Power's out

When I got home from the library today I noticed a high pitched noise coming from the television. I tried flipping it on and off but it didn't do anything. When it was plugged in, the noise was there, but when it was unplugged the noise disappeared.

Then I noticed that the dvd player was dead too. I figured that the plug must just be dead suddenly so I found an extension cord and plugged them in somewhere else, which also didn't work.

I thought it was a power outage as I looked to the microwave to tell me the time, and then realized that the microwave was on, so it was just the plugs that were out. I started an inventory:

Out:
all ceiling lights
all living room plugs (includes several lamps, television, dvd player, radio)
dishwasher
oven (but not stove)

It doesn't seem like a very long list but it covers the vast majority of my apartment, since I tend not to spend very much time in the bathroom or bedroom.

I checked the breakers to see if any were switched off but they weren't. I flicked a bunch of them but nothing happened.

The circuit my computer was on was still working so it wasn't a big deal. I had half an hour before the rest of the power flickered off, and this time it affected the people across the street too so it wasn't as weird.

All the fire alarms went off but there wasn't any fire anywhere. I went down to the electrical room, deactivated the alarms for the whole building and then my flashlight died.

Now I'm at my parents' house melting stinky cheese in the toaster.

Tweet tweet!

Did I tell you I got a Twitter account? Follow me, if you feel so inclined, and receive scintillating updates like:

I think there's too much milk in my tea. I could top it up with more tea but I don't. I'm complicated that way.

Note to self: the combination of two good things is not always a good thing. Cheese sushi is a case in point.

The cat's been crying because the food dish in the bathroom is empty. Evidently a full food dish in the kitchen isn't good enough.

Joining freecycle and resisting the temptation of free Burt Bacharach and Willie Nelson records.

You know you want to.

While you're at it, you should check out Rachel's blog. It's a very good read and she has the distinction of being my only follower at the moment.

Shake it.

My camera's an SLR so it doesn't do video, but I just found out that my parents' does. It's about time I filled this blog with inane home videos.

It has been brought to my attention that the world has yet to be introduced to my parents' dancing printer. I tell you, this is a future star. That and my father's hand is a perfect candidate for the fire log channel on TV.

It kind of sounds like a washing machine. What you don't see in this video is me with my hand stuffed in my mouth, trying not to laugh.

Sorry it's so dark.

Two pancakes

"There are two pancakes left. No matter how many we make there are always two pancakes left."

"We should stick them in the freezer and-"

"-Forget about them?"

"Yeah, exactly. Then one day we can make a tower of frozen pancakes."

50/365: Mr. E

He had a thing about Elvis and movie soundtracks from the 80s. These are the things that we had to play in music class, on guitars and glockenspiel as he accompanied on piano. For the longest time I thought he was the best piano player on earth.

He had a certificate for everything. When you got enough certificates you got a prize - a cool pencil. I had a desk full of these pencils and kept them in a pristine condition. Such pencils were not made to actually be used.

Big blob o' black

I've been working on this a lot today because it has to be finished by Cinco de Mayo, the international celebration of my mother's birthday. Unfortunately it doesn't really look like much in that or any picture. It's just a big blob of black right now.

I think I had a dream last night about whether or not it was possible to find knitting yarn in mustard yellow. My sister doubted it, but in my dream I had an encyclopedic knowledge of all the yarn brands that carried wool in mustard yellow colours.

My grade 6 teacher, Mr. E was trying to interest me in some plastic tubs of costume jewelry but it wasn't Sherman so I wasn't all that interested.

The sustainable community development cohort

Yesterday was my last class with a lot of Sustainable Community Development people who are graduating soon. We ended up at Steamworks after class and discussed keeping in touch over drinks. It's a hard thing, keeping in touch.

I've been taking my time getting through the program and nearly every step of the way I've been pretty indecisive about whether I'll finish it. It's good and worthwhile and there are things about it that I certainly enjoy, but on the other hand it pulls down my gpa and I'm still not sure if it's really for me.

I feel like I can't afford to get Bs in my classes anymore and in SCD there seems to be a barrier there that I have yet to chip through. I think too that though I think it's all useful stuff to learn, I'm really more of a thinker than a doer. My friends will attest to the fact that I'm often all talk and no action. I think of much but bring little to fruition.

Given that fact it's a little weird that I'm in a program where it's nonstop field research, preparing feasibility reports, business plans, grant writing and research proposals. These are very useful skills to have, the sorts of things that I can mention that I do to managers at work just to see their eyes light up. No doubt my ability to do these things, and the fact that I've done some of these things for non-profits around the city makes me more employable. I don't mind doing this stuff and I'm reasonably competent (though I could probably use more practice) but it's just not something I feel particularly passionate about.

