5 July 2006, late morning
Today I got on the 191 bus and managed to grab one of the last seats, which all fill up quickly. Shortly after this happens, an old Chinese lady wanders on to the bus. I tap her to get her attention, and then get up to give her my seat. She doesn’t take it; it turns out there were actually 2 other seniors with her who I didn’t see at first. She gives the seat to one of her friends. Now, I would have thought two more people would have got up to give up their seats to the seniors, but this is apparently naive thinking on my part. The two seniors who didn’t have seats stood till people started getting off the bus at my stop, a good 10-15 minutes after the bus left the station. Toronto, this is lame.
[2] Life
4 July 2006, evening time
Italy scored two damn good goals against Germany. Holy shit that was a good game. I want a Portugal-Italy final.
[6] Life
You gotta go downtown
That’s the way to my love
Take it round and round
Oooh, you can’t stop ‘til you find my love
Go downtown, To taste the sweetness
Will be enough
That’s the love that you’ve been dreaming of
—Downtown by SWV. (R&B is hardly ever subtle, is it?)
4 July 2006, lunch time
Brazil was kicked out of the world cup by France of all teams. France: the team that barely made it into the second round of the World Cup. Brazil were playing such a sad game, while France were on fire. Zidane looked like he was in an Adidas commercial. The man can play football, there is no doubt about that. Still, Brazil lost; I don’t know what to believe in anymore. Of course, Portugal beat England. That really made my day. There is nothing I enjoy more than seeing the English soccer team lose. So I suppose things aren’t all bad.
[1] Life
2 July 2006, late evening
The Art Gallery of Ontario did a little Amir Khan festival of sorts last week. They showed four of his films. Carvill, Mezan and I went to see Mangal Pandey, a fictionalised account of the Sepoy Mutiny. The movie is a bit like an Indian Braveheart. The film was quite good. Amir Khan’s film are usually a step up from your typical Bollywood flick, so I was expecting a good movie. One thing of particular note was the racy little girl on girl dance number in the later half of the film. That came out of nowhere. Meow.
The official Mangal Pandey web site.
Movies
29 June 2006, late morning
I bought OmniOutliner Pro a week or so ago, and started using Kinkless GTD to help me start getting things done. I don’t feel more organized. I think perhaps I am missing that extra little bit of organizational magic that is actually contained in the Getting Things Done book. I started typing out what I needed to do into neat little lists in OmniOutliner Pro, and then I went back to playing Warcraft and surfing on the Internet. Yesterday I got two things done that I wanted to: I finally cleaned up this huge pile of clean clothes that sit next to my bed on a side table, and I cleaned a small desk next to my computer. A nice small accomplishment. Still, the only reason I did these two things was because World of Warcraft was downloading a patch.
[2] Life
28 June 2006, terribly early in the morning
I just watched Superman Returns, the single greatest achievement of mankind. Everything we have accomplished as a civilization has lead us towards the making of this film. We can now go about destroying the planet, comfortable in the knowledge we accomplished what God put us down here to do: make a fucking awesome Superman movie. I’m quite happy.
The official Superman Returns web site.
[6] Movies
26 June 2006, evening time
There were a lot of in the kitchen watching the penalty kicks in the Ukraine-Switzerland World Cup game. Switzerland hadn’t conceded a goal in regular time till these penalty kicks. Both goalies stopped the first set of kicks; only Ukraine’s goalie managed to stop the remaining kicks. The Bloor West Village has gone totally mental. Bloor is lined with cars honking their horns, and people whistling and waving flags. Thankfully, I live just far enough North of Bloor that the scene is quaint, but not obnoxious—or loud. I’m cheering for Ukraine over Italy in the next round.
[9] Life
26 June 2006, lunch time
Carvill and I had brunch together at the Easy, and then headed off in search of a DS Lite. She had decided to get one after playing Super Mario DS on her brother-in-law’s Lite. Elsewhere, earlier that day, Dave also picked up a DS Lite. Like myself, Dave already owned a Nintendo DS. Dave gave his old DS to Sarah, his girlfriend. Between the lot of us we had 4 Nintendo DS systems; the only reasonable thing to do would be to meet up, order pizza, drink import beer, and play lots of Tetris—which is what we did. The fun factor of Tetris seems to increase uniformly with the number of players you have. I’m still not sure if playing with items on is fun or not—it certainly is crazy anyway. The DS version of Tetris is excellent. It’s definitely a must-have game if you own the system.
