I’m awake reluctantly, listening to Harmony Trowbridge’s record that was bought on Boxing Day. I still haven’t finished going through those ~20 records. I’ll soon be heading to the Millers‘ for New Year’s Day brunch. In addition to the Millers, I’ll also see some other high school friends I don’t see enough. It seems 2012 is starting well, but this is about 2011.

Now that it’s over, we can critically look at it. Okay, that’s a lie, it’s still too close to be critical.

Highlights of 2011:

• Beginning 2011 with Oldies 990
• Falling in love
• Cottage trip with Millers, Ginsberg, Anna, Emily, and Neumans
• Wild Flag at Lee’s Palace
• Sloan at The Great Hall
• Ending 2011 with Oldies 990

• New photo project: OH NO! HUGS!
• New photo project: Photo comic I want to propose for Static Zine… I should email Aviva.

In addition to that. I fell, smashed my face in and broke my glasses. Ouch. As a result, I went to my doctor, and he was kind enough to fit my lenses into replacement frames… this time they were in blue. Lovely Jai Kudo 507s.

I decided to buy a second pair, just because I’ve been wanting to own two pairs of glasses for some time… excluding my shades. Thanks to lots of help from Twitter. I decided on a pair of Ted Baker B844 in grey. They’re purple on the interior. I’m wondering if they’re a tad too hipstery, but they kinda remind me of Buddy Holly, and who doesn’t love Buddy Holly?

I also recently received two lovely bow ties. One black with squares, and one in red with polka dots. I’m rather fond of bow ties for the simple fact that they’re ridiculous, and I am a rather ridiculous man. In addition there are an exceptionally large amount of cool people who wear/wore bow ties. From The Doctor, to Lester B. Pearson, to Bill Nye, to Less Nessman, to Winston Churchill. I could go on, but the first two are really the coolest.

I’m balding, quite a bit. I’m soon going to look like this guy.

I need your help, fellow Canadians. I’m trying to create slang, and I don’t have enough support from people.

Mad Lauriers!

Mad Lauriers means a lot of cash. It could be as specific as $5 bills, but it doesn’t have to be. It could just simply be a giant wad of cash. “Yo, I got my paycheque, I got mad Lauriers!” or “Michael J. Fox is so rich, he’s got mad Lauriers!”¹

Thin Lizzy

Thin Lizzy is the nickname for a $20 bill. Notice how the notes are thin? Notice how Queen Lizzy is on the bill? Perfect, it’s a Thin Lizzy!

1. Note the CanCon

Emily invited me out for drinks, unfortunately she lives in the middle of nowhere, aka Parkdale, so after I got the “COME ON OVER” text from Emily, I decided to drive. I popped in my car and drove all the way to Parkdale.

After exiting my car, I tripped on a piece of an old sign post. There was about 10-15cm of this former signpost protruding from the ground. Fortunately I had something to soften the blow of hitting the pavement, my forehead. I was up in short time and collecting the many pieces of my glasses from the sidewalk. There were many people who seemed polite enough to fake concern, one of whom then thought that his pseudo-concern was enough to believe that it would be appropriate to ask me for $5. Umm, no.

I grabbed my prescription sunglasses from my car, and proceeded to Emily’s place. Where the look on her face made me believe that my injuries might not be as minor as I thought. And by the time I got to the top of the stairs, it turns out I was losing a small amount of blood. Fortunately it turns out that Andrew loves administering first aid, and so he cleaned up my wound, and put on a band-aid. Alexi, however, like getting people drunk, so his thought was to get me booze. Both were greatly appreciated.

We then drank, talked, watched Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel, then we went to a couple of bars, one was loud and played shitty music, the other was too crowded for my tastes.

Don’t worry, I only had two drinks, and waited many hours until driving home. I am responsible.

Sure I’ve had some really lame Rocktober days, like the one where my event was sleeping for over 12 hours, or the one where I upgraded my phone to iOS 5. They were barely Rocktober days.

Emily told me that my plans for the night, seeing Royal Wood at the Rivoli, wasn’t going to work, turns out the show was sold out. Instead, I stayed at home, and did nothing. Fuck, I’m useless.

Went to Dirty Bingo at Zelda’s last night. Drank lots of beer, had a few laughs. My table even won a few prizes. They were dirty!

As any sane person knows, having multiple Adams in their lives is a blessing, as is having multiple Emilys. I hung out with Emily C. last night. Seeing as I have two concerts coming up in volume 5 and 6, I jumped at the chance of a quiet night in with a friend. After an excruciating long day at work, I drove from Thornhill to Parkdale. That’s a bloody long drive. I wouldn’t want to live in the west-end.

Emily made dinner, a tasty soup, and veggies, and we hung out and talked about boys, and work, and government. Then we hung around and chatted while her roommates popped in and joined the fun from time to time. We started watching The New Girl, the new show starring heart-throb Zooey  Deschanel. It was surprisingly better than I expected, and the eye candy wasn’t bad either.

Katie, who’s celebrating her own #Rocktober, came over, too, and we all hung out and chatted, and it was a nice relaxing and pleasant way to spend a #Rocktober30 evening.

