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For the most part of July, I’ve been sick with a cold/the flu/throat AIDS/a combination of the former/etc. My throat feels like it’s going to fall out…is that even a thing? I suppose I could blame partying, but I really only do that on weekends or if it’s a special occasion. I’m really kind of boring otherwise. But seriously, I’m getting really tired of not beaing healthy.

I ended up going to see Silversun Pickups (and missed Social Media Day, oops) at Tattoo Rock Parlour.

Needless to say, I have never enjoyed a show so much in my life. I lost my voice from singing along to every song, I danced, cheered, I even ran into Crystal Gibson!

I uploaded my crappy iPwn photos to flickr if anyone cares to see. Best part of the night? Most certainly running to Nikki Moniger (bass) in the bathroom before the show, and meeting Brian Aubert (guitar/vox) afterward. He told me he saw me in the crowd and I seemed like someone who knew where the good parties were. Naturally I told him The Bovine and Cherry Cola’s (which I was told they showed up at THE NEXT NIGHT when I wasn’t there, fuck my life). Of course I kept my cool the entire time – but inside I was screaming like a 12 year old at a Justin Bieber show. Check this shit out:

I can smell your jealousy. It’s alright, I understand.

In not-so-awesome news, my good friend Stu has sustained a super awesome rockstar-related injury, and sadly (for serious, super sadly) can’t work for the next while. The staff at Playdead Cult are running a fundraiser to help the store out, running from the 17th (so it’s already started, obv) until the 30th. Here’s a few details courtesy of the event page:

The deals for the Frankenstu event are as follows:

Spend $25 and receive a gift.
Spend $50 and receive 10% off purchases at the Playdead Mansion for the rest of the year.
Spend $75 and receive an entry for a Playdead original painting.
Spend $100 and you will get all 3!

Playdead Mansion info:
1233 Queen Street West, entrance on Gwynne Ave.
Open Tues – Sat Noon – 6pm
416-921-6662
info@playdeadcult.com
http://playdeadcult.com/

If you can’t make it to Playdead Mansion in person, please donate via PayPal. There’s a button on our blog’s sidebar: http://playdeadcult.tumblr.com/

Every dollar helps. We appreciate your support!

 Gifts? Discounts? Paintings? SHIT YEAH! The event page is here, and here’s the painting you can win!:

Super awesome, I know. If you’ve never been to the Playdead Mansion, I highly suggest it. Some of the best clothing, art, and music to come out of the city is created inside, and you’ll be sure to leave with something amazing.

Oh, and…um…I went and made a ringtone of the Double Rainbow Song. You can grab it here from Audiko. It woke me up this afternoon…it was a wonderful experience. If you haven’t heard it yet…well, what the hell is wrong with you!? Do it. Right now.

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Yup. Mashable has gone and organized a worldwide par-tay to celebrate how far the world has come in social media and what a strong effect it has in our lives today, both personally and professionally. There’s going to be events all over the globe, and I’ll be attending the one here in Toronto. It’s a great opportunity  to make connections and learn about the direction news, entertainment, and our daily lives have taken since social media took over.

I’m pretty excited! This could prove to be crazy beneficial and there are quite a few people I’m anxious to meet. I was suprised to see some friends from school on the facebook event, as well as people I stil hang out with now. It’s gonna be so fun!

It’s at the Madison Pub (barf, me and fratboys don’t mix well) tonight at 8pm. Check out the event page, it’d be fun to see more friendly faces out if you’re into social media. See you tonight!

*UPDATE* Okay, so I’m either no longer attending, or I’m coming late. Silversun Pickups announced a free show tonight @ Tattoo Rock Parlour, they’re my favourite band, and my friend got us line bypass. Since I missed the show last night I HAVE HAVE HAVE to go.

On another note, I’m going to be making a complilation of videos I’ve been collecting over the weekend regarding G20. Sadly, they aren’t happy peaceful things. I’m personally upset with this because my father is a retired Toronto Police officer and the way the force were recorded and witnessed behaving on so many occasions this past weekend was atrocisous and horribly disheartening. If you have a video or story you want me to post, let me know.

