Ta-Ta Toronto

Should you need me...my tag is at Beresford and Bloor

Well, that's it. We're in Ottawa now. In our new house and loving it. Although it was a sad move in some ways...tough to say goodbye to friends among other things. Like, Tacos El Asador with it's"Chrispy" beef tacos, Mr. Ling of Ling's Importers who was so kind to me on those days where I was squirrly from being inside too long. The homeless guy at our local liquor store selling papers who had a GREAT "Extra! Extra!" style of vocals. Sweet Flour bakery, where I ate my weight (and then some) in cookie dough and dragged every one I knew. The Gaybourhood! Oh how I will miss thee! The gulab jamun at the Little India Restaurant buffet on Queen. My local Macs market guy who always gave me change and told me how much the lottery was worth and then told me that seeing his baby son at the end of the day, "that is my winning the lottery." The odd TTC subway car where the announcement for Christy station sounds like CRISPY station (listen closely). The High Park west trails with the duck pond and all the chipmunks....

These are just a few things I will miss. However, the world is filled with many beautiful things and places to be...and now, I look forward to exploring Ottawa.

Please keep reading, and I'll keep you posted.

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Blue Jays MasterCard

I just got a MasterCard pre-approval thing in the mail the other day, it was for a Blue Jays MasterCard.

Normally I'd just open the mail, scan it, rip it up and recycle it but this time I actually read it because I was curious if having a Blue Jays MasterCard would somehow give me some sort of additional access to Blue Jays games or something? Even though I'm not a big fan of baseball, I just...I was trying to see what it had to do with baseball, having this card.

The answer?
Absolutely nothing.

Instead the Blue Jays MasterCard was created, I realized, only to use catchy baseball lingo to promote a credit card.

Here are some examples:

- The letter starts "Hey Baseball Fan"
- The heading on the letter says "It's always game time"
- It refers to itself (the letter) as "the Blue Jays Update that gives you the stats on the Blue Jays MasterCard credit card!'
- "Now you can get in the game and carry the Jays all the way to the big game."
- "...see why the Blue Jays MasterCard credit card is a winner everytime."
- "[this card] scores home run after home run when it comes to convenience, service, security and value."
- Heading: Cover All Your Bases (lists services)
- "check out this full roster of benefits."
- Heading: "Enjoy the home-field advantage" (more services)
- "Major League buying power."
- Bottom of the letter - "WIN BIG TIME: This season, no matter which team wins the Series, baseball fans across Canada are winning big time with the Blue Jays MasterCard credit card."

They forgot to use "no need to seventh-inning-stretch your dollar" or "let the Blue Jays MasterCard credit card take you out to the ball game this season" or "batter's up, but interest rates are low with this incredible deal"... I could of course go on.

In other news...we had a little going away party out last night and my stomach has been a sea of discontent ever since. But it was worth it. Good friends, drinks, hilarity. At one point I think I was laughing an ear piercing laugh. Sorry about that one folks.

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Picks for Summer 2009

Hey everyone -- sorry it's been a while since I posted. Things have been bananas with the move looming in the distance.

BUT! Summer is HERE. So, I thought I'd pull together some of my suggestions for summer time goodness.

1) Herbal Ice Tea - You know on those really really hot days were alcohol will just dehydrate you further and water is boring and juice is too sugary? Herbal ice tea, my friend. You can pick one up at places like David's Tea and add agave or sugar or honey to sweeten it to your liking. I recommend anything with pear flavour in it. Or, even better, make your own at home in a big pitcher. Add ice and enjoy. Add alcohol and really enjoy.

2) Be Courteous - This is pretty self explanatory. It gets hot and unpleasant in the summer and everyone is always in a rush to be somewhere. Let's slow it down a bit. Let's help that lady carry down her grocery bags at the TTC steps, let's hold open doors, let's let people merge, let people go in front of us if they've got only one thing to buy. Courteousness never goes out of style, so try doing this all year round...

3) Pilooski Remix of 'Beggin' by Frankie Valli - Sure, the Madcon remix of this remix is good, but the original remix is so much better. Does that make sense? Sure it does. Just listen and you'll see.

4) Hats (uglier the better) - I've rebelled against hats all my life, but this year, I need a little extra head protection so I bought a big ugly straw hat that I actually plan to wear. It's undeniable-- the sun is getting hotter and stronger every year. So. You should do the same. You send me a picture of you in your ugly hat and I'll send you a picture of me in mine.

5) Download some Michael Jackson - Enjoy a talent that has passed instead of jumping on the cynical bandwagon right away.

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Margarita Pracatan

Ciaran showed me some clips of this woman the other night. She was big in Britain at one point. Apparently she still has a show on public access TV in the US. So funny.



I also checked out her website. My favourite part is the FAQ page.

E.g.

Describe your ideal man.

I like it somebody like Tom Sellers (Tom Selleck). Big, tall intelligent, with a big mustachio, and with money! With money, very important! I think they have a lot of Tom Sellers walking around a lot in this world.

