Thursday, October 27, 2005
Buffchucks!
Had a good lunch today....first sit down meal in a while...
Went down to a fancy pub with my manager. Had PUMPKIN beer and a buffalo burger, which was terrific.
Funny thing...while walking there, we went past a telephone booth, and noticed a guy spraypainting SOMETHING in the booth, right in the middle of the day on a busy street. I was very...well..confused!
I'm back in toronto tomorrow, then off to waterloo for friday saturday to get in some squash and mountain biking
Went down to a fancy pub with my manager. Had PUMPKIN beer and a buffalo burger, which was terrific.
Funny thing...while walking there, we went past a telephone booth, and noticed a guy spraypainting SOMETHING in the booth, right in the middle of the day on a busy street. I was very...well..confused!
I'm back in toronto tomorrow, then off to waterloo for friday saturday to get in some squash and mountain biking
Tuesday, October 25, 2005
Kris Kross gonna make you JUMP
The guy that started JUMP Tutoring (the guy that was in Good Will Hunting!) just got a fat cheque/prize for a play he wrote.
Monday, October 24, 2005
On America - Part II
Today's "On America" post will discuss two of my current pet peeves..
i) I'm no world traveller, but where I come from taxis operate on one simple principle. The light on top of the taxi is on when the taxi is available, the light on top is off when there's someone in the taxi and it's unavailable. This makes it easy to know which cabs you should be waving at, and which ones you can ignore.....except in Boston. In Boston the light on top means nothing...it's official, I actually asked a cabbie after spending 15 minutes being confused by taxis with lights on whizzing by, and noticing that cabs cruising by with no lights on were in fact empty!!
ii) There are a few indisputable truths in life. You grow old. You pay taxes. You die. Payphones cost 25 cents. Each of these is a constant, a fact.
Except it seems that here in the glorious US of A, many payphones cost 50 cents. AMERICAN.
25 cents seems like a fair cost....but 50 cents just seems like a rip off. Especially if you get an answering machine!
i) I'm no world traveller, but where I come from taxis operate on one simple principle. The light on top of the taxi is on when the taxi is available, the light on top is off when there's someone in the taxi and it's unavailable. This makes it easy to know which cabs you should be waving at, and which ones you can ignore.....except in Boston. In Boston the light on top means nothing...it's official, I actually asked a cabbie after spending 15 minutes being confused by taxis with lights on whizzing by, and noticing that cabs cruising by with no lights on were in fact empty!!
ii) There are a few indisputable truths in life. You grow old. You pay taxes. You die. Payphones cost 25 cents. Each of these is a constant, a fact.
Except it seems that here in the glorious US of A, many payphones cost 50 cents. AMERICAN.
25 cents seems like a fair cost....but 50 cents just seems like a rip off. Especially if you get an answering machine!
Friday, October 21, 2005
Eating Like a King
This week has been absolutely insane. I'm sure I've spent $200 eating out/drinking. There's a couple of guys from Infusion working in Boston, and we've been hooking up for dinners...
I've done 2 dinners at this one really posh nice restaurant/club called Houstons.... I had the 'Evil Thai Ginger Grill Salad' both times...essentially it's a TON of super delicious steak in a mango/avacado/peanut/noodle salad.
Tuesday I went to Legal's Seafood, a seriously expensive but mega delicious seafood place. We had uber good tuna sashimi, mussells, lobster, and yummy home made ice cream!!
Last night we went on a serious adventure to try to find this sushi place Oishi Sushi. Word on the street is that it's considered the 4th best sushi place in North America. The thing is...it was abotu a 45 minute subway/train ride away from downtown...we get off the train in the middle of nowhere(it's kind of like the Go Train in toronto...so "stations" generally are parking lots in the middle of nowhere). One of the guys claimed he knew EXACTLY where we were...but after walking 100 feet or so(remember, we're in the middle of nowhere and it's very dark out) we decided that we erally had no idea what we were doing and it would be ebst to wait for a cab.
So after about 10 minutes a cab showed up. We asked him to take us to the address...Cab's always cost a minimum amount, even just to sit in...well in Boston that minimum is $1.50. Shortly, we were waiting at a traffic light..I watched the fare tick from $1.80 up to $2.40....at $3 the cabbie pulled over and stopped. The guy in the front goes to him "Why're you stopping...could you just take us to the restaurant please?". "Buddy, this IS the restaurant.".