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Before you read this, please note that THIS IS MY OPINION based on the experiences I HAD MYSELF. All protestors are obviously not the same, and all cops are not the same. Please don’t tell me I’m wrong for something I witnessed first hand. I can’t speak for anyone other than myself.

I really, really didn’t want to get directly involved with the g20 protesting yesterday. If you saw the shitshow on Twitter, you’d understand why. But me being the ridiculously curious person that I am (stupid Gemini habits), when I heard the crowd was passing my street, I obviously had to throw some shoes on and get down there as fast as possible.

I caught the tail end of it. First thing I saw was a CTV crew van, with…people in riot gear?

Weird. Anyway…I walked over to St. George, where I was greeted with about 50 people, mostly college-age kids, just standing there looking at the now-infamous “wall-o-cops”:

I went a bit closer to see what they were all looking at…and nothing was happening. At all. Seriously. The police stood there, in line, silent. Every once in a while, one of them would say “Please disperse the area” or simply “Everyone go home.”…THEN everyone was suddenly brave and started yelling (from a safe distance, of course, usually behind their friends), “NO YOU GO HOME! THIS IS OUR CITY!”

(Sorry for the blurry photo…the guys above liked yelling…I’m not even sure the cops could hear them from there.)

Uh…okay, you guys want to stand in the middle of the road or sit in the rain for no reason, go right ahead. The cops are doing their job and are literally just standing there. You’re yelling so you can hear your own voice and it’s pretty annoying. I’d tell you to get the fuck out, too.

The cops were there to keep people out of Queen’s Park and the downtown area, where you know, PEOPLE ARE BURNING SHIT AND SMASHING STORES. Why are you people here? To yell at the cops for being there? To yell at cops in general? To protest the cops? To protest the g20? There are THOUSANDS of people downtown protesting good causes, being friendly, not causing problems…and you guys waited here, in the rain, to yell at the cops for moving people away from Queen’s Park. Not once did I hear a single mention of the summit ,or the damage being caused downtown, or any of the problems the summit is meant to deal with. These people were just shouting at the cops because they were there.

Way to fight the cause, or something.

“I PAY FOR MY UNIVERSITY TUITION!”

Good for you (even though your parents probably paid for it), what does that have to do with the police asking you to stop standing around ONE INTERSECTION and doing nothing but yelling shit at them about things they have no control over?

If you have such an issue with the police presence you can always find a way down to Queen and Spadina and trash another starbucks, I guess. Or make a complaint, or JUST FUCKING DO SOMETHING rather than standing 20 feet away and screaming something about police states while you take your break off of your post-secondary education that you can attend without difficulty.

Live in Somalia for a month, then come back and whine about how horrible Toronto is.

Okay so that happened while I was near my street. I was there for maybe half an hour before I got sick of the name calling from the back of the class and went home to get ready to go out.

This is where it took a turn for “Laura, you should have never left the house.”.

I went to the 460 to watch my friends in Mittenz and The Graveyard Junkies, It was raining, not a lot of people around, kind of normal for a rainy night…then around midnight I decided to make my way over to the Bovine to see my other friends in The Nightmares. Into a cab I go, south on Spadina, intent on simply turning west onto Queen, and…

Hello, police barricade. o_O (I think I actually made that face.)

Having no idea what the fuck, I paid the driver (most wasted $7 ever) and approached some officers asking how I was to get to my destination.

“Excuse me, how far west is Queen closed off?”
“You can’t get through this way, you have to find another route.”
“…so about how far west is it freed up, I need to get onto Queen.”
“How far west are you looking to go?”
“Bathurst.”
“Yeah, you can try going down to King and go up Bathurst.”
“So it’s not blocked off at Bathurst?”
“I don’t know.”
“…”

I’m in the rain, I’m confused, and starting to get rather anxious because I’m on foot and have no idea how far the cops are blocking off Queen and really I don’t know where I would go if I’m blocked off from getting onto Queen, other than back home. So I walked down to Adelaide, and started west, checking at every intersection/alley going north for an open spot. Even the alleyways were being guarded.

