Pezi Detective

Pezi Detective Continues at New Address

2006-03-14T17:27:00.000-05:00

Hey all,

I've moved. I'm over here now.

Stealing Evergreens from Chocolate Lofts

2006-03-13T12:31:00.000-05:00

A couple of weeks ago I went to a party at the famed Chocolate Lofts on Queen West. A friend and co-worker of Sarah's was having a birthday celebration of epic proportions. I can't imagine actually having a party like this for myself, but I'm sure glad that Salome did. There was a doorman who took your coat and then jumped behind the bar and made you drinks, and the charming owner of Oyster Boy/The Swan came out with a giant box of mixed oysters that Sarah and I gorged ourselves on. I loooove oysters.

One of the side-effects of having a party with a great bartender and a free bar is that everyone in attendance ends up drinking more than they probably should on a school night. Thus, when we finally made our way outside at some time in the wee hours of the morning, we were intoxicated enough that it seemed like a good idea to steal the tree in the planter that was outside the fourth-floor elevator. We were pretty durned proud of ourselves once we successfully snuck out the back door to escape the watchful eye of the night security guard, potted tree in tow, giggling madly and feeling like we'd gotten away with the crime of the century. Even the cab driver on the way home appreciated our efforts enough to not get angry with us for filling his taxi with pine needles.

I realize now that this should have been our first warning that all was not as it seemed. After all, how many people keep potted evergreens in their hallways? And of those who actually do, how many of these trees are dry to the point of shedding all their needles at a moment's notice? But at the time, we were too drunk on the heady satisfaction of committing such a conspiratorial caper to take notice of such details.

Flash forward two weeks to a conversation between Sarah and Salome at work. Sarah is overcome with guilt and decides to confess our crime. Salome, much to Sarah's relief, is not upset. And why should she be? As it turns out, the tree that we stole from outside the elevator on her floor is the Christmas tree that Salome herself had in her apartment over the entire holiday season and that she was too lazy to take out to the garbage, so she dumped it in the hall.

Imagine my surprise when I found out that our prize from that night, the lovely potted pine that Isil* (pictured above) proudly took home and, for all I know, is still displaying on her mantle, the subject of our well-executed, spy-like Mission Impossible to get it out of the building, was...garbage.

That's right. We snuck Salome's garbage out the back door of her fancy loft and took it home as treasure.

* This is the closest to spelling her name that I can get without using strange Turkish symbols. I was also going to include her last name to clarify things, but apparently the closest that we can get to spelling it on a QWERTY keyboard is "Degirmencioglu" and that really doesn't clarify anything.

I want a parrot!

2006-03-10T15:58:00.000-05:00

I love this bird. I want one of my own that I can teach crazy words and sound effects to. Then I can freak out the Jehovah's Witnesses when they come around.

Note: Jehovah's Witnesses never come around anymore. Is it something I said?

Vulva!

2006-03-10T13:53:00.000-05:00

Between this and the boobie post earlier this week, I'm going to earn myself a bad reputation here. Oh well. This is the sort of amazing find that is worth a bad reputation.

Frankly, what with the world being as freaky-deaky as it is, I'd be surprised if this was a new idea, but leave it up to those crazy Germans to take a zany idea like this waaaaay too literally.*

That's right - a group of brilliant German olfactory engineers are marketing a product that literally and intentionally smells like vagina, aptly named Vulva.

I'm not making this up. If you're not at work (or if you have a very understanding boss) you can take a look for yourself, right here (NSFW).

Highlights of this amazing site:

Right off the bat, we get a flash intro with a stylized vagina shooting towards the camera
Next up is the standard warning of explicit material that asks persons under the age of 18 (and persons who do not "enjoy juicy erotic") to leave the site. Note that they seem to have decided that the child-safe header image for this warning page should be an artistically-lit picture of a woman's lower belly and pubic hair.
The header text that follows you through the site claims that Vulva is an "Authentically Natural Vaginal Flavour" - I can't bring myself to delve into the implications of this statement
Press photos in a flash presentation on the site seem to be demonstrating the authenticity of said vaginal flavour by showing a random male audience member smelling a nude model's vagina, close-up, then giving the camera an enthusiastic thumbs-up
Horrifyingly, the site's FAQ promises a male version of this perfume in the near future

* For any Germans who take offense to this statement, how do you explain the popularity of this man:

I think we used to be in a band together, or something.

2006-03-06T09:43:00.000-05:00

Yeah, he celebrates Black History Month in November.

First outdoor entry of 2006

2006-03-05T15:13:00.000-05:00

<gloat>

I know that it's fleeting, since it is only early March, but I would just like to point out that I have been sitting on a picnic bench outside the Linux Caffe (sic) for the last hour, drinking coffee and working on my laptop. That's how nice it is here today.

Take that, Vancouver.

</gloat>

Shock Absorber Bounceometer

2006-03-03T21:32:00.000-05:00

I'm sorry, I saw this over on Chris DiClerico's blog and I couldn't resist trying it out. And now I can't possibly resist letting you try it yourself.

Warning, don't click on this link if you're in a place where you would get in trouble for having cartoon naked breasts bouncing around on your screen.

Giant Banana

2006-03-02T13:34:00.000-05:00

Sometimes I like to give my posts clever names. Other times, a post called Giant Banana is exactly what you would think - a post about the biggest banana that I've ever seen in my life. This post fits into the latter category.

We spent so much time this morning trying to capture on film an accurate depiction of just how big this banana was that Sarah actually ended up being late for work. Hopefully our efforts will not have been in vain.

First we tried a picture of the banana beside a wine bottle. If the peel looks a bit funny, that's because the banana has already been peeled and rewrapped at this point.

Another wine-bottle comparison shot, this one from a lower angle to emphasize the greatness of this gargantuan fruit.

Next, a couple of shots of the banana dwarfing the bowl of cereal that it was originally intended only to garnish.

The banana is cut, allowing us a view of the rare DCP (Dual-Core Phenomenon) contributing to the abnormal size of this amazing specimen.

And finally, the banana is separated into its two halves, each the size of a normal banana.

Behold in all its glory, the Giant Banana!

Rollerskating

2006-03-02T12:57:00.000-05:00

Rollerskating is a lot harder than I'd remembered. I remember hot-dogging it around a rink when I was 12 or 13 to the pumping sounds of Push it by Salt 'n' Pepa, doing my best to impress the older girls at the rink. What I don't remember is that rollerskating is, apparently, quite difficult.

Rajo rassled up the peeps for a trip out to the burbs on Sunday night. He picked that particular time of week because that was the time allotted to the weekly "Adult Skate" where only those old enough to imbibe alcohol legally are allowed inside. Why this is the exact cut-off, I can't say - it's certainly not because you can get beer during that time, lemme tell ya. I couldn't even get a bottle of iced tea - they poured it into a plastic cup, kindergarten-styles.

Anyway, we had naively assumed that the adult skate would be a good time for amateurs like us to come out and enjoy a relaxed night of bumbling around the rink. Not so. It turns out that adults take their Sunday night skate very seriously. These people were pros! The five of us were, I think, the only ones who weren't regulars at the rink, and the mad skillz of some of the older skaters left us absolutely bewildered and intimidated.

I should also point out that none of the ladies who came with us had big enough hair to fit in with the regulars. Remember that touching (yet troubling) love scene in the roller-rink from Monster? Yeah, that's pretty much how this place looked to us. I think that the clothes on our backs were the only things in the building that hadn't been around since at least 1990 - and that includes the nacho cheese sauce at the snack bar, and the vile pitcher of vile Fosters that we had at a vile Mississauga "pub" after we'd had enough skating action.

Next time, we're totally hitting the Family Skate. Maybe that will be more my speed. That way, when I'm showed-up by a hot-dogging 12- or 13-year-old, I'll be able to put him in his place without getting knifed.

Oh, and it was so dark in the rink that this is the only picture that I took that turned out.

Not much of an action shot, but at least Rajo is wearing skates in the picture.

Blendie

2006-03-01T16:52:00.000-05:00

"Blendie is an interactive, sensitive, intelligent, voice controlled blender with a mind of its own. Materials are a 1950’s Osterizer blender altered with custom made hardware and software for sound analysis and motor control."

Link from boingboing.

Influenza Season

2006-03-01T16:30:00.000-05:00

I can't believe how tense this fast and loud game makes me, while still somehow remaining in the territory of "fun."

Does that make me sound old? Anyway, let's see if you can beat 20748.

Snowmobiles, Poker, Chamber-Pot Art and Five-Layer Dip

2006-02-24T14:26:00.000-05:00

Ok ok - I know it's taken me almost a whole week to find time to put this post up, but cut me some slack - I've had a busy week! Also, to make it up to you, I've got pictures galore so you don't even have to read the words if you don't want to.

Sarah and I were entertained by in Dalrymple by Tina (pictured here with her famous five-layer dip), Andrew and the Morton Family over the weekend. We were barely there for 24 hours, but in that time we managed to get in more country fun than we normally get in an entire year.

Tina's dad is the proud owner of no less than two skidoos and a four-wheeler, so the five of us were able to all get onto ridiculously fun two-stoke vehicles all at once to bomb around the sugar bush and swamp behind the Morton Estate.

Amusingly enough, Sarah, a girl who grew up in the city and has never had a good enough reason to get her driver's license, has now spent more time on the road in the driver's seat of a Ski-Doo than she ever has behind the wheel of a car. I took the following picture riding on the back (or bitch, if you will).

Now, you'd be forgiven for thinking that the highlight of a stay at Chateau Morton would be this daytime sampling of outdoor winter fun, but you would be wrong. After dinner and a rousing round of poker, it was next door for a fire and a couple more beers at Tina's grandparents' old place.

This is just a small sampling of the spoon collection that fills the walls. It's amazing. Seriously, it's hard to believe how many spoons there are in neatly arranged wooden cases on every available surface in the place.

Well, every surface except the one occupied by the decorative commode bouquet in the bathroom.

