My camera is a trusty little Canon point and shoot digital and it takes fine photos for a goof like me who doesn’t pretend to know anything about photography besides “don’t put your thumb in front of the lens” but it’s rather mediocre in low light situations, leading to very noisy images. At night it’s good at capturing the dark and not much else. This preamble is to explain why I didn’t take pictures of the actual fireworks the two nights I went. However, Nic’s camera could beat up my camera and he did take some nice photos, which you can see on his Flickr page. Links below. Click on any image to go the individual galleries.
Random little things that bug me
I like to think I am a pretty mellow guy and the feedback from others seems to support this. For example, I can’t recall the last time someone asked me to stop yelling.
But like anyone, there are random little things that bug me. Not in a frothing angry hate-the-world sort of way, just in that “oh yeah, this kind of bugs me” sort of way. Here’s an incomplete list:
- the sidewalk drifter: this is someone who walks slowly in front of you on the sidewalk. As soon as you decide to pass by, the person will drift in the direction you are attempting to pass on. If you move left, they drift left. If you move right, they drift right. They also always walk straight down the middle of the sidewalk so as to maximize the space they occupy. I have seen several drifters whose actions lead me to believe they are calculated and therefore, evil.
- people who think they are clever by referring to Canada as Canuckistan.
- The Pet Shop Boys video for “Go West”. The song, originally performed by the Village People, is a blatant gay anthem. The video tries to repurpose it as an east vs. west thing (Russia vs. the U.S.) in order to make it suitable for mass consumption. It’s intellectually dishonest, especially considering Neil Tennant had officially come out around the same time.
- the flaps on cargo shorts. They always curl up. I actually iron mine after washing them to keep them flat and I don’t iron anything.
- full page ads on the front page of a newspaper. You typically only see this on the free dailies like 24 Hours or Metro but still, it’s as good as them admitting that the news therein is secondary to anything else, which doesn’t make a newspaper seem all that valuable a resource.
- ATV strollers, especially on buses. There has been a trend in recent years toward strollers becoming the baby-toting equivalent of an SUV, with huge knobby tires and reinforced seats seemingly more suited to some 4×4 driving in the mountains than taking little Billy downtown to playschool. I have watched several people struggle to simply get these monstrosities onto a bus.
- running a pedestrian-controlled red light. Hey jerk, the light is red because a person is crossing the intersection. Running the light to save you precious seconds on your oh-so-important tasks is not really a fair exchange for seriously injuring or killing someone.
- employees who smoke at the entrance to the store they work in. Why do managers let them do this? Do they think walking through a cloud of smoke is the best way to welcome someone into their shop? Also, people who don’t butt out their cigarettes and instead just leave them burning on the sidewalk. Lazy would-be cancer victims!
And many, many more. Again, these are little things. I don’t gnash my teeth and write angry letters to editors over them, I just note them here because I like lists.
My grocery list
In case I ever become a famous author, here is my grocery list from today for someone to put in hardcover to see if it really would sell. It also highlights how unexciting my diet is and why I managed to lose 40 pounds.
- fat-free cottage cheese
- 3 hothouse tomatoes
- 1 head of green leaf lettuce
- Grape Nuts cereal (a friend refers to it as ‘dirt and sawdust’)
- Tomato and balsamic rice crackers (this is my ‘fun’ food)
- Vitasoy unsweetened soy milk (for the dirt and sawdust above)
- 1 can 6-bean mix
- 2 tomato & basil boneless & skinless chicken breasts (I usually make my own marinade but got lazy today)
- 1 dozen large white eggs
I should note this is not an all-inclusive list since I walk to the store and have so far been unsuccessful in growing additional arms for carrying extra bags, but it’s a good overview of some of the staples I regularly pick up.
I am probably one of three people in North America to eat breakfast cereal with no processed sugar in it (zero in both the cereal and milk). I cheat a little by sprinkling a dozen fresh blueberries on top, though. Yum.
There are times when I use dried beans and others when I go for the can. The only thing I don’t like about dried beans is the long prep time (an hour or so), especially when it’s already quite warm inside. If I can (ho ho) I try to buy beans that are low sodium. Most stores offer this now.
