Day 251 – June 30th

Not much going on today as I was back at work on the project that never appears to end to be honest I’ve had enough I’m sick of it. Quick workout and then to dinner with Swiss Tony, he remains good value although now appears entrenched in married life………he no longer appears to be the happy-go-luck “Swiss Tony” I knew just a few short years ago but I guess a wife and kid will do this to someone.

Mood for the day 8 out of 10.

Day 250 – June 29th

Today is one of those days where the true spirit of Toronto comes to the fore…………and the full diversity of the city I now call home becomes apparent, in fact I would be amazed if the events I describe later could ever take place in Britain (Or at least the parts of Britain that I’ve lived in) but that is for later as today was one of those days that seemingly stretched on for ever.

It started with a 9:30 pilates session and it is fair to say the shine has been removed considerably from my Pilates instructor, I am not sure if it as a result of her (probably not) or the pain in my left hip (probably so) that occurs but I no longer enjoy the sessions and as a result will not be renewing when my current contact expires.

I go for my traditional Sunday stroll earlier than usual so that I can catch the Spain/Germany game on TV. I choose to watch the game in Dundas Square and am surrounded by mainly Spaniards a few Germans and a splattering of other nationalities like myself. The game is actually a good one considering the importance of it and being English am obviously pleased with a Spanish win, even more so because the winning goal is scored by a player of the club team I support Fernando Torres of Liverpool…….it is a good goal, but what oh what is the German keeper thinking. For a split second I feel for the German’s but soon things return to normal.

The Spanish are singing and dancing in the square, the Germans whilst disappointed are conceding defeat graciously and the rest of the crowd are having a great time singing and dancing in the street…….there is no trouble and no one appears to feel as though they are in danger and this is where the first striking difference between my old and new country becomes apparent. The most diverse city in the UK is probably London but can I imagine a huge street party going down in Trafalgar square to celebrate a world cup final between say France and Italy probably not.

Following this I catch the end of the Pride Parade and again this is in stark contrast to where I have lived before, can I imagine a huge party to celebrate peoples sexual diversity occurring where people of all races, creeds, nationalities and sexual orientations come together and party as one. Again probably not, and the day people of all ages can walk past a temporary store called “Your Jockstrap” without even regarding it as anything out of the ordinary is again something I had not previously witnessed prior to moving to TO.

Sitting back in my apartment as the evening draws to a close, the full extent of the diversity of the city hits me like a truck…………..and once again I am proud to call Toronto home.

Mood for the day 9 out of 10.

Day 249 – June 28th

Unsurprisingly I have been stood up by EDS girl yet again and as a result she is now consigned to the garbage. I have no issue with being turned down with women, in the same way I have no issue with rejecting women for no apparent reason. What I have my issue with is the dangling…….in that why do people want to just leave people hanging, just do the right thing and say you not interested.

Whilst it is not at the same level I relate it to a wounded animal that has the defeated glazed over look in it’s eyes………don’t prod it and provoke it……….put an end to its missary.

Not much actually happened at all Saturday given how tired I was I didn’t stagger out of bed until noon and then had to eat breakfast and shower pretty quickly in order to meet Garry at the baseball game by 1pm. It was worth the rush with a win for the Jays and an interesting conversation as usual. I am currently attempting to talk Garry into dating the captain of our volleyball team who’s face all ways lights up when he’s around………….hopefully he’ll at least ponder it.

Decided to catch the movie WAL-E I think that’s the correct title and it was another piece of animated magic about people living in space as a result of the destruction to planet earth with the bizarre side plot of two robots starting out on the rocky road to romance. Yes I know it sounds ridiculous but it’s a great movie non the less.

Mood for the day 7 out of 10.

