviesTO had hit its hundredth show and was doing fine, moviesTO got shitcanned. Well maybe shitcanned is the wrong word and maybe it will rise phoenix-like yet again, but for now, it's taking a breather. Which should demonstrate to you why I should never say anything out loud, ever, for I possess the secret of the Deplorable Word.
I got the last tickets to tomorrow night's sneak of There Will Be Blood. I am so fucking proud of myself you'd almost think I'd fought zombies.
GUESS WHAT, INTERNET! Turns out you can't move on a day like this! Which, I guess, is why I love Matty Price: a) he tried, and b) he called it off the moment it seemed untenable. He is both charmingly courageous, and reliably pragmatic. That's what we all need in an associate.
So now, I am officially snowbound. I may play tauntaun for the girl later, if things work out; if not, it's me and the Pirates and making the pizza guy bring me food because MWA HA HA I am the ruling class and he is the servant, although truly, he shall be tipped like a king. Ohhhhhhhh I wish I had Spider-Man 3 on blu-ray. I could get stoned and watch that motherfucker twice in this kind of weather.
You know what else I wish I had? Predictive text entry, that's what. Never thought I'd see the day that would matter to me but I am fucking tired of pounding out letters one by one. PREDICT, CELL PHONE, PREDICT! It's not too much to ask. I work for a fucking telecommunications company. I like my phone because it's a flip and flips amuse me greatly, but I'd not say no to a BlackBerry Pearl, not least because of what you get when you remove the word "berry."
So now I'm just jiving my way through some blogTO posts, including yet another snarl at the TTC, and an interview with Faith Erin Hicks that I'll be putting up on Wednesday in advance of her Zombies Calling signing at the Beguiling. (Plug plug.) Hey it's neat when I can use my quasi-journalistic status to talk to people I'd be talking to anyway. It feels like whiskey.
Oh hey: I saw Little Shop of Horrors yesterday. At that point I realized that I had only had one complete night's sleep since Tuesday, and so the second act veered more towards the hallucinogenic than perhaps the director had intended, but I stayed awake through most of it and even really enjoyed some of it. So there's that. Then there was Googmas and 150-proof rum - which, ordinarily, I'm all for, because it's what the pirates drank! but with the fatigue was a real downer - and then getting home from Googmas and now this Even More Snow jive. They had damn well not have the RT working in the morning. Matt wants a snow day.
Keel over topsails, and always with the spinning, spinning, spinning. So:
Last week was hard, but really awesome. I learned so much. Everything from simulation structure to how to eat rasmalai. My ducklings were terrific company even if they did keep me on my toes from about 8 a.m. Monday to just before five on Friday night. So 2008's goal has pretty much become "come up with a business case that gets you to Mumbai." It's only fair; I inflicted a week of Scarborough winter weather on these guys, plus two sixteen hour flights. If I time it right I can hit a rainy season and be as stunned by climate divergences as they were.
Saturday was the office Christmas party.
Holy god it was like the wedding from hell. I took off after the Rod Stewart impersonator kicked the Supremes impersonators off the stage and started singing "Maggie May." Plus there was the whole conspiracy/ambush/"I sense Count Dooku" aspect, to which I dutifully replied "spring the trap." Even ended up getting my goddamned prom picture taken. (Which I never did at my actual prom, now that I think about it, so at least I finally have one.) Damned if nearly the best thing about the deal was that I bought myself what I would enthusiastically describe as a fucking kickass suit. (I also found a oddly uncanny imitation of the Emo Spider-Man suit, i.e. the one he buys and then starts dancing in the street, but I chose not to purchase it, for its use is limited.) Anyways, ultimately this neon-nightmareland was at the very least an opportunity to drink scotch, and a twelve dollar martini, and red wine, and white wine, and rum, in that order, so I guess it was all right. Plus my people were with me. So I give the office Christmas party an A+ for effort, and acknowledge that the competition for my engagement was fierce.
