Posts in category "Random"

A Staple In My Tea

I just found a sta­ple — a used, bent sta­ple — in my loose leaf Mao Feng tea from Nihao Tea House. I don’t know if I can trust Nihao any­more, which is unfor­tu­nate, as it’s the only tea house in the vicin­i­ty.

The girl who works there is some­what of an anom­aly; a Canadian-born Chinese, I’d say only a few years younger than me, wear­ing a Mickey Mouse shirt. My gen­er­a­tion of CBCs usu­al­ly adapt to the Canadian way of life, eschew­ing the cutesy cul­ture of Hello Kitty, design­er sta­tion­ary, and stuffed car orna­ments. An impos­tor, by banana1 stan­dards, like a rogue sta­ple among some tea leaves.

  1. yel­low on the out­side, hol­low on the inside [↩]

8.0

equiv­o­cal­i­ty 8.0 has arrived. Though arriv­ing with lit­tle fan­fare, I felt this design update was impor­tant enough to have it’s own entry.

8.0 is an evo­lu­tion in the design of this blog. I want­ed a lay­out where the infor­ma­tion was pre­sent­ed with less clut­ter, while main­tain­ing the min­i­mal­ist feel. There’s a rea­son behind every mar­gin, every line, every shade.

Continue read­ing “8.0”…

New Glasses: Wide-Arm Wireframes

Thumbnail: Colour is gunshot metal
Thumbnail: Front view
Thumbnail: Side detail, D&G logo
Thumbnail: Side view
Thumbnail: White designer case
Thumbnail: The branding on the case
Thumbnail: Texture of pad printed fabric

I final­ly got some new glass­es. It’s been years since I had my pre­scrip­tion updat­ed and things in the dis­tance were start­ing to get blur­ry, mak­ing my eyes tired very ear­ly in the day. This time I got a wire-frame pair, instead of the thick emo frames I got last year, though they’re still D&>.

The wide arms are in now, but I real­ly don’t like that style (or maybe it just does­n’t fit my face). I also tend to not buy any­thing that’s cur­rent­ly fash­ion­able, as I pre­fer clas­sic designs. The wide wire-frame arms on this pair push the whole idea of trendy, but are oth­er­wise accept­able.

I’m still get­ting used to the weight. They’re very light, but still not as light as my last com­mon­ly worn pair, which were like not wear­ing glass­es at all. The good thing, I’ve come to dis­cov­er, is that they’re not flex­i­ble, and while this makes them more frag­ile, they’re much eas­i­er to clean as they don’t bend when try­ing to hold steady.

Some peo­ple ask me why I don’t get con­tacts, and it’s because glass­es are a part of my per­son­al­i­ty. In a way, they define me, stay­ing in touch with my dorky past. At the wed­ding Tom asked me to take them off for the pic­tures since they turn pho­to grey from UV light, but I refused. I think I would have looked stranger with­out my glass­es, then with my eyes obscured by tint.

Choosing these frames took a cou­ple of vis­its. I had a hard time trust­ing Bronwen’s opin­ion because some­times she thinks I look good in things that make me either laugh or hurl. I went to Lenscrafters with Aaron and he tried on one pair that imme­di­ate­ly made me think that’s the one, but I did­n’t have that instant­ly recog­ni­tion with mine. Louise did though when I showed her, and that’s when I decid­ed on them. Apparently they make me look more mature, or some shit.

They Know I Know They Know

The guys, they tease me. Call me “fuck­er”, half jok­ing, half jeal­ous. I ner­vous­ly laugh it off, but this gives me away. They know they’re right; no direct neg­a­tive acknowl­edges their sus­pi­cions. I don’t want to admit it, but I can’t stop laugh­ing. We’re all think­ing the same thing.

To deny myself is to deny them too.

This Is Rob

Thumbnail: Me and Rob laughing

Rob and Chris took off their coats. Not that it was par­tic­u­lar­ly hot, but the Prince Charlie jack­et does­n’t allow much flex­i­bil­i­ty of move­ment when work­ing uten­sils at a table.

I tugged on mine, but the but­tons on my vest held me back. I had the youth size, you see, a word I like to use more than “chil­dren’s”, where the vest is an illu­sion cre­at­ed by sewing two pan­els to the jack­et. I would have been naked had I had tak­en off my coat as the vest is a mod­ern cuirass, offer­ing a form of psy­cho­log­i­cal pro­tec­tion, and I was left with the option of all or noth­ing.

I made a com­ment about it in pass­ing, and Rob start­ed to unbut­ton his vest, then adamant­ly told Chris to take his off. I had to con­vince them that I was jok­ing before they stopped.

This has come to define Rob to me. A guy who’s will­ing to embar­rass him­self so that oth­ers will feel more com­fort­able. It remind­ed me of Adam Sandler in Billy Madison, pre­tend­ing that he peed his pants by splash­ing water on his crotch so Ernie did­n’t feel so bad about doing it him­self. Sometimes Rob goes out of his way to help you and ends up embar­rass­ing you even more, but his inten­tions make it easy to for­give him. His heart is in the right place, and that’s more than you can say for most peo­ple nowa­days.

Beneath his tough-guy, rough-edged per­sona is the ted­dy bear.

It’s the same way with his intel­li­gence. He wraps his thoughts in humour, per­haps as a way of hid­ing his per­spicu­ity to put oth­ers at ease1. Unfortunately, some peo­ple can’t see beneath this veneer and mis­in­ter­pret it as typ­i­cal male obnox­ious­ness. It did­n’t fool Pat though, who described him as diverse, a per­son with some­thing insight­ful to say about any sub­ject. It was only after Pat used that word that I real­ized Rob is a cos­mopoli­tan who feels at home any­where doing any­thing.

Rob is also one of the few peo­ple who can tease me and get away with it, because he’s just as self-dep­re­cat­ing. I’ll make fun of his size, and he’ll make fun of mine. And while he’s a man’s man, he has no prob­lem admit­ting that he has he vis­its craft stores for his daugh­ter, that he watch­es cook­ing shows with his wife, and that he loves his broth­ers.

That’s the great thing about Rob. He’s filled with con­fi­dence and he has no prob­lem speak­ing his mind, instead of pussy-foot­ing around sen­si­tive sub­jects2. He’s the gen­uine arti­cle. What you see is what you get, and if you have a prob­lem with him, it’s your fault, not his.

That’s Rob.

  1. I think many are intim­i­dat­ed by some­one who can ana­lyze things [↩]
  2. I hate it when some­one does­n’t speak up because they’re scared that some­one may not like their opin­ion [↩]