webjos of the world, unite

Howdy. Winter still here, but a crack is there, letting light through.

After that Twestival shindig, I kind of got pulled into that meta-status world of Twitter, Blip.fm, and Tumblr. Contrasting Twitter and Facebook is an interesting exercise. I mean, Twitter is more about listening in on other people's thoughts while Facebook is this claustrophobic high school with kids showing off their latest works to each other, gossipy, glossy. To the internet, everyone! Let's all soak up that brilliant glow, those heavenly emissions. See what I see and despair! Or just take note of this mundane detail I've decided to fill the dead air with, it's just me wanting to get some attention from anyone Facebook decides should hear. Toronto! Snap out of it! Facebook isn't free -- you're spending your life reading notifications, one page refresh at a time.

I didn't mean for this to turn into a rant but I guess it kind of did. Me, a dinosaur of the blog/webjo age, already on my way out, dysfunctional, of little consequence. Justin said to publish yourself, and now we swim in a murky fog of people spewing out everything about themselves, so many signals shouting over one another so that they are all noise. It's spam in a non-commercial personal form. It's everyone pretending to pay attention to everyone else. It's writing tiny speeches that live for about 3 seconds. Why send an e-mail when you can write a bland, commitment-free message to no-one?

Well, here come the trivials. Uhm.... actually, can't think of any that I really want to write about. Routine is much the same. I joined a bicycle maintenance course for April/May with a friend. Ah crap, my school's symposium is during that time. Waiting for my passport renewal to get processed. Applied to volunteer at a kid's camp. Am catching up on Flight of the Conchords, 30 Rock, and The Office. Saw that Chocolate film by the Ong Bak dude and it was slightly too silly to be enjoyable.

Comments

Post a Comment

Hotness

Enter Whitby

So yes, the move happened, and like all moves was a haze of mind-numbing packing, desperate rushing, meals on the run. We hired help to pack and move, which really, is the only option, but the experience remained a heavy energy drain. MJ and Sora stayed at the apartment while I got the cats accustomed to their new home. I'd anticipated that the larger space would ease their stress, and it has measurably, but not as as completely as I'd hoped -- they remain aloof at best to each other. How's Whitby, you ask? While my bitter disappointment of moving out of Toronto has lost the worst of its sting, the wound is reopened whenever I go outside, whether to walk the missing sidewalks, or ride the infrequent buses, or drive the inscrutably clogged roads. We're located on the edge of the downtown, such as it is, which simply highlights the slapdash zoning and lack of any kind of urban planning. The library is really nice though . We are mostly settled: The boxes are gone, the fur
Read more

Peterborough

Image
Back in September we took a family trip to Peterborough -- a sort of holiday for Sora and I and a regular work day for MJ. I guess I must be getting old because I found the 2+ hour drive draining, a real slog. The Prius is a pretty comfortable ride but my body complains from sitting that way for so long. Arriving in Peterborough, my first time, felt both familiar and strange. I could see how the freshly resurfaced downtown attempted to hide some dusty history, bringing to mind the downtowns of Kitchener and Guelph, which I guess makes sense as this is another university town: The same 60s low-rise downtown, pockmarked with signs of poverty, the same pre-war homes, many chopped into multi-unit rentals, the same bafflingly congested roads that compete with inadequate public transit. Our hotel was located just outside the downtown and served well enough. Sora found the experience exhilarating, excited by the new bed, a new room with just mama and papa. We ordered some Greek takeout, very
Read more

Yo

So yeah, I continue to float and bob along with the tides of 2023. The initial shocks and surprises of owning and maintaining a house have mostly dimmed themselves into the background, a hum that periodically bumps into shape, sometimes scary, sometimes less so. I am hopeful for a more relaxed December. Sora is growing so fast, it’s really true what they say. I do miss her being a little peanut but I’m routinely amazed by her development. And as she gets bigger I find watching over her a lot less draining, a lot more interactive. I’ve started watching a lot of chess and thinking about chess. I’m still quite terrible, laughably terrible. I am curious to know if I can get Sora into it. I played and loved Lies of P, definitely my favourite game this year. Diablo 4 was disappointing and Starfield was just so tedious and dead. I am currently really into Sekiro, a game I’d always wanted to try. I do wonder how many more years I can play these flicky-reaction games. Speaking of years, my eyes
Read more