Here's me and the Cannonball:
Me and Al and Al:
So thennnnnnnn, I went back to 3QF and found it once again without power. Which is hilarious in summer but vaguely alarming in winter. Rachie came home drunk and proceeded to give Chris and I about twenty minutes of the funniest fucking free-associative comedy I have ever heard, about her life and her problems. Then Sarafina came over and we decided, yeah, survival wasn't in question and even in a blackout 3QF has charm. So that turned out all right, even if we couldn't watch DVDs. Plus, candles: enjoyable and can make for impromptu, unintended profundity. (Let's go with..... imprunitendundity.) We made up for the movie-watching the next day when the power came back and we spun up Pirates 1 and then Pirates 3 (and it wasn't even my idea!! holy crap), with sushi in between and rum for the latter one. Plus there were crepes and waffles with caramel, and a hoodie. Right: that kind of heaven. It doesn't sound like a lot, but somehow it gobbled up the back half of the weekend, so here I am now. Cripes on a swizzle stick, who is writing my life?
I took today to slow things down, work from home, do some group-support with Jessi, and take a deep, solid breath.
I only drank about half a bottle of rum last night, which I guess explains why I'm not hung over; I'm also starting to believe in the preventative powers of a 3 a.m. peanut butter sandwich. Though I don't really understand why. Chemistry? Mebbe.
Anyways the party was a bit of a bust; many folk I truly do enjoy spending time with came by - Bex came as a cloud with TJ as rain, Candace came as the Bride (complete with head-to-toe yellow spandex jumpsuit), and Mark came as that which scares him the most (commitment). So I guess I had a good time, but overall the night was under-attended and never quite hit that critical number of people in the room to really break through. It's funny. Last year you couldn't find a single interesting thing to do on Hallowe'en for love or money and we all pretty much ended up doing nothing; this year there was so much going on that I had three other events that I would genuinely have enjoyed attending, had I not been throwing my own thing that nobody came to. It's all too much work just to end up standing around wondering why you're not having more fun on your supposed favourite night of the year. From now on, I'm a professional Hallowe'en party attender, not thrower.
Good news is, my partially-destroyed beard looks very interesting. I think I shall keep it like this.
Sooooooooooooooooo. [ Exclamation point! ]
It is approximatly as twelve forty six in the morning. My name is JACK! [ exclamation point ]
and I am here with Rebeccva Wood. No reference here, sir.None. SUCK IT
nuns can also suck it
Soooooooooooooooooooooooo. In thge distant future, humans will actually attend 31F parties. Damn that says three one eff! WTF. Well anyway you get the point FUCK ALL Y'ALL. yeah
this is so defenestrated! woooo
p.s. Rebecca co-wrote the motherfucker! All right
I'm not saying this to impress anyone with my social fortitude, but I am actually booked for every evening between now on the fifth of October. Every single one. In the shower last night I strongly considered declaring People Bankruptcy to go along with all my other bankruptcies; everyone would just get an e-mail saying "I'm sorry, but through my own incompetence I massively overbooked myself and have begun to fear for my ability to survive, so if we made plans for this month I may just not show up." But then, I have to eat, right?
Stuff I got for my birthday!: a Wii and stuff for the Wii, a Blu-Ray player (yet to be bought), a t-shirt that says "time flies when you're having rum," Play Doh, books about salt, tea and rum, a 12" Jack Sparrow to go with the 6" Jack Sparrow and the 18" Jack Sparrow, and various cards, shots, and punches in the arm.
Resident Evil 3 was terrible. Absolutely fucking terrible. Possibly the second worst movie ever made. I was plenty drunk by the time we got in there so really I guess I didn't mind as much as I might have, but the movie was so bad that even the "get drunk and go see a terrible movie" thing didn't work out in terms of the humourous. Still, it was fun to hang out with everybody. Now let us never speak of my 31st birthday again.
And so it was. Mad Detective was strange and beautiful, though I wondered throughout what the title character - who sees the inner selves of people he comes in contact with, rather than their external selves - would see if he looked in a mirror; and seeing as how he died surrounded by them, I felt a little robbed. Ex Drummer was a work of concentrated evil so vile that I actually not only shut off my emotional response to the images on screen, but my intellectual one as well; the result was like watching a hypnotic flashing light for two hours, and not entirely unpleasant at that. And À l'intérieur was worthy of the highest compliment I can give it: it outshone last year's closing Midnight Madness for its sheer sick, twisted fuckedupedness. What is with the French? Honestly.
