21 February 2006, late evening
I’m reading Giovani’s Room now, which was written back in 1956. The book is about a man trying to come to terms with his homosexuality—at least this is what I think it is about after reading the first few chapters of the book. The book is quite good so far.
‘Love him,’ said Jacques, with vehemence, ‘love him and let him love you. Do you think anything else under heaver really matters? And how long, at the best, can it last? since you are both ben and still have everywhere to go? Only five minutes, I assure you, only five minutes, and most of that, hellas! in the dark. And if you think of them as dirty, then they will be dirty—they will be dirty because you will be giving nothing, you will be despising your flesh and his. But you can make your time together anything but dirty, you can give each other something which will make both of you better—forever—if you will not be ashamed, if you will only not play it safe.’ He paused, watching me, and then looked down to his cognac. ‘You play it safe long enough,’ he said, in a different tone, ‘and you’ll end up trapped in your own dirty body, forever and forever and forever—like me.’
I wonder how many homosexuals still feel a strong compulsion to hide (or deny) their sexual orientation. I think one of the things that made Brokeback Mountain so depressing was the internal conflict of Heath Ledger’s character.
[3] Comics and Books
19 February 2006, evening time
I watched Parineeta today with my mom. The film, an adaptation of the book by the same name, is your typical bollywood fare—at least with respect to the plot. Inspite of this, I thought the film was quite good. The movie is set in 1962 Calcutta, and tracks the relationship between two childhood almost sweethearts. The sets and costumes from the period are quite cool. Rehka, bollywood starlet of the 70s, makes a brief apperence in the film as a lounge singer. (Her number was my favourite song in the movie.) I think Bollywood is getting much better at producing these sorts of films.
The official Parineeta web site.
[1] Movies
17 February 2006, lunch time
I just finished reading Go Tell it on the Mountain., which I bought a few weeks back. I had forgotten how complex the story is, and how open-ended things are left by the end. The book is excellent. Baldwin essentially tells the stories of 4 characters: the lead, John; his mother, Elizabeth; his father, Gabriel, and his aunt, Florence. The story is rich and always twisting. Each character’s past is revealed to us piece-by-piece as the story progresses. It’s really good. I recomend you read this book. (I wonder if the book would have more meaning for me if I was Christian. Have any of the Christian’s here read it? The book is all about the Lord bringing people low, and then raising them back up—seemingly. I feel like reading the Bible.)
Comics and Books
17 February 2006, the wee hours
My brother and his friends have made a few short “films” using his Canon digital camera. One of my favourites was a video they did on suicide; it was for a school project. You would think it would be hard—or at the very least inappropriate—to make a light-hearted video on suicide, but that’s just what they did. I’m not sure what they got on this project, but thanks to Google Video you can now watch this peice of art. (The audio is horrible.) I think all my friends who have seen the video agree it’s really bizarre. It’s also very budget and low-rent and very much a product of high school.
Another video I like that they did was 3 of his friends running into each other head first wearing large boxes on their heads; a shame that video isn’t online.
[3] Life
15 February 2006, lunch time
The first time I got a hair cut in Animal Crossing, I ended up with this blonde surfer-dude type of haircut. It was really ugly. I knew there was a chart online that told you how to answer the hair dressers questions to get the cut you want, but I thought it’d be more fun to just do it at random and see what I turn up with. It wasn’t more fun. A week later, sick of my blonde hair, I got it cut again today. Learning nothing from past experience, I decided to answer the hair dressers questions at random and see what happens. I now have super short hair. And it’s blue. So, in Animal Crossing, as in real life, I can’t get a good hair cut.
[3] Video Games | Nintendo DS
14 February 2006, lunch time
My first proper date with Shima was on Valentines day. We went to Jane Bond, which is the best (and coolest) vegetarian restaurant in Waterloo. At the time I thought Shima was vegetarian—later I would learn she was just really picky. I had a pizza, Shima had a panini of some sort and an ice tea. Shima always gets ice tea when we go out. Since we both look very young, I feel obligated to get some wine to at least give others the impression we aren’t in high school; also, I like drinking wine. We were at Jane Bond for quite a while. Shima would tell me later she was worried we’d have nothing to talk about. I can’t remember how we passed the time, or what we said anymore. I remember it was a nice date though.
