Oh, just in case you were wondering...

She was reborn... Over here.

Also interesting was the logomanic man sitting across the aisle from me, he tapped me on the shoulder as I was watching a movie *wearing headphones* and asked if I was doing anthropological research. I said no I was watching a feature film about an Inuit community and he told me all about his brother who had sent him a pair of mukluks made of sealskin from Barrow and how incredibly fishy they smelled.

Later I felt him trying to peek under the sweater I was wearing wrapped around my head as I did an impression of a sleeping person so he would leave me alone and stop telling me how close to Maine St Andrews was.

The reading I gave at a Haines Alaska bookstore of "Walter the incredible farting dog goes on a cruise" left a deep impression on my digestive system - since my contribution to the flight from hell was to make like Walter and have the most incredibly consistent 'little winds' for about 97% of the trip, luckily it didn't smell or anything. Actually how would I know, I had a sweater wrapped around my head.

I spent so little time in Vancouver trying to cram in as many visits as possible with all the lovely people there. I rushed from place to place dragging my newly redisovered old dear friend Karen in my wake. Vancouver was awesome. The trip was awesome. Travelling itself, is not awesome. Yet as I write this I am booking rooms at the Green Turtle hostel in San Francisco.

And I am desperate to get back to Vancouver because I think it is beginning to eclipse Montreal in my estimations as a fun place to live in. But so expensive.

More about Van/Whitehorse/Alaska later when my photos are finished loading and the jet-lag has worn off.

Sunset in Whitehorse about 10:00pm last night.

I am feeling a little sad today. I think the high of travel has worn off a little and I miss my doggy and other Montreal specific essentials. For example there is no longer a free wifi cafe in the city of whitehorse - not one. I had to beg a password off the ownners of the cranberry bistro in exchange for design work - which is awesome of them by the way. But it makes me feel a little like a goldfish out of my climate controlled tank.

Notably, the fact of the no free wifi has proven that I am completed addicted to the internet. On sunday when Ruth told me The cafe that had free wifi last time I was up had quit offering that service I quite literally began to have a small twitch just in my spacebar/rightclick finger

The good news (of course there is good news I am on vacation) due to the sketchy internet I have no choice but to find real vacation activities. Today for example I am going to go biking up to Miles Canyon, and tomorrow we are all going kayaking and fishing on long-lake.

And.. if everything works out right, saturday and sunday we will go camping in Haines Alaska.

The only problem I see at present is that I had hoped to remake my business card and my website while on vacation - my busness cards still say: "html, photoshop and dreamweaver" not so accurate anymore.

It's looking like I may not have time though. I think I may get blank rectangles made at an office supply place and then have stamp cut instead. I really hate the 500 peices of useless paper that i have left of my old business cards anyways, it's a total waste of paper. In the ecosystem of web development my new business card will porbably be archival in another two years and I just don't give out 1000 business cards in that span of time.

Anyways, it's noon now and I only have another 3 hours of time left at this connection better get some work hours in.

Thta first paragraph there was meant to be in blockquotes. it has just spent the past 12 hours out of blockquotes giving the world at large the totally incorrect impression that I am a writer of "The Guardian" calibre. I think this paragraph aptly proves otherwise. This morning I accidenty wrote my blockquote tag as "blcoqkuote". My humble apologies to the author of the following paragraph.

Also in case you were wondering, I did not write about the "conundrum of suicide bombers" last week. I never think in big words like that around these parts.

When I wrote in this column a few weeks ago about the conundrum of suicide-bombers, the eminent military historian Michael Howard dropped me a line to remind me that European soldiers had been sent into battle in the first world war with the message that there was no higher honour than to die for your country. Not to live, to fight, to kill for your country - to die for it. Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori. In this respect, conservative Americans are closer to the mental world of pre-1914 Europeans or ancient Romans than they are to that of most contemporary Europeans.

