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28 July 2005

My weekend in Muskoka was delightful.

I took Friday off and took the train up to Bracebridge. Alan picked me up from the train station and then we drove around for the rest of the day (Barrie, Port Carling, Port Sanfield, Rosseau, a lot of other places I can't remember...). And what a gorgeous day it was! In fact, all weekend the weather cooperated (except for Sunday, but it was still oookay). Then we (myself, Alan, his parents, his sister, his sister's boyfriend, and his parents) went to the New Ark for dinner. The waiter turned out to be one of Laura's friends from high school--small world indeed! After dinner we went for a boat ride, and saw a harvest moon rise (very, very eerie but beautiful at the same time). It looked like a orange ball floating over the lake, and then gradually higher and higher. I wish I had my camera with me, but I'd absent-mindedly left it in my backpack. After that, Alan and I went to Gravenhurst to visit Laura! We went to Lakers (.... slightly seedy, but still fun) for drinks and then hung out at Laura's until the wee hours of Saturday morn.

The remainder of Saturday was spent sleeping in (something I haven't done in FOREVER!) and boating! We visited Alan's grandparents, went swimming off their dock, visited his dad's friend, stopped by Jono's cottage for a while, then back to his dad's friend's, then to get Chinese food. I was exhausted by the end of the evening, and so we rented Runaway Jury (John Cusack!) and watched that.

Sunday was not so busy, but I was still very tired from Saturday. We just lazed around, watched the end Tour de France, then we went "downtown" and walked around. I bought some overpriced souvenirs (the best kind!). And then I was back on the train to Toronto, where I spent another night with Ama at her aunt's house before I packed up and went back to Markham.

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17 July 2005

I can't think of much to complain about these days. Most things are fabulous, and things that are not are usually my own idiotic doings.

Work is great. The people are so supportive and I am learning much.

Summer school is as good as it gets. I am convinced it is one of the better mistakes I've made. Although I was careless enough to submit a program (out of the two we had to do for the first assignment) that didn't compile, I still did quite well on the rest of the assignment, and I got the higest midterm exam mark in the class, which was really encouraging after my foolish first assignment.

The past few days, the food gods (God?) has been smiling upon me. I've been eating out for almost every meal thanks to my laziness in not waking up early enough to eat breakfast, not packing a lunch, and not cooking dinner. This weekend has been really, really fab though.

Ama and I cooked dinner Friday night: the mussels and veggies we always make, wine spritzers, and these crazyawesome screwdrivers with gorgeous garnishes and half a 26er. Way to not have a shotglass--the blender is a big measuring cup. Err...!

Saturday:
Ama woke up insanely early while I slept in and made pancakes from scratch, throwing in caramel bits from Skor bars. They were served with bacon, orange juice, and freshly picked raspberries.

Lunch in Greektown after my optometrist appointment, iced green tea blended lemonade from Starbucks, and shopping at the Big Carrot where I scored Stash Tea for less than $3/box (I usually pay almost $5/box at the Kitchen Table near work!). We had this kickass dip (red caviar, spices, some other deliciousness I don't remember) and chicken souvlaki--my favourite!--at Kalyvia.

Dinner was Summerlicious! I went to Canoe with Alex and his friends (I was the lone Torontonian; they were all from Laurier or Waterloo). The food was fabulous, although I was slightly apprehensive of the appetizer I chose (scallops and shrimp, garnished with buttered popcorn and some greens). I guess my taste buds aren't completely cultured quite yet. The salmon with watercress and butternut tart dessert with ginger ice cream were deee-lish! Refreshing wine spritzer-y beverages were consumed, but not in such quantities as the previous night.

Today promises to bring more good food. I am going to the Beaches Jazz Festival with Janette, Ally, Brandon, and Jessica (if we don't get rained out first!). We are having dinner somewhere and then I am going back to Ama's, where we will make raspberry papaya milkshakes with a gigantic papaya purchased in Greektown (and I do mean gigantic--I've seen smaller melons!) and vanilla soymilk.

Outside of the food realm...

I will be staying with Ama for the next week or so (she's house-sitting for her uncle and aunt), and then I will be in Bracebridge for the weekend visiting Alan. I think I'm going to read Mona in the Promised Land on the train. A few weeks later, I will trek to Ottawa (for the first time, surprise surprise, eh?!) in honour of Will's nineteenth. At the end of August, it's off to Haliburton for a big bash at Laura's cottage before we all move back to St. Hilda's.

So much of the summer has already passed. Sometimes I wish it will go on forever, and other times I am dying for second year to start. Fickle, I am.

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10 July 2005

The long weekend was excellent. Hung out with lotsa people and had too much fun (only the best kind!).

This weekend was really great too. Got a shift at the pool and went to the Weezer/Pixies show.

[Weezer Concert review]

I have had little to no exposure to the Pixies before last night, but I found their set to be much more spirited and energized than the Weezer set, which I did not find to be impressive at all. Given that the last time I saw Weezer was something like 3 years ago at the exact same venue (Dashboard Confessional opened), I had extremely high expectations because that show was flawless. They played almost EVERYTHING off of Blue and Pinkerton, and a few off of Green (which at the time, was *new*, haha). Rivers wore a suit with a tie, and it was one of Scott Shriner's first shows as Weezer bassist #3. To all the die-hard Matt Sharp fans, I say Shriner is here to stay and is probably the next best for the job. What needs to return is River's lyrical and musical genius à la Blue and Pinkerton, because he's the one that controls the majority of the writing.

Fast forward back to last night.

I thought the Weezer set was weak, but my impression of Rivers being a complete asshole to the rest of the band definitely coloured that, which is again, unfair. They opened with Say it Ain't So, and throughout the set, played Buddy Holly, Getchoo, El Scorcho (which was the set's saving grace, in my humble opinion), Death and Destruction (which I also throughly enjoyed because they changed it up and played it with no vocals; it was purely instrumental), Island in the Sun, and one of the encores was Hash Pipe. I couldn't help but notice how bloody slow Getchoo was. It was like molasses. I'm not sure why they played it like that, but I didn't mind it too much.

The rest of the set was comprised of the new album, from which I recognized nothing except for Berverly Hills. I really don't know what to make of the new single: I am torn between applauding the blatant reference to drugs, and lamenting it being a last-ditch effort to appeal to a new and younger fanbase which commercially, is probably a smart move (but not one that I necessarily support). There's something about the lyrics of the new album that lack the substance that has defined Weezer, even through the Green album. It's something even more mediocre than Green, which I don't think was bad per se. I don't think it was meant as a musical statement more than just a personal statement by Rivers in response to the dismal sales of Pinkerton ("Here's the crap you wanted, now give me money"), which in my opinion, is the BEST. As much as I love Blue, Pinkerton beats blue on intricacy, and there's something to be said about baring one's soul so eloquently.

All in all, any long-time Weezer fan has to know that something is terribly amiss when you see twelve-year-old teenybops with Louis Vuitton bags and Tiffany chains at a Weezer show: either the world has really turned and left me here, or I am just damn old.

[/Weezer Concert Review]

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