24 hours until I return to the west coast. This is the 2nd of no doubt regular ventures to Toronto this year and you bet your ass I'll share my stupid thoughts.
1. Great breakfast was had at Rustic Cosmo Cafe. There seems to be some debate about it at various places, but the cowboy breakfast was good. The pancake was the highlight. Certainly the constant hotel breakfast for 10 days had something to do with my joy here.
2. Really have no idea why on a Saturday night the Midi Bistro was near empty. The food was great, the music sufficiently jazzy, and the place ad-or-able. One member of our party thought the Faux-Filet Grille was tofu. What a burn, 'cause it was tasty striploin with heeps of garlic butter and pesto. Serve with delicious Cotes du Rhone and Bob can certainly be your uncle.
4. Learned that last Saturday might have been Goth Pirate Day on Queen Street West, with the amount of frilly shirts and stuff. No eye patches, but close enough. Freakshow. ARRRGGGHHH.
5. Much Music Video Awards are fairly lame.
6. Lake Ontario jokes. Although I can't think of any.
7. Not enough Starbucks. Seriously, there are so few per square mile that they tend to have lines out there door. This is madness. I'm a block from work here and there is only one.
8. The Royal Ontario Museum has a shiny new entrance. Other than that, most everything else is closed inside, well unless you need to see a bunch of greek sculptures of bearded men. Which is cool. Not $20 cool. On the plus side the girls working there were delightful. Who knew blue blazers were so cool. PS: Oh, and Daniel Libeskind, your $12,500 chairs, while funky and comforatable, are built for Dr. Evil and are completely smug. More at Torontoist.
9. At some point, missing Vancouver clearly, I watched an amazing episode of Beverly Hills 90210 called "Things to do on a rainy day." It featured the completely stomach churning 90's boy band Color Me Badd. Don't believe me? Watch this video. Wow.
10. Tie: That Wayne Gretsky should not be in the restuarant business just as surely as I should not play hockey. And the feelings I have about Gretsky's rival the feelings about this store in a small mall here that was pimping an amazing service. It's called Woven Moments, and if you can imagine the thrill of products "proudly woven in the Blue Ridge Mountaints of North Carolina" and photos of your dogs being made into tapestry wall hangings, then you can imagine the greatest tri-fold brochure in the known universe! Business in the front. And clearly Party in the back. Enjoy.
I like Barack Obama because he had a great finishing move in Mortal Kombat. I also like him because he is the least likely to piss on the industry I work in.
This clip is a smooth move but isn't it a little shady to tape this in a pawn shop?
Wow, are we gearing up for an election day or what? This is like the political equivalent of Christmas morning, only if an election gets called, we don't get to keep the presents. Although, there's no need to burn Santa/Stephen Harper at the stake yet, since it looks like the Bloc Quebecois will support the Tories' budget, averting that dreaded election for at least a little while yet. I wonder if that has anything to do with the $698 million that Quebec stands to rake in to correct their fiscal imbalance?
Looks like 24 Sussex will stay in Tory hands for the next little while. Poo... I was really hoping that I could make an offer.
Ever been to England? Well then, you know a lot of it is about the drinking, especially in a northern town like Manchester. It's those damn Irish immigrants. Which meant that my outing in town last night involved a variety of beers, wines and spirits, and culminated in some salsa dancing in The Village (aka Manchester's own special version of Davie Street). Now before you leap to the conclusion that I'm a lush, let me tell you that everyone else in town had the same end objective - and not the salsa. We met a man absolutely convinced that he was Diana Ross and I was Mary Queen of Scots. I think my accent may have given it away a bit in the end.
During the in between parts, there was a fantastic nightclub called the Tiger Lounge - if you are ever in town get your ass down there. There was old school funk music and r&b, plus a not too terrible cover charge. I think there were some other bars as well, but since one of the them was part of the Slug and Lettuce pub chain (yes, it was as terrible as the name implies), it's better not to dwell on them.
The night ended with a rather unwise decision to indulge in some fried chicken from a place called McTucky's. So good at the time, but I suspect that the cold light of day would tell a different story. But since it seemed that the entire city was lined up to eat, I think the food poisoning was off the cards, at least for the time being.
A special shout out for Alison Mulford and Mark Wood for helping the debauchery go down so well - you guys rock!
In typical Hollywood fashion something secret was leaked to the public. It appears to be generating hype for the movie which, as we saw in SOAP, doesn't mean jack shit.
