Punctured bicycle
On a hillside desolate
Will nature make a man of me yet ?
When in this charming car
This charming man
Why pamper life’s complexity
When the leather runs smooth
On the passenger seat ?
I would go out tonight
But I haven’t got a stitch to wear
This man said “it’s gruesome
That someone so handsome should care”
—This Charming Man by the Smiths
25 June 2005, terribly early in the morning
Angelina Jolie is gorgeous. Also, Mr. and Mrs. Smith was a really good movie, much better than I had expected. The action sequences are really well done, and the movie is quite funny to boot. It would have been a cool movie to watch not knowing anything about it. Anyway, back to my main point: Angelina Jolie is the hotness.
Usurpers always bring about or select troublous times to get passed, under cover of the public terror, destructive laws, which the people would never adopt in cold blood. The moment chosen is one of the surest means of distinguishing the work of the legislator from that of the tyrant.
—Jean-Jaque Rousseau from The Social Contract
24 June 2005, the wee hours
I basically own all of Faye Wong’s albums. I’m not sure if there is any other singer in Hong Kong as talented as her. She has enjoyed mainstream success in the country, but at the same time manages to hang on to her artistic credibility—this is quite rare in the Hong Kong pop music scene. Between 1994 and 1996 she put out some of the best albums I’ve ever heard, starting with Random Thinking and ending with the absolutely brilliant Impatience.
I found myself listening to Ingratiate Oneself this week. Its kind of cool listening to an album you haven’t heard in ages—especially since I hardly listen to Chinese music anymore. Much of the album is pretty standard HK-pop fare, though you can see signs of the direction her music would take once she left Cineoply and was given a lot more creative freedom at EMI. Standout songs include the bizarre Exit and the charming I Fear. Her cover of Here’s Where the Story Ends by the Sundays is also quite cool. (It was—and perhaps still is—very popular in Hong Kong to cover English music in Cantonese, while leaving the arrangements identical. Faye Wong sang the version of Dreams by the Cranberries you may have heard in Chungking Express.)
In many ways I find listening to Chinese music very nostalgic; it was very much a part of who I was when I was in high school.
You know, back when Kennedy was smoking reefers in the White House, if you were a black man and you got taken in for marijuana, they came down on you so hard you’d wish you’d be caught killing another black.
—Hassan Abdolrahman, from an interview in the book In The Rose Garden of the Martyrs
22 June 2005, lunch time
“Do you still go to Dixon and Atwell?” I asked the bus driver walking toward the 191 Rocket. I was a bit late getting to the station, and at some point the bus stops going where I need it to go. I learned that it does this the hard way, getting off the bus out in the middle of nowhere.
“No,” he replied. He sounded insulted that I asked him.
“When is the last bus that goes up there?”
“What—do I look like a god damned bus driver!?” I’m paraphrasing this sentence a little bit, but suffice it to say we got in a bit of an argument. Some bus drivers are angry. I mean, its OK to hate your job, but if you’re in the service industry you really should make an effort not to take it out on the people you have to deal with.
He actually told me to check the schedule inside the station—though he was less than polite in the way he worded things. Now, I’m not against checking the schedule, but seeing as how I was outside, talking to him, I thought it’d be reasonable to just ask him. More so, the schedule is one big lie. According to the schedule buses arrive every 5 minutes—my ass.
The guy was starting to rant at this point, asking me if I had a computer, because it was my job to find out when the buses run, and his job to drive them. I started to walk away after telling him to be cool (hunny bunny).
I felt sorry for him. The way he slouched when he walked, the way he kept up his appearance. He looked like someone who needed a hug.
19 June 2005, early morning
Batman Begins was an amazing movie. The film is basically the origin story for Batman. The movie traces the path Bruce Wayne takes from being just some angry dude, to becoming Batman. I’m not sure what liberties they’ve taken with the origin as outlined in the comic books, but the story they present in the film is quite good. The casting was excellent. All the characters were well suited for their roles. I really liked Cillian Murphy of 28 Days Later fame playing the role of the Scarecrow. Christian Bale makes a really good Batman, and a great Bruce Wayne. I actually think it might be the best in the series, even surpassing the first film by Tim Burton. Regardless, watching this film will help you forget all the crap that followed the two Burton movies.
16 June 2005, terribly early in the morning
I was sitting down at Kipling station, waiting for my bus. Standing a few feet away from me was a boy with what I thought was a cigarette in his hand, puffing away. It didn’t take long to realize he wasn’t smoking a cigarette. It was 8:30 in the morning—that seems awfully early to be smoking weed. He finishes his joint and tosses the roach on to the road. He then lights up a real cigarette. The boy is going to the airport. I know this because he asked a bus driver how long till the bus to the airport arrived. I am guessing he is meeting people, since he has no luggage on him.