From:
Between cheese-eating surrender monkeys and fire-eating war junkies

I think The Canadian mentality falls somewhere between the barbarian Picts and secularized Jews of the the Turkish empire. How do you like them apples?

My new morning ritual involves sitting in front of the 'puter drinking coffee and reading the Guardian Blog which is called "Comment is Free". The footer of which reads, "..but facts are sacred".

Why is British media so smart!?

Get a Second-Life

Has anyone made that pun yet?

Second Life is on the CBC again, apparently morning radio is obssessed with the fact that you can make-money, live, and fall in love ( etc.. etc..) in this" virtual space". They can't get enough. This last interview was with some woman who used finances won through shrewd second-life dealings to divorce her husband and move out of the house - ostensibly, so she could play second-life unencumbered by the demands of a real and unsatisfactory relationship. She mentions how Second Life gave her the self-esteem to divorce her beau and get her life back - I am not sure which life she is talking about though.

The interviewers question - "why is this new form of living so incredibly attractive to people?" got me to thinking. What makes it so much more attractive to do/aqcuire all these things you can do in the real world, online? He said; "Maybe second life and spaces like it, are replacing our 'first-lives'".

I would hazard a guess, that the reason places like Second Life are so attractive is that they satisfy very difficult desires easily, and they do not reflect the reality of our environment or actual political conditions. For example the announcer made the comparison; "In Second-Life you can easily have a beach house, even if your character that never requires sleep and doesn't have a day-job to escape from, it's simple enough to acquire a beach house, so people do".

In real-time, beach houses are exhorbitantly priced, most people cannot afford a beach-house based on their real-time income. Add to that the fact that most waterfront property is totally over-developed or ruinously polluted and you have conditions of scarcity and political inequality that render the beach houses a dream, thus a second life reality for most people and a first life dissapointment.

Rather than addres the problems inherent in over-developed waterfront or consumer culture we're all going to switch out of meat-space and go to a place where real estate is virtual and there's an infinite number of robber barons waiting to make their fortunes.

It's not much of a solution to our problems is it?

More thoughts

And yeah I know most games are about wish-fulfillment, that's a given, and I am certainly not some horrifying utilitarian asshole that thinks all art and imagination should be in service to the revolution. Totally no. But I do find it funny that if you read Second-Life as an escape from burdensome reality. The most cherished escapes revolve around very common activities. Like shopping all the time and finding pants that actually fit you, or having lots of noncomittal sex with people dressed like Trent Reznor. It's bit distressing, it must mean our day-to-day lives are so far from satisfactory that we actually imagine better day-to day lives. IMHO fantasy, generally speaking, ought to have very little correlate to our own lives, that's why it's an escape, right?

It's the difference between Peter Pan and Pornography. Now you're all going to think I hate porn. I don't hate porn, but I hate fulfillment substitution. Fantasy should be it's own fulfillment - not a subsitute for a life you find wearying, or the fact that you aren't getting laid ahem... But sometimes one looks at porn when they are getting laid? Whatever, I leave writing posts about porn up to other people. I am still reading the juicy bits from 'Written on the Body' to get my kicks.

We're getting off topic, goodnight.

You know porn is probably the worst example ever because it serves so many function in society and being the lonely boy or girls panacea is really only one of them, (she says eyeing her well-worn copy of sexing the cherry).

I like the line about Peter Pan it stays.

In her book Childhood and Sexuality, Jackson suggests there is such a thing as childhood sexuality but that this exists independently of sexual knowledge. She concludes that it is sexual ignorance, not sexual knowledge, that is most damaging for the young. "In attempting to protect children from sex, we expose them to danger," she says. "In trying to preserve their innocence, we expose them to guilt. In keeping both sexes asexual and then training them to become sexual in different ways, we perpetuate sexual inequality, exploitation and oppression."

I've never heard it described so well....

From this article

When I went to pick up the bike, the guy at the cash asked me how long I'd had it, and I said; "Well I got it like 6 years ago, but it was second-hand then."

