Category: Me

Cover photo by Thomas Riggs, used under Creative Commons license

“We are building the biggest weapon for oppression in the history of mankind.”

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Hey, remember last week when I had the flu? I miss last week. Because this week I had goddamn pneumonia. Like I’m some sort of Arctic explorer or something.

So obviously I spent the entire long weekend — the first really nice weekend we’ve had in six months — in bed. And this whole week too…I’ve been able to do a little work from home, but generally speaking this has kicked my ass. I at least got myself some antibiotics, which seem to be helping.

Whilst lying on my ass, drifting in and out of sleep, and coughing up some truly terrifying things, I did watch a few movies:

Moonrise Kingdom (imdb | rotten tomatoes) was classic Wes Anderson. Quirky, hilarious, and this surreal, mildly-alien world made out of the most mundane memories. Seriously outstanding performances from the two lead kids, and you wouldn’t hear that from me often. I can’t believe I waited this long to watch it. Next up: The Grand Budapest Hotel.

Citizenfour (imdb | rotten tomatoes) was a (the?) documentary about Ed Snowden, and how he revealed himself (and his secrets) to journalist Glenn Greenwald and filmmaker Laura Poitras. More compelling than you might expect a technical documentary about electronic surveillance to be.

Mean Streets (imdb | rotten tomatoes) is one of a bunch of now-classic films from the golden era of Hollywood cinema (the 70s) that happens to be on demand on Bell right now. I’ve watched that, The Exorcist, All The President’s Men, and others. It’s made me finally take my copy of Easy Riders, Raging Bulls off the shelf to read. Honestly, I didn’t love this one quite as much as those others, but I will say this: Robert De Niro was barely recognizable. Hard to believe it came out only a year before Godfather II.

.:.

Cover photo by Thomas Riggs, used under Creative Commons license

My new home: Toronto

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I can’t remember the precise date when I moved to Toronto. I know it was May of 1997 but the exact day escapes me. I’m pretty sure it was early in the month; I’d finished university in April and I seem to remember having a week or so to get settled before starting at my new job. Moving here was my first real adventure.

I also can’t remember the exact date I left home for university, but I’m pretty sure it was Labour Day of 1993.

So maybe I’m off by a few days here or there, but what I realized recently is this: I’ve now lived in Toronto longer than I lived on my parents’ farm growing up, thus making it the longest I’ve lived anywhere. I spent my first 6600 days there in Nova Scotia, give or take, and now I’ve spent the same here in Ontario. So Toronto is now, without any mathematical qualification, home.

That doesn’t feel weird to me. But it feels weird that it doesn’t feel weird, if that makes any sense.

I didn’t expect to live here for that long. I didn’t expect to live any one place for that long. I really thought I’d end up moving cities a lot, especially at first, and I almost did move to Vancouver at one point. But work kept me here, and then kept me here longer, and now I’m at the point where I’m not sure where else I could move (in Canada, anyway) if I wanted to advance my career.

I had friends from the east coast who moved here with a loose plan to move back east pretty much as soon as possible. Most did, and have done very well for themselves. I entertained the idea for a while, but like I said…we’d have to do it for a reason other than work, and right now we have no such reason. I envy those friends sometimes though, being back in smaller, friendlier, happier cities. Like Halifax. I miss Halifax. But I’m not sure I could live there again.

I can honestly say that I don’t love living in Toronto. I love a lot of things about the city, but it still doesn’t feel comfortable the way Halifax does. It doesn’t make me swoon the way Vancouver does. It doesn’t thrill me the way New York or Paris do. But those are cities I visit, not live in, and the living there is what exposes the pains and the gaps.

Besides, if Toronto is starting to feel boring, that’s not Toronto’s fault — it’s mine. When I look at how little of the city we frequent, at how few of the things in it we do, I realize it’s not about the city you’re in. It’s how you use your time in it.

When I finally escape my office, maybe I should spend that time going on more adventures.

