Doors Open Toronto is the city’s annual invitation to discover and explore over 100 buildings of historic, cultural and architectural significance. This weekend (May 26th and 27th), all those places you’ve gone by but never visited, and some you’ve never heard of, welcome the public for the weekend. And it’s all free!

Dork Shelf editor Andrew Parker and I have made Doors Open an annual tradition for the past four years, so he asked me to provide my thoughts on where to go and how to make the most of the weekend. There is way more to do than what I’ve listed here, so be sure to visit the City’s website for the full list.

Jenna’s Top Ten Buildings to Visit

1) Native Child and Family Services – After completing a huge renovation, NCFS headquarters joined Doors Open for the first time last year. The centrepiece is the longhouse on the main floor, a handcrafted space for ceremony and meeting. Make sure to visit the roof, where a sweat lodge is surrounded by gardens growing the four sacred herbs. It is a true oasis.

2) Osgoode Hall – Beyond the fences built to keep out the cows and the inevitable wedding photo shoot lies the Law Society of Upper Canada’s headquarters. The building sprawls through wings and expansions from many years, showing off both legal and architectural history. It’s a lot bigger than it looks and feels like going back in time. Therefore, Osgoode Hall is a Tardis.

3) CAMH Historic Walls – The sections of high brick walls around CAMH are a testament to the memory of the former Provincial Lunatic Asylum’s patients. Their slave labour built the walls and was essential to the operation of the asylum. As CAMH undergoes a huge revitalisation, it’s more important than ever to hear stories from those with mental illness, to remember how far we’ve come and how far we’ve yet to go.

4) Spadina Museum – Casa Loma’s neighbour (pictured above) has been redone to reflect how it would have looked in the 1920s. Once home to one of Toronto’s most prominent families, it is now a City museum with beautiful gardens and an orchard. Be sure to see the basement, where you can learn about archaeological work on the site, and see the layers of previous houses below the present structure.

5) Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library – Ever wonder what’s in the peacock’s head at Robart’s library? It’s this small haven for rare and delicate books. It’s dark, quiet and mysterious, with levels upon levels of shelves around a central podium. From there, you can check out a display of selected items, but you can’t take any home – the stacks are only open to researchers.

6) Artscape Wychwood Barns – I’ve gotta rep my ‘hood! These used to be TTC streetcar barns, but have been transformed into a beautiful space for the arts, events and community gardening. On Sunday, The Stop’s first Beer Garden of the year will welcome Muskoka Cottage Brewery, so visit and relax!

7) Canada‘s National Ballet School – Also recently renovated and expanded to combine both historic buildings and new features, CNBS has both world-class dance facilities and top-notch classroom resources. This is a dance school with science labs that make me salivate. The studios face Jarvis Street with their floor-to-ceiling windows, and there’s a really great upper level patio. It’s beautiful and inspires creativity.

Church of the Redeemer – This is one of the places that best shows why I love Doors Open – it’s a building I went by a million times, admired its exterior (and pondered its juxtaposition with the modern building wrapped around it), but never took a chance to go inside until Doors Open invited me in. It’s small, cosy and beautiful in its simplicity. Go see for yourself.

9) Winter Garden Theatre – After being abandoned in the 1920s, the theatre above the Elgin was practically forgotten about until its restoration in the 1980s. The pastel hues in the leaves and lanterns make for an enchanting atmosphere. Real beech branches were used in the redecoration, meant to evoke the rooftop theatres of the past. I later went to a TIFF screening here and kept getting distracted from the movie by my surroundings.

10) R.C.  Harris Water Treatment Plant – Last year I started my Doors Open by trekking out to the Beach early in the morning while fog surrounded the lake. This is probably one of the most beautiful municipal utility buildings ever, and it’s more famous than you might realise, having been used in a number of movies. Inside the Art Deco structure, you’ll see all sorts of original mechanical fixtures, and learn about how Toronto’s water is kept safe.

Honourable Mentions

• Toronto’s First Post Office
• The Design Exchange, for elegant and gorgeous architecture and the Historic Trading Floor
• The Canada Life Building, for a great view and weather forecasting;

Tips for A Great Doors Open Weekend

• Make a plan! Whether you’re going to try to cram as much in as possible like Andy and I do, or just check out a few places, check the Doors Open website for locations, TTC directions, and opening hours. Not every building is open on both days, and if you go out to Scarborough or Etobicoke you’ll have to account for extra travel time. You don’t have to create elaborate spreadsheets or plot out routes on Google Maps like some people (ahem, me), but it might help! If you’re going all-out, accept that you won’t be able to see everything. There just isn’t enough time in the weekend, so prioritise your interests and have alternate plans. New additions to the program, buildings rarely open to the public, and anywhere with set tour times tend to have lineups, so account for that in your schedule.
• Be prepared. Dress for the weather, bring an umbrella, and pack snacks and plenty of water. Look into getting a TTC day pass (which you can share with a friend) or a weekend Bixi membership, and wear comfortable walking shoes. Don’t forget your camera!
• Be respectful and enthusiastic. Each building will be staffed by volunteers and folks who work, live, play and worship in them. Say hi! Ask questions, take the handouts, and participate in any activities that might be going on. Thank everyone for welcoming you to a place that’s really important to them.
• Have fun! Get your friends together, and revel in all the places and people that make Toronto awesome.

