December 31, 2003
Here's a question

but then what kind of scale
compares the weight of two beauties
the gravity of duties
or the ground speed of joy?
tell me what kind of gauge
can quantify elation?
what kind of equation
could I possibly employ?

-- "School Night", Ani DiFranco

What's the first song you will listen to in the New Year? (Or if the clock has ticked over for you, which did you listen to first?)

Have a happy and joyful one!

Posted by sniffles at 01:57 PM | Comments (4)

December 30, 2003
Alleyway to the road not taken

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I —
I took the one less traveled by

-- "The Road Not Taken", Robert Frost.

I came looking for you knowing full well that I wouldn't find you. The others, they watched me walk in circles, lost in a room inside my head, they shrugged at my lifeless gaze and thought me crazy — not that it matters anymore to anyone.

Downtown, electric lights are still draped around the naked skeletons of trees. The other day, someone remarked to me that the lights could now be taken down given that Christmas is now over, but too many years of useless religious education made me say, "There are actually twelve days of Christmas and we're barely halfway."

And so the lights remain, poor untwinkling substitutes for leaves long-gone, forgotten along with the warm breath of summer. Or your warm kiss on my cheek.

I picked up a book in the bookshop and began to read. I skipped entire chapters, reading slices of sections until I tire of the plot. I mustn't buy books on a day like today. I avoided the music store. I was there two days ago and they didn't have what I was looking for; they probably wouldn't have it today. I walked past the café and realised I hadn't had a single drop of coffee all day. Could that be a reason for delirium?

They have cleared much snow off the streets. No longer softened by snow, the city reveals its sudden severity in concrete and stone. In the entrance to an alleyway that stretched off the main road, I met a little lost man. He looked at me forlornly and I managed a smile. He shook his head "no, I haven't seen him" and we bade each other good evening and farewell.

There are too many hours in a day. Too many with which to think, feel, fill with things to do, too many through which to live. And suddenly, it occurred to me that all significant things in my life happen between these spells of eternal walking. The mindless business of putting one foot in front of the other, the unending act of senselessly moving on, looking for the off-beaten path that would lead me back to you.

Posted by sniffles at 10:32 PM | Comments (2)

The Unspoken
 ?  — ( )  ,  —  ,  .  ;   ... Posted by sniffles at 10:57 AM | Comments (5)

December 29, 2003
On the brain buffer

Danny takes painfully beautiful photos that leave me utterly breathless.

A discussion about the story behind "The Twelve Days of Christmas" yielded some additional fascinating information (I have to say snopes.com is one of my all-time favourite sites). The answer is thus:

What we do know is that the twelve days of Christmas in the song are the twelve days between the birth of Christ (Christmas, December 25) and the coming of the Magi (Epiphany, January 6).

Apparently, it also has to do with an obsession with birds (squawk squawk cheep cheep chirp / this is my birdie poem / um, et cetera):

"The Twelve Days of Christmas" is what most people take it to be: a secular song that celebrates the Christmas season with imagery of gifts and dancing and music. Some misinterpretations have crept into the English version over the years, though. For example, the fourth day's gift is four "colly birds," not four "calling birds." (The word "colly" literally means "black as coal," and thus "colly birds" would be blackbirds.) The "five golden rings" refers not to five pieces of jewelry, but to five ring-necked birds (such as pheasants). When these errors are corrected, the pattern of the first seven gifts' all being types of birds is re-established.

Interestingly enough, the top-ranking sites on the origin of Christmas are presented by what appears to be mission groups: see this, this, and this.

My shoulder hasn't stopped hurting since Friday. I think that means I ought to stop typing right about n—

Posted by sniffles at 10:45 PM | Comments (2)

December 27, 2003
So far away

Posted by sniffles at 02:57 PM | Comments (4)

December 24, 2003
Bestiality haikus

I occasionally worry that such moments of profane folly can happen to me when I am having breakfast on a Saturday morning, being completely, utterly sober and not-yet-caffeinated (so what happens when I'm not sober?!).

So, before you touch that coffee, what about zipping off an animal haiku? Maybe we ought to have flashmobs where people gather to recite profane poetry ...

Posted by sniffles at 10:46 AM | Comments (1)

The journey

It's the memory of walking that haunts me. The endlessness, without beginning, without end, even though I must have begun somewhere, and I know I would end up somewhere — here and now I am in my private infinity, struggling to place one foot in front of the other. Small steps that have seemingly little impact on the direction I am headed, but they are all that steer me forward. Maddened with monotony, with each second that passes I hold onto the comfort of the next.

