October 4, 2010

Lawyer: "I have seen people get rid of a good deal of other people's money, and bear it very well:  very well indeed"--Little Dorrit

    Dreamed of reflecting how much I miss the back-yard garden from our old home in Sackville, N.B.; stopping on the road between Sackville and Moncton, seeing snow on the ground and wondering what time of year it was; the lines from Tennyson's "In Memoriam"

So runs my dream, but what am I?

An infant crying in the night.

An infant crying for the light,

And with no language but a cry.

    Dinner was sausage and mashed potatoes.

    At choir practice we started on the first act of Lucia di Lamermoor. (Carmen said hi to me.  Maybe she likes me!) [The power of wishful thinking...]

    Ordered several new o'ekaki puzzle books on Amazon, along with the Lexicon of Musical Invective.

October 3, 2010

    Dreamed of a K-Tel record with a group called Japanese Attractiveness doing the Shirley & Company song "Shame, Shame, Shame."

    Went to a Games Meetup at the Yellow Griffin.  I played Smallworld (my races were flying tritons and hill humans) and Kingsburg (I was only three points behind the winner).

    Dinner was felafels and pita bread.

October 2, 2010

 Dreamed of seeing Ronald Merrick (the villain in The Jewel in the Crown) and another soldier lurking on the campus of my alma mater Mt. Allison University; considering the saying "The unexamined life is not worth living" and wondering whether Merrick examined his; considering the moment near the end when Merrick was murdered by a catamite and imagining Merrick asking a question about India's future and the catamite saying "You'll never know," and killing him.

    Went to an Aspergers Meetup at Wynford Heights.  Nan was impressed when she heard I'd scored over 60,000 in the Train video game shed introduced me to. (Her word was "insane!") We've merged with another group, so there were almost a dozen people there. [In that Train game I also learned to put the train on a closed loop and get an infinite score!]

    Dinner was pork chops.

October 1, 2010

"In truth, no men on earth can cheer like Englishmen, who do so rally one another's blood and spirit when they cheer in earnest, that the stir is like the rush of their whole history, with all its standards waving at once, from Saxon Alfred's downward"--Little Dorrit

"It's just you and me now, you piece of shit!"--Cliffhanger

    Dreamed of being unable to find my shoes in a large group of them; passing through Milan.

    Finished watching The Jewel in the Crown.  I'll have to read Paul Scott's books someday.

    Dinner was roast pork.

    Saw the Sylvester Stallone actioner Cliffhanger at the Underground.  Cheesy fun, hilariously written but solidly directed by Renny Harlin, it's worth seeing on a nice big screen.

September 30, 2010

"Do you ride?"

"On and off--more on than off, but that's just luck."

--The Jewel in the Crown

"He says if you run into a snake, the thing to do is bow your head politely and ask it to leave"--ibid.

    Dreamed about the TV show The Beverley Hillbillies and Wayne and Shuster specials in 1968; getting onto a ferry at the last minute with some homeless people.

    Baked multigrain bread.

    Dinner was sausage and mashed potatoes (very spicy!).

    Went to bed at 21:30. (Headache!)

September 29, 2010

On inns squeezing travellers: "The whole business of the human race, between London and Dover, being spoliation, Mr. Dorrit was waylaid at Dartford, fleeced at Sittingbourne, and sacked at Canterbury"--Little Dorrit

"Would you object?"

"Is it open to me?"

--The Jewel in the Crown

    Dreamed of the 1961 Michael Curtiz movie of Huckleberry Finn; reflecting that the book had a geographical flaw. (Jim could have crossed the Mississippi into free territory back in the beginning...)

    My Metropass got lost in the mail so I went to the Davisville station office and they gave me a replacement.

    Dinner was McDonald's.

    Went to an Out of Your Shell Meetup at Snakes and Lattes, where they have board games for people to play. (It's nice not to have to tote my games.) I played Apples to Apples, Balderdash--which I won!--and a fun new game called Boxers or Briefs. [It's like Apples to Apples, but you can choose to give a serious answer or a silly one.] Sara is working there now.  Rob and Jody from the Tucker's Marketplace event were there, and Jody revealed she had a reading disability.  The place looks very busy.

September 28, 2010

    Dreamed of being in a space station; going for a space walk and not knowing which way was up.

    Went shopping.

    Moira rented the second season of The Wire, but I don't have time to see it just now.

    Dinner was goulash.

