28.2.03 ... a non-scientific poll

Do you create, design and/or maintain websites for a living or for pleasure? If so, do you use an HTML editor (like Dreamweaver, FrontPage, etc.) or hand-code in a text editor (WordPad, etc.)? This came up in a conversation I had recently and I was surprised at the points of view I heard (nothing more on this just yet). I thought that a little investigative work needed to be done, so humour me.   [ œ .. ]


... good grief

The presentation went well. Periodic resounding "WOW"s from any audience is a good thing and presents a confidence boost to the presenter, and when each audience member leaves with more than one new piece of information (which is all I hoped for in my limited expectations) they tend to attribute the wowness of the session to the presenter, when really all I was doing was showing them neat stuff that other people designed. But it felt nice to bask in that reflected glory for a few minutes. The handout is here if you are so inclined. The links speak volumes.   [ œ .. ]

27.2.03 ... busy can be a good thing

Various side-projects and design/crafty tasks have kept me occupied all week. Most notably: working on a presentation I am giving to staff at my library (due tomorrow) and making things with beads. On the first: I agreed to give a Brown Bag Lunch Talk to other librarians where I work regarding a really good conference session I was at a couple of weeks ago. My session is somewhat obscurely titled "Clutter Reduction: Tips to Make your Web Life Easier" and brings together a bunch of online utilities, browser add-ons and other such useful gems that are freely available online that people don't make nearly enough use of. Especially people who depend on the Web to accomplish practically every work-related task, like librarians. I'm using a few of the tools Gary introduced at his session and adding a few of my own personal favourites. It feels like I've been preparing for this for weeks (and in truth, I have), but I haven't quite hit that necessary comfort-level that is required before presenting material to a group of professionals. I'm hoping to hit it sometime between now and 11am tomorrow.

And making things with beads has sucked up all of my downtime. I find that mid-week days off are great opportunities to do either errands or hobby-related stuff, and since I couldn't muster up the energy or enthusiasm for errands yesterday, I went to The Sassy Bead Company instead and made necklaces out of glass and crystal beads and sterling silver findings. Joy! It was fun and addictive and I left the store 3 hours and 3 necklaces later (and a fistful of dollars poorer). On the up side, I now have enough beads to last me though a mid-length seige, even if I hold beading parties every night for 12 of my closest friends. So if your bead needs aren't being met, I might be able to help.   [ œ .. ]

22.2.03 ... plenty of sunshine heading my way

Thanks to Blue Vinyl for Pandamonium, the wickedly terrific font used in this redesign. Some days I redesign because I feel like freshening these pages up. Other days, a new design simply pours forth from a shot of pure, electric creativity. Zippitydodahzippityday!   [ œ .. ]

21.2.03 ... tea is for poets

Leaf worshippers rejoice, Caterina has posted this lovely list of tea recommendations. I walked away from the evil bean in favour of the aromatic leaf five years ago (that milestone was celebrated on January 20th) and I haven't looked back. However, I am not as much of a purist, I will admit to seeking comfort in a tea bag. If it wasn't for them I would have to endure my morning commute without a fragrant brew within reach, and that would be quite insufferable.

I don't drink regular black orange pekoe if I can help it, it always surprises me that that is all some people have to offer when they invite you for a cup of tea. My standard morning cup is Earl Grey, and I branch out from there depending on the time of day. My cats recently broke my everyday teapot, which has forced me to fall back on my 6-cupper, which is far too big for comfort, so I'm planning a trip to The Tea Emporium (my favourite local tea retailer) this weekend to replace it and to stock up on some white tea.   [ œ .. ]


... this is the last thing i will say about Nicholson Baker and it isn't really about Nicholson Baker

Something Baker said during the interview I was at last week has had me thinking all week. He said that he tries to live his life with the following mantra: DWDWD (Do What you Don't Want to Do). Force yourself to make that call, even though you've been putting it off for days; turn on your computer and write that chapter of that book that has been percolating in your brain; sit down and start thinking about that website you said you'd design, but haven't done a damn thing about for months (OK, this is me, not Baker). Basically, deal with things and get them done before the weight of inactivity bears so heavily down upon you that action and usefulness start to seem like an impossibility.

Two things about DWDWD struck me: 1) it seemed like a great way to impose some discipline upon yourself, not only because it's the phrase a relatively famous literary person uses to stir himself out of procrastination, but also because it seems like the kind of thing that might just work, and 2) it is a very utilitarian way to get through any given day. And this is where the waters get muddied for me: should I strive to live a utilitarian life, should being Useful be the be all and end all of human existence?