Life
12 February 2006, early evening
I had nothing to do this Sunday afternoon, so I decided to sit down and watch Aliens. I bought the special edition of the DVD a little while ago, and hadn’t had a chance to watch it yet. The new cut of the film adds another 20 minutes to the film, making it a very long 2 hours and 40 minutes of Alien fueled mayhem. The movie is really good; some of the new scenes add a lot to the film. As sequels go, Aliens holds its own. The movie feels much different than Ridley Scott’s original movie. This probably has much to do with the fact that the audience knows all about the Aliens by the second film I suppose; that air of mystery just isn’t there. I don’t remember the 3rd and 4th films being particularly good, but after watching the first two, I really want to see the rest.
Movies
12 February 2006, the wee hours
I haven’t watched a cricket game in a while. Today I get to watch Australia square off against Sri Lanka. Tillakaratne Dilshan is a gangster. Australia’s Gilchrist is out thanks to a pretty good catch by the young Dilshan—that was on the second ball of the game! He also happened to run 4 of Australia’s batsmen out a few days ago. Here is hoping Sri Lanka can keep the pressure on and win this.
Update: So, in the span of 3 overs Sri Lanka has managed to get 3 wickets.
Update: 35 overs in, and Ponting and Symonds have shut the Sri Lankan team up. Some pretty brilliant cricket on their parts. It’s not looking good for Sri Lanka; Australia looks like they’ll easily post a 300+ score.
Update: Australia’s innings are over. They posted a score of 368, which is pretty damn high. It is pretty unlikely Sri Lanka can come close to matching that.
Update: I went to bed just before the game ended, when Muralitharan was still up to bat. To match Australia’s score, Sri Lanka would need to have batted a pretty solid game—which they didn’t. Too many wickets early on didn’t help their cause. 368 is an astronomical score; It would have been a very hard game to win.
[4] Life
11 February 2006, terribly early in the morning
I just got back from Close to the Heart V. I watched the show with my buddy John. It’s a benefit concert for the Regent Park School of Music. As you can guess, this is the fifth year the show has tried to raise money. Tonight, they had a pretty stellar line up of Canadian musicians doing covers of their favourite Canadian songs. The show was un-fucking-believable. I finally got to see Ivana Santilli in person; meow. I also got to speak briefly with Esthero, after I snapped a photo of her with two girls I met at the show (who wanted me to take their photo with Esthero). It was a really fun night.
Update: I’ve posted photos from the night on Flickr.
[4] Music
10 February 2006, lunch time
We pay a fair amount of money to ride the trains here in Toronto. If you live on the subway line, and want to go somewhere on the subway line, then the TTC is quite fast. If not, then the TTC’s service is very hit or miss. Yesterday the TTC announced a hike in fares, the second in 2 years years. I’m not sure it is worth spending $5.50 round-trip to ride the TTC. However, if you don’t have a car, do you really have a choice? (That’s not a rhetorical question: the answer is no.)
We have bus coverage for much of the city—there is an express bus that goes right by my work!—but the quality of service we get from these buses is lacking at best. The bus I take home from work comes on average about once every ten minutes. This usually means two buses come back to back at 5:00, and another two at 5:30. One is usually dangerously overcrowded, while the other is empty. I understand that on the roads you never know how traffic will work out. However, one would think after running this service for so many years, the TTC would have worked out some tricks-of-the-trade. The bus I take to get to my house in Scarborough, the 130 Middlefield, doesn’t run on weekends, and holidays. I seem to remember when I was in grade school it didn’t run on weeknights as well. If I wanted to get home on a day the Middlefield bus wasn’t running, I’d take the McCowan and walk. Actually, if you live Scarborough, access to the TTC is pretty crap in general. The RT is pretty useless: Dave has stories of waiting at Lawrence East station for an RT train that wasn’t packed like a sardine, watching 3-4 pass him by before he could cram himself onto a train; that’s not good. Mezan says about half his trip to come downtown is spent on the bus from his home to Kennedy station. I think I could go on with more stories of how lame the TTC can be, but you probably get the point.
The Globe and Mail has a list of all the new fares. I think a Metropass is going to be a pretty good deal for anyone who takes the TTC on a semi-regular basis, especially since it is transferable now. The TTC should be better then it is. It benefits the city to have a viable public transit system. I’m sure more people would take the TTC if it was as fast and as efficient as the Tokyo Metro.
If you want something more insightful on the state of the TTC, you’ll have to wait for Lawrence or Matt to chime in.
[2] Toronto
8 February 2006, lunch time
I bought one of those fancy coffee making machines with a coworker of mine. The coffee that we get here at work is bad. The coffee itself, combined with the horrible coffee machine and the people who feel compelled to use two packs of coffee to make one pot, results in a perfect storm of bad coffee. This week I have been enjoying some truly excellent coffee, thanks to the AeroPress. The machine does work wonders. Even the lame coffee we get here at work tastes better. I made some of my co-workers coffee from Ecuador and it was something else. I feel like my eyes have been opened to a whole new world of coffee that doesn’t taste sour or like bleach. I’ll need to track down some good grounds next. Any coffee drinkers out there have any suggestions?