It was singularly the shortest cab ride of my life...like...honestly, 1 city block tops.
The sushi was awesome, even though it was a lengthy place. The restaurant only has seating for like 15 maybe...so not a lot of turnover, and nto a lot of space. But the food was yummmmy!
I'm back in toronto this weekend, then heading back to new york next week. Fun fun fun!
I've done 2 dinners at this one really posh nice restaurant/club called Houstons.... I had the 'Evil Thai Ginger Grill Salad' both times...essentially it's a TON of super delicious steak in a mango/avacado/peanut/noodle salad.
Tuesday I went to Legal's Seafood, a seriously expensive but mega delicious seafood place. We had uber good tuna sashimi, mussells, lobster, and yummy home made ice cream!!
Last night we went on a serious adventure to try to find this sushi place Oishi Sushi. Word on the street is that it's considered the 4th best sushi place in North America. The thing is...it was abotu a 45 minute subway/train ride away from downtown...we get off the train in the middle of nowhere(it's kind of like the Go Train in toronto...so "stations" generally are parking lots in the middle of nowhere). One of the guys claimed he knew EXACTLY where we were...but after walking 100 feet or so(remember, we're in the middle of nowhere and it's very dark out) we decided that we erally had no idea what we were doing and it would be ebst to wait for a cab.
So after about 10 minutes a cab showed up. We asked him to take us to the address...Cab's always cost a minimum amount, even just to sit in...well in Boston that minimum is $1.50. Shortly, we were waiting at a traffic light..I watched the fare tick from $1.80 up to $2.40....at $3 the cabbie pulled over and stopped. The guy in the front goes to him "Why're you stopping...could you just take us to the restaurant please?". "Buddy, this IS the restaurant.".
It was singularly the shortest cab ride of my life...like...honestly, 1 city block tops.
The sushi was awesome, even though it was a lengthy place. The restaurant only has seating for like 15 maybe...so not a lot of turnover, and nto a lot of space. But the food was yummmmy!
I'm back in toronto this weekend, then heading back to new york next week. Fun fun fun!
Wednesday, October 19, 2005
No, Seriously
Seriously...I think I'm addicted slash have a new obsession/fascination. I've been watching flash video presentations about the parking installations in europe done by Woehr Parksafe(www.parkingsystems.de ).
Honestly, check this stuff out. It's *SO* crazy. I can't believe that this stuff actually exists and is in use in other countries. I think it's SO brilliant, and is SUCH a better system that what we've got here in America!!
*sigh* the engineer in my is going batty..I'd LOVE to work on the computer system's for one of those babies!!!!
Oh..by the way...I'm in Boston. Boston is nice.
Honestly, check this stuff out. It's *SO* crazy. I can't believe that this stuff actually exists and is in use in other countries. I think it's SO brilliant, and is SUCH a better system that what we've got here in America!!
*sigh* the engineer in my is going batty..I'd LOVE to work on the computer system's for one of those babies!!!!
Oh..by the way...I'm in Boston. Boston is nice.
Tuesday, October 18, 2005
Crazy Parking II
Check out the links in the google-ads for some of these Automatic Parking Systems (especially the www.westfaliausa.com one or the www.parkmatic.com one if it's there)....they've got all these crazy computerized systems where it's basically like...you drive the car onto this pallet, get out....and BAM! the pallet just takes off, and teh car gets lifted/shifted into a position in this big grid/stack of cars...then when you want you car back from the parking system, the lift scoots up, grabs the pallet your car is on, spins it around so you can drive out forward, and brings the car back to the entry/exit location. *MAN*!!! I'd love to see one of these things in action!!!
Sunday, October 16, 2005
On America - Part I
While I'm on my trip here to the US of A, I'll be posting a series of commentaries on our friendly neighbours to the south.
Today we'll be looking at 2 unique aspect of life in the Big Apple.
The first - television.
-----------------------
I've been terribly fortunate to be staying at some really top-notch places while I've been down in new york. As many of you remember, my last stay was in Brooklyn, at a place with a 62" flat screen tv. This time I'm staying in palatial digs right in the core of Manhattan.
Both places have been gifted with 1000 channel super mega ultimate cable. ONE THOUSAND CHANNELS.
