Scattered Stuff

Distractions

Too small to post on it’s own, too big to be ignored:

My niece, Emma Flannery Lawrence Healey and Richard Rosenbaum get a nod for their creativity and fun from Torontoist. Something so simple creates something so fun.

Gizmodo posts a video of a man getting the poop knocked out of him by a robot. Yay! Actually it’s a video from a new BBC show called The Wrong Door. You need to check out their website. Couldn’t get the videos working (Youtube) but the gist of it is that it’s a wired version of Monty Python.

Speaking of British Comedy, does anyone remember “The Goodies”? Romach might… Like The Wrong Door, it was comedy created back in the new video heyday:

And with more video, I was reminded of this toy I coveted from my next door neighbour for years. Pay particular attention to the grooviest back yard ever:

And completely out of context, my favorite quote from Mad Men to date:

You are the product. You feeling something. That’s what sells. Not them. Not sex. They can’t do what we do and they hate us for it.

And finally, a picture of me yelling like a cartoon:
Aaasgh!

Fan Expo 2008

Hobbies, Toronto

All the pics I took here.

This year I wanted to take a more subtle look at the Fan Expo (one of the largest Comic/Game/Fantasy/Horror conventions in Canada) as opposed to my usual freaked out, get-that-shot-now, kind of photo hunt. And I found it intriguing, humourous and somewhat unnerving.

Intriguing:
I Find Your Lack of Faith Disturbing

Raw Shark & Ozzy mandus

Intriguing in the sense that there are people who spend hours and hours on a single costume to wear maybe twice a year (three times if they’re trying to make a viral video. Some cases, these people are like-minded as myself – so in love with the culture that they need to express themselves in cloth and plastic, but I can only stare in awe at the detail, but then I thank god quickly that I have a life. Seriously, kudos to the great costumes out there.

Humourous:
Tired

Pose!

I mean come on. If you’re going to wear it in public, then you better be prepared for bitter, angry people like me to take your picture and post it to the web in ridicule. Chubby Vader? Cute! WTF-costume that makes me scratch my head, shrug and hit the shutter on my camera? I can guarantee there are 4 more like me just behind me with their cell phone cameras ready.

Unnerving:

IMG_1686

WTF?
Finally there are people who go to the Expo just to wear what they like and be “accepted” in a crowd. Much like wearing a tube sock over your dick at Pride. For the most part, we really don’t need to see your outfit, but hooray we live in a enlightened society. Case in point, first picture, can you find the odd princess out in the group of Disney heroines?

One of Ussssss

iPhone

Tonight I leave the realm of iPhone hacking. I’m signing up for a real honest to goodness iPhone plan, while keeping my first generation, slow but lovable original iPhone.

It’s been a curious year. I’ve learned a lot about how cell phones actually work, more than I thought I’d ever be interested in. The rush of hacking into the phone and creating something personal while knowing it was a “gray” product, in a copyright-licensing obsessed autocracy that is Rogers Wireless, was at times a dangerous obsession, bordering on outright fixation. I’m hoping that someone will write a book about the first year of the iPhone because it’s pretty full of drama and celebrity: GeoHot’s first hardware hack, the ease of the first unlock and the inevitable division of the original Developer Team, spawning the evil villain, Zibri with his suspect stolen code, ZiPhone hack. And the apps. Oh those hundreds of apps from people who really loved the phone. In all, only one malicious app was created, which is incredible considering the iPhone Hacking community’s openness, if you consider how easy one could have been created and how many there are for Windows operating systems.

Then – nothing. The luster left me as soon as the iPhone came to Canada and the “naughty” of having a “gray” phone wore off. Don’t get me wrong, I love this product from Apple so much that I’m ready to succumb to their idea of what their phone should be. No mods, no hacking, iTunes ready. I’m just… past it. The fad has faded for me. The thrill of hacking has jumped the shark and I want to move on.

Ironically, I have to go to a non-Rogers store to get the services I want from Rogers while using a product they don’t need to support (their Edge network is in place and works with the first gen iPhone) but yet have told me, at their flagship store at 55 Bloor St, that they wont. Yet, this non-Rogers place has documented proof that they will sell plans to first gen iPhone holders.