It must have been somewhere in the middle of my fourth year at university, when I was downing in Brecht, Beckett, and Pinter that I turned my back on utilitarianism and walked towards absurdity, and I haven't looked back since. But last week I took my dry-erase marker, wrote DWDWD on my mirror just above my to-do list, and I've even repeated it to myself in times of disciplinary lapse over the past seven days. I'm not sure if it is working yet, but if it is it might be the first sign of a personal philosophical shift of radical proportions.   [ œ .. ]

20.2.03 ... hermitage

Mike got back from a few-day trip to New York yesterday. I had planned a large-scale clean-up and purge in the apartment while he was away, I seem to work better domestically when I have the place to myself. But the clean-up didn't happen, instead I played the gadabout: Saturday was Liz's and Chris' wedding, which was lovely; Sunday I went to The Hours with my sister, which we both loved and agreed that the screenwriter and filmmakers did a great job with the book, and that the film might not be as enjoyable to someone who hasn't read it; Monday I attended the first meeting of a book club I am now in (we're reading White Teeth); Tuesday I met with some folks on a website I am designing for them; Wednesday I saw Mamma Mia with my sister and grandmother followed by some decent gnocchi at an Italian restaurant; and tonight we celebrate Matthew's (our nephew) first birthday.

Michael and I are not much of a social pair, especially during winter (and especially this winter), and I've been somewhat languid for a few months, at least since this extreme cold has made me feel like doing nothing more than hibernating with some good reading. So it was nice to have a short flurry of days to catch up with family, see some friends after ages, and make a few new ones. I feel like I've filled my social quota for the next few months and can bear out the rest of the winter quitely and peacefully.   [ œ .. ]

15.2.03 ... happy flag day

Today is National Flag Day. And because, here in Canada, we so desperately need a long weekend sometime between December and April, I signed the petition to have National Flag Day considered a statutory holiday, probably because the chances are considerably slim that this other petition will get any results.   [ œ .. ]

14.2.03 ... reading and remorse

Nicholson Baker is a really nice guy.

You might remember him as the guy who wrote the book that Monica Lewinsky bought for Bill that resulted in the seizing of the book store's sales records. But more importantly, Baker was responsible for Double Fold, the somewhat scathing indictment against the library practice of destroying newspapers (which he rightly considers an important part of national heritage) for the purpose of content preservation by microfilm. Understandably, Double Fold caused quite a stir in the library world and it wasn't like he was telling librarians something they didn't already know (that newspapers are valuable artifacts and information sources), but from a library's standpoint, the logistical and practical concerns surrounding the preservation of newspapers in their original format makes the process cost-prohibitive.

I went into the reading last night having only heard a fraction of an interview with Baker on CBC Radio, so not knowing much about him (other than the fact that he's not a librarian) I was fully expecting an aggressive, muckraking activist. It turns out that he's this shy, mild-mannered gentle man, not at all the kind of person you would expect would have caused such a tizzy in the library world. He was interviewed after doing a short reading from his new book, A Box of Matches, at which point he mentioned that he is currently working on another library-related work of non-fiction, this one about a secret department in the Library of Congress that works for the US Air Force. I can hardly wait.

So after the reading was over, I got a chance to meet him and have him sign my copies of Double Fold and his new book. We were having a pleasant chat about the reading and Ian Brown, the interviewer, when I was overcome with the need to tell him that I was a librarian, only I didn't elegantly work it into the conversation, I just sort of blurted it out right in the middle of an otherwise pleasant pause. Not pretty. But he handled this complete non sequitur graciously by first asking me where I worked and then by saying "I hope you took [Double Fold] in the manner in which it was intended and not as an incitement against your profession", and by this point I'm feeling like a complete heel and thinking, here is this seriously nice man and I have put him on the defensive and made him feel the need to justify his work to me.

We rounded out our conversation amicably enough because at the heart of it I don't disagree with his basic premise (nor do a lot of librarians from my understanding), but in my ideal world it would be the newspaper publishing companies who are dishing out the cash for superior newsprint so that the preservation of both form and content does not have to be such an onerous task for libraries. Baker ended our conversation by saying, "If I had it to do over again, I would be an archivist." And a damn fine archivist he would be too.   [ œ .. ]

11.2.03 ... the online annotated Pepys

I read The Diary of Samuel Pepys when I was 15 and it filled my impressionable teenage head with all sorts of fanciful notions of one day being a "diarist" (as opposed to a "journalist") myself. So seventeenth-century-blogging witticisms aside, I'm thinking that this is probably a good thing. And being a fan of marginalia, I also really like the textual annotations.   [ œ .. ]


... a periodical wasteland morning

Articles referenced on various magazine covers in the car dealership's waiting room that rendered me delirious for having remembered to bring my own reading material:

• "Each Day is Valentine's Day: Get your Gal a Valentine's Day Gift that's Sweet and Almost Nothing"
• "Is Fidelity Harmful?"
• "The Khaki: For Every Day, Every Occassion, and Every Man"
• "True Grit: Why the Packers Keep on Winning"
• "Does he Love you? Take the Quiz"
• "The 10 Hottest TV Guys"
• "25 Reasons you should Leave her"
• "Believe it! Pete Sampras Erases a Nightmare Season with a Grand Slam Dream Come True"
• "Oh my God! It's 7th Heaven's David Gallagher"
• "Bake your Honey a Sweet Valentine Treat: Edible Ways to Get to his Heart"   [ œ .. ]

10.2.03 ... WTSF 7

It's been a while since I've opened my referrer logs and even longer since I've had a chuckle or two over the searches that lead to these pages. So I'm resurrecting an old feature: What They're Searching For. And here is issue 7. Previous issues: 1 2 3 4 5 6.

