embodied Tim Knowles

Here's a fun post I found on F.A.D. (Free Association Design).

The post is about an artist named Tim Knowles and his work exploring and experiencing the city and space more broadly.

I like the long exposure adventures across fields at night.

And the windwalks he takes and subsequently maps.

More Tim Knowles and a whole whack of interesting projects here.

Dude draws with trees!

That's all I have. Time for shower and bed. Suffice to say lots of people are searching for their bearings in the world, trying to represent themselves and their embodied wanderings. My data collection continues apace and given all the juicy creative outputs that are around, eventually I'll come up with something to do with it!

Oh, and clown is fun. I need to come up with a 1-2 minute presentation for Wednesday. Nothing yet, but something clever this way comes no doubt.

and that other thing

First this link. It's a show entitled Whose Map is it? I don't know the answer, but it's a bunch of people subverting "the socio-political structures and cultural hierarchies that traditionally inform mapmaking." Sounds like something I'd try to do.

Anyway...someone should send me to London.

Also, for those who follow the ol' tweet machine I promised a tale from yesterday that I forgot to include in my thrilling recounting of my walk.

Leaving the practice space I saw a pretty lady across Ossington, heading north while I strode south.

I crossed the road and as I did I glanced back, catching her making a similar neck rotation (romantic notions just ooze from my word choices).

Who knows why I caught her eye, the point is it happened. And yes, she might have been looking past me, but what's the point in assuming that?

The glance-back-sync-up is always fun, although I never know quite what to do with it.

In this case my response to the situation was two-fold. Step one involved mumbling babe, babe, babe under my breath as I continued walking, passing other people on the sidewalk. Step two was me thinking I should probably look back again, because if one glance-back-sync-up is fun, a double whammy would probably be époustouflant (it's French, look it up).

So I looked, and I couldn't see her because the girl who I had just passed, while mumbling babe of course, was blocking my sight line. Also, lady the deuce doing the blocking had turned to look at me for my second glance-back-sync-up in a row.

Two in a row!

So what if the second was unintentional on my part. She now has a tale of passing romance to tell, or she's writing an entry on her blog...The Weirdos I See Outside CAMH.

a walk

Just walked Daydream to band practice in Clint's space. It was my first time going there and it's pretty fantastic. Apparently formerly a wood workshop, with low ceiling and a general crap feel, now, and increasingly so, a cool venue with proper ventilation, sound-proofing and a middle of upgrading feel.

I'm now having ideas for a show I could put on. I still don't think my performance is anything people would make a special effort to come to, but I'm thinking if I can get a few more of my maps finished, and some maps from my collection presented/mounted, I might be able to at least provide the backdrop for an interesting spectacle.

Nothing much to say about the walk except for a few things.

One: Daydream's off the cuff suggestion about me getting a pedometer makes me think I should get a pedometer. Easily incorporated into my data collection which is right now a lot of words. I can send daily ped.dates on twitter or here. Ped.dates being updates but for your feet and from the future.

Two: Bought some scooby road atlases.

Three: Drum circle starts tonight apparently, despite the rain. I realized it's just a group improv activity where group-think is responsible for what's happening, when to speed up, stop, etc.

Four: Stopped to watch a ladies softball game. It's interesting to watch people playing in the cold rain for no 'reason'.

But they have plenty of reason, of course. It's their thing. The thing they do to get away from work or family or whatever. They hit the ball, run the bases and cheer each other on with classic phrases like 'good eye' and 'way to waste that one', as well as a never-ending stream of platitudes telling whomever that they're doing great.

It's nice.

And it's interesting, seeing those ladies. Ladies whose body types would leave me, in passing, assuming little more than a walk from the couch to the fridge as exercise for the week. Let's be happy we aren't all so judgmental. They swung with intent, ran the bases, played hard and then, I assume, went home cold, wet, but surely satisfied.

People are weird.

