Battleship drinking game

How cool is this? Thanks to E for pointing it out on the Gizmodo website to me. I don't think it needs much explanation beyond the picture. If you've ever played battleship, and if you've ever had a shot, this probably would make sense to you.

Look at my deck

Happy Canada Day

Congrats Canada, you're a 142 years old. (You don't look a day over 120).

How did you spend your Canada Day? I played a few games of ball hockey, followed up by a game of softball. Both are beer leagues. Cheers!

Two wrongs don't make a right...

...but three lefts do!

I was fond of saying the above when I was about 14 years old. Now logistics firms with large fleets are taking on the "green" policy of three rights make a left.

According to this guy, UPS has a policy against making left turns because it uses less gas to drive around the block (making three right turns) than it does to wait for a left turn. Sounds good to me. It is a small but marketable step toward being environmentally responsible. And small but consistent change is the way to go when it comes to altering the system from within.

In answer to the comment left on the above-hyperlinked post about waiting for a left turn with the engine turned off, that's not an efficient use of time either. It's not just gas that the firm is saving, it's also time. Let's keep in mind that UPS' first goal is to get the package delivered quickly, and somewhere down the list (like number 5 or 6) is to be environmentally friendly. [Technically its first goal is to generate profit, requiring the efficient use of resources and the maximization of customer service. This still makes being green lower on the list.]

The foiling of the absent co-worker's desk

You've seen it in email forwards, and you've read about it as urban myths. Here's some first hand experience from my office. One particular co-worker chose to take every Monday off in June. Big mistake. Last Tuesday he showed up to find his desk looking like this:We wrapped everything. His mail. His mouse. His pens and highlighters. A banana....

...his cell phone, business cards, trinkets, toys and stuffed animals...After he showed up, and was speechless. He sat down on his foil-covered chair and I immediately, and secretly called his extension. It was funny watching him try to answer his foil phone.We even wrapped his umbrellas.

We only wrapped some of the coins in his change bowl.

Thanks to S for taking and sharing the photos. Shout out to D for the idea, and big ups to S&S for all the wrapping work.

I miss Paco

Paco and Shakira moved out during the renovations and they have yet to return. Apparently the LOVE their home in Etobicoke, with all its sunlight, plants, and big rooms to fly around in. They also have people home all the time so they can stay out of their cage for hours on end. Lucky them. But now that the renos are over, and I'm hanging out in the main floor of the house again, I miss their company.

Farkle

Farkle is a fun gambling game that does not require the exchange of money. It's a game played with dice, where the accumulation of points is gambled upon in a variety of ways: whether to keep rolling to collect more points and risk losing it all, whether to pass the dice to your opponent and risk that they collect more points off of your own, and a constant gamble against the odds of rolling what you need or hope to get. It's also a drinking game in that if you drop the dice on the floor you collect strikes which means you could lose your turn.

This is a fun game.

Found a new (unannounced!?) bike path

You may recall my venting about the Toronto West Rail/Bike path some months ago. In it I was describing the Toronto debate around using part of the corridor of a railway running through the city for a bike path that would stretch from the Junction to King & Strachan.

I didn't have my camera with me. This photo is taken from the Wallace Street foot bridge and was found on the Blog TO site.

Today, A and I were walking in the Junction and along Dundas West and discovered a newly paved path. In the spirit of adventure, we followed it. We walked the new path from Dundas near Annette all the way to Dundas and Sorauren (which almost at College). The pavement smelled new, and there were a lot of signs describing how new seed had been laid on both sides of the path, suggesting new grass and gardens. There were a handful of people exploring the path, and there was a small town feel to it, with everyone saying "good morning" and "hello" to each other (not a normal City of Toronto occurrence).

The views were amazing. We could see a side of some industrial buildings and lofts that one usually is not afforded. As well, there was a spectacular view of the CN Tower. There is some great graffiti art under the bridge where Dundas runs over the tracks near Sorauren. The quiet was amazing too - however we realize that won't be the case on weekdays when 300+ diesel trains run along these tracks. That's okay by me though. As a stretch of my commute which does not involve angry car drivers and stop signs and red lights, I'm happy to tolerate noisy smelly trains.


Apparently construction will continue until the path reaches right downtown, which will be amazing. Uninterrupted cycling is the best. Too bad the City is so bad at marketing. There should be a big announcement soon I hope, keep your eyes and ears pealed. In the mean time, the path seems to be open, but not finished. The bridge over Bloor Street seems particularly unfinished and actually quite dangerous, so please be careful!

My garden

Happy Summer Solstice!

... After

(Continued from before...)

Here's the finished product.

Although it's never really finished...there are still paintings to be hung, back splash to be installed, deck to be built, dining room furniture to be organized, but I'd rather be spending my summer time in the garden.

Good-bye Dear Jane

One of my favourite blogs, Dear Jane Sample is shutting down. The author is ready to move on with her life, and so it goes.