As I watched this scene unfold, the Kipling 45E gets ready to leave. It’s the express bus that drives North up Kipling. Just as it is about to leave, the bus driver spots a woman running towards the bus. A man, standing near the bus waves to the driver to let her know there is a women running, trying to catch the bus—just incase the driver didn’t notice. The driver opens her door and waits. Just as the woman reaches the doors, the driver closes them shut and drives away. That was cold.
I got on my bus shortly after and headed off to start my day at work.
15 June 2005, lunch time
I’ve been to Seven Numbers twice now. The first time was last Wednesday, the second was yesterday night. That’s twice in less than a week. “The food must be great,” you might be thinking. It is, but that isn’t why I went back again so soon.
Last Wednesday, Carvill, Dave and I went there for dinner. We got there around 7:30 or so. We had our drink orders taken fairly quickly, but had to wait quite a while for our drinks. We ordered the rest of our meal, and had to wait ages for our appetizers. (My appetizer actually never even made it to my table.) The owner was nice enough about the service being slow, giving us some shots, and bigger helpings of food when we did end up getting our food. That said, the service was so slow it was embarrassing.
Still, the food was really good. And the place itself is awesome. It has a very casual vibe. The wait staff is constantly running around, yelling at the cooks and at each other. Everyone around you looks laid back, probably due to the laid back nature of the place. I wanted to go back and see if we just caught the guys on an off night, which I suspected we did.
Steph, Serena, Dave and I met for dinner late last night. Dave and I arrived first. The owner came and took our drink order, which was a pitcher of Sangria. Dave ordered a Smoked Salmon appetizer to munch on while we waited for the girls. It was all out a few minutes later—things were looking up. Dave and I drank some Sangria, ate some salmon, and chatted. When Steph and Serena arrived, we split the rest of the pitcher with them. Everyone save Dave seemed to enjoy the Sangria—Dave didn’t like the fact the drink doesn’t have much kick to it.
We ordered food shortly after, and as with are initial order, things were out quite promptly. Everyone liked their food; we ordered a variety of things. I had an Italian Sausage as my main, which was quite tasty, and a Grilled Shrimp with Spicy Salsa as my appetizer. The shrimps were really good, and I recommend you try them if you go to the restaurant. The calamari, which we didn’t order on this trip out, is also quite good. I don’t think anyone was disappointed with their meals, so you are pretty safe ordering whatever strikes your fancy. The portabello mushroom sides are excellent—I don’t even like Mushrooms but enjoyed eating them.
So, Seven Numbers is a good place to go. The meals are reasonably cheap to boot, an added bonus.
14 June 2005, lunch time
I met up with Rishi late on Sunday night to attend a concert at the Horseshoe; the last band I saw there was fucking amazing. The singer we were going to see was Juana Molina from Argentina. She is apparently a former sketch comedy star turned singer. Sounds like a strange transition to make, I know, but she has certainly done a great job making it.
Her set was very acoustic. She stood alone on stage with a guitar around her neck, a lone microphone, and an assortment of keyboards and other electronic devices to her side. She would sit and play some music on a keyboard for a few moments, very melodious ambient stuff, then the background music would kick in, she would turn to the microphone, pick up her guitar, and starting singing and playing. It was very impressive to watch. All the more so when I realized the stuff she was playing at the start of her songs were all the loops that would play during her songs. What I had assumed was preprogrammed background music was in fact the things she was playing at the start of each song. Her live show was really quite amazing.
I liked all the songs she did. Rishi called me up on very short notice, and I’m glad he did. It was one of the most unique shows I’ve been to. She is playing in Montreal in July. If you are in the city, you should check her out.
13 June 2005, early afternoon
That Thing You Do is an enjoyable period piece—the period being the early sixties. The film follows the fast rise and fall of a fictional band called The Wonders. I guess the film is meant to showcase the lives of all the bands that wanted to be the Beatles, but didn’t quite make it. It isn’t a tragedy mind you; everyone gets their happy ending. Tom Hanks wrote and directed the film. I think he did a good job. Though the movie isn’t as meaningful as it could be, I think he does a really good job capturing the spirit of the period. (Well, as far as I can tell, being 25 and all.) Liv Tyler is one of the stars of the film, and is looking hot.
