…continued from previous part.

Did you know, dear reader, that in some Asian countries the international snap-a-photo gesture is considered a dire signal?

If you don’t think you know the gesture, make a fist, extend your index finger, and curl it in like you’re clicking the shutter on a camera. Right there you just insinuated to said Asian persons that you would like nothing more than to see them dead. Or that you’re referring to death. But with the language barrier, why chance it?

The index finger refers to the person’s body as it doubles over in its final moments; death, most likely at your hands. Poison? Sword? Gun shot? All perfectly valid.

The number four, in Chinese, is also unpopular because of its resemblance to the Mandarin word for death. “Suh” – you’re either asking for four bananas or telling the shopkeeper to die. All in the tone.

So there we were, the four of us, three Japanese women making the deathy-deathy gesture while holding their cameras under my nose, and me, nose askew in a failed attempt at avoidance. I’m sure I explained the repercussions of taking bad photos with other people’s cameras so that was already hanging heavy on my conscience. Then this happened – and they were relentless. God.

All I can say to my fellow Torontonians is that I’m sorry. I took their photos.

I don’t speak Japanese. Glad I don’t. Thankfully I didn’t understand what they were chattering about afterward, but their stifled chuckling seemed not so complimentary. As I loitered around a nearby fire boat I could sense their disappointment while they continue to take more pictures (in the same spot!)

Well, I guess that’s it. In a few short weeks Toronto will be bereft of the Japanese. After that … well, I don’t want to think about it. Probably nothing more than a frozen wasteland at that point.

I’m going to suggest all us downtowners hunker down until the winter of our (and their) discontent passes over. It won’t be easy, I know, but what’s done is done. I want to remind everyone that we have a fairly extensive underground network that should server us until this crisis is over.

So there you go, dear reader. That was the point where Toronto took a turn for the worse. I mean, who knows, maybe this will all blow over. Just … no extensive optimism, you know what I mean?

Then again, considering the circumstances of the trip, it’s quite likely that the women I met were nothing more than subconscious projections. Only time will tell. Next time, however, I won’t be so cavalier about things. Next time, no photos. For all our sakes.

Friday night. You know what that means, don’t you? TAIWANESE YAM FRIES!! Technically sweet potato fries, but potato pototo.

I know, trust me, I will get out more, but I think it’s important to sometimes just stop and smell the tubers. Besides, I think I’m gonna have a busy weekend so I can’t waste much time with elaborate meals.

The recipe is easy – took me a bit to figure out what all those roadside stalls used on their fries to make them so beguilingly tasty. Turns out the missing ingredient was plain old chilly powder. Slapped myself on the forehead a few times (it even smells right – if I’d bothered to smell it), but at least I finally got it all together.

I like the fries chunky, about the girth and length of a chubby finger or thumb. The kind of chubby that too many yam fries produces. Should be called yum fries.

Another ancient Chinese secret is a delicate coating of corn starch. Fries, bit of oil, toss — starch, black pepper, toss — boo-yah! And one other thing I discovered the hard way was that the oil should be fairly hot; err in that direction. Nothing worse than a flaccid fry, let me tell you.

They’re done when they’re golden brown and floating on top (assuming you’re using that much oil). I let ‘em drip in a sieve for a while, admiring their delicate surfaces all crispy and crunchy and inviting, and toss with some salt and the chilly powder. I then usually finish by burning my tongue in the premature tasting.

Mmmm. Savoury. And I think if you get a sensible oil (which can be strained and re-used at least a few times), and are sparing with the salt, it’s also not too bad for you. Plenty of grease-laden beta-Carotene and vitamin A, from what I understand. Also, a complete lack or arsenic and radioactive isotopes. How’s that for health benefits?!

Okay, well, that bowl has finally cooled enough to let me near so I’m going to go and clog some arteries. After that, the weekend pretty much starts itself.

…continued from previous part.

Where was I again? Oh yeah, I’d been spending a Sunday afternoon staring intelligently into the sun.

