lunging our way to success

i forgot to mention a particularly funny anecdote from saturday that A referenced in his comments on my last post. L's boyfriend T was talking about someone he knew in college or university, who wiped his butt after a deuce from BACK TO FRONT. which of course, due to the unnecessary complexity of such an endeavor, resulted in much hilariousness and the coining of the term "s**tnut" or "s**tballs" (the obvious by-product of such an action.) it was pretty funny.

almost as funny as the sight of the dotytron and i, going for a run last weekend, early in the morning, doing some warm-up lunges on the sidewalk, as per my little bro chova's instructions (chova has a body fat ratio of negative 10.) when we heard a commotion coming from a neighbour's house and saw workmen walking in and out with piles of lathe and dumping them in one of those rented dumpsters, we wanted to investigate, but didn't want to seem to bait up about snooping. so we LUNGED OUR WAY OVER TO THE PERSON'S HOUSE AND GAWKED (WHILE STILL LUNGING.) !!!!!!!!! imagine the dotytron, in all his 6'4" glory, LUNGING. it's funny in and of itself. then imagine us, in our wackadoo running gear (where we end up looking like twins because we have identical MEC fleece zippies), lunging our way down the street. hilarious.

this is last night's dinner. i took leftover corned beef and hand sliced it thinly. then piled it on rye bread with some sauerkraut and swiss cheese, buttered the outsides, and threw it in the panini, making a bastardized reuben of sorts. i served it with old fashioned potato cakes made with leftover champ mixed with the creamed cabbage and then fried. it was pretty effin' tasty.

we polished off the last of the lemon chiffon pie for dessert. we had the roomie over for dinner - it was nice. we're baby-sitting her while l'army is away.

some things that blew my mind today:

1) i read in business week (and apologies for being a n00b) that people actually have to pay for "extras" like a plum tree and whatnot when they play those stupid games that nobody cares about on facebook like mafia wars or farmville. WTF?!? playing those games already makes you appear to be a colossal loser of the highest order. finding out you PAY for that dubious privilege just blows you out of the water, imo.

2) uhhh, that's it, really.

tonight was "takeout night" so we ate wendy's big bacon classics (doubled) and i ordered my first ever fresca under duress. we were sitting in the drive through lane and i didn't want anything super sugary so i was asking if they had diet root beer and then the guy misunderstood my question and started rattling off the drinks and i just went all tourette's and shouted "fresca!" and that's the story of my first fresca. i kinda like it. it's zingy! like, more citric than sprite or 7up. do they even MAKE 7up anymore?!?

here's the thing with being with someone for 9 years: you kind of start to become the same person. there's a lot of "get out of my head" moments. one of the things we do when we can't decide what to do/buy etc. is we do a "on the count of 3, say what (paint colour/birthday gift/restaurant) you want" and then count to three and shout out whatever our choices are. the number of times that we're shouting the exact same thing is running at like, 98% so in order to decide on where to eat last night, we had two "on the count of 3s" - 1 for a fast food chain, and 1 for a non-chain restaurant. we both shouted wendy's and we both shouted square boy as our non-chain. it kind of streamlines the decision making process but it's also hella creepy.

fin.

weekend wrapup

what a weekend - ram jiggedy jammed.

friday night was so fun! B & G go way back but this was my first time hanging with S & P. it's such a small world. the dotytron went to teacher's college with S who is married to P, who attended undergrad with G, who me, the dotytron, and B went to high school with! i know the above just feels like an overly long and unnecessarily coded gossip girl post, but if you read it through, you'll get the gist.

we started things off with cocktails and i put out a little board with crackers, that mint-pea-pecorino dip, and some sliced cured sausages. i made the fennel and pomegranate salad with proscuitto:

which the dotytron thinks would be just as good (if not a little better) without the proscuitto.

i followed this up with bouillabaisse with homemade fish stock, shrimp, mussels, and chunks of tilapia, with a roasted red pepper and almond rouille on toasted homemade bread:

the bouillabaisse looks a little stiff here because i forgot to take a picture at the time and had to iwo jima one the next day.

and for dessert i made us a chocolate caramel tart with sea salt:

we drank (and by "we" i mean "they") about 4 bottles of wine over the evening and people didn't leave until close to 1am...which was SO LATE! on a weeknight??? as soon as we locked the door behind our guests, the dotytron ran around hissing, "IT'S SO LATE! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" which was pretty funny. the dinner conversation was easy and fluid and it was highly enjoyable. i love dinner conversation that's stimulating and engaging.


the next morning we high-tailed up to markham to await the arrival of my sister and the goons. we watched "united 93" while we were there. HOLY CATS, this movie is AMAZING. i had avoided it when it first came out because i thought it was going to be sentimental and exploitive (like "world trade centre"). it was anything but. it's crazy...it tracks the unfolding of the events of 9/11 in "real" time from the perspective of air traffic controllers as the first sketchy inklings of something being amiss and hijackings start to appear. it shows the immense bureaucracy and small, crucial failures of communication as the FAA coordinatres with local regional air traffic controllers, the massive, country-wide air traffic control command post, and the military. then you see the passengers of united 93 as their plane is hijacked and they make their last, desperate attempt to take the plane back. it's SO FREAKIN' good. i can't commend it enough. some of the air traffic controllers are played by the real people - including the head of national air traffic control.

the thing is...even though you know what happens...you ACTUALLY think the united 93 passengers have a chance to pull it off. and it's so awesome when they finally band together and figure out the strategy. at first i was like, "why did they wait so long? if it's a zero-sum equation and you know you're going to die, i would just go at the terrorists with everything at my disposal" my initial plan would be to take my carry on luggage and run at the hijackers with it in front of me to block the knives. my second tactic was to take the flight attendants pots of boiling water and hurl it at them. and my third tactic was to use the fire extinguisher and spray those effers in the face (all of which, i might add, get employed in the movie). but then rico informed me that 9/11 was a game changer because prior to that, the standard hijacking procedure with airplanes was to take the plane, land it, and then use the passengers as collateral. the suicide mission of the plane-as-weapon hadn't been done before...so the passengers actually were working under the previous paradigm.

it was a pretty harrowing start to the weekend - as it had me, the dotytron, and s-dawg weeping by 11am. weeping AND hating terrorists.

saturday night we went to our supper club...which is a gathering of our high school friends on a roughly monthly basis. it was at 7 numbers on the danforth, which ended up working out really well, as they do a set-menu type set-up for groups of 5 or larger. so basically, you pay $27/person (plus tax and tip) for your food and they send out platters of all their primi (so we got a platter each of calamari, a spinach salad, a panzanella - that was so-so, some beans, and some kind of italian olive-ratatouille type thing with bread) that you pass around and serve yourself from. then we get a platter of each of their three pastas (an orecchiete with ricotta, a meat lasagne, and some kind of spicy linguine) and then you pick your secondi (i got lamb rack and the dotytron got involtini). it's a pretty sweet deal and kind of perfect for large groups.

i got into a big discussion with our friend L over the value of "unconferences" and the CAMP-type structure, especially as a way of concretizing any real, tangible change. here's an article on BarCamp from wikipedia which describes the user-generated, horizontally integrated nature of these conferences. my thing with them is this: in a small organization, or for purposes of a small, attainable goal (ie. tech dudes coming together to talk about fixing google wave), or even as a method of fostering the aura of participatory democracy, then fine, i guess these things "work" in so far as there's no real measure by which you can judge the success of them (a lack of accountability that's built into the method - isn't that convenient?) my thing is this: for stuff like, "how do you envision a better toronto?" "how do you fix transportation in the megacity?" "how do we foster more culture in markham?" i'm not really INTERESTED in hearing what random mcgee has to say - it basically devolves into a town hall meeting (and we've seen how productive THOSE can be).

i believe in EXPERTS in their field. i also believe that in general, you don't really WANT to hear what the majority of people have to say about most concrete, technical issues. hearing what the majority have to say results in a g-d mess like the no big box in leslieville campaign, which meant that no, there wasn't going to be wal-mart anymore, but now it's going to be a yard for the ttc. great! but BTW, the issue has now been all but abandoned by all the urban planning jane jacobs wack jobs who want every street in the city to be sesame street. so, they take away wal-mart, and then wash their hands of the issue.