Walking underneath the trees, where the winter sun would cast deep shadows over the paths covered in a chaos of cracks; in summer, shamefully bleaching hot; in autumn, shyly shivering under layers of foreign leaves. Spring doesn't bring flowers, just lustrous green grass.

Stepping off the train at Prahran, filing out through the narrow brick doorway, turn left to walk up the ramp, left again to cross the tracks, checking to see that the boom gates are not slamming down in the next thirty seconds. Past the tiny roundabout, at which one corner situates an office for voluntary euthanasia, past the music school for children, past houses, spurts of flowers occasionally pink but sometimes yellow, the house with the old window, the house with the immaculate garden, the house with the tree ferns, the College Lawn, the house where a saxophonist lives.

In the city, the morning is quiet on a Sunday. I play tag with the streetsweeper as we slowly make our way up Swanston. The shops are closed. (Strange that I only notice them when they are closed.) I wait with a coffee and my camera.

Down at the sea we look over the edge of the jetty at the gentle lapping waves, tiny tongues of dogs licking at the pillar. Sun beating down on our backs as we nudge broken seashells with our toes.

I nudge a ball of snow with my shoe. Consciousness frozen to a point of senselessness. Music is a lifeline twisted through wires, stoppered in my ears for fear of leaking precious liquid resonance. I place one foot in front of the other.

Posted by sniffles at 10:16 AM | Comments (2)

December 21, 2003
Keeping time (the music addict way)
I recently came up with a good method to get me out the door on time in the morning — or, if I'm at the office, a way to remind me it's home time. Okay, maybe not remind, but a way of counting down on slow afternoons. ;) It began like this: I usually have a playlist of songs I'm currently addicted to. This list shrinks as I get tired of some songs, and grows when I find new ones to add to it. (Ohh iTunes, marry me!) One morning, I crawled out of bed at 7 am. I usually try to leave by 8 am. Tumble out of bed, flip open PowerBook, locate iTunes, press "play". I was about to head for the shower when I realised that the playlist at the time had exactly 1 hour's worth of music. This meant by the time the last song starts I ought to be ready to pull my shoes on. Hmm, not bad. I now have a clock that I can listen to. Some days I start the playlist somewhere in the middle to accommodate for the required amount of time. Anyway, the only time I run late now is when I happen to need to listen to a song a second time ... Posted by sniffles at 09:31 PM | Comments (10)

December 20, 2003
Shelter

We live in the era of partial rhymes
and 27 is a good age to die

There is something special about the sound of snow. The fall of snowflakes is the absence of sound, silent as it tumbles in slow, deafening cascade. But as we walk and stumble our way down the snow-ice covered street, fallen white angels beneath our feet sing high-pitched notes of staccato protest.

Undeterred, we move on, teasing the earth with our footsteps and our laughter as it playfully tries to catch us off guard with patches of ice. If it were thirty degrees warmer, and if snow were sand, we could be stumbling our way out to sea, singing snatches of jazz in time to a tambourine.

Posted by sniffles at 07:32 PM | Comments (0)

December 19, 2003
Shifted

If I'm taking forever to reply to your email or to your message, it's because I'm suddenly typing a whole lot slower ...

Posted by sniffles at 08:55 AM | Comments (4)

December 17, 2003
The Relationship Quagmire

I don't like bandwagons, because I am a slowcoach and it's usually pretty crowded by the time I get there. However, reading through the info on XFN, I don't think I'm going to be able to keep my trap shut on a couple of issues.

At first glance, we see that it is an "elegant" solution: it's simple, it's readable, and it's XHTML. However, let's say, out of the context of one's blogroll (a word whose definition is outside the scope of XHTML, and thus outside our boundaries of enforcibility), there's no restriction on using XFN. What's wrong with that? Well, ever wonder about the person whom you thought you were close to, but haven't spoken for three years? Is that person still a friend? Probably less of a friend than a colleague you get along well with and speak to every day. But three years ago, you had all these XHTML references to a person with whom you are no longer a friend. I don't know about you, but I see a major maintenance issue, on top of trying to keep up with all my "friendships". :)

The authors of XFN have eliminated the "time" factor in the interest of "simplicity". Simplicity, for the sake of accuracy? I find this somewhat ironic, given that XFN attempts to strive for a kind of clarity in describing relationships. Is there use in describing relationships that are no longer accurate?

