“Let’s find a bench in the shade where we can sit,” I say to my friend, turning to her slightly.

No word of a lie, I hear a squawk and out of the corner of my eye I see a flash of something white, felt it graze my face. I scream, still managing to hold on to my tray of food. I look down and see that my hot dog is gone!

Not even seconds later I hear birds squawking,  and see two dozen sea gulls attacking what’s left of my hot dog metres from where I was standing in shock. It was like a scene out of Hitchcock’s The Birds.

Click here to view the embedded video.

A freakin’ seagull had the audacity to fly millimeters away from my face, swoop down, snatch up my hotdog from my hands and fly away with it!

It picked up my entire hot dog (bun and all) and few off with it, dropping it on the pavement metres away where it’s hoodlum friends could feast on it. All that was left less than a minute later was a pavement stain of yellow mustard.

This is an exact representation of the seagull that snatched my hot dog right from my hands.

These Toronto birds are brave! What happened to the time when animals were afraid of humans?! My gosh, I swear this gull was probably eying me from the time I left the food truck, like those velociraptors in that kitchen scene from Jurassic Park.

“You’re lucky it didn’t take your poutine too!” said a woman who was also in line at the food truck.

Traumatized and pissed off that half my meal was gone, I went off to find a washroom to scrub my face from the feather brush moments earlier, thinking that next time I venture downtown I should bring a pellet gun to ward off these gull thieves.

Later on in the day at Harbourfront, I saw another woman holding the same order of a hot dog and fries. I was tempted to give her a warning to keep an eye on the sky, but she might’ve deemed me as crazy.

Turns out food isn’t the only thing these calculating creatures steal. Check out this video of a gull flying off with someone’s video camera.

That incident just put a damper on my day. I was really  looking forward to that hot dog.

Freakin’ bird.

The back seat area was decked out from top to bottom in a wide array of various action figures, toys, and figurines. Mini chandeliers hung from the ceiling, and a holder housed a variety of current magazines for my reading pleasure.

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This was an interesting start of the day.

The cab driver’s name is Akber Batada, a middle-aged man who immigrated here from India years ago.  My fellow passengers and I were greeted happily, and were equally shocked at the interesting interior decoration of the taxi.

Akber offered us gum (we had our choice of flavours with about 6 packed rubber-banded together). He asked what type of music we’d like to listen to. I opted for some Michael Jackson. He popped a DVD in and we were able to see old school music videos on the two LCD screens that were facing the back seat (“Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough”, in case you’re wondering).

I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a cheerful and hospitable cab driver. Akber told us to feel free to take photos inside, explained his passion for the state of his cab, and how happy it makes him to see his passengers happy.

This really made me think about the state that some people are in during the day: frequently we’re stressed out, rushing, and in a foul mood… usually because of work. But it’s important to take some time out of the day and just smile, remembering the joy and simple pleasures in the little things in life.

It’s sheer coincidence that I called up a taxi and struck luck with the Cosmic Cab. Stressed out myself this morning, but by the time I left after the 15 minute cab ride I was totally relaxed, happy and eager to start my day.  Definitely brought a smile to my face.

Thank you, Akber and your Cosmic Cab!

Organized by Go Dance Mambo‘s Stephanie Gurnon, this weekend will be filled with workshops, shows, dance competitions and parties in bachata, zouk and salsa dance. International instructors and performers will be in town, none that I’m more looking forward to seeing than Jorjet Alcocer and Troy Anthony. I’ve been watching Jorjet’s amazing footwork in Dominican-style bachata on YouTube, and she’s definitely something to watch! She and Troy will be instructing several workshops over the weekend. I can’t wait to learn some pachanga (there’s only so much you can pick up from repeating YouTube videos), and try to improve my bachata technique. I’m also kind of interested in finally learning some zouk this year as well.

Click here to view the embedded video.

If you’re new to the Latin dancing scene, there will be some beginner workshops in both bachata and zouk taking place at the Estonian House (near Broadview station). Passes are available at the door.

Yours Truly will also be performing a bachata routine with Steps Dance Studio at the kick-off party tonight at Acrobat Lounge. Thank goodness Monday’s a holiday, because I’m going to definitely need some R&R after all the dancing I’m going to be doing this weekend!

The crowd at the Molson Amphitheatre was eagerly anticipating performances by Nas and Ms. Lauryn Hill, who were to perform tracks from each of their landmark albums (Illmatic and The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, respectfully).

My friend and I reached the venue at around 7pm. We weren’t totally upset when Nas didn’t hit the stage until well after 8 (he had a 7:30 call time), because he nailed his performance. I swear this guy is Benjamin Button or something, because at almost 38, Nas is looking as good as ever. I had the pleasure of seeing him perform the last time he was in Toronto, and he did live up to expectations this time around. Backed by DJ Premier and Pete Rock, Nas was full of energy, rapped with passion, used up a lot of the stage, and genuinely looked as though he was happy to be here.

