Mary is in her final semester of university. Part of her programs make-up involves these seminars which account for certain percentages of a students final grade. The marks that make up the grade are dependent upon being present and participating. You get a higher grade the more you talk apparently. This a very, very, very flawed structure, here is why:
Let's say a seminar is 1 hour and that there are 20 people, I have no idea about how long or how many people but the point is the same. So for everyone to get 100% they would all need to speak for just under 3 min allowing for space between talking points. Additionally any time the T.A. who runs the seminar speaks would also need to be included in calculating the exact amount of time each student would be required to speak in order to get 100%. So let's say for the sake of argument that if you were to evenly distribute the available time so that each student had the opportunity to speak and get 100% it would say 2min 40sec. In some cases I'm sure the math works out to be a much longer speaking time maybe up to 5 min.
Nobody times each response and students are not limited to any predetermined time limits. Some will speak more than once and some will go beyond the time limit needed to equally distribute so that each person has the chance to get 100%. This creates a very uneven playing field. If 10 students all take up 70% of the discussion than the remaining 10 are automatically unable to receive full marks. That would mean that basing the marks on time spoken would have to be monitored to the second in order to grant an objective grade score. But it isn't, which means that the grades are handed out in a subjective manner. A lot of academic grading is based on subjective marking and personally I think it's blatantly wrong. There is too much bias involved in the process both consciously and subconsciously.
Ok so the T.A. writes down or "remembers" who speaks during these seminars. Some, if not all of the grading would be based on the length of time and the quality of what was said. Even that is subjective and flawed. One douche bag could ramble on for 10 minutes while the response may just take a matter of a few words like, "where is your evidence?" to further the discussion. Also, seminar length also comes into play again as there may not be equal amounts of time available for every student to receive full marks responding to claims. Also if a person were to make an idiotic remark such as "Homeopathy works" how do you decide the quality of the comment? On the one hand a remark could be stupid and completely wrong and uninformed but it may also help to spark an in-depth discussion which could lead to more people being educated about reality. Who decides when a remark has substance? A T.A. who is a moron may not understand why homeopathy is idiotic and may score grades for that seminar to favor people who are essentially just making shit up.
None of this actually matters though because essentially the T.A. is just deciding the grade based on what they think happened during the class. If a person you think is attractive talks for 10 minutes you will automatically perceive their vocalization to be better than a person you have contempt for. It's human to like and dislike people for no reason and so the best way to eliminate that bias is to reduce the subjective nature of scoring. no? Also, unless the T.A. is at 100% attention for the entire duration they will almost certainly miss somethings being said. One T.A. told Mary her grade was lower because her attendance wasn't great to which Mary responded "I've been to every seminar". The T.A. had no clue but rather than tell Mary that she would promptly adjust the grade she then made up some other excuse off the top of her head as to why the mark was what it was. There is no oversight because the foundation is flawed. I'm not in University and even I can see just how fucked up this system is.
The worst part is that some of these seminars are worth up to 20% of a courses final grade. That's a huge percentage based on what amounts to a random series of bias guesses and off the cuff marking on the part of inexperienced T.A.s.
Is fucked up, no?
Yesterday morning, after I finally got the rest of my sleep I had a series of fucked up dreams. When I woke up I grabbed Mortimer Jr. and shook him from his slumber and wrote a series of catch words that would remind me later what the dream was about. I forgot about it completely until just now, 16 hours later.
It starts off with Mary and I and we're just moving into a college dorm of some kind on an open floor of a building where all the bedrooms have no doors for privacy. I specifically remember that I was holding an open box with a lamp in it which is something that one would only ever see in a movie or comic-strip. Anyway as Mary and I are bringing our stuff in a group of the floor's other tenants come to greet us and introduce themselves. Of course being a fucked up dream one of the people greeting us is the ex wife. I don't remember what happened to the box or the lamp but I'm pretty darn certain I actually heard myself say "Aw Fuck!" while the location shifted in it's dreaminess state into a college library.
I remember I was a part of a class and we were all issued a very thick hard-cover version of Charlotte's Web. They were very rare editions and worth a pretty penny. For some other dreaminess reason there was a kitchen in the library too with a door and steps like the side entrance of an RV trailer. I wasn't allowed to bring the book into the kitchen so I hid it under a stair. Then where I left the book was gone.
At some point I decided that three cooks were responsible for the theft after all they looked liked young skateboarders in the documentary Dogg Town and Z-boys so they had to be up to no good. Then for whatever reason the entire plot of the dream shifted although I was still in the library. It was the library at Mac and I was up on the 4rth or 5th floor. I went over to a window and was looking down over a grassy courtyard where students and elderly people were hanging out like they always show in movies but doesn't actually happen in real life.
Then I watched a "nerd" rode onto the grass on a bicycle. I have no idea why he was a "nerd" other than my brain decided it and so that's the information it gave me. Anyway the rake I though he was holding was actually a gun and he started shooting people. I remember feeling sick the same way I get when I see real dead people in documentaries. I would hope at least some of you are familiar with that scared, ill sensation. I remember watching as he would just shoot and kill whoever was closest to him. It was fucking terrifying.
Eventually he rode into a group of elderly women where he lost his balance. Right at that moment some people rushed him and got the gun. I thought for sure they were going to shoot him but instead they began to beat him to death which was also terrifying. Then they began to bury him with the shovels they beat him with. For some reason there was now a monstrous pile of beach-sand next to him. The view I had from the library was like when you see security camera footage of awful shit happening and created that same raw, horror feeling.
Then I woke up and wrote it down. Man it was fucked up!
I know people want to put meaning into dreams like this but I can literally explain where every aspect of it came from with the exception of Charlotte's Web.
The awful killing imagery most likely stems from the fact that I've been watching a ton of war documentaries and the mini series "The Pacific" which bloody as fuck.
The surfer's come from browsing the band Real Estate's youtube video's and that MGMT video with the neon people on the beach.
The whole school thing comes from the fact that I consider my tutorials a kind of schooling and also Mary is finishing school and is stressed about it.
The moving thing is obvious.
That leave's the ex wife who I mentioned the other day in a few posts.
Dreams are just the brains way of processing the information collected by our senses during the recent past. They can weave into things we perceive as stories because we are a pattern-seeking and story-telling animal. They're a neurological function to help retain information. Pure, simple, horrifying.
Song of the day:
Monday, February 28, 2011
Sunday, February 27, 2011
4:52 am
The clock just turned 4:53 am so that makes me a liar.
I woke up at 1:30 am to drive my mom and her friends to the airport in Toronto. It was pissing rain the entire drive making it almost impossible to see the lines that divide the lanes on the QEW and 427. Urine was literally showering down on Ruby. Soft, golden piss-rain.
When I got home about an hour ago I wasn't tired enough to return to sleep so I watched a bit of a war documentary called Restrepo and now I'm in that really fucked up state where you know you need to sleep and you know you'll probably end up crashing around 7:00 am and ruining your day but your body just wants to sit on the couch and eat pizza.
Today is day one of my 6 week insanity program. I kind of feel like I already messed today up by being awake at this hour but what can you do? Today's agenda is pretty relaxed as far as complexity is concerned. I have some wordpress tutorials and then some site building and then some design theory reading. I'll just do what I can and not stress about the time wasted, or more likely I will stress and feel really guilty for not being a better, more productive person and also disgusting for eating pizza at 4:30 am. That said, after seeing a few recent photos of myself I could probably stand to eat some extra pizza. I look like I have AIDS in the face. This is what I look like at 5:00 am on the the PhotoBooth cam today:
I do actually eat, it just seems like I don't. I know I have an eating disorder, but it's an ordered-disorder. I refuse to be in the 96% even if that means I start to look like Tom Hanks in Philadelphia. You know, the movie where he's a kid who makes a wish at a carnival and then gets AIDS from performing an unprotected dance on a giant floor keyboard... Philadelphia.
These posts over then next 6 weeks will be pretty short. I've allotted a very specific amount of time that I need to stick too. Today will be a bit of an exception because of the strangeness involved.
Yesterday Mary and I baked some experimental Yeast-Scones. The scone part was just ok to me. The yeast made the dough a little too bread-like and I prefer more of a tea-biscuit texture. We made up some weird combos like Marshmallow-Chai and Spicy Hot-chocolate powder and coffee glaze. There was also a fluffernutter and a bunch that involved maple syrup. I sent most of them with Mary to let her friends at school pick out which ones were the best. I don't think there were flavorful enough. Maybe the peanut butter ones but the others that I tasted like the chai and the coffee just tasted like scones. I'll have to wait and see. I think next time I'll skip the yeast so that they're more of a biscuit. I have a few ideas on savory ones too but they're a secret.
Ok now it's officially time for sleep.
I'm not very big on hip-hop music, especially anything after 1998. This song is the greatest hip-hop song ever made and nothing that has come after it is even close except maybe Ice Cube's "You Can Do It".
I woke up at 1:30 am to drive my mom and her friends to the airport in Toronto. It was pissing rain the entire drive making it almost impossible to see the lines that divide the lanes on the QEW and 427. Urine was literally showering down on Ruby. Soft, golden piss-rain.
When I got home about an hour ago I wasn't tired enough to return to sleep so I watched a bit of a war documentary called Restrepo and now I'm in that really fucked up state where you know you need to sleep and you know you'll probably end up crashing around 7:00 am and ruining your day but your body just wants to sit on the couch and eat pizza.
Today is day one of my 6 week insanity program. I kind of feel like I already messed today up by being awake at this hour but what can you do? Today's agenda is pretty relaxed as far as complexity is concerned. I have some wordpress tutorials and then some site building and then some design theory reading. I'll just do what I can and not stress about the time wasted, or more likely I will stress and feel really guilty for not being a better, more productive person and also disgusting for eating pizza at 4:30 am. That said, after seeing a few recent photos of myself I could probably stand to eat some extra pizza. I look like I have AIDS in the face. This is what I look like at 5:00 am on the the PhotoBooth cam today:
I do actually eat, it just seems like I don't. I know I have an eating disorder, but it's an ordered-disorder. I refuse to be in the 96% even if that means I start to look like Tom Hanks in Philadelphia. You know, the movie where he's a kid who makes a wish at a carnival and then gets AIDS from performing an unprotected dance on a giant floor keyboard... Philadelphia.
These posts over then next 6 weeks will be pretty short. I've allotted a very specific amount of time that I need to stick too. Today will be a bit of an exception because of the strangeness involved.
Yesterday Mary and I baked some experimental Yeast-Scones. The scone part was just ok to me. The yeast made the dough a little too bread-like and I prefer more of a tea-biscuit texture. We made up some weird combos like Marshmallow-Chai and Spicy Hot-chocolate powder and coffee glaze. There was also a fluffernutter and a bunch that involved maple syrup. I sent most of them with Mary to let her friends at school pick out which ones were the best. I don't think there were flavorful enough. Maybe the peanut butter ones but the others that I tasted like the chai and the coffee just tasted like scones. I'll have to wait and see. I think next time I'll skip the yeast so that they're more of a biscuit. I have a few ideas on savory ones too but they're a secret.
Ok now it's officially time for sleep.
I'm not very big on hip-hop music, especially anything after 1998. This song is the greatest hip-hop song ever made and nothing that has come after it is even close except maybe Ice Cube's "You Can Do It".
Saturday, February 26, 2011
No Coco, You Can Only Have Crunchies!
Mary and I went out driving and ended up in near a place called Punkeydoodles Ave.
Our trip was made in spite of the inclement weather. Nothing was going to stop us from getting to the hamlet of Shakespeare only to find "Funky Junk" was closed and that we were not going to buy anything anyway! Nothing!
We also went to Stratford where we encountered a rolly-poll cat named Shemp in the basement of a store that sold reasonably priced plates, teapots and gravy boats. The cat was worth the driving risks and the cost in gas. The owner showed us that if you you scratched the base of his tail on his back that he would make this bizarre robot head spin. He did and it was amazing! Mary got him to do it too and we laughed and I felt guilty for getting so much pleasure from the mechanical jerks of this monstrous feline.
"We drove to Stratford to scratch a cat's ass."
"why?"
"Pleasure reasons."
Stratford is cold in the cold and wintery all winter long, but the parking was fucking cheap. 40 cents an hour compared to Toronto which can get up to 6 dollars an hour. The day was kind of uneventful with the exception of getting lost in the Perth County country side during a snow-stormy day. The falling flakes weren't the cause of the danger involved in motoring about. It was the drifts that come off the barren fields. They create these weird little snow-cyclones that shoot past you and blast the side of the car. This is what makes the drive from London to Sarnia so dangerous. It's what caused the 200+ cars to be stuck over night in the snow a few months back. I once experienced driving through a storm on that highway going back to London. It was the last day I had driving my car before the insurance was canceled. It was canceled because I couldn't afford to have it resafetied after Missy had rear ended an elderly woman and smashed up the front corner panel. The trip to Sarnia that day was because Missy had a dentist appointment. I never did give that car a name. I think "Foreshadow" would have been an appropriate moniker.
Mary and I ended up driving to Guelph to enjoy some hot coffee, tea and delicious carrot cake which enjoying the view of this insane building downtown.
The coffee shop we sat in was called Planet Coffee and was quite cute. I normally have a policy of avoiding cafes with the name "Planet" in it, as the imagery feels either cheap and tacky or far too "hippy-ish" for me. I never understand why hippy-style coffee houses feel the need to display the fact that their coffee is fair-trade on everything in the cafe. If they actually gave a shit then the fact that they served fare-trade it would just be a given, like the very thought of serving questionable coffee wasn't even considered. It's like wearing a sign that says, "I don't rape young boys", it should just be the basic standard. The over promotion of fair-trade makes it quite clear that the fact that an "organic" coffee house serves it is just for the marketing value. One small sign or just simply answering the question "is this fair-trade?" with an answer of "yes." seems like more than enough.
By the way, what is non-organic coffee? Even if a coffee were to be entirely constructed using synthetic chemicals in a lab it would still be an organic substance. If it were just rocks that taste like a coffee crisp bar than maybe I would consider it fair to label it as inorganic, but even then it depends on whether or not you consider the make up of rocks and earth to be organic in nature.
I had been to Guelph two times before in my life. Once with Missy in the car with the smashed up front quarter panel that would eventually be stolen on Christmas Eve of the same year, and another time to see a student fashion show featuring my friend Terra who would be hit by a train and killed just a few weeks later while riding her bike home from summer classes she had taken in said fashion course at the same school I would eventually meet Missy in who would then come to smash up the front corner panel of my car. Charles came with me to that fashion show, his memory of the event would almost certainly be summed up with a single noise, "meh."
The drive home from Guelph with Mary was much, much shorter than I had anticipated and remembered. We passed the furniture store with the large novelty dinosaurs in the dark and without a mention of them. Unless it's visible in the day, exposed in all it's glory, it's pretty un-notable. The massive Schneider's Meats sign on the tiny stretch of 401 that separates highway 6 was however, amazing in the night sky... it let us know the time was "6:34pm" and everything!
Montreal.
I'm not actually thinking about Missy it's just a coincidence that today's post mentions her a lot. I wanted to talk about the Bonaventure Adventure today as well and it's difficult without using the "we". Fuck it I'll use "I" even though I wasn't actually by myself.
The metro stop closest to my apartment in Montreal was Vendome. I walked through these doors over 1000 times in the short time I lived in NDG.
This was always a very busy stop but once you got down into the tunnel waiting area there was a strange calm feel as you wait for sound and eventual lights of the subway to come from the previous station Villa Maria. While the Vendome metro was the stop I used most to go downtown the Villa Maria was usually the one I got out at on the way home from work when it was too cold to walk. It's also much more interesting in it's late 1960's design state...
From Vendome there were 4 stops before arriving at the 5th named Bonaventure. The first was Place St. Henri which at the time was the "hood" part of Montreal. There were French-Canadian/LA Latino Gangs complete with the Chinos and flannel plaid. "Sippin on Gin and Pepsi-cola."
The next was the transfer station of Lionel-Groulx. I used get confused at how to pronounce it and eventually, albeit wrongly settled with "Lee-onall-Gruu-lexxx". I knew how it was supposed to sound but I don't agree with silencing the letter "X". Silencing anything is always a bad idea.
If I was going to go to the movies at the Pepsi Forum than I would switch trains and get on the green line. If I needed to get downtown in a hurry to see a movie at the Paramount I would also take the green line. The green line was actually quicker than my Bonaventure Adventure but much less interesting so it was really just left to events like movies that had specific start times.
