Today was a good day ! After initial crap, like having a construction digger blocking the alley that goes to the parking spaces behind Heretic. The construction workers were on lunch and shrugged when I beeped and asked them to move the thing. Wankers. It took me almost another 15 minutes to finally get around the block and into the space, what with it being mid-day, downtown on a beautiful day. But, then this fellow named Oak (well, Dan) came into the store and he made me feel better by just being his pleasant self. Then, later in the day, a man went by the store walking -something- on a leash. I couldn't see what it was, because it was very low to the ground and the step up blocked my view, so I went outside, thinking it was something long and low to the ground, like a ferret. I like ferrets. And lo ! It was an iguana ! Hey neat ! I talked to the man leading it, and found out that, though it was about two feet long, it would probably grow to be longer than five when it was fully mature (it is presently only two years old), and it turned out to be a he. A he named Freddie ! Freddie the Iguana, strolled past the store today. Whee !

There's not much to report. I opted to have a quiet night tonight, what with all my working on websites and whatnot. I went to Java to have supper after work, and read about a third of the latest Now Magazine (the best Toronto weekly paper, full of arts listings and whatnot) over a huge, cheesy chicken fajita and pink guava shake. Their shakes are just so damn good, I have one almost every time I go. Yum, yum, yum. I played a bit on the MUD tonight, which is unusual in itself, since I hardly seem to get on it anymore. I figure a couple times a week, no more than that, but I try to make it count when I do. Now, I really should be going to bed, as it's a ROM day tomorrow (oh, yay), but the thing is, I'm not really tired yet.

I wrote an email to Brom a couple nights ago, asking him if it would be alright for me to use a couple of his works on my site, providing I give him credit and link to his page. He replied that it was, and thanks, which is nice. It's nice when people we look up to are polite. It makes all the other jerks in the world seem a lot less important, if you know what I mean. So, after I've finished doing my updates to what is already there, and the updates to Ray's page, then I can work on a little mini Brom page. Oh, and another thing, related to webpages, is that I've offered to run Nadine's (my singer friend, who I went for dinner with last night - a good, solid, fun time, where mostly we griped about being poor artists) site for her. It's nothing big, just three pages or there about, with a headshot and upcoming concert info and a bio. It's going to be fun, and relatively simple. Not too graphic intensive, and it won't require much thinking. This is good. It should be fun. Also, the fee is reasonable. For now, she will just feed me, and when she's in a position to be able to pay me, she will. I think that's okay. Anyway, now I'm feeling a bit sleepy, so I think I'll head for the night.

I've done some significant renovations to my webpage in the last two nights. Last night, created a couple brand-spanking-new pages that get you where you need to go, and today, I've started on Portfolio Redux. Hopefully, by the end of the week, it won't matter anymore what browser you look at my portfolio with. Oh, I also added a new piece of art in the 'illustration' section. It's not a new piece, really, since I did it a couple summers ago, but it's new for the webpage. Once I'm done with mine, I can get back to working on Ray's (though I've sort of started making changes to that, too).

A movie is being shot right next to the ROM at the Royal Conservatory of Music. I noticed it because I needed to go to the bank, which meant I would have cut through the RCM's parking lot, except it was ribboned off with caution tape and pylons. I saw a set, built to match the conservatory's bricks (rather convincingly, too), and thought I'd better investigate. I strolled up Philosopher's Walk and out onto Bloor St and when I passed the parking lot, my kleptomanic need for pylons nearly got the better of me (nearly) and I saw the sandwich board. "Bulletproof Monk to set". Uh... huh. So, when I went back intot he museum, I looked it up on the web and found out that it's a movie due to come out late 2002 (shouldn't they be done filming then?) and it stars Chow Yun-Fat. It's based on the comic of the same name, though apparently not the same storyline. Huh. I'd thought Bulletproof Monk was directed by John Woo, which would have been ultimately cool, but I had misread a site. The real director is an unknown (unless Mariah Carey videos count), named Paul Hunter. My excitement about it diminished when I learned this. Oh well. The fact that it's being filmed next to the ROM makes it kind of cool, though, and I'll still probably go see it when it's in theatres.

So, I took a little walk after work today, not as long a walk as I'd intended, because it was sort of cold and I didn't really feel like walking all that much, but two things struck me as I walked along. I was heading west on Bloor and first came to a group of protesters wearing loud yellow (orange?) pickets, doing their protesting thing outside the Quality Hotel on Bloor St. As I neared them, I was able, first, to hear what the woman was yelling through her megaphone, and then to read their pickets. It seems this dozen-person group was made up of the cleaning staff of the Quality Hotel. It turns out, the hotel is planning to, if not already doing so, pay these workers per room, rather than by the hour. How vile is that? Come on, by the room? Where are we, Mexico? What, I ask, would happen to the poor souls stuck cleaning the room of some hideous slob, a job that might take twice as long as a typical room, rather than the ones cleaning the room that was barely touched? I mean, let's just penalise hard work a little more, why don't we. I thought, as I walked past them, "What a crappy world this is."