Tomorrow if I see one of the softball players I'm likely to look past without a second thought. But tonight, with the steady rhythmic worship of the drum circle coming from the dog bowl, their patch of illumination in an otherwise dark, cold park drew me in and I watched. Pitches hummed, bats cracked balls, the rain was back-lit as it fell through the lights, while the team in grey had a tidy inning, scoring 3 runs.

space and time

Went to Kingston this weekend on a spur of the moment road trip with Entire Cities. They really need to update their Myspace.

Anyway, post show, sitting on a porch, time and space struck me. As in, I have spent a lot of my life in Kingston. I have walked through the park I was looking at too many times to count. I even have a vague memory of attending a party in the house I stayed on Saturday night. Yet sitting on that porch it was all different.

It's true, I have geographic knowledge of the city and it grants me an ease of mobility I would be without if it was first time visiting. But all the extraneous things - emotion and life...context - are different and that makes the place unique to this visit.

A memory of wandering to the farmers market through the park on a Saturday morning holds a different meaning in my life than this Saturday did; observing the same park at 3 in the morning after driving from Toronto, watching friends play a show, lugging a guitar amp from the bar and having a shared futon to look forward to upstairs.

Different.

The next day we went to a new little grocery store at Barrie and Clergy that specializes in local nummies. The building a dirty convenience store when I inhabited the geography last. Ms. Kelly, who was kind enough to let us hunker at her place the night before, works there, so we all trundled over to carry out chairs, set-up tomato plant displays, and so forth. The place has the same swinging, prison-like solid slab of steel for a door, but inside instead of under-priced pop there were enormous carrots and the best custard doughnuts I have ever eaten.

Space and time, time and space, and enormous carrots.

data maps of the Brit election

See how much fun data can be!

The Guardian has made these awesome maps with their data.

They've also done some fun stuff with the data and listed it here.

Or if it tickles your fancy you can get an entire spreadsheet with all the data here. Votes, swing that took place...anything you could want!

My data collection is coming along. So far a bunch of street names, but it's a start.

Also, isn't The Guardian just an awesome news entity? The things you can do with a little distance from the market and its profit generating mindset.

(Also, more here.)

Bhutan jacket

There was a guy wearing a Bhutanese jacket at No Frills today.

That is to say it was a jacket coloured as a Bhutanese flag and it said Bhutan.

I tried to take a picture but was being watched too closely. Also, I was there late and didn't want to waste time lest they close the shop as I was choosing between tins of beans.

Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck may be finally trying to make contact.

Call me Dragon King!

tracerouting with gps

This video was done over 5 years and 8000km by a cyclist who had a GPS affixed to his person at all times.

Originally found here.

Pretty neat.

I have some ideas about making maps based on my movements throughout the city.

Initially they were about tracing my meanderings onto an already drawn map, but that quickly shifted to something like this where the city, or at least my city, emerges from a blank canvas. The second idea seems much more suited to encouraging discussion on what a city really is.

Can you consider it a part of your city if you've never seen it? Maps give the impression of knowledge...how is that knowledge compromised by walking a street again and again? Never having actually been somewhere? Only having driven a road, never walked? ...And so on.

My mapping project also leads to all sorts of fun considerations around how to map my movement. Just a foot map? If it includes cycling or public transit how are those recognized? Do I try to draw the map to account for speed? For time travelled? Distance? For experience and depth of engagement with a route or destination?

I think the solution to all that might be to simply start a journal, or just have a sheet of paper on my room wall where I make notes whenever I get home. Recording my movements, modes of transport, experiences had or shared...whether I was walking alone or with others is a good stat too.

Or I could cease being Ludditic and get a GPS machine of my own...along with a notebook for all the mushy non-scientific stuff.

Anyway, the point is collecting the data.

And the video also made me realize why facebook, google, etc are all excited about data. Data is the hard part. Once you have it, there are all sorts of things you can do with it, but you have to collect it first. As I consider this project the data collection is the part that strikes me as daunting...the aftermath of expressing it in whatever form or forms, that's just exciting. There are so many ways to go about it and if I mess it up or do something I don't like the data will still be there.