The movie in question is Transformers. The issue is that pictures of Optimus Prime we’re leaked to the net and fans are outraged by what they are seeing. They have since started up a petition in hopes director Michael Bay changes the lead Transformers image. Apparently the leaked image showed Optimus as being an old fat guy in a red cardboard box.( at right ) From one concerned Transformers fan: “It feels like they aren’t taking Optimus serious. He has saved us from the Decepticons time after time and now he is being ridiculed. Mr. Bay obviously doesn't know that Optimus has real lasers and when he does land here it will be hell on earth, or at least hell in Mr. Bay's house."
What little faith the Hollywood suits have in this movie speaks for itself by putting Bay in charge. Dare I say all the good directors passed on this one. The trailer makes me pee my pants though. Autobots, Out.
*Update* My buddy Jon passed on this hot link to Transformers pics from the movie, supposedly from the movie. I just transformed my underwear into underwear full of crap! Check it out here, the pics, not the underwear.
The first place anyone goes to get an answer is the mysterious Internet. You want to find a song by that new band or a recipe or a new killer blog like this one, you go to Google, or yahoo or whatever. So why haven't movie executives figured this out? That when someone wants news on a movie, they type in the movie title. Well what happens if your movie's title is Invincible? You contend with the other 200 movies made with Invincible in or as the sole title.
This new one looks to be the new mans tear jerker though. The kind of movie that fills a man with that warm fuzzy feeling and reminds him he isn't as tough as he thinks he is, that he is just a big sissy girl. Invincible tells the story of a Jewish strongman that performs in Berlin as the blond Aryan hero Siegfried. It's a true story and is based on the life and misadventures of Zishe Breitbart, a Jewish expert martial artist's son from China. This is all taking place during Hitlers reign as chief douche so our Jewish hero is torn between being true to himself and the Philadelphia Eagles fans or using his strengths portraying a Fighting Dragon.
This movie will be released this Friday and should be the sleeper hit of the summer, mostly because everything else blew. Mark Wahlberg portrays a Football player opposite Billy Zane as Os and together they fight the Shadowmen. Directed by Sau Leung 'Blacky' Ko.
I just found out that I am having taco's tonight and couldn't bear keeping this info to myself. And since Jackson said my recent posts have been either peeukey, sometimes just stupid, or totally inappropriate I am only going to focus on things that just don't matter. For example what a fat bastard like me could be eating for dinner.
I also wanted a picture of a taco to rub it in your faces because tonight I will be eating what God would want for his last supper. I figured I don't want to search for just a plain taco, I wanted some Sweet Tacos and low and behold I found this here, the best horse name ever.
My little squirt just turned 3 years old in March. He's a bit behind so he is just in that terrible two's phase. God damn these are good times folks. To best describe what he is like is an alarm clock that is forever going WHAA WHAA WHAA and hitting you and throwing things, spitting and tossing feces. Now I wouldn't dare harm him as visible marks will land me in a heap of trouble, and obviously I just couldn't bring myself to hurting precious junior.
The Solution:Put Payback on Layaway
This might be applicable to a lot of parents in my position. I am keeping a journal of everything he does and signing it and when possible attaching pictures. That way when he turns 18 I can embarrass and kick the crap out of him for everything he is doing now. If he brings girls over I will delight them in stories of me and his moms sexual deviance, not limited to putting fresh streaks on the glass table. I figure by that time I will be hitting 50 years old so it will be a fair fight. If he grows into my shoes he will probably have an advantage anyways,
As you may have surmised, I'm blogging from Paris. I'll try not to be too smug about that, and you can rest well knowing i'm in full on cliche mode having rented an a place for "A Couple of Months in the Merde." Now, enough of that. I'll be trying to post some stuff from this insane trip I've been on, but until then I have to let you know about the fact that you literally can get mustard on tap here in addition to the whole cheese, wine, and French thing. Mustard on tap people!
Let me explain. Early in 2005 I read an article in the New York Times about an incredible sounding boutique mustard store in Paris. (You can catch the article here) So, I checked it out and picked up the famous tap mustards (the Moutarde au Chablis and the Moutarde au Vin Blanc and one other.) Now, let me just confirm that if America is the land of Milk and Honey, praise be Jesus, Paris has mustard on tap like running water. Our humbe 'mustarderie" (okay fine, I made that word up, busted.) Maille (6, place de la Madeleine) is a small wooden shop and the company has been making the yellow gold since 1747. I think its fair to assume, they are experts, non? Take my word for it, the mustard is damned delicious and served with some french bread, meats, and brie, it makes life worth living. And the fact that you get in these quaint little ceramic jars with corks is, well, tres bien as they might say.