Cover photo by Kat N.L.M., used under Creative Commons license

XX

Dan Dickinson1 Comment

It’s a significant day. I mean yeah, it’s once-in-a-century pi day, but it’s also the day Nellie and I are celebrating a big milestone: this past Wednesday was the 20th anniversary of the day Nellie and I met.

We both had (separate) late nights last night, so tonight we took it easy and Nellie cooked a fancy meal. Usually she does this on Valentine’s day, but a month ago today we were packing for New Orleans. This anniversary filled in nicely though. This is what she made:

  • Dark chocolate from Nadège
  • Jumbo scallops with corn & arugula (w/ Benjamin Bridge 2011 sparkling rosé)
  • Magret de canard (w/ Pearl Morissette 2010 Cab Franc)
  • Filet Mignon with green beans (still with the PM cab franc)
  • Apple pie (obviously)

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.:.

Cover photo by Kat N.L.M., used under Creative Commons license

Cover photo by J.G. Park, used under Creative Commons license

“There are no two words in the English language more harmful than ‘good job’.”

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We watched Whiplash (imdb | rotten tomatoes) yesterday. Maybe I’m biased because I’m a lapsed drummer but to me it was the best movie that came out last year. It was more thrilling and mesmerizing and intense than a movie about jazz drumming has a right to be. You could see that Miles Teller threw himself completely into the role. Meanwhile, J.K. Simmons is a seething goddamn ninja of an actor and should win the Oscar.

I can’t stop thinking about it. I swear I dreamt Caravan.

You have to see it.

.:.

Cover photo by J.G. Park, used under Creative Commons license

Hello, new phone

Dan Dickinson1 Comment

Three years ago I bought my first (!) real smartphone after living with Blackberries for a long time.

I loved my Galaxy Nexus and it served me well for a very long time. Through a combination of stubbornness and my perceived lack of compelling alternative I didn’t bother upgrading. For the last several months, though, my phone has gotten old and worn out, and unable to keep up with the demands of today’s apps and content. Nellie implored me to get a new phone and stop yelling at this one.

I resisted though, holding out for the Nexus 6. I waited patiently (but not really) for the late 2014 release date, then waited while it made its way to Canada. It had the speed, power, camera, and battery life that I craved, but I was always concerned about the size of the phone. A 6-inch screen would make it nearly the size of my Nexus 7 tablet (which I still quite like), not to mention heavy and awkward. I played around with iPhone 6 Pluses and, when I could finally get my hands on one, Nexus 6s. It was as I feared — too big, too heavy, too hard to use with one hand. Maybe I could have gotten used to it, but I didn’t want to chance it.

I ended up picking up a Nexus 5 before Google decommissions them, and frankly it still feels amazing to me. It’s everything I wanted from my old phone but in more or less the same form factor. It was also about $500 cheaper than the Nexus 6, so even if a new device comes out next year I won’t mind paying for it.

Galaxy Nexus, I know I’ve been angry at you this year, but you did yeoman’s work for more than anyone could have expected. You’ve earned a place in the device hall of fame.*

Anyway, out with the old and in with the new and all that. So, without further ado, here is the new(ish) hotness:

nexus5

* my junk drawer

Cover photo by BagoGames, used under Creative Commons license

Why I quit playing Call of Duty

Dan Dickinson1 Comment

I’ve long believed the most depressing portions of humanity hung out in the comments of YouTube videos and newspaper articles. I’m starting to think even they might be ceding ground to the a subsection of the gaming community.

Gamergate and its ilk have been well-covered elsewhere, and many others (women, mostly) have suffered an enormous amount of hate and vitriol. I’ve not been subject to any of that, and was lucky enough to simply withdraw when faced with shitty behaviour. I barely played any games anyway. I developed a bit of an obsessive gaming personality when I was younger, and so I stay away from them now lest I forget to go to work in the morning. Or bathe.

Really, all I played was the Call Of Duty series. I started playing a few years ago, and really got into it when my brother and nephew introduced me to deathmatches. I played a lot. Like, a lot a lot. I’d use it to burn stress after work, but then I started obsessing about getting better. And I did. But I was never one of the elite players.