The two stops between between the transfer point and my final destination were long very french names that I'm far too lazy to look up and spell correctly. I think I only ever went to one of these stops once. They were kind of weird, bordering on completely useless and to be honest I'm not even sure where they were at ground level in the city. I think the one time I was at one of them was after a Christmas party for Hatley Clothing where Missy worked. That particular Christmas party is memorable only for the fact that to this day I still think Missy fooled around with a douchey salesman by the name of Adam who was married and also douchey. He was a douche. I don't actually care except for the fact that I'll never get the satisfaction of knowing if I was right or not. A mystery wrapped in sleaze... just like those two metro stops.
Bonaventure was a monster of a station and always reminded me of the sets from the Tim Burton Batman movie.
After traversing the stairs up another level of what I can only assume was 800 feet below the earth, I had two seemingly identical hallways. Every single time I walked through the turn-stile I would have to stop and figure out which way to go. Normally you just remember to go right or left once you pass through a door, maybe not the first few times but certainly by the 60th. Bonaventure had this way of confusing me every time. Once I did figure out the right way the real adventure would begin.
First I had to roam down an abnormally long set of hallways combined with an obscene amount of escalators:
I'd eventually pass by this small setup of businesses including a Booster Juice. I remember the Booster Juice well because it was such a bright and tacky beacon in what felt like the sub-city from the movie Metropolis. It was also where you made a left turn, walked through a few more doors and hallways and eventually came to this really narrow escalator that was almost always turned off. At the top of this incline I was finally greeted with sunlight, kind of.
This was the CN building which for some reason had a lingerie and jewelery store in it's tunnel leading into the Gare Central - train station. The train station was pretty big and had a series of rather odd carvings on the walls. There were windows way up near the ceiling which was a good 40 feet high.
I think the weirdest part about the Bonaventure underground path to the city centre was that when it passed through the train station. You literally passed though the area featuring all the gates that led to the trains. Normally a walkway passed by the entrance or another hallway leading to the station but no, you walked across the floor of the station to the other side where the paths and tunnels continued on.
At the start of this next stage there was an unusually elegant little underground market area. It had bakeries and chocolate places, a flower shop and some restaurants. It was set up as a kind of european market square but with dark subdued lighting and a low ceiling. I guess this was supposed to be the cafeteria and concessions for the train people? It was very fancy and for some reason impossible to find pictures of online. Following the curving paths through this area I was once again greeted with an escalator. This led to Place Ville-Marie (not to be confused the Villa-Maria ). This was a fancy little mall and food court under a series of businessy-business, Banks, Lawyers ect. The mall originally had one of those restaurants where you wander around and pick out you own food and it's supposedly international and you have a card punched and so on and so on. I ate there once before it closed down. It was shitty.
After this little guy, two more escalators, and another series of winding hallways I would finally get to the Eaton's Centre. This was the center mall of a collection of 5 huge connected malls and a HBC store which was easily a mall of it's own. I (we) would wander around this set for hours on weekends. If you view the series as one mall it would easily dwarf the West Edmonton. Normally the main highlight was Simon's. A hip clothing store that I (we-without me) would shop regularly at. It's a defining store in the downtown area because it's so different from most of the other department-esque style clothing stores. It was like a reasonably priced Holt Renfrew (which was just down the street). If you don't know what a Holt Renfrew is... then I just feel bad for you.
The Bonaventure Adventure was almost magical. I mean that literally. I know it was just going to the mall(s) and I almost never actually bought anything for me, but the entire trek through all the tunnels and paths to end up in these insane indoor spaces had a very surreal feeling. People who visit the city rarely get to see it in this way. They almost always go into these malls and maybe even walked through the train station, but visitors are always under a tight deadline. Most people who love shopping don't want to waste a full day downtown when they have St.Laurent and St.Denis and Mont Royal to get to. Also, I think most people don't walk through these places and see the space as an artificial world and not just a disturbing view of our love of materials. It feels like the complete opposite of looking over the open fields surrounding the are known as Punkeydoodles Avenue.
Song of the day:
Our trip was made in spite of the inclement weather. Nothing was going to stop us from getting to the hamlet of Shakespeare only to find "Funky Junk" was closed and that we were not going to buy anything anyway! Nothing!
We also went to Stratford where we encountered a rolly-poll cat named Shemp in the basement of a store that sold reasonably priced plates, teapots and gravy boats. The cat was worth the driving risks and the cost in gas. The owner showed us that if you you scratched the base of his tail on his back that he would make this bizarre robot head spin. He did and it was amazing! Mary got him to do it too and we laughed and I felt guilty for getting so much pleasure from the mechanical jerks of this monstrous feline.
"We drove to Stratford to scratch a cat's ass."
"why?"
"Pleasure reasons."
Stratford is cold in the cold and wintery all winter long, but the parking was fucking cheap. 40 cents an hour compared to Toronto which can get up to 6 dollars an hour. The day was kind of uneventful with the exception of getting lost in the Perth County country side during a snow-stormy day. The falling flakes weren't the cause of the danger involved in motoring about. It was the drifts that come off the barren fields. They create these weird little snow-cyclones that shoot past you and blast the side of the car. This is what makes the drive from London to Sarnia so dangerous. It's what caused the 200+ cars to be stuck over night in the snow a few months back. I once experienced driving through a storm on that highway going back to London. It was the last day I had driving my car before the insurance was canceled. It was canceled because I couldn't afford to have it resafetied after Missy had rear ended an elderly woman and smashed up the front corner panel. The trip to Sarnia that day was because Missy had a dentist appointment. I never did give that car a name. I think "Foreshadow" would have been an appropriate moniker.
Mary and I ended up driving to Guelph to enjoy some hot coffee, tea and delicious carrot cake which enjoying the view of this insane building downtown.
The coffee shop we sat in was called Planet Coffee and was quite cute. I normally have a policy of avoiding cafes with the name "Planet" in it, as the imagery feels either cheap and tacky or far too "hippy-ish" for me. I never understand why hippy-style coffee houses feel the need to display the fact that their coffee is fair-trade on everything in the cafe. If they actually gave a shit then the fact that they served fare-trade it would just be a given, like the very thought of serving questionable coffee wasn't even considered. It's like wearing a sign that says, "I don't rape young boys", it should just be the basic standard. The over promotion of fair-trade makes it quite clear that the fact that an "organic" coffee house serves it is just for the marketing value. One small sign or just simply answering the question "is this fair-trade?" with an answer of "yes." seems like more than enough.
By the way, what is non-organic coffee? Even if a coffee were to be entirely constructed using synthetic chemicals in a lab it would still be an organic substance. If it were just rocks that taste like a coffee crisp bar than maybe I would consider it fair to label it as inorganic, but even then it depends on whether or not you consider the make up of rocks and earth to be organic in nature.
I had been to Guelph two times before in my life. Once with Missy in the car with the smashed up front quarter panel that would eventually be stolen on Christmas Eve of the same year, and another time to see a student fashion show featuring my friend Terra who would be hit by a train and killed just a few weeks later while riding her bike home from summer classes she had taken in said fashion course at the same school I would eventually meet Missy in who would then come to smash up the front corner panel of my car. Charles came with me to that fashion show, his memory of the event would almost certainly be summed up with a single noise, "meh."
The drive home from Guelph with Mary was much, much shorter than I had anticipated and remembered. We passed the furniture store with the large novelty dinosaurs in the dark and without a mention of them. Unless it's visible in the day, exposed in all it's glory, it's pretty un-notable. The massive Schneider's Meats sign on the tiny stretch of 401 that separates highway 6 was however, amazing in the night sky... it let us know the time was "6:34pm" and everything!
Montreal.
I'm not actually thinking about Missy it's just a coincidence that today's post mentions her a lot. I wanted to talk about the Bonaventure Adventure today as well and it's difficult without using the "we". Fuck it I'll use "I" even though I wasn't actually by myself.
The metro stop closest to my apartment in Montreal was Vendome. I walked through these doors over 1000 times in the short time I lived in NDG.
This was always a very busy stop but once you got down into the tunnel waiting area there was a strange calm feel as you wait for sound and eventual lights of the subway to come from the previous station Villa Maria. While the Vendome metro was the stop I used most to go downtown the Villa Maria was usually the one I got out at on the way home from work when it was too cold to walk. It's also much more interesting in it's late 1960's design state...
From Vendome there were 4 stops before arriving at the 5th named Bonaventure. The first was Place St. Henri which at the time was the "hood" part of Montreal. There were French-Canadian/LA Latino Gangs complete with the Chinos and flannel plaid. "Sippin on Gin and Pepsi-cola."
The next was the transfer station of Lionel-Groulx. I used get confused at how to pronounce it and eventually, albeit wrongly settled with "Lee-onall-Gruu-lexxx". I knew how it was supposed to sound but I don't agree with silencing the letter "X". Silencing anything is always a bad idea.
If I was going to go to the movies at the Pepsi Forum than I would switch trains and get on the green line. If I needed to get downtown in a hurry to see a movie at the Paramount I would also take the green line. The green line was actually quicker than my Bonaventure Adventure but much less interesting so it was really just left to events like movies that had specific start times.
The two stops between between the transfer point and my final destination were long very french names that I'm far too lazy to look up and spell correctly. I think I only ever went to one of these stops once. They were kind of weird, bordering on completely useless and to be honest I'm not even sure where they were at ground level in the city. I think the one time I was at one of them was after a Christmas party for Hatley Clothing where Missy worked. That particular Christmas party is memorable only for the fact that to this day I still think Missy fooled around with a douchey salesman by the name of Adam who was married and also douchey. He was a douche. I don't actually care except for the fact that I'll never get the satisfaction of knowing if I was right or not. A mystery wrapped in sleaze... just like those two metro stops.
Bonaventure was a monster of a station and always reminded me of the sets from the Tim Burton Batman movie.
After traversing the stairs up another level of what I can only assume was 800 feet below the earth, I had two seemingly identical hallways. Every single time I walked through the turn-stile I would have to stop and figure out which way to go. Normally you just remember to go right or left once you pass through a door, maybe not the first few times but certainly by the 60th. Bonaventure had this way of confusing me every time. Once I did figure out the right way the real adventure would begin.
First I had to roam down an abnormally long set of hallways combined with an obscene amount of escalators:
I'd eventually pass by this small setup of businesses including a Booster Juice. I remember the Booster Juice well because it was such a bright and tacky beacon in what felt like the sub-city from the movie Metropolis. It was also where you made a left turn, walked through a few more doors and hallways and eventually came to this really narrow escalator that was almost always turned off. At the top of this incline I was finally greeted with sunlight, kind of.
This was the CN building which for some reason had a lingerie and jewelery store in it's tunnel leading into the Gare Central - train station. The train station was pretty big and had a series of rather odd carvings on the walls. There were windows way up near the ceiling which was a good 40 feet high.
I think the weirdest part about the Bonaventure underground path to the city centre was that when it passed through the train station. You literally passed though the area featuring all the gates that led to the trains. Normally a walkway passed by the entrance or another hallway leading to the station but no, you walked across the floor of the station to the other side where the paths and tunnels continued on.
At the start of this next stage there was an unusually elegant little underground market area. It had bakeries and chocolate places, a flower shop and some restaurants. It was set up as a kind of european market square but with dark subdued lighting and a low ceiling. I guess this was supposed to be the cafeteria and concessions for the train people? It was very fancy and for some reason impossible to find pictures of online. Following the curving paths through this area I was once again greeted with an escalator. This led to Place Ville-Marie (not to be confused the Villa-Maria ). This was a fancy little mall and food court under a series of businessy-business, Banks, Lawyers ect. The mall originally had one of those restaurants where you wander around and pick out you own food and it's supposedly international and you have a card punched and so on and so on. I ate there once before it closed down. It was shitty.
After this little guy, two more escalators, and another series of winding hallways I would finally get to the Eaton's Centre. This was the center mall of a collection of 5 huge connected malls and a HBC store which was easily a mall of it's own. I (we) would wander around this set for hours on weekends. If you view the series as one mall it would easily dwarf the West Edmonton. Normally the main highlight was Simon's. A hip clothing store that I (we-without me) would shop regularly at. It's a defining store in the downtown area because it's so different from most of the other department-esque style clothing stores. It was like a reasonably priced Holt Renfrew (which was just down the street). If you don't know what a Holt Renfrew is... then I just feel bad for you.
The Bonaventure Adventure was almost magical. I mean that literally. I know it was just going to the mall(s) and I almost never actually bought anything for me, but the entire trek through all the tunnels and paths to end up in these insane indoor spaces had a very surreal feeling. People who visit the city rarely get to see it in this way. They almost always go into these malls and maybe even walked through the train station, but visitors are always under a tight deadline. Most people who love shopping don't want to waste a full day downtown when they have St.Laurent and St.Denis and Mont Royal to get to. Also, I think most people don't walk through these places and see the space as an artificial world and not just a disturbing view of our love of materials. It feels like the complete opposite of looking over the open fields surrounding the are known as Punkeydoodles Avenue.
Song of the day:
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
A Ghost In Every Kettle
Mary and I found a band called The Ding-Dongs that have a song called Ding-Dong Party. The song itself isn't anything great but the name is worthy of an award. "Funniest Song Title."
Maybe I'm the only one who's noticed this but there is always this weird "click" about 30 - 45 min after an electric kettle has been turned off. The kettle is off already but the click remains, hence the title of today's post. It's not just the specific kettle I have either. The mystery is consistent with a variety of makes and models. nANcy DREW and the case of the kettle safety cut-off switch.
This is going to be my only post for this week. It's reading week so I'm with Marymelade. I'll try to make this one worthy of being a weeks worth of Wooded Fun.
I have the next 6 weeks mapped out to the hour. I'm building up to operation: Get A Fucking Job! I'd feel like such a fucking bum if not for the fact that I changed my age to 24 and now have plenty of time to perfect my abilities... The kettle just clicked. I've included an hour each day to this blog-monster. I think it helps to keep me sane, except when I can't find the exact Land of Talk song I needed.
On Friday morning after I uploaded the day's post, I did my Hamilton strut. I only took a few pictures before getting flustered and heading to the liber-brar. Hamilton has a lot of old painted-on brick signs that are disappearing too quickly. I remember watching them tear down a few buildings in Montreal that had monstrous painted walls from at least a century ago. I think that the Hamilton City Councel is a little backward when it comes to Hamilton's future. I get the feeling that they all want it to start looking more like Mississauga or Oakville when the core is already evolving into a much more "historic" and "creative" place. They should be embracing this way more than they have. The James North Art Crawl is not enough. Hamilton has so many areas that remind me of places like Victoria and Halifax, San Fransisco, Boston and of course Portland. Places people flock to visit bringing in millions and increasing employment and infrastructure in the city. By tearing down the old buildings and trying to place random contemporary spaces into them it looks fake and forced. It looks like Denver, or Cleavland or Calgary. In other words, people want to see where The Ramones played in NYC, no gives a shit where Sum 41 started.
The perfect example of that shitty, forced "hip-city" thing is the Eaton's Centre at Jackson Square. When I look at it I know instantly that when it was constructed and what they were trying to achieve. It's that certain yellow-tan brick work with the flat turquoise blocks randomly placed through out. It was never appealing, even when it was new. They always remind me of those waxy paper cups with the splattery line-work in pink and turquoise. Or better yet, any group of medical staffing in scrubs in a hospital cafeteria. Just thinking about it makes me want to vomit.
Contemporary design from the last three decades isn't entirely awful, it's that there is so much really shitty and cheap looking crap made in such a huge scale that it loses any sense of aesthetic quality. if you take a look at the amazing farmer's market and liber-brar renovation it's clearly better. The style and class of design is still contemporary but it doesn't look fake. Eastgate mall... does. Again with the fucking turquoise!
Anyway I wandered around that area for a while waiting for Mixed Media to open so I could buy my book and get nostalgic looking at the greeting cards from The Regional Assembly of text in my old neighrea. My new word, a cross between neighborhood and area. They didn't open for another hour so I decided to just go get some work done instead. I passed through the amazing farmer's market and was in fucking awe! I'd never been to the Hamilton Farmer's Market before. I had no idea that something that amazing had been right there the whole time and I had never seen it.
I didn't really spend too much time there because I want to savor the experience when I actually need food-stuffs. I did however see the chocolate place with the spicy cocoa. It's called something like MonkeyBeanery or similar. I have a bag of the spicy hot cocoa less than 10 feet from me currently, a christmas gift from Mary, but I'm comfy so fuck it. It's delicious stuff so buy it when you see it.
