New Year's Eve

A bunch of bubbly for New Year's Eve.

To help take my mind off dating, at least I thought it would, I worked Joel's New Year's Eve party taking pictures. The DJ was the same guy that played the boat cruise back in August. I liked his selection as the songs he played actually had lyrics.

The party took place on the second floor of the Intercontinental hotel, on Bloor just west of Avenue road. Along with the coat check there was a large room with round tables, a dance room, a small quiet room in the corner, and a large hall where, for the most part, a lot of people hung out to socialize, meet people, and see who showed up.


There were some familiar faces in the crowd, some of the people I had met at the Balmy Beach Club, but for the most part it was a large unknown crowd. Aside from the happy new year thing, the highlight of the evening, actually there were two, the first while I was walking toward the door to the room with all the tables. I witnessed a guy coming out of the room followed by a fist attached to his head. This caught me off guard as I was stuffing my face with a sandwich at the time. A few minutes later Police had shown up looking for the instigator. The party had taken a surreal feel to it.

The second highlight of the part occurred when a guy asked his girl friend to marry him. She said "yes" by the way. They made a cute couple. It made me depressed. Surrounded by people but alone. Wow, new years sucked at that particular point. I was on automatic, shot the DJ doing the countdown and the party favours exploding in high pitched squeeks, plastic clackers, people hugging and kissing each other as they sang "Auld lang syne". It all seemed like everything was happening in slow motion.

The hotel lights abruptly came on and the cleaning staff marched in to the dance room to clean stuff up. The DJ a bit annoyed played one last song. It was Donna Summer's Last dance. I managed to take a few more shots of dazed party goers being subjected to bright light and dancing anyway. We were herded out by 2:30am where by I managed to snag one of the left over helium filled balloons and made my way home.

Rocky 6 is BagelHot

Testing the lights for tomorrow's new year's eve party

For those that are thinking "How could they make another Rocky movie after the last bomb?", I have to tell you that I thought the Rocky 6 movie was great. Perhaps it's just a story of a guy being dealt an average to crappy hand and dealing with it. It could be that it touched an emotional nerve.

I started off by going into the theatre with obvious reservations. What is Stallone doing? Hasn't the franchise taken enough beatings? The lights lowered. You hear "Rocky! Rocky!" being chanted over the familiar theme music. Reminiscing value at it's best. Still, I was dubious the story would be any good.

Although the story is a simple one, by the end of the movie you can't help but cheer for Rocky. "Kick that punk's ass!", "Move, damn you move!", I found myself ducking and weaving with the movie, like that would help Rocky get out of his predicament. When's the last time a movie got you that emotionally attached to a character? That's some great movie magic. To Mr. Stallone, "Thanks for making that picture".


Skating at Nathan Phillips Square

After the movie I made my way downtown to join others for a light show which in the end never happened. I suppose there was a miscommunication in ads and as a result many people that travelled down to Nathan Phillips Square hauling their kids were disappointed.


Michiho happy skating alone

We watched Michiho, the only one to bring skates, skate around the rink a few times before calling it quits and going to the local Tim Hortons for hot drinks. Kyoko who showed up with Chris was plastered from beer tasting, or was it wine tasting?, and had trouble standing up by herself.

While we wobbled over to the coffee shop across the street, she told me the story of how she met my parents downtown about six times. Drunk people are funny.

Congee Queen

New menus at the Congee Queen

If you have found that there seems to be a theme of eating this week then you're right. I've been pretty much keeping to myself for the most part only popping out to grab food with friends. So much for the saving money and eating at home. I've pretty much fallen of the wagon this week.

Today was no exception. For dinner, Marc and I travelled up to Don Mills and Lawerence and one block west to eat at the Congee Queen. I had visited this place before, usually with my grand mother (father's side). The congee is great here. There's a whole menu of various flavours. Usually I'll order the salmon or the pork with "golden egg", I've always wondered what kind of egg the "gold egg" was.

If you're not into congee, the other dishes they have have pretty large portions. This made a great choice for stuffing your face and forgetting about the rest of the world.

