16 April 2009, lunch time
Apparently there are ‘tea party protests’ taking place in the US right now. Obama campaigned quite openly about what taxes would be like if he was elected. And, now elected, he’s implemented what he said he would do. So I guess that’s taxation with representation. I’m not sure what Americans are looking for here. America’s Right Wing really needs to step up their game; or, at the very least, organize protests that make sense.
16 April 2009, early morning
I watched a few movies while away. I’ll need to write about them all, but i’ll start with the one that sticks out in my head the most, I’ve Loved You So Long. This French film is about a women trying to reestablish a relationship with her sister, and return to a normal life, after spending 15 years in prison. Kristin Scott Thomas plays protagonist, and she’s absolutely amazing in the film. It’s actually not as art-house as it might sound. And though a little bit bleak, I don’t think the overall message of the film is bleak. It’s well worth watching.
13 April 2009, evening time
Warm water wets my hair. Quickly. I shower, knowing the water isn’t going to get cold. I could scald myself in the shower if I wanted. Oh how I missed you, Canadian Water Pressure and Plumbing. Truly, you are a beautiful thing.
3 April 2009, terribly early in the morning
…
— What do you for a living
— I’m a software developer.
— Where?
…
— And where are you staying
— Maida Vale
— That’s a big place.
— I don’t know his real address. I can give you my friends.
…
— And your brother, who you are staying with, how long has he been in London?
— A year or so. But he’s a British citizen. So am I.
— How’s that?
— We were born here.
— What?
He looks at my passport.
— Man, you should have said from the start, I would have asked you fewer questions.
And that’s how I got into London .
30 March 2009, mid-morning
I watched Kannathil Muthamittal with Shima over the weekend. We’ve both seen it before, but I really wanted to watch it again. It is by far my favourite Mani Ratnam film. (And he’s done many good films.) He is probably one of India’s best directors.
The central figure of the story is a young girl whose parents tell her she is adopted on her 9th birthday. From there the film explores her reactions to the news, how she proceeds to treat her mother and father, and her quest to find her birth mother. The film does an amazing job looking at familial relationships and adoption.
The movie is also an interesting look at the costs of war. The movie begins with a wedding in Mankulam, which is a town in Sri Lanka. From there there are a few sweet scenes between the bride and groom. During the last scene the husband hears the army marching on the town and runs off to stop them. And then the title sequence begins, where we learn through short vignettes that the newly wed is pregnant, that her town is being shelled, that her husband is MIA, that she flees to India, and that she ultimately leaves her daughter behind to come back to Sri Lanka. The second half of the film takes place in Sri Lanka. Mani Ratnam touches on several aspects of the war in Sri Lanka: the army shelling and bombing towns, child soldiers, suicide bombing, etc. There aren’t too many films about the war in Sri Lanka, so saying this is one of the better ones I’ve seen is faint praise. Regardless, it is. The film works well as a comment on the war because it’s about the war indirectly.
The cinematography is brilliant. There are so many great sequences in the film. The film features music by A.R. Rahman. The song playing during the title sequence is one of my favourite Tamil songs. The cast is stellar. Pretty much every part is filled by a famous South Indian actor or actress. Kannathil Muthamittal is easily one of my favourite films. I’ve yet to watch it with a girl and not have her cry at the end.
27 March 2009, early morning
I finally grabbed a copy of Scott Pilgrim vs. the Universe yesterday. This book is the 5th in the series. I cracked it open, started reading, and quickly realized I had forgotten way too much of the story. Who the hell is Wallace? And Julie? Today on the bus I re-read volume 1. It’s still really awesome. Scott Pilgrim is set in Toronto, and is about a 23 year old boy in a lame band who starts dating a mysterious American girl called Ramona. The one catch is that to date her he needs to defeat her 7 evil ex-boyfriends. (And, break up with his highschool-aged girlfriend.) The story seems like a gentle introduction to Manga for people who wouldn’t normally read the stuff. It has that same quirky feel to it. I love that the book is set in Toronto. The characters go to Sneaky Dees and Honest Ed’s. What’s not to like? The art is typical Manga art, and the writing is very funny and at times touching. I think everyones probably read this comic by now, but if not, go buy it now. I’m going to have to read up on Bryan Lee O’Malley’s annotations of the book.
