Reelout 11

It has been way too long since I posted anything here. Crazy. I thought I would take this opportunity to tell you all about Reelout. For a few years now I have been enjoying Kingston's very own queer film festival. While enjoying it last year I, of course, was critical of the organization behind it. At some point I decided it was time to stop bitching about it and about the queer community in general, and step up and contribute. So what I did then was become a member of the Board of Directors for Reelout. We had many challenges but with less than two weeks till our opening night I think I can safely say the chaos is in hand. I can also safely say that due to a lot of hard work by a lot of dedicated people Reelout 11 is going to be an incredible festival.

My plan is to do contribute as much before and after the screenings so I can actually enjoy the festival itself. I have high hopes that this will be Reelout's most successful year to date. Till next year...

Weekend Update

So when my friend Steve asked how my weekend was today I said it was okay. Upon reflection it was actually much better than okay.

Saturday started with a bit of running around. Despite the cool afternoon weather we took Jessie for a walk downtown and had coffee with Meghan on the patio at Sipps. Dan and I decided to catch a movie in the evening so we checked out Angels and Demons which I thought was quite good to the dismay of the critics.

After the movie I returned the call from Meghan that came in about half way through the movie. It was an invitation to go for drinks at Tango. After a few drinks there I was feeling pretty good. Tim and Brooke (AKA Gunther) and some of her friends showed up. Another drink then we took off and left the kids to play. Apparently when I got home I updated my MSN tag to let everyone know I was drunk. Go figure.

Sunday started off with Brunch of course. A bit of shopping. I was almost as excited to pick up the new bedspread as I was to pick up the next volume of the James Bond movie collection. That's right, just one more to go now and I will have them all. We watched Goldfinger which is the third movie but in my opinion the beginning of the James Bond formula.

Between shopping and James Bond there were a couple open houses and an awesome, though cold, barbecue hosted by Amy and Keith. Good times.

Random

So I guess if it rains today its my fault. Yesterday was so gorgeous out I decided to take today off. I wanted to both enjoy the weather and get the rest of my lawn mowed. All that of course after some Starbucks time. So anyway the radio came on this morning and the weather report come up with possible showers. Totally out of the blue if you ask me. I was sure it was going to be awesome today. Funny thing is I don't think I saw any weather report saying it was going to be nice today. I may have just assumed it.

Speaking about how nice it was yesterday... After work we had a little going away thing for the reelout board member who was instrumental in getting us hooked into volunteering. It was just drinks at The Merchant but it was my first, long awaited, nice enough evening that we could walk instead of drive so I could drink evening. It was a nice enough evening to sit on the patio but unfortunately everyone else thought so too so there were no tables. Even so it was a very enjoyable evening and I was glad that we could show Sammi our appreciation.

Here is the actual "random" part of the blog.

A conversation a couple months back about James Bond movie theme songs prompted Meghan to buy a CD of them which I ripped to my MP3 player. Every time one comes on it makes me smile, especially the older ones. That has in turn prompted me to crave watching the movies again. Me being me, I have to watch them in order. So I have started buying the box sets. I found them at Future Shop for $35 which is a very good deal for 5 movies. So the odd thing is that they seem to be randomly packaged. In order to get the first movie I had to buy Volume 4 (of 4). Further investigation shows that in order to watch all the movies in order I will in fact have to buy all 4 volumes as the first 4 movies are spread between all of them. Not so random after all I guess.

The Queer Community

Well Reelout is done and gone for another year and though they had some (major) bumps along the way they did manage to pull together a decent festival. If you don't know what Reelout is you should check out their website.

Amonng my Kingston family (Meghan, Tim, Dan and I) the festival this year sparked an interest to get involved. Well it did for 3 out of the family at least. We will be attending our first Reelout board meeting on February 24th and barring any major issues I believe Meghan, Dan and I will be full on members of the Reelout Board of Directors for the 2010 Kingston Reelout Queer Film Festival. We believe we have some good ideas to contribute to Reelout and hope that we can make a little bit of difference within the Kingston queer community.

We have had a lot of conversation lately about the Kingston queer community and how fragmented it seems to be. There seem to be many groups with many interests but there seems to be very little to bring those groups together. We are really hoping that we can find ways to get more of the community out to things like Reelout. Grad Club dances can be fun but they are not for everyone. I guess that could be said for any queer event in Kingston, hence the fragmentation.

Well time to go get ready for Brunch, my favourite part of Sunday. More to come on my thoughts about the Kingston queer community.

Brush with fame...

So if this guy hit on you in a bar would you walk away awkwardly? Thats what I did. DOH!

Here's how it went down. We went to The Grad Club for the Reelout Opening Gala on Friday. Preceding that was the screening of Were the World Mine which was a lot of fun. We went straight upstairs to the more loungy part of the Club. Dirty loungy but still loungy. We grabbed some couch space and settled in. I headed to the bar to grab us a drink. Stood there for a bit waiting for someone to show up when a cute boy came up to me and asked me how I enjoyed the movie. I said I though it was a lot of fun and he said it was his favourie on "the circuit" right now. The circuit should have been my first clue. At that point I pretty much ran out of things to say and thankfully my phone rang. It was Dan from about 20 feet away telling me the upstairs bar was not open yet. So I awkwardly excused myself from the "conversation" and headed to the downstairs bar for those drinks.

Only about 20 minutes later did Miss Tyffanie inform me that the cute boy was Charlie David, writer and star of the following nights feature screening Mulligans, as well as a regular on Dante's Cove and several other movies and television shows.

