8 hours till the New Year...

Greetings avid blog readers...

Just a quick update and hello. I've been pretty busy with all the fun stuff that you get to do around Christmas Holidays. To top things off Christmas was good, I got a new pair of skis, the Calvin and Hobbes box set and some DVD's I've been wanting to get. Christmas at the Grandparents was good and everybody is doing well and happy. Boxing day was fabulous, had lunch with Sharon, and spent 3 hours in Swiss Chalet acting like children and playing with cellophane straw wrappers. Boxing day night, went to Denis' place for a Boxing day party and enjoyed good food and met some interesting people. Tuesday-Thursday got in some skiing before the rain came, hung out with Bowmnavillians and generally relaxed and watched some tv. Friday went into the city and hung out with Jen. We did the ROM, Dinner at a great restaurant called Tony Balloni's and desert and movie at her house. Today, is New Years Eve. Heading to Ian's for drinking, board games, and merriment.... Boy am I cool! Board games for New Years.

Soon I will post an update with New Years related stories, and more reflective intelligent posts... But right now I can't be bothered to think... I'm too excited to squeeze as much fun as possible into the next few days before I head back to London on January 3rd, and spend till the 9th making up for all the work I didn't do over the past two weeks... Oh the joys of Grad school... On the plus side I've only got 12 more weeks of classes before I'M DONE CLASSES FOREVER!!!!!

WOOT!

Happy New Years!

Holiday Greetings!

Merry Christmas
Happy Hanukkah
Crazy Kwanzaa
Belated Bodhi Day
Respectful Ramadan
Super Solstice
.... and anything else I can't remember.

Best wishes for you and yours during this holiday season...

Since last time on... "Tozer's Less Then Thrilling Life"

Kingston was, as always, a blast. Spent Saturday to Sunday there, camping out at Casa Del Katrina performing yet another pass out due to alcohol on her couch. Kat and I went to Wooden Heads for gourmet pizza and a litre of wine, then back to her house for a glass of wine, then a bottle of wine at QP (The QP's wine list has doubled since 3rd year... they now have TWO different types of wine), a free shot courtesy of the QP waitress who recognized me (which is sad because she didn't work there last year, which means between the summer and trips to Kingston I'm still a "regular" there) and a glass of schnapps. Twas a good evening as Lori and Mike met us at the QP and much fun was had catching up. Kat and I woke up with a hangover, and recovered with a Kelsey's lunch before I took off for home.
Monday was a fairly un-eventful day but Joe, Laura and I took in my old High School's Choir Sing-a-Long and a round of drinks a the Village Inn on Monday night. Tuesday was fairly un-eventful, consisted of running errands and a trip to the dentist. Wednesday was an interesting trip to Toronto. Drove down and met up with Denis and Mike (who was on a lay-over on the way to Prague). Hit up the Distillery, the new local arts hang out type thing in Toronto and then dropped Mike at the airport. Hit up Yorkville mall and had Milestones and saw Fun with Dick and Jane. FwDaJ is an absolutely brilliant film which is hilarious but not in the stupid way but in the whole intelligent witty and slapstick way. Jim Carey is an expert with facial expressions.
Today, was less then eventful. I stayed in PJ's and did nothing till about 5pm. Tonight my Dad and I built a television cabinet for our newly renovated Basement.

Oh what exciting times I lead...

PS. The whole Canadian election stuff is just ridiculous. What the hell is Harper talking about? He is the one who teamed up with the Bloc to take down the government... what a moron! It's infuriating to read about the debates or anything they're saying. Every single one of them is spewing shit and the fact is the whole election is just a waste of tax payers money. It is highly likely that it will once again be a Liberal minority government backed by the NDP and it will be just two months and tonnes of money wasted... stupid Harper... stupid Government...

... of course I'll still vote... Voting, even if it proves nothing, will at least give me the right to complain. And Lord knows I love to complain...

Skullets and Other Such phenomenon

Advanced Warning: This post has nothing to do with Skullets directly but is rather linked to them in an inside joke sort of way. For those of you uninformed, a skullet is similar to a mullet but rather then business in front, party in the back, it is bald in front, party in the back.