8.2.03 ... city-dwelling cab injustice, an episode of

Ever since my commute went from a 15 minute bus/subway ride to an hour in my warm, zippy car on the highway, I have found it increasingly difficult to suffer the convenience of the TTC for any inter-city trips. So when I have to get downtown without a car, more often than not I take a taxi rather than public transit. And since I am therefore becoming a cab-saavy traveller, I was blown away by a little episode I experienced on Front Street yesterday.

If you live in this city and have cabbed in it even once, you will know that we don't have taxi stands in Toronto, it's purely a hail-one-of-you-see-one cab market. So when I was standing on Front Street yesterday, scanning the horizon for cabs, I was surprised to see a long line-up of people right in front of me, all collectively mumbling under their breaths about the lack of taxis. So I walked to the front of the line, and surely enough there is a post with a sign that read "Taxi Stand." Only someone forgot to tell the cab drivers. Because, like me, there were many people along the street hailing cabs left and right, and taxis were stopping for them, but the poor chumps standing in the Taxi Stand line were being passed over because, presumably when you are standing at a Taxi Stand, you shouldn't have to hail a cab, they should just stop for you.

So somewhat bemused, I joined the line at the Taxi Stand to wait my turn (ludicrous). I should tell you that most of the people in line were incoming tourists, the stand being right in front of Union Station, the main train station in the city. So while the line of 30 people in front of me became more and more nonplussed at the hailers getting cabs and the standers not, a taxi pulled up at the end of the line for a little old lady-hailer with her shopping in hand. Well, one of the standers had had just about enough of the iniquity of the situation by now, and while the little old lady loaded her shopping into the back seat, the agitated man reached in and started pulling the bags out, which got the little old lady very confused and resulted in a tug-of-war for the last bag and ended with her falling over in a befuddled heap on the sidewalk.

Obviously things had gone downhill very fast and while I felt some sympathy for the standers (me now being one of them), I felt even worse for the little old lady because this is Toronto - we don't have taxi stands here.   [ œ .. ]

7.2.03 ... reading & recovery

Some sort of physical lassitude has kept me down for a couple of days. It hasn't been a cold, and it hasn't been the flu either, just a headachey bone-weariness that has been partially cured by lots of sleep and the kindness of one doting husband. It gave me enough time to finish reading two very good books, and start on a third that is also turning out to be fairly enjoyable. However, it has put me behind schedule on a couple of websites I am designing, so this weekend will probably be spent in front of my computer, once again. I also forgot all about the tickets to the Nicholson Baker reading I bought ages ago. The reading is next week and I've promised myself that I will set aside some time this weekend to come up with some kickass questions for the Q & A.   [ œ .. ]

4.2.03 ... dismay

One hour ago. I'm sitting in the food court eating my chicken salad sandwich and trying to read my book but at the table to my right a bunch of guys are talking about their weekend sexploits and at the table to my left one guy is moaning about having failed his Anthropology midterm, to which his buddy responds: "Dude, you should have just cheated off of Dave, we all did." Meanwhile all I can think about is this documentary I saw last year about a writer who boarded a train from Sichuan to Xinjiang in China to interview the farmers who made the trip every year to find work in the province, and when he spoke to one 13 year old and asked him why he wasn't in school he tearfully responded saying that he'd love to go to school, but he has to work to support his family in Sichuan and his biggest dream in life is to own an automobile. And now I am dismayed because all I want to do is shout over the rooftops and tell the kids I see everyday how lucky they are to be here, but really all I'm going to do is find somewhere else to eat my lunch. At first I thought this is what it's like to think like an adult, but then I realised that I had many of the same advantages these kids have, I just never took them for granted.   [ œ .. ]


... recently, in dreams

• My cat bringing me body parts while I am watching television. (Note to self: do not read The Lovely Bones before going to bed).

• Driving to work in a stone-storm. Stones, falling from the sky, bouncing of my car, leaving deep welts in the metal and stripping paint. Underneath my car's silver exterior there is, apparently, a red car waiting to get out.

• Capturing mirror images of myself with my digital camera and seeing a big purple dot where my head should be on the LCD display. Every time. Trying this over and over again with little success, the purple dot only gets bigger with every attempt.

• Going to the LCBO for a wine tasting and swirling, sniffing, gurgling wines that I believe to be truly vile. Everyone else standing in small groups whispering unequivocal praise for each wine, me thinking my buds are letting me down.

• Rummaging frantically through a card catalogue cabinet (in my bedroom), looking for lost jewellery, finding dead bugs and cold spaghetti in every drawer. (Reminder to self: Fear Factor is not real life).   [ œ .. ]

2.2.03 ... automotive enumeration

I've been reading a fascinating book over past week: The Real World of Technology by Ursula Franklin. It is the published version of The Massey Lectures she gave at The University of Toronto in 1989. Franklin has the most interesting and engaging way of personifying technology, not in that schlocky way that a lot of people write technology for the express purpose of making it accessible, but in a way that makes a constructive and critical examination of technology truly fruitful. To wit: