Time Goes By, So Slowly

I can't believe that it's been exactly one year since I've been back in Toronto. Freaky. It makes me uncomforatable to think that it's been that long. Wow.

Survey Says!..

I love being productive at work, filling out email forwarded surveys things. The getting-to-know-you kind of deep and probing insight into the inner workings of my psyche kind of surveys. It's a fun distraction from the otherwise spirit-crushing monotony of the daily grind.

1. What time did you get up this morning?
Seven am to commute for an hour and arrive at work to realise that I didn't start until 11 today. That was a fun realisation for me.

2. Diamonds or pearls?
Can I have Miu Miu instead?

3. What was the last film you saw at the cinema?
Tan Lines - An Aussie gay surf teen sex romp. Five wombats out of five for best write-up of the festival. 2½ baby-eating dingos for the somewhat confused/confusing film itself.

4. What is your favourite TV show?
I too don’t watch too much TV these days. Simpsons is of course a classic, but I live for The Amazing Race. God, I would do anything to be on that show — It was literally made for me. Really, the show should be call The Amazing Daniel McKinnon Race!

5. What do you usually have for breakfast?

Always variation on a theme: bagel/english muffin or granola/cereal

6. Favourite Take Away
I have Tokyo to thank for my new-found love of shawarma (Which is sold by Turkish vendor trucks there).

8. What food do you dislike?
I passionately and intensely hate bœuf bourginion. Anything else I dislike pales in comparison to how much I revile that disgusting french beef stew with red wine.

9. What is your favourite CD at the moment?
I don't know about CD, but my favourite song for the past few months has been Joan Baez' "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down."

10. What kind of car do you drive?
When I am king of the universe, I will make private car ownership illegal and replace all roads with train tracks! I hate cars.

11. Favourite sandwich?
I'm generally not a sandwich aficionado, though I guess anything that's made with good crusty french bread is fine.

12. What characteristic do you despise?
Last season’s shoes. Haha, no really I detest conservatism

13. Favourite item of clothing?
Watches. Guys have so few opportunities to accessorise. Also ties, though I'm sad I don’t have the chance to wear them anymore.

14. If you could go anywhere in the world on vacation?
I’ll permit myself a list;
North America: Cuba
South America: Brazil (esp Rio)
Europe: Spain
Africa: Morocco
Asia: Bhutan
Oceania: French Polynesia

15. What colour is your bathroom? (Not sure what we're supposed to learn about each other from this question, but I'm sure the CIA has something in mind when they put together these surveys)
White tile with black tile trim and grey walls

16. Favourite brand of clothing?
Paul Smith has a line of street clothes that's available only in japan which I like. D Squared has nice stuff too.

17. Where would you retire to?
Warm places with hot, slutty youths to show an old man a good time (Mérida perhaps?)

18. What was your most memorable birthday?
While there was one birthday we went to a roller-rink in Kingston which was pretty fun, nothing really even comes close to this most recent Tiki Hula Luau. Amazing!

19. What is your favourite ice cream flavour?
Rocky road. Although Baskin Robbins had a flavour in Japan called ‘Box of Chocolates’ that had mini chocolates in it. I would mainline that stuff into an artery if I could.

20. Furthest place you are sending this? (Or in this case, most distant blog reader)
I guess some people in Australia might be reading this.

21. Who do you least expect to send respond to this?
Prince Rainer the III of Monaco

22. Person you expect to send it back first?
People with silly office jobs like me

23. When is your birthday?
January 13

24. Are you a morning person or a night person?
Night person, definitely.

25. What is your shoe size? (Surely the CIA already has this info on file for me – very sloppy to have to ask again)

11

26. Pets?
No

27. Any new and exciting news?
Well, for those of you who've been living under a rock for the last few weeks, I'm moving to gay Paree in the autumn.

28. What did you want to be when you were little?
A flight attendant –No wonder my parents weren’t surprised I was gay!

29. How are you today?
So gay! Thank gawd

30. What is your favourite chocolate?
I love chocolates from a box of chocolates —every one’s a mini-surprise— I don't really have a favourite chocolate bar.

31. What is your favourite flower?
Jasmine. (but not Princess Jasmine from Aladdin –stupid stuck-up bitch)

I wish I knew how to quit you

Introducing a new section for your consideration: Mockback Mountain. I make no qualms about the absurd ridiculousness of the whole thing, but there is just so much material out there, hungry for an outlet.

Here I present to you the first in a series of exercises in preposterousology, Callback On Me Mountain.

For those of you unfamiliar with the classic Eric Prydz Call On Me aerobics video, here is the original version: (Warning may not be suitable for all viewers, young children or nelly queens).



