Frankly, I'm a little too bummed out to really dive into the whole cyclist v car debate that's been raging in the wake of the former future premier killing a bike messenger. The forums have been vitriolic: allegations of drunk driving, drunk cycling, road rage, who deserved what, and so on into nasty infinity. It's sad.
Drivers all over the internet were pointing to cyclists - all cyclists - as erratic morons who dart in and out of traffic for the sole purpose of irritating and frightening them (the drivers). I would challenge any of those posters to spend a week biking to and from work in downtown Toronto, and see how they feel about big-ass cars and stop signs. Scared? I thought so.
I have a twelve-kilometer daily commute, one that takes me along Davenport, Bloor, the Prince Edward Bridge, and Danforth. Bike lanes, if they're there, tend to run over some of the roughest roads I've ever biked. Cars go at higher speeds and are slowed by fewer intersections. There are some especially tense moments right before Yonge Street, when vehicles are merging both left and right in an effort to get onto/avoid Bay Street.
Drivers are afraid of cyclists, and for good reason: manslaughter is a lousy thing to have on your conscience. Cyclists are afraid of drivers, too: being killed is stupidly easy. It's attractive to blame cyclists for getting hit. We are erratic a lot of time, and not so good with the signalling. And, unlike drivers, we don't have to pass a test in order to drive our vehicles, a fact that's been pointed out roughly 80 million times in the past couple days.
On the other hand, people can start riding bikes as soon as they can walk; learning to drive takes a little longer. And financing the kind of infrastructure changes that would license cyclists would be hella expensive, and hard to pay for: who trains cyclists? at what age? at what cost? who enforces these licenses? and don't the stakes seem a little lower? After all, how many licensed drivers kill or seriously injure people every year? Plenty. Licensing cyclists doesn't make reactions time any fast or street smarts any sharper; only hours and hours on a bike can do that. And hours and hours on a bike, in busy traffic, is a tough assignment.
Most of my friends have been hit, doored, slipped in the streetcar tracks, or screamed at by someone who desperately needed to be going 15% faster. We get such little protection - a foot or so of dedicated road on either side of the street (if we're lucky), and a helmet. And...that's it. No airbag. No power windows. No A/C. No turn lanes. That's all the car's domain, and that's fine. It's just hard to understand how drivers can feel so angry at cyclists. What's that all about?
As one person on the internet said yesterday, "If there's really a War On Cars, why are all the casualties on the other side?"
Thursday, September 3, 2009
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Big Story
This is just a brief and wondrous shout-out to the entire cast, crew and hangers-on of Big Box Story, the absurdly good musical that was produced by a bunch of teenagers and went on to receive national attention. According to the CP24 newsbrief, the last student production to be mounted on the Stratford stage - which Big Box Story was, last night - was King Whistle!, which is proving nearly impossible to track down.
High school drama? That's actually not unheard of: student drama has been done in both Stratford and elsewhere, and it's always a nice acknowledgment of the high drama that high school tends to produce. Naturally, it tends to take a back seat to "real" theatrics. Big Box Story, on the other hand, is something else entirely.
First of all, it's amazingly polished. Some of the lead roles went to kids in the ninth grade - kids who subsequently had to sing, dance, and kiss each other onstage (insert death by mortification for your average fourteen-year-old). There were a dozen or so songs, plus choreography, and there was rarely fewer than a half-dozen people onstage. Just the kind of mental calisthenics required for everyone to perform is pretty amazing. Oh yeah - how many people is "everyone"? About forty. That's...a lot.
During last night's opening remarks, the Festival's Artistic Director Des McAnuff joked that with a cast that size, "this was the largest opening of 2009." It wasn't just the size of the cast or the age of the playwright that got people buzzing: this was a real-deal Community Event. The Avon Theater seats 1100 people. It was sold out. There were custom-made mugs in local coffee shops and Big Box Story-themed window displays in local boutiques.
It's a touch frustrating, because the media was all over the fact that the playwright is an 18-year-old child of Stratford Festival musicians: they sort of left out the rest of the players. This cast has been rehearsing and performing since January, which is a long time to be putting in 10-hour days of unpaid rehearsal. Not to mention many of these students were also involved in Absolute Alice, the show that went all the way to the provincials. Not to mention that they're all full-time students. Not to mention all that previously-mentioned singing, dancing, kissing, etc.
