Things change, and I have to recognise that. So here are a few edits to my previous blog posts.

Starting with the TTC rant:

I haven’t been taking the bus for about a week, so I just found this wonderful new design on the buses. It’s not completely new, but they made the seats in the back of the bus, on the raised section much, much better. I was simply… Happy, when I saw them. More leg room, and they moved the seats around so now people CAN stand back there. It’s delicious, thank you TTC. I’m a happy rider.
Spoonifur.com blocked:

Now, I don’t know why… But spoonifur.com is no longer blocked at my school. Maybe somebody finally decided to check up on that? I had an email prepared to send out and everything, but I guess they got to it first. My pornographic deeds will once more be spread across my school network. Very, very nice.

A look into the future:

The last two weeks, and this current week have been increasingly taken up by the school show. When I’m not dead from all day rehearsals, and this week of actual shows, and the saturday giant clean up… I’ll write a post to remember the hor- amazing time I’ve been having.

Lastly, just enjoy the photoshop sketches. Any comic ideas I’ve had dissapear too quickly. Man, I hope this posts this time. Spoonifur.com has been acting weird.

One flew west, and one flew over the cuckoo’s nest.

I decided to faithfully work for the school show this year. Frankly, it was tiring, long hours, lots of sitting around doing nothing… And yet I still want to do it all over again next year. I worked on the audio crew, just the 3 of us. We were told we had to make sound effects. One early Saturday morning we walked around the neighbourhood around the school collecting noises. Something about 3 teenagers walking around, we’re just asking to be hassled. One guy swore at us as we were collecting the noises from this downright creepy revolving door. My favourite though was just this lovely hummer owner. We needed to get sound effects of cars driving by, and we needed them to honk. I suggested making a “honk for the earth” sign. There we stood in the middle of a busy street, when a Hummer sped up, into the lane right next to us and stuck his middle finger out the sunroof. Typical, right?

So we finished our sound effects, only to find out: Almost none of them were being used, and our actual job, which we were told a week before the show, was to buy and set up all the microphones for the show. We later find out almost none of those are actually used either.

So for 2 weeks I was stuck at the school till around 10, weekends included. Force to go on food runs for people to Wendy’s, working with a crazy sound “expert”, running from the booth to the stage, tapping mics, taping mics, re-taping mics, crawling under scary stage extensions… Only to find out I didn’t have to at all. Our expert was annoying, he talked a lot about nothing, and mostly just made the school buy lots of useless stuff. That and everything he did for us, we actually switched back before the show. The most annoying thing he did was dump extra cables on us. Un-labelled cable lying around? That we have to return? It was difficult, and I’m not even sure how that turned out…

It wasn’t all hell though… The cast was great, and the show turned out amazing. Hanging out in the booth with our slightly weird stage manager was great. The audio crew had a lot of fun in that booth. Oh the booth, 2 couches, 1 TV with cable, and so many talks of heroin.

Should I even mention our director? I fear for my life, so I think I’ll leave that out…. And by that I mean she really is a lovely person. Lovely.

Lastly, and I need to get a picture this. Our school has giant glass windows for the hall outside the theatre, we spelt out “Cuckoo’s are Coming.” Of course when they were taking them down they took the time to write out “COCK” and of course I find that amusing. :3

Photos can be found on my Flickr account.

I was looking at this photoset when I had the idea to look up places right here at home.

I found an interesting site, mostly telling me that a lot of really cool places are out there! Or… Were, lots of demolition going on. I asked a friend about some places downtown, and was led to the King Edward hotel. Apparently there are a few abandoned sections in there? Including a ballroom. I found a couple of these signs, and I got scared off. Next time I’m bringing somebody with more balls. (”I suggest a male.”)

Unsure of where to go next, I decided to walk in the general direction of the CN tower, trying to stay off the main streets. While I was there I was surprised at how many tourists will face rain to take an expensive elevator to the top of the tower. What else surprised me was paying $2 for the worst ice cream cone I’ve ever had.

Decided to wander towards the lake shore. It was raining just a bit, but the walking was keeping me warm. Walked around on the harbor, and wanted to get on the other piers, but it seemed to be protected? I didn’t investigate further, maybe next time I will, pretend one of those boats is mine. Just had my little photo shoot with this big sailboat I found.

