Weekend in review
Since it's entirely too early to start doing actual work, I am now going to delight you people with another long rambly post about what I did over the weekend. Just in case you aren't dying to know every detail (altho I'm sure you are), I'll give a quick summary: four day weekend, birthday present shopping, Toronto wandering, apartment hunting, semi-writing, birthday party-going, karaoke singing, late night/early morning chatting, couch surfing, loss of time, train spacing, 'Live Free, Die Hard' viewing, sleep!
Got all that? Good. And now the .
Friday
So apparently 'summer hours' have taken effect at my office, which means that we are encouraged to finish early on Fridays (as early as noon if we can pull it off) and also get Friday's off for long weekends. Which means that after my awesome Thursday (got a job! got ice cream! hanging out with friends from three different provinces/cities!) I got to sleep in on Friday and spend the entire day kicking around the house. The sleeping in party didn't actually go all that well. First I woke up at 5, had a terrrible time trying to get back to sleep. Finally managed it but then woke up at 7. Read for a bit, and then out of bed at 8:30.
The rest of the day was spent pretty much camped in front of the TV and the computer (at the same time, love laptops). Watched the season finale of 'Studio 60' (so good!), and pulled 'Payback' from the free movie channel. As much as I enjoy Mel Gibson, he's made some pretty mediocre movies.
My Aunt Merrilee (of the Thanksgiving/Jamie story fame) and Uncle Peter arrived at the house around 5. They were down for the weekend because it was my Uncle Garry's 60th birthday this weekend and the old folks were off to London for his birthday. I did the whole sociable thing, had a very nice dinner, and then retreated upstairs to go to bed early.
Saturday
In preperation for Sunday's birthday party festivities (for a RAP friend, not my uncle. I'm a horrible niece and skipped out on his party to go to a different one) Ashley and I dedicated Saturday to hunting down a birthday present. Which meant heading into Toronto to meet for 11:00 and then hit up the book stores. We actually managed to find two pretty great books ('The Troubled Songwriter' and 'Office Escapes'). I also got myself 'Metallica and Philosophy' which I've read a bit of so far, and it's pretty cool.
The rest of the day was spent pretty much wandering around the streets of Toronto. Did some more shopping, altho I didn't buy anything else. Also did some impromptu apartment hunting. Started out looking around King/Front/The Esplanade, all of which was well out of our price range. Went to the St. Lawrence Market for lunch, and then wandered up Church street. Found a pretty cool place (Jazz Apartments, and yes I'm a sucker for anything musically themed) and got a bit of information, but it too was just a touch out of our range. Made our way all the way up to Bloor where we eventually decided to call it quits and went our separate ways. I made it back to my house around 6:00, where I was surprised to find my dad had managed to talk his way out of going to London. Well done dad. More food, and another early night.
Sunday/Monday
Managed to actually sleep in on Sunday, which was kind of unfortunate because it meant I got an email too late to pull together some plans to go to the Casa Loma Ren Faire with Sab and company. Ended up at loose ends most of the afternoon, just killing time before I had to leave to head into Toronto. Read a bit, played the piano a bit, got frustrated at the piano, and left on the 5:47 train.
Meeting plans were a little interesting on Sunday. The party was to begin at 7:00, sometime before the birthday boy arrived (originally meant to be a surprise party, but the secret came out so it was a 'we know you know but pretend it's a surprise' party). Neither Ashley nor I had every been to this particular apartment, so planned to meet at the Yonge-Bloor subway station first and head up together. It actually worked out fine, but meeting people inside a subway station is a little weird. Especially when used to using cell phones to pinpoint someone's location. Anyway. Met up safely, headed up to Eglinton and found the apartment no worries.
Altho we were late we ended up being the first people (other than those who lived there/had planned the event) to arrive. Did the small-talk thing, started the drinking thing. There were a few random silences, but no worries. Aaron ended up arriving before a number of his guests, but whatever. All part of the fun with RAP events. Met a bunch of new people (friends of Aaron's from high school), talked about a bunch of random crap, gave the birthday present (he liked both books, yay), and then headed off around 11:00 to hit up the karaoke bar.