No one will possess more data on me than me!!! I'll commercialize it and make so much money.

Clowning tomorrow. Also a full day at work. Good times I hope.

Lists are the thing

I've been keeping myself busy of late, and perhaps that's why I haven't been on here too much. I always talk about the blog as a tool I use to ensure I write on a semi-regular basis, but when I find other creative outlets I suppose it falls by the wayside. Or outlets of any kind of activity really.

Black Creek is open for schools so I'm working there a few days a week, learning the Many Hands program and doing tours. We have three stations in Many Hands - spinning (and wool more generally), baking, and the workshop. Because I'm a fella I'm usually in the workshop. Historical accuracy and all that. It's fun and I still get to eat whatever is left over from the baking, so that's good. It's also fun to tour at this time of year when the village has no one else in it. You can talk in buildings for as long as you want and if the kids feel like losing there minds I can even send them running.

I've also been transcribing, doing taxes, drawing, reading and sometimes writing.

For the last while I've been listing what I want to get done and have been putting write/draw at the bottom of every list. Some days I get to it, others no, and I've been choosing draw most times when I do. I'll get back to the novel soon, no doubt.

Lists have been great as far as getting me to get things done when I have the time. When I run out of jobs like taxes and transcribing, hopefully my lists will see me writing and drawing all day long. Fingers crossed! They've also been helpful in sending me to bed at a reasonable time. If I'm tired and the list is done I go to bed. As simple as it sounds it goes against my normal tactic of finding activities that keep me awake.

Maturity (no matter how smell the steps in that direction are) is weird.

I was drawing last night, sitting on the couch and making little mistakes as I went. I'm inking pencil lines so I really don't want to be making mistakes at this stage, but I just couldn't stop. I was in a tired/out of it mindset where I convinced myself to keep working, and not make the tiny effort necessary that would make the working situation better. In retrospect I should have moved over to the table, set up a light and continued apace. Oh well. Next time. And looking at it now the mistakes aren't the end of the world.

Who knew being crunched up on a couch wasn't most conducive to tiny, detailed drawing?

I also have another show tonight. 8:30 at the Bad Dog Theatre and pay what you want as you exit. You should come. If I don't post this blog before the show, I wonder if I will remember to edit this part. MYSTERIES. (I'm going to make it!)

And I've signed up for a clown workshop, starting in May. That should be a real gas!

Maybe another improv class too, but I've also applied for a couple more jobs - more museums! - so I'm not going to rush at anything too forcefully.

Finally, look at this.

It's from my shower curtain, and it tells me one thing: polyester will bring the world together! Unless you use a different alphabet. In those cases I guess we're at war.

Sorry guy.

Home Easter visits!

What a sunny and warm Easter weekend that was.

Holy jumping! I'll take the heat as long as the rain comes with though. Not too much precipitation this past winter and the soil shows it. How do I know so much about the humidity levels of dirt you ask. Well, it's because I did a lot of digging this weekend. A lot of hands on knowledge from the garden.

I cut down trees. I moved trees. I raked the lawn. I turned over dirt in the vegetable patch (after picking last year's carrots of course). Here are some pictures of me tearing out trees at the bottom of the garden.

My mum took these because she wanted me to post them to the blog. She likes to interact with the internet, just a step or two further removed than most. Also, she was very concerned that my readers know what a hard worker I am.

Here it is folks. Proof! Proof that I have a lower back!

The visit home was a good one. They're all nice but this one left me in a particularly positive frame of mind. I think it was because I was outside lots, barefoot and labouring, and didn't waste a lot of time watching TV or on the internet. Having a crummy computer and a slow internet connection at home means I get frustrated much faster. Webpages sometimes take a long time to load, so a video had better have an amazing description or I'm not even going to bother.

That and the computer's in a cold basement!

