Well, at this rate, it looks like my daddy is going to get a job before I do. Yes, my daddy is applying for a project manager job to oversee the completion of Phase 2 of a Chinese cultural centre. It's most likely in Markham or something. It was funny listening to him grumble about making a résumé. It's been DECADES since he's had to make a real one. This will be interesting if he gets it, because for one thing he'll have a full plate again, and, as a result of his involvement, we may be thrust back into the Chinese community after...how many years? I can't remember.

In other news, I don't know what it is with the birds in my neighbourhood, but they've taken up the hobby of slamming into my living room window. A couple of days ago I was sitting there and WHAM!! The blue jay staggered around on the ground in a spastic kind of way but after a while he took off. The next day a smaller brown bird was not so lucky. I thought my brother had taken care of the body but laziness and inclement weather has meant that the poor thing is still lying on our patio.

"I will go down with this ship, I won't put my hands up and surrender"

Another Arthur Encounter:

For those who aren't familiar with Arthur, he's a friend of mine who I bump into in the most unusual places. The first was in a line-up at Canada's Wonderland a couple of years ago. The next was near the Mr. Greenjeans restaurant in the Eaton Centre. Tonight, it was when I was coming out of the Isabel Bader Theatre after watching my final festival film, and Arthur was sitting in the line waiting to go in to see the next movie. It's really weird how that keeps happening.

Speaking of line-ups, the film festival, and encountering people randomly, I had another celebrity sighting, and quite an impressive one in terms of difficulty and somewhat low level of celebrity. What I mean is that Boni and I were waiting outside the theatre while people were exiting from the previous film. Of the people who were filing past us, one person caught my eye, simply because he was wearing a shirt that said "Eat Krispy Kreme Doughnuts". I thought to myself, "Hey, cool shirt." Then I looked at who was wearing it. It was Bob Blumer. Okay, like I said, the level of celebrity is quite low given that you're probably asking, "Who's Bob Blumer?" Anyone who watches the Food Network like I do will know that he's also known as The Surreal Gourmet. If it hadn't been for his shirt, I wouldn't have even looked at him in passing. His face was partially obscured due to his sunglasses, but his hair is very recognizable. And, as further evidence that it was most likely Bob Blumer, he came out of a screening of "Go Further", that movie about Woody Harrelson touring around America endorsing hemp and yoga and organic living. He seems like the type.

"If it's over let it go and come tomorrow it will seem so yesterday"

Rest in peace, John Ritter. He was a genuinely funny guy.

So, here's a classic example of how funny my life is sometimes: I got a call from a recruiting agency, and the woman tells me that there's a position available at a food processing company and that she would like to talk to me about it so would I please come around on Thursday to meet with her. Sure. I write down the address, the time, and her name. It isn't until after I hang up that I realize I don't have her phone number. My call display is of no use since the number is blocked. I attempt to do some internet snooping, and finally I figure out which agency it is and discover that I had applied to this job at the end of July. Okay, no problem. I get to the place, talk to a different representative for a while, fill out some paperwork, then then woman (Christine) comes in and we have one of the fastest interviews ever. I swear, the woman was talking a mile a minute. Then I discover who their client is: Effem. For those of you unfamiliar with the confectionary industry, Effem is the one who makes M&M's, Mars, Snickers, etc. (I have probably gained a few new best friends at this very moment) Coincidentally, my friend Rehmat had worked there previously for one of her work terms. Coincidentally, she had just left last week for a six-week vacation in India. So much for insider information.

I spent the entire day downtown. No point in coming home and then going back again, especially after I found out about the interview. I killed time with Boni in the garden at Osgoode Hall, talking about heavy stuff like politics and the world at large. I think our consensus was that the world is in extremely poor shape, and that we both hoped that we would be around when the American empire finally collapses and the Chinese take over the world.

"Come and knock on our door..."