Friend and Pho

No, Kyoko is not demonstrating the latest advertised sneeze technique, she's trying to hide from the camera.

Today's outing was to a local Pho restaurant, Vietnamese food, located on Gerrard just east of Broadview. Originally we were supposed to meet up with Rick but he had a cold. The day had started off with Kyoko dropping by with her new laptop. The goal was to install virus software and to see if it worked on the wireless network. Check on both counts.

Taking the Streetcar down to Broadview and Gerrard also had two purposes. The first was to eat lunch and the second was to visit my cousin at Carbon Computing to pick up a $5.00 laser mouse, a left over deal from Boxing day.

Go Away

Marc "drags" me out to dim sum

What part of "I don't feel like socializing with anyone" do people not understand?

I received a number of phone calls today from friends seeing if I was alright. I used the "I am sick" speech to get out of Christmas activities. It wasn't a lie, I started feeling a sore throat coming on. It just so happened that I was depressed as well.

Eventually I succumbed to eating out and grabbing some dim sum with Marc. It's hard to feel like crap when there are friends around trying to make you feel better. Some offer advice, some will relate stories of pertinence, and some will just listen. Marc is the later and a very good listener at that.

Even though my dating life seems pathetic I am grateful to have friends that will listen to the misadventures of my life, even if it is to get a good laugh because it's not happening to them. You bastards. :->

Boxing Day Blahs

The new retro red illuminated keyboard

I hadn't moved out of bed since the phone call the day before Christmas. I was depressed and emotionally felt like crap. Having your heart put into a blender before Christmas did have it's advantages however. Being the gloomy gus I had cancelled all my Christmas plans. Cupcakes Christmas eve dinner, a lobster Christmas eve dinner with Juliet, and Christmas day dinner with Kyoko, Chris and family.

The good news... as it turned out, a lot of people that went and ate at Cupcakes dinner were sick on Christmas day. Upchucking into empty yogurt containers on Christmas day were the highlight activities for Cupcake thanks to a thing we call food poisoning. Sometimes it helps to stay in and not venture forth into the unknown and this was one of those times.

My deep dark pit of despair was tempered with a bunch of Christmas DVD watching. What's more depressing than watching movies that have sappy endings where everyone else is happy? It puts more emphasis on stuff you don't have. Perhaps that's why Christmas is among one of the highest suicide days of the year. (note: to friends and family... I was depressed but not enough to end my life. You can put that straight jacket away now.)

Up until this point the most depressing Christmas' were the ones where I was at work working away on a project when everyone else had taken a holiday. There were at least five times that I could think of where I sat alone in an office programming some such thing to be delivered the night before new years only to have it delivered in time to receive revisions and have to work new years as well. I eventually put a stop to that nonsense.

Although sad, I did get paid for working those days. Being at home because I felt gutted by the woman I was in love with was a whole other level of feeling sad. I would have to find some way of dealing with it. As today was boxing day I was called by William. William the enabler, as he's been nicknamed by some, as he encourages the spending of money even if I don't have any. This year he didn't have to goad me much as I tend to like to spend money on myself when in a depressed state. Stores just loooove me.

Picking up a new gadget, DVD, or food, seems to give me a sense of immediate gratification and a false sense of happiness. Even if it's for a short time it seems worth it. A lot of "falling off the wagon" had to happen today to help get me out of this low. Purchasing a Nintendo Wii would have been the ticket if the stores weren't sold out of them. Now I was really depressed. I was looking forward to having tennis elbow or finger fatigue while whacking some poor cutsie cartoon character into submission.

I started the day by gorging a few McMuffins at McDonalds. I ordered Will to a McDonalds before the shopping bonanza would begin. Stuffing your face with comfort food is the first convenient way of dealing with feeling blue. Not so good for your waist line, but who cares, it's not like you're dating anyone that'll notice. You're not dating anyone. Maybe you'll regret shoving food into you later, but right now is now and we have to get through now now to get to later later.

