See You Tonight

The title of this entry refers to the slogan of the Keg Steakhouse chain of restaurants. I like the Keg. It's reasonably priced, casual and the food's pretty good overall. I particularly enjoy heading to the Keg Mansion on Toronto's Jarvis street. It's like going back in time, given the enormous house once belonged to one of Toronto's most wealthy families - the Masseys.  It's also said to be haunted. When my wife and I head to the mansion, we always ask for a table in The Library, a fantastic little nook that is quieter than the rest of the beautiful, sprawling 2 level restaurant. But I digress.

Last night we decided to  have ourselves an evening at the Keg Mansion. In fact, our day was structured around it. We had to run some errands but we decided to take a long walk through the downtown core as well. We'd eventually make our way north east, first stopping for a cocktail at The Blake House, another mansion sized restaurant/bar on Jarvis (formerly The Red Lion). It too is a fine establishment. We sat in the bar area right beside a cozy wood-burning fireplace, and it was shaping up to be a lovely Saturday evening. I even had a $100 Keg gift card which made things just a smidge sweeter.

Finishing up our drinks we took the 5 minute walk to The Keg. I requested a table in The Library. Other tables were available but we were fine with waiting, and we happily headed upstairs to the bar, as it was to be approximately 45 minutes. Enjoying a glass of wine and conversation, the time flew and soon enough our little vibrating buzzy thing lit up. We were sat at the best table in The Library and ordered some appetizers first. We always order them separately from the mains so we can take our time and enjoy the evening on our schedule, not the restaurant's. We ordered a caesar salad to share and their jumbo shrimp cocktail. And, the complimentary ever delicious warm loaf of bread and butter was also delivered to our table.

As we readied to order our mains, the server came by. She mentioned that there might be a bit of a delay, since the kitchen had just lost all it's power. No problem we thought. We weren't in a rush. Shortly after that I headed to the men's room, and noticed that the place seemed to be getting quieter and when folks were leaving, new customers weren't being seated, which is a bizarre sight for one of Toronto's busiest restaurants, not to mention it was Saturday evening. Hordes of servers gathered chatting in the kitchen serving area, clearly not having anything to do.

Returning to my table, the manager appeared and mentioned that the kitchen was still without power, but not to worry - their on call electrician was on his way...from Whitby. He mentioned it would be about an hour before he might arrive, depending on traffic. Now I'm no high-falutin' CEO of a major restaurant chain, but me thinks it might not be a bad idea to line up a 24-hour emergency electrical firm that is not a billion miles away from the centre of Canada's universe. We're not in some podunk dustbowl here. This is downtown fucking Toronto...in prime fucking time.

But, I thought it best not to make a big fuss, so I slowly pulled the steak knife away from the manager's throat. After all, it wasn't his fault he's a bumbling jackass who couldn't organize a piss up a rope.  As I placed the knife back on the table, I straightened my tie and calmly sat back down. "See that steak knife?", I asked the manager. "Yes sir. Yes I do", he replied shakily. "Do you know what should be sitting beside that steak knife?", I enquired. "A steak, sir?" I snapped back: "You're goddamn right...a goddamn steak is goddamn right!".

At this, the manager cleared his throat and mentioned that our Keg sized 9oz glasses of wine and Keg jumbo cocktail shrimp were on the house, and he even offered to wrap up the remaining bit of Keg complimentary bread.

See you tonight my ass.

A Betty's Halloween

Apple Wants To Murder Me

Aside from partaking in necessary adult activities like paying my mortgage and attending neighbourhood association meetings, I very much consider myself a big kid, which I believe keeps me youthful. There are, however,  perhaps less desirable characteristics of this attitude towards life. Fortunately I'm not referring to my chronic use of a soother - I do that for completely different reasons.

I'm talking about bedtime stories.

When retiring for the evening, I often find that my mind is racing, focused on the hullaballoo of the work day. This makes it difficult to get to sleep. So, what I do is go out to the streets and bring in elderly homeless people to read to me in bed. Well, I'm in bed..they're just sitting on the bed. They're nude, but they're not under the covers or anything.

Some lonely person spent a lot of time
on this in photoshop.

But sometimes, the local hobos can't be found - perhaps they're off to some low-level caper. In these instances I have to resort to entertaining myself to help me sleep. Thus, I will often throw in the earbuds and listen to old-timey radio shows or podcasts, and I eventually fall asleep. Therein lies the problem.

When I wake up either to go to the bathroom or start the day, I find myself partially strangulated by my iPhone's earbud wires. Being unconscious and twisting and turning throughout the night, the wires will do their wicked deed and creep around my neck, much like the tree branches that violated that woman in Evil Dead. At first I thought this might be a case of a subliminal desire to make like certain dead celebrities' forays into auto erotic aphyxiation, but then I realized that in fact, Apple wants to murder me. This is their ultimate goal. I'm not sure if that giant corporation has decided to murder me and only me, but I've become quite suspicious lately. In fact, just yesterday I had enquired about upgrading my phone, and for it they wanted $1,000.

I declined, which explains everything.

Vikings

"Binge watching" is one of those terms nowadays that just about everyone uses, along the same lines as "Hot Karl" or "Sucking Chest Wound".

A screen shot from the show, accurately
depicting a Viking woman.

