I finally managed to get my ass out of doors early enough this morning to walk instead of taking the streetcar, and I ran into a giant roadblock.

And that’s not even the worst of it. I initially woke up feeling a bit off  but I attributed that to a lack of sleep. By mid-day, I was suspecting the company pumpkin carving contest (we won!), had done me in. But at three o’clock, I excused myself and went home.

Now I’m panicking. Did I eat any pork recently? Oh my God! I had bacon for breakfast last Saturday! Islam and Judaism had it right all along!

If I’ve got the pork flu, it’s way too late for a vaccination. And one of my cubicle buddies had something unpleasant for the past few days; went down suddenly last night and never made it in this morning. :O

And *gasp* look at the lineups for H1N1 shots this morning!

(big!)

Oh, wait, that’s just the starting spot. I followed the line down the sidewalk at right. It made another tight snaking pattern into an adjacent courtyard in front of Metro Hall, and wound it’s way back out onto the sidewalk.

I took to the sidewalk again and walked to the end of the block, turned around, and started side-stepping in an ill-conceived attempt to montage the line:

(biger!)

In places where people aren’t obviously lined up, they’re just behind something. You can sometimes just make out their cute little heads poking up over bushes.

But most of them may be doomed because there are an awful lot people there and, according to some accounts, clinics are only managing about 20 per hour. People were being turned away in the hundreds yesterday because they hadn’t gotten in by the time the place closed. And, *chuckle*, people are not gonna be happy to hear that now there’s a shortage of the vaccine. Dopey bureaucracy may have killed us all.

It wouldn’t have made any difference for me. Whatever I’ve got has already made itself at home and a shot yesterday would’ve been too late.

All I have left now is a thermometer, electric heating blanket, and Oliver to apply pressure to the sore areas. Luckily I’d splurged recently and now have a healthy collection of tissue boxes (with soothing aloe!) to accompany these small comforts. Dear reader, the snot’s running wild and free tonight!

Let me start by laying it all out on the table.

The Macallan Scotch tasting that I was invited to yesterday was put on by word-of-mouth advertising agency Matchstick.  The idea behind hosting the event was obviously to provide some publicity for the whisky through blogging / social media / etc., but I want to assure you that it fell well within my guidelines for ethical and responsible shilling. The agency, insists that anyone attending their events is honest and upfront about it, and I wouldn’t have gone otherwise.

TCL isn’t about confessions or selling stuff, but it’s important that you know who was involved, and for what purpose. And that I’ve killed people.

There, clean conscience, ready to imbibe — just the way God wants it. :D

So, instead of just yammering on about booze, I thought that the best way to get into the evening would be to take you along.

I knew bupkis about Whisky when I arrived at the swanky Yorkville hotel. I mean, I’d drank whisky before but had more experience with the sticky tape version of Scotch than with the liquid one. So the first thing that Mark, our host, did was to explain that whisky is Scotch, Scotch is whisky. Only Scotch proper comes from Scotland.

Next, he went on a jovial story in a heavy Quebecois about how thrilled that he, as an avid whisky drinker, was to land this job with Macallan. He really seemed quite pleased about it.

Mark looks a bit of a greedy money-grubbing banker in the photo above, doesn’t he? But no, he’s just genuinely pleased at the prospect of sipping on expensive whisky all evening; it’s glee.

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November’s just around the corner, and you know what that means: renewal!

After all, the word “novem” means new. Or nine, but that doesn’t make much sense so Newvember it is! I realize that it’s not exactly the month of visible renewal. It’s a month in which the last of the leaves reluctantly leave their perch in the branches to join their departed brethren below. It’s a time of year when I switch to the “Sentimental” category of my MP3 collection and consider taking up drinking hard liquor to match the ambiance. Yeah, it’s solo-sax-on-the-street time.

That leads me to the first change for which my friend Casie Stewart is responsible. She’s managed to land herself a gig with the social media people at MuchMusic/MTV/CTV.

So congratulations, Casie!

According to the words I put in her mouth, I will never have to stand outside another CTV-run event like a common schmuck. Imagine, backstage passes to the MMVAs! No more standing around naked in the bushes outside of parties anymore.

And that leads me to the second change around here; I’ve decided to try writing in the morning rather than at night. I’m hoping this will give the posts a bit more clarity, less of that slobbering grunting quality. Also, I was recently invited to participate in a Whisky tasting by a local ad firm, and that’s happening tonight. Even if I manage to soberly comport myself (I don’t see those chances being high), I’ll still be getting home too late to think of anything interesting to say about it. And being able to pull strings with Ms. Stewart will probably mean more evening events like this.

We’ll see how it goes. This is my first morning post and I haven’t passed out yet, so we’re in strange new territory. This might yet work out, but as I’m getting light-headed, I won’t push too hard. How do people get up in the mornings?!

After reading yesterday’s post about the harrowing zombie situation in Toronto, you’re probably eager to discover how I escaped completely unscathed. After all, researchers have used zombie scenarios to predict the spread of H1N1, so I believe this information will be quite relevant even after the zombies have retired.

So where did I leave off yesterday? Oh yes, the zombies had me surrounded and I’d run out of people to toss in their path. The situation was getting really ugly:

The great discovery happened when I pulled out my camera and started to take photos. I figured I could record my final few moments for TCL; become the first post-mortem blogger — I believe that would make for interesting content. But it wasn’t to be.