[5] Life
7 February 2006, lunch time
Well it looks like Google is going to start letting you log all your Google Talk conversations within Google Mail. You just need to turn this feature on within GMail and you are good to go. (It is off by default, at least for myself.) On the one hand, being able to search through all your old IM conversations would be really cool. On the hand, there is the whole “Google has all my information” thing to think about. I’m sure there will be plenty of people happy with this change—the lack of logging in Google Talk was a big oversight.
Update: According to the official Google Blog, Chat + Email = Crazy Delicious. True Dat! Double True!
[2] Technology
6 February 2006, lunch time
I have been taking photographs using the RAW capture mode on my digital camera. What this means is that my camera takes the raw data it reads on its light sensor and saves it to an image file without processing it whatsoever. You are supposed to post-process the images on your computer, which give you much more control.
The other option available to me, and the one most people use, is to save their photos as JPEGs. If I went this route, the camera does some processing on the photo—colour correction, white-balancing, and what not—and then saves the images as a JPEG image. JPEGs are smaller, and easier to work with on a computer. The problem with JPEGs is that they achieve their size by throwing away a lot of the data in the image. You can’t take a JPEG and apply some transformations to get the original image back; once an image is compressed, the information that was removed is gone forever. As such, we call JPEG a lossy compression scheme. A high-quality JPEG will still give you a very good image, however, you will never have the exact image your camera saw.
The main advantage of shooting RAW is that you can do post-processing on your computer with an untainted image. On your PC, you can fix the white-balance, curves, and other such things, getting the image you want, before exporting the photo as a JPEG (or some other image format you can work with). You can decide what you think looks best, as opposed to letting the circuits in your camera decide. This is a big plus.
There is however a big problem with shooting RAW, at least for myself: the files are huge and a pain to work with. It takes my iBook a full minute to convert an image from a RAW file to a JPEG. One minute is a really long time for a computer to spend doing anything in this day and age. It took me 45 minutes to export this set of photographs from a dinner I had at my house on Saturday. I am still trying to figure out the best—and quickest—way to deal with processing a large batch of RAW images.
[11] Photography | Technology
4 February 2006, terribly early in the morning
Ubuntu Linux is a pretty good attempt at making Linux more user-friendly. It’s no OS X, not by a long shot, but compared to other Linux distributions it is quite easy to use. It is a shame it is so buggy, at least on my brothers old computer. Firefox has a habit of crashing on this machine. Today, when I turned the computer on, I was greeted by a desktop squeezed into a 640×480 space. I can’t change the screens resolution, no matter how hard I try. Changing the screens resolution shouldn’t be a challenge.
I should point out that my site fits nicely on a 640×480 screen. (If you have ever wondered why my site is so skinny, it is because for a very long time I had a Powerbook 5300cs, whose LCD screen was fixed at 640×480. I got very used to designing pages that fit on that screen. I haven’t used that computer in ages, but still seem to have a design sense shapped by my use of that computer.)
I think it is time for a new Linux Distro; any suggestions on which ones to try?
Update Feb 5th: For the record, straight up Debian was a big mistake. I am actually back running Ubuntu, and it is working perfectly. I am still not sure what went wrong last time.
[3] Technology
3 February 2006, terribly early in the morning
The interest rate on my OSAP loan is 7.75% (Variable). Does that seem high to you? I’m not sure why it took my 15 months to actually look this up. In hindsight, I think I could have got a loan at a much lower rate than that, paid off my OSAP in its entirety, and paid back the new loan at the lower rate. (For those of you who will have to pay back your loans soon that is something to seriously consider.) I’m almost all paid off. So far I have paid about $350 in interest. (I think when I am all done I’ll be at about $370 in interest.) That really isn’t so bad. Still, I look forward to not having the National Student Loan Centre take my money away.
[1] Life
2 February 2006, early afternoon
I was in the Indigo on Bay St. a couple days ago, killing some time while waiting for some photographs to get developed. I like shopping; the problem with shopping at Indigo is that almost all their books are cheaper online. Krishna can confirm this, as I called him 3 or 4 times while in the store asking him for the prices of the books online. Ultimately I left with a copy of The Tipping Point which was discounted both online and offline. Before leaving, I noticed a small stand with a strange mix of books. It took me a couple seconds to clue in that the authors were all black, and the stand had been set up in celebration of black history month. I picked up the copy of Go Tell it on the Mountain by James Baldwin) they had put out; it was a crappy paperback, with newsprint paper and an ugly cover.