Day 248 – June 27th

Today has been an almost 24 hour day………well all days are 24 hours but when you read on you’ll know what I mean. It was decided that today would be a review of the design document for my system at work…….given a) The requirement is not even finished and b) I am working flat out just to deliver the thing. It is fair to say that as a result design has not been my number 1 priority and as such I woke at 4:30am in order to get into the office at 5:00am………..I’m pretty pleased by what I produced although based on decisions that took place later in the day there is a big chunk of it that will need to be re-written……but that is for another day.

Finally get out of work and the playoffs are here……….the volleyball playoffs that is and my team wins 3 and loses 1 so a pretty good night’s work it will be interesting to see where we end up after the final jostling of positions…….I feel confident going into the summer season and even more so that as a result of a new acquisition we will be able to field 3, 6 foot plus players on the front line.

We head for the bar and an evening of fun if somewhat boisterous conversation with words that I have not used for a long time flowing easily into the conversation “rotund”, “triumphant” and other familiar British favorites coming to the for……we eventually get thrown out the bar at around 2am, I head home go for a quick walk and end up in my pit at around 4am………..I am completely exhausted and haven’t done even a fraction of the things that Jack Bauer does in a 24hr period without sleep…….I don’t know how he achieves it.

Mood for the day 8 out of 10

Day 247 – June 26th

The Toronto Raptors have just got both a whole lot bigger and whole lot better with a trade that moves TJ Ford, Rasho and a couple of throw ins for Jermaine O’Neal a 5 time All-Star who if he plays to his potential should bring around 18 points and 8 rebounds to the Toronto front-court……..this when combined with perennial All-Star Chris Bosh now means that in my opinion the Raptors have the best 4-5 combination of any team in the Eastern Conference.

Whilst it always appears strange when you trade four players for one, hopefully this one will go the way of the KG trade to Boston as opposed to the Diesel’s trade Phoenix. If you have no idea what that sentence means then I suspect you would have found this entire post pretty boring, but to be honest I don’t care.

Mood for the day 8 out of 10.

Day 246 – June 25th

Today was my welcome return to speed dating and what a great event that turned out to be, $30 gets me a ticket to the game, a hat, a t-shirt and the opportunity to meet 25 women………it’s not only a beautiful thing it’s also as the British would say “it’s a deal it’s a fu**ing steal”.

I go to the event and immediately scan the room to check out my competition, whilst I have nothing else to base this on other than a) How they look and b) The brief snippets of conversation I over hear…….my confidence starts to soar as I am confident of a successful evening. I have a golden rule to not hit on the women before the event starts and as a result strike up a conversation with one of the few guys (Jason) who I do believe will be competition and my instincts are confirmed as speaking to him for a few brief mins it is clear he is “Good Value”…….I will chat to him further as the evening progresses.

The bell rings and it is game time, I scan the section we are in as to where I should start and my eyes are imedaitly drawn to girl whom I think is very pretty, but doesn’t have the classical look that most would find attractive and as a result no one else appears to be approaching her so saunter over to her side.

It is a wise decision and I am off to a great start with free flowing conversation that results in my first selection of the evening………I am usually notoriously picky at these events is there a chance I could be attracted to all 25 women?

I soon crash back to reality as the second women can be at best described as boring at and worst a total disaster…….the pattern appears to continue and by the half time break my scorecard (marks out of 10) is looking as follows: 8, 4, 3, 4, 4, 5, 4, 4, 3, 2

I chat briefly to Jason who appears to be more happy with how things are progressing and then notice that one of the hosts is pregnant, I also notice that there is no wedding ring so wander over in the hope of uncovering a “funny story”………sadly there isn’t one as she pregnant by a guy she has dated for a couple of years and plans on marrying in the near future. I beg and plead her to move the date even further forward as everyone loves a “pregnant bride” she laughs but politely declines and it is time to head back into the game.

It goes pretty much the same way as the first half and I make two more selections Sarah and Julie…….although regret one of them later as I find out Sarah is just 24 years old and as a result I am almost 50% older than her……….we will see how I am judged in a couple of days.