Not that the walls are the only notable decorative feature in the place - it's impossible to overlook the shag carpeting that comes in a different colour in every room in the house.

Forget Mexico - the new winter vacation hotspot is Dalrymple, Ontario.

Congratulations for not being an asshole.

2006-02-24T14:22:00.000-05:00

Ok, maybe I'm just being a bit cynical here, but are Toronto commuters really supposed to be proud of TTC workers who act like any decent human being would...and then get lauded in a poster campaign for it?

You know, I've called for help before when I saw someone in trouble - like when Chris and I saw the poor homeless dude getting the crap kicked out of him at the corner of College and Spadina*, or like when Sarah and I stuck around to help police identify an old guy who'd been having a domestic with a very young girl on the sidewalk outside his house. Does that mean that I get a poster?

No. It means that I don't have to spend the rest of my life feeling like a worthless human being.

Don't get me wrong - I think it's great that gestures of strong community spirit should be recognized and rewarded, and I don't mind my TTC dollars going towards that sort of effort. But a poster patting someone on the back for not just ignoring a man being attacked on the street?

Gimme a freakin' break.

* - I should point out that Chris actually did the phoning here, but I'd like to think that I wouldn't have dropped the ball if I'd been alone.

Living in The Future - Part 2, or maybe 3.

2006-02-24T14:15:00.000-05:00

You know, ten years ago I would have seen this construction crew hoisting an MTV sign onto the Masonic Temple at the corner of Yonge and Davenport, and I may never have given it another thought.

Instead, now I pull out my ever-present digital camera and record the moment, then spend twelve or so seconds of my day searching from Google to find out exactly why this sign was being erected, and then I put it up here so that you can read about it at work.

And now I'm confused - does this count as progess?

Wind storms and bumper cars

2006-02-17T10:20:00.000-05:00

I know that this is just a glorified ad for the Toyota Aygo, and the audio sync is a bit off, but I definitely know now what I want to do for my next birthday.

Best line: "The car is easy to maneuver in a supermarket-car-park-football situation."

Also today, pictures from my neighbourhood after the storm last night.

Now, I fully acknowledge that this is a bit of a mess, and if it was my front yard I'd be more than a bit pissed, but do we really need a police car idling at the bottom of the street to stop people from driving up?

I mean, it's hardly Ice Storm - this is what traffic signs are for. Just put up a "Road Closed" sign and move along. Or - here's a crazy idea - just get out of your cruiser for five minutes and move the offending branches off the road!

I swear, if this happened where I grew up, somebody's mom would have already driven up with her pickup truck and chainsaw and taken this away for firewood.

ARRRRRRRRRRGH!Fuck you, enctype="multipart/form-data"!

2006-02-16T12:05:00.000-05:00

How many times am I going to fall into this trap? How many times am I going to spend an hour troubleshooting the same goddamn problem!?

I can never seem to learn that when you're using an HTML form to upload a file, one needs to include the enctype="multipart/form-data" nonsense in the form header.

Why? Why would they do this to me? Who designed this interface, and where can I find them and KILL THEM?

YEEEEARRRRRRRGH!

I'm angry like this angry little penguin:

...and while I'm less disarmingly cute, I'm just as likely to beak somebody in the face right now.

Nestopia!

2006-02-15T23:32:00.000-05:00

When I lose my job in two weeks because I haven't gotten any work done, I'll have Fatty to blame. He hooked me up the other day with Nestopia, a Nintendo emulator for my Mac (that's right, my work computer is now Nintendo capable).

He also sent me to a aite where you can download pretty much every single game that was ever released on the Nintendo, including my all-time favourite, Super Mario 2.

There are also a lot of games that I've never heard of, like Mini Putt - though, perhaps I haven't heard of it because the customs people took one look at the opening menu of the game and decided that they wouldn't let it into Canada.

Happy Day of the Tine of Valen, as the French would say.

2006-02-14T12:22:00.000-05:00

No, they wouldn't. Well, only if you substitute "the French" with "Mike, after eating too much sugar in the morning." Seriously though, it's not my fault.

After walking Sarah to the subway I got back and noticed that a Post-It Note had been attached to my computer:

After my initial shock wore off and I realized that this was not a note written by a ghostly hand in human blood, but in fact a romantic note written in red puffy paint, I ventured into the bedroom and found this box under my pillow:

...which I then opened to find a huge pile of delicious treats from Harbord Bakery.

Yummy goodness. I don't know what the chocolatey-good things were in the box, but they are super tasty, and apparently chock full of hyperactivity-inducing sugar.

I totally have the best Valentine.

Ravioli!

2006-02-14T12:00:00.000-05:00

Look, look:

Ravioli, made from scratch by yours truly.

And it only took three straight hours of labour in the kitchen!

Today is a day for music

2006-02-10T12:04:00.000-05:00

I don't pay enough attention to Salon these days. This morning I decided to go and check it for the first time in weeks, and voila! I am in love with a new band.* A new band who, despite the fact that they are Secretly Canadian, will likely never make it to Toronto.

Oh, well - I will keep hoping.

* - Well, new to me.

Latest Belle & Sebastian, streaming

2006-02-10T09:49:00.000-05:00

Making this morning a bit sweeter for me is the latest from Belle & Sebastian. You can't download it (at least, not without paying) but the streaming quality is pretty high, and thus far, the album is great.

Just when you thought that razor blades couldn't get more expensive...

2006-02-09T11:38:00.000-05:00

Wow, I can't imagine how much these razor blades are going to cost off the shelf - even without considering the money that they'll need to recoup from the mega-marketing campaign that is just ramping up.

Premise of ad: secret desert labratory...

...run by sexy young female scientist ("Cassandra")...

...whose "stats" are available as part of the advertisement...

...and who just can't wait to show you the amazing advances in razor technology from Gillette -- in the Holosphere, of course.

Is this how razors are sold? Does anyone actually buy this bullshit campaign?

I mean, seriously people - this is a disposable power razor with a beard trimmer included, made more enticing by a fictional character whose biggest turn-off is "Scruff". Next, we'll have ads of topless strippers trying to convince us how it makes so much more sense to throw out entire rechargable shavers just so that we don't have to change the blades.

A prediction: St George Station will be plastered with full-wall Gillette Fusion ads by the end of the week.

Egg Song!

2006-02-08T15:15:00.000-05:00

Any of you who have still not managed to get the Badger Mushroom Snake song out of your head might want to avoid the following link.

Consider yourself warned.

Curling rules!

2006-02-06T10:24:00.000-05:00

I just can't say how much fun I had curling yesterday with all of y'all that made it out. Thanks a ton for a wicked fun birthday - you are the best! And hey - to all of those who couldn't make it out yesterday, it was definitely fun enough to justify a repeat performance. Watch for updates, but maybe we'll head out there the next time the Vancouverites are in town.

Tania sent me a link over the weekend to The Quiet American. It's a super neat idea, sampled soundscapes collected from Vietnam and other locales presenting a form of audio tourism. I have to admit, I find the concept (and the strangely included pictures of huge, cute Pandas) more intriguing than the actual recordings themselves, but all in all it's certainly worth a few minutes of your time.

And last in my morning posting, I bring you proof that while we may not yet live in the future (since I don't yet have my jetpack), we may soon live in a time long, long ago...in a galaxy far, far away.

Update: Thanks to Dave for posting a pile of pictures from curling fun - and doubly thanks for not posting any pictures that show the giant hole that I tore in my crotch on my first shot of the day. I can't tell you how happy I was that I wore my bright orange briefs - so hot.

Someday, these are going to be worth money.

2006-02-01T17:16:00.000-05:00

"Five in a series of five. As the artist's body of work increases, it becomes possible to discern certain trends and habits that will provide an insight into his psyche."

I'm too self-conscious to leave a birthday greeting from myself, to myself at the top of my blog for longer than a few hours

2006-02-01T16:24:00.000-05:00

So here are some random neat things that a million people have no doubt posted to already, but I don't care.

First off, Sarah just sent me a link to a real-life Katamari!

So good! I want one!

From there I killed a few more minutes looking around Craftster which, if you didn't know already, is always rewarding. Seriously, put your machismo aside for a second and check it out - I mean, have YOU ever seen Teen Girl Squad Mittens, complete with graph paper background?

No, I didn't think so.

Also, who doesn't need a Kurt Cobain laptop cover?

And no Crafternoon would be complete without a visit from the plush fold-out fetus, with attached placenta.

Happy birthday to me!

2006-02-01T10:59:00.000-05:00

Once again, Sarah has out-done herself with a delicious and nutritious birthday breakfast of candy eggs and candy fruit.

She also bought me flowers. Girls who buy flowers for boys are the best sort of girls.

Now, it's time to pretend that I'm actually going to find time to do some work today - it's going to be a tight squeeze to get anything done what with my mom and sister coming down to take me out for Dim Sum lunch, and then dinner tonight at Czehoski, winner of the Most Pretentiously Minimal Restaurant Website Award.

Then, this weekend, it's off to curling at the Avonlea Curling Club! If you're reading this and you'll be in Toronto this weekend and I neglected to send you a direct invitation, let me know and I will send you the deets - curling fun for all!

Birthdays rule.

Note: As wonderfully extravagant as it would have been, we didn't actually eat candy for breakfast. A lovely plate of non-candy eggs, non-candy fruit, sausages and pastries was presented as well.

Happy Bubble Wrap Appreciation Day!

2006-01-30T11:53:00.000-05:00

Sarah passed this link on to me, via her boss, Ed. She also arrived to work to find two giant sheets of bubble wrap on her desk. I have thus decided that once Ed retires from his current job, I am going to hire him to come and be my boss.

Kung-fu from Kyla

2006-01-27T14:45:00.000-05:00

Kyla is upset with me for not updating my blog enough, so she's probably not going to be thrilled that I'm posting something that she sent to me.

Also, I'd like to take this moment to thank Tina for getting my hopes up high by sending me an envelope of pictures with a sketch of a wild turkey on the front, while the pictures themselves were completely devoid of wild turkey action.