TOJammers working into the night on Day One. (Angela Lau for The Toronto Game Jam)

If you missed it, you can find day one of my TOJam development diary here. Here we go with Day Two.

Saturday, May 12 – Day Two

7:45 am: My alarm goes off. I do a quick Google search for Notepad++ only to discover that it’s not compatible with my Mac, so I restart my laptop in Windows (it’s partitioned) so that I can at least download the software. However, the only other program on the Windows half of my laptop is Magic: The Gathering Tactics, so I’m hoping we’ll be able to find an alternative to Notepad.

I do encounter some minor trouble with the Word document that has my entire game script. For whatever reason, it simply doesn’t want to close. Fortunately, I’ve been saving my work at regular intervals – I emailed it to myself before leaving TOJam last night, so I’m not dwelling on the problem.

9:55 am: I arrive at Day Two of TOJam. Several individuals have brought sleeping bags and pillows and are sprawled out on the floor in corners and between tables. Nobody regards this as unusual.

10:03 am: I open up the Apocalypse Later script and discover that the document only has 950 words – or about half of what I had written yesterday. The file I emailed to myself is similarly lacking in content. Word has apparently been half frozen since around 5:00 pm yesterday and never had the decency to tell me.

Thankfully, the auto-recover function on my computer is amazing. The most recent version of the document – as in, the one that has the full script – pops up alongside the corrupted document when I open Word, so the issue resolves itself before I can even get stressed about it. Which is good, because otherwise there’s a chance that the shards of my laptop would still be embedded in the carpet.

10:15 am: We’re told that team photos are being taken on the sixth floor. They’re on a tight schedule, so this is a one-time only opportunity. Mladen (Stambolija, our team artist) is yet to make an appearance today, leaving David and I to represent for Team Apocalypse Later.

David is rocking the bathrobe that he’s had on for much of the weekend. Since he’s one of the many people sleeping at the venue, he figures that he might as well be comfortable while he codes and I can’t argue with the philosophy.

It looks like an extremely comfortable bathrobe.

10:27 am: There’s finally coffee in the kitchen. While I’m grateful for any form of sugar-free caffeine, the coffee is yet more proof that living in an incomplete school building is somewhat less than ideal. We have only two ordinary 12-cup coffee pots to service our entire gathering and the measuring scoop is a Styrofoam cup with a squiggly line drawn around the outside. Given the inaccurate utensils and the high volume of conscripted baristas, there’s an extreme degree of variance in the quality of the coffee. In most cases it’s too thin for my tastes, but thin coffee is better than no coffee so I readily gulp down several pints of java.

Bagels from St. Lawrence Market provided much-needed chewy sustenance. (Angela Lau for The Toronto Game Jam)

11:02 am: [TOJam volunteer] Alex Bethke announces that bagels have arrived, prompting yet another stampede to the elevators. The rational half of my brain tells me that I should wait a few minutes until the line has withered, but the other half says that I really want a fucking bagel. I end up waiting for 20 minutes, but this morning’s offerings from St. Lawrence Market do not disappoint.

11:30 am: More script writing. Apocalypse Later now has seven key puzzles and Mladen is furiously pixelating everything that my deranged mind can come up with. We’re almost ready to start putting this game together.

12:20 pm: The Apocalypse Later script is complete! I’ll make edits right up until 8:00 pm on Sunday, but I’m nevertheless satisfied with what I have in place.

Writing a game script is unlike anything I’ve tried in my other creative pursuits. That’s primarily a function of choice. In an effort to make our largely linear game as interactive as possible, I’ve constructed lengthy dialogue trees that branch in multiple directions. I’m only creating the illusion of choice – most of the options loop back to the same conclusion – but players expect every button click to lead to something different. The illusion won’t work unless I take the time to write five punch lines to every joke and every path has to be just as engaging as all the others.

Needless to say, that’s proven to be a bit of a struggle. In a play, each line can assume that you’ve seen the one before it and a scene has an internal logic that allows the next line to contextualize your understanding of the previous one. With Apocalypse Later, one line can lead to several different outcomes and all of those options still have to make sense. I think I’ve managed to do that without sacrificing humor, but I won’t have any accurate sense of pace until the game is up and running.

12:31 pm: Our Notepad++ issue rears its head. David wants to convert the entire script into an .xml document and he doesn’t have time to write the code himself. That means that he’s going to have to teach me how to code.

Within half an hour I’ve learned how to create a conversation bubble, move from one sentence to the next, and construct a choice bracket before David severs my lifeline and leaves me to fend for myself in the digital wilderness.

12:57 pm: More coffee.

1:01 pm: Another bagel. They’re out of onion, so I have to settle for sesame.

1:18 pm: I spend the next four hours writing code and – much to my surprise – I’m actually enjoying myself. The task is mechanical, but it’s forced me to confront writing challenges that I never knew existed. For instance, line breaks gain added importance when dialogue must be read in sequence. I’m keeping everything pithy in the hopes that Apocalypse Later will at least have some narrative momentum.

I’m slowly realizing that the toughest task will be infusing our protagonist Gary with enough life to make him recognizable as a character. Traditional media like theatre and film tell stories with live actors who can reproduce human emotion because they are, in fact, human, and can consequently tap into a lifetime of experience.

Games, on the other hand, attempt to recreate those same sensations in an inherently lifeless format, insofar as the computer has absolutely no regard for emotional fidelity. Nothing happens unless I tell Apocalypse Later exactly what to do, and while it’s a bit of a power trip, it makes it frustrating to produce a believably human piece of entertainment.

