Today’s the day I’m supposed to attend the “We Are The Fallen” concert, so I started walking north on Spadina avenue. I was kind of hungry, and there were tons of bubble tea shops on this street, so I headed into one arbitrarily and was amused at the jack-of-all-trades store arrangement which is so typical of Chinese. This bubble tea shop also sells DVDs and jeans. There was only one guy behind the counter, and he pretty much ignored me while he was serving another customer, but once he was done with that guy, service was pretty fast. I got a surprisingly large bubble tea for $4.

I continued up Spadina and found El Mocambo, the venue where the band was playing. I saw people loading stuff in, so I walked in and asked one of the stage hands where to buy tickets. He was very friendly, and asked me where I got my drink, where it was watermelon flavoured (it was honeydew), etc. He told me to talk to the guy on the phone in the back. On the way over, I spotted the singer, and I chatted with her a bit. She was really hot (but unfortunately, she looked less hot on stage later tonight when she actually performed, where she looked pretty tired). The guy on the phone was less friendly, but I guess he was busy. He put his phone on hold to ask me what I wanted and I said I wanted tickets. He told me to come back in 4 hours. So I headed out, and the stage hand saw me and asked what happened, and I told him “He said come back in 4 hours” and the stagehand nodded and said “When we open…”

So I headed east until I found the police museum. I was there around 4, and the museum closes at 4:30, but I decided to check it out in the limited time I had anyways. As soon as you go in, there’s a sign that says “All visitors must sign at the duty desk” and a big line up. So I get in line, but after a couple of minutes, I note that the people who are waiting in line are talking to a clerk at the desk, and then leaving. So I ask the person in front of me if this is the line for the museum and she says she doesn’t know. I ask the guy in front of me, and he says no, I should just walk right into the museum to my left. I tell him there’s some sort of sign that says I have to sign up or something. He shrugs. I say “Okay, so I guess I’ll just go in and see if someone stops me.” He shrugs again, and I go in.

The museum was pretty interesting, but it (understandably) seemed to put the police in an overly favourable light. There weren’t any displays of super modern weapons (they had a revolver or two in there, but no FN P90 or anything like that). This is where I got the factoid that Toronto had hit 3 traffic related fatalities per year before the car had even been invented. They were bicycle accidents. They also explained the forensics process, which I also found very interesting. I didn’t realize they would actually analyze the crime scene for weeks, scanning for clues. From popular media, you’d think it only takes about a half hour or so. Also, apparently they can find some dirt on the cuff of your pants or in your car, and match it to the dirt found at the crime scene. Good to know.

The museum is run on donations, so when I left, I dropped in a $5.

Next on the itinerary was Design Exchange, which was supposed to be on 324 Bay street. I headed there, and found 330 Bay Street, and 320 Bay street, and these two buildings were on the corners of blocks on opposite sides of the street. There is no 324. If there were, it’d be on the street.

Ok, so moving on, the next thing is the Canadian Air and Space museum. As I head there, I pass through the University of Toronto, and inspiration hits me. Surely there must be some sort of Anime club, right? So I look it up, and there is, called “UTAMA” or something like that, and I go through their forum and RSS feeds, but it doesn’t look like they’re planning any events this weep. Same for other clubs I saw like UTARPA.

As I get closer to the address of the Air and Space museum, all I see around here is the Royal Ontario Museum. It’s 5 now, and they close at 5:30. I go in and there’s a guard there who says they’re closing up. I ask if they have a program or something like that, and she tells me I can go to the front desk and ask for that. I head there, and along the way I see a sign saying something about admission being free on Wednesday. I ask the clerk at the front desk about that, and she says it’ll be free during the last hour (4:30 to 5:30) tomorrow. So I take my program and head out.

I check my work e-mail ‘cause there’s some issues at work, and respond to a few, and then start heading back towards my hotel room. Along the way, I spot a “Vintage game shop” where I can “rediscover classics”. I’m expecting board games and card games, so I’m pretty surprised when I go in and I see videogames. In particular, there’s a crowd gathered around an Xbox 360 playing Street Fighter 4. Just because Super Street Fighter 4 is out, that makes Street Fighter 4 “vintage”? Thanks for making me feel old, assholes.

Naw, they were nice guys, and they had some NES and Atari stuff too, plus this headset thing which I’ve never seen before.

I pass by El Mocambo again, and a line starts to form. I make conversation with them, asking if they’re here for the show (yes), if they’ve got tickets (yes), if they know where I can get tickets (no), how long they’ve been following this band (since they started 1 year ago), I only discovered them a week ago (they’re better live). I leave, saying “maybe I’ll see you guys at the show”, but they don’t seem too enthusiastic about that idea. I guess I didn’t connect to them on a social-empathic level yet. This is way harder than those Japanese dating sims.

Along the way, I see this shop selling plain white t-shirts for $2 each, as long as you buy 6 at a time. My brother likes plain white tees, so I grab 6. Maybe I’ll come back here later and buy some cheap clothes for myself. Lord knows I need new pants and socks.

I relax at my hotel room for a bit, before heading back out to El Mocambo. I buy a bottle of Vitamin Water with the expectation of drinking it in the venue, but the bouncer tells me that I can’t bring it in. So I chug as much of it as I can (30%) and then throw it out. They’re cheaper here in Toronto than in Montreal anyway. Even at a depanneur (notorious for being more expensive), they’re $2, versus $2.99 at Pharmaprix in Montreal.

The show is decent, but the mixing isn’t so good. The vocals are too quiet, and the bass too loud. I guess they wanted for people to be able to feel the bass in their chests, so they put the bass that high, and then tried to get everything else to match, but their system couldn’t get the mids nor trebles that high.

I think they sound better in the studio. I was thinking if I ran into that group again, and the topic came up, I’d tell them how I felt they sounded a lot like Evanescence copy cats. Funnily enough, I looked them up today, and apparently 2 members of We Are The Fallen were embers of Evanescence. So I guess that explains it. The drummer is certainly talented, though. He had some semi complex double bass pedal patterns going (as complex as you could get in 4/4 Rock, anyway).

On the way back to the hotel (I had originally written “on the way back home”, which I guess shows how comfortable I’ve gotten here), I stopped off at a chinese restaurant and got two shrimp dishes. They were delicious.