The cottage cheese is my usual go-to snack for later in the evening. The veggies are for my turkey sandwiches, which are quite yummy, if I do say so. Eggs are for breakfast, obviously.
What’s missing from this list vs. one I would have made slightly more than two years ago: any processed food, sugary drinks and/or cookies.
I kind of miss the cookies.
Fireworks, Part 2: Spain vs. Mexico
Wednesday night I returned downtown to watch the fireworks put on by the team from Mexico. Unlike Saturday, we arrived after it was already dark and observed from a higher vantage point above Sunset Beach. Crowds that had been pegged at 300,000 for Saturday were notably smaller but still big for the crowdaphobic.
The Mexican display started in fine fashion but then went into a long interlude with minimal fireworks that were keyed very specifically to the music. Someone to the right of us had a radio broadcasting the music and it was very evident the designers of the show had chosen to have large sections of the display timed to the music they had selected. While a neat effect, it meant the display — especially to those without access to the music — was a bit limp compared to Spain’s balls-out approach. Overall I have to give the nod to Spain’s more crowd-pleasing display. The approach Mexico took would work better for a fireworks show that wasn’t situated in the middle of a large bay.
Remarkably I was able to catch a bus mere moments after arriving at the bus stop post-fireworks and was home a full half hour earlier than on Saturday. Although crowded, the ride was uneventful. If I just got lucky this year with transit, it’s the kind of luck I like.
Starcraft 2 review (I never played it)
This isn’t a Starcraft 2 review since I don’t have the game and have no plans to pick it up, but a Quarter to Three thread in which the original poster wonders where all the reviews are (reviewers did not get access to the game until yesterday, when it went live via Blizzard’s battle.net player portal/matchmaking service) has some nice riffing from various posters on the most trite soundbites from potential reviews. The banter dies out after the first 50 posts or thereabouts in favor of the usual Internet arguments, so I’ll just highlight some of my favorites:
Of all the games to come out this year, this is definitely one of them!
It’s Blizzard’s best game ever as Wing Commander meets Warcraft in the white-knuckle thrill ride of the summer. It’s a visceral, seminal tour de force that’s part comic, part tragic, but all magic.
It’s more good than fun.
If I get my novel published, I can only hope someone describes it as “more good than fun”.
Plaid shorts: I don’t get it
What’s the deal with plaid shorts? At some point in the recent past they were declared ‘it’. When I went to The Bay to look for a plain pair of shorts I felt like I had entered Plaid World. There were racks upon racks of plaid shorts in every possible color and configuration, a veritable sea of plaid to drown in. Oh sure, I found a few token pairs of non-plaid shorts for people who just have to be different and buck the current trend being dictated to us by…uh…whoever is responsible for starting the whole thing. I’d love to have a specific name so I could write a letter. I’d never send the letter but it would feel good writing it.
The non-plaid pairs of shorts came only in two sizes: giant and elephantine, because apparently the average male now has a waist similar to a water buffalo and those who eat reasonably and exercise and thus have a regular-sized waist are a minority that will take what they can get and like it, dammit. I left the store sans shorts (except for the ones I was wearing when I came in. I am not an indecent man, after all).
On a similar note, can someone please declare 3D in movies ‘not it’. This has to be the most unwelcome trend in theaters since they started showing commercials. It’s such a crass move to squeeze even more money from the shrinking theater-going audience. I think I preferred the rumble seats some theaters had when they played Earthquake back in 1974.
Midday manure run
With a number of activities on tap for the evening and not wanting to fall behind on my running schedule I decided to do a rare morning run today, starting out just before 11 a.m. The temperature was around 20ºC when I started and creeping past 24ºC by the time I finished less than an hour later. There was a moderate wind and not a cloud in the sky.
Since it was late morning I figured the sun might become an issue and as pointed out above, the temperature climbed fairly quickly and it was quite noticeable. The shade from the trees and the breeze provided a welcome respite from the direct sun but there aren’t a lot of trees lining the path and the wind wasn’t exactly cool. My first 2 km were still brisk but after that the heat began to get to me and my pace slowed by a whopping 11 seconds over the next two km. As usual I found some equilibrium in the second half of the run and things evened out a bit, but I ended with a pace of 5:37/km (5:38 according to the Nike site and its ‘new math’). While this isn’t a great result, considering how warm it was, the fact that I had to go to the bathroom for the better part of the run, the pungent smell of manure wafting across the park and finally a desire to get some food as noon approached, I’m not going to complain too much.