The bike in question is an old Joe Breeze so it's kind of a history piece and political statement (Joe breeze was one of urban/ transportation biking's early advocates) all rolled into one. But you know what, it's probably close to twenty years old and still runs like charm.

Anyways dude at the cash is like; "You pay so much for repairs why not just ride the bike into the ground and get a new one..?"

And then I almost replied, "That's a great idea..You know what, let's just do that with everything we're tired of looking after or taking care of okay? Oh no wait, we do do that with everything."

My ridonculous repair bills don't even keep places like a Westmount bike repair shop in business anyways. It's all those golden handshake retired investment advisors with their fucking Race shorts and shaved legs.

Anyways. This post was supposed to be about how I picked my laptop up off the desk where it's been sitting for three days and found a peice of chewed gum underneath it, stuck to the chassis. So now I have a dodgy scratched up Dell Laptop with a gum-blob on it's ass. I am going to look so Profesh at Blogher.

If I had one tenth the sympathy for this computer that I have for my bike...

It wouldn't be a Dell. Hyuk.

Last night I thought of a great re-design for flink, while walking the pooch at 1:00am. Fell asleep while ironing out the kinks in my head.

Once asleep I had a dream about presenting a final version to a client, except I had decided to think outside the box and made the entire website out of foolscap using a yellow high-liter for the important parts. It was an anxiety dream obviously, about a project that is way due, way soon. Oh wait, that's all of them.

Then I woke up and my first thought upon waking was not sex, nor breakfast, not even taking a piss. I woke up, quite literally in the middle of a thought about how to take one of the older sites I have made this year and re-work the navigation to make it more user and action oriented.

There is *nothing else going on upstairs*. Just the internet 24/7.

I don't just need a hobby. I need my humanity back.

Speaking of humanity; This guy was in the park today walking his ferret, on a leash. It's really weird watching a pet-owner watching his pet climb a tree while on a leash. From afar it looked like he was taking this giant oak-tree for a walk.

What I really need is a new mac laptop. Does anyone have any special insider information that the intel macs are gawbage or anything? If I get a mac now, I get a free nano. Why I want a free nano when I already have an ipod is unclear, maybe to give to someone else or what'evs. it just seems like a good opportunity.

Jon Stewart Grills Bill Bennet on Gay Marriage

Friend: "You're not being mean."

Flink: "I do, I think that was kind of mean.."

Friend: "You always say shit like that. You were just being no different than you always are - that's why I love you."

Flink: " That's not a very good point of analysis"

Friend: "Wait. So now you're criticizing me for loving you because you're an asshole??!!"

Have a clear hack policy

What is that? You ask. Well, according to Piotr Przemysław Karwasz:

I try to formulate a clear hack policy. Gaining informations about a system one can not avoid gaining information about people.

I love it when people pose quotidien ethical issues in public space. It renews my faith, both in hackers and the moral universe.

It also reminds me of the time Jane bought a used G4 and when we imported her bookmarks into Explorer we found the previous owners cached collection of porn site passwords.

Lucky!

the concert was a benefit for Breast Cancer Action Montreal.(BCAM)

Breast Cancer Action Montreal (BCAM) is a non-profit activist/advocacy group directed by women who have been sensitized to the trauma of breast cancer (affecting themselves or someone close to them) and who are committed — long-term — to erasing the disease.

The focus of breast cancer research must move beyond its current emphasis on treatment to also embrace a serious search for the causes of the disease and its prevention. BCAM promotes and supports the adoption of the Precautionary Principle as a guideline for action. The Precautionary Principle is a safety-first premise that states that, when there are reasonable scientific grounds for believing a process or product may not be safe, even when cause-and-effect relationships are not fully understood, preventive action must be taken.

There are several more of these benefiits scheduled to take place over the summer to find out the schedule get in touch with BCAM via the website listed above.

It's some good stuff.