At the rink I was asked to take a photo of someone with their camera, but I was sure before I took it that it would come out awful. Look, just because I’m carrying a unit don’t mean I know how to work yours. Or even necessarily want to touch it for that matter. Those awful Sonys with their awfully massive focus reticles – what the heck is in focus out of the three quarters of the screen they cover?! Don’t even get me started on the automatic exposure. *pfft*

Anyhow, I managed to extricate myself from the situation before plis-you-take-picture-me-there man (bloody immigrants!), managed to hunt me down for another pose. Upon his eagerly gesticulating insistence, it took me, like, two minutes to kinda get his Sony to shoot directly into the sun, with him in front of it as a darkened blob on the LCD. I wasn’t about to go through that again. RTFM, sucker!

That might’ve been another reason why I ended up by the docks. To get away from that kind of responsibility. Imagine when they get home, “Oh yeah, here’s the photo that nimrod took. Look at this shit, that my asshole or something? Fucking useless Torontonians, I’m going to interweb this until I’m blue in the face.” Presto, Patrick singlehandedly quashes tourism in the city. Toronto City Life becomes Toronto City Killer, I’m forcibly ejected from my flat, and Ollie leaves turds of disgust on my garbage pillow in the alley. Damn.

In the solitude of the docks, this is not a concern.

I think it was at this point that I got that far-out feeling. Not only were the ice heads still gliding gently across the ice, but the boat also added a river Styx vibe to the place. And tucked in farther along the shore, a frozen beach:

Cold, yes. Serene, also yes. Can’t have one without the other, I suppose. Or so I supposed. For no sooner had I emerged from the canopy of neglected metal protuberances than I hit upon a roving pack of vacationing photographers. !!

This time there was no salvation. They were three Japanese women proudly brandishing Sonys, thrusting them at me menacingly with smiles and slight bows. I knew this would be the final encounter.

Continued in next part…

You know, I pick up my best material on the weekends. I decided that this is the lifestyle I must adopt in order to be at my optimal performance; Saturday time. Sunday’s good too, but Saturday has more going on. On Sundays, it’s about heading out with a head full of exceptional sleep and mood enhancers and flâneuring the shit out of the streets. Groovy.

I do realize that the camera tells no lies. “Always be white balancing”, is my motto of late (humbly borrowed from Glengarry Glen Ross). But I decided to balance her indoors instead. Yup, it’s a she.

So, the resulting images came out looking like things would through my sunglasses. That actually helped because I spent almost the entire journey staring directly into the sun. I saw vague blurs rise up out of the icy mists occasionally, sometimes they were people, sometimes children. Once in a while, I caught sight of buildings through the crystalline haze.

Haha! Woaw! Getting ahead of myself. No, the afternoon part was actually pretty nice. The temperature was back up to a balmy –4C (25F). Oh no, no sarcasm, dear reader. On Saturday it was a might chillier but without the wind, it’s not a problem. Something about being able to maintain a micro-climate around your skin or something. So while buildings are blocking the wind, you’re golden.

The wind chill factor, and the Humidex value for that matter, are both bullshit. Are they telling me what it feels like? No no no … I tell them how I feel. Jeez. And these guys predict our weather? Oh don’t get me wrong, I know there’s a whole formula behind it, but that tells me nothing about how it really feels, you know? Because the kind of cold down by the docks, even on such a day, tends to be reasonably painful, and no egghead in a lab coat is telling me how reasonable I’m being.

I think I just ended up at the docks because I wanted to take some sulky mid-winter pictures, to take a breath and get to know the city again. The breath was short and guarded lest the miniature high-velocity shards of ice rend my throat asunder, but the getting to know of the city ended up going considerably better than this sentence. The frozen sunset at the docks was something I hadn’t yet experienced — I can objectively report that it’s a trippy place to be.

It’s one thing to look out over a frozen lake from the ferry docks and witness head-shaped chunks of ice with facial features sliding along. It’s when you go a little farther west that things start to get a little more far-out.

Continued in next part…

…continued from part 1.

Regent Park is an original City of Toronto housing project. The projects of Toronto. I’d say there are similar areas in all the cities that make up the GTA. Scarborough has Malvern (did my teens around there). North York has Jane and Finch (played marbles around the corner). And downtown Toronto has Regent Park (a pleasant stroll of a block for me). Out of all of them, I’d have to say that Regent Park seems the most genteel.

The buildings are smaller, and these days the area’s more run-down than anything else. But at night, especially around some of the inner courtyards between the buildings, it can still be a pretty menacing place.