So! Congratulations to every single person in the cast and crew: you are all stars. You were all, by turn, touching, hilarious, goofy, kind, mean, and frazzled. You were all total professionals. You were all so watchable and entertaining, without hitting any of the false notes that sometimes comes from teenagers pretending to be adults. It wasn't even sweet in that aw-look-at-our-kids way: it transcended that, and launched you into the stratosphere. Brava! Bravo!
High school drama? That's actually not unheard of: student drama has been done in both Stratford and elsewhere, and it's always a nice acknowledgment of the high drama that high school tends to produce. Naturally, it tends to take a back seat to "real" theatrics. Big Box Story, on the other hand, is something else entirely.
First of all, it's amazingly polished. Some of the lead roles went to kids in the ninth grade - kids who subsequently had to sing, dance, and kiss each other onstage (insert death by mortification for your average fourteen-year-old). There were a dozen or so songs, plus choreography, and there was rarely fewer than a half-dozen people onstage. Just the kind of mental calisthenics required for everyone to perform is pretty amazing. Oh yeah - how many people is "everyone"? About forty. That's...a lot.
During last night's opening remarks, the Festival's Artistic Director Des McAnuff joked that with a cast that size, "this was the largest opening of 2009." It wasn't just the size of the cast or the age of the playwright that got people buzzing: this was a real-deal Community Event. The Avon Theater seats 1100 people. It was sold out. There were custom-made mugs in local coffee shops and Big Box Story-themed window displays in local boutiques.
It's a touch frustrating, because the media was all over the fact that the playwright is an 18-year-old child of Stratford Festival musicians: they sort of left out the rest of the players. This cast has been rehearsing and performing since January, which is a long time to be putting in 10-hour days of unpaid rehearsal. Not to mention many of these students were also involved in Absolute Alice, the show that went all the way to the provincials. Not to mention that they're all full-time students. Not to mention all that previously-mentioned singing, dancing, kissing, etc.
So! Congratulations to every single person in the cast and crew: you are all stars. You were all, by turn, touching, hilarious, goofy, kind, mean, and frazzled. You were all total professionals. You were all so watchable and entertaining, without hitting any of the false notes that sometimes comes from teenagers pretending to be adults. It wasn't even sweet in that aw-look-at-our-kids way: it transcended that, and launched you into the stratosphere. Brava! Bravo!
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Drunk and Disorderly
Last night, I had the misplaced pleasure of spending time with a person who actively doesn't like me. As the night progressed, I grew to dislike him right back.
It's unclear as to whether or not this person (let's call him Ted) is specific in his dislike - i.e., me alone - or if he's an misanthrope, or if he was just drunk and being a shit-disturbing ass. It's possible that he was and is all three. Anyway, Ted informed me that I was "outclassed," conversationally. He did this about ten minutes before he drunkenly face-planted trying to hop a fence.
Obviously, this kind of behaviour bothers me a little. It's not impossible that I was outclassed - I'm smart, but I'm not a rhetorician - but the primary concern I have with people like Ted, people who pick fights because they're smart, drunk, bored, want to seem impressive, or whatever other reason, is that often, they're not very good at it.
We all know that blowhard who insists that American football < soccer < "football" (and occasionally, for extra cheese, he throws in rugby to confuse and annoy everyone), but it takes some seriously misguided cojones to sit in a crowded bar and rail about the Jews controlling everything. Even though it was in jest (or so he claims), there are social settings in which one should refrain from shouting about ZOG and its minions. Those settings include: everywhere, all the time.
In addition to the offensive and personal attacks Ted made on his friends and tablemates, there was the problem with his conversation style. He slurred and mumbled, which led to my asking "What?" (as in pardon me, please repeat that; not as in I don't understand what you're talking about), which led Ted to make fun of me for not grasping his concepts. The "concepts" (such as they were) fell from that highly respected school of drunk pseudo-smart conversation. Make a broad and offensive claim, wait for the indignant response, and then mock for either "falling for it" or up the ante to even more offensive schtick.
I did, in fact, fall for it: my liberal education has sort of trained me to raised up them hackles when someone says shit like "The Holocaust didn't happen," even if it's supposed to be a hilarious joke.
The problem was two-fold: Ted was drunk, whereas I was sober; furthermore, Ted hasn't gone to university, whereas I have. Needing to prove that you can push past the drunken barrier and the educational fence must be tiring, and unfortunately seemed to have used all the energy reserves that otherwise would have gone into things like empathy and politeness. This is not uncommon among the drunk and surly set. Needing to be right becomes the top priority. If being right becomes impossible, sardonically dismissing the entire conversation (and the people engaging in it) as a joke saves a bit of face.