what drives me absolutely bonkers is that people who believe in this kind of participatory democracy or social engagement think that this means THE WORLD IS MADE UP OF PEOPLE LIKE THEM. it's a self-aggrandizing and reifying logic that's the worst kind of dogmatism, under the guise of a somewhat patronizing, "inclusiveness." these are people for whom toronto consists of nothing north of eglinton, west of roncesvalles and east of greenwood. forget about scarborough. forget about flemingdon park. forget about the 8 bangladeshi families sharing a 2 bedroom apartment at victoria park. forget about dufferin and lawrence. those aren't part of the community gardens and bike paths future envisioned by the people who show up at these "unconferences." if you ACTUALLY listened to the majority of residents, then much-needed infrastructure like the st. clair streetcar right-of-way wouldn't have ever happened. because you know who HATES streetcars and the lack of parking for their single-occupancy vehicles? MOST PEOPLE. lol!

it just kind of boggles my mind sometimes how profoundly ignorant people can be about the realities of managing millions of people, and who the people are that they're managing. does that make me pessimistic? probably. am i saying that you don't try? no. i'm saying that in order to effect real change, we have to elevate the nature of the discourse and realize and accept that we're dealing with PEOPLE, not idealized types. i'm not saying i'm not all for community gardens. go for it! that's amazing! but i wouldn't necessarily turn to social media "consultants" as my guides for fixing health care or what have you. crowd sourcing? are you effin' kidding me? as the oatmeal put it: "you sound like a douchebag with no real job skills" LOL!!!

obviously the above diatribe has digressed from the origins of my original discussion with L. it's all wrapped up in recent stuff that's been floating through my head about my profession and my ongoing lament for the loss of rigor, nuance, and the ability to think contextually and creatively. i also attended a webinar by the self-styled (and slavishly lauded) "guru" in the field of librarianship and information sciences. his name is stephen abram. i've heard him speak a few times and his general thrust is making sure that librarians don't render themselves obsolete by being resistant to "technology." what i find (and keep in mind, he is EMPLOYED by a company that creates strategic information systems for libraries - don't ask me what that means), is that generally, he gives you a snapshot of "where things are going" without any real analysis or critique. this talk was called "it's 2010: 20 technologies to watch and how to cope" and it was about how students are using laptops and people are distracted and we have to package information accordingly for these short attention spans and say goodbye to privacy blah blah blah. but the thing that's missing is: JUST BECAUSE THAT'S THE WAY THINGS ARE GOING, SHOULD THAT NECESSARILY BE THE CASE? where is the space for a dialectical ENGAGEMENT with these forces? and also, where's the discussion of the fact that we're basically allowing corporations to dictate how we live/consume/think? it's not like apple is producing the iphone as an act of charity, for crissakes. it's not like google is undertaking their open book initiative as an act of altruism. C'MAAAAAN.

errr...yeah, where was i? oh yeah, basically, call me crazy or a luddite, but i still believe in experts and peer-reviewed journals. yesterday we ate an insane amount at asian legend and went back home to my family's crumbling familial estate to homer out and then my sis and rico and the kids and i went to eat at caplansky's and then they drove me home, because my sis and the outlaw bro hadn't seen the house since we got our ceilings done. and painted. and our furniture in. the kids were pretty adorable. they were super-hyper about being the experts about aunt lagerfeld's house and were buzzing around wanting to show their parents "their" room in the house. lol! it was really cute!

tonight for dinnie i made us an eggplant bharta with green beans thoren and steamed brown rice. trying to get back on the healthy train after a rather decadent weekend. now, if i can only get enough gumption together to do some yoga tonight...

anyway, that was the weekend. i recently finished the audiobook for michael chaybon's "manhood for amateurs" - full review coming up.

fin.

conferencing

i went to a conference today. it was okay. my chief concern was making sure that i ate enough - to that end, i spent $20 on food (nutella crepe, italian sausage, poutine, water). i also saw richie florida. he was the keynote speaker. i don't want to say he comes off a little greasy except i just did. also, i know nothing about him but i was kind of suspicious already (in the way that i'm always suspicious and mistrusting of anything i don't know about), so i was blathering to K, "what kind of credentials does he have anyway?" only to find out in the intro that he's taught at harvard, got his phd from columbia - you know, provincial colleges like that. lol! his talk was decent, but unsubstantiated by data, which he claims is in the book. now i'm going to have to read the book(s) so i can tear him a new a-hole with authority.