I will, however, stick to the evenings when I can in the future. The difference in comfort is striking.
Chart (red denotes running in especially warm conditions, green denotes cramps during run):
Distance | July 28 | July 25 | July 21 | July 17 | July 13 | July 11 | July 5 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 km | 5:06 | 5:10 | 5:05 | 5:06 | 5:10 | 5:15 | 5:10 |
2 km | 5:09 | 5:13 | 5:08 | 5:09 | 5:14 | 5:20 | 5:13 |
3 km | 5:14 | 5:15 | 5:14 | 5:12 | 5:18 | 5:24 | 5:14 |
4 km | 5:19 | 5:18 | 5:19 | 5:14 | 5:21 | 5:27 | 5:18 |
5 km | 5:23 | 5:20 | 5:24 | 5:17 | 5:23 | 5:29 | 5:21 |
6 km | 5:26 | 5:22 | 5:28 | 5:20 | 5:25 | 5:31 | 5:24 |
7 km | 5:29 | 5:24 | 5:32 | 5:22 | 5:26 | 5:33 | 5:27 |
8 km | 5:32 | 5:26 | 5:36 | 5:24 | 5:29 | 5:35 | 5:30 |
9 km | 5:35 | 5:28 | 5:39 | 5:26 | 5:30 | 5:36 | 5:33 |
10 km | 5:38 | 5:28 | 5:40 | 5:27 | 5:30 | 5:37 | 5:34 |
Fireworks (the kind in the sky)
Last night I went to the Celebration of Light fireworks at English Bay, the second of four evenings of fireworks this summer. Nic, who conveniently lives only a few blocks away, suggested we head out early. I, not living conveniently a few blocks away, caught the #22 and came downtown, noting the conspicuous steady stream of people heading beachward. As I stood at the intersection of Davie and Thurlow a couple of young guys approached me. One of them asked if I knew where they could get beer. I advised them that there was a cold beer and wine store just a block or so down the street. The guys nodded and thanked me, walking away. The one guy then came back and asked, “What about bud?” I decided not to play cute by acting as if he was looking for someone named Bud and simply shrugged, saying “Around”, which is fairly accurate as far as that thing goes.
Shortly after 7 we headed down to set up near the Inukshuk, which, like all other public art/statuary in the area, had been surrounded by temporary fencing. There was also a row of nearby port-a-potties and what seemed to be a miniature strip mall hastily assembled along the walk on English Bay beach, selling ice cream and glow-in-the-dark lightsabers, among other things. Initially we sat on some of the rocks just off the path, watching the outgoing tide lap up just out of reach but after experiencing profound numb butt I suggested we move slightly back and sit on the edge of the pavement. Much better.
This was the view looking straight ahead from our position, where False Creek meets English Bay. Everything from dinghies to cabin cruisers were bobbing in the choppy water. A few people were even seen briefly swimming, which isn’t the first thing I’d do when surrounded by a million boats.
(click to enlarge)
We witnessed at least three groups of people getting picked up by small boats. The people in the shot below were actually sitting and standing near us for a good while, their conversation bearing witness that the price for a beautiful body is made up for in the brain department. I am of the belief that the guys are genetically designed to always have their underwear sticking out. They simply can’t help themselves.
Speaking of young men with their underwear sticking out, another group had planted itself on the rocks ahead of us. As the day turned to dusk, a couple of police officers came along behind us and asked one of the young men to step forward. As we watched the rock-top interrogation, a small plastic pouch was removed from the p0cket of the young man and he was escorted away for his own private fireworks show. I shall call him Bud.
Looking to our right you can see the rather sizable crowd gathered two hours in advance on English Bay Beach.
Everyone was remarkably well-behaved. A guy sitting in front of us and whose cigarette smoke consistently blew directly into my face left after a few minutes when it became apparent that his friends were not prepared to sit on rocks. A girl to my left watched the fireworks and kept muttering a simple, quiet “Wow” throughout. At one point she expanded on this to her friends: “I really love fireworks.” It was cute — really! The crowd was there to kick back and enjoy the show.
