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senatorhung's pad
ramblings of an information troubleshooter

put up your dukes, let's get down to it

Sunday, 06MAR2005:

slept late again, but managed to get up before kakki called. my body hasn't yet made up its mind whether to stand fast or succumb to sickness, and me getting a haircut or going breakneck speed around the broomball rink almost seems like a subconscious challenge to my body to dare stand in my way.

went over to kakki's to play a couple of rounds of Titans of Steel. our first face-off didn't go well for him. seems kakki had trained his pilot on gunnery skills but saddled him with an energy weapon mech. score 1-0 for senatorhung. kakki fared better during the 2d matchup, but it was apparent that he was quite rusty. my pilot, camouflaged by thick elevation on a mountain top, spent the match taking potshots at kakki's pilot meandering in clear sight thru the valley below. kakki also neglected to note the fact that my ally was firing upon his pilot with a neutron blaster. by the time kakki's pilot managed to get a decent bead on mine, it was too late, and his pilot keeled over, having bled to death.

when we left to head downtown, we managed to get stuck in the snow piled up in the driveway and shovelled around for a quarter of an hour before a neighbour was able to pull us onto the road. when i got home, i began my shepherd's pie experiment. i realized that i hadn't used my frying pan for at least 8 months. the resulting mishmash was a bit runny, but held together long enough to make it to the fête.

the part-time player potluck was a grand success. greg, tony, odile, robert, bella, alison, anton, david, emilie, lori, orla, vinnie (+ian), kakki and myself caught up with each other and decided to gather ideas for a possible show of skits / scenes for an april arts festival. we'll meet again on saturday to sort thru the possibilities.

i was getting a bit droopy after all the great eats, so when lori offered me a lift downtown, i was glad to accept. what do you know, we have trouble getting out of the driveway. with robert, greg and i providing steering advice, lori managed to get the truck turned around such that it was able plow forward thru the snow built up on the side of the road, enabling us to make our escape. this unexpected intake of cold air served to wake me up a bit.

got home and tried to find the copies of plays that i had squirred away. unfortunately, 'cyrano de bergerac' and 'les liasions dangereuses' must be hiding in storage down south, so for my contribution to saturday's melee, i'll bring a copy of fred wah's 'diamond grill', a book of anecdotes about growing up with mixed heritage in a small-town on the prairies and the struggles the author has with such an identity in the 50's, along with behind-the-scenes glimpses at (and tastes from) the ubiquitous prairie small-town chinese restaurants.

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painted wings and giant things just make way for some other toys

Monday, 07MAR2005:

damn, i hate mondays.

again with the on-again, off-again blizzard warnings ...

didn't help that i finished the 5-part 'Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy' trilogy without having it invoke any flurry of warm fuzzies. tho the 4th book, 'So Long, and Thanks for all the Fish', did feature that effervescent flying with Fenchurch episode, it was just a tiny oasis of magic in an all-too capricious universe.

to sweep away my disappointment, i re-read Gene Yang's linked duo of fantastic stories - 'Gordon Yamamoto and the King of the Geeks' and 'Loyola Chin and the San Peligran Order'. scenes that really wouldn't work in a movie, like sticking a t.v.cable up your nose to get in touch with the robot brain storage monitor residing there, or having a box of animal crackers animated into a festering frankenstein beast, are perfectly at home in the comics world and these potentially moralistic high school coming of age tales are given a twisted little edge.

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and while you're up there, turn around and touch the sky

Tuesday, 08MAR2005:

you know you need a vacation when the first thing you think of when you wake up with the sun in your eyes is: "uggh. no blizzard today, dammit !"

twas anton's b'day today, so a gaggle of us took over a corner of the storehouse to help him celebrate. i had to cut out early to get to the astro theatre to meet up with the ICSL tech to review how things would work for the BMFF. went to test the dvd-r player and realized that i hadn't brought along the test disc. doh!

so, i slid down the hill towards the office, but when i got to the door, i found out that i was locked out of the building and that my keycard wasn't being recognized. after hearing about anton's recent experiences, i wondered if i needed to start watching my back ...

i decided to move on to the next item on my agenda, the International Women's Day arts and crafts show at the parish hall. found a pair of kamiks that i liked, but didn't have any cash on me, so i left my contact info with the vendor in case they didn't get sold that night.

i also found a phone and called up morgan to see if i could get into my office. took awhile to get things sorted out, but once i had the test disc, i retraced my steps up the hill to the theatre and tried out their dvd player. looks like i'll have to poll the other BMFF volunteers to see if anyone can bring a dvd player from home. stayed at the theatre to take in 'the aviator'. also in the audience were charlene, mildred, marjorey, marie, and david from work.

what a spectacle !! this movie deserved every oscar nomination that it received. cate blanchett was amazing as katherine hepburn. her breakup scene with leonardo's hughes was riveting. the whole business about acting so often that you lose sight of your real identity echoed the mediated phenomenology outlined in the article that i linked to yesterday. leonardo's portrayal of compulsive behaviour was also outstanding. another interesting study of a compulsive character is in orson scott card's novel 'xenocide' which i read last fall.

but it was the production design and cinematography that really shone. while the attention to detail that scorsese used to recreate boston tea rooms in 'age of innocence' frankly bored me, when this style was transferred to aircraft designs and the portrayal of the joy of flight, it made me grin with glee. the pan am executive office with constellation-covered roof was an instant favourite, the hollywood nightclub was cheezily over the top, the spruce goose hanger was a bewildering hive of activity, and hughes' enclave was appropriately horrifying. i'll be seeing this flick again, for sure.