I'm sure you're saying to yourselves "I have THREE channels at home, I just can't imagine how much terrific television there must be with one thou' channels!!"
Well. It depends.
Are you looking for quality programming? Real news broadcasts? Action packed hockey games? Slammin' music videos? Do you salivate over creative culinary content?
Do you like football? Do you like hearing all about terrorism, crime, murder? Do you like cheezy low budget "reality" programming about backyard landscaping? Do you like hispanic language programming?
I kid you not, the vast selection of football related programming is mind numbing. Now, I'm not just talking about NFL Sunday games, because I'd *EXPECT* to see a lot of those. It's all the hours of NFL related COMMENTARY that really astounds me. It's the fact that "Sports Shows" are just rehashes of football games...well, and from time to time baseball. It's the fact that every day of the week you can choose from a broad array of high school football games to watch...and college football is a whole other story!
Want to see hockey? Think again. Even with 1000 channels, you'd be hard pressed to find 10 or tv during a week.
Comment #2: Parking...In the sky?
----------------------
Now, I can understand than in a place like Manhattan, space comes at a premium. Which is why I'd expect to see lots of multi-floored parking garages, like we have in ottawa and toronto.
Thing is, parking here is so crazy expensive($25/hr++) that I guess there isn't that much demand. I'm not entirely sure on that, but point is, I haven't really seen any serious parking garages.
What you DO see though is a lot of smaller parking lots, like on the corners of smaller streets etc. In toronto, we've got lots like these...some of them even like double park the cars so that there's really no wasted space at all. What's different about these is that they stack the cars. Yah, they STACK the cars.
You know at car repair garages they have those car jack/lifts that lift the car off the ground? Well here the parking lots all have those...and not just to stack the cars two high, but as much as *FIVE* high.
What I want to know is, what kind of system do they use to figure out which car goes where? Cause wouldn't you think that the first car in would probably be the first car out? How do they do this in such a way that they avoid having to move all 4 other cars when the 5th guy wants his car back?
Today we'll be looking at 2 unique aspect of life in the Big Apple.
The first - television.
-----------------------
I've been terribly fortunate to be staying at some really top-notch places while I've been down in new york. As many of you remember, my last stay was in Brooklyn, at a place with a 62" flat screen tv. This time I'm staying in palatial digs right in the core of Manhattan.
Both places have been gifted with 1000 channel super mega ultimate cable. ONE THOUSAND CHANNELS.
I'm sure you're saying to yourselves "I have THREE channels at home, I just can't imagine how much terrific television there must be with one thou' channels!!"
Well. It depends.
Are you looking for quality programming? Real news broadcasts? Action packed hockey games? Slammin' music videos? Do you salivate over creative culinary content?
Do you like football? Do you like hearing all about terrorism, crime, murder? Do you like cheezy low budget "reality" programming about backyard landscaping? Do you like hispanic language programming?
I kid you not, the vast selection of football related programming is mind numbing. Now, I'm not just talking about NFL Sunday games, because I'd *EXPECT* to see a lot of those. It's all the hours of NFL related COMMENTARY that really astounds me. It's the fact that "Sports Shows" are just rehashes of football games...well, and from time to time baseball. It's the fact that every day of the week you can choose from a broad array of high school football games to watch...and college football is a whole other story!
Want to see hockey? Think again. Even with 1000 channels, you'd be hard pressed to find 10 or tv during a week.
Comment #2: Parking...In the sky?
----------------------
Now, I can understand than in a place like Manhattan, space comes at a premium. Which is why I'd expect to see lots of multi-floored parking garages, like we have in ottawa and toronto.
Thing is, parking here is so crazy expensive($25/hr++) that I guess there isn't that much demand. I'm not entirely sure on that, but point is, I haven't really seen any serious parking garages.
What you DO see though is a lot of smaller parking lots, like on the corners of smaller streets etc. In toronto, we've got lots like these...some of them even like double park the cars so that there's really no wasted space at all. What's different about these is that they stack the cars. Yah, they STACK the cars.
You know at car repair garages they have those car jack/lifts that lift the car off the ground? Well here the parking lots all have those...and not just to stack the cars two high, but as much as *FIVE* high.
What I want to know is, what kind of system do they use to figure out which car goes where? Cause wouldn't you think that the first car in would probably be the first car out? How do they do this in such a way that they avoid having to move all 4 other cars when the 5th guy wants his car back?