Eric and Will interview TOJam mastermind Jim McGinley. (Angela Lau for The Toronto Game Jam)

2:40 pm: Yet more coffee.

2:46 pm: One more bagel. My stomach is not grateful.

5:07 pm: The TOJam volunteers wheel across the lobby with several large moving dollies. When they return, the dollies are piled high with Chinese food, catering dishes traversing the building like roving mountains of tin foil and chow mein.

5:25 pm: Once again, Alex Bethke returns to tell us that we may now eat the Chinese food. Against my better judgment, I get a little bit of everything and walk away with a buffet plate piled high with noodles, rice, vegetables, and MSG.

I tell myself that I’ll eat half of it now and save the rest for later, but that proves wishful thinking. I devour the entire plate and send my stomach into paroxysms of agony, although I do manage to grab another cup of coffee before heading back downstairs.

7:51 pm: Dork Shelf boss Will Perkins turns up with a digital recorder. I’ve coded about 75% of the script, so I’m ready for a break.

8:14 pm: Jim McGinley is yet to partake of the Chinese food so our interview gets delayed until 9:15.

8:33 pm: I’ve got some time to kill and I’m in the area so I grab a second helping of coffee and noodles. I wish I could tell you why I thought this was a good idea. My intestinal track is in complete and utter disarray and the constant injections of caffeine and MSG are proving to be equally deleterious to my cognition. I ask Will to sit in on my interview with Jim, partly because I think it will be fun and partly because I no longer trust my brain to form coherent thoughts.

9:15 pm: We track down Jim McGinley and commandeer a small office for our interview. I don’t want to step on my own toes here – we’ll be running the interview in its entirety here on Dork Shelf – but I don’t think I’ve ever had more fun during an interview because Jim is essentially a real-life Emmett Brown. I’ve never met someone who is nicer or more genuinely enthusiastic about everything, so Jim, Will and I happily spend an hour talking about TOJam.

10:03 pm: Jim, Will and I discuss the merits of using Jam games as educational tools to teach the public about the power sets of the various Avengers. Yeah, it was one of those kinds of interviews.

Then again, our conversation is probably indicative of average discussion you can expect to have at TOJam. You’re spending the weekend with hundreds of intelligent and creative people who like to talk about interesting and creative things, and the outlandish chats are one of the more underrated aspects of the event.

10:45 pm: Hackers. Seriously, they’re showing Hackers. I spend the first five minutes quoting dialogue in real time until someone asks me to stop, but I’ve got my own dialogue to code so yield without much protest.

The other viewers are not quite so accommodating. Hackers is basically Rocky Horror for computer nerds (not to be confused with Rocky Horror for Rocky Horror nerds) and the showcase rapidly devolves as thirty people point out all of the ridiculous things that happen in this movie. The running commentary is hilariously brutal, although the consensus seems to be that – despite its flaws – Hackers is phreakin’ entertaining.

10:50 pm: I am writing code while watching Hackers. This is, without question, the coolest meta-moment of my life. My bucket list is one item shorter thanks to my new-found kinship with the proletarian hero Zero Cool.*

A photographer turns the lunch break into a one-man dance break. (Angela Lau for The Toronto Game Jam)

12:45 am: Crap. Crapcrapcrapcrapcrap. Hackers is over, as is the illusion. The lesson: I am totally not elite. I’ve been coding for close to ten hours and David just pointed out that I haven’t closed a single dialogue node since I started. My script won’t work in game as currently structured, so I hunker down for a long night of bug fixing.

Did I mention that I’ve never written code before?

12:47 am: Whew. I still feel like an idiot, but at least I’m consistent with my mistakes. Since I haven’t been closing any nodes, I realize that I can just paste </node> below every dialogue box in Text Edit. I scroll through the entire script and the problem is fixed within 15 minutes.

I’m learning that there’s a unique logic to code. Errors are easy to address as long as you know where they are, and my gaffe proves to be less costly than expected because every instance requires the same solution. I’m not trying to figure out how to make something work, nor am I trying to find an errant backslash in a haystack. I’m just cleaning up some text, which isn’t particularly scary once I know what I’m doing. I once again catch the last subway home and I’m in bed around 2:30 am.

One more day to go. We have a script, all of our artwork, and a hell of a lot of code that I managed to write myself. Maybe, just maybe, I’ll get to feel like a legitimate game developer.

Stay tuned for an action-paced Day Three of TOJam.

*All Hackers references in Apocalypse Later were written prior to Saturday’s viewing of the film. Just for the record.

It’s that time once again! Dork Shelf and our friends over at Entertainment One want to send you and a guest to see A BEGINNER’S GUIDE TO ENDINGS in TORONTO on Monday, May 28th or in VANCOUVER on Thursday, May 31st!

Click here to view the embedded video.

A Beginner’s Guide to Endings is a spectacular ride through the lives of an equally spectacular family and interweaves three stories of miraculous redemption. Duke White (Harvey Keitel), a hard living gambling man who has doomed his three boys to a horrible fate, and when his sons find out that they don’t have much time left to live, they decide to make up for a lifetime of misdeeds in one day. But making up for past mistakes and doing all the things in life that they should’ve isn’’t nearly that simple for the White boys – but then again, the White boys never did take the simple path. Starring Scott Caan, Jason Jones, Paulo Costanzo, Tricia Helfer, J.K. Simmons and the amazing Harvey Keitel.  It will hit theatres in select cities June 1^st.

