Halloween

Here's the last entry in my three day, catch-up series. I've been meaning to write something about Halloween for a couple of weeks now.

I've never been a huge Halloween person. I mean, I've always enjoyed Halloween parties, but I typically wait until the last minute to start thinking about a costume, and then come up with a pretty silly idea and have no time to do a decent job of it. A couple of years ago, I did a pretty cool Sister Wendy, but last year, I didn't even bother to go out, since I was working like a maniac on the second edition of the EMF book (which, incidentally, still isn't finished).

Kevin, on the other hand, appears to do the opposite. He always seems to put together really cool costumes, putting a lot of work into them. So, this year was a great time to depart from my sad old approach. We decided to do a costume together, as a couple, and quite quickly came up with the idea of an angel and a devil. And almost as quickly, we decided to make it an angel and devil in shorts.

I think Kevin wanted to paint himself red, so he suggested I be the angel. In fairness, he claimed his motivation was something about me looking better nearly naked, without paint. Strangely, whenever I would tell a friend about the costume, the reply was, "you should've been the devil!" And, whenever Kevin did, it was, "good thing you're the devil!" As it turns out, I'm really glad we took the roles we did: I don't think I could've dealt with all that red body paint.

We found the shorts at the BodyBodyWear clearance sale, nice and cheap; I borrowed the wings from Roberto; Kevin found a red vest at Value Village; and most of the rest of our costumes came from Malabar -- though there were other bits and pieces from various dollar stores and such.

We went out in costume three times: on Saturday, we went to Buddies; on Sunday, Temple at the Phoenix; and on Monday (Halloween, itself) we did Church Street and Woody's. The preparation took a really long time, especially on Saturday (we got better as we went along, and Kevin started using a type of paint that was easier to apply on Sunday), but I think the results were fabulous.


(Unfortunately, I'm not wearing my halo in this picture. It was pretty cool: we poured the chemicals from a glowstick on it, to make it glow in the dark. But, they slowly ate through the fluff, so that by Monday there wasn't really much left.)

We got to Buddies really late and had to wait in line for a long time. I was wearing my wool jacket, but it was still really cold, especially on my legs. Inside, it was so busy that I was constantly bashing my wings into people, so I quite quickly checked them. We had a great time, but by the end of the night, my non-angelic behaviour had resulted in a rather large, red stain on the front of my shorts. How embarassing!

So, I did much washing the next day, which also had to be repeated on Monday. My boa got pinker and pinker as time went on, too.

Temple was also fun. The costumes were much better than at Buddies, as there was a big competition hosted by Sofonda. We entered ourselves, but didn't make it into the top 10. Lots of boys seemed to want to dance with me (wonder why!), and I was having too much fun to resist. Kevin was too polite to do the same, not wanting to cover everyone with his red paint, so he just poked the boys with his pitchfork to keep them away from me. Also, we hooked up with Richard and Mark there: Richard was dressed, as always, as a sailor, and Mark was in some pretty superb drag.

The Monday night street party on Church was just hilarious. I was expecting to freeze my little tuchis off, but once we got there, with all of the crowds, it wasn't bad at all. Most of the time, we couldn't go more than two seconds without being photographed. Seriously, we must have had our pictures taken over a hundred times. Now I really feel for those poor celebrities who are constantly having to smile and pose and be the centre of attention! Such a drain! We met up with Alex and Daryl, who I'm sure grew tired of our celebrity quite quickly. And then, we lost them when it started to rain, prompting us to get indoors before Kevin's paint melted. We ended up inside Woody's, for another failed attempt at costume contest supremacy. But, we saw some more fabulous costumes and met some nice people. In all, it was a very entertaining night.

Home Sweet Home

Last Thursday, I got an e-mail from Karyn:

I believe somebody has news that they haven't shared with ME!

radio city, eh?

It's true. I've actually had news since mid-October that I just haven't had the chance to share with many people at all, much less blog about...

I bought a condo -- my first home!

As Karyn indicated (she must have had some inside information, huh?), it's at RadioCity, a new, two-tower development on the former site of CBC Radio, near Jarvis and Carlton:

I just got back from the handover meeting, where control passed from the developer to the condominium corporation, and a board was elected. So, it seemed like a perfect time to write about it all. I'm hopeful that we've elected a pretty good board: it seems to include a fair amount of experience and a variety of viewpoints and concerns.