Sometimes you’d see those elite players in the deathmatches, and sometimes — rarely — you’d see their custom white power logos. Sieg Heils, white fists, etc. I’d leave those games. And I never listened to the other players; I’d mute everyone. Mostly people were annoying, but they were also assholes sometimes.

Anyway, this one match I was getting destroyed. This one guy, obviously an elite player, was racking up kills, and seemed to take special pleasure in wiping me out. He jumped into the game partway through and I hadn’t bothered to mute him, so he kept taunting me. Seriously, he’d killed me ten times…and I was generally a >1 ratio player. He was on another level, and kept letting me know it. But as many times as he killed me, my team kept us in it. It was tied 74 kills to 74 (first team to 75 wins, for those who don’t know) and, through a bit of luck, I got the last kill. My team won the match. The guy I killed? That elite dude who’d killed me nearly a dozen times. As I nailed him and the game ended, he yelled into his mic, “Fuck you, you N****R F****T!!”

Okay then.

I looked at his profile, and saw the Swastika. I guess he never got around to creating a graphic to symbolize his homophobia — so lazy. I suddenly wondered what I was doing interacting with shitheads like this. No game was worth being around that kind of poison. I signed out, and haven’t played since. Haven’t even turned on the XBox. Real gamers are probably laughing right now, since I expect they’ve experienced this sort of antisocial behaviour a hundred times over. And it doesn’t even register when you look at what people like Zoe Quinn or Anita Sarkeesian go through every day.

So: I’ll just withdraw from this toxic little pool, because it never meant that much to me anyway. Too bad so many people who want to be part of it, and clean it up, get criticized and threatened.

.:.

Cover photo by BagoGames, used under Creative Commons license

Photo by enigmabadger, used under Creative Commons license

2012 annual report: mobile

Dan Dickinson1 Comment

Did last year’s trend of consuming less media and consuming more wine & food continue in 2012? Yes. Did it maybe accelerate a little? Probably. Am I okay with this? Mostly.I mean, I am a little bummed that I missed some great movies this year, but I plan to spend the next week or so catching up. Still, I saw only 54 new films this year, down from 69 last year, and we rarely make a point of seeing films in theatres anymore. While it doesn’t feel like film is fading into a secondary pursuit the way that music has, it’s not quite at the top of my list anymore either. Actually — and somewhat surprisingly — music made a bit of a comeback this year: 14 new albums purchased versus 9 last year. It’s still nothing like it was a few years ago, though. I suspect this is the new normal. Also the new normal: I read far more tweets and news feeds than anything else, but still managed to consume a few books for fun, including Matterhorn, 11/22/63, The Psychopath Test, and Unbroken.

Caloric consumption continued unabated, though. We tried quite a few new (for us) places in Toronto, including Swirl, Goods & Provisions, Trevor, E11even, Midfield Wine Bar, Salt, Enoteca Sociale, The Oxley, The Beer Academy, Loire, Bestellen, Wvrst, Morgan’s On The Danforth, Bar Hop, AAA, and The Stockyards. Midfield, Enoteca, Bestellen, Wvrst, and AAA instantly became favourites. Some  favourites hosted a few special occasions too, like Jacobs & Co. for both Nellie’s birthday and our anniversary; a 10-course dinner paired with Rogue beer at Beerbistro; and our second try at the world’s top-rated beer at Bar Hop.

Really, though, this year’s recurring theme was about being ambulatory. Nellie and I took off on five weekend trips around Ontario (Prince Edward County; our friends’ cottage on Bat Lake; an aborted camping stay in Bon Echo; two visits to Niagara’s wine country), four trips out of the country (New Orleans with friends to see the Final Four; Sedona and the Grand Canyon just before I spoke at a conference in Phoenix; New York; Amsterdam & Brussels), and Nova Scotia for Christmas. There was no monster trip in there like Australia last year, and only the Amsterdam half of our European trip was remarkable, but the atmosphere of New Orleans, the beauty of Arizona, and the blast of NYC more than met our travel experience quota. In addition to Phoenix I logged a handful of quick trips  for work (San Francisco; Chicago; Washington DC; New York; London) but tight schedules kept me from exploring much beyond a few watering holes and restaurants.

