Broken Modest Social Mouse

Been a big week and I've put aside Sunday as my blogging and picture sorting day:

• I found my ultimate martini at a Vodka Tasting sponsored by Ketel One
• Thursday night was a brilliant triple-bill concert with The Rural Alberta Advantage, The Acorn, and Ohbijou. It's sure to go down as an "I saw them when..." show, like seeing The Arcade Fire at the Horseshoe or Feist at Harbourfront.
• Friday night was one of the best shows I've seen Broken Social Scene play. The Beauties opened with lively set, surely pumped by a huge crowd and the debut of their EP. Broken Social Scene came on to play for over 2 hours, with Scenesters Emily Haines and Jimmy Shaw of Metric making a welcome return, and a jaw-dropping surprise as Isaac Brock of Modest Mouse took the lead for a few Modest Mouse tunes with the band. It was just one big indie-rock party of love.

I have a couple hundred photos to cull to find the dozen or so I like. In the meantime, for those of you who caught the show "How I Met Your Mother" on Monday, here's the complete copy of Lily's list of 50 Reasons To Have Sex. A couple of them, like reason #39, are a funny callback to old episodes and character history, and #41 is amusingly disturbing but plausible.

Couple Math

As I walk to the train, a couple is talking heatedly behind me.
Estimate expiry date of relationship based on the quote "you are
there as MY girlfriend!"

Change and Hope

Sketches of American Presidents, via Accordion Guy

Congratulations to our American friends on the election of President Barrack Obama. On the TV, Reverend Jesse Jackson is in the crowd in Chicago, tears rolling down his cheeks, this man who stood with Dr Martin Luther King witnessing a moment when a nation lives a dream. America is a nation that gave us The Ramones, Iggy Pop, Chuck Berry, Johnny Cash and James Brown. Tonight, I saw a glimpse of THAT America.

I saw the pronouncement at 11pm on the BBC, and then caught The Daily Show pronounce. Jon Stewart looked choked up saying those words "Barrack Obama is President of the United States". A flash-mob gathered outside the White House, spurned by a text messaging wave at a nearby university.

I was impressed by John McCain's concession speech, where he spoke from his heart, geniunely, and urging that fractured nation to pull together. I wish we were seeing more of McCain in the future and less of Palin, but I suspect it shall be reveresed.

I stayed up to watch President Elect Barrack Obama's speech. He spoke of gratitude, of the immensity of this moment, and of the challenges that America faces. He's inheriting a role that finds so many things broken, "the climb will be steep". I'm Canadian, and I know that a great deal of what America does affects the world I live in. Barrack Obama isn't my president, he doesn't lead my country, but he has me believing, "Yes We Can." Change and hope it is then.