And that’s where King’s hero would find himself. I’m sure Stevie wouldn’t be able to resist throwing something schmaltzy into the plot … a basketball, rolling slowly out of the pitch shadows, slowly but with no sign of decelerating, as if being propelled by something other. And just before hitting the man’s foot, coming to a sickeningly sudden stop. He would back away as he gazed upwards, the slowly illuminating multitudes of windows in the buildings encircling him filled with horrible shapes, nausea and fear rising into a knot at the back of his throat, terror pulling his pupils into dense points straining to shield him from seeing what he was seeing … up there.

And now Kingie would wreck a perfectly good horror and have the hero’s dead son stand in one of the windows or some other such bullshit. Why?! Why can’t it just be a purely evil force facing well-adjusted individuals? The baggage gets in the way of the train, if you get my meaning.

I prefer my horror noir. Just a bunch of people get brutally massacred; don’t read too much into it. Sometimes, a shadowy villain is all there needs to be.

So after escaping that horror, King would take the poor sap back up through southern Cabbagetown only to be accosted by some huddled baddie in a toque.

At this point I’d turn off the movie and go to bed.

Great neighbourhood, is what I’m getting at. Full of contradictions, as I used to end my grade eight essays with. As with a lot of other neighbourhoods, the dividing boundary is literally the line down the street. On one side you buy your crack, on the other a hand-blown artisan glass pipe in which to smoke it. Cabbagetown, ironically, is named after cabbages, the only vegetable the dirt-poor Irish immigrants could manage to grow. Luckily they stopped leeching off society and we now have a vibrant and mostly Irish-free slice of old Toronto.

Haha! Just kidding. Those ruddy-haired bastards are swarming over Toronto like Black Death itself.

(It’s okay, I have Irish friends. :D Well, associates. Associate. And I enjoy Guinness. Plus Irish Cream flavoured anything. :D )

Anyhow, there you have it; Cabbagetown, up to the armpits in history and conveniently close. Good on cold days, über-quaint, and bordered by something evil. Actually, now that I think about it, that’s probably closer to a M. Night Shyamalamadingdong plot.

Sorry, but I’m just going to stop right there before it leads me down some road I’d rather not take. Can’t stand that guy. He’s not even scary!

Before I go, I just wanted to give a shout-out to CardSwap.ca who sent me a nice new year greeting and informed me they were also fellow Torontonians. Easy sell. The site is basically a way to buy and sell used (or new, I guess, whatever turns your crank), gift and discount cards. CardSwap guarantees delivery. This is clearly their time to shine so I’d like to wish them all the best.  I’m certainly not above gift cards myself.

Oh boy! I finally got my Christmas present from the city of Toronto! Thanks, municipality!

And it’s just what I always wanted too — a brand-spanking new election year! (even the exact colour)

Now, truth be told, I’m a total n00b (a word requiring not one but two zeroes to denote the level of experience), when it comes to municipal politics. I learn a little bit every now and then when a scandal breaks out, but other than that I only know that good old Davie Miller is our mayor until the last week of October. And that candidates are now free to register after which they can start fundraising.

But despite my overall lack of knowledge, this is a great opportunity to dive in headfirst and learn. And pray for muck flinging, name calling, and other assorted hijinx. I sincerely hope that municipal politicking is as kooky as I imagine it is. And in the meantime, I get ten months of increasingly busy campaigning to revert to when my brain goes all mushy for topics. It’s the gift that keeps on giving — even though that’s technically incorrect since people give gifts (could you imagine the horror of gifts giving people?). But it’s the thought that counts. :)

Also, dear reader, you now know as much as I do. Oh, wait, maybe a few more things:

Giorgio Mammoliti (confirmed)
— http://www.facebook.com/people/Giorgio-Mammoliti/532699017
— http://twitter.com/giorgio_4_mayor

Adam “Jammy Jams” Giambrone (potential)
— http://www.adamgiambrone.ca/
— http://twitter.com/Adam_Giambrone

George Smitherman (expected)
— http://www.georgesmitherman.com/
— http://twitter.com/Smitherman2010

John Tory (potential)
— http://www.johntory.ca/
— http://twitter.com/John_Tory

Joe Pantalone (expected)
— http://www.joepantalone.org/
— twitless

Rocco Rossi (confirmed)
— http://www.facebook.com/roccorossi
— http://twitter.com/liberalrocco

Shelley Carroll (potential)
— http://shelleycarroll.ca/
— http://twitter.com/shelleycarroll

That’s the current roster. The “expected” candidates have either quit their day job or stated publicly that they’ll be registering – both pretty strong indicators of intent.