Not that there wasn’t fun to be had right back here in Toronto, like Hot Docs, the Session 99 craft beer festival, TIFF (including a once-in-a-lifetime Jason Reitman table read), Nuit Blanche, a killer Jack White concert, and the 100th Grey Cup. We watched the Oscars with our friends T-Bone and The Sof, hosted a few little soirées at our place to kill our wine collection, tried to change our friend Lisa’s mind about beer, watched some March Madness with CBJ+M, introduced our friend Kaylea to Midfield, had a tiny 15-year Dalhousie reunion, sipped our way through a Zinfandel tasting, watched some stand-up comedy with MLK & CBGB, and made one of my favourite baristas happy by giving him a bayonet. Of course, getting to and from these things was a lot more enjoyable this year because of one of my favourite new things about the city: Uber.

Funnily enough, it was right here in Toronto that the most significant movement of all happened: after five and a half years in our first home we bought a new one. We remained in the same neighbourhood — the same building, in fact — but acquired more space for ourselves, the cats, and of course the wine. We’ve been in it less than a month, and it feels more and more like home each day. After three months working through the unpleasant mechanics of buying one home whilst selling the one you’re in, it feels good to actually enjoy the new home rather than just planning for it.

The thread of movement, whether it was across an ocean or down the stairs, which ran through this year is likely to continue into the next, as we’ve given ourselves the ambitious goal of seeing all seven continents before I turn 40. That gives us less than three years to see four more continents, but we have a plan. We begin that journey next year, and fully expect our movement from this point on to present more of an adventure than previous excursions; perhaps that’s an early prediction for next year’s theme.

However you fared in 2012, I wish for you a moving 2013. Happy new year, everyone.

.:.

Photo by enigmabadger, used under Creative Commons license

I love my new phone whatever

Dan Dickinson1 Comment

About a month ago I got a new phone. But not really.

I’d held off on getting a personal smartphone for a long time, relying mostly on my work Blackberry and avoiding iPhones as only someone who hates locked-down ecosystems does. I knew I wanted an Android device because they integrate so nicely with Google applications (gmail, reader, docs, etc.) but was holding out for the latest Google OS. So in December, when the Galaxy Nexus came out, I held my nose on the 3-year contract and dove in.

The new hotness

Interestingly enough, I’m not using my new phone as a phone. In fact, I don’t think I’ve even given out the phone number yet. I use it as a highly portable, highly usable computer. And I don’t just mean that I’ve replicated my PC experience on a smaller screen — I mean that I’m taking advantage of the location-awareness and camera and gyroscope and all the other goodies that come with a new smartphone. Like scanning the barcode on a bottle of wine to see reviews or automatically add it to my collection. Like finding out when the next TTC bus or streetcar is arriving.

I’m not that excited about what I can do with it today — technology has basically just caught up to the efficiencies I’ve been picturing in my head for the last few years. I’m excited by fact that I’m not sure what will come next.

2011 annual report: evolution

Dan Dickinson1 Comment

Some time around the spring of this year I suffered what I guess would be considered burnout. I don’t talk on this blog about where I work or what I do, but basically for the previous 2.5 years I’d been going non-stop, working 75+ hours every week, in the office nearly every weekend, etc. and it began to wear me down. I never hated my job — in fact over the vast majority of that time I loved my job, and still do — but I think all those hours and time pressure just got the better of me. Of course, I couldn’t see that until after it happened, when I was living like I had an empty battery. Everything seemed dull for a few months.

