I left at my regular time, but headed down to King Street East, just east of Sherbourne for my job interview. I took me about fifty minutes to get there without taking the Don Valley Parkway (DVP).

I was early, so I parked in the Staples lot and looked around. At around 09:40, I left, went to my car, got my work portfolio, and continued to walk over to the building.

The building is quite modern and artsy-looking. I went up to the fourth floor and tried to figure out how to get through the door. Eventually, I rang the doorbell to get in. I was looking for the recruiter,

Five minutes later, he was here. He took me over to his desk. He shares the same room with his colleague. We talked about what the manager of technical communication was looking for. The recruiter said that I obviously had the skills that the manager was looking for. It was now trying to establish a rapport with him.

So, I met the manager in his office, on the second floor. We talked for half an hour. His desk was a mess, similar to mine at work. He was interested in my work, so I showed him my latest installation guide. I asked about noise levels here. He said it was pretty quiet. I liked that. There are ten technical writers and thirty quality assurance people. I was impressed.

I also asked him about working hours. He said that I could set my hours, but had to be there between 10:00 and 15:00. Again, that was cool with me.

I suppose the rapport part kicked in when he asked why I thought I was proficient in French and not fluent. I first explained that I write well, with the help of a dictionary. The speaking aspect is pretty rusty these days. I then said that I was enrolled in extended French for a couple of years, took French all through high school, and went to a bilingual college campus. He told me that he had graduated from the same university and we both talked about the certificate program in technical writing that you could obtain there.

It was highly unexpected. I felt that that common ground could seal the deal here. I hope I'm right.

He then took me over to see the lead technical writer. Ah, the conversation was great. Two writers, conveniently talking about style, procedures, formatting, audience, and so on. It was great. She was kind to get me a glass of water, too. I appreciated that.

She then got me back to the recruiter. It's a huge maze in there! I felt good about everything. He said that he'd get feedback from both folks and would contact me soon.

I left at around 11:16, found a place to change into my casual clothes, got to my car, phoned the moocher to talk briefly about my interview, and asked if we were still doing lunch today. He was happy for me about the interview. He said that he'd have to postpone the lunch till next week. I was cool with that.

I booted back to work, taking the DVP-highway 401 combination. It was smooth-sailing for this time of day. I was about two minutes away from my workplace when my cellphone rang. It was the CIBC woman calling. She asked if she should call me back later. I said I was okay, that I was on a hands-free set. She chuckled and continued to talk about the position she has in mind for me. As far as salary expectations go, we are on the same wavelength. She was now going to set up an interview with me.

I got to work at 11:50. I had overheard iPod boy (DJ) and pin-drop girl talk about getting heavier paper to print the leaflet that I had designed. DJ said that he could get some paper down the road and she could take her out for lunch. I found that odd, for DJ doesn't exactly go out for lunch these days. DJ then said hi to me. I said good morning, asking if it was still morning. It was. I then asked pin-drop girl what she was asking about. She repeated the whole story. I said that I had heavier paper lying around from printing programs for the user symposium. I gave her the package and asked if they were enough. She said that she only needed to print out one hundred, so she was fine.

Essentially, I had squandered DJ's hopes of going out on an office supply run. He asked me if we had purchased the paper together. Nope, it was the president's stepdaughter who had purchased it for me. In reality, it was really the sales coordinator who had done that for me last year.

I worked for a bit. The sales coordinator said she was going to the bank at lunch. I asked if I could tag along. She was fine with that and asked if I was picking up lunch and going back to work to eat there. I told her that I didn't exactly want to eat at my desk today and suggested that I just go and fetch my lunch on my own. She actually wanted the company and we compromised. She said that we could wolf down our lunches. Well, in her case, she tends to take longer than normal to do anything.

She drove to the gas station to fill up her gas tank. We then went to the bank. She was getting US funds to pay a number of people back, including me. She told the teller that she'd come back to get the money after lunch. I wasn't too thrilled with that option, for it just means that her day drags on more.

