Toronto - Man I had written this ridiculously awesome post about this movie, and how it is that I got tickets to see this at tiff, but then i accidentally hit forward on my web browser and now its all gone, so what you have left is whatever i write now, in my fragile, broken state of mind as I mourn the death of my previous post.

The documentary I saw was : Joy Division

As you have most likely deduced, it is a documentary about the band Joy Division, one of the most influential bands in the past thirty years. Don’t believe me? what other band has had 1 documentary and TWO full length movies made about them. Not even Bono can pull that shit off, no matter how many trips he makes to Africa.

Needless to say, I was super excited to see this documentary, as Joy Division is one of my favorite bands ever. So imagine my joy when the Tiff person said that Peter Hook was in the house and was giving Q and A sessions after! Holy crap, da hook is in da house. Too bad I had to go to vfest after.

So details about the documentary .. basically, its about how the band formed, how they made it big, and of course the Ian Curtis suicide. The great thing about this film was that it had everyone you would want to hear from in a Joy Division documentary, aside from Ian Curtis. All the former members were there, Tony Wilson, Peter Seville, Anton Corbjin and even Ian Curtis’s belgian waffle - Annik Honore. The amount of information and footage shown in this documentary was great. There were many stories I have not heard before and its just great to see a nicely done music documentary.

In conclusion - if you are a fan of joy division, new order or any sort of respectable music - its a much watch. If you are a fan of anything interesting, then its also a must watch. If you are thinking about suicide, and wonder if people will grieve a long time for you after you die (no, they’ll form new order), you should probably watch this too.

5/5

Here is a link to the wiki entry for Joy Division if you have not heard of them (shame on you…and your mother)

here is a youtube video of their song Love Will Tear Us Apart

Toronto - man, my roommate found this hilarious television series. Basically, a spoof on the learning things from the 50s

Anyways, a good friend of mine is teaching in Korea right now (or as a say .. k-k-k-korea).

He decided to keep a blog of his travels. so here it is:

http://me-teach-engrish.blogspot.com/

Toronto - So around this time every year, Toronto becomes this huge festive town. First, there is obviously the Toronto International Film Festival (more on that later), then as of last year, Richard Branson decided to throw a big music festival at the same time (no doubt, to make his presence known in the city at the time). Who am I to complain? Anyways, this year, I was lucky enough to get Vfest tickets for my birthday and here are the acts I saw. Since I did not manage to see that many acts, I will keep encompass everything into one show

MIA - I really, really wanted to see MIA, however, a football game, forgotten ticket, extra ticket and general laziness prevented me from seeing them. Really, who can make it to a music festival for 4? That’s ridiculously early. Anyways, I was MIA for MIA (ha!) but I heard she was fantastic.

Arctic Monkeys - Last time I saw the Arctic Monkeys, it was at Lees Palace in October 2005 or something, and the hype was just beginning. Its funny to see how big they have become, mostly because of myspace and the internet. I remember downloading their demos and trying to find whatever I could, mostly because I loved the song fake tales of san francisco and mardy bum. Of course, nowadays I can’t even name two songs off their sophmore album. I am always surprise to see the type of crowd that enjoys the same music I do, and it seemed like a lot of people enjoyed the Monkeys. I guess they are pretty popular now. What about their set? it was decent, very professional, almost run of the mill, the lead singer didn’t really interact with the crowd like he did at Lees Palace and there was no Mardy Bum. Once again.

3/5

Interpol - There is nothing I can saw about the Interpol act that I haven’t said already in my review of their concert in june - read it here. I think they might of worn the exact same outfit. It’s really hard to tell. They kinda looked bored, but maybe they always look bored. Still, I like them, so its hard to not enjoy a set of theirs. I have seen them four times and NEVER have they played the specialist, which is probably my favorite Interpol song behind evil.

3.5/5

Bjork - how the hell do you follow up two indie-rock bands with bjork? but then again, what could you have that could lead into bjork that would seem appropriate? Anyways, you can tell right away that Bjork knows how to rock a festival. First of all, the backup singers were dressed like a combination of a teletubbie and some kind plants. That’s trippy. Then she comes out and theres confetti everywhere and she shoots frickin confetti out from her arms, and of course she is dressed up as some kind of big bird meets enviro ninja get up. Nevermind the fact that I can probably name five or six Bjork songs, when she came on .. you knew this was the main event. She also had this green beam of laser that probably shot out like five hundred yards, maybe it was to signal her alien buddies or something I dunno. Considering that I am not familiar with her stuff, it was pretty good, she has an amazing voice, although it all kinda sounds very similar after awhile. I will just chalk that up to unfamiliarity.

