The night before was the first night I slept through the night. This past night I slept through the night again. With just one dose of the medication I already started to feel better, which could have something to do with the fact that I was taking three pills, two of which (at minimum) would …
Tag: 2019
Riley Goes to Vietnam Day 9: Hoi An Sunday September 29, 2019
If I didn’t mention it, our hotel in Cambodia was one of only two we stayed at which didn’t have a breakfast buffet, though I just ate up that congee. Well this hotel had a pretty large buffet and it was once again quite good. One of the things we appreciated about the hotel breakfast …
Riley Goes to Vietnam Day 8: Riley Goes Back to Vietnam from Cambodia Saturday September 28, 2019
I might have slept even worse this night as I woke up at 2 or 3, I think, and never went back to sleep. Fortunately once again I was able to eat congee for breakfast, which seems like basically the best thing to eat when you don’t sleep and you have a cold.
Riley Goes to Cambodia Day 2 (Vietnam Trip Day 7): Angkor Wat Friday September 27, 2019
I slept horribly. I think I was up at 2 or 3 but I didn’t check. My cold was in full force by this point and I think I even worried I had a fever at some point. I didn’t manage to get back to sleep and I felt better once Jenn woke up, but …
Riley Goes to Vietnam Day 6: Riley Goes to Cambodia Thursday September 26
Our last day in Saigon, I have a note saying that the hotel buffet was really good. I guess I forgot because basically all the hotel buffets were really good.
Riley Goes to Vietnam Day 5: Mekong Delta Wednesday September 25, 2019
Our alarm went off at 5:45AM to go on a tour, but I was up at 4 or something, due to jet lag. After breakfast, we got in a van at 6:55 to head to the Mekong Delta. We booked a tour with the same guy who did the food tour because we were so …
Riley Goes to Vietnam Day 4: Saigon/Ho Chi Minh City Tuesday September 24, 2019
It all blends together at this point, but I know I didn’t sleep well during the night. This might have been the night I was up in the middle of the night for an hour or two but managed to get back to sleep. But the jet lag hit me hard over the next week …
Riley goes to Vietnam Day 3: Saigon/Ho Chi Minh City Monday September 23, 2019
We woke up early but not as early as we would on subsequent days. We went down to breakfast and found an elaborate breakfast buffet, which would become a theme of our trip, as only one hotel we stayed at wouldn’t have one. I had noodles as well because, in my jet lagged state, I …
Riley Goes to Vietnam Day 2: Ho Chi Minh City/Saigon Sunday September 22, 2019
We landed in Hong Kong very early in the morning, just in time for sunrise. The Hong Kong airport is gigantic and also quite nice. Not a ton of stuff was open because it was so early, but at least we could walk around. And it’s all glass so the views on one side are …
Riley Goes to Vietnam Day 1: Saturday September 21, 2019
We left on the last flight from the airport (or at least the terminal) for Friday, leaving at 1:45AM. I didn’t know flights were allowed to leave that late and on the way to my airport my mom and I had a conversation about how we thought there was a bylaw preventing flights from leaving …
Avengers: Endgame (2019, Anthony Russo, Joe Russo)
Note: Due to the nature of this film – concluding this “phase” of the Marvel Cinematic Universe – and also its plot, it’s impossible to talk about it without heavy spoilers for the entire set of 20 odd movies, particularly Infinity War, as this is a direct sequel to that movie. You’ve been warned. (Of …
The 2019 Toronto International Film Festival
Once again I only saw 5 movies this year. As with previous years, the reason for that will become apparent in a month or so. But, as usual, we managed to do a pretty good job picking movies and only saw movie I wouldn’t recommend seeing, which is a pretty good ratio.
Incitement (2019, Yaron Zilberman)
This is a nearly flawless dramatization of the radicalization of the man who assassinated Yitzhak Rabin in 1995. It is apparently the film time a film has been made about the assassination, likely because of how raw the wound still is 25 years later. But I would say that this is absolutely the film to …
A Herdade (2019, Tiago Guedes)
This absolutely gorgeous film is one of those epic films which attempts to tell the history of a place or country though the experiences of a family. It’s the kind of high concept we might associate with classic Hollywood. But it is not a classical film in terms of the content.