And it was a good show. The Spanish entrant chose to use iconic (and bombastic) classical music — Ride of the Valkyries and Thus Spoke Zarathustra (better known as the music from 2001: A Space Odyssey) but their pyrotechnics were up to the task of matching the grandeur of the music. Last year I saw China’s show and it fizzled out to a limp finale. Maybe rockets don’t fly as high when they’re lined with lead. Spain, however, delivered a rousing series of overlapping explosions that let you know this was the big finish. Most people went home satisfied, I suspect.
Getting out of downtown was surprisingly painless. I walked with the orderly masses down to Burrard and Pender and only waited a few minutes for a #19 to show up. I was home within the hour. Kudos to transit (who imagined such a thing being said by me?) for keeping on top of the giant crowds for these events.
Mr. Blue Sky (the cramp-free run)
Tonight’s run was a bit warmer than the last few — 23ºC, with a light breeze and the sun low in the sky. When I got to the park I decided it wasn’t quite low enough so I walked a lap, looking for any holes on the path that I could fill in (holes made by energetic dogs or perhaps the coyotes the sign on the fence warns about but are never seen). Finding the path hole-free, I set out, keenly aware of the cramptastic time I had on my last run. My start was a bit more cautious than usual as a result but I suffered no cramps or other body discomforts and turned in a solid run, matching my pre-cramp pace of 5:27* and coming in under 55 minutes.
The park was pretty quiet, with no games being played and less than half a dozen people out with their dogs. The guy with the cute puppy that refused to play fetch was back and this time the puppy seemed willing to go along with his owner’s plan, aggressively hunting down the thrown balls. For awhile, anyway.
Chart:
Distance | July 25st | July 21st | July 17th | July 13th | July 11th | July 5th |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 km | 5:10 | 5:05 | 5:06 | 5:10 | 5:15 | 5:10 |
2 km | 5:13 | 5:08 | 5:09 | 5:14 | 5:20 | 5:13 |
3 km | 5:15 | 5:14 | 5:12 | 5:18 | 5:24 | 5:14 |
4 km | 5:18 | 5:19 | 5:14 | 5:21 | 5:27 | 5:18 |
5 km | 5:20 | 5:24 | 5:17 | 5:23 | 5:29 | 5:21 |
6 km | 5:22 | 5:28 | 5:20 | 5:25 | 5:31 | 5:24 |
7 km | 5:24 | 5:32 | 5:22 | 5:26 | 5:33 | 5:27 |
8 km | 5:26 | 5:36 | 5:24 | 5:29 | 5:35 | 5:30 |
9 km | 5:28 | 5:39 | 5:26 | 5:30 | 5:36 | 5:33 |
10 km | 5:28 | 5:40 | 5:27 | 5:30 | 5:37 | 5:34 |
* The Nike site reported my pace at 5:28 and I’m recording that here but the actual Nike+ sensor says it was 5:27. I believe the Nike site rounds up, so I’m sticking with 5:27 as the ‘official’ pace, darn it.
Cramps! Bees! Baseball! A run!
21ºC and high cloud for tonight’s run. For a change of pace, there was virtually no wind.
A baseball game was in progress at the eastern diamond and I was reminded yet again at what a great motivator baseball is for running. This particular set of teams were applying what you call serious wood to the ball, cracking them out regularly at high velocity and with an alarming tendency to head straight toward the northern stretch of the path I run on. I tried to pick up the pace each time I neared so I’d clear the line of fire before the next pitch was released. One ball went into a tree, which is as you might guess is not part of the playing field. Another ball got knocked into the street. I consider myself lucky to have escaped without a goose egg on the noggin.
I had a good start but tragedy struck between the 2 and 3 km mark. Okay, not really tragedy, more like a cramp in my abdomen. I ate a little more than an hour before running and it’s the only thing I can think of to explain it. Whatever the cause, the cramp was enough to put a serious dent in my pace. I almost packed it in but usually a cramp eases up after a few km, so I continued on. This particular cramp made itself comfy, though, and persisted through the remainder of the run. Stupid cramp.