Wednesday, October 12, 2005
Two Part Story!
Well: Story #1...Algonquin Park
LT and I were scheduled to go to Algonquin on the weekend for some interior hiking. We were both sick though, and decided to modify the plans....we decided to change our reservations to do car camping on saturday night instead...We drove up in Laura's parents car...an old '93 Accord Sedan
We got up there mid afternoon and decided to drop off some of our stuff at the site then go for a quick day hike. Well...we pull out of the lot and are about 50m down the road from the site when the car dies. Yup, just...dies.
After a couple of tries restarting it, it still doesn't do anything. CAA showed up about 2 hours later, and to keep a long story short, the car was towed to Huntsville(maybe 30-45 minutes away), and wouldn't be fixed until atleast tuesday.
Fortunately we weren't too far from the site and we able to make due without the car....but it was definitely an interesting twist!
---
Story #2 - Big night in the Big Apple
After work today I decided to catch a concert at the Knitting Factory. The band I was seeing was Panic! At the Disco, this kick ass dance-punk band. I saw them 2 weeks ago in toronto, but the show was only $5, so I figured what the heck.
Anyways, when i got there, I decided to watch from up on the balcony(*cough* I was wearing a shirt and tie since I went straight from work). It was the weirdest thing...as I was standing around waiting for the show to get started, I noticed that there were a handful of people walking around with fancy video cameras, and a handful more with microphones and serious audio/electronics. The weirdest part was that there were about a dozen people with secret service type ear-pieces...and to top things off, there were atleast 5-6 other people in ties/suits, all fiddling with their blackberries,
there was this one dude, probably in his late thirties, maybe early 40s standing in front of me. He seemed pretty...well...full of himself from some of the things he was saying and just the way he was carrying himself. At one point this other middle aged guy, certainly no bodybuilder but not an especially unfit person, started talking to him, and what I overheard of the conversation was something like "Thanks for emailing me...look...to i'll get right to the point. If you want to be successful, you need to lose weight. You're carrying a good 15-20 extra pounds and that's not doing you any favours."
I'm thinking "who the hell talks to someone like that?" who the heck does this guy think he is!?!
A few minutes later the plot thickened. One of the "AV" guys came over and was working to hook this dude up to one of those fancy little mics that attaches to your collar.
Just before the show started, this dude made his way over to this group of people my age that were standing a couple of feet from me. They all seemed very eager to speak with this guy...and as soon as he got over there *WHAM* about 5 video cameras started filming the conversation, with a pair of other people holding these bright lights. It was SO weird!!!!
On his way back, buddy bumped into me and almost tripped over me. I really felt like saying "who exactly do you think you are, and what the heck are you doing here!?". Better judgement told me not to say anything.
When the show started, the film crews were having a hay-day with the people standing next to me. I kid you not, cameras a mere 6 inches from their faces as their fake-rocked out to the music. One of the dudes, this BIG/large dude was dancing funny to the music...dancing like his life depended on it.
At one point during the show the band said something like "in case anyone's wondering, they're filming the concert today for this show called The Biz". That explained that.
Well, when I came home I checked out the website for The Biz. Turns out it's this web-based reality tv show by AOL Time Warner where these contestants compete for a chance to help run a record label...sort of like The Apprentice, but for the record industry.
Well...within minutes I was doing a double take. The Competitors for this show were the people that had been standing a few feet from me.
The best part though...the loud guy that almost tripped over me?
Check out his bio.
Yah you read that right...Chairman/CEO of the US branch of Warner Music. The guy that signed/managed the Beastie Boys, DJ Jazzy Jeff/Fresh Prince, Run DMC. Murtle would have had a hay-day....I wonder if SHE would have known who he was?
LT and I were scheduled to go to Algonquin on the weekend for some interior hiking. We were both sick though, and decided to modify the plans....we decided to change our reservations to do car camping on saturday night instead...We drove up in Laura's parents car...an old '93 Accord Sedan
We got up there mid afternoon and decided to drop off some of our stuff at the site then go for a quick day hike. Well...we pull out of the lot and are about 50m down the road from the site when the car dies. Yup, just...dies.
After a couple of tries restarting it, it still doesn't do anything. CAA showed up about 2 hours later, and to keep a long story short, the car was towed to Huntsville(maybe 30-45 minutes away), and wouldn't be fixed until atleast tuesday.