That said, there were some lovely shots of tiny spoons and the Android in a satin nightgown, so I guess I can't really complain. Maybe if I get my scanner hooked up I will even post them up here later this afternoon.

Well, at least it wasn't that other certainty

2006-01-27T14:16:00.000-05:00

Today I return to a state of legitimacy that I have not been at for years now - I am officially caught up with my taxes. It's a bittersweet sort of day - while I am now clear of the great feeling of dread that has hung over me like a dark cloud for the last two years, I only banished said dark cloud by writing the second biggest cheque that i've ever written in my life.

You know, I like spending money as much as the next person, but it's just no fun to write a huge cheque when you don't get anything in return. I mean, sure, I'm freed from my gigantic debt to the government, but I think that there should be some sort of service provided by my credit union where they send me something nice whenever I write a large enough cheque. It doesn't have to be much, flowers or a box of cookies, or maybe even just a postcard to acknowledge the pain.

E-Day!

2006-01-22T23:47:00.000-05:00

I'm posting this the night before Election Day because, let's face it, not a lot of people are going to read it the night before anyway. Also, I have to get up early to get up to the Paul Summerville (Toronto St Paul's) campaign where I have just come back from. I'm realizing this year that volunteering for a political campaign isn't rocket science - you walk around and hand out leaflets; you photocopy endless amounts of literature; you sort (and sort and sort) and then stuff (and stuff and stuff).

That said, I have never seen a more hard-working dedicated bunch of people - and I'd be lying if I didn't mean Sarah, who I have barely seen this week. I'll only have put two days of work in by the time the polls close tomorrow and I'm already getting an idea of how wearing it can be...I can't imagine how the people who have been doing this straight through for weeks on end or, god forbid, since the election was called last fall.

So when you consider how many 12+ hour days some of these people have put in over the last two months, I hope that you'll take ten minutes out of your day to get out there and vote. I won't lie, I hope that you'll consider voting for the NDP - they've got a better environmental plan than the "Green" Party, and no matter what your friends and the media are telling you, "strategically" voting for the Liberals is a load of hooey. It's a flawed strategy, so please don't show the Liberals that they can scare you into voting for them yet again.

Now get your ass out and vote. It's important.

Posting from Nerd Central

2006-01-20T15:34:00.000-05:00

So my nerdiness has perhaps reached a new level today - I am posting from a cafe at the corner of Harbord and Grace called the LinuxCaffe. That said, I've only been here for ten minutes and I already know that there's no possible way that this will be my last visit. Why, you ask?

1. It's a ten minute walk from my house.
2. They've got a flawlessly clear, free wireless connection.
3. It's full of people, nerds and non-nerds alike.
4. I'm eating a delicious roast beef, goat cheese and sauteed mushroom panini sandwich with a rich, dark coffee - total cost, $6.
5. Most of my clients don't know my cell number, so I don't have to feel bad about screening my calls (it's Friday after all, and that's what voicemail is for).

What a deal - I feel stupid that I haven't been here before.

Just when I was about to give up all hope...

2006-01-20T10:53:00.000-05:00

You know, as a web developer I can do almost all of my work in Dreamweaver. I like to hand-code as much as the next guy and I do scorn fancy GUIs in my everyday tools, but Dreamweaver just works so well as an integrated FTP (well, actually SFTP) manager and code editor that I'd almost entirely given up on other tools.

Until I upgraded my Mac to Tiger. Suddenly, I was having trouble just getting Dreamweaver to run for more than ten minutes without crash-exiting whenever I tried to upload more than a few files at once. Add this to my list of other complaints (lack of support for French characters copied and pasted from Microsoft programs, FTP threads that should have run in the background taking full foreground focus, lack of tabbed windows for multiple open documents, no XHTML tag balancing) and I was doing most of my work in BBEdit and UltraEdit with Transmit and SmartFTP.

Then what do they do? They go and release Studio 8, which includes a version of Dreamweaver that not only fixes the crash bug and improves the snappiness of the GUI, but also FIXES EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THE ABOVE PROBLEMS! This never happens! I don't know if this is a side-effect of being bought out by Adobe, but whatever the hell the reason, I love you all.

Thank you.

So that's what the PC stood for!

2006-01-19T15:30:00.000-05:00

When I went to vote in the advance polls a few days ago, I was far too purpose-driven to read the parts of the ballot that didn't really concern me - I just singled out Olivia Chow's name and put my X in the right spot.

Sarah, on the other hand, while savouring the experience, noticed that there was a candidate for the PC Party. We were both pretty confused, but it looks like the new Progressive Canadian Party has decided to borrow the initials of the former Progressive Conservative Party.

As to whether this will get them enough accidental votes to take a significant amount away from the Conservatives, only time will tell.

Also, I'm leaning on the side of the UBC Election Stock Market with my current election prediction:

If the Liberals don't break into three digits, Fatty owes me a dollar.

Note: this image is dynamic and will update everytime you load it

Robocop, homemade digital cameras

2006-01-19T12:53:00.000-05:00

Sorry for missing a day yesterday and thus breaking my promise to post once a day for two weeks - I'll try to make up for it today.

I've got three bits of coolness recycled from Slashdot's listing today: robot police in South Korea (hello, Robocop), homemade large-format digital cameras (that one is mostly for you, Steve) and a handful of "Lost" episodes of Mythbusters (sea otters playing with ping-pong balls!) - all for you.

Anybody else need a suit?

2006-01-17T13:04:00.000-05:00

Quick quick - I need two friends who need a suit!

Unless these suits are overpriced by 300%, there's a hella bargain to be had.

I just had an awful thought.

2006-01-17T09:58:00.000-05:00

What if some of the animals featured on previously mentioned Cute Overload or Kitten War look so cute and perfectly posed not because they were caught in a perfectly-timed moment of baby-animal cuteness, but because - *gasp* - they're freeze-dried?

Seriously now - I mean, those animals look alive to me. I can't tell the difference.

Update: I've fixed the link to the pet freeze-drying service. Sorry about that.

A simple question

2006-01-16T23:29:00.000-05:00

I know it's late, but I don't want to forget to ask this question tomorrow because it's something that I've never managed to get a good answer for.

The question is, why the hell are the Montreal Canadiens, a hockey team, called the Habs? Is it short for Habitants? If so, why? Is it because they arean't homeless, because they live somewhere? If so that's kinda dumb - it's like if I started a dodgeball team called the Wicked-Awesomes and then nicknamed them the Lives, short for Livesomewheres.

Or maybe it's because of the Habitants that I learned about in history class living on their riverside serfdoms, with long thin stretches of land so that everyone could get access to the river. But if that's the case, you know what a good name for the team would have been? The Habitants, not the Canadiens!

Please, someone, give me a good explanation.

Update: Ok, so it's been 11 hours and I couldn't wait any longer so I looked it up on the internet. Turns out that, yes, they are called the Habs as short for Habitants. I dunno, maybe this makes more sense if you're Francophone.

Dodgeball Bloody Dodgeball

2006-01-16T15:50:00.000-05:00

I can't believe how much I've missed my dodgeball league over the past weeks. We've been between seasons for a holiday break, but tonight it's back to the elementary schools we go.

That means it's once again time to break out the headband, safety glasses and knee socks - and thus time to start fighting the ladies off again. They just can't resist the white knee socks.

Since the Cobra Kai has been disbanded this season, I may find myself tagging along to play with the Lindy Dodgers, a group of people who became friends through their love of the Lindy Hop. This might sound silly to you, and I must admit I find it hard to take it totally seriously too...but Dodgeball is a game of quick coordination and, well, let's just say that I couldn't pull off these moves.

Don't Miss Jann Arden!

2006-01-13T10:08:00.000-05:00

Ticketmaster, you have me pegged so well. I can't imagine what basis you have for thinking that you know my personal taste in music so well, but this is the result of whatever crazy algorithm you're running up there in your hive-mind processor:

Wow, Jann Arden and Styx. I'm so touched that you are considerately making sure that I don't miss these important musical events, I just don't even know what to say.

How did I ever forget to load these musical geniuses onto my new iPod?

Yeah, Chris and I finally broke down and got ourselves a couple of iPod Nanos. I had some tough choices deciding on the 4GB of music that I would put on (I had it filled last night before I even got to "D" in my music library) but now I've got it stacked up and ready to go.

Oh, and if you're wondering why my iPod is orange and brown, it's because I heeded the warnings of all those people who have a class-action lawsuit against Apple because their brand-new toys were scratched to hell the first time they put them in their pockets. Thus, my iPod has a silicone wetsuit. I am considering getting a matching silicone suit for myself.

Ok, maybe not.

In other news, "The Association of Hard Working and Decent People of the Greater Toronto Area" are doing what all sane, decent and hard working people do when confronted with a social problem:

They're calling for Martial Law. You know, last time I checked, I am a hard-working and mostly decent person, but I'm not particularly excited about the idea of martial law. But hey, maybe that's just me.

Also in the realm of poorly advised public postings, we have a Mr Sub advertisement where we are presented with the following questionable message:

"Why save the poor, innocent Tuna when we can eat them in delicious sandwiches?"

Oh, those fucking vegetarians and their non-delicious ideas.

And can someone please point out to the CIBC that a big part of the whole accessibility problem for the visually impaired is that they can't read signs, thus negating the usefulness of this big-ol' sign that's been put up just for their convenience?

Solutions for an ugly lawn

2006-01-12T12:20:00.000-05:00

We have an ugly lawn. In fact, calling what we have a lawn is an insult to lawns everywhere - what we have is a bare patch of dirt where a lawn once lived. Thus, my spring project is going to be figuring out how we're going to landscape the space in front of the house.

Actually, it might become a February project with the weather we've been having lately (I saw police out on their bikes today!) but that is another issue altogether.

Anyway, Sarah sent me this today. I think that she might have been kidding, but I think that it rules. I wonder if we could make it work on our shaded lawn? Only time will tell.

I'm a little bit concerned about the possibility of coming out of the house in the morning to find a random dude asleep on our lawn couch, but maybe we can loan out the couch in return for guarding our lawn from people dumping garbage on it in the middle of the night.

