June 30, 2003
Streaming in
There was something ultra nice about listening to a radio show run by an IRC buddy at the Glastonbury Festival 2003. Posted by sniffles at 04:01 PM | Comments (4)

June 26, 2003
Morning coffee
Cafeboy: Wow, you look good today. Me: (feels bleurgh) Cafeboy: How are you? Me: Tired. you? Cafeboy: How come you're always tired when I see you? Me: 'Cos I always see you at 8:30 in the morning? Cafeboy: Ahh, good point. Posted by sniffles at 08:43 AM | Comments (0)

June 25, 2003
Brains, sunny-side up

It's been too hot to write, honestly.

The heat fries your brain, melts your skin, dulls your senses, but I don't mind it too much. For one thing, you get steamed here, you don't get baked. In Melbourne, there is low humidity and because of the close proximity to the hole in the ozone layer, without SPF 30+ sunscreen, you really get zapped. Here, it's not the suffocating humidity that you get in the tropics, you just end up sweating a lot and sticky as salty caramel.

Lunch at a terrace in Old Montreal (I've never used the word "terrace" in this manner until I came here), and we wound our way back downtown through the narrow streets, under the blinding summer sun. I walked in the shade to avoid being bleached. He laughed at me as I paused to examine flowers, leaves, strange plants foreign to me and my youth. A friend recently told me that he had encountered someone who loathed walking in parks, saying "Nature is all the same!" But if one takes a close look, nature is not the same everywhere. In this slow spring and young summer of Montreal, whilst I miss the elegance of eucalyptus, I meet daring, delicate flowers and bold, bashful leaves I have never seen before in my life. I met a yellow ladybird and remembered how my childhood friends and I would capture them and make homes out of matchboxes for them, which they never seemed to like (as in they appeared to prefer to die).

Bushes of roses sprouted in the most surprising places — between carparks in a quiet area. An old building stood next to the highway, empty, abandoned, a forgotten shell with silent giant machinery and lonely cartons inside. It would be nice as a bookstore, he said. Yes, I replied, noting that we often say that about many empty places that we pass. More bookstores, more books, more independent content, to feed the brains of the world, to ruffle the imaginations of those dulled by the daily grind and the rat race. And we could keep the machinery there, he continued, to which I said, yes, but we would have to take out all the moving parts or at least weld them solid so that no one could hurt themselves. Indeed, we think of everything.

In the evening, the heat of the day lingered long enough to be evaporated along with the sweat of bodies in the street party on Saint-Viateur, where we mingled with dear friends and danced with strangers. Tomorrow, the Montreal Jazz Festival begins.

Posted by sniffles at 09:44 PM | Comments (0)

New Zealand legalises prostitution

From the first country in the world to allow women to vote: Prostitution decriminalised, brothels to be licensed (thanks, Judah).

It decriminalises prostitution and establishes a legal framework around the sex industry, with licensed brothels operating under public health and employment laws.

[...]

Transsexual MP Georgina Beyer, a former prostitute, made a desperate appeal to Parliament.

"I support this bill for all the prostitutes I have ever known who died before the age of 20 because of the inhumanity and hypocrisy of a society that would not allow them, or give them the chance, to redeem whatever circumstances made them arrive in this industry," she said.

"This is about accepting what occurs, about accepting that the people who work in this industry deserve some human rights. "

Similar to marijuana debates in Canada — amidst the fears that legalising small amounts will encourage more substance abuse, I think we forget that setting laws means publicly acknowledging that problems in our society exist, and that doing so means that we can openly take steps to deal with them accordingly.

Posted by sniffles at 02:29 PM | Comments (2)

June 21, 2003
The Shikoku Pilgrimage

I first heard about the Shikoku Pilgrimage from a friend I had met in Toronto, who took the time in a previous trip to Japan to complete the journey.

