Category: Me

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

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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.

And I thought the other kind of calculus was bad

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Last Sunday, after a late but enjoyable Saturday evening with friends, Nellie and I were enjoying a nice lazy lie-in, like any other Sunday morning. We didn’t have anywhere to be, so after a few hours we’d probably get up, go find some breakfast, maybe watch a movie, just enjoy the day.

Our plans changed slightly when I was awoken by an excruciating pain in the right side of my back. I’d never felt anything like this…not pulled muscles, not torn ligaments, not a broken wrist. I fell out of the bed, writhing on the floor in pain and generally freaking out because it felt like someone was stabbing me from the inside. Standing up, walking around, sitting down, twisting my back…nothing helped. Nellie, now convinced I didn’t just have a leg cramp or some other silly thing that was unnecessarily interrupting her sleep, was up too, Googling symptoms on her iPhone while I sat, twitching and trying to catch my breath. Nellie guessed kidney stones, and based on the region of the pain I was inclined to agree. Actually, I was inclined to claw that part out of my body, but whatever. A quick call to TeleHealth led us to think we were right, and made it very clear that a hospital visit was required here. I’m not afraid of hospitals, but neither do I enjoy them, so I normally do everything I can to avoid them. However, this was not an avoid-the-hospital scenario. I couldn’t even function.

So, off we walked to the ER at St. Mike’s, which was sure to be a treat on a Sunday morning. Actually, it was quite calm, apart from the kid who’d cooked himself on ecstasy the night before and woulnd’t shut up, and the screaming cursing ranting crazy guy strapped to the bed in the isolation room (who we could still hear), and the wailing meth addict who was admitted right behind us. Just a regular morning at St. Mike’s, I’m guessing, but they treated me as well as they always do. I was quickly on a bed, getting blood drawn and donating some urine, being pumped full of morphine (which didn’t do shit) and Toradol (whoooo!!!!), getting an ultrasound (really never thought I’d have one of those) and finally a CT scan. The doctor’s first guess was confirmed by the tests: yup, kidney stone. Renal calculus. Three of them, to be exact. Small enough, it seemed, to pass without surgery (unlike the dude a couple of beds over, who had one the size of a golf ball!) so they sent us home with prescriptions and best wishes.

We picked up the Percocet and Naproxin along with piles of other stuff at the drug store (never shop whilst high on Toradol), then got McDonald’s for lunch (Toradol: also a bad influence on lunch decisions), then went home to wait the little fuckers out.

That evening, about twelve hours after the Toradol went it, it started to wear off. I took two Percocet without eating anything but half an apple, and promptly puked it all back out. Can’t remember the last time I puked, and certainly not the last time I puked like that. This affliction just kept getting better.

After that I basically settled into two days of pain, nausea and fuzziness. I thought I’d be able to work from home, but I could barely lift myself out of bed when I was drugged and writhed in pain three hours later when they wore off. Seriously, you’d think that two Percocet and a Naproxin every six hours would keep me good and numb, but…nyet. I had just enough energy to drink my own weight in water, emptying and refilling my various containers every half hour or so.

In the wee hours of Wednesday morning, when I was on a ‘sleep for an hour, then pee’ cycle, I felt something…I don’t know, like a bump, in my groin. I looked down, saw a bunch of blood and what appeared to be wine sediment in the toilet, and figured the worst had passed. I did a little silent cheer, went back to the couch, and slept a few more hours. Telling Nellie the next morning felt like the times as a kid when I told my parents I won a tournament or an award at school. SO. PROUD. But mainly, I was just happy that my bladder-y region had stopped the constant spasming. That was weird. On Tuesday Michael (one of our cats) actually attacked my groin under a blanket because it wouldn’t stop twitching.

I spent the rest of Wednesday unfuzzing from the (no longer necessary) painkillers and by Thursday was back to work. Still with some fever and tenderness, but more or less back to normal. As I write this I nearly have my appetite back, I feel very little soreness and it actually seems like a vaguely fuzzy memory…like it happened years ago, or to someone else.

And that is why drugs freak me the hell out. That, and the wailing lady on the floor of the St. Michael’s emergency room.

In absentia

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My blog host had a little hiccup on Sunday, which means two things:

  1. Accented characters are displaying strangely right now. Not sure why just yet. Character code set something or other. Fix is coming forthwith; in the interim please don’t report me to the Ministry of Bilingualism.
  2. The post I’d written on Sunday about Sons of Anarchy has disappeared, as the hosting service went to last good backup, and I’ve spent more time fixing than writing, so it’s been — ye gods! — 10 days since my last blog post.

Happy valentimes!

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[Editor’s note: yes, I know I misspelled ‘Valentine‘. It’s a pop culture reference. Youtube it.]