[2] Video Games | Nintendo DS
23 June 2006, lunch time
Some of you may recall my annoyance with the people that play MarioKart. With MarioKart, most people are so anal about keeping their wins high and their losses low that they’ll drop out of a series of races when it looks like they aren’t going to get the top spot. Tetris DS has corrected this behaviour by assigning a loss to the player that drops out in the middle of a game. Now, this is unfair to those players who are being dropped from games because of bad connections, but I imagine this sort of thing doesn’t happen all too often. All is not well in the world however.
Read the rest of this post. (378 words)
[1] Video Games | Nintendo DS
22 June 2006, early evening
The football being played this world cup is really quite phenomenal. I just watched the last 10 minutes of the Australia-Croatia game. (We have a television set up in the kitchen.) Holy shit that was intense—and really violent. There were yellow and red cards being handed out like it was valentines day. The Ghana-US game was really great too; it was awesome to see them win. Its nice to see teams from outside Europe and South America really stepping up their game.
[3] Life
21 June 2006, lunch time
I bought the novel The Coma a few weeks back because it is written by the fellow who wrote the screenplay for 28 Days Later, and because it was really cheap. I like buying books that are 80% off at Indigo. You can get it at Indigo for $7—in hardcover no less. I don’t want to tell you much about the novel’s plot, because its twists and turns are probably the best thing about it. I will tell you the book starts with a vicious beating that leaves a man in a coma, and continues from there. It’s quite short, and can be finished quite quickly. I read it on my commute to work over the course of a few days. The book is really quite interesting; it’s very well thought out—at least I thought so. If you are looking for something to read, I recommend you check this out.
I’m reading Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell now. It’s a very different book, which reminds me a bit of Quicksilver in its pacing. I am enjoying the book so far.
[2] Comics and Books
There were birches along the stream and it was not big, but narrow, clear and fast, with pools where it had cut under the roots of the birches. At the Hotel in Triberg the proprietor had a fine season. It was very pleasant and we were all great friends. The next year came the inflation and the money he had made the year before was not enough to buy supplies to open the hotel and he hanged himself.
—Ernest Hemingway, from The Snows of Kilimanjaro
19 June 2006, late afternoon
Aaliyah put out a song on her debut album called At Your Best; it’s actually a cover of an older Isley Brothers track. Aaliyah’s version of the song opens with her singing, “Let Me Know”, acappella. I think it’s one of my favourite openings to a song. Slip and Slide use this sample in a jungle track they put out titled Let Me Know. Their song opens in much the same way, but instead of a slow-groove sort of R&B song kicking in, you get snares and a heavy bass-line. I actually heard their version of the song first. R Kelly remixed the song as well to produce a New Jack Swing version of the song. I feel like going to an old-school R&B club night. In Sydney every other club seemed to play R&B from the late 80s & early 90s.
Music
19 June 2006, lunch time
I went to El Trompo with Patrick and Dave this past weekend. It’s a Mexican place in Kengsington Market. It’s probably my favourite Mexican place in the city. (A close second is the far more swanky (and expensive) Dos Amigos. For boys trying to impress girls, I’d say it’s a very nice date place.) The three of us all had various tacos, as I think the best thing to get there. El Trompo makes a really good Guacamole that you would be remiss not to try if you do end up going. Dave and I ordered some while waiting for Patrick to show up. Everything was quite tasty. My friends all complain the portions are too small, which is probably true. Dave and Patrick seemed alright with their meals, and the amount of food is just right for myself. Anyway, dishes are quite cheap so you can just order a lot of stuff if you have a big appetite. There are lots of interesting dishes to try on the menu. This place is definitely worth checking out.
[1] Restaurants and Bars
17 June 2006, mid-afternoon
I had very high hopes for Nacho Libre, and while not as crazy-super funny as I had hoped, it’s still pretty damn good. It’s such a ridiculous movie. Really, the very fact the film is about a fat Jack Black wrestling is entertaining in and of itself. A nice bonus is that the leading lady in the film is very pretty. As with Napolean Dynamite, the film is full of strange ugly people, which is in many ways refreshing. I want to be a luchadore.