Read the rest of this post. (533 words)
[3] Life | Comics and Books
31 January 2006, lunch time
I’m three episodes shy of having seen the entire Firefly series. My cousin had been trying to get me to watch it for a while now, and after both my brothers watched the show they joined in on the act. Dave has the series on DVD; he got is as a gift for Christmas. During the Christmas holidays the two of us started watching the series, and over the past few weeks I’ve been heading to his house to watch a few episodes when I have time.
The series is really quite good, which makes it such a shame it was canceled. The premise is simple: the show is basically a sci-fi western, which sounds like it shouldn’t work, but it does. The show follows this motley crew around on a space ship called Serenity as they go around smuggling goods and doing other nefarious things. There are several things that make the show worthwhile. First off, the characters are all really interesting; by what should be the mid-season for the series you start to feel a real connection with them. Several of the characters clearly have back stories that I am guessing won’t get fleshed out in the last three episodes—damn it. The show is also very funny. I’ve watched ten episodes and have yet to see an episode I didn’t enjoy. Like Battlestar Galactica, the show doesn’t really feel like other sci-fi shows. It is really incidental to the plot that they flying around on a spaceship.
Thank the lord Battlestar Galactica is still on the air and going strong. I think if Firefly was on Space, it would still be on today, which is a real shame. Hopefully a second season will get made. The DVD sales for the series and the movie were really strong.
[1] Television
30 January 2006, lunch time
I linked to a story on Hamas winning the Palestinian election a few days ago, and didn’t really say much more on the topic. Sunny had the following to say:
The peace process has just taken an u-turn and the Palestinians have made it crystal that they don’t give a damn about the peace process. You can’t negotiate with these folks in good faith.
Sunny’s opinion is inline with what I have heard on the news, either from political analysts or from world leaders. Now, I assume that if Fatah won the election then the peace process would be on course to come to an amicable solution. (If not, then there is really no point lamenting a Hamas win.) Now, I don’t live in Palestine. Neither does Sunny. Neither does George Bush, or any of the leaders of the EU. The people who do live there seem to be of the opinion that Fatah is not getting much done. Hamas won the election because Fatah has been ineffectual so far, at least in the eyes of the only people whose opinions matter on this subject, the Palestinian people. That Fatah could be removed from power without a civil war is a good thing. In the past Canadian election we saw that Canadians were sick of the Liberals and voted someone else into office to replace them; no one complained that this was a failure of democracy. If you can’t live with the results of an election, why bother supporting democractic institutions in the first place?
Of course, everything I just said hinges on Hamas shutting up about wanting to destroy Israel. That country isn’t going anywhere. Both sides need to learn how to get along.
[1] Politics | Current Events
28 January 2006, evening time
Shima bought me a Lomography Fisheye camera when she was in New York city a few weeks back. The Lomographic Society got famous by selling Lomo LC-A cameras, but now they sell other cheap cameras at boutique prices. This fisheye camera is one of many cameras you can now buy online at the Lomography website.
Read the rest of this post. (462 words)
[2] Photography
27 January 2006, lunch time
pketh asks, in response to my complaints about developing film downtown:
So where do you go to get the film developed, and how much is it? I’m still looking for a good developer actually, crazy expensive to shoot film nowadays sadly.
I get my film developed in Scarborough, at the Shopper’s Drugmart at Woodside Square. When they first opened up, I was pretty impressed with the photolab. I wasn’t super impressed because they had a bad habit of scratching my negatives. I pay $7 Shopper’s $7 to develop my photos, print them, and burn them all onto a CD. They do all that in an hour. I have yet to find a store downtown that comes even close to doing all that for the price.
Recently I have been disappointed with the results I’ve been getting from them, but I think this probably has a lot to do with the fact I push a lot of the film I use. They say they’ll push process it, but I don’t think anyone in the photolab actually knows what that means. I suspect they develop it normally, and then compensate for the underexposed shots when printing. That’s why I always seem to end up with high-contrast super-grainy photos. West Camera did an amazing job developing my slide film, but I think it must have cost me something like $24 dollars to do 36 exposures. (Mind you, Shopper’s couldn’t develop slide film period, so I suppose that is a moot point.)
Other places worth checking out if you want quality prints are Pikto and ImageWorks. If you want prints on the cheap, like myself, then I think Shopper’s might be your best bet.