Google Earth for Mac!

2006-01-11T10:59:00.000-05:00

Ok, so this is probably only vaguely interesting to those of you who don't have a Mac (read: almost everyone) but Fatty has just alerted me that an official Mac version of Google Earth has been released. Woot! Now I can spy on all of my friends from the sky without having to fire up my PC laptop.

Also from Fatty (I hope he doesn't mind me scooping him so much today) is a super cool site where interesting world landmarks are found through satellite footage. Also neat is to see what parts of the map are still inaccessible through satellite imagery, like this mysterious giant pile of snow that seems to have landed on top of Area 51, deep in the Nevada Desert:

Maybe I'm wrong, but isn't Uncle Sam making things worse for intelligence types by blanking this bit out? I mean, I doubt if I could really even tell if alien weapons were being tested if I could see the satellite imagery of the facility...but the big blanked-out white space makes me a million times more curious about what is going on out there.

Also, does anyone say "Uncle Sam" anymore or does that just make me sound like an old hippie?

p.s. As an added bit of coolness, pick a random site on the map with Google Earth and zoom right in to street level. Now, slowly zoom out to an eye altitude of 11,000 feet and you've got a half-decent idea of what it looked like when I went skydiving.

Back from the dead, had a good holiday.

2006-01-10T09:59:00.000-05:00

Heya all. Sorry for the long-ish period of inactivity. For all of you who have been just that much more bored at work, I apologize profusely - coming back after the holidays is bad enough without having to deal with your slacker friends who are too lazy to post up to the internet to give you something to read. Thus I hereby promise: I will bring you something new every weekday for at least two weeks. Cross my heart.

I have a whole crapload of random pictures sitting on my camera that I need to do something with, so even though they're mostly out of date and not at all related I'm going to bring them to you now.

Sarah P and Chris came along on a day of fun-packed Christmas shopping (we're going right back to mid-December here) and I took their picture in the subway.

This is what happens when I'm feeling creative - I take pictures of toilets reflected in the glossy bathroom stall divider of the grossest facilities in town (this is in the Lettieri at Queen and Spadina). I don't know why I thought this was a good idea, and I'm sure that the guy who came into the bathroom while I was taking this picture of the bathroom stall was thinking something along the same lines.

The ROM is undergoing a massive renovation right now that will eventually see a large part of its historic exterior covered by a massive crystalline addition. I love it - I think that it's so cool, but it's a pretty harsh contrast.

I live in a pretty calm and stable neighbourhood. Very relaxed and, well, dull. We're totally the evil neighbours with our porch full of garbage and the Christmas tree that time forgot (more on that later). That said, the oddballs that we do have in our neighbourhood really stand out - like this guy who lives down the street and who covered his entire house AND his Dodge Caravan in action figures and bug stickers and other random bits of stuff.

Dupont is my new favourite subway station because it looks like a scene from a sci-fi movie where the hero has to rescue someone from a colony of ants the size of people. Look at that awesome bench - it's molded right out of the wall!

Sorry for the bathrobe/chest hair shot. I just had to show you how lovely our little Christmas morning was with our tree full of presents and the fireplace burning in the corner.

Sarah was struck with a semi-rare case of Bell's Palsy over Christmas (more on that here if you're curious) which was a bit of a downer, for sure, but it gave her the rare ability to sneer like Billy Idol.

Sarah P got two new kittens, Bean and the other one (yet unnamed and pictured here). As far as I know, Sarah is still accepting suggestions for names so fire them in if you've got any good ones (my suggestions were already shot down, apparently "Mr. Farts" is not a good name for a Kitten).

The ever-talented Tracey made me an apron for Christmas, and I love it. This is not the most flattering picture of me, but it's not the apron's fault.

Chris is just tuning his guitar here, but I like the shot because it makes it look like he's rockin' out with Pamela.

Let this be a lesson to all of you - don't forget to water your Christmas tree! We did, and look what happened! This is only a few days after New Year's, but you'd think that it was in our house for months by the state that it's in. After the tree was dragged out, it literally left a pile of needles that was several inches thick in places and that filled half of a garbage bag.

And now that we got it outside, the city won't even pick it up! They came around and picked up every tree on the street but ours. Maybe they thought that we were trying to scam them, that a tree that had lost THAT many needles couldn't possibly be our Christmas tree from this year.

And no, I'm not balding as much as that picture makes it look like. Really.

This is a celebratory picture, taken moments after I almost forgot my camera in a movie theatre where we saw King Kong. I have become convinced that it is not possible to take an unflattering picture of Rajo - he is one good lookin' fella. Though, I do miss the moustache, sorry Ben.

This is just a picture of Sarah. No reason.

Do zombies poo?

2005-12-22T10:54:00.000-05:00

Personally, I don't think that zombies poo. I don't really know what happens to all of the human flesh that is consumed by a busy zombie on the move, but I suspect that this has something to do with the fact that zombies are always barfing up blood.

However, I am certainly not an authority on the subject, so maybe I will be proven wrong.

Sooo....the new black is...white?

2005-12-21T15:39:00.000-05:00

Throw the snacks in the bag and I'm Ghost like Swayze

2005-12-19T13:48:00.000-05:00

I haven't seen Saturday Night Live in ages (partly due to the fact that I am now old and if I'm still awake that late on a Saturday night, I'm out of the house and not watching TV) but after finding this little gem...

...it's true that I'm reconsidering. (Double True!)

Bayonettes, Panties and Japanese Schoolgirls, your Christmas present from Kyla

2005-12-19T13:28:00.000-05:00

I can't take any credit for finding this little tidbit of amazingness but Kyla doesn't have a blog so, once again, I bring you a highlight from her travels around this here Internet.

This is so amazing that I am still about 40% incredulous that it actually exists - a Japanese video game that embodies the absolutely most alien of all of the many zany and alien Japanese concepts that I have ever heard of.

First, it's a one-on-one fighting video game - not so crazy, unless you've just waking up from a 15-year nap.

Secondly and slightly more novel is the fact that the warriors in the game are Japanese schoolgirls - we're getting warmer now, though this has definitely been done before. So what is it that lets this game take the prize?

Up-skirt panty shots. Yes, you heard me - up-skirt panty shots. You can't win a round single in this game without pulling out an old-fashioned camera and sneaking a picture of your opponent's underwear while they are off-guard. And if you have any doubts about how this works, well, just watch the video (don't worry, it's not particularly graphic...though I would say that this whole concept is pretty deeply disturbing and I would hate to be you when your boss catches you watching this at work).

Oh Christmas Tree

2005-12-15T10:54:00.000-05:00

My family has a tradition where, about two weeks before Christmas, we head out into the woods at the Gillespie farm just outside of Orillia on a horse-drawn sled and cut ourselves a Christmas tree. This year, Sarah came along for the trip.

Sadly I forgot the camera in the van so I couldn't get a picture of Sarah while she was cutting it down, but it was awesome, lemme tell ya. Still, I did get a couple shots of her hauling the tree out of the woods.

Also, check out the wicked tree-scrunching machine!

It's funny, when you're out in the woods among the trees that are actually growing in the field, you tend to get a skewed perspective on the size of the tree that you're actually bringing home. Thus, even though we thought we were being quite conservative with our choice (our original goal was a 6-foot tree) we came home with a tree that, to be honest, totally dominates our living room.

Christmas totally rules.

Milk + Sugar = Good, Milk + Salt = Bad

2005-12-15T10:12:00.000-05:00

If I showed you this picture, what would you say is probably in the bowl?

Sugar? It looks like a sugar bowl, doesn't it?

Sadly though, if that's what you thought, you would be wrong. We had Dave and Vanessa over for dinner a little while back and I dropped the salt shaker into the sink full of dishwater right before serving the meal, so this was my improvised salt-delivery system.

Unfortunately for Sarah, she went with your theory; when she woke up this morning and came down to make herself a bowl of cereal she assumed that it was a bowl full of sugar. So you can imagine the surprise and confusion on her face when she ate a mouthful of Life cereal expecting it to extra sugary sweet and, instead, it tasted very, very wrong. Wrong in a salty, milky sort of way.

Lesson of the day: Unknowingly sprinkling just a few teaspoons of salt onto one's breakfast cereal is enough to make one jump up in a panic and run across the room to barf into the kitchen garbage bin.

Gay Narwhals!

2005-12-14T11:31:00.000-05:00

I think that, to me anyway, Narwhals are quickly overtaking Giant Squids as the coolest animals under the sea.

There's an article in the New York Times (via Slashdot) that talks about how a recent discovery has shown the Narwhal's spiralled tusk to be a sensory organ, capable of measuring temperature, pressure and water composition. But this article is so much more than that - it's also chock-full of amazing information about these unicorns of the sea.

For instance, did you know that male Narwhals engage in tusking, where they "...gently rub tusks together"? Combine that with the fact that we now know these tusks to be full of nerve endings that "...undoubtedly produce tactile sensations when the tusk is rubbed or touched, and that these might be interpreted as pleasurable" and you've got yet another example of some serious homoerotic activity, flaunting it nature-style right along with those gay penguins.

Take that, American Family Association!

Since he's too busy crumping to post it himself, I'll take on the Pandora review

2005-12-08T12:52:00.000-05:00

Fatty sent me a link to Pandora last night and I've been intrigued ever since.

Pandora's basis is the Music Genome Project (MGP), an endeavour started in 2000 to try to "capture the essence of music on a fundamental level [by] assembling literally hundreds of musical attributes or "genes" into a very large Music Genome. Taken together these genes capture the unique and magical musical identity of a song - everything from melody, harmony and rhythm, to instrumentation, orchestration, arrangement, lyrics, and of course the rich world of singing and vocal harmony. It's not about what a band looks like, or what genre they supposedly belong to, or about who buys their records - it's about what each individual song sounds like."

Pandora itself is a Flash jukebox (free and ad-supported with registration, but you need to pretend that you're an american) that uses the MGP database to attempt to answer the question: "Ok, I like this band, so what other music will I like?"