I don’t know much about any of these people. I do know that George Smitherman is gay and looks like a bulldog. Both, I believe, in his favour. I also know that, judging by the state of his website, John Tory is either not planning to run or is keeping his candidacy a big and unnecessary secret (and making some affiliate income to boot):

I also know that Adam Giambrone (pronounced like “jam bony”), is a couple of years my junior and is barely holding the Toronto Transit Commission together as its boss. I shudder to think of him at the city’s helm (no way is he getting the Clearasil budget past council, mark my words).

Giorgio Mammoliti looks like an Italian gangster, so he’s pretty cool. Joe Pantalone has a website that reminds me of Toronto City Life during its first few months, so yuck. Also, he’s really wee. Two strikes; he’d better be a good orator. Rocco Rossi, nice wine, but how are the mayor skills? Shelley Carroll has a pretty slick website with some nice Adobe Flash work – it always makes me a bit suspicious when someone can afford to pay the ridiculous sums that Flash developers extort out of their customers. Come to think of it, “Baby Face” Giambrone has some Flash on his site too. Hmmm.

Okay, so now you know exactly what I know; we’ll both be learning as we go along. The contestants (it’s more fun to think of them this way), are allowed to raise $1.5 million to grease constituents’ palms. Then it’ll be a brutal, bare-knuckle free-for-all; winner gets City Hall and medical attention.

And I get material that writes itself. :D

“Your fingers aren’t frozen?”

I had to pause a moment to ponder the question. That’s the problem with brains on ice, they’re just not that quick. Mine especially.

“Almost!”

Was my ultra-witty reply to the beady-eyed parka as it and its occupant passed me on a southern Cabbagetown street corner.

I know, I’m ashamed. It’s why I prefer to write. When the mouth isn’t engaged, it goes a whole lot better. But, in my defence, it was pretty darn cold out there. Those from Yellowknife would probably be out there in their trunks bouncing around beach balls and carrying frozen drinks with little umbrellas, but –14 Celsius (6 Fahr.) is chilly for Toronto. I was double-panted, double-socked, scarved good and proper, hatted – you bet, gloved – oh yeah, ass cheeks – frozen as all get-out. And of course once the ass goes, the fingers are next.

So please allow me to present…

Wanderings of a Frozen Finger

Reflections on a freakin’ cold Cabbagetown

by Patrick

—

CABBAGETOWN (haiku)

Cabbagetown is cold

Holy shit! It’s really cold!

Plus I hate haiku.

I … did not enjoy poetry at school much. Repress your words until you hurt, is poetry, to me. No thanks, I’m of the thousand words or more school. I prefer the lazy man’s thousand words, however.

Here are some people with their younguns seeking shelter from the awful cold, well-heeled natives striding past them confidently, callously, and a mischievous elf out on a smoke break. Also, some old lady standing at the corner about to risk her life. I’m pretty sure she’ll hardly be looking one way let alone both. Behind isn’t even on the radar, and the radar extends out to maybe half a meter anyway.

You’re thinking about her now, aren’t you? The old lady about to be potentially banged around by a car. But what can you do? I drove down here many times and when the old people jump out in front of you, you basically treat them like deer. Bust out the binoculars and start looking them over. If it freaks them out and they hustle off the road, great. It’s in everyone’s best interest. But unfortunately, you gotta wait for those old people to cross. I reserve that privilege for when I’m an old fart, so I feel I should live by the opposite side of that  understanding today. At about 65 or so, we earn the right step out into traffic at any point from anywhere. That’s just all there is to it.

… Continue Reading

There is is, the big oh-one. I’ll just dispense with the gushy anniversary right off the top. One year seems like a rite of passage, like a fraternity paddling or violent hazing. After this, I’ll have a little street cred; a little. But I like to think of this not as an end to a year so much as the beginning of the end to the next year.

(This picture is very big!)

There was much I’d planned to do in 2009 and hope to get around doing this year. Some of it I’d foolishly planned in older blog posts. So be it. Brutal, in-your-facedness, delayed plans ‘n all. As Sam Spade so profoundly put it, “when you’re slapped you’ll take it and like it!” He meant with the truth, of course.