We lined the front of the house; I brought the rum. There was Colin and a beach ball and the girl who shares the festival's name, and Matty Price on allergy medication and a couple of Sheitan call backs and my pirate socks.
It's done now.
The best of the fest: XXY
So close: Juno
Otherwise great: Le Voyage du Ballon Rouge, Elizabeth: The Golden Age, Une Vielle Maitresse, Chaotic Ana, Sukiyaki Western Django
Solidly good: Persepolis, Shoot 'Em Up, Frontiere(s), Control, Chacun son cinema, Mongol, Nothing is Private, A Thousand Years of Good Prayers, Vexille, Stuck, Naissance de pieuvres, Cassandra's Dream, Encounters at the End of the World, Dr. Plonk, Angel, Smiley Face, Terra, Weirdsville, DAINIPPONJIN, La Citadelle Asiegee, Before the Devil Knows You're Dead, Mad Detective, A l'Interieur
Acceptable: Glory to the Filmmaker, Diary of the Dead, Chansons d'amour, The Orphanage, Princess of Nebraska, La Fille Coupee en Deux, Flash Point, Gone with the Woman, Hollywood Chinese, Son of Rambow
Unacceptable: Pink, The World Unseen, Chrysalis, The Exodus, Operation Filmmaker, Very Young Girls, The Tracey Fragments
Awful: Mother of Tears, Reclaim Your Brain, L'Age des Tenebres
Horrific: Ex Drummer
I make my count 51, and objections must be filed in box 37.
It's late, dark, and cold, and I won't sleep for hours. To every single person I shared this experience with over the past ten days, up to and including the staff of Burrito Boyz, you have my love, cheers, and thanks.
I tell ya, you get drunk enough, X-Men 3 is fucking hilarious.
Well I'd say this has been just about the stupidest week of my life, except that last week was, in point of fact, stupider. So I guess I can't really complain. The good news is that I have rediscovered the meditative qualities of fine Cuban cigars. The other good news, depending on how you look at it, is that there is no shortage of rum. Fuck, I have so many bottles of rum by my side these days that my computer desk is starting to look like the rum cellar of the Black Pearl, minus ictho-sapien Boostrap Bill, but plus fine Sideshow Collectibles. Yarrrrrrr! It's good to know where you can wet your beak, or dock your galleon, or whateverthefuck.
You know what'd be nice? Ten fucking minutes of relative calm. Or even two. Two minutes of complete uninterrupted timeage, back on that porch before this all went crabways, and the world was just orange dresses and white underwear. That'd be good.
It is fucking impossible to find a cab at Main and Gerrard at this time of night on a Thursday, Internet, let me assure you of that.
My lips are vibrating. Someone needs to come by here and clamp down my lips.
Hey! You know what? I'm doing all right. I figured a lot of shit out about myself this week. Good shit. Shit I needed to know. Haven't quite evolved it into an executable plan yet per se, but the distinctions are there and the deliverables are only a matter of time. So yeah: I'm doing all right.
I shy away from specifics regarding my job on this blog, because it would be unprofessional and security-risky for me to do otherwise, so forgive me if this is frustratingly vague, or low on that traditional Tederick.com detail you've come to know and love:
At around eleven this morning, my manager resigned. Though the breadcrumbs leading to this point were large and doughy, I was completely broadsided by this news. I'm still doing my best to process what this is going to mean for me personally and professionally, because this individual made the single greatest contribution to my development as a leader that, I think, I have ever had... and from my vantage, that journey was still miles from done. But the writer-brain is currently kicking the back of the rest-of-my-brain saying "yeah, well in the good stories, that's usually when the mentor gets removed, kiddo." So I guess we'll see.
I begged off work after lunch, went downtown for Snail and Pirates (#5). Spent a solid half hour talking to Meghan because I adore her so, and because it was pouring outside anyway, and because as of about 3:00 this afternoon I was positively made of time. Did quite a bit of utterly needless shopping - even bought the omnibus edition of His Dark Materials, which is utterly extranneous to my life, except in that I have a sick fondness for omnibuses. I fucked around on Queen Street for a few hours and was then delighted to find that on the fifth time through, I think I enjoyed Pirates more than I ever have (even though the event was painfully reminiscent of me hiding out in a screening of True Lies back in '94 when All That Stuff Went Down). The house was (largely) packed, the print was in fine shape, and the sound was cranked. I love the sweet living toes offa that flick.