I've loved this blog since I found it: very creative, inspiring, thoughtful, and with opinions and perspectives I could identify with. The author put a lot of time and effort into her blog, and kept it up nicely. I even relied on her hardcore marketing blog posts to help me through business school. Here's the link to the influential brand timeline post, although Jane says she's going to be shutting down and deleting posts... so I don't know how long the link will be active.

Thanks Jane! And good luck.

Art Deco in Toronto

A and I attended the book launch of Tim Morawetz' Art Deco Architecture in Toronto last night. We met Tim who signed our copy of the book, and talked with a few others. Fun night.

I'm really excited to read this book! It's organized like both a coffee table book as well as a walking tour guide book of Toronto. It's full of amazing pictures and descriptions of buildings all over Toronto, which has had way more art deco influence than I realized. There are some well-known buildings with hidden treasures, and some secret roofs and facades that I imagine most of us pass by without noticing. Now I'm going to start looking in detail.

Tim is passionate about art deco architecture as a 30 year old hobby, on the side from his career and his family. It's a tribute to the beauty that was the functioning norm of the 1920s and 30s, and much of it reminds me of Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged.

The book is $40 and can be ordered here.

Beef with critique sauce

Sort of sounds like a menu item... Actually I have a beef with hard core critics. I can not stand that I can not have a normal conversation with them about my experiences and my own personal opinions.

The Critic character from the film Ratatouille

I recently mentioned that I liked a movie, and that I thought it was touching. Rather than acknowledge my personal experience, the response I received was: "Yes, it's a good film, but now let me tell you all the things that are wrong with it." This is not a normal social interaction. This is not how people should speak to each other. It may be how one writes a movie review for a newspaper or something like that, but I wouldn't know since I don't read reviews, I see the movies for myself, and I choose what I like and dislike based on what I like and dislike.


Taking the example conversation a little further, I'd also like to point out that it is often difficult to have an intellectual dialogue with anyone who is so desperate to be considered an authority on something, that they get stuck on convincing. My issue with convincing is that does not equate to dialogue.


A dialogue, preferably intellectual, is a conversation where multiple parties can express ideas, all of which are heard and understood by the listener(s), and then reacted to.


Convincing is a conversation where the speaker expressing his or her idea is not satisfied and will not stop until the listener(s) are convinced that s/he is correct and that they must change their opinion to agree with the speaker. (I don't care for this. I prefer my own ideas.)


I'm open to being influenced by those people whose opinions I trust and value. Critics, or those people who define themselves as such, and especially those who are incapable of recognizing the expression of my experiences, are not included amongst those whose expressions I will invest time and energy into. Your critique means nothing to me.

(By the way, just before you proceed posting a comment to this blog post, critiquing it, keep in mind, I don't care!)

This world was not designed for tall people

This article from Fast Company highlights Arianne Cohen's new book: The Tall Book. Cohen is singing an anthem that I've been droning for years: the society we live in was not built for tall people. Have you ever seen the movie Elf? I often feel like the main character, where I'm just too big for everything around me. I bump my head in the subway, my feet are too big for the stairs, I don't know what to do with my knees and legs when I'm sitting in a plane or a car. Rarely do shoe stores carry the shoes I want in my size. Kitchen sinks are generally too low for me to stand and do dishes, older fridges are way too low for me to find things on the bottom shelf, basement ceilings are dangerous, as are ceiling fans...the list goes on and on.

Scene from Elf, just like me most of the time, with my feet hanging off the bed.

I usually only feel really comfortable in my body when I'm playing sports or when I'm in Holland or Finland. When I lived in Holland I found that the world was built for people of my height - I was average height for Amsterdam. The doorknobs were higher in the doors, the doorways were higher, even the toilet seats sat slightly higher off the ground. And they carried wooden clogs in my size! I wonder if any of those Scandinavian countries have solved the laptop problem yet: standard size laptops are NOT built for tall people; our hands are too big for the keyboard, and we have to slouch to properly see the screen. After many hours of laptop use, I am usually in a lot of pain, and am developing a permanent slouch because of this.

Cohen describes a movement oriented around universal design, implying that a paradigm shift is required to move the definition of universal design from "one size fits all" to "a size for every different person" which is much more inclusive.

Basically, it's time to include 100% of the population as potential users when designers are creating structure and tools for life, whether it be in public washrooms, public transportation, or elsewhere. Let's keep in mind that while tall people can reach things on the top shelf, we often can't hear short people who are looking down and talking away, and we can't fit our hands into the Pringles container. There are advantages and disadvantages to being short and for being tall. And I agree with Cohen, it makes sense to try and be inclusive.

Some notable trends: the next generation is getting taller, and laptops are getting smaller. Could this dichotomy be based on the fact that most of the technology we are using is developed in Asia, where people tend to be slightly shorter than me?