Just the other day I sat down to take in 3 episodes of the Irish-Canadian produced series Vikings, and I quite enjoyed it. Solid acting, and it took me a while to adjust my thinking to just how primitive it was back in the 9th century. In fact, if a real life Viking hopped into a time machine to 2015, I'm pretty sure he'd lose his mind immediately. This is the time when rudimentary navigational tools were just being crudely shaped and invented. What's not too different is their belief in silly religious deities, and specifically the viking god Thor, who, incidentally I always thought was a DC Comics creation. Who knew?

In any event, one particularly interesting aspect of the show is that it begins in all the regular ways, with  you empathizing with the plight of the poor peasant farmer and his family. But then something happens. I guess you can take the boy out of Scandinavia, but not the Scandinavia out of the boy, because soon enough, this same peasant farmer starts gettin' down to the whole Viking raping and pillaging business. And to make it crystal clear just how brutal these dudes were, one early episode features them rolling up into a peaceful community of Monks to slice, steal, dice and kidnap. As a result, I felt a little conflicted. I mean, those Monks were just living their peaceful little delusional lives, and in comes Grog and his medieval brutes to wipe them out. Having said all that, the Monks did have those terrible Monk haircuts where the crown of their heads are shaved in a tiny circle, so in the final analysis, I suppose that justifies murder.

Exactly

Strange Animal

I was in Yorkville for work yesterday. I'm always fascinated with that weird veneer you get from the place. Every thing and every one is pristine. As I was walking in the Four Seasons, the guy who opened the door for me was wearing a $1500 suit. The female guests within were all, and I mean all..unbelievably hot and immaculately dressed. Male guests wore strange short dress pants the rest of us might call floods, with multicoloured socks. There was 1 guy with high top sneakers that appeared to be made of a material that I have never ever seen before, which tells me something about the circles I run in.

When I finished my business and left the area, it reminded me of the time I was a 15 year old McDonald's employee. Hours after finishing a shift you'd still feel this thin layer of grease all over your body, and my friends told me I smelled like a Big Mac.

It's a strange universe over in them parts.

R.I.P. Active Surplus

I'd hate to be the guy who has to do closing inventory for Active Surplus on Queen west, given the store's closing soon.

I must say though, that when I've poked and prodded for cheap cables and connectors from this place, I've often thought about the salt-mine like working conditions the parts came from. I think about the poor men, women (and children?) toiling in some shit hole foreign factory, getting a couple of bucks a day, and I must admit I feel guilty...then I see that the price for a 10' HDMI cable is eight bucks, say to myself: WOW THAT'S AWESOME and then I forget all about those people.

The Sweetest Fruit...

Well, you know the rest of the saying.

There are a few variations but I have often gone with "The sweetest fruit is out on the limb". I've used it as a mantra of sorts and it's a good philosophy in my view. The basic idea of course is that you've gotta take chances to succeed at whatever it is you're doing.

Herein lies the rub with our Toronto Blue Jays. In this town we're so used to chronic disappointment from our sports teams, so we've become a jaded bunch. Lately, as the Jays have raced to the top of the standings, thousands of bandwagoners have emerged, filling Rogers Centre to capacity on a Monday, unheard of only 2 months ago.

In this photo from city archives, the
Toronto Dandelions capture
the 1867 championship 

I consider myself a true fan, but I don't mind the folks who have hitched their carriage to our ride. Butts in seats help the team - the energy, the noise, the passion. And it would be a bigger problem if the team was winning and people continued to stay away like we've seen in some baseball markets.

Some are still reluctant to emotionally commit though. There's still a lot of baseball to go, and anything can happen, including not making the damn playoffs. My lovely wife is slowly warming to the idea, but she's still hesitant. It sort of feels like the time I suggested we become swingers. At the beginning of the discussion she was horrified, and at the end of the discussion she was still horrified, so that never flew.

But in the end, this is what life is supposed to be about. It's about experiencing everything that comes with it, good or bad. You pays your money, you take your chances. No point in constantly protecting yourself emotionally given the prospect of getting hurt, whether it be a personal relationship or a major life decision. And when you look at it that way, committing emotionally to a silly game makes it all the more easy to do.

Brilliant

 With so many screens and so many options it's hard to cut through as an advertiser, particularly with the standard 30 second commercial on "regular" tv, given pvr's, netflix and the like

But just the other day 1 cut through for me, and I only saw it because I was watching the Jays game, which is why sports is so important to broadcasters - sports is pvr proof, increasing the value for advertisers. But I digress.

I'm referring to a Lucky Charms commercial. It's brilliant. It's basically 1 shot - a guy comes into his kitchen to make himself a bowl of cereal, turns to put the milk away and out of the background a guy who was there all the time, camouflaged, sneaks off with his lucky charms.

First, it plays wonderfully on the cereal's marketing history - recall the trickster leprechaun cartoon commercials many of you may remember as kids . But it wisely stays away from the stereotypical irish leprechaun and focuses on the prank angle.

Then, as the commercial finishes, you realize as the viewer you too have been tricked since you don't see the camouflaged guy either..so what do you do..or at least..what did i do?...i re wound the damn commercial...and watched it again so i could see if i could notice the camouflaged guy..

let me repeat..i watched it..again.. that means lucky charms, in theory, got thousands of people to consume their marketing twice in one sitting.. now that's smart.

No i'm not going to buy lucky charms, and i think they're banking on nostalgia (for example i'll go buy a terrible mcdonald's cheeseburger once in a while cuz it reminds me of my childhood), but at least one person, on one blog..is writing about it..