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Replacement Pillow

11

I sleep with three dif­fer­ent pillows.

The one for my head is reg­u­lar sized, with foam fill­ing, and rather flat because I like to sleep with my arm under there. The one on my left is also foam, but a body pil­low. The one on my right is king-sized and filled with down. I like to sleep on my side pressed between the two, and through the night, I’ll alter­nate between sides, hug­ging one.

When she comes over, she takes the king-sized one. My head pil­low is too flat, and obvi­ously my body pil­low is too big.

So I lose my king-sized, and she becomes my replace­ment pillow.

Date  January 31, 2009
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Categories  Random

To Write And To Remember

8

I admit that I not only save other people’s posts, but entire blogs.

Sometimes, there are entries I like to read over again. Other times, I just like to be reminded of how right I was. But more often than not, it’s the ephemeral nature of blogs in gen­eral, com­bined with the fickle nature of ado­les­cent writ­ers still try­ing to “define them­selves” on a free medium, that gives me the itch to save. So many writ­ers I used to fol­low have changed domain names, started pro­tect­ing their entries, or deleted their blogs.

Some things are garbage and should be for­got­ten or thrown away — but some things deserve to be kept too. Word-for-word, exactly the way it was spo­ken, because that’s the way it was expressed.

Fortunately, or unfor­tu­nately, depend­ing on your point-of-view, our words do last. Just because they aren’t there any­more, doesn’t mean they were never spoken.

There are con­se­quences to the things we write, whether we want them or not.

Date  January 27, 2009
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Categories  Random Thoughts

Protected: Forced To Deal

4

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Date  January 23, 2009
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Categories  Random

Protected: Revealing Underwear

3

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Date  January 11, 2009
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Categories  Photos Random

Life Is Pain

4

Hand spot

Sometimes, you stab your­self in the hand with a point, but it’s not sharp enough to break the skin.

Sometimes, the blood comes to the sur­face, and this is as much of your­self as you can show the world.

Sometimes, the pave­ment is cov­ered in snow out­side, and you can drive over 100kph in one spot before the trac­tion kicks in.

Sometimes, you scare your­self with your recklessness.

Sometimes, you real­ize that life is pain.

Sometimes, you have noth­ing left but numb­ness and resolve.

Date  December 23, 2008
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Categories  Photos Random

A Blogger Passes On

7

Many years ago, I received an e-mail from a reader named Winston Rand, look­ing for some blog­ging advice:

Jeff,

I have been to your equiv­o­cal­ity site numer­ous times over the last cou­ple of months and always come away impressed. Having vis­ited many other “blogs” — God how I’ve come to hate that term — I keep com­ing back to yours as my gold stan­dard. Been think­ing of start­ing my own, even have 2 domain names paid for, but being an engi­neer and an IT pro, I’m too hes­i­tant to start until most of the answers are quite clear. That is a strength as well as a failing…

In my quest, I’ve looked at many dif­fer­ent blog­ging tools, host­ing sites, etc., and am still not sure which route to take. My temp­ta­tion is to say to hell with all of them and just post my stuff using sta­tic html pages (Dreamweaver) since I’m not really inter­ested in feed­back or com­ments that much. But I do like the abil­ity to eas­ily inte­grate cal­en­dar, archives, and other fea­tures that most of the blog pack­ages seem to include by default. And who knows, one of these days I may care what other peo­ple think of my work.

Among the pop­u­lar pack­ages, I’ve got it nar­rowed down to WordPress, Moveable Type, and SquareSpace, but I’m wide open to sug­ges­tions and recommendations.

Could you share your thoughts on what you use and rec­om­mend? Any advice will be greatly appreciated.

Keep up your excel­lent work! I look for­ward to see­ing more of it.

I steered Winston towards WordPress, and soon after, he started his own blog at nobodyasked.com. Over time, he devel­oped a sig­nif­i­cant read­er­ship, as he would write quite lucidly about pol­i­tics, humour, and the occas­sional geek talk.

Although our blogs cov­ered dif­fer­ent things in a dif­fer­ent style (Winston called it “[spin­ning] in a slightly off­set par­al­lel uni­verse” when describ­ing my blog in his one-year anniver­sary post), we would check up on each other now and then.

During one of my last vis­its, I found out that Winston has died after a 38-hour ill­ness and 3 surg­eries. While I never really knew him in per­son, I still feel like some­one close is gone.

And I wish I could explain why.

Date  December 19, 2008
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Categories  Random

The Measure of a Man

17

I’m still not sure if I feel like a man.

I always imag­ined that it’s a mind­set you sud­denly develop (or a way peo­ple view you) once you have kids, or pass 30, whichever one comes first. There’s this idea stuck in my head that adults are these peo­ple who don’t have fun. They don’t watch (and enjoy) stu­pid movies, or play Warcraft, or talk on the phone for hours. It’s prob­a­bly from grow­ing up with my par­ents, who never did any­thing that made them laugh or smile. Or maybe I’m hav­ing too much fun and free­dom to really feel like I’m grown-up.

There was def­i­nitely some point between get­ting my first job and house, and now, that I started to feel like an adult. It was never a dis­tinct line though.