Interestingly, the biggest issue seems to be around the art installation in the courtyard: a collection of little, metallic houses that light up inside. One owner referred to it tonight as "scrap metal." Apparently, all of the original purchasers were surprised to find that they were paying for it directly, as part of their closing costs. Since my purchase was a resale, I'm not feeling (or seeing, at least) that pain. Perhaps that's part of the reason why I quite like the piece.

Anyhow, on to the good stuff: my suite is a one bedroom plus den, of 705 square feet. My purchase closes on December 2, and I'll be moving at some point between then and January 1, when I have to be out of my current place. I'm hoping to paint the walls and buy some living room furniture before then. I had also hoped to have the kitchen counters replaced with granite, but apparently that time frame isn't realistic. So, it'll have to wait until after I move in.

Here are some photos:


Notice the yummy exposed concrete ceiling.

Unfortunately, the windows in my suite are not quite as spectacular as in some of the others. In particular, the corner units have windows all along the two outside walls, from floor to ceiling. The left corner of my suite, in the picture above, is actually part of the structural wall, so obviously it can't be glass. Nonetheless, the place is still quite bright, especially when one of the bedroom doors is open:


You can see that there's a window in the bedroom along the length of the balcony, but that the balcony actually opens into the living room.

Here's a shot from the opposite direction, showing the kitchen:


Finally, the unit faces south, so it gets lots of light, and it has a pretty fantastic view from the balcony:


You can see the financial centre and the CN tower in the distance, and Maple Leaf Gardens on the right side of the picture. This historic arena, which has been empty since the Leafs moved to the Air Canada Centre in 1999, is being converted to a Real Canadian Superstore. Hockey fans in Toronto are outraged. I'm excited!

So, things are going to be pretty busy in the coming weeks: I need to finalize my mortgage and then complete the closing. All the while, there's much shopping and packing to be done. Then, I have to figure out when to move and whether to hire movers or do it myself.

But I can't wait to be living in my new home!

Janntastic!

I was lucky enough to see Jann Arden's latest tour, in support of her eponymous album, twice last week -- on Tuesday and Thursday at Massey Hall. The reason for my double attendance is quite a story, itself, but I won't get into that now. Anyhow, I was really happy to be able to see the two shows, and to share the experience with both Kevin and Alex.


For the first show, Kevin and I had fairly poor seats: we were way over to one side of the second balcony, practically on top of the right end of the stage. So, it was often hard to see, and the sound was pretty poor, with the drum kit drowning out pretty much any subtlety or nuance in the vocals and the rest of the band. Fortunately, there were two gorgeous acuostic sets, which sounded wonderful. In the first, Jann did a solo version of "I Would Die For You", after which Kevin asked me if it was too early for a standing ovation. She was then joined by Bob Kemmis, who had opened for her, for "Unloved." Later, for her encore, she performed accoustic versions of "The Sound Of," "Waiting In Canada," and "Insensitive" with her band.

As for the rest of the setlist, it included about half of the tracks from the new album ("Calling God," "Where No One Knows Me," "All Of This," "How Good Things Are," and "Willing To Fall Down"), mixed in with various older songs (including "Waiting For Someone," "Will You Remeber Me," "Could I Be Your Girl," "Good Mother", "The Sound Of," "Holy Moses," and "Wishing That"). In all, I think it was really good selection, and I was happy to hear some songs from Time For Mercy and Happy? that I hadn't in a long time. In an ideal world, though, she would have done one or two of my current favourites: "Saved," "Into The Sun" and (big surprise) "Another Human Being." A couple of the more uptempo songs, "Where No One Knows Me" and "Willing To Fall Down" in particular, seemed a little unsteady and not too tight, like there was some struggle between the drummer and the rest of the band over tempo. Later, from reading Jann's journal, I learned that the click track wasn't working that night, which would explain that.

Of course, Jann was a riot. She told an extensive tale about a trip to the movies, a large popcorn and drink, the long ride home after an insufficient pee check, and a surprisingly located stray kernel. And the comic quips never stopped, especially when she was talking about her band. She explained the secret to her long-term working relationship with her guitarist and co-writer, Russ: "we've never seen each other nude." And, when introducing Darcy on the keyboards, she commented that they had meant during a short stint in the adult film industry...in Fort McMurray.