Abigail is a bit like Cat Power, if Cat Power could nourish a bit more anger in her presentation. Marni and Melissa are a bit like, well I don't want to say it, but the lower register- high register harmonies make me think of the Indigo Girls but without the cheese, and with sly Tom Petty references.

Oh god what am I saying Marni'll never speak to me again.

It's good stuff go listen to it, don't listen to me, I am not a music reviewer.

If I'm weird I want to share By Tender Forever.

Described on the K records website as;

Tender Forever is a girl performing alone with her DIY crafty sounds, a cardboard laptop, a very personal body language, tears, cut-outs, spasms…and more. Tender Forever also means countless people, feelings and emotions living through her music. Tender Forever plays guitar and calls you into play. Tender Forever sings, dances, gets stirred, excited, worn-out, falls on the floor and affects us. Tender Forever is something very, very fragile! And at the same time, it is a great ball of fire dragging along everything in its way, which might wake up intense things that are buried deep in each one of us…

Yesterday I went out with Lindsey and another friend... named ummm Crytsal, I don't know whatever. Anyways, the three of us went to a nice small show, a benefit for Breast Cancer Action Montreal and had some dinner, all good times.

Then just before we all went our separate ways, something went a little weird. I won't go into the deets, it's too personal, but basically I let the fact that I think Lindsey is a) super-hot, b) super-confident, calm and collected, c) a lot more secure and happy than I am etc... get in my way, and said some things that were kind of mean, and selfish.

Of course, since I am a big girl I caught myself immediately and when Crystal and I biked away I explained my mistake, and said "I will apologize tomorrow, god I feel like a chump. Why do I still unload my shit on my friends, it's totally uncool?" the last was more of a rhetorical question, and Crystal and I some jokes on the way home about how now that cellphones existed insecure faux-pas repairs could happen almost instantly etc.. etc..

When I got home I wrote a quick apologetic email and turned in.

In the morning/early afternoon I was greeted by not one, but two aplogetic, and heartfelt emails, one from Lindsey, who said she was doing the same thing to me, basically (although I had not registered) and one from Crystal saying that she felt badly at joking about my obvious discomfort, an dmaybe was jealous of me for some other trivial reasons. I am convinced she is just jealous of my swank-dank wireless grovelling machine. ;)

Anyways, what the hell is wrong with us girls?

Why are we all so jealous of each other, if we are all equally awesome and lovely and obviously self-aware to an almost uncanny extent. We shouldn't be jealous we should be smug and self-satisfied as chessy cats with tits.

But we aren't, we are just constantly worried about measuring up to each other - when we are each the others biggest fans. It makes no sense.

I for one accept all the apologies, extend heartfelt apologies of my own, and now, lets' get over this weird Bridget Jones-esque rut of self-criticism, and start appreciating ourselves as much as we should.

Phewf..

Okay tinymce is done. goodbye.

Oh.. nice, listening to KD Lang singing Hallelujah by Leonard Cohen - this is the perfect song to end the friendship revelation I had today.

I've decided, for the record that in terms of protests, I much prefer being on the "shocked and outraged but ultimately surprised witness" end of things.

Here's what happened:

From the left - Honouring Somerville, dishonouring Ryerson

from the general middle - Ryerson Students Against Margaret Somerville

from the middle- right -How Ryerson failed Margaret Somerville

Here is a video from the CBC just to get a sense of the experience. (For those of you who know him, check out my brother turning his head.. it's in the first 11 seconds).

Basically Margaret Somerville is an Academic here at McGill who does medical ethics, but thought somewhow that it was within her purview; (because children born of same sex marriage often co me from donor parents) to oppose same sex marriage on the grounds that children have an enshrined right to know who their genetic parents are.

Since you gay daddy may not want you to know who mommy was, he shouldn't be marrying, much less having kids. I know - I call it a stretch - 'specially the rigamarole about a right to your genetic heritage. If that's really such a big deal, lets's focus on stopping war, displacement, and refugee camps for a far broader majority of the worlds population and worry less about the tiny percentage of kids born via new reproductive technologies.

