Thursday 24 January 2008

Come aboard...we're expecting you


It's vacation time people. As of tomorrow I'm leaving the snow and cold behind and heading south. Plans include, but are not limited to, seeing the Barenaked Ladies, Great Big Sea, Sarah Harmer, Harland Williams and others perform, visiting Stingray City, and having a number of umbrella drinks on board, in Grand Cayman, Jamaica and anywhere else we manage to find a bar ;-). Have a good week or so while I'm not around to keep up with the news on the interweb...





Friday 11 January 2008

I'm in Love

Please meet the newest object of my affection. I believe we have a long and happy relationship ahead of us.














So I watch a lot of TV. I mean, a lot of TV. At any one time in the active television season I could be recording 25-30 shows a week on my PVR. (Now, of course, the strike means I've got some more time on my hands). I have a couple of friends who have mentioned planning an intervention to deal with my addiction. Now some of these people don't actually own televisions so really, what do they know?? When I finally got my hands on a PVR it felt like a religious conversion of some sort. It's not an overstatement to say it changed my life.

I have been watching all of this TV for the past 6 years on a 32” tube television, which wasn’t the height of technology when I purchased it at that time. (Why, I argued with myself, would I spend the extra $300 just to get a screen that was flat when I new there was better technology just around the corner). And since then I’ve been reluctant to commit, reluctant to spend the money, and fairly satisfied with the TV I owned.

I finally took the plunge. With the Christmas gift of some cash from my parents (with a cute little TV picture drawn in the memo section of the check) and the knowledge that my bonus this year was going to be my best ever, I headed out on Boxing ‘week’ to procure an HD TV. And have spent the last two weeks waiting for my spot in line in the delivery schedule. Well, last night it arrived. The very helpful delivery/installation guy helped me move the heavy old TV and the top section of the wall unit that housed the old TV and went to work connecting all of the wiring. After setting the TV up he said, “you know, I think your unit will still fit with the new TV”. And lo and behold it did, with mere millimeters to spare on either side. It looks IKEA custom designed it with this TV in mind…and I get to keep my shelf space!

I ordered a pizza (bad Heather!), poured myself a beer and settled in on the couch for the night. I’d still be there if I could. What the heck took me so long??

Wednesday 9 January 2008

Hey, hey...it's January

I was recently taken to task for not having updated this page in a while...who knew anyone was actually reading it?!? And then I realized I had a half written post from the week before Christmas when I was killing time (I mean, working really hard) at the office, which makes no sense at all now. So, in the spirit of starting off the new year with a clean slate, I'll start over.


I know I'm not the only one having a hard time getting my shit together and back to productivity after the holidays. As evidenced by last Saturday night's "We're not ready to let go of 2007 Pub Crawl", many of you seem to be in the same boat. I'm not sure why it seems to be harder this year. Maybe it's rebelling against another year passing and feeling like I don't have much to show for it. Maybe it's feeling a bit exhausted at the thought of all the things I need to accomplish in the coming months. Or maybe it's just too many late nights and too much drinking over the holidays (no seriously, look at my facebook pictures, I'm holding a drink at almost every occasion) that's taking a bit more time to recover from. Whatever it is, I'm hoping that the recovery is just around the corner and I'm back to feeling productive and energized.

And I have a lot of good stuff coming up in the next little while. The Toronto Rock season kicks off with the home opener this Friday and the 9th season of Section 111ers is set to begin. I'm seeing a couple of plays/musicals/movies over then next few weeks. And in three weeks from Friday I'm taking off to Miami to set sail on Ships & Dip III (cause II is best not remembered) with my mom and a bunch of bands and comedians and hitting Grand Cayman and Ocho Rios en route (what was I saying about giving up late nights and drinking?).

I'll tell you what I won't be doing...watching the Golden Globe Awards on Sunday night. I had at least three people call or email to express their condolences when the cancellation was announced (apparently I've been quite vocal about the Globes being my favourite award show). I've been coping with this strike to date, while lamenting the abrupt endings to some of my fav shows, but this just might be too much. C'mon people...get it figured out!! And before the Oscars dammit! The latest victim of the strike for me is Gossip Girl...are you watching this show? If not, you should be. Last night's episode was the last one they managed to get written and filmed and I really, really need to know what happens to S and B next.