The official Nacho Libre web site.
Movies
14 June 2006, late evening
Yesterday I wandered around Yonge and Eglington looking for a Nintendo DS Lite. I had been informed by the Future Shop website that they had one in stock, but when I arrived at their store they were all sold out—as was the Toys R Us, EB Games, and random video game store in the area; Dufferin Mall’s Toys R Us and EB Games also didn’t have any; Ditto the Eatons Centre and the Future Shop downtown. The DS Lite is selling fairly quickly by the looks of things. I managed to find one today. Best Buy lets you order online for pick-up, which is what I did, and I picked my unit up just North of Yorkdale Mall.
Now, as you may be well aware, I am already the happy owner of a Nintendo DS. It’s probably more than a little decadent to replace it after owning for about a half year. I liked my DS a lot, but it just doesn’t compare to the DS Lite. The Lite is really what Nintendo should have put out from the get go. The original system, which is ugly in and of itself, is all the more ugly when compared to Sony’s PSP. I think one of the big things holding the DS back when it launched was the fact it didn’t look nearly as good as the PSP. (The fact it lacked some really good launch titles didn’t help matters I suppose.) The Lite still may not be quite as nice looking as the PSP, but it certainly comes close. Of course, the Lite has the advantage of not being anywhere near as fragile as the PSP.
I haven’t had a chance to play with it for an extended period of time. I am hoping the smaller and lighter form factor will make the unit easier on my poor wrists.
The Nintendo DS is a nice portable system. I think everyone should own one.
[10] Video Games | Nintendo DS
13 June 2006, late morning
Dave had free passes to see a early screening of Partition. The movie is essentially a romance, set against the violence surrounding the partition of India. Kristin Kreuk plays a Muslim girl from Punjab, traveling to Pakistan. The refugees she and her family are traveling with are attacked by Sikhs from the area, so she runs to hide in the woods, where she is found and saved by the gentle and peaceful Sikh ex-soldier Gian Singh, played by Jimmy Mistry (of Touch of Pink fame). The rest of the film is so very predictable. That isn’t to say it wasn’t enjoyable. I thought it was good for the most part. The version we saw wasn’t the final version: it still needed to be colour corrected; the sound and music needed to be finished properly, and the opening and ending credits were incomplete. I suspect that they might re-edit the film based on audience feedback as well. Dave and I both felt that at times the film seemed to drag. I imagine the final cut of the film could be vastly improved if it is edited to tighten up some of the scenes which drag a bit. I thought the actors did a well enough job with their various roles, though nothing particularly stand out or spectacular. Kreuk actually wasn’t half bad as an Indian girl. There are some particularly good shots in the film, and I felt it was filmed quite well for the most part. I think when the film finally does come out it will be good. Assuming they don’t get feed back to the effect of: “That partition business is too violent; it’s a real downer. You guys should drop that from the film.”
Previous discussion of Partition here.
[7] Movies
12 June 2006, lunch time
I watched Wimbledon last night. What a horrible movie. Paul Bettany plays an old tennis player who is just about ready retire from the game after playing his last Wimbledon tournament—he’s the wild card entry there. During the tournament he meets Kirsten Dunst, another tennis player, who through the power of sex (perhaps she has a magical cho-cha) makes him a better tennis player. The way they shot the tennis matches themselves was cool, but beyond that, it’s a pretty typical chick-flick. You wouldn’t be missing much if you never watched this movie.
The official Wimbledon (movie) web site.
Movies
9 June 2006, lunch time
Same question I asked last year: anyone know anything about Bloor and Lansdowne. (Actually more like Dupont and Lansdowne now.) Once again, I am looking for places in the area. I get the feeling its moving on up, ever so slowly. All opinions welcome.
Update: I decided to move to the area, down by Bloor and Lansdowne.
Update: You can read about my experiences thus far in the Bloor and Lansdowne section of this site.