The second act of recklessness was to buy things to make me happy. That was taken care of by visiting the local camera store. The first main purchase were some barn doors and honeycomb attachments I had ordered back in May for my visatec studio flash. They initially arrived sometime in July but were sold by accident to another customer. They didn't show up again until today, which was great because I got a 15% discount off them for being boxing day. Woo hoo!

After that the only thing I really needed to buy was a new power cable for my computer. For some reason I've been having problems with my computer losing power. Through experimentation I found that the contacts on the plug, because it was made from cheap plastic, lost connection every now and then. The plug had to be replaced with one made of rubber.

I picked up the new cable and shortly after bought a new keyboard with illuminated red lit keys (seen in the above picture). Not that I need anything to encourage my being a shut in or working in the dark but convinced myself that it would be helpful when I'm too lazy to move to the other side of the room to hit the light switch. Being depressed I become more slug like, the bed becomes my friend and making my way, way across the room to my computer becomes a huge task.


The new big ass tree in the Eaton Centre

We spent a lot of time looking for a car adaptor and camera cable for Will's iPod. William is one of those guys (he blames his asian genes) that can spend hours searching for that perfect bargain just to save a few dollars or find those specific features that may or may not exist. Therefore when you go shopping with him make sure there's stuff that you want to look at.

During our camera shopping part of the expedition I was fine. I had all sorts of camera gear to drool over and decide whether or not that particular gadget was worthy of my impulse purchasing or not. It wasn't until we started looking for Williams iPod stuff that I started thinking of the girl and how she was thinking of getting a new iPod. It would be so cool to buy some iPod accessories for her, not just because they were on sale, but it would be something she would actually use and be happy with.

The thought of purchasing an item that she could use but wouldn't want from me made me sad, miserable and insignificant feeling. My eyes started to tear up. I walked out of the store with people staring at me, probably thinking I couldn't get some boxing day special. From an Apple store? Yeah sure (insert sarcasm here). I was a blithering idiot.

We ended up at the usual boxing day restaurant. Chung King, the one on Spadina just south of College located on the second floor, not to be confused with the restaurant by the same name located on College just west of Spadina. It was perfect timing for another stuff your face binge fest.


William the enabler

We ordered the trademarked crispy beef along with some other dishes, one of them being a tofu dish that I always seem to forget the name of, but we seem to be able to always pick it on every visit. I stuffed myself. It was the first real meal, other than the McMuffins, that I ate since the dreaded phone call.

The day was fairly short and we finished shopping in record time. I was dropped off at home in time to go meet up with the parents for the annual boxing day dinner but wasn't in the mood for any socializing of any kind, family or friends. An answering machine message told me that the family gathering had been cancelled. With a sigh of relief I crawled into bed with the new glowing keyboard attached to the laptop and began my continued watching of sappy Christmas fluff.

She's just not that into you

Around 11am I called the girl after reading an email posted regarding dim sum. The result being that the girl does not want to be in a relationship with me.

Today was a bad day.

Flirtygirl Fitness

The Flirty Girls: Dana, Katie, and Michelle

If my editor from Juicy Stuff could get a gold star, today would be a good day to get one. Getting out on an assignment where the object is to take pictures of girls pole dancing is pretty incredible. Seeing fit women doing acrobatics is always a challenging task. I say this with all sincerity. Not only do you have to get the action shot, freeze the moment where they look good, but you also have to make sure they look good. That is to say their body is placed in a good compositional space and their faces aren't contorted while performing the stunt.


Dana wows the crowd with her clinging to the pole with only one leg.

I find it interesting that when you talk to most women about pole dancing you usually get a negative response with the word "slut" or some other negative reaction. Clearly it's because pole dancing is usually associated with men's clubs, stripping, and women with fake boobs. When's the last time anyone thought of Gene Kelly swinging around a lamp post or Danny Kaye in White Christmas?

If you put a pole 15 meters into the air and had it as part of a circus act, maybe throw in a sword or two, would pole dancing have the same reaction? Well maybe if the women, if they were women, were flinging off their clothes while performing.