    At opera rehearsal we did "Bruederlein und Schwesterlein" from Die Fledermaus for the first time. (That romantic German-language stuff is basically untranslatable.) We got a full score of our Fledermaus parts this week.

September 27, 2010

"People must continue to be married and given in marriage, or Chief Butlers would not be wanted.  As nations are made to be taxed, so families are made to be butlered"--Little Dorrit

    The other night I dreamed of looking out a window and seeing a yard with giant playing cards scattered about and a pile of movie posters.

    Dinner was macaroni.

    At choir practice we did the last act of Lucia di Lamermoor.

September 25, 2010

    Dreamed of a man causing controversy in World War II by writing a pamphlet teaching men how to do their own sewing; a group of protesters about to burn a Malawi flag.

    Is Mother losing her memory?  The other day I mentioned Norman Lear and she had to be reminded who he was.

    Went on a Yorkville art walk with the Art Meetup group.  We saw a brilliant Christopher Pratt exhibit and met the artists Jane-Ash Poitras, Catherine Perehudoff and Jon Clayton (who comes from my hometown Sackville, N.B.!). The actress Arsinee Khanjian was in our group.  Our host decided I was a big Pratt expert because I knew he'd designed the Newfoundland provincial flag.

    Dinner was stew.

    Saw the DVD of "Kidnap," the episode of Mission:  Impossible where Jim got snatched and his team was made to steal an incriminating letter as ransom. (I remember seeing it at the time.)

September 24, 2010

"You should keep your feet on the ground so you can leap higher into the air"--Joan Miro

"When I pick up a stone, it's a stone.  When Miro picks up a stone, it's art"--a friend

    Dreamed of Lincoln's Gettysburg Address; crossing a swamp on floating wood steps; following a long line of people who were volunteering to help put on an event, through a long basement tunnel route; losing the others; a subway station for the Donlands area that was near the lakeshore (the real Donlands Station being near Danforth Avenue).

    Dinner was KFC.

    Saw the DVD of Miro:  Theatre of Dreams, a documentary about the famous Catalan surrealist.  When they made Joan Miro, they broke the mold.

    Eric Porter in The Jewel in the Crown is exactly like the villain who took on James Bond in Thunderball, with even the same eyepatch! ("The unkind say he lost his eye peeping through keyholes.")

September 23, 2010

"You'd rather live in shit than let the world see you working a shovel!"--The Wire

    Dreamed of writing a college essay about a legal text written by Burt Reynolds and admiring its sophistication; the Disney movies with Kurt Russell as campus whiz kid Dexter Riley.

    Baked raisin bread.

    Mowed the lawn for the last time this year.

    Dinner was spaghetti.

    Saw the last episodes of the first season of The Wire.  Classic procedural.

September 22, 2010

"Don't psychoanalyze me, doctor!"

"Then don't come begging for it."

--Peyton Place

Facetious judge: "McNulty, I hold you in contempt."

"Who doesn't?"

--The Wire

    Father and I sawed a thick but mostly dead limb off the cherry tree in the back yard. (We'll have to saw it into smaller pieces tomorrow.)

    Went to a Dining Meetup at the Vanipha Lanna just around the corner. (There were about a dozen people.) I had chicken curry and vegetable-fried rice.

September 21, 2010

"Mrs. Merdle concurred with all her heart--or with all her art, which was exactly the same thing..."--Little Dorrit

"There are people who love you, Jimmy."

"Right now I'm more worried about the people who say they love me than the ones who don't"

--The Wire

    Dreamed of the Renoir cinema in London; drinking orange juice; considering that life was worth living for the best of the upcoming movies; a library displaying TV commercials; the Young People's Science Encyclopedia (which we only got the first three volumes of).

    Went shopping. (I also got some new underwear.)

    Dinner was steak.

    Went to the first Toronto City Opera rehearsal.  We did part of Strauss' Die Fledermaus (which translator Gerald Hannon's subtitled "Going Batty"--geddit?), but they haven't finished printing out the score so we finished early.

    Saw the DVD of the first episode of The Story of Maths, a British Open University documentary series about mathematical history.

September 20, 2010

    Dreamed of considering how much I hate the movie Life Is Beautiful. [It was stupid and shameless, and I'll die on that hill!]

    Dinner was frozen haddock.

    At choir practice, Giuseppe told me Toronto City Opera will be doing Madama Butterfly and Die Fledermaus this year.

September 19, 2010

"In the grammar of Mrs. Merdle's verbs on this momentous subject, there was only one Mood, the Imperative; and that Mood had only one Tense, the Present"--Little Dorrit

"Is he fierce?"