But then, in the summer, it was like someone jump-started me. Some changes at work and some conversations with friends helped give me some perspective, and reminded me that evolutions aren’t always a nice, straight line. It’s usually lots of forward, a little back, and then lots of forward again. So I definitely felt some significant ‘back’ in the early part of the year. Still, it’s not like I got fired or held the hand of a dying relative or underwent gender reassignment surgery or dug my village out from a mudslide or anything, so when I’m talking about ‘significant’ you have to put that in the context of a very safe, comfortable, lucky existence. Just so we’re all clear.

Now then…what actually happened this year? Well, certainly lots of good stuff, despite how it sounded with all my whining up there. We had a great visit from one of my brothers, and he returned with his most excellent wife for an encore. We hosted two dinners for our friends CBGB and MLK, and celebrated GB’s birthday with a surprise birthday party at his sister’s that lasted into the wee hours. We also celebrated from afar when the West Memphis 3 — whose case we’d been following for years — were released from prison. And, most importantly, Nellie and I celebrated Valentine’s Day (which I have renamed Best Friend Day) quietly at home, and our 8th wedding anniversary with a return visit to perennial favourite Canoe.

There were a few bad things too, like Dick Winters dying (since watching Band of Brothers I’ve somehow felt like he was an old friend or something) and the tragic suicide outside our window, as well as kidney stones and the worst cold I’ve ever had (it kept me from flying home to see my family…seriously, there was pus coming out of my eye) but that’s all pretty minor in the grand scheme of things. Though kidney stones seemed fairly major when I was writhing in pain on my living room floor waiting for a baby alien to come screaming out.

One of the biggest things for us is always the traveling. This year there were a few great short trips, like New York in the winter, Nova Scotia in the summer, camping and cottaging and even getting an early jump on an eventual Spain trip courtesy of the host at our local wine bar. But most of our vacation time was saved up for our awesome three-week excursion to Australia.

We took part in some recurring Toronto events like Hot Docs and TIFF (after which we no longer fear being in the last box) and a boat cruise around the Toronto islands like the one we did last year, as well as some special events like amazing Pixies and Godspeed You! Black Emperor concerts, and a play about Mark Rothko. We also witnessed a national event which was probably felt most deeply here in Toronto: the death of Jack Layton, which I’ll always remember as more of an uplifting event than a depressing one, thanks to Mr. Layton’s final messages to Canadians and the outpouring of emotion in Toronto’s public spaces.

We tried scads of new restaurants and bars, including La Bettola, Paese, Lady Marmalade, Starfish, Against The Grain, TOCA, Lucien, Capocaccia, Ruby Watchco and the new version of Smokeless Joe on College Street.

One other thing that felt like an evolution this year was how my interests continued to shift from music to wine. I guess that’s not really an evolution so much as a transition — both are forms of art — but just be a doll and help me support my primary thesis, would you? So while my movie consumption — I watched 69 new ones this year — was comparable to last year’s total (71), and I read 10 books (to last year’s 9), I only bought 7 albums. By comparison, last year I bought 19, while in prior years I would routinely buy north of 30. Granted, I still have 14 albums (!) on my ‘must listen to these before the end of 2011’ list, but that’s still a significant downward trend in musical obsession.

So, obviously, the new obsession is wine. And beer too, I suppose. On top of the trip we took to the Margaret River while in Australia, we made three trips to the Niagara wine region. I even felt the need to defend Ontario wine in a post earlier this year. In the last few months we took part in a tasting put on by the Small Winemakers Collection and participated in a food-pairing contest between 13th Street Winery and Mill Street Brewery, naturally dubbed “Street Fight”. The beer connection continued with a sampling get-together put on by my friend Mike and the Session 99 craft beer festival. However, I did have to say goodbye to last year’s endeavour Project FiftyBrew and the original Smokeless Joe in a tear-filled evening.

Me, I’m happy with an evolution from an obsession with music to an obsession with wine. I’m not sure my bank account is pleased about it, but my bank account can suck it. I’ve learned to generally be pleased with any kind of evolution at all.

Happy new year, everybody.