I used to engage with this type more. I enjoy a good argument - my parents can totally attest - and I also like being right. In recent years, I made the shift from "being right" to "being heard," which, alas, usually ends up being the same thing. Then I started paying more attention to how I actually felt during these so-called fun debates, and the truth is, they're not really all that fun.
Look, sitting down with friends and getting onto a potentially contentious topic is often a blast: gets the blood flowing, lets you get to know them better, and gives a safe space for healthy disagreement. But sitting down with a stranger who is hell-bent on hurting your feelings is, um, different. It's too close to an actual fight to make it interesting: I spend too much time being mad and not enough time being thoughtful. Plus, it totally makes my stomach hurt.
Anyway, it was educational, in a way. For instance, I learned that I don't want to see that dude again! I also learned that when I get faced with these chuckleheads who perceive my presence as some sort of personal threat or attack, I should just walk away. It's not worth it to me to be right or heard when I'm dealing with these guys (and they are usually guys, for some reason): it's worth it for me to be content.
It's unclear as to whether or not this person (let's call him Ted) is specific in his dislike - i.e., me alone - or if he's an misanthrope, or if he was just drunk and being a shit-disturbing ass. It's possible that he was and is all three. Anyway, Ted informed me that I was "outclassed," conversationally. He did this about ten minutes before he drunkenly face-planted trying to hop a fence.
Obviously, this kind of behaviour bothers me a little. It's not impossible that I was outclassed - I'm smart, but I'm not a rhetorician - but the primary concern I have with people like Ted, people who pick fights because they're smart, drunk, bored, want to seem impressive, or whatever other reason, is that often, they're not very good at it.
We all know that blowhard who insists that American football < soccer < "football" (and occasionally, for extra cheese, he throws in rugby to confuse and annoy everyone), but it takes some seriously misguided cojones to sit in a crowded bar and rail about the Jews controlling everything. Even though it was in jest (or so he claims), there are social settings in which one should refrain from shouting about ZOG and its minions. Those settings include: everywhere, all the time.
In addition to the offensive and personal attacks Ted made on his friends and tablemates, there was the problem with his conversation style. He slurred and mumbled, which led to my asking "What?" (as in pardon me, please repeat that; not as in I don't understand what you're talking about), which led Ted to make fun of me for not grasping his concepts. The "concepts" (such as they were) fell from that highly respected school of drunk pseudo-smart conversation. Make a broad and offensive claim, wait for the indignant response, and then mock for either "falling for it" or up the ante to even more offensive schtick.
I did, in fact, fall for it: my liberal education has sort of trained me to raised up them hackles when someone says shit like "The Holocaust didn't happen," even if it's supposed to be a hilarious joke.
The problem was two-fold: Ted was drunk, whereas I was sober; furthermore, Ted hasn't gone to university, whereas I have. Needing to prove that you can push past the drunken barrier and the educational fence must be tiring, and unfortunately seemed to have used all the energy reserves that otherwise would have gone into things like empathy and politeness. This is not uncommon among the drunk and surly set. Needing to be right becomes the top priority. If being right becomes impossible, sardonically dismissing the entire conversation (and the people engaging in it) as a joke saves a bit of face.
I used to engage with this type more. I enjoy a good argument - my parents can totally attest - and I also like being right. In recent years, I made the shift from "being right" to "being heard," which, alas, usually ends up being the same thing. Then I started paying more attention to how I actually felt during these so-called fun debates, and the truth is, they're not really all that fun.
Look, sitting down with friends and getting onto a potentially contentious topic is often a blast: gets the blood flowing, lets you get to know them better, and gives a safe space for healthy disagreement. But sitting down with a stranger who is hell-bent on hurting your feelings is, um, different. It's too close to an actual fight to make it interesting: I spend too much time being mad and not enough time being thoughtful. Plus, it totally makes my stomach hurt.
Anyway, it was educational, in a way. For instance, I learned that I don't want to see that dude again! I also learned that when I get faced with these chuckleheads who perceive my presence as some sort of personal threat or attack, I should just walk away. It's not worth it to me to be right or heard when I'm dealing with these guys (and they are usually guys, for some reason): it's worth it for me to be content.
Saturday, August 29, 2009
Park Your Butt
Most of the time, I love living in the city. I have access to the things, people and places that I feel I need to survive: friends, gluten-free cookies, used CD shops, concerts, coffee shops, pay phones, pharmacies that stay open until midnight, and the library. Even though I owe a ton of money to the libraries (yeah, with an s: I am notorious for owing cash to each of the four libraries I belong to), it still gives me a warm glow to know I can access damn near everything.
On the other hand, sometimes I get to wishing I had access to a more natural space. I love the urban amenities, but Toronto isn't renowned forbeing overly nature-ish. Even though allegedly it's the "city within a park," it's surprisingly difficult to get at the green spaces. Sure, the Humber Valley is sort of there, as is the Don Valley trail, but they're both kind of ho-hum in really creating a natural setting for urbanites to explore. I mean, for Pete's sake, the DVP runs right through the Don Valley. It might be a haven for cyclists, but the only river that flows through the Don Valley is one made up of Mazdas and Mack trucks.
I admire cities that have really exerted themselves in creating or maintaining natural spaces. New York City's Central Park is the most obvious example, even though it's more park than forest or nature reserve. Savannah (go Sandgnats!) has this remarkable archipelago-style park system that greens up the city real nice, even as they're all hemmed in by buildings.
Toronto, when viewed from above, is desperate for the green. High Park might be considered "downtown" if you live in, like, Rexdale (go Streethawks!), but it's pretty far West for a lot of folks. Besides, even if there was a 100-acre wood right across the street from me, it might not be enough. I'm getting a hankering for the big vista. I am not really a nature girl, but I love the idea of the natural world. I love watching the water, and having to fight through an escarpment of condos to get to the lake ain't my idea of a great time.
Giving up the great views for bonuses like all-night shawarma joints is just one of the trade-offs you get for choosing to live in a big city. Urban living, while not rife natural spaces, allows me to live a uniquely eco-friendly lifestyle: I don't drive, I bike, I can shop at Ontario farmer's markets, I can buy second-hand clothes, I can curb-score my cookware, and I can live with lots of other people. Living in the country, with all those great views, wouldn't let me do any of those things.
I'll eventually spend time away from Toronto (go, grad school!), and when I do, I'd like to have sought out some different landscapes. Canada is just chock-a-block with different geographies, and a summer on the Praries or a winter in Southern BC might be a great cure for the skyscraper blues.
On the other hand, sometimes I get to wishing I had access to a more natural space. I love the urban amenities, but Toronto isn't renowned forbeing overly nature-ish. Even though allegedly it's the "city within a park," it's surprisingly difficult to get at the green spaces. Sure, the Humber Valley is sort of there, as is the Don Valley trail, but they're both kind of ho-hum in really creating a natural setting for urbanites to explore. I mean, for Pete's sake, the DVP runs right through the Don Valley. It might be a haven for cyclists, but the only river that flows through the Don Valley is one made up of Mazdas and Mack trucks.
I admire cities that have really exerted themselves in creating or maintaining natural spaces. New York City's Central Park is the most obvious example, even though it's more park than forest or nature reserve. Savannah (go Sandgnats!) has this remarkable archipelago-style park system that greens up the city real nice, even as they're all hemmed in by buildings.
Toronto, when viewed from above, is desperate for the green. High Park might be considered "downtown" if you live in, like, Rexdale (go Streethawks!), but it's pretty far West for a lot of folks. Besides, even if there was a 100-acre wood right across the street from me, it might not be enough. I'm getting a hankering for the big vista. I am not really a nature girl, but I love the idea of the natural world. I love watching the water, and having to fight through an escarpment of condos to get to the lake ain't my idea of a great time.
Giving up the great views for bonuses like all-night shawarma joints is just one of the trade-offs you get for choosing to live in a big city. Urban living, while not rife natural spaces, allows me to live a uniquely eco-friendly lifestyle: I don't drive, I bike, I can shop at Ontario farmer's markets, I can buy second-hand clothes, I can curb-score my cookware, and I can live with lots of other people. Living in the country, with all those great views, wouldn't let me do any of those things.
I'll eventually spend time away from Toronto (go, grad school!), and when I do, I'd like to have sought out some different landscapes. Canada is just chock-a-block with different geographies, and a summer on the Praries or a winter in Southern BC might be a great cure for the skyscraper blues.
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Turn! Turn! Turn!
Man, I am not really a summer girl, but I sort of hate the thought of losing it. I usually love the change of seasons, but Summer Oh-Nine hasn't really felt like a mojito party on the beach. It's seemed more like a vague segue between late spring and late fall, with a handful of blisteringly hot days thrown in to confuse and dehydrate us.