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still right here, it's just not where you're at

Wednesday, 09MAR2005:

didn't go in until the afternoon as i had stayed late into the early a.m. working on year-end financial stuff.

broomball was a bit frantic tonight as it was 5 on 4 until greg showed up to even up the sides. from then, the white team consisted of jacques, mark, martha, siobhan and myself. the menacing dark team had alistair, anna, marco, greg and denis. the teams were pretty well matched and most goals came on breakaways. goal scorers were mark (4!), marco (2), denis (1), jacques (1), and greg (1?) giving the white team a final advantage of 5-4. twas a great workout.

after a quick shower, the storehouse beckoned where 2 farewell gatherings were being held, one for amy, the other for brent. i ended up floating between both as i polished off a rib sandwich and a plate of wings. at amy's table, i chatted with gavin, greg, denis, chad, martha, kevin, nikki, shawna, maria and rae-lynn. in the other corner, i hung out with malcolm, sara, brent, john, kathleen, robert, pascale, emilie, chris, midori and sue.

discussions included taking over the administration of broomball, the merits of hip hop, how john lennon never wrote any songs about sex, the survival of library classification systems in a keyword-centric digital world and worrying about how to manage a career without letting your skills stagnate.

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hear the footsteps closing in

Thursday, 10MAR2005:

ran into thomas when i swung by the nova building to check on a few things. he tried to convince me that going to law school would be a bad idea. first, i didn't need to take all the extra classes that they use to pad out what could be a 2-year program into 3 years. second, anything i want to learn about IP, i can teach myself. my rejoinder was that without the piece of parchment and initials behind my name, credentialitis might still prevent me from being allowed to get into a position to help implement more user-friendly information policies.

had planned to go see 'the aviator' again but was so bushwacked after work that i went home to crash. with people dropping sick around me left and right, i figured that i better get more than the 4-5 hours of sleep that i've been getting a nite.

  • today's soundtrack: leena evic / pirurvik centre - and there were inuit (2005). this is a children's cd, but is also intended to help teach inuktitut
  • IP idiocy link of the day: ip battle moves to ipod
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let the blizzards blow

Friday, 11MAR2005:

another day, another farewell party, this time for richard. went from there to fantasy palace and ran into neil, anna and paul (the lizard guy). chatted with them until i moved over to join jen and odile to hash out some planning ideas for an arts festival around toonik tyme.

chris hosted a sushi session tonight. the food was fabulous. those who partook of this feast included myself, midori, malcolm, fletcher, rachel, sue and john. also got introduced to 'no name' who managed to pounce from fletcher's lap into the dessert bowl.

after hanging out for a bit, we decided to drop in on the legion. unfortunately, it was late enough that they were beginning to restrict entry to members only, but we managed to sneak sue and midori in under the wire. that left chris and john out in the cold, so midori only stayed for one drink. you could tell that it was payday as there were a lot of people from work including joe, david, jeannie, melissa, morgan and rhoda. also spoke with kevin, denis, nigel and hunter.

  • today's soundtrack: zuckerbaby - zuckerbaby (1997)
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it's not even me that's got you running

Saturday, 12MAR2005:

slept in until noon - the sun was smiling happily for me. crawled out of bed an hour later to drag myself to the museum for the opening of 'hybrid theory', an exhibition of paintings by a local artist, jonathan cruz. it was a funky mix of urban street art and inuit cultural motifs, including self-portraits, gussied-up decks (skateboard planks) and bright bold colours plastered over scrap wood and cardboard. my favourites were 'one peso' and 'tribute to enoukjuaq' and jonathan was kind enough to pose beside them so i could take a couple of photos.

snuck into the office to catch up with some emails before moseying towards tony's for the part-time player mash-up. made it to the hill before tony pulled up alongside to lift me the rest of the way, something that was very appreciated by my bum knee (since broomball on wednesday). possible ideas were received from everyone in attendance: tony (monty python skits); odile (well-known shakespearean scenes); greg (northern porn satire); lori (politician / bar room improv skits); bella (shakespeare); alison (scenes from plays); kakki (skits ?); robert (no comment); orla (shakespeare); and myself (monologue).

the group consensus was that for a cabaret / variety night, the comedic skits would probably be more suitable, saving the more dramatic material for another future event (i.e. 'shakespeare on the tundra'). that decided, i drifted out to get ready for an evening at the legion where the northern ramblers would be hosting their cd release party.

the gig went pretty well, with my favourite song from their first set being 'when you're gone' (NOT a bryan adams cover) off of their new album 'guitars, tundra, whiskey & women'. hung out with liz and stephen. the crowd at tuesday's arts and crafts show had been enthusiastic and liz had sold out of all of her wares. also chatted with jim, vicki, susan and molly before venturing into the quiet lounge to visit with madeleine, romine and james (vinnie's da).

talked with jimmie and andrew after they finished their set and bought a couple of cd's. next on the agenda was the games room, where i surprisingly won a table from todd, who had beaten off 3 other challengers - guess he needed a time-out to refresh his drink. james and i then faced off.

after james won the table from me in the first round, i scratched on the black in round 2, sunk the 8-ball off the break in round 3, made a comeback in round 4, but then in the final round, scratched the black into the side while attempting to put another ball into the corner. having had enough of my own self-sabotage, i pled 'taima' to james and conceded him a 4-1 victory.

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