I also had some time visiting with friends, which inevitably meant heading down to Jason's Pub (aka The Pube. We're a witty bunch). Well, we tried to go to the pub, but the people there were the regulars. Fortunately the regulars included a man playing pool who must have been 400 pounds if he was 10, dressed in matching bright yellow shorts and t-shirt. I have called him 'The Sun'. Also there was a little fellow I see around town with a funny scrunched up nose and really squinty eyes, dressed head to toe (including hat) in turkey hunting camouflage. I have called him 'Turks'.

I don't know about you guys, but I for one cannot wait to read the next thrilling episode of Turks and The Sun as they troll around Owen Sound looking for one more beer and fresh turkey.

I should point out, there's no shortage of "characters" at Jason's, these are just the two that caught my eye as I walked through.

After Jason's we went over to The Dark Side, that being a concert venue (?), literally across the hall. I didn't know it was called that until this visit, but it has definitely been called that for as long as I've been alive. Both of these are of course in Jason's Road House, which features rooms for rent upstairs and a reputation for dirt (of ALL varieties). I could go on but I'm sure you get the idea.

So off to The Harb it was! And by off to The Harb I of course mean the line outside the bar. There are only the two bars in the city, the Harb being the dancier one, so sometimes there is a line.

The police car is just there because if something's going to go down, it's going to go down here. A few years ago there was a do in the city because of a few rowdy nights when the bars let out. The Owen Sound Sun Times claimed people were coming into town from kilometers away for 'fight nights' and local entrepreneurs were selling pizza from the trunks of their cars to spectators.

Classic.

Beach Brothers used to be across the road from The Harb, but it was torn down a few years ago, and with competition like this across the street is anyone really surprised?

There is another bar, Smuggler's (more commonly Smugg's, or the local stripping establishment) above The Harb, but I didn't go. I was intent on chatting with Dank and he was anchored in the line by his fiancee, so there we remained.

Wish I'd gone upstairs though, just for the adventure. I wasn't drinking, but beers for $5 in a strip club? Maybe I should have been. Chatting later with people who had gone up I heard the normal banter about which dancers might have been pregnant, etc. and an amusing tale of a greeting dismissed.

Upon getting into the bar my friend Bustin' saw a mutual acquaintance from high school. Let's call him Jason, because that's his name. Bustin' first instinct was to say, "Jason!" in his normal slightly excited greeting voice. Jason's instinct was to turn away and ignore the greeting, pretending he didn't hear in the grossly underpopulated bar.

My commentary is this. If you're in a strip club, whatever. If you're in a strip club by yourself, whatever. If you're in a strip club by yourself in your hometown and someone from high school, even if said someone wasn't your friend or in your main group of peers, says hi, don't be a dink and ignore the situation.

I'm probably being too harsh. Maybe he was just feeling shy or embarrassed. Or maybe he was thinking Oh this loser. What a loser this guy is. No way I'm talking to him. What a loser. I'm going back to watching this possibly pregnant lady dance instead.

So, waiting in line was fun but eventually, after seeing a woman leave the bar, obviously pregnant, probably hammered and definitely smoking, we went back to Jason's (nothing to do with that Jason guy I mentioned above). By then demographics had shifted and we had people to sit and talk to. And so the night went.

Home was also good because my mum was in fighting form. She was riled up over recent changes to abattoir regulations, changes that are causing smaller operators difficulties as they are forced to spend precious resources to meet new, seemingly arbitrary regulations.

Bureaucrats at work!

Read this.

Small locally-owned and operated, provincially-inspected abattoirs

are a key ingredient in safe, local food. They provide a crucial link

between livestock farmers and the local food movement.

As farmers, meat processors and consumers committed to local food, we

are afraid that small, provincially-inspected abattoirs are

disappearing from our communities. As the Minister of Agriculture,

Food and Rural affairs we are asking you to help save the small

abattoirs across Canada.

Now do something about it people! By sending letters to this lady.