Truthfully, this may not be unfixable. It doesn't take a database or IA expert to point out that this is where one would use a unique key to correspond to a person. Instead of describing the relationship in the anchor tag, say, we use a unique id; of course, if we do this, the amount of of parsing involved in order to build a relationship graph is at least twice as complex. In any case, isn't this what RDF is for? So why are we using XHTML for something that it is not made for? (Why hammer a nail with a pair of chopsticks?)

Technical problems aside, I see internationalisation issues in enforcing gender neutrality. I shall provide two examples. First: the Chinese have very clear descriptions of family relationships. I have a precise term for the the second oldest uncle on my mother's side of the family — it is 二舅. I would correctly call a female cousin who's the child of my uncle on my father's side who is younger than me: 堂妹, but a female cousin older than me who's a child of my aunt on my father's side is correctly called: 表姐. As you see, in this context, precise relationships are important. Once you get down to specifying a relationship beyond "knowing", therein lies a quagmire.

The second example I have is somewhat reversed to the first. In a good part of South East Asia, it is customary to call someone on the street "aunt", "uncle", "grandfather" or "grandmother" even if they are not related to you by blood, whether out of respect or affection. I have known "Auntie Monica" all my life, but when I meet a Westerner I am forced to explain that she is not related to me by blood, but she is an aunt to me in all other respects — what I mean as an "aunt" differs considerably in meaning to that of someone else; however, my aunt here is just as important to me as my parents. I can't describe this relationship within XFN? That's a shame.

The XFN specs have repeatedly said that one defines relationship according to the author's perspective. So someone I claim as my friend may not necessarily think of me as a friend. Is there truly value in this? Given that temporal factors are not considered — isn't it true that I will always be accumulating friends! Yes, okay, that's not a bad thing for my ego — but how meaningful is this information?

Needless to say, I also have some philosophical issues with the approach XFN has taken. Aside from the contradiction in striving for accuracy (in defining relationships) yet never actually being able to be usefully accurate (due to temporal and cultural limitations), I simply have difficulty to understand that there is any practicality in categorising my relationships according to an arbitrary set of terms.

Complex problems don't often come with simple answers. Relationships are ambiguous, complex, they change, and sometimes escape definition. Why oversimplify them to such an extent?

Posted by sniffles at 10:34 AM | Comments (9)

December 13, 2003
Suicidal food craving

[...] Barclay talked about how much he liked one of my paintings entitled East River Swimmer. Done in acrylic paint, it was one of a series of four plywood square-foot panels. Each one was a different view of the swimmer. Although everyone complimented them, I had been unable to draw out all I wanted from them, and feared I had reached my artistic limits.

I wanted to work on the series longer and develop them into a solo show, but as usual. I desperately needed cash. I was hoping to rent a gloriously huge loft with June, so against my better judgement, I agreed to let Laura put the red dot next to it on the price list.

Delighted, Barclay shook my hand and went on about how great the work was: "I usually buy art as an investment, but your piece immediately grabbed me. You really feel the guy struggling. I intend to hang it in my bedroom so I'll never forget that life is a challenge." I had to sell my labours at half price to remind a millionaire that life was hard.

-- "Chinese Takeout", Arthur Nersesian.

I found this book more or less by chance. Though sometimes chance and intent get a little bit blurred when you make a string of random choices, so perhaps it was not really by chance at all. I decided to go to this book store, at this hour, in this particular kind of mood, and for some random reason, I decided to walk to this shelf (which I almost never do), and there it was. It caught my attention, I bought it.

Halfway through the book, I'm still enjoying it. Serendipity is a really good word. A side-effect of reading about Orloff's continual visit to a Chinese takeout (Orloff being the main character in our story) has insinuated a craving for soba, not that he actually bought any Japanese. Maybe it's his talk about eating cold food ...

A couple of Google searches landed me on this page, which appears to have a list of sushi places in Montreal. So, checking off the ones I know of, walked past and eaten at, I noticed that you have two restaurants called "Kamikaze".

Um, excuse me, but:

kamikaze

n.

1. A Japanese pilot trained in World War II to make a suicidal crash attack, especially upon a ship.
2. An airplane loaded with explosives to be piloted in a suicide attack.
3. Slang. An extremely reckless person who seems to court death.

adj.

1. Of or relating to a suicidal air attack: a kamikaze mission.
2. Slang. So reckless in behavior or actions as to be suicidal: kamikaze hot rodders.

