Picture from my new camera, a Canon EOS 40 DSLR. Especially with the image stabilizing lens, it’s a huge step up in low light quality from my old point and shoot digital; and so much more convenient than film. Especially after my roll of Leica-shot from London came out blank.

This is the first Christmas for us together at home! Our wonderful tree went up the day after Thanksgiving, complete with ornaments I grew up with that were sent down by my family. Happy Holidays!

Ala Very Short Stories, from Wired. My feeble attempts, which seem mostly like Philip K. Dick writing The Onion headlines.

Tomorrow isn’t the utopia we expected.
Righteous man framed. Evil clone blamed.
Sentient robot weeps before murdering creator.
FTL proven to cause mass psychosis.
Bumbling robot sidekick reprogrammed into tyrant.
Aliens ponder Earth genocide, AETP ^* protests.
Time traveller spoils story for everyone.
2006. Where are the flying cars?
Colonists versus hostile planet - spaceship wins.
Spores infect electoral college. Nobody notices.
Influenza wipes out humanity. Cause? Eugenics.
Doomsday clock found ten minutes fast.

^{* Aliens for the Ethical Treatment of People. I’m lame, I know.}

The first time I poked around in Wikipedia, which was back in September of 2001, I started the article on violas. It looked like this. It seemed to fit in just fine back then. I didn’t think much of Wikipedia as a reference work at the time and moved on to other things.

Lately though, I’ve been using Wikipedia quite a bit, even to the point of spending a few hours randomly clicking through articles. As an online source of nerdly trivia it is unrivalled. The standards have vastly improved to the extent that when I felt compelled to expand on a few articles it wasn’t sufficient to bang out a few sentences, I felt I like I could only do my bit by writing a detailed plot summary and character list, scanning the cover of a first edition book, or uploading pictures taken in Turkey.

Of course, there are parts of it that are like anything else you find online: narrow in focus to the point of uselessness or not even accurate. I leave it to today’s Onion to put the appropriate viewpoint on it.

“It would have been a major oversight to ignore this portentous anniversary,” said Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, whose site now boasts over 4,300,000 articles in multiple languages, over one-quarter of which are in English, including 11,000 concerning popular toys of the 1980s alone.

My Cingular wireless contract was up and I decided to switch over to Sprint - somewhat ironic as Sprint Canada sent a debt collector after my mom many years ago after signing her up for long distance without her approval.

There was a snafu related to my being a moron and signing up for family service with two phones, but yesterday my new LG PM-325 showed up. I picked it primarily because it’s Sprint’s only Bluetooth capable phone, and I wanted something that could be used as a Bluetooth modem by my PDA (a Dell Axim v50v, also a recent aquisition). I was nervous since there seems to be a lot of complaints online about the lack of Bluetooth functionality, but after a Google search revealed the magic dialup number missing from Sprint’s web site (it’s #777), I was easily able to get the modem capability up and working. Definitely not a cell phone afficiando by any stretch, but it seems to be a pretty slick little package for my purposes. Having it able to play AC/DC for ringtones is a definite plus.

It also has a camera, which is something I didn’t have before. So I took a few photos of Seattle’s fall colors while doing yard work.

Contractors finished up their work today and here’s the result. (Sorry about the crappy pictures. My camera doesn’t like taking pictures of shiny white surfaces, had to fiddle quite a bit in Photoshop.) Fairly happy with their job. A few corners were cut, the tile offset on the center wall isn’t correct, the toilet rough-in is off (this might be a larger problem) and I didn’t pick a bathtub of sufficient depth; but in the end it’s a heck of an improvement over what used to be here.

Now I get to apply marine paint, seal grout, do some more caulking, figure out how to properly put up cheap wainscot planking, and paint.