But at least there’s always 2010. And 2011 after that. I’ll probably, eventually, sometime get around to doing everything on my list. In between I’ll stumble onto random stuff or maybe get all Prince-like and do something brooding and moody, the purple drain, when Dove makes me cry, so on. Bathroom commentary. And all still under the umbrella of life in the city of Toronto.  Haha! So’s that growth in my fridge. Still can’t believe no one had registered torontocitylife.com – totally blew my mind.

But nothing stands still. Unfortunately, the Flickr group has been quiet for a while and I only have so many photos to go around, so I’ve mothballed it. Not dead, just sleeping. Possibly terminally, who knows. I’ll try to keep it accessible until the end of days. Or until Flickr shuts it down. Whichever comes first.

In its stead I considered some ads from Google. Just … didn’t feel right. Icky. Plus, that’s no way to earn a living. So I’m back to the drawing board or the corporate sponsors really need get their asses in gear (respectfully looking your way, tasty beverage company Second Cup!)

For now though, I think I’ll just stick with the program. More photos, more writing, more stuff – and switch it up a bit in between. I’ve really been meaning to visit with my old undercover friend again; there are still plenty of locations to eat at / shoot up downtown. And I don’t remember restricting our clandestine meeting locations to breakfast joints. Though I do love a good greasy spoon :)

I also like the older bits of the city because they allow me to hearken back to earlier days, which I find amusing. Plus they look so antiquey, which I like.

Aside from these two subjects, I really will need to revisit the Toronto Blog All-Stars again. The “s” on the end implies that there’s more than one, so I kinda have to. And I’m pretty sure I’m not the only person with a blog in Toronto; just need find out where the others hang out and infiltrate their society. Secretly record our conversations. Then post them online in the form of an “interview”. All mostly not in many ways libelous.

… Continue Reading

I was recently asked if I enjoy being a bachelor.

So far, my answer has to be hells … yeah.

Ask anyone who knows me, I’m definitely not phobic of long-term relationships, I think it’s just that I’m trying to recreate some of those televised dorm room shenanigans because of my own, contrary college experience. It was a community college, strikingly similar to the grouped-together rejects of the TV show Community, but with less of the dry, carefully crafted and craftily delivered humour rolling off Joel McHale’s tongue.

I was surrounded by forty-seven-year-old men who, back home, had been military jet technicians, architects, and — no kidding — bona fide brain surgeons. Often, they would correct the professor (or teacher for those who weren’t allowed to assume the title), much to everyone’s mutual amusement. (“Can’t believe I pay for this horseshit!! Why don’t I just hang around with Mr. Kim here?!”) Plus, our language and cultures often kept our relationships simply cordial. I mean, I was curious to learn about The East, but I found that I really didn’t like kimchi at all. That pretty much put an end to me trying any Korean beer. Plus, they each had families and worked 50 hours after school + studying just to be able to cover tuition (it’s a lot higher if you’re not Canadian), and sadly, yes, in the most prototypical downtown convenience stores one could imagine.

On the recognized work experience scale, I was roughly their supervisor’s supervisor. I could definitely fire their sorry asses. It was a strange dynamic, but at least I was in enough debt that we could share that misery equally (but usually them more than me). And cheating off them was a guaranteed success (a generous coffee a day gets you places! ;) ). But it was no Joel McHale making out with Gillian Jacobs, or Alison Brie. Or even Yvette Nicole Brown. (Even though you know that that last plot line will have to develop at some point. Only way to keep the show classy.)

Maybe I’m being unnecessarily sentimental. I should probably stop listening to those awful Chet Baker songs, especially this time of year.

Are you like me? Do you like to sit on the floor in a crumpled, sobbing heap, running through all the missed opportunities of your youth in your head, again and again? Right, exactly, neither do I. I mean, I’ve tried it a few times but I just can’t seem to get the rhythm of the comforting rocking motion down. And I just don’t see how it solves anything.

But old Chet and his awful good music remind us how cool it is to be a bachelor, especially this time of year.

… Continue Reading

Last day of vacation; regret upon regret. I was supposed to do all sorts of things before the arbitrary tick of the annum clock (I’m very annal about some things). But I did manage to clean my place in time for the folks’ visit — I was up until the unholy hours, but I did it! And my parents expressed surprise that it wasn’t as dystopian and shelled-out as I had led them to believe.