So like, does this mean: eat at your own risk?

Posted by sniffles at 07:22 PM | Comments (5)

December 12, 2003
Sheepishly stumbling over words

Speaking and writing Canadian English (thanks for the link, Tara):

This page explains the major differences between Canadian English and its British and American compatriots, follows the debate over colour and color, talks about place names and French, then looks at some unique Canadian vocabulary and ends with a short essay on pronunciation and regional variations.

I've had numerous conversations with various people about the very different words one sometimes find for common objects or things in the UK, Australia and North America. While the article above will show you some differences between words used in Canada and the United States, it seems that a fair number of words are "regionalised" to this continent.

Here are just a few:

North America	United Kingdom	Australia
Candy	Sweets	Lollies
Sidewalk	Pavement	Footpath
Scotch tape	Sellotape	Sticky tape
Sharpie (US only?)	Permanent Marker	Texta

And there are probably many more. I get strange looks when I say "lift" rather than "elevator" (but hey that's three syllables too many), and I can't tell you how difficult it is for me to say "scotch tape". Growing up in a former British colony meant I learned the UK set of words; moving to Australia, I acquired yet another; and now, in North America, I'm starting to get terribly confused. :)

On a completely different note — care for some sheep poetry? This page is really a year old, but it's just too cute not to revisit even if you've seen it already. It is based on this BBC article:

Each of the animals has a word from a poem written on their backs and as they wander about the words take a new poetic form each time they come to rest.

Well, at least "sheep" seem to be "sheep" everywhere.

Posted by sniffles at 04:57 PM | Comments (7)

December 10, 2003
In the snow
Snow makes me deliriously happy. There's something miraculous about these white crystalline particles, which, when unhurried by the wind, leisurely suspend in the air until such time they see fit to grace the ground. One might be two years more than twenty-four, and still be surprised by the beauty of life and continual youth of time, be enchanted by how snow glitters, and be amused by how one's tropical eyelashes are useless in such weather. When I got on the bus, the old woman gestured that I sit across the aisle from her, where three full plastic bags had been tucked under the seat. "Those are mine," she said. "Marché Jean-Talon." In one wave of her hand and a stifled laugh she explained the ridiculous situation of having done her shopping on a day that was snowing like crazy, and having to make her way home with full bags of shopping. "Three cauliflowers, same price as one." Yet another gesture of her hand, indicating her weakness for good bargains. "I'm now 81 years old, but I'm a good housekeeper, a good cook." I have no recollection of what I said, perhaps some kind of conversation filler. Several minutes passed. Then, to my surprise, she got up and walked across the aisle to me. "Do you live near here?" "Not far," I said. She proceeded to give me her address, the exact street corner, the apartment number. "Come and see me, I can cook you a nice dinner. I am from Europe you know. I have been living here for 56 years. I am 81 years old and I am alone." Her breath had a tinge of drink ... rum? In slow, laboured speech, she gave me a summary of her life in Montreal, how her mother died in her arms, how her husband was perturbed by her insistence to care for her mother until she passed on. "Or call me. Would you like to write my number down?" "No, I can remember numbers well." She gave me her phone number. I recited it back to her. "What's your name?" I told her. She recited my name back to me. "Call me, I am alone. Have a good day." I watched her collect her bags and cautiously got off the bus. I turned around and watched her crossed the street through the foggy window. Then I looked at other passengers in the bus, none of whom seemed to have noticed anything out of the ordinary. I wonder if she knew that I would never find the courage to pick up the phone. But a letter, maybe. Yes, perhaps a letter. Posted by sniffles at 04:58 PM | Comments (4)

December 08, 2003
QA poetry

steph: we be poets! we can make your QA tips rhyme!
olivier: hmm let's see
steph: hmm let's bee
olivier: by the time you have gone through the validator
olivier: be sure to have a look at that nice link checkor
olivier: like that?
steph: not bad, not bad
olivier: that would actually be hilarious
olivier: though I'm not certain a big part of the
olivier: QA crowd would appreciate it
olivier: but maybe I'm mistaken
steph: though I'm not certain,
steph: how big a proportion,
steph: of the acclaimed QA crowd
steph: might applaud very loud,
steph: at specifications divinely laced
steph: with alliterations properly placed.
olivier: *giggles*

Posted by sniffles at 10:33 PM | Comments (3)