The second show was even better than the first, mainly because of where Alex and I sat: front row, centre -- literally, the best in the house. The photo up above was taken from my seat that night (the rest of them are here). At one point, Jann introduced and thanked the guy from A&M Records who first signed her. All I could think was, "our seats are so much better than his!" The sound was truly excellent up there; the vocals were clear in all the songs, with the drum kit blending in much better.

The setlist was the same as in the previous show, but it was a much more "on" crowd, giving greater response to everything...more applause for the songs, more laughter at the jokes, and several spontaneous outbursts of emotion: "Thank you Jann!" "We love you Jann!" "You look great tonight, Jann!" And she really did, wearing this cute yellow leather jacket and jeans that really flattered her figure.

Alex said I was probably the biggest fann there, mouthing along to all the songs and screaming a lot. A few times, I'm sure Jann looked right at me, and I felt foolish, stopped mouthing along, and just smiled. We had a little moment, too: Jann was asking a visibly pregnant woman in the front row about when she'd be having her child (turned out she was having twins, actually!), and if she'd decided on names. On hearing that she was expecting for March and she hadn't yet, Jann suggested that, since her birthday's in late March, maybe she should think about "Jann" or "Arden" or something. I thought that was a brilliant idea (I'd do it), so I yelled out "yeah!" Jann noticed my outburst, and without missing a beat, yelled "yeah!" right back, looking straight at me. I think I was mocked by Jann. How fun!

My only negative experiences were with security. I brought flowers, which I'd hoped to give to Jann after the encore was over. But, before the show, a big guy came over to where we were sitting, said he was in charge of security for the show, and gave us his card. He'd seen the flowers, and didn't want me to hand them to her during the show. I tried to find out what the concern was and reason with him, but he was having none of it, and I eventually I had to surrender the flowers. He said he was going to take them straight to Jann's dressing room, and I hope he did, but that's kind of not the point. I wanted to give them to her -- I wanted her to look down and see my face, and connect with me for a moment, and know that I'm one of her fans. I suppose it's kind of silly, immature and selfish, but it's what I wanted.

Once the concert started, after I had been snapping pictures like crazy during the first song, an usher came down and asked me to put away the camera, claiming that they weren't allowed. It didn't say anything about that on the ticket, and I wasn't using flash, but I did put it away, anyway. I'd already taken a couple of really nice pictures, so I'd have something to remember the show by. Obviously I wasn't the only one there with a camera, as I kept seeing flashes go off during the rest of the show. And by the time "Good Mother" came around (it was the last song before the encore), I subtly (I hope) whipped out the camera again for a few last shots.

In all, the concerts were a fantastic experience.

Link Check

I added that nice little link to Rick Mercer's Blog a couple of months ago, and I just want to be sure you're using it. He stopped updating about that time, so you might have given up on checking it but, honestly, that's what an RSS reader is for!

He's back and he's in fine form. Just a teaser, in case you're not convinced:


Once you get past all the fun with photoshop, you'll find an uplifting summary of his recent trip to Afghanistan, which is well worth reading.

It Gets Better...

If you haven't read yesterday's post, The Jig is Up!, you should probably go read that first. Then you can come back here for the postscript.

I just got back from talking to the property manager about yesterday's little salt bust. As I thought, it was the contractor doing the fan coil service who noticed the bag of sea salt on my counter. By policy, he had to report it to his supervisor, since I suppose seeing it could endanger him. The company then contacted our property management office, who then called the police.

There had been a miscommunication between the two property managers: the one who had taken the call from the contractor told the other that I was the person who'd been having problems with his air conditioner. Apparently, there was another person who had been having such problems, and that's who she described to the police.

After she called the police, two officers arrived and waited outside my door for about an hour and a half. At the same time, they were trying to obtain a search warrant. The two others arrived just before I did, when they determined that they didn't have strong enough cause for a warrant.

Before leaving the management office today, I had to ask if anyone had noticed the pieces of my halloweeen costume lying around my living room, and what they had thought of that. I'm going to be an angel, so there were wings, a halo, and a white feather boa that I just dropped off when I got home on Sunday evening.