"Dat nigga don't play!'--The Wire

"Don't curse at me!  My lawyer says--"

"Fuck your lawyer!"--ibid.

    Went on a Royal Ontario Museum walk in Cabbagetown with the Introvert Meetup group.  When the guide showed us a dead end that went up to St. James Cemetery, I quipped, "A literal dead end!" which she liked so much that she's going to include the joke in future tours!

    Dinner was tortellini.

    Went to a Fun & Boardgames Meetup.  We played a couple of rounds of Taboo, then I introduced three newcomers to Ticket to Ride. (I smoked 'em, of course.)

September 18, 2010

Drug cop on the War on Drugs: "You can't call this shit a war."

"Why not?"

"Wars end."

--The Wire

    Dreamed of finding an unusual plant in a field and being told that it was an "oxygen plant" that grew near wild turnips; wondering about the dimensions of a thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle that was close to the golden ration (one and the square root of five, divided by two); multiplying adjacent numbers in the Fibonacci series to see if that yielded a product close to 1000 (the closest answer would be 25 by 40, but 21 by 38 is close); telling actor Steven Seagal that I was thinking about Fibonacci numbers!

    Went on a LEAF tree tour in Queen's Park. (There were some thirty people.) We went all the way to Yonge and Bloor, and it got so noisy that we had a hard time hearing the guides.

    Dinner was Chinese food.

    Saw the DVD of the first two episodes of The Wire, which Moira rented for the week.  She's right, it is addictive.  What great dialogue!

September 17, 2010

Mr. Meagles (on deciding to visit his daughter in Rome): "Just as Home is Home though it's never so Homely... Rome is Rome, though it's never so Romely"--Little Dorrit

    Dreamed of finding an old shirt of mine; trying to set up a rabbit-ear antenna for a TV set; the Police song "Mother."

    Went to dinner at Tucker's Supermarket at Eglinton & Warden with the Depressed But Enthusiastic Meetup group. (There were just four people.) Predictably, I ate too much.  We stayed till past closing time!

September 16, 2010

"'Papa is a preferable mode of address,' observed Mrs. General. 'Father is rather vulgar, my dear.  The word Papa, besides, gives a pretty form to the lips.  Papa, potatoes, poultry, prunes and prism, are all very good words for the lips:  especially prunes and prism"--Little Dorrit

On British tourists in Rome: "Nobody said what anything was, but everybody said what the Mr.s Generals, Mr. Eustace, or somebody else said it was"--ibid.

    Went to see my shrink Dr. Hassan.

    Dinner was roast chicken.

    In the evening I went to a Canadian Opera Company lecture with the Classical Music Meetup at the North York Central Library. (I showed them that photo of me in the Cavalleria Rusticana chorus.)

    Read over 50 pages of Little Dorrit!

September 15, 2010

"...this young lady [Fanny Dorrit] was in the habit of declaring the same thing once for all every day of her life, and even several times a day"--Little Dorrit

    Dreamed of reading a novel narrated by a cowboy, about his wry world view; losing my place and trying to figure out where I'd stopped; a new art-film cinema in my hometown Sackville, N.B.

    Baked whole wheat bread.

    Went shopping.

    We put some of the detritus from the sun room renovation into a corner in the back yard.

    Dinner was pork chops.

    Went to the Games Meetup.  I won at Smallworld, where my races were stout ratmen, bivouacking skeletons and heroic giants.  I also won at the American version of Ticket to Ride--for the first time, I think--and by a street:  I filled all seven of my tickets, and got 160 points!  I also played Puerto Rico and Tsuro, and still managed to leave early. (Games can go quickly when only three people are playing.)

September 14, 2010

    Dreamed of climbing a slope so steep that I had to go on all fours; making scrambled eggs; meeting the family in England; being out on the street in my pajamas and realizing I'd left my pants in the car; considering that in wartime it's better to chicken out beforehand than to go to pieces in the middle of a mission.

    Got out of bed at about 14:30!

    Dinner was vegan stew.

September 13, 2010

"Even her propriety could not dispute that there was impropriety in the world; but Mrs. General's way of getting rid of it was to put it out of sight and make believe that there was no such thing"--Little Dorrit

    Went out to Staples on Keele Street and bought a set of ring-shaped stickers for my Coro Verdi scores, along with a new binder for the scores to complete opera parts.

    Dinner was spaghetti.