A few blocks further west, nearing Spadina, I began to make out the strains of music, but it was directionless, bouncing off the walls of the surrounding buildings and being muffled by the car engins idling at the lights. When I reached the corner, I found the source, a young man, maybe his mid-twenties, dressed like any old joe on the street. He looked like he probably played highschool football before turning to a much more respectable (this is not sarcasm) career in busking. He was playing an electric guitar, and he didn't suck, either. What got me, though, and a whole lot of passers-by, was that he was playing hard rock riffs - at any moment, I expected him to break into some Iron Maiden, or something. Then he took off on a crazy solo (if you can cut into a solo when you're the only one playing) and I thought, "Satriani. He wants to be Spadina's Satriani." I smiled broadly, and went into the drug store thinking that maybe it wasn't so bad a world afterall.

"It was five years of artistry and development. The breakthrough was after we finished shooting. It was about a little over a year ago. Frank Oz was very excited about not having to hold his hand up a heavy puppet and be in a hole in the floor."

~ George Lucus talking about CG Yoda in an interview for The Homing Beacon, the starwars.com newsletter.

I forgot to mention something that happened to me on Thursday before seeing AotC. I was walking down the street, just outside of Heretic, actually, and it was crumby out, damp but not currently raining, and Tanya and I were walking along. There were lot of people walking by us on either side in both directions. Considering what a crappy day it was, it was pretty busy on the sidewalk. Suddenly, a blue umbrella, of the sort that pop out and open, pushes me aside and this man, older, in his fifties, dressed in blue denim, including cap, moves by me. I stop and glance at Tanya, but she didn't see it. He literally prodded me as though I was cattle. He didn't even try saying "excuse me" or anything, he just shoved me aside.
Me: Excuse me !
Him: No, -excuse- me. (nasty grinning) ...There are two of you; you don't have to take up the whole sidewalk.
Me: (stunned silence) Well... Well, fuck you.
Now, I don't normally swear at men on the street, even when they're harrassing me, but the man treated me like a herd animal. There was a time when men wouldn't THINK of doing that to a woman, but obviously now, these days, even the slightest bit of COMMON CURTESY is lost. Shit. What a jerk.

Anyway, yesterday, Mom came and visited. Hey, wow, that was nice ! She not only brought food, but she also brought her wondrous decorating/visually-thinky mind of hers. While the effect is somewhat dulled tonight as I just brought back the remainder of my crap from Al and Carrie's and have deposited it about the apartment, overall, the place is looking spiffy ! She liked it very much, as well, the apartment, itself, though she agreed that my room was unnecessarily dark. That said, I must note that my fancy window fixing -is- mounted and looks lovely. Mom and I had a bit of a picnic in the living room, enjoying the foods she brought, including the first crop of asparagus from her garden ! Oh yum ! It was a nice visit, and I even managed to entertain her with the awesome video game, ICO, which we now have and I am well on my way to being completely addicted to. Following the visit, she drove me all the way to Rick's which was very generous of her.

Rick, too, did good things with food, preparing a really nice, tangy stir-fry. I made the salad, which was nice and crispy fresh. It was a pretty relaxed evening, especially for Rick who got rather personal with the bottle of wine he'd bought. I had been suffering from a headache so I went easy. We watched that old film classic, The African Queen on television through dinner, and then he put in the original Blade from a few years back (so now I can finally see the sequel). Both films were very enjoyable, if, uh, entirely different. Sometimes it's cozy to just snuggle down into a couch and watch movies.

From Rick's I had to come back to my place in the morning to feed my completely ignored cat, who had spent the night alone because Nick was at his parents' and I, was at Rick's. She had NOT been pleased with being left alone and had ripped into the garbage bag in the kitchen. It's not that she likes to eat garbage, or anything, she only does it when she's bored and insecure. Oh, the joys of owning an half-crazy cat. Anyway, much to her horror, I left her again and drove to work. Work was nothing much worth mentioning - some nice people, some less nice people, the usual. I drove home again to give Willi her dinner and to play half an hour of ICO (I died), and then, yet again, abandoned my cat to head up to Al and Carrie's. I let myself in and upon arrival, pretty much headed straight to the cleaning up of my old room. Not even an hour later, I was all packed and ready to go. Spontaneous adventures then happened.

We went to see Star Wars: AtoC ! They bought the tickets and off we went to Scarborough Town Centre (the same theatre we'd seen Ep. I for the first time in '99). There had been talk of Ryan joining us, but, naturally, he didn't. Good thing they hadn't gotten him a ticket too. So, I was thrilled to see it again, and with them. They're one of the only couples that never make me feel like a third wheel. Carrie said the sweetest thing, "You can't be out of place as a third wheel on a tricycle." She's a real wonderful person. Anyway, seeing the movie again allowed me to see a bunch of things I'd missed in the first viewing, and realise a bunch of things, too. There was a LOT of thought put into this one. Sure, it's not going to be nominated for Best Picture, or anything, but a lot of ends were tied up, and things that take place later in the chronology were carefully set in place here. I enjoyed it as much, if not more, on the second viewing, if only for catching the things I'd missed. Ryan missed out, I guess.

Now I'm home, and surprise, surprise, I'm running through the job ads on mandy.com, a site Megs-in-Philly just turned me onto. It has tons of entertainment jobs, though a good many of them are short-term, low/no pay jobs. I wouldn't mind hitting New York for fifteen days to get my name in the credits of someone's film. At least it would be experience, though, granted, not the sort that pays the bills. Anyway, I've sent out a couple of inquiries about a pair of jobs that need some artistic vision, or something. Hey, pick me !