a tethering whort

Canada

jaygeekay — Tue, 25 Nov 2003 15:46:37 GMT

From the musical side of things, was just wondering
if you'd heard B.J. Snowden's 'In Canada' before?

Listening to it as we speak, I think she liked
the place.

Interesting tune :)

IFOA 2003

hano — Thu, 11 Sep 2003 14:18:04 GMT

One of my early postings on this blog was about attending the International Festival Of Authors, where I saw D. Coupland and C. Hitchens interviewed and read from the latest work respectively. Well, it's soon to be that time again and this year I'm eschewing the returning Coupland reading from his new novel Hey, Nostradamus! in favour of a double bill of William Gibson and Margaret Atwood reading from their latest volumes. I haven't read Pattern Recognition yet but I enjoyed Oryx And Crake. The previous evening there's an interview session with Gibson that I'm attending as well as one with Irish playwright and novelist Sebastian Barry, who garners great praise from the literati and whose Widows Of Sherkin I also enjoyed...

Moving

hano — Thu, 04 Sep 2003 11:39:15 GMT

If anyone still visits this infrequently updated spot, you'll be pleased to know that it may get busier soon as I'm moving back downtown, away from SUV-laden suburban tedium. Gigs, gigs, restaurants, books, food, drink, gigs, art, sights, sounds, photos, culture, impressions, opinion all may be recorded.

Maybe I should get a cheapo PDA seeing as I'll be commuting for longer now and I could do writin' as well as readin'?

patience

hano — Mon, 11 Aug 2003 19:01:39 GMT

Will send URL under separate cover!

photos

dinosaurjr — Fri, 08 Aug 2003 11:15:18 GMT

so where are all these photos we've been waiting on so patiently... ;-)

Stretch and Melt

hano — Mon, 21 Jul 2003 14:13:02 GMT

After reading this a while back, I resolved that I had to give Bikram Yoga a go. And so I did, yesterday. The 1st session is tough, tough, tough in the heat. Having done some kung fu and tai chi in the past, yoga is quite strange in that it involves merely holding postures rather than going through a sequence of steps in a form. Due to lack of fitness and being more habitaued to cerebral rather than physical pursuits, I just got a glimmer of the potential it has to offer but once it was finaly over, it did feel wonderful and I'll definitely be going back to hone my mental and physical concentration and strength!

hano — Wed, 09 Jul 2003 19:50:05 GMT

:-) Well, I guess I like to identify with my place of residence!

de camera

dmcgahon — Wed, 09 Jul 2003 16:27:51 GMT

It looks nice. Happy snapping.

what's this we paleface?

dmcgahon — Wed, 09 Jul 2003 11:38:42 GMT

As the article is about Canada I was amused to see you use the pronoun 'we' Mike. Have you traded in your passport? Staying put?

F-stop

hano — Tue, 08 Jul 2003 17:12:42 GMT

For the past week or so, your humble occasional blogger has been the proud owner of one of these, namely the Olympus C-730 Ultra Zoom digital camera. I'm now armed with 256MB of "film" and a fledgling knowledge of camera basics. So expect lots of photos any month soon!

Canada gets interesting

hano — Tue, 08 Jul 2003 17:15:21 GMT

Good article in The Guardian by Naomi "No Logo" Klein on how we've sold our economic soul to the US but at least the rest of society may be moving in the right direction...

Heatwave

hano — Mon, 23 Jun 2003 15:53:18 GMT

I was interested to learn that the definition of a heatwave (here at least) is "a period of at least 3 days with temperatures above 30 deg. C". One is on the way!

Latitude

hano — Wed, 18 Jun 2003 16:09:02 GMT

The difference in latitude between Toronto and Ireland makes a very noticable difference in summer. Our sunset is earlier - about 9pm with sunrise at 0530. So, now long summer nights but plenty of long summer mornings!

Into the Woods

hano — Tue, 17 Jun 2003 14:51:15 GMT

Algonquin Park is over 7000 sq. kms of forest and lake and Ontario's (if not Canada's) largest provincial park. We took a trip up there last week, staying in a log cottage on the shore of a lake and indulged in some boating and some hiking on one of the many trails in the park...