13 June 2005, early afternoon
I watched Hitch with my brothers over the weekend. Will Smith plays a fellow who helps less-than-suave dudes meet the women they are infatuated with—men looking for ‘true love’. For example, Will Smith turns down the request for help from a sleazy wall street type looking to score with some random chick. Eva Mendez plays the love interest in the film, and is looking hot. Kevin James is funny as usual, playing a hopeless but charming accountant trying to hook up with one of his glamorous clients. The movie is very much a romantic comedy, there were plenty of sappy moments, but for the most part the film is pretty funny. It’s nothing profound, but is a funny enough film.
Close your eyes and I’ll kiss you
Tomorrow I’ll miss you
Remember I’ll always be true
And then while I’m away
I’ll write home every day
And I’ll send all my loving to you
I’ll pretend that I’m kissing
The lips I am missing
And hope that my dreams will come true
And then while I’m away
I’ll write home every day
And I’ll send all my loving to you
All my loving, I will send to you
All my loving, darling I’ll be true
—All My Loving by the Beatles.
11 June 2005, mid-afternoon
After going to Embassy, Supermarket, and Sneaky Dees, I split off from my Scarborough posse and headed off to The Midtowne with Yathavan, Shannon and Amanda. Matt, Aaron, and Laura had headed straight there instead of making a detour for food at Sneaky Dees. Yathavan and I arrived at around 1:00 at the bar. It was just down the road. Matt and his friends were playing pool at the back of the bar. The place was pretty nice, but looks very plain when compared to everything else in the area. We loitered around at the Midtowne for an hour and a half or so, and then headed off for food. Yathavan and I met up with Gary and Steph and a few of Gary’s friends at Pho 88 on Spadina. It must have been close to 3:15 at this point. It was my 5th stop of the night—I was tired.
10 June 2005, early afternoon
Perhaps awesome isn’t the word, but these researchers present two different meaningful documents that share the same MD5 checksum. Usually MD5 isn’t used to sign documents like this, but it is quite common to use MD5 to verify binaries on the Internet.
Briefly, MD5 is a hash function, a program that takes a big string of 1s and 0s (which is what everything on your computer is), and outputs a much smaller string of 1s and 0s. This smaller string is usually called a fingerprint of checksum. MD5 was thought to be secure, but was recently broken. For a hash function to be considered secure:
xx' such that the hashes of x and x' matchOne attack I could envision is creating an evil Trojan distribution of a popular open-source program: You could tell people you are mirroring a popular program—when you download from SourceForge for example there are countless mirrors for you to choose from. No one would assume anything is amiss, since the checksum for your application would match the checksum generated by the real programs being hosted by all the other mirrors; when the people run your evil program and it would do its evil things. (Update: not quite right, see comments.)
8 June 2005, early afternoon
Today, Apple put out a press release I never thought I would ever see: Apple to Use Intel Microprocessors Beginning in 2006. This is a big deal—but if you aren’t particularly geeky, you can stop reading now.
My first Macintosh was a Powerbook 5300cs, which ran on a PowerPC 603e. Apple had made a big switch from Motorola 68k chips to IBM PowerPC chips in the early 90s. Ars Technica has a great write up on the history of PowerPC chips at Apple for those who are interested in such things; the article also explains some of the advantages RISC machines have over CISC machines. Intel x86 computers are all classified as CISC machines. PowerPC based computers are all RISC machines. Intel and AMD are also basically the only compaines that still make CISC computers, as they went out of vogue in the 90s.
Back when I bought my Powerbook 5300cs, RISC chips were simpler, smaller, and more energy efficient than their CISC competitors. One big advantage RISC chips had over CISC chips was that the simple instruction set on RISC machines lent themselves to pipelining to speed up the processing of instruction. Pipelining involves having the processor work on several instructions at the same time.) Nowadays, the distinction between RISC and CISC chips is very subtle; modern Intel chips do things that were the domain of RISC chips alone several years back. For example, I think most modern CISC chips will break down a complex instruction into a series of smaller instructions suitable to be pipelined. In this way they behave very much like RISC chips. Mind you, I could be talking out of my ass here.
I’m not sure how Apple will spin the change. They have spent so many years touting the advantages of their hardware as well as their software over their competitors. Their hardware advantage hasn’t disappeared, but it certainly has diminished.
Update: I’ll post links to other sources of info as I find them.
Comment [10] Technology | Apple Computers
8 June 2005, lunch time
I snapped two photos of Rishi; the first just before his train arrived, the second just as he was getting on it. I was standing on the opposite platform at Bathurst station. My train arrived minutes after and I got on board. I was sitting on a fairly empty train; at midnight, the trains aren’t usually busy.
