August 2003

I have egg on my face. I discovered last night that I was infected with the W32/Parite virus. I know what you’re thinking – how could I get infected? Wasn’t I running anti-virus software? Wasn’t I careful with my downloads? Well the answers to the last two are “No” and “No”. I’ve become very lazy and un-careful about my downloading. Actually this has been the case for quite some time now and I’m lucky that I wasn’t burned too hard. Fortunately enough, this virus is more annoying than anything. It infects every .exe and .scr file on your computer and any network computer it’s attached to. On a big system, this adds up to a lot of files. I noticed that my system was acting kind of sluggish last night and when I tried burning a CD for my dad, Nero complained that the nero.exe file had been modified, possibly by a virus. I was incredulous, but after downloading AntiVir Personal Edition (free!) and scanning, I was convinced of the truth. Well I won’t be caught with my pants down again, at least not as far as viruses are concerned.

It’s not so much what you say,
as the manner in which you say it;
It’s not so much the language you use,
as the tone in which you convey it.

“Come here”, I sharply said,
And the child cowered and wept.
“Come here”, I said he looked and smiled,
And straight to my lap he crept.

Words may be mild and fair,
But the tone may pierce like a dart;
Words may be soft as the summer air,
But the tone may break my heart;

For words come from the mind
Grow by study and art,
But tone leaps from the inner self,
Revealing the state of heart.

Whether you know it or not,
Whether you mean or care,
Gentleness, kindness, love and hate,
Envy, anger are there.

Then, would you quarrels avoid
and peace and love rejoice?
Keep anger not only out of your words,
Keep it out of your voice.

I’m at home and I just received a message from messenger@microsoft.com in Trillian that says the following:

[06:44:50] .NET Messenger Service Staff: You are running a version of messenger that requires an immediate security update. Please visit http://messenger.msn.com/Help/Upgrades.aspx to complete the update.

If I get any more of these messages, you’d better be sure I’ll be blocking that MSN contact.

This is an amusing 1977 interview with Arnold Schwarznegger. If enough voters read this, they may be either a) offended or b) intrigued.

I came across the website of a former roommate this afternoon. For those in the know, I just have to say one word and you’ll most likely understand who I’m talking about.

That word is hairball.

I could go on and give more words, but I think that’s sufficient. This roommate has various components to the website including a section for his writing. I read through the writings dated during the time that we lived together. For some reason, I was searching/hoping/wanting to see some mention of his living situation. I was in the end disappointed by this quest, but it did give me insight into what he was going through at the time. It’s strange how you can live with someone for four months or shorter and not really have any idea as to who they are or what they’ve been through. I wonder who will read in the future what I’m writing now. Most likely no one, but it’s interesting to speculate. Personally I think it’s fascinating to discover blogs of people I know or once knew and trace through their writings and reminisce about the times we shared together or the times we fought and couldn’t express our feelings. I guess that’s one of the good things about weblogs (not web logs, as Jason Kottke rants about here) – unlike paper diaries, they can’t be discovered lying around the house or under your pillow. If you don’t give out the URL or identify yourself then you have your own personal place to open up. However, with the depth of search engines today like Google, anything you put on the web can be found if you know the right combination of words to search for. I kind of like that.

So I’m now riding the digital wave of digital cable. It’s truly an amazing thing. Don’t believe me? Well too bad. Actually I’ve had digital cable before, so it’s not really that exciting, but it’s new for my apartment. I watched Police Academy last night after helping Marcy pack the last of her stuff into the two cars. She’s in London today doing orientation for teacher’s college. Hopefully everything goes smoothly. This afternoon I’m helping Lisa move furniture for her new place in Guelph. That shouldn’t take long either. Tomorrow is another short day – we’re leaving at around noon for Ohio. It’s my dad’s birthday tomorrow, so it might be nice to see him while there’s still light out. We’re taking turns driving because Lisa can’t over-exert herself. I can’t believe it’s already Labour Day Weekend. I notice that the sun sets earlier – always a sure sign of approaching fall. That’s ok though, I absolutely love fall weather. I can’t wait to go hiking in the forest and see the colours turn. It’s very beautiful here in the fall.

Once the dust settles from Marcy moving, some serious decorating will be taking place. Curtains hung, paint applied, more furniture bought. At the top of that furniture list is a new crotch couch. As comfortable as it is to lean up against my bookcase while reading or watching TV, having a real place to sit might be nice. Plus it will definitely class up my apartment and I’m all about class. Would someone with class allow Spongebob Squarepants Kraft Dinner in their home? You bet they would.

Looking at this picture makes me sad because I haven’t been able to watch Spongebob for quite a while now. I’ll have to remedy this sad state of affairs.

I just had the most fabulous éclair. It was truly heavenly.