Here's Somervilles argument about the same topic.

gay rights, Childers rights

I don't know, I don't hold the national research chair on ethics, but shit, don't I find her arguments specious in the extreme. Way to disguise homophobia as regard for childrens rights dude. Assuming Somerville has a point, and bio-originism is legislated, what does one do if their children, lovingly raised in a home with a bio-mom and a bio-dad turn out to be gay, and want children of their own, what do you say them?;

"Sorry sweetpea, your culture made a decsion for you, in your best interests years ago, that gay people couldn't have kids, because we think kids have a genetic right to know their birth parents. Aren't you proud of us, didn't we show foresight and tolerance?"

Not that I am saying kids shouldn't know who their birth parents are, just that - if we are going to start making limits, why limit peoples right to reproduce, or to form loving bonds in the hope of eventually reproducing together, in whatever form that takes? Why not limit the right to privacy around reproductive choices? Open up the decision-making from start to finish to the end-results (children) of that process, doesn't that make more sense?

Anyways, I am getting away from my topic which was the ceremony itself.

Insert one hour of wait time upon entry to theatre, an hour in which my beloved and irascible (And weird. Did I mention weird? Holy hell-pants, the man is like the combined twitches of every character from MASH and Cheers combined - but I do love him.) Anyroads dear old Dad has, of late, decided that a little "shoots from the hip" racism is not uncalled for, so as we sit surrounded by the diverse multitudes that make up the parents of Ryersons graduating classes in Computer Science, Applied Science and Engineering, Dad clears his throat and says: "I see a lot of brown names on this program."

I think to myself; "Excellent there are queers outside who want to smack us silly for entering this hall, and there are people of colour here who want to smack us silly for my dads inpossibly ignorant worldview. Welcome to Canada folks."

Of course all I said: was : You weren't born here either dude, so shut -it." Then I showed him solitaire on my i-pod and settled down to wait.

The ceremony itself was marked with protest, many of the faculty members wore pins, stickers, flags and other decorations in support of the protest, and when Somerville got up to speak, the faculty unfurled a banner that read; "My Ryerson supports Human-Rights". All the faculty wearing flags turned their backs to the ceremony mounting a human wall of rainbow colour during Somervilles award.

I am in support of the argument for free speech, so I am not going to say Somerville did or did not deserve her award, however;

Her opening gambit was a mild apologia to the scandal in the form of a treatise on the concept of moral regret. Moral regret is the feeling a person gets when they hold a position that many people disagree with, but out of principal the person cannot give up that position- The feeling of pain inherent in moral regret is engendered by the hurt feelings and the anger all around. Somerville said she was feeling moral regret for her stance on gay -marriage.

Now, in lay-persons terms I imagine one could also call "moral regret", Crocodile Tears and be describing basically the same experience.

So as I said to good old Pop, Shut it.

Once we had got through that bit of fun, there was a long wait for the V-names to hit the mic, puncutated by Dads intermittent grumbling about the ceremonys multi-culti crowd, and my sotto-voce invective.

My little brother made me proud as punch when he finally achieved the stage, and when we left the building we both had some ice-cream bars and tiny fruit tarts (The dessert, not the cutest of the protesters) and then headed for home in the sweltering heat of a summers day.

Congratulations Little Flink. You have made my heart proud.

As for the rest. This was a stellar example of the at times uncomfortable experience of being a Canadian, and whatever I may feel about Somerville, I am happy to have had the unexpected opportunity to examine some of my carefully held world views early on a monday morning.

This is my favorite:

Also a contender:

Kinda scary but heartwarming. Swimming towards you one distended belly-bulb at a time.

Join the flickr group and be at our next sparkle/ glitter/mutant orgy.

It's like socializing for people who genuinely preferred the arts and crafts table over the playground in kindergarten.