I am indifferent about Valentine’s Day. I have no particular reason to hate it, other than that it’s a fake holiday invented to sell more stuff. Still, that doesn’t make me hate it any more than, say, Easter. But it’s not a big deal for me. Nor, before you jump on me with the obvious point, is it a big deal for my wife. Her birthday is less than a week before Valentine’s Day, and that’s the usually where I focus my energy, so Valentine’s Day usually consists of her cooking a simple yet awesome dinner (as she is doing right now) or an extravagant feast (as she did last year), and me sending her a card like this:

Not to worry, though, this isn’t going to be some Oatmeal-inspired screed against V-Day. I actually appreciate the occasional reminder to stop and consider how good I have things, including the lady in the kitchen.

A few weeks ago a friend asked me who my best friend is, and my answer is that I don’t really have one. I never have. I’ve had lots of close friends throughout my life, but never someone who I would say I was closer to than anyone else, and who would say the same about me. I’ve has periods where that happens, but then university ended or people moved or jobs changed and I wouldn’t say that anymore…which I guess makes them not best friend material, else distance and upheaval wouldn’t change that. The friend who asked me, who I would say I’ve been as close to as any of my friends over the past six years, has a best friend who remains her best friend even though they’ve been separated for years by thousands of miles. I can say that I have very few people who I intimately trust and who I think — against logic and instinct — would put my own well-being ahead of even their own. But the majority of those people are family, who would be excluded from the category of best friend, funny scenes from I Love You Man notwithstanding.

But that leads me to an obvious answer, which I didn’t come up with immediately, probably because it’s not a typical answer: my best friend is my wife. Of course she’s my best friend; I can’t imagine marrying someone who wasn’t. Most people’s best friend is someone who gets them, and who shares a lot of their interests and worries and ideals, and who they want to hang out with all the time. I guess in many cases that person isn’t their spouse, but for me it is. We’re different in little ways that make it fun, like her appreciation  — and my profound hatred — for the 80s, but she’s inevitably the one I want to share a beer with after work, and talk to about heavy shit, and jet off to New York with for the weekend.

So: forget Valentine’s Day. It’s tired and boring and meaningless outside of Hallmark’s ledgers, and I could say it to anyone without it meaning shit. Instead, let’s see if I can start a new trend.

Happy Best Friend Day, baby.

Large single-book-bound collection of stamps, anyone?

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A few weeks ago my wife was watching an episode of Community and one of the characters said something that kind of made me feel old, but mostly made me realize that technology has created a gap in my vocabulary. Here’s the line:

Jeff: How old is he again?
Annie: 30-something I guess. He has a land-line and uses the word album.

So, in addition to the fact that we still have a land line — though we probably wouldn’t if our building’s intercom didn’t require one — I noticed they categorized the use of the word ‘album’ as something 30-somethings say because they haven’t adapted to the iPod generation yet and still think of music as LPs. Which I found odd. Maybe some people do that, but that’s not why I say it.

Yes, I say album.

Assuming that the writers assumed It’s not that I grew up using records. My dad did, and my brother had a few, but I started with tapes, then went to CDs, then ditched CDs for MP3s. Probably earlier than most people, actually. But I did always refer to collections of music by the media in which they were distributed…a new Van Halen tape or a new Soundgarden CD.

Yes, I listened to Van Halen.

Anyway, I stopped equating collections of music to the distribution medium once I stopped buying CDs six years ago. Without a physical medium to refer to when a band released a new collection of music, I couldn’t think of a better alternative than to call them albums. What else was I supposed to call them?

And it’s not as if the concept of releasing/purchasing music in batches went away…music is still released to physical and online stores in named collections, awards are still given for ‘best album’, and so on.

So, I’ll continue to refer to new musical releases as albums, until the day when record labels (yeah, uh…why do we still call them that?) let bands release songs one at a time as they feel like it, and the whole silly setup starts to make sense, and the anachronism dies. Like photo albums.

And yes, I used to have photo albums.

At last: winter

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Snow drifting on our balcony
Snow drifting on our balcony

After not having much of a winter last year I suspect we’re in for a rough one this time around. Yesterday was cold and messy and made for slow driving, but it’s been so long in coming that people seemed to enjoy it. It was actually quite beautiful for a few hours, until the exhaust had at it.

The next time I’m in a howling February snowstorm I’m sure I’ll forget ever saying this, but I like winter. I like having snow on the ground, even if I have to walk through it, and miss it when there’s none about on December 25th. The feeling of still sub-zero air is one of my favourites, especially when I’m in the woods of my family’s farm or in the Rockies or standing in a downtown Toronto plaza, deserted on a weekend.

