• Weight. You will gain it. This is inevitable, much like the sunrise, city traffic, and bad haircuts. In fact, this is the time of year during which you will probably gain the most weight. After starving yourself for a solid week, and then fainting during your first Pro Fitness trial membership visit, food will cease to be optional. Enjoy it. Lots of it.
• Money. You might decide that this is the year to stop spending money so carelessly. You will think this is a novel idea, and text all your friends the glorious news. At 15 cents per message. Whoops.
• Sports. We live in Canada. This time of year is generally called “Winter”. It is the time of year when snow covers the ground, the wind cuts like razor blades, and people toboggan drunk down hills in cardboard boxes. Inexplicably, it is also a time during which a surprisingly large amount of Canadians decide to take up traditional “summer” sports, like golf, basbeall, and competitive table tennis. Icicles dangling from my beard, be damned — real character is built on the iceflows of our streets, and in the snowdrifts of our parks.
• Literature. Somehow, amidst the drunken revelry and ponging of beer, you will decide that you miss the smell of a musty old book. Perusing Hello Canada and Archie comics at the grocery checkout is no longer cutting it. However, now might be a good time to mention that Homer’s Odyssey is not, in fact, an anthology of Simpson’s episodes.
• Music. By some strange stroke of fate, you are entranced by the Black Eyed Peas’ new years performance. Nevermind that Fergie is cosplaying as Wolverine — there is clearly nothing cooler than becoming a musical artist. You will buy a guitar, which is doomed to lie beneath your bed, hidden away until you finish college. You will learn one chord, and break a string. This is living the dream.
• Women. Each new year brings with it the foolish assumption that the arbitrary turning of a calendar page increases your chance of finding a mate. Perhaps, you think, this is the year that Sally Mathers in the third row of PHL-322 will finally talk to you. However, a woman’s memory lasts longer than 365 days. That time you spilled Dr. Pepper on her notes is forever. No passage of time will change that. This, nor any other, is “the year” you will finally find a woman.

That is all. Heed my advice. Happy decade.

I will simply never grow tired of watching this.

Also known as THFCMWI. Frankly, it’s the prettiest acronym I’ve seen in ages.

Wednesday. I’ll spend the morning, wandering the streets in a sleepy-eyed stupor, in search of my media credentials and complementary wristband. Later in the evening, Canadian Music Week kicks off with a bang, which means I’m apparently supposed to brush shoulders with other journalists and artists in the industry. Yet, I plan on eschewing the whole “socialization” thing, because it reminds me of socialists, and CMW is clearly run by communists. Instead, I’ll most likely be seeing Sloan, who will be playing a show at the Mod Club, starting at 8PM. If all goes according to plan, I might even be able to get a last minute press pass. At the very least, I can woo drunken women with my expensive camera.

Thursday. There’s a lot of bands playing tonight, and quite a few have names I don’t quite recognize. Others still have names that scare me. Then there are the unfortunate few who possess both. Nevertheless, I may just venture out to see Charles Spearin’s Happiness Project, at some obscure bar apparently located near John Street. I’m told this isn’t actually an official part of CMW, but I don’t quite care, because it’s Charles Spearin, of Broken Social Scene fame. As we all know, that band is the musical equivalent of a warm bowl of soup, which makes them pretty damn awesome. It would be more awesome if my friend Melody was there, but she seems to think the Wednesday show will be cooler. Little does she know, there is no show cooler than one in which I am attending.

Friday. Not much going on tonight. Rather, there’s lots going on, but I won’t be there. I hear there is a party going down, and I can’t keep the women waiting, can I, now? Though, should all the women really turn out to be my male friends posing at women, in a feeble attempt to convince me to hang out and talk about my feelings again, I might check out Green Go at the Wrongbar.

Saturday. This is where the magic happens, people. I’ve got two choices in the afternoon; The Rural Alberta Advantage is playing an all-ages, CMW showcase in the afternoon, somewhere around dinner, apparently. Unless my memory is faulty, Lisa Lobsinger, who’s toured with BSS, apparently played with them at one point. (It appears my memory is faulty indeed – she’s from Alberta, and that’s about it!) Or, perhaps she still does! Nevertheless, I liked what I heard on the internets earlier today. Otherwise, I can catch one of CMW’s premiere film screenings – specifically, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Undead. Come on, people – it’s Hamlet, with vampires.

