Tiana brought me as her guest to the Ottawa Foodies pot luck, run by Pam¹, and held on a rooftop patio right on Bank Street. It was a true potluck, where no one knew what anyone else was bringing.

The Ottawa Foodies usually gather in the Ottawa Foodie forums, where they discuss recipes and restaurants in Ottawa, so this was the first in-person meeting for many. Many didn’t know each others real names, so there were introductions like, “Hi, I’m MissMuffins862″, or ,”Hi, I’m Thomas, aka BagelRapist”.

I don’t think Tiana was quite ready for the food dorks, the type of which I was already somewhat accustomed to during my time at the computer science program at Ottawa U. I’ve determined that food dorks are just as bad as wine snobs and computer geeks. For example:

There were two guys who got into a heated argument about the kind of fat used in Mcdonald’s french fries. One of these guys also preached to me about the benefits of good rice, (and me — being Chinese — knew absolutely nothing about rice). There was one guy who said, “I’m doing a documentary on the youngest head chef in the ———- region”. I asked “Wow, how did he get that position?”, and his reply was “His parents own the restaurant”. Then realizing the fact that nepotism ruins the credibility of his initial statement, he followed this with “He also made a flowerless brownie at 11.” Tiana asked, “Did he invent it?”. “No, he followed a recipe”. At that point, Tiana and got silent and we just looked at each other.

But what some of these people lack in social skills, they make up for in culinary abilities, and the food was amazing.

So I basically hung out with Tiana the whole time, and pigged out on everything I could. By the end of the night, my truffles, usually rolled in coco powder to prevent them from sticking to each other, had turned into a truffle.

1. Who also happens to know Tim. Ottawa is really small. [↑]

Hi, how’s it going.

When talking about haircuts, I always say, “My stylist”. As soon as this comes out of my mouth, I wonder if this makes me sound snooty and pretentious. Most people seem to say, “hairdresser”, which I imagine is the same thing, with the former being a way to charge an extra $15–30 for a haircut. But the only reason why I say “stylist” is because that’s what the receptionists say (“…and what stylist would you like?”) when booking appointments. But stylists are so different from barbers, in my experience. And my stylist has gone for courses in the US, so I’m thinking this actually gives him the title.

I also say “chacun à son goût” when the phrase is appropriate. I wonder if this makes me sound pretentious too. The only reason why I say that instead of “each to his own taste” is because I learned the expression first in grade 8 French class. There was a picture of King Henry saying, “chacun a MON gout!”, as if he was famous for being in demanding king. Ever since, I relate the phrase to the French. Sometimes, I imagine I’m in late Imperial Russia, when French was considered the hallmark of a civilized society, so people threw in French phrases to impress people or fit in. I imagine myself saying, “Ho ho, mon cher, je méprise les femmes pour ne pas les aimer car autrement la vie serait un mélodrame trop ridicule”, while throwing my head back with dainty laugh.

Sometimes my nights are spent like this:

My favourite pastime at the moment is playing Flight Control while listening to music. I have a sort of running competition going with Pat (high score 99) and John (high score 67). So far I’ve been able to best their scores at 292, but now I’m trying to pad the victory even more, because Pat and John have as much of a healthy competitive streak as I do, and actually spend some extra effort trying to beat each other. So sometimes I’ll just sit down and put some music on and play. I’ve also tried cooking while playing, but my foods ends up getting burnt. There has also been some stand-up comedy listening while I play, but laughter always gets in the way of fine motor controls.

When I was younger, my parents owned a convenience store. It got held up a couple of times, late at night when my dad was working. He never talked about it, not because it was shocking, but because he didn’t care. Sometimes, I wonder how my dad felt with a gun pointed at him. One time they caught the three or four guys involved in one hold-up, and my dad had to go to court to testify. Somehow my dad handled it, but going through all of this would probably freak me out.

It’s been busy. Side work is going well, and I try to do as much as I can on weeknights so I can have my weekends free.

It’s made for a rather hectic schedule, which is a welcome distraction at the moment. I feel great for being productive, and great for being able to relax. Time is flying. I can’t believe it’s past the middle of September already.

I use to bring my cameras with me everywhere, but now I find I’m taking fewer pictures. I want to be less of an observer/documentalist and more of a participator lately. I don’t want to miss out on living from worrying if I’m capturing everything as best as possible.