Walked over to what seems to be the abandoned Canada Malts Co. building. Completely covered in fencing, barbed wire, and motion sensing lights. This would be a dream to sneak into though. After walking all the way around, and taking tons of pictures, I continued down the harbor. I wanted to walk farther down, all the way to Harbor front. But then it started coming down like crazy. I was completely soaked very quickly and there was no shelter around, just the new house built. I decided to get away from the lake as fast as possible.

What followed was a lot of walking. The good thing is I noted a lot of places for future exploring, as my will to sneak around buildings was diminishing. I decided to cut through an alley, and found a short ladder onto a roof, which I decided to check out. What I found was some really cute graffiti, lots of connecting roofs, and essentially a giant puddle. My shoes were already completely soaked through, so I didn’t care anymore. I climbed up to a bit of a higher roof, and found some cool skylights. I’m not a complete weakling after all! Wanted to search around more, but the buildings around were actually being used. Actually, what would they have done? Next time I’ll search around longer.

I was tired, and walked back towards the subway station I came from. Took lots of side trips down alleys to take pictures of future spots to explore, and eventually gave up and grabbed a bus. (With a very wet bus ticket, I add.) Soaking wet, I went home. It was a great day though, and I look forward to exploring more on a nicer day.

All links lead to my flickr photostream.

I just walked outside to take the recycling out, and you know what hit me? The beautiful scent of the weird trees in our front yard. They bloomed, and I have no idea what type they are, but it smells so nice out. I guess spring is really here… Finally.

… Now just two weeks of bliss until the summer humidity shows up.

A new site! Well, the same site. But different. It will be different. Once I figure out what goes where and how everything fits together. Moving your site isn’t exactly simple.

But hey, it’s here. Some major changes going down in the next little bit. Site is going to be a little dodgy for a bit. Sorry for the mess, it’ll be all fixed eventually.

Welcome.

How do I jump back into the swing of things?

Something has been wrong with me, something has been holding me back. I haven’t touched my site, I haven’t touched my art. I’ve had ideas for comics, but I don’t write them down. Or even try to draw them out. This fact used to worry me, and as days would go by I would feel bad about not updating my comic. I haven’t even really touched my photos on Flickr, and there are stories there. I wrote a blog entry in the back of one of my notebooks at school. I wanted to talk about Otakon, and what happened in Baltimore. But I feel if I write about things that happened so long ago I’m only doing it to fill in those gaps.

But the point is there HAS been a gap, and I don’t really feel the need to talk about the filler. I want to get back into the swing of this. I want to write blog posts, I want to draw comics, and I want them to be about what’s going on NOW. So will I finish the iPod comics? Probably not. There was a joke there, in which the guy there told me to cheat Apple by trying to paint the water indicator. I found it funny at the time, but is it funny to me now? No, I mean, the warranty on that iPod expired already. In basic terms, my website, my content, mine mine mine.

But, for clarity, and if I ever decide that this post is stupid and I do want to one day talk about anything cool that I did, I give you this list!

- Exploring King Eddie, and discovering the higher parts of Toronto.

- Going off with a group to Woodstock to explore an abandonded refinery, church, and a police station. (… Not because we were caught, it was abandonded too.)

- Otakon! 3 days in Baltimore, one day spent in Philadelphia because of a delay. Basically my first time on a plane.

- Starting school! Getting some pretty cool classes on my schedule, and one that is pretty much ridiculous.I want to show what my life drawing class is all about.

- Hobo dens! I keep finding old buildings downtown, smell funny, full of garbage, probably not safe to venture too far into them.

- Kind of being in an Improv Everywhere experiment? We came pretty late to the Mp3 Expirment Toronto. No worries though, since I’m joined Improv in Toronto. (Even trying to build them a site, oh irony.)

- Exploring a factory in the Junction. (Oh, I haven’t even posted the few good photos I took.) Very, very cool, and could have been caught by a pretty lazy security guard.

- I started, and stopped, playing DnD. Further dwelling into geek-hood.

- Theatre work. Something I’m sure to talk about more and more, as I’m in a program at The Canadian Stage Company now. As well as lighting crew at my school. (So far, so awesome.)