Finally I got to Portland, and I found an open spot. I walked up as quickly as I could and looked towards Spadina…and there were all the protestors about 100 feet away. Yeahhhhh no. So I make it to the Bovine in my miserable state, and the staff and a few others are outside watching the distant crowd. No sooner do I say my hellos, then we all hear a bunch of yelling coming from the direction of the crowd…they’ve started running. All of them. Eastbound, taking up both sidewalks and the whole street. Right at us. Everyone got really tense for a second, and Darryl, the owner of the Bovine,  told us all to get the fuck inside NOW. No complaints from me. We ran inside, shut and locked the door. The people inside looked at us slightly confused, which really I couldn’t blame them for. Word got around that the protestors were flooding the street outside, and an announcement came on over the speakers that if anyone wanted to leave, they would have to do so out the back door.

Best quote of the night goes to my friend Joey when we were rushed inside:

“You better be twittering this shit, because if you don’t, I’m totally going to.”

(No, I have no idea what the weird numbers under my tweets are.)

So we were stuck inside for about 20 minutes, and when the door opened it was like noone had come through at all. It was rather confusing to be honest. They came rushing in from Portland towards Bathurst, but once the door was open again, traffic to the west was fine while there were still people near Portland. Weird.

Anyway, it was a rather calm night socially, which was understandable. Either way, I probably should have stayed home. Being agoraphobic and directed around and forced inside by police and protestors alike do not mix. /whinewhinecomplain

I’m probably going to be up for a few more hours putting together everything that’s happened today while I had my g20 earmuffs on. Come Monday this will all be over, and I can go back to blogging about how I hate the weather or I’m sick again or something else totally trivial.

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So I have the flu. I think. But I was sore from laying in bed for the past 2 days pretty much so here’s my awesome(?) day.

I had to go to the walk-in to renew a prescription, and talk to the doctor to make sure I didn’t have strep throat or something worse than just the flu. I got there at around 11. There was 7 or 8 people in the waiting room. Not too long, right?

“It will be over an hour wait, you might want to check in and then come back in an hour.”
…ugh. Not wanting to waste 6 dollars on the TTC and go home and come back, I decided to sit outside in the hallway of Greenwin Square “Mall”. I used to live at Bloor and Sherbourne, it’s not THAT bad, but today, it was very bad.

I sat out there for about half an hour, then decided to go back in. A middle Eastern man was sitting next to me with his hella cute baby daughter. I thought nothing of this, until LOUD ASS PHONE RINGING OUT OF NOWHERE. Rather than step outside of the waiting room, dude sits there for like 20 minutes having an obnoxiously loud conversation with someone that I obviously couldn’t understand…the receptionists are staring at him, while I’m staring at this sign that is DIRECTLY IN FRONT OF HIM:

I know in hospitals cell phones used to be, and kind of still are, a no-no because of concerns about them affecting the electronic equipment (even though it’s pretty much just an overreaction in this day and age for the most part), but in small clinics, it’s asked that you turn off your phone, or at least put the ringer on vibrate and GO INTO THE DAMN HALLWAY so you don’t annoy the staff and the sick people who obviously don’t give a fuck about your conversation. My friend Aaron called me shortly after I took that photo, and what did I do? I left the waiting room, because nobody in there gives a a fuck, nor cares to hear, about my conversation! After I finished my call, I went back inside. Dude is still on the phone. So I bail and go sit back on the benches in the hallway.

I look at the time – I’ve been there for about an hour by now. Ugh. I put on my iPod, and…HARK! A SCREAMING CHILD HAS JUST ENTERED THE BUILDING!

Fuck my life. iPod is made louder. Screaming child remains for 15 minutes or so.

I don’t see phone dude anymore, so I go and sit back in the waiting room. It’s pretty full by now, assumingly from people who made their appointment earlier like I did and have returned. So I’m sitting in there, iPod on again, eyes closed…and I keep hearing this woman talking to my left. I figure she’s having a conversation, so whatever. Finally I look over, and…oh, hooray, she’s talking to herself. Whole time. Add that, to the fact that she has about a billion bug bites (oh god I hope they were bug bites) all over her arms and she’s scratching that shit like there’s no tomorrow…now she has started wandering into the back, and back again over to the receptionists, asking why they’re taking so long, and it never takes more than 5 seconds to see a patient, and SCRATCH SCRATCH and *randomly starts singing along to a Michael Jackson song playing on the overhead radio thing* and more talking and scratching…this little old lady and I were sitting across from eachother and exchanged “oh god I KNOW but what can you do” smiles…finally my name got called, I got my scrip, had to wait around another 20 minutes for THAT to get filled, then home I went.

