Tag Archives: tv

11.05.11 [Wednesday]
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australia, travel

the internet is installed on thursday

And I never did get the hang of Thursdays. But whatever. Here I am. I have an apartment that isn’t a normal tiny apartment the kind I’d pictured Holly and I living in. I mean, I looked at those kinds of places but didn’t end up getting one because my decision making process really needs someone else to keep an eye on it. I tend to think “This weird way of doing things is weird so it’s obviously better!” Which sadly may not always be the case.

Anyway. The apartment I got for Holly and me is in a former storefront and has a shared kitchen and a ridiculous number of TVs for us not to watch. There are rooms with couches and a deck and a barbecue and two microwaves and a gas range and I swore there was an oven, but when I moved in it had disappeared.

The shared kitchen thing. Kitchens are always so wasteful if you aren’t using them. It makes so much sense to share one. But it kind of depends on the rest of the people in the building to see how it’ll be. It’s entirely possible this could turn out to be terrible. In any case, it’s just till December (or less time if my visa gets denied, I guess).

The apartment is right near my future workplace so that’s good. It’s so weird to think about working five days a week for 8 hours a day though. Having weekends mean something. I don’t know how I’ll do it for so many months. I’d be kind of happy with this being my bout in the 9-5 world, combined with our bout in a weird apartment world. Something to do and then move on from. But we’ll see. Maybe I’ll love it.

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10.10.07 [Thursday]
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school, tv

vocal knife-fighting nerd

On my flight back from Winnipeg on Monday I watched my first ever full episode of The Big Bang Theory, and it was the introduction of Evil Wil Wheaton, which I’d heard about of course, but never seen. It was sitcommy, but acceptably nerdish fun. It was good to have a bit of a grounding in it when I was compared to Sheldon two days later in some groupwork at school, for talking about cool applications of RFID technology. (For the record, I was much more Sheldon-ish when I was younger.)

When we do these discussion kinds of things in our classes I’m very conscious of the different ways people have of talking about stuff. For me, I see those times as a bit of a testing ground to put ideas out there to fight. When someone has a better idea, you concede to it and things go on. This works great when no one is really attached to the things they say. They’re just words and you’re using them to understand stuff. If people do take this stuff personally, man, I am an asshole. Constantly prodding with “What about this?” and “But that breaks down if we think about this” kinds of utterances. I feel like I’m also doing a good job of seeing what other people are saying and abandoning my mistaken ideas/not starting actual fights.

In some groups I’ve worked in so far, it’s been great. But in some I feel like I’m stopping other people from talking. I mean, library people aren’t necessarily known for having the most forceful personalities in the world. So even though I’m not insisting on “having my way” it might look that way and people might just be thinking I’m a big jerk and not want to talk. I try to modulate and adapt to the table, but sometimes (like when I’m sorting Lego) I get a bit carried away and forget that not everyone believes in gladiatorial arenas for ideas.

So, sorry for being an asshole, everyone.

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10.03.16 [Tuesday]
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tv, whining

too big to fail

I’m 30 now. Which is fine.

It was a good enough day. Had lunch with my mom, chatted a bit with Holly, worked a short shift, cut my hair and found I hadn’t doomed Reyn’s cat to a life on the streets by accidentally letting her out yesterday. I’ll finish moving into Reyn’s place tomorrow, bringing Sinatra with me. I hope she does okay with the new place and Kittenoh.

The second best part of my day was explaining to an eleven-year-old how pinchies on St. Patrick’s Day isn’t a “real thing” but also how that fact won’t stop you from getting pinched (for not wearing green) if everyone you know is doing it. The tyranny of the mob and their lies, I explained with a shrug. The best part of the day was finishing the last season of The Wire tonight, which explains why big lies were on my mind.

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09.06.18 [Thursday]
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food, sports, travel, tv

watching the hockey

On Friday after Kate was done with her grading and meetings and stuff we went to a graduation reception for her friends in the MA stream of her program. I sat around awkwardly listening to people talk about grant money and human research subject forms and how all they really needed was to change a couple of words from previous applications to get them through. Ah science. The thing lasted an hour though with no sign of beginning, which was nice as I didn’t have to listen to people I didn’t know get recognized for their achievements and was free to munch on veggie wontons, but bad because this was the West Coast and the hockey game was soon to begin. Thankfully Kate didn’t feel bad about ditching it. One of the “to be honoured” guys told her to leave, that he wouldn’t be there if he didn’t have to be. So off we went.