A little Google digging found this page which provides a good summary and an interesting insight into the history:

The pilgrimage known as Shikoku Henro or O-Shikoku san is the oldest and most famous in Japan. Circumambulating the island via the 88 Buddhist temples designated as Sacred Places of Shikoku is meant to follow the trail Kobo Daishi (Kukai) 弘法大師 (空海）walked in his youth for ascetic practice, searching for the Truth.

That is why the authentic pilgrims go on foot as the great saint did long ago. It takes about 60 days to hike the 1,647 km [1,000 miles], going deep into rugged mountains, plodding along sandy beaches, rocky coasts, through fields and hills, villages and towns. Indeed, it is a walking Zen.

The Shikoku Pilgrimage is nonsectarian, though Kukai was the founder of the Shikoku sect of Japanese Buddhism. Pilgrims seem to forget their Buddhist sects in worshiping Kobo Daishi who stands far beyond factionalism. Not all of the 88 temples are of the Shingon sect, either. It is impossible to discuss this pilgrimage without recounting the life of Kukai.

Don Weiss has written a book called "Echoes of Incense: A Pilgrimage in Japan" which recounts his experiences of the two times he has made the pilgrimage. Seeing as it was going out of print, he has made the entire book available online. Here's a snippet from Chapter 1:

Ryozenji is both the first and the last temple the pilgrim should visit on Shikoku, for the pilgrimage is a circle. You walk around the island, holding it in your mind as a great mandala, from the first temple to the last. Then you return, back here, to write your name in the book of completion.

My name appears twice in that book, on February 23 and May 5, 1993. In this book, I describe what I saw, felt and did in that time. As I walked, my mind tried to understand what my body saw, heard, smelled, tasted and touched. I invite you to do the same. Let your mind be in my body as I walked the pilgrim's path in winter and again in spring.

A journey I would like to make, one day.

Posted by sniffles at 11:59 AM | Comments (8)

June 20, 2003
Urgent Question for Montrealers
Where in Montreal can I get hold of a bottle of Angostura bitters? :) I have tried a couple of SAQs, and I guess one is not likely to find that in "normal" supermarkets. Posted by sniffles at 10:45 AM | Comments (5)

Two challenges
Exactly two weeks ago, Patrick and I made a pact to both get our "about" pages up by the Sunday. Patrick kept the end of his deal, but I allowed myself to be distracted reading Haruki Murakami's "Wind-Up Bird Chronicle" and ... to be obsessed with making lampshades (the original ones at my place were really driving me nuts). Now, ladies and gentlemen, I present you my "about" page, a year and a half late. The second challenge I set for myself yesterday, was to draw Charlie facing the other way. It's not quite as silly as it sounds. Possibly my most valuable lesson in doodling characters came from the chance to rifle through Daniel's many sketchbooks (himself a gifted cartoonist) , which made me realise that practice truly makes perfect, and it is not such a silly thing to practice making your cartoons wear a certain expression, handle a spoon, sit, stand, speak, fart, hiccup ... you get the idea. Charlie was only born a month and a half ago, and there are many aspects to him that I haven't yet explored. So anyway, this was the result of yesterday's efforts: Posted by sniffles at 08:42 AM | Comments (3)

June 18, 2003
Dessine-moi un mouton

Martine a dit: Dessine-moi un mouton. ;-)

Et voilà :

Posted by sniffles at 12:09 PM | Comments (9)

June 17, 2003
Are you an artist?

Going through another spell of sleeplessness, so I have been rather too exhausted to be inspired.

Meanwhile, Patrick has been posting small snippets about the Plateau of Montreal, which gave me the urge to try and re-establish the location of this very old house which I had walked past last autumn.

Along Saint-Dominque, lying just south of Mont-Royal, is this tiny house wedged between two apartment buildings, both built much later. The window panes have obviously been changed, but the frames could very well be original. The wood has been painted over, though it has aged and warped quite dramatically in places.

Happy to have found the house, I made my way north, thinking of revisiting a favourite cafe for brunch, one which I'd hardly been to since I'd moved. Until ... I was stopped dead in my tracks by a strong aroma of spices snaking out into the street through an open door.

