June 30, 2010

"I'm very careful."
"That's what a lot of people say.  And that's why the hospitals are full of babies!"

--Bang the Drum Slowly

"'Nothing to speak of' has a way of turning into something that has to be spoken of, and very painfully"--The Pallisers

    Dreamed of a memoir by a non-existent Holocaust survivor from Greece; the early 19th-century English practice of burning hay ricks as a political protest, which was punished by hanging.

    Dinner was fish and chips. (The parents went out and bought a ton of strawberries, so we had strawberry shortcake too.)

    I was going to go out to the reopene Carlton cinema and try to catch one of the free movies, but I didn't feel up to it.

    Saw the DVD of Bang the Drum Slowly, with Robert de Niro as a dying baseball player.  Some good dialogue, though I recall preferring the TV play version.

June 29, 2010

    Dreamed of arriving at a Vancouver hotel; a new Harry Potter mystery that everyone was reading.

    Went shopping.

    Dinner was roast chicken.

    Since I upgraded my browser to Safari 5, it's become really erratic! (Hope they update it soon...)

June 28, 2010

    Dreamed of the cartoon series Daria (which I've only seen once); reflecting on the song Do They Know It's Christmas? and considering that most Ethiopian Christians are in the Coptic church which still uses the Julian calendar, so Christmas would come a couple of weeks later for them.

    The sun room is now painted blue.

    Dinner was curried shrimp. (This time, Mother was the one too sick to eat.)

June 27, 2010

"You don't trust me a yard, do you, Wharton?"

"Not a millimetre, Lopes!"

--The Pallisers

    Dreamed of mixing different flavours of pudding.

    Went to a Games Meetup at the Yellow Griffin.

    My first game was Smallworld, where my races were mounted skeletons, berserk humans and wealthy amazons.  The second was Ticket to Ride, where I smoked 'em with 129 points!

    John came over for dinner, which was pork roast.

    

June 26, 2010

Eddie Albert: "Charlie's my name, charm's my game!"--Carrie

    Dreamed of a non-existent slapstick comedy with pupils rebelling against an oppressive school, with a roller coaster climax; an actual incident where Jenny Lind gave a concert in 1850s Toronto and scalpers ended up having to resell tickets at a discount; Laurence Alma-Tadema's actual poem "If No-One Ever Marries Me."

    Dinner was pizza.

    I was going to attend a Karaoke Meetup at Bar Plus, but the whole downtown has become inaccessible because of the G-20 Conference!  I don't blame the anarchists; I'd rather blame the G20 for inconveniencing everyone with these big, pointless exercises.

    Saw the DVD of William Wyler's Carrie, from Theodore Dreiser's powerful novel Sister Carrie.  Wyler was an expert director.  Laurence Olivier is far sexier here than in Rebecca, and Jennifer Jones is better than usual.

June 25, 2010

    Dreamed of the SCTV sketch "The Sammy Maudlin Show"; a non-existent ribald exchange at the end of the movie The Candidate. (It actually ended with the line "What do we do now?")

    We ate out at the Red Lobster with Donald. (I was going to attend an Asperger's Meetup, but decided this was a higher priority.)

    In the evening I got sick again. (More phlegm, presumably.  I hope this is the turning point!)

June 24, 2010

    Went to see my shrink Dr. Hassan.

    Patron Tony Fusco treated the Coro Verdi committee to dinner at the Boccaccio restaurant in Columbus Centre. (I had minestrone soup, salmon and tiramisu.) We talked a lot about plans for the choir.

    On the bus on the way there, I stretched my fee and accidentally brushed against the foot of a woman sitting near me.  She yelled "Stop kicking my legs!" and made a big scene.