i also went to my first camp/unconference session...it was called WIREDcamp. it was all about how anyone who doesn't use social networking is a tool (that's their position, not mine) and how twitter is the be all and end all. i called someone a fascist. mainly for saying that use of social networking tools should be used as a base-level skill before hiring someone. i was like, ummmmm...how many of you know how to manipulate data effectively in an excel spreadsheet? and the rebuttal i got was that those skills were way more specific. how 'bout you come talk to me when oh, i don't know, INTELLECTUAL RIGOR, READING COMPREHENSION, AND THE CONCEPT OF COMPARABLE DATA becomes a base-level skill before hiring someone? how about that? you gotta crawl before you can walk, son.

i was like, you know why people hate you guys? because you act like freakin' social networking moonies. the discourse gets framed with a quasi-religious fervour that can be QUITE off-putting and alienating. also, SOCIAL NETWORKING IS ABOUT THE SOCIAL! there has to be a USE for it in your day to day work life. so yes, if you're in communications or running consultations or something, then i can see the use of it. but it shouldn't be mandatory for someone working in payroll or something - especially as it can't be demonstrated that for their WORK it's necessary or will make things easier. let people have fun on facebook on their time off, to chat with their friends. and another thing - it's one thing for twitter to exist, it's another thing to force our work flows to adapt to it for the SAKE of it. make the technology work for you, don't force your work into the technology.

also the discourse gets framed in a very antagonistic way and you know what? that's REALLY OFF-PUTTING. plus, it's hard to get into social networking for work when you work in a politically sensitive environment. social networking tools allow for the collapse between different subject positions that we assume in our lives - so work people can suddenly access stuff about me, whereas traditionally - those avenues were kept separate. at the same time, when you work in a professional environment, you have to MAINTAIN those subject positions concurrently - so you can't really be "you" if you link your job information to your profile.

i'm coming across as more negative than i actually am. i think this stuff is great, overall. wikis really helped my family plan our family vacay and it has cut down on the backlog of email convos when you're doing group projects at work. and twitter is fantastic in giving me a window into REAL TIME spats between lindsay lohan and samantha ronson. but i think the discourse is all-too-often really patronizing to people who don't use the stuff. like you HAVE to. it's a choice! remember choice? and "social networking tools" becomes this black box for a larger picture that's not being discussed - stuff like knowledge management and retention, like information management, like general media literacy. it should be part of a larger dialogue to make the base of skills in a workplace more well-rounded - so that i know how to use outlook effectively AND post on a wiki AND understand what it means to be flamebroiled on a messageboard for being an attention whore AND organize your blog reading list. it's all part of it. knowledge and information as a WHOLE, not solely through the lens of social networking tools.

[/rant]

we got rid of the dining set. yay! so all that leaves now is the bed. the bed isn't a deal-breaker - it's easy enough to take apart and move. so now we need a new dining table. i kind of want something that's expandable - as you all know, i love to entertain and frequently host large groups. i'd like it to comfortably seat 8, if at all possible. space is a bit of an issue. the easiest route for me to go would be mid-century danish style - but i don't want our whole house to be that and we already have a buffet in the dining room that's going to be like that.

really, i want something kind of rustic, solid wood, and rough hewn - maybe with industrial touches like metal legs. something like this:

from visitor parking.

from kiosk furniture and accessories.

i know we're talking tables, but these chairs (also from kiosk) are hot fiyah:



from design within reach.

but those are all at least 2 g's if not more. CRAZY! then you peep crate and barrel and you say, "damn sons...why you gotta be all sensible and shiz?" check out these beauties (on sale for $699! seats up to 8!):

terravida (new and reclaimed teak)

basque dining table (solid mango wood)

pacifica (solid teak)

drake extension table (less enamored with this guy, but it's the only one that's an extension table)

this one is a grand and a bit - but so nice! solid european white oak!

solid american walnut! over a grand, too (closer to 2).

the big sur - a little light coloured for my liking and also coming close to 2 grand.

the thing with the crate and barrel tables is that they're 99% all wood, whereas the super design-y king east ones are way more expensive AND they're particle board with veneer. so wack!

surprisingly, those school chairs i posted a while ago, are kind of cheap compared to regular dining chairs. adult sized ones average about $40 a chair and you know those mothers are built to last - plus they come in a wide range of colours. i like 'em.

okay that's enough outta me for one night.

fin.