Obviously I can see the appeal of living in a place with no cold weather, but I think I’d miss it pretty quickly. I’d miss the variety it provides in the year, and the feeling of sheer joy we all get when spring arrives. Most Canadians with no tolerance for snow just move south to Florida or Arizona, but there’s not enough sunshine in the world to make me move to a state so monumentally damaged. Case in point.

2010 annual report: expansion

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Dear stakeholders, I present herein the report on my progress for the year 2010. Please, hold your questions until the end.

The highlight of the whole year may well have been our excellent trip to California where we visited San Francisco and the Napa and Sonoma valleys. Trips to Nova Scotia for our friend Karen’s wedding (in the spring) and to see our families (at Christmas) were great too, especially since being away from Toronto during the G20 meant we managed to avoid that whole clusterfuck. We even went camping in Algonquin. All in all a good year for travel.

Of course, we enjoyed ourselves closer to home as well. We were mesmerized by the Vancouver 2010 Olympics, and celebrated the men’s hockey gold in Dundas Square just like the rest of the city. We saw a Habs/Leafs game, our second in three months after not seeing one in the previous 12 years we lived here. We did new Toronto-y things like dragon boating and a harbour cruise and biking around the islands and seeing a concert (Iggy & The Stooges) live in Dundas Square. We also did annual pilgrimages to Hot Docs and TIFF.

We explored a few new local restaurants like Origin (twice) and Duggan’s (many, many times) and ate an utterly decadent meal at MoRoCo in our first venture past the truffle bar out front. Most of our new restaurants discoveries came during our travels, and I’d need all day to list them all. Really, the biggest change this year might have been Nellie’s emerging talent in the kitchen, preparing incredible meals for Valentine’s Day (as is her custom) or various dinner parties.

I watched 71 new movies, bought 19 albums and ten DVDs, and read nine books. That’s right, only nine; I blame it on the fact that I’ve been reading Postwar by Tony Judt since January and I’m 2/3 of the way through the goddamn 830-page thing. Believe me, reading 560 pages of Judt is like reading 5 normal books, so I have to keep taking breaks and reading something else. In 2010 I read Empire of Illusion by Chris Hedges, Enterprise 2.0 by Andrew McAfee, Liar’s Poker and The Big Short by Michael Lewis, The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman, Blood Meridian and No Country For Old Men by Cormac McCarthy and Ill Fares The Land, also by Tony Judt.

Lots of good things happened in 2010, like when I won the Oscar pool, or when we won some art at auction during a charity event, or when I finally settled on my favourite albums of the past ten years, or when my team and I volunteered at Ronald McDonald House. I got to watch my Canadiens make a run deep into the NHL playoffs, and maybe best of all was that Nellie’s favourite team won the cup, and she helped her dad celebrate that win. Of course, there was a lot that troubled us too: some small (a Rogers fiasco, the earthquake which I suppose was more fun than troubling from my perspective) and some big (the afore-mentioned G20 debacle and — perhaps most importantly — Chris Farley somehow being elected mayor).

Most of all, though, I think the biggest development of 2010 was my expanded interest in wine and beer, especially local wine and beer. We finally took advantage of the two main wine regions near Toronto, making two trips to Niagara, one to Prince Edward County and one to the AGO for a wine tasting event called TasteOntario. learning that there really is great Ontario wine out there. I then decided to take that local streak and apply it to beer, starting a little endeavour called Project FiftyBrew.

There’s a large portion of my life which I don’t discuss here, and that’s what I do for a living. Last year I said developments at work were the biggest source of change in my life; this year I’d say that change has become the status quo, to the point where everything else (watching movies, listening to music, watching TV, reading books, and certainly blogging) falls by the wayside. Know what else stops when work is like this? Exercise. I haven’t run in months, and at present I weigh more than I ever have before in my life. Obviously, I’m hoping that my 2011 annual report will contain news of how I turned that around. To that end I did one last thing in 2010 to get that underway: I signed myself up for the Harry Rosen Spring Runoff 5k.

So it seems the two most noticeable elements of my 2010 were my expanded interest in wine & beer, and my expanding waistline. As I write this, it occurs to me the two may not be unrelated.

72/20/8

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People who know me, or read this blog, know two things which would be very near the top of a list of things I love: chocolate and graphs. Thus, whoever purchased the gift shown below clearly knows me very well.

Chocolate pie chart, beetches

Coincidentally, the chart above is an accurate representation of my vacation so far:

  • dark chocolate = relaxing
  • milk chocolate = eating
  • white chocolate = admiring fancy chocolate pie charts

Salut!

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No blogging for the next few days as I’m off for a weekend. If you’re looking for me I’ll be with Nellie, T-Bone and The Sof, seeing Beamsville and Niagara from their lovely tasting rooms, celebrating the end of my 35th year as a human.

Cheers, everyone.