    Went to the first choir practice for the new season.  There's a new guy called Eduardo who comes from Argentina, whom I encouraged to sit beside me.  We started learning Lucia di Lamermoor, which I remember pretty well from the Toronto City Opera seven years ago.

September 12, 2010

 Dreamed of the Underdog cartoon's theme song (which I'd heard on YouTube that evening); figuring out which months in a given year always start on the same day of the week. [They include April and July; September and December; and January and April in leap years.]

    Went to the new Cinematheque building (the Lightbox) on its opening day. (They sell popcorn now, which I was afraid they wouldn't.) The gallery ahd an exhibit related to their 100 "essential" movies, but I got through it pretty quick.

    Dinner was McDonald's.

    Started the second half of Dicken's Little Dorrit, subtitled "Riches."

September 11, 2010

    Dreamed of coming to Ottawa as a newly elected MP in a by-election; sitting with a committee, getting sleepy and worrying that the camera caught me dozing; saying that I felt like I was in a dream and wondering if I was about to wake up.

    Went to see the live cinemacast of Last Night at the Proms at the Yong & Eglinton with the Classical Music Meetup.  This time we found seats close to the back. (I was afraid I'd have to sit further back than the rest of the group.) I didn't get a headache and managed to stay for the whole concert!

    Dinner was turkey pie.

    Rented the DVD of Great Expectations (yet again).  It's a real classic, one of Dickens' best books turned into one of David Lean's best movies.

    Finished the sports issue of Lapham's Quarterly, so I'm finally up to date with no backlog! (Later I renewed my subscription online.

September 10, 2010

"If I had my way, no man guilty of golf would be eligible to any office of trust or profit under the United States, and all female athletes would be shipped to the white-slave corrals of the Argentine"--H.L. Mencken (quoted in Lapham's Quarterly)

    Dreamed of a map of Alberta showing its rivers and watersheds; the Toto song "Rosanna"; a jigsaw puzzle with pieces the size of my hand. (I've been doing some online jigsaw puzzles.)

    Dinner was frozen Indian food.

    Went to Mary's games night.  I played Ticket to Ride and The Amazeing Labyrinth. (In the latter game I had a big lead at first, but lost the endgame.)

September 9, 2010

Singles bar talk: "How's your work?" "It pays." "Good.  Then we won't have to talk about it."

--Life During Wartime

Boy to his mother (after finding out she lied to him about his father being dead): "Fuck you, bitch!"--ibid.

"Can you forget and not forgive?"--ibid.

"China is the future.  We're finished.  It's a matter of time"--ibid.

    Dreamed of the German movie Effi Briest; meeting H.G. Wells.

    Dinner was salmon.

    Saw Todd Solondz' Life During Wartime at the Cumberland. (It's a sequel to his Happiness, but with all the roles recast!) Solondz makes geek movies, and his world is disquieting but oddly believable.

September 8, 2010

    Baked rye bread.

    Went shopping.

    Dinner was turkey pie.

    Went to the Games Meetup.  I played The Amazeing Labyrinth (twice) and Smallworld, where my races were berserk halflings and fortified tritons.  Someone brought a game he'd created on his own, involving Marvel Comics superheroes and supervillains, but it was too complicated for me.

September 7, 2010

"Who are you?"

"I'm nobody..."

--The Jewel in the Crown

"We're fighting because you're a moron.  That's why we're fighting!"--Curb Your Enthusiasm

    Dreamed of the 1978 movie of Harold Robbins' potboiler The Betsy (which I haven't seen); visiting a museum with exhibits about the French Revolution.

    Got my hair cut at the Hungarian place.

    Went to the Sheppard Grande and bought tickets for six upcoming Metropolitan Opera cinemacasts.

    Dinner was felafels.

    Saw the DVD of the first episode of The Jewel in the Crown (for the third time). Unusually intelligent.

    Then we saw the DVD of the first episodes of the latest season of Curb Your Enthusiasm.  What an antihero!

September 6, 2010

    Dreamed of having my own apartment in Halifax.

    I was going to go to the CNE with the Aspergers Meetup, but they changed the meeting time from noon to 11:00, and that was too early for me.

    Dinner was turkey.

    Saw the DVD of Paul Cox' The Diaries of Vaslav Nijinsky, documenting his slide into insanity.

    I've broken 50,000 a few times in the Train video game! [I also figured out how to put the train on a closed loop and get an infinite score...]

September 5, 2010

    Dreamed of seeing a movie that combined Ghost with The Sixth Sense; a DVD with a menu so huge that I couldn't figure out where to start it.