It’s still for­eign for me to say that I date women, as opposed to girls. To think I’ll ever grow out of say­ing that is very strange.

For now, the only thing I do that makes me feel like I’m a man is when I’m pay­ing and fil­ing my bills.

Date  December 15, 2008
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Categories  Random Thoughts

Moments Like This

3

Julie in the Black Tomato

Sometimes, I feel like I’ve been wait­ing to cap­ture moments like this my whole life.

Date  December 12, 2008
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Categories  Photos Random

Lonely Lot

2

Lonely parking lot

Sometimes, you need to get out­side. Dodge the drunks stum­bling through the halls, the peo­ple stand­ing and wait­ing for their groups, the famil­iar faces. Maybe because it’s snow­ing out­side, and you don’t want to miss it, when the sky aches the same orange as you do.

This isn’t your scene, but there’s no one to back you up, so you smile and nod. Fake kisses and oblig­a­tory hugs, think­ing, “I don’t know you, and I never will”. A façade to appear nor­mal, when mem­o­ries come flood­ing back. Sitting alone at a table, won­der­ing why you came in the first place. Times with­out a per­son to make you a promise. Moments with other people’s wives, because he’s secure like that, and wish­ing for noth­ing else. Walking these halls alone the way you’re doing now. Memories you wish were a lit­tle more dis­tant. Maybe you’ll come back one day, and break even, or maybe even come out ahead.

Until then, your indif­fer­ence will keep you alive.

Sometimes you need to take a pic­ture of some­thing, any­thing, because noth­ing you see here is how you feel, and it’s the only way you can scream.

Maybe it’s not so much out­side, where you’re run­ning, as away.

Date  December 7, 2008
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Categories  Photos Random

More Stolen Words and Pictures

28

Most recently, a per­son called Cleo, who also goes by the mis­nomer “sexy1980”, stole both words and pic­tures from a heart­felt entry I wrote after a par­tic­u­larly hard day. Word-for-word. You see that car on her site? That’s my car.

Cleo steals

If you dare to look at this abor­tion of a web page, do so at your own risk. I warn you, the ani­ma­tions and colours are not for the feint of heart.

I wasn’t happy when some­one started copy­ing entire entries of mine, word-for-word, or when another per­son stole my design of Version 10 (his attempted redesign in an effort to cover up his actions isn’t that far off either). Sure, I also get peo­ple hotlink­ing my images too, but I take sim­ple plea­sure in replac­ing the images with pic­tures of a lemon party, because I get to laugh at things like this.

But when some­one steals both my words and hotlinks my pic­tures I get really pissed off.

Date  December 4, 2008
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Categories  Random

Christmas Wish-List '08

7

Updated tastes for 2008. Many items from my 2006 and 2007 lists are crossed out, which is why cat­e­gories like “fur­ni­ture” aren’t smaller now.

I’ve been told that I’m noto­ri­ously hard to shop for. Not only am I extremely picky, I have eso­teric (and expen­sive) tastes, and I usu­ally buy — and so, have — the things that I want. This year, I real­ized that good gifts are things peo­ple want, but which they don’t buy for them­selves because they can’t jus­tify the cost. It doesn’t have to be lav­ish, but maybe a lit­tle over­priced, some­thing you wouldn’t nec­es­sar­ily buy for yourself.

Photography

  • Canon EOS 5D Mark II (about $2800) — Yep. This is the big one. I had the Mark I on my list back in 2006. This one is full frame, does dust clean­ing, and records video now. Even though I have a cam­corder already, I want this for low-light and low depth-of-field work that con­sumer cam­corders sim­ply can’t provide.

Housewares

  • Tea Forté Morehouse glass ($25) — A double-walled glass that can be used to keep tea warm (or iced tea cold). Made with a cover for the leaf on Tea Forté pyra­mid bags to stick out. No con­den­sa­tion means no coaster needed. Love the design and functionality.
  • Tea Forté tea trays (×2) ($7) — For hold­ing indi­vid­ual tea tags. Comes in sets of two with four colour choices, but I like bone white.
  • Bodum Assam 1.5L teapot ($50) — My pre­vi­ous, smaller Assam teapot broke (rather eas­ily) as I was clean­ing out the fil­ter. I can’t give up my love of Bodum prod­ucts though. I already have tea mak­ers for sin­gle serv­ings, but I don’t have a pot for when I have guests over.
  • Oxo Candela Flare (set of eight) ($130) — I’d put these on the ban­is­ter that sep­a­rates my hall­way from the stairs. It’s pretty bland right now.

Furniture

  • B2C Expandable Dining Table ($699) — To replace the cheap, scratched-up din­ing table I have in my kitchen now. Frosted glass? More like frosted sexiness.