I just spent the last two days in Toronto with no prior planning. I had to meet my professor for a meeting regarding my thesis at lunch time on Danforth Ave, and despite the warning for inclimate weather (the giant snow storm which was supposed to last 48 hours and dump 30cm or more of snow) I decided to stick around and see what happened. I managed to do a whole bunch of fun stuff despite no planning. A delicious lunch (breakfast) followed at Futures Cafe with Laura and her housemates, a trip up to Yorkville, hanging with Joe and his OISE buddies in a post conference party, a Christmas party, followed by Curb Your Enthusiasm (Hilarious, Larry David is a genius) and a long long night of chatting with Laura till after 7am. What did we talk about from 2-7am? Life, the Universe and everything. And of course, we talked about nothing. It's strange where your brain can wonder with a lack of sleep. It's like being drunk without the fear of a hangover. Woke up around 1pm today and had delicious meal at the Pickle Barrel and hopped the Go train home. Off to Kingston tomorrow for another unplanned excursion hopefully including much fun and the beloved QP.

What is it about late at night when you're tired, or just when you're with good friends that cause you to be able to talk about anything. You're so much more open at these times. And the conversation can quickly change paths and veer totally off topics. They switch between serious and silly with a drop of a hat. I know everybody has experienced this phenomenon. There's just something about good friends, and the wee hours of the morning that can cause the most intense, interesting and irrelevant points of conversation.

... Unfortunately they also lead to things like reading the dictionary for fun and the ill famed rap of Monnee X featuring Biz Funk & Del Freak.

"Birds are leaving over autumn's ending"

So despite Winter's Solstice still being about 2 weeks away I think it's safe to say Autumn is over. The leaves have not only changed colour but fallen and disappeared under a blanket of white. And with the passing of autumn comes the end of a standard university term. As of 2:30pm today I am officially 25% of the way to being granted the Masters of Composition. It has been quite the term.
Despite initial reservations, the loneliness of living by myself, the challenge of a new city and new friends, something I haven't faced in many years and the unexpected insanity that is Graduate school, I have come out on the other side and must say a small part of me is somewhat sad to be leaving London for the holidays. My little apartment is now my home. I have a small circle of friends and colleagues who I can enjoy a beer with but equally enjoy a discussion on the merit of authentic period instruments versus modern acoustic instruments.
I have learned a hell of a lot about music and my skills as a composer have grown leaps and bounds in only a few short months. It has not been easy (quite the opposite) but I must say, it's been most rewarding.

I know some of you have chosen the opposite of more school and gone to experience something totally foreign. How have you fared after 4 months away from our alma mater? To my fellow B. Mus 05 today marks 4 years since we stumbled out of the MUSC 105 Christmas exam, did you ever imagine then, that you'd be where you are today?

Despite my hang over this morning, this Friday has been great.

Oh yeah.. PS... LOTR is a far better experience then Narnia. But most of you knew that anyways...

Requiem for Pie Hef

A part of my teenage life is dying. It's not a part I particularly enjoyed at the time, in fact I sometimes hated it. But somehow, hearing that it's passing is imminent, is bring up all these fond memories. Pie Hef, or Land Yacht as it is also known, was my friend Laura's car. It was a very very big blue car, with bald tires, scratchy speakers, and very poor control available. It's name Pie Hef came from the fact that it's license plate was 314 HEF, 3.14 being the first 3 digits of pi. It's other name, Land Yacht came from the fact that in sheer size it resembled a boat more then a car.
It slid on dry surfaces, and on snow or icy surfaces it was essentially a death trap. It would break down often, at very bad times. Sometimes it would randomly start spewing smoke into the car through the vents. It had a gas gauge that read inaccurately so you were never sure how much gas you had left. But it was always available, unlike our parents cars, and it, EVENTUALLY, got us from point A to C, breaking down at B of course.
Two specific memories come to mind:
The first is a general one, in the winter Pie Hef would take forever to actually start and once that happened it would take forever to create heat. The 1st half hour of sitting in the car would be almost equivalent to standing outside the car.
The second is more specific. It was summer some random number of years ago. Laura and I decided to take a drive somewhere, and as we sped along the highway, a grayish green smoke started to come in through the vent. I guess the car was overheating, so we rolled down our windows on the highway and cranked the fans into the car to try to cool the car down as we sped towards a repair centre.

Pie Hef, we barely knew ye.

"Pie Iesu Domine, dona eis requiem. Dona eis requiem sempiternam"