Then comes Ms. Lauryn Hill. I admit, it was Lauryn that I really bought my ticket for, as I missed the chance to see her when she was in town earlier this year at Sound Academy (no complaints though, I heard she was 3 hours late for that one).

The first thing I noticed, besides the fact that she kept the audience waiting an hour and a half (she had a 9:45 start time, Nas was done his set around  9:20), was that the acoustics at the Molson Amphitheatre were terrible when she was performing. I’ve went to a few concerts at the same venue and had no complaints about the sound, so I’m stumped at to what the problem was. Lots of echoing going on.

And then she abruptly left the stage after the third song. I have no idea why, but she came back with a new hat.

Practically each of her tracks were virtually indistinguishable renditions of the original. I almost didn’t recognize them until a few bars into the song.

Now I’m not opposed to an artist re-working their own songs, but when a concert bills you for performing tracks from an award-winning album, it would be nice to hear some of it the way it sounded way back when.

And I don’t know if it was me, but Ms. Hill sounded like she was singing really, really fast. When she wasn’t singing in fast-forward she kept on gesturing with her hands to her band or the stage crew, nothing seemed too rehearsed. It was distracting and I personally couldn’t concentrate on the value of the music.

You would think that for a multi Grammy award winner things would go more smoothly. Especially since the reaction from her last show  in Toronto garnered mixed reviews.

Halfway through her performance I noticed people leaving… in droves actually (thankfully those included the row of drunken, loud, smokers behind us). I’m there thinking, ‘This is Lauryn Hill. You can’t just leave a Lauryn Hill concert mid-set!’ Needless to say, I actually left before the concert was over. It was going on 12:30am and my friend and I had to catch the streetcar to get the last subway home.

I was worried I would miss something good. We left just before she broke out with some old Fugees tracks (like “Ready or Not”), and it turns out Nas came back out and performed “If I Ruled The World” with Ms. Hill (dammit!). Oh, well… at least I still have the tracks on my iPod.

I think Lauryn Hill is a very talented artist. But I guess fame gets the best of some people. Time management would be a skill to work on, esp. if headlining a concert on a Thursday night, in a city with a noise curfew of 11pm, and not living up to the expectations of fans who were wishing it was worth the wait.

So another Labour Day has passed and so has another successful season of the Canadian National Exibition. I usually go every year, this time it was particulary to test my palette with this year’s artery-clogging, edible fad: deep-fried butter.

Yes, you read correctly. If you didn’t already hear all the hype surrounding these battered concoctions, you’ll probably have to wait until next year to try it again at the EX (unless you want to attempt whipping up a batch yourself).

When I first heard of the deep-fried butter concept, I tried to invision how it would look, and also how it would taste (the thought of eating straight butter is a bit of a turn-off). But basically the batches are made with a butter-mix (from the taste I’m assuming it’s a butter-creamed cheese ratio) scooped up with a melon baller and frozen. After the bite-sized balls are taken out of the freezer it’s dipped into a batter (think along the same lines as funnel cake), then deep-fried for several moments. Afterwards, they’re topped off with swirls of chocolate, rasberry, vanilla and caramel. Sounds delicous doesn’t it?

Was it worth the hour I waited in line to purchase one? Probably not, because I could’ve just spread some butter on my funnel cake from the kiosk next door and kill some time. As I bit in it was definitely rather tasty-delicious, but then that squirt of butter hits you and you’re kind of taken aback. It definitely wasn’t bad though. But I don’t think I’ll fork over $5 for 4 tiny butter-balls any time soon. My friend ate hers whole, and found it very appetizing.

Did I feel sick after eating it? Not really… but then again, I also had a bit of my sister’s funnel cake, a dozen Tiny Tom Donuts, and of course I had to pick up a deep fried Mars bar because I haven’t had one of those before either (don’t worry… I shared all those treats with my sister and friend who were there with me… I’m not that greedy!). Hmmm… I forgot to mention I also had some Mexican-ized poutine earlier on that day from the Food Building.

I thought our deep-fried binge was a good ending to a long day shopping at the EX. That’s right, we didn’t really see any of the attractions, go to the casino, see the super-pets, or play the midway games–we shopped. And that’s only because there were such great deals in the warehouse (Direct Energy Centre). French Connection UK, Stitches, Costa Blanca, Bluenotes, Sirens… I don’t think I’ll need to pick up any more clothes for the rest of the year. I only spent about $80 in total and picked up four sweaters, a nice pair of dress pants from French Connection, three dressy tops,  a couple of nice shirts, two cute skirts, three tanks.

Now to pay that Visa bill…