We watched Pittsburgh and Detroit at a sports bar right near Kate’s apartment. Sat at the bar with the other hockey fans of which I was glad to find there were a handful more than us. Through the whole game I had to talk a lot so as not to let the tension build up too high. I really wanted to see Pittsburgh win and Crosby get his first Cup and if I was just completely focused on the game I would have died from stress. Marc Andre Fleury does not let me enjoy a hockey game. In the third period with Pittsburgh up by two Detroit was putting on more pressure and I realized the last three minutes were going to be insane. And then Detroit scored. If I had been at home I might have had to leave the room, but I was in public and forced to watch Detroit hit the post and Fleury make a couple of game savers in the last minute before cheering my fool head off.

One of the funny things about watching the game there was that just on the other side of Kate were two girls who were there to watch Pittsburgh win and just on the other side of me were a couple of guys looking to hit on these girls. They wedged themselves in between Kate and the girls in the first period but were shot down. Later on Kate passed on a note from the guys “to the blonde one, not the dark-haired one.” Eventually the guys left. There were a couple of guys in the bar wearing Penguins jerseys (with Crosby and Lemieux on the backs) and one of them had a black eye and a couple of cuts on his face. I thought, “Now there’s a hockey fan who’s also a hockey player” but it was Los Angeles and I am sure he could have found a good makeup person to do that to add authenticity to his ensemble.

I was glad to see Crosby lift up the Cup, and this was the first time in years I’ve watched all the subsequent parading the Cup around the ice (last time was probably when Ray Bourque finally won it with the Avalanche). It felt really good to see Mario out there hoisting it too.

After the game we were happy and Tiago picked us up to go for Thai food. Inexpensive delicious Thai food. Kate and I had made a bet beforehand and the loser was to buy dinner. I didn’t have faith in the kids, I’m sad to say (and when I say “the kids” I mean “Marc Andre Fleury”) so the meal was my treat. And well worth it.

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09.01.08 [Thursday]
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tv, winnipeg

life with my mom

Sri is in India visiting family and such, so I’ve been hanging out with my mom a bit more this month. We’ve got four episodes left in the first season of The Wire, which I love because my mother has to concentrate to get what’s going on. Which means she can’t be putzing about in the kitchen or feeding the dogs or whatever else when we’ve got a disc in; she has to give it her full attention. Which is what I feel good television/film deserves on a first viewing. So that’s cool.

On Monday I met mom at work and we took the bus to her house together. Her bus experience is so different from mine. Not just because her buses tend not to have the automated voice telling you which stop is coming up, nor because her bus doesn’t cruise by abandoned warehouses and railroad tracks, but because she talks to people. I consider myself quite verbose for saying “Hi” and “Thank you” to the bus driver. She has bus friends. When she moves over for a standing young lady to sit down, a conversation ensues and it turns out she went to high school with the girl’s parents. The Mennonite game stuff becomes so interesting the girl deliberately stays on past her stop so they can hash out all the fun things they know about Domain and Glenlea and all these other towns MCI kids came from. So strange.

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08.07.06 [Sunday]
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tv, 中国

cavernous apartment to replace a shack

There was a documentary on Newsworld tonight called Up the Yangtze. It was about a couple of kids working the tourist river cruises that swung by my old home (though the never showed Wanzhou specifically). I watched and recognized people. Not actual individuals but people who showed the exact same personalities King or Vivien or other students I’d taught. And the woman who worked in the kitchen who reminded me of the woman who ran the restaurant with the AC and grimy plastic curtain. Made me miss China. It was so grey and green and brown, just like I remember it.

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08.04.27 [Sunday]
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tv, writing

here comes someone at least

Clay Shirky gave a speech which is now out on the the net about Gin, Television, and Social Surplus. You should read it right now. He’s talking about participatory media and how it isn’t just a fad, it is the way society is finally adapting to the surplus time we’ve created since World War II. Some bits:

But beneath that ["Where do they find the time to engage in flamewars on Wikipedia?"] question was another thought, this one not a question but an observation. In this same conversation with the TV producer I was talking about World of Warcraft guilds, and as I was talking, I could sort of see what she was thinking: “Losers. Grown men sitting in their basement pretending to be elves.”