Anyway, we ate at Subway. We both split a meatball sub. I couldn't get a side salad. Instead, I tried the low-fat brownie. It was okay.

We got back to the office at 14:00. Pin-drop girl apologized for not even letting me sit down to ask a question about where more brochures were. I just rattled the folder location on the network drive off the top of my head. She was happy. She needed more heavy paper, so she went out to get some more. I got to love the last-minute scramble to get our act together for a trade show.

I asked DJ if he needed the DVDs back today that I had borrowed from him yesterday. He said he was returning them next Wednesday, so I was good. Ever since lacrosse mom (LM) moved upstairs, he seems to be talking more to me. I noticed that DJ hadn't shaved this morning. I could see a bit of a shadow when I was standing next to him.

Minutes later, he showed me the Genesis CDs he had on his desk. I asked if I could burn them once he was done. He lent them to me. We talked about swear words being verbs these days. I chained a small pile of large paper clips on his desk into a choker. He said he would cherish them for life.

He hoped I'd have a great time at the concert tonight. He also asked me if I was driving down there (yes, I tend to be the chauffeur) and if I was making a night of it (yes, by having dinner before the show). Perhaps he has figured out that it's okay to ask me questions and that it's important for him to actually listen to what I have to say sometimes.

He reminisced about being in his teens and early twenties, and how he used to wear a number of t-shirts with band names on the front. He talked about getting letters ironed on the front of t-shirts, which made me think about using those to get on The Price is Right show. He smiled.

He seemed impressed that I remembered the cheesy Bumper stumpers show on TV. He asked me if I'd sell my current 80 GB iPod to him if I decided to upgrade to a 160 GB iPod, He remembered the inscription on the back of my first iPod that is now being used by his older daughter. I advised him that I had taken his Costco advice and had purchased my current one from the store.

He referred to my newsletter that I had written as his birthday card again. We talked about personalized licence plates. He said he didn't know what he'd get as his personal plate saying. I suggested Costco VIP, which made him smile.

I think he has opted to act like everything is normal between us. He came over to my desk and showed me the noise-cancelling headphones that he had bought the other day. Two screws had come out. I said that they were now aerodynamic. He asked me in what context. I pointed out that a piece from the headphones had actually flown away from him. He then got it. I suggested that he could now return his headphones and the iPod case that he had also purchased from the same joint. I think he will.

Two things stood out today. One was DJ asking me where I went out for lunch. I think he has hinted within the past two days that he'd like to head out and do lunch errands with me. I said I went to Subway. We then talked about soup and how it would be nice to go to a soup joint.

It's neat how he remembered that I was going to the Genesis concert. When the moocher had stopped by my desk and I actually told him about that for the first time, I'm sure that was a boost to DJ. Maybe he won't have to be insecure about my talking to the moocher more than I do with him these days.

The moocher and I talked about exercise equipment. I told him about seeing those adjustable weighted dumbells that will go on sale this fall at Costco. I want them.

At the end of the day, the sales coordinator, the moocher, the IT guy who jokes that he loves me, and I were talking. The IT guy was saying my name in an odd way, because it ends with the letter y. He did the same thing with the moocher's name. We all looked at him funny. I had to leave. IT guy wanted me to hang out with them, but I couldn't.

I said goodnight to DJ and wished him a great weekend. He told me to have a great time tonight. Pin-drop girl did the same thing. IT guy called me by my regular name. I said that wasn't my name. He then pronounced it in his funny way. I said that was much better. DJ was trying to overhear our conversation.

I walked out with the moocher. He noticed that the president's son (PS) was waiting for me. I wished the moocher a happy birthday's eve. PS then hopped in my car and we drove away.

We went to Kelsey's for dinner. We ordered the deal on getting three appetizers, so we did the spinach and artichoke dip, sweet Korean garlic-flavoured wings, and chicken quesadillas. We also ordered some mini burgers and side salads (he went with Caesar, and I had the Sonoma). There was a bit of food left, but we had polished most of it down nicely.