[7] Life | Photography
26 January 2006, lunch time
Shima is getting a used Nintendo DS in the near future. I am not sure if she wants one or not. If she doesn’t, I’ll give my Nintendo DS to Krishna I suppose. I must have the new, white, smaller, lighter Nintendo DS. This new DS won’t be out in Japan till some time in March, so I have some time to save up my moneys. I’m not sure when it will make its way over to North America. It looks very similar to the old DS, just lighter and smaller. I’m hoping the ergonomics of the unit are better this time around, though it looks like it will just be more of the same. (The lighter weight may actually help a lot, we’ll have to wait and see.) It seems a bit cold, announcing a new Nintendo DS so close to Christmas, but in Japan there has been a serious Nintendo DS drought, so this news will probably be recieved well.
[14] Video Games | Nintendo DS
25 January 2006, lunch time
I met “Heather”: last night to watch Mrs. Henderson Presents. The film takes place before and during World War II; Judy Dench plays a widow who buys a theatre and ends up turning it into a strip club of sorts. It is a very strange movie. There is no real point to the movie. The film is funny at times, and touching at times, but for the most part the whole film feels like it is missing something. The movie is probably worth checking out, but don’t expect anything too great.
The official Mrs. Henderson Presents web site.
Movies
25 January 2006, lunch time
Mezan sent me the following email:
Since I didn’t find the net to much help on this topic I think you shoud post it on your blog. I managed to find a big mortar and pestle that’s actually imported from Thailand at Kohinoor Foods on (1438) Gerrard St. You’d think Chinatown would be the place to look for something like that, but it turns out Indian people grind more stuff than Chinese or Vietnamese people. I was looking for where I could buy a decent mortar and pestle in Toronto but didn’t get much info. Oh, I saw some at Tap Phong too.
[4] Life | Toronto
24 January 2006, terribly early in the morning
As I head to bed, the NDP are looking like they will end up with 29 seats, which is really great. The downside, of course, is that the Conservative party have won 125 seats, the most seats this election. This means we have a minority government—again. Derek Lee won in my riding—again. I’m not surprised with the results, though I am impressed the Liberals still ended up with so many seats, despite running what must be one of the worst campaigns ever.
Update Jan 24th 9:52 AM: The breakdown of votes and seats this year was favourable to the Conservatives and the NDP, with the Liberals and the Bloc losing seats. I was surprised when the Bloc backed the Conservatives in bringing down the past government. The Bloc posted great numbers in the last election, and I couldn’t see why they would want to rock the boat. I suppose they had assumed they could steal more votes away from the Liberals this time around. This would have been a reasonable train of thought; I don’t think anyone would have predicted the Conservatives would do so well in Quebec.
In the end, the results were as follows:
| Party |
Seats |
% of Votes |
| Con |
124 |
36.25%% |
| Lib |
103 |
30.22% |
| BQ |
51 |
10.48% |
| NDP |
29 |
17.49% |
| IND |
1 |
0.52% |
| OTH |
0 |
5.05% |
The Conservatives won a Minority government, but no other party has the balance of power. The Conservatives are going to have to work very hard to keep the House of Commons working if they want to be voted back in the next time elections are held. I don’t think Canadians are interested in another election so soon.
In my riding, things were as they always are:
| Candidate |
Party |
Votes |
% of Votes |
| Derek Lee |
LIB |
30281 |
65.62% |
| Jerry Bance |
CON |
9426 |
20.43% |
| Andrew Brett |
NDP |
4973 |
10.78% |
| Serge Abbat |
GRN |
756 |
1.64% |
| Alan Mercer |
LTN |
243 |
0.53% |
Derek Lee actually got more votes this time around! Last year Raymond Cho did reasonably well in this riding, and I suspect many people who have voted for him last time, voted for Derek Lee this time. Last year there were 38,578 votes cast in my riding. This year, there were 46,146. The numbers for the other parties are very similar to their numbers last year.
If you are interested in how this election compares to the last, you can check out Election Canada’s website, which has last years results and other information online. I wrote about last year’s election as well..
We have a Conservative leading the country. God damn it.
[14] Politics | Current Events
23 January 2006, late afternoon
I have owned my trusty Pentax K1000 since the end of high-school. In that time, I have bought two lenses for the camera. The first was a Pentax SMC 50mm f/1.8 lens, which I bought when I bought the camera. The second lens replaced the first, and was a Pentax SMC 50mm f/1.4 lens, which I bought when I threw my camera and it landed lens-side down. (The Pentax K1000 is a rugged sonuvabitch. Even the lens I destroyed didn’t shatter or break, I just jarred it enough that the focusing ring wouldn’t turn anymore; manual-focus lenses are built like bricks.) I like Prime Lenses.
Read the rest of this post. (658 words)
[3] Photography
