Read this slowly, in a longing — sad — sort of way. Like your facing the inevitable. It’s not that I’m tired of being political, but with the looming elections (here and abroad) the issues have become clouded in a media frenzy of fragmented, quasi-facts. Things are mis-shapen, changed, or manipulated to form orwellian truths. The slide, we realize too late, is in progress. I see a pattern emerging, and it only those with even more raw opinions than myself who will be able [...]

I was driving to work this morning pondering the idea that about half the cars travelling in the opposite direction were covered in a loose layer of snow. Haven’t seen that in a while. Last night, I wandered over to the video store where I had earlier spotted a cheap previously viewed copy of the Matrix Revolutions on DVD. I bought it, walked it home, unwrapped, openned, and plopped the disc into my computer to watch it on my widescreen laptop. Double-take. It was [...]

Excitement for the morning has included a new office-mate: I arrived to my desk to find a large Canadian goose idly watching into my floor to ceiling window. Besides the pecking on the window and frame, and the sloppy litte messes he has left on the otherwise clean floor of the patio outside, its almost entertaining to have my own personal zoo station. Perhaps he will convince his mate a few meters away that they should nest here. Then Tobi would, at least, have [...]

We found a few moments yesterday to put up our Christmas tree. It was actually — sort of — a Christmas-overload day. Karin baked five batches of various sugary holiday treats. I hung the lights outside. We bought some presents and Christmas candy. We set up our tree, as mentioned previous. And then we watched “A Christmas Story” over a glass of mulled cider, and a big bowl of nuts. I think we’re starting to realize that the holidays are approaching. It’s difficult to [...]

The thing about BC Place is — the thing you really need to know — and would know if you lived in this city and were even slightly privy to even the shallowest bit of Vancouver trivia — is that BC Place, the football stadium, is inflated. The white pillowy marshmallow that is the roof of the mega-complex, is held up, largely, by a whole bucket full of air pressure.

The elevators in my office building are a source of both endless frustration and timeless amusement. Apart from the standard pains of some quirky artificial intellegence built into their circuitry that ensures they are always on the wrong floor whenever I arrive in the building, both elevator cars usually parked on the fourth floor or sulking in the basement, and the twinned pain of the annoying machines — despite having a mere six floors to service between the two — never seeming to do what they are supposed to do, they can also offer an occasional quirk in their interaction with the humans that ride them.

There is this dreary thick haze hanging over the city lately. It’s like fog, but it seems wetter and more lingering. We found ourselves downtown last night, wandering Robson, tripping in and out of all the stores and shoppes, sneaking by the numerous sushi restaurants wondering when we’d even begin to find the time to try them all. Gyozas, noodles, and raw fish everywhere we looked — except up, as the tops of the buildings were shrouded in the fog creating this lurking mysterious [...]

Rather than go outside in the rain today at lunch, I parked myself at my desk with a bag of popcorn and played Fishy. I’ll need to make sure I don’t get too addicted. Drat!

Karin is sitting beside me in the Internet cafe here at the hotel resort, as we spend our first rained-out day trying to fill the hours. I don’t have much to write besides that. We’re here. You’re not. Ha ha. Some advice to those planning to travel to Mexico in the near future: 1) There is a REASON everyone else goes to their hotel rooms between the hours of 1 and 3 PM — and it doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with their [...]

I was in my work clothes. I was hot and tired. I should have taken the day off and joined them.

It is spring, the sun is out, and Wild Kingdom is once again showing from my cubicle window. Each year when the weather turns nice the drama begins anew as the city fauna dance their dance — play their game of life and death in the big city — atop our expansive balcony, right outside my window. During that first exciting year that I experienced the joys of work, I was honoured with the dismemberment show, as our friend the hawk made meals out [...]

As many of you who read this webspace may or may not know, there is a complex underbelly that occurs in its development. A nifty little system called Blogger (recently sold to Google) forms the essence of my ability to post quickly and frequently here in this part of the net-i-verse. You can take that as a “good” or a “bad” or however you will, but the point is, without this little tool, I would still be hacking together websites with poor efficiency. One [...]

Another bus story. Yes, I’m sorry, but when you spend 10 percent of your waking hours on public transit, you also tend to gather stories like a snow ball rolling snowily down a snowy hill in a snowstorm. Pulling up to the stop outside of our office we encounter the telltale red and blue lights of a police cruiser. Sitting wounded on the side of the road: a white minivan with a reasonably normal front end, but with a rear that looks as though [...]

[ A ] It’s Saturday. My holidays are on the down-swing. In a few short days even the long weekend will be over, and my short stretch of freedom will follow close behind. [ B ] I feel like waffles, but I’m too lazy to make them, I think. [ C ] I have been reading maddly through the second Otherland. Slow, yes. Fast, yes. Time to read, only in the last few days. Appreciating how difficult it must be to make a middle [...]

…but as the temperature outside is up around 30C, I think I’ll give that a miss for right now: maybe later when it has cooled down a little more. Instead I just sit here and suck down a few freezies to help with the heat. Steve jumps back into the action with a: Karin won the game of trivial pursuit, if I remember correctly. The old “I’m not very good at trivial pursuit, so this latest streak of correct questions at the end of [...]

What, at some point, I will need to do this evening to return to my humble abode among the Vancouverites

Steve writes: The actual CD costs less than your quoted $2 to make when made in large quantities. When you start talking about several thousand copies, you begin to talk about marginal costs of quarters and dimes. And the artist’s portion? Often it sits around 50 cents per CD. Often less. So where is the rest of the cost of a $20 CD going? profit, shipping, advertising, profit, advertising, and (according to the RIAA) paying for the 90% of bands that are not profitable. [...]