Moving into the evening, I’d like to check out Hey Rosetta, at the Canadian Room showcase. Part of me simply wants to hear the band members sporadically speak in different tongues, though I recall they make some half-decent music. It may also be part of the trend I seem to be following this year, which states that I should see as many east-coast bands as possible. But later on, I’ll move back over to the Horseshoe Tavern, where I’ll reunite once again with Melody for some Young Galaxy. Part of the Arts&Crafts family of musicians, I’ve been listening to these guys and girls for a couple months now, so I’m looking forward to finally seeing them live. I’m also looking forward to using my media pass to its full potential. Meeting bands is always a cool experience.

So, there you have it! To all those who have nagged me, I’m truly sorry that I didn’t quite post this until the week of. But take solace in the fact that you know exactly what I’m doing, and now have the ability to appropriately stalk me during this weeks festivities. And to those who I don’t know personally, I invite you to do the same! It’s always nice meeting new people; drop me a line!

First and foremost, there’s a reason the Silver Snail is one of Toronto’s most respected comic book shops – it has everything. Even for someone like myself, who’s a relative newbie to the world of graphic novels, could appreciate a great deal of what was held inside. Numerous issues of Neil Gaiman’s Sandman were off to a corner, albeit, out of order, while the latest issue of DMZ sat alongside Action Comics and other contemporaries. Both are graphic novels that I’m itching to start, having heard nothing but great things. This is assuming I don’t die before finishing Transmetropolitan – long, fevered reading sessions usually mean I forget to eat sleep, and perhaps even breath when it comes to Warren Ellis’ impressive creation. I’m sure I’ve skipped a few heartbeats as well, the byproduct of fierce concentration.

Yet, when it comes to comics and graphic novels, the one thing that appears to set the Silver Snail apart is its huge back catalog of issues. Practically any comic you can think of, from almost any time period, is probably in stock. Of course, some of these issues, both vintage and rare, can fetch quite a commanding price; the thirty-second issue of Adventure Comics, apparently dating back to the mid-thirties, was prices at $5400.

What amused me most about the Silver Snail is that, despite what the name might imply, it is not simply a comic shop. In fact, the shop has what is probably the largest collection of old, obscure, and geeky action figures I have ever seen. It’s jarring, at first, to see $400 busts of Yoda, or Ridley Scott’s Alien adorning the top of the comic-filled shelves. Yet, a little closer to the ground, within reach of us mere mortals, are the real gems – 12” poseable figures from Stargate SG-1, a Wesley Crusher action figure, of ST:TNG fame, and even obscure, import Japanese transformers. It’s all a little overwhelming, but really makes me wish I was a kid again, an arsenal of action figures at my disposal.

While my first trip was a relatively short one, it was a treat to see everything the store had to offer. Make no mistake – as soon as I’m finished with Transmet, I’ll probably be headed right back to the Silver Snail to see what else I can dig up for my comic-reading pleasure. Though, be forewarned; I might even come back with a Richard Dean Anderson action figure of my own.

Today was the day the magic smoke escaped, and my motherboard began its slow, crippling descent into technological irrelevance. What started as a routine reformat and reinstall has quickly turned into a terrible mess. Normally, I don’t mind sorting through mess – being able to poke around the inside of my desktop computer is somehow my idea of a good time. That, and wrestling Apple Store Geniuses with my bare hands.

AMD Phenom II. Overclocked to a record-breaking 6.5GHz. In the corner, my PC weeps.

This time around, I actually don’t have the slightest clue as to what’s going on. A few examples of what’s been plaguing me…

• Overclocking the FSB, while possible at first, isn’t any longer. While I can clock my FSB at 1333MHz, it always reverts back to Auto. Overclocking yields no results.
• Moreso, there are strange temperature discrepancies, where the Southbridge and VCore voltages will spike, seemingly at random. This may play a part.
• Running with 4GB of RAM now causes a hardware failure upon installing Vista. This is Vista x64, too.
• Running with less than 4GB of RAM allows me to boot. Installing Vista is another story – It’s akin to watching donkeys go whitewater rafting on a river of molasses. That’s if I don’t BSOD while loading setup files.

So, let’s assume that, by some miracle, I actually boot into Vista and get some things installed. None of that really matters, anyways, because I’ll still get a BSOD relating to the nVidia storage drivers. It’s not a matter of if such a crash will occur, but when.

Make no mistake, a good number of these problems have been present since I built the PC almost three years ago. The voltages, for instance, gave me grief when I first built the PC, which was what discouraged me from overclocking in the first place. The errors that I’m getting with the nVidia storage drivers are curious as well, because I had similar, storage related issues running OS X on the machine last year, despite the fact that the components had been proven to work. It seems like my second stab at overclocking simply magnified these issues, and made these current symptoms noticeable a lot earlier than they may have been otherwise.