For your chance to win simply email contest@dorkshelf.com with BEGINNER’S GUIDE and YOUR CITY in the subject line. Please include a mailing address in case you win. (Your name will not be added to any mailing lists.) Please only one entry per household. For additional chances to win, simply like the contest announcement from our Facebook page and/or re-Tweet the announcement from our Twitter! Deadline for entries is 11:59pm on Thursday, May 24th for Toronto and 11:59pm on Sunday May 27th for Vancouver.

Good luck! And as always, stay tuned to Dork Shelf for the latest news, reviews, and more killer contests in the future!

Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the water, here comes Dork Shelf and Alliance Films with another great advance screening contest for you guys! We want to send 15 lucky winners and a guest of their choosing to see an advance screening of PIRANHA 3DD in TORONTO, OTTAWA, and WINNIPEG on Thursday May 31st OR in HALIFAX on Wednesday, May 30th.

Click here to view the embedded video.

After the terror unleashed on Lake Victoria in Piranha 3D, the pre-historic school of blood thirsty piranhas are back. This time, no one is safe from the flesh eating fish as they sink their razor sharp teeth into the visitors of summer’s best attraction, The Big Wet Water Park. Christopher Lloyd (Back to the Future) reprises his role as the eccentric piranha expert with survivor Paul Scheer (The League) and a partially devoured Ving Rhames (Pulp Fiction) back for more fish frenzy. David Hasselhoff trades in the sandy beaches of “Baywatch” to be a celebrity lifeguard at the racy water park. Prepare for double the terror, double the action and double the D’s in this sequel also starring Gary Busey , Katrina Bowden, Danielle Panabaker, Matt Bush, Chris Zylka, and David Koechner.

Piranha 3DD opens in theatres across Canada on Friday, June 1st, but for your chance to see it early, simply email contest@dorkshelf.com with PIRANHA 3DD and YOUR CITY in the subject line. Please only one entry per household. For additional chances to win simply like the contest announcement on our Facebook page and/or re-Tweet the announcement from our Twitter! Deadline for entries is 11:59pm on Monday, May 28th.
Good luck, as always, and don’t forget to stay tuned to Dork Shelf for the latest movie, game, comic, and local music news as well as more wonderful contests and giveaways.

For those of you relaxing in Toronto this fine Victoria Day Weekend we’ve got passes to see your two favourite InnerSPACE hosts at Comedy Bar’s Sunday Night Live this Sunday, May 20th at 9pm. You’ve seen Teddy Wilson and Ajay Fry hosting on the SPACE network, now see them join the Sketchersons to host one of the longest-running sketch comedy shows in Toronto.

Currently in it’s eighth year, Sunday Night Live is the flagship show of Toronto’s Comedy Bar. Modelled after NBC’s SNL, each week The Sketchersons write and perform an all-new show featuring live comedy, a house band, musical guests, and a special guest host. Past Sunday Night Live hosts have included the WWF’s Bret “The Hitman” Hart and Chris Jericho, Kevin Sorbo, Kids In The Hall’s Kevin MacDonald and Scott Thompson, and Whose Line Is It Anyway’s Greg Proops and Colin Mochrie – as well as some of the best comedy talent Toront has to offer. You can catch Sunday Night Live every Sunday night at Comedy Bar (9pm, $10, 945 Bloor St. W, Toronto)

Ajay Fry and Teddy Wilson are the esteemed hosts of SPACE’s flagship show, InnerSPACE – a daily entertainment talk show that covers film, television, video games, technology, comic books, gadgets, and all things genre. InnerSPACE takes its audience behind the velvet rope by giving them VIP access to the people, places, and things inside genre that they’ve grown to love, and airs Monday – Friday at 6E/3P.

For your chance to win, simply email contest@dorkshelf.com with SUNDAY NIGHT LIVE in the subject line. Please only one entry per person/household. For additional chances to win, like the contest announcement on our Facebook page and/or re-Tweet the announcement from our Twitter! Deadline for entries is 11:59pm on Saturday, May 19th.

On Monday, gaming fans lined up in front of electronics and gaming stores to await the midnight launch of Diablo III, Blizzard Entertainment’s latest action role-playing game in the series that kick-started the genre back in 1996. Gamers had been waiting more than 12 years since the last installment descended upon PCs and devoured the lives of millions, so what was another 12 or so hours?

People wait in line outside the Best Buy electronics store at Bay and Dundas Street in downtown Toronto at around 11:00 pm. Many near the front of the line sat patiently in their lawn chairs. The line stretched to the street corner and around the bend, slowly growing south down Bay Street.

Angelo Kiustenglou entered the line at 12 noon, fully dressed as a Necromancer from Diablo II. It’s his first-ever cosplay. Best Buy (and the Future Shop up the street) offered contests exclusive to people who made the effort to show up in costume. Plus, Angelo says, “it’s the one chance I get to stand in the middle of downtown with a suit of golden armour on.”

Angelo’s 15-year-old brother Frankie came dressed as a Barbarian, and spoke entirely “in-character” with a growl and the occasional guttural warcry. As he shouted during our short chat, passersby shouted in reply, and it became an impromptu Waaaagh!-off in the middle of the city.

When asked how the wait had been outside, shirtless no less, he described it as “painful,” although that might have had more to do with his not having the game in his hands yet more than anything.