“What were you taking pictures of tonight?” The girl who asked was a cute white girl, her hair cut short, wearing jeans and a baby-t. She reminded me of someone I knew, but I couldn’t figure out who. She was probably a bit drunk. Her friend was sitting a few seats away. She had wandered over to where I was sitting, apparently because I was carrying my giant Pentax camera.
“My friends.”
“Oh really. Is that what you do? Are you a photographer?”
“No, I’m a programmer. I take photos as a hobby.” I was trying to keep the conversation short. Shima tells me I can’t become a photographer because women will want me to take ‘artistic’ photos of them. I’m not sure if that is actually true or not. Shima also tells me I can’t talk to strange women.
I didn’t do a particularly good job of keeping the conversation short. I like to talk to people I guess. Earlier in the day an old Tamil lady had struck up a conversation with me on the train ride home from work. She told me, in Tamil, that the train was cold, they must have AC. I looked up and smiled; she was probably right. I guess she thought I was an idiot, or not Tamil, so she asked me in Tamil if I was Tamil, and told me to come sit next to her. She must have been close to 60 years old, someones grandmother I suppose. I chatted with her from Kipling to High Park, which was when I got off the train.
This white girl was basically the exact opposite of that old Tamil woman. The girl was young, 18 years old. She went on to explain how she works in Kitchener as a Yoga instructor, and was in town for some health conference. Her and her friend were coming home from an Alanis Morrisette concert.
She got off after a few stops, and I was left alone on the train. I told Shima about my night when I got home—she wasn’t that impressed. I should have told Mezan first.
2 June 2005, early afternoon
There are in all ages men born to be in bondage to the opinions of the society in which they live. There are not a few, who to-day play the free-thinker and the philosopher, who would, if they had lived in the time of the League, have been no more than fanatics. No author, who has a mind to outlive his own age, should write for such readers.
That is some sound advice from Jean-Jacque Rousseau. Sometimes I feel there is an independent thought alarm monitoring the web sites I read. Everyone seems to say the same things and do the same things and read the same things. Am I guilty of this? Perhaps. I’m quite certain I haven’t read anything remarkable or interesting in quite some time.
I am trying to improve my collection of texts on politics, and to this end I bought the The Social Contract and Discourses by Rousseau. I’ve wanted to read The Social Contract for ages. The Everyman’s Library edition is particularly nice. I’ll need to find a better copies of On Liberty and The Communist Manifesto next.
30 May 2005, late evening
Damn—Lost is so damn good. I just finished watching the finale. What a way to end the season. If you want to discuss the season, and the finale in particular, do so in the comments below.
Comment [10] Television
30 May 2005, lunch time
A freak accident involving a CD stand resulted in my ending up with tickets to see Kaiser Chiefs at The Mod Club last night. Heather, Ben and I had planned to meet at 9:00, in order the see the opening act, but ended up meeting closer to 9:30. When we walked in to the club, the band was midway through their set. We should have met at 9:00.
OK Go were the opening act for the Kaiser Chiefs. The band have a very britpop sound to them, despite the fact they are originally from Chicago. The band’s music was really good; I enjoyed all their songs. The band was really great on stage; they were very lively performers. The thing that really makes them stand out, and will make them stand out in my mind till the end of time, was how they ended the set. After playing their last song of the night the band started to pack up. They asked the guy running the show, “Do we have a few minutes left?†Then, to the crowd, “I think we have a few minutes left.†They then cleared out some space on the stage. “We’re going to do something a little bit different.†I was expecting an acoustic set — silly me. “We’re going to dance.†And dance they did. They had a serious dance routine. The bass player lip-singed along to a song I didn’t know, the whole group dancing in unison. It was fucking awesome. After the show they were outside chatting with the crowd and signing up people for their mailing list. They came off as a very humble group. I really hope these guys end up successful, they seemed like a really nice group of people.
Kaiser Chiefs were up next, and really had to work hard to follow OK Go. I hadn’t heard of the band before, but Dave said they were good, and Heather and Laura had been bigging them up the week before. From their opening song to their last I thought they were great. They had some serious energy. The band are very much a britpop group, all dressed up in suits and ties singing rock music and dancing around on stage. The lead singer kept on mocking the crowd out the night before, letting us know that we were in fact the most bestest crowd ever. I wonder if he was being sincere? The band had the crowd dancing around for most of their set, and the lead singer got everyone to throw their hands up in the air for their last number. They were a great band live, so if you can see them in your city you definitely should. I thoroughly enjoyed their show.
It was quite the Sunday. I’m listening to my new “Ok Go†CD — I couldn’t resist their dance moves.