Tub and tile surround ripped out today. The water damage wasn’t as bad as I’d feared, even though it looks like some previous owner had indeed tiled directly on top of the plaster and paint - no water proof backing board. Looking closely at the layers of paint it seems the bathroom has not only been white and Pepto-Bismol pink, but also lime green and two or three distinct shades of yellow. Seventy-five year old homes are something else.

A week after returning from L.A. by way of Reno and Vegas (unplanned), I had to take a day off from work due to what seemed like stress induced illness. Fortuitously, that same weekend I was able to go skiing at Sierra-at-Tahoe with Susan. Stress symptoms gone! The very idea of skiing has some negative connotations in my mind, if only because it’s inextricably connected with awkward introductions with strangers, who believe that the entire population of the GVRD is issued a snowboard as soon as they leave the maternity ward.

“I grew up in Vancouver.”
“Wow, you must ski or snowboard!”
“No. I don’t.”
“Oh.”
(Awkward silence.)

Anyways, I took a few lessons as a kid, but haven’t touched skis in maybe fifteen years. So I was pleasantly surprised to find myself hitting the green runs without having to resort much to snow plowing, and with little difficulty, apart from a few minor tumbles.

This weekend friends and family invaded my home - spring break for educators. A dinner party for six erupted. I don’t know what people did for recipes before google - some prehistoric technology involving index cards, no doubt. A quick search found recipes for very tasty satay marinade and peanut sauce, meat on sticks was prepared on the grill despite rain, cucumbers and shallots were tossed in vinegar and sugar, a small vat of rice was cooked, and the result was an easy Thai themed dinner enjoyed by all.

David dragged me climbing at Vertical World Sunday, which was the first time I slapped stone after a long hiatus. I also purchased a set of Nike NDS irons and a Taylor Made Rossa Monza putter this month, so if I do manage to hit the golf courses in the next two weeks, I will complete an unprecedented trinity of sporting activities. Since I decided to blow through some more bonus money and upgraded to a proper theatre setup (at least, in terms of the audio components), a relapse to couch potatodom will doubtless soon follow.

However this evening I might end up accompanying an old acquaintance who is playing some Paganini violin concerto - this despite atrophication of fingers due to piano nonplaying. We shall see how the sight reading goes. It’s odd how all attempts at being a slacker this month have so far met with failure.

Random media commentary of the day: Rosalind suckered me into Tivo’ing House simply by pointing out that the lead actor, Hugh Laurie, was prominent in Blackadder, one of my favorite BBC comedy series ever. That’s right, Mad “thick as a whale omelette” Prince George from Blackadder III is Dr. Gregory House. I don’t know how I missed that.

George: “I’ve just had another brilliant idea!”
Edmund: “Another one?”
George: “Yes, you remember the one I had about wearing underpants on the outside to save on laundry bills?”

On Canadian headlines, theft of a beer truck outranks theft of famous artwork.

Roz, at Timmy Ho’s yesterday, contemplating her third donut and reflecting on conversations from the previous evening’s family dinner: “Mom should just give up and say that her children’s only notable accomplishments include being able to eat a dozen donuts at one sitting.”

Yes, we all still like Tim Horton’s, even after Aunt Ling reminded us at the aforementioned dinner that they’re now baked and reheated, and no longer fried on premises (more opinions from an Australian web site of all places).

Gotta love my country, even when whining about the lack of Olympic medals is becoming our national sport.

Me, on the bus heading home after dinner with family, ABBA blaring from my shiny new iPod; a man, at the bus stop by Denny Park, wearing a jean jacket with the words “DISCO SUCKS” emblazoned on the back. I’d like to claim that we looked daggers at each other, but he never turned around, and the bus quickly passed him by.

Speaking of iPods, I’ve been toting the 4th generation, 40GB iPod around for a week now. The stability of it seems questionable; it’s locked up quite a few times already. Otherwise I appreciate some of the shiny new features it has over my old first generation iPod, although the overhyped “Shuffle Songs” feature is pretty useless to me - they should have made it “Shuffle current