    Went to a Walking Meetup.  We walked around the Music Garden and the Irish Memorial and saw some of the CNE air show.

    Dinner was leftover fettucine and lasagna (which we'd had in the freezer!).

September 4, 2010

    Dreamed of Marvin Gaye's "Ain't That Peculiar"; a letter to an advice columnist from a man whose ex had taken up with a bigot, who often did yard work at the bigot's place on weekends to be near his kids, and often heard abusive language; a non-existent scene in The Princess Bride with the man speaking while we only see the woman's tearful reaction, through a mirror.

    Went to an Art Meetup at the Gladstone Hotel.  We looked at an exhibit of art by the mentally ill then went to the restaurant, where I ate eggs benedict.

    Dinner was curried scallops.

    The cool weather has arrived!

    Went to a Games Meetup (new group) at the Runnymede Starbuck's.  I played Settles of Catan and Ticket to Ride.

September 3, 2010

    Dreamed of Mendelsohn's "Spring Song."

    Dinner was McDonald's.

    Added over eighty historical documentary DVDs to our queue at zip.ca.

September 2, 2010

"He can peel a potato at fifty yards just by hating it!"--Kung Fu

    Dreamed of being unable to figure out a textbook of really advanced biological mathematics.

    Baked multigrain bread.

    Dinner was pasta salad. (I wasn't hungry enough to find more to eat.)

    I was going to attend a cello concert with the Classical Music Meetup group, but it rained.

    Saw the DVD of the first episode of the Terry Jones history series Barbarians.  I learned a lot of new stuff about the Celts.

September 1, 2010

"They say he's the new us, two or three years from now"--Thirtysomething

    The internet was back in the morning.

    Dinner was KFC.

    Went to the Games Meetup.  I played The Amazeing Labyrinth, Ticket to Ride (American), and Smallworld, where my races were heroic ghouls, swamp amazons and diplomatic trolls.

    In the evening the internet went off again!

    Went to another Lunch Meetup at the Mandarin. (My fortune said my hard work will soon be rewarded...)

August 31, 2010

Bart: "I am the creature from Uranus!"--The Simpsons

    Dreamed of being a politician and delivering funny lines about the transparent hypocrisy of Republican Senator Orrin Hatch (who actually said "The death penalty is about the sanctity of human life"!)

    The internet's been down for hours!

    Went shopping.

    Dinner was another lentil pie. (I usually supplement that with some fast food, but today I didn't feel like it, that's how hot it was!)

    Saw the DVD of the first episode of Stephen Fry in America, where the title tells all. (He drove through all 50 states in a black London-style taxi.) Pretty amusing.

    I also saw the DVD of "Blood of the Dragon," the last Kung Fu episode that I saw at the time. (Not that I disliked it so much.)

    The internet connection came back in the evening, then conked out again!

August 30, 2010

"Houses with kids are always sticky"--Thirtysomething

"It's weird to be in a park without tear gas"--ibid.

Milhous (to himself): "If you do whatever she [Lisa] wants you to do, she's sure to respect you!"--The Simpsons

Ned: "I did everything that the Bible says, even the parts that contradict the other parts!"--ibid.

    Dreamed that we were living in Bedford-Stuyvesand in New York City.

    Went to the old Games Meetup at Snakes & Lattes near Bathurst Station. (That's a new coffee shop aimed at board gamers with hundreds of games available to customers.  We went there in the daytime to honour its opening day.  I played Agricola and Bohnanza.

    Dinner was spaghetti.

    Saw the DVD of the first episode of Thirtysomething (which I don't think I even watched back in the 1980s). Of its time.

August 29, 2010

    Dreamed of visiting a non-existent New Brunswick community called Covent Garden; finding some of my comics collection in an office there, left on some stairs.

    I lent out my Metropass and Katie went on her first subway journey.

    The girls went home in the afternoon.

    Dinner was McDonald's. (Lucky they accepted my $50 bill!)

    Went to the new Games Meetup at the Fox & Fiddle near St. Clair station.  I played Munchkin and The Amazeing Labyrinth.  I was pretty unlucky at Munchkin:  my steed got stolen, my hireling got killed, and after I got a "wandering monster" card and needed a monster to play it with, I kept getting useless race cards!

August 28, 2010

     Dreamed of the World War I song "Hinky Dinky Parlee Voo"; seeing the face of the moon in closeup detail.

    Went to another NDP Meetup.  We went through Mount Pleasant Cemetery again, then had lunch at the Fox and Fiddle. (I had a lamb curry.)