29 May 2005, evening time
Dave and I met for lunch today, and then made our way over to the Toronto Comics Art Festival. There were a bunch of artists Dave wanted to see, and since I like comic books so I thought I’d tag along. Two tents were set up to house the artists. One was a tent for artists that do comics for Children, the other was for everyone else. Andy Lee was outside painting a picture of Optimus Prime when Dave and I arrived. His shirt wasn’t as black as the last time I saw him, but it was getting there.
The first tent wasn’t that busy. Besides the children’s comic artists, there were also the guys and girls that do the Flight anthologies sitting at one table, and Kid Koala and Louisa Scabas, who did Nufonia Must Fall together, sitting at another. I almost bought Nufonia Must Fall a few years back when I saw it at Chapters. I bought the comic today at Dave’s suggestion. The comic comes with its own ambient soundtrack that is quite good, albeit short. After Dave chatted with a few of the artists from the Flight anthologies, we made our way over to the second tent.
The second tent was packed full of people. There was table after table of comics and art for sale. Everything looked impressive, so it was hard to force myself not to blow all my money on new comics. I’m not really hip to the comic book scene, so I didn’t recognize anything or anyone—that is until I saw a book with a stick man on the cover. It turns out Sam Brown from Exploding Dog was at the show. His site is amazing. I told him as much. He came off as a very humble guy. I picked up his comic Amazing Rain. Apparently Sam Brown used to live next to Richard Stevens, the artist behind Diesel Sweeties. Stevens, who was sitting right next to Sam Brown, was also a very nice guy. I snapped a photo of the pair, before Dave and I headed out.
On our way out, Andy Lee was painting someone a picture of one of the covers from the Marvels series.
27 May 2005, lunch time
My friends and I headed to Sneaky Dee’s last night to have a few drinks and hear a few bands play. An old friend of mine, Kate, is in a band called Republic of Safety, and I had wanted to hear them play for quite some time. They were one of the opening acts for SS Cardiacs, the feature act of the night. It was SS Cardiacs CD release party.
There were actually two opening acts that night. The first act we heard was a band called the Bicycles. They make pop music. Since they aren’t on a major label, one might say they make indie-pop music. I think there were five people in the band, though it seemed like people would just wander on to the stage to take part in the show. Everyone in the band seemed to take a turn singing lead. They were really good. Of course, I like bubbly pop music. Also, the band earns bonus points in my books for being ethnically diverse.
Kate’s band was up next. They were really good. I think I like the way they sound live a lot more than the way they sound on the tracks they put on their web site. They had a much more punk sound to them live which I really enjoyed. I also thought the lead singers stage presence was quite cool.
By the time SS Cardiacs came on it was fairly late—this being a week night and all. Heather headed out first, followed shortly after by Laura and Shannon. Matt and I stayed to hear a little bit of SS Cardiacs before we also took off for the night. I thought SS Cardiacs were pretty good, though I didn’t really listen to them enough to get a good feel for the band. I’ll have to look for them next time they are playing I suppose.
24 May 2005, early evening
Cherry OS gained some notoriety for promising to bring OS X to the PC. It was quickly discovered that Cherry OS was probably PearPC repackaged—illegally. The company that produced Cherry OS, Maui X-Stream, have taken liberties with the licenses of several other open source projects. Deconstructing Maui X-Stream is a very impressive article on this topic.
‘Open-source codes’ are protected by copyright, and with the way things are starting to go in this country, if forced to choose between being caught with a van full of pirated DVDs or heroin you’d actually have to pause and think about it.
via Metafilter
God that was strange to see you again
Introduced by a friend of a friend
Smiled and said “yes I think we’ve met before”
In that instant it started to pour
Captured a taxi despite all the rain
We drove in silence across Pont Champlain
And all of that time you thought I was sad
I was trying to remember your name
—Your Ex-Lover Is Dead by Stars
23 May 2005, early evening
After watching the Old Boy trailer, I was expecting a film that would be a bit like Payback, but in Korean. Old Boy is a revenge film, but it has more in common with a Greek tragedy than your typical revenge film. Oh Dae-Su, the films protagonist, has been released in to the world after being locked up for 15 years. He has 5 days to figure out why he was imprisoned. I don’t want to say anything else about the film, because anything I say would ruin the movie. This is one film you should definitely watch without reading reviews or critiques or anything else. The man who plays Oh Dae-Su, Min-sik Choi, did an amazing job. He’s very impressive, a strong actor. The film has some great visuals. The fight sequences are done really well. Old Boy is a very unique film, and is definitely worth checking out.
The official Old Boy web site. (Don’t read the synopsis.)