We left the restaurant at close to 19:00. I drove us down to the Exhibition area. I parked by Fort York and we proceeded to walk to the BMO Field, going into the Direct Energy building to use the washroom facilities along our journey.

I thought it was odd that there were six lines of people trying to get into the stadium, and they all converged into two lanes. Two people were staffing this entrance?! That seemed ridiculous. We then had our bags checked. With PS holding the tickets, he tends to not ask folks where our seats should be. He did that twice. It just shows that he relies too much on my figuring out where to go whenever we go to such an event.

We had floor seats. We managed to purchase t-shirts when we got down there. Sadly, mine did not come in a large, so I had to get an x-large. I now need to hem my shirt. It's a really mini dress when I wear it.

The show started at around 21:00. I'll add my thoughts to what these two reviewers had mentioned. I truly feel it was a better concert than what Canoe.ca had said.

The review of the concert was not great from Canoe.ca:

TORONTO - Nice stage, shame about the performance.

That about sums up the North American launch of British prog-rock veterans Genesis' Turn It On Again reunion tour -- which sees frontman Phil Collins, bassist Mike Rutherford and keyboardist Tony Banks playing together for the first time in 15 years -- that unfolded at BMO Field last night.

Playing on an impressive-looking, enormous stage that featured an LED screen so big you could probably see it from space, the trio -- backed by longtime sidemen Chester Thompson on drums and Daryl Stuermer on guitar -- are solid musicians but not what you'd call dynamic showmen, despite some verging-on-pomp-rock just dying for theatrics.

A restrained Rutherford looked like he could have been smoking a pipe while Banks' dour expression while bent over his keyboards didn't exactly signal a good time.

Collins, meanwhile, alternated between playing drums and taking centre stage, but was a mostly static performer, with the exception of a much needed late show tambourine workout during I Know What I Like.

"How very nice to be back here with you," said Collins. "We're Genesis and we're going to try and entertain you."

It didn't help the show's pacing that the climax came early during Turn It On Again, No Son Of Mine and Land Of Confusion, in the first half-hour of the marathon performance that was scheduled to last two-and-a-half-hours.

Where is original Genesis singer Peter Gabriel, who passed on this latest trek, which was originally going to celebrate the 30th anniversary of The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway, and his wacky stage outfits when you need him?

The group has been in Toronto since last weekend rehearsing for the North American leg of their tour which began back in June in Helsinki.

Still, practice hasn't exactly made them loose and lively performers, far from it.

Infinitely more entertaining to watch were the group of enthusiastic teenage boys accompanied by their hockey coach one row in front of me, whipping off their shirts and twirling them in the air whenever the mood struck.

Otherwise, it was the new soccer stadium's first rock show and some fine tuning is definitely in order given the traffic jams to get into various parking lots, followed by more long lineups to get into the venue.

Still, it was a warm summer night and despite wild winds and ominous looking black clouds, it stayed dry with the exception of a few drops of rain about an hour-and-a- half into the performance.

There was also some beer throwing from the upper stands, which landed on the backs of myself and others, even though we didn't need any cooling off.

Genesis' only other Canadian stops are at Montreal's Stade Olympique on Sept. 14 and Ottawa's Scotiabank Place on Sept.15.

Here's the review from the Toronto Star:

Greying Genesis christens T.O.'s fevered soccer pitch

Sep 08, 2007 04:30 AM

Ben Rayner
Pop Music Critic

If you need a band to christen a stadium, you could do worse than Genesis.

Granted, you could do better, too. The original, slightly less grating – just slightly less grating – Genesis with Peter Gabriel and Steve Hackett holding pompous sway over Phil Collins, Mike Rutherford and Tony Banks's more populist tendencies would be a start. But, hey, at least these three greying British gentlemen have a long history behind them of distracting large groups of people gathered in gargantuan spaces from the general dullness of their collective stage presence and catalogue. And so Toronto's new professional soccer stadium, BMO Field, received its first, perfectly decent endorsement as a major new concert venue last night.