Lyrebird (2019, Dan Friedkin)
Do you ever watch a film with high production values and, from the opening scenes, you’re thinking, ‘this is is not going to be good’? Well, Lyrebird is such a movie. It’s the kind of movie you spend wondering if it’s the director’s first film (it is) because nothing works like it’s supposed to. SPOILERS …
Mano de obra [aka Workforce] (2019, David Zonana)
This a very well-made, fascinating drama about manual labourers in Mexico City which threatens to become a thriller but consistently subverts your expectations and ends up having more in common with classical tragedy. It’s a debut, so I was very wary of choosing to see it, but this is a remarkably self-assured film. I strongly …
Heroic Losers (2019, Sebastián Borensztein)
This is an enjoyable, albeit flawed, heist comedy about a group of townspeople whose dreams of resurrecting their town’s granary are devastated by the “Corralito”, a reaction to a run on the banks during the Argentine Great Depression. It’s hits the standard heist movie beats, but it is refreshing both because of how funny it …
Hootie and the Blowfish Live at the Budweiser Stage August 29, 2019
You read that right. Last night, I went to see Hottie and the Blowfish. The band I wrote this review about. I went because my girlfriend wanted to go. I hadn’t been to the Molson Amphitheatre Budweiser Stage in so long I almost forgot what it was like. It seems they have made it a …
Conspiracyland (2019)
This is a fascinating and infuriating, brief (6 episode) podcast about the conspiracy theories that spiraled out after the murder of Seth Rich in Washington, DC in 2016. If you can handle it, it’s well worth your time.
The Last Days of August (2019)
This is an interesting story of what caused a porn star to take her own life. In many ways it’s like a less accomplished version of Shit Town. So I’m sorry to say that there will be minor spoilers for both podcasts in this review. If you haven’t listened to Shit Town (i.e. S Town) …
The Soul of Basketball (2018, Ian Thomsen)
This book is basically meant for me as the Mavericks’ championship was the greatest thing to happen in my adult sports fan life prior to the Raptors winning recently. So I should love this. But I don’t quite. I’m going to try to articulate why.
Upheaval: Turning Points for Nations in Crisis (2019) by Jared Diamond
This is a fascinating, flawed examination of national crises which is really a plea for human beings to better handle climate change (and other major global crises Diamond perceives).
Evil: The Science Behind Humanity’s Dark Side (2019) by Julia Shaw
So I listened to the audio book, which I think made a pretty big impression on me. I think I might have enjoyed the book more had I read it instead. This is a wide-ranging examination of the nature of “evil” from the perspective of psychology and, occasionally, philosophy. (Nietzsche gets a lot of references.) …
Your NBA Champion 2018-19 Toronto Raptors
I attended a Raptors game at Sky Dome. But I’m not one of those fans who can say that I have been a fan of the Raptors the entire time. The seats we had at the Dome were bad enough my only memory is not being able to see the ball well and not understanding …
Deadwood The Movie (2019, Daniel Minahan)
I love Deadwood. For much of the last fifteen years, I’d have insisted that Deadwood was the Second Greatest (dramatic, fictional) TV series of All Time. I regard it as sort of the Last Word in westerns. I have acted as an evangelist for the show, telling everyone I know about it and actually convincing …
Conviction (2019)
At this point it feels like there are far more true crime and criminal justice podcasts than I could ever listen to. Though it’s probably not true, it feels like there are more criminal justice and true crime podcasts than there are podcasts of any other genre. And many of them follow a similar formula, …
Riley Goes to Killington, Vermont – March 21-25, 2019
I have been to Vermont many times. I have skied at Jay Peak something like six times. I have skied at Bolton Valley and Stowe and, once before this year, Killington. But I hadn’t been to Vermont since I was in University, so long ago now it makes me feel old. So it was nice …
Fyre (2019, Chris Smith)
This is a fascinating film about the disastrous Fyre Festival that we all heard about on social media. It’s a classic story of the problem with “fake it until you make it” mentality of entrepreneurship. If you’ve watched or read anything about fraud, you’ve probably heard this story before. But it’s also about the problems …