It turned out to be a tiny cafe, though at 10h45 in the morning, it was somewhat empty.

Okay, I was positively starving. I gave in to bodily urges. Leaning forward in the doorway, I saw that there was a blond young man at the counter.

"Hi. Are you open yet?" I said.
"Well, um." He glanced at the clock. "We can serve dessert and coffee right now, but brunch starts at 11 o'clock."

Then I noticed that he was still writing up the menu on a small blackboard. I went in and plonked myself on a bar stool.

"You can help me with the menu."
"Or I could just watch," I said.

Though instead, I began to write a letter whilst he wrote up the menu. Then, after 10 minutes had crawled by, he said. "Okay, wanna help?" He was serious?

"What do you want me to do?"
"Feel free to decorate it however you want. Flowers, anything."

"Hmm." I picked up the green chalk, wondering if it would be appropriate to draw Charlie on the menu of a vegan cafe.

"Are you an artist?" He looked at me, straight in the face.

"No," I said. I was surprised at how fast that answer came out.

But when I took the chalk in my hand and started drawing a vine, I realised with a mild surprise that my lines are confident, I have a notion of filling in space only as much as is necessary. I'm not an artist, but I have a close relationship with my pens and pencils. Then the blond waiter told me that all the art work in the cafe were done by the staff, and showed me the terrace bathed in weekend sunshine.

So this was my first time at "Aux Vivres", a tiny vegan cafe along Saint-Dominique, also just south of Mont-Royal. The food will blow your tastebuds away, if the charm of the place hasn't blinded your senses.

And speaking of art, Mathieu's Post-It Gallery has been so popular that his bandwidth has gone through the roof. Reading some initial comments left on the first Post-Its, it's interesting what people think art ought to be. Really, expecting sophisticated art on a Post-It is probably much like expecting a high-quality photograph from a disposable Kodak.

Anyway, you might be pleased to know that Charlie has made a guest appearance. :)

Posted by sniffles at 06:24 PM | Comments (5)

June 13, 2003
Bewitched

I am possibly the most delusionally happy woman in the world. Yesterday evening on my way downtown, I spotted a shop that has temporarily opened up on a street just around the corner, selling canvas transfers and prints for quite a lot less than they are normally worth. I was getting tired of blank walls and the silly photograph of flowers and a bicycle at work, and thought, well, perhaps there might just be something I'd like.

And so I went there after work today and was overjoyed to find a massive two-foot-by-three canvas transfer of one Modigliani's portraits of Jeanne Hebuterne, another smaller one, also of Jeanne Hebuterne, and a Dali. All I can think about, looking at the frighteningly seductive gaze of Jeanne, is how much this is going to freak my mother out. Apparently it's not good luck to have pictures with people in them too near from where one sleeps (she didn't like my print of Hopper's "New York Movie" that I had in my room when I was a student). Though why this is bad luck, I don't know.

Back in Melbourne, I had a print of my favourite Modigliani which used to hang above my overflowing bookshelves. My sister says it now resides in the living room. I'd contemplated many times to get someone to send it over to me, but it seems to be a ridiculous request all on its own. But now, here in Montreal, another one, too, will watch over my books.

Posted by sniffles at 11:53 PM | Comments (4)