The bed arrived yesterday. Four boxes, all sitting in my living room. The box with the head and footboard is pretty big, so I’ll be glad to get that out of there once the mattress comes. I subscribed to digital cable yesterday and was hoping to pick up the receiver at my local Rogers Cable Centre, but they close at 6. What kind of business closes at 6? Lame businesses, let me tell you. All jokes aside, I guess I’ll have to swing by some other time to pick it up. I went to Future Shop last night because I’m idly looking for a new camera and semi-seriously looking for a new monitor. After that, I stopped by Chapters and, unable to withstand the pressure of so many books, bought yet some more. I bought The Cell: Inside the 9/11 Plot and Why the FBI and CIA Failed to Stop It (pretty self-explanatory) and Idaho Falls: The Untold Story of America’s First Nuclear Accident. Both should be pretty quick reads. Speaking of quick reads, I finished What Men Don’t Want Women To Know: The Secrets, the Lies, the Unspoken Truth by Smith and Doe. It’s pretty amusing to read, though it did raise some serious discussion last night.

I just read that Zero 7’s new album will be out in February 2004. You’d better believe that I’ll be buying this one. I can’t wait and they also say that they’ll be touring worldwide next year. Bonus!

Apparently universities in Ontario have been forced to resort to extreme measures to account for the double cohort of students starting next week. Wilfrid Laurier University (which is located here in Kitchener-Waterloo) is one of them – they even got written up in a Wired News article.

After our shopping spree, Marcy and I were very hungry, so we sought out a restaurant. I ended up driving to the Oakville Entertainment Centrium (what an odd name). We went to Cafe Tu Tu Tango, which serves Food For The Starving Artist. An interesting concept – all of their dishes are basically appetizers. We ordered 4 dishes – alligator bites, onion rings, sun-dried tomato pizza, chicken and shrimp potstickers. The potstickers were particularly good. Marcy had a very strong sangria. It was a late meal, but a good one.

Marcy’s car battery died this morning. I have booster cables in my trunk, but I honestly have no idea how to use them. It’s shameful I know, but I’ll make sure I read up on how to use them so this doesn’t happen again. This week is so hectic, it’ll be nice to relax once it’s through.

Is liking an alt-country band (Neko Case in this case) bad? Is it seen in the same light as marijuana being a “gateway drug” to other, harder drugs? Will I be listening to other country artists soon? I sure hope not, but who knows? Neko Case’s most recent album – Blacklisted – is an enjoyable listen.

So last night I bought a bed. Man they’re expensive, but I guess you don’t go around buying beds everyday. The frame is supposed to come today and then the mattress and boxspring are on their way next Thursday. 10 more days of my current bed and then it’ll be relegated to other uses, yet to be determined. This afternoon I’m helping Lisa take away some furniture. She can’t do any lifting for the next little while or else strange things could happen to her spleen and I don’t think we’d want that.

My eyes hurt today. Quite a bit actually, which is rather irritating. Hence, my desire to wear my glasses instead of contacts. It’s only one eye that is bothering me, so I don’t know what’s up. It seems like a lot of people have colds or allergies right now, so maybe I have that too.

I was so tired last night when I got back to the apartment building that I parked in the wrong parking spot. That’s an amusing fact to discover.

Drinking Hulk-sponsored Mountain Dew does not make you as strong as The Hulk.

This weekend was all about driving. I expected to do some driving, but we ended up doing more than anticipated. On Saturday Marcy and I drove to London to drop off some things at her new house. After that, we drove down to Windsor to visit with Marcy’s aunt and uncle. Good times, good conversation, and excellent food were had. We stayed over Saturday night and then yesterday we drove first to a wonderful Italian bakery (cheese bread!) and then drove to Leamington (Tomato Capital of Canada), stopped for lunch at a Mexican restaurant (authentic Mexican, not Taco Bell or Tex-Mex), stopped at a vegetable/fruit stand (even bought a hot pepper plant!), visited the Comber Agricultural Museum and then drove back home. A very circuitous route, but it was fun. Last night I spoke with my parents and I’ll be visiting them twice in the next 3-4 weeks. That’ll be nice. They’re worried about Ian though and I am too. Hopefully his first day of classes goes well.

Friday I watched Late Marriage. It was an interesting movie, but I wasn’t as fond of it as was. Marcy and I were debating whether sex scenes in movies were real or faked. I claimed that a lot of the time they were real but Marcy tends to disagree. What do you think? At any rate, the sex scene in this film is extraordinarily long and very intense.

Last night’s Law and Order – Criminal Intent was particularly relevant. The episode was called “The Pilgrim” and there were definitely references to John Walker Lindh’s case (which, coincidentally is featured on Salon’s front page today). It was interesting to see Rider Strong, who played Shawn on Boy Meets World in this episode as one of the criminals.

A lesson learned about fresh fruit – it’s not a wise idea to leave them in a humid backpack all weekend. I pulled out a peach that had been in there since Friday and it was moldy something awful. I’d never seen fruit go bad that quickly.

I absolutely love being in used bookstores. Fortunately there are quite a few in the downtown area. I think I’ll be exploring what they have to offer in the near future. You can never have too many books.

