Apart from some minor coughing and whatnot, I’m just now getting over my cold. Man. That thing was brutal.
[tags]illness[/tags]
Category: Daily life
"Coupons…you want coupons, don't you?"
Today was day 1 of the mesh conference here in Toronto. I met up with Colin, cursed the caterers for only having bagels to eat, drank as much water as I could and found a seat before the proceedings got underway.
The first (and best) part of today’s schedule was TechCrunch‘s Mike Arrington. He’s a pretty frank guy, and when he lambasted Ted Murphy from PayPerPost — calling him “the most evil person in the room” — things got fun. He also spoke frankly about how silicone valley is in need of another meltdown, to get all the PR and money-grabbing types out and let the real revolutionaries take over again.
Tom Williams and Austin Hill were also good, giving their perspectives as two guys who got very rich very young, and have devoted their time to effecting social change. Hill talked about an interesting new distributed computing power saving tool; think SETI@home for saving electricity. Check it out at DarkGreenPC.org.
After a sad lunch (strike 2 against the caterers: only vegetarian options were ceasar salad and pasta salad) I saw a very funny panel with Rachel Sklar, Loren Feldman and Cynthia Brumfield about whether or not old media should be scared shitless of new media. The consensus: maybe a little. New media won’t kill old media, but it’ll scare it into reacting.
I also watched panels entitled “Digital Blinders – Are We an Inch Wide and a Mile Deep?” and “The Always-On Generation – What Do Youth Do with the Web?”; the former was more like a university lecture or radio show than panel discussion, while the latter was amusing for how old it made most of the participants feel. A sample snippet:
[panelist] Erica Sum: “How many people in here have been to YTMND?”
[I raise my hand, as do maybe 4 or 5 other people in a room of about 100. Erica then starts talking about how cool it is in a screwy kind of way.]
Confused audience member #1: “Umm, could you maybe describe what that is for people who don’t know?”
Confused audience member #2: “Yeah, like how it’s different than Facebook or MySpace?”
Erica [trying to stifle laughter]: “Oh, it’s not at all.”
You can’t fault the audience members for not knowing what YTMND is, or for thinking it has something to do with social networking, since it’d been the dominant theme of the day. It was just a funny exchange.
Looking forward to tomorrow. Note to self: bring a nutrigrain bar.
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Obviously, if I’m at home writing this, I wasn’t able to attend the free screening of Severance that I won passes to earlier this week. I was feeling too wonky, and have too much to do tonight. As soon as I finish writing this I plan to do an hour or two of work while I watch the hockey game. Dagnabbit…I wanted to see that movie too.
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Things I’ve learned in the last 36 hours: never wear a white dress shirt to the dentist (that pink shit they polish your teeth with sprays) and screens for balcony doors are outrageously expensive (we’ve been quoted >$400 each).
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An instructional video: how to break up with advertisers.
[tags]mesh07, severance, dentist, balcony screen doors, bring the love back[/tags]
Damn you, T-Bone
Why, why would you make me stay out and drink and laugh myself hoarse until 11:00 on a school night? Why?
Luckily, I have a conference tomorrow.
[tags]mesh conference[/tags]
McLovin
It’s a good thing I was super-productive for the early part of this day ’cause around 2:00 I got one badass mofo headache. I assume it’s because of the cold I’m still trying to fight through, but man…it took somethin’ out of me. I managed to do about two more hours of good work, but then it got even worse so I left for home. Now that I have some Advil in me and I can look in the general direction daylight again, I should be able to get some studying and some heavy thinking done tonight.
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I won some tickets today for Severance (imdb | rotten tomatoes), which, according to the TIFF website, is a cross between The Office and Deliverance. I wanted to see it at last year’s festival, but the timing didn’t work out; I guess I’ll still get a sneek preview. Thanks for the tickets, Eye Weekly.
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I cannot wait for August 17th. Why? Because that’s the day Superbad comes out. Watch the trailer. I will watch anything that has Michael Cera and Seth Rogen in it.*
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Also funny: this Dr. Tran clip that my brother sent me. I almost broke my damn elbow falling off my chair. If you have 7 minutes to spare (and are not easily shocked by cartoon violence), watch this one too.
OK, on a serious note…WHY in the Sam Hill has no one told me about Dr. Tran before?
[tags]headache, severance, eye weekly, superbad, michael cera, seth rogen, dr. tran, lonesausage[/tags]
* Except porn, should any exist.
"What is a ghost?"
I finally summoned enough energy today to do some shopping. We had a delicious brunch at Toba, went to UpCountry to buy a new bed and some patio furniture, picked up some groceries and came home to collapse on the couch. This thing is just lingering forever; I’m feeling marginally better each day, but sleep is still difficult, and I still wake up so congested that I have to blow my nose non-stop for half an hour.