So now that I have all that out, I should add that Charlie probably wasn't hitting on me but I like the story better this way. Except for the part where I awkwardly wander off.

At least I remember most of it...

Great weekend!
Highlights of the weekend include: Kingston's Gay Pride Parade (such as it was), shopping, Pride Party at The Grad Club, Brunch, Coffee with Kim, dinner and Ocean's 13 with Howie and Neil.
The parade was small but at least we have one. The weather was outstanding for it.
Shopping was very good. Tim is my new good luck charm when it comes to shopping since I found 2 camouflage items that I have been looking for for a while now.
The Grad Club was good for a change. Great crowd. Saw a few people I haven't seen in a while. Could have stayed later but what the hell.
Coffee with Kim and the most animated story about Aunt Lee to date. Every family has to have one and Aunt Lee must count for about 10.
Stopped by to see Howie and Neil while we were in the neighbourhood which of course turned into dinner and a movie. Ocean's 13: Not as good as 11 but better than 12.
So funny story about The Grad Club outing. I had my first total did-something-I-don't-remember-doing-even-after-being-told-I-did-it moment. Apparently Tim and I dropped our pants to show off our matching underwear. Yeah, totally have no recollection of that particular event. But it doesn't surprise me.
So it was a totally full and fun weekend. Two more like it to come I think. YAY!

Movies and Open Houses

So we are back in a downward spiral where work is concerned. Monday morning and I didn't even get to take my first call before I was pissed off. There is a new "incentive program" starting this week. All I have to say is I feel like I am back in kindergarden again. Totally pointless. Totally stupid. Not participating.
Also work related, no call from Lyreco. So if I can't even get a call back for a warehouse job what am I going to get a call back on? I don't even want to think about it.
So anyway... Saturday night we had Ryan over to watch a couple movies. The Prestige was fantastic though I nodded off a couple times due to the boringness of Marie Antoinette which we watched first. Not even the amazing location could make that movie anything but slow. The Prestige had me wondering right up until the end. Came together very well.
Sunday started with Brunch, carpet cleaning and a few open houses. Three houses but nothing very interesting in any of them.
Tonight we went to Sipps with Tracy and Dan. Fun talking about houses and Tracy's Dan and I didn't bring up work at all.
So that's it for now. Feel free to comment because unlike myspace I have no idea if anyone is reading this or not.

Weekend update

Well it has been a few days since I last blogged so here I am.
The weekend flew by as it always seems to. Didn't do much until Saturday afternoon when we met up with Howie & Neil and Steph & Lily for a bite to eat before heading off to the casino to burn $20.00 in under 3 minutes. After that we watched Howie play Craps for a bit then half the party set off for Lyndhurst for Dinner at Meghan & Claire's. The second half of the party soon followed. Had a good evening out in the country. The house is coming along very well. I am sure I don't have half the ambition they have. I am not country folk by any means but it was nice sitting by the fire. Would have been even better with a latte from Starbucks. Oh well. Food was very good, and plenty, as it always is when Claire cooks. At the end of the evening, home we came.
Sunday was traditional brunch at The Goat, some wandering around town, the almost installation of a toilet, and a movie. The movie being 300. Pretty good movie. Definitely lots of action. and lots of mostly naked men. Definitely a good time.
So, one day down, four to go. Hard to say if I'll make it.

Film as Art

Well Reelout 7 continues. Today we saw a series of short films by gay and lesbian artists. This is totally different than short films ABOUT gay and lesbian subjects/topics. Film as art is a totally odd thing to me. To me a film should tell a story or inform. I like to walk out of a film with something. Confusion is NOT what I want to carry out with me. Saw 7 or 8 movies ranging in length from 3 to 15 minutes and I dont have a fucking clue what any one of them was about. That being said I am still happy I went. I would rather say I gave it a shot and got nothing out of it than getting nothing out of it from not even giving it a chance.

After the shorts we went and saw the new UNDERWORLD movie with Gord and Jeff. That was fun. Followed its predecessor quite nicely. Just what I needed was some blood and violence
Well that about covers the weekend. Another good one. Now we just have to get through the workweek again.

Okay... Gonna give this a shot

Well I make no promises but I am going to try and post a regular blog starting today. It likely won't be remotely interesting, cuz it's me. Anyway, here goes.
Good day yesterday, got a bit of shopping done that needed doing. Went to our second evening at Reelout. So far the film festival has been quite good. I would recommend you see BREAKFAST ON PLUTO should you ever get the chance. That was the feature we saw on Friday followed by the Opening Gala and Cabaret.
Went to the Gala with the two absolute hottest lesbians on the planet. Funniest point was when one of them appologized to us for the entertainment on behalf of all lesbians. What is with plaid and acustic guitars and bad singing. Okay there was no plaid there, but really it might as well have been. Anyway, I guess some of the blame should be placed on the sound system as even the fabulous Miss Tyffanie was not at her best. How I love her and how it pained me to walk out on her show to head to the Brew Pub for wings. As an aside to that the Brew Pub stopped serving wings shortly before we got there.
Second evening (Saturday) was all about "Gals and their Pals" and I am damned if I have any better clue what Fag Hags are all about. The documentaries were interesting and fun none-the-less. Another evening accompanied by Meghan and Claire. Also ran into my gay moms Deb and Pat. So good to see them again.
Also should add that we had coffee with Emma yesterday. Have never been quite sure about Emma but it was very nice to see her and it certainly made Dan happy. We will be heading to Toronto in March to spend a weekend with her and I am looking forward to it.So that has you up to date so far... Stay tuned for more... Maybe...