February 2005 Archives

We went up to the Kortright Centre this weekend to watch the dogsled races (fantastic) and they had a display for kids showing how you could tell the age of a tree by counting its rings, and you could tell how long it had been tapped for maple syrop by how far in these dark stains appeared.

It occured to me this morning that you can use a similar technique to guess the age of parents' children by reading the food stains on their clothes. For example, parents with newborn to one year olds tend to have a lot of spit-up on their shoulders and down their backs. As the children get older and start walking, they tend to nuzzle into your legs after having eaten crackers with jam, and at this point you can simply extrapolate by height: stains for young toddlers start around the knees, and move upward as the child grows. Indeed, for especially messy eaters, you can often find stains on the lower parts of sweaters, as I did this morning.

Next: How to guess children's age and gender in any household by the toys you find hidden in their parents' shoes.

I continue to watch the developments in tony Forest Hill on my morning commute, as people buy old multimillion dollar houses and knock them down to build even bigger multimillion dollar houses. As I now pass by at least a half dozen of these, I've become pretty blasé about the sheer wealth and ego being expressed in this neighbourhood. I guess it literally comes with the territory.

However, you can never underestimate the very rich. For example, I felt sorry for the owner of the neighbour of one of these behemoths, whose house was clearly only "normal" sized and very much in the shadow of the new one. Then I noticed that the house was empty and the garage was actually full of the reno waste of the larger place. My God, it's the worlds biggest backyard shed!

At least, it was. Now it's been knocked down too.

There's another place just up the street from it which sold about 4 months ago, and I notice the telltale green city construction permit has gone up in the window. I think this is a demolition permit, as the other ones are white. I'll try and get some photos, I really want to record one of these as it's always fascinating to observe a completely different culture.

I was feeling a bit blue about how hard it was to lose the 3-5 lbs I put on over Christmas, in spite of cycling and the gym etc. Then up at said gym (where I usually weigh myself) they switched the men's and women's dressing rooms for a week for a reno, and I noticed that I was about 3 lbs lighter on the women's weigh scale. Perfect. Gotta like that instant weight loss. "Without drugs or painful exercises!" as they say.

Unfortunately, they're putting the dressing rooms back to normal again next week so I will be gaining back that unsightly 3 lbs of flab on the men's scale. That's the problem with these miracle weight loss plans: it's so hard to keep the weight off.

Snow Patrol. Very nice. Before I heard them I assumed they were in the same genre as Franz Ferdinand or Modest Mouse -- which are both fine but a bit too '80s for me, because I actually remember the 80's. Instead it's very nice indie style pop which, now that I've heard the album, I realize I've heard many times on KEXP.

Not as heavy or gothic as Elbow can get, but similar insofar as they write a really catchy tune and then throw in a twist or two. Maybe more in the genre of Coldplay or the Shins, if the latter played guitars. Recommended if that's your kind of stuff.

I would never have even considered this album if it hadn't been for KEXP and the ability to listen to playlists on iTunes at work. It's a great age, as long as you're not dealing directly with the music business.

Okay, I refused to wait forever to buy new headphones like I did with my camcorder-- I swear I'm getting more obsessive compulsive in my old age -- and just went down to Bay Bloor Radio (where they have a listening wall of about 20 headphones, ranging from $49 to over $800) where I bought some freaking new cans.

I tested the Grado SR60's (which I had my heart set on), but realized they weren't going to work in the office -- they don't cup your ear and the sound spill was too much. Also, I was a bit disappointed in the plastic, they looked kinda cheap for what would be a final bill of $150.

On the other hand, the Grado RS2's sounded really sweet and were clearly better made. And so they should be, at $695. Ha!

The Sony's were disappointing overall, I just think they're expensive for what you get at the $100 level. I also find their design has "early breakage" written all over it.

My backup to the Grado was going to be the Sennheiser 497s, (which headphone.com says are "worth the extra $10" over the cheaper 477's (more about that later), but ended up getting the 477s as they sounded pretty much as good for less.

But not $10 less! The price difference was $30 plus tax, which pushed them out of my budget. It kills me the price difference between Canada and the US. These headphones are $49 US on headphones.com -- and you can find them cheaper than that if you look -- but they were $99 at BB. It's clear most the retailers are just taking the margin on the better exchange rate instead of passing it on to consumers.

Anyway, my new Senn's sound really good, especially on the high end, which is superior to the 7506's. The base isn't quite as full, but I can adjust my EQ in iTunes for that. I'm happy with the purchase. Okay?

(PS Thanks AJ for the links for research!)

My ex-Trapeze colleague Mike generously gave me his awesome Sony MDR-7506 headphones when I left there, and now that I need some new ones I am tortured by the gap between the sound quality I have come to expect and what I can afford to spend. Damn him.