- I’m sure I had a bunch of little rants prepared to blog about, but if I’m not angry enough to remember them anymore… Well… Whatever, right?

I think I’ve been a big fan of lists lately. What about the future?

- More talk about The Canadian Stage Company youth program! Can you tell I’m super excited for this?

- It’s getting colder, does this mean staying in more and making art? A return of my freezing room most likely.

- Halloween! I think the holiday has pretty much worn me out, but I’m sure I’ll find some people to entertain me. I do have to beat my previous pumpkin though. Maybe a robot this year? And of course, I need to find something ridiculous to wear.

- I’m sure I can get some comics down on paper. Lets go back to the world of pens and pencils for a bit.

After that, I figure I see what the future holds. I’m keeping an eye on you, Mr. Website, don’t worry.

This is from something that happened a few days ago, it was a pretty regular day of school. Thursdays usually are. Feeling a little out of it I head off to the subway on my own. Now you don’t know my school, but the subway really is just down this little street from us, 7 minutes. It’s a weird, basically dead end street and every afternoon it fills with teenagers all over the road walking to the subway. (Then we all nicely jay-walk across a perpindicular street, 50 feet short of the cross walk and enter the mini-mall which guards the entrance of the subway)

There’s also a small park that runs through the residential area, that once used to be a river. It’s just a small path snaking through the neighborhood that is now used by the smokers. So it’s not uncommon to see them hanging out on the road near one of the entrances. Also uncommon is the amount of them. But this time was weird, and I walk behind a few guys chucking snowballs at a kid up ahead.

Their target? Wilson. Who is this Wilson? Frankly I don’t really know him, I’ve seen him around the school a few times. (My highschool is pretty large, granted.) I only learn his name later, but what’s plain to see is that Wilson does not know English pretty well.  I don’t know many people who like having a gang of guys chucking snowballs at you, so Wilson turns around and says a hearty “Fuck you!”. This sends them into fits of laughter, what’s meant to be tough only comes out as “Fu-ah-k  Yew!”.

He’s pissed now, his limit has been pushed. They tell him to come over here and say it to their face, so he does.  A meek cry from the two guys walking beside him. “Wilson, don’t…” So there they are, face to face. Wilson vs. Twenty. There’s a group of girls walking past telling each other not to look, and there’s people everywhere. His friends turning their backs as I scream at them to go defend him! Who else will? Well, nobody. I screamed, I asked what the fuck was wrong with them, and then for whatever reason I turned around. I guess I listened to those girls, and just in time to miss whatever made the loudest “thwack” noise possible. There’s Wilson, in the snow, getting his stomach kicked in, almost his face. There’s the unknown attacker, getting pulled off by his group of twenty. They’re proud of themselves, proud they pulled him off before it got really bad, right?

In the most movie-esque scene ever I could swear a single tear rolled down my cheek, and I took a step forward, and I walked over, but somehow I was pulled right into discussion with my friends who were nearby. Carried by the conversation I found myself all the way at the subway. This is were I excused myself ran off to calm down.

What is this bystander syndrome that we can’t beat? I felt so ridiculously small at that point. Like a small and stupid girl I ran to the closest friends and then cried about how I did not do anything. I defend myself by asking myself “well, what could have I done?” Step between two angry males? Defend a guy who’s not asking to be defended? Wouldn’t that make the situation worse? Should I have taken my camera, shot some pictures, get them to the right place? I don’t even know. Is this one of those things that just happens, and we have to keep walking?

I got into a fight in middleschool, my first and last. Eva the tomboy vs the group of guys who would not leave her alone. I don’t even remember his name anymore, but he threw a tennis ball at my head and that was the last straw. I launched at him, his friends grabbing his iPod, the others cheering him on. To be honest, I lost. Four years of Judo down the drain, not even a low shot in the balls. A can of pop all over me, a nice wad of spit in my face, and that was the end of that. I didn’t get in trouble, and was told to be picked up from school for a while. I think one of his friends later told me he was sorry, or something. I think my brother went and found him, and cut up his bike. I think I got a lot of attention for being a victim. I think it was a really stupid thing to do.