    The rest of the family were here for dinner, which was churrasco chicken.

    Saw the Garbo documentary DVD.

    Then I saw a couple of episodes from the DVD Treasures of the Twilight Zone.  Pretty imaginative in a middlebrow way.

    IKEA delivered us a new sofa for the sun room we've rebuilt.

August 27, 2010

    Dreamed of being about to sing a soloist role in an opera of Oliver Twist, as a female character; the start of the bank-robbery movie Dog Day Afternoon; getting up the nerve to climb the side of a building and get into a rooftop position to observe the robbery.

    The Garbo documentary DVD showed up after all!  Now I'll have to unreport the problem somehow...

    Katie came to Toronto to see Sarah's band camp in performance.  She was here for dinner, which was pizza.

    Went to see Puccini's opera Girl of the Golden West with the Classical Music Meetup group.  It was a free open-air screening on the lawn in front of the Italian consulate.  The La Scala production was good enough, but the opera was only so-so, and I left after the first act.

August 26, 2025

"Plymouth... a town of a thousand souls--and a few heels"--Pilgrim Porky

    Dreamed of the comic strip Alley Oop; that sticky stuff that connects coupons inside magazines coming out of my mouth.

    Baked cheese bread.

    Dinner was chicken curry.

August 25, 2010

    The Greta Garbo documentary zip.ca sent us on the 16th still hasn't arrived!  I've reported it missing.

    Dinner was KFC.

    Went to the Games Meetup. (I found a cloth bag at Loblaw's that carries all of my games!) I played The Amazeing Labyrinth twice--the second time by the slower official rules--Kingsburg and Ticket to Ride.

August 24, 2010

Porky Pig: "Come back, you left a little bear behind!"--Polar Pals

    Dreamed of the actual Bette Davis movie The Great Lie (which I saw almost 30 years ago and don't remember much about); actor Geoffrey Rush.

    Saw the T.A.M.I. concert DVD two more times before returning it.  Gerry and the Pacemakers' "It's Gonna Be Alright" and Lesley Gore's "Hey Now" are keepers. A twelve-year-old with Mick Jagger's expression is a twerp; a grownup with the same expression is a star!

    I also dreamed of Smokey Robinson as an executive at a record company. (According to T.A.M.I. DVD commentary, he's actually a vice-president at Motown Records.)

    Dinner was fettucine alfredo (which I cooked).

August 22, 2010

    Dreamed of a non-existent movie with Groucho Marx as the patriarch of a marginal mining family (and Harpo and Chico as their sons).

    Father and I vacuumed my room for the first time in a long while.

    Dinner was macaroni.

    Started the sports issue of Lapham's Quarterly.

    Tried to attend another dance class at Mel Lastman Square, but when I got there it was raining. (The Meetup event was cancelled, but I was glad to get out of the house.)

    Saw the last episode of Playing Shakespeare.  Some brilliant actors in it!

    Late in the evening my niece Sarah arrived here to spend a week at a circus camp!

August 21, 2010

    Dreamed of the comedians Wayne and Shuster; travelling in the U.S.A.; being given the costume of a Greek army officer; the actual old-fashioned practice of ladies communicating with their fan (e.g. dropping your fan on the floor so a gentleman can pick it up and get to know you).

    Saw the DVD of the T.A.M.I. pop concert (for the third or fourth time). Great fun, though Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas have not stood the test of time...

    Dinner was pizza.

    Went to a Games Meetup with a new group at the Starbuck's near Runnymede Station. (It's the same group that posted the wrong Starbuck's for the last event.) I played Monopoly, where I was the first to get busted, and The Amazeing Labyrinth.

    Finished the first half of Little Dorrit.  Awkward and uneven, but it's still Dickens!

August 20, 2010

    Dreamed of crossing a foot bridge over the Bering Strait with Mother to visit Siberia; finding the place dirty and smelly; seeing smoke coming out of small volcanoes.

    Dinner was tortellini.

August 19, 2010

"And as to that, they may live for ever.  My dear, they are just the kind of people to do it"--Little Dorrit

"Now here's one of the advantages, or disadvantages, of knowing a disappointed man.  You hear the truth"--ibid.

    Dreamed of spending the night in a Korean home; actress Victoria Tennant (Steve Martin's ex-wife); a tourism ad that said

When New York was a village, London was a town

When New York was a town, London was a city

When New York was a city, London was a great city

(I could be a Mad man!)

    Baked whole wheat bread.

    Dinner was roast chicken.