At least they’re doing something.

Did you ever see that episode of Gilligan’s Island where they almost get off the island and then Gilligan messes up and then they don’t? I saw that one. I saw that one a lot when I was growing up. And every half-hour that I watched that was a half an hour I wasn’t posting at my blog or editing Wikipedia or contributing to a mailing list. Now I had an ironclad excuse for not doing those things, which is none of those things existed then. I was forced into the channel of media the way it was because it was the only option. Now it’s not, and that’s the big surprise. However lousy it is to sit in your basement and pretend to be an elf, I can tell you from personal experience it’s worse to sit in your basement and try to figure if Ginger or Mary Ann is cuter.

And I’m willing to raise that to a general principle. It’s better to do something than to do nothing.

That principle is important, maybe the most important thing I’ve learned in the last couple of years. And it smacks me around because of the way I spend my time now. My job is not a “do something” kind of job. Which is fine. I’ve always said I didn’t want to be defined by where I work. But it means I have to use my time surplus to create stuff. Even if it’s crappy. Even if a million people can make better stuff than mine and get paid money to do so. Doing something is important, even if it’s not.

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08.04.03 [Thursday]
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sports, tv

he was kind of hyper

Okay, I swear I won’t just turn this blog into a Read the Tao of Stieb! blog, but here’s another pointer to them because they’re talking about someone I know, Gareth Wheeler. I went to JSkool with him. Of course this note isn’t very flattering but still. I know people that are Torontocentric and on TV. The quote:

Gareth Wheeler can rest easy…there’s a “glimmer of hope” for V-Dub: We get the fact that the host of SunTV’s the Grill Room wants to elicit some sort of discussion. But starting off the discussion with Mike Wilner, the Drunk Jays Fans’ Stoeten and some random Sun writer by asking them “Is there a glimmer of hope for Vernon Wells?” exactly one game into the season was a little much. It was even funnier to see this conversation after the game, in which Wells went 3-for-4 with a homer, 2 RsBI and two runs scored. Is it just us, or does Gareth have all of the feral nervous energy of a ferret backed into a corner? Kudos go out to Stoeten for locking down the gig, and for resisting the impulse to reach across the table and shake some sense into the host, who trotted out just about every tired Toronto hockey-centric media cliché about the Jays and especially J.P..

I wonder how many of our graduating class are now employed by SunMedia? I know of two now.

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08.01.16 [Wednesday]
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tv

if i seem a touch out of the popculture loop…

I decided after last week that the writer-less A Daily Show (and to a lesser extent Colbert) wasn’t worth the pain in my psyche of watching an hour of Comedy Network each night so I’ve cut them from my TV habit. And with them gone it became very easy to cut everything else off too. I’ll still watch sports (I do want to see the Patriots do their perfect season (or Favre deny them in the Superbowl)) but for the next while I’m mostly off television.

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07.11.27 [Tuesday]
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books, tv, winnipeg

… and thorough

Today wasn’t as bad as it could have been. It turns out Canadian homes are pretty well insulated. The electricians came this morning and the heat was out for most of the day while they installed … a new electrical box? Is that all they were doing? I guess there are some more outlets around the house too. Some of them may even be grounded.

Without the heat going all day in the -20ish weather (maybe -17C) I was sure I’d be chattering my teeth down to whatever you call the stuff under your enamel. It’s an old house, and drafty. So when the heat first went out I left to buy groceries, a somewhat foolish decision as I bought things that needed to be frozen and thence opened up the powerless freezer to dump the things in, allowing all the cold out. When I could have left the ice cream out on the porch instead. Smart boy this one.

At that point some of the house’s lights worked but the internet didn’t so I got some reading in. I wore an extra sweater but it was okay. Then all the power went out and I left to go buy socks. A cold day really drives home the fact that you own only three pairs that enclose your entire foot.

On my way back I had to stop for some filming for a sitcom that was happening on Ellice. The show’s going to be called “Make It Happen” and it’s about a family of driving instructors. The guy who stopped me from getting in the shot was telling me about it. Of course he compared it to Corner Gas.

And then I got home and the heat had been turned on and I parked in front of a vent and absorbed its emissions for an hour. Almost finished Shikasta, the Doris Lessing book I started reading after she won the Nobel Prize.

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