I not trying to skirt around the fact that there's something sexy about a women dancing and doing acrobatics with a pole I'm just saying that it doesn't have to be dirty (unless you want it to be).


Here's a nice "Smile for the camera" shot


Katie with her arms of steel...


...makes this form of acrobatics look easy.

Another Funeral

Union Station

At 9am at Union Station we (Michelle and I) met up with with Colin and Angie to get a drive out to Mississauga for Nancy's father's funeral. This is the forth funeral in the last few months. It's starting to get a bit depressing.

I've only met Nancy's Father once. It was during a certain visit to Mississauga during a snow storm while riding a bike. The year was 1990 during the second semester while taking computer science. I arrived at the door, feet soaked, hands frozen, face red as a beet, yet the flowers I had bought his daughter were still intact.

I remember him welcoming me in and escorting me down to the living room next to the fire place. He seemed pretty trusting for a Dad, especially since I was hitting on his daughter. That's the only real memory I have of him and I suppose if you have any memories of a person it's good that they're fond memories.


Angie and Colin announce that they're moving in together.

As far as funerals go the service went fairly smoothly. A lot of sitting down, standing up, seeing your friends cry. Even though most of the service was not in English you kind of got the general idea of what was going on. Did I mention that I hate funerals?

Something else I've noticed during the last few funerals that have taken place, we always end up at a Tim Hortons, either before to kill time or afterwards because we want to talk to the various relatives/friends that we haven't seen in quite a while.

Winter Solstice

Todays outing took us, the girl and I, to Kensington Market where the winter solstice parade and bon fire took place. Yes, there's an actual big fire in a wading pool within city limits. We didn't actually see any of this fire as we arrived when everyone was leaving. We did however bump into a lot of people that I knew (as seen in the various pictures) within a ten minute time frame (on the way to the bon fire).

In the end we stuffed our selves with various Mexican food, the high light being burritos, and washed it down with some spiked apple cider. I had a slight buzz after that for a small while and we made our way to Joel's Christmas party.







At the entrance we saw a woman getting her behind spanked. This really turned the girl off and she wanted to go home. I walked her to the bus, she hugged me, and left. I went back to the party to shoot pictures for Joel.

At the party I bumped in our favourite fashion designer, Andrew Majtenyi. We ended up going to Swatow for some soup.


Lisa (bikini designer) and Andrew (fashion designer)


One of the SunBanque girls poses



Winter Solstice at Swatow

Christmas is a Ball

The Christmas tree made of luminous balls.

Downtown, at Dundas Square, I noticed this new Christmas thing sitting in the public space. Last year the new item was the exploding light balls that floated in the air on wires. The floating light balls are still there this year but seemed less significant.

Ugly Sweater Party

The Fire and Ice backyard of the C-Lounge

In the Christmas tradition of wearing ugly sweaters... wha? Ugly sweaters? Why yes there's actually a party where the person with the ugliest sweater wins. Wins what? I'm not sure as I didn't stick around long enough to find out.

Umbra luggage tags were given to those that came out ugly sweater or not. I was only at the party to witness two "ugly" sweaters. One had reindeer stitched across it and the other was a tad too small for the wearer. The small sweater seemed in pretty good condition and put emphasis on the wearer's shapely body.


A few people warm themselves by the outdoor fire

The C-lounge had a backyard patio that featured "ice" on fire. I'm not really sure what the stuff was. It looked like glass when viewed up close. Along one side of the patio were a row of bed like places to sit or lie down. They were set up under stalls. I suppose these stalls were there in case of rain or snow.

Back inside two women dressed in Santa's Helpers outfits were giving away free bottles of steam whistle beer.


Emmanuel with Santa's helpers.

Hair. We are.

Some headshots taken for the Hutoshi Hair Salon

I spent the day shooting head shots for the Hutoshi hair salon. The hair models were clients or people gotten from an ad on Craig's list. Although they didn't have any modelling experience the shoot was a lot of fun. It's funny the power you have while wielding a camera. Smile, don't smile, look here, look there, move an inch to your left, to your right.