There were some wrinkles, to be sure. Heavy skies no doubt contributed to the simultaneous arrival of some 25,000 rain-wary ticket holders around the show's 8:30 start time, but the facility was sufficiently overwhelmed that it took until nearly 9 before extra entrances were opened to allow the increasingly frustrated hordes inside.

As a result, the reunited, latter-years Genesis wound up being rock 'n' roll enough to blow through the city's standard 11 p.m. curfew by more than half an hour, in order that the fans who've waited 15 full years – and, in many cases, paid in excess of $200 – to hear "Invisible Touch" and "That's All" live again might be sated.

That's about as rock 'n' roll as Genesis gets these days, not counting the shots of Collins, Rutherford and Banks in wilder, more hirsute days that dappled their "Turn It On Again" tour's truly mind-blowing, undulating LED-screen backdrop during the poncey prog-rock expanses of "I Know What I Like" last night.

Wild as the lads might have been during their acid-fried Lamb Lies Down on Broadway days, in 2007 they're an even more staid, white-bread and predictable bunch than they were during their Collins-led march on the Billboard charts during the 1980s. Blame Banks, maybe, for drowning everything in the cheese wrought by his incessantly watercolour, New Age synth pads and dating the material instantly, but whatever edge there might have once been to "Home By the Sea" – sorry, Phil, that song is not "scary," even with the ghoulish faces on the screens – or "Firth of Fifth" is indistinguishable from the anodyne murk of Genesis's big-ticket years.

To the band's credit, "Mama" actually did sound a bit scary, not least because of Collins's grizzled mug making "ha-ha-HAAH" noises in closeup for the cameras. And whatever, "Hold On My Heart" and "Throwing It All Away" were still making 55-year-olds make out on the big screens between chatter about their CostCo expeditions, so due power to the ballads.

The show started off with a melodic selection, as Genesis is great at doing. The screen then showed a number of lights. Soon, a map of the world appeared and Toronto was mapped out. Everyone cheered. The band members came on-stage and played "Turn it on again." The moving "No son of mine" was next. I like that song a lot. It's got just the right amount of emotion and angst.

Phil Collins asked later in the show if there were any "old people, besides us." He talked about how some of them had lost their hair and that their hair colour had changed.

What both reviews had failed to mention is that Phil Collins' voice hasn't changed. He had terrific pitch and he does indeed engage his audience. He was snapping pictures on his digital camera. He told us at one stage to say "Domino," which made him introduce the band's next song. He got the stage right side to cheer, and then the left, then the folks at the back, followed by us in the floor area. It was fun.

Phil bouncing a tambourine off his head was entertaining. He also made Blair Witch faces, had a duelling drum performance, and was having a lot of fun delivering "I can't dance." He said it was such a "silly song."

The guys next to use were smoking weed. I didn't care. I was too busy enjoying the music, hearing Phil change one of the lyrics to "f*cked up," and snapping pictures.

It was a gorgeous night outdoors for a show. I think there needs to be more BMO Field staff for concerts. I had a great time. Too bad Peter Gabriel wasn't there. Still, I'm glad I went.

The show had ended just after 23:30, I believe. We sat there for a bit, to let everyone leave first. We then walked over to my car, visiting the Direct Energy Centre one last time. There were probably three cars left in the lot now.

I drove along King Street to get to the Don Valley Parkway. I then realized that the Toronto Film Festival has just started, so all the bars were open and there were folks all dolled up. I suppose this was the after-movie crowd out.

I got PS home at around 01:00. The security woman at the gate of his condominium was friendly. We wished each other a good evening. I then drove home, arriving at around 01:30.

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Song that's stuck in my head: Genesis' "No son of mine"
Yummy food eaten today: Sonoma salad
What I crave: Sleep

Recent thoughts:
Readings, lights, and random thoughts - 2009-03-15
Thoughts about work, school, and peeps - 2009-03-09
Working from home and a mini life update - 2008-12-19
The weekend is here! - 2008-01-06
A new year - 2008-01-01