I know, I know - Toronto gets an easy-breezy winter compared to places like Regina and Winnipeg. I shouldn't be bitching. I should just be thanking my lucky stars that I've never had to be one of the 6,184 souls toughing it out in Iqaluit. Blah blah blah. Toronto still gets slammed with some unpleasant precipitation. Look, we all know that Vancouver has the weeniest Canadian winter. Boo hoo, it rains a lot. But when your winters look like this instead of this, it's a mite difficult to muster up the sympathy. Even if it does rain, it's not like you're out there - y'all seem busy with other hobbies. (Stereotypical? Yes. Sue me.)
This summer was kind of lame. Sure, it had some hot days, and the nights were pleasant and cool. It's always a drag when your (read: my) apartment heats up to roughly cookie-baking temperature; it tends to make sleeping really shitty. But overall, it seemed so blah. There was the garbage strike - and thank god it wasn't hotter, or else the city would have stunk -and that meant no Canada Day fireworks or sneaking into public pools.
Officially, the rainiest summer on record was just last year. But didn't this year feel like it was sort of off-kilter? And it's almost over! It's like that joke in Annie Hall: The food here is terrible! And such small small portions!
All right, I'll stop bitching. To everything there is a season (Turn! Turn! Turn!) and summer 2010 is a scant ten months away. That'll bring the South Africa-hosted World Cup, the release of Toy Story 3 (what? I was twelve years old when the first one came out. It was awesome then, and it's awesome now), and my long-delayed graduation party (only eight years . It will also mean the end of those terrible CTV Olympics ads, which seriously can't come fast enough.
So: gods of summer. Small request. Give me a glorious Indian summer in mid-to-late October - just a few more days to sit out on the deck and watch the snow not fly - and I'll do my best to keep the moaning about the upcoming winter and this bust of a summer to my own bitter self.
I know, I know - Toronto gets an easy-breezy winter compared to places like Regina and Winnipeg. I shouldn't be bitching. I should just be thanking my lucky stars that I've never had to be one of the 6,184 souls toughing it out in Iqaluit. Blah blah blah. Toronto still gets slammed with some unpleasant precipitation. Look, we all know that Vancouver has the weeniest Canadian winter. Boo hoo, it rains a lot. But when your winters look like this instead of this, it's a mite difficult to muster up the sympathy. Even if it does rain, it's not like you're out there - y'all seem busy with other hobbies. (Stereotypical? Yes. Sue me.)
This summer was kind of lame. Sure, it had some hot days, and the nights were pleasant and cool. It's always a drag when your (read: my) apartment heats up to roughly cookie-baking temperature; it tends to make sleeping really shitty. But overall, it seemed so blah. There was the garbage strike - and thank god it wasn't hotter, or else the city would have stunk -and that meant no Canada Day fireworks or sneaking into public pools.
Officially, the rainiest summer on record was just last year. But didn't this year feel like it was sort of off-kilter? And it's almost over! It's like that joke in Annie Hall: The food here is terrible! And such small small portions!
All right, I'll stop bitching. To everything there is a season (Turn! Turn! Turn!) and summer 2010 is a scant ten months away. That'll bring the South Africa-hosted World Cup, the release of Toy Story 3 (what? I was twelve years old when the first one came out. It was awesome then, and it's awesome now), and my long-delayed graduation party (only eight years . It will also mean the end of those terrible CTV Olympics ads, which seriously can't come fast enough.
So: gods of summer. Small request. Give me a glorious Indian summer in mid-to-late October - just a few more days to sit out on the deck and watch the snow not fly - and I'll do my best to keep the moaning about the upcoming winter and this bust of a summer to my own bitter self.
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Emily Blog Post
While it seems like, on the surface, technology is shiny and wonderful, it's becoming harder and harder to separate good form and bad form on the intertubes. Breaking up with someone is hard enough - changing your status on Facebook just breaks your damned heart.
It doesn't have to be that way. Web 2.0 could be a gentler place, full of unicorns and whatnot. Taking a look at the protocols of the hypertext tranfer protocols isn't griping about things changing...it's just acknowedging that things have changed. Online communication has become the Wild West of interpersonal interaction.
It doesn't have to be that way. Web 2.0 could be a gentler place, full of unicorns and whatnot. Taking a look at the protocols of the hypertext tranfer protocols isn't griping about things changing...it's just acknowedging that things have changed. Online communication has become the Wild West of interpersonal interaction.
