After at least a year of wanting one, I finally got around to buying an awesome leather shoulder bag for carrying stuff with me when I go about my day to day business. Yes, it's a man purse and yes I'm OK with that. When walking is your primary means of transportation it's nice to have something to carry stuff in. I'll be using it every day to bring stuff like my lunch to work and also to carry around useful items like an umbrella and sunglasses.

Another thing I keep in it is a reusable shopping bag for groceries. I tend to stop for groceries on my way home from work and I never carry reusable bags with me (because I don't have anything to put them in!). Now I can stop killing the environment by consuming so many plastic bags. Unfortunately, today, my first day with my man purse, I was a massive failure. I went to the grocery store and got some stuff and as I was checking out I prepared my happy reusable bag. Then for some reason I kinda spaced out and suddenly it was all done and the cashier had already put my groceries in plastic bags. I couldn't really ask her to take them back so I put away my reusable bag and went home. Sigh, maybe I'll succeed next time.

I got the bag from Roots, and it's pretty awesome. It's actually based on the bag that Indiana Jones carries around in the movies and so it's even more cool. I love it!

Raiders Bag in Vintage Tribe Leather

Raiders Bag in Vintage Tribe Leather

Raiders Bag in Vintage Tribe Leather

Last weekend was fun! But I was slow to blog about it. Not much is happening this weekend so I'll blog about the last one now.

We hung out with people and watched movies and we relaxed around the house and I also went climbing. But the most exciting part was going to a camera show with Patrick and Toni and Matt on Sunday. We got up bright and early, had breakfast at Cora's and then headed up to the conference centre near the airport. The show was put on by Henry's and had tons of booths from all the major manufacturers. It was primarily focused on digital SLR cameras but had a little bit of stuff for point and shoot cameras too. The best part for me was getting to try out all sorts of fun lenses on my camera. And by fun I mean potentially expensive. Stupid lenses look so nice.

Anyway this post is shorter than I intended but I'm tired so I'm going to stop.

It's snowing a little outside...[HIBERNATION MODE TURN ON]

Not much has been going on in Matthew-land lately, thus the lack of blogging. However there was the Canadian election recently. My riding is Trinity-Spadina where NDP candidate Olivia Chow (wife of NDP leader Jack Layton) won again. I found myself very conflicted this time around because I didn't want to vote for anyone. I didn't want the Conservatives to win, but I didn't feel that anyone else was fit to win either. I ended up voting Liberal, but I sort of regret that now. I knew that my riding would go to either the Liberals or the NDP regardless of my vote so I think I should have voted Green in order to increase their share of the popular vote. More votes equals more funding for future campaigns and I feel that the Green Party had a generally positive effect on the whole process.

Overall though, I am one disenfranchised voter. Blegh.

This past week was pretty random for me. I spent Monday through Thursday in King City attending a leadership training course for work. There is a huge conference centre there that includes a gourmet restaurant and fancy hotel. It was pretty fun and interesting but they kept us super busy. The days started around 8:00am and lasted until 11:00pm at the earliest. We were fed extremely well however and the rooms were quite nice.

On Friday I went in for a half day of work to catch up on email and then left early to get a wisdom tooth removed. I'm not sure that the procedure was necessary because the tooth wasn't bothering me in the slightest but my dentist seemed to think it was doing whatever it is that wisdom teeth do that is a bad thing for mouths. Anyway, when I arrived he suggested that he might as well take the other wisdom tooth on the same side while I was there since it would all be frozen anyway. I agreed mainly to reduce the number of future wisdom tooth-related visits to the dentist. So I now have two fewer wisdom teeth and I am spending the weekend recovering (ie. popping Tylenol 3 like there's no tomorrow).

The procedure itself was super quick. One of the two wisdom teeth was already exposed so once I was frozen he was able to yank it out in under a minute. I was super surprised when I heard it fall into the tray. I was all like, "was that it??" and the dentist seemed a touch offended that I thought so little of the procedure he just performed. The other tooth was not exposed however, and so it took a bit longer. Once the dentist exposed it (with knives I assume) the tooth still refused to come easily and the assistant had to hold my head down while the dentist yanked at it. I half expected him to plant a foot on my face in order to get better leverage.

Anyway, I think I'm recovering nicely. Sleeping was hard last night but I think I can stop taking Tylenol 3 soon and switch to regular Advil. I guess I have to keep taking antibiotics for a while though.