Also: as it turns out, Old Monk rum is basically liquid caramel, so if you're looking for something to drizzle on your ice cream, thar she be. Selfsame rum also brought about a heady sense of glee post-Pirates wherein I burst into unmotivated laughter in the line at Burrito Boyz. Man they love me there.
Home now, and not quite sure what to do next.
"The people who love us never really leave us." - Sirius Black
"Here comes that storm..." - Me, at around 1:15 p.m. today
photo c/o TJ Lang, straight from the streets of New York.
2 down, 2 to go. 1 spare: not pursuing.
"As with all Havana Club rums, ageing is a vital part of the creation of Cuban Barrel Proof. Don Jose Navarro blends carefully-selected aged rums that will compose the base for Cuban Barrel Proof. It is then "finished" in specially-selected younger oak casks in order to reawaken its oak aroma and bouquet." - havana-club.com
I've come to realize lately that I am really bad at "the in-between times." The realities of my lifestyle these days mean that I have a pretty rigorous amount of scheduling in any given day - but if I get to a null patch, say 20 minutes, before I have to go do something, I pretty much get completely capsized by that time period. I actually become anxious about it. If I can't find something to blog or something to tidy I pretty much start pulling my hair out. It would be ever so considerate of life if it could somehow do away with these "in-between times," by thoughtfully balling all of my commitments together into lock-stepped block chanks that I can flow directly between if I finish one early. Then whatever spare change is left on the table at the end of the game, I can slip into my pocket and go buy a fucking taco. Seriously! A temporal taco, is that so much to ask?
The "in-between times" aversion seems to also apply to committing to starting anything I won't have time to finish, waiting for other shoes to drop, and getting up early for work in the morning. Oh, the things we learn about ourselves. For example, this week I did the stupidest thing I have done since, most likely, August of 2005. Beat that, Internet!
"Gentlemen... hoist the colours." - Captain Elizabeth Swann
Well, this is gonna be one hell of a summer.
Yesterday I covered the Women of Comics II symposium at the Paradise Comic Con for blogTO. It was pretty damned enjoyable I gotta say - way more than the convention floor itself, which, aside from meeting Georges Jeanty (and drooling on him a bit) and having a decent conversation with my new personal hero Faith Erin Hicks, wasn't exactly my air-quotes "thing." Incidentally: have I met Faith Erin Hicks before? I really feel like I have, but I can't place it. If any reader can twig me on this thing, please inform. It might just be because her name is fun to say.
Then Matty Price and I hit Ocean's Thirteen for some bank and... well sweet fucking hell I thought I didn't have anything relevant to say about that thing, but apparently I did, because I said it in review form:
The filmmakers have stripped the requirements of the Ocean's franchise to such a spare extreme that this one isn't just running on fumes, but is also turning around and convincing you that those fumes are honest, hard-won gasoline from the vast oil fields of Iraq. The flick - intentionally or no, though I'd gamble on the former - acts as an almost cruel contretemps to the risible "one for us, one for them" philosophy of indie vs. mainstream filmmaking that has plagued Hollywood for decades.
Got home and stumbled into a ginormous party that Teen Girl Squad was throwing for Rachel, and decided to stay (there was rum). Rachel, who shot off a fire extinguisher like she was play-acting Ghostbusters in the back yard and covered the entire neighbourhood in Spielbergian fog, Rachel who took her clothes off not once but twice, Rachel who turned me into an inadvertent drug mule. And did I mention the rum? Yeah I'm pretty much calling it the best party ever held in this house, with the exception of the Pirate Party, because nothing will ever actually defeat the Pirate Party.
Then not a lot of sleep, then a really good yoga, now peanut butter and laundry and sunshiney yesness.
"Old Monk rum has slight taste of vanilla flavor with alcohol contains of nearly 42.80%. It is also most popular in the cold northern Indian regions, and gained lots of popularity among the Indian military." - liquorofindia.com
Shit I TOTALLY forgot to drunk-blog! Fuck. Next time.
Or, one down, three to go.