Online conversations are lame. Yo, we have all done it: been chatting on some pop-up window, blithering away, when oops! Out comes something that shouldn't have. Telling someone you've grown fond of them (in your pants! Sorry, heart! Awwww...) is totally way easier when you can hunt-and-peck your feelings into being. Same with expressing anger or giving bad news, since the stakes are way lower when you don't have an audio or body-language stream of information that corroborates and intensifies the words.
Building friendship or romance around online interaction is fine - late night conversations are especially gratifying - but you'd best get along with your friends and girlfriends in the real world, too. Online conversations usually have face-to-face ramifications: you can't be all, "I like you" on the internet and then pretend that didn't happen the next time y'all hang out.
Instant-messaging is a totally useful tool, but those conversations, with their lowered inhibitions and delayed reactions, shouldn't be standing in for real-time flesh-and-blood talks. Too much gets lost in translation.
Facebook is for you...not your dog/baby. Facebook is already solipsistic enough without dragging the pets into it. Chairman Meow is adorable, but please don't devote albums upon albums to pets. Fine, "accidentally" snap a couple shots of your furry friends, but the look-we-got-a-kitten album is tired.
This goes double for babies - very cute! But how much do you need to share with your "friends" from high school, former bosses, people you met drunk at a party four years ago, and distant cousins? A good rule of thumb is, if you wouldn't want these people accosting your children on the street, why allow them access online?
Keep your Facebook profile adult: don't post pictures of anyone or anything that can't untag a bad photo. And obviously, post as many pictures as you can of your drunk idiot friends.
That goes double for weddings. Happiest day of your life! Your mom! Your best friend! Your professional photographer who is going to squeeze blood from a stone and give you six thousand wedding-day shots! And then you're going to post them online! Happy!
Okay, seriously, if they weren't invited to the wedding, people don't care about your nuptial photography. Chances are, even if I was there, I spent most of the time avoiding the photographers until the tequila haze set in (see: drunk idiot friends, above). It's usually a lovely day and an important part of relationships, but thousands of wedding photos get old really fast. And can someone please explain why they all look the same? Add one white dress to one suit and poof, it's a marriage.
Now, if you've done something different (or really different), post 'em all. But if you've gone the bride-looking-demure-while-husband-hits-on-her route...we've seen them. Save them for your mom, friends, and future grandchildren.
MySpace doesn't make you a musician. Anyone can sign up for one of those seizure-inducing MySpace pages. Not everyone should. In order to be considered "successful," you need things like shows, fans, album deals, merchandise, and a band member who ends up at the bottom of the pool.
I suppose blogging (ahem) could be considered the written version of those heinous DIY jobs that infest MySpace...but my page doesn't garner you disapproving looks when the built-in music player goes echoing out into the office. Nor will it crash your browser. While MySpace has been lauded as the next step in marketing small bands, that kind of success doesn't come from trying to get your band's wallpaper to match its "mood." Bands that make it actually, uh, work. Hard.
Invest the money, buy a domain, post your music and listings there, and for god's sake, do it professionally. The difference between a lousy MySpace page and a beautiful website is immense.
Never replace face-to-face with technology. This is the big one. Human beings are social. We need facetime. We need touch. We rely on extremely subtle cues from tone of voice, body language, and posture to read people; those things can't be replicated in text messages, no matter how much passion is infused with "r u awak?" People live far? Call 'em on the phone. People live close? Go see 'em.
All this technology is supposed to bring people together, not make it easier to circumvent the very basics of human communication. If we are truly friends, let's use these zeroes and ones to our advantage.
Facebook is for you...not your dog/baby. Facebook is already solipsistic enough without dragging the pets into it. Chairman Meow is adorable, but please don't devote albums upon albums to pets. Fine, "accidentally" snap a couple shots of your furry friends, but the look-we-got-a-kitten album is tired.
This goes double for babies - very cute! But how much do you need to share with your "friends" from high school, former bosses, people you met drunk at a party four years ago, and distant cousins? A good rule of thumb is, if you wouldn't want these people accosting your children on the street, why allow them access online?
Keep your Facebook profile adult: don't post pictures of anyone or anything that can't untag a bad photo. And obviously, post as many pictures as you can of your drunk idiot friends.
That goes double for weddings. Happiest day of your life! Your mom! Your best friend! Your professional photographer who is going to squeeze blood from a stone and give you six thousand wedding-day shots! And then you're going to post them online! Happy!