And yet I keep signing up for the classes. It's the people, I think. You'd be hard pressed to find a nicer, friendlier group of people than the ones that are in SCD at SFU. Everyone genuinely wants to be there, really open to ideas and everyone listens really well so classes are the source of all manner of good discussion. I come home feeling really, really happy.

That makes it sad that yesterday was my last class with a lot of them. They're graduating and off to bigger and better things, changing government policy, working the Obama campaign, designing green technology, planning cities, infecting NGOs and non-profits with their energy and enthusiasm.

Sometimes I think the future's in good hands.

Walking in the parkade again

It's a place I know fairly well because I've been there before. The old entrance has been boarded up, and beside it they're building an addition to the parkade.

Where the old and the new structures meet one of the columns is crumbling at the edge so you can see the steel rebar in some places. Someone has cut a hole in the chain link fence beside it, and bent the edges of the wire away.

I slip through and down the wall until I can enter the old side of the parkade. It's showing a lot of wear. I'm not sure how old it is but it hasn't been well maintained. The lines between the stalls are well worn. Here and there there are tags and stickers, and cracks with mineral deposits all around them from the water that's seeped through.

A group of elderly tourists are being led by two shady characters toward the stairwell. I have a bad feeling in my gut about them but I'm heading the same direction. They go up and I go down. I don't see them again.

The stairwell smells vaguely like old urine. Two storeys down I stop. I can hear someone vomiting further down and I change directions.

Then I woke up.

All I'm thinking right now

is that when I write something like

Hi all,
I've condensed everyone's thoughts into essay form, and centred them all around three themes: film, surveillance and morality. It needs to be edited for flow and pared down a bit.

I did not mean add 900 words of random crap and broken English that is now interspersed with the good stuff throughout the paper.

Just sayin'.

That's the sound of my street cred shooting itself in the corner.

Oh, Last.fm, how you amuse me.

Last.fm works on the principle of the long tail, similar to the way that Amazon works. The idea is that you track absolutely all your users' behaviour on your site, and then use that information to make recommendations. Users' reactions to the recommendations get recorded as well, and eventually referrals become more accurate, or supposedly.

But we have to remember that it is some sort of computer algorithm that makes these decisions, so when it says "this band is similar to these other bands" that may not actually be true. What is true is that the people who listen to that band also listen to these other bands. Do they sound similar? Not necessarily.

Take Beirut for example. The band's sound has a lot of Eastern European and folk influences but judging by its similar artists you'd never guess that. It's a mixed bag of indie music there, mostly. 'Balkan' and 'gypsy' music that may sound more similar doesn't show up there because the majority of the people who listen to Beirut don't know about or don't listen to it.

I find that often for more obscure music, bands tend to be grouped geographically or by 'scene' more than by things that sound the same. Say a band that you've never heard of is from Chicago. If they have a limited number of listeners, a large portion of their similar artists will be from the Chicago indie music scene.

Time period seems to make a difference too. I think this is most obvious with bands that have a 'retro' sound. You'd think that if a band was trying to sound similar to another style of music or group of bands that this older music would show up as similar artists, but it often doesn't. This is most apparent with tribute bands. You'd think that Bjorn Again would have ABBA somewhere near the top of its similar artists but no.

I've noticed this through my recommendations too. A lot of stuff shows up there not necessarily because I'll like it but because say, it was on the radio at the same time that some other band I listen to was on the radio a lot. That's why they think that I'll like Edwin so much. He kind of fits into the category of "Canadian alternative rock that got overplayed on major radio stations in the 90s."

Don't get me wrong. I love Last.fm and I've found tonnes of great stuff through it, but sometimes the computers just get it... wrong. Case in point? This week in my recommendations one of the most unlikely things showed up. Prozzak. Prozzak? I had to do a double take and then I started screaming.

Prozzak is an animated pseudo brit dance pop band that sing songs with whiny lyrics that are almost exclusively about being depressed and having no luck with women. It's one of those sorts of bands that you really, really love when you're between the ages of 10 and 12 and then abruptly you start to become embarassed that you ever liked them when you realize that it's overhyped, overplayed on the radio and really not all that good.



Top of the pop charts, 1998.

Don't lie. You all have at least one of these albums. Most likely it took you a long time to get rid of because you don't want to admit that you even have it or because you told your parents that you really, really wanted it and wouldn't stop bugging them until they bought it for you and you don't want them to know that you're tired of it already.

Thank you, Last.fm for bringing back a bunch of suppressed memories.