Cool idea, but how well does it work? Good question. I'm currently putting it through the paces, but I'm a bit skeptical. For one thing, the jukebox creates a playlist based on a single song or band that you like. It takes an interesting set of criteria to sift for other music - for example, creating a channel based on The White Stripes used the criteria "mild rhythmic syncopation, mixed acoustic and electric instrumentation, a vocal-centric aesthetic and major key tonality" - but I really wonder how much they can base a playlist on one selection. I would be more impressed if it had a more complex personalized preference-learning algorithm.

Anyway, like I said, I'm intrigued and I'm going to give it a bit more time to see what sort of music it dishes out.

Update: So far, my White Stripes playlist has given me The New Pornographers (good), Pilate (not so good), more White Stripes (good, but not exactly a lot of thought involved in tying White Stripes to White Stripes), Drunk Horse (not bad) and Ted Nugent (wtf? Cat Scratch Fever, anyone?).

Interestingly, I have also discovered a feature where I can tell the jukebox that I don't like the current song and it gives me the immensely satisfying reply:

Sorry about that. We'll try something else, and we'll never play that song again on this station

Now that's what I call service! Never again!? I'm going to hold you to that, Pandora.

America's Top Model meets Derelicte

2005-12-07T12:12:00.000-05:00

Why can't Tyra come up with awesome photo shoot ideas like this?

Gingerbread Madness!

2005-12-07T12:07:00.000-05:00

Ok, I've been to enough fall fairs in my life to have seen some pretty awesome gingerbread houses, but a light-up model of London Bridge in gingerbread takes the, er, cake.

So cool.

Note: Sarah has pointed out that this is Tower Bridge, not London Bridge.

Never thought I'd be saying this

2005-12-05T12:06:00.000-05:00

I'm not sure if it was his intention or not but Dave has managed this morning to make me think that maybe...just maybe...I need pay more attention to Madonna.

The Robot Bartender

2005-12-05T11:56:00.000-05:00

A man enters a bar and orders a drink.

The bar has a robot bartender.

The robot serves him a perfectly prepared cocktail, and then asks him,

"What's your IQ?"

The man replies "150" and the robot proceeds to make conversation about global warming factors, quantum physics and spirituality, biomimicry, environmental interconnectedness, string theory, nano-technology, and sexual proclivities.

The customer is very impressed and thinks, "This is really cool."

He decides to test the robot.

He walks out of the bar, turns around, and comes back in for another drink.

Again, the robot serves him the perfectly prepared drink and asks him,

"What's your IQ?"

The man responds, "about a 100."

Immediately the robot starts talking, but this time, about football, NASCAR, baseball, supermodels, favourite fast foods, guns, and women's breasts.

Really impressed, the man leaves the bar and decides to give the robot one more test. He heads out and returns, the robot serves him and asks,

"What's your IQ?"

The man replies, "Er, 50, I think."

And the robot says... real slowly... "So............... ya gonna....

vote... for... the..... Liberals again?"

from Sarah

DEAR SIR/MADAM,

2005-12-05T10:34:00.000-05:00

I GOT YOUR CONTACT FROM INTERNET WHILE I WAS SEARCHING FOR A TRUSTED PARTNER TO BUY AND TO ASSIST ME TO EXPORT MY AU GOLD DUST TO A DESTINATION OF HIS CHOICE

COMMODITY CHARACTERISTICS BELLOW:

COMMODITY : Au Gold Dust
QUANTITY : 500 kilos.
QUALITY : 22 Carats
PURITY : 96% or better
PRICE : 7.500 euros per kilo

CONDITIONS: PARTNER OR BUYER WILL COME DOWN TO GHANA TO CONFIRM AND TEST THE GOODS AND ALSO ASSIST ME FOR OFFICIAL EXPORT OF THE GOODS.I AM READY TO GIVE YOU ANY FURTHER INFORMATION YOU WILL REQUIRE IN THIS TRANSACTION. AWAITING FOR YOUR EARLIEST REPLY.
THANK YOU.
BEST WISHES,

RICH DONKOR
TEL:233 24 3103172
FAX:233 21 221119
E-mail:rich_donkor@fsmail.net
ADDRESS:NO.3 DADE LINK,LABONE,GHANA

---

500 kilos? Wow, he sure hides it well:

Freestyle sucks my blog, Pt. 2

2005-11-30T09:59:00.000-05:00

I hate Freestyle. I hate it. I've got Voodoo dolls in the forms of Cameron Phillips and Kelly Ryan. I'm going to get t-shirts made up with "Bring Back Tetsuro" emblazoned across the chest in Metallica writing.

But most importantly, I've sent angry emails to the producers. And, as it turns out, while it might not make a difference in the programming, at least someone is keeping count, and maybe even reading them.

Our House...

2005-11-29T11:35:00.000-05:00

Is a very very very fine house!

With...er...a hole in the roof that leaks into my office whenever it rains.

Oh well, at least it keeps my busy-body co-workers distracted.

Meet my main man Mikey, the hard drive King!

2005-11-25T13:19:00.000-05:00

As a further reminder of the unfairness of the world, someone likely got paid to make this ad, this, er, pet dryer...but this was probably done as an unpaid labour of love.

Love of Jello, that is.

Note to retailers:

2005-11-25T11:32:00.000-05:00

The millennium was one of the biggest anti-climaxes in the history of the human race. Don't get me wrong, I had a lot of fun that New Years' Eve drinking at a carnival in Cambridge, England waiting for the world to end, but I really was hoping for some sort of chaotic mess to erupt SOMEWHERE in the world. It would have made me feel a lot better for all of the Y2K nonsense that we all tolerated in the news for most of 1999.

So for all of you who named your restaurant, computer software, or giant hamburger combo meal after the changing of the century:

...maybe it's time to pick a new name.

This one's for the nerds.

2005-11-25T11:09:00.000-05:00

Did you miss the joke in the subject? Sorry it was pretty subtle. It's funny that this one's for the nerds because, well, I pretty much cater exclusively to nerds around here. Reading blogs is a nerdy thing to do. Mind you, we have a diverse group of nerds - computer nerds, knitting nerds, celebrity gossip nerds (most of whom are in a state of denial about their nerdiness) - and I really believe in celebrating nerdiness. It's what makes us fun at parties (or at least that's what I keep telling myself).

That said, this one is for that particularly hardcore group of computer nerds - the Linux nerds. The ones who care enough about software that terms like "open source" and "GPL" make them feel all fluttery inside. Everyone else can pretty much stop reading here.

Seriously, stop reading. There's nothing for you here.

Ok, now that we've weeded out the rabble, it's time for a little game. Actually, I'm not at all confident that there is anyone still reading at this point, but I'm excited enough that I'm going to continue anyway.

Here we go. I'm going to show you a picture, and you can try to figure out why it's so exciting. Ready? Here it is:

Did you catch it? It's pretty subtle. We're all about subtlety today. Ok, I'm going to give you a hint. It has to do with one of the visible blue LEDs. Ready to try again? Ok, here we go:

Did you catch it that time? That's right, you guessed it - I have finally (finally!) coerced my SUSE 10.0 laptop into loading the drivers for my usb wireless card at startup! Rejoice! Let's see it one more time, it's so beautiful:

I won't ruin the fun by telling you how long it took me to get this working. But hey, it seems to be the Linux way that if it's not difficult to make it work, then it's not nearly as exciting when it DOES work.

Yet another seasonal posting

2005-11-24T15:45:00.000-05:00

Since it's that time of year where everyone starts cozying into their woolies, it seems like a perfect time to remind all of my readers that:

Just because you can knit it doesn't mean you should knit it.

From Tracey.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Christmas has come early.

2005-11-24T15:03:00.000-05:00

Dear City TV,

Thank you thank you thank you thank you.

I may now forgive you for Making The Band and Making The Band II.

Please, please, just calm down, people.

2005-11-24T09:56:00.000-05:00

The best part of this auction is the line that says:

"All in all, you'll save more than $60 with this bundle!"

Now, I'm pretty good at math so can someone tell me how this deal saves you $60 over the retail price of $400?

Whatever. To all the parents out there who are trying to buy your kids' love with a $2000 US video game system for Christmas: you're doing something wrong. Tell your kids to stop being whiny brats for two months and then, in February, you can calmly walk into Future Shop and pick one off the shelf for the retail price. You won't even have to punch some other whiny brat's father in the face when he tries to grab the last box out of your hands!

Then, put the $1600 that you save into something that will make an appreciable difference in your child's life - like, i don't know, savings towards the $20,000/year tuition that you're going to be paying for them to go to Queen's in 2010. Or if you aren't that patient for the child-love-payoff, buy them $1600 worth of games for their new XBox 360.

And if your kid won't stop crying because you are such a mean parent and you don't love them and everyone else is getting one for Christmas...well, that's your own damn fault for raising a whiny brat. Didn't Willy Wonka teach you anything? Besides, at this rate, with awful selfish little children, how are you ever going to qualify for Extreme Makeover, Home Edition?

Love is the water of your beer.

2005-11-23T13:49:00.000-05:00

I wonder if anyone would trust me to marry them as an officially ordained minister of the Beer Church?

What do you think?

Kyla? Tanya? Anybody? C'mon...they've already got the speech written for me:

"Water is the essence of life, but when water is combined with grains, hops and yeast, the outcome is glorious beer. So too shall be the product of your union. It is an unselfish union between beer’s basic ingredients that makes the finished product truly magical. It is an unselfish union of beer’s ingredients that makes beer truly magnificent. So too will be your marriage. Love is the water of your beer. Trust is the grain that will give your marriage its character and strength. Passion, like hops, will add fragrance and spice to your life together. Your commitment to one another is the yeast that acts as the catalyst to make this glorious union—this metaphysical wonder—possible."

And so on.

UPDATE: Though she isn't actually engaged yet, I've got a confirmed appointment to marry Tina if and when the fateful day of her unholy matrimony arrives. That said, I should add that I had to promise her a line of dancing girls as part of the ceremony - and don't think that there won't be an extra fee for that. Dancing girls don't just grow on trees, you know. They grow on legs.