Okay, seriously, if they weren't invited to the wedding, people don't care about your nuptial photography. Chances are, even if I was there, I spent most of the time avoiding the photographers until the tequila haze set in (see: drunk idiot friends, above). It's usually a lovely day and an important part of relationships, but thousands of wedding photos get old really fast. And can someone please explain why they all look the same? Add one white dress to one suit and poof, it's a marriage.
Now, if you've done something different (or really different), post 'em all. But if you've gone the bride-looking-demure-while-husband-hits-on-her route...we've seen them. Save them for your mom, friends, and future grandchildren.
MySpace doesn't make you a musician. Anyone can sign up for one of those seizure-inducing MySpace pages. Not everyone should. In order to be considered "successful," you need things like shows, fans, album deals, merchandise, and a band member who ends up at the bottom of the pool.
I suppose blogging (ahem) could be considered the written version of those heinous DIY jobs that infest MySpace...but my page doesn't garner you disapproving looks when the built-in music player goes echoing out into the office. Nor will it crash your browser. While MySpace has been lauded as the next step in marketing small bands, that kind of success doesn't come from trying to get your band's wallpaper to match its "mood." Bands that make it actually, uh, work. Hard.
Invest the money, buy a domain, post your music and listings there, and for god's sake, do it professionally. The difference between a lousy MySpace page and a beautiful website is immense.
Never replace face-to-face with technology. This is the big one. Human beings are social. We need facetime. We need touch. We rely on extremely subtle cues from tone of voice, body language, and posture to read people; those things can't be replicated in text messages, no matter how much passion is infused with "r u awak?" People live far? Call 'em on the phone. People live close? Go see 'em.
All this technology is supposed to bring people together, not make it easier to circumvent the very basics of human communication. If we are truly friends, let's use these zeroes and ones to our advantage.
Saturday, August 22, 2009
Tri Me
Speaking of personal challenges - oh, sorry, were we not? We are now - I'm thinking about upping the ante, active-wise.
I was not what you would consider "sporty" in high school. Gym class was an unkind period for most teenagers, and I am not unique in feeling that the combination of unflattering shorts + sweaty faces + having desperate crushes on fully half the guys I went to high school with = a mini-heart attack every time we had to assemble for 50 minutes of self-conscious exertion. I was also what might be considered round, although it is hard to judge. Skinny fifteen-year-old girls are a totally different species from thin adult women: they are skinny in that "I just had a growth spurt" kind of way, not that "I spent a lot of time on my core" sort of way. Since I haven't had a growth spurt since the sixth grade, I never got to be a skinny fifteen year old girl. And yes, parts of me still resent that.
So I never played on the baseketball team or the lacrosse squad (although I was in Reach For The Top with my friend Jess, where we both had to be trained out of answering the questions in the form of a question - thanks a lot, Jeopardy). I did enjoy badminton, but that was mostly because it's a deeply goofy sport. It's tough to really suck at badminton.
My unwillingness to participate in team sports starts back in kindergarten: I "played soccer" by lying in the grass and ignoring the encouraging shouts from the coach, my parents, other people's parents, and my teammates. I had fun.
Something happened in university, though. Maybe it was the forty (!) pounds I gained when I took a year off school. Maybe it was finding out that the gym isn't an evil place. Don't get me wrong: I hate working out. The sweaty grunts and intimidating Spadex ensembles aren't encouraging to your average Joe-Schmo (or Jane Schmane...I guess?). Plus, I have a hard time not staring at people. I know it's bad form: I like watching bodies. Is that a crime? I do it on the bus, too. Does that balance things out? (I know the answer is no, and that I am a creepy weirdo. Sigh.)
While the machines make me nervous and the rowing machine gives me hives, the gym also contains wonderful spaces like the squash courts. I love playing squash. It's one of the very few sports where obscenities are okay, where crashing into the wall sometimes happens as part of gameplay - not as a result of my oafish gracelessness - and goddamn do you ever sweat. It's also competitive without being a team sport. I hate feeling like I've let people down when I fluff team sports, but with the solo endeavours, the only person who screwed it up is me.
With a new sport in my back pocket, I started losing some of those forty (!) pounds. I'm no great shakes at squash, but it is fun and fast. Then I started biking. Which clearly, I love. I just got back from a bike trip to Guelph, which was fun in the "my vacation kicked my ass" sort of way. Who knew that Halton Hills was actually hilly? I thought it was one of those subdivision-type names, but I was wrong. Painfully wrong.