As a result, my pace was a very sluggish 5:39, a whopping 12 seconds off my last run, but I at least got the full 10 km in. And Tiger Woods didn’t congratulate me for the 100th time for completing another 5,000 miles, so there’s that, too.
The final insult came at the end when two bees stubbornly kept flying around the fountain. I was parched but they would not leave. I ran the fountain spigot and splashed water. They buzzed about a bit then settled back, one of them perching on top of the actual spigot itself. A nearby pail was half-full of water for thirsty dogs. I proceeded to take the bucket and dump it directly on top of the fountain. This persuaded the bees to leave long enough for me to get a few sting-free gulps of water.
The chart nicely illustrates where the cramp struck. Note how the pace in the 3rd and 4th km shoots up by a ridiculous 6 and 5 seconds. That pretty much sealed the run right there. By the end my pace had moved closer to what it would normally be, meaning the cramp had either lessened or enough endorphins kicked in for me to mostly ignore it.
Distance | July 21st | July 17th | July 13th | July 11th | July 5th |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 km | 5:05 | 5:06 | 5:10 | 5:15 | 5:10 |
2 km | 5:08 | 5:09 | 5:14 | 5:20 | 5:13 |
3 km | 5:14 | 5:12 | 5:18 | 5:24 | 5:14 |
4 km | 5:19 | 5:14 | 5:21 | 5:27 | 5:18 |
5 km | 5:24 | 5:17 | 5:23 | 5:29 | 5:21 |
6 km | 5:28 | 5:20 | 5:25 | 5:31 | 5:24 |
7 km | 5:32 | 5:22 | 5:26 | 5:33 | 5:27 |
8 km | 5:36 | 5:24 | 5:29 | 5:35 | 5:30 |
9 km | 5:39 | 5:26 | 5:30 | 5:36 | 5:33 |
10 km | 5:40 | 5:27 | 5:30 | 5:37 | 5:34 |
Reviews: Toy Story 3, Inception and The Last Airbender
This summer has been kind of blah for movies so far but on the plus side, it makes for a happier wallet. Here are a few more reviews of what I’ve seen lately.
Toy Story 3
I saw this shortly after it opened in June (blessedly, not the 3D version that asks you to mortgage your home to pay and makes you wear a pair of glasses over your own glasses in order to get a dimmer, slightly unfocused version of the movie) and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Why did I wait a month before writing a review? Because as much as I like Toy Story 3, it’s easily forgotten. In what is assumed to be the final arc for the characters, the plot has Andy heading off to college, with all of the toys but Woody to be stowed in his parents’ attic for safekeeping. Woody is to accompany him to college, out of sentiment. Thanks to a mix-up the toys instead end up in a daycare facility, where they are beset upon by ‘age-inappropriate’ kids who mangle, torture and mutilate them in that cheerful way little kids do.
Making matters worse is a teddy bear kingpin who presents a warm smile but runs the daycare like an internment camp. When Woody arrives to rescue the gang, the movie takes off, essentially becoming a prison break story.
One of the film’s highlights are the villainous henchmen who aid and abet Lotso the teddy bear. One is a freaky ‘realistic’ doll that silently lurches about on its stubby legs, a half-shut eye staring out of an otherwise vacant face. Another is one of those monkeys with cymbals that watches the many monitors of the daycare’s surveillance system, appropriately screeching and going berserk with the cymbals when the alert is sounded. That ought to have set up at least one kid in the audience for nightmares.
The action is brisk and there are some decent setpieces, though I found the Spanish Buzz Lightyear sequence merely amusing. The addition of Ken and Barbie works better than I thought it would, especially Ken being depicted as a vain, fashion-obsessed girlyman. The scene in the incinerator is surprisingly touching and the deus ex machina actually doesn’t feel cheap (it’s also foreshadowed quite openly for those paying attention).
The message of the movie — growing up, letting go, moving on — is presented gently and lovingly. But in the end, as pleasant and warm as Toy Story 3 is, it feels more like a confection, something to enjoy in the moment, not to savor afterward.