Now, I've done karaoke with RAP people before (once). It was pretty good times. But it was in Barrie and we were pretty much the only people in the bar. The idea of going to a karaoke bar in Toronto on a long weekend was kind of intimidating (at least to me). But what we ended up doing was renting a private room in this little Korean place, and it was actually a ton of fun!! Aaron had one mic (out of two) pretty much the whole night, whether he knew the song or not. It took a while before we figured out how to operate the machine, but eventually we had a more or less constant list of songs queued. Had an incredible range of music, and everyone managed to sing along most of the time. I somehow ended up singing 'I Will Survive' more or less by myself, also had the mic for 'Wonderboy' and 'Amazing Grace', and got to do backup a fair bit (one of the 'benefits' of sitting next to Aaron when he decided to start putting the mic in front of other people). Also got to play with a tamborine, which is a lot more fun than you might expect. All in all, an awesome karaoke adventure. Especially since we ended up closing the place down (had rented the room until 12:30, didn't leave until 2:30, and they only charged us for one extra hour). Crammed into two cabs and went back to our starting point. Unfortunately one of the residents had left the bar early, so she was asleep when we got back (or at least trying to be). Stayed for a little while longer, but then crammed into a another cab around 3:00 to head off to Shawn's where I was crashing for the night.
Survived the cab ride (four people in the back of a cab, always fun. Especially since we let Aaron sit in the front, which meant the bigger guys were in the back). Stayed up another hour and a bit chatting and drinking water. Eventually hit the couch around 5:00, where I proceeded to toss and turn until around 10:00. Got a bit of sleep in there, I'm sure, so no worries.
However, since I wasn't in the mood to start actually moving anywhere, I hung out and read for a bit longer, which meant I was still there when Shawn emerged around 11:30. Talked a whole bunch more about life, the universe, and everything (or, well, philosophy, reading, and bdsm) and completely lost track of time so I didn't up leaving until around 1:00. Subway down to Union, McDonalds for breakfast/lunch, train at 2:13, and back in Whitby around 3:00.
Apparently Mom had herself an interesting Sunday night as well (usually the case when family comes to visit), but we ended up going to see Die Hard anyway. SO GOOD!!! TO be honest I was a tiny bit worried about whether Bruce Willis would be able to pull it off, but he still kicks total ass. Fantastic movie. And about time, too, because the other 'summer blockbusters' I saw ('Pirates' and 'Fantastic 4') were both definite let-downs. So. Awesome. Got home a bit before 7:00, had some dinner, watched some TV, early to bed, and thus endeth the weekend.
Wow. Okay so that was a lot longer than I meant it to be. Gunna try to remember how to do an lj-cut to save people's friends lists. And I should also probably start doing some work, even if my supervisor won't be in until 9:30.
Hope everyone else had a good weekend, is having a good week, and has lots of other fun stuff coming up :)
Got all that? Good. And now the .
Friday
So apparently 'summer hours' have taken effect at my office, which means that we are encouraged to finish early on Fridays (as early as noon if we can pull it off) and also get Friday's off for long weekends. Which means that after my awesome Thursday (got a job! got ice cream! hanging out with friends from three different provinces/cities!) I got to sleep in on Friday and spend the entire day kicking around the house. The sleeping in party didn't actually go all that well. First I woke up at 5, had a terrrible time trying to get back to sleep. Finally managed it but then woke up at 7. Read for a bit, and then out of bed at 8:30.
The rest of the day was spent pretty much camped in front of the TV and the computer (at the same time, love laptops). Watched the season finale of 'Studio 60' (so good!), and pulled 'Payback' from the free movie channel. As much as I enjoy Mel Gibson, he's made some pretty mediocre movies.
My Aunt Merrilee (of the Thanksgiving/Jamie story fame) and Uncle Peter arrived at the house around 5. They were down for the weekend because it was my Uncle Garry's 60th birthday this weekend and the old folks were off to London for his birthday. I did the whole sociable thing, had a very nice dinner, and then retreated upstairs to go to bed early.
Saturday
In preperation for Sunday's birthday party festivities (for a RAP friend, not my uncle. I'm a horrible niece and skipped out on his party to go to a different one) Ashley and I dedicated Saturday to hunting down a birthday present. Which meant heading into Toronto to meet for 11:00 and then hit up the book stores. We actually managed to find two pretty great books ('The Troubled Songwriter' and 'Office Escapes'). I also got myself 'Metallica and Philosophy' which I've read a bit of so far, and it's pretty cool.
The rest of the day was spent pretty much wandering around the streets of Toronto. Did some more shopping, altho I didn't buy anything else. Also did some impromptu apartment hunting. Started out looking around King/Front/The Esplanade, all of which was well out of our price range. Went to the St. Lawrence Market for lunch, and then wandered up Church street. Found a pretty cool place (Jazz Apartments, and yes I'm a sucker for anything musically themed) and got a bit of information, but it too was just a touch out of our range. Made our way all the way up to Bloor where we eventually decided to call it quits and went our separate ways. I made it back to my house around 6:00, where I was surprised to find my dad had managed to talk his way out of going to London. Well done dad. More food, and another early night.
