There are those who feel that life is sending them heavily coded messages from the ether, the fates, the great beyond. Those people tend to be separated from their money at psychic fairs and the Spirituality and Self-Help section of the local Indigo.

But tonight, dude. Tonight. Your loyal editor was chatting with the delightful Sofi P. and munching on frozen yogourt from White Mountain, strolling up William Street in Kingston. As we reached Wellington, a large object fell from a third-storey roof not ten feet from where we stood. We both stopped, surprised. Then, stunned. The 'object' was a black cat, who then bounded away, apparently unscathed, and finally returned back to the lawn. He had dropped from three limestone storeys - well over thirty feet, tumbling ears-over-tail, and landed both unscathed and apparently unfazed.

Equal parts weirded out and amazed, we turned onto Wellington, and found ourselves looking at a dozen white hooded men in the middle of an empty street, carrying an enormous wooden cross, a large crowd chanting from a semicircle to their left.

Yes. Lucky cat, Greek Orthodox easter. But still. We're deeply weirded out.

We're trying to work out the symbolism. So far, all we can work out is that Jesus totally likes cats.

A certain sign of spring is the tense lineup outside of Jock Harty Arena here in Kingston, as students frantically flip through notes, hoping to digest one last reading before taking a seat at their final exam.

We couldn't help but feel nostalgic. Five of our favourite exam moments:

• Listening to a friend complain about our professor following a particularly difficult exam: "What a dick! What a douchebag!", then turning around to discover that our subject of discussion was walking not three paces behind us.
• Smelling a noxious odour, then being told by a proctor "not to worry" as Physical Plant Services staff wearing gas masks began to poke around in the rafters.
• Writing an exam while deathly ill, then being subject to a proctor suspiciously examining our antibiotics and threatning not to let us bring them in. Perhaps they suspected the use of Theorybutrin®, the first academic performance-enhancing drug. Or, perhaps, that we had etched a term's worth of class notes onto the 1.5mm surface of the pills.
• The engineer, who upon finishing his last exam, pumped his fist in the air and shattered the tense silence, yelling 'Done! Done! I'm outta here, suckas!' while being chased down the aisle by horrified proctors.
• The chemistry student, sitting next to us, who slowly arranged and rearranged her plastic molecular model kit, all the while softly weeping. Crying! For three. Straight. Hours!

We're just about ready to change Optimuscrime to an All-Gushing-Over-Rock-Crew-Shows format. Chris Morris, we adore you for booking the three following amazing summer shows:

10 June: Great Lake Swimmers, Grad Club
24 June: John K. Samson, Grad Club
07 July: Final Fantasy / Dandi Wind, Elixir

Last night was Rock Crew's laptop-rock megashow at the Elixir, with electroacoustic* knob-twiddlers** The Russian Futurists, Junior Boys and Caribou (née Manitoba) sharing a bill.

* It's New Genre Invention Day at Optimuscrime!
** That sounds dirty

Some reflections:

• The Russian Futurists' records are sublime, but their show was marred by some weird missed notes and off-sounding instruments. Charming entertainers, but as homie Jared asked: "How can they have so much awesome gear and still sound bad?"
• Junior Boys: "Hey, Depeche Mode, could you try to sound a bit more detached and antiseptic? Perfect."***
• Caribou: I'm sorry, I'm still collecting the fragments of my head from when it exploded from the radness of the dual-drumkit arrangement and insane A/V setup. Awesome.

*** This is not a bad thing

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On an unrelated political note: Gas tax to the municipalities, half a billion in foreign development assistance, $900 mil for energy retrofits, all while preserving the small business component of the corporate tax rollback? HOLLA. (Also, we love any story whose reference to Harper includes the sentence "the Conservative leader, who began his day finger painting a picture of a tree...")

OC: I've been growing this beard for three weeks and I have like 3mm of growth to show for it. I grow beards like a 13-year old.

Matt: Really? 3mm is like a few days without shaving for me.

OC: Yeah. I don't understand it. I come from a good line of beardos. My dad is all beardy.

Matt: It's the beard gene. It skips a generation.

OC: The beard gene is the toughest of all the genes. It cuts down trees and rides motorcycles.

Matt: If you look at it under a microscope, it looks like a hairball.

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Related:
World Beard Championships