hwan.com

Tuesday after a few beers at the Wellington I found myself once again in the Distillery district, this time for Toronto the Good , some kind of architects party or some such thing. I was mostly there for the drinks and company , and soon found myself smiling like a fool and just nodding along. Yeah. And I did it all over again last night! That is, after work I had drinks with co-workers for several hours, leaving me less than rested today. Thankfully, the American holiday has lightened our work load significantly. I am practically caught up in all my tasks! Well, as much as one can be in support, forever answering an unending fountain of questions, sometimes a trickle, oftimes a deluge. It was nice to have some free time for once, which I used mostly to play go or backgammon. This Sunday is Ride for Heart ! I'm hoping the weather is dry. It does rather seem that the weather office is having less and less success when it comes to rain predictions this year. Global warming? Or just m...

When last I wrote the glimmer of a cold was upon me, and by Thursday I was ill enough to miss a dinner with friends, a dinner I had really meant to attend. The next day I was much better, well enough for a beer at Hemingway's and some veal and wine at Vaticano Trattoria. Veal, yeah I know it's baby cows tailor grown to be tasty in a somewhat savage way. But it's so yummy, oh dear. Why can't we have good food that wasn't so cruel to animals? I must say I do wonder what baby cows that were born and grew up in space, for extra tender meat, would taste like. Pretty damn good, I reckon. Saturday I met with Pops to see the new Indiana Jones film. The action sequences were fun, sure, but the plot, and particularly the ending, left much to be desired. There were no twists, no lively banter, no villians that we could really get to love and hate. As nice as it was to see Marion Ravenwood again, I didn't feel the spark between her and Indy of "Lost Ark", so her s...

Friday morning I dreamt I had to use the bathroom inside a submarine or naval ship. Er, not that I specifically had to use a bathroom in a boat -- rather, that I happened to be in a boat at the time. I remember it being pretty much what'd you expect; a clean, cramped space with lots of exposed rivets. A friend of mine dropped by Saturday and brought some farm-fresh eggs he's picked up from St. Lawrence market, leading to an egg-stravaganza of omelets and sandwiches. It was a tasty meal, but I wasn't really able to tell the difference. Perhaps if I were to do a side-by-side comparison. I'm kind of egged-out now to tell you the truth. We took in the surprisingly sunny day by checking out the beach, such as it is, and the stores along Roncesvalles. The evening led to kampongi at HoSu and then an evening of beers, Glenfiddich and red wine, in that order. Mercifully I awoke the next afternoon with only the slightest hint of a hangover, cured after some Huevos Divorciados and...

Friday I got around to watching Barking Dogs Never Bite , the first film directed by The Host's Joon-ho Bong, and much like The Host, it is difficult to categorize. Primarily a black comedy, it also exhibits a flair for action, light comedy, drama and suspense, leaving one never sure where the pace will move to next. It even managed to make me gag slightly, perturbed as I was by an unexpected gristly turn. The ending is not very memorable unfortunately, a pity to an otherwise highly entertaining, original movie. Saturday was a malformed trip to Buffalo for deals and shopping. I think I got all my vitamin mall for the next year or two. I was temporarily tempted into getting GTA IV, but managed to resist. What else... eh, not really much. I still plan on going to that Vipassana thing, just waiting on a friend who is also interested. I should try to avoid anticipating it having too great an effect on me. I mean, I think it's definitely worth trying. I just don't know what it ...

Friday night I went to the Centre For Inquiry Ontario to see a lecture on "Early Skeptics: Atheism, Agnosticism and Religious Dissent in Ancient Western Civilization", which is kind of a long-winded way of saying we talked about Greeks ( Xenophanes , Lucretius , Sextus Empiricus , etc) who wrote about why they believed in the gods. Perhaps dry, but quite the bone to gnaw on. The lecture was made temporarily lively by the ribald, almost surreal comments of a loud woman in the back of the room, which was made up of otherwise spindly old men and urban philosopher hippies. After a delicious meal at Rol San (crispy beef and sweet and sour pork), I streetcar'ed over to the Gladstone to meet some friends for karaoke, though the waiting list proved greater than our desire to sing past our bedtimes. I did learn that it takes 20 minutes to walk home from that corner. Sunday I saw the Iron Man film, which I quite enjoyed. Even though you see much of the movie in the previews (and ...