~*...another good friday...*~

what a busy friday night i had. where to begin, where to begin.

my evening began with dinner at salad king just north of dundas square, the place where the epic pillow battle took place just two weeks before. salad king is a thai restaurant known for its authentic thai cuisine at affordable student prices (it is pretty much on the ryerson university campus). the tribe magazine krew had reservations at linda's, which is the sit down more stylish upstairs section of salad king. the food is still the same, it just costs a bit more. yo'ure paying for the sit down atmosphere and the added service. it was awesome to chill with so many people that i interact with on a daily basis on tribe. sometimes we forget that the online nicknames we use have real people behind them. the anonymity of the internet is revered by some, but for others, like the ones at linda's friday night, putting a name to a face is even better than being just an online nickname.



yes, this is actually a pikcha taken on friday at linda's! thanks to my boy bobby (yes, the one who got married this summer, the one who i geek out xbox 360 style with) gave me his old digital camera. its an epson photo pc800. very old skewl. runs on two aa batteries, which eat up power when you use the view screen. its heavy, has no zoom, a max resolution of 2.1megapixels, and has 64megs of ram. i love it. thank you bobby! i am so happy to finally have a camera again. i've been naked without one.



salad king/linda's is known for spicy food. their spice is measured by chilis: 1 chili being the mildest, 20 chili being the most insane! i'm pretty happy with 5 chili, and that's comin from a jamaican. anything more than 10 is just pain, not flavour, imho.

after dinner, i jumped on the streetcar and headed towards a bar called smiling buddha to link up with the burning man krew. it was my friend juicy lucy's birthday, and i couldn't miss that. plus, hanging with the burning man krew is refreshing. people of all ages, sizes, orientations, celebrating together. i don't normally get that kind of diversity in age when i roll with other groups of friends. i find like attracts like, and the first similarity people are attracted to are people close to their own age. people enjoy hanging out with others who share similarities, and that includes age, heritage, and musical tastes. the burning man krew brings all of them together. i dig that.



happy birthday juicy lucy! its always fun to see you girl. i also got to run into my friend dani. she rawkz my world too. i keep some grooby ass people in my life.



hmm....my smile iz pretty intense. in the above pikcha i tried toning down my smile for the camera. methinks i like the result a bit better. i dunno, what do you think?

after smiling buddha, i headed over to the now lounge in the gaybourhood for my friend ian and chris' 30th birthday party. i've known ian and chris since grade 4. holy shit, that's like 21 years ago! you can't buy these kinds of friendships. it was great seeing so many old skewl markham faces at their party. it seems like everyone there knows me by my first name, leighton, before they know me as norm. i'll also answer to 'hey you'.



the beatz there were great, and the vibe was a perfekt small and intimate atmosphere. i believe i had the desired effect, but i still had one more place to go.

after last call, i jumped in a cab and went to 99 sudbury. this place is pure old skewl. its an old warehouse space about a 20 minute walk away from my place. the parties that i've enjoyed there have been nothing but old skewl good times. warehouse space, after hours booze, dark, great (and shmammered) people, good beatz, and no security. hell, you could bring your own booze if you wanted. you can smoke cigarrettes, smoke weed, go to the bathroom with a girl, just not have to worry about the kinda things you normally worry about at clubs. this place has opened and closed many times, and i've been there drunk many times. this time, however, i was searched at the door and the dude checked my bag. wierd. plus, there was actual lighting hanging from the ceiling, as if the place were a pseudo club (also making it much brighter in there). wierd.



but the people were still wikkid, and drunk...yes after hours booze! we did get kicked out at 5am though. wtf is that? 99 sudbury, when it was open before, was always the place to go party until 7 or 8 in the morning, with booze! a lot of changes to the place, but i still had a great time.

i ended up at my friend irving's place to chill out after we were kicked out of 99 sudbury so early. after a beer i was toast and walked home. what an action packed friday night.

normaste