SheenaVision: September 2008

Seems to be in the air these days...

No sleep
I haven't slept for a week
And I'm cold
Yeah I'm so cold
She's right
I should do something with my life
But I'm old, I'm old I'm getting old

Those eyes
She said they don't recognize me
Those lips
They're never calling my name

It feels so heavy
It feels so heavy, heavy
I'm waiting for a Saturday
I'm waiting for a Saturday
And I'm too young to be old

Une fille jolie
Passait tout pres de moi
Elle arretait le temps
Au coin de St. Catherine et St. Laurent

It feels so heavy
It feels so heavy, heavy
I'm waiting for a Saturday
I'm waiting for a Saturday
And I'm too young to be old

Elle me regardait
Et elle souriait
Elle m'a fait penser a rien en ce moment
Mais comme le vent elle s'en allait
Et moi j'suis reveiller
Ouai moi j'suis reveiller

It feels so heavy
It feels so heavy, heavy
I'm waiting for a Saturday
I'm waiting for a Saturday
And I'm too young to be old

It feels so heavy
It feels so heavy, heavy
I'm waiting for a Saturday
I'm waiting for a Saturday
And I'm too young to be old

Cake and Paper Lions

Hit the road last night to see CAKE in concert at the Hamilton Convention Centre. Shitty venue and sketchy sound, but was a great show and the surprisingly mixed generation audience were all completely into it.

Posting this vid for The Cheek...

Pleasant surprise of the night was the opening band Paper Lions. Formerly known as Chuckie Danger Band, the PEI based group was fantastic. Only got to do a quick set, but the $10 I spent on the CD at the merch stand probably my best music buy of the summer. Check them out. They're playing some more in Ontario over next few weeks. Highly recommended.

NEW YORK -- With an estimated 20 percent of the nation’s refinery capacity on hold due to Hurricane Ike, retailers located in the Southeast and Mid-Atlantic regions not affiliated with major gas bands are experiencing gas shortages.

A number of c-store chains with unbranded fuel, including Altoona, Pa.-based Sheetz Inc., are refusing to pay inflated wholesale prices that are in some cases $1 higher than those charged to branded affiliates, reported USA Today. "It’s an unfounded price point [oil companies] were putting on it," executive vice president of marketing, Louie Sheetz, told the paper. "They said, ‘How bad do you want it?’ I said, ‘Not that bad.’"

EmoCaching

New game sweeping the nation.

Download the GPS coordinates to famous breakup sites, faux suicide attempt locations, stores with ripped black skinny jeans and find hidden treasures like bandages, black hair dye and Evanescence CDs.

Close Encounters of the Tacky Kind

Sheena has long had a fascination with the mysterious cocktail bar up in the tower at LAX. I have no idea why. Maybe in my head years ago I mixed it up with trendy hipster joint SkyBar that is actually at the Mondrian Hotel. With a few hours to kill before the redeye back to Toronto this week, decided to check my bags and go up and look around.

Oh my.
Encounters was first built in 1961 to commerate the "jet-age". And well... it retains its original charm...

Substantial exterior facelift in progress now...

Didn't order food, but kicked back with a glass of Domaine Chandon (NV you shitheads). Food looked half decent, as I stared at those around me.

The washrooms and the elevators were the best parts of the UFO themed decor. Most of the big giant lava lamps weren't working. Might be cool at night though...

Pink Taco, Where Eating Out Never Tasted So Good

Lunch last Friday at Pink Taco in LA. Kinda curious to see what all the buzz about a while ago when it first opened up. Owned by Lindsay Lohan's ex, etc etc...

Quick google of various restaurant review sites come up pretty mixed. Sheena actually didn't mind it. House margarita was fine - nothing special, but perfectly adequate for the price. Ordered off the daily specials list - pork carnitas plate that was substantial, tasty, loaded with extras, maybe a bit pricy at $17 bucks but was more than I could finish.

Was somewhat entranced by the decor. Walls loaded with a most interesting juxtaposition of old Mexican religious artifacts, shiny silver hubcaps, wrestling posters and 1950s nekkid girl calendars. Loved it. Kept having Wall of Voodoo go thru my head...

(PS: Sheena's heard a fab cover of that song recently, but hates to out her friends...I'll let him post the link if he sees fit)

Repeat - Cooking with Sheena #14

Love this time of year, so I'm making this soup again today: Roasted Butternut Squash. Probably do with both pear and apple because both in season. Will take pics along the way this time for my more retarded readers who need illustrations with their recipe instructions.

AIG Karma Baby

Forgot about this one until tonight. FCS.

http://sheenavision.blogspot.com/2007/08/well-woman.html

This One's for Chucker...

Really now...

Hungry after just a grazing at the cocktail reception at the Grand Regency Hyatt tonight, so made do as the enterprising bootstrapping Canadian gal I am...

Picked up some Australian Millet Parmesan and toasted crostini from the Ralph's supermarket down the street. No knife in the hotel room, so did what needed to be done.

Sling Shot

Couple of hours to kill and happened to be across the street from the Raffles Hotel in Singapore so did what any normal red blooded gal would do. Shopping and drinking. Duh.

Ouch Baby... My Buddy Zerb Writes In...

When you place yourself at the top you have a lot to lose. A man's identity was pretty much formed in social opinion by the behaviour of the woman he was supposedly in control of. So if a wife addressed him too familiarly in public, or wore too much makeup, or drank too much, let alone slept around, a man was emasculated.

Men dug their own hole here.

The rest of it here: Broadsides

But SheenaVision readers should not get the wrong idea. Trust me - I'd still scratch that bitch's eyes out if she ever tells me again that I'll be wearing flats any time soon...