It seems I’m on the hunt for a new motherboard now, which I’ll most likely pick up this weekend. Who knows, I may even come back with one of these.

Now, for a bit of a tangent. Authors, particularly big ones, don’t typically have a very many personal interactions with their fans. Of course, there are books signings, and the occasional meet and greets, but otherwise, communication is kept fairly minimal, or sporadic. Personally, I think the advent of the internet is probably one of the greatest things that could ever happen for the relationship between authors and their readers, responsible for breaking down the walled garden that separates ourselves from our literary idols, and giving us something tangible, and much more personal to reach out to.

I remember reading about how, in the early 90′s, British author Terry Pratchett was one of the first to embrace the internet as a forum for communication with readers and fans. Think, for a moment, about just how archaic internet message boards and group-based communication were at the time. Usenet, one of the precursors to our modern day message boards, was in its infancy. And yet, almost 20 years ago, some authors were beginning to realize the merits that the internet had for communicating with their readers.

Today, it amazes me just how close one can get to some of their favourite authors and writers. Twitter, the short-message internet service, seems to have become a haven for literates and creative types, where every fleeting thought and whim can be unleashed upon the web for whoever happens to listen. Having finally been convinced into getting a Twitter account of my own, it’s amazed me just how many of my favourite authors and individuals have taken to the service. Neil Gaiman, whom I spoke fondly of before, was one of the first authors I noticed on Twitter – it was with him that Pandora’s Box was opened. Warren Ellis, Ryan North, Richard Stevens, and a number of other journalists, websites and individuals have all started their own tweets as well.

It may not seem like a whole lot, at first – short, web-based communications that never exceed 140 characters. The messages – or tweets – usually delve into the mundane, and might not necessarily contain anything of substance; nothing makes me smile more than seeing Gaiman having trouble with an Android phone, or Warren Ellis ramble drunk. Yet, the point of all this is, it’s a personal part of their lives that they’ve chosen to share with the world. And while it may be mundane, it sure helps to know there’s a real, tangible, person that we can identify with, behind the books and stories.

It’s the beginning of November, and I already know that, come Tuesday, Toronto’s downtown core will be lit up like a Christmas tree. Or something similarly denominational, that people will inevitably fight over as the festivities reach fever pitch.

In truth, the whole affair just seems a bit overwhelming. When I was living exclusively in the suburbs, I accepted my coddled, commerical-free existence with open arms. More than anything, it meant I didn’t have to stare into the darkened depths of Abercrombie every damned morning, as the Hollywood-chiseled mannequins stared back with their soul piercing gaze. But now, such an experience has essentially become a weekly ritual, meandering through the depths of Toronto’s Eaton Centre on a daily basis, a shelter from the elements on my way to school.

Yet, while I can escape the elements, there’s no respite from the barrage of business. This being my first, true Toronto Christmas, I can only imagine things will get worse. Much worse. Carols will be sung. Holiday jingles will be ingrained into my memory. Glitter from store displays will become inexplicably stuck on my face. It will only be a matter of time before I begin to gouge my own eyes out – with cinnamon sticks, no less.

Don’t get me wrong – the hopeless romantic that I am, I love Christmas, particularly a white and snowy one. Yet, it’s depressing to think that, as the temperatures hit an unnatural high of 18 C all week, I’ll be facing Christmas full on, and non-stop in a matter of days. And I’ll be laughing – from insanity, no doubt – all the way.

All the way ’till January.

This particular tale found its beginning last weekend; it was during one of my regular musical downloading binges, I became particularly enamored with the British band Blur. While already a fan of their ever-popular Song2, there was simply something startling different about Coffee and TV, another single released around the same era, which I had yet to hear. While it’s a deeply effective retelling of guitarist Graham Coxon’s struggles with alcoholism, I think it was ultimately the music video’s lovable milk carton protagonist that captured my heart.

It was then I knew – I had to become him.

Work began late Wednesday evening on a Halloween costume in his likeness; in-fact, likeness isn’t even the proper wording – exact replica was my intention. Thus, spray paint was bought. Cardboard was gathered. Tea was served.

After two solid evenings, and a Friday morning of finishing touches, this was the result:

After beholding the beautiful form of his milky-white exterior, it was then that I truly knew what it’s like to create something so beautiful, a proper description is impossible. Words failed me, and I was in awe; somewhere in the background, an angel sang.