[22] Life | Bloor and Lansdowne
8 June 2006, lunch time
Yesterday I took part in a battleground instance in World of Warcraft. A battleground is an area in World of Warcraft where you can go and fight with other players (from the opposing faction). I am playing on a Player vs. Enemy server, so by default you can’t just go and kill random dudes if you feel like it. This particular instance is essentially a capture the flag game. It feels a bit strange playing such a game in what is essentially a fantasy role-playing game, but that doesn’t make it any less fun. The same things that make these sorts of games fun in a first-person shooter carry over into World of Warcraft. There is a little bit of strategy and a lot of teamwork involved in winning. I ended up staying up till one in the morning because I didn’t want to leave before my team won (or lost, as turned out to be the case). This was in part because it was a lot of fun playing, and in part because I didn’t want to leave and have my team end up a man short.
World of Warcraft | Nerd Alert
7 June 2006, lunch time
Today I am trying a coffee one of my coworkers brought in: Gevalia Traditional Roast. It really isn’t nearly as good at the one true coffee, Organic Sumatra. The ground beans had a very nice aroma, but the espresso shot the AeroPress makes was quite sour. I don’t want to judge the coffee too harshly because I’m taking it with cream today. I really can’t stand coffee with cream. The cream is all I can ever taste for some reason. That said, the overall feeling I’m getting from this coffee is that it is very sour.
Life
6 June 2006, lunch time
I bought my copy of JPod at a reading of the book. I didn’t know much about the book, or Douglas Coupland, beyond the fact he had written a book called Microserfs. This was the first time I had paid pretty much full price for a book in ages. Since JPod was reviewed by the Globe and Mail, it is on sale at Amazon for 40% off. I probably should have bought it there. (Still, I can take heart in knowing that my cousin would have been proud of me supporting Pages, who were selling the books during the reading.) JPod is very different from the books I have been reading recently. It is funny for starters, which Hemmingway and Baldwin rarely are. So in this way it was an enjoyable read. It’s nice to read something that doesn’t leave you depressed. The problem though is the book doesn’t feel like it has any substance to it.
I didn’t feel any sort of attachment to any of the characters in the book. This actually might be a function of the characters themselves; they are all thoroughly apathetic, amoral, twenty-somethings. They really aren’t likable. They are memorable insofar as they are quirky.
That said, the book is very much character driven. The plot for the book is more or less non-existent, and isn’t as important to the story as the characters and their various neuroses are. The story centres around Eathan, a video game programmer. He works at a nondescript game company in Vancouver, in an area known as the JPod (because your last name starts with a J if you are working in that chunk of cubicles). Him and his fellow JPodders are working on a skateboard game that gets repurposed into a skateboard game with a kid-friendly turtle. The working life of these characters is portrayed in all its soul-sucking glory. Beyond the video-game programmers, the reader is introduced to Eathan’s dysfunctional family: a pot growing mom; a people smuggling real-estate agent brother; a ball-room dancing wannabe actor. Coupland himself shows up in the novel. The first few times it is actually funny. (The last couple times, not so much.) The book is very surreal and absurd. There are hints of real life hidden within all the exaggeration and caricature. I suppose it does make for an interesting read.
As I said at the start, I did enjoy reading the book. I’m not sure if it is a classic or any such nonsense, but it is entertaining. The book has a nice cover. It’s probably worth checking out.
Comics and Books
5 June 2006, lunch time
When you try and do something in Reddit that requires you to be logged in, Reddit will overlay a login/sign-up window over the page you are viewing. (Go to their page and try voting on a link to see what I am talking about.) This is the first, and only time, I’ve been impressed with a Lightbox style effect. Reddit doesn’t do anything flashy. It’s a quick and efficient way to get you logged in and working with their site.
Web Design
3 June 2006, mid-afternoon
Back at home this weekend, Ahilan showed me a clip of Micheal Jackson performing in New York back in 2001. Micheal Jackson is the greatest. I really don’t think I can truly respect someone who doesn’t like Micheal Jackson. After watching that video, I watched his performace at the 25th Aniversary of Motown show. That was the first time he ever did the Moonwalk. Then I watched him and his brothers perform I Want You Back, which is also amazing. You should definetly watch his performace at the 1988 Grammy Awards. He’s singing Man in the Mirror; it’s a very good performance. I think 1988 was a good year for Jackson. There is so much good stuff on YouTube.
(I would be remiss if I didn’t mention Emm Gryner’s brilliant cover of Beat It, which is so damn good.)
Update June 25th 2009: RIP Michael Jackson.
[3] Music
