Don’t leave home without it

I did something today I had never done before – I took my cellphone to the theatre. Many times in the past a play/movie/concert has been interrupted by a ringing phone, and to me the easiest solution was to leave it at home. I don’t mind being disconnected from the world for a couple of hours.

But since I got my Droid a couple of months ago, I’ve been thinking more that soon we’ll have no choice but to take them everywhere. Apart from convenient features – like a map to help find the theatre – I really think that within a decade smartphones could replace debit cards or credit cards as our means of payment.

They can also be a bunch of other things; iPhones/Androids/BlackBerrys etc. have received plenty of hype in recent months and I don’t need to add to it, but we’ll really have no choice but to take them everywhere. And take care of them. So I took extra precautions to keep mine quiet. I turned it into a brick; and though I worried about it throughout the performance it behaved itself.

It seems a ridiculously minor thing to be proud of, but living in the city there is already enough frustration with people who can’t control their pets, or their children, and now are unable to control their phones – which for some people might as well be a pet or a child.

(as for the play, the cast was energetic, the script was weak, the theatre was hotter than hell – it was Summerworks, it is what it was)

Living the past and letting it go

My parents appear ready to sell the house where they have lived for 35 years, and where I grew up. They almost sold four years ago and it didn’t happen, but this time events seem to be coming together to force the issue.

This headboard above my old bed is about 30 years old, has outlasted the original frame and mattress. I wish it had all sorts of wild and interesting tales to tell of my youth, but mostly I connect it with 5 incredibly dull, disappointing years of high school.

The most positive memories are baseball-related – many years listening to Tom Cheek and Jerry Howarth… the heartbreak of Dave Stieb’s back-to-back 1-hitters in 1988… turning off Game 4 of the 1993 World Series, then being woken up the next morning by the news the Jayson had come back and won.

My mother asked me to pick through things to either toss out or keep in storage. Lots of useless stuff, but also nostalgia. The first copy of The Lord Of The Rings I ever read, about 25 years ago:

The Fellowship was lost long ago, the others aren’t really worth keeping. But there is something quaint about the “Authorized Canadian Edition”, including J.R.R.’s welcome of it.

Also, a gift from 1987:

I won’t give it away, as the names of the people who gave it to me are inside. Still, it has to go – the text is Kindle-material, while the gawdawful-ugly cover limits its keepsake value.

Still, books are – tangible. And once they’re gone, they’re gone. I have a perfectly good Lord of the Rings trilogy, with all three books; that Canadian edition was printed in 1972, and I don’t think I nor anyone else will miss it. But there is something strangely attractive about it – I can tell myself that it’s the text inside that counts, but those nine characters on the front cover (w. horse) were the ones I grew up with, long before the movies came along (though I’m not sure what those keys represent).

Stay Clear Stay Safe

There’s something about this PSA which intrigues me:

At first glance it appears to be a typical bland government public service message that is forgotten seconds afterwards. But I haven’t forgotten it – I think it’s a combination of the unexpected and effective “snap”, the genuine look of concern on the dude’s face, and the fact that people keep drowning.

Two more today:

2 Toronto men die in separate drownings

And then this last week:

Mississauga teen drowns in Trent River

And this, one of the worst stories you will ever read:

Separate drownings claim lives of 3 people

Which have all happened despite this well-publicized tragedy last year:

Third drowning victim recovered from Moon River Falls

The OPP/OPG appear to be pushing “Don’t be fooled by calm waters” angle. Will it help? If not, then what would?

Fire in the City

This blog hasn’t been updated a great deal recently, partly because life has been pretty crazy, partly because I wasn’t happy with what I was writing, and have been procrastinating about making changes, and partly because I just haven’t got around to doing it.

I noticed that WordPress recently bought something called Plinky to help with writer’s block. That could be helpful, except that I’m currently living through a blogger’s nirvana – a fucking riot breaking outside of my apartment – and have yet to write about it.

I didn’t venture outside at all yesterday to check it out. Partly because I’m a wimp – it was RAINING all day, and I hate the rain, and I especially hate getting my head cracked open in the rain. Partly because there are others who chronicle this stuff much better than I can – I still don’t know what this blog is supposed to be, but it’s not a breaking news site.

And partly because there was nowhere to go – the Eaton Centre closed down, then the local shops, and then the local subway station was shut down. As the saying goes: when the going gets tough, the TTC stops going.

The weird thing was, the relatively peaceful protest on Friday afternoon was a lot more annoying than the mayhem of Saturday. Hundreds of protesters parked themselves outside my balcony, and a woman with a voice like a broken vuvuzela started screaming,

1! 2! 3! 4!