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Trash or Treasure

I spent this weekend going through my old boxes at my parents place. It was crazy going back and seeing all my old journals (22 of them!) and reading stuff like, "I just watched a movie and I had a good time, tomorrow will be fun too" (grade 3) to other much more embarrassing things such as poetry from my teenage years, snippets of short stories, doodles of headless mermaids, confessions of crushes and lust and hurt and fear and everything in between. Man. Crazy stuff to see all that emotion poured onto paper fit into 1 U-Haul box.

I also spent time deciding what was trash amongst my old childhood toys - which was kind of emotional. But yeah...it had to be done.

Speaking of trash and treasure - take a look at this.

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SoulPancake

My new obsession, because I don't have anything else to do right now...pssffft, is SoulPancake. It's a website that mixes art, religion, philosophy and debate all in one. If you're a person who loves to have an opinion, who loves to discuss even the most futile of questions OR even the questions you know you'll never be able to answer but want to try to answer anyway, or if you're a person who stays up at night wondering things about plants or animals, or are occasionally crushed by the vastness of social consciousness or by the fact that we are but tiny specks in a massive universe, you'll love this website.

Also, it's got creative challenges. Which I highly recommend people attempt. (E.g. Fruit Tattooing). These are thing things that make life interesting.

I've posted some questions and stuff, but I'm still getting the hang of things. You can check me out though...I'm KimiGibbler (FYI - I'm also KimiGibbler on Twitter).

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Viscosity

Stress is running high here lately, what with the move quickly falling upon us and our landlords being big dicks and all. My apologies for not posting more often.

So. A quick word today. I suggest you relax and create some art, as I have on Viscosity. This fabulous website allows you to create the most beautiful of beautiful abstract art right on your compu-tah-tor. No forward slash or backslash needed! Just mouse and brain...or heart...or wherever artistic expression comes from.

But why the picture of the bubbles, you ask? Um, because bubbles are amazing?! I thought that was obvious.

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No Laughing Matter

I've seen a lot of warning signs around Toronto lately. Just yesterday I saw two, in the subway (left) and in Book City (right). The strange thing is that people should know, especially in the case of the thermostat in Book City, that once you tell someone that something isn't a joke or that it's serious, some one will always do their best to MAKE it a joke. Meaning, it will be all the more funny if they touch the thermostat if they really really REALLY aren't supposed to. Just like how it's funny when people fall on the subway, especially because they know they are supposed to be holding on.

It's like laughing at something when you aren't supposed to be laughing. Laughing at funerals, say. It always happens because the situation has been made so serious it's just begging for someone to break the tension.


In other news, I watched the documentary Carts of Darkness, a film about bottle guys in Vancouver who race shopping carts down the massive hills on the north shore. A fantastic film, and available to watch for free HERE.

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Panda Dog

My brother suggested I look up "panda dog" on Google images. Ridiculous, right? It's super cute but looks entirely helpless.

Anyway, I tried to get to the bottom of this thing, which is all the rage in Japan right now. Some websites actually claim the dog has some panda DNA in it, which is crazy, but mostly it seems as though they are just dying the fur of the dog to make it look like a panda. Crazy? I thought so too. But then I looked up "dye jobs on dogs" and you would not believe how common it is.


Yes, that IS a poodle that is dyed and cut to look like Leonardo from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

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Weekend Recap

I almost bought this book on Friday night, not because I think it's a particularly good read, but because of the cover. Oh good-ness. So instead I just took a picture of the four-Paul Newmans, in all their sexiness. I saw the book after we left the cinema at Bloor and Bay. We went and saw Angels and Demons, which was just alright. There was some pretty bad acting from the supporting cast. Ewan McGreggor was good, as was Tom Hanks....but the writing was also pretty bad. Apparently they left a lot of stuff out from the book, so said Ciaran. When will Hollywood learn that certain books are best left on the page?

On Saturday we went shopping for wedding stuff, things I can't mention on the website just in case certain people might be reading. Secret stuff. Woooooo.

Anyway, when we were filling up on gas I sat in the car and stared at this sign which I still can't understand.


Opens 7 Day and 15 mints? Open 7 days a week and they serve 15 different kinds of mints? No. Eventually I gathered that they meant that the service centre "pit stop" was open 7 days a week and service was only 15 minutes long. Seriously? Buy a bigger sign. Or at least some more letters for the one you have.

Later on that night at the Green Mango (awful food, why do we eat there? I don't know), we asked to see the dessert menu and there was yet another strange/lazy sign on it.

Sorry, it's blurry. But yeah, at the bottom of the dessert menu— which also, strangely, had pictures of TOMATOES around its edge— there was a little post it note saying "everything 1 dollar more". Nice. Sly move Green Mango. Very sly.

Sunday we desperately needed to get groceries so we grabbed some Tim Horton's and headed out to do a "proper-shop". I got one of their new strawberry-something donuts, which looks like a flower and was quite delicious.


It was particularly good because I could pick each "petal" off the donut and dip it in its gooey strawberry center.

So.
We got groceries, and got home to find...all the doors open and our landlord showing the apartment. Anyway, I lost my shit a little bit, because it isn't the first time we've come home with NO WARNING and found doors unlocked etc. because the landlord has been in our place. There's more to this story but....I just don't have the energy to explain. It's that ridiculous.

So there. That was my weekend.
Exciting, no?

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