Behold… the new garden in all its splendor

Saturday we had two appointments to look at gasp wedding venues. The first was the Alton Mill. We want something a little different. A venue we can be married outside and have the reception inside onsite afterwards in a interesting and unique setting. An art gallery is the perfect location since our first date was at an art gallery. We found the Mill very charming and cool. It had tons of wood, exposed brick, exposed stone, original interior hardware and distinctive artistic flair throughout. We were immediately impressed with the property, the facilities and the owner who was very passionate about the Mill. It was an immediate contender. Next, just down the street, was the Millcroft Inn. Damn. Not one but two impressive options. Yes the Millcroft was also impressive. The grounds were spectacular and included a lovely gardened grove beside the falls for wedding ceremonies. Also, the inn itself has amazing facilities, pools, a spa, and a great restaurant… But the reception hall seemed a little dated and is an odd ‘L’ shape. Still the rest of the facilities made the a very hard decision between the two Alton venues. So far we are leaning towards the Mill.

In the evening I attended a concert at Nocturne (link now 404 - Nov 2023), I think it was the Hanger back in the day… anyway, the show didn’t start until 10… So it was going to be a late night. I met up with Raj and Stephen. (Thanks again for pointing out where the green P was.) The club was really small… I think 150 to 200 and it would be crammed… the place has been fixed up a bit and the laser lighting they had was pretty impressive. We got in early and got one of the few table to the side of the stage…right beside one the speakers. Gawd… so it was right in my ear the entire night…I’m definitely bringing earplugs to Boris in October. *Cough* I wasn’t terribly familiar with any of the acts… I’ve hear some of the Gothsicles and Detroit Diesel before, but Aliceffkt and Skylight Glare were new to me. Glare got the evening going. I thought it was amusing that all the musicians just brought their Mac laptop on stage. There were no instruments. I guess I have to stop beating Apple and Macs down so much since they are the choice of Industrial acts it seems. The entire evening was sadly plagued with technical issues. At various points during most of the performances the music would just stop. It was cute once or twice, but after the fourth and fifth time it was just embarrassing. The musicians just carried on as best they could. I liked Glare’s set it was a solid warm up. Next was, what would become, my favourite artist of the evening, Aliceffekt. I thought it was pretty odd to see a single unassuming guy come on stage that resembles Sheldon from Big Bang. Once he started though any similarity were merely cosmetic. He brought a intriguing set full of bassy hard driving beats that drifted into subtle bridges. It was pretty awesome, I’m certainly going to check out more of his material. After poking around his website he seems like a deep fellow. The crowd really appeared to like him as well. Next was Detroit Diesel. They came on dressed in odd matching outfits, I could be wrong, but I thought they looked German. It was the first time in the evening we heard live vocals, and they were delivered with full scratchy distortion. Diesel’s set was powerful and got the crowd dancing. Solid stuff, I’ll also follow up on this band as well. Now… the Gothsicles. I’m not really sure what to think of them. They seem like a novelty act to me to some degree. The singer can’t sing and the music is disjointed at best… But they have a lot of fun and seem sincere in their delivery of geeky topics. The crowd didn’t know what to make of the singer’s repeated mingling amongst the crowd… I noticed people trying to dance but the technical issues and nature of the Goth’s music made it short lived. Regardless, they were fun and overall a very enjoyable night of music.

Just a thought… where the hell are the Toronto Police?? Surely y’all know there are hundreds of drunken idiots getting out of bars on Queen street at around 2AM? I had countless douchebags walk in front of my car, or bikes swerve in front of me… it really was ridiculous. I was tempted to enact some Darwinism…

Whoa! What a game! The Bills finallllly beat the Patriots. Huge win! Go Bills!

Long day outside gardening… Bdot is done with the front garden! I think it looks amazing. We thought we would check out the McMichael Gallery as a venue this afternoon… The grounds are really nice and full of potential, but the indoor venue didn’t feel right. It is a great location for a hike though, so we’ll be back. The little town of Kleinburg was busy, must be the new Starbucks…