"The first known documentation of rum production at the Appleton Estate is dated 1749, however the origin of the Estate dates back to 1655 when the English captured Jamaica from the Spaniards. During the English empire, when rum was transported back in barrels, it was discovered that the time spent in the barrel, combined with the gentle rocking of the ship, allowed for smoother, tastier rum." - appletonrum.com
Internet, I have a crush. A hugenormous crush that I thought I had successfully quelled but no, my quelling was sub-par and now there's cake and oh fuck Internet, I don't know which way is whatever any more.
So how am I gonna play it?
Pimp smooth.
Yeah that's right. I'm into my shit, happy with my life, and needing nothing right now. So there, world.
Two recent dude-stoppages:
1. Dude stops me because I'm wearing a Cobra t-shirt and he's like "do you even know that show?" And I'm like "yeah I watched it all the time" and he's like "what, how old are you?" and I say "thirty" and he's like "man, you look way older than that." FUCK THAT GUY!!
2. Dude stops me because he sees me reading Buffy and he's all like "do you just like Buffy or are you a comics fan?" and I'm like "both" and he's like "then you should read Transmet" and then proceeds to have a really worthwhile, generous conversation with me about the stuff that he's into and the stuff that I'm into and we talk about Powers and Y the Last Man and all the stuff that we absolutely love and anyone who says that two dudes can't get all emotionally available with one another at the drop of a hat is a lying liarpuss.
Last night I had a dream about the twin girls in the first boat you see in the land of the dead in Pirates wherein Gore Verbinski had made a whole other movie just about them but that movie was more like The Ring and the girls were that little boy and maybe I was Gore Verbinski and why are those girls in the movie anyway holy fuck I've had too much coffee now bye.
Matt [speaking about Death Star cufflinks]: I think the Death Star's a pretty good symbol.
Adam: But then you're always evil guy. What about the twin suns of Tatooine?
Matt: But what's interesting about a sun?
Adam: It's... um... hydrogen synthesis.
"Almost 200 years ago, James Gosling's ship, brimming with spirits and bound for America from London, was becalmed off Bermuda. Wisely, James put ashore and never left. Eventually the family's leisurely oak-aged, dark-hued rum became extremely popular... Unlike mass-marketed spirits, Black Seal remains a special product available at select outlets." - goslingsrum.com
Well I'm just gonna have to go see Pirates again, is what. Yeah, when that decision got made this morning, I actually started giggling uncontrollably. Mmmmmm Pirates. Best movie ever.
Meanwhile, Kevin Smith to direct the best movie ever: article. Yup I'm trading around the "best movie ever" moniker like a Gem Saloon wipe-rag at this point. I'm okay with it.
Yesterday I got to see Susanne and Meredith, both visiting from out of town, at different points in the day thanks to my crack work-at-home scheme. I also squeezed in a driving lesson wherein I managed to stall the car in the middle of the intersection at Jones and Gerrard, and yet not die. Why? Because gas is my friend. In between there was room for buying the first season of Robin Hood on (very expensive) spec, finishing off some serious deliverables on a project I'm more than ready to be altogether done with, and shanghaiing Brandy aboard the Portrait of a Young Artist galleon as it sets sail for the shimmering waters to our immediate south. I'd call that productive.
It's 7:29 in the evening...
...Pirates has already made eleventy billion hundred million dollars. True story.
No, not really, but it snatched an unbelievable $17M from just the two screening slots last night. Between 8 and 2 last night, the flick made seventeen million dollars. We didn't get to do our post-Pirates Mamo as hoped (because I left my headset at home), but there's gonna be plenty to see as this movie continues to roll out over the weekend.
I could not be fucking happier. Not about the grosses, because honestly, I could care less. About the whole thing. About me, Matty Price, Courtney, Bex, Jess, TJ, Steve, Adam, Sameer, and Sasha going to see the thing last night. Getting let in an hour and a half early when just me and Sameer were there, and the two of us holding an entire row with just loud voices and grim looks. About how, not halfway through the first fucking scene, I turned to Jess and said "this is my favourite movie ever." About turning my rum flask upside down at the two-thirds mark of the movie, and watching a drop dribble out before getting to say the line, in context (which I rarely do). About getting all excited talking to Meghan about just the score today, or recapping the Pirates with Matty Price on the phone just now. Flying through the streets on my bike on the best day off I've ever had. And most of all, that I can still feel this way, and that it means something.