Yes, it look about 3-4 hours to do all this…I tweeted the highlights mostly:

Throughout my ordeal, I tried my best to keep up to date with everything happening downtown for the ever-so-loved G20 Summit. I have yet to hear of anything positive happening in the city. I’m pretty sure this photo taken by torontocitylife sums it up:

See the rest of their photos here. I’ve also been following Torontoist and their daily play-by-play of the events as they occur. You should check it out, definitely worth the read. Between that, and the stories pouring out of Twitter and Facebook, it’s astonishing what can happen to a city in just a day. :/

Thankfully, despite everything going on downtown, my neighbourhood as been relatively unaffected by the summit. (Cop-free patios, you guys.) Save for two police officers at St. George station, it seemed like any other normal day, albeit slightly heavier subway volume on the Bloor line. So after hearing about all the crap downtown, and how much it’s stressing everyone, I was more than relieved to come back home after my annoyance-filled afternoon to walk by my park, where BEST THING EVER they turned on the water fountain. They didn’t do it last year for whatever reason, and I was genuinely bothered all summer but it. But this year, it’s back, and is due for several days of me sitting by it and loving the heck out of it.

I seriously love water fountains. I don’t know what it is…I can stare at them for hours, I want a little one in my apartment so bad.

Anywho…that was my day. It’s 4am, I’ve slept for most of the day and night…I think I’ll start on that “Laura’s all over the internet” post I keep saying I’ll write.

I also found out this afternoon that my favourite jeans have a quarter-sized hole in the crotch. Boooooooo.

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I know I said I was going to post something about all the blogs I have around, but I’ve been spending literally all day and night trying to fix my iPhone. I’ve had nothing but grief ever since upgrading to iOS4, and frankly I’m really starting to get pissed off.

Here’s what’s happened since I’ve upgraded so far…observe my still occuring tale of woe:

1. I installed iOS4.0. YAY I HAVE FOLDERS AND MULTITASKING but aw crap my biteSMS is gone but only for a little bit. (yes I jailbroke* my phone and IT WAS WONDERFUL.)
2. My 3G network has crapped itself. No connectivity at all. But apparently this has been an issue for several people so I wasn’t too concerned.
3. Restored my iPhone as a new phone (restore #1), which apparently is the fix. Yay, 3G is back, this is wo- WHERE ARE MY CONTACTS THAT WERE SUPPOSED TO BE SYNCED WITH GOOGLE oh god this is horrible ffuuuuuu-
(This is where I briefly panicked.)
4. I found a backup I made of my phone the other day, and restored my iPhone ( restore #2) to the backup, and my contacts and photos were intact. YAY AGAIN!
5. Now my 3G is down again.
6. I copied my photos folder to my desktop (where it still remains hours later…keep reading), and exported my contacts to my GMail account. I checked four times to make sure they were all there.
7. Repeat “restore to new phone” in attempt to regain 3G network (restore #3).
8. iPhone is restored, and synced in iTunes. Contacts and music are reinstalled. YAY EVERYTHING IS GREAT but not really.
9. I open Windows Explorer to copy my photos folder…and my computer doesn’t recognize my iPhone. At all. It’s not there. It works on iTunes, but that’s it.
10. Device Manager investigation time. Nope, not there either.
11. I do a system restore on ARACHNOTRON, my computer (restore #4. it counts.).
12. Still no iPhone recognition.
13. I uninstalled the Apple Mobile Device driver, and plugged my phone back in.
14. My phone is detected as a camera. Huh…well, better than nothing I guess, I can still get to the folders.
15. Open iTunes, OH GUESS WHAT? Yup. Phone’s not there.
16. Uninstall/reinstall iTunes.
17. Restart ARACHNOTRON.
18. I just plugged in my phone again just this second. Let’s see what it does…(oooh, real-time blogging.)
19. Charging = yes. Windows Explorer recognizing = yes. iTunes…YES…syncing old photos back onto phone…no, but I can do that later when I reinstall SSH…SO YAY!!!
20. YES! LADIES AND GENTLEMEN WE HAVE A WORKING IPHONE ONCE AGAIN!