One of the things that’s helped me maintain my productivity is Things for my iPhone, which gives little alert badges on the things that are due. It’s a great motivator when you want to clear the alerts from your home screen.

Photographing people with darker skin is a little different than capturing those with fairer skin. You don’t worry so much about the colour tones during shoot as after, when you’re post-processing the photos.

I also find that, in general, girls are natural posers. They’ll change positions on their own initiative and play with the camera, which is very different from guys, who will just stand there until you give them some sort of direction. Each has their own advantages, as I can feed off the creativity of a model who wants to try different things, but also work well with those who will be posing dolls for me.

It started with this tweet by Jay Hori. I was all like, “What? What blog design book?”.

Jay told me the name, so I found a copy of “クリエーターのための3行レシピ ブログデザイン” through HMV Japan, and they shipped it to me.

I flipped through the book and noticed that some of my web design idols were in there, like Dan Cederholm of SimpleBits and Shaun Inman¹. I wonder if Dan or Shaun know they’re in this book. That’s right, I’m on a first name basis with them. We hang.

When I got to recipe 57 (they label all their design tricks as “recipes”), I saw a picture of my website. My experiences with therapy were on the front page, along with me saying “Sometimes I come out feeling like a monster, like some horrible, fucked-up person.” I guess they don’t use English copy editors, and my curse-filled words may give English speaking Japanese people the impression that Canadians are psychological monsters.

But aside from my own words, I realized it was the only thing I could understand. I had to ask someone who could read Japanese. Someone who just came back from studies there, and wasn’t allow to speak or write English for a month. Maggie. She sent me this:

Your site is being used to explain “Navigation through simplistic icons”. Or like, simple, low-key, uncomplicated. The right side introduces Wordpress and Moveable Type and talks about their uses of templates and template customization, then introduces your site as doing something (can’t understand the word) with the background in contrast to how you use simple/clean icons as your navigation.

On the left page, under the screenshot of your site it says “Displaying navigation through minimum design. Designated using CSS, the minimum use of files is excellent.” Bad translation. The way you use your files (I’m guessing this refers to the actual number of pages and stuff on your site) is also quite minimum and that is nice.

Cool.

And with the code for my comment bubble right in front of me, I had to wonder about the legal implications. It probably wasn’t legal for them to publish my source code, which is why they didn’t contact any of the owners of the websites to tell them that they were published. I hear the copyright laws are notoriously lax in Japan.

1. Regarding his use of the old flash header that was a wave, inspired by anime. Shaun and I were also featured in the Perishable Press minimalism in web design series. [↑]

I’m so glad that Toronto remains a place where I can go to get away. There are places to stay, an endless cycle of friends or acquaintances to visit, and someone else takes the wheel and drives.

It’s amazing to see how much Toronto has changed. How certain streets downtown have turned into trendy, expensive shopping districts, a Canadian version of Rodeo Drive, and a far cry from the run-down roads I would visit every lunch in high school by rollerblade and subway to buy Magic cards and Warhammer figures.

After Bill Clinton’s speech at the CNE, there was a brief question and answer period. The host asked him, “What do you like most about Toronto?”, adding that Torontonians seem to have a sort of self-deprecating humour¹. After making a diplomatic comment on the Aboriginal art as being his favourite thing, Clinton said, “You folks can make fun of yourself, but people would kill to live a society like this. You should be very proud.” I had to agree.

Before leaving, I had dim sum with my dad, and we caught up on each others lives a little bit. He sounded pretty happy when I called to ask him if he wanted to go.

I bought a pair of windshield wipers but didn’t replace them, bringing them with me to his house instead, hoping he could show me how to install them. I could just as easily have read the car manual, but I wanted something to share with him. Maybe now I can catch up on these father-son things that I seemed to have missed in my childhood.

1. I suppose you have to, with how well the Leafs have been doing in recent years. [↑]

To say goodbye to Tim and Pam, as well as Sunday brunch potlucks altogether, it was decided that something special be done. So we found a shady space in the park for the blankets and food. It was the first time we had wine at one of the potlucks, and a beautiful day.

For some reason, Jess likes to call me Satan. Maybe it’s because cheese is her weakness, and I always enjoy indulging her temptation.