“And I’m kind of hungry. But, you know, I’m committed here.”

This Demon Hunter was called out of line for photographs almost constantly, thanks to her fantastic costume. In case you were wondering, those are special contact lenses, not camera red-eye.

These two cosplayers were part of Best Buy’s launch party crew, which included people giving away mousepads, posters and energy drinks to those waiting in line.

First in line were Oscar “Cayo” Gonzalez, left, and Tad Yuan. If Cayo looks familiar, that’s because he was at the front of the line at the very same store at the Starcraft II midnight launch in 2010.

While both are die-hard Blizzard fans, Yuan is in line specifically for the $100 Collector’s Edition. “I just want the collector’s edition. I got a Starcraft II collector’s edition, and a WoW [World of Warcraft] collector’s edition.”

“So you’re collecting…collector’s editions?” says Cayo.

“Yeah,” replies Yuan, sheepishly.

Why do they love the Diablo games enough to wait in line for 12 hours? “The replayability, and the random nature of the game,” explains Cayo. “And the loot, man. The loot.”

Best Buy’s entrance was adorned by a display from graphics company AMD, including Diablo III trailers, mousepads, and headsets, along with the Health and Mana-coloured light-boxes.

We’re not sure why DiRT 3 was loaded on the main computer. If they were trying to promote the upcoming DiRT Showdown, it fell on deaf ears.

Outside the Future Shop at Yonge and Dundas Streets, the lineup stretched west past the future site of the Silver Snail comic store, all the way to Gould Street and Ryerson University.

A man on a bike passes by. He asks: “Yo, what’s everyone lining up for?”

“Diablo III!” answers one man.

“Oh, shiit!” the cyclist replies.

Left to right: Shanker, Tyler, Eric, George and their friend Michael (not pictured, holding the fort on the lawn chair behind them) arrived between 6 and 7 am Monday morning to make it to the front of the line. The group works at the same company. They booked off vacation time to wait in line.

They’ve been in line for the entire day, as the store opened and closed for its regular hours. “We were here before the store opened. We watched people walk to work, and then laughed at us when they were walking home from work,” said Tyler, who also plays Starcraft II competitively.

“Blizzard owns us,” said George, on behalf of the entire group of Diablo veterans. “We’ll do anything they say.” They described the plan to come to the midnight launch, including coming in a large enough group to get food while others keep their place in line.

Anton Richter showed up dressed as the archangel Tyrael, including a garb that completely obscured his face and possibly scared the heck out of a few pedestrians.

The 18-year-old was introduced to Diablo II by his father, and his love of the games grew from there. “I’ve just been a fan of Blizzard games for a while, I really like the Diablo games, and I just felt like doing something for this.”

At the new EB Games store closer to Yonge and Queen Streets, the doors were wide open well before midnight. Clerks clocked in the sales ahead of the actual launch. At 12:00 am, those who had already paid needed only to show their receipt, get a stamp and pick up the game.

The two-tiered launch system had worked out for EB in the past. According to several of the associates and supervisors working the midnight event, this allowed them to move roughly 500 copies of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 during its midnight launch last November.

The EB Games store five minutes to midnight. Fans, their receipts in hand, slowly filed to the resigter area for a second time to pick up their copies of Diablo III. They then walked up and down the streets, carrying their bags and purchases proudly.

Of course, had they known the ensuing days would be plagued with server errors and downtime, perhaps some of them might not have made the trek for the launch. But for the moment, it was a coming together of fans and die-hards for the most pre-ordered PC game of all time, and something surely to be remembered.

Below you can read our interview with the trio and find out how Luke Skywalker got involved, how their music would be classified as X-Files, and what kind of hats they wear in this band and all their other bands.

Then go see them celebrate the release of Crayon Wars on June 1 at Sneaky Dee’s.

Dork Shelf: When and how did the band start, and how did you get to where you are now?

Wendy Leung: The long story is that this band is an evolution of my solo work. When i finished my last record I realized the music I was making wasn’t really in line with what I love to listen to. The musicians I was working with were also turning their focus onto other projects so it was a great opportunity to rethink and bring new collaborators on board. I wanted to create songs that focused on vocals and beats so I decided to experiment with drum machines on top of live drums. We were a 4-piece originally; half the songs on Crayon Wars were written with live drums, and the others were completed after our drummer left the band.

DS: Why did you change the name of the band?

WL: I think the music outgrew the name. I’ve always thought us as a band rather than “me with some musicians helping out.” We played as “Wendy Leung” for a couple of years but it was confusing to explain that the name referred to the entire band and not just me as a singer/songwriter. This record also sounds entirely different from my old stuff so it makes sense that it’s its own thing. We threw names back and forth for a long time before landing on one that stuck, which is why the change didn’t happen sooner. Crayon Wars is actually one that we came up with but it sounded more like an album title than a band name to me so we saved it. There are some others that also stuck but for completely the wrong reasons, so we figure one day we’ll make a line of “rejected band name” t-shirts to sell at our merch table…

DS: Can you explain the story behind Crayon Wars and the process of making it?

Owen Norquay: So there was this giant war between the reds and the blues and the leader of the red was named Luke Skywalker and he was a centipede. He fought with a hundred light sabers against his arch nemesis Baby Blue Bear and his tertiary nemesis Large Small Pox in order to save Crayon City. He was destroyed. By Little Sheep-Bird.