The Library looked all fresh and clean. I walked over to what I thought was the front desk and asked about getting a card. The lady walked me over to what I guess was the real front desk and I proceeded to get an account. They have three desk areas that all look like the "main" but they're friendly and don't scold or whip you for going to the wrong one... They aren't provincial ministry workers.
I did work.
Went and bought my book.
Went to the Go Station and then sat in Mary's car until she was done work. I watched as some guy proceeded to carry a life-size stuffed man into her buildings main entrance. It was weird and happened just as Mary came out so she got to see it which means I got also got to witness a hilarious reaction to this hilarious scene.
We then walked around in the cold and then went for an early Ethiopian dinner. If you've never experienced the awesomeness of Injera bread and deliciousness of Ethiopian food than you're life is is literally a worthless pile of shit. As opposed to a pile of shit that has some worth. 80 Florms or 3 blood flakes.
We also saw this really shitty apartment essentially across the street from The Mulberry St Cafe. The owner also ran the restaurant at street level, "Vulture's" or "Venture's", "Vultura's"? He was a very odd little greek dude with dwarfish features. The apartment was small which I supposed matched the refrigerator which was a fucking bar fridge. The patio outside was amazing, and while we out there shivering in the cold the tiny restaurateur implied that we could do drugs up there if we wanted. That's always a sign of a professional landlord right? I wonder if "open to free-base" was on his craigslist ad.
Saturday I spent all day working on the jewllery, getting wood ready and sanding and polishing some finished pieces. It was a good day and Mary and I have enough "stock" to start producing plenty of pendants. Saturday was a little uneventful, in fact I have no recollection of the evening at all. That could be because of all the adventure from Sunday.
Mary and I went to Monica's birthday party in Toronto. I really wanted to let loose and knew that we would be sleeping over which is something I generally don't enjoy doing. Waking up on the floor of someone's house surrounded by fellow humans who, like you, also feel like they've been struck with Cholera. I decided I wasn't going to drink though. Being drunk is fun and I'm much less of a grouch-pouch until the following morning. So instead I decided to partake in the greener side of life. It was weird.
I don't know if's just me, or if I lunged too much or if it's maybe just the normal reaction but when I was done I was done. I remember being trapped in the bathroom and not being able to tell if there was someone talking to me or how long I had been there. Eventually I made it out and went up the stairs to experience a party, though not ding-dong. I learned very quickly three things about me and MJ: 1 that I get very, very nauseated, 2 that I can't help but think people are all talking about me in a negative way, 3 that the party in my brain is just as loud as the one upstairs.
I remember feeling like I was ruining everyone's good time. Especially Mary because I felt like I was taking up all her party time by being stuck in one spot. It seemed like days before I realized what was happening and that Mary was drunk as a skunk. When I came down a bit, like 2-3 hours later it was much more relaxing like I expected. I think the first part would have been much more fun if I wasn't so focused on not ruining the party for Mary and Monica. Next time I'll set up the conditions so that I can just enjoy the experience. Then I'll be done. I'm not looking to start doing it more, I just want a few memories to entertain me later on.
In the morning we all hobbled to a really delicious breakfast place called Motorama. The people working there were literally the best servers and hosts I've ever encountered in an eatery. I decided to break my eating policy for the day and just enjoy a monster breakfast. It was so delicious... soo fucking delicious. I'm going to wait like another 8 months and then have a breakfast again. Stuff tastes so much better when you wait extended periods of time.
Later in the day Mary, Olga and I went to see The Akron Family in a church downtown. As I expected the sound was amazing. I saw Joanna Newsom in a church in Vancouver maybe 4 - 5 years ago and it was incredible. The only downside is that my ass gets so sore that it starts to prevent me from really enjoying the show. They put on a set that I believe was quite different from their normal show. I feel lucky to have been there. They're already a really good band and getting to see them do a kind of experimental set in a place that sounded that spiffy was itself spiffy. The opening band was also really good, Delicate Steve. Mary and I got their recorded music and it's just meh. The live version was much, much better. I just thought I should add that they played and were good if you were intrigued.
Ok so I guess this "weeks" worth of posts all wrapped into one was kind of a let down. I already have several planned stories to share in short bursts over the next 6 weeks. I'm posting this unedited so I apologize for the mistakes and errors all through this beast.
Oh an there is new Mogwai album, it's quite uptempo and I love it.
Song of the Day:
Maybe I'm the only one who's noticed this but there is always this weird "click" about 30 - 45 min after an electric kettle has been turned off. The kettle is off already but the click remains, hence the title of today's post. It's not just the specific kettle I have either. The mystery is consistent with a variety of makes and models. nANcy DREW and the case of the kettle safety cut-off switch.
This is going to be my only post for this week. It's reading week so I'm with Marymelade. I'll try to make this one worthy of being a weeks worth of Wooded Fun.
I have the next 6 weeks mapped out to the hour. I'm building up to operation: Get A Fucking Job! I'd feel like such a fucking bum if not for the fact that I changed my age to 24 and now have plenty of time to perfect my abilities... The kettle just clicked. I've included an hour each day to this blog-monster. I think it helps to keep me sane, except when I can't find the exact Land of Talk song I needed.
On Friday morning after I uploaded the day's post, I did my Hamilton strut. I only took a few pictures before getting flustered and heading to the liber-brar. Hamilton has a lot of old painted-on brick signs that are disappearing too quickly. I remember watching them tear down a few buildings in Montreal that had monstrous painted walls from at least a century ago. I think that the Hamilton City Councel is a little backward when it comes to Hamilton's future. I get the feeling that they all want it to start looking more like Mississauga or Oakville when the core is already evolving into a much more "historic" and "creative" place. They should be embracing this way more than they have. The James North Art Crawl is not enough. Hamilton has so many areas that remind me of places like Victoria and Halifax, San Fransisco, Boston and of course Portland. Places people flock to visit bringing in millions and increasing employment and infrastructure in the city. By tearing down the old buildings and trying to place random contemporary spaces into them it looks fake and forced. It looks like Denver, or Cleavland or Calgary. In other words, people want to see where The Ramones played in NYC, no gives a shit where Sum 41 started.
The perfect example of that shitty, forced "hip-city" thing is the Eaton's Centre at Jackson Square. When I look at it I know instantly that when it was constructed and what they were trying to achieve. It's that certain yellow-tan brick work with the flat turquoise blocks randomly placed through out. It was never appealing, even when it was new. They always remind me of those waxy paper cups with the splattery line-work in pink and turquoise. Or better yet, any group of medical staffing in scrubs in a hospital cafeteria. Just thinking about it makes me want to vomit.
Contemporary design from the last three decades isn't entirely awful, it's that there is so much really shitty and cheap looking crap made in such a huge scale that it loses any sense of aesthetic quality. if you take a look at the amazing farmer's market and liber-brar renovation it's clearly better. The style and class of design is still contemporary but it doesn't look fake. Eastgate mall... does. Again with the fucking turquoise!
Anyway I wandered around that area for a while waiting for Mixed Media to open so I could buy my book and get nostalgic looking at the greeting cards from The Regional Assembly of text in my old neighrea. My new word, a cross between neighborhood and area. They didn't open for another hour so I decided to just go get some work done instead. I passed through the amazing farmer's market and was in fucking awe! I'd never been to the Hamilton Farmer's Market before. I had no idea that something that amazing had been right there the whole time and I had never seen it.
I didn't really spend too much time there because I want to savor the experience when I actually need food-stuffs. I did however see the chocolate place with the spicy cocoa. It's called something like MonkeyBeanery or similar. I have a bag of the spicy hot cocoa less than 10 feet from me currently, a christmas gift from Mary, but I'm comfy so fuck it. It's delicious stuff so buy it when you see it.
The Library looked all fresh and clean. I walked over to what I thought was the front desk and asked about getting a card. The lady walked me over to what I guess was the real front desk and I proceeded to get an account. They have three desk areas that all look like the "main" but they're friendly and don't scold or whip you for going to the wrong one... They aren't provincial ministry workers.
I did work.
Went and bought my book.
Went to the Go Station and then sat in Mary's car until she was done work. I watched as some guy proceeded to carry a life-size stuffed man into her buildings main entrance. It was weird and happened just as Mary came out so she got to see it which means I got also got to witness a hilarious reaction to this hilarious scene.
We then walked around in the cold and then went for an early Ethiopian dinner. If you've never experienced the awesomeness of Injera bread and deliciousness of Ethiopian food than you're life is is literally a worthless pile of shit. As opposed to a pile of shit that has some worth. 80 Florms or 3 blood flakes.
We also saw this really shitty apartment essentially across the street from The Mulberry St Cafe. The owner also ran the restaurant at street level, "Vulture's" or "Venture's", "Vultura's"? He was a very odd little greek dude with dwarfish features. The apartment was small which I supposed matched the refrigerator which was a fucking bar fridge. The patio outside was amazing, and while we out there shivering in the cold the tiny restaurateur implied that we could do drugs up there if we wanted. That's always a sign of a professional landlord right? I wonder if "open to free-base" was on his craigslist ad.
Saturday I spent all day working on the jewllery, getting wood ready and sanding and polishing some finished pieces. It was a good day and Mary and I have enough "stock" to start producing plenty of pendants. Saturday was a little uneventful, in fact I have no recollection of the evening at all. That could be because of all the adventure from Sunday.
Mary and I went to Monica's birthday party in Toronto. I really wanted to let loose and knew that we would be sleeping over which is something I generally don't enjoy doing. Waking up on the floor of someone's house surrounded by fellow humans who, like you, also feel like they've been struck with Cholera. I decided I wasn't going to drink though. Being drunk is fun and I'm much less of a grouch-pouch until the following morning. So instead I decided to partake in the greener side of life. It was weird.
I don't know if's just me, or if I lunged too much or if it's maybe just the normal reaction but when I was done I was done. I remember being trapped in the bathroom and not being able to tell if there was someone talking to me or how long I had been there. Eventually I made it out and went up the stairs to experience a party, though not ding-dong. I learned very quickly three things about me and MJ: 1 that I get very, very nauseated, 2 that I can't help but think people are all talking about me in a negative way, 3 that the party in my brain is just as loud as the one upstairs.
I remember feeling like I was ruining everyone's good time. Especially Mary because I felt like I was taking up all her party time by being stuck in one spot. It seemed like days before I realized what was happening and that Mary was drunk as a skunk. When I came down a bit, like 2-3 hours later it was much more relaxing like I expected. I think the first part would have been much more fun if I wasn't so focused on not ruining the party for Mary and Monica. Next time I'll set up the conditions so that I can just enjoy the experience. Then I'll be done. I'm not looking to start doing it more, I just want a few memories to entertain me later on.
In the morning we all hobbled to a really delicious breakfast place called Motorama. The people working there were literally the best servers and hosts I've ever encountered in an eatery. I decided to break my eating policy for the day and just enjoy a monster breakfast. It was so delicious... soo fucking delicious. I'm going to wait like another 8 months and then have a breakfast again. Stuff tastes so much better when you wait extended periods of time.
Later in the day Mary, Olga and I went to see The Akron Family in a church downtown. As I expected the sound was amazing. I saw Joanna Newsom in a church in Vancouver maybe 4 - 5 years ago and it was incredible. The only downside is that my ass gets so sore that it starts to prevent me from really enjoying the show. They put on a set that I believe was quite different from their normal show. I feel lucky to have been there. They're already a really good band and getting to see them do a kind of experimental set in a place that sounded that spiffy was itself spiffy. The opening band was also really good, Delicate Steve. Mary and I got their recorded music and it's just meh. The live version was much, much better. I just thought I should add that they played and were good if you were intrigued.
Ok so I guess this "weeks" worth of posts all wrapped into one was kind of a let down. I already have several planned stories to share in short bursts over the next 6 weeks. I'm posting this unedited so I apologize for the mistakes and errors all through this beast.
Oh an there is new Mogwai album, it's quite uptempo and I love it.
Song of the Day:
Sunday, February 20, 2011
Gravy Bear: Scrabble Champ
No blog posts until probably Tuesday. No real worrysome reasons or anything Yesterday I worked on jewels, today I'm Toronto-ing and tonight is Maunnukah. Tomorrow is more Toronto followed by Akron Family in Grimelton! They seem like kind of a big band for the venue, no? It's in a church so the sound will be amazing.
Umm. I made a city of Hamilton pendent, actually its a series based on the the same graphic. I just wanted to make some local influenced things. here:
Here's some Akron Family too:
Umm. I made a city of Hamilton pendent, actually its a series based on the the same graphic. I just wanted to make some local influenced things. here:
Here's some Akron Family too:
Friday, February 18, 2011
Goodnight Gravy Bird
"Did you say creepy bird, or gravy bird?"
"I said baby bird but gravy bird is much better."
I'm downtown on a Saturday morning at my competition, The Mulberry Street Cafe. It's such a nice fucking place it makes me sad. But also happy. I'm the only patron currently and I can hear and smell the sizzle of something cookin' up. I don't think it's bacon because I don't have an erection. If it was bacon I would be embarrassed to stand up. Like grade 9 English class.
In highschool dudes get boners during class. It's usually because we're wondering what other people look like naked instead of calculating the refraction angle of a convex mirror. In the movies they try and make this some kind of crazy experience but in reality this happens every 20 minutes. You just learn not to stand or if you can, to control the erection. I don't think it's just me but I have my go to imagery for when I need my body to stop pumping blood to my little appendage. It's a frozen dead cat that me and Danny and the twins, Jay and Andrew once found in the field near Dynasty. It was the same field that had the wild hemp that they dried and sold as weed to whoever was dumb enough to buy it... "Hook me up with yer sister dude!"
Dead cat works great, so does thinking about this weird TV ONTARIO short that was like 5 min long and played in between shows that ran short because TVO doesn't play commercials. It was this bizarre little movie of these monsters either dancing or figure skating. It wasn't a cartoon either. They were the giant foam kind. From what I remember they weren't hair like a muppet. They sort of resembled a hippo and one was blue and one was yellow and orange, I think. I also remember this other 5 min show that involved a gramophone in a black room that may or may not have talked.
I came downtown with Mary. She's working from 7 until 3 so I'm just going to wander the streets and check out the renovated library and do some coding. I started to try converting web-site into Wordpress Themes and it's a lot easier now that I know what I'm reading. I also brought my camera with me so tomorrows post will include a stroll around the hammer. I wish there was a better nickname than the hammer. I remember coming up with one that was fucking perfect but have since forgotten it. .... Grimelton! That was it! I use that word in a positive way, as I love the grit.
I really want to take pictures inside the downtown Go station but I don't think that's actually allowed. Fucking 911 made taking photographs of awesome stuff risky if it's near public transport or oil rigs or government buildings. All things that have amazing architectural details perfect of photographing. I really wanted to take photographs of the CSIS building in Vancouver, not because it was nice looking but because I wanted to see what would actually happen. Curiosity killed the camera.
I also came downtown to buy a book at Mixed Media. I mentioned the book before and said that if I was going to buy it I would come here. I actually found it online for 70% less than it is here but I'm still going to buy it for more. The only way to revive a city is through financial sacrifice. Every bit counts and all that.
They're playing Pavement at the cafe. They went through Neutral Milk Hotel's An Aeroplane Over The Sea. I never really got into them, in fact I much prefer the Matt Pond PA verison of the title song over the original. I never got into Pavement either, although right now it sounds awesome and is making me want to get some. Pavement, The Flaming Lips, Wilco and The Shins are all bands that I can't understand their legend status. Oh and The Pixies too. I mean they all have good songs but compared to the entire body of work it's a relatively small number of really good songs. Especially Wilco. The same can be said for Fugazi though and fucking love them. I still think it's a little strange just how important Fugazi was in my life. Fugazi's End Hits, Les Savy Fav's Go Forth, Mogwai's Rock Action and The Faint's Danse Macabre are the four albums that define my transition into adulthood. Oh and also Rilo Kiley's The Execution of All Things, I always forget that one. Of all those albums it's the Rilo Kiley that can bring me to tears, maybe that's why I always include it on the end. Here is my favorite albums in no particular order:
Enon: High Society
Blonde Redhead: The Ballad of Certain Damaged Lemons
Rilo Kiley: The Execution of All Things
The Faint: Danse Macabre
Les Savy Fav: Go Forth
Fugazi: End Hits
Mogwai: Rock Action
Thrush Hermit: Clayton Park
North of America: Elements of an Incomplete Map
I have others like ATDI, Wolf Parade and Neko Case but those ones fuck me in a way that is unfuckable. I've done this list a thousand times but those 9 pretty much sum up my brain. If I had to add a 10th it's XO by Elliott Smith.