June 12, 2003
Speeding colours
For the second night in the row, I found myself walking home from the vicinity of downtown Montreal, enveloped by a greying night and a cooling breeze. Last night was a pleasant stroll down Sherbrooke after having dragged Patrick with me to see the exhibition of Vuillard at le musée des beaux-arts. To have one's consciousness flooded by pure colour, to be lulled by the poetry and song in his brushstrokes; I would gratefully spend more hours in front of his paintings, if only to feel the vibrancy of life reverberate in me for the entire day afterwards. Tonight was somewhat different; the evening began with a meeting with the very lovely Arnaud, moments where conversations spool their own thread, weaving their own fabric of existence. Then I made the mistake of trying to walk down Sainte-Catherine, conveniently forgetting that the Grand Prix takes place this weekend. The street was so full of people, that I could perhaps have been in a Tokyo subway. Worse still, signs are up claiming "Best Pizza in Montreal!" or suchlike. Black and white chequered flags are everywhere, T-shirts boasting "Ferrari" are on dummies in the vitrines. Speeding cars don't make my blood rush, nor such public acceptance of what is essentially the extension of the male anatomy and of course, money, money, money. Quite the contrary — it makes my blood boil. Just outside my apartment building, two men in a convertible were tailing a tall leggy blond, so intensely that they rolled through a red light. "Not even your number?" they asked. I could hear the sound of their saliva hitting the asphalt. "No sweetie, peace," purred the blond, and went on walking. Another tenant was going up in the lift with me, and I commented, "Lots of people out tonight." She did not appear to speak much English but asked, after a pause, "You don't like it?" "The Grand Prix?" I said. "Yes." "No, I don't." "Because of the noise?" The bell rang; the lift had reached her floor. This was going to take too long to explain, so I just said, "I just don't like the social aspect." and left it at that. The city will be reeking of testosterone this coming weekend. Posted by sniffles at 10:33 PM | Comments (9)

But really, one gets older every minute
Happy Birthday, Blork baby!! Posted by sniffles at 12:56 PM | Comments (0)

June 10, 2003
The original morning paper story
I'd gotten less shy about sneaking in to take the photo of the front page of The Gazette where the children wait for the school bus. This morning, I was surrounded by a small crowd of four of five girls, all about ten years-old, as I was taking today's photo. By now, they seem to have gotten used to my unusual behaviour, so rather than glaring at me, they are now curious as to why I do this every day. "What is this for?" "Why are you doing this?" and so forth. I explained that I take a photo of the front page every day so that my friends "on the Internet" can see what the day's newspaper looked like, that when you read the news online, you only get the text and some photos, it's nothing like the real newspaper, and besides, not everyone gets The Gazette. But of course, this doesn't explain why I go on and take photos of other papers I see along the way ... The truth is, I don't actually know anymore. It's just part of my morning routine. Each paper I see provides me with a new photographic challenge. But I can tell you how and why it began. When I got this job, I'd leave for work early every morning, and there was always a newspaper just in front of the door. The war in Iraq had just begun and each morning my foggy half-awake thoughts would do a complete turnaround merely from glancing the five or six words that jumped out at me from the day's main headline. After about a week of this, I decided to photograph what I see of the newspaper every day. If it does nothing for anyone else, it held meaning for me, and it affected me enough to give me the desire to chronicle it. As I left the girls behind to head to work, one of them asked me, "Are you an engineer?" I said, "No, I'm a computer scientist" and was promptly attacked by existential anxiety as I crossed the street — am I really a computer scientist? I was certainly trained as one, and I'm pretty sure I think like one. Oh hell, did I just tell a lie? Maybe tomorrow, I might learn their names. And maybe tomorrow, I might get a chance to tell them the true story of how the photographic chronicle of the morning papers actually began. Posted by sniffles at 10:18 AM | Comments (1)

