I finally broke down...

I broke down today at Starbucks and ordered my latte the way I'm supposed to. I've always ordered it "skim" and the order-taker always calls it out for the barrista "non-fat". Until today, when I conformed. Was it a slip on my part or did I succumb to their brainwashing? Jury's out still...

Yesterday I sort of did a mini triathlon training session. I spent the morning with my club near Hamilton doing an open water swim in my wet-suit, then a group bike ride and while the others were finishing their ride I went for a short run. I had all kinds of "chafing issues" though, so I didn't do too much of any one thing. My wet-suit was rubbing the back of my neck, and my thighs were feeling a lot of friction from the bike seat. I think I need to start using my Bodyglide. I know that sounds like a sexual aid, but it's actually for athletes. It looks like a deodorant stick and it rubs into your skin to make it slippery but not greasy...

Too bad I had to cut the bike part of the day short, as I'm trying to "unlearn" my foot-extended peddling technique and adopt the proper low-heel style so I can get more power. Still, it was fun to get out with everyone. We had a flat-changing session after the ride, and heard some interesting anecdotes while we struggled with inner tubes. A few years ago someone (a disgruntled local?) threw tacks on the course of Ironman Canada out in B.C. This resulted in flat tires for most of the leaders! Nasty. Another person told us of a long training ride he'd been on with some friends at Lake Placid. One of them got a puncture from an undetectable sliver of glass that only punctured the tube if the rider hit a bump as that part of the tire was on the ground. They used up every spare they had between them (eight!) and had to resort to patching as they went.

Listening to: Surrender by Billy Talent from Billy Talent II. (It's, um, not out yet...)

Blipverts!

Earlier this evening I was fast-forwarding through some TV commercials on my PVR when a particularly dumb one caught my eye (CGI animals were dancing to Singing In the Rain because General Electric is soooo environmental). What caught my eye was a sudden flurry of images at the end. I backed up and tried to slow-mo through it. Turns out it was GE's new One Second Theater. This is advertising aimed at people watching on their PVRs! 30 frames of info displayed in one second that you have to watch in super slow motion to actually read. A few years ago I saw a TV commercial that could only be perceived during fast-forward. Now that was funny.

One Second Theater reminded me of Max Headroom, a fictional character (played by Matt Frewer) from the mid-Eighties that 'hosted' a music video show and later appeared in the short-lived but subversive sci-fi TV show Max Headroom: 20 Minutes into the Future, set in the year 2004(!) where television is society. The first episode revolved around blipverts, ultra-compressed commercials that are over before the viewer can change channels, that eventually cause the viewer's brain to seize.

Hmmmm.

Listening to: Paranoimia (featuring Max Headroom) by Art of Noise from In Visible Silence.

Super Robot Monkey Team Hyper Force Go!

Super Robot Monkey Team Hyper Force Go! is the story of a boy named Chiro's struggle, with the help of five robotic monkeys, against the evil forces of the Skeleton King. Now that's a cartoon that has all the bases covered. I've never seen it, but I love the name.

I've been geeking out today, fiddling slightly with my blog templates. Hopefully nothing looks wonky as a result. The only noticable change is the new navigation links at the top of each post. Except on the main page. Grrr. Maybe the modifications will encourage visitors to read some of my older posts, which while lacking that fresh-from-the-oven aroma still drip with pith.

Another geek thing to note is that my sad little hit counter also keeps track of the last 100 visits. I can't glean much from the information except the following factoids:

• Most people seem to arrive here from a search engine link to my Back in the day post from February 2005. It's kind of embarrassing that their first impression is formed from a photo of me in an ill-fitting Speedo. Maybe that post gets the hits because it contains the word "penis."
  
• The next source of hits is from visitors to a web-friend's blog in Arizona, My Crazy Life. Hi Mary!
  
• My most regular lurker is apparently on an Ontario government network located in New York State. (Huh? Well it's a free hit counter, so I can't complain.)
• Number two on the very short list of lurkers is a Rogers Cable subscriber here in Toronto. (Hmm... That narrows it down to about 200,000 possibilities.)

