I just saw this on Citytv's CablePulse news: A man was killed in an explosion in a Toronto Tim Hortons. It happened around 1pm at the Tim Hortons on Yonge Street just north of Bloor. For those who don't know, Tim Hortons is THE Canadian coffee shop. Most coffee drinkers love Tim Hortons more than Starbucks or any other brand. I was just in one yesterday with my aunt who was getting some coffee beans to bring to my cousin who's living in India (yes, he asked her to bring him some "Timmies" even though there's lots of coffee in India). ETA: Another Tim Hortons was evacuated because of a suspicious package! The Tim Hortons that was evacuated is right near my house!!!! I actually walked by the emergency task force unit which was speeding up to the Tim Hortons, which I'd JUST passed 10 minutes earlier. Ahh! Seriously though, I suspect the second incident happened because of fears from the first incident. It's just so weird, who would want to bomb a Tim Hortons? I thought everyone loves Tim Hortons?!


Moving on to happier news, I attended my friend's professional singing debut last night. She was marvelous! It was a production of the St. Matthew Passion by J.S. Bach, and she was the soprano soloist. She looked gorgeous in a total diva dress, and sang beautifully. When she finished her first aria I realized that I was completely tense because I was so nervous for her. By her second aria I was much more relaxed because she was performing perfectly. I'm so very proud of her!!

It was a Cellar Singers production in Orilla (an hour north of Toronto), and I was able to attend because of my aunt. By total chance my aunt and I made the connection that the choir her best friend performs in, is the same one that my best friend has also performed in over the years and would be making her professional debut with. My aunt bought me the ticket for a Christmas gift and she drove us up. It was nice to see my aunt again (who I don't see that often). We did have a funny moment when she was telling me about some wallpaper she'd had in her house and she described it as "flocked". Immediately my brain thought "Her wallpaper was friend locked? Wait, that doesn't make sense!" It turns out "flocked" can also mean textured wallpaper. hee! I didn't tell her about my initial confusion.

We had some nice reminiscence about my grandma (my aunt is technically my grandma's daughter-in-law but they were very close). My aunt was observing how upset my grandma would be by Stephen Harper, particularly because of his anti-gay marriage stance. It was neat to discover that my aunt is also supportive of same-sex marriage and dislikes Stephen Harper (for many reasons). Her perspective is that all Canadians should be equal which means that everyone should be able to marry. Yay for my aunt! She was also reminding me of how she, my grandma and I marched together in the Metro Days of Action against the many troubling right wing policies of Mike Harris' Conservative government.

Besides my adventures north of the city, I've also been playing some television catch-up, so here's some brief thoughts on some shows:

Smallville 'Hypnotic' 5:16, aka Lots & lots of James Marsters!

My thoughts are mostly about James Marsters, and they're shallow. Multiple James Professer Fines, how awesome is that?!! It reminded me of BtVS "Sleeper" in which my initial reaction was "Two Spikes!! There were two Spikes, on screen at the same time!!" So it was like that only x2. Also, he looks so very hot in khaki.

In terms of the rest of the episode: I was glad to see Lana and Clark officially break-up because that's been dragged out for way too long. However, Clark was VERY harsh, so much so that I felt very bad for Lana (who normally I try to ignore). His jerky approach to the break-up reminded me of this website my friend monstress directed me to: Superman is a dick. So very true, and the site chronicles Superman/Clark's long history of being a jerk, mostly to the women in his life.

Supernatural 'Hell House' 1:17 or What would Buffy do?

It made me so happy that Supernatural referenced Buffy because shows like SPN are heavily influenced by Buffy. The brotherly pranks were entertaining and it was nice to see the brothers acting silly. It was a fun and scary episode (um, that could be because I stupidly watched it LATE at night, and I'm huge wimp).

Conviction: Why it's failing as a show.

I've watched the first five episodes of Conviction and think I've figured out why it doesn't work for me. It's trying to be a charactercedural (a procedural which explores the characters), which Dick Wolf is pretending he invented. Hello? Numb3rs, Supernatural and Bones are popular shows which are charactercedurals AND do a much better job at it than Conviction. Here's why Conviction isn't working:

1. Too many characters. Numb3rs has an equally large cast but the focus is on Don and Charlie Epps, and their dad. The family connection results in interesting interactions (eg. sometimes a case will bring up old tensions between the brothers) and a reason for the characters to be interacting without having to force romantic entanglements. Also note that Supernatural's strength lies in the focus on the brothers, who are the only stars on the show. Conviction has too many starring characters who all seem to have their own storyline, which leads into:

2. Too many storylines. Each episode explores at least 3 court cases, which makes it hard to remember the details and follow the intricacies of each case when you're jumping between different stories. My understanding of why Law and Order works is because it follows one case through the entire process. It would be a better show if it was a just a couple of Assistant DAs, their aides and supervisors who were all focusing on one case each week. One case per episode is what makes Numb3rs (and all those straight up procedurals) work, because you're not jumping all over the place. Having just one case on Numb3rs allows time for character exploration as well as learning about neat math or physics stuff.

3. For it to be a charactercedural, there should actually be engaging characters who have more than one characteristic. The lack of personality issue is a direct result of #1 & #2, and means that I don't care about the characters I'm supposed to. Numb3rs does a good job of revealing layers of the characters each episode, such as recent revelation of the dad's activism past. The fact that the characters have sex on Conviction does NOT make them three-dimensional.

Why does J.August Richards have to be on this show? He's good, but all we know about his character is that he's never lost a case and he grew up poor and in a rough neighbourhood. Wow, what an amazing chractercedural you've got going on Dick Wolf! Try not to get carried and create too many more cliched complex characters.

I hope everyone is having an excellent Sunday, and that the loss of an hour wasn't too disruptive.