And that’s okay. Not every movie needs to be deep or make you think. Speaking of which…
Inception
Inception is Christopher Nolan’s first movie since The Dark Knight two years ago and it a real rarity: a brainy big budget science fiction film. Think about how many of those you can remember seeing.
To discuss the film in any detail would be impossible without spoilers all over the place but without spoiling too much, the story takes place in a world where people are able to invade the dreams of others, literally stealing their ideas from the sleeping and subconscious mind — a process known as extraction. Cobb, the character played by Leonardo DiCaprio, assembles a team to work for a client that has come to him. Saito (Ken Watanabe) wants something a little different, though. Rather than an extraction, he wants Cobb and his team to plant an idea into the mind of the son and heir of a competing business owner in order to convince the son to break up his father’s empire and thus eliminating Saito’s main competition.
Planting an idea is an inception, not an extraction, something most of the characters believe is impossible. Cobb is not one of them and he has motivation for wanting to succeed — Saito has promised to clear the way for him to return to the US to be with his two children, as he is currently on the run as a fugitive, accused of a crime he says he didn’t commit.
We follow the characters down the proverbial rabbit hole, where the story plays out as a series of dreams within dreams within dreams. Nolan takes pains to explain all of the rules of this subconscious manipulation and in doing so reveals one of the weaknesses of the film: fairly heavy exposition. It’s not a deal breaker, however and apart from what I felt was some clunky dialogue early on, it’s blended in fairly believably as characters explaining things to others not ‘in the loop’.
Much like a movie about time travel, Inception fairly brgs you to look for plot holes after the fact, most obviously with the ending and final shot, which some may regard as brilliant, while others dismiss it as facile.
SPOILERS IN THE NEXT PARAGRAPH
On reflection I think the final scene is a dream and not reality, mostly based on the children looking exactly as they did in Cobb’s dreams. Trying to invent a plausible reason for them being identical in age, wearing the same clothes and and even standing in the exact same spot in the yard is just too much. Cobb is caught in the limbo the film describes as the nether state where you cannot wake from a dream and risk scrambling your brain if you stay ‘down there’ too long. It is there, not in reality, that he is happily reunited with his children.
While all of the characters are good, I especially liked Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s Arthur, who operates with a steely precision, whether it’s fighting in a hotel hallway where gravity has suddenly gone askew or questioning Cobb’s mental state (a conflict between the characters is hinted at but never develops). DiCaprio is decent but not outstanding but this is a movie more about ideas rather than heart, so it’s not surprising that most of the characters exist to simply service the plot. We’re not here to observe any character arcs or growth, apart from Cobb’s and while that gives the film a bit of a detached feel, it’s not problematic.
With so much to chew over I have an urge to see Inception again. I’ll be interested to see if the audience in general shares that feeling or if it fades quickly in favor of the next moron movie. Definitely recommended.
The Last Airbender
I had the good sense not to see this but Nic didn’t! Read his review here. Currently tracking at 8% on Rotten Tomatoes.
A trio of random websites: the future, the past, the present
A few interesting and random websites I’ve come across or been linked to.
Paleo-Future: a look at the future that never was. I’m a sucker for this stuff because most predictions are hilariously wrong. We were supposed to have baby machines and flying cars by 1980, let alone 2010 (the year me make contact). Granted, some of the predictions are made based more on wish fulfillment and less on using a rigorous scientific method in asserting what is likely to come to pass. Heck, Asimov had spaceships running on nuclear power.
alt/1977 is kind of a reverse take on Paleo-Future’s predictions and instead takes four current electronic devices — an MP3 player, a laptop, a portable game machine and a cellphone and imagines what they would look like if they had been released in 1977. As the artist Alex Varanese writes, “I’ve learned that there is no greater design element than the anachronism. I’ve learned that the strongest contrast isn’t spatial or tonal but historical. I’ve learned that there’s retro, and then there’s time travel.”
Michael Wolf’s Hong Kong architecture: Having looked at how the future didn’t turn out and what the past might have looked like, the final site is a fascinating if somewhat bleak look at Hong Kong skyscrapers, with the camera in close enough to exclude everything but the sheer expanses of steel and concrete reaching into the sky. The effect is somewhat bewildering.
Paleo-Future and Michael Wolf photo links provided by Nic.