The sun was reflecting off of one of the other CityPlace buildings tonight, so I took some time to set up a nice photo with a long exposure time. I really like the reflection of the sunset and the streaks of the cars on the Gardiner in the background. It would have been nice to have a digital SLR to do this with, along with a tripod. Or at least a camera that can write images to a raw format instead of JPEG. Stupid lossy compression.

Sunset reflecting off of a building

I went rock climbing tonight for the first time in about 8 months. I can still do it, which is good, and after a few weeks I should be back up to my previous skill level. Hopefully I'll continue to get better. I think I'll need to get new shoes soon though because the ones I have now are just all around shoes and not so good for harder climbs. Yay climbing!

We went to Trimurti for some Indian food tonight and it was super awesome! I haven't had Indian food in a while (other than my attempt posted below) so it was great to go out to get some. The restaurant was definitely one of the best Indian places I've been to and I'm sure we'll be going back.

Kim is up visiting this weekend so I decided to attempt to cook a meal of reasonable nutritional value (as opposed to just going out). So I made some butter chicken (curry) with potatoes, cauliflower and fresh peas mixed in, and rice on the side. It was pretty good and I think that Matt and Kim also liked it.

Curry attempt

I've finished spending money for a while now I think, so I took some pictures of my apartment so that I could finally post some stuff on my website. So, here is my bedroom (with my new bed and dresser/end tables -- all brand new), and the living room/kitchen (with my new TV, couch and loveseat -- all purchased used).

New bedroom

New bedroom

Ensuite bathroom

Living room

Living room

Kitchen

There were some fireworks at the Ex tonight so I took some pictures from the balcony. I also took a couple of fun night pictures with long exposure times to see fun light patterns. Digital cameras are fun.

Fireworks from the balcony

Fireworks from the balcony

Cars at night from the balcony

Nighttime spotlights

I was in London the last few days, just hanging out and visiting with Kim and my family. We had a really nice lunch in the park on Sunday, and on Monday I got to visit with Mike for a while before he takes off back to California for 4 months. I didn't get to visit with Kim as much as I would have liked because she had to work at her new job at the bank a lot. But that's OK because it sounds like she is enjoying it.

Yesterday I came back to Toronto and we did the wing night thing at Fresh on Spadina. I had a Buddha rice bowl and it was super tasty. I really like peanut type sauces. We also played games after dinner and I hope we continue with that because it was really fun. Rob has so many cool board games!

In other news I have managed to start reading again (yay!) and lately I've been reading some Robert Heinlein. He's a classic science fiction author who is really quite talented. I just finished "Stranger in a Strange Land" and it is definitely one of the best books I've read in a while. It's also very accessible to people who may not normally lean towards the genre. It takes place almost completely on Earth, and all of the main characters are human. That being said, I love the more inaccessible kind of science fiction too, but it's nice when I enjoy a book to be able to recommend it to others who don't have my more nerdish leanings.

I went to see Spamalot last night and I must say that I enjoyed it quite a bit. Lots of great recreations of stuff from the movie, along with lots of new stuff written just for the show. It seemed pretty true to the general Monty Python style, it even had little animations at some points. We had dinner at Fran's before the show and I had really good Macaroni and Cheese as well as an awesome milkshake.

On Thursday night we saw Clerks 2 and had supper at Salad King. Both were awesome as expected.

It's been a long time again since my last update, and a lot has happened. I tell myself I haven't updated because I'm too busy, but the real reason is that the amount of stuff to write about has gotten to be so large that the task is just too daunting. Rather than writing in detail, I will just do a quick catchup now, and then I'll try really hard in the future to not fall behind (yeah, right).

Matt and I moved into our place in Toronto last Monday, and the whole production went very smoothly (probably because we have very few possessions). We do need to buy a lot of things now, like a couch or maybe a chair, or any furniture at all for the living area. It's pretty bare right now.

We hooked up Internet right away, and it is really awesome. The building we live in shares an OC-48 line with a couple other condo buildings near by, which means that we get 100Mb Internet right to our suite. It's about 35 times faster than the average cable or DSL connection and it is only costing us an extra $5/month. Pretty sweet deal.

After moving in, we spent a couple days running around to get some things, but for the most part we accomplished very little. On Thursday morning we went back to Waterloo to write the Real Time exam (easy) and then I left the next day with Mike and Alex to go to Alex's cottage on Christian Island (it's the big one west of Thunder Beach).

The cottage was awesome! We basically just relaxed, ate food and went to the beach. We played lots of cards, and also got a change to drive a Sea-doo which was really cool too.

I'm back in Toronto now, and I am really enjoying myself. I love how easy it is to just walk out and get stuff, and I've already been out to eat at lots of fun places (and I'm going out for another *wing night* tonight).

Here are some pictures taken from my balcony, I'll take some indoor pictures once we have some furniture:

View off my new balcony

View off my new balcony

View off my new balcony

View off my new balcony

View off my new balcony

View off my new balcony