This week I went to two fun evening show type things. On Wednesday Kim and I went to Second City to see the comedy stylings of John Dore and Judah Friedlander (who you may recognize from NBC's awesome show: "30 Rock"). Both acts were really funny, although Judah Friedlander's was a bit too long.

On Thursday I went with Matt to our first Tafelmusik concert of the season. This is our second year as subscribers and I'm still really enjoying it. The group is incredibly talented and the church they perform at is a much more intimate venue than Roy Thomson Hall (which is where the Toronto Symphony Orchestra plays).

On Tuesday for wing night we went to Cafe Polonez for delicious delicious Polish food. I had a potato pancake folded over and filled with pork goulash, and Kim had pierogies. I also shared some random Polish beer with Rob and Will. That restaurant is great. The portions are gigantic and the most expensive meal on the menu is $14. Plus the food is amazing.

Repent and seek shelter! For today being the first day of Autumn is also the first step toward the bleak cold death of winter. Tremble and fear before the oncoming cold and snow and prepare thy defences against their bodily onslaughts.

Yeah, I don't like winter and the mornings have been getting colder lately.

Tonight Kim and I went to see Burn After Reading which is the latest from the Coen brothers. It seems to be very much in the style of The Big Lebowski (ie. awesome) in that it is super-random and ultra-hilarious. The cast was fantastic, all of them. I can't pinpoint any particular one because they were all so good. Even the fairly minor role played by J.K. Simmons was awesome.

When we got home I finally got around to making hummus after several delays. I haven't given it a thorough taste test yet because I prefer hummus to be cold, but from what I licked off my fingers while making it I think it's going to be very good. Check out the recipe and a picture of my results below.

Homemade hummus

I did stuff other than TIFF screenings (see below) this past weekend. I spent some time walking around to random places with Matt and Adrienne and ended up buying a new memory card for my camera. One of my old ones recently corrupted itself at a most inoppourtune time so I decided to replace it with something decent. My previous purchase decision was aimed at spending the least amount of money possible. This time I paid more for what I hope will be long lasting quality. We shall see!

We also had lunch at the crépes place on Queen Street. Mmmmm...crépes.

On Sunday night Kim and I went to Toni's for her birthday party! She made us Aussie-burgers (regular burgers plus fried eggs, fried onions, bacon and beets) and also delicious pavlova. Then we played a new game Toni bought, Apples to Apples. Of course I was super-pro at it because of my previous experiences playing in Algonquin this summer.

My next blog-worthy event is coming this Thursday when I intend to make my own hummus. Excitement!

For the past week and a half the Toronto International Film Festival has been happening here (in Toronto, obviously). I went to three show this year and was reminded again how I should really go to more shows and not less. TIFF is awesome.

My first movie was Real Time which is a Canadian film about the last hour of the life of a compulsive gambler before he is ummm, whacked, for not paying his debts. The title is a reference to the fact that the movie runs in real time. Every minute you sit in the theatre is a minute in the movie and a minute closer to the main character's impending doom. This was not just a gimmick but actually served to control the mood of the movie. It is pretty light-hearted at the start with lots of jokes and funny stuff. But as it progresses and you realize time is running out, things stop being funny and start being pretty depressing. The mood and tone were perfectly managed and the result was an excellent movie.

My second movie, Vinyan was a collaborative horror film from France, the United Kingdom and Belgium. A white couple who lost their only child in the tsunami in Thailand set out to the jungles of Burma to search for their son after seeing a video of tsunami-orphaned children in the region. The children live on their own in a destroyed village and have clearly become feral. Personally, I find children terrifying so this movie definitely frightened me. The acting from the two leads seemed to be a bit dead, but I enjoyed the performance given by their untrustworthy guide (some sort of local gang lord). Also, the scenery and cinematography in the movie were gorgeous.

The final movie I saw was the Spanish slasher-comedy flick, Sexykiller. The movie follows the exploits of a female serial killer on a University campus in Spain. If it weren't for the gore this would be a straight up comedy, however the intensity of the viscera were enough to earn this movie a place in the horror-dominated Midnight Madness program. For me this movie was just plain fun. The female killer, Barbara, is so confident in her convictions about who should die that it's hard not to agree with her. The pacing is excellent, never a dull moment, and there are lots of amusing references to Hollywood classics and other pop culture stuff. Barbara frequently talks directly to the audience in the movie, addressing the camera with such authenticity that it often feels like she can see you. This feeling was further enhanced by the actress's attendance at the screening. Both her and the director talked before and after the movie and they looked like they were having at least as much fun as the audience. Such a great atmosphere!

Next year I'm going to try to go to five screenings. It's just so much fun!