Wish I Had Brought My Camera

I went downtown today to get some shopping done and had conveniently forgotten that it was Doors Open this weekend in Toronto. So after I was done with my business at the mall (including scoring that free burger from Harvey's) I went to a few of the closest buildings.

First off was old City Hall, which has a really nice exterior and decent interior. Then I went to Osgoode Hall, which was quite pretty inside. The courtrooms, the great library, and convocation hall were all open inside, so I got to see those too. Then I went to City Hall, which was pretty cool. Here's a video, it's crappy quality because I had to convert it from a .3gp to an .avi file.



There were some displays/pieces done by the Toronto Garden club inside, which were really nicely done. There were so many people walking around with SLR cameras, it was hilariously awesome. And lastly, I wanted to go to Elgin Theater, but it was closed for shows by the time I got down there.

Hmm, what to make for dinner tonight...

Never Need A Reason, Never Need A Rhyme

I opened up my inbox this morning was greeted by the following message:


Can't wait for the day she shows up on my doorstep and takes me to go dancing with chimney sweeps. ;)

How The Internet Works

I've had an account on Last.fm for a long time and I noticed several months ago that there's now a section where the main page recommends free mp3s for me to download through the site. I'm a sucker for new music, so I always peruse that section every now and then.

A few days ago I noticed new songs and downloaded a bunch of them. Only one was good enough to be added to iTunes, a song by Imogen Heap (I love her) called 'The Song That Never Was'. Now the version of the song I had was called the TekMonki Mix and had a nice electronic beat in the background that I really enjoyed, but I still wanted to hear the original version. So I opened up Limewire and searched and searched and... you get the point. No luck. Alas.

I changed my tactic and decided to google the song, hoping to find a download link for the original version somewhere. Instead, it came to my attention that there was no original version.

From the website:

Imogen Heap wrote a track recently that was supposed to feature at the end of TV show. She wrote the song and recorded all the vocals, leaving the music for the composer who was writing the rest of the score. For one reason or another the song wasn’t used and so the track never got completed.

Now, Imogen wants you to download the parts and add your own musical interpretation.

Basically, people were allowed to download her vocal tracks and drop in their own music, and everyone's attempts were shared online. That's why there was no original, only-Imogen version. There's just people's mixes. Anyway, one of the tracks you could download for song-making purposes was something called a click track, which is sorta like a digital metronome.

After my own horrific attempts to lay Imogen's vocal tracks over some sick Tiesto beats, I wondered if there was any way to alter the click track I had been given. So I googled click tracks and somehow ended up at this blog post about click tracks, which eventually led me to another post about a BPM explorer app and from there I discovered this video on Vimeo. While the video is a pretty awesome visualization of music, I was more taken by the song itself. The creator of the video mentioned it was a song by Broken Social Scene but the title of the song was unclear.

Googling the band name and some of the lyrics ("it's a cruel world") revealed that the name of the song was '7/4 (Shoreline)', which I promptly downloaded and have been listening to ever since. No wonder; the lead vocals are done by Feist, whom I love to itty bitty pieces. :D

I just thought it was so crazy/cool how I discovered the current song I'm listening to through another random song I discovered. The internet is awesome sometimes.

Aural Therapy

It came to my attention recently that Coldplay released a new live album. Sweet, right? What if I said it was free too? BOOYAH! Name of the album is Left Right Left Right and contains old favourites such as 'Clocks', 'Viva La Vida', and 'Fix You'. But there's also a song I've never heard before that I'm really digging called 'Glass of Water'. It's very upbeat and there's a time signature change in the middle... I love those. Screw the click track! ;) The other newish track is 'Death Will Never Conquer', which is the song Will Champion sang at the last concert I went to. It's not my style but Will is an absolute sweetheart and I love him. Besides, after listening to a lot of American Idol's insipidness tonight, the sweet dulcet tones of Chris Martin (and the enthusiastic crowd) is a balm upon my sore ears. ;)

ETA: Note to self... Tim Horton's is giving out free small iced caps tomorrow and it will be 30 degrees. Capitalize!

Vegas Anecdotes & Weird Metaphors

• When we went shopping at the outlet mall, the food court had these LCD monitors that played music videos that you could vote for by texting on your phone. The moment we all sat down for our food, I'm Gone, I'm Going by Lesley Roy started playing, an obscure song that I only know through Rock Band 2's downloadable content. Then immediately after, All Around Me by Flyleaf started playing, which is another obscure and fairly old rock song I never expected to be see.
  
  
• While waiting for my flight out of Vegas, a couple sat down next to me. They looked to be in their late 30s or maybe early 40s; both looked kinda weathered but you could tell they had been very attractive when they were young. Anyway, the wife sat down a seat away from me and reached for some water and medication as the husband slowly ambled over and took the seat right next to me. Then they began to argue. He asked something like "do you have to take that stuff?" (meaning her pills, I guess) and she replied with something like "of course, what the hell are you talking about?" And then it became apparent to me that these two viciously hated each other; the wife said "I don't know what I was thinking when I married you", the husband badmouthed her parents and got all in her face, she was like "Oh I dare you, I dare you to start with me" and then she stormed off. They didn't reunite until they had to be on the plane together. It was drama-licious.
  