Dean Marino: Oh wait, you mean the record?

WL: Crayon Wars (the album) is a collection of songs I wrote both before and after we formed this band. We began recording in Owen’s house with Cameron Harding engineering and finished at Dean’s (now closed) studio, Chemical Sound. Because we were so close to the project we wanted an outside ear for mixing so we reached out to a childhood friend of Owen’s in NYC, Evan Sutton, who specializes in electronic music and sound design. The entire process took about a year and a half; we took our time and put a lot of thought into every little detail along the way, so we’re extremely happy with how it turned out.

DS: How have you developed your sound? How would you classify it?

DM: I would classify it as top secret.

ON: It’s an X-File.

WL: [hums the X-Files theme song]… It’s funny, my songs have always been described as dark and melancholic but I think this is the lightest collection yet. At least the most danceable, anyway. We’re veering back towards the dark side from a sonic perspective though, so stay tuned for that in the next album.

DS: What’s it like being a musician in Toronto?

WL: It’s pretty awesome. There’s so much going on in this city that you could go out every night of the week for months and see a different local band each night. There’s also a great sense of community – bands are really supportive of each other, and sometimes you end up meeting people to start new things with. I think it’s common for musicians in the city to have more than one project on the go.

DS: What’s it like for all three of you being in multiple bands? How do you prioritize? How do each entity’s sounds influence this band?

WL: We get to wear different hats in each of the bands we’re in.

DM: I wear a fedora in my other band – and I shred.

ON: In this band I wear a toupé.

WL: My hat falls off in the other band because I dance so much. Wendy Versus is kind of my baby – I pour my heart and soul into it but I also spend a lot of time managing the logistics, paperwork, etc. I love playing in Papermaps because it’s pure fun, and because it’s such a different genre from what I’m used to it pushes my creative boundaries.

ON: My roles are different in each band – I’m the primary beat-maker in this one but I’m heavily influenced by working with my brother Chris, who writes the beats for Soi Disant.

DM: It’s nice to play different roles in the various projects I’m involved in. It keeps me “fit” musically. I really like playing in Wendy Versus because it allows me to focus on my guitar playing (rather than carrying the whole performance, like in Papermaps). Musically, it’s exciting because I get to explore more atmospheric textures than the more concrete stuff I do in other bands.

DS: Where do you like to play in Toronto?

WL: I think we can all agree that we feel at home at Rancho Relaxo, not because of the venue necessarily but because Two Way Monologues, which puts on most of their shows, has always been supportive of all of our respective musical projects over the years. After that I have to say I quite like The Cameron House. It’s a smaller space but it’s intimate and great for quieter acts.

DM: We’re lucky to live in a city with so many great venues! I think it really comes down to who’s there more than where we are at any given time.

ON: Any place with a stage and a mic!

DS: What other local acts do you like?

WL: Lovely Killbots, who we’re so happy to have playing our album release party! I also love Ketch Harbour Wolves, and Volcano Playground.

DM: Born Ruffians, The Elwins and lately I’ve been excited about a Guelph-based band called From East to Exit.

ON: Little Foot Long Foot, Meanwood, Rock Plaza Central, Orchards.

DS: What’s on your Dork Shelf (movies, books, music, games)?

WL: X-Files, Fringe, The O.C. DVD sets, the Infernal Affairs trilogy, most of Coupland’s fiction, and my Colecovision console with such excellent games as Frogger, Smurfs, and Q-Bert. In iTunes rotation is a lot of electro-pop but on my shelf are vinyl of The National, Florence + The Machine, Jay-Z.

DM: Blade Runner; it’s like a basic course in existentialism and film noir all at once. Also I’d like to own every Stanley Kubrick film. I’m addicted to buying books, including ones by Don DeLillo, Nicholson, Baker, Nick Hornby.

ON: Star Trek: all of the series and movies except Enterprise. I only read non-fiction books ’cause unlike Dean I LIKE FACTS…

DM: I also have a large collection of non-fiction! And I like Tame Impala.

ON: …and I’ve never owned a video game console. That being said I do relax with Tiger Woods Masters Golf on the Wii from time to time. I also never listen to music.

DS: What’s next for Wendy Versus?

WL: We’re releasing Crayon Wars (vinyl and digital) June 1, throwing a party in its honour at Sneaky Dee’s with Lovely Killbots, Mix Chopin, and Patrick Grant. After that we’ve got a NXNE showcase at The Cameron House on June 16, and then we’ll be gearing up for an August tour with Papermaps.

DS: What else should we know about Wendy Versus?

WL: We’re all left-handed, and I think all wear the same size pants.

ON: It’s weird playing in a band where I’m so much older than everybody else.

DM: Uh…yeah. And, we’re actually nice people so you should stop us on the street if you see us.

WL: It’s true!

ON: Free hugs!

Hey there, boys and girls of all ages. What kind of bird are you? Take your time thinking up the answer to that question because the answer plays heavily into our next great contest! Dork Shelf and the wonderful people over at Entertainment One want to send fifteen lucky winners and their guests to see the latest film from Rushmore and The Royal Tennenbaums director Wes Anderson, Moonrise Kingdom, in Toronto on Thursday, May 24th at 7:00pm.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Set on an island off the coast of New England in the summer of 1965, Moonrise Kingdom tells the story of two twelve-year-olds who fall in love, make a secret pact, and run away together into the wilderness. As various authorities try to hunt them down, a violent storm is brewing off-shore — and the peaceful island community is turned upside down in more ways than anyone can handle. Bruce Willis plays the local sheriff. Edward Norton is a Khaki Scout troop leader. Bill Murray and Frances McDormand portray the young girl’s parents. The cast also includes Tilda Swinton, Jason Schwartzman, and Jared Gilman and Kara Hayward as the boy and girl.