Hutoshi is located at 112 Harbord street just west of Spadina avenue. It's been there since 1976 and is the second business on the street next to the Harbord bakery.

Playboy Winter Wonderland

Hey, It's Jayde.

It's been awhile since my last Juicy Stuff assignment. Partially due to having a cold, partially from working on some motion graphics work and partially that Juicy Stuff is going through a large overhaul in terms of format and content. This is the first outing I've been on since the North Bound Leather fashion show way back at the end of October.

Really has it been that long? I suppose working on the various GAT jobs has kept me going out on a semi-regular basis. Okay, I'm not a total shut in.

The event tonight was organized by the same people that did the last two Playboy events. This time is took place at the Guvernment, a spacious night club located near the waterfront across the street from the Redpath sugar factory.

The theme was winter wonderland. I always wondered how bikinis would fit into all this but they managed to throw a hat or a scarf on the model with said bikini and viola! It's winter wear.


Cowgirl bikini look

The photo area reserved for photographers was located right in front of the stage. The stage was about five feet off the ground. You would think people organizing this would realize that any photos taken from this angle would be looking straight of skirts or gowns. Lucky for them we photographers took to the floor.

Overall I thought this venue was not too bad. High ceilings, decent lighting, a good DJ with a great dance selection, and lots of eye candy for both sexes. Speaking of the ambient music, we were in a club but I actually recognized the music. It was lyrics...words. It's a far cry some the industrial crap they play at some places, where the music is so loud it starts making your head wobble. Most of the music was from the 70s and 80s. Earth, Wind and Fire, Donna Summer, Soft Cell, Flock of Seagulls, Bronski Beat, Petshop Boys, that sort of thing.

This years fashion line featured a lot of bikini type clothing. What made it playboy was the bunny head logo placed somewhere obvious. Otherwise it could have just been another bikini, another well fitting bikini.

The fashion for the guys consisted mainly of T-shirts that said playboy on them. Nothing really spectacular there. The odd toque or sunglasses as accessories but that's about it. The main clothing was really for the women.


Start off the show by waving


Big hair + nightie + boa = sexy


The particles in the foreground is fake snow (shredded plastic)

More magical snow stuff to stick to your lens


Bed head + playboy T-shirt = cool


Somehow I don't think he's taking pictures of her shoes.


At one point the models were giving away free purses.


Eeek! Fake snow being blown into my lens.


This was nice and simple


Another cowgirl bikini theme


hat + scarf + lingere = winter fashion

Store Visits to Kill Time

Roger shows laptop with picture of Roger showing laptop

I found myself wandering around downtown looking for ways to kill some time. I had to shoot Emmanuel giving a speech to graduating students at the Ontario College of Art and Design but that didn't start until 6:30pm. It was one of those inspirational speeches to assure the students that they went to school to get out into the world bright eyed and bushy tailed and that the last four years meant something.


Adeem (the mango kid)

It was 4pm so I started off by dropping by Roger at Monster Records. From there I made my way down to the College and Grace area where I saw Joe at Dragon Lady. Stopped off to talk to him for a bit then made my way to the OCAD building on College just west of University.


Big Joe at Dragon Lady comics

It was kind of odd being in a room with "kids" graduating. All the projects were out on display. I felt like a job recruiter and thought back to the days of being a visual effects supervisor and having to run through newly sent demo reels then emailing, or mailing the sender comments on what made it great or what could be improved.


"Hands up. Who wants to be on Oprah?"

As someone that used to send videotapes in the mail to companies to get hired I was always impressed by the companies that got back to you, Even if it was to politely say "Go away, We're not hiring.". Of course I'm paraphrasing here. There was a job I worked at where the tapes that were sent in were not looked at, erased, and used to put temp work to be delivered to the client. Cheap things like that really pissed me off.

I made it a policy to give comments that were constructive and send the tape back or at the very least have it accessible for pick up should the sender want it back to use some where else. Tapes might not be expensive but when you're not working you may not have that money to blow.

