Christie’s halloween party

After months and months of waiting and preparation, Christie’s halloween party was last night. I ended up going as a vampire (you know how vampires look like normal people? they don’t go around wearing a cape… exactly!)

Eva was supergirl dressed as a pirate.

Here I am with Kat (the sweatpants fairy), Eva, Brett (Vanilla T) and Amber (Perez Hilton).

This guy was dressed as a sex machine.

Death was lurking around all night.

Here I am with our fabulous hostess, Pirate Christie!

Finally, I followed the instructions given in the invite and brought some donations for the Food Bank. No one else took it seriously, so no one brought anything. Now I provided Christie et al with lunch!

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The Fog!

This is the normal view from my living room window:

This is the view today at 6 PM, it is so foggy!

(sorry, there’s a building missing in the first picture, I just realized it’s an old-ish photo but it gives a good impression of THE FOG!)
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OCAD at Nuit Blanche

OCAD
Originally uploaded by Easternblot

I took a quick pottery lesson with Mark, the really cute teacher at OCAD. I made my very first cup/thumbler. Sadly it was so crappy that I couldn’t keep it, I also think it needed baking or something!

Nuit Blanche 2007

Throwing
Originally uploaded by Maria in Toronto

Eva was in charge of our Nuit Blanche route. She was great at organizing everything we needed and everything we wanted to see. Caroline and Erin came all the way to Toronto to join us for Nuit Blanche.
First stop: The Distillery District
Caroline was interested in the Raku Firing (which rhymes with raccoon fighting, I was excited about this, haha, I’m funny). We were too early for it, but she was able to throw some pottery. We also had coffee at Balzac’s and saw some dance performance and an artist doing the art per hour thingie (one piece of art per hour, all night).
Next stop: Dundas and McCaul
Then we went to Dundas, where a lot of the activity was happening. First we saw this heart-shaped video booth display (or something like that). I had no idea what it was, though it looked like Speakers’ Corner or something like that.

From there, we headed to Dan Falk’s really cool exhibit of pictures he took in Ireland.

And then to OCAD.

They were having a “throwing marathon”, which is not throwing stuff at people, but actually doing pottery. I took a quick class and did my very first pottery cup (sadly it was so crappy I didn’t get to keep it).

Outside OCAD we saw three video game machines.

And some silver corn.

Third stop: Parkdale
We waited on the corner of McCaul and Queen for about 25 minutes. Finally the streetcar came and it was super crowded. We jumped on it through the back door (we all had metropass or day pass anyway) and it took us about 45 minutes to make it all the way to Queen and Cowan. We got there for the 10:30 performance of Close Knit and I was excited to see some yarn on display (hah!)

A knitter and a violinist were together, I told Eva that it could totally have been me and her, except we were watching and not performing.

The walk to Trinity-Bellwoods
We stopped for a few beers at a party and then walked west on Queen. It was really cool, full of people, everyone having a good time, everyone on the street. It is cool to see everyone participating in this type of events.
A house was covered with quilt and crochet.

And we stopped on the corner of Queen and Ossington to look at these tubas. You were supposed to plug in your Ipod and listen to it through the tubas. We didn’t know and didn’t have our Ipods with us.

There were billboards and flyers for a quick lobotomy for $300. I called the number but I got a busy signal. Does anyone know who was picking up and what kind of lobotomy-type deal this was?

We made it to the exhibit where they were supposed to be filling a window with water and fish. It turned out to be a projection (boo!)

We finally made it to Trinity-Bellwoods park where Rannie was taking pictures. After that, Eva kept on going. I was glad to go to bed then, so we headed to King Palace restaurant for a late-night Pakistani dinner. Then we went home.

The recipe for a great evening

Gigantic steak
Originally uploaded by Maria in Toronto

1. A gigantic steak from St. Lawrence Market

2. Great, “macho” friends

3. Flintstones-style dinner

4. Corey Hart (he’s got a website!)

5. We wear our sunglasses at night!!

I won another contest!

Street meat
Originally uploaded by Maria in Toronto.

I don’t know what is with me lately, but I just won another contest. I am so excited. I won a free copy of Found Magazine‘s book Found.
I owe it all to the street meat I found on Spadina Av. last fall.
Thanks Torontoist and Simon and Schuster!

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Second day of the Virgin Festival

Waiting at the VIP lounge
Originally uploaded by Maria in Toronto

We started the second day at the VIP Lounge enjoying a few Bud Light beers. We took the ferry and headed for the day of fun and music.
Greg and I participated in the football contest.

It was actually quite embarassing, I couldn’t even win a lousy t-shirt.

We saw the sunset.

I ran into Bridget, a knitter.

And enjoyed a lot of nice music:

The Killers, The Editors…

…and, of course, the Smashing Pumpkins, which was amazing.

We had an amazing time. Thanks Virgin Mobile and BlogTO!

Day 1 of the Virgin Festival

On the ferry
Originally uploaded by Maria in Toronto

We took the ferry to the Toronto Islands and got there on time to see Bjork.

We had a great time at the concert. It was a great show and we had great view.

The show ended with a blast!

Then it took us two hours to catch the ferry back. I was all tired and cranky, but nevertheless looking forward to the next day’s show.

The Virgin Festival is this weekend!

And I just scored free tickets! I won a contest for BlogTO. I am so excited. We will be attending both Saturday and Sunday for free.
Thanks BlogTO and Virgin Mobile!

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I won a free party!

Background: A few weeks ago I went for brunch to The Duke of Richmond, right by City Hall, on 20 Queen St. W. There was a bowl where you could place your business card for a draw. At the end of July I had an email from the Duke of Richmond telling me that I had won the draw. I was entitled to get a free party. The party took place last night.

All the usual suspects were there, and of course, making hand gestures.

The “free” party consisted of a reservation for 20 people, and snacks for such 20 people. Free chips and free salsa, free hummus with free pita, free artichoke spinach dip with free garlic bread, free fish bites (it’s like the fish on fish and chips, just smaller and without the chips).

Sadly, the beer was not included in the free party. Also, I thought that the free food was going to leave people hungry and unsatisfied, no problem, people would be able to order from the menu.
Surprisingly enough, the free snacks were enough for everyone, so there was no need to order more food.

Moses was there too, and he thoroughly enjoyed his time with the Ice Queen.

As usual, Accordion Guy brought his accordion and played for everyone: Rio, by Duran Duran.

I even gave a speech thanking everyone for attending my free party and advicing about my next party, for my birthday, in November. The theme is going to be 80s Prom and I am giving enough notice to everyone so that outfits and music can be prepared. There’s even enough time to start growing mullets!

Overall everyone had a really good time. Thanks, Duke of Richmond!
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