For your chance to win, simply email contest@dorkshelf.com with MOONRISE KINGDOM in the subject line. Answer the question “What kind of bird are you?” in the email, and please provide us with a mailing address in case you win. (Your name will not be added to any mailing lists.) Please only one entry per person/household. For additional chances to win, like the contest announcement on our Facebook page and/or re-Tweet the announcement from our Twitter! Deadline for entries is 11:59pm on Sunday, May 20th.

Moonrise Kingdom opens in Toronto on Friday, June 1st, but here’s a couple of clips to whet your appetite. And as always, stay tuned to Dork Shelf for more great contests and giveaways!

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

TOJam organizers address the troops at the 2011 Jam

TCAF may have been crazy, but it’s nothing compared to the encore. TOJam 2012 is currently underway and I’m getting a crash course in game design in one of the most intense creative environments imaginable.

What is TOJam, you ask? TOJam is an annual video game jam organized by Jim and Em McGinley, the co-founders of Big Pants Games and all-around awesome people. The weekend-long event kicks off Friday at 10 AM and lasts until Sunday night at 8 PM, during which time a few dozen teams of varying shapes and sizes are tasked to develop a full video game in accordance with a pre-selected theme.

Since 2012 marks the seventh year of jamming – the event has been ominously dubbed The Sevening – our theme is ironically non-apocalyptic. Specifically, we’ve been told that “The World is NOT Ending,” although I might need to remind myself of that at several points throughout the weekend. I’m a charter member of Team Apocalypse Later, so despite a complete lack of game design or programming experience, I’ll be bunkering down with approximately 400 other individuals for a three-day binge that will (hopefully) culminate with something resembling a video game.

I’m more of a writer than a developer, so I’ll also be chronicling the experience with a development diary to provide my take on the jam from the perspective of a participant rather than a journalist. I make no promises about daily updates – it’s likely that my brain will have turned into silly putty by the middle of the day on Saturday – but I will be tweeting on behalf of Team Apocalypse later so follow me @harry_houdini if you want to play along at home.

Us jammers, meanwhile, will be holed up on the top two floors of the George Brown College School of Design. I wouldn’t recommend making an appearance at ground zero – 400 people can get pretty ripe after three consecutive days of programming – but you will absolutely want to check out a few of the games that emerge during The Sevening. Game jams are founts for crazy games and even crazier ideas – last year’s event brought us the inimitable Sissy’s Magical Ponycorn Adventure – so there’s no telling how inspiration will strike during a weekend on which the world most certainly isn’t coming to an end.

As for me, my full development diary will run on Dork Shelf sometime next week, as will my interview with co-founders Jim and Em McGinley. TOJam has officially begun so stay tuned for more updates from The Sevening.

Be sure to check out some of Dork Shelf’s previous TOJam coverage, including this video feature we produced way back in 2010.

If you’ll indulge me, I find myself in a reflective mood on an unusually nerdy Monday afternoon following three unusually crazy days. It was a very good weekend to be a nerd, and I’m not just talking about The Avengers. In fact, I didn’t even get a chance to see it. I only made it to a fraction of the festivities on a weekend that also included Free Comic Book Day, Star Wars Day, and the Toronto Comics Arts Festival (TCAF) and there are only so many spare hours in a day now that nerd is the new normal.

Take a step back, however, and that last sentence seems patently insane. I can now state without any hint of sarcasm or irony that Joss Whedon is responsible for the biggest box office smash in history ($600M and counting), a suggestion that would have been beyond impossible around the time that Fox was cancelling Firefly. I’m not complaining, but I can’t be the only one who thinks this is all a little absurd.

I’m not going to try figure out how we got here, but I’m thrilled that I’m able to ask the question. After a weekend that brought about such an incredible confluence of general geekery I feel that a brief retrospective is in order.

You see, I spent the majority of my weekend TCAF, which is odd because I’m not particularly invested in the indie comics scene. That’s mostly due to a lack of funds rather than a lack of interest, but I like conventions so I nonetheless found myself at the Toronto Reference Library at Yonge and Bloor for a good chunk of Saturday and Sunday. I saw some stunning prints and picked up a few things for my collection, but I had even more fun catching up with old friends and making new acquaintances. Somewhere along the way, I realized that – more than anything else – I simply enjoy being a part of a crowd that frequents events like TCAF as eagerly as I do.

If you can stomach the occasionally cloying miasma of body odor (some stereotypes are unfortunately true), it’s truly amazing to be able to gather in a public place to share an appreciation for properties that exist outside of the cultural mainstream. TCAF is a showcase for art that wouldn’t otherwise get a lot of attention, but it’s also a place of acceptance, and that may be the weekend’s more enduring legacy.

From the cosplayers gathered outside the Silver Snail for Free Comic Book Day to the of the Comics vs. Games exhibit at the Magic Pony and TCAF, there was entertainment to be had regardless of your preferred flavor of nerd. We shouldn’t take that for granted. In high school I considered myself lucky to be able to play Magic: The Gathering without fear of being bullied, and there are still places in North America where people are ostracized for daring to like things other than football.

