July 7, 2010

This is the part where I explain where I’ve been for the last week

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I decided to work on Canada Day and take Monday off instead. It was strange to be pro­duc­tive when it seemed like every­one in this city was out cel­e­brat­ing in the stran­gling heat. At this time of year, I can’t help but think of euca­lyp­tus oil first kisses blue blan­kets shy embraces, con­stantly unsure of whether the mem­o­ries made me happy or sad. Canada Day will never be the same.

I was left feel­ing com­pletely dis­con­nected from the world. In my room, I won­dered what Aaron was doing at his place this year. The fire­works pop­ping out­side my win­dow were so loud it was as if they were going off in my back yard. I didn’t bother to look. It was still just another day.

cat in bag

Dolly can never resist sleep­ing on unfa­mil­iar objects, such as John’s duf­fel bag.

The sec­ond plot was John pass­ing through Ottawa for a bach­e­lor party. It ended much ear­lier than expected after two days of debauch­ery that got too much for even him.

So we had a lot of extra time together over the long week­end though we didn’t do any­thing spe­cial. It was mostly games, sun­shine, dri­ving, three sea­sons of the IT crowd, pop­corn, and duets. Also, three movies were watched: The Hangover (which I agreed not to watch until we saw each other again), The Prince of Tides (to switch gears a bit, and my third time see­ing it this year), and The A-Team (which is what we decided on for a movie in the the­atres, and the likes of which is gen­er­ally only pal­pa­ble dur­ing the sum­mer in the com­pany of other male friends).

I sort of…unplugged. Drifted off in the haze and lost my mind for a lit­tle while.

ginger rose tea

Ginger rose tea. Delish.

I also invited Heather and Sergey to pho with us because they had yet to meet John, and every­one got along swim­mingly. I shouldn’t be sur­prised; Heather and Sergey are type to find some­thing inter­est­ing about any­thing, and John’s the type to say inter­est­ing things.

John explains

John with his sher­bert and hol­i­day scruff, say­ing the kinds of things that make him pop­u­lar to everyone.

Now I’m catch­ing up on work and sleep and alone time.

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June 9, 2010

Meat slap

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I’ve dis­cov­ered that bonk­ing my cat on the head with a pep­perette will not dis­suade her from eat­ing it.

Then again, I prob­a­bly wouldn’t give up bacon if some­one slapped me with a pound.

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May 28, 2010

The saddest fact in life is that our cats will die before us

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When I was young and a cat food com­mer­cial came on where the kit­ties would nuz­zle their owner after receiv­ing a por­tion of Brand X, I’d think to myself, “Those are prob­a­bly spe­cial cats, the way they use perky mod­els to por­tray every­day moms in clean­ing com­mer­cials. I won’t ever have a cat like that.”

But I was wrong.

She fol­lows me around the house, she sleeps under the blan­kets in the crook of my arm, and I can’t imag­ine my life with­out her.

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January 17, 2010

Cat Stretching

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When you have a cat, every day is filled with moments like this.

(I can tell she’s purring just from the way her stom­ach moves when breathing.)

(Compare this to a very sim­i­lar clip I made of Dolly six years ago to see how far I’ve come with video.)

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August 25, 2009

The Advantage of Having Stubble

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(Turn up the sound!)

I never have a lot of it, but when I do, it means I can scratch my cat with my chin.

Once again, taken with my iPhone.

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April 12, 2009

Welcome Home

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Joel and Charlotte agreed to take care of Dolly while I was in Hong Kong. Unfortunately, the com­bi­na­tion of another cat, a dog, a new envi­ron­ment, and my absence, stressed her out. She started mark­ing her ter­ri­tory (on their couch), even with her own lit­ter box in a secluded area, so they decided to bring her back to my house, and let Julie take care of her from then on.

Cat drawing

I found this draw­ing on my white board when I got back. Along with an espe­cially affec­tion­ate cat, it was a nice lit­tle thing to come home to.

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August 21, 2008

Four Day Vacation

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I’m in Toronto right now, at John’s house. He has the cot­tage for his birth­day week­end, so I took two extra days off work to see him. It’s kind of strange how much I’ve been see­ing him lately. In the past, we’d go over a year with­out see­ing each other because he was in Windsor for law school and I was in Ottawa with­out a car. But now that he’s been called to the bar and I’ve obtained the Civic, things have worked out.