As an antidote to the above geekiness I leave you with a recommendation. Find the March 27, 2006 issue of The New Yorker magazine and read Calvin Trillin's piece Alice, Off the Page. It's a moving elegy to his wife of 35 years and a frequent personality in his writing, who died in 2001.

Listening to: Two of Us by The Beatles from Let It Be.

Sarcasm as a career

I was on a Mac website yesterday called Daring Fireball, reading an interesting post about the user interface for copy-and-paste, when I spotted a link to a daily video blog called The Show that is apparently a "concentrated, faster-cut, and more sarcastic version of The Daily Show." Guess what? It is! The host, "zefrank", has also created some neat flash animation.

Listening to: Breathe Me by Sia from Six Feet Under: Everything Ends.

Oh no, Mr. Rogers!

Sometimes I love technology and sometimes I hate it. These three remote controls, for three different new digital cable boxes from Rogers Cable, are an example of hated technology. From left to right they are for a digital cable box from my bedroom, a digital PVR cable box from my living room and a "high def" digital cable box from Sheryl's place. A close inspection (click on the picture) reveals that they all have different locations for important buttons like "Mute", "Info", "Page Up/Down" and "Last". They're just similar enough to confound your fingers. This kind of interface confusion stinks. Feh.

There really is a Mr. Rogers presiding over the Rogers media empire. And it seems that he does torture the little people just as Sluggo and Mr. Hands did in the Mr Bill segments from Saturday Night Live...

Listening to: Love My Way by The Psychedelic Furs from Forever Now.

Blissed - Out

I'm a Mac user by preference, but often work on Windows computers. When I saw the standard "Blissful" desktop image that is used on so many Windows computers I was instantly reminded of the landscapes of the Teletubbies TV show. (Teletubbies came along too late to appeal to my son thank god.) Anyway a few minutes with PhotoShop produced this variation, which I used to express my disdain for that other operating system. Click on the thumbnail to see the full size version that I posted on Flickr and install it on your own PC. Or maybe a friend's. Let the revolution begin!

Listening to: Get Rhythm by Johhny Cash from The Legend of Johnny Cash.

Pod People?

Did you ever see that old movie Invasion of the Body Snatchers? I'm thinking of the 1978 remake with Donald Sutherland, not the original. Younger readers might want to think of the Brain Slugs on Futurama. In both cases alien creatures attach themselves to people and take over their brains. Kind of like iPods, huh?

I've been reading some opinions that MP3 players, PVRs and personalized web pages are having the effect of cutting people off from new "cultural experiences". Everything they listen to or watch is from their existing collections or has been selected to conform to previous choices. The result is that it's getting harder for new bands or TV shows to find an audience because everyone's traveling in their own customized rut. It's also getting harder for people to share interests because, well, they don't share them. I don't really buy the argument, but I can see that these technologies are changed our experience in significant ways.

An article in the Globe & Mail today touched on this, discussing the "No DJs" format that some radio stations are adopting and a Canadian internet service called Radio Libre that lets you listen to a stream that is customised to your particular tastes. As much as I hate a yappy DJ I prefer to hear a human voice in the mix. My favourite DJ right now is Grant Lawrence, who hosts a CBC podcast on new music. Here's my Letter to the Editor on the subject, links added after the fact.

No commercials? That's $atellite radio. Or if you have a digital cable subscription it could be one of the Max Trax or Galaxie channels. I use those channels for background sometimes. I've never liked the 'Jack' format, to me it feels particularly bland and soulless. I can rattle around the music collection on my iPod without their help thank you. What I like is hearing something new and interesting mixed in with "my" music. Maybe Radio Libre is on to something. Yes, I know that commercial radio largely run playlists given to them by a marketing consultant. There are of course good DJs and bad DJ's, but having a human being on "the other end" gives me a sense of connection. My favourite podcast is DJ Grant Lawrence's Independent Canadian Music program on CBC's Radio 3 website (radio3.cbc.ca), which feels like we're sitting together leafing through his CD collection. Time well spent...

Nothing will pry my iPod nano from my hands though. Here's the direct iTunes link to subscribe to the CBC Radio 3 podcast.

Listening to: Panic (aka "Hang the DJ") by The Smiths from The World Won't Listen.