September 27, 2008

"I'm not saying that Peggy doesn't have something upstairs--it's just that at Sterling-Cooper, the important things are happening downstairs"--Mad Men

Went to the Debating Meetup at Swansea Town Hall, where they debated Toronto's waterfront development policy.  I left before they voted on who "won."

Went to the first event of Ian's Documentary Meetup.  We discussed The Corporation, which I haven't seen.

The parents and I saw The Duchess at the Varsity.  Pretty maudlin.

After seeing my shrink Dr. Hassan I dropped in at the St. Paul's NDP campaign HQ for the first time. (I was a while finding out where it was.) I attached Anita Agrawal stickers to Jack Layton pamphlets.

Went to the cinemacast of the operas Cavalleria Rusticana and Pagliacci at the Empress Walk  this afternoon.  In the evening I went to the Classical Music Meetup at Java Mama where they talked about French music. (I meant to bring our CD of Saint-Saens' Carnival of the Animals, but was in such a hurry that I forgot it.)

September 22, 2008

Went to see my shrink Dr. Hassan, only to realize that my appointment wasn't till Friday! (I'm so used to seeing him on Mondays...)

Dinner was ham.

At the Coro Verdi we did the new songs "La Canzone dell'Uve," "Mamma" and "Amore Me." Too bad the scores' typeface is so small!

September 21, 2008

Dreamed of being about to go from my hometown of Sackville, N.B., to Moncton, except that the whole place was flooded so we had to take a boat!

We were going to see The Duchess but the parents weren't quite up to it.

Loaded all my camera's pictures onto the Imac.  It can show them in really high resolution!

Dinner was fettucine alfredo (which I cooked).

September 20, 2008

"He'll never forgive me for being a genius"--What Have I Done to Deserve This!

Saw the DVD of Pedro Almodovar's What Have I Done to Deserve This!  It's one of his early farces, definitely on the crazy side.

Dinner was McDonald's.

Went to the Classical Music Meetup, again at the Trinity United Church.  The guy who gives pre-opera talks at the Canadian Opera Company delivered a lecture about Don Giovanni.  Myself, I prefer the music without analysis.

Afterward I went to the Yonge & Eglinton cinema and bought tickets to the upcoming season's Metropolitan Opera broadcasts.

Headache.

Father picked up a fancy illustrated book of translated Chinese poems, for just two dollars!

September 18, 2008

"How do you sleep at night?" "On a bed made of money."--Mad Men

"If this food is left alone, it'll take over Europe!"--ibid.

"Is he a good man?" "Define 'good.'"--Rome

Dreamed of visiting our old home in Sackville, N.B.; being unable to see the house because someone had built an apartment building in front of it; Tina Weymouth of the Talking Heads giving an open-air concert.

Went shopping.

Saw the last episode of Rome. (It dragged a bit after the story moved to Egypt.)

Finished the last summer ice in the freezer.

Dinner was spaghetti.

Went to a Friends Meetup improv class at Second City. (We paid $10 each.)

Baked cheese bread overnight.

September 17, 2008

"What you call 'love is something guys like me invented to sell nylons....  I live as if there were no tomorrow because there isn't"--Mad Men

Dreamed of the song "Candy Man"; the movie Rocky III (which I haven't seen).

I thought I was really going to impress Giuseppe with my rendition of "Wohin?" at today's singing lesson.  But it turned out that I'd forgotten the sheet I'd written the words on!

Dinner was steak.

We saw the DVD of the first episode of Mad Men.  Very intelligent though rather bleak.

Saw the DVD of the first episodes of the cartoon series George of the Jungle.  It's a treasured memory of my childhood, exhilaratingly silly. (My favourite segment of all is Super Chicken.) [His catchphrase was "You knew the job was dangerous when you took it, Fred.]

Started reading the spring issue of Lapham's Quarterly which is about money.

September 15, 2008

"No-one's a traitor until they are"--Rome

Dreamed of Dvorak's "Songs My Mother Taught Me"; speculating about a gay subtext in The Caine Mutiny.

Last night was the first rehearsal of the Coro Verdi's new season.  We're doing folks songs again. (Nothing new so far.)

Dinner was salmon.

Went to the Writers Meetup.  Our challenge was to write a dialogue starting with the line "I know what you did last summer." I wasn't up to that, but they'd offered the alternative of reading a passage about summer, so I read a few pages about Tom Sawyer's summer vacation.  Before the end of the meeting I did come up with this exchange:

"I know what you did last summer."

"Then I'll have to kill you."

"Is that really nec--"

Finished Beijing Confidential.  Jan Wong's a great reporter indeed.

September 13, 2008

"You're late again!"

"Change your expectations, and I'll always be here before time."

--Rome

I was going to have a Lunch Club Meetup this morning, but almost nobody was coming, so I cancelled the event and quit as organizer. (There's still the Brunch Club Meetup.)

I was going to go on a walk in the Beaches with the Consciousness Meetup, but I didn't feel well so I stayed home all day.

Dinner was lasagna.

Father and Moira returned from Kingston.

Donald came over and fixed my printer setup. (It turned out that I needed a USB connection.) Father's going to give the Imac a wired internet connection, which is likely to be more reliable than the present wireless.