    Went to an Introvert Meetup.  We met at the corner of Spadina and College and went to the Moonbean [sic] coffee house.  I had a lemonade with honey instead of sugar (quite tart!).

August 18, 2010

    Dreamed of the actual scene in The Van where Colm Meaney is learning to fry ships, and when his wife asks for an example of a simile he says "Me chips are burnt as fuck!" and has to feed the swear jar.

    Dinner was salmon.

    Saw the cinemacast of the Metropolitan Opera production of Carmen at a Sheppard Grande rescreening.  I met Mary and the Classical Music Meetup group, but sat at a different place.  This production was well-staged, anc Elina Garanca is hot!

    While I was there, I bought a ticket to the Proms cinemacast next month.  It was my first purchase using the Scene card I got the other day.

    There was a huge crowd in my neighbourhood around midnight.

August 17, 2010

    Dreamed of inheriting a Spanish kingdom along the Persian Gulf from my brother and awaiting the effects of a nuclear explosion upriver; going to see a double bill at the cinema in my hometown Sackville, N.B., that included a Marx Brothers movie [when I was a kid I saw a Marx Brothers double bill there]; the Peary expedition that discovered the North Pole.

    Dinner was a lentil pie Moira baked. (I sneaked out to McDonald's afterward.)

    Went shopping in the evening for a change.

August 16, 2010

Wife-killer Rigaud (posing as gentleman Blandois): "...and chivalry towards the [female] sex is a part of my character! ...but without appreciation I could not be Blandois"--Little Dorrit

    Moved my bed from the south wall of my room to the west. (I was going to wait for Father and John to finish rebuilding my window, but their work got interrupted.)

    Dinner was the rest of the churrasco chicken.

    Went to the Columbus Centre to see if there was a Coro Verdi meeting tonight, but it seemed to be the wrong time.

    Read 45 pages of Little Dorrit.

    Saw the documentary Babies at the Carlton. (It's the first time I went there since it reopened under Rainbow Cinemas.) Pretty cute.

August 15, 2010

"They rode to the top of Oxford Street, and there alighting, dived in among the great streets of melancholy stateliness, and the little streets that try to be as stately and succeed in being more melancholy, of which there is a labyrinth near Park Lane....  Everybody in these streets seemed... to be gone out to dinner, and nobody seemed to be giving the dinners they had gone to"--Little Dorrit

    Dreamed of a non-existent Lenny Bruce sketch satirizing the United Nations; learning of a paint store supplying the foreign community in Chongqing [the subject of my Ph.D. thesis].

    Went to a Games Meetup at the Ryerson Student Centre. (We were going to have it in High Park, but got rained out.) I played the dice game Ra and Agricola.  We use a deck of cards to determine who'll go first, and for Agricola the card said it would go to the one with the loudest voice, which I got hands down--I also scared the whole place!  I got my highest Agricola score ever at 26. (The occupation cards went my way.)

    Donald came over for dinner, which was churrasco chicken.

August 14, 2010

"They believed that foreigners had no independent spirit, as never being escorted to the poll in droves by Lord Decimus Tite Barnacle, with colours flying and the tune of Rule Britannia playing"--Little Dorrit

    Dreamed of reading a magazine describing upcoming movies.

    Dinner was Indian food. (John and Kathrine weren't here, so we ordered lots of meat!)

    Went to a Karaoke Meetup at Bar Plus.  Toward the end, the neighbouring booths got really loud!  Jonah said my rendition of Sid Vicious' "My Way" is quite scary.

August 13, 2010

"There are men who say 'Those kind' who make $100,000 a year!"

"There are guys who say 'Stick 'em up!' who make even more!"

--A Letter to Three Wives

"It was Brad who gave me my first black eye and... and my first kiss"--ibid.

    Dreamed of living in Halifax, unsure what to do next; a British drama about two guys murdering someone and pinning the crime on a third guy.

    Saw the DVD of Joseph Mankiewicz' A Letter to Three Wives.  Juicy.

August 12, 2010

    Dreamed of being driven into Moncton to perform in a band concert only to realize I'd left my instrument behind; a non-existent comic novel by Evelyn Waugh about gambling.

    Baked raisin bread.

    Dinner was beef stroganoff.

August 11, 2010

Allen Barra (reviewing Andrew Morton's Angelina Jolie biography): "Much of Morton's research seems to have been done while standing in supermarket lines"--salon.com

    Dreamed of someone leaving a burning building and diving into the nearby water in time to escape the force of the blast when the whole building exploded!