Oh yeah it's Friday I forgot to add videos. Well I suppose I should just add stuff from the list.
"I said baby bird but gravy bird is much better."
I'm downtown on a Saturday morning at my competition, The Mulberry Street Cafe. It's such a nice fucking place it makes me sad. But also happy. I'm the only patron currently and I can hear and smell the sizzle of something cookin' up. I don't think it's bacon because I don't have an erection. If it was bacon I would be embarrassed to stand up. Like grade 9 English class.
In highschool dudes get boners during class. It's usually because we're wondering what other people look like naked instead of calculating the refraction angle of a convex mirror. In the movies they try and make this some kind of crazy experience but in reality this happens every 20 minutes. You just learn not to stand or if you can, to control the erection. I don't think it's just me but I have my go to imagery for when I need my body to stop pumping blood to my little appendage. It's a frozen dead cat that me and Danny and the twins, Jay and Andrew once found in the field near Dynasty. It was the same field that had the wild hemp that they dried and sold as weed to whoever was dumb enough to buy it... "Hook me up with yer sister dude!"
Dead cat works great, so does thinking about this weird TV ONTARIO short that was like 5 min long and played in between shows that ran short because TVO doesn't play commercials. It was this bizarre little movie of these monsters either dancing or figure skating. It wasn't a cartoon either. They were the giant foam kind. From what I remember they weren't hair like a muppet. They sort of resembled a hippo and one was blue and one was yellow and orange, I think. I also remember this other 5 min show that involved a gramophone in a black room that may or may not have talked.
I came downtown with Mary. She's working from 7 until 3 so I'm just going to wander the streets and check out the renovated library and do some coding. I started to try converting web-site into Wordpress Themes and it's a lot easier now that I know what I'm reading. I also brought my camera with me so tomorrows post will include a stroll around the hammer. I wish there was a better nickname than the hammer. I remember coming up with one that was fucking perfect but have since forgotten it. .... Grimelton! That was it! I use that word in a positive way, as I love the grit.
I really want to take pictures inside the downtown Go station but I don't think that's actually allowed. Fucking 911 made taking photographs of awesome stuff risky if it's near public transport or oil rigs or government buildings. All things that have amazing architectural details perfect of photographing. I really wanted to take photographs of the CSIS building in Vancouver, not because it was nice looking but because I wanted to see what would actually happen. Curiosity killed the camera.
I also came downtown to buy a book at Mixed Media. I mentioned the book before and said that if I was going to buy it I would come here. I actually found it online for 70% less than it is here but I'm still going to buy it for more. The only way to revive a city is through financial sacrifice. Every bit counts and all that.
They're playing Pavement at the cafe. They went through Neutral Milk Hotel's An Aeroplane Over The Sea. I never really got into them, in fact I much prefer the Matt Pond PA verison of the title song over the original. I never got into Pavement either, although right now it sounds awesome and is making me want to get some. Pavement, The Flaming Lips, Wilco and The Shins are all bands that I can't understand their legend status. Oh and The Pixies too. I mean they all have good songs but compared to the entire body of work it's a relatively small number of really good songs. Especially Wilco. The same can be said for Fugazi though and fucking love them. I still think it's a little strange just how important Fugazi was in my life. Fugazi's End Hits, Les Savy Fav's Go Forth, Mogwai's Rock Action and The Faint's Danse Macabre are the four albums that define my transition into adulthood. Oh and also Rilo Kiley's The Execution of All Things, I always forget that one. Of all those albums it's the Rilo Kiley that can bring me to tears, maybe that's why I always include it on the end. Here is my favorite albums in no particular order:
Enon: High Society
Blonde Redhead: The Ballad of Certain Damaged Lemons
Rilo Kiley: The Execution of All Things
The Faint: Danse Macabre
Les Savy Fav: Go Forth
Fugazi: End Hits
Mogwai: Rock Action
Thrush Hermit: Clayton Park
North of America: Elements of an Incomplete Map
I have others like ATDI, Wolf Parade and Neko Case but those ones fuck me in a way that is unfuckable. I've done this list a thousand times but those 9 pretty much sum up my brain. If I had to add a 10th it's XO by Elliott Smith.
Oh yeah it's Friday I forgot to add videos. Well I suppose I should just add stuff from the list.
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Bladder Inflection
I still remember the exact spot I would sit in the parking lot on Plank road waiting for the blue Mazda-3 to arrive. I would try and have the 35 cents needed for a coffee at the end of the day, although I usually spent all the spare change in the pockets of my black hoody by third break. When I did have the the change I would enjoy the fuck out of that little cup.
It was only the last month or so that the the parking lot had been paved. Until then it was a dusty gravel. I was used to that dusty gravel. I'm from Stoney Creek for fuck's sake. We only have three things in Stoney Creek: ice cream, strip malls, and unpaved industrial parking lots. I liked sitting and watching all the other workers leave for the day while I waited for my ride home. In the winter I had a piece of 5/8th white melamine that I had taken from a dismantled drawer that had been improperly measured and I would set that over the curb and what ever snow had built up around it. It was the warmer weather though that I really enjoyed.
It was the kind of industrial area where the road was lined with deep swampy ditches. My curb was what separated this particular parking lot from the ditch. Although the ditches are obviously created for man-made purposes they always have this kind of over-growth universe to them. Long reeds and pussy-willows mixed with Golden-Rod and thick grasses. They're the kind of ditch you've driven past a million times and never even noticed. They're an entire eco-system built on a foundation of run-off to keep pools of water off the road.
I remember being intrigued with just how many grasshoppery creatures were around. There's so many and they all have slightly distinctive characteristics. From where I sat I would face the two large loading docks that we used to load up cabinets and counter-tops. So many beautiful kitchens and vanities went out those doors in my time there and I don't remember a single instance where a comment was made on just how incredible they looked. It was a means to an end for pretty much every person who worked there. It was one of the reasons I always felt uncomfortable. I would marvel at the drawer-pull catalog and when the monthly industry magazine came in I would read every article there was. Advances in hinge technology, routers and edge banding machines fascinated the fuck out of me. There was such an amazing blend of artisanship and systematic industrial processes involved in cabinetmaking. People either think of a shop as being either factory-esque or all hand tools and saw-dust. The reality is that it's all equal parts. Like the vertical panel saw. It was a monstrous automated machine but every piece had to be measured out to 1/32nd of an inch in order to work. The white plastic melamine that you find lining the shelves and drawer bottoms in your kitchen... those edges are trimmed and sanded by hand using a razor-blade and sanding block. Yep I would sit and watch the loading doors and think about how little the people who built the amazing work that came out them actually gave a shit.
If I looked over to my right I would face the unknown business next door. It was separated by around 40 feet of weeds, field mice, snakes and deer ticks. I think the business was some kind of salvage yard. They had a low single story building that may have stared out as a trailer and then got added to and added to. There were two Rottweilers that sat chained out front. They would bark at me and I would stare back, look them dead in the eye showing no fear. It's amazing how quickly they calm down when you command respect from them. Also I think they were old and were most likely just out of breath.
There were no signs anywhere and the building looked like it may also have been serving as a make-shift house. I never saw anyone working there so I have no clue what they did. I doubt it was drugs as it looked too shifty even for a meth lab. It was probably just some old dying family-owned fabrication shop that did welding for people under the table.
The Sarnia Cabinet's logo is bad in a way that I would be embarrassed to wear anything brandishing the insignia. I desperately wanted to redo their branding and even did some revised takes to the cartoonish "SC". But they didn't need to change it and I never mentioned it. It was the kind of design you'd expect to see on the front of an old little league baseball shirt from value Village. Not the good little league but the dirt poor type whose games were played on the diamonds of various elementary schools around town. It was just like that, if the shirts were also designed by mentally challenged and legally blind boy.
It's amazing how many cars look exactly like the one you're waiting for almost until it drives right past you. It could be a fucking school bus but up until it's about 20 feet from you you are certain your ride has arrived. I would switch to the street view after 17 minutes of watching the door, the dog and the woodland critters of ditch county. I have this weird tick that I've always had where if someone is like 45 seconds late I'm convinced they're dead. I've always had it and continue to do so through medications and life changes. If you're late, I think you're dead. I'm sure it has something to do with growing up in a single parent household where the other parent doesn't exist anymore. People die so easily and everyone does it so it's really not much of a stretch to think lateness = death. I remember a few specific times when I was probably 8 or 9 where I knew, knew my mom had died on her way home from work. When she did get home I would cry myself into a beautiful coma.
I also remember one specific time when I was waiting for the blue Mazda that I was 100% sure I was going to get a phone calling telling me something bad has happened. I had taken my phone out of the pocket of my black hoody and held onto it so that I wouldn't miss the vibrating ringer when I was called and told the grave news. It never actually happened of course, real life is much less dramatic than that and I'm just not that lucky.
Only once did I ever begin to walk up the road. It was winter and I was too cold to just stand still so I walked up the snowy black shoulder. Three other people from my work stopped and asked me if I needed a ride. They all seemed concerned and didn't understand that I was walking to kill time and get the blood moving. In Sarnia people don't walk. My in-laws would drive to the store a half a block away. Even the ex-wife drove the car to work and she was a seven minute walk from the house. There's only three times a year that people don't drive. Canada Day at Canatara Park, Canada Day evening at the river for the fireworks, and of course Bay-Fest.
Like Stoney Creek, Sarnia still has a ton of unpaved sidewalks. They'll spend millions on obscure fountains with statues and crazy lights and nothing on pedestrian traffic safety. I've found that even more than the United States, Ontario depends on driving everywhere. Even I fall back into the trap quickly. Once Mary and I move downtown though I'll be walking everywhere. If I end up working in Toronto I'll be train-ing and walking everywhere there too. If there is one person who knows walking, I'm that person. Who the fuck needs a blue Mazda-3 anyway?
Second Song of the Day:
It was only the last month or so that the the parking lot had been paved. Until then it was a dusty gravel. I was used to that dusty gravel. I'm from Stoney Creek for fuck's sake. We only have three things in Stoney Creek: ice cream, strip malls, and unpaved industrial parking lots. I liked sitting and watching all the other workers leave for the day while I waited for my ride home. In the winter I had a piece of 5/8th white melamine that I had taken from a dismantled drawer that had been improperly measured and I would set that over the curb and what ever snow had built up around it. It was the warmer weather though that I really enjoyed.
It was the kind of industrial area where the road was lined with deep swampy ditches. My curb was what separated this particular parking lot from the ditch. Although the ditches are obviously created for man-made purposes they always have this kind of over-growth universe to them. Long reeds and pussy-willows mixed with Golden-Rod and thick grasses. They're the kind of ditch you've driven past a million times and never even noticed. They're an entire eco-system built on a foundation of run-off to keep pools of water off the road.
I remember being intrigued with just how many grasshoppery creatures were around. There's so many and they all have slightly distinctive characteristics. From where I sat I would face the two large loading docks that we used to load up cabinets and counter-tops. So many beautiful kitchens and vanities went out those doors in my time there and I don't remember a single instance where a comment was made on just how incredible they looked. It was a means to an end for pretty much every person who worked there. It was one of the reasons I always felt uncomfortable. I would marvel at the drawer-pull catalog and when the monthly industry magazine came in I would read every article there was. Advances in hinge technology, routers and edge banding machines fascinated the fuck out of me. There was such an amazing blend of artisanship and systematic industrial processes involved in cabinetmaking. People either think of a shop as being either factory-esque or all hand tools and saw-dust. The reality is that it's all equal parts. Like the vertical panel saw. It was a monstrous automated machine but every piece had to be measured out to 1/32nd of an inch in order to work. The white plastic melamine that you find lining the shelves and drawer bottoms in your kitchen... those edges are trimmed and sanded by hand using a razor-blade and sanding block. Yep I would sit and watch the loading doors and think about how little the people who built the amazing work that came out them actually gave a shit.
If I looked over to my right I would face the unknown business next door. It was separated by around 40 feet of weeds, field mice, snakes and deer ticks. I think the business was some kind of salvage yard. They had a low single story building that may have stared out as a trailer and then got added to and added to. There were two Rottweilers that sat chained out front. They would bark at me and I would stare back, look them dead in the eye showing no fear. It's amazing how quickly they calm down when you command respect from them. Also I think they were old and were most likely just out of breath.
There were no signs anywhere and the building looked like it may also have been serving as a make-shift house. I never saw anyone working there so I have no clue what they did. I doubt it was drugs as it looked too shifty even for a meth lab. It was probably just some old dying family-owned fabrication shop that did welding for people under the table.
The Sarnia Cabinet's logo is bad in a way that I would be embarrassed to wear anything brandishing the insignia. I desperately wanted to redo their branding and even did some revised takes to the cartoonish "SC". But they didn't need to change it and I never mentioned it. It was the kind of design you'd expect to see on the front of an old little league baseball shirt from value Village. Not the good little league but the dirt poor type whose games were played on the diamonds of various elementary schools around town. It was just like that, if the shirts were also designed by mentally challenged and legally blind boy.
It's amazing how many cars look exactly like the one you're waiting for almost until it drives right past you. It could be a fucking school bus but up until it's about 20 feet from you you are certain your ride has arrived. I would switch to the street view after 17 minutes of watching the door, the dog and the woodland critters of ditch county. I have this weird tick that I've always had where if someone is like 45 seconds late I'm convinced they're dead. I've always had it and continue to do so through medications and life changes. If you're late, I think you're dead. I'm sure it has something to do with growing up in a single parent household where the other parent doesn't exist anymore. People die so easily and everyone does it so it's really not much of a stretch to think lateness = death. I remember a few specific times when I was probably 8 or 9 where I knew, knew my mom had died on her way home from work. When she did get home I would cry myself into a beautiful coma.
I also remember one specific time when I was waiting for the blue Mazda that I was 100% sure I was going to get a phone calling telling me something bad has happened. I had taken my phone out of the pocket of my black hoody and held onto it so that I wouldn't miss the vibrating ringer when I was called and told the grave news. It never actually happened of course, real life is much less dramatic than that and I'm just not that lucky.
Only once did I ever begin to walk up the road. It was winter and I was too cold to just stand still so I walked up the snowy black shoulder. Three other people from my work stopped and asked me if I needed a ride. They all seemed concerned and didn't understand that I was walking to kill time and get the blood moving. In Sarnia people don't walk. My in-laws would drive to the store a half a block away. Even the ex-wife drove the car to work and she was a seven minute walk from the house. There's only three times a year that people don't drive. Canada Day at Canatara Park, Canada Day evening at the river for the fireworks, and of course Bay-Fest.
Like Stoney Creek, Sarnia still has a ton of unpaved sidewalks. They'll spend millions on obscure fountains with statues and crazy lights and nothing on pedestrian traffic safety. I've found that even more than the United States, Ontario depends on driving everywhere. Even I fall back into the trap quickly. Once Mary and I move downtown though I'll be walking everywhere. If I end up working in Toronto I'll be train-ing and walking everywhere there too. If there is one person who knows walking, I'm that person. Who the fuck needs a blue Mazda-3 anyway?
Second Song of the Day:
Wooded Areas II: The Legend of Curly's Gold.
New look.
I actually created this logo a few months ago but never used it. I'm pleased with it.
I was up late lastnight. I had made a full pot of decaf and felt as if leaving a cup in exchange for sleep wasn't fair for the coffee maker. It did all that work, I just couldn't waste the sweet, sweet brown.
I think if there is one other place I would live in Ontario it would be the town of Goderich. Goderich is beautiful and the downtown looks just like the town in Back to the Future. I was even thinking about it as a possible wafflarium spot.
The downtown core is amazing. Remember how I said I would start to include more images well here's one of the town center.
In that centered green space they hold amazing festivals and shows and shit. It's a pretty far drive from Hamilton. You'd have to cut up through Stratford and shit but It's not like Timmins or The Sault or anything. and shit.
Ha ha ha, I typed Goderich into the standard google image search and this was one of the photos:
I think my hard on for this town just grew!
I love the word "goblin". It's not just the imagery but the sound and the flow as well.
I also love the word "gremlin". They're pretty close so I suppose that just makes sense. It just makes scents.