Hon Carol Mitchell
Minister Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs
Public Archive Building
77 Grenville St., 11th Floor
Toronto, ON M5S 1B3

I was sent south with a stack of cards printed with the above message and a pile of stamps to make sure they got where they needed to go. Daydream was kind enough to distribute a pile at chef school, but if you want to do something, you have all the info you need above. And if you want an official card I'm sure my mum will hook you up.

And then it was over. Delicious lamb supper on Sunday then on the bus bright and early Monday morning with about 20 Mennonites!!! This was pretty exciting for me because a lot of them seemed pretty excited to be travelling and I had a whole bus ride to make some observations. I wasn't staring the whole time, but this is what I noticed:

Everyone has their luggage tagged.

Except for one older fellow most of the riders were young (18-28) and everyone seemed to be married or at least paired off. There were also some very young children/babies along for the ride (all girls I think) and a few boys that looked early teen-ish.

Everyone had great skin. Not a blemish in the bunch. My theory on this is that they are doing what young people are meant to be doing, ie having sex and having babies, so all their hormones are in sync. Also, they are working outside a lot and mostly eating what they grow and prepare so don't have a lot of excess crap in their systems.

I like how the ubiquitous male bowl-cut swoops out at the bottom because they wear hats all the time.

They became excited at two point during the journey. Once when we were driving through Holland Marsh, where there is lots of farming activity, all the men got right up against the windows. A second time as we passed a livestock truck they all crowded to one side to see what was inside. The answer: pigs! I have nothing grand to say about this, except it shows that people are interested in what they do and know.

BUT what I really want to know is why they were all going to Toronto? Was there a Mennonite convention of which I was not made aware?

And to close with one last thought. Cold lamb is great. I should have taken more.

Jeremy loses his glasses

So many wonderful people in this city doing their wonderful things. Some things are big, bold, mind shattering and earth changing. Others are smaller, less demanding of your time, attention or brain cells, but still a real pleasure.

Such categories aren't hard and fast of course.

And it's all the opinion of the audience.

But, since I'm the only member of the audience writing here I declare the following GREAT.

Courtesy of one Mark Andrada.

post Rama show show

I should also mention the 400 class show that I had in the evening after the casino went swimmingly.

I could have used more stage time, but what's a fella to do? It does seem a bit unfair though. I mean I was responsible for about 50% of the audience in attendance. 7 friends, SEVEN, were awesome enough to come out and see the show. The people in the class who invited no one, couldn't they have just performed alone in their bedroom or something? Why do they always have to piggyback on my notoriety.

Heh.

A great big thank you to all who came. And as a special treat I was even given my first pre-performance flower. And by flower I mean balloon with a green pipe cleaner attached. HAL had received a birthday balloon bouquet earlier in the day and was thoughtful enough to bring a similar gift to the show for me. She even came on stage for one part of the show, meaning I'm now allowed to say I have performed with her, thus upping my standing in the improv world (until people see me perform).

Of the two scenes I had one that involved speaking which was with a fella I have a hard time performing with sometimes. It went okay though and as usual was a good learning experience. In this instance we early on established that he was my father, we were in Vegas and he had recently killed mom. That last bit, one would think the most important part of the relationship we were trying to establish on-stage, was quickly forgotten. Oh well.

My other scene was a physical gibberish number and THAT I can handle. It felt really good. I even died in a satisfying manner. 2 minutes of stage time never felt so right.

2 major realizations came from doing the show:

1 - I have now performed improv shows twice and I get freaking hyper when I'm done. Mega adrenaline.

2 - We were talking to people on the casino bus about what we were up to that evening and it was awesome to be one of those who had a show that night.

Both things make me want to find more chances to perform and continue to improve.

I'm still up in the air over whether I want more classes, but I'm sure all that will sort itself eventually.

A day at the Rama

I have now been to four casinos in my life.

Gananoque is always a good place to start one's gambling life. I won playing roulette. Thousand Islands Casino as it's officially called, is a tiny box off the 401 with a soaring sign and a performance room in back, about the size of my bedroom, where a Blues Brothers cover band was belting it out.