This One's Dedicated to all those Cynical Bastards Out there in Sheenavilletownburgland

Nothing Wrong With Kickin' It Old School

[err... "stool" - that's all, eds.]

Random Shopping Mall, Singapore

Descent into SIN

Drunken Prawns & Chili Shrimp @ East Coast Beach

Dinner on Thursday on East Coast Beach with Singapore peeps. Sheena had been there once on her previous SIN visit in 2002 and seconded the decision to go back.

Long Beach Seafood one of the larger indoor/outdoor venues on the waterfront. View is that of cargo liner after cargo liner after cargo liner. Very industrial beach but the lights are so damn pretty.

Drunken Prawns:

1. Take large live prawns and put them into a heavy glass dish
2. Tease the squeamish white ladies by having them almost pop out of the dish
3. Pour a cup of booze onto the live prawns
4. Recover the dish, remove from table to respect delicate sensibilities
5. Fry those fuckers like they were retarded juvenile delinquents on Texas death row.
6. Serve in a lovely broth with fried rice and lemon garnished finger bowl.

Other well known specialities include the Chili Crab - rich thick chili sauce over a whole steamed Sri Lankan crab (you can pick your own if so inclined...

and you can have the waitress crack it for you ... which we did...)

The live seafood tanks are as good as visiting Marineland except way cheaper. Monster size Dungeness and Alaskan King crabs and the previously unheard of Sea Mantis. Didn't try them. This time.

40 Hours in SIN...

In Singapore Thursday & Friday this week. Somewhat blogstipated due to crazy busy schedule and the fact that yet once again I seem to have forgotten to bring my fcs digital camera uploader thingie with me.

To follow soonish. After I do my 3am wakeup for a 6am flight to Hong Kong > Chicago > Toronto.

Remind me to tell you about the durian strudel, cocktails at 70 storeys up, geocaching in a semi-dictatorship state and The Fountain of Wealth.

Web Cams from Inside The Hardon Collider

http://www.cyriak.co.uk/lhc/lhc-webcams.html

Big Bang indeed.

Drinkgasm

Quick apres work cocktail at Zeta Bar in Sydney last night.

Ordered the "Reservation"

Woodford Reserve, quince paste, plum garnish.

Yes. Quince paste & Woodford Reserve. Just imagine how I felt...

Was tempted by the scorched pineapple martini, but at minimum $25 a drink, just had one...

Too bad I missed Samantha Ronson by 4 days...

Cootie Free At Last!

Arrived in Sydney Australia this morning on United connecting from Toronto via LAX. After pulling up at the gate, we were instructed to stay in our seats. Mandatory spraying of the cabin before we were allowed to deplane.

Sheena's been to Australia two other times in the last 4-5 years, and for the life of me could not recall being sprayed before. A Google search confirms this is a practice going back at least to the 1990s. But today I was on United... other trips had always been on Air New Zealand. Was this the diff??

Seems to be some interesting legal battles and health & safety issues specific to United and the flight attendants required to perform the spraying.

Uh oh

Double uh oh

The International Civil Aviation Organization reports that most airlines use permethrin and pyrethroid, both are suspected endocrine disruptors, and permethrin may be a carcinogen.

Jesus! Henry Rollins would be proud...

Sheena wonders if perhaps the practice would be more accepted by the overseas flying public if they could add a little Old Spice to the mix. Take care of Mr. Hippie Pitstain across the aisle who hasn't bathed since he started his sabbatical.

Hot and Sour Cocktails

Cocktail Du Summer!

Crate and Barrel Jalapeno Lemonade Mix

Sour lemonade with a subtle kick in the nads heat streak that sneaks up on you after the ice freeze leaves your mouth.

Dressed up with a sprig of spearmint from the herb bed and unstingy splash of gin over lotsa ice.

A keeper.

Geocaching North of 51...

The black tube of fun. Interesting laminated historical explanation of the site enclosed.

Once again, shoes were inappropriate.

Little precious treasure - a trackable geocache coin. On geocaching.com you can track objects like this - a unique serial number that I logged as "taken by Sheena". In my wallet right now, and about to go on one mother of a road trip. This coin started in Spain, made it over to NFLD, Saskatchewan, the Manitoba. Neat.

My sister's first geocache find.

View from X marks the spot.

Better shoes would have made this easier to find.

Oh hai. Hmm. Kind of a grainy pic...

FAIL

Sheena. Seat 51E.
Humiliation is wearing Holt Renfrew camel shoes today.

They Fucked with the Sanctity of the Super Soft

Sheena has officially stricken Taco Time off of her list of nostalgia junk food stops on Winnipeg visits. No worries... VJ's, Gondola Pizza and 'Sev still safe.

From junior high up until about a year ago, the Taco Time soft taco ruled supreme on the Saturday mall lunch agenda. Spiced ground beef, shredded cheese, lettuce, tomato. Dollop of sour cream made it the Super Soft. Taco Time's very own kick ass hot sauce in pour-your-own little cups rounded out the condiments.

There is no longer any Super Soft on the menu. Only regular chicken or beef soft tacos which are not rolled the same way and are shitty and thin more like Taco Bell. WTH happened here? If I look closely at the online menu, what is now called a beef burrito seems to be the closest in composition to the Super Soft, but who knows if it is the same thing or not. Everyone I knew ordered the Super Soft. Sheena calls for a boycott of Taco Time. They only go as far west as Thunder Bay (though website indicates some random straggler locations in Oshawa etc..) Probably fakes.