Author: Dan Dickinson

With my feet in the air and my head on the ground

Dan Dickinson3 Comments

Sorry internet, I’ve been too busy to blog lately. Work is devouring most of my time, so it’s probably a good thing I’ve dropped any pretense of putting effort into the MBA. Also, daylight saving time is wreaking havoc on my brain-clock, making it hard to keep up with my usual distractions.  Thus, you shall get brief notes instead of piercing insights.*

  • I don’t really know how two Kara Keith songs ended up in my inbox, but I like the songs I’ve heard so far. I suspect I downloaded them via Chromewaves.
  • The last time Montreal was first in their conference this late in the season was 1993, which was also the last year they won the cup. I’m just sayin’. Weird thing about that year, though; they wound up finishing third in their division (let alone conference) behind Quebec and Boston, both of whom were powerhouses, and then won the cup.
  • Last night we took the cats to the vet (which I kind of enjoyed, ’cause it gave me an excuse to leave work at 5) and found out that Sonny, the one we refer to as “fatty”, “fat boy”, “sir fatness”, etc. has lost weight. He’s now a sleek, slim 17 lbs. I guess all those nights of threatening to kill him as he howled for food have paid off.
  • Thanks to ModernMod for sending me the Frames‘ cover of “Where Is My Mind.” I’ve been listening to it constantly.
  • My toe is…well, weird. It’s still the color of violent rage, but it’s not hurting. I ran two miles on it this morning, in brand new shoes, and hardly felt anything. This is my first broken pinky toe so I’m not really sure whether this is standard, and just ask me if I can be arsed to look anything up on WebMD.

* as if you ever get piercing insights here.

[tags]kara keith, montreal canadiens, fat cats, the frames, where is my mind, broken pinky toe[/tags]

"Don't just sit there and decompose. Go throw on some summer clothes."

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I love spring. It is, by far, my favourite time of the year. Some of that has to do with the association of spring with maple season (truly one of the best times to live on a maple-producing farm), but mainly it’s the promise of those first few days when it’s so warm, you can go outside without a coat. Just thinking about it makes me all tingly.

March 20 is, of course, the first day of spring. As chance would have it, this year March 20 also happens to be the kickoff of March Madness, surely another of my favourite days of the year. If it’s sunny and semi-warm and I get to watch 16 college basketball games in 12 hours, I may just go into happy overdose. Stay tuned.

[tags]first day of spring, march madness[/tags]

"Because, brother, when you were good, you were the best we had."

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The Wire is dead. Long live The Wire.

I agree with the critics who say it was the best show on television during its run. Each of the first four seasons was the best show I’ve seen related to whatever topic they were portraying that year: police, blue collar workers, politics, schools.

If you haven’t watched it, I beg you to go rent season 1; by the time you finish watching season 4 the final season should be available on DVD.

.:.

So while my toe does appear to be broken — or at least really badly sprained, ’cause it’s the color of an angry plum right now — it’s more or less stopped hurting. I might actually try running on it tomorrow or Wednesday if I can get it into my new shoes without hurting.

.:.

If you have ten minutes and thirty-five seconds to spare, I recommend downloading and listening to “Ghost Blues” by Ladyhawk.

[tags]the wire, broken toe, saucony running shoes, ladyhawk, ghost blues[/tags]

This is how behind I am

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As is so often the case, I am acquiring media faster than I can consume it. I now have 22 films on the PVR:

  • Elementary Particles
  • Catch A Fire
  • The War Within
  • For Your Consideration
  • The Notorious Bettie Page
  • Venus
  • The Fountain
  • The Science Of Sleep
  • Bubble
  • Free Zone
  • One Last Thing
  • Bobby
  • The Lives Of Others
  • Beowulf & Grendel
  • Edmond
  • The Journals Of Knud Rasmussen
  • The Three Burials Of Melquiades Estrada
  • Monkey Warfare
  • Tsotsi
  • Six Figures
  • Grindhouse (both Planet Terror and Death Proof)
  • Fido

I also have a bunch of music piled up in the inbox:

  • annuals . be he me
  • black keys . attack and release
  • devotchka . a mad & faithful telling
  • devotchka . little miss sunshine soundtrack
  • duke spirit . neptune
  • elbow . the seldom seen kid
  • gutter twins . saturnalia
  • ladyhawk . shots
  • raveonettes . lust lust lust
  • shack . time machine
  • siberian . with me
  • sigur ros . hvarf-heim
  • sigur ros . svarf
  • silver mt zion . 13 blues for thirteen moons
  • sons and daughters . this gift

Gotta finish that MBA. Or at least stop caring…

.:.