We plan on going to the Ontario Science Centre today — some­thing I’ve wanted to do for a while1 — then dri­ving up to the cot­tage tonight. We’ll spend two days at the cot­tage2, maybe take a day trip to another town, and drive back on Sunday. Aaron also called me yes­ter­day about his co-ed baby shower on Sunday, which i’m not sure if I’ll be attend­ing yet, since I’ll have dri­ven eight hours that day.

Sunsets and Audiobooks

The drive was absolutely amaz­ing. The weather was per­fectly cool, and the sun took its glo­ri­ous time set­ting over a few hours. I think the most sat­is­fy­ing part is get­ting to the sec­tion of high­way where the 417 splits to the 416, and one can stay in the left lane and accel­er­ate through the turn, leav­ing all the traf­fic behind.

I lis­tened to some audio CDs of Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking on the way over. The con­cept is that our first reac­tions (made within a few sec­onds) are often intu­itively cor­rect, and that even after think­ing about some­thing for a long time, we end up going with our gut feel­ings any­way. We’re made to believe that the more impor­tant some­thing is, the longer we should take to make a deci­sion. I’m espe­cially guilty of this3. Wally lent them to me in an effort to help me act faster so I don’t miss any oppor­tu­ni­ties. Not sure if they’ll help me, but the way it delves into processes of the human psy­che is a very inter­est­ing lis­ten nonetheless.

Feeding Butterball

Left Dolly lots of food, and I’m hop­ing she doesn’t eat it all. The rea­son why I feed her by hand is because she doesn’t have any sense of how much to eat, and bal­loons up if not con­trolled. In either case, I expect a lot of poo in the lit­ter­box when I get back.

New Game

I bought John a copy of Assassin’s Creed for his birth­day, which thank­fully was on his list of games for which to watch. It was devel­oped by Ubisoft Montreal, the same stu­dio who made Prince of Persia, and plays very much the same way. An open-world con­cept with lots of stealth ele­ments. Certainly a game I could get into. We take turns play­ing, and it’s made me real­ize that I haven’t been play­ing much myself in the last few months.

A Sense of Overstimulation

Life has been some­what over­stim­u­lat­ing lately, and I can’t blame any­one but myself. After spend­ing a day shop­ping for house­wares with Julie last week­end, the house is a big mess, with things scat­tered over the coun­ters and floors. I haven’t even had a chance to write about the last time I came to Toronto. It seems like life is going faster than I can keep up. I’m just try­ing to enjoy it, espe­cially when the weather is this beautiful.

After all, life is for the liv­ing. This won’t last for­ever. I get to look for­ward to some time alone when every­thing is settled.

  1. I don’t think I’ve been since grade 4, so over 18 years ago. [↑]
  2. Last time I was there was two years ago [↑]
  3. John says that I tend to over ana­lyze things to the point of paral­y­sis. [↑]
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June 20, 2008

The Cat in the Closet

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Dolly on my clothes

When you live with a cat who sleeps on things to mark her ter­ri­tory, you never won­der why your clothes are cov­ered with hair.

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May 1, 2008

Kitteh With Catnip

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One of the advan­tages of hav­ing such a lov­able cat is that peo­ple want to buy her things. I make a con­scious effort not to spoil her with human food, so she hap­pily accepts toys and treats from people.

Like this bunny filled with cat­nip that Louise bought for her.

One thing she really likes to do is grab her cat­nip toys by the teeth and shake them to release the scent. I don’t give her cat­nip very often, so in stoner terms, this meas she’s a lightweight.

And oh how she loves it; within a few min­utes, the fur of the toy is cov­ered in cat drool.

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April 22, 2008

I just want fucking makeouts

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I drove home from class tonight with the win­dows down and the music cranked. It’s not the songs, it’s not the singing, it’s not the speed, it’s the air that affects you. That smell.

The Operation by Charlotte Gainsbourg is the ulti­mate night-time dri­ving track when you’re feel­ing sin­gle and elec­tri­fied.1 The base­line dri­ves you.

I had The Operation by Charlotte Gainsbourg play­ing here.

i want to explore you
i’m gonna get under your skin
so you can feel me run­ning through your veins

i want to exam­ine
every inch of your frame
the pres­sure points that cause your joy and pain

When I got home, I show­ered, got into in my PJs, took Dolly in my arms, and stood out on the patio. I wanted her to feel what I was feel­ing under that night sky. She clung to my arms, but didn’t make a sound. It was unlike her, because any time Dolly gets picked up she imme­di­ately begins purring. The night was too much for her.