Confusing? Well yes, this is Rogers we’re talking about. Most of the time, the right foot doesn’t know what the left ear is tasting. SharkBoy did remind me that our first Rogers cell phones were bought at a non-Rogers place and took less than 30 mins to do it, while the Rogers store across the hall couldn’t answer all our questions correctly.

Oh well. On to the next big thing. You have me Rogers. I feel like that final scene in Matrix Revolutions where Neo is being absorbed into The Matrix.

Sorry Paul

Personal Bits, Queer stuff

Back in 1990, I had broken up with my Kiwi boyfriend Paul (amicably) and while I was in school, he and another friend, Colleen got drunk and I guess, bitched about men (me) through a couple bottles of wine.

The result was him painting a “heirloom” of a hall table that has been with my family for years. My earliest memory of this table (it’s always been deep forest green) was that it was in the basement to hold tools and kid’s mittens and touques (kids were not allowed through the front door of our house, for some stupid reason like… oh tracked in mud or something stupidly adult). When Dad separated from Mom, he took a few bits of furniture with him to the new apartment including this table. It was his new “dump” table. You know: you enter your apartment and on this table you dump your keys, letters, gloves, errant plastic bags of body parts you’ve picked up through the day, etc.

This table followed me through Brockville, Brantford, Kitchener, Oakville, Ottawa and back to Toronto. It’s rickety, there’s a huge crack down the middle of the top and the nails no longer hold things in place. It’s like a 15 year old dog you don’t have the heart to take behind the barn with a shotgun.

Cut back to a drunk Paul and Colleen. Angry through the alcohol, they decide to “give me a card” for my birthday. We had watched Ruthless People a while back and I had mentioned, rather snottily, that they used “Memphis” furniture design principals for the art direction. Paul hated that kind of crazy design, he thought it was “L.A. Ugly”. So in their drunken anger, they took brush to desk and here’s the result:

Sorry Paul

On the back they wrote: “Something to remember us by. Summer ’90. Enjoy your card – Paul and Colleen.”

Today is the end of 18 years of visual assault. I painted it. You can still see the purple and red “donuts” through the white. I know they’re there.

But I kept the back with the “inscription”.

Flub

Distractions

Co-Worker1: (to the whole cube, discussing lunch) You like wasabi?
Co-Worker2: Yes I do! Love it!
Co-Worker1: Wow! I didn’t know that. You gobble that stuff down?
Me: Or snort it?
Co-Worker1: …what movie was that from…?
Me: Jockstrap 1
(silence)
Me: Jackass. One. The first one. Movie. Jackass. Not… (mumble…)
Co-Worker2: What movie are you really thinking of?

Weather Meme

General

From Electronic Replicant, who says I can remix at will:

How do you cope with hot weather?
Suck it up. Sweat it out!

When does the heat make you most crazy?
When people forget themselves and impose their sweaty meat space presence on public transit.

Where do you go to get air conditioning?
Movie theatres, gym, work, my dad’s (but he likes it 2C warmer than tepid.

Your favorite place to sleep in hot weather?
An open tent with a breeze flowing through. Have not been camping once this summer. Soon, we’ll be in Saugatuck MI, though!

Your favorite hot weather food?
Cold fruit. Any kind that has been in the fridge a long time.

Your favorite people to visit in the hot weather?
We’re getting into having ice cream in the gay village at the end of the day and inviting friends or my Dad along. Turns into a “Oh. My. God. Look at HER” bitch session.

Your favorite way to wear your hair in the hot weather?
Uh. Off?

Usual clothing during hot weather?
Work still wants us in casual dress pants, which I think is 100% sexist, because women are allowed to wear skirts. So I’m usually with pants and an untucked short sleeved dress shirt. When I get home: undies. That’s it.

Your favorite hot weather drink?
I still drink tea every morning. I prefer a glass of anything with the glass 100% full of ice.

Is hot weather good for anything?
It reminds us that winter is just as bad/good.