Commuting with this creamy creation proved to be a challenge. After walking it down to the Streetsville GO Station, I was judged rather fiercely by a number of middle-aged women gathered at the terminal. Apparently, having a life-sized milk carton is taboo in today’s society. After similar, quizzical looks from the GO transit driver, the carton was loaded into the annals of the bus, and to Toronto I went.

After a couple hours worth of frivolity around Ryerson’s student residence with a few friends, we left the University with one destination in mind – Toronto’s Church street. Now, a bit of background knowledge on this particular section of Toronto: the area, particularly Church and Wellsley, are considered Toronto’s central gay community. My friends and I knew this going in, and being your stereotypical, liberal university students, looked forward to an interesting Halloween experience. Besides, anything particularly scarring would simply be drunk into oblivion later that evening. The joys of residence.

It was an interesting experience, for the most part. We ran into a number of interesting characters, some well-known, some obscure. A couple of highlights from the evening included witnessing far too many people dressed up as the Joker – the psychotically creepy Heath Ledger rendition, no less – a thong-clad Batman figure, and Fear and Loathing‘s Hunter S. Thompson.

Yet, little did I know how much of a celebrity I would become last evening. From the moment my friends and I arrived within the blocked off portion of the Church street parade, I was swamped – it was standing room only, and particularly difficult for this here milk carton to move around. Constantly, I was stopped for pictures – apparently everyone thought the novelty of being a giant milk carton was fairly high. Of course, I obliged; naturally, there’s nothing I enjoy more than spreading the good-natured values of dairy consumption to the denizens of Toronto’s downtown. Not to mention the abundance of good-looking Asian women, who, inexplicably, swooned over me – a lactose love-affair, if I’ve ever seen one.

Of course, I learned a particularly interesting lesson last night; fame is…exhausting. It got to the point where, while the constant attention was amusing at first, it ultimately become a chore to even move down the street. While first I felt a sort of peculiar fascination, I soon found myself with a similarly quizzical expression, akin to the women at the GO station that morning – what was so interesting about Milky, anyways?

I quickly formed a theory, particularly after seeing this particular billboard. I was a Milk carton. In a gay neighbourhood. Where billboards were rife with promotion for the new Sean Penn movie, Milk. A film, I quickly found out, which chronicled the life of San Fransisco gay rights advocate Harvey Milk.

Shit. I had inadvertently made myself into the evening’s unwitting gay icon.

Alas, my theory may be off, but the evening was a blast, nonetheless. The entire process, since it’s inception a week ago today, seems like it’s taken much longer than that to come to fruition. Yet, it was exciting to pull off, and even more amazing to see my creation so well received across the downtown community.

But the best part of the evening? Meeting those 10 or so people, who actually knew the Blur source material which I was from. Obscure though I was, part of the fun, when it comes to evenings like these, is identifying how many people there are like me out there. As the night drew to a close, I was all too delighted to meet one particular man, a native of London, England, and my last fan of the night.

Like a kid on Christmas, “You’re the best fookin’ costume I’ve seen in the last couple years, mate,” he declared.

I beamed.

Now, with that out of the way, a bit of housecleaning seems to be in order. Apparently I actually have readers on The Horrible Fanfare now. It seems that shamelessly advertising my link via MSN is paying off – a couple people have already messaged me, apparently entertained by the fanfare.

Google analytics has come in handy as well, for tracking usage, statistics and the like. That, in conjunction with the Google Adsense data fed to me, makes for a fairly comprehensive site-tracking tool. It’s just so damned easy these days that it almost makes me miss the stat-counters of old – I’m tempted to put one in for nostalgic purposes.

That, and :blink: tags, perhaps. The nineties were awesome.

In other web-related news, myself and a few others around Ryerson are attempting to set-up a residence-oriented publication. While it was originally meant to be released in print, complications and costs means it’s been bumped to a web-based presentation. Which means I get to flex my web-design skills yet again:

A couple things regarding my adventures in web design: I’m completely self-taught, working mainly from books, web examples, and the advice of friends. Like most things in life, I really think this is the best way to go about learning things, particular when it comes to technology. With the amount of breadth and depth technology possesses, it’s impossible to cover it all within the constraints of a course – practice and observation seem to be key.

Next up: coding the beast.

You see, I’ve never quite understood the concept of one writing under the guise of a long-dead author; immediately, I noticed that Devil May Care was, in fact, not a creation of the late Sir Ian Fleming, but written, instead, by one Sebastian Faulks. With the abundance of unfinished material left after his death, I’d hoped his estate might have pulled a Tolkein and worked something from that; but alas, my hopes were quickly dashed.