Knowing that, it’s doubly important to take a moment to appreciate what we have here in Toronto. Somewhere between play sessions of The Yawhg, my interview with Home creator Benjamin Rivers (coming soon to Dork Shelf), and my questionable attempt to sing “Under the Sea” in front of a room full of witnesses, I began to appreciate how much I love the community that I’ve found in this city. Being a nerd is awesome, but – contrary to the stereotypes of socially awkward loners – it’s even more awesome when we get to share the experience with other nerds.

So maybe I never did get a chance to see The Avengers. That’s a problem that I’m more than happy to address. The movie is still playing, and when a weekend is that crazy sometimes you just have to roll with it and see where life takes you. For me, that was a post-TCAF crowd at a Korean karaoke club on Bloor Street at 3 A.M. on Saturday morning, but the fact that such a day is even possible – that I have to sit down and figure out how to prioritize my nerd hours for any given weekend – is, to my mind, a cultural wealth of riches worth celebrating.

I only hope that I’ll be able to recover in time for another weekend of insanity. TOJam kicks off on Friday, and I can’t wait to sit down with a laptop to keep the party going.

Lucky for you, we’re here to help make it all worth it by pointing you spendthrift nerds in the right direction. Like your personal Comic Book saviour we’ll guide you through the weekend with a complete list of Toronto’s best hot spots and ‘must see’ events.

The Comic Book Lounge

587A College Street (2nd Floor)

Hours: Saturday 12 – 7 PM

You can get your face painted while rubbing shoulders with the likes of local Marvel duo Kathryn and Stuart Immonen, Marvel cover artist Mike Del Mundo, DC artist Marco Rudy and many more! Did I mention you can get your FACE PAINTED!?

And from 7:30 til 11 pm Ty Templeton (Stig’s Inferno, Bigg Time) will be doing his live and interactive ON THE COUCH! So get off your couch and don’t miss out!

The Silver Snail

367 Queen Street West

Hours: Saturday 10 – 7 PM

Patience and a fresh pair of slacks (in the event of unintentional bowel movements) are all you need for this event featuring PHIL NOTO (Buffy, X-Men Origins) who will be signing swag at The Snail! Also performances by Wordburglar and our good friends Nerds with Guitars. TDOT represent!

“Rhyme O’Clock” Wordburglar

Click here to view the embedded video.

“Hero” by Nerds with Guitars

Click here to view the embedded video.

The Beguiling

601 Markham Street

Hours: Saturday 12 – 5 PM

A perfect place to bring the kids with arts and crafts provided by The Burrow Art Centre, How To Draw sessions, story readings and free comics for children UNDER THE AGE OF 13. Featuring Jeremy Tankard illustrator of “Grumpy Bird,” artistic contributor to chickaDEE magazine, Steven Manale and the artist for the “Max Finder Mystery” series by Michael Cho.

One Million Comix

531 Yonge St

Hours: Saturday 11 – 8 PM

Drop by OMC from 12:30 – 1:30 to meet the double threat Raffaele Ienco, writer and artist of the new Image Comic “Epic Kill.” It will be totally epic.

Paradise Comics

3278 Yonge Street

Saturday 10:30 – 6 PM

Come to Paradise Comics and celebrate Free Comic Book Day with local talent Marvin Law. And don’t miss out on MEGA! ULTRA! AWESOME! sales on graphic novels, toys and sweet, sweet comics.

Toronto Comics Art Festival (TCAF)

789 Yonge Street at the Toronto Public Library

Hours: Saturday 9 – 5 PM & Sunday 11 – 5 PM

The  MECCA, the EVEREST, the ZANZIBAR of the weekend has to be the Toronto Comics Art Festival, with so much going on the mere thought of listing it all makes my mind bleed with anticipation. Situated in the heart of downtown Toronto at the Reference Library, this annual comic book convention showcases the very best writers, artists, and publishers in the independent scene. Featuring meet and greets, readings, showcases, panels and gallery shows, there is enough action to keep even the most attention deficit riddled brain occupied for hours.

Honourable Mentions

The Labyrinth (386 Bloor Street West) and Hairy Tarantula Comics and Cards (354 Yonge Street 2nd Floor). Be sure to stop by these and other locations for all things nerd.

Hey hey hey! It’s time for the lovely people of Toronto to saddle up for another great contest from your friends here at Dork Shelf! This time, the wonderful folks over at Entertainment One want to help us send you to an advanced screening of THE SAMARITAN (starring current Avenger and the highest grossing box office draw of all time, Samuel L. Jackson) on Thursday, May 17th at 7:30pm.

Click here to view the embedded video.

In The Samaritan, Jackson plays Foley, a former grifter fresh out of prison and in search of a new life when he gets drawn into a web of intrigue spun by the son of a former partner (Luke Kirby) who comes to him with an offer that sounds too good to fail. Foley reluctantly gets caught up in one final job that he doesn’t want any part of.

For your chance to win, simply email contest@dorkshelf.com with THE SAMARITAN in the subject heading. Please, no multiple entries. For an additional chance to win, like the contest announcement on our Facebook page or re-Tweet the contest announcement on Twitter. Deadline for entries is Tuesday, May 10th at 11:59pm.

Good luck, and as always, stay tuned to Dork Shelf for all the latest news, reviews, and more killer contests.