I've since lost most of those 40 (!) pounds, and converted most of the remaining Cheeto-fat into muscle. Now I want a new challenge. I was thinking about maybe training for a triathlon. Not your scary Ironman deal. Something friendlier. Something like a Sprint Triathlon, which seems way more manageable. I've always been fascinated with adventure-type sports. The Patagonia catalogue, with its 3%-body-fat rock climbers sprinkled over gorgeous vistas? Yeah, that's basically porno for me. It makes me want to do the Iditarod (what a fun word to say!), learn how to horseback ride, and go over Niagara Falls in a pickle barrel. Failing that, it makes me want to get really good at playing catch.
Running a marathon just sounds painful, but I think something like a triathlon would be fun. Maybe a duathlon, since I'm a little afraid of deep water. Or a biathlon, which is cross-country skiing and shooting (!), and is disappointing for not including some competitive girl-girl making out. I don't want to turn into one of those droning bores who talk about things like carbo-loading and electrolytes, but it would be nice to kick a little ass every now and again...especially if the ass in question is my own.
I was not what you would consider "sporty" in high school. Gym class was an unkind period for most teenagers, and I am not unique in feeling that the combination of unflattering shorts + sweaty faces + having desperate crushes on fully half the guys I went to high school with = a mini-heart attack every time we had to assemble for 50 minutes of self-conscious exertion. I was also what might be considered round, although it is hard to judge. Skinny fifteen-year-old girls are a totally different species from thin adult women: they are skinny in that "I just had a growth spurt" kind of way, not that "I spent a lot of time on my core" sort of way. Since I haven't had a growth spurt since the sixth grade, I never got to be a skinny fifteen year old girl. And yes, parts of me still resent that.
So I never played on the baseketball team or the lacrosse squad (although I was in Reach For The Top with my friend Jess, where we both had to be trained out of answering the questions in the form of a question - thanks a lot, Jeopardy). I did enjoy badminton, but that was mostly because it's a deeply goofy sport. It's tough to really suck at badminton.
My unwillingness to participate in team sports starts back in kindergarten: I "played soccer" by lying in the grass and ignoring the encouraging shouts from the coach, my parents, other people's parents, and my teammates. I had fun.
Something happened in university, though. Maybe it was the forty (!) pounds I gained when I took a year off school. Maybe it was finding out that the gym isn't an evil place. Don't get me wrong: I hate working out. The sweaty grunts and intimidating Spadex ensembles aren't encouraging to your average Joe-Schmo (or Jane Schmane...I guess?). Plus, I have a hard time not staring at people. I know it's bad form: I like watching bodies. Is that a crime? I do it on the bus, too. Does that balance things out? (I know the answer is no, and that I am a creepy weirdo. Sigh.)
While the machines make me nervous and the rowing machine gives me hives, the gym also contains wonderful spaces like the squash courts. I love playing squash. It's one of the very few sports where obscenities are okay, where crashing into the wall sometimes happens as part of gameplay - not as a result of my oafish gracelessness - and goddamn do you ever sweat. It's also competitive without being a team sport. I hate feeling like I've let people down when I fluff team sports, but with the solo endeavours, the only person who screwed it up is me.
With a new sport in my back pocket, I started losing some of those forty (!) pounds. I'm no great shakes at squash, but it is fun and fast. Then I started biking. Which clearly, I love. I just got back from a bike trip to Guelph, which was fun in the "my vacation kicked my ass" sort of way. Who knew that Halton Hills was actually hilly? I thought it was one of those subdivision-type names, but I was wrong. Painfully wrong.
I've since lost most of those 40 (!) pounds, and converted most of the remaining Cheeto-fat into muscle. Now I want a new challenge. I was thinking about maybe training for a triathlon. Not your scary Ironman deal. Something friendlier. Something like a Sprint Triathlon, which seems way more manageable. I've always been fascinated with adventure-type sports. The Patagonia catalogue, with its 3%-body-fat rock climbers sprinkled over gorgeous vistas? Yeah, that's basically porno for me. It makes me want to do the Iditarod (what a fun word to say!), learn how to horseback ride, and go over Niagara Falls in a pickle barrel. Failing that, it makes me want to get really good at playing catch.
Running a marathon just sounds painful, but I think something like a triathlon would be fun. Maybe a duathlon, since I'm a little afraid of deep water. Or a biathlon, which is cross-country skiing and shooting (!), and is disappointing for not including some competitive girl-girl making out. I don't want to turn into one of those droning bores who talk about things like carbo-loading and electrolytes, but it would be nice to kick a little ass every now and again...especially if the ass in question is my own.
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