Fortunately we weren't too far from the site and we able to make due without the car....but it was definitely an interesting twist!
---
Story #2 - Big night in the Big Apple
After work today I decided to catch a concert at the Knitting Factory. The band I was seeing was Panic! At the Disco, this kick ass dance-punk band. I saw them 2 weeks ago in toronto, but the show was only $5, so I figured what the heck.
Anyways, when i got there, I decided to watch from up on the balcony(*cough* I was wearing a shirt and tie since I went straight from work). It was the weirdest thing...as I was standing around waiting for the show to get started, I noticed that there were a handful of people walking around with fancy video cameras, and a handful more with microphones and serious audio/electronics. The weirdest part was that there were about a dozen people with secret service type ear-pieces...and to top things off, there were atleast 5-6 other people in ties/suits, all fiddling with their blackberries,
there was this one dude, probably in his late thirties, maybe early 40s standing in front of me. He seemed pretty...well...full of himself from some of the things he was saying and just the way he was carrying himself. At one point this other middle aged guy, certainly no bodybuilder but not an especially unfit person, started talking to him, and what I overheard of the conversation was something like "Thanks for emailing me...look...to i'll get right to the point. If you want to be successful, you need to lose weight. You're carrying a good 15-20 extra pounds and that's not doing you any favours."
I'm thinking "who the hell talks to someone like that?" who the heck does this guy think he is!?!
A few minutes later the plot thickened. One of the "AV" guys came over and was working to hook this dude up to one of those fancy little mics that attaches to your collar.
Just before the show started, this dude made his way over to this group of people my age that were standing a couple of feet from me. They all seemed very eager to speak with this guy...and as soon as he got over there *WHAM* about 5 video cameras started filming the conversation, with a pair of other people holding these bright lights. It was SO weird!!!!
On his way back, buddy bumped into me and almost tripped over me. I really felt like saying "who exactly do you think you are, and what the heck are you doing here!?". Better judgement told me not to say anything.
When the show started, the film crews were having a hay-day with the people standing next to me. I kid you not, cameras a mere 6 inches from their faces as their fake-rocked out to the music. One of the dudes, this BIG/large dude was dancing funny to the music...dancing like his life depended on it.
At one point during the show the band said something like "in case anyone's wondering, they're filming the concert today for this show called The Biz". That explained that.
Well, when I came home I checked out the website for The Biz. Turns out it's this web-based reality tv show by AOL Time Warner where these contestants compete for a chance to help run a record label...sort of like The Apprentice, but for the record industry.
Well...within minutes I was doing a double take. The Competitors for this show were the people that had been standing a few feet from me.
The best part though...the loud guy that almost tripped over me?
Check out his bio.
Yah you read that right...Chairman/CEO of the US branch of Warner Music. The guy that signed/managed the Beastie Boys, DJ Jazzy Jeff/Fresh Prince, Run DMC. Murtle would have had a hay-day....I wonder if SHE would have known who he was?
Friday, October 07, 2005
BIg Apple, Part II
After lots of confusion, it appears I'm heading down to New York again for 5-6 weeks. The project should be neat, although its got a reputation for being outlandishly demanding. We'll have to see.
I'm pretty bummed about this weekend - Laura and I were supposed to be going camping in Algonquin for the whole long weekend (sat, sun, mon). We'd made some pretty sweet reservations for some nice hike-in sites...roughly 8km hiking per day. We've both got colds though, so I think we're either scaling back or cancelling plans. Either way it'll suck because we were both super excited about it, and we actually loaded up on really cool gadgets and gear from MEC last week($300+ all said and done).
Anyways, not sure how much I'll be blogging in the near term...hope everyone's doing well and having fun with their respective ventures!
I'm pretty bummed about this weekend - Laura and I were supposed to be going camping in Algonquin for the whole long weekend (sat, sun, mon). We'd made some pretty sweet reservations for some nice hike-in sites...roughly 8km hiking per day. We've both got colds though, so I think we're either scaling back or cancelling plans. Either way it'll suck because we were both super excited about it, and we actually loaded up on really cool gadgets and gear from MEC last week($300+ all said and done).
Anyways, not sure how much I'll be blogging in the near term...hope everyone's doing well and having fun with their respective ventures!