A few notes from the underground:

1. Visual Basic is the worst piece of software a developer could use.
2. Zero 7 was featured rather prominently in last night’s CSI episode. No, not the band, but one of their songs.
3. I watched two movies last night – Powaqqatsi and Indecent Proposal. I really enjoyed Powaqqatsi. The music and images blended together really well and it provided for a pretty powerful message. I really need to see the other movies in the trilogy – Koyaanisqatsi and Naqoyqatsi. Indecent Proposal I had seen before, but I was reminded at what an interesting movie it is. You don’t really feel good about any of the characters at the end of the movie, especially Woody Harrelson’s character. We still have two more movies to watch by tomorrow night. That’ll be taken care of tonight, most likely.
4. I started reading an interesting book – The Tao of Photography, by Philippe L. Gross. So far I’m really enjoying it. Some of the parallels between Taoist thought and photography are kind of weak, which even the author admits to, but the similarities are pretty strong, despite the fact that photographers probably do not overtly think of Taoism when they’re shooting film.
5. There was some massive lightning last night as a storm system blew through Southern Ontario. I tried capturing some of it on film, but my camera was too slow and they all turned out black. Oh well. I am kind of curious as to how people capture lightning on film, digital or otherwise. It seems that you have to have a quick reaction time.
6. I didn’t end up going to the concert last night. I was far too tired. I actually fell asleep after I got home, which is very rare for me.
7. I’ve become slightly disinterested in listening to music this week. I’m not sure why, but I can’t seem to find something that I want to listen to. It’s akin to having every book in the world and not wanting to read. Oh well, I’m sure it will pass.
8. Bringing a dead cellphone to work (batteries being out of energy) has to be the most useless things to do.

Our personal growth can fuel our photography and our photography can fuel our personal growth. – Brooks Jensen

I want to keep updating this table for the day. Below the cut are the figures.

Total amount available 21,460

All numbers in Megawatts (MW)
1:00 AM - 15,560
2:00 AM - 14,840
3:00 AM - 14,560
4:00 AM - 14,300
5:00 AM - 14,050
6:00 AM - 14,500
7:00 AM - 15,280
8:00 AM - 16,440
9:00 AM - 17,350
10:00 AM - 18,290
11:00 AM - 19,330
12:00 PM - 19,760
1:00 PM - 19,980
2:00 PM - 20,230
3:00 PM - 20,340
4:00 PM - 20,700
5:00 PM - 20,740
6:00 PM - 20,560
7:00 PM - 20,190
8:00 PM - 19,810
9:00 PM - 20,550
10:00 PM - 19,870
11:00 PM - 18,230
12:00 AM - 17,000

Source – Independent Electricity Market Operator (website)

In years gone by, we’ve had some heated debate on how to pronounce the brand-name “Nutella”. I’ve decided to open this debate to readers here. So feel free to respond below.

I know that was annoyed about the MSN Messenger spam received on our hotmail accounts. Well apparently, according to this article, Microsoft is going to restrict who can use the Messenger protocol. If you’re not using the latest version by October 15th, they say, you’ll be cut off. Luckily Trillian says that they support version 6 of the protocol, so we should be ok. I guess we’ll find out on the 15th of October.

This morning I made a couple of posts in communities that I belong to – and . The posts are here and here. The photos are hosted on my computer at home, so I’ve been watching the log files throughout the day, just to get an idea of who’s looking at what. I’ve discovered some interesting things:

1. Not many people clicked on the cut tags for each post.
2. People check their friends page a lot.
3. There are people reading my journal, not on Livejournal, that I didn’t realize were doing so.
4. For the most part, the web server I’m using has been able to keep up with the load. That gives me confidence.

[Edit]: Another cool community (to me) is , which is concerned with pictures of the sky. Being a sunsetphile myself, I love looking at these pictures.

I think my new musical artist quest will take me down Terry Callier’s path. I had never heard of this guy before Monday night when I flipped on a random Solid Steel show. His song “Lazarus Man” is so brooding and mysterious that I couldn’t stop listening to it. It’s kind of a similar sound to Jon Lucien and I guess his music could categorized as folk-jazz. I’ve obtained some more of his music at home, but haven’t listened to it yet. Looking forward to that am I.

I’ve got nothing but time

There will come a time, and it may be later rather than sooner, when you will consider combining a large box of Junior Mints and a bag of Tostito’s Spicy Quesadilla tortilla chips. Let me tell you right now that this is not a good idea. Despite the obvious perfect flavour mesh, I have to say that I’m a little disappointed and in fact have a little bit of gut rot because of it. I was a fool to play around with delicious snacks. I’ve learned my lesson.

On another note, despite the fact that a provincial election has not even been called yet, candidates are eagerly setting up their campaign offices. The one that I’ve noticed first was John Milloy, who has set up offices in the old Public Utilities Building on King Street. I guess he’s not violating any laws because he’s not actively campaigning, but couldn’t we wait until the election is actually called?