Marybral-paulsy and I have been making pendants for what has been at least 4 months. We kind of just kept experimenting until we got our process down. It involves poplar and resin. Trying to get everything to work just right has been difficult. The way we work on these things is just a few hours every couple of weeks. If we had a few days of non-stop work it would have taken much less time. Also there is a lot of drying involved. We're using custom made silicon molds which take about 4 days for each one. The way that resin works is that you need to be able to mix more than just enough for a few. Ideally I'd love to be able to do like 20 at a time, and eventually we will be. The time we've spent creating a system has been worth the wait. We would like to have a whole bunch done and ready before the spring. We want to try and sell them at the Art Crawl in Hamilton. By that point I'm sure most of you will already have at least one. We won't actually make money on it because we've spent quite a bit trying to narrow the process down so we'll probably just break even. I just like the idea of someone willing to give up something of their own because they want something I made. I don't actually care what that something is.
Probably next week some time I'll start to post pictures. They have imagery involved and we can duplicate them although I really love the idea of doing just one-offs. I already started the logo too although that will pretty much just go on the card stock that the necklaces will be on. I thought about incorporating the name (which will be revealed soonish) onto the backs but it's a lot of extra work for very little pay-off.
Too many projects on the go. That's my existence. I'll just end it here for today with one more picture of Goderich and the song of the day from an amazing band.
Song of the Day:
I actually created this logo a few months ago but never used it. I'm pleased with it.
I was up late lastnight. I had made a full pot of decaf and felt as if leaving a cup in exchange for sleep wasn't fair for the coffee maker. It did all that work, I just couldn't waste the sweet, sweet brown.
I think if there is one other place I would live in Ontario it would be the town of Goderich. Goderich is beautiful and the downtown looks just like the town in Back to the Future. I was even thinking about it as a possible wafflarium spot.
The downtown core is amazing. Remember how I said I would start to include more images well here's one of the town center.
In that centered green space they hold amazing festivals and shows and shit. It's a pretty far drive from Hamilton. You'd have to cut up through Stratford and shit but It's not like Timmins or The Sault or anything. and shit.
Ha ha ha, I typed Goderich into the standard google image search and this was one of the photos:
I think my hard on for this town just grew!
I love the word "goblin". It's not just the imagery but the sound and the flow as well.
I also love the word "gremlin". They're pretty close so I suppose that just makes sense. It just makes scents.
Marybral-paulsy and I have been making pendants for what has been at least 4 months. We kind of just kept experimenting until we got our process down. It involves poplar and resin. Trying to get everything to work just right has been difficult. The way we work on these things is just a few hours every couple of weeks. If we had a few days of non-stop work it would have taken much less time. Also there is a lot of drying involved. We're using custom made silicon molds which take about 4 days for each one. The way that resin works is that you need to be able to mix more than just enough for a few. Ideally I'd love to be able to do like 20 at a time, and eventually we will be. The time we've spent creating a system has been worth the wait. We would like to have a whole bunch done and ready before the spring. We want to try and sell them at the Art Crawl in Hamilton. By that point I'm sure most of you will already have at least one. We won't actually make money on it because we've spent quite a bit trying to narrow the process down so we'll probably just break even. I just like the idea of someone willing to give up something of their own because they want something I made. I don't actually care what that something is.
Probably next week some time I'll start to post pictures. They have imagery involved and we can duplicate them although I really love the idea of doing just one-offs. I already started the logo too although that will pretty much just go on the card stock that the necklaces will be on. I thought about incorporating the name (which will be revealed soonish) onto the backs but it's a lot of extra work for very little pay-off.
Too many projects on the go. That's my existence. I'll just end it here for today with one more picture of Goderich and the song of the day from an amazing band.
Song of the Day:
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Steam Spruce
When Mary and I go for pho I put the hot red chili sauce into my tea. It seems counter-intuitive to add hot sauce to tea but trust me it's fucking amazing. I've started to drink that here at home too during the day while I tutorialize. It has to be the red sauce in the tall bottle with the green cap and the picture of a rooster on the side. It's the only way to fly.
I decided to change 3D programs mid-stream from Maya to Cinema 4D. 4D has a better user interface and I'm more likely to fuck around on it until I master it. Maya was too much like the kind of software you would use while working in a factory, programming a CNC router. I know how much you all care about this and just how interesting this is.
Yesterday's post was a little ranty. I get that way on Monday's because that's when I read Neurologica and Skeptic North. Sorry bout that.
I eat a lot of raw cabbage. Seriously, a lot. I'm addicted to it like a chain smoker. I chain-chew cabbage. I like steamed cabbage too but munching on a big slice of the raw is really ideal. I discovered this based on my parallel love of cheap Iceberg Salad from Fresh Express. It has the little bits of red cabbage in there and I found myself picking it out and eating it individually as a side to the salad. I tried out both the red and the regular white/green and I find the white/green is tastier and cheaper and slightly less in calories.
I love vegetables. I never thought I would until I actually started to eat slowly and savor every bite of food. My favorite isn't actually the cabbage. I love the cabbage and I need a daily dose but the ultimate has to be baked parsnips. They taste like french-fries dipped in sugar. That's the natural flavor of them without oils, or butter's or being fried. I first had them back in October for Thanksgiving Dinner. Since then I've had them at least once a week along with beets, turnip, cabbage, green beans, asparagus, carrots and a whole host of non-corn, non-potato veggies.
Every new vegetable I try I seem to love. I just had some raw Bok Choi the other day and it was delicious, like a cross between a bean-sprout and cabbage. The grocery store has so much shit I want to try. Like the long dink-looking things with the nubbins on the end, or the fat dink-looking thing with the other nubbins on the end. As long as it's dink-looking with nubbins I need it in me.
I'm going to be moving this blog onto my own site shortly when it's done. This is kind of a risky move because I'll be using that site as my online portfolio and so potential employers will be able to read about my looniness. I'm not that bothered by it because really, if someone doesn't want to hire me based on anything they read from me then they probably aren't going to be the kind of people I would enjoy working with. Maybe I should start writing more about my life as a designer.
I hate the word designer. I hate the term graphic designer even more. When I tell people that's what I do I can always see the eyes begin to roll and the their mouths start to form the words, "Oh really? What Starbuck's do you work at?" before holding back and settling for something like "that's interesting." If I were to go on what part of the industry I spent the majority of my working life in it would be logo design. I hate the word logo too. It sounds cheap and amateur to me. I wish I could get away with calling myself a Brand Architect or Corporate Identity Engineer, but even that sounds cheap. I would like to just settle for "I work in branding" or even "I work on a computer". Nice, basic and accurate.
I never did get paid by the way. I haven't said anything or heard anything. I still own the logos that all of the companies I designed for think they own. I was contemplating sending the boss an invoice at the end of this month but I still don't know.
... I just got back from my sister's place where it was my niece's 16th birthday party. We had this strawberry flakey cake thing. It was amazing. There were a ton of people there too which was nice. I rarely talk to anyone at these things. I know everyone because that's where we have the family gatherings but I feel like I don't quite fit in. I get the same way when I'm around my aunts and uncles too. I talked a bit tonight but for the most part I just stand around in whatever room isn't in use and wait until it's time to go. They have two monster dogs, a snake and 2 cats. they had 4 cats three weeks ago but two went out and didn't come back... It's sad but not really. The real highlight for me was that I didn't realize I had to go so I was just wearing a t-shirt with no undershirt in front of people. This was a bold, bold move.
question: "What do you do?"
answer: "I work at a desk."
Song of the day:
I decided to change 3D programs mid-stream from Maya to Cinema 4D. 4D has a better user interface and I'm more likely to fuck around on it until I master it. Maya was too much like the kind of software you would use while working in a factory, programming a CNC router. I know how much you all care about this and just how interesting this is.
Yesterday's post was a little ranty. I get that way on Monday's because that's when I read Neurologica and Skeptic North. Sorry bout that.
I eat a lot of raw cabbage. Seriously, a lot. I'm addicted to it like a chain smoker. I chain-chew cabbage. I like steamed cabbage too but munching on a big slice of the raw is really ideal. I discovered this based on my parallel love of cheap Iceberg Salad from Fresh Express. It has the little bits of red cabbage in there and I found myself picking it out and eating it individually as a side to the salad. I tried out both the red and the regular white/green and I find the white/green is tastier and cheaper and slightly less in calories.
I love vegetables. I never thought I would until I actually started to eat slowly and savor every bite of food. My favorite isn't actually the cabbage. I love the cabbage and I need a daily dose but the ultimate has to be baked parsnips. They taste like french-fries dipped in sugar. That's the natural flavor of them without oils, or butter's or being fried. I first had them back in October for Thanksgiving Dinner. Since then I've had them at least once a week along with beets, turnip, cabbage, green beans, asparagus, carrots and a whole host of non-corn, non-potato veggies.
Every new vegetable I try I seem to love. I just had some raw Bok Choi the other day and it was delicious, like a cross between a bean-sprout and cabbage. The grocery store has so much shit I want to try. Like the long dink-looking things with the nubbins on the end, or the fat dink-looking thing with the other nubbins on the end. As long as it's dink-looking with nubbins I need it in me.
I'm going to be moving this blog onto my own site shortly when it's done. This is kind of a risky move because I'll be using that site as my online portfolio and so potential employers will be able to read about my looniness. I'm not that bothered by it because really, if someone doesn't want to hire me based on anything they read from me then they probably aren't going to be the kind of people I would enjoy working with. Maybe I should start writing more about my life as a designer.
I hate the word designer. I hate the term graphic designer even more. When I tell people that's what I do I can always see the eyes begin to roll and the their mouths start to form the words, "Oh really? What Starbuck's do you work at?" before holding back and settling for something like "that's interesting." If I were to go on what part of the industry I spent the majority of my working life in it would be logo design. I hate the word logo too. It sounds cheap and amateur to me. I wish I could get away with calling myself a Brand Architect or Corporate Identity Engineer, but even that sounds cheap. I would like to just settle for "I work in branding" or even "I work on a computer". Nice, basic and accurate.
I never did get paid by the way. I haven't said anything or heard anything. I still own the logos that all of the companies I designed for think they own. I was contemplating sending the boss an invoice at the end of this month but I still don't know.
... I just got back from my sister's place where it was my niece's 16th birthday party. We had this strawberry flakey cake thing. It was amazing. There were a ton of people there too which was nice. I rarely talk to anyone at these things. I know everyone because that's where we have the family gatherings but I feel like I don't quite fit in. I get the same way when I'm around my aunts and uncles too. I talked a bit tonight but for the most part I just stand around in whatever room isn't in use and wait until it's time to go. They have two monster dogs, a snake and 2 cats. they had 4 cats three weeks ago but two went out and didn't come back... It's sad but not really. The real highlight for me was that I didn't realize I had to go so I was just wearing a t-shirt with no undershirt in front of people. This was a bold, bold move.
question: "What do you do?"
answer: "I work at a desk."
Song of the day:
Monday, February 14, 2011
Question: Who's better than Bad Boy?
Answer: Sears
Olga commented the other day about me adding photo's to my story/geographic posts. What I've already started to is use google street-view to get images of my walks so I can start to add them. It's a long process but it will make the experiences a little less inside to just me. Part of me likes that only people who are familiar with say Dépanneur Lydia would have any idea what the fuck I'm talking about, but I also like readers so I'll get on that.
Today's post is going to be more about the lovely world of skepticism. Ironically, I had to pause my writing because Mary need help for her critical thinking class. She essentially needed to find articles with reference to studies and then studies about the article topic. It's kind of like that but not. Anyway I helped her get articles on the moronic wi-fi in schools thing from a few months back. It's a great example of how the public and the media will just feed each other bullshit and then regurgitate that bullshit back into each other's mouths. An awful science Hot Carl.
I won't get into the specifics of the claim but what basically happened is that some idiot parents (probably Oprah/Jenny McCarthy fans) tried, and successfully had the school remove wi-fi citing that it was causing illness in their kids. I guess physics, biology and medical science is no match for suburban moms. They know this is true despite the fact that the entire scientific community over the course of the last 50 years, and with the studies and data to show, say otherwise.
Skepticism is not cynicism. The reason many skeptics seem cynical is usually the result of years of frustration in dealing the human condition know as cognitive dissonance. Skepticism is also not "narrow" or "closed" mindedness. This label gets tossed around so much and to most of us who consider ourselves skeptics it's more hilarious than it is insulting.
For example it isn't that I am not open to the possibility that psychics are are real, I just have no reason or evidence to back up the idea that they are. People claim to have this ability all the time but to date there is no scientific evidence to support a reality in which there are individuals who can forsee the future, read my mind or talk to the dead. At least not in the way most people claim.
There have been studies where the conclusions drawn at then end of the published paper support fractional percentages of a phenomenon. What all of these published studies fail to reveal is how the margin of error for all of them is much greater than the any positive results achieved. What this means of course is that any data confirming the hypothesis falls within the area where the results can be false positives.
Most people get into para-psychology because they have a previous interest in things like psychics and ghosts and shit. It's pretty rare that you have a person enter a field where the main subject matter is completely unbiased to them. By simply choosing a field for which there is no consensus of positive results you've raised a red flag that you want to prove that positive results do exist. It most likely isn't deliberate or willfully done but results do get swayed. This is exactly why a higher success rate is needed to confirm these studies.
But the thing is that most psychics don't claim to be .275% supernatural. They claim things like 90% accuracy and it's the people who just soak up every claim without really examining it that end up calling those of us who don't "closed-minded".
I often hear the same people dismiss the scientific method as if it were a club. It's a tool. A method. So far it's been the best method we have to determine the difference between real and not real. What's really golden about that is the fact they usually use devices that are the exact result of using the same processes they claim doesn't work. When people are stabbed and bleeding out, they almost always except the medical interpretation of the sciences. It's only when that interpretation dismisses their previously held belief that they start calling the process dogmatic.
People such as homeopaths also like to do the whole "big pharma" thing. The logic is that because corporations don't give a shit about people that they're also actively trying to kill them too. I always like to point out that if "Big Pharma" really wanted to make money they could just cut all their research and laboratory teams and just sell magic water. They could just be homeopaths. That would increase profits.
My mom used to think that "Big Pharma" was actually trying to keep people sick. I responded with this: "Mom, you work as a sonographer (ultrasound technician). Would it not make more sense to you to tell people that they needed to keep coming back in order to make more money? Even if they don't need it?"
Her response usually was that that she actually cared about people unlike the evil corporations. To which I would then say: "But you do have people who need to see you more than once. What's more likely, that thousands of research scientists, medical professionals, statisticians, and people in analysis all collude to keep people sick, or that one sonographer is telling people they are sick and need to keep coming back?"
Then she would say "But I don't do that, I would never do that."
and of course my response is... "But you assume they do."
If "Big Pharma" was a huge conspiracy of people keeping the population sick we would see far more whistle-blowers. If you assume that thousands of people who all educated themselves and dedicated themselves to the health sciences are all actively hiding evidence in order make money, then I should assume you're the kind of person who would. As cynical as I am, I don't assume everyone can be that heartless. It makes more sense that a heartless person would.
Here is a small list of things that millions of people believe despite the fact that they not only lack any scientific evidence but also defy the fucking galaxy of things we already know about the natural world:
Acupuncture
Alternative medicine
Chelation therapy
Chiropractic
Colon cleansing
Detoxification
Ear candling
Energy medicine
HIV/AIDS denial
Holistic medicine
Homeopathy
Naturopathy
Psychic surgery
Vaccine denial
Vaccine autism links
Astral projection
Curses
Exorcisms
Faith healing
Ghosts
Magick
Psychics
Vampires
Voodoo
Witchcraft
Astrology
Attachment therapy
Dowsing
Dream interpretation
Evolution denial
Expert witnesses
Facilitated communication
Feng shui
Hypnosis
Numerology
Reparative therapy
Repressed memory therapy
god.
There many many more and I am sure that some of my reader's believe in one or more of those things. Even so, the simple fact remains that none it is supported by reality. Sorry about your luck. I'm too lazy to edit this mess.
Song of the Day:
Olga commented the other day about me adding photo's to my story/geographic posts. What I've already started to is use google street-view to get images of my walks so I can start to add them. It's a long process but it will make the experiences a little less inside to just me. Part of me likes that only people who are familiar with say Dépanneur Lydia would have any idea what the fuck I'm talking about, but I also like readers so I'll get on that.
Today's post is going to be more about the lovely world of skepticism. Ironically, I had to pause my writing because Mary need help for her critical thinking class. She essentially needed to find articles with reference to studies and then studies about the article topic. It's kind of like that but not. Anyway I helped her get articles on the moronic wi-fi in schools thing from a few months back. It's a great example of how the public and the media will just feed each other bullshit and then regurgitate that bullshit back into each other's mouths. An awful science Hot Carl.