Gadgets

  • Tenori-On ($1200) — I’ve been wait­ing for this to be avail­able in Canada for more than a year, and it’s finally come. I’ve always wanted to get into music as another medium of cre­ativ­ity. I come from a musi­cal back­ground (as opposed to visual arts), but the Tenori-On com­bines both, in a sim­ple, easy-to-use interface.
  • Aromatherapy Car Diffuser ($16) — For keep­ing the car fresh, with refill­able scent pads.
  • Apple Wireless Bluetooth Keyboard ($80) — I’m hop­ing the next MacWorld Expo will announce an update, not a dis­con­tin­u­a­tion, to the Mac Mini, which I’d get for a home the­atre sys­tem (my TV is soon to be dis­con­nected because I don’t use it enough). If this holds to be true, I’d have to buy a key­board, which I could already use now.
  • MicroFly Tiny R/C Hovering UFO ($20) — Small and easy-to-fly. Something I’d use to play with Dolly.
  • Colibri Throttle Silver Plaid Lighter ($60) — Much to my dis­may, the electro-quartz trig­ger on my old Colibri died. It was one Christie gave me for my birth­day, with my name engraved on it. I’ve been look­ing for a lighter ever since, and this is the first one I’ve ever really con­sid­ered. I’m super-picky about lighter design.
  • Auto LED ($25) — Plugs into the cig­a­rette lighter of the car, and glows blue (which would match the meters of my car). Pull it out, and it becomes a handy-dandy flashlight.

Games

  • Rez ($20) — One of the most under­rated and genre-busting games of the PS2.
  • Devil May Cry 3: Special Edition ($20) — DMC has always been one of those series I hear about, but never got a chance to try. The spe­cial edi­tion adds game­play and fixes var­i­ous issues.
  • Metal Slug Anthology ($20) — I love the arcady feel of Metal Slug. Something you can turn on, and play with your brain off. The entire series in one game? Yes, please.
Date  December 2, 2008
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Categories  Random

Dexter the Cat

7

Named after Dexter the ser­ial killer. You can’t keep this cat down. If you leave any­thing lying around that’s not more than 25 pounds, he’ll play with it. This usu­ally involves bat­ting, scratch­ing, knock­ing it off a table, or chew­ing it.

I sus­pect this is why Darren keeps his house so clean.

Date  November 29, 2008
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Categories  Random Video

Someone To Take Care Of Me

15

It’s times like this I wish I had some­one to take care of me1, because I’m tired of tak­ing care of myself.

  1. Pat once told me there should be a per­son in every group who’s always con­trolled, calm, and together (in case of emer­gency, or oth­er­wise), and he tries to be this per­son. It must be true, because he’s my rock, the friend who has never let me down. I once asked him if this idea extended to his mar­riage, and he told me that it applied to 90% of the time. But for the other 10%, when he’s tired, unmo­ti­vated, and doesn’t care any­more, Jenny takes over, and he admit­ted to me that he’s become depen­dent on this. [↑]
Date  November 18, 2008
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Categories  Daily Life Random

28

8

Touch of grey

I took this photo of myself recently for the updated pho­tog­ra­phy sec­tion. The touch of grey along the sides of my hair came as some­thing as a sur­prise. I never get a good look at the sides of my head, and my friends never men­tion this chrono­log­i­cal land­mark. I sup­pose I’ve been going grey since I was in my late teens, never notic­ing how far it’s come along until now.

But turn­ing 28 never phased me.

I tell peo­ple I didn’t feel old until I turned 27. It’s that age where you’re closer to 30 than to 25, the dif­fer­ence between a “young adult” and an “adult”. More of a mile­stone than the step that 28 is.

It seems like every time I talk about being in uni­ver­sity, or at my cur­rent job, or how long I’ve known John, I keep adding another year. An incre­men­tal reminder that I’m get­ting older.

Although it didn’t quite feel like it this year.

Date  November 14, 2008
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Categories  Random

Dear Oreste

5

I hope this reaches you. I don’t know how else to con­tact you.

I know we haven’t talked in a while. It’s not like we ended on bad terms or any­thing — far from it. For me, high school was filled with peo­ple in that uncom­fort­able cat­e­gory known as “acquain­tances”. And while we never hung out much out­side of school, I still con­sid­ered you some­what close for a school­mate, cause the fact of the mat­ter is that I didn’t hang out with any­one out­side of school.

I’m glad I was in the same house as you, and that for part of it, your locker was across from mine. In many ways, I used to look up to you. You were dif­fer­ent from every­one, but you fit in every­where. You car­ried your­self with a com­bi­na­tion of human­ity and intel­li­gence. On more than one occa­sion, you taught me how to be a decent per­son in a way that my par­ents never could, with­out even real­iz­ing it I bet.

To be hon­est, I don’t look back on my days at UCC very fondly. They were awk­ward and uncom­fort­able for me. The only per­son I keep in touch with on a reg­u­lar basis is John. Aside from him and a few oth­ers, I was glad to leave my UCC past behind me. I still think of you from time to time though, whether it’s out of con­cern or curiosity.

I’m com­ing to Toronto in a few weeks, and was hop­ing we could meet up. I’d like to find out what you’ve been up to in the last ten years, because you used to be good at any­thing you were inter­ested in. Maybe you’ve changed as much as I have. I remem­ber you as a good per­son, and as I get older, I’m learn­ing that good peo­ple are few and far between. I’d like to keep in touch with the ones I’ve been for­tu­nate enough to know.

— Jeff

Date  November 11, 2008
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Categories  Random
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