I photographed the postcards I bought yesterday and put them online. They wouldn’t sit very flat so you can tell that they’ve curled around the edges, but I think they look OK. See the rest here!

I tried my hand at cyber-sleuthing last night. It was a lot of fun actually and I was very successful. I don’t really need to get into the details of what I was looking for or why but this kid was pretty dumb. Actually no, he was insanely stupid and I don’t think he realizes yet that he’s been caught. I guess that’s the danger today – you think that you can create a completely new online character and then act out your fantasies or just get people really angry but there are ways to find out who you really are. I feel good about what I’ve done here.

Firstly, regarding my previous post glorifying the closer convenience store – buying what is obviously very old candy is a big risk. This time the dice did not come up in my favour. The Nibs (Wildberry of course) that I bought are extremely stale. I don’t even know if I can finish them. I must though, for pride’s sake. People will be extremely disappointed in me if I don’t finish.

Second, in a discovery that made me extremely happy, my brother is now on Livejournal. He’s far more cynical and sarcastic than I am so it’ll be fun to read his posts. He starts at Kent State this week, so good look to you Ian!

Home time soon, let’s see if I can finish my book.

In order to fight the daily battle against PLFS (?), we usually go for a candy run in the afternoon. We recently discovered that Total Convenience has a much better selection of candy-related snacks, but it is a much farther walk down King Street. The other local alternative is right next to Money Mart on Water (Money Mart slogan: 3 bucks on the hund!). I’ve discovered that the closer one, though lacking in delicious candy selection, does offer some fantastic retro memorabilia. I’ll save my baseball card discovery for another post. Today I bought 5 Kitchener-Waterloo postcards for $1. Now these aren’t even recently-made postcards, but the ones that you see at garage sales and county fairs. Actually probably not county fairs because they’re not that old. They date from the 70’s and boy are they funny. I can just imagine someone getting one of these in the mail and thinking “Wow, a nondescript building. Thanks Joe!”. Well you’re welcome Mr. Smith. You’re very welcome.

This is a very strange blog. They replace the text with strips of colour and that colour is supposed to represent the essence of the text. Are we supposed to worry if the colours are all red or black?

It was eerily quiet walking to work today. I guess most people are heeding the advice of the government and staying home. I like it when the streets are like this.

I never thought that I would admit something like this, but Marcy and I were watching Sex and the City this morning – Season 6, Episode 3 (The Perfect Present). That’s not the strange part. What Berger says to Carrie about the situation with Lauren definitely has implication for me and my life. I believe my words at the time “that sounds errily familiar”. It’s strange how sometimes TV shows, even ones that you don’t watch all that often can describe how you feel so well that it’s like they wrote the line about you.

Marcy and I have been going movie-crazy this weekend. On Friday we watched My Big Fat Greek Wedding, which was good for a much-needed laugh. Yesterday we went to Rogers Video and took them up on their 7 movies for 7 days deal. We watched two of the movies last night – Notorious C.H.O. and Bridget Jones’s Diary. Margaret Cho was absolutely hilarious, I can just imagine her doing that show in front of her parents. She seems to have her mom’s mannerisms down pretty well. She made some very interesting points at the end of the movie that were not intended to be comical but rather enlightening to the audience. Bridget Jones was better than I was expecting. Usually I’m immediately suspicious of any movie featuring Hugh Grant in a prominent role, but he was at least (mostly) tolerable in this film. We still have a lot more movies to watch before next Saturday but I’m sure we’ll slog through them. Yesterday I watched 3 more episodes of Cowboy Bebop; it’s a nice change from other things on TV. Marcy and I watched some of Sex and the City’s Season 6 (as previously mentioned) this morning before she went to work. I succumbed to Chapters yesterday afternoon. That’s just what I need – more books to read.

The Radiohead concert has been postponed due to the State of Emergency in Toronto right now. I guess it’s better this way than having to wait for 2 hours until the roaming blackouts we’re having pass. They’ll announce within 7-10 days when the concert will take place. At least the show wasn’t cancelled outright…

I wonder if you’ll take me. Actually, Los Angeles is hardly the place I’d like to go. This is the title of a track off of the new The Decemberists album – Her Majesty The Decemberists (confirmed title now). I think I’m going to have to agree with Mark and say that this album surpasses their previous effort – Castaways and Cutouts. That’s no small feat either because that album is absolutely incredible. Very beautiful introspective music can be found on this disc. Favourite tracks for me so far:

3. Los Angeles I’m Yours
4. The Gymnast, High Above The Ground (wicked mood-setting guitar)
5. The Bachelor and the Bride
8. Red Right Ankle

I’m so happy that I discovered this band. It’s made my summer more cheery.

You wanted to know Planck’s constant in slug acres per fortnight? Here you go! The new Google calculator is so awesome. As Jason Kottke said though, I too am disappointed that the precision doesn’t reach a googol. Maybe they’ll make improvements and we’ll have the world’s best calculator at our fingertips.