21 March 2009, late evening
Battlestar Galactia ended its run on such a high note. The second half of season 4 was absolutely inspired. The series finale was great — except for the very very very end. And even that, I think I can forgive. Battlestar Galactica is excellent television. You need to watch it already.
I have no idea what to do with my life now.
My cousin thinks I’m a BSG apologist. So there are definitely mixed feelings over the finale.
Update: If people want to discuss the series in the comments, go nuts. So to all of you who haven’t seen the show or the finale yet don’t go reading the comments.
Update April 2014: It’s funny how different my feelings are about this finale now: I feel like they ruined the show. I should watch it all again some time.
Comment [16] Television
20 March 2009, early morning
The best part about Persian New Year is that it is the first day of Spring. Shima and I have to buy a set of gold fish, and then we will be all ready to build our Persian New Year table. Happy Narooz.
19 March 2009, late morning
I find the way people react to stories about unions humourous. People doing clerical work for the city do what most people would consider simple work anyone could do. And yet they get paid a good amount of money for what they do. Similarly, autoworkers, people driving TTC buses, etc, all get paid very good wages for doing what people consider menial jobs. When there are labour disputes the publics reactions is generally, “suck it up, you already get paid too much.” If you went to university for 4 years only to graduate and make less than someone who has been working in a unionized factory since grade 11 it would probably make you bitter. People lash out at the worker because he’s demanding too much. The real question people need to ask themselves is, “who says how much is too much?” People never react to stories about TTC drivers making X amount of dollars by saying, “That’s amazing, I need to unionize where I work too!” The almost universal reaction is, “Fucking TTC drivers make more than me!” And this reaction is pretty stupid, because clearly that TTC driver is doing something right.
17 March 2009, mid-morning
Yesterday I mocked some of the people complaining about the giant anti-war save-the-tigers protest. There was certainly a lot of that sentiment going around, but we live in Toronto, the greatest city in the world, so for every dude moaning about how there are too many people on the street there is someone else happy to ride home in a train full of protesters. For every person complaining the trains are packed there is someone else disappointed by the backlash. For every person shocked people would protest again, there is someone else impressed with how orderly things were. Generally, I find the people of Toronto to be all kinds of awesome.
The star has a wrap up of yesterdays protest, with interviews of various people involved. As I had guessed, neither Torontoist or BlogTO covered the protest. I leave it up to you to guess why that might be. (Last time I saw Himy Syed, he had a lot to say on this topic. I’m waiting for his t.oronto.ca project to launch.)
16 March 2009, early afternoon
The second giant Tamil protest is taking place downtown right now. The protesters hope to form a human chain that goes up Yonge from Front to Bloor, across Bloor to University, and back down to Front. If they pull that off, they would have basically choked off all of downtown. In Sri Lanka there are Sri Lankans trapped inside a small region of the country, trapped in a perimeter controlled by the Sri Lankan army. They are being shelled by their government, and shot by their liberators. To contrast, in Toronto, there are people who are going to have to cross the protesters to drink cocktails at Holt’s for fashion week, who will be late to their appointments because Union Station is packed, who can’t finish their business plan because it’s too noisy, who are stuck in traffic, etc. This might be the very definition of White Whine.
As to whether a protest is actually a good way to bring about change, I have my doubts. The Sri Lankan government isn’t going to slow down now because Canada asks them to. And because of the way these protests are almost always conflated with support for the LTTE, it’s doubtful our current federal government is going to pay the protesters much attention anyway. Still, if they pull things off, it will be a very impressive feat.
There is some discussion going on in the BlogTO morning brew post today. It’s not particularly illuminating, though I am now arguing there with way too many people about stuff I really don’t care about. I get annoyed too easily. It will be interesting to see if BlogTO or Torontoist have much to say about the protest. Their coverage of news in Toronto tends to be very niche. (Though, BlogTO did cover the last protest.)
Update: I’d change this URL, but it would break incoming links. Apparently the protesters numbered well over the 25,000 people goal.
Comment [14] Current Events | Toronto
13 March 2009, lunch time
Mez let me know the following was taking place downtown:
Please be advised that it has been reported that on Monday, March 16th between 1:00pm and 6:00pm approximately 25,000 members of Toronto’s Tamil community may form a human chain on sidewalks in the downtown core. The demonstration, to protest events in Sri Lanka, is expected to be peaceful.