You see, it seems that zombies actually like to have their photos taken. Anyone in the crowd who happened to be brandishing a camera was given a wide berth and, often, cooperative smiles (or menacing grimaces – whatever the scene called for):

And I feel that branding them all as brain-hungry murderers really isn’t representative of the zombie population. Being undead, apparently, isn’t enough to stave off the requirements of the workaday world, but the zombies seemed to take it all in stride. If it wasn’t for the homicidal tendency of ingesting live human brains, they’d probably make decent citizens.

Haha! *insert social commentary here*

Speaking of commentary, who’s tailing the wag here?

That’s a little slice of a-okay, isn’t it? :D

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A lot of people don’t know this, but Toronto has a terrible zombie problem. Most of the year they’re not really a nuisance; they pick through trash looking for brains and whatnot, but they mostly keep to themselves. But for the past seven years they’ve taken to the streets in an organized march.

Every year they keep demanding brains (like that’s gonna happen!) and better severance.

One of the things that shocked me about the whole thing was how punctual the zombies were. These days I’ve come to expect events starting thirty minutes to an hour late. But on Saturday, the undead were off and moving at 3:30 sharp.

Also shocking is the size of the demonstration, not to mention the aggressiveness of the group:

I only escaped unharmed because of one amazing fact. That I will share with you tomorrow. You see, the march was so prolific, I simply have no choice but to milk it for two whole posts. Besides, some of the zombies put so much effort into the event, I feel it’s only fair to give them a little air time:

One guess as to what this fellow was demonstrating for. Yup, brains. I don’t get it, are they that tasty?

… Continue Reading

It was a good, proper fall day today. Rainy, cold, dark and introspective. I’m all for days like this being declared municipal emergencies; everyone stay at home in your nice warm beds until the situation is alleviated! By order of the Mayor’s office!

I will do my duty, sir! Covers at regulation height!

Unfortunately, that never happens. The closest I came was pulling the somewhat ineffectual hood of my anorak over my head as it started to rain. As the excessive flap of the coat blocked most of my vision (either that or walk like a fully extended parachute in the wind), I found myself travelling in a very trance-like state. I could only see maybe one and a half meters in front of me, so I had to assume a certain attitude of resolution. Yes, a knife-wielding maniac may come screaming from an alley, and at that visual distance, I’m fairly certain I’d be dead. I had to resolve to be okay with that.

So I started to think about that vocation thing again. What, you didn’t think I came up with that just to fill up a post, did you? This is real angst! Jeez!

Okay, angsty; something I’d like to get resolved. So I must’ve had that in my sensory deprivation cloak with me on my walk home because suddenly I snapped out of my trance — something told me to look up, and what I saw looked awfully familiar:

Of course! I’ll become a thief!

No, not a common thief; I don’t want to abscond with bananas and gum; an international diamond thief  (I guess I could steal other expensive stuff too). A sophisticated gentleman cat burglar in the style of Cary Grant in “To Catch a Thief”, or  George Clooney in “Ocean’s Eleven”. Well, George Clooney in a few roles, but that one was especially well-suited. Flashy and always well-rested. *two thumbs up*

Oh, you’re probably wondering how I went from a Chinatown supermarket to becoming a thief. Sorry, let me take you back a little earlier in the day.

Over lunch, I read a Star story about a certain Mister David Chen, owner and proprietor of one ultra-ironic Lucky Moose Food Mart (pictured above; “lucky” moose on second floor). He’s being brought up on charges of kidnapping and forcible confinement because he tried to foil another robbery at his store.

The undisputed story goes that the thief was well-known and had stolen stuff from there (and nearby stores), numerous times. So, I guess Mister Chen wasn’t going to stand for it any more and when the thief dropped in to borrow a few other items, Mr. Chen and two buddies chased him down in a van, tossed him in the back, tied him up, and beat the snot out of him. Police found him tied up in some dank corner of Chinatown.

Well, yeah, that kind of is kidnapping. But somewhat understandable, I think. Mister Chen claims (and others corroborate this), that he had requested some sort of assistance from the police, but none was given. The thief was allowed to continue running around stealing stuff even though with his record, he probably shouldn’t have been out of a cell. Or at least some sort of supervised and controlled environment.

Another thing that I think Mister Chen is allowed to have a chafed butt over is the fact that his store is so close to 52 Division. Five minutes by foot, is my estimation.

But I’m not sure if I’d resort to grabbing someone off a street and mashing them up for stealing a few plants. Plus, it’s just so unimaginative. So generally speaking, I can see where the kidnapping and forcible confinement charges come from.

But what hit me over the head in today’s article was the fact the court made a bargain with the thief to testify against the store owner!

Yes – freakin’ – way.

The little scumbag got 30 days instead of 90 (and is apparently right back up to his old tricks), and in a complete reversal of roles, the store owner is now facing some serious charges. He could be put away with the thief’s help!

My idea doesn’t seem so crazy now, does it? As a thief, I could help put away the bad guys I steal from by testifying against them. I’ll hire interns for the beatings. And if I don’t get caught, I get to keep the loot!

Flawless.

I’m even thinking of leaving behind personalized, scented business cards of some sort, bearing a message of regret for their loss, but at least they lost it to the best; or something to that effect.

I’m gonna need a little work. I don’t even know how to properly pick a lock yet! I guess it’s hardcore training from here on in.

But don’t worry, dear reader. I’m keeping TCL in the back pocket. Hey, who knows, maybe it’ll be my daytime cover story. That’d be pretty cool 8-) George Clooney cool.