Government officials said quickly ruled out the “Blaster” computer worm as a cause. The worm was spreading from computer to computer Wednesday and was initially considered a potential cause.

Who are they kidding here? I highly doubt that the computers running the East Coast’s power grid are connected to the Internet and running Kazaa and the like. These are mission-critical systems, not personal workstations.

[Update 3:54 PM] – Wired is carrying an article about these claims.

Name one of the people on my MSN list has today – “Check for a population burst in May 2004”.

I stifled a chuckle when reading that.

You could include black nights too. So yeah, the blackout. Everyone is posting about it, so why can’t I? Well, I suppose I can and I will do that. Now.

I was at work when the power went out. Right before total blackness, the lights went brighter and then darker and then brighter again and then out. I don’t think anyone heeded Mark’s “Save!” calls, but I don’t think I lost any work. Phil, Craig and I went for a candy run and there were a lot of people on the streets. We were hoping for the looting to begin in earnest, but sadly that didn’t take place. The bank was closed so I couldn’t really get any money. The convenience store was still open and Phil bought some candy. I think they were only taking cash though. We made our way back to the building and felt our way through the inky blackness until we got to the stairs. They really need an emergency light in that hallway. Bac in the office, everyone was sitting around talking. We figured the power couldn’t be out for very long. After a while though, that didn’t seem to be the case and since it was so close to the end of the workday anyway (in the 4-5 o’clock range), Alex siad that we might as well go home. Well no one argued with that so we filed out of there. Traffic was a mess downtown – I’m not sure everyone realizes the all-way stop rule when traffic lights are out. It was so hot walking back to the apartment but I’m glad I didn’t have to drive. Very glad. The worst part was that the elevators weren’t working, or rather they were working but they wouldn’t let us get on them. Many flights of stairs I had to climb in the intense heat and by the end I thought I was ready to die. Ok, that’s an exaggeration, but you get the point.

Once at home, we made a few phone calls. My parents still had power for some reason and told us the extent of the outage. Knowing that we wouldn’t be seeing power anytime soon, we watched the insanity below our balcony, read for a while, took a nap (it was so hot), and I took a few pictures. Once darkness fell, we lit some candles. Marcy and I talked quite a bit, looked at the stars that you could see for once in the city, and tried to stay cool without the fans. Everyone seemed to be a lot more social – there were a lot of people out walking until the sun set, the people across the street were out drinking until quite late, and people tried to help as much as they could. I knew that the power had returned at about 2 this morning when the fans turned back on. That was very nice.

I didn’t know what time I woke up, but I was rested enough. Watching the news this morning was kind of interesting – NYC looked pretty insane and I was shocked that people were sleeping outside on the streets in Times Square and other areas. I guess they really had no other choice. There’s a state of emergency (maybe those should be capitalized – State of Emergency) here in Ontario and they’re saying we can expect more blackouts today. Also, only essential workers should venture to their place of employment. I was told that “yearbooks are an essential service” so here I am. If the power goes out though, we’ll probably close. It’s going to be another hot day today so it’ll be even more fun if the power does go out again. Hooray for connected utility services!

I’ve already put the pictures up, in the usual place. They’re nothing special – shots of snarled traffic and the dark city mainly.

On a whim, I checked out the official Sigur Ros page and was pleasantly surprised (that’s putting it lightly) to find that there’s an official FTP server that has old concerts and videos of the band. This absolutely made my day! I’m currently downloading the concert that I went to with John back in May, 2001. An amazing experience; I was in a fog of warm fuzziness for the rest of the week. I know listening to the mp3s won’t recapture what I felt, but it should hopefully bring a smile to my face.

Just to irk even more I’m sure – the Radiohead concert is this Saturday. Boy am I looking forward to that. As long as it doesn’t rain (forecast currently says 40% chance), it’s going to be an event to remember. Always.

I finished reading Under the Banner of Heaven last night, the book I mentioned previously by Jon Krakauer. I really enjoyed it. One aspect I particularly enjoyed was the author’s note. He makes a good point about books that discuss religion – it’s only fair to know what the author’s own religious views are. This doesn’t mean that say, an atheist writing about Christianity is less valid than a Christian writing about it, it just helps give the reader a frame of reference. At any rate, a very informative and interesting book. I’ve now moved onto reading Freedom From Fear, the collected writings of Aung Sun Suu Kyi, Nobel Peace Prize winner and elected leader of Burma. I’ve had a fascination with Burma for quite a while, probably since Grade 11 or so, for various reasons. This book I see as a start at understanding what went on and what is going on in Burma (now Myanmar). It’s a terribly interesting country.