Damn that’s a lot of people. If this actually happens, it will be the second protest like this since the fighting picked up again in the North. If there is one thing Tamil people in Toronto do a good job with, it’s putting on protests like this. I have yet to see an event about the war in Sri Lanka that has been poorly attended. Even the protest a few years back during the TTC strike was busy. I think Tamil people should run courses on how to organize protests for other groups — cough Persians cough.
13 March 2009, early morning
I saw Watchmen last night with Mezan and Tyler. After the title sequence ended, I turned to Tyler and said, “This is fucking amazing,” or words to those effect. The film was damn good. The comic is phenomenal, and obviously the film will never be the comic, but the film does do a very good job at capturing the meat of the book. It’s a very faithful adaption, save for the ending. The actors were pitch perfect for their parts. THe special effects were great. Some shots seem like they were taken scene for scene from the comic. Rather than continuing to heap praise on the film i’ll just quote Patrick:
“It’s quite possibly the closest adaptation you’ll ever get in movie form from a comic book.”
“I feel like every comic book movie should be like The Watchmen.”
“It makes me realize how disappointed I was with every other comic book movie that has ever come out before”
“It’s like they did the entire movie spot on and then realized ‘no man, we can’t go ALL the way and recreate the ending, we need to change it slightly so the mainstream audience member won’t be scarred for life.”
You need to watch this film.
11 March 2009, mid-morning
In the MetaFilter thread about the Armenian Genocide someone mentioned The White Genocide, a term I had not heard before. The White Genocide is what Armenians use to describe what happened to those Armenians who were forced to leave Turkey who ended up being absorbed into the countries they moved to. It’s an interesting idea, and a common fear of many ethnic groups I suspect. You can kill off a peoples by literally going out and killing them, or in this more subtle way. In Canada you have Québécois who are very passionate about language laws and the like, I suspect because if these protections did not exist you’d have an English speaking province within a few generations. In Tibet the Chinese government ships Han (ethnic Chinese) people into the region and represses religion in an attempt to erase the Tibetan identity. In Sri Lanka you have blow back from the 1950s language laws that leads to a full scale war 30 years later. The tragedy here is that support for an armed struggle in Sri Lanka has caused far more displacement of Tamils than anything the Sinhalese government could have managed. Obviously Tamil people living in the West can’t disappear into the population, but the identity of Tamils born and raised abroad is certainly complex. I don’t know anyone in my generation who can actually cook Tamil food. (Really, does anyone still make pittu or idiyappam besides Babu?) The number of people I know who speak Tamil is small. I can call myself Tamil, but clearly my identity is far more complicated than if I had been born and raised in Sri Lanka. How many in the Tamil diaspora would leave for a newly liberated Tamil Eelam when they live pleasant middle class lives abroad. I certainly wouldn’t. My home is Canada, the best country in the world.
9 March 2009, mid-morning
I watched Chungking Express over the weekend with Shima. I bought the Criterion Blu Ray disc for myself as soon as it came out, but lacking a Blu Ray player i’ve been waiting for a weekend in Scarborough where I could watch it on my brothers PS3. (My parents have surround sound and a giant television, which makes watching films on my iMac seem kind of lame.) Chungking Express was the first film I watched by Wong Kar Wai. I bought the VCD in high school, mostly due to the fact it starred my favourite singer at the time, Faye Wong. Watching the film on a VCD really doesn’t do it justice. The Blu Ray copy is stunning. The colours and sound are great.
Chungking Express is a somewhat surreal look at romance and relationships. The first story involves a heart broken cop (Takashi Kaneshiro) and a jilted drug dealer (Bridgette Lin). The second story is about another broken hearted cop (Tony Leung) and a woman who develops a crush on him (Faye Wong). Both stories really don’t intersect. What ties them together are their common themes. The central set piece in the film is a shawarma place that both cops visit, to eat and get advice from the proprietor, and this also helps keep the film from feeling too disjoint. The second story is probably the more famous of the two, and it features some of the better scenes and shots in the movie — like Tony Leung talking to inanimate objects in his apartment, and Faye Wong staring at Tony Leung while he drinks a coffee. The second story seems even more quirky than the first, which is probably part of its appeal.
