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it’s been a while, but this past winter in toronto wasn’t the optimal time for capturing craziness. all of the crazies were too covered with snow.

i might as well start off a new season of random photo posts with a bang - photos of a house on crawford just north of queen. is this supposed to be decorative? is it designed to drive down the property values of the street? is it a way of punishing old toys? if anyone has some insight (aside from the obvious “they’re crazy”), please let me know.

this kind of brought to mind another house i came across late last summer, but it’s really not a fair comparison. i still have to ask though - how many wind chimey lawn ornamenty things does one balcony need?

a few weeks ago, i helped a speech-language pathology grad student with an experiment, which, i discovered belatedly, resembled a clockwork orange a bit too closely for my liking. in summary, i had the pleasure of enduring an hour in an MEG (without moving or dozing off, and while listening to and repeating nonsense words), and another 15 minutes in an MRI. the bonus? i was given a copy of the MRI.

so, for those of you who have wondered what my brain could possibly look like, or who just wanted proof that i do in fact have one, this is for you:

even better is that i can manipulate the MRI file and do all sorts of fun things, like finding out what i would look like without hair. the answer: very similar to destro from GI joe. i’ll leave deciding which one is which as an exercise.

after 4 years of waiting, the salteens have finally released two new songs as part of their new two songs a month project. and they’re good!

as a music snob/elitist/addict, it’s strange for me to be at a live show and not know the music as well as everyone around me. it’s like the first time i saw cake live, back in 2001 at massey hall. i was familiar with their latest album, but i was late to the cake game and everyone around me was singing along to a lot of songs i’d never heard before. the same sort of thing kind of happened to me last night at the wintersleep show at the phoenix. i’d seen wintersleep once before, at the wolfe island music fest a couple years ago, and was decidedly non-plussed - i guess i was always curious about how a band that clearly would’ve fit in with the grunge bands of the mid-90s seemed to be building such a following. anyway, their new album was good enough for me to give them another chance, but my lack of familiarity with their back catalogue left me in the dark for a good part of the show.

the show itself started out exceptionally strong - the first half was surprisingly fantastic. in fact, the first half of their set inspired me to write this blog entry, something i haven’t done after a show in over a year. i was prepared to rave about how amazing they were live, and how my mind has been changed after the last couple years of criticism. and then the second half came, and it was like another band took over - clearly they frontloaded their set list with new (read: “good”) songs, and once they had played such gems as weighty ghost, dead letter & the infinite yes and archaeologists, there was nowhere to go but down. the clear highlight of the second half, it must be said, was watching their frenetic drummer, especially during the set’s closing 20 minute jam (during which he was framed by spotlights while the remaining band members melted into the background). is it even possible to drum melodically? ’cause he sure came close to it during that jam. he’s now officially on my list of most amazing drummers to watch live, along with the drummer whose name i don’t even know from the high water marks and oranger, kurt dahle from new pornographers and limblifter, doug constantine, and lonnie james from the super friendz. without him, i probably would’ve left early.

i should also mention that the russian futurists opened, and were pretty much exactly how i remembered them from when i saw them in kingston - decidedly unengaging, but with good songs that seem to translate better on their recordings. they played their 3 best songs in a row early in the set, and again, like wintersleep, really had nowhere to go but down. there isn’t really too much you can do to liven up a show like that, when everyone’s just playing keyboards. there were a couple songs when one of the keyboardists picked up a guitar, but i have no proof that he was actually playing it. in summary, even the good songs weren’t enough to totally win me over.

note to maie potts and the other woman hosting tonight’s tokyo police club show at nathan phillips square:
one moment you are upset about the lack of respect from the crowd, and the next you are talking about next week’s concert featuring the weakertons. i can’t imagine why you weren’t getting the crowd’s respect.

there was a great line in last sunday’s toronto star article entitled “road testing the $100 laptop’s ‘appropriate technology’” by ryan bigge, discussing the TRS-80 model 100, a laptop from 1983:

for any youngsters reading this, 300-baud is only slightly faster than watching jean-dominique bauby composing a sentence in the diving bell and the butterfly.

and if you haven’t seen that film, please please do.

as you may (or quite possibly may not) have noticed, i’ve finally given chumptastic a long overdue makeover. in the process, i’ve moved chumptastic to a real host (rather than an ancient and slowly dying P2-800 PC that’s been sitting on my floor for 4 or 5 years), and i’ve finally ditched movabletype in favour of wordpress.

things are still a bit rough around the edges, so bear with me. oh, and you’ll have to update your feeds - apologies.

i know that chumptastic has pretty much lost whatever relevancy it once had, but since i’m the kind of person who enjoys making lists, i figured i would do so even if i’m the only one who ends up reading it. for the first time ever, i didn’t attend enough live shows to include a favourites list, which is kind of shocking considering i went to something like 53 only a couple years ago. anyway, on with the lists:

honourable mentions:
patrick watson - close to paradise
v/a - friends in bellwoods
feist - the reminder
the memories attack - the memories attack
of montreal - hissing fauna, are you the destroyer?
handsome furs - plague park
sondre lerche - phantom punch
los campesinos! - sticking fingers into sockets

honourable mentions:
weakerthans - civil twilight
okkervil river - a hand to take hold of the scene
julie doiron - no more
the superfantastics - the only one i c++ is u++
jens lekman - the opposite of hallelujah
the new pornographers - failsafe
handsome furs - dead + rural
camp radio - bleed the real estate girls
(edit: how did i forget pedal pusher by abdominal?)

honourable mentions:
american gangster
redacted
this film is not yet rated
let’s all hate toronto

you know, i can’t help but wonder how a major intersection in toronto, such as queen and bathurst, could be closed for a week without much advance notice. specifically - how could said intersection be closed as of this morning for streetcar track repairs without someone who lives 2 blocks away (i.e. me) not being aware until this morning? should there not have been signs up and down queen for the last month? should the affected streetcar stops not have had a warning ahead of time? i GUESS it’s possible that i just missed something, but i find that unlikely.

granted, i DID see a blurb in the star yesterday stating that TTC track replacement would begin this morning at queen and bathurst, and to look at the TTC’s website for more information. i dutifully did so, and didn’t see anything obvious about this - no mention of the queen streetcar line at all. i figured that it couldn’t be affecting the queen line or else it would have SAID so, right? so i went back and looked this morning, and after scanning a few times, i found this entry located under the 509 harbourfront heading:
Starting Monday, October 15, reconstruction of the streetcar tracks will begin in the
intersection of Bathurst Street & Queen Street.

needless to say, it was a terrific start to my week.

this might be the best thing i’ve ever seen on queen street west…

a croquet player:

and his fancy bike chariot:

what’s especially funny is that he purchased parking tags for his bike…so i guess that makes it LEGAL.