I won't get into the specifics of the claim but what basically happened is that some idiot parents (probably Oprah/Jenny McCarthy fans) tried, and successfully had the school remove wi-fi citing that it was causing illness in their kids. I guess physics, biology and medical science is no match for suburban moms. They know this is true despite the fact that the entire scientific community over the course of the last 50 years, and with the studies and data to show, say otherwise.
Skepticism is not cynicism. The reason many skeptics seem cynical is usually the result of years of frustration in dealing the human condition know as cognitive dissonance. Skepticism is also not "narrow" or "closed" mindedness. This label gets tossed around so much and to most of us who consider ourselves skeptics it's more hilarious than it is insulting.
For example it isn't that I am not open to the possibility that psychics are are real, I just have no reason or evidence to back up the idea that they are. People claim to have this ability all the time but to date there is no scientific evidence to support a reality in which there are individuals who can forsee the future, read my mind or talk to the dead. At least not in the way most people claim.
There have been studies where the conclusions drawn at then end of the published paper support fractional percentages of a phenomenon. What all of these published studies fail to reveal is how the margin of error for all of them is much greater than the any positive results achieved. What this means of course is that any data confirming the hypothesis falls within the area where the results can be false positives.
Most people get into para-psychology because they have a previous interest in things like psychics and ghosts and shit. It's pretty rare that you have a person enter a field where the main subject matter is completely unbiased to them. By simply choosing a field for which there is no consensus of positive results you've raised a red flag that you want to prove that positive results do exist. It most likely isn't deliberate or willfully done but results do get swayed. This is exactly why a higher success rate is needed to confirm these studies.
But the thing is that most psychics don't claim to be .275% supernatural. They claim things like 90% accuracy and it's the people who just soak up every claim without really examining it that end up calling those of us who don't "closed-minded".
I often hear the same people dismiss the scientific method as if it were a club. It's a tool. A method. So far it's been the best method we have to determine the difference between real and not real. What's really golden about that is the fact they usually use devices that are the exact result of using the same processes they claim doesn't work. When people are stabbed and bleeding out, they almost always except the medical interpretation of the sciences. It's only when that interpretation dismisses their previously held belief that they start calling the process dogmatic.
People such as homeopaths also like to do the whole "big pharma" thing. The logic is that because corporations don't give a shit about people that they're also actively trying to kill them too. I always like to point out that if "Big Pharma" really wanted to make money they could just cut all their research and laboratory teams and just sell magic water. They could just be homeopaths. That would increase profits.
My mom used to think that "Big Pharma" was actually trying to keep people sick. I responded with this: "Mom, you work as a sonographer (ultrasound technician). Would it not make more sense to you to tell people that they needed to keep coming back in order to make more money? Even if they don't need it?"
Her response usually was that that she actually cared about people unlike the evil corporations. To which I would then say: "But you do have people who need to see you more than once. What's more likely, that thousands of research scientists, medical professionals, statisticians, and people in analysis all collude to keep people sick, or that one sonographer is telling people they are sick and need to keep coming back?"
Then she would say "But I don't do that, I would never do that."
and of course my response is... "But you assume they do."
If "Big Pharma" was a huge conspiracy of people keeping the population sick we would see far more whistle-blowers. If you assume that thousands of people who all educated themselves and dedicated themselves to the health sciences are all actively hiding evidence in order make money, then I should assume you're the kind of person who would. As cynical as I am, I don't assume everyone can be that heartless. It makes more sense that a heartless person would.
Here is a small list of things that millions of people believe despite the fact that they not only lack any scientific evidence but also defy the fucking galaxy of things we already know about the natural world:
Acupuncture
Alternative medicine
Chelation therapy
Chiropractic
Colon cleansing
Detoxification
Ear candling
Energy medicine
HIV/AIDS denial
Holistic medicine
Homeopathy
Naturopathy
Psychic surgery
Vaccine denial
Vaccine autism links
Astral projection
Curses
Exorcisms
Faith healing
Ghosts
Magick
Psychics
Vampires
Voodoo
Witchcraft
Astrology
Attachment therapy
Dowsing
Dream interpretation
Evolution denial
Expert witnesses
Facilitated communication
Feng shui
Hypnosis
Numerology
Reparative therapy
Repressed memory therapy
god.
There many many more and I am sure that some of my reader's believe in one or more of those things. Even so, the simple fact remains that none it is supported by reality. Sorry about your luck. I'm too lazy to edit this mess.
Song of the Day:
Saturday, February 12, 2011
Goblet of the Sun Bum
I'm writing from the town of Thorold. Thorold sound's like it would be a common first name like Harold but it's not. Thorold Bonner, with two N's. Mary is working a few feet away so I have to be quiet. You don't have to be quiet when you read it though, she'll be done by then.
Yesterday I did a test run of a speech recording to see how I sound. My voice sounds so much lower than it does in my head when talk normally. It's also a lot more nasally than I when I heard it from within. I've always wondered if people would even be able to recognize their own voice if they heard it played back to them. It would a good experiment: record a few sentences and then have like 20 other people with voices in the same register also record the same sentences and then play them back and see how easy it is to spot you voice. I think Charles has a nice voice, it sounds so clean and new. Probably because he rarely uses it. It stays in it's original packaging like all the toys in his attic. It's a collectible, like Barnyard Commandos or Battle Beasts.
Mary's roommate Amber is from Sarnia. It's funny how excited I still get when I talk to people who are from that region. I think today's post will be about the area. It shall be called:
Sherman Garbagefield: The Chronicles of Sarnia.
In early September, when I was in town from Vancouver to attend Bonnie and Jeremy's weddings, I devised a road-trip to Petrolia. The team was made up of Mary, Olga, Charles and myself and our destination was a business with no name, address and that I had no idea if it still existed.
Petrolia is about 45 mins outside of Sarnia. It was apparently home of the first oil well. According to the town's website it's "Known as The Greatest Town on Earth, Petrolia’s unique and rich history as the cradle of the global oil industry is reflected in its countless lush green parks, grand church spires, colourful gardens and beautiful neighbourhoods."
Let me just pause and say how much I despise the term "countless". Petrolia can't have countless parks or spires. It's a finite amount of space with a finite amount of land and a finite amount of churches. Unless they mean imaginary or metaphorical parks and spires the turn of phrase is wrong. The nerve!
It's a really tiny town whose closest city, Sarnia is also isolated. It's essentially just a few hundred homes and then a strip of "downtown". These kinds of places are all over south-western Ontario: Forrest, Strathroy, Wallaceburg, Port Stanley, Sombra, Turkey Point, Simcoe, Paris, Jarvis, Dunnville, There are fucking hundreds. Petrolia is a little different though in that it's oil heritage made the town wealthy during the end of the Victorian era which made the homes and buildings really fancy. It's like Stratford's toenail clipping.
The drive from London toward Sarnia always feels like hours. I got so impatient while driving that I chose a random exit and began to head in the general direction. Once you get off the highway you enter farm country. It's very easy to get turned around in places like that because you have no frame of reference. In Hamilton you have the lake and the escarpment, and in Vancouver you have the mountains and the smell of junkie. Stink, Stank, Stunk and your now in Deep Cove.
Eventually I managed to figure out where we were and we began to drive into the 200 feet of metropolitan Petrolia. In the center of the strip is a very cool century old train station that has since become the library. Behind that is a large covered parking lot where they hold a farmer's market on days that were not that day. It's to the back and to the right where our destination was... To the back and to the right.
I've been told that the building was once a Beaver Lumber. I want something with the Beaver Lumber logo on it. A sweatshirt would awesome. According the only signage out front, the name of the business is "Closed". We had been about 40 min early, before the business name changed to "Open".
Now to the meat of it.
The store, which we later decided was called Sherman Garbagefield, is essentially where all the stuff goes when a hoarder dies. It's Value Village on meth. They purposefully keep random items and furniture out front to be weathered which can then be sold for much more than if it was just old and gross. There are stacks of old chair's and trunks and tables and bed frames up against the outside walls. It's always reminded me of the real-life version of the Alligator's Trading Post on Mr. Dressup. Was it an alligator or a crow? Or both?
The inside is where the magic really happens. Nothing has prices on it because there is too much stuff to price. There are china cabinets and dressers and wardrobes under mountains of nick-knacks, vases, plates, spoons, dolls, pictures. Inside all the of the dressers and and china cabinets are even more nick-knacks and vases and plates and one spoon. Everything you can imagine is up front, everything you can't imagine is in the middle and everything you think would never be sold in a shop is at that back with the books and "tools". I use the word tools loosely as the shelves back there are pretty much taken up completely by the old jars of Cheez-Whiz from the mid 1970's filled with random screws and washers or more likely... half a cup of motor-oil. It's like they stole your grandpa's garage and are hocking all the loot in an abandoned Beaver Lumber in the middle of nowhere.
I bought two old recipe boxes with the intent of custom framing the beautifully hand-written cue-cards. I also bought a weird rubber fish toy that I gave to Danny, and a dragon puppet. The scrariest dragon pruppet ever. Mary bought tiny spoons and I can't remember Olgs's catch but I think it involved an old pair of glasses.
"Have you noticed any change in Bart?"
"New glasses?
"No, he looks like something might be disturbing him."
"Probably misses his old glasses."
It's now Sunday. Not in the story, in reality. I was just far too sleepy to upload last night. Before Mary and I went to bed I made a joke about peeing in the middle of the night into the large jar that she had been sipping no-name Crystal Light out of. She thought the idea was hilarious and was unyielding in her insistence that I do this. So rather than upload the first part of this blog I used the remaining awake energy I had to organize the pee jar.
Oh it should be noted that I had gone through a good liter of diet Rootbeer so there was bound to be a very urgent urination at some point. At around 3:30am that point came. Laying on my side I set myself up into what I felt was a good position. I couldn't go. My bladder is far to shy to perform such a stunt. So instead, like I do every 3:30 am I dragged my sleeping body out of bed and went the normal way, in a toilet sitting down.
On the way home from Sherman Garbagefield we sat and had a picnic in the park that involved sandwiches and guacamole that Mary had provided. Actually, we also had Crystal Light then too.
On the way home I decided we should go visit the Jumbo the Elephant memorial statue in St. Thomas. It was semi eventful as the elephant was big and had an anatomically correct vagina. There was also a caboose and that kind of justified the detour but honestly I was a little disappointed. We drove through the town which had some kind festival going on. Then we got lost for two hours trying to get back to the highway. During that time I was able to create a sweet tongue twister:
"Livin' in a Bolivian Oblivion".
The rest of drive was uneventful with the exception that I learned ELO is the band behind the fantastic song Mr Blue Sky. How did I not know what? I was very pleased to aquire that information.
Fries Under The Bridge : The Chronicles of Sarnia II
As I drove out of Sarnia on what was only my second time in the city, my car broke down. Really it was my first trip as the only other time I had been was at night and had only seen the highway and the exit. It was a Mother's Day weekend in May and I had just dropped the ex-wife off at her parents place and began my own homeward bound trip. We had only been dating for a couple of weeks at that point and I had only met her parents very briefly. I had my Sony Discman hooked up to the tape deck with a converter and had Tragic Monsters by Les Savy Fav blasting. Missy didn't like the louder heavier stuff so I was all hyped to get a chance to rock out. It was that time in the evening when the sun was in it's last 15 min before very total darkness. I had just passed the Hiawatha Horse Track and the the large City of Sarnia sign when my car started to breathe heavily before coughing and passing out. I just kind of rolled onto the shoulder and then just sat in the dark for about 10 min trying to figure out what to do.
I didn't have a cell phone, I didn't know how far I was from anything or how to even get into the city. I wasn't scared or upset, just a little cold. I have a bad habit of under-dressing when I expect to be car-enclosed. This winter for example I very rarely wear my winter coat. I prefer this: undershirt ( I no longer require the $100.00 one ), a T-shirt, a long-sleeve waffle/thermal shirt, a sweater and then my dirty black hooded sweatshirt. Oh and a scarf. I was also excited and a big part of me was enjoying the adventurous nature of the situation.
I decided to walk back toward the closest overpass, climb up the overpass and head down the same side of the highway I knew the ex's parent's house was on. There were no street lights out that far so I walked way over to the edge of farmer's field in the unlikely event a car went off the road at the exact moment I happened to be trekking past and plow into me. I was cold but I didn't need to put on an Oldsmobile Alero, although to be fair it would be pretty warm.
Eventually I found myself wandering past a trailer park, The Green Haven trailer park. It's kind of strange name for it as from what I could tell it was neither green nor any kind of haven that I know of. Eventually I found my way to London Line which is a major road that runs through Sarnia. At the time the only streetname I could remember was Exmouth. What the fuck is an exmouth?...googling... According to Wikipedia it's a port town in England at the mouth of the River Exe. For Your Health!
In the distance I could see a series of neons and bright lights. I could tell I was in the outskirt section of every city, where the dying restaurants from the 1960's were open and empty and waiting to be put down and become a furniture liquidation store. Every sign is over-sized and over-lit. I passed what looked like an abandoned water park which was actually water park, just a shitty water park that probably should have been abandoned. One waterslide? What's the point? I also passed a series of tree nurseries and places to buy hot-tubs and patio stones. Ontario is so predictable sometimes that I get nauseated thinking too long about it.
As I got closer to the bright lights I saw that one had the familiar "SLOTS" sign that are all identical throughout Ontario. It's part of the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation rules. I learned a lot about the OLG when I worked in the yard of an event-tent company. Boy do I have stories from there. I cleaned the pope's carpet! It fuckin stank. Speaking of horse shit (the pope) I was now at the Horse Track that I had passed on the highway which meant I now had some bearing of where I was. I eventually made it to some kind of "Saloon" themed restaurant/dirt-bar that had a motel called The Dusty Rose or something similar. The dusty rose must be in reference to the genitals of the old-hookers who work out of it (I have stories about that too). I entered the lobby of the motel and found a payphone. There was no phone book so I had to go ask the guy behind the counter who seemed very skeptical about my presence.
Once I had acquired the phone book it occurred to me that I had no clue what Melissa's parent's last name was. I knew she had a different last name because her dad was actually her step dad even though he had always been her dad. SIDENOTE: After her dad, who was my father in-law at the time, had a heart attack where he was dead for over seven minutes, I told Missy that she should change her last name to his as a birthday present. When I told her that I immediately thought of the moment in The Dusty Rose when I was looking randomly through a phone-book for a name I didn't know. I remember remembering.
I remembered eventually that her mom worked as a waitress at a restaurant in town. I couldn't remember her name or the name of the restaurant but I knew that if I flipped through the yellow-pages at the restaurant logos I would remember the sign from when it was pointed out to me earlier. The problem now though was that I couldn't remember her mom's first name either, only that she worked there. Simply calling CAA or any towing company was out of the question for me. This was years and years before I started any anxiety meds so there was no way I could do that. Instead I swallowed hard and called "Rizzo's" and said the following: "Um, I'm looking for the daughter of someone who works there but I can't remember her name. her daughter's name is Melissa."
The person on the phone kind of laughed and said "hold on". A few seconds later Melissa was on the phone. It turned out that her mom was working when I dropped her off so she and her dad went to visit her mom at Rizzo's and hang out at the bar, something they did normally. The shear fucking luck was amazing although now I felt like a complete ass not only asking for them to leave their family visit but also the fact that I couldn't remember her parent's names.
Eventually they came and picked me up and I went to their house. Her dad, Tim, is the kind of guy who likes to make sure everything is taken care of so he made all the calls and arranged everything for the towing and the mechanics without me asking. I felt like I was 11 and had a bike with a flat tire but I was also relieved that I didn't have to ask for someone to call for me because having to do that would result in a panic attack that would leave me dead for about seven minutes.
I remember he made Melissa sleep on the couch and gave me the second bedroom. It was easily the most awkward sleep of my life. Eventually I would end up living in that bedroom which just seems weird to me now.
The next day I ended up going with the family and grandparents to a special Mother's Day Brunch. Yep!...I was now having an amazing brunch (paid for by her parent's) to share in a mother's day celebration when not less that 10 hours earlier I couldn't remember her mom's first or last name. Later in the afternoon I was able to pick up my car from Canadian Tire, which was the only place open on the Sunday. The air-filter was completely clogged so they had replaced it. It was a 10 dollar fix, but what I paid in embarrassment, awkwardness and anxiety was easily up into the thousands.
Before we drove back to London, we had fries under the bridge. This was some kind of Sarnia tradition that involved eating at one of two chip-trucks under the Bluewater Bridge. The view is nice and the fries are good, but the insane hype of the fries under the bridge legend is greatly exaggerated. It's like Hutch's at the Beach or Cupcakes in Vancouver (they're responsible for the current cupcake-bakery trend). They're all ok places but they ain't Voodoo donuts!