Blowin' Social Sneezes

2005-11-23T12:04:00.000-05:00

As a long-standing and loyal fan of BSS and pretty much every other Arts + Crafts initiative, I am sad today to realize that Jason Collett is a snob with no sense of humour.

Get off your freakin' high horse, Jason Collett, and maybe you'll be able to enjoy trashy pop music for what it is: it's trashy. That's part of the fun.

Oh, and if you're going to give us a rant about overplayed pop music and frustratingly obvious choices, don't follow it up 14 seconds later with your choice of goddamn Bob Marley.

UPDATE: Ok, today Jason Collett had every chance in the world to redeem himself by saying something intelligent about Wolf Parade. After all, add Broken Social Scene to Wolf Parade and the only missing element of the current Canadian Indie Holy Trinity is The Arcade Fire. Surely Jason Collett must have something to say about a band that is compared to and contrasted with to his own band in every recent review of either album?

Nope, sorry. He hasn't heard the record yet, so he doesn't have an opinion. Great, maybe you can let us know when you have time to catch up with your peers, Jason, and then you can get back to us. Forget the fact that listening to the records on the Playlist is basically his job while he's on the panel, forget the fact that this is arguably the most exciting year for Canadian music in the last decade. He hasn't heard the record yet.

Jackass.

What with all the engagements in the air...

2005-11-22T11:38:00.000-05:00

...I can't help but be moved by the obviously sad story that is lurking beneath this Craigslist posting. He's probably got another posting somewhere where he's looking to barter the services of a tattoo artist for a barely-used tuxedo.

In other news, Sarah came out last night and kicked ass as a ringer for the Cobra Kai. It seems that this might already be the end of her dodgeball career, but I've gotta give her props for coming out and giving it her all. Woot!

Also, I'm conflicted over the National Playlist. Despite obvious problems in format and the lackluster performance of everyone's favourite host, I can't deny being pleased that Amanda Putz's choice of Elliott Brood last week has been helping the record sales of an otherwise un-appreciated Canadian musical marvel.

So here you have it - I am glad that the National Playlist exists and I listen to it every day. That doesn't mean that I'm going to stop bitching about it because it still pisses me off almost every day (Alanis Morrissette? What?) but i concede that it is not without merit.

So magnanimous of me, I know.

The state that we are in

2005-11-21T17:37:00.000-05:00

I can't decide if it makes me more happy or sad to find out that this is one of the most popular sites on the internet.

At least now I've finally got this one out of my head...but at what cost?

Japan Rules

2005-11-17T15:15:00.000-05:00

I want to play the balloon busting game.

Maybe I can start a spin-off league from my Dodgeball team.

Also, if Vanessa and/or Dave ever invite you over for dinner, just say yes - you will thank me for it when you're drinking your fantastic mint julep. They even sent us home with bread pudding leftovers (and the bourbon-chocolate sauce in a separate tupperware...yeowtch, so good)! They probably won't invite us back, though, because Sarah and I both wrote them and thanked them the next day (2 people sending 2 emails each) so they might think that we're a bit desperate and invite someone who plays harder to get next time.

Also, anyone whose phone number I had up until yesterday who wants me to be able to phone them at some point in the future should re-send me their number because I lost my cell phone and its contained phone book in a taxi yesterday. Clean slate time!

On the bright side, my new phone is a flip-phone model so I won't be accidentally calling anyone from my pocket anytime in the near future (sorry, Hilton).

A concession to Sarah, who will hopefully not use this for purposes of Evil.

2005-11-17T10:27:00.000-05:00

So, Sarah is pretty much convinced that her general state of well-being has declined since she started working out and stopped smoking. So, in an attempt to perhaps let her keep at least one nasty habit under her belt without an unhealthy conscience, I give her this tidbit - from the American Heart Association, no less.

And I quote: "According to the American Heart Association, whether high caffeine intake increases the risk of coronary heart disease is still under study, however moderate coffee drinking - 1-2 cups per day - doesn't seem to be harmful."

Woohoo!

Team Pezi Takes Over World

2005-11-15T17:38:00.000-05:00

Or rather, a map of the world.

And by "Takes Over" I mean "Has one lonely pushpin on the".

Somewhere out there...

2005-11-15T16:38:00.000-05:00

...there's a poor soul who hasn't seen me in a looooooong time that got bored and typed my name into Google and now thinks that I've really let myself go.

God Bless America, indeed. Dude, America is what put you in jail. Maybe you should re-examine your loyalties.

Freestyle sucks my blog

2005-11-15T13:37:00.000-05:00

This is probably going to be one of an ongoing series of "I can't believe that Freestyle is really this bad" postings, but whatever, you're going to need to bear with me. After all, I'm not the only one who's upset.

I would just like to point out that Kelly Ryan just introduced Sinead O'Connor as "The woman with the prettiest head in Rock'n'Roll." There are so many things wrong with that statement that I can't even begin to respond.

Maybe this is why they locked you out.

2005-11-14T13:12:00.000-05:00

CBC, what's happening to you?

First you give Jian Ghomeshi another chance to prove his lack of relevant musical knowledge by letting him host yet another 50 Tracks-style show - and could someone please tell me how Percy Sledge and Antony and the Johnsons were beat out by...shudder...Nickelback?

And also, could someone let these people know that, yes, the Arcade Fire are great - in fact, they're amazing, one of my favourite bands - but they maybe don't need to get CBC airtime since they're playing on half the top-40 radio stations in North America (and have been for months)!? Oh, I know, let's get some Broken Social Scene on the list - you haven't played anything from You Forgot it in People for at least 20 minutes.

Then, while I'm still reeling from the senseless morning programming, you sneak up on me in the middle of the Ontario Today call-in and, just as Ed Lawrence's soothing voice is about to bring me back from the edge of the ledge, you slap me in the face with Freestyle. What's Freestyle, you ask? They describe it as "Water Cooler Fodder...at its Finest". I don't even know what that's supposed to mean - isn't water cooler fodder usually uninteresting conversation with people you wouldn't talk to if you didn't work together?

What it actually amounts to in reality it's just random irrelevant bursts of pop music (Bonnie Rait? Sarah McLaughlan?) separated by inane banter (on such clever topics as "what movies make men cry" and "how the omnisexual is replacing the metrosexual").

For real, why do these jackasses think that I care what they have to say? This is AM radio programming that you're forcing onto us, people. AM RADIO!

You know, I didn't think that it would be possible, but it's true:

I actually miss Tetsuro.

Exercise Frozen Beaver

2005-11-09T14:42:00.000-05:00

This article needs no commentary, so I'm just going to give it to you in whole so that you don't need to go to the National Post site

Adrian Humphreys
National Post

Saturday, October 29, 2005

Hans Island, the tiny Arctic island at the centre of Canada's war of words with Denmark over its sovereignty, is so barren that even the rocks used by soldiers to erect an Inukshuk needed to be flown in by helicopter, military documents show.

When a small contingent of the Canadian Forces landed on the island in July on a sovereignty patrol, they also erected a 12-foot pole topped by a metal Canadian flag that had been specially designed and built at a cost of almost $2,000.

Details of the secret three-hour mission -- code-named Exercise Frozen Beaver -- are contained in internal military documents and photographs obtained by the National Post.

The visit on July 13 was followed by a second unannounced visit, one that brought Bill Graham, the Minister of National Defence, to the island on July 20 to pose for photographs in front of the flag.

The erection of the Inukshuk, a traditional Inuit landmark built by piling stones, is a curiosity.

The military claims there was nothing special about placing an Inukshuk on the island, even one that is hastily caulked together and fixed with an engraved plaque declaring: "O Canada, We Stand On Guard For Thee."

"While on Hans Island, CF personnel erected a flag pole and raised the Canadian flag. They also built an Inukshuk, which is normally done on these types of Ranger patrols," says the Canadian Forces Media Lines on the visit. (Media lines are officially prepared cue cards used by officials when speaking with reporters.)

However, Inukshuks have not been a part of previous sovereignty patrols and there appear to be no records of other Inukshuks being constructed on earlier missions.

The engraved plaque bears the date July 12, 2005, but officials say the mission took place July 13. Presumably weather delayed arrival by a day.

The Inukshuk is unusual for other reasons as well.

The first item on the Frozen Beaver mission timetable was for Rangers to "select rocks for Inukshuk in Eureka and transport to site." Eureka is a northern weather station.

It estimates the rocks would weigh about 300 pounds, a serious matter for delicate helicopter flights in the Arctic: "Air support load limitation a key factor," the document cautions.

Three soldiers were to spend an hour collecting rocks of an appropriate size and shape.

After flying from Eureka to Hans Island, an hour was set aside for two Canadian Rangers to erect the Inukshuk while two others filled the metal base of the flag pole with stones to weigh it down. The Rangers are a largely aboriginal military unit.

The flag-raising was to take five members of the ground mission 30 minutes, with one person slipping away near the end to capture it on film.

After 15 minutes of packing and cleanup, the soldiers again took to the air in their helicopter, making a final pass of the island to take pictures of the flag and Inukshuk before leaving.

Like the Inukshuk, the flag left behind is unique, designed for the mission and constructed and assembled in secrecy.

The idea was to erect a flag that would always be unfurled, similar to the U.S. flags left behind on the moon. Making it from metal was seen as a way of ensuring it did not deteriorate in the high winds.

Photos of the visit show Hans Island to be a desolate rock devoid of foliage.

A small wooden and windowless hut containing a cot, portable stove, cooking pots, maps and other supplies was found there.

The hut is marked on the outside with the words "Tulugaq '88."

Tulugaq is the name of a Danish Navy arctic patrol cutter. In 1988, the ship took a Danish crew to Hans Island. Danish warships have made almost annual stops on the island, which they claim as their sovereign territory, a claim contested by Canada.

Denmark suspended a planned visit to Hans Island by HDMS Tulugaq this summer to avoid additional diplomatic tensions.

