Archive for: 2004
Winter Wonderlands
I’m flying back to Ottawa tomorrow, to hang with the family over the holidays. Frankly, I’m a bit torn about it. On the one hand, it’ll be good to see everyone, since I usually only fly home once a year (plus exceptional events like weddings, etc…), and I do love me a white Christmas. On the other hand, living on the West Coast for eight years has turned me into a huge wimp, and I can’t take Ottawa winters anymore. So, I guess I’ll be doing what I do every year: stay indoors as much as possible, get cozy with space heaters, and admire all that beautiful snow from where it’s warm. And if I have to venture outside, bundle the hell up.
Movie Review: What The Bleep Do We Know
Tag line: “It’s time to get wise!”
Uh-huh.
I heard about this movie from a friend of mine, who’d seen it, loved it, and urged me to go see it for myself. From the online trailer, and a couple of reviews I’d read, it looked like your typical pretentious yet shallow New Age fluff, and thus a complete waste of my time. Hell, I’d already suffered through half an hour of Waking Life, people! Nobody should have to endure that twice.
Better Than Cursing The Darkness
Winter’s officially already here. Oh, I know the solstice isn’t for another three weeks. Technically, this is still autumn. But autumn’s gorgeous show is long over; the leaves have almost all fallen off the trees, and the remaining ones are dead yellows or browns. When the clouds clear up I can see snow on the North Shore mountains; even at ground level the temperature’s dipped below freezing for the last few nights.
…This I Know, For The Bling-Bling Tells Me So
So I’m driving to work this morning, grooving to La bottine souriante, when a car pulls up next to me at a red light. I don’t really pay attention, until I see the guy in the front passenger’s side pulling down his window, specifically trying to get my attention. What the hell? Do I know him? A quick memory scan turns up negative. Has he spotted my rainbow flag bumper sticker and now wants to cruise me? He’s cute, young, with a nice smile and dark spiky hair… and wearing a huge-ass, gaudy gold crucifix, which he’s holding up with a hand graced by an equally huge-ass, equally gaudy gold ring. Get down with your gangsta self, white boy!
Between Québec And Toronto
I’ve lived in Vancouver for over eight years, having moved here from Ottawa—where I was born and spent all my life—and there’s nowhere else I’d rather be. In fact, I believe moving out here was the best thing that happened to me since I came out of the close twelve years ago. I’ve changed a lot in that time and, looking back, I feel very far away from Ottawa, and the me who lived there.
Four More Years
Well, that’s just fucking great. The chimp gets a second term and eleven anti-gay-marriage ballots passed. I guess Americans are happy electing (note: “electing”, not “re-electing”) a half-wit warmongering religious whackjob as long as it keeps the queers from getting married.
Corvids Are Cool
Every evening before dusk, I can see hundreds of crows flying past my workplace on their way to roost in Burnaby. They stream past, cawing to each other, either alone, in small groups, or in larger murders. (That’s the correct term, incidentally. A murder of crows, an unkindness of ravens, a parliament of rooks, a tiding of magpies—that last one probably referring to magpie counting rhymes. Damn, but Corvids have cool collective nouns.)
A Moment of Patriotism
Fall is in full swing. Trees are reddening (and browning and yellowing and orangeing, and is that even a word? Orangeing? Orangening? I could look it up, but it’s more fun to speculate). I felt like writing something here, but it all came out so generic. The leaves are falling and the days are getting shorter and the birds are flying south and something about the changing seasons and maybe the circle of life, and then a rousing rendition of Turn! Turn! Turn!
Left, Right, Left, Right
So. 51 days into the redesign, and where am I at?
It’s going pretty well, actually. I’ve converted all of the pages except the photo galleries to the new (provisional) design, and even those should be done very soon. That’s the easy part. Now that I’ve got the styles in place, I’ll be able to shuffle things around much more easily. CSS-based layouts are a godsend, they are. I’ve still got a lot to learn (no duh), but it doesn’t look so intimidating anymore.