Sunday/Monday
Managed to actually sleep in on Sunday, which was kind of unfortunate because it meant I got an email too late to pull together some plans to go to the Casa Loma Ren Faire with Sab and company. Ended up at loose ends most of the afternoon, just killing time before I had to leave to head into Toronto. Read a bit, played the piano a bit, got frustrated at the piano, and left on the 5:47 train.
Meeting plans were a little interesting on Sunday. The party was to begin at 7:00, sometime before the birthday boy arrived (originally meant to be a surprise party, but the secret came out so it was a 'we know you know but pretend it's a surprise' party). Neither Ashley nor I had every been to this particular apartment, so planned to meet at the Yonge-Bloor subway station first and head up together. It actually worked out fine, but meeting people inside a subway station is a little weird. Especially when used to using cell phones to pinpoint someone's location. Anyway. Met up safely, headed up to Eglinton and found the apartment no worries.
Altho we were late we ended up being the first people (other than those who lived there/had planned the event) to arrive. Did the small-talk thing, started the drinking thing. There were a few random silences, but no worries. Aaron ended up arriving before a number of his guests, but whatever. All part of the fun with RAP events. Met a bunch of new people (friends of Aaron's from high school), talked about a bunch of random crap, gave the birthday present (he liked both books, yay), and then headed off around 11:00 to hit up the karaoke bar.
Now, I've done karaoke with RAP people before (once). It was pretty good times. But it was in Barrie and we were pretty much the only people in the bar. The idea of going to a karaoke bar in Toronto on a long weekend was kind of intimidating (at least to me). But what we ended up doing was renting a private room in this little Korean place, and it was actually a ton of fun!! Aaron had one mic (out of two) pretty much the whole night, whether he knew the song or not. It took a while before we figured out how to operate the machine, but eventually we had a more or less constant list of songs queued. Had an incredible range of music, and everyone managed to sing along most of the time. I somehow ended up singing 'I Will Survive' more or less by myself, also had the mic for 'Wonderboy' and 'Amazing Grace', and got to do backup a fair bit (one of the 'benefits' of sitting next to Aaron when he decided to start putting the mic in front of other people). Also got to play with a tamborine, which is a lot more fun than you might expect. All in all, an awesome karaoke adventure. Especially since we ended up closing the place down (had rented the room until 12:30, didn't leave until 2:30, and they only charged us for one extra hour). Crammed into two cabs and went back to our starting point. Unfortunately one of the residents had left the bar early, so she was asleep when we got back (or at least trying to be). Stayed for a little while longer, but then crammed into a another cab around 3:00 to head off to Shawn's where I was crashing for the night.
Survived the cab ride (four people in the back of a cab, always fun. Especially since we let Aaron sit in the front, which meant the bigger guys were in the back). Stayed up another hour and a bit chatting and drinking water. Eventually hit the couch around 5:00, where I proceeded to toss and turn until around 10:00. Got a bit of sleep in there, I'm sure, so no worries.
However, since I wasn't in the mood to start actually moving anywhere, I hung out and read for a bit longer, which meant I was still there when Shawn emerged around 11:30. Talked a whole bunch more about life, the universe, and everything (or, well, philosophy, reading, and bdsm) and completely lost track of time so I didn't up leaving until around 1:00. Subway down to Union, McDonalds for breakfast/lunch, train at 2:13, and back in Whitby around 3:00.
Apparently Mom had herself an interesting Sunday night as well (usually the case when family comes to visit), but we ended up going to see Die Hard anyway. SO GOOD!!! TO be honest I was a tiny bit worried about whether Bruce Willis would be able to pull it off, but he still kicks total ass. Fantastic movie. And about time, too, because the other 'summer blockbusters' I saw ('Pirates' and 'Fantastic 4') were both definite let-downs. So. Awesome. Got home a bit before 7:00, had some dinner, watched some TV, early to bed, and thus endeth the weekend.
Wow. Okay so that was a lot longer than I meant it to be. Gunna try to remember how to do an lj-cut to save people's friends lists. And I should also probably start doing some work, even if my supervisor won't be in until 9:30.
Hope everyone else had a good weekend, is having a good week, and has lots of other fun stuff coming up :)