Now, if only we could have mustard on tap in Vancouver now. Hmmm. Somebody get on this. Waiterblog? Exit question: If Morgan Spurlock can become a filmmaking star by stuffing his face with McDonalds for 30 days and make a movie out of it, could I do the same? Except: 1. In Paris. And 2. With Cheese, french bread, and Bordeaux. 3. And Croissants. Wel, it was just a thought. But imagine, "Le Super Size Me" anyone?
Word is just out that super-cool chick Amanda Congdon will no longer be providing fans of the video blogging site Rocketboom with her sharp commentary. Creative differences, professional differences, whatever... it's hard to imagine the site being nearly as good or nearly as fun with a guest host. Let's just hope she lands on her feet with a new project soon, or we'll all have to resort to... oh god, I don't even have a back up plan. Somebody better do something about this, and quick.
I was happy England was out. England has it's royal family to fall back on when they can't do squat in sports. But the countries that truly cherish the sport should be going all the way. That makes me happy. So when those lazy bastards beat out Brasil I cried. It is a sad day in this world when France does anything better than anyone else...sad sad day. I predict a 3-1 Portugal victory this Wednesday and 9 French players will be exposed as actually being female.
I don't read much. Usually I read about 10 minutes a day and it is Hollywood hijinks's found in my wife's magazines littering the bathroom. But I found a book that has captivated me and has me reading whenever I can. Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything. A fantastic expedition. It is the Universe and our beginnings, not religious beginnings, and how life and the heavens, not religious heavens, came to be. Written in much the same style as The Wealthy Barber, it isn't just mindless facts and boring statistics. It is colorful and humorous and intriguing. So little we know about everything is summed up nicely and you will sound way SMRT when you tell your friends how Newton damn near guessed the weight of the earth 300 years ago and was within a few hundred pounds of what modern scientist have now speculated.
Buy it, borrow it, trade for it or steal it. Just do it and nerdy chicks will want you.
Say that ten times fast, and then sing "We work all day, we work all night, we never learned to read or write" or "...grab that rope you hairy ape."
Now I am not a scholar or anything but I see some symbolism in this movie that I never picked up on when I saw it last some 20 years ago. The singing crows in the movie seem to be type casted a wee bit. I wonder if they were paid cash or instead of pay a promise that they weren't going to be threatened with false allegations of rape or theft.
I think this movie should have been body slammed with a pg-13 rating at the very least. For kids my ass. Junior wants a slave now Mr Disney, you hateful bastard.
Our medical system has a lot of critics and that's fair(I have some pretty horrible comments I will keep to myself on the subject). You can sit in a waiting room for four hours with a broken leg but thankfully if your a 3 year old, you don't even get a chance to sit down as you are ushered off to see a doctor ASAP.
Yesterday afternoon Junior cried "head owie". Something he has never done before so we panicked. Wifey got him packed up while I finished savouring my waffles, OH they were so good with butter, maple syrup. They were chocolate chip coffee waffles made from a mix I got in Maui. Anyways, we sped off to Burnaby General. We had to wait about 5 minutes for triage but then within 5 minutes we were in a private room with a Nurse. A Doctor came in minutes after. They located the problem as an infected ear drum. Considered to be one of the most painful things that can happen to a young child. After the diagnoses I had to apologize for calling him a big sissy mommy's boy pansy and for threatening to call the WWHHHAAAAMMMBULANCE!
Big Shout out to Burnaby General and the staff there. If we were there for a broken leg, we would still be there, but that makes sense right? Why usher in the 20-something punk that wiped out in softball. He should be thrown a bag of ice and then shown the door.
I could see my plane’s shadow dance over the perfectly kept farms and rice patties, the emerald greens contrasting sharply with the darkness of the grey blue water. We started coming over the outskirts of Ho Chi Minh City. The suburbs of this city of 6-million plus are a maze of buildings thrust against one another with little regard for city planning or logic. This from a country that still seems to be holding onto some of the strongest parts of its communist past.
