Category: Uncategorized

which OS are you?
hehehehe

today was super relaxing. a nice drive up to qualicum bay and the lighthouse community was just what the doctaur ordered.
i can’t figure out why i am sneezing so much today. hmmmmm. atchoo!!
enough of the present, lets talk about the future.

i’m getting a cell phone. after many years of putting this off, i have decided that it is time to do it. waiting in one place for a phone call has taken up too much of my time and i’ve had it with missing messages. though i haven’t missed any messages up here, i have no idea how many i have missed in victoria over the years. plus if i am planning on doing some contracting when i get back to victoria, i better not miss a single message and i better have them all in a reasonably timely manner.
i might sound bitter, but i am not really. i enjoy not having a cell phone a lot of the time, simply because when i am out doing something, i am not being interrupted by a phone. but.. you can turn ringers off.

i think i need a bicycle. or a car. not a motorbike. not the bus.
not the coho. not walking.
what is your mode of transportation? and why?

no folks, it doesn’t get much more exciting than this. i got more new shoes. the ones i couldn’t get in aldo in victoria i got in aldo in nanaimo. the last pair. noice one, me! i’ll post a picture .. later!
so as you can see, i am dying to play tennis again.

i guess the tennis racquet everywhere kind of gave it away. i got a new grip on it and some new topspin strings. last sunday when i played tennis with nathan it was just too cool. it’s been a long time for both of us and it was just awesome. the last several years i’ve been stuck to [my] computers and other lazy social activities. most of my friends just enjoyed going for coffee and all that kind of stuff. i still love doing that but physical activity is so much more gratifying and it doesn’t leave you buzzing on caffeine or whathaveyou at the end of the night when you should be exhausted enought to sleep.

me and nathan are planning on going back to an indoor facility to partake in more tennis-like activities. we’re also planning on bringing his laptop, his usb audio input device, and a couple of mics to record samples. the sounds made in the tennis bubble is just too zope. nathan has also been hooking me up with some serious samples which is just great. i have much to listen to when i return to victoria, that is for sure.

those are my überzope new shoes. picture by girlrepair.
so yes, i made it. 1 hour in the gym and an hour and a half in the pool.
ok. this place has 3 awesome waterslides, a wave pool, and this crazy current pool. and a steam room seperate from the sauna. oh and an olympic sized swimming pool with diving boards et all.
besides not having tower, this place is way more fun than anything in victoria. the slides are huge and fast, and the place is just nice.
anyway, i am planning on going rock climbing again tonight. i just had a gigantic dinner and i can’t move. ack!
scratch that. it isn’t happening..
mellow night in. i am exhausted from work anyway.
ps: thank you renee 🙂

i will go to the aquatics centre.

well no, victoria is no montreal, victoria is no san francisco, and victoria certainly is no new orleans.
what victoria is though, is interesting. the cultural events that happen are not the kind where they are delivered to you on a silver platter. and i’m glad they’re not, because if that were the case, they would have to water the content down to the lowest common denominator to market it on that scale.
so then, take a look through the victoria phone book. look in the yellow pages under entertainment and under culture.
hold on, i’ll do it for you.
entertainment:

• clowns
• belly dancers
• magicians
• comedians
• hypnotists

arts and cultural organizations:

• british columbia association of performing arts festivals
• british columbia festival of the arts
• canadian music centre
• victoria literary arts festival society

i can’t say that those entries excite me in any way. so, if this was ones approach, yes.. it would appear that victoria is a void when it comes to culture.

i don’t think this is exactly representative of how it actually is in victoria, however. it is a bit different. you have to know where to look, and to do that, you must do your homework. that’s okay, it makes it all a discovery.
although i have to say, it is easy to expect more accessability from cultures and sub-cultures, considering the last super popular “sub-culture” supernovaed to the extent that it became subject to ridicule such as this:

[synja] wouldnt it be so rave cool to have a museum of glowsticks, like, all the art was made out of glowsticks, and they all glowed.. and like.. the museum itself was built of of glowsticks too?? kind of like tooth picks, but i mean.. lets not be ridiculous here it would take too many tooth picks to make a whole museum!!

not to say that rave culture is dead, but the pop culture accessability which destroyed the rave mystique stands taller than anything else right now, and also serves for comparison when expectations about new (?) or different cultures are being made.

