July 21, 2011

    Dreamed of a thriller like Body Heat but with an even more complicated plot.

    Went to see my shrink Dr. Hassan.  Once again I got Father to drive me to the St. Clair subway station to make sure I'd be on time, but once again the doctor was a long while getting around to me anway. (When will I learn?)

    In the computer game The Kings of Camelot three of my five cities now have a full twelve Level 10 wildernesses, leaving me to focus on raiding barbarian camps near them.  And I've just figured out that for that purpose I may as well have archers alone.

    Dinner was fettucine alfredo (which I cooked).

July 20, 2011

"I asked other people, but they were all busy"--The Trip

"It looks like a place where they'd film a Miss Marple"--ibid.

    Dreamed of trying to explain Tom Swiftie jokes to Moira; mentioning that Elmore Leonard never uses adverbs (which is true).

    Moira and I went to see Michael Winterbottom's The Trip at the Cumberland, with Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon improvising their way through a tour of inns in northern England.  Lots of funny impersonations! (Too bad that the cinema's air conditioning made me sleepy.)

    Dinner was salmon.

    Went to a Classical Music Meetup at the Mad Bean Cafe.  The letter was U and the subject was uncompleted works.

July 19, 2011

Mrs. Simpson: "Contentment is for domestic creatures"--Edward & Mrs. Simpson

    Dreamed of griping that my Ph.D. thesis supervisor couldn't direct traffic! (Was that fair?)

    Had lunch at the Mandarin with the Movie Meetup group.  The others saw the Woody Allen movie Paris After Midnight afterward, but it didn't start till 15:30 so I didn't stay.

    Back home I tried to watch a DVD of Lenny Bruce's last filmed performance, but I dozed off.

    Dinner was lasagna.

    Saw the DVD of the first two episodes of the 1978 TV series Edward & Mrs. Simpson (for the third time). IMHO abdicating the Throne was the best thing Edward VIII ever did for the United Kingdom!

July 18, 2011

Count di Luna: "My only god is vengeance.  That's the deity that I worship!"--Il Trovatore

    Dreamed of living in a huge house with a big library; a Harry Potter story in which Ron gave his life for Harry and Harry took Ron's form to keep the bad guys confused; the Marx Brothers movie The Cocoanuts.

    Saw the DVD of the Mystery Science Theatre 3000 version of The Indestructible Man (for the second time).

    Dinner was frozen pizza.

    Saw the cinemacast of the Metropolitan Opera production of Verdi's Il Trovatore at the Sheppard Grande.  My main interest, of course, was Dmitri Hvorotvsky's Count di Luna!

July 17, 2011

"Sometimes I feel like I'm slightly retarded in the mouth"--Weeds

    The Coro Verdi performed the summer mass at the Church of the Holy Redeemer. (John George drove me there.)

    Brian, a fellow Coro Verdi member, told me how he'd had an operation where they stopped his heart for a few minutes. (Some electrical dysfunction in his heart was causing his body to retain too much water.) He had an out-of-body experience where he saw his hometown Montreal, his late father and his late dog!

    In the afternoon I napped till dinner time.

    Dinner was corn on the cob.

    Slept with the windows open. [Nowadays I do that every summer.]

July 16, 2011

    Dreamed of the front yard of our old home in Sackville, N.B., being covered with a layer of ice thick enough to skate on.

    Went to the new Projection Booth cinema in the East End and saw some cartoons. (The place was so empty that they didn't charge admission!) I saw some Ub Iwerks fairy tale cartoons; some Famous Studios cartoons with characters like Little Audrey and Herman the mouse; and the CTV cartoons of The Nightingale and The Velveteen Rabbit; but no Warner Brothers.  Their upcoming documentaries look interesting.

    Afterward I walked east to the Little India street festival.

    Dinner was spaghetti.

    I've dreamed more than once of going to a new cinema, and today I actually did it!

July 15, 2011

"Just because you've been a slutty, irresponsible slutty slut..."--Weeds

    Went to an Asperger's Meetup.  We met at the Tim Horton's east of the Bloor-Yonge station.

    Baked rye bread.

    Went shopping.

    Dinner was stir-fry.

    Saw the DVD The Golden Age of British Comedy, with sketches from the 1940s through the 1960s.

    I read about the new Projection Booth cinema and on their webpage found a link to the Silent Toronto blog, a fascinating read about Toronto's deceased cinema palaces.