4/5

Editors - So I only saw two acts on the Sunday, because a certain TIFF film took priority (more on that later). I arrived in time to see the Editors at the Future shop stage. The stage is huge, but the crowd was small, most of the people were probably at the main stage watching Brandon Flowers trying to imitate Morrissey. Come on, the Killers suck live, more or less. The Editors, were awesome. They were very crisp and very sharp, and their music really comes alive at the festival. The lead singer has a very deep voice, much like Paul Banks of Interpol..or Ian Curtis. I thought they put on an excellent show, too bad hardly anyone was there to see it.

4/5

Smashing Pumpkins - the main event. Honestly, I only saw them cos I missed them in high school. I guess a lot of people did too, and a lot of people there were probably in high school. Lucky for me, I was able to move to fairly close of the stage. Well, theres no luck there, I guess theres two types of concert goers, the type who are satisfied where they are, if they are far away, and there theres people like me, who want to get as close as possible, and will pretty much take a feet everytime you give an inch. Anyways, yeah so the Pumpkins came on and everyone cheered, then they played some new song everyone didn’t know and everyone was like err what is this. Then Billy decided to do some kind of guitar solo for about five minutes and I heard some jeers. After another song, they went to ‘Bullet with Butterfly wings’. From then on, it was a decent mixture of new and old. Billy can’t really hit the high notes that well anymore and well, the new stuff, I no likey. I will say, of all the songs I heard at V-Fest this year, ‘Tonight, Tonight’ was the best. It was pretty awesome. There was also an acoustic version of 1979, and the set finishing Today. No Disarm though, overall, more or less what I expected. Too bad they didn’t do a greatest hits thing, that would of satisfied everyone, so obviously, that would never happen.

3/5

Overall, I wish I got to see some of the earlier acts, as I bet Stars, MIA, Blonde Redhead, Clientele would have been great to watch, but that is life, I guess.

As mentioned in a previous post I loves me some gadgets. So I felt it only fitting that I post about some cool, unusual and sexy contraptions out there that are meant to make our lives easier, but usually make our junk drawers fuller.

For the first installment I would like to introduce you the Transparent Toaster. You basically drop your bread in between 2 transparent heated glass walls and toast. This is currently a concept but it’s purpose is to prevent burnt toast. So for all you bachelors out there that say ‘I can’t even cook toast’, you’ve got time to think of a different excuse like ‘Here’s a bit of trivia for ya, did you know that there are 10 Mcdonald’s within a 2 miles radius of my house’?

Transparent Toaster

New York City - I’ve always been a fan of the mom and pop ethnic resturants. The simple decor , the four year old kid actomg as the dishwasher, the rebellious teen as your waiter and the parents as the cooks - something about that really appeals to me. Its also cheap and the food is always plentiful. Having said that, Nobu Next Door is certainly not that kind of place. When we visited New York meep met up with some peeps from Edmonton, and someone chose to go here as the meeting place, I mean..Lindsay Lohan eats here, so it must be good.

Nobu Next Door is a upscale Jap restaurant, basically. The waiters were pretty nice, and the interior of the restaurant was really nice, as you can tell by the picture. However, none of this really matters to me. I’m chinese, I am used to rude waiters and plastic table sheets. Actually, me and my friend v decided a long time ago that the more ghetto the chinese restaurant is, the better it’ll probably taste. Anyways, in terms of fanciness, this place gets a good grade. They even have the sushi people working at the bar on the side, and the sushi people aren’t 20 something chinese immigrants, like in most sushi places in Toronto. So that is good for authenticity.

The food. Okay, this place…its a bit pricey, I think it might be the priciest meal I’ve had in recent memory. me and 3 people shared these dishes:

1. New Style Sashimi 17.00

What is this? well, this was my order. I thought it would be like those sashmi boat/plates you get at a typical restaurant..you know, with salmon, tuna, all that junk. Wrong. It was like 5 thin slices of some kind of fish, i mean it was thinner then a cheese slice. Anyways, it came in some sort of soy sauce with green onion. It was pretty decent for what it was, but I could of had 1000 of these and not be full.

2. Rock Shrimp Tempura with Ponzu or Creamy Spicy Sauce 19.00

This is a pretty good dish, basically, shrimp tempura in a sauce. The sauce was good, and you can’t beat shrimp tempura.

3. Eggplant Special with Shrimp Scallop, Creamy Spicy Sauce and Miso 17.00

This was good as well, although it was only one eggplant.

4. Creamy Spicy Crab 20.00

Similar to crab cake, it came on a really hot plate and was probably the best dish of the night.

5. Asparagus Tuna Roll 6.00

Very good tuna roll.

6. Miso with Tofu 4.00

The soup was good, the tofu actually tasted like quality tofu. Most places served it for free..not this place though

So all in all, the food was quite good. The only problem was…the price. Holy crap this is expensive! I mean it was tasty and all, but so is a five dollar burrito. So I don’t know, maybe I am cheap, but these prices do not justify the quality of the food, I was still hungry after. So basically this was the most expensive appetizer ever.

Recommendation: If you got money to burn, and like seafood, I’d recommend it. Otherwise, I probably would not.

Restaurant Link: Nobu Next Door