I Guess I Need A Title

Lunch is the most difficult meal. It seems like it's always more trouble than it's worth.

Breakfast is a much more obvious meal; I never have a problem knowing what to do for breakfast. It's a no brainer to pour a bowl of cereal or fry up some eggs, or just a simple piece of toast. Not that there aren't more options, but somehow breakfast just seems more simple.


Dinner is probably the most complex meal of the day, and this is probably what makes it easier than lunch. This seems kind of like a paradox, but it's true. Dinner has more ritual attached to it than lunch does, which seems to make the extra effort more worthwhile. It's not as big of a deal to spend an hour making dinner if you know that you're going to sit down and eat, and probably spend a good deal of time at the table even after the meal discussing important things like politics, sports, and . . uh . . . what bark is made of. Another big part of dinner is the creative process. If you have a special meal that you like to make it tends to be saved for dinner. The creation of dinner is as much a part of the meal as the eating of it.

Lunch, on the other hand is often rushed. If you're working it's usually either something you packed in the morning, or some sort of fast food or cafeteria food. If you're at home, it hardly seems worth the effort to make something complex because you already have something good planned for dinner. The result is that you usually end up throwing a sandwich together (don't get me wrong, I love sandwiches) or sticking some leftovers in the microwave. There is no ritual, not much creation; it's just about getting something decent into you in a fairly efficient way so you can get on with the day

That is why lunch is difficult for me.

Long Live Magnetic Tape!

Ever since CDs appeared on the scene there have been hardcore vinyl enthusiasts (snobs) who refuse to listen to any music that has been digitally encoded rather than scribed mechanically on a rotating chunk of plastic. The usual reason for this is that vinyl sounds warmer. On this point I do tend to agree; I like listening to records as much as the next guy, but they're very difficult to play in my car.

Recently I've been thinking about this concept of a 'warmer' sound, and I've decided to apply it to my movie collection. If an older recording technology can produce a warmer sound, then the same must be true for visual media.

I've decided to Switch back to VHS.

The first step will be to buy some really expensive VHS gear. I'm thinking of something with a billet aluminum chassis to give all the components stability. Of course it would have to have vibration eliminating dampers instead of the usual rubber feet. The traditional 4 head VCR won't be enough. I'll need a 9 head VCR, I'm not sure what the other 5 heads are for, but I'm sure the extra expense will be worth it. The play heads, of course, will be made of solid gold because of it's greater conductive properties.

The most difficult part will be finding copies of all my movies on VHS. I guess I'll have to scour garage sales and vintage stores to find everything. The VHS revival hasn't quite caught on like vinyl has, so it may be more difficult. For now I'll just have to make do watching my old copies of Home Alone and . . . Home Alone 2.

The old movies have more soul anyways.

The Surreal life

Today as I was driving home on the 427 I noticed a strange phenomenon. There was a cabin cruizer floating across the Burnhamthorpe overpass.

Well, that's what it looked like anyway. I'm assuming it was on a trailer that was being towed by a pickup truck. From my position I couldn't see the truck over the guardrail so it just looked like the boat was driving arcoss the overpass by itself.

It was kind of a surreal moment.

'The cars on the freeway are moving like slugs'

Living in Toronto four days a week, I am periodically stuck in traffic. Over time I have come up with various things to keep me occupied while I'm waiting for traffic to start moving again. Here they are in no particular order:

1) Stare at the person beside you, then quickly look away. Do this repeatedly.

2) Get out of you car and pretend to urinate in the gas tank - have a sticker that says 'urine powered vehicle'.

3) Make the 'roll down the window' motion to the person beside you. When they roll down the window look like you're about to say something, then make the 'who farted?' face and quickly roll the window back up.

4) Purposely stall you car then get out and go all Benny Hinn on it, and hit it with your jacket , then have your passenger discretely fire it up again.

5) When your car isn't moving look really anxious to get going - try to lean forward and look really stressed; then when traffic starts moving, look indifferent and don't go until people start honking.

6) Pick your nose.

7) Crank up the baseball game and start headbanging to the commentary.

8) Periodically put your car in reverse.

9) For a challenge, see if you can get your car sideways in your lane. For slightly less of a challenge, try the same thing in a smart car.

10) Pick your nose again.

Well, those are the ones I have come up with. I would be curious to hear other people's ideas. Especially Chuck, as he spends much of his day in traffic. Hmmmmm . . .

It's a Bee!

Actually, it's a boat



"Who's the old man?"
"That's my old man"

Jiggers! It's the Fuzz!

So, here I am, driving down highway six at about 1:00am, minding my own business, when I notice dome distant headlights on the horizon. Now, when I'm driving at night and I see distant headlights there is always a chance that it is a cop, so I checked my speed "whoops too fast - meh, it's probably not a cop"

Hmmmm, I was wrong. I noticed that as I passed thee car is started to slow down, leading me to believe that it was indeed a cop. I also noticed that it had a light bar on the top "Please be an MTO car" - not so much

Well, I pulled over and psyched myself up to talk to the cop.

Here is how the conversation went

Me: (pulls out driver's license to hand to cop)
Cop: (looks in window - doesn't even look at drivers license)(female voice) "You're Joel right?"
Me: (wierded out) "Yeah"
Cop: "I went to highschool with you"
Me: (pretending to recognize her) "Oh yeah"
Me: (to myself) "I hope she doesn't ask me if I remember her name"
Cop: "I got you doing 115"
Me: Oh Yeah (stock response)
Cop: "Try to slow down, drive carefully - have a good night"
Me: (emphatically) "Thank you"

I drove off - "PHEW!"

Me: "Maybe I'll set the cruise control now"

Falipornia

As many of you know I recently spent about 10 days in San Diego for a gig with Vinyl45, so I thought I'd post a few pictures from my trip.

A lot of good things happened as a result of this trip so keep checking back here for updates

This picture kind of sums up the mood of the trip, and some of our after hour activities


"You're not actually going to take a picture, are you?"


This is how far of a walk it is from Andrew's place to Petco Park


Dr. Seuss was from San Diego - hmmmmmmm


This was the first time I've swam in the ocean

Here's the awesome band - WOOOOOO!


One of the buildings in Balboa Park - (I called it Rocky park)


This was also at Balboa park; trees grow big on the west coast.

So, in conclusion, the trip was awesome - my next post may be about how much it sucks to travel for 24 hours straight.

Later