I lost a bit of money at Casino du Lac-Leamy in Hull. I was there celebrating a one year anniversary. Relationships! We were down a bunch but then I noticed there had been 6 reds in a row on the roulette wheel so I bet $50 on black and won. Odds and logic not in support of the decision, but who cares.

Then there was the spur of the moment, let's drive 2 hours and across the border to Akwesasne Mohawk Casino just south of Cornwall because there's some sort of poker tournament on. Didn't win the tourney, lost more playing poker later and I think I lost at blackjack too. More importantly I learned a valuable lesson: don't loan money to gambling addict friends in a casino. Sure he paid it back, but I felt bad for enabling (also I didn't really realize what was up until the evening was drawing nigh and I was able to watch how he *ahem* played).

And now with a visit to Casino Rama this past Sunday we can make it four!

The casino trip was part of the increasingly infamous Swimprov class. Said class started as a way for musicians and non-improv performers to play and learn in a low pressure, high fun setting. Of course it's helped along by having two of the best improvisers in the city, HAL and Kayla, as coaches. (HAL is a great nickname for a number of reasons, but we'll see how it holds up, and Kayla will get one soon. I'm still searching for inspiration.)

We were at Rama, in part, to celebrate HAL's birthday. Her birthday isn't until June 6 of course, but why should that stop us from boarding a bus filled mostly with seniors? Oh, that's right. We took one of the subsidized casino coaches that had been organized through HAL's condo. Worried about fitting in we were costumed, approximating what we felt casino-bound retirees look like.

HAL had even gone so far as to have a 45 minutes chat with Betty, a condo stalwart and organizer of the trip, beforehand so we had all the hot tips.

-visit the buffet early, because it gets busy

-the Canadian buffet is vastly superior to the Chinese option

-the bread pudding is an absolute delight

-the 5 cent machines are fun

-if a machine isn't winning, try another one

-25 cent machines are actually 25 cents for each wheel, meaning they're actually 75 cents

And that's just a sampler of the tips!

Betty was right on almost all counts, except the bread pudding was a bit disappointing. The buffet as a whole was great though. I ate THREE butter tarts.

I should also mention, that after paying $6 for the bus, we were given a $10 credit on our players card, so everyone was making money. Then we left the restaurant and hit the floor.

After being confused for a while we figured out the 2 cents machines and went to town. Some of us more than others. You'd think with a 2 cent machine the games would last forever and at a low cost, but no. In order to win the big bucks you have to max bet, and that of course means betting up to 125 credits (aka 250 cents) at a time. Some people in the group were good at keeping their bets small, others were not.

I was in the latter group.

I can't help myself (those are good words to say around gambling!). I'll throw a few small wagers in, enjoy the lights and patterns, but inevitably think, Hey, what if the next one hits big and I don't max bet? Basically I'm a casino's dream customer, except that I can usually just stop. Especially when I know myself and am able to plan ahead, taking money from my wallet before leaving the house.

It's also interesting to watch some of the other people play. They might lose as much as me, but they aren't doing it try to win a pile in return. They were doing it because there was a machine in front of them with fun lights and noises and buttons that NEED TO BE PRESSED!!!

Speaking of slot machines, this was the first time I've played them since I dropped a single loonie into a machine at Lac-Leamy. The machines at Rama don't take coins, only bills and tickets. You buy in and the machine calculates how many credits you possess. When you're done playing, if you have money left, you print out another credit ticket that can be used to gamble more, or can be cashed out using a cashier machine, or even, dare I say it, a live cashier. Weird.

All the machines have trays underneath that could conceivably be used to catch untold riches in coins when you hit the big one, but instead just sit empty. When you win there're some fun tunes that play for you, becoming slightly more excited the longer the credit count up goes on. I don't know who wrote those, or how much research went into them, but they are great and have the, I would assume, desired effect of making the player want to hear more of the same.