    Went shopping.

    Dinner was half the corn we bought yesterday.

    Went to the Games Meetup.  I played The Amazeing Labyrinth (introducing Sarah to it), Stone Age and Bang!  We did two games of Bang, and in the first I was an outlaw and managed to kill the Sheriff.

    I've subscribed to some new classic comic strips they're now offering online at Daily Ink [now Comics Kingdom], including The Heart of Juliet Jones and Mandrake the Magician.

August 10, 2010

"When I hold Helene in my arms, I'm holding all the women of the world"--Chloe in the Afternoon

    Dreamed of the parents leaving me at a motel room for a few days; a famous actual photograph of the future Elizabeth II and Princess Margaret playing a piano in their childhood. (I think we had a print of it.)

    We drove to Orchard Home Farm and picked some Gravenstein apples.  But only a few were ripe enough. (We also bought some corn nearby.)

    Dinner was curried scallops.

    Saw Eric Rohmer's Chloe in the Afternoon at the Cinematheque. (It was the last Cinematheque movie I'll see at the Art Gallery of Ontario, before they move into their new building.) Tasty talk typical of Rohmer, though the story is something of a tease.

August 9, 2010

"Nothing would have been wanting to the perfection of his character as a fraternal guide, philosopher, and friend if he had only steered his brother clear of ruin, instead of bringing it upon him"--Little Dorrit

"Use your little noggin!"--Harry Brown

    Dreamed of writing a facetious poem as a postscript in a letter:

  The Erie Canal has pike and bluefin

  If I don't get my fortune, prepare to move in!

    Saw Grandpa's Treasure [sic] of Wonderful Stories, a DVD of animated fables from India. (One was about two friends called Goodie and Baddie!)

    Dinner was spinach lasagna.

    Saw Harry Brown at the Underground. (Fifteen years ago I saw the Chinese epic The Great Conqueror's Concubine there with Puitak, back when it was called the Golden Classics.) A familiar, unpleasant vigilante story, though Michael Caine was well cast.  There were only four of us there, making the place look even bigger!

August 8, 2010

    Went to an NDP Meetup.  We walked through Mount Pleasant Cemetery.

    Dinner was the rest of the corn.

    Went to a Dancing Meetup at Mel Lastman Square.  I participated in a free group class in chacha and jive but couldn't find the other Meetup members.

    Saw the start of the first in a new video series of the original Popeye cartoons by Max Fleischer!

August 7, 2010

    Dreamed of Will Geer, the actor who survived the McCarthyite blacklist and went on to play Grandpa on The Waltons; the TV series The White Shadow.

    We went to Whittamore's Farm (this time in the afternoon) and picked some autumn strawberries.  But most of them are still unripe.

    Dinner was corn on the cob (which we got at Whittamore's Farm).

    Went to a Karaoke Meetup at the Gladstone Hotel. (I'd forgotten how weak some of the Gladstone singers are.) The crowd was so big that I only stayed for one song: "Battle of New Orleans."

August 6, 2010

"He took it as it came, therefore; he tumbled into all kinds of difficulties, and tumbled out of them; and by tumbling through life, got himself considerably bruised"--Little Dorrit

    Dinner was vegan stew and the rest of the pizza.

    Went to a new Games Meetup at the Golden Griddle on Laird Avenue.  It wasn't suited to me.  Half of them played poker and other half played Taboo and Pictionary.  I found just a few people to play Scrabble and The Amazeing Labyrinth with me.

August 5, 2010

    Dreamed of visiting the cottage near our old home in Sackville, N.B.; seeing some signs the Taliban left on the lawn indicating that they'd come back and burn the place down; gathering some old books to save from their fire; playing a computer game involving using a shepherd's crook to gather a flock of sheep.

    Went to see my shrink Dr. Hassan.

    Dinner was pizza.

August 4, 2010

"Whatever was required to be done, the Circumlocution Office was beforehand with all the public departments in the art of perceiving how not to do it!"--Little Dorrit

    Dreamed of researching about a woman married to a Londonderry magistrate, sued in a case of patent violation involving an invention that revolutionized international trade.

    Baked multigrain bread.

    Had lunch at Mandarin Restaurant with the Movie Meetup group.

    Dinner was roast chicken.

    Saw the cinemacast of the Metropolitan Opera's Aida 

production, re-screened at the Sheppard Grande. (Moira was going to come too, but I'd misplaced the E-ticket printout.) That finale gets to me!  I met a couple of people from the Classical Music Meetup afterward.