September 12, 2008

Atia (whispering to Cleopatra): "Die screaming, you pig-spawned trollop!"--Rome

Father and Moira went to Kingston for the weekend.

Dinner was McDonald's.

Since the DVDs we get from zip.ca are finished for the month, and the next month doesn't start till Tuesday, I went to 2Q Video and rented the second season of Rome for a week.  We saw the first two episodes tonight.  It's still brilliant.

I've installed the new printer on the Imac, but for some reason it didn't work, so I had to phone Donald and ask him to come over again.

The Imac's wireless internet connection is erratic.  It often conks out after half an hour or so. 

September 11, 2008

Dreamed of travelling westward by train across the prairies; the comic strip Li'l Abner; the Fiddler on the Roof soundtrack album (which we actually owned).

Went shopping.

Baked whole wheat bread.

Went to my shrink Dr. Hassan's office and booked a session. (I haven't seen him for months.  I hope he doesn't think I'm mad at him!)

Dinner was the rest of the stew.

Saw the DVD of Leo McCarey's Love Affair.  I can take or leave that sort of slick Hollywood romance. (That children's choir was especially shameless!)

September 10, 2008

Dreamed of the sitcom WKRP in Cincinnati; creeping along a rock face and finding a boulder about to give way and fall off; hearing that Mississauga was the auto theft capital of Canada. (No idea whether that's true, but it does sound plausible...)

At today's singing lesson we went over Schubert's "Wohin?" for the first time. (My German pronunciation is improving.)

Dinner was lamb stew.

Went to the Non-Fiction Book Club Meetup at Butler's Pantry.  We discussed Michael Moore's Stupid White Men, which none of us seemed to think much of.  In November we'll be discussing Freakonomics.

September 9, 2008

We went to Yorkdale Mall again and I got a new robe and pajamas.  For new slippers, we went to Zeller's.

I've figured out how to use the new mouse's scroll button and enlarge the window.

Dinner was roast chicken.

Headache.

September 7, 2008

Dreamed of the right lens of my glasses breaking in two; the TV show The Wild, Wild West (which I've never seen); "waking up" with my window open.

Went on a "tree tour" in the Junction area. (Lots of back alleys.) Over 30 people showed up despite the rain.

Donald came over for dinner, which was Chinese food.  He also fixed up my computer's wireless connection so now I can surf the net in my room, with a Safari 3 browser!

September 6, 2008

 Dreamed of visiting a museum connected to a liberal Toronto church for a display of the comic strip Buz Sawyer.

Sang with the Coro Verdi at a wedding mass in a church near College & Grace. (I got there an hour early and killed time at Burger King.)

Dinner was pork chops.

Used the portable hard disc to transfer the Appleworks and DVD Capture software onto my new Imac.

September 5, 2008

Dreamed of looking for adjectives to describe Pat Buchanan and choosing nasty, aggressive and mean; a Superman story where he got caught alone with a woman and the law required him to marry her...

Got my hair cut.

Dinner was the last of the turkey pie.

Set up the new computer's printer.

Stayed up late starting a translation of Fukurou Castle, the Japanese book Puitak gave me. (I think "fukurou" means owl.) Why am I so often starting things I don't seem likely to finish?

September 4, 2008

Dreamed of not getting up till 11:30. (I actually got up just before 08:00); posting a whole series of visual images on an internet forum.

In the morning we drove out to Orchard Home Farm and picked four bags of Gravenstein apples. (They'd lost almost a third of their crop to a hailstorm.)

Baked raisin bread.

Saw the DVD of an Extreme Engineering episode about the idea of laying a railway tunnel under the Atlantic Ocean.  Pretty far-fetched.

Dinner was McDonald's.

Installed the Leopard operating system on the Emac.  But we couldn't figure out how to set up the wireless internet connection yet.

Saw the DVD of Harold Lloyd's Why Worry? (for the second time). In this one he's a hypochondriac playboy who quashes a South American revolution because he wants peace and quiet!

September 3, 2008

Dreamed of seeing the opening credits of Wall E (which I still haven't seen) with Moira; the film being stopped because of some technical problem.

I brought my tape recorder to this week's singing lesson and Giuseppe recited the proper German pronunciation for two of my songs.  But he had to leave early for a medical examination (something about the nerves in his legs) so we didn't have time to start on "Wohin?" He mentioned that this year the Toronto City Opera is doing Carmen and La Cenerentola. (I registered online for it a couple of days ago.)

Dinner was spaghetti.

Set up the Emac and printer in my room. (First I moved all my translation files onto Moira's computer with an old-fashioned floppy disc.) They fit my desk quite nicely.

Went to a choir rehearsal for a wedding mass Saturday.

September 2, 2008

Went shopping in the morning.

Around noon we went out to Yorkdale Mall and bought an Imac computer and printer for my room!

Dinner was turkey pie.

September 1, 2008

Moira finally recorded the piano accompaniment for my German songs "An die Musik," "Ich Liebe Dich" and "Wohin?" She'd held out because she wanted me to learn the songs first; from my own perspective, I'll have an easier time learning them now that I can sing them with accompaniment.  Unfortunately, she played the "Ich Liebe Dich" a bit too fast. (She'd decided I'd been singing them too slow.)

John and Kathrine came over for dinner, which was pizza.