And with that, you are introduced to Vietnam, via a line up to immigration. The airport seems very ‘60’s socialist kitsch and the long stalls of immigration officers dressed in the green uniforms with red and yellow trim that seem like they must have been ordered from a central Communist uniform factory and the soldiers from central casting. They almost didn’t look real, more costume, than any reality. Once you get through that eye opening process and on your way to Ho Chi Minh City proper, it is an overwhelming, loud, and busy explosion. Thoughts of any romantic or quant experience in the orient are very quickly shattered. Even the draw of enjoying the colonial French influence in Vietnam seems to fade, quicker than the three million plus scooters unleashed on the city as you realize that Ho Chi Minh City is in tremendous flux. The Americans may have pulled out of South Vietnam, but it seems the Vietnamese embraced the west after they left, anyway.
We don't know what to make of this. But today, there was a lot of people sending around emails about Chuck Norris. They included such useless information as:
Filming on location for Walker: Texas Ranger, Chuck Norris brought a stillborn baby lamb back to life by giving it a prolonged beard rub. Shortly after the farm animal sprang back to life and a crowd had gathered, Chuck Norris roundhouse kicked the animal, breaking its neck, to remind the crew once more that Chuck giveth, and the good Chuck, he taketh away.
Before email was invented Chuck Norris would attach messages to kittens and roundhouse kick them.
We're not sue we get it. But here's some more Chuckisms. What kind of sick people send such things? What kind of wierdo then reposts them?
Here's a new regular feature we want to test, since we're still experimenting with content for one last week of "testing" here at The Vancouverite before we launch "for real" and really start lighting off blog nuclear weapons and such. Maybe we can just do some late night posts that have nothing to do with, well, Vancouver or anything at all. Let's see shall we:
*Craigslist posts we can seriously get behind: Ugg(ly) Boots: "Those furbies-on-feet were fashionable in London over two years ago. Run -- don't walk -- to the nearest thrift shop and ditch those minging things!" HEH.
*Okay, we'll bite. Is the Wookieepedia really needed? (via Cinematical) Direct the Star Wars totally rules, Vancouverite sucks comments below.
*Fox is really playing a prank on us for sure. There is no way this is for real: "Professional skaters will include Nancy Kerrigan, Kurt Browning, Tai Babilonia, Jenni Menno, Lloyd Eisler, and John Zimmerman, teaming up with the "celebrities" Dave Coulier, Todd Bridges, Deborah Gibson, Bruce Jenner, Kristy Swanson and Good Day LA Weathercaster Jillian Barberie" for Skating with Celebrities. Aren't they?
*A new Honda UK ad (Weiden+Kennedy) is online, and amazing if you ask us. The actor in this spot is as perfect as the whole concept. (Via AdRants)
*Thank God. The French, for years have been the model of the world for stuffing down brie, eating dozens of butter soaked croissants, then chain smoking. Well, according to Ad Freak, the french are also, finally getting fat. And they are blaming "le Big Mac."
*It's been filming here for months. X-Men 3 teaser trailer. Featuring 100% more cheese. But even Brett Ratner couldn't take away the fact that Famke Janssen still looks great.
We still can't believe that Turner Classic Movies is on in Vancouver these days. We also can't believe we are using the third person to write, but more about that problem later. Much later. Tonight, we had the pleasure of watching the 1958 Alfred Hitchcock classic, Vertigo. What is fascinating about this movie, besides just how completely beautiful this masterpiece is, is how it has gotten better with age, like a fine wine.
It was a box office failure when released. The New Yorker called it, "farfetched nonsense." But by 1982, it appeared on Sight and Sound's best films of all time poll in the #7 slot. By 2002, it had moved up to #2, right behind Citizen Kane (1941) the film that has been at the top of the list since 1962.
And that is just one part of a great story and about something that gets better each time you view it. That is why the lore of this film continues to grow. Is because it is as some call the "ultimate aesthetic experience"? Is it because of the amazing location provided by San Francisco (serioulsy you have to check out Vertigo: Then and Now which compares the city of 1958 to 2003)? Surely that is why there is a book called "Footsteps in the Fog: Alfred Hitchcocks San Francisco." Is it because Kim Novak is the personification of sexy cool? What about the best Bernard Hermann score ever? Or the title sequences by designer Saul Bass? Or maybe it is just a really well written and crafted but complex plot?
I don't read much. Usually I read about 10 minutes a day and it is Hollywood hijinks's found in my wife's magazines littering the bathroom. But I found a book that has captivated me and has me reading whenever I can. 