Maybe it was just me and an irrepressible urge to dance though.

And while many machines have arms on the side that can be pulled, most people opt for the buttons up front that make all whirlies spin.

I've decided I'm not a slot machine fan. I don't have the patience to bet small for long enough that I get to play the novel bonus games they have. And I don't have the money to bet big for long enough to access the same games. Also, I don't know what the odds are set at, and while I don't think for a second it's set at ZERO CHANCE there's something alienating about having the fates controlled by an unknown algorithm. The fact you don't need to pull the arm, your wealth is tracked on printed slips and the machines feature useless coin trays is alienating as well.

I'm well aware that I'm describing modern slot machines as alienated from the human condition, just as Marx intended, but seriously. Those trays were designed to maximize the noise of plinking coins for crying out loud! Such a waste.

Table games at least give me chips to fiddle with, but when the minimum bet on those is $15, they're a big no no. Poker would have been nice, but there are a lot of people that felt the same and the poker room was rammed. That and it was a class outing that would have been defeated if I'd wandered off to play alone.

We were definitely the most 'dressed' people in attendance. I was expecting a certain amount of ridiculousness as far as good luck trinkets, funny hats and the like, but was grossly disappointed. The red bulldog I had hanging from my pocket all day not only did not bring me luck, but drew all sorts of odd stares from the hardcore gamblers around the room. Maybe it's because there's a preponderance of rural Ontarians in the crowd and you don't get the flash and sizzle of Vegas grannies.

Few people looked excited to be there. Perhaps the excitable people were at table games, but amongst the machinists if we made too much noise or were having too much fun people generally moved off or glared.

At the same time when we were getting all bent out of shape because one of us was up $4 people would sometimes appear. On more than one occasion a Chinese family arrived, different each time, but always composed of a couple aged 50-60 and a significantly older, presumed mother (in-law). At other times it was lone women who would hover, eying their chance to jump in on a winning machine. When they figured we were making all that noise over less than $5 they tended to leave.

The day's most confusing look, however, came when we were celebrating a modest uptick and I commented that I couldn't believe Kayla was up $30 000 playing the penny slots. A woman a few machines down turned and eyed us all. At the time I though she was either a) mad we were making noise, or b) trying to assess the veracity of my claims. Subsequently, I think it's something else.

She was sitting in front of a machine that has buttons and lights. She had probably deposited a pile of dough and had been moving her finger a minute amount, again and again, for hours. If that's what your eyes and brain are focused on when you turn to look at people it's not surprising that your face is blank and your eyes are empty. She probably wasn't thinking anything about us, and sure enough turned back to her screen in short order.

And I just remembered I've been to one more casino. It was the Circus Casino Edinburgh, but I can hardly count it because I was playing poker there and for me that's not gambling.

Then I lost.

fun with screen shots

Or, you should be asleep young man.

My class is having a show

Hey gang!

As some of you may be aware I've been doing improv for a wee while now and I have finally finished the "beginner" levels offered at Bad Dog Theatre.

And what better way to celebrate the accomplishment than with a class show?

I can't think of one, that's for sure.

Here's why you should come to this show:

1) I haven't talked to most of the people in my class for a few weeks.

2) I haven't done any improv in weeks.

3) All day before the show I'll be at Casino Rama and I'm liable to be tired.

Who knows what state I'll be in at show time???

Basically what I'm trying to say is there's a chance my performance will be an unmitigated disaster!!!!! Those are the best kind, so you should all come out!

Also,

4) Because you love me.

And remember, even if I'm a wreck, there's a whole other class of people who will be there to entertain you. So, really, you can't lose.

It's a pay what you can event.

Bad Dog Theatre is at 138 Danforth Ave. and it's just east of Broadview subway station.

The show starts at 8:15 pm this Sunday, March 28th. 1 hour long.

This is in the actual theatre space so let's fill 'er up!

I don't care how the show goes...well I do but more than that I want it to succeed or fail in front of more than 2 people.