We won’t take this shit no more!

Over and over again for about 30 minutes, and I thought, that’s it? You’ve had a full year to plan for this, and that’s all you can come up with? The next day, I didn’t hear anything except the odd helicopter or distant siren, and was surprised to read that the shops around the corner were being smashed apart.

(and then, once they had finished with their non-message, the anarchists took over and started smashing things and setting police cars on fire. The protesters complained bitterly that their peaceful message had been overshadowed by the violence, and they may have a case – but this weekend really exposed who the pros and who the amateurs are)

I could join in the condemnation of the vandals for their violence and mayhem, but that seems a little like criticizing Decepticons for being dastardly. They are what they are. Apparently, they are always present at these summits – which means that either they have the means to travel around the world, or there pockets of them on every continent.

Strikingly little seems to be known about them – I’ve read rumours that the G20 hired them to give the protesters a bad name – which reminds me of the former CEO of Coke, who when asked if the “New Coke” fiasco was a plot to boost the sales of old Coke, responded that “we’re not that stupid and we’re not that smart”. There are also rumours that they are funded by some renegade billionaire, George Soros or Warren Buffett or Auric Goldfinger or somebody.

Anyways – I ventured outside on Sunday, but only to go to work and spend the whole day in the office. There was some potential for violence this evening, but a torrential rain storm of Biblical proportions seems to have dampened things. The leaders are heading home, and that’s probably the end of things – though you never know, if the rain ever stops, the anarchists might leave a farewell gift.

The debate now is over the summit’s $1 billion cost, almost all of which was spent on security; Conservatives are pointing to the riots as evidence that the costs were necessary, while critics claim that we could have allowed to the anarchists to trash our city for much less (Sarkozy is claiming that the trashing of Nice will cost only $100 million next year).

And for those of us who watched this all happen in and around our homes – this week has been a bit of an eye-opener, hopefully a healthy one. As I’ve written before, we are incredibly insulated here in Toronto – but on Wednesday we had an earthquake and a tornado on the same day, the odds of which are astronomical, and now we’ve invaded by anarchists. Folks in Los Angeles are teasing us because of our earthquake freakout, while Pittsburgh had to deal with the anarchists last year and survive intact. It hasn’t been a pleasant weekend, but a little dose of the unordinary will hopefully lead to a stronger city.

Enter the Droid

This is a test post from my new smartphone, the Motorola Milestone (better known as the Droid, but they had to change the name because George Lucas was demanding a princely fee for the lucratice Canadian market. I think Minestrone would have been cooler and yummier but this will do).

I don’t know if this will mean the blog gets updated more often (it couldn’t get updated less often) but we will see. Not much else to say, am on staycation, enjoying my new toy and preparing for the G20 horrors to come. Send!

Flipping the bit

A little science story that (mostly) flew under the radar the past week was the saga of Voyager 2, the which a month ago began to deliver garbled data. V2 was launched in 1977, and it’s primary mission ended in 1989, so it doesn’t get too much press attention these days. But it’s still travelling (through the heliosheath), sending back data, and it even has its own Twitter feed.

Inevitably, a few news sources found an ‘expert’ who theorized that Voyager 2 had been hijacked by aliens. Instead, it turned out to be a flipped bit – a single bit of memory changed from a 0 to a 1. I don’t really know how that happens, but anyways, it’s been fixed, and hopefully Voyager 2 will keep sending us data from the great beyond.

However, it seems to me that popular culture is missing out on a potentially great new catchphrase – “flipping the bit”. It could be used to describe a sudden nonsensical outburst. Possible headlines:

- J.P. Ricciardi really flipped the bit when he was asked about Adam Dunn on the radio

- Serena Williams flipped the bit at the U.S Open this afternoon

- Moammar Gadhafi flipped the bit at the United Nations yesterday

- Kanye West flipped the bit at the VMAs last night

I think it could catch on – it rolls off the tongue pretty nicely. And it’s a reminder that 33-year-old science missions still have something to offer (and, sadly, are still a lot more interesting than the space shuttle, which is quietly fading to black).

Driven to distraction

We had a big fire in Toronto Thursday, and for a few minutes it looked like a major story – massive plumes of black smoke erupted in the downtown core, and could supposedly be seen as far away as St. Catharines. The media quickly moved into position to cover the towering inferno… and then the fire department showed up and doused the flames in about 15 seconds. So it goes.

But while watching TV coverage, I was struck by the comment that drivers were slowing down on the Gardiner Expressway to look. Well, duh; I think that if I were driving into the city and saw massive plumes of black smoke heading my way, I’d stop to look, too.