June 08, 2003
Hypocrites in the building
Coming back from a quick run to the supermarket for fresh mint and bean sprouts, I found two people, a man and a woman, standing at my door. I asked them what or who they were after (suspecting already that they were pamphlet-distributing Christians), and so I let the man show his magazine and talk to me a bit (whip me now if I'm too open-minded), and only told him politely that I wasn't interested when he mentioned the word "Bible". Then they went on to try to knock on the next door. At that point, the landlady came downstairs, being on her way out, and she tried to tell them they had no right to disturb the residents of the building. The woman then became very rude and confronting, saying all kinds of unpleasant things in French. Now, I knew the landlady has just migrated several months ago, and probably knew less French than I do. I said (in English) to the woman, that she was very impolite for a Christian. She obviously understood me and went on and yelled in my face, "Vous parlez français?! Vous êtes à Montréal!" To which I responded matter-of-factly, "This is a bilingual country." Meanwhile, the landlady tried to get them to leave, and in the end the woman said they would take the stairs, complaining loudly the whole time about people who don't speak french and immigrants. This offended me enough to call down the stairwell, "Excuse me, there is no need to be racist." Of course, she went on and on ... Most people I have met in Montreal are very charitable, and have no gripes when they speak to me in French and I respond in English. In fact, they tend to be apologetic if they don't feel they speak English well. The next time someone asks me in a confrontational manner if I spoke French, I'm going to say (in French), that I speak a bit of French, English very well, Mandarin and Malay, how about you? (Kicking myself for not having thought of that at the time.) A funny thing that occurred to me later, was that the magazine the man showed me was called "Watchtower". If you are aware of what has been considered evil by Christians, you'd see the irony in this too. Posted by sniffles at 05:50 PM | Comments (18)

June 06, 2003
The unspoken is seldom heard
He looked at me, silent, his eyes asking, "How are you coping?" I wanted to reply, I am tired, I am exhausted beyond imagination and I am holding the fort and I think I am coping but maybe it's merely out of habit that I fight, I am dispirited, I am low but maybe it will pass and I will feel better tomorrow, how about you, how are you coping? Instead, I heard myself say, "What ...?" For an answer he turned away, looked down at his feet, and asked, "How's it going?" And I heard myself say, "Yeah, okay." Posted by sniffles at 01:20 PM | Comments (2)

June 05, 2003
All this browser talk
Okay, so I'm listening to the news lately ... Microsoft plays browser games: Antitrust experts said that because the appeals court had found, on a technicality, that the government had failed to prove IE commanded a monopoly, Microsoft's move to remove standalone IE from the market wouldn't run afoul of any restrictions placed on the company by the courts. I want to know - how did they fail to prove IE's monopoly?! On popdex this moment, Mozilla Firebird is appearing in the top 5. (Ta, Ian.) Posted by sniffles at 09:44 AM | Comments (0)

June 04, 2003
Some web accessibility resources
Nova Project: A sample of twenty sighted and twenty blind and visually impaired people was used. The term 'visually impaired' was defined as people who needed to use assistive technology, or had to be very close to the screen to be able to 'read' it. Tasks were set using four web-based resources. Each resource displayed elements of parallelism in their design and the tasks were consistently set so that comparative analysis could take place between the sighted and visually impaired users. How to create accessible tables. How to create accessible forms. How a blind person will "see" your Web page – audio comparison of inaccessible and accessible Web pages. WebAIM Online Training CD — Single User License $45.00 ($25.00 educational price), Presentation License $300.00 ($165.00 educational price). With thanks to Holly and Ian. By the way, Ian is looking for examples of accessible and usable websites which have a good drool factor; drop him a line if have some suggestions. Non-related foray: Ryokans are Japanese inns that exist in all sizes and all over Japan. They offer foreign visitors the opportunity to experience a traditional Japanese atmosphere. Posted by sniffles at 03:13 PM | Comments (2)

Person vs date

Getting my morning coffee, I just passed a sign on a bulletin board, and the following words caught my eye:

Accelerate fate! Speed-dating ... (I didn't read the rest because it was too small)

Whoa, maybe this is news to me, but the point here is to be on a date, and not taking the time to get to know someone?

Seems terrible that the idea of a date matters more than the person — let's just make this a production line, shall we?

Posted by sniffles at 10:29 AM | Comments (10)

Ink poisoning revisited
I don't know why it is, but my ink-poisoning post from over a year ago seems to be drawing comments even now. Posted by sniffles at 09:26 AM | Comments (4)

June 03, 2003
Kill for peace

I like working where I am working. My boss found the power supply to a stray iSub that has been sitting around and blasted some 70s rock from his office, which could be heard all the way down the corridor.