Oh yeah, and I think I’ve broken my baby toe. But hey, at least the snow’s stopped and the sun’s shining.

[tags]broken toe[/tags]

12 days 'til Spring, my ass

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Another day, another snowstorm. How typical.

Actually, this one caused some consternation as my brother et al were scheduled to fly back to Halifax this evening. They ended up going to the airport a little early in the hopes of getting an earlier flight, and were able to do so. The early flight ended up leaving nearly an hour behind schedule, but that’s about all you can expect on a day like this, and there’s no reason to think their original flight wouldn’t have been similarly affected.

I’m glad they got away successfully. It was a nice visit, I’d hate for it to have been ruined by problematic weather.

.:.

I can’t believe I have to set the clocks ahead tonight. Ridiculous. Thanks, Dubya. Swell idea.

[tags]toronto snowstorm, pearson travel, halifax flight, daylight savings[/tags]

2 days, 4 Dickinsons

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It’s been just over 36 hours since some members of my family arrived: my dad, my brother and my nephew. Since they got here yesterday morning we’ve had some breakfast at Sunset Grill, walked around Toronto a bit, played some crib (while my brother & nephew went to the CN Tower), watched some Planet Earth, had dinner at The Keg, shopped at St. Lawrence Market, had breakfast at Over Easy, visited the ROM, relaxed (while my brother & nephew swam in their hotel’s pool), ordered some Pizza and went to a Raptors game (while Nellie bought herself a Nikon D-60).

The question now is whether they’ll be able to fly out tomorrow evening because of this storm.

[tags]sunset grill, cn tower, planet earth, the keg, st. lawrence market, over easy, ROM, raptors, nikon D-60[/tags]

I'm sure this is somehow Jean Chretien's fault

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There is no doubt in my mind that ePass, the Government of Canada’s online services website, is the worst online application ever constructed. I am willing to bet that it cost millions of dollars to build and has never once been glanced at by anyone with even a passing interest in usability. I am by any measure a very proficient online user, but this web site simply confounds me with its dysfunction. On top of all the circular navigation and absurdly verbose pages, I cannot sign in because, even answering half a dozen security questions, I have to wait for a piece of paper to show up in the mail with an access code. Only then can I sign in, and change my address, so that I may NetFile my taxes.

So fuck you, ePass. You are the most ridiculous waste of my tax dollars that ever there was.

[tags]epass, netfile[/tags]

One more reason to switch

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Well, that was good timing. The reservation desk at Porter called me today to suggest I catch an earlier flight back to Toronto because of the impending storm. They changed my flight over the phone, and I left about an hour an a half before my original flight time. The weather was fine for the entire flight, if quite windy in Toronto which made for a bumpy landing. I hopped in a cab and arrived home around 7:30. Ten minutes later I looked outside: snowstorm. 10-15 cm tonight, supposedly.

Would Air Canada have called me to reschedule because I might have weather problems later on that evening? I think not.

.:.

A study in duality: Starbucks vs Wal-Mart. [via Richard Florida]

[tags]porter air, air canada, starbucks, wal-mart[/tags]

What I've learned today

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1) I like Montreal (of course, I already knew this, I’m just reminded of it whenever I visit);

2) After flying Porter, I’ll never voluntarily fly out of Pearson (to a Porter-served destination, anyway) again. It was fast, simple, comfortable and easy;

3) Being a kinda-vegetarian and sitting across from someone eating a Kobe beef burger sucks.
[tags]montreal, porter air, vegetarian, kobe beef[/tags]

Rockies redux

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18 months ago, after our trip to the Rockies, I uploaded a ton of pictures to my Flickr account. Probably around a thousand, in fact, because…well, it’s the Rockies and you take pictures. However, I knew that most sane people wouldn’t look at 1,000 pictures taken by someone else, so I always planned to create a “best pictures” Flickr set. I used that approach when we came back from France.

Today, in between work and school and knocking items off the to-do list, I finally picked my favourite 27 pictures and put them in a new set. View the slideshow here to see the ones that really stuck with me.

[tags]rockies, flickr[/tags]