The dating ends and people start to disperse however I notice that the first girl I met is sticking around for the rest of the game and as result I strategically position myself in the seat next to her and we chat for a further 1.5hr until the game reaches a conclusion. I will be crushed if she has decided not to select me.

Mood for the day 9 out of 10.

Day 245 – June 24th

A short post today as once again I was late home from work, so missed the gym.  Tomorrow should be more interesting as I scored a deal for both speed dating and the Jays game for Wednesday night so we’ll see how that turns.  The dating agency also appears to be sending me a squash playing Asian…………yes a squash playing Asian the double bonus one could say.

My hair is too short, it definetly won’t grow in time for speed dating but hopefully by Saturday when I meet EDS girl again (assuming I don’t get stood up – again) hopefully it will look a little more respectable.

Started cleaning my apartment today as well, at the moment it doesn’t look too good a “real shit heap” one could say but hopefully by the weekend some solid progress will have been made.

Mood for the day 7 out of 10.

Day 244 – June 23rd

The EDS girl saga now appears to have taken both a positive and a negative twist all on the same day.  On the positive she appears to be looking forward to meeting up again this weekend but on the negative she will be leaving for good to the UK in just over a month, they give with one hand and take with the other.

At some point it will be nice to get a steady girlfriend but it doesn’t appear to be happening at the moment, I’m will certainly meet Julie again but at the moment we are a long way from being a couple and maybe we never will be.

Started to gear up for summer today with a new haircut and a couple of new pairs of shorts, I will continue my weight gain program on Tuesday to complete my summer look.

Whilst now I tend to use mp3 I bought a new CD today and it is fantastic “Simply the best Classical Anthems” I love classical music especially when a CD is packed with anthems that would typically feature in Last night of the Proms.  One of the tunes would be Ode to Joy…….and this leads me in to a movie I saw today “Get Smart” where the tune features prominently in a key scene……the movie is enjoyable enough funny, fast paced, some good lines and Anne Hathaway is always easy on the eyes.  It is also a WWE reunion with both the “Great Khali” and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson also appearing.

I’ve always been a Rock fan although sadly the “peoples elbow” wasn’t on display and we certainly couldn’t “smell what was cookin”………….the raised eyebrow did make an appearnce though.

Mood for the day 8 out of 10.

Day 243 – June 22nd

Not much going on today and to be honest I am a little disappointed as to how events of the last couple of days appear to have turned out……..we’ll wait and see.

An early start this morning to watch Lewis Hamilton make another mistake this time at the French Grand Prix, for 90% of his first season in F1 he barely put a wheel wrong but since that time appears as fallible as everyone else.  It could be said that he is still young and his time will come, but what if it doesn’t come what if the window of opportunity has now passed.

Off to work and then settled in to watch the Spain/Italy game and Italy are now out of the comptetion, with each tournament that passes the 1998/00 World Cup/European Championship double achieved by France becomes even more impressive.

Followed the game up with a movie “The Hulk” it was actually pretty entertaining and I always enjoy movies that are at least partialy shot in T.O…….and even more so if they have a twist in the tale.

Mood for the day 6 out of 10.

Day 242 – June 21st

Today I was stood up by EDS Girl, whilst this is disappointing it is not the end of the world and there are plenty of fish in the sea including Laura from the dating agency whom I spoke to for the first time today…….she has an interesting live to say the least and at first impression she appears to be a listener as opposed to talker so may not be exactly what I’m looking for however she kept the conversation flowing for an hour so it can’ t all be bad.

I must have tricked her some way because at the end of the call she commented that I was both confident, charming and funny…………I have come along way since the Paul who would sit recluse like in the back room of the family home I definitely feel as though I have evolved as a person especially in the years since moving to the land I now call home.

I still feel exceptionally tired, hopefully a good night’s sleep tonight and I’ll feel fine in the morning.

Mood for the day 7 out of 10