Compared to Wong Kar Wai’s other films, Chungking Express stands alone in its tone and style. The film is filmed almost entirely hand held, and lacks a lot of the long and neatly composed shots that make up his other movies. Another departure from his other films is that both stories in Chungking Express end on a (more or less) happy note — though this is up for debate if you talk to Rishi. The movie is on the whole a lot more light hearted and accessible than Wong Kar Wai’s other films. It is one of my favourite movies. You should watch it.
7 March 2009, early morning
I watched the Days Between with Mahi at Cinematheque. The movie is stunning, and certainly one of the best films I’ve seen in recent years. The film reminded me a lot of the work of Wong Kar Wai, only with less dialog and latin music. The cinematography was brilliant. Everything seemed so calculated and pitch perfect. The mood throughout the film is bleak, and this is captured in the way everything is shot. The story is simple enough: a troubled girl develops a relationship with a Japanese exchange student. It’s all very self destructive. It’s a sad film. If you can find it, watch it. I haven’t been so impressed in quite some time.
6 March 2009, late at night
I was going to write about how we were seated at Frank, the restaurant at the AGO, and then totally ignored, but Shima has done as much. That was a serious what the fuck moment? Have you ever been to a restaurant where you can see the waitresses talking about you, but they aren’t talking to you? Fuck that place. I would have told someone off if we weren’t in such a rush.
Update: Here is my take on things which I also posted at Yelp.
I’ve been to Frank, the restaurant inside the AGO, twice. The first time was quite good. The food was tasty and well presented, and the service was excellent. The second, it was so horrid I can’t imagine ever going back. So this is the sort of review that’s based solely on a single bad experience, and you should take that as a word of warning. I am a member at the AGO, so I really wanted to like this place.
My wife, cousin, and I were seated upstairs in the restaurant by the hostess. The restaurant was reasonably busy, but not overly so. The hostess is the only person that spoke to us that night. We looked over the menus at waited. And we waited some more. And then the hostess seated a fellow by himself at the table next to us. And then we watched a waitress bring him some water. And another came by, but he informed her that he was already being served. And we waited a little bit more. And then we watched two waitresses quite obviously chat about us from across the room. And then we got up and left. And no one asked us what was up on the way out either.
Fuck Frank. I can’t recall the last time I’ve been treated like that in Toronto. And I can’t for the life of me imagine why. The whole experience has left a bad taste in my mouth.
comment [5] Restaurants and Bars | Life
6 March 2009, mid-morning
I only had a few more weeks to go after freezing my Nudies till I needed to wash them. I did this over the weekend, on March 1st, following the schedule I set for myself back in September. I think the jeans faded quite nicely and the fact I washed them was certainly more noticeable than it was when I washed my Julian Reds.
Like my Julian Reds, I washed the jeans on delicate in my washing machine. I used a little bit of tide, which I’m sure people on denim forums say is a no-no. When the machine started its spin cycle I opened the lid, took out the jeans, folded them neatly, and placed them back in the machine along its wall. I’m not sure this is necessary, but I didn’t want them banging around inside the machine. Unlike my Julian Reds, I washed the jeans in water that was somewhere between warm and hot, closer to hot. I think this might have helped with the fading and highlighting the contrast. Nudie recommends using water that is 60 Fahrenheits, which is probably what one would call lukewarm.
The raw selvedge denim Nudie uses in their jeans seems quite nice. They held up very well to non-stop wear for half a year. Even after being washed there are no holes or tears. If you are looking to buy a pair of dry denim jeans than a pair of Nudies is probably a very safe bet.
I am wearing a pair of APC black dry denim New Standards right now, but that’s a whole other story.
4 March 2009, mid-morning
I sold my Olympus XA2 and my Vivitar Ultra Wide and Slim yesterday, and bought a Ricoh GR Digital II instead. In terms of cash-money, I didn’t come out ahead. I’ve wanted a GRD for a while now, in particular because (Toronto’s own) moonwire on Flickr takes incredible photos with the camera. Now, obviously you can’t buy a camera with the hope of taking photos like someone else. (I know, because my Leica hasn’t made my photos any more awesome.) That said, you can get a good sense of what the camera is capable of by looking at what other people have managed to produce. In moonwire’s stream I often find myself checking to see whether a shot was done with film or digitally on her GRD. And more often than not, her killer shots are from the small point and shoot.