which brings me to my next question. what is going to be the next big thing? and i don’t mean electronic genre, i don’t mean drug, but i do mean: what is going to be the next big subculture? rave was as big, as widespread and as globally synchronious as i can think of.
it happened to coincide with the erruption of global communication (i’m not referring to the band) through the internet, which could have a lot to do with it.
what i am seeing these days is more and more splinters of special interest groups, autonomous communities and some sort of gravity between personalities. i am referring to blogging, specifically. however, a subculture, it isn’t. it’s just a different way of communicating, like an email list, but less obnoxious and more involved at the same time. sort of magnetic.

or is it a subculture? what defines a subculture?
princeton university says it means the following:

subculture
n : a social group within a national culture that has distinctive patterns of behavior and beliefs

well, no, not specifically distinct beliefs. maybe we all believe that blogging is good for your mind, maybe we all find it therapeutic, but it is my belief that many of us blog for different reasons.
that being said, lets look at another definition, this time from merriam-webster:

subculture
n : an ethnic, regional, economic, or social group exhibiting characteristic patterns of behavior sufficient to distinguish it from others within an embracing culture or society

social group? well kind of. there are blog friends, and there is something somewhat distinct about writing in regards to your own life, or on your own views for all to see. it isn’t so unique when it comes to the expression is broadcasted, but more that we all have our own soapboxes with an unlimited audience. what is distinct about this is that we can hear eachother whilst standing on our own respective soap boxes. has that really happened before? i don’t know. i don’t think so, at least. i would liken a lot (not all) of the blog-land to column writing. i can’t see newspaper columnists listening to eachother as much as some bloggers do. further to this, some of us end up meeting because of our blogging. is there a distinguishable social group characteristic? yes, there is. the method of communication would be it. within the social group, are there common distinguishable characteristics? well, no, there isn’t, because of the intrinsic autonomy of the weblog.

beyond the soapbox, the only thing we have in common is that we’re all different.

i found this tonight on a telephone pole on johnson and broad st. at around 5 pm on a week day, i’d give that piece of hand-drawn posterage about 3 minutes before it’s covered up by a machine copied poster for a cultural event. is that intended irony ?
after spending some good time in nanaimo, i would have to disagree.. there is a lot going on in victoria, people just need to crawl out of their comfort zones to see it and appreciate it. right?

i went for a walk on The Breakwater today with chrissie and jim. it was gorgeous out there.. we probably spent almost an hour on it, taking pictures and observing stuff.
very relaxing weekend .. why does it have to end!?!?!?

imma go see nanaimo take on victoria! woooaaaawoooooo!!

on a spur of the moment decision (is that redundant?), i decided to go back to victoria for monday night and tuesday day with emily. it was so relaxing. jebus it was nice. i think it was monday day time at the office when i yelled out “arrrrgh!! i miss victoria!”

so, i have that bug out of my system for a little bit anyway. back to work in the morning and hopefully i’ll get a better sleep tonight than i have in the last few nights that i spent in nanaimo.

that view is up on mt. tolmie from last night. i haven’t been updating lately, but that’s not because of lack of things to write about.. it’s just because i’ve been doing lots of stuff!

last week i went snowboarding up on mt. washington for the first time and i can’t wait to go again. i need to do some more working out before i hit the slopes once more but it was great fun and some more lower body strength will definitely help on the turns and stops. anyone can go fast down a hill.

as you can see, i also went rock climbing. that was a great work out and lots of fun. we went at this place called ‘the romper room’ and i definitely want to go again. it was my first time doing the indoor rock climbing thing.

devon, if you’re reading this .. you should go indoor rock climbing if you haven’t. . i think you’d love it. it rocks. haw haw!

also, we did our first set of elementary schools last week and it was good times once more. half the battle this time is not getting lost in nanaimo.. haha.

last night myself and jim went around with a spotlight and the G2 to see what zaniness we could perform with some darkness and time exposures.

we didn’t have a lot of time to experiment so i think we’re going to have to try again soon. like next time i come into town on sunday or monday! or even saturday night!

i haven’t seen it yet, but word on the street is that i’m in an interview in the local paper for the powersmart stuff. 7775 people came to see us in 3 days at home depot. that is 15550 lightbulbs that we gave out. yowza.

this is what i would call the “whut” expression. it’s not a gurn, it’s not a smile. it isn’t unhappy, and it’s not joyous. anyway. at this moment, myself and krishen are both at 178 posts on our blogs. neat! he writes more frequently than me .. he started his blog after me, so yeah. he caught up. and here i am saying “whut.”
like i said in a previous post .. last week had its up and downs, but it was really, overall, a great week.