I’d like to think that the whole point of being a writer is bringing your own personal perspective to a piece, as opposed to emulating a past one. If anything, this notion of an author “writing” as a person from the past seems like nothing more than a way to raise one’s profile – riding on the coattails of another’s success, if you will. That being said, I felt a little dubious, but purchased it anyways.

Now, who is Sebastian Faulks? In all honesty, I still don’t know, just as I don’t know who Kingsley Amis or Christopher Wood is – both former sanctioned Bond writers. Mind you, in no way am I trying to discount their takes upon the Bond franchise; instead, like with anything, I just can’t help but feel that the products are but palatable facsimiles of the source material.

…Which brings us to Devil May Care. In most respects, the book is standard Bond fare. You’ve got James Bond, of Her Majesty’s secret service, women, and a number of fancy, 60s oriented cars. But it’s the few instances in which Faulks tries to deviate from the standards that didn’t impress me. The one thing that makes the Bond franchise so enduring is that, in a sense, so is the character himself. The amount of havoc and chaos which Bond is often subject to never quite wears him down; it’s this simple notion that connects each book so expertly.

So, you can probably imagine my displeasure when Faulks began to transform Bond into more of an aging legend – a has-been whose time in the service is nearing its end.The result is that Devil May Care often feels a little more like a journey into the soul for Bond, and not into the Soviet homeland. At other times, the wanton disregard for authority reader’s have come to love seems absent; following an accident, Bond dutifully obeys the doctor’s orders, insofar as to avoid Martinis for almost half the book.

My biggest gripe with Faulk’s re-interpretation of the classic Bond comes in the novel’s structure. One of Fleming’s more striking qualities was his ability to advance the action at a pace that drew reader’s in, but didn’t lose them in the process. Faulks, while capable of building the action, doesn’t seem to know what to do once he’s gotten there. Bond’s escape from mastermind Julius Gorner’s drug-producing facility is executed in an appropriately grandeur fashion; it’s when the time comes to dispose of the antagonistic adversary that Faulk’s seems to run out of steam. In fact, Gorner’s death is probably one of the most anti-climactic disposals I’ve read in years – he commits suicide in the gargantuan paddles of an American steamboat. Yawn.

Despite its occasionally annoying flaws, I couldn’t bring myself to quite hate the book. What many critics agree on is Faulk’s strength at tapping into the nostalgia of the Bond franchise. In that sense, I was happy enough to be reminded of my Bond-filled youth – all the normal fare was, indeed, present. But a reminder was all it really proved to be, lacking a great deal of the edginess and flair which Sir Ian Fleming commanded so many years ago.

Like the other two films before it, Spiderman 3 was a commercial success – but that’s where the similarities ended. Critics couldn’t believe the amount of apparent effort Raimi had put into ruining what could have otherwise been both a solid and engaging sequel. Instead, we were treated to a couple of the following gems:

1. Peter Parker becomes immune to character development. This seems to be the only feasible explanation regarding the complete and utter degeneration of Spiderman’s alter ego. It seems ironic that, in an attempt to inject more emotion into the character, Raimi ends up with quite the opposite – a whiny and socially inept “hero”, who appears to be more at home in a My Chemical Romance video, or even an Opium den. The last option may be the only avenue viewers have left to explain Parker’s laughable dance-sequences and baseless mood-swings. I kid you not.
2. Venom is anything but. When a movie is nearing release, studios usually incorporate major plot elements into their teasers and adverts, which are not only intended to generate hype, but to alert non-fans of what the movie may be about. That being said, I thought I was about to view a movie about Venom. Instead, I was treated to nearly 2 hours of a sand-castle sob story.
3. The Spiderman franchise is now a tag-teaming buddy series. The last ten minutes of the movie prove to be film’s best, as both Venom and the Hob-Goblin are introduced. Old friend Harry Osbourne – and apparent long-time user of Parker’s Opium den – overcomes one of the worst revenge-driven story arcs in movie history, only to team up, once again, with his old pal Parker. Venom is defeated, and the two heroes are, like, totally friends again.

That being said, one could almost hear the collective groan of fans across the web, as both Sam Raimi and Tobey Maguire announced official plans for both Spiderman 4 and 5. Such a move is frightening; while there is still a chance for the series to be salvaged, that chance won’t be present much longer. As Sony’s flagship movie franchise, and ultimate cash-cow, Spiderman will be released, successful script or not. Only time will tell if Raimi’s milked the cow dry.