The keys to construction

The crisis of the week has been the Vancouver condo. First, there is construction going on to fix some leaks in the wall of our unit. Second, our house swap partner lost her set of house keys. Initially, it looked like we wouldn't be able to get a set of keys, but the entire building would have to be rekeyed at our expense. This added to the complexity of having the contractors doing work inside our unit and arranging access for them.

The end result is that spare keys were worked out for the meantime; the construction should be done by the end of next week, with a minimum of disturbance; and the building will be rekeyed, but all the owners will share the cost. Probably about as good an outcome as could be hoped for.

Rockin' in the Wii world

Rock Band for the Wii came out this week. Bitter was in the right place at the right time and we now rocking out all the time. I'm not totally sold on the guitar controller, compared to Guitar Hero, but Rock Band is great. Both of us can play at the same time and switch instruments. I've already completed the easy level on drums and am working my way through medium level on guitar. There doesn't seem to be a way to do the solo tour using bass - just guitar. The other minor annoyance is that the Guitar Hero controller won't work with Rock Band and vice versa, so we might need to get a second guitar if we want to play both guitar and bass at the same time. Until then, the two of us are fine and if we have anyone over, we'll have to stick with the power trio.

Toronto pride

We just got back from the Toronto Pride Parade. It was similar to the Vancouver one, but there were many more people watching, and the parade was much longer. We finally left after two hours and it went on for a while after that. It was a huge street party. We were at the barricades for most of it, so we had a great view, but got sprayed by water guns several times - and we got a free condom.

Jazzeteria

The Toronto Downtown Jazz Festival is on now. We've managed to get out to a few events so far.

Saturday night was Leon Kingstone and Dan Eisen (sax and piano) at Commensal, a restaurant around the corner. The music was okay, but the cafeteria-style restaurant took away somewhat from the atmosphere.

Sunday night was PJ Perry (a four-piece band with PJ on sax) at The Rex. The Rex is the local jazz venue. It looks like a dump and the last time I was there they only took cash - no credit. PJ Perry was the first live jazz we saw, about twelve years ago, back in Edmonton at the Hello Deli. It was good to be able to see him again here. It was a great show. We're not used to being out that late on a Sunday night though - we're not as young as we were twelve years ago.

Monday night was Brenda Carol & ClaireVoyance with Christine Bougie (Brenda on vocals, Christine on guitar, with keyboard, bass, and drums) at the Hot House Cafe. I'm pretty sure I saw some of this band at the Hot House two years ago when I was out during the jazz festival. It was good, but tended toward prog rock for a significant portion of the time.

We're taking tonight off, but hopefully we'll get to a few more shows.

Toronto restaurants part 4

It's been a while since I updated restaurants, but here goes.

Made in China on Yonge, south of Gerrard, has okay, cheap Chinese food.

Ginger 2 on Yonge, north of Gerrard, has okay, cheap Vietnamese food.

Commensal on Elm and Bay is vegetarian and is cafeteria style. You get a tray (this one is wet, this one is wet, this one is wet... did you dry these in a rainforest?) and a plate and it's a buffet, so you go along and pick as much as you like from the little metal bins and you pay by weight at the end. Not really cheap for a filling meal. I also don't like food that pretends to be other food. If you don't eat chicken, don't make your tofu look like chicken. If you want something that tastes like, and has the texture of, chicken, eat chicken. I like eating vegetarian, but I don't live in a tofu fantasy.

Spring Rolls on Front and Market has good, cheap Thai food. There are quite a few locations, so I don't know if they're all as good.

Hot House Cafe on Church and Front is decent and reasonably priced. Lots of pasta dishes and a few other entrees. I've heard that it has a good Sunday buffet, so we may have to go back for that.

Subterranean homesick blues

When I left work today the ground was wet and I saw people with umbrellas. If it was raining, I thought, maybe this is a good time to try to take the PATH home. I had made it part of the way home before via the underground mall system, so why not try it right from work - my office connects directly to the PATH. What a pain in the ass. People told me it was confusing, but a 15 minute walk home turned into a 45 minute expedition. Worst navigational aids ever. The signage is barely helpful - where it exists. Half of the travel time was spent walking in circles. They have helpful coloured signs to tell you direction - blue is north, for example. But try and find a blue sign! I would have been better off getting wet. And when I finally resurfaced, the streets were mostly dry. At least now I have it figured out.

My Morning Jacket

We saw My Morning Jacket at the Kool Hous last night with M&G. They (the band) put on an awesome show. The albums are good, but they're much better live. It ended up being a two-and-a-half hour concert including a 45-minute encore. G gave me earplugs which were well worth the price - Bitter's ears are still ringing. Wooh!

Toronto streets

A quick note about activity on the streets. Toronto seems to have more activity on the streets than Vancouver. The homeless or people asking for handouts are a little more aggressive. I've seen two protests so far: one was a woman picketing in front of a Bell building, with signs and everything, asking them to giver her what they owe her; the other was a group of 20 - 30 people outside the Scientology building - in Guy Fawkes masks - protesting against the "cult". Down the street from here, at Dundas Square, is a popular spot for the religious types. You can find out all you want and more about Islam on a regular basis. It is also the favourite spot for the resident pamphlet-giver (he likes to shout out "BeLIEVE in the Lord!" at random intervals - presumably to scare the hell out of you). And yesterday I witnessed the naked bike ride through downtown.

