there's something that blogging will never be able to touch when compared to the experience of putting pen to paper and having limitless freedom of expression.  i've started to reconnect to that experience that we have from a very early age - when we start colouring in colouring books, start doodling on scraps of paper, distractedly scribbling in the margins of your schoolbooks or during a conference call.  it's like having the chance to speak again after a too-long held vow of silence.

- g

song of the day for loving freedom of expression: now this is fun, depeche mode.

at 12:17, i left my apartment to try and find a good public place to "hang out".  hanging out is not something that i do well.  i am supremely conscious of the amount of time that i spend some place because i worry that i am taking up space that some other paying customer might desire.  if i'm at a diner or a restaurant, i don't like to linger beyond the time that it takes me to eat my meal or drink my beverage because really, if i were the owner of the business establishment, i would want people to make room for new customers and new tabs. 

that having been said, i know that lots of people sit at starbuckses in bookstores for hours talking and reading magazines or books, so i thought that i might give that a try today.  i asked my friend KS whether the chapters at fashionable yonge and eglinton would be cooler than the indigo at upscale bay and bloor.  she said that the women would be hotter at Y&E, so i decided to put that to the test.

when i got to the chapters at yonge and eglinton, i was pretty disappointed.  granted, it was around lunch time on a work day, but i figured that the supermodels and exotic dancers would probably be lounging around until at least dark, hanging out at the local chapters.  there was one pretty girl who was writing in what looked like a journal, and an interesting looking girl who recently moved to canada from brazil chatting with a much older fellow than me (yes, my eavesdropping is the only way i know anything about her), but for the most part, the crowd was pretty uninteresting.  (sittability: 4; sexiness of clientelle: 3; abundance of sexy patrons: 2)

i went to burger king for lunch.  there was no shortage of places to sit, unlike at the starbucks in chapters.  also, the calibre of people watching was much lower.  apparently, there are places in which it is "cool" to sit and hang out and there are places where it is not.  i couldn't even be bothered to do anything interesting or conversation-worthy at burger king... which is probably part of the problem.  some places you go to so that you can see things and people that are interesting, and sometimes, you have to be the thing or person that is interesting to see.  if someone interesting like me can't even be bothered to do anything at the uncool place, what hope does anyone else have? (sittability: 5; sexiness of clientelle: 1; abundance of sexy patrons: 1)

there is an indigo bookstore at the corner of bay street and bloor street that is pretty posh and very large.  i got there around 5pm, and it was full of people off of work, meeting with partners or dates or just hanging around.  it was probably just statistics resulting from a larger sampling size, but there were WAY MORE attractive people men and women at the bay and bloor bookstore.  however, a corollary of this was that there were far fewer places to sit and do interesting, conversation-inspiring activities.  i think a winning strategy might be to get there earlier, do interesting crap, and wait as the audience arrives and takes notice of how interesting you are to be doing whatever it is you are doing there. (sittability: 1; sexiness of clientelle: 4; abundance of sexy patrons: 4)

so was that it?  i was feeling a little dissatisfied with the tiny amount of data i had gleaned on "hanging out" and i thought that i could do better.  so i walked down yonge street (always an adventure - trust me!) to eaton centre, where there is another big indigo on the top floor of the mall.  here again, i was probably thwarted by timing.  the mall itself was pretty quiet, no doubt as a consequence of the global recession that has us all cocooning like caterpillars.  but sure enough, the starbucks was jam packed with loiterers sipping their $5 coffee drinks and mingling on doomed first dates and meetings to discuss how the latest multi-level marketing scam can provide them with financial independence forever.   blah.  i didn't even bother with trying to get a seat there.  after all, it is a mall.  (sittability: 2; sexiness of clientelle: 3; abundance of sexy patrons: 3)

the last stop in the quest for a cool place to hang out was the chapters at the scotiabank theatre (which i still call the paramount, even though it's been over a year since scotia slapped its name on it).  no trouble finding a central table.  lots of different types of people involved in various degrees of socialization.  i always got the feeling that that chapters was most popular because it had a public bathroom that everyone uses who goes to visit nearby queen street west.  i had (yet another) chai tea latte and squeezed out some more interesting activity there (sketching and doodling in a new moleskine notebook i've been waiting for the right time to break in), but by the time i was half done my latte, i guess the movie crowd all had to go to their shows and the place was rendered fairly desolate.  (sittability: 5; sexiness of clientelle: 4; abundance of sexy patrons: 2)

i think that today's adventure/social experiment might have been pretty depressing except that i took the time to see coraline in 3D a second time while i was up at yonge and eg.   it's a fantastic story that resonates with me for so many reasons, and it's a gorgeous, awesome adventure beautifully realized and placed lovingly in 3D film.  coraline is one of the best movie heroines i've seen in a long time, and if you haven't gone to see this film yet - GO SEE IT!!!

- g

song of the day: love is everything, k.d. lang (that's another long story for another time. - g)

p.s. the rating scale is out of 5. 

well, this has been a productive weekend.  for some reason, i've been overwhelmed by a compulsion to spend every waking moment in Photoshop.  to that end, i've made two more nutsy desktop patterns (that look like they are peddling some sort of swimsuit show from some of our local clubs), three website designs, and redesigned my blog... partially.  i don't even understand it... i think that i might be addicted to photoshop.  or perhaps it's just the creative-ish side of my brain that has been locked up in a maze of compiled code and structured methods... who can really say.  it sure feels fun to play though!!!

- g

song of the day for playing too much with photoshop by yourself? - i see you baby (fatboy slim remix), groove armada

as many of you know, i got my start in the IT industry as a web designer.  that meant a lot of time in photoshop and other creative software, learning to express my creative side, but also learning to use some pretty complex tools.  it's been a while since i have had a chance to really delve into what photoshop can do.

recently, i've had some more design-oriented assignments, and i thought that it might be time to brush up on the mad-photoshop skillz since it has gone through a few updates since i got last had to use it hardcore.  i found some fantastic photoshop tutorials here at abduzeedo.com, and one of them really caught my eye.  a cool tutorial on layering colour-dodges to make some great luminous effects.  the original tutorial's composition was far superior, but my flying girl is way more iconic.  

anyway, i'm looking forward to working through more of these tutorials.  if you have a copy of photoshop, and are interested in learning more exciting and rewarding ways to use it, check out these fantastic lessons.

- g