Ok I’d hardly consider myself an urban explorer, mainly because I don’t actually go inside (many) buildings but I do explore the outside as much as I possibly can. Yesterday I went exploring in and around Duke Street in Kitchener. A wide variety of buildings was seen – everything from small stores to factories to commercial buildings to houses. The houses were pretty nice, they seem well-isolated from the main traffic arteries which really aren’t that far away. I explored som Urban Evolution sites, such as the big Kaufmann shoe factory. They want to turn that space into lofts and commercial office space. I also discovered why College Street has its name – the original St. Jerome’s College is located behind City Hall. That was a pretty neat discovery. I took quite a few pictures (as usual) and I’ve put them online. In case you’re counting, this is Episode V of my exploratory series. Maybe after the year is up I’ll put together a book or something of what I’ve seen. I think I’d like to have something like that.

Important lessons learned last night:
1. Dickie Dee guys still exist.
2. Be careful of buildings that smell like formaldahyde.
3. Felt factories smell very bad.
4. The “Sepultura” graffiti I saw a few weeks ago is in a lot more places.
5. Favourite graffiti seen – “Barry Manilo (sic) Rules”.
6. Spending two hours walking does wonders for increased body temperature and perspiration rates.
7. The John Forsyth factory doors across from city hall have an incredibly cool breeze coming through the broken panes.
8. I still have a lot more city that I want to explore.

I just finished lunch half an hour ago. It feels weird eating this late. I guess this means that I won’t be very hungry until later tonight which is a good thing.

This song has to be one of the greatest album openers I’ve ever heard. Currently in the queue – The Decemberists – Her Majesty The Decemberists

I sometimes question the efficiency and speed of the Canadian Postal system.

And if you should see me passing by
Do not disturb me as I fly
Though I am walking here
This is where I’ll be

Happy Left Hander’s Day! I will celebrate by using only my left hand for the rest of the day.

Gotta admit you got us good
All this time I never got
Gaffle like that
We believed all we heard

Got a mouth
Insert the hook
Reel us in
Chain pulling (wo)man
We trusted you
See you later

Never hurts, but it never
Helps to read before you sign

I have to admit that I’m intrigued by this band. I like their sound.

Disgusting

You’re the stranger in here, with your stanger face
You know that everyone can see it’s false
Something’s rotten with you, you show no regret
Like we all know that you’re supposed to do

Chorus:
I hope you’ve changed the way you think
I hope you’ve changed the clothes you wear
I hope that you regret these things you say
I hope in time that things will change
I think you know that anyway

You’ve been disgraceful
It’s so regretful
You’re disgusting
You know you’ve been disgraceful
It’s so regretful
You’ve been disgusting

You’re the outcast here, you’re the native of a place
You’ve moved and been excluded too
You create a tension, when we were the same
There was a pressure that would force you to

Chorus

You’re so full of venom that you’ll spit into you’re own sweet face, oh

Chorus

Disgusting
Disgusting
You were disgusting
You know you’ve been disgusting
You’re so regretful

I stumbled across this today (PDF link) – the City of Kitchener’s strategic plan for the downtown area. As a downtown resident myself, I find this very exciting. They don’t really give a timeframe, but I think I’ve already seen some of the phases put into action. I think the most exciting would be seeing the development of the warehouses into residential and commercial space and the creation of the Light Transit station near Victoria and King. That would mean they could finally get rid of the ugly bus station and make the entrance to Victoria Park much nicer. It’s pretty exciting living in a city that seems to have some kind of idea of what to do with its downtown core.

I will be appearing in the next batch of marketing materials going out in the next couple of months. I seriously doubt anyone here would come across them, but if you do, the back of my head figures very prominently in one of the pictures.

This article pretty much sums up my experience with Jiffy Pop last night.

I need a microwave.

I’ve decided to poll my readers to see what they think of my most-recent user pic. Let’s hear it for the boy!

Ok, that’s not even close to an accurate description of this weekend. It was fun though. Friday we went to the Blues, Brews, and Barbeques here in Kitchener. It was a lot of fun until it started to rain. We had a very good pulled pork sandwich with Jack Daniels sauce. They had tons of ribs and beer and of course blues. I guess that’s why they call the festival what it is. I took a few pictures, but haven’t put them online yet. I did put my exploration pictures online (go through here). There were some very interesting dancers at the festival on Friday. One of the actually-good dancers was Connie Kwan, who used to be in my class but took a year off and now won’t be graduating until next spring. She had no idea who I was but knew of me. That’s commonly the case with people from my class. We weren’t exactly the most cohesive unit, but I guess we had better communication than some other classes. Walking back to the apartment it started to rain and I was feeling particularly chivalrous. I got a little wet because of that, but that’s ok, I can handle the rain. Speaking of rain, I really wish we could go at least one day without some. This summer has been really strange as far as weather goes – it was deathly hot for the longest time and now it’s always rainy. Can’t there be something in between (by Jazzanova)? Oh well, I can’t control the weather…yet.

Saturday I did some small things around the apartment and then Marcy and I went to Curry in a Hurry for dinner. We were planning on watching a movie that night but instead ran into one of Marcy’s classmates from her B.A.. We ended up talking for several hours at William’s, mainly about teacher’s college at Western.