There, now you have my first and last experience with the Sarnia region.
Eventually I'll get into my experiences as head of Sarnia Cabinet's drawer department in my previous life as an aspiring carpenter/woodworker. I was the drawer department, literally. This is where the hooker stories start to come into play... Oh Tyler.
Yesterday I did a test run of a speech recording to see how I sound. My voice sounds so much lower than it does in my head when talk normally. It's also a lot more nasally than I when I heard it from within. I've always wondered if people would even be able to recognize their own voice if they heard it played back to them. It would a good experiment: record a few sentences and then have like 20 other people with voices in the same register also record the same sentences and then play them back and see how easy it is to spot you voice. I think Charles has a nice voice, it sounds so clean and new. Probably because he rarely uses it. It stays in it's original packaging like all the toys in his attic. It's a collectible, like Barnyard Commandos or Battle Beasts.
Mary's roommate Amber is from Sarnia. It's funny how excited I still get when I talk to people who are from that region. I think today's post will be about the area. It shall be called:
Sherman Garbagefield: The Chronicles of Sarnia.
In early September, when I was in town from Vancouver to attend Bonnie and Jeremy's weddings, I devised a road-trip to Petrolia. The team was made up of Mary, Olga, Charles and myself and our destination was a business with no name, address and that I had no idea if it still existed.
Petrolia is about 45 mins outside of Sarnia. It was apparently home of the first oil well. According to the town's website it's "Known as The Greatest Town on Earth, Petrolia’s unique and rich history as the cradle of the global oil industry is reflected in its countless lush green parks, grand church spires, colourful gardens and beautiful neighbourhoods."
Let me just pause and say how much I despise the term "countless". Petrolia can't have countless parks or spires. It's a finite amount of space with a finite amount of land and a finite amount of churches. Unless they mean imaginary or metaphorical parks and spires the turn of phrase is wrong. The nerve!
It's a really tiny town whose closest city, Sarnia is also isolated. It's essentially just a few hundred homes and then a strip of "downtown". These kinds of places are all over south-western Ontario: Forrest, Strathroy, Wallaceburg, Port Stanley, Sombra, Turkey Point, Simcoe, Paris, Jarvis, Dunnville, There are fucking hundreds. Petrolia is a little different though in that it's oil heritage made the town wealthy during the end of the Victorian era which made the homes and buildings really fancy. It's like Stratford's toenail clipping.
The drive from London toward Sarnia always feels like hours. I got so impatient while driving that I chose a random exit and began to head in the general direction. Once you get off the highway you enter farm country. It's very easy to get turned around in places like that because you have no frame of reference. In Hamilton you have the lake and the escarpment, and in Vancouver you have the mountains and the smell of junkie. Stink, Stank, Stunk and your now in Deep Cove.
Eventually I managed to figure out where we were and we began to drive into the 200 feet of metropolitan Petrolia. In the center of the strip is a very cool century old train station that has since become the library. Behind that is a large covered parking lot where they hold a farmer's market on days that were not that day. It's to the back and to the right where our destination was... To the back and to the right.
I've been told that the building was once a Beaver Lumber. I want something with the Beaver Lumber logo on it. A sweatshirt would awesome. According the only signage out front, the name of the business is "Closed". We had been about 40 min early, before the business name changed to "Open".
Now to the meat of it.
The store, which we later decided was called Sherman Garbagefield, is essentially where all the stuff goes when a hoarder dies. It's Value Village on meth. They purposefully keep random items and furniture out front to be weathered which can then be sold for much more than if it was just old and gross. There are stacks of old chair's and trunks and tables and bed frames up against the outside walls. It's always reminded me of the real-life version of the Alligator's Trading Post on Mr. Dressup. Was it an alligator or a crow? Or both?
The inside is where the magic really happens. Nothing has prices on it because there is too much stuff to price. There are china cabinets and dressers and wardrobes under mountains of nick-knacks, vases, plates, spoons, dolls, pictures. Inside all the of the dressers and and china cabinets are even more nick-knacks and vases and plates and one spoon. Everything you can imagine is up front, everything you can't imagine is in the middle and everything you think would never be sold in a shop is at that back with the books and "tools". I use the word tools loosely as the shelves back there are pretty much taken up completely by the old jars of Cheez-Whiz from the mid 1970's filled with random screws and washers or more likely... half a cup of motor-oil. It's like they stole your grandpa's garage and are hocking all the loot in an abandoned Beaver Lumber in the middle of nowhere.
I bought two old recipe boxes with the intent of custom framing the beautifully hand-written cue-cards. I also bought a weird rubber fish toy that I gave to Danny, and a dragon puppet. The scrariest dragon pruppet ever. Mary bought tiny spoons and I can't remember Olgs's catch but I think it involved an old pair of glasses.
"Have you noticed any change in Bart?"
"New glasses?
"No, he looks like something might be disturbing him."
"Probably misses his old glasses."
It's now Sunday. Not in the story, in reality. I was just far too sleepy to upload last night. Before Mary and I went to bed I made a joke about peeing in the middle of the night into the large jar that she had been sipping no-name Crystal Light out of. She thought the idea was hilarious and was unyielding in her insistence that I do this. So rather than upload the first part of this blog I used the remaining awake energy I had to organize the pee jar.
Oh it should be noted that I had gone through a good liter of diet Rootbeer so there was bound to be a very urgent urination at some point. At around 3:30am that point came. Laying on my side I set myself up into what I felt was a good position. I couldn't go. My bladder is far to shy to perform such a stunt. So instead, like I do every 3:30 am I dragged my sleeping body out of bed and went the normal way, in a toilet sitting down.
On the way home from Sherman Garbagefield we sat and had a picnic in the park that involved sandwiches and guacamole that Mary had provided. Actually, we also had Crystal Light then too.
On the way home I decided we should go visit the Jumbo the Elephant memorial statue in St. Thomas. It was semi eventful as the elephant was big and had an anatomically correct vagina. There was also a caboose and that kind of justified the detour but honestly I was a little disappointed. We drove through the town which had some kind festival going on. Then we got lost for two hours trying to get back to the highway. During that time I was able to create a sweet tongue twister:
"Livin' in a Bolivian Oblivion".
The rest of drive was uneventful with the exception that I learned ELO is the band behind the fantastic song Mr Blue Sky. How did I not know what? I was very pleased to aquire that information.
Fries Under The Bridge : The Chronicles of Sarnia II
As I drove out of Sarnia on what was only my second time in the city, my car broke down. Really it was my first trip as the only other time I had been was at night and had only seen the highway and the exit. It was a Mother's Day weekend in May and I had just dropped the ex-wife off at her parents place and began my own homeward bound trip. We had only been dating for a couple of weeks at that point and I had only met her parents very briefly. I had my Sony Discman hooked up to the tape deck with a converter and had Tragic Monsters by Les Savy Fav blasting. Missy didn't like the louder heavier stuff so I was all hyped to get a chance to rock out. It was that time in the evening when the sun was in it's last 15 min before very total darkness. I had just passed the Hiawatha Horse Track and the the large City of Sarnia sign when my car started to breathe heavily before coughing and passing out. I just kind of rolled onto the shoulder and then just sat in the dark for about 10 min trying to figure out what to do.
I didn't have a cell phone, I didn't know how far I was from anything or how to even get into the city. I wasn't scared or upset, just a little cold. I have a bad habit of under-dressing when I expect to be car-enclosed. This winter for example I very rarely wear my winter coat. I prefer this: undershirt ( I no longer require the $100.00 one ), a T-shirt, a long-sleeve waffle/thermal shirt, a sweater and then my dirty black hooded sweatshirt. Oh and a scarf. I was also excited and a big part of me was enjoying the adventurous nature of the situation.
I decided to walk back toward the closest overpass, climb up the overpass and head down the same side of the highway I knew the ex's parent's house was on. There were no street lights out that far so I walked way over to the edge of farmer's field in the unlikely event a car went off the road at the exact moment I happened to be trekking past and plow into me. I was cold but I didn't need to put on an Oldsmobile Alero, although to be fair it would be pretty warm.
Eventually I found myself wandering past a trailer park, The Green Haven trailer park. It's kind of strange name for it as from what I could tell it was neither green nor any kind of haven that I know of. Eventually I found my way to London Line which is a major road that runs through Sarnia. At the time the only streetname I could remember was Exmouth. What the fuck is an exmouth?...googling... According to Wikipedia it's a port town in England at the mouth of the River Exe. For Your Health!
In the distance I could see a series of neons and bright lights. I could tell I was in the outskirt section of every city, where the dying restaurants from the 1960's were open and empty and waiting to be put down and become a furniture liquidation store. Every sign is over-sized and over-lit. I passed what looked like an abandoned water park which was actually water park, just a shitty water park that probably should have been abandoned. One waterslide? What's the point? I also passed a series of tree nurseries and places to buy hot-tubs and patio stones. Ontario is so predictable sometimes that I get nauseated thinking too long about it.
As I got closer to the bright lights I saw that one had the familiar "SLOTS" sign that are all identical throughout Ontario. It's part of the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation rules. I learned a lot about the OLG when I worked in the yard of an event-tent company. Boy do I have stories from there. I cleaned the pope's carpet! It fuckin stank. Speaking of horse shit (the pope) I was now at the Horse Track that I had passed on the highway which meant I now had some bearing of where I was. I eventually made it to some kind of "Saloon" themed restaurant/dirt-bar that had a motel called The Dusty Rose or something similar. The dusty rose must be in reference to the genitals of the old-hookers who work out of it (I have stories about that too). I entered the lobby of the motel and found a payphone. There was no phone book so I had to go ask the guy behind the counter who seemed very skeptical about my presence.
Once I had acquired the phone book it occurred to me that I had no clue what Melissa's parent's last name was. I knew she had a different last name because her dad was actually her step dad even though he had always been her dad. SIDENOTE: After her dad, who was my father in-law at the time, had a heart attack where he was dead for over seven minutes, I told Missy that she should change her last name to his as a birthday present. When I told her that I immediately thought of the moment in The Dusty Rose when I was looking randomly through a phone-book for a name I didn't know. I remember remembering.
I remembered eventually that her mom worked as a waitress at a restaurant in town. I couldn't remember her name or the name of the restaurant but I knew that if I flipped through the yellow-pages at the restaurant logos I would remember the sign from when it was pointed out to me earlier. The problem now though was that I couldn't remember her mom's first name either, only that she worked there. Simply calling CAA or any towing company was out of the question for me. This was years and years before I started any anxiety meds so there was no way I could do that. Instead I swallowed hard and called "Rizzo's" and said the following: "Um, I'm looking for the daughter of someone who works there but I can't remember her name. her daughter's name is Melissa."
The person on the phone kind of laughed and said "hold on". A few seconds later Melissa was on the phone. It turned out that her mom was working when I dropped her off so she and her dad went to visit her mom at Rizzo's and hang out at the bar, something they did normally. The shear fucking luck was amazing although now I felt like a complete ass not only asking for them to leave their family visit but also the fact that I couldn't remember her parent's names.
Eventually they came and picked me up and I went to their house. Her dad, Tim, is the kind of guy who likes to make sure everything is taken care of so he made all the calls and arranged everything for the towing and the mechanics without me asking. I felt like I was 11 and had a bike with a flat tire but I was also relieved that I didn't have to ask for someone to call for me because having to do that would result in a panic attack that would leave me dead for about seven minutes.
I remember he made Melissa sleep on the couch and gave me the second bedroom. It was easily the most awkward sleep of my life. Eventually I would end up living in that bedroom which just seems weird to me now.
The next day I ended up going with the family and grandparents to a special Mother's Day Brunch. Yep!...I was now having an amazing brunch (paid for by her parent's) to share in a mother's day celebration when not less that 10 hours earlier I couldn't remember her mom's first or last name. Later in the afternoon I was able to pick up my car from Canadian Tire, which was the only place open on the Sunday. The air-filter was completely clogged so they had replaced it. It was a 10 dollar fix, but what I paid in embarrassment, awkwardness and anxiety was easily up into the thousands.
Before we drove back to London, we had fries under the bridge. This was some kind of Sarnia tradition that involved eating at one of two chip-trucks under the Bluewater Bridge. The view is nice and the fries are good, but the insane hype of the fries under the bridge legend is greatly exaggerated. It's like Hutch's at the Beach or Cupcakes in Vancouver (they're responsible for the current cupcake-bakery trend). They're all ok places but they ain't Voodoo donuts!
There, now you have my first and last experience with the Sarnia region.
Eventually I'll get into my experiences as head of Sarnia Cabinet's drawer department in my previous life as an aspiring carpenter/woodworker. I was the drawer department, literally. This is where the hooker stories start to come into play... Oh Tyler.
Thursday, February 10, 2011
The Wedge
These are songs I think you'll like. You won't know until you listen so fucking do it!
Happy Friday.
Happy Friday.
My heck nurts
Reading over the last few days, the topics have been way too serious and I skipped a few good stories to boot! I feel like I owe it to the 4 people who read this to make up for it now.
I haven't showered since Saturday, maybe Sunday. I've also slept and carried on in the same clothes all week. My hair looks like a collie fell into a pool of olive oil and semen. If it has semen can it still be virgin? Maybe that's the difference between virgin and extra virgin... the percentage of insemination.
I've been going strong at this flagship website which looks simple enough is actually a css, javascript populous. It's like Japan. If you want to see it at %90 completion here she is http://www.lovesproutsphotography.com/tester.html The client login isn't set, the fashion section hasn't been linked, the contact form works but isn't connected and all the galleries have the same images for now. Other than that I think it looks pretty sweet.
As a treat to myself I watched The Chronicles of Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader. It was fucking terrible, and that's ignoring all the overly obvious christian undertones. I watched the Lion-Witch-Trashheap when it came out like 5 years ago and thought that one sucked too. I read all the books when I 10, before I realized just how bizarre all the jesusy themes were and I liked most of them. The one I actually am looking forward to seeing shat on is The Sliver Chair. I wonder if the band took their name from the book? I like any story that involves digging crazy tunnels. I have no idea why but the thought of carving holes in dirt really gets my blood flowing. Does anyone remember that weird cartoon version of the wizard of Oz with Ozma and the people digging a tunnel the Emerald City? Fuck did that get me hard! Anyway, my favorite book is the last one, which is also the "prequal", The Magician's Nephew. It's C.S. Lewis' retelling of the book of Genesis, and is actually far more believable than the goofy jewish one. We know lion's exist.
... I just had a shower. I'm all shiny and smooth and just in case you were wondering... no I didn't.
From where I'm sitting I can literally see the giant cross lit up over Stoney Creek. I wonder what would be lit up if the writers changed the fictional character to die of prostate cancer? I would actually feel less offended if there was a giant asshole looking over the city. Like the current mayor of Toronto.
I've never had a really good meal in Toronto. I have no doubt that there are probably hundreds of amazing eateries in the Peel region, but alas I have not been to any of them. I've had amazing food from every city I've visited but never the largest metropolis to where I grew up. I had never had a really good meal in Hamilton either until Mary taught me of the Pho Chin. Back in the fall I would walk all the way downtown Hamilton and as I strolled in my blistering boots I would notice all the places that look amazing that I had never even seen before.
I almost ate at the Ranch House. I put the food into my mouth and everything. It was either the 40 Creek or the mystery brownie consumed the night before that was not allowing me to truly enjoy this establishment. from what I remember, it was the closest thing to a Montreal breakfast joint that I had been in since the Astra Deli on Sherbrooke.
In a free magazine handed out to me and Chloe by the good people at Alamo Car Rentals, WireTap's Johnathan Goldstein had written that Cosmo's on Sherbrooke was the best breakfast in Montreal. I lived about 300 yards from Cosmo's and only went the one time. I didn't think too highly of it. It was no Astra Deli, which wasn't actually a deli at all. I don't think I've ever written much about Montreal beyond my glorious walks to work. I may get to some of that after I'm done talking about Hamilton restaurants I've never been to. But first...
My favorite breakfast place was in London ON. It was called The Olde Tyme Diner which I always pronounced as "Tye-mee". It catered to Fanshawe students but the biggest draw was that it was also a laundromat. It had absolutely no warmth, charm or nostalgic appeal. It didn't even have that worn out truck-stop atmosphere. It was a diner in a Laundromat, that should explain it all. The food was amazing and cheap and the coffee kept flowing. I miss that shit hole, I really do.