  
• Getting into Studio 54 and Wet Republic cost me exactly $0 at both places. Hooray for being a feminine young woman.
  
  
• Everyone we met on the trip was so nice, from the other Grand Canyon tourists, to people in the casinos and hotels. The only times people were not so nice were:
  
  
  • the one time I was alone on the strip and a couple of drunk guys heckled me and
    
    
  • when I was on the getting on the plane in Vegas and some woman smacked me in the face with her hand and kept walking.
  
  
• During the day, Luxor reminded me of Lost because of the Egyptian hieroglyphs. During the night, Luxor reminded me of Stargate. The movie, I mean. It was like: "The Egyptian aliens are coming!" ;)
  
  
• I really wanted to buy a CSI: Las Vegas t-shirt while I was there, but I wasn't willing to pay more than $10 for one. Needless to say, I came home empty handed.
  
  
• Las Vegas surprised me in certain ways. First off, it was amazing how many elderly people were there. Wheelchairs abounded at the airport and on the local transit system. The city was far more accessible than I expected it to be. Secondly, you could find sugarfree candy and sweets at most places too. I don't know if this is in response to the American obesity epidemic, but it was still good to see that options like that were available for those who need it i.e. diabetics.
  
  
• Unfortunately, after a day or two in Vegas I developed an annoying second-hand smoker's cough. I never cough, but back when smoking was still legal in clubs I used to wake up the next day hacking like crazy. The casinos stank like smoke so bad, it was disgusting. I love that you can't smoke inside up here.

Oh man, a post just went up at Pandagon that explains elitist racism using an extended Pokemon metaphor, alongside an image of a giant pokeball floating along at the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade. I did my best not to choke on my snack when I read the tongue-in-cheek line (I shit thee not) "I choose you, Negrochu!" Oh Pandagon... *headshake*

I Got Seriously Tanned Last Week!

Back from Vegas and was it ever fun! It's so jarring to come back to rain and arctic winds when you've spent a week in a dry, sweltering desert; it was like 35 degrees there every day. Man, that place is crazy architecture-wise. In the beginning, I couldn't help but think: "This amount of excessive grandeur seems wrong somehow." Vegas is an oasis of hedonism in the middle of nowhere. It was surprising how nice people were.

Saw the Grand Canyon and the Hoover Dam too while I was down there, which was awesome. In Vegas itself, we visited a ton of the hotels/casinos like MGM Grand, Luxor, Mandalay Bay, Excalibur, Monte Carlo, New York New York, Planet Hollywood, the Bellagio, Caeser's Palace, the Mirage, Treasure Island, Circus Circus, the Venetian, and the Golden Nugget down on Freemont Street. I have to admit that it felt pretty cool to finally see for myself a lot of things I knew from CSI. Clark County! Desert Palms Hospital! Henderson! Lake Mead! ;D

Did some shopping while we were there too, mostly of the clothing and jewelery variety. I bought myself the biggest margarita ever (as seen in Flickr), which I drank far too fast in sweltering weather... not a good idea hahahaha. But I got the souvenir I wanted in the end and that's what matters. One night I went out to Studio 54, which was lots of fun, great music. Watched the fountains at the Bellagio and the volcano at the Mirage too. Didn't get to do absolutely everything I wanted to while I was there (it was only 5 days, after all) but I did have a fantastic time. :)

Totally Missed House and The Big Bang Theory Tonight

Today was a busy day.

I had an interview in the morning where I felt I did a really good job of showing how skillful I am in my field. When I got back home, I checked the weather report and saw it's supposed to rain on and off until Sunday, even though today was sunny. Clearly, there's only one thing for a Torontonian with a sunny, free May afternoon to do: cherry blossom viewing at High Park! I took pictures, not just of cherry blossoms and not just in High Park, but the cherry blossoms were the main attraction.



After romping through the park with my camera, I met up with a friend for a free yoga class downtown. It was one of those basic, starter classes but it was still really good because: 1) it was only four of us and small classes are always better, 2) even though the two of us have both Moksha and Bikram yoga experience, we'd never been formally taught the basic poses from the ground up. It was good to figure out exact how to get the most of the poses and see what I consistently do wrong. Might go for another class on Saturday or Sunday.

Yoga is fun but... weird. I dunno, tons of people are into it but whenever I'm in a class I can't stop thinking things like "LOL instructor teaching me Sanskrit when I can recite sacred hymns" or "thanks to capitalism my religion is being sold to the highest bidder". :P

Anyway, after yoga me and my friend got Thai for dinner. It was so greasy it almost made me nauseous. And it was at a restaurant I usually like too. Every second that passes between the last bite of my meal and now alleviates the grossness in my stomach, so I guess I'll just have to sit this out until I feel better.

And that was my day. *falls over*