Also photographed on the island was a wooden outhouse, likely one of the world's most northerly outdoor toilets. It lies on its side, housing planks of wood. Nearby, what appears to be 12 rusting oil drums and six gas cylinders lie on the ground.

The Canadian military visits may have caught the Danes off guard, but they have since checked on the Canadian monuments and found the metal flag design was not effective.

Danish Foreign Minister Per Stig Moller told a Danish government committee shortly after Exercise Frozen Beaver that the Canadian flag had already been flattened by harsh winds.

"How do I know that? We're monitoring the island, of course. It's a part of Danish territory," he was quoted as saying.

OPERATION FROZEN BEAVER

POLE: $1,500

Specially designed and built to detach into three sections, allowing it to fit in a helicopter before assembly on Hans Island. It is bolted into a square base of thick steel and, when erect, stands about four metres high. One hour was set aside for two soldiers to assemble the pole and flag on the island. It took another hour for three soldiers to load the base with stones to weigh it down. Another 30 minutes were scheduled to raise the flag slowly while being photographed. Made by a Yellowknife welding company for $1,500.

FLAG : $401.56

Made of a metal sheet 1/8-inch thick, 48 inches long and 24 inches high, according to schematic diagrams obtained by the Post. The Maple Leaf image appears on both sides. Flag stencil cost $401.56.

PERSONNEL

Documents refer only to five soldiers being involved in the ground operation -- two Rangers, a Ranger commander, a mission commander and a photo technician. Some photos, however, show at least eight people at the flag raising. Presumably the helicopter crew accounts for the discrepancy.

PLAQUE: $98

Engraved in English, French and Inuktitut, the plaque was made by a Yellowknife jeweller for $98. It declares: "Erected by members of CFNA HQ, 1 CRPG, 440 and 438 Sqns, [the four military units involved in 'Exercise Frozen Beaver'] on July 12, 2005; 'O Canada, We Stand on Guard for Thee.' " The mission actually took place on July 13.

INUKSHUK

Built by two members of the Canadian Rangers, a largely aboriginal military unit, from stones flown to the island. One hour was set aside for its construction; another hour for three Rangers to first hunt for rocks in Eureka.

THE ISLAND

Hans Island, located between Canada's Ellesmere Island and Greenland, which is Danish, is claimed as sovereign territory by both nations. The barren rock is about one kilometre in diameter, with a cliff on its south end. Negotiations over its sovereignty are ongoing.

© National Post 2005

Via Inuit and Native Art Bulletin.

An open letter to the heads of the federal opposition parties:

2005-11-08T17:20:00.000-05:00

Hey jerks: an election over Christmas is a stupid and mean idea.

Just wait one more freakin' month.

Please.

I really, really want to have Christmas this year.

Tie me to a chair, house music will blare...

2005-11-08T17:02:00.000-05:00

Coming to you today from the land of awesome: fighting pirates with high-power smoke alarms.

Woot! Green power! Woot!

2005-11-08T10:33:00.000-05:00

Two articles have come to my attention through Slashdot in the last couple of days.

The first is one of those stories that you really, really want to believe about the wonders of science: random inventor breaks the currently believed laws of quantum mechanics to produce a super-efficient power generation source that runs on water. If it sounds too good to be true, that's because it probably is. Don't get me wrong - it would be a rather amazing turn of events for our planet if this guy turns out to be right and I will be the first to run down the street screaming for joy...but I am skeptical. I suppose that only time will tell with this one.

The second, on the other hand, is the sort of story that makes you feel stupid for not having thought of it first. The question: how do we deal with the giant scale and environmental problems of installing giant traditional wind turbines? It turns out that the answer is probably as simple as turning it on its side and making them smaller.

Well, duh. Sounds too good to be true, right?

Except that it really does seem to work...really well.

Damn, science is cool.

Kevin, my man.

2005-11-04T14:24:00.000-05:00

Despite numerous gaping flaws in your personality and personal history, you somehow managed to pull off the career move of the decade when you married Britney. Now, if you know what's good for you, you'll keep your head low and not do anything too worthy of attention. Maybe then the "Pavarottis" will stop paying attention to you and Britney will never figure out what a jackass you really are.

What's that? You want to be a "rapper"? Great dude, why don't you just bring the fam to karaoke this Thursday night and get it out of your system.

What? You want to put out an album this year? No man, no...slow down here and think about...

WHAT? Britney is signed on to manage your career and you've got two songs written? Have you never heard what they say about mixing business with pleasure?

No, that's not what they say...never mind. No no no, stop now...please, just take a deep breath and think about this, think about your son.

No, your new son. With Britney.

Oh christ. You've recorded a track. Well, what does Britney think of it?

Oh, dude, that's too bad...I mean, she's your manager AND your wife, and she's telling people that your new track isn't so hot? That's got to hurt. Well, at least you can just bury it before anyone else hears it.

Excuse me? You wanted a second opinion on it so you released it on the internet? Christ man, why didn't you just call me? I could have given you a second opinion! Wait, let me listen to it, maybe it's not as bad as they say.

Oh. Oh, man, I must have grabbed the wrong link - this sounds like Vanilla Ice. It's so bad, hah, I almost though that...

Oh, this is it? Are you sure? Oh, man.

Um, yeah. I've gotta go, Kevin. I forgot, I've got to get my laundry out of the dryer. I'll, um, talk to you later. No, I can't make it to karaoke on Thursday - I'm gonna be pretty busy for a few weeks. But I'll call you soon, promise.

Uh, sure, whatever - peace out to you too, bro.

I can't believe he stayed on the line...

2005-11-02T09:40:00.000-05:00

The only real problem with this clip is that it pretty much forces you to laugh along with Roger, Rick and Marilyn.

Shudder.

Peter Gabriel = Romance

2005-11-01T14:02:00.000-05:00

If you've ever thought to yourself, "Hey, what would The Shining be like if it was re-conceived as a RomCom?" or "James Cameron totally missed the mark when he turned Titanic into a love story!" then today is your day.

Here, here and here.

Via Tina, via her brother Colin in Vancouver.

"They aren't talking because they're dead, stupid."

2005-11-01T10:36:00.000-05:00

Sarah and I had a great night last night scaring the pants off* the neighbourhood children whilst promoting chocolate-based tooth decay.

We didn't get a chance to check out the competition in the neighbourhood, but I'd say from the turnout that we got (well over 200 kids!) and the positive reaction of even the most jaded trick-or-treaters that we were at least in the running for the best house on the street.

Highlights of the night included:
- Sarah giving an infant her first Hallowe'en candy, ever (and the little girl was dressed as Calamity Jane!)
- Having a frightened kid decide that we were silent because we were dead (duh) and then getting freaked out and offering Sarah his whole bag of candy if she would just say something
- Jumping out at a small child with candy in my hands and having him yell and whack me in the shin with his sword

Next year, you'd better look out. We're just getting started.

* No, we didn't actually scare the pants off any of the neighbourhood children. That would just make us entirely the wrong type of "scary neighbours" (though we were drinking beer while we gave out candy...hopefully that hasn't put us in ill repute).

Briscoe needs YOUR love.

2005-11-01T10:16:00.000-05:00

Her picture hasn't been approved yet as of 10:12 AM EST, but once it is you'll be able to see our kitten Briscoe here and, if you wish, bring her to battle with kittens across the Internet.

Oh, and Logan: I didn't put Briscoe up today because I think that she's cuter - only because she's a black cat and, well, 'tis the season. And your picture is, frankly, a bit blurry. But you're cute too, so I'll put you up here.

It's amazing what you can do with bunnies in 30 seconds.

2005-10-31T11:39:00.000-05:00

From Tina.

If you haven't seen this yet, consider it my Hallowe'en present to you. Yeah, I know, I'm cheaping out this year on the Hallowe'en present (I didn't make it, don't own it and didn't even find it myself) but you'll forget all about that when you're peeing yourself laughing at the bunny ears tied onto Alien's head.

Hey, who are you anyway?

2005-10-31T11:31:00.000-05:00

I swear to god, I didn't even anticipate this happening and I wouldn't bring it up and reopen old wounds...except that I need to. Sorry, Lindsay.

So we had a Hallowe'en party on Saturday night. Fun was had by all, and those who did show up to our last minute party (I sent out the invitation on Friday afternoon) went all out, to say the least (Derek as Bjork in that swan dress was probably the people's choice but honourable mention goes to, well, everybody). Sadly, almost all of my pictures were on Polaroid, so unless I get a burst of energy and spare time to scan them in, you'll have to come and visit if you want to see them.

My costume started as the fourth member of Dee-lite...then it turned into some dude who didn't make the final cut for Arrested Development (the band, not the show...sheesh). To be fair, it probably wasn't very obvious exactly what I was. That said, when you take to the streets you don't have time to explain such things so I got a lot of guesses (mostly "Elton John").

Then, at 2 in the morning on Bloor Street, a rather intoxicated woman standing outside Clinton's came up with my favourite guess of the night:

"Hey, I got it! You're that guy in Moxy Fruvous!"

Sorry Jian - don't shoot the messenger.

In the interests of getting one more post in this afternoon...

2005-10-28T16:04:00.000-04:00

I have to admit, I don't know what I'm going to do with it yet, but when I found this little gem last night on the way home, sticking out of a pile of "free stuff" at the end of a neighbour's driveway:

I just knew that I needed to bring it home. I have been having nightmares about it ever since, but it will all be worth it when Chris finds it hidden in his sheets.

They're close, I have to admit.

2005-10-28T15:50:00.000-04:00

It's close, but none of the jobs on this list beat the job that my friend's ex-girlfriend had in a lab at Queen's (you get no names, it's that bad).

I won't get into details, but let's just say that she had to collect semen samples from water-deprived monkeys (and no, there's no machine that does that for you).

Man, I need to post something else before the end of the day so that this doesn't sit on the top of my blog all weekend. I DO have a standard to maintain, after all.

My new favourite Icelander.