Apparently, the superintendent had noticed them, and described them to the police as "paraphernalia." Of course, they probably assumed he meant drug paraphernalia, not party paraphernalia. They did clarify, but I wonder if having angel parts strewn around made me seem like more of a druggy little party boy.

The Jig Is Up!

Nothing in this post is fiction. Seriously.

First off, I should give you some background. Back in Augst, I got my nipple pierced. As recommended, I've been applying a sea salt solution to help it heal. The sea salt was only available in a large, 2 kg bag, so when I travelled to New York, I took a smaller amount in a ziplock bag. Each application requires such a small amount of salt that I've been working through that little bag-full ever since. For convenience, I leave it out on my kitchen counter.

Today was in-suite fan coil servicing day in my building.

When I got home from work this evening, one of the women from the property management office was waiting in the hallway near my door, along with four people that I'd never seen before. As I walked past, one of them joked that they were tax collectors, but the property manager reassuringly said that they weren't there for me.

When I stopped to open my door, one of the other four suggested that maybe she had been mistaken, said my name, and asked if that was me. I said yes. That's when he pulled out his badge and identified himself as being from the Toronto Police Service. And that's when I started to shake.

Immediately my mind started racing, trying to figure out why four plain-clothed officers would be waiting for me outside my door. He explained that, when my suite had been entered earlier in the day, the contractor had seen a bag containing white powder, and he asked if I wouldn't mind getting it so that he could take a look.

I grabbed the bag of salt and explained what it was and why I had it. He took a sniff and seemed satisfied. Relief.

The property manager said that she had thought that I was someone else -- she had described a taller, older man, dressed a suit.

One of the officers commented that they couldn't believe me until they saw the piercing. Well, eager to prove my innocence and, frankly, always happy to show off my new addition, I lifted up my shirt and showed them. They seemed amused, and they thanked me for my time, apologized for any inconvenience, and were off.

I was still shaking at dinner 20 minutes later.

Potent Quotables

"Less dance, more geek."

- Sam, on hearing that I'd replaced mythy (my homebrew PVR) with a PVR from Rogers because I wanted less electronics around my living room and I'd never have to recompile its kernel.

See the hoop? Jump through it!

I just enabled word verification for comment posting, a nice little feature that Blogger provides to reduce comment spam. I apologize for the inconvenience, and I hope it works.

Yet Another Press Citing

Kevin and I, along with Kevin's friend Mo, were in fab again this week:


Perhaps it's time to hire our own photographers to follow us around, taking photos that can then be sold to the press via a blind bidding process.

Can you tell I'm amused by this?

Giving Thanks

It hit me on the bus ride in to work this Friday: for some reason, I feel especially thankful this year. Maybe it's just that I have a new means for expressing it, or maybe I'm finally becoming mature enough (no, seriously!) to recognize how fortunate I am. In any case, I'm thankful...

...for Canada. There are few, if any, societies that are as peaceful, diverse, and tolerant as this country, and we have much more than our fair share of wealth and opportunity. So, I'm terribly fortunate to have been born here.

...for my job. It's challenging and stimulating, if at times a bit overwhelming. I work with a team of talented people who appreciate my efforts and abilities. IBM, while sprawling and often political, is still an excellent company to work for, progressive and employee-focused, and with an inspiring history. It's easy to take for granted the ability to be out at work, but that's only thanks to the efforts and sacrifice of many.

...for family. Just about anything nice that you could find to say about me, I can trace it back to my parents. They've both been wonderful to me and excellent role models for as long as I can remember. They've taught me so much about love, generosity, compassion, hard work, and pride that I truly cannot thank them enough. And although it seems that Mike and I live in quite different worlds, I'm most appreciative for his efforts to include me in his whenever possible.

...for friends. Since I'm naturally quite introverted, I found it difficult to establish myself socially in Toronto. The first year was especially lonely. But, in the last year or so, it seems like things have really clicked. I've now got a number of wonderful people that I consider friends, supporting me through the tough times and helping to create the great ones. And of course, there are still some great friends back in Vancouver and elsewhere with whom I've been lucky enough to keep in contact.

...for budding love. In the past weeks, one of those friendships has developed into more. We've already shared some wonderful times together, and I don't think I've ever felt happier.

...for good fortune. It's been impossible not to be struck by the amount of suffering in this world of late. I'm thankful that my family, friends and loved ones have thus far been spared.