I'll likely be sending out a reminder about this again before the day, but you should add it to your calendars now.

bed part two!

After more effort than I should have exerted my bed is now dressed in sheets!

First things first though.

I figure I'll be sleeping on this mattress for a while so I obviously want some form of protection. Growing up we just used an extra fitted flannel sheet underneath the regular fitted sheet, just something to add a layer between body and bed. We never had any deluxe, made for the job covers.

No luck finding such simplicity, and why would I want to when there are proper, expensive products to do the job. Uggh. How I love spending money when I'm not totally sure it's necessary. Oh well. I was at Sears and they had some fancy-pants covers 40% off, from $100!!! Too much, so I ended up grabbing a more generic version. It claims to be cotton and easily washed. Huzzah!

While looking at the mattress covers though an older lady appeared and I decided to ask her what she knew on the subject. Asking old ladies for advice in bedding departments was one of my themes for the day.

She knew that mattress covers shrink when washed, which she finds a bother. She also knew that the waterproof ones can feel sticky and gross. I'm not planning to pee my bed, so I knocked those off the list. I think she felt a bit uncomfortable, really trying to make it clear she was no expert, so I thanked her and toodled off.

I then had the great idea to mass text and see what feedback I could get that way. This was my second theme of the day; standing around in bedding departments for extended periods of time, trying to look busy while actually just texting or waiting for texts.

Thanks to all who responded, and to those who didn't, I'm sorry if I confused you. It's called outsourcing and it's for everything, even decisions.

It turns out no one has particularly strong passions on mattress coverings that aren't sheets. Some people (one person) seemed lost even with the basic notion that you'd want something else between you and your mattress.

That's kinda gross if you're keeping your mattress for any length of time. You're gross that person.

Oh well, a decision was made, and then it was off to Honest Ed's for the cheapest sheets in town!

I puzzled for a long while before selecting some 100% cotton sheets. The advice I got from both my mum (hi mum!) and an older woman who was also sheet shopping, was to go with the cotton-polyester mix. The main reason for this, APPEARANCES! You don't need to press the mix sheets after a wash.

Well, I guess I'll just have to start ironing my sheets more regularly. That is, if a wrinkly bed becomes a concern.

All the other advice I received, from the younger generation, was focused on the fact that cotton breathes. That appeals to me. Also, it turned out the colours/patterns I wanted were only available in 100% cotton. Form over function? Sure, why not.

The lady who I started chatting with at Honest Ed's was great. I think she was East Indian by descent and we went through all sorts of sheets trying to find nice ones and looking at the different materials used to make them. She didn't have her glasses so I was reading labels for her. We found a microfiber sheet option at one point. Neither of us was sure what that meant, but she gave the fabric a rub and declared it a good sheet right there.

In case you were wondering.

She was really interested in a pink set of queen sheets that were on sale, something nice to put on her bed for Easter, but she wasn't sure. They were 100% cotton and she don't want to have to press them after a wash. After talking to a sales person and determining the sale would last until Saturday she decided to come back later. Sleep on her decision, and possibly later on her decision, if you will.

AND YOU WILL.

But her advice was mostly about material, and I still needed to choose colours (I am good at making things last longer than they need to). I asked 4 young lasses, I would guess first year university, who were shopping for toga sheets, which pattern they liked of 3 I had pulled from the pile. They all chose the one I thought most lame, so that didn't help.

Because I live now, I took a picture using my cellphone

and emailed it to niXon rather than explain what the colours looked like in 140 characters or less. She chose the sheets I was already most fond of, saying "I think the sillier the better, really," before warning me that "sheets may be a deal breaker."

Oh well. That's a risk I'll just have to take.

And how could this bedding break any deal?

Oh man. That's great! 300 thread count of wonderful.

It reminds me of an 80s cocaine baron??? Don't ask me why this is or to support the statement in any way. Also, I'd need my bed to be round, and have polar bear and/or tiger skins for blankets.

Good thing I still need a duvet!