And yet, when you hear traffic reports on the radio, you always hear this – drivers are criticized for slowing down to look at an accident. Apparently, they are just a bunch of voyeurs who are doing thousands of commuters a great disservice by slowing down and causing a jam.

Well, I’m sure they are a bunch of voyeurs. We all are. But given what we know about driving and distractions, I don’t see the problem. If there’s an accident with mangled cars and bodies and emergency vehicles with flashing lights – that’s a pretty big honking distraction, and slowing down is warranted. To expect drivers to simply look ahead, hit the accelerator and not notice anything is not realistic.

Hail! Hail! Go away…

I am a gardening sophomore this year; last summer on my balcony I made my first attempt at growing life forms, with mixed success; the parsley did quite well, and I ate it frequently during the summer. The mint, rosemary, and thyme, not so much. The basil never had a chance; it was the first plant I bought, in the second week of April, and a few days later the city was hit by a hail storm. The basil turned black, though I kept caring for it, and eventually it turned green again. It was a nice feeling to see it come back to life, but it never thrived.

I got lazy late in the year, and left the plants out to be killed by the first frost (procrastination, really, as I have a small apartment with no place to actually put them during the winter). But I started buying new supplies early this year, and have been doing more research on the net, and hope to have better success. The markets have started stocking herbs, and with the crazy-warm weather we’ve having, it’s hard to resist the temptation to get started.

But first, a cold shower – I went out to visit a local garden shop to see what they were carrying, and the guy said he wouldn’t have any herbs until mid-May – and as I walked home, it started to rain. And then the rain turned to hail – that’s two years in a row that hail has struck in the second week of April. There’s probably a lesson there.

But I’m impatient so I’ve purchased two things I didn’t have last year – some chives, and a cactus. Back in university, cacti seemed to be a popular roommate for a lot of students, though I never understood why. But ever since a new condo was erected across the street, completely blocking the view of the CN Tower, my balcony has been conspicuously lacking in phallic imagery. So I’ll take a shot keeping this one alive, hopefully for more than a few months.

This week will be warm and sunny, so I don’t know if I will give in to the temptation to buy some more plants sooner rather than later. Or maybe I should try growing from seeds, I haven’t decided. But I want to try to keep things simple; my balcony looks and feels incredibly sterile, and it was hard enough last year keeping things, never mind having them thrive.

Badlands!

My hometown gets a little luv today from BlogTO, complete with some nice photos:

Cheltenham Badlands and Forks of the Credit

After 30 years living in the area, I had never heard the term “Badlands” until the Toronto Star used the term a couple of years ago for a photo. We always called them the “Ant Hills”. But whatever; “Badlands” works too.

(though when I think of “Badlands” I think of something vast and foreboding, and usually involving Martin Sheen or Bruce Springsteen; not our little ant hills in Cheltenham)

Earth Hour

That’s downtown Toronto from my balcony at 8:50pm, by which time Earth Hour was in full swing. Apparently, enthusiasm for Earth Hour is waning, and a lot more lights stayed on this year – but on the other hand, the horrible billboards at Yonge and Dundas turned off, and that’s the only thing I really care about*.

Yeah, Earth Hour is kinda useless; it’s purely symbolic, with no practical value – and even the symbolism is questionable when parts of the city are lit up like a Christmas tree. Still, I turned my lights off; it’s become an Earth Hour tradition for me to listen to an awesome CD in the dark. This year it was my favourite classical CD, Bach’s Violin Concerto’s BWV 1041-1043, plus Vivaldi’s Concerto Grosso for good measure, performed by David and Igor Oistrakh.

Of course, my CD player consumes power, and I’m not sure if I’m supposed to be running it during Earth Hour – I would hope that indescribably beautiful music is an acceptable use of electricity. And since I can’t describe it, I’ll have to let YouTube fill in:

Speaking of lights at night… earlier this week we had some record warm temperatures, and of course I spent most of the time indoors. I did manage to drag myself outside last Monday night, armed with my Galileoscope. It is what it is; not a powerful scope, but with all the light pollution in Toronto, there’s only a handful of objects that are visible in the sky. Saturn has been pretty bright in the south, and I had a clear view of the rings.

I can only imagine how Galileo felt when he first spotted the rings around Saturn; in my case, it was something like “hey, that sucker has rings around it” and not much else. Still, it never gets old; there’s always a feeling of excitement when a tiny dot in the sky turns out to be more than just a dot.

* The billboards are bright enough that I can actually see my shadow on the bedroom wall when the lights are out. Right now, they are lit up again, promoting The Bridge. What the fuck is The Bridge?