Yesterday we packed up some of Marcy’s things at her house. We played with Heather’s new kitten, which definitely likes me the best. We watched most of Contact, which I always enjoy seeing. A classic sci-fi movie. I have the Carl Sagan book in audio format somewhere, read by Jodie Foster even, but haven’t bothered ot listen to it. That was in my phase of “Let’s get non-music audio files” so as a result I have a whole whack of Noam Chomsky lectures, Stephen Hawking lectures, Carl Sagan audio books, and Mr. Feynman audio books. An interesting mix I know. Anyway after that we went and did some desperately-needed grocery shopping. We watched one of the movies that we rented on Saturday because it needed to be returned last night by 11 – Autofocus. Definitely a strange movie. I had no notion of the life of Bob Crane, and I’m not sure I really understand the man after seeing this movie. I find it very hard to rationalize how such a man, a family man even, could act in that destructive manner. I was amazed at how closely they cast the characters from Hogan’s Heroes. Greg Kinnear was almost a dead-match. Also, apparently Bob Crane’s son was in the movie as one of the interviewers. That’s an interesting fact. I think I’m going to put Autofocus – The Murder of Bob Crane on my reading list.

Speaking of reading, I finished with the Unabomber’s Manifesto and moved onto Under the Banner of Heaven – A Story of Violent Faith. What an interesting book! I’ve read all of Jon Krakauer’s other books and loved each one. If you’re looking for a thorough account of Mormon Fundamentalism, this should be your choice. It is slightly frightening at times but quite honest. It doesn’t necessarily judge the Mormons or Mormon Fundamentalists, it tries to give a well-researched history of their religion. I admit that I knew very little about Mormons before reading this book but I’m definitely interested now. I find it especially ironic how much society (well Western society anyway) rejects Muslim fundamentalists and the crimes that they sometimes commit when right in our own society there are Christian fundamentalists who commit equally horrific crimes. Fundamentalism isn’t unique to non-Christian religions, it occurs whenever followers of a faith aren’t satisfied with the teachings of the more mainstream vessels of the religion. They want to take a literal translation of their holy text, no matter what that may be. The problems arise when a crime (or what society would consider a crime) is committed. Fundamentalists as a whole are painted with the same brush and are looked down upon by the rest of society. That’s hardly fair. Now I’m not a fundamentalist by any means and I don’t really have a holy text to call my own, but I am becoming more aware of spiritual problems in our society and there are times when it’s distressing and disturbing. I’m gobbling this book up at a very quick rate and I’m looking forward to finishing it.

Continuing the musical theme today, let’s talk about The Decemberists. I was introduced to this band by Mark, who absolutely loves them. I didn’t really listen to their album Castaways And Cutouts until yesterday, but I must say that I was very impressed. They have interesting lyrics and their sound is very intimate. I keep thinking that the main vocalist is Ben Folds because at times their voices sound very similar. That is not the case though, and I’m sure Colin Meloy (the actual vocalist) would be disappointed to think that I mistook him for Ben Folds. Well BenColin, I apologize. I can’t wait to hear The Decemberists new album coming out in September. Hopefully it’s as strong as this one.

Hearing about a band that consists only of two bassists and a drummer may sound strange. I couldn’t agree more, but somehow Dianogah makes it work. It’s truly a unique sound, refreshing even with its lack of rhythm guitars.

The sequel to the addictive demo I mentioned here is out – it’s Truck Dismount. Have fun with ramps, a truck, a solid wall and physics.

Last night I had so much fun. While Marcy was at work, I went on another exploring trip. Even though we had driven through the very same neighbourhood the night before, there was so much that I saw while on foot. I discovered the Iron Horse Trail, which has some very interesting pieces of machinery at the access points. I think I might go further along this trail tomorrow, weather permitting. I also found quite a few nice-looking houses in the area. I’ve come to believe that the area that I live in, and the area directly south is pretty safe. I saw a lot of families and people just out walking around. I’m not sure if that’s the case elsewhere in Kitchener. The high point on my trip was seeing the big water tower that, even though it’s probably 50+ feet high, you can actually miss it completely unless you know where it is. I took a bunch of pictures, so I’ll probably throw those online as soon as I get the time.

Latino DJ
As soon as possible
Experianced [sic] required
Must be fully equipped with own CDs

I assume they mean a DJ that plays Latino music, but it’s definitely ambiguous.

I’ve looked at the UW Bloggers website before, but never really paid attention to the people who were blogging. It turns out that I know Jeff from way back (like Grade 4). He definitely has a flair for writing. I’ve wondered how much censorship the bloggers have to go through to post. I’m sure they can’t post anything negative towards the university. They probably also choose good students who work hard and are very sociable. That only makes sense considering how this is supposed to represent the university and its students.

If there’s a DJ that consistently surprises me, it’s Buscemi. Named after the actor, this Belgian puts out some mean Brazilian-inspired funky house. This is my first listen of his latest album, Camino Real and I am very impressed. He brings in some special guests on this album and the change is appreciated by this listener. I think this will be receiving some high rotation on my playlist for the next little while.