Factors in complexity
A question on the brain: what are the factors that define how complex a Web development project is? I'm thinking of Web projects in general, from small-scale sites of a few pages to a major, big, cumbersome, CMS-driven, portal-like crawling octopii. I'd like to know what y'all think. Feel free to respond in the comments or send me an email, ifyalike. Merci. Posted by sniffles at 04:05 PM | Comments (4)

December 05, 2003
Letter

I discovered today that there is an art to managing wires that one winds around one's body. I'm simply not any good, or perhaps I lack practice. Your music in my ears, I feel somewhat rather like Movern Callar — except you didn't give me a tape and you are still very much alive. Walking briskly to the pace of unfamiliar beats, I am constantly drawn into worlds other than this and I am frightfully aware of how much I depend on my hearing for sensing danger, that I cross at traffic lights because I hear cars stopping rather than seeing lights turn green. I mean, I see — but first and foremost, I hear ... Here's to sharpening my survival skills.

I wanted to tell that you're right — "Televise" is much better.

In the morning the sun peers over the horizon, deciding whether to take a chance on the day. The streets are barren and the occasional truck shatters the silence sustained by the sprinkle of snowflakes.

keep all your crows away / hold skinny wolves at bay / in silver piles of smiles / may all your days be gold my child

Someone came to see me yesterday, but it wasn't you.

Posted by sniffles at 08:56 AM | Comments (0)

December 03, 2003
Strange citizen

There is a strange old man who hangs around my building sometimes. I haven't yet worked out when he turns up, but twice now, I've found him in the building — oddly enough, only on my laundry nights.

The first time I saw him was when I'd just got home from work. He was lounging in one of the armchairs in the lobby, seemingly talking to himself, though he had this way of glaring at everyone who walked past him as if he was actually speaking to each person intensely. He was saying one sentence over and over again, stumbling over syllables as he did. The sentence went something like: "my sister has a ... ... ... Ferrari ... ... ... ." My sister has a ... ... ... Ferrari ... ... ... my sister has a ... ... ... Ferrari ... ... my sister has a ... ... .

I thought him odd but harmless, and wondered if he'd lived here.

When I made a trip down to the ground floor laundry to put my clothes in the dryer, the lift stopped at the 8th floor and, to my horror, the old man walked in. He glared at me with his fishy-looking eyes and flashed me a maniacal grin, showing all his yellow teeth. "You are a very nice person," he said. "Thank you," I said, trying to look calm and composed. Then he mumbled something I couldn't make sense of. "Okay," I said. He began to laugh.

When we reached the ground floor, he trundled out of the lift and made for one of the armchairs once more.

The second time I saw him was earlier this week. Monday, if I recall correctly. I got home and found a tallish man standing just outside the door, as if he was waiting for someone to open it. And what do you do when someone appears to be waiting for the door to be opened? You open it, and let him in. I fished out my keys, opened the door, and let him in. Only when he made his way to the armchair that I realised it was the very same old man from the previous week. He was extremely well-dressed, wearing a long, expensive-looking coat and a matching hat, and he sat down in the armchair with an air of dignity, as if he were a king.

Later on, when I came down to do my laundry, he was gone. I wondered if he was again wandering around the building, but the lift did not stop between the ground floor and my floor all evening, and I did not encounter him again that night.

Perhaps I will see him again next week, though I must admit that each time the lift stops before it reaches the ground floor, I find myself expecting to see, there in the doorway, the hunched figure of the Laundry Man.

Posted by sniffles at 05:23 PM | Comments (6)

December 01, 2003
Ongoing wars

Today being World AIDS Day, I would like to draw your attention to an Australian conference which will be taking place in May 2004:

In 2004, the HIV/AIDS, Hepatitis C & Related Diseases (HHARD) Social Research Conference, and the HIV Educators' Conference, will be held conjointly for the third time.

The joint conferences will explore emerging issues in social research and health promotion practice in the areas of prevention, treatment, care and support for HIV, hepatitis C and other communicable diseases.

The HHARD conference will cover the latest findings from the field of social research into HIV and HCV. The HIV Educators' conference will focus on current issues in HIV education and health promotion.

On a separate note, in the comments of December 2003's Top Blogs, in a conversation on why there aren't any non-English blogs on the BlogsCanada honour roll, Jim has said:

As I've pointed out, these lists are selected from nominations submitted by readers. So far, we've never received nominations for any non-English sites. If we did, btw, they would likely win by default.

Posted by sniffles at 08:43 AM | Comments (2)