And here Callback Mountain. Enjoy!

As time goes by

It crept up on me without the slightest warning or notice, but my blog celebrated its one-year birthday back on May 3rd. Hard to believe that it’s only been 378 days since this bad boy was born. So much stuff has happened in that time; the highest highs, the Sayonara-Nihon-T.O.-homecoming lows, the extended periods where other priorities have taken centre stage and pushed my cyber-baby into the dusty waiting wings of my mind.

I’d like to take this opportunity for all my loyal readers to have a moment of quiet reflection and think about me and my fabulous blog. What has been your favourite post of the past year? (Personally, I rather like what I had to say in this post and my subsequent comments).

What would you like to see more of? What do you want less of? Advice, praise, admiration, thanks, glory, acclaim, gifts, and even criticism are all welcomely welcome.

Her lovely little lady lumps

Apparently I'm a bit behind the times on this, but I think it's hi-larious, so I'm posting it here anyway.



Dave, Joel; why ya gotta be haters?

Did I Get In?

Is my name on the 'in' list? Oh Gawd the suspense is killing me! I can't look — But I have to! AAaaaagh.

Here we go: L'École supérieure d'interprètes et de traducteurs

ROM crystal; Crystal meth - coincidence? I think not

So I just walked past the ROM construction site where they’ve now begun putting on what I assume to be the final exterior cladding. I am compelled to say that it looks awful. Completely and absolutely terrible. Almost oppressively bad. I would uncategorically file it under eyesore which will spoil Toronto for generations to come.

Way back in the day, when the design competition for the ROM make-over was announced, I happened to got to the museum and saw all the different architects’ briefs and plans. I remember thinking that two of the designs were very aesthetic and well thought out, some were not as good, and then there was Daniel Libeskind’s design, drawn on the back of napkins from the ROM cafeteria. Asinine. How is it possible to judge a multi-million dollar project from a proposal that was submitted in marker, on napkins?! You couldn’t even understand what the design was; much less understand how it was all going to work. It was drawn on the back of a napkin for chrissakes! But I called it right then that Libeskind’s napkin design was going to be chosen because he was the most famous applicant and Toronto’s world class insecurity needs to be fed by celebrity architects and their flash-in-the-pan antics.

After Libeskind's design was chosen, they released this model, which I actually thought was kind of nice in a traditional/post-modern pastiche, deconstructionist kind of way:

But then fast-forward to a few months later when, suddenly, someone points out 'hey, you can't build a museum entirely out of glass.' I might be wrong, but I assumed that an internationally-renowned architect would be smart enough to realise that museums can't be glass because of the non-mixability of ancient artifacts and direct sunlight. So, it's back to the drawing-board for another napkinesque redesign. Then someone pointed out 'hey, this redesign isn't suitable for the climate,' because –surprise– it snows in Toronto. So, time for another redesign. Then another person pointed out that the ROM looks exactly like Libeskind's design for the Denver Art Museum. Time for another, um, redesign, ...oh wait, well... uh, I guess we'll just let that one slide.

This building is lame and the interior design not withstanding, qualifies as a total cock-up. It’s really a shame because this was an opportunity to make something that really added to the character of the city, but instead is a clunky, jagged lump of bland monotony. Mr Libeskind, your ROM redesign is officially “On Notice” and unless you manage to pull something really spectacular out of your ass in the next few months, your unplanned and un-thought-out, napkin-based design is going to be sitting on my “Dead to Me” list for a long, long time.

Thanks for ruining Toronto forever, Napkin-head!

It’s the Final Countdown

Only six days left until admissions results for Paris are posted on the internet. The antici... pa-tion is killing me! I want to know yesterday, and I especially want to know because I don’t have a very satisfactory back-up plan formulated at the moment.

At present, my much less glamorous plan B involves a year-long Masters programme at McGill which, although being shorter, is actually more expensive than Paris (500€×2 years for France versus ±5000$ at McGill). And while I’m sure living in Montreal is nice, it’s certainly not Paris (and winters à la montréalaise suck icy donkey balls). Also McGill– while being the closest programme in Canada to what I want to do – still only focuses on French to English translation and not the other way around, which would definitely be an important skill to have.

I could wait and apply again to Paris next year — but what would I do in the mean time? I certainly can’t stay where I am now. (I'd rather kill myself and everyone around me). I could go to Paris on a working holiday visa in anticipation of getting accepted in 2008, but I feel that’s not really the most responsible life choice. I should be worrying about my career, future, etcetera, and I’m kind of feeling that a year goofing off in Paris is going to get me a whole lotta nuthin’ at this point.

Anyone got any brilliant life counselling advice to impart on me?