Emmanuel's speech was pretty good. You could see the students laughing and being inspired. Those poor slobs, like lambs to the slaughter. I miss feeling that "you can take on the world" idealism. /you can still take on the world but maybe head on is not always the best route. Sometimes you've got to go sideways.

Cleaning Day

I woke up at 6:00am and started cleaning. It's been a while since I last cleaned the apartment and as it so happens a lot of stuff has accumulated since. Junk mail and bills alone started piling up and adding to piles of clutter. Then there's the camera boxes and photo gear along with the books on photography.

Newspapers and magazines I dragged back from London, pamphlets on clubs from Montreal, newspapers that I started reading on some bus trip, bus schedules, various photo magazines, stuff, junk and more junk. If I didn't know any better I would have thought that the stuff just multiplies by itself.

The fire put under my ass was the thought of someone visiting the apartment one day. Yes, yes the girl. There I said it. Geez. No piece of dust was too small, no furniture too big. The cleaning included vacuuming, doing the laundry, throwing stuff out. Wow, did I throw stuff out.

The making the apartment look nice also involved going out to buy a new pillow. The old pillow I had had the stuffing fall out when I went to change pillow cases. As I don't ever remember buying any pillows in my life time this was a new venture.

The pillow I owned I had for years, to the extent that it was really flat. Two of them together were still flatter than one new one. This made the buying of a new one a bit difficult. I wanted the same flatness and ended up buying the softest pillow available.

For those that don't know pillows generally come in three versions. Soft, Medium, and Firm. When staying a a Holiday Inn in London there were five levels of pillow-dom. Here only three. It's difficult to see the difference when buying them as they're usually in a plastic bag. I spent about 20 minutes squeezing the various pillows. There was one made out of that space age memory foam but it was $80 compared to the average foam pillow costing $11. In the end I went for a average priced $23 pillow. It seemed super soft but when I got home it was too fat. D'oh.

I continued to clean the walls and bathroom and eventually stopped around 8pm. While I was doing all this I had my camera shoot a frame every minute to create a stop motion animation of the cleaning process. One day I'll put it to Benny Hill music.

Busy Bee

Jessica Gorlicky, jewelery designer, painter, artist

Today really started at 10pm last night at which point I got a call from the girl. As conversations go, one thing led to another and after a bit of time I noticed I was stretching my back. Glancing over at the microwave clock and I noticed that, Holy gads! It was 4:00am. By 4:30 we said out good-byes and hung up the phone. I was up for another hour and a half watching TV before drifting off to sleep.

Four hours later I woke up with both feet running, so to speak. I had a bunch of things on my list to do today which I thought about while napping. Photo CDs to burn, deliver and a job interview for a hair salon photo shoot. I was referred to the hair salon owners by the same reporter that interviewed me for the Liberty Gleener. The article in the Gleener occurred while shooting Andrew's Jumpsuits for the Design Exchange contest.

The interview by the owner of the hair salon went well and I've been commissioned to shoot a bunch of hair styles this coming Sunday. Once the interview was over I hopped onto the subway and made my way up north to Finch and Yonge. It was there that I dropped off a bunch of photos I had shot of So(da)liscious during fashion week. Jewelry designer, Jessica Gorlicky hadn't gotten any photos for fashion week or her work. Through various channels found that I had taken pictures and had asked if she could get a few to help advertise her work.

It was about 4:30pm by this point and I had to meet the girl down at Eglinton and Yonge at the local Indigo bookstore for 6:30pm. I managed to dawdle but still ended up at the bookstore an hour early. Luckily being a bookstore I managed to peruse the magazine section for about half an hour, then made my way up to the Art section, and photography coffee table books.

It was there that I ran into Melissa Potter. She was searching for some Beatles CDs for Christmas presents. Helping her look for Beatles titles in the bargain and talking to her managed to kill some time. My watch beeped indicating it was 6:30. I left Melissa in a line up for purchases and went back downstairs to the magazine section.

It was about 7:15pm by the time the girl showed up. She had left a few messages on my cell phone saying she'd be a bit late. At the time I was engrossed in reading a bunch of hair stylist magazines. Which today I found quite interesting. Technical breakdowns of lighting and posing ran through my head when I noticed the girl out of the corner of my eye.