A couple of weeks ago he'd introduced me to Stan Rogers (eek Flash site) — for my cultural benefit, he said. Today, it was the mention of The Fugs, with songs like "Kill for peace":

If you don't like the people
or the way that they talk
If you don't like their manners
or they way that they walk,
Kill, kill, kill for peace

Too bad I didn't get to hear any of it. Not yet anyway. :)

Posted by sniffles at 11:04 PM | Comments (4)

How do you navigate?
Seen on meryl.net: Comparison between left- and right- justified site navigation menus shows that it doesn't matter much if the menu is on the left or on the right. As usual, I lament that accessibility tests are not also conducted. Last month, a result of a study of Cascading versus Indexed Menu Design was published. Again, no accessibility tests. Update: An old article by Jakob Nielsen (Nov 2001): Beyond Accessibility: Treating Users with Disabilities as People. Posted by sniffles at 01:17 PM | Comments (2)

June 01, 2003
Room with a view
Fresh Antipasto: Daze in the sky. Posted by sniffles at 10:55 PM | Comments (0)

Catch-22

With the weather forecast for the weekend being rainy and grey, I'd planned to do a lot of indoorsy things, like reading, coding, writing, tidying up, sorting out some papers. All things calm and pleasant. Except I'd forgotten to take the flu into account. All the grand ideas I wanted to portray about deeply profound and important things (well, relatively), any mildly intelligent thought I have had, had been suitably reduced to a wobbling quibble by the sheer inability to concentrate.

Anyway, every so often, I'd hunger for a Murakami book. It seemed to be the perfect time to tackle the gigantic volume of The Wind-up Bird Chronicle. Read one chapter, sleep for a time. Read another chapter, sleep for a time. In this manner, the hours of my weekend dwindled.

There's something that I've been dying to bring up for a time, and it has to do with a phrase "Catch-22". Most English speakers I have met use the term loosely and frequently enough, and I've had to explain the phrase time and time again to non-anglophones. Yet I am pretty sure that most people who use the phrase haven't actually read the book. So, courtesy of the copy I stole off Boris' shelf, here's the bit which talks about what Catch-22 is:

"You're wasting your time," Doc Daneeka was forced to tell him.

"Can't you ground someone who's crazy?"

"Oh, sure. I have to. There's a rule saying I have to ground anyone who's crazy."

"Then why don't you ground me? I'm crazy. Ask Clevinger."

"Clevinger? Where is Clevinger? You find Clevinger and I'll ask him."

"Then ask any of the others. They'll tell you how crazy I am."

"They're crazy."

"Then why don't you ground them?"

"Why don't they ask me to ground them?"

"Because they're crazy, that's why."

"Of course they're crazy," Doc Daneeka replied. "I just told you they're crazy, didn't I? And you can't let crazy people decide whether you're crazy or not, can you?"

Yossarian looked at him soberly and tried another approach. "Is Orr crazy?"

"He sure is," Doc Daneeka said.

"Can you ground him?"

"I sure can. But first he has to ask me to. That's part of the rule."

"Then why doesn't he ask you to?"

"Because he's crazy," Doc Daneeka said. "He has to be crazy to keep flying combat missions after all the close call's he's had. Sure, I can ground Orr. But first he has to ask me to."

"That's all he has to do to be grounded?"

"That's all. Let him ask me."

"And then you can ground him?" Yossarian asked.

"No. Then I can't ground him."

"You mean there's a catch?"

"Sure there's a catch," Doc Daneeka replied. "Catch-22. Anyone who wants to get out of combat duty isn't really crazy."

There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one's safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn't, but if he was sane he had to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn't have to; but if he didn't want to he was sane and had to. Yossarian was moved very deeply by the absolute simplicity of this clause of Catch-22 and let out a respectful whistle.

"That's some catch, that Catch-22," he observed.

"It's the best there is," Doc Daneeka agreed.

These days, I believe the accepted definition of "catch-22" is "a no-win situation".

Posted by sniffles at 09:00 PM | Comments (4)