IT’S A CELEBRATION, BITCHES!!!

Welp, that’s how I spent my whole entire night. And you guys had some live troubleshooting action, too. Feel special.

Oh, and apparently there was an earthquake around 1pm yesterday. Slept through it. Figures.

*upgrading to iOS4 erases the jailbreaking software, so it wasn’t on the phone when the problems started. If it was, the clean restore would have erased it anyway.

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i’m crossposting this from my SG blog. now you have something to read. I’m back on Suicide Girls, did I mention that? Well I am. *applause* Thank you!

My birthday party lasted 4 nights. F’real. Kind of a gong show. but a rad-as-hell gong show. My friends’ amazing band played all 4 nights, I sang on stage every time, got right hammered as I should, but most importantly got to see my friends who I love forever. <3 Without them the weekend would have sucked. cute bar employees kind of helped, too. oOOOoOO.

the weekend was a whole lot of this:

but most of the other pictures aren’t uploaded yet or i was too drunk looking to want to post em.

i downloaded iOS4. i’m *gasp* rather underwhelmed. maybe that’s because i jailbroke my phone after 3.1.3. came out and i have to personalize everything i own that isn’t too heavy to move so i had themed the crap out of it. so now i have to wait for the 4.0 jailbreak to come out. i miss biteSMS and my grand galactic inquisitor smstone. if you don’t know who that is i hate you.

i’m getting this skin for my iphone from the lovely people at playdead (order stuff from them they effing rule):

i already ordered it but then they came out with a new one i like. DAMN DECISIONS. i’m not good at those.

i’m aware it’s 7:30. i slept until about 8pm last night (4 day birthday party, etc.) then i woke up and had dinner but then i drank two cans of coke. i haven’t had coke in YEARS, so now i’m all…awake and stuff.

know what i hate? people who use someone as filler. whether it be on a friendship level, or dating. people aren’t there to replace some stupid hole you have because the person you’d prefer isn’t around. that’s shitty and people who do it are shitty,

i need a day job. ATTENTION TORONTO, THIS MEANS YOU. HIRE ME. I’M GOOD AT STUFF! look: http://lauraisbored.com (i know i need to update my blog, shush.)

ps – if anyone would like to get me silversun pickups tickets for the 29th, i totally wouldn’t mind.

Anywho. I’ve been neglecting my blog. Maybe I’m saddened at the sight of it esthetically. If you know me, you know I’m not a “light blue on white minimalist” kind of girl. I’m trying to think of the best way to throw everything togther. I’m writing up a post tomorrow about just how many blogs I have up in these damn tubes, maybe someone can give me a few suggestions.

I got a reply for a job application where I was asked why I haven’t blogged since April. I just…I don’t know. I haven’t blogged here. But my twitter, tumblr are exploding. I know I keep saying I’m going to do this regularly but I never do it. I’m going to now. For real. Enough is enough. If I want a job in social media it’s not going to happen if I write every few months.

On a better note, the new Futurama episodes are amazing, LOST is over and I’m heartbroken, and True Blood is back. That’s my TV news.

Also I’m getting a Harry Potter tattoo. Friday if all goes to planned. It’s a suprise if I haven’t already told you about it.

Scott Pilgrim is coming out soon. They came out with this adorable character creator. Here’s mine:

Movie’s going to kick ass. I’m so stoked. I was almost in it. Almost. I went with Dave down to the set for shooting last year but due to the extreme heat/packed warehouse/wonderful anxiety I had to bail. Crap.

I’m going to get started on the “how many pages Laura has up on the internet” post. This should be interesting.

I’s also  like to note, I bought a toaster oven a few weeks ago and I still get excited whenever I use it.