Hmm. Not really sure what to say about the second day of #Rocktober30. It wasn’t a great day. It started in Montreal. I slept in a bit, then checked out of the hotel, from there, on the Concierge’s suggestion I walked in the rain to Cartet. There I had an asparagus and cheese scrambled eggs, with some potatoes on the side, and some fruit. It wasn’t great. Both the toast which the eggs were on, and the potatoes were overcooked. They also ignored me while waiting in line for a table. Oh well.

It then started raining even harder, and walking around the city didn’t seem all that appealing to me. Instead I popped in my car, and drove west, or “ouest” as they say in Quebec (the French are weird). One thing I found very interesting, about eight kilometres east of the Ontario/Quebec border, it stopped raining. As if to greet me back home.

Oh, Ontario. It then started raining again around Cornwall, which you can’t blame the world for, it’s Cornwall, but once I passed Kingston, the rain cleared up again.

On the ride home I listened to a few records.

• Fran Healy’s Wreckorder
• Dan Mangan’s Oh Fortune
• Stereolab’s Not Music
• Joel Plaskett’s Emergencys, False Alarms, Shipwrecks, Castaways, Fragile Creatures, Special Features, Demons And Demonstrations: 1999 – 2010
• Little Scream’s The Golden Record
• $100′s Song of Man
• and Sloan’s The Double Cross

1: Montreal Roadtrip!
2: Montreal Roadtrip!
3: Dinner at The Nick with Watcom!
4: Hangouts with Emily.
5: Jonathan Richman
6: Entire Cities
7: TBD (Kol Nidre. EARLY DISMISSAL!)
8: The Cheap Speakers
9: TBD
10: TBD (Thanksgiving. NO WORK!)
11: Wild-fucking-Flag
12: TBD
13: TBD (Sukot. NO WORK!)
14: Different Skeletons & TekSavvy Install (Sukot. NO WORK!)
15: TBD
16: Condo Party & Dum Dum Girls
17: COCKTOBER! Dirty Bingo group trip!
18: TBD
19: TBD
20: Royal Wood @ Rivoli (Cocktober!) (Sukot. NO WORK!)
21: TBD (Shmini Atzeret. NO WORK!)
22: Cottage reunion dinner
23: TBD
24: TBD
25: Hangouts with V, H&G
26: Drinky, drinky with everyone at The Old Nick (may also be referred to as The Old @tapesonthefloor)
27: TBD
28: Dan, the man, Mangan
29: Family dinner
30: Toronto Indie Blogger Brunch
31: TBD

I haven’t posted here in quite some time. Why? Well, I’m a slacker. I also have a real life, and those things get in the way. So why blog now¹? Well, my sister is blogging somewhat frequently… Hi Shira! In addition, my brother has now started a blog… Hi Moti!²

So this blog post will be a life update…

Rock and Roll Adam

I have tickets to a number of upcoming shows:

1. The Weather Station w/ Dan Romano (Tomorrow)³
2. Arizona Lily are playing at Rancho on August 27⁴.
3. Wild Flag⁵ are playing at Lee’s on rOctober 11.
4. Dum Dum Girls at Lee’s on October 16.
5. I turn 30 on October 26… OH YEAH! 30 IS TOTS ROCK AND ROLL!
6. Dan Mangan⁶ at the QE2 on October 28.

So I think that covers my rock and roll lifestyle. Next is…

Professional Adam

Yeah, every once in a while I pretend I’m professional⁷. It’s the summer, so kids are gone, and teachers are gone⁸, so now I get to spend my summer GSD⁹. Replacing the wireless at both campuses, and went to the building which will, in September 2012, replace one of the campuses. It’s a bit much, but fortunately I have my Number One, who’s helping me out. The massive amount of construction is driving me nuts, and making the wireless upgrade kinda difficult, but whatever.

Literary Adam… or Historical Adam

I don’t know which to classify this one under. I’m reading, but it’s all historical non-fiction, and of course it’s all about Canadian political history. Why do I read this shit? Why do I find it interesting. It’s really weird that I read this shit. Whatever.

I was sick, and in bed, I had left work early in Thornhill, and instead of going home, I went to my parents’ place, also in Thornhill. Seeing as my bedroom has become Junk-Central, I was in my sister’s room. I noticed on her shelf a giant book called Egotists and Autocrats: the Prime Ministers of Canada. Who in their right mind would go “OOOH!” when they see a book about Canada’s first 20 prime ministers? Oh yeah, me. What the fuck is wrong with me?

I read it. It was okay. Not great. The author is kind of a dolt. He kept on inserting personal anticdotes about his life that were mildly related to the subject at hand, yet really served no purpose. He briefly chronicles the lives, and professional lives of Canada’s first 20 Prime Ministers¹⁰. What I liked most about this book was that it gave me insight into some of the less known prime ministers such as Louis St. Laurent, who had interesting times in office. It also gave me additional respect for Dief the Chief. It was okay.