Adorama is stupid fast when it comes to shipping. I ordered the camera Sunday night, and it arrived at my office Tuesday morning. So, I’ve had the GRD for all of a day now. I still need to get a SD card, so day one of shooting was limited to what I could fit in the on-board memory of the camera. My first impressions of the camera are quite good. The GRD reminds me of a smaller, nicer, version of my Canon S30. The camera lets you tweak all the settings you would want to, and has the controls laid out well, so doing so is quite easy. So far, the only thing I’ve noticed that bugs me about the camera is its auto-focus, which is stupid slow. I may have been spoiled by using my Rebel all this time. The pictures the camera produces are quite nice. I think it will take me a little while to get a handle on how best to use it.
Hopefully next week i’ll have more to say about the camera.
My GR Digital II photographs on Flickr.
Comment [5] Photography
2 March 2009, late morning
I watched Sukiyaki Western Django over the weekend. What a strange movie. The story is simple: an unnamed stranger rolls in to Western town, with a vendetta that is never made clear, and is hired by the townsfolk to rid them of the gangs that have been terrorizing them. The movie is in many ways a homage to other Westerns or Samurai films: there are lots of scenes that reminded me of other films I’ve seen, most notably, Once Upon a Time in the West. (And I suppose many westerns borrowed heavily from older Japanese Samurai films by the Kurosawa. So this could be seen as coming full circle.) The film is very surreal. The sets are outlandish, as is the story, as are all the costumes. Beyond that, the actors are all Japanese, but the movie is filmed in English. So every is speaking in bizarre heavily accented English. It’s very trippy. I suppose you can expect nothing less from Takeshi Miike. I quite liked the film, though amongst my friends the reception was certainly mixed.
25 February 2009, mid-morning
Shima and I have memberships at the AGO now. I’ve been three times since joining. I am trying to make it a point of going often in order to make the most of my membership purchase. (Though, I suppose supporting the gallery is worthwhile in and of itself.) The gallery is big enough it will probably take several trips to figure out where everything is, and see everything worth seeing.
The AGO renovation is amazing, and seems like what the ROM renovation should have aspired to. I like the Crystal, but once inside the museum it seems clear that it doesn’t work that well. Gallery space is poorly utilized, and the interior just doesn’t look that nice. There is all sorts of infrastructure jutting out here and there, which ruin the the interior elements of the design. The AGO on the other hand seems like a perfectly executed renovation. The exterior is certainly nice, but the interior is where things really shine. Everything seems neat and tidy and just right. The ROM’s big success is moving its entrance to Bloor, and the new lobby which is quite stunning. Beyond that I think the renovation wasn’t a success. It certainly doesn’t seem to have captivated Torontonians the way the AGO renovation has.
22 February 2009, early evening
Andrea Horwath won’t stop spamming me. She’s running for leadership of the Ontario NDP. I’ve also got more robocalls from her than any other candidate. Annoying the electorate isn’t a good way to run a campaign: If you’re going to call me at least have a real live person do on the other end of the phone line. I would think this is obvious, but apparently not. Signing up for the NDP has been a bit disappointing. I haven’t been the recipient of this much junk mail in ages. This is lame.
20 February 2009, early morning
I bought my Unicomp Spacesaver keyboard about a half year ago. At the time it was a little tricky to quantify how nice the keyboard felt. It was certainly a step up from my previous Dell piece of crap keyboard, but just how big a step?
18 February 2009, lunch time
I have emails from when I in grade 11 on my old Powerbook 5300CS. I read them when I was home a few weeks back. It was funny and scary reading what I wrote. Those emails are over 10 years old now. I wonder what people who have replaced email with Facebook will have to look back on in 10 years time. My guess is nothing, but you never know. I think the uproar over Facebook’s TOS was justified, but the bigger issue I have with Facebook is that it traps all your interactions with the site on the site. There is no way to programatically export your data. While their messaging system is convenient, it’s locked into Facebook. If Facebook folds, or they decide to ban you from the site, there go your “emails”. Kottke compared Facebook to AOL, and the comparison is apt. A site that traps your data isn’t worth your time.
Comment [2] Technology
Is it a crime
that I still want you
and I want you to want me too
My love is wider than Victoria Lake
Taller than the Empire State
— Is it a Crime by Sade