The wire that runs between the ear muffs (yeah, I'm sure that's the industry term) seems to be screwed up, and I have a hard time getting sound in the right side. I took them to be repaired at the bizarre living-in-a-time warp Reid & Campbell up the street (really, it's like they're still selling electronics in the 70's), and they fixed them once, but didn't even want to try again when they crapped out a second time. To replace them new they'd be nearly $200 after tax, so I've been looking for a more affordable alernative. The newer Sony's feel so cheap, and the sound is pretty crappy too in comparison the 7506's. I've been looking in Sennheisers, but I hated my last pair so I'm gun shy there.

As I found when looking for a camcorder, it's disheartening how little choice we have online in Canada; the only great deals to be found are in the States. Even after exchange and shipping etc. you come out ahead, but it's a big hassle and you have to wait for delivery etc.

So for now, I sit at my desk and twiddle the wires like some crazy ham radio operator trying to tune in a distant station from another continent. Bah.

I noticed today that my bike chain seemed to be slipping off the front crank. I took a closer look, and the teeth are totally worn down into little nubs. I guess all the dirt and grit that gets thrown up from the road during the winter just sands them down.

It took it into the bike shop near me, and they laughed. They laughed at me, and called over their colleagues to look at my bike. I felt like I'd brought in a penny farthing or something.

So sixty bucks for a new crank, plus labour, which at first was a jolt... then I remembered I can't even get a TTC pass for that.

There are some things in life you can pretty consistently count on in the world of retail: salespeople at the Gap say everything looks good on you; HMV's prices on anything other than the top 40 are extortionary (see previous entry); the Beer Store will have Q107 playing; anything to do with Rogers will suck.

The last of those has always been the most constant for me (don't get me started on what a rip cable is) until on a whim and the recommendation of my colleague Michael, I tried their photo service. It is awesome! Very simple online system to upload your photos, select sizes and crop, then it's 39¢ a 4x6 photo and free pick up at a Rogers location. (As there's one across from the office this last bit was the clincher.) In addition, seven photos are free in your first order. I uploaded on Tuesday evening, and got an email saying they were ready Thursday at lunch.

But the clincher was the quality of the photos -- superb! Printed on real photo paper, much better quality than anything I could produce at home, and even colour balanced. And these are photos taken with a four year old 2.3 megapixel digital camera, so they weren't Karsh quality to begin with.

Now I'm a bit shaken. What's next? EZ Rock at the Beer Store? A way to watch TSN without having to buy a whole freaking $50 cable combo?

On my way back from the dentist downtown this morning I stopped in at HMV because I had a $30 gift certificate burning a hole in my wallet. (I wanted to go to the one on Yonge St as opposed to Eglinton, because the prices at that store are better. Interesting how competition does that eh?). However, when I say "better" I guess I mean "only slightly less rapacious." A couple of the CDs I was interested in (like the lastest Morrissey for example) were $19.99! I thought, what planet is HMV on? Who in their right mind is going to pay $23 with tax for a music CD!? I thought the record companies were coming to their senses on this stuff!

However, I did notice that the DVD section had grown a lot, and is now right down at the main entrance. Maybe they've just decided that they are going to focus on that and let iTunes and Limewire deal with music?

But then, just when I had given up hope, I noticed they had all these specials of 2 CDs for $30. There doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to the ones they've chosen (ie not the usual Rod Stewart collections that usually go on those racks), they had all sorts of good stuff there. And so I ended up getting the new U2 and Brighteyes.

But now I'm confused by this experience. What's going on in the music biz?

Campbell's struggles to adapt to school continue. I met one of his classmates' mother yesterday, who told me that when she arrives (habitually late), Campbell is often still sitting in the boot room refusing to go in to the class. I must have looked dismayed, because she said "Oh it's okay, he seems okay, and the teachers are clearly used to him coming in his own time."

As it turns out, this is not so true, as yesterday apparently his refusal to come into the class and yelling "NO!" whenever they asked him to meant he spent the day up at Madame Doyen's office -- aka The Principal.

Oy. My kid the deliquent. I appreciate that he's very frustrated by his inability to speak French (ie communicate his feelings) and doesn't feel secure trying -- though he has to be coerced into trying when even he's at home. The fact is that he's a kid who is very nervous in new territories, and likes to ease his way in when he feels he has all the bases covered in his head. Unfortunately, learning a language requires just jumping in and giving it a go, and he's really struggling with the concept. In addition, he's doesn't absorb information in a methodical way (like his younger brother, who is a machine), so it's hard to do "lessons" to help him along.

I think I was much like this as a kid too, and it drove my father especially to distraction. So I'm trying not to respond like that. Nevertheless, I feel a bit sick about it; it's awful to watch your child struggle and not have a simple answer. On the other hand, Carol is totally stressed, feeling perhaps this whole schooling decision has been a big mistake. I don't feel it is a mistake, and say that we just have to focus on the day-to-day process of getting him there rather than on the outcome itself.

In this sense, it's not unlike the creative process. The main difference is this a whole lot noisier and requires putting on a snowsuit in the morning.

Got this link from the nice people at unplugged media. It takes awhile to figure out what he's talking about, but the payoff is worth it.

Das what I'm talkin' about!