I've never eaten at The Bedrock Bistro at Parkdale. I would have loved to try it when it still had all the copyright infringement of the late 1960's. Now it just seems sad and uninviting. All the people I've talked to have said it wasn't anything special. The last time I walked by it two bikers in "Red Devils" vests were talking out front. They were kinda scary looking, bearded fat guys. Your standard biker get-up. I had to hold back from giggling at the idea that the gang hang-out was a Flinstone's themed family restaurant.
I had never noticed The Bright Spot before. Probably because I had never been outside of a locked car in that area until October of last year. The old faded sign makes noticing it next to impossible. If you didn't already know it was there, you'd never see it or just pop in. I looked in the window and it was surprisingly clean and well looked after. Mary told me that it was a popular spot to go for food at 3 am after a busy night of 40 Creek and mystery brownies. I think The Bright Spot would be my first choice if I still ate that kind of food. Maybe they serve raw cabbage? I love's me some raw cabbage. Nature's chips!
The Atlantic Sub Shop on the other hand looks so seedy and unhygienic that they may as well just put up a sign that states the obvious, "We Sell Crack." Mary told me she used to go there as kid and play video games. I think it would be an awesome place to renovate into a hipster/diner place. If done properly it could spur a "Sherman Scene". That sounds so filthy... I'm gonna spur a sherman scene all over you!
Once you get right into the core of Hamilton there's a few places of interest. I've only ever gone into the cafes and coffee houses though. Cept fo' Pho of course. I've never had a Harvest Burger or eaten at that place on Main that boasts "The Best Breakfast in Hamilton". Most of the spots that really stand out to me are on James. Mex-I-Can has a solid reputation and is just plain fun to say... "Mex I Can, And Will!". The Indian restaurant up near The Mulberry Street Cafe also looks appealing. The most interesting place to me though is actually on James South. It's the weird little Ethiopian joint in the basement of a shitty building. Mary and I have been past it quite a lot since we began our apartment hunt. I'm sure I'll be eating there shortly. I figure I don't have to worry about gaining weight there either. It's Ethiopian for fucks sake!
Beyond actual restaurants I really want to try the donut shops in the Stelco section of town. Mostly I just want to sit in there at 2:30 am and pound back coffee, Stop 50 style!
I'm sure there are tons of really good places I can't even fathom. Growing up in Stoney Creek you really only notice big fancyish family places like Acetti's or La Cantina. When you drive into Steel town. Stoney Creek seems to be a Jack Astor's, Kelsey's, Montana's town. These are just the Canuck versions of Chili's, TGIFridays and Applebee's that you see every 12 feet in the US. They're essentially a less tasty McDonald's that has a waiter instead of big purple blob and clown. By the way did you know Grimace was originally a "bad guy" character who I believe stole milkshakes. He was also a drug dealer who lived on Ottawa Street near Natasha B's house. I used "B" not because of privacy concerns but because I have no idea how to spell Burranco properly.
Montreal.
For this section it's just easier if I use her name, it was Mallory right?
So Missy and I got our first apartment in Montreal without seeing what it looked like until we drove the 8 hours from London in a uHaul with a screaming baby...(the cat). When we were there a month earlier trying to find a place I secretly wanted to get one right where we did. We stayed at her friend Nerissa's place which was the same building we ended up living. We tried all over town and I knew Missy was really hoping to find a more clothingly area. I like NDG, I won. Montreal is like any other monster city in that it's divided up into distinct sections. I'd say that Notre Dame de Grace (NDG) is probably most like the Danforth area of Toronto and the Commercial Drive in Vancouver minus the clothing stores. NDG was separated from the rest of Montreal in two ways: there was the Decarie expressway which ran right between it and the rest of the city, and also Westmount which was the really wealth, snobbish area where Leonard Cohen lived and for some reason had "township" status. NDG was in my opinion the most multinational part of Montreal. Within a ten minute walk from my place I could eat at every single genre of food I can think of. There was even a true Cajun style place about 40 feet away. It's where I ate snails and Blackened Cat-fish for the first time. There were other very multinational districts like Parc Extension, but they didn't have the same flair as NDG. NDG was comprised of pre WWII houses and buildings and had a real communal quality. I've mentioned the co-op where I met Julie Doiron. At the time I was only aware of here Eric's Trip days. Nerissa often baby sat her daughter and I remember when she mentioned she might move back to Halifax which is when she wrote the Woke Myself Up album which is one of the best minimalist low-fi records ever.
The best way to see Montreal is on a bicycle at the end of May. I know all the routes through the coolest sections. I have no doubt that a lot of the areas have changed but my favorite route was like this: You start by riding up Hampton to de Maisonneuve and then along the path that runs beside the railway tracks. When you get to Decarie you have two options, head down to the scary Latino LA-style gangs of St Henri or continue up passed the Vendome metro stop and through Westmount until you get onto St. Catherine and into the Atwater area. The Atwater area has a bunch of interesting things in it, the best of which is the Tutti-Frutti restaurant. It's kind of a tourist trap but it's amazing, I vaguely recall that most of the servers there were unusually attractive young ladies you would often forget to bring the coffee, and also that it took a really long time to get your food. It was still great. Once you got to Atwater you could either continue down St. Catherine into downtown where you drive in traffic that is so fucking scary it's actually fun, or ride down Atwater to the market and up the canal. The canal is now a major attraction in Montreal but when I was there it was pretty much just used by cyclists. It was busy and a lot of the landscaping and beautifying had been done but it wasn't used in Montreal's tourism brouchures. Once you were further down the canal you came to a fork where you can either go off to Habitat 67, the casino and the Biosphere or over to Old Montreal. The area where you had to make up your mind on which route to take was a poorer section that had a lot of really cool lofts hidden amongst the low income row housing built in the 1970's. This is close to God Speed You! Black Emperor apparently had their first studio. I always thought about that when in that area at that moment. Everytime. Even now. East Hastings is very good song.
To get up to Habitat 67 the bike path goes through a series of uneventful sections under a bridge before you end up beside the old Four Roses flour mill. Habitat 67 is fucking insane. Seeing it from across the harbor in Old Montreal doesn't do it justice. That's where most visitors see it. Up close is another story. It's cubeiness is mystifying. It's like a giant mausoleum only with less dead people or any cream soda slushies.
If you go down into Old Montreal it's a good place to lock up your bike for the day. From Old Montreal it's just a short hike to downtown and then a medium hike up to Mont Royal.
Montreal was actually a really fantastic place to live. Sometimes I feel cursed in that I am always compelled to leave where ever I am after about a year. I'd love to go back and cycle the paths again but I know it won't be as good. It'll be the shitty movie version of The Chronicles of Montreal.
I'm to sleepy to edit, sorry.
Song of the Day... again:
I haven't showered since Saturday, maybe Sunday. I've also slept and carried on in the same clothes all week. My hair looks like a collie fell into a pool of olive oil and semen. If it has semen can it still be virgin? Maybe that's the difference between virgin and extra virgin... the percentage of insemination.
I've been going strong at this flagship website which looks simple enough is actually a css, javascript populous. It's like Japan. If you want to see it at %90 completion here she is http://www.lovesproutsphotography.com/tester.html The client login isn't set, the fashion section hasn't been linked, the contact form works but isn't connected and all the galleries have the same images for now. Other than that I think it looks pretty sweet.
As a treat to myself I watched The Chronicles of Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader. It was fucking terrible, and that's ignoring all the overly obvious christian undertones. I watched the Lion-Witch-Trashheap when it came out like 5 years ago and thought that one sucked too. I read all the books when I 10, before I realized just how bizarre all the jesusy themes were and I liked most of them. The one I actually am looking forward to seeing shat on is The Sliver Chair. I wonder if the band took their name from the book? I like any story that involves digging crazy tunnels. I have no idea why but the thought of carving holes in dirt really gets my blood flowing. Does anyone remember that weird cartoon version of the wizard of Oz with Ozma and the people digging a tunnel the Emerald City? Fuck did that get me hard! Anyway, my favorite book is the last one, which is also the "prequal", The Magician's Nephew. It's C.S. Lewis' retelling of the book of Genesis, and is actually far more believable than the goofy jewish one. We know lion's exist.
... I just had a shower. I'm all shiny and smooth and just in case you were wondering... no I didn't.
From where I'm sitting I can literally see the giant cross lit up over Stoney Creek. I wonder what would be lit up if the writers changed the fictional character to die of prostate cancer? I would actually feel less offended if there was a giant asshole looking over the city. Like the current mayor of Toronto.
I've never had a really good meal in Toronto. I have no doubt that there are probably hundreds of amazing eateries in the Peel region, but alas I have not been to any of them. I've had amazing food from every city I've visited but never the largest metropolis to where I grew up. I had never had a really good meal in Hamilton either until Mary taught me of the Pho Chin. Back in the fall I would walk all the way downtown Hamilton and as I strolled in my blistering boots I would notice all the places that look amazing that I had never even seen before.
I almost ate at the Ranch House. I put the food into my mouth and everything. It was either the 40 Creek or the mystery brownie consumed the night before that was not allowing me to truly enjoy this establishment. from what I remember, it was the closest thing to a Montreal breakfast joint that I had been in since the Astra Deli on Sherbrooke.
In a free magazine handed out to me and Chloe by the good people at Alamo Car Rentals, WireTap's Johnathan Goldstein had written that Cosmo's on Sherbrooke was the best breakfast in Montreal. I lived about 300 yards from Cosmo's and only went the one time. I didn't think too highly of it. It was no Astra Deli, which wasn't actually a deli at all. I don't think I've ever written much about Montreal beyond my glorious walks to work. I may get to some of that after I'm done talking about Hamilton restaurants I've never been to. But first...
My favorite breakfast place was in London ON. It was called The Olde Tyme Diner which I always pronounced as "Tye-mee". It catered to Fanshawe students but the biggest draw was that it was also a laundromat. It had absolutely no warmth, charm or nostalgic appeal. It didn't even have that worn out truck-stop atmosphere. It was a diner in a Laundromat, that should explain it all. The food was amazing and cheap and the coffee kept flowing. I miss that shit hole, I really do.
I've never eaten at The Bedrock Bistro at Parkdale. I would have loved to try it when it still had all the copyright infringement of the late 1960's. Now it just seems sad and uninviting. All the people I've talked to have said it wasn't anything special. The last time I walked by it two bikers in "Red Devils" vests were talking out front. They were kinda scary looking, bearded fat guys. Your standard biker get-up. I had to hold back from giggling at the idea that the gang hang-out was a Flinstone's themed family restaurant.
I had never noticed The Bright Spot before. Probably because I had never been outside of a locked car in that area until October of last year. The old faded sign makes noticing it next to impossible. If you didn't already know it was there, you'd never see it or just pop in. I looked in the window and it was surprisingly clean and well looked after. Mary told me that it was a popular spot to go for food at 3 am after a busy night of 40 Creek and mystery brownies. I think The Bright Spot would be my first choice if I still ate that kind of food. Maybe they serve raw cabbage? I love's me some raw cabbage. Nature's chips!
The Atlantic Sub Shop on the other hand looks so seedy and unhygienic that they may as well just put up a sign that states the obvious, "We Sell Crack." Mary told me she used to go there as kid and play video games. I think it would be an awesome place to renovate into a hipster/diner place. If done properly it could spur a "Sherman Scene". That sounds so filthy... I'm gonna spur a sherman scene all over you!
Once you get right into the core of Hamilton there's a few places of interest. I've only ever gone into the cafes and coffee houses though. Cept fo' Pho of course. I've never had a Harvest Burger or eaten at that place on Main that boasts "The Best Breakfast in Hamilton". Most of the spots that really stand out to me are on James. Mex-I-Can has a solid reputation and is just plain fun to say... "Mex I Can, And Will!". The Indian restaurant up near The Mulberry Street Cafe also looks appealing. The most interesting place to me though is actually on James South. It's the weird little Ethiopian joint in the basement of a shitty building. Mary and I have been past it quite a lot since we began our apartment hunt. I'm sure I'll be eating there shortly. I figure I don't have to worry about gaining weight there either. It's Ethiopian for fucks sake!
Beyond actual restaurants I really want to try the donut shops in the Stelco section of town. Mostly I just want to sit in there at 2:30 am and pound back coffee, Stop 50 style!
I'm sure there are tons of really good places I can't even fathom. Growing up in Stoney Creek you really only notice big fancyish family places like Acetti's or La Cantina. When you drive into Steel town. Stoney Creek seems to be a Jack Astor's, Kelsey's, Montana's town. These are just the Canuck versions of Chili's, TGIFridays and Applebee's that you see every 12 feet in the US. They're essentially a less tasty McDonald's that has a waiter instead of big purple blob and clown. By the way did you know Grimace was originally a "bad guy" character who I believe stole milkshakes. He was also a drug dealer who lived on Ottawa Street near Natasha B's house. I used "B" not because of privacy concerns but because I have no idea how to spell Burranco properly.
Montreal.
For this section it's just easier if I use her name, it was Mallory right?
So Missy and I got our first apartment in Montreal without seeing what it looked like until we drove the 8 hours from London in a uHaul with a screaming baby...(the cat). When we were there a month earlier trying to find a place I secretly wanted to get one right where we did. We stayed at her friend Nerissa's place which was the same building we ended up living. We tried all over town and I knew Missy was really hoping to find a more clothingly area. I like NDG, I won. Montreal is like any other monster city in that it's divided up into distinct sections. I'd say that Notre Dame de Grace (NDG) is probably most like the Danforth area of Toronto and the Commercial Drive in Vancouver minus the clothing stores. NDG was separated from the rest of Montreal in two ways: there was the Decarie expressway which ran right between it and the rest of the city, and also Westmount which was the really wealth, snobbish area where Leonard Cohen lived and for some reason had "township" status. NDG was in my opinion the most multinational part of Montreal. Within a ten minute walk from my place I could eat at every single genre of food I can think of. There was even a true Cajun style place about 40 feet away. It's where I ate snails and Blackened Cat-fish for the first time. There were other very multinational districts like Parc Extension, but they didn't have the same flair as NDG. NDG was comprised of pre WWII houses and buildings and had a real communal quality. I've mentioned the co-op where I met Julie Doiron. At the time I was only aware of here Eric's Trip days. Nerissa often baby sat her daughter and I remember when she mentioned she might move back to Halifax which is when she wrote the Woke Myself Up album which is one of the best minimalist low-fi records ever.
The best way to see Montreal is on a bicycle at the end of May. I know all the routes through the coolest sections. I have no doubt that a lot of the areas have changed but my favorite route was like this: You start by riding up Hampton to de Maisonneuve and then along the path that runs beside the railway tracks. When you get to Decarie you have two options, head down to the scary Latino LA-style gangs of St Henri or continue up passed the Vendome metro stop and through Westmount until you get onto St. Catherine and into the Atwater area. The Atwater area has a bunch of interesting things in it, the best of which is the Tutti-Frutti restaurant. It's kind of a tourist trap but it's amazing, I vaguely recall that most of the servers there were unusually attractive young ladies you would often forget to bring the coffee, and also that it took a really long time to get your food. It was still great. Once you got to Atwater you could either continue down St. Catherine into downtown where you drive in traffic that is so fucking scary it's actually fun, or ride down Atwater to the market and up the canal. The canal is now a major attraction in Montreal but when I was there it was pretty much just used by cyclists. It was busy and a lot of the landscaping and beautifying had been done but it wasn't used in Montreal's tourism brouchures. Once you were further down the canal you came to a fork where you can either go off to Habitat 67, the casino and the Biosphere or over to Old Montreal. The area where you had to make up your mind on which route to take was a poorer section that had a lot of really cool lofts hidden amongst the low income row housing built in the 1970's. This is close to God Speed You! Black Emperor apparently had their first studio. I always thought about that when in that area at that moment. Everytime. Even now. East Hastings is very good song.
To get up to Habitat 67 the bike path goes through a series of uneventful sections under a bridge before you end up beside the old Four Roses flour mill. Habitat 67 is fucking insane. Seeing it from across the harbor in Old Montreal doesn't do it justice. That's where most visitors see it. Up close is another story. It's cubeiness is mystifying. It's like a giant mausoleum only with less dead people or any cream soda slushies.
If you go down into Old Montreal it's a good place to lock up your bike for the day. From Old Montreal it's just a short hike to downtown and then a medium hike up to Mont Royal.
Montreal was actually a really fantastic place to live. Sometimes I feel cursed in that I am always compelled to leave where ever I am after about a year. I'd love to go back and cycle the paths again but I know it won't be as good. It'll be the shitty movie version of The Chronicles of Montreal.
I'm to sleepy to edit, sorry.
Song of the Day... again:
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