Normally, if I felt like this I would never leave home to do a bunch of walking & shopping, but the furniture situation was just going nowhere and we’re tired of living like students. I mean really, who has a futon for their couch? A long time ago we made the decision not to buy furniture until we were in the new place, but now it was time to get on it. Nellie’s mom is coming to visit soon and we need the couch so that the futon can go to the den/guest bedroom.
Next, the final “urgent” purchase: the barbeque.
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Whilst laying on the couch today I watched The Devil’s Backbone (imdb | rotten tomatoes), a Guillermo Del Toro film released before (and related to) Pan’s Labyrinth (which I loved). Though not as good as Pan’s, it’s absolutely worth watching.
[tags]toba, upcountry, devil’s backbone, pan’s labyrinth[/tags]
Foiled
At the last minute I had to cancel our plans to meet up with friends in Niagara On The Lake this weekend. This cold just isn’t going anywhere, and over the course of the day my voice has completely disappeared. I felt ridiculous leaving voicemails for people, sounding like a just-pubescent kid drawing his last breath.
I’ve never before taken a double-dose of neo-citran before going to sleep; I fear tonight it may be necessary.
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Happy birthday, Star Wars. I was one year old when you were released, but I came to love you as I grew up. A little too much, maybe.
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Speaking of my childhood obsessions, Chuck Klosterman writes about a Rush song that, 27 years later, shows how badly the mystique of radio has faded.
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The Globe and Mail harrumphs all over the lolcat meme.
[tags]niagara on the lake, sick, star wars, chuck klosterman, rush, globe and mail, lolcat[/tags]
Just like Mel Lastman was Canada's mayor
It’s warm today. Very warm. But it’s good; I think the sticky, humid weather is good for my cold. Feels like I’m in a sauna, kind of.
Another plus to being up this high, this close to the water: even on really warm days we get a cool breeze up here.
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I left work just after 1:00 today. Got home, ate, caught up on a little work and just rested. I can’t bring myself to take sick days anymore — I’d have to pretty damn sick to not be able to look at a laptop — but today was a good rest for me. We’re going away for the weekend, so I don’t want to be snotty and hacky around my friends.
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Apparently there’s a new poll out that says the Toronto Maple Leafs are who most would call “Canada’s Team”.
This surprises me a little bit. Not because the Leafs got the most votes, but because they won by so little. Given the population of the GTA and the surrounding area, I would have expected the Leafs to have more support, but there’s Montreal right behind them. While that should be a little embarassing for Toronto, this is worse: what the poll doesn’t capture is that the 76% nationwide who didn’t vote for Toronto probably despise the Leafs, whereas — apart from in Toronto — the Canadiens have plenty of fans nationwide. If you were to do a net promoter score, I don’t think Toronto’d do so well.
[tags]toronto weather, humidity, leafs, canadiens, canada’s team[/tags]
Conundrum
Do I continue to go to Hero Burger because their veggie burgers are so good? Or do I stop going forever because they’re so goddamn disorganized and incompetent?
I’m sick. All I want to do is go home and eat lunch and lie down. And they keep forgetting my order or giving my food to other people.
[tags]hero burger[/tags]
Who's ready to speak ill of the dead? :D
I don’t understand how one human head can produce so much snot. Incroyable.
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Link dump:
- Bill Maher tells off Jerry Falwell one last time [amen]
- Maple is the new plastic [thanks Andrew]
- Salon says goodbye to Veronica Mars [sniff]
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We watched a documentary called The Bridge (imdb | rotten tomatoes) a few days ago. I’ve wanted to see it since I first saw the trailer last fall, and it was very good. Unsettling subject matter, obviously — the Golden Gate Bridge is the world’s #1 suicide site — but it was very well done and not sensational.
[tags]snot, bill maher, jerry falwell, maple sap, veronica mars, the bridge[/tags]
Touch me, I'm sick
I feel like hell. I really hope this goes away soon; my choices right now are drug myself up on cold meds, or stay undrugged and constantly fight the urge to drill holes in my own skull.
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The fireworks last night were pretty cool. From our vantage point we could see them going off all over the place, at least two dozen little spots of light popping off at any given time. There seemed to be a bunch coming from Riverdale Park or Withrow Park, but the main attraction was over Ashbridges Bay. We could see (and occasionally hear) them very clearly. Canada Day should be pretty fun to watch from up here.
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Farewell, 24. You were good once, in your first season. Now you suck. I will never watch you again, unless I hear that a) Jack dies and fights Nina in hell; b) Mandy returns.
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I find it freaky that every 17 years a gigantic swarm of insects emerges in the mideast US. Extremely freaky.
[tags]cold, flu, victoria day fireworks, ashbridges bay, 24, cicadas[/tags]
Skirl | Dan Dickinson 