I Was THIS Close...:

Okay, first of all, I want to say that although I do enjoy the occasional celebrity moment, I don't use that as my sole reason for going to the film festival. Honestly, some of the movies they screen are really really cool, and will probably never see the inside of a Famous Players. Like today, Howie and I saw "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised", a documentary about the military coup that happened in Venezuela last year, coincidentally on my birthday. To quote Howie, "I've never been inside a coup before...that was cool."

So, the second movie we went to see today, "Casa de los Babys", was very closely timed to the first, and so we had to hustle out of the theatre and head down the street to the other. Since we arrived later than most, we had some side seats that were not too bad. About five minutes before the film was to start, a lady came up and asked if the two seats behind us were taken, and then asked if the seat beside me was taken, and I said no. She continued up the aisle asking if other seats were free, and Howie turned to me and asked, "Isn't that Fran Drescher?" Damn right it was. If nothing else, the voice was pretty much a dead giveaway. So Fran Drescher saved the two seats behind us, and two seats that were a couple rows ahead of us, and called to her friends. One of those friends came up and happened to be Kim Cattrall. So I was sitting there, in a theatre in Toronto, with Fran Drescher behind me and Kim Cattrall in front of me. Incidentally, neither of them were in the movie we were about to see (that, I guess, is actually kind of obvious, because if they were, they wouldn't have been trying to find their own seats).

Yeah yeah, I was star-struck. I didn't say a word to either of them, but then again, I don't think anyone else did either. We Torontonians are just too cool for that. Like, two nights ago I went to see "My Life Without Me", which was a nice film dealing with dark stuff, mainly cancer and death. A young married mother finds out she's going to die in two months, and sets out to do everything to prepare, like recording birthday messages for her two young daughters until they turn 18, and finding them a new mother, and visiting her dad in jail, and having sex with another man just to see what it feels like. You know, warm fuzzy stuff. Anyway, it stars Sarah Polley and Scott Speedman, among others (like Deborah Harry!! Okay, I said that to each of my friends and none of them had heard of Blondie...honestly!!). During the question/answer period, someone asked how Sarah and Scott developed the intimacy that they displayed so well on screen. Scott was visibly embarrassed, and Sarah simply mentioned that she and Scott had gone to high school together and had been friends for a long time. My friend reminded me later that they had gone to Earl Haig, and suddenly it was like they became more familiar. Not because I had gone to that school (I didn't) or really knew anyone who went there, but just because here were two people from my hometown, who had gone to high school just like I did, and were now doing what they loved to do, and I got to see them do it. I don't know if that makes any sense at all. I guess it just further reinforces the idea that they're normal, just more well known than the rest of us.

In other news, I GOT LEAFS TICKETS! So very exciting. I'm going to see some pre-season kick-ass action against the Senators, as well as a regular season game in February against the Hurricanes. And yes, it does seem like I'm buying tickets for everything under the sun these days, but if I didn't get on board for the hockey tickets now, I wouldn't be able to see anything live for the whole season. My mother was on my case about it, especially about the hockey tickets. No doubt she still has that $300 playoff ticket fiasco firmly in her memory. But this time they are much more reasonably priced (I mean, I've got the cheapest tickets in the house). "You're buying tickets to everything all the time...why are you spending all that money??" So I have varied interests...what's wrong with that?

"The last goal he ever scored won the Leafs the cup"

The first thing that I saw when I picked up my paper this morning was a reference to bananas. The funny thing about that is that the article was using the banana reference for people, not fruit. Those readers out there who are remotely Asian-Canadian will know what I'm talking about.

Here's a thought that has been on my mind for the past several days. It was discovered maybe a week ago that West Nile has hit a number of the local mosquitos. However, I have been bitten by various insects more times this summer than in the past couple of summers combined. I've been aware of the situation this whole time, but I haven't done anything to protect myself from the prospect of becoming ill. Weird that I'm not more concerned about my own health and safety.

Lesson of the day: If the platform is empty, the subway door guy will not sound the 'sol-mi-do" chime and will close the door almost as soon as it opens. (This lesson was learned while riding the rocket at a ridiculously early hour on a holiday Monday)

"Senorita, I feel for you, you deal with things, that you don't have to"