Taught me that I’m just not as tough as I had built myself up to be. I still do it, out of habit. I don’t know why.

(Posted from my Facebook account.)

If you’ve managed to talk to me in the past 2 months you’ll realize I’ve been a bit busy. I’ve been meaning to go see a couple movies I wanted to see. March break happened and I saw 3 in one week. (Also caught up on a few other things, but entertainment comes first.)

Starting with The Curious Case of Benjamin Button:
I was feeling restless one night and just decided to go for it. I went to go see it alone, which I sometimes enjoy because I don’t need somebody whispering “did you see that?” That and for some reason nobody really wanted to see this with me that badly. Worried I would be in for almost 3 hours of boredom, I walked to the theater. And yet, I was not disappointed in the slightest. I didn’t notice it’s length, as it kept me with it the entire time. I laughed, I even cried a little. It was a great story to be told, and it was told very well. I was bothered by a few things here and there, but it really is my favorite of the 3 movies I saw this week. It’s about life, and hardships and an extraordinary man and the people he effects. Does this sound like Forrest Gump? Because I keep hearing it being thrown around as if they are the same thing. In one sense, similar things do happen to both men. But it’s so much more than that. Benjamin Button is not primarily a comedy, nor is it about people. It’s more so just about life and how we go through it. I was left very stunned at the end, wondering about my own existence. This put me through to the credits were I saw just how many people it took to make a movie this good. The filming was great, the writing had it’s witty moments, and the time period was so believable it pulled me right in. (It helps that 1920’s through to the 1970’s is a time period I love to look at.) Definitely not a movie I should have seen alone, it definitely had it’s “need to be comforted” moments.

It was a decision between Slumdog and Watchmen, after reading some reviews for Slumdog I felt they had taken away from the book. So we went and saw The Watchmen.

Wow, great opening, okay you guys have me hooked, what else can you show me? I like that we’re jumping in to this world right now, only showing us a bit of back story. I don’t mind that, it cuts out a lot of prattle. But… Not really. I didn’t care for Rorschach’s long winded husky voiced monologues, it all too much reminded me of the not-too-good-itself, The Spirit. (But, it worked there.) I tuned out and tuned back in during the action. Which is all this film said to me. It’s a movie for you, the viewer. The viewer who wants fight scenes, and long sex scenes, and a very miserable world with no hope of being saved. So the world is lied to. Okay? That… What? Is humanity really that far down in the dumps? Er. I don’t know guys. Granted I haven’t read the book, and don’t intend to. But as somebody who hasn’t this movie didn’t say a lot to me except some really good cinematic moments, some good costume work, and a few witty jokes here and there.
Otherwise? Some acting here and there was really iffy, some very weak, weak scenes, and all together it felt like they were trying to push the limits of gore and darkness. Also words, too many words. I don’t care for all that rambling in the slightest. Manhattan’s CG was great, but the cat has to go. Next action flick comes around, I’m saving my money.

Slumdog Millionaire.
I actually didn’t know what this movie was about for a while when it came out. Everybody was talking about it and I was drowning it all out. Eventually I looked it up and it seemed pretty cool, but I never got around to seeing it. Eventually it got very hyped up and it dulled my desire. Coming back from Quebec this past weekend, I decided to read the book. It reminded me of Life of Pi, and not just because it starred an Indian boy. It’s a very good book, the characters are great, and it casts a more realistic view of India than the movie does. I’m very disappointed in the movie, and this happened as soon as I started reading reviews and realized all the character’s names have been changed, and their relationships completely different. I thought maybe the review was bad, the movie was loved by lots of people, it might be really good. It was the shortest of the 3 movies I watched this weekend, and I got really bored during it. I can’t believe how horribly different it is, and how completely hollywood-ized it was made to be. It wasn’t bad, it was just… Disappointing. The big things are there, but it’s the little things that made it a very good book. A book that could have been made into a movie, it wasn’t long. I came out of the theater and I said “I wish I hadn’t read the book, I might have been able to watch that movie without disliking it.”

I’m sorry Slumdog, I just can’t see why everybody was going nuts over you. You seem so very ordinary to me. And yet you seem so wrong to me. If you want a good story, that says a lot, go read the book. Realize what a fake world the movie has put you in.