2005-10-27T16:14:00.000-04:00

So you maybe have noticed the name Mugison in the "What I'm listening to" column on the right side of this page (unless you're reading this in syndication, in which case you have no idea what I'm talking about). My confession to you is that I don't own a Mugison album, but in fact I've been listening to three tracks that I downloaded over and over again. I can't get him out of my brain.

Now, I am an ethical music poacher. If I find that I'm paying any reasonable amount of attention to an artist that I've downloaded for free (or "stolen", if you will) then I go out and buy an album or a concert ticket and support that artist as directly as I can. So once I'd decided that I needed to own some Mugison, I went straight to the source and ordered his latest album - and only major international release to date - mugimama is this monkeymusic? from his Icelandic website.

That was two months ago. In the last few weeks, I'd been questioning my choice to order a CD from Iceland that was likely available at Soundscapes, the local hipster record store that's a 10 minute bike ride from my front door. Now that the parcel has arrived, I can't tell you how happy I am that I decided to go to the source.

For one thing, I have never recieved mail from Iceland before.

Getting an envelope with a "101 Reykjavik" postmark was more than worth the price of international shipping.

For another thing, he has thrown a free extra CD into the parcel - his 2003 release, lonely mountain.

And not only that, but it's in a neat little hand-sewn (yes, sewn) CD case that he has drawn little cartoons on and signed "Cheers mister M, Tack, Mugison" (I don't know what Tack means, either it's an Icelandic word or his writing is just about unreadable).

On with the renovations.

2005-10-26T15:16:00.000-04:00

So today we're having our roof replaced for the second time in as many months (don't ask - I really can't tell you how dissapointed I am with the competency of contractors in Toronto).

Thankfully the latest batch of roofers seems to be a quite competent and cheerful bunch (knock on wood) but that doesn't make it much less scary when you peek out from inside the attic and see this:

then this, towards the back of the house:

and this, at the peak in the roof:

If nothing else, though, the natural light makes the space up there seem a LOT bigger.

Yet another fuel-cell car that will save the world.

2005-10-25T10:38:00.000-04:00

This one runs on zinc or aluminum, which kinda blows my mind.

Chris, does this make any sense at all? Can you actually get a reasonable surplus of energy out of a hydrogen fuel cell while you're using some of that energy to extract hydrogen from pure zinc?

Also, isn't getting the zinc into a pure fuel form in the first place a fairly energy-intensive operation? I'm assuming that the "Power Plant" in the bottom-left corner of this image doesn't just run on the power of love.

Garlic Farming!

2005-10-24T14:45:00.000-04:00

When I was in Kingston this weekend Tracey and Paul took me up to Marble Rock on Saturday. Marble Rock is a budding co-housing community on a beautiful wooded property north of Gananoque; we went up there to do some late-season garlic and strawberry bush planting on a great little shared garden they've got up there.

You can get the full photo set here.

You can see Jess and Spencer's love shack in the back there. It's cozy, to say the least.

After we'd hacked around the old-fashioned way for a bit, Peter showed up with the power tools...though Kate looks less than impressed with his technology.

I'm wicked excited that I got to bring a bag of tomatillos home that had just been harvested from the garden, but I'm a bit sad that I don't have a pumpkin like this one:

Dog Bags and Emergency Exits

2005-10-24T14:18:00.000-04:00

I wrote this on the bus enroute to Kingston on Friday night. I had nothing to write on but the back cover of a Harper's Magazine so I'm transcribing it now. As an interesting addendum, said magazine tells me that redheads need an average of 19% more anesthetic than everyone else on the planet. That has nothing to do with this entry, I just though that it was a neato fact.

I missed my train, so now I'm taking the bus. I haven't taken the bus in a long time; probably since the last time I missed the train.

It used to be that, with my student discount, I could travel round-trip Kingston to Toronto for $55. Now that I'm living post-student-discount it's $55 each way. Blarg.

That said, there are some significant improvements that have been made. The seats have been redesigned to include knee-dents, presumably for the sake of the long-legged like me. and though it may just be a side-effect of new upholstry, the bus somehow smells much better. I wouldn't go so far as to say it smells good...but it's an improvement.

But the thing about the bus is that, for better or worse, you get the crazies. You know, the ones that are scared away by the brightness and cleanliness of trains. The ones who see nothing at all wrong with unwrapping tuna or egg salad sandwiches in small, enclosed spaces with 50 strangers. The ones who, like my current travelling companion, sneak their dog onto the bus inside a MEC backpack that should, by all rights, be carrying nothing but gym clothes or textbooks.

I literally shudder to think why the dog's owner seems to be keeping handy a large handful of empty plastic shopping bags. I guess we'll cross that bridge when we get to it.

I just hope that the bus doesn't roll over or catch fire or undergo any other catastrophe that requires me to exit via the emergency exit, because thanks to this clever little sign I'll have absolutely no idea what to do:

And while we're on the topic of indecipherable signs, when I get to Kingston I'll have to remember to take a picture of the weird spaceman outside the Armoury. Maybe someone can help me with my nine-year search for an interpretation.

Note: I did remember to take a picture of the sign when I got to Kingston, so here it is in context and close-up, sadly a bit obscured by the flash:

Which founding member of the Justice League are you?

2005-10-24T12:51:00.000-04:00

Green Lantern

You are Green Lantern. A strong sense of duty and honor accompany your desire to achieve justice.

Click Here to Take This Quiz
Brought to you by YouThink.com quizzes and personality tests.

Woot!

(via Atomic Ant)

Children in the streets, begging for treats.

2005-10-24T12:22:00.000-04:00

I laughed out loud when Sarah brought home the cd single last week, but now I can't stop watching the video.

And if you have no idea what I'm talking about, it's all here.

(via Stereo Gum)

And on the 103rd Day He Said: "Let there be Heat"

2005-10-21T16:39:00.000-04:00

And there was Heat, and the people rejoiced and praised Him by name: "Moffat".

I wonder if I can now add "furnace repair guy" to my resume.

Incidentally, I just noticed today how our furnace matches our vintage kitchen theme.

Sadly, having a furnace from the 60s isn't as desirable as having a matching flour tin, sugar tin and bread box from the 60s.

It's a special time of year...

2005-10-19T15:30:00.000-04:00

I'd like to hereby wish Tina a happy one-week anniversary of the beginning of Yom Kippur.

Woot! It's your day, Tina!

Ants look even smaller than people who look like ants when you're about to skydive (...formerly "Holy crapola.")

2005-10-17T17:20:00.000-04:00

I'm trying to think of a good exclamation for the title of this posting and, while I don't think that "Holy Crapola" does justice to the fun that skydiving has (unsurprisingly) proved to be, I can't come up with anything better without resorting to cuss words.

Maybe a Robin-type exclamation - something along the lines of "Holy Flying Fishmongers, Batman!" would be more suitable, especially given that one of my co-skydivers was none other than Robin Hamilton.

And now, to answer your questions:

Yes, it was as fun as a I thought it would be. More so, actually.

Yes, I was nervous. I would actually go so far as to say scared, or maybe even terrified. When they opened the door to the plane, I totally lost my cool and, well, let's just say that it's a good thing that I went pee before we took off.

Yes, Tina was upset that I convinced her boyfriend Andrew that he should go skydiving.

Yes, I have more pictures, but they're all taken from the ground so they're mostly pictures of tiny specks in the sky...and then parachutes landing on the ground (it all happens pretty quickly). However, I also had a head-cam videographer following me down, so as soon as I can get the tape converted to digital I'll put it up here.

Yes, I will be going again...and yes you should come with me next time. It's not cheap, but it's worth it.

Damn you, The Wind!

2005-10-15T18:40:00.000-04:00

Ok, so though I am alive and that is good reason to celebrate, it's not because I survived skydiving - it's because I couldn't go skydiving due to crappy weather. Turns out the weather WAS good enough, though, to drive two hours to the drop zone (I would say airport, but it's more of a farm with airplanes) and wait for five hours for the weather to clear before finally being sent by the pilot on my two hour drive home in the rain, on my motorcycle.

Boo.

Disappointment aside, two good things came from this "adventure":

This picture of a sign whose title is just so awesome. Halloo? Sorry, I can't hear you. You're a sign. I could read you if I wanted to, but I'm not convinced that any information that I take from you should now be trusted.

A rescheduled flight time for next Tuesday morning, which is reason enough for me to take a morning off work. Skydiving whilst playing hooky from work is like getting your cake and eating it too...and then having a crazy rich man spot you eating the cake, recognize your incredible natural talent and hire you for a million dollars to come to his house to eat millionaire cake.

A poor choice in time management.

2005-10-15T00:38:00.000-04:00

So I come home early from an excellent reading by Mr Matthew Fox from his recently published collection of short stories, Cities of Weather, ostensibly because the fact that I will be hurtling myself out of a moving airplane tomorrow morning begs a reasonably early night to bed.

And then what do I do? Do I go to bed like I should?

No, I come home and spend two hours getting Ruby on Rails running on my laptop. Why? Because nerdiness won out over sleep and I decided that writing my first RoR application was more important than sleep.

Still, if the coroner's report lists lack of alertness as a factor in the fatal crash that has tragically and prematurely claimed my young and promising life, I regret nothing: from what I have seen so far, Ruby on Rails is totally amazing, and embarrassingly enough, I'm looking forward to digging into it deeper. Especially on my new OpenSUSE 10.0 machine.

Note: Alert and intelligent readers will note that I have chosen to take a few extra moments to convey this travesty in judgement here, in this forum, thus exacerbating the problem. Hopefully, said alert and intelligent readers will admire my dedication to aiding them with their MMB (Monday Morning Boredom) enough to overlook this continued indiscretion.

Get me the tape, I need to try this. Now.

2005-10-14T15:15:00.000-04:00

From Kyla, who will deny any complicity.

I've heard of the rubber-band-around-the-belly trick, but this is so much better. And it's from Japan! And it's featured on Google Video which, until just now, I didn't even know existed.

And by the look of things, knowing of its existence will do nothing for my daily productivity.