I think it’s too much for me some­times.

For now, I’ll live vic­ar­i­ously through Maggie. Except I won’t be get­ting drunk on Sparks (the orange kind), I won’t be going danc­ing, I’ll just keep run­ning into my crushes at every turn, and I’ll keep meet­ing the ass­hole, idiot guys they go out with. And like Maggie, I’ll refuse to be that guy. The one who talks shit about other guys, the one who flosses his cash money, the one who dri­ves fast to prove he’s got a dick.

Yes, I’m break­ing my post order because of Maggie. It’s like she made me write this. I would totally hoola­hoop and make Dragon Ball Z poses with her. I just found out that I don’t know how to spell hoola­hoop. Hula hoop. There we go.

Maybe this dry spell is mak­ing me loopy.

I think I’ll sleep with the win­dows open tonight.

  1. This song won’t be up for long; I’m tak­ing it down in a cou­ple days. [↑]
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February 16, 2008

I Set My Cat On Fire

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Dolly burns her hair 1

Dolly burns her hair 2

Well it wasn’t so much my fault as hers for walk­ing by one of my can­dles as I was light­ing it.

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October 27, 2006

My Cat Can Beg

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[kml_flashembed movie=”/videos/dollybegs.swf” width=“480” height=“375” wmode=“transparent”/]

Before giv­ing her food, I use to ask Dolly to shake or beg or give paw, and she’d lift one paw up (always her right one) for me. Now she’s asso­ci­ated the paw-lifting action with being fed, so she skips the step of me say­ing any­thing and auto­mat­i­cally does it.

She’ll do any­thing for food really.

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August 25, 2006

There’s Never Enough Time

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New lay­out. Back to my old grayscale style, because that’s how I’ve been feel­ing lately. Neutral. Took me about three days, mostly from scratch. I was sat­is­fied with the old one, until two months ago, when I began read­ing sev­eral design/typography/colour books at work. The pow­ers that be let me spend around $300 on edu­ca­tional mate­r­ial, and as I explored each one with fer­vor and thirst, I began to notice all the fun­da­men­tal design mis­takes I made. Ignorance is bliss.

It’s Friday night, and with my legs curled under me, Dolly sniffs at my feet, look­ing for an oppor­tune space on my lap. Fall is approach­ing. The win­dow in my room remains open as soon as the sun sets. I’ve been over­whelm­ingly busy, and as a result, I haven’t quite caught up on any sleep in the last two weeks.

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January 21, 2006

Busyness Ensues

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Yup.

Thumbnail: Dolly scratches

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December 10, 2005

The Canon Speedlite 430EX

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Thumbnail: Dolly saucer 1

Thumbnail: Dolly saucer 2

The Canon Speedlite 430EX flash lets me take advan­tage of a 1/200 X-sync speed, which means that high-speed shots such as these are now pos­si­ble in low light­ing con­di­tions. I picked one up this week, so most of my free time has been spent learn­ing the capa­bil­i­ties of an exter­nal flash unit. The tilt-and-swivel head means that I can bounce the flash off a ceil­ing to soften the light, or take advan­tage of the sur­round­ings, such as bounc­ing it off my stove (the pic­ture on the left) or off my fridge (the pic­ture on the right). There’s also a low-profile AF assist beam that’s a huge improve­ment over the seizure induc­ing on-board flash unit.

I decided to go with a Canon brand flash so I could have full E-TTL meter­ing sup­port (which fires an unde­tectable low-powered pre-flash for eval­u­a­tive meter­ing done through the lens) to match the Rebel XT shell. One of the coolest things about the 430EX is that a set of motors auto­mat­i­cally adjust the zoom range to match the lens, and it can be used as a slave unit that can be opti­cally (which also means remotely) trig­gered from a mas­ter unit for up to four light sources.

Even though there are tons of other acces­sories I’d like to have, such as a Sunpak hand strap (which would be a good com­pro­mise between the safety of a neck strap and the con­ve­nience of no strap), some Kenko exten­sion tubes (for macro pho­tog­ra­phy), or a portable micro­drive, I thought that a flash would cur­rently best serve my needs. This isn’t even to men­tion the options for some sweet glass, like a lens with image sta­bi­liza­tion, a tele­scop­ing range, or even some­thing from the L series which I’d have to put a sec­ond mort­gage on my house to afford. I think that I’m only begin­ning to under­stand how expen­sive a hobby pho­tog­ra­phy is.

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