Last night was truly wonderful. Marcy and I celebrated six months together. I know some may not think that it’s that special, but we were not downplaying the significance. We had dinner at Ennio’s that was very delicious. We ordered too much food though, but that’s ok, it gives me something to eat for dinner tonight. Then we went to Symposium (formerly known as Plantation) Cafe for some drinks before heading to the Princess to see Whale Rider. What a fantastic movie this was! There are so many themes addressed that are very applicable to all of our lives. I have to admit though that I fell trap to the auditorium cliche (described in Roger Ebert’s review here) – I did expect the grandfather to arrive. I absolutely loved the ending though – it really is “inspired and inspiring”. After the movie we drove around the neighbourhood south of my building. I found some intriguing explorable parts that I might seek out tonight. All in all a memorable night.

Tee hee – Marcy will be so surprised once she gets home.

Last night I did a little bit of tidying in the apartment. Fortunately for me, I found CD #97, which I thought was missing and potentially lost. It wasn’t, it had just fallen beside my computer. That was definitely relieving (purely in the emotional sense).

I think one of the best things about my whole crusade to organize my music has been that it has given me the chance to rediscover some music that I forgot I even had. A Silver Mt. Zion is a perfect example. I was very keen on anything released by Constellation Records two years ago, but my interests expanded and I was focused on other labels and genres. Listening to this album now though, I realize that there has been no diminishing of my taste for this music. If anything, time away from it has given me perspective on how good it really is. To think that if I hadn’t met John, this whole genre would have been unexplored by me or at the very least not explored until much later. I’m very grateful for that. Being exposed to new music does wonders for the soul and I am truly blessed to have received such a great breadth of exposure.

I’ve been reading quite a bit lately. I read and finished A Portrait of a Burger as a Young Calf last week. Quite an excellent book, very inciteful on the dairy and beef industries. Coming from a family of dairy farmers myself (well at least on my mom’s side), I know a bit about dairy farming, but there were some aspects that I was clueless about. I know the whole idea of the book is a bit off-putting to many people, but I encourage you to read it. It’s not nearly as bad as you might think.

I just finished reading the Drudge Manifesto. Now this was an amusing book. I bought it at Chapters at a bargain price – $2.99 (regular price – $40). Honestly, even that might have been too much to spend on this book. Matt Drudge, author of The Drudge Report, really needs an editor. HeLikesToJoinWordsTogetherLikeThis and it really is pretty silly. He thinks that he’s the king of online journalism and that no one has control over him – he prints what he sees fit. Well good for you, Matt. The most interesting part was reading the letters that fans wrote to him. Throughout the book he’d have these weird markings, what I took to be bibliographical references like this * [42]. In fact, the statements he was making weren’t really backed up by sources, but rather regular people who had written that same line. It was odd. Anyway, if you want a good laugh, read this book.

Currently, I’m reading The Unabomber’s Manifesto. I think Marcy’s kind of worried about me for reading it. It’s pretty interesting, though I’m only about halfway through. He (or they as it’s written by the FC) makes some valid points about today’s society, though I don’t always think that his argument is cogent or thorough. I of course heard about the Manifesto when the whole Unabomber hunt was going on, but never thought about reading it until I read The Age of Spiritual Machines by Ray Kurzweil. He has an excellent bibliography with relevant links related to a wide range of topics. I’m trying to make my way through the articles that interest me.

I think I may have broken my personal best record for consecutive sneezing. I’m expecting my own Nobel Prize any day now.

The elevator at work is very weird. Today when Mark and I were trying to go DOWN, it thought we were still on the main floor and went up to the 3rd floor. I guess to the elevator’s point of view, it was on the right floor, since it thought the 2nd floor was actually the main floor. Eventually we got down to the main floor and were able to get out of the building. People have been stuck iin the elevator before though.

The washrooms on our floor no longer have any markings to indicate which gender is supposed to enter which door. It’s even worse than the Clarica commercial (Real Player link). I wouldn’t be surprised if some of the other guys on our floor (not at this company) would walk into the women’s washroom “accidentally” not knowing which is which.

I’m really liking listening to Biosphere today. It’s excellent atmospheric music. Very calming and soothing.

I’m not looking forward to the walk home, especially if it’s still raining.

Some movies were viewed this weekend. These fall into 3 categories:
1. in the theatre
2. at home (new)
3. at home (old)

The movie we saw in the theatre was American Wedding, the conclusion to the American Pie trilogy. I’ve read other reviews of the movie, but I really didn’t find too much to like here. The story was particularly weak I found. However, seeing as I only paid $6.50 to see it, I guess I can’t complain too much. I’m glad this will be the last one in the series.

Yesterday Marcy and I watched The Pianist. It’s quite a good film, though a bit more sombre in tone than American Wedding. Actually I can’t believe I just mentioned those two in the same sentence. I really enjoyed this movie and I’m interested in reading his story if I get the chance. I have lots of other books to read first, so it might have to wait.

Last night we watched