Apparently Vancouver has a naked bike ride, too, but I have not seen it. I also realize that the Fisheries building and the Armed Forces recruitment centre do seem to attract people with megaphones and free time, so maybe it's not a significant difference. It feels different, though.

More flash and bang

I've just spent half an hour, an hour, watching a thunderstorm and the people in the Delta Chelsea across the street watching the storm. I thought I saw a very localized reflection of lighting in the windows of the hotel, but it was someone with a flash camera taking pictures. I'd love to see if any of them turned out.

I was chatting to Bitter over Facebook; the storm was full force in Georgetown, but not a whisper here. Within half an hour the sky was lighting up and the rain was pouring down.

Someone from the Vancouver office was here this week and caught Monday's storm. She'd never seen anything like it, being from the Lower Mainland.

I swear I saw a bolt of lightning right through another building across the street. Then five minutes later I saw all the lights come back on for several floors. Fuckin' fantastic!

Like a frightened mole

Crazy thunderstorms and heavy rain tonight. I haven't seen this much thunder and lightning (okay, heard thunder and seen lightning) since Alberta. I've experienced lightning about three times since coming to BC and more than that in the last two weeks.

Bitter took the Go Train this afternoon out to the country (Georgetown) to stay with family, so it's Jaded and Ebow for the next week.

Got caught in a downpour on the way home from work. Sunny all day, then it decides to rain about two minutes after I leave the building. I was able to duck into the PATH (the underground mall downtown) and make it almost all the way home (with a stop at the LCBO without leaving the safety of the tunnels). This was good practice for winter.

The day of infinite dogs

It's hot. Yesterday was 33 degrees and humid. We checked out the rooftop deck in the building, and it is on the roof. It's got some sidewalk blocks and that's it. No plants, nothing to sit on. I don't foresee many summer nights relaxing on the rooftop terrace.

Today was a little cooler, but still hot and sunny. We headed down to St. Lawrence Market to pick up a few things and to visit the many cheese shops. On the way we passed the Luminato Arts + Culture festival in the Yonge/Dundas square. Huge weather balloon things hanging over the square and live music on the stage. The highlight, though, was farther along when we stumbled upon Woofstock. Front, Wellington and Church streets were blocked off east of Yonge for "the largest outdoor festival for dogs in all of North America". Bitter was in doggie heaven - big dogs, little dogs, cute dogs, ugly dogs, brown dogs, white dogs, yellow dogs - hundreds of DOGS!! It was a good day.

No more bitching about furniture

We have the last of it. A table, two very comfy chairs and two chairs that are practically unusable. Ebow is in heaven, moving from one comfy chair to the other. As far as the other two, I have no idea how that design got past the testing phase. That's the risk you take when you buy online.

Bitter did a great job of assembling and arranging everything. She took the sliding doors off the solarium and stacked them against one wall of the dining room. With the 8' palm she pilfered rescued from the garbage room and the stainless steel table, it looks very cool. It really makes no sense without seeing it, but it does look cool.

In other news, we have two chairs for sale. Brand new. Barely used. They're awesome.

Now we're cooking

Our first homemade meal in Toronto. We made Greek salad last night. Yes, we went high-tech. The food and accompaniments were easy enough to procure, however, when the time came to make it, we discovered a minor setback - no salad bowl. We eventually used a combination of the bowls we ate out of and what I can only guess is a glass ice bucket that was here when we got here. It was a bit awkward, but it worked, we ate, and we enjoyed it.

Update: Just after posting, the question was asked, "Why didn't you use a pot?" I just want to know where this genius was when we needed him.

West meets east

So, on Saturday, during the few precious moments we weren't sitting on our new couch, we made it into Chinatown. A quick search will tell you that there are several Chinatowns in Toronto and area. We went to the only one that really matters - the one that's a 10 minute walk from where we live. Open air food markets, shops selling fifty kinds of crap, and signs you can't read. Pretty much like the ones in Vancouver or San Francisco, but they might be a good source of cheap fruits and vegetables. Every time I mention the Dominion store around the corner from our place, people say, "Oh, that's the expensive one." And there doesn't seem to be an answer to, "Well, where's a cheaper one?" This may be the answer.

From Chinatown we drifted into Kensington Market. Very cool shops and restaurants, narrow streets, lots of people. One store was nothing but spices. We will have to return here.

On the way home we passed through Chinatown again. It always comes back to Chinatown.

A place to sit your ass

We have a couch! Something soft to sit on! We're spending some quality time this weekend sitting on our new piece of furniture watching some TV. Oh, yes. We have a TV! A 32" LCD. Yay us! We officially have more gadgets than furniture. So, sitting on the couch watching TV and drinking coffee. Because we have a coffee maker now too! Oh, the joy of living!