“YOU GUYS IT’S TOASTING”
*is alone*
“…woooo…”

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Like the blue? I’m on the fence. I think it’s wierd that all social networking logos are some shade of “web 2.0″ blue.

Something odd happened to me yesterday. I was talking to my buddy Spencer over at PureGrainAudio, and he was stressing over the site workload, posting news and whatnot. Of course being me, I made a “hurr I’ll do it I don’t do anything all day anyway” comment…then he leaves for a second, comes back with the owner of the site into the conversation, we talk, and apparently I have a gig posting news now. The details will be ironed out today or tomorrow, but being paid to blog?

HECK YES.

Because you all care about my health: Over the past month or so, I’ve become ridiculously lethargic. I barely leave my apartment, I’m always tired as crap, and when I do go out it’s always this huge production like UGH I HAVE TO GET READY SO MUCH EFFOOOOOORT and there’s been more than one occasion where I’ve just gone back to sleep after having a shower with my initial plan to go out somewhere. What the frig! Maybe I need to remember to take my vitamins. That might be it. Actually I’m pretty sure that’s it.

No, I don’t know what happened with Steve’s. I was told I was hired, and then also told to wait for a call. Which hasn’t come yet.

I really, really want that job at Filament. I have no idea why my interview was scheduled for such a far away date, or how many people I’m up against, but cut me a goddamn break already, life. I had a chance at an interview in North York, and I had to decline because of the crazy bus trip it would be. If you know me, I don’t do long bus rides. No dice.

I’m addicted to Restaurant City and I hate myself.

I came across the best thing ever last night. A blog called Hyperbole and a Half. Everyone should read it because this girl is hilarious and amazing and I want to hang out with her. HEY ALLIE YOU ARE FUN I LIKE YOUR LIFE. Also her blog is all the hell over my facebook feed and I thank myself for that. Huuuuh. Maybe.

Best for last: Toronto is apparently getting our own version of Jersey Shore. But instead of Italians, it’s going to be about “Persian princes and princesses“. This made me throw up in my mouth a little. The Craiglist ad for the casting call is… amazing.

The only thing more amazing, is that I’ve been waking up every hour since 6 and finally given up. I hate you, mornings. You a cold bitch. Maybe I’ll go get a bagel.

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Okay, so if you know me, you know I avoid all things coffee like the plague.
I’ve had a vanilla latte from Starbucks every day for the past 4 days. I’ve also been waking up ungodly early (for me) for no reason.
I’m not quite sure what’s come over me.

Ever since I can remember, even way back to grade school, mornings are just not my thing. No matter now much sleep I get. I just fail miserably at normal brain function before around 11. Also I start to get the “ugh I have to pass out” feeling around 3. Maybe I’m slowly dying, who knows.
Anyway.
I recently got hired at Steve’s Music. I think. I was given the form to put all my bank info on it, the boss told her son to tell me I got the job…so technically that means I’m hired, right? I went in for “training” (cash booth stuff, paging/transferring calls, printing receipts, etc.) and the girl in charge of the booth told me she’d call me tomorrow (today) when the decision was made.
…Huh?
So I’m a bit confused.
Here’s a picture I took of the view from my booth in my caffeine-induced state.

So there’s that.

THEN, I get home and check my email.
I have an interview in two weeks for a paid internship position at Filament Creative, down in Liberty Village.
OMGYAY. Just an interview, but still. omgyay. I’m not getting my hopes up or assuming I’m going to get hired at Filament, because 1) that would be stupid and 2)I’ve had enough agency interviews to know not to assume anything, but if I do get hired, I’m going to take it. The only drawback is it’s at King and Dufferin, which for an agoraphobic is SUPER DO NOT WANT, but whatever. Also the 9am mon-fri thing. But the weird thing about that, is that I can be stupid tired and still kick out sweet things in photoshop if needed. It doesn’t require much brain power from me. Thankfully.

So after 8 months of nothing, I get hired(?) at one job with people I know and a good location (but weird hours and sitting in a tiny booth), and an interview for another job for 9-5 at an amazing studio but in between far away and nowhere. I just find that amusing.
Wish me luck, or something.

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