From the bookstore we ventured across the street to a place called Alleycats. A bar/pub like restaurant where a networking meeting was being held. We were to meet up with Emmanuel. We didn't stay long as it was packed, the ambient noise was too loud to hear anyone say anything, and the place had smalls of frying fish. That and the older high school reunion guys (that looked like they were in their 60s or 70s) were checking out "the girl". There were a few meetings there that night.

Back across the street, to the Indigo side, we ended up finding a quiet Japanese restaurant. It was the exact opposite of where we just were. The booth we were given to sit in was so quiet you could hear a pin drop. The girl was already tired from work and I started feeling the effects of not having any sleep and being on the go all day.

Eventually we finished eating and I walked her to the bus stop. Happy, tired, I managed to wave at her as she got on the bus spun around and headed home. The the intersectino I ran into my Dad of all people. Him and my mom were coming out of a movie press screening. It was weird talking to them on the way home.

Once inside my apartment I crashed almost instantly.

Where did my brain go?

The router installation CD

House keys put into the freezer, sunglasses left at a friends place, wristwatch left by the sink, we put things in places they normally wouldn't be left, then a few minutes or seconds later we're combing the house asking ourselves where we put the stuff. Have we lost our minds? Perhaps a temporary bout of senility.

I found myself in this situation today while installing my wireless router. I was missing the installation CD. I had it yesterday while talking to "the girl" and started to install the software onto my computer. The phone conversation lasted a while and I eventually abandoned the installation process to get over to Emmanuel's in time to watch "The Secret".

Today I decided to start the installation process again but couldn't find the CD. The CD taht I thought was still in the computer. My automatic instinct told me to check the fridge. This seems to be the default place I usually look for things and find things. No matter how crazy there's always a good chance I had placed something in the freezer while taking some other thing out. House keys for frozen waffles, sunglasses for an ice cube, a DVD to just peek into the freezer. It's like there's some kind of freezer toll elf that jedi mind tricks me into leaving an item in order to take something out.

I retraced my footsteps. Then it hit me. "No, that would just be too dumb.", I thought to myself. I raced outside to the garbage bag sitting out on the curb waiting to be picked up by the garbage truck. A truck which just happened to be puttering just a block away. Why is it you can never open a plastic bag knot when you're in a hurry without ripping the bag open? I took the entire bag into the back yard and pulled it apart. Sure enough, right on top, the installation CD.

I went inside to place the CD in the computer then revisited the torn open garbage bag by stuffing it into another new bag and taking the whole package to the curb where it made today's pickup. Why did I throw the CD into the garbage? And when did I do it? It wasn't like I was getting subliminal messages from the girl who didn't even know I was installing the software. "Throw out that install CD. You don't need it.". My brain is drawing a blank.

While trying to figure out what happened last night I decided to do a bit of relaxing and walk on down to the beach. It was cold and windy. On the water there was a lone surfer using a kite to pull himself over the waves.

Darryl is sick

Brian Smith supervises Darryl working on a Flash Christmas card

After watching a movie called "The Secret" or would it be considered a documentary, something in between a self help, belief system, way at looking at the universe video? Anyhoo, after watching the video at Emmanuel's place I walked by Darryl's office. Emmanuel's apartment and Darryl's office are on the same floor of the same building.

I figured I'd knock. It was pretty late and since it's an office it wasn't like I'd wake anyone up. That was my first thought. I suppose it's been known that Darryl has fallen asleep in front of the keyboard from time to time. So okay maybe I would wake someone up. I knocked anyway.

Footsteps walked toward the door and the door opened. It was Darryl. As it turned out he was awake and working on a flash animated Christmas card for Brian "You and Media" Smith. I spent some time talking to Darryl after Brian had left. Darryl looked like he was on the verge of death and sounded worse. Thinking I might catch whatever illness he was infected with I decided to go home.

For those that haven't seen the earlier Christmas flash animation you can check it out here.