A canoers and hikers idyll with stunning lakes, rivers and forests. The only blight was the quantity of annoying flying insects.. It was also bear mating season but disappointingly I didn't see any doing it!

Cellunauts

hano — Thu, 29 May 2003 15:21:59 GMT

A short Quicktime 3D model of the SARS coronavirus in action can be found
here.

Interesting Interest

hano — Wed, 28 May 2003 16:51:40 GMT

Canadian banks tend to pay peanuts but lucky customers of Rabobank in The Netherlands can choose to be paid interest in fair-trade coffee, rather than cash. BBC News has the story.

Getting biblical

hano — Thu, 22 May 2003 18:21:04 GMT

First there was SARS, then there was West Nile (again), now we have Mad Cow Disease. Stay tuned for news about plagues of locusts!

3 cheers for Queen Vic!

hano — Fri, 16 May 2003 21:30:37 GMT

For Monday May 19th is Victoria Day - a Canadian public holiday originally established in honour of the eponymous dope-smoking grandma herself...
My bottle of Bombay Sapphire has a picture of her on it so I'll raise a glass on Monday as I enjoy my day away from the office!

You belong here!

hano — Fri, 09 May 2003 20:29:25 GMT

They may be right. This is the new ad campaign encouraging Torontonians to get out and about, eat in restaurants and enjoy their city in the wake of the SARS crisis. As tourist numbers dwindle, they're determined to show life is normal in the city. It was never anything but IMO but there *were* times when things were relatively quiet...

Irish pubs are everywhere!

hano — Fri, 25 Apr 2003 18:08:14 GMT

From d'examiner...

An Irish pub in Afghanistan has been shut down, just weeks after it opened.

The Irish Club in the capital Kabul was the country's only bar.

It shut down after receiving warnings it could be the target of a terrorist attack.

News of the threats were passed onto the owner by the US Embassy and the UN, which also banned its staff from visiting.

A UN official said if someone were to bomb it, the entire international community could be wiped out in one night.

The bar will remain shut for at least a week.

A for Automatic, D for Drive

hano — Thu, 17 Apr 2003 14:57:16 GMT

In almost all of North America, the car, alas, is King. So, in the expectation of soon being able to see vast swathes of Ontario and even Quebec I am starting driving lessons on April 25th. The Driver Education Course consists of 25 hours in class and 10 hours on road. My driving test to get the 2nd level of learners license (allowing me to drive on my own) is on July 7th...

Good Friday

hano — Mon, 14 Apr 2003 14:53:26 GMT

...is indeed a Good one this year as it is a public holiday in Canada and the pubs are open! I shall be enjoying La Belle Montreal that weekend...

no dice

hano — Tue, 01 Apr 2003 19:00:55 GMT

Well, GY!BE was pre-quarantine on Thursday - I didn't find out that I should be staying in until Saturday night. Of course, the relative remoteness of the venue coupled with suburban public transit schedules quarantined all bar 15 mins of GY!BE from me anyway so the sooner I move back into the city the better. I *could* have stayed and got a cab, but to be honest, I felt the first 15 mins were a representative sample and there would be nothing radically different in the next hour or so. If the support hadn't been good, I may have stayed but I'm sure I'll see Godspeed again...

Quarantine has ruled out Ted Leo/Pharmacists tomorrow and Glaswegian indie types The Delgadoes on Friday so I'll have to settle for listening to them on MP3.

Working from home is great - of course if I didn't have the damn Internet I could read for the week :-(

black dice

dinosaurjr — Tue, 01 Apr 2003 14:14:39 GMT

The two MP3s I found on ATW from Black Dice were a little too experimental for me. So how did you manage to catch GYBE given the quarantining?

Hmmm...

hano — Tue, 01 Apr 2003 11:46:04 GMT

So, we know what your feverish dreams will be about as the bombs start to fall on Shannon Airport ;)