In the process, incidentally, I had another break in the missing underwear case — possibly the break.

Two breaks, actually. Number one, my whities. So that’s one less to worry about. And a margarine container?

NO … FREAKIN’ … WAY!!

Okay, back story here. I had found similar containers, many caked with mud and (seemingly) dried saliva, in a variety of nooks and crannies around the place. Gotta tell ya, I didn’t remember absconding with any margarine containers from, really, anywhere recently. I don’t even eat margarine – I’m a real creamery butter kinda guy. So I was initially mystified as to how they had all ended up in my flat.

One day, while sitting on my couch watching something pleasantly dull, a black squirrel hopped onto the sill just behind the monitor — Ollie uses that window to get out onto the overhang and lord over his domain one storey below. I always kept the possibility of something getting into the flat at the back of my head. There are some overfed raccoons that like to hang around at the jumping-distance tree in the front yard. And the wires that hang from the street to the house make jumping mostly unnecessary for anything smaller. Not for Ollie – he’s too comfortable, but squirrels and chipmunks, no problem.

Whatever would get in, I thought, would likely ransack the kitchen for something to nibble on. There would be ample evidence that I’d finally been broken into by wildlife and that I was right not to trust them all along. Especially raccoons – they already look like criminals for God’s sake!

But when I spotted that squirrel on the sill, and what was that in it’s mouth? A margarine container?

Aha!

The squirrel had been storing its margarine surreptitiously at my place for the winter – basically using it as a food cupboard. That, I had not expected. I’d also expected Ollie to be a little more vigilant with guarding the flat against invading rodents with chaseably bushy tails. But he literally picked up his head, glanced at the squirrel, gave me a glazed-over look, and dropped his head right back down to sleep. Ollie and old Blackie, it seems, are old buddies. What other explanation is there?

The squirrel leapt, almost imperceptibly, to the side table that holds my monitor, margarine container in full view. I thought that the act of standing up suddenly would be enough to spook the squirrel back out into the night. Nope. Little fucker stood there, didn’t even flinch. Just kinda side-glanced me like he was dissing me. I could’ve sworn I heard him kiss his teeth.

I took two steps forward – the full width of my living room – only then did the squirrel finally mosey back over to the sill. This was in late November, I knew I’d be keeping the windows closed for the next half decade-ish, so I was really more curious to look into the eyes of such an audacious creature than to try to scare it from entering again. Perhaps promise that I would eat its heart for courage if I ever caught it and killed it it in a death match or found its frozen carcass out in the snow – in true urban warrior spirit, and out of respect for its brave little soul.

I would cry a little when I ate that squirrel.

Luckily I don’t have to do that. The squirrel finally walked off and has only flitted by my window on rare occasions. I’m still finding the random margarine container wedged between the sofa cushions or stuck in behind the bookcase, but the mountain of rags reeking with the repellent scent of man is no longer available, and the window is closed now anyway. I saw the squirrel a couple of weeks ago as I was trying to squeeze open-window season to its limit – he eyed me from the sill, margarine container firmly in his grasp, but the fight will have to wait until spring – he retreated and I haven’t seen him since. He’s now probably nestled into a hole in a tree or in some sucker’s comfortable drywall, family cozied up for warmth, my missing underwear at the entrance keeping predators at bay with a chemical-scent shield. If the little ones have the constitution of their dad, the odour won’t faze them. Impressive.

So, yeah, no freakin’ way. It must be the squirrel. And I accused Ollie of the undergarment thefts already; I feel like a heel. He pretended not to understand what I was saying. I could tell he was hurt though; he had that dejected look on his face and stopped eating for, like, 300 seconds. It seemed like an eternity. Now I may owe him a huge apology. Then I’ll cuss him out for letting the squirrel in here.

But other than the case, of course, I’ve been busy with Christmas.

I spent a good amount of my life on GO trains, heading west to see my sister, twice, and then east to gather some documents. The documents ended up being the one gift I’d been hoping for this season – both some evidence that the ex is entangled in some untoward business (at my expense :( ), and the fact that finally, I can say with authority … I was right. Oooh. Plus, I learned a couple of new pieces of information — stocking stuffers. Sent a shiver up my spine. Maybe I watch too much Poirot, but I definitely felt a private investigator vibe – and I liked it.

… Continue Reading