While I was on vacation¹¹, which I guess will be the next section, I finished the book, and on an excursion to Huntsville¹², I found a new book called The 49th Paradox by Richard Gwyn. Gwyn, you might recall, recently wrote the first half of a biography of Sir John A. Macdonald, perhaps soon, the second volume will be released. This one’s interesting, as it was published in the mid-eighties, while the Mulroney government was negotiating Free Trade with the United States of America. It gives a fantastic historical background to reciprocity in North American politics, from pre-Confederation until the ’80s. Gwyn goes into grand detail about Trudeau’s National Energy Policy, Laurier’s reciprocity treaty¹³, and many other facets of Canadian history. Gwyn’s style is very good, allowing for even the most boring of subjects to become interesting. Good times, my friends.

Leisure Adam

Last week, the beautiful and gorgeous Adam Anklewicz rented a cottage with seven other friends on Walker Lake. There were three couples, Adam & Cari, Matt & Anna, Rick & Carina; two children, Emilia and Violet; and two swingin’ singles, myself and Emily. As one of the singles, I was shacking up with Emily, and she was polite enough not to complain about me being in the same room as her. I canoed. I kayaked, I pedal boated, I swam, I read, I ate, I slept, I didn’t sleep, lounged, I burnt shit, I played with “Things In A Box,” I played board games, I played card games, I tanned, I regattaed¹⁴, I picnicked, I visited Huntsville, I used a shit ton of 3G data, I did other things.

It was a lot of fun. It helped reassure me that I don’t want children, even though Violet and Emilia are adorable. They didn’t know my name! Violet never once said a single word to me, which is just plain rude… I don’t care if she’s only six months old… how hard is it to say hi. And Emilia, who did talk to me, said “He’s not Adam, he’s Ankle.” Yeah, thanks.

I learned that I’m a shitty swimmer. I learned that cannon balling into a lake with your friends is a lot of fun. I learned that I’m really bad at refraining from swearing… how do I work in a school?

Where was I going with this?

Oh yeah, I’m getting old…

Old Adam

The reason for this cottage trip was a means to celebrate our 30th birthdays. 5 of the 8 adults on the trip went to high school together, and thus were born in the same year. One other was also born in 1981, so six of us turned, or are turning, 30 this year. Of those six, I’m the youngest, and haven’t hit 30 yet, but I’m almost there.

I’ve for a while said that I look forward to turning 30, as then I’ll be a 30-something divorcé, rather than a 20-something divorcé. As you can see, much less pathetic. In addition, my life has been gradually getting better. Those who say high school is the best years of your life, are morons. High school is the worst time of your life… well, second only to pre-high school. My early 20s were decent, and then I got divorced¹⁵ and it kept getting better. Okay, okay, it went in waves, it wasn’t a straight progression. Even in waves, 30 is looking up, as the last half of 29 has been rather excellent, specifically this past month or two.

Financial Adam

I got a voicemail while I was at the cottage, it was from TD’s loss prevention department.

Actually, let’s back up a bit…

I went into my local TD branch. I put my card in the machine. It didn’t take it fully, kinda stalled, and I had to push it in¹⁶. Then I took out money, but as I was there, something about the card reader looked off. Fuck, I thought, there might be a skimmer attached. I walked to the desk, and I asked one of the employees. His response was, “No, we check it every morning.” I said that a skimmer could have been installed after the morning. “He kinda huffed, and called his manager, and walked out to the machine, glanced at it, and said, “No.” I was kinda pissed at his lackadaisical attitude towards security.

Then a few days later, up at the cottage, I had that voicemail. I called TD and was informed that my card had been compromised, and that a significant chunk of money was taken from my account. Fortunately the bank refunded my money, and I had to just visit a TD branch and get a new card.

I had a good chunk of money in cash at the cottage, so I wasn’t too worried, but I did want to replace the card before heading to Toronto. The next day I went into Huntsville, and as Matt, Anna, and Emily explored downtown Huntsville, I was in the TD replacing my card. They were wonderful and nice, and all around a great TD branch to deal with.

After arriving back in Toronto, I went to my local branch¹⁷ and spoke with the manager, she, and the other employees were shocked at the way I was treated, and I received the customer service I was used to. One of the employees, too, had her card compromised, along with a large batch of their local clients, leading me to believe that it wasn’t some random gas station I visited in Thornhill that week, but instead, it was TD.

Romantic Adam

I should probably tell my family about her soon, but I guess now Shira knows.

1. I’m not sure I like that blog is both a noun and a verb
2. Mine’s better than both of theirs… combined. I am the best sibling.
3. The Cheap Speakers, who are awesome, are playing that night, too. Go see one of these shows.
4. No ticket, but who needs that? It’s Rancho.
5. EEE!
6. *Beard swoon*
7. *snicker, snicker*
8. Baruch Hashem.
9. getting s___ done.
10. From Sir John A. to Jean Chretien.
11. Leisure Adam?
12. Financial Adam?
13. Which was denied by voters when they elected Borden.
14. Yet I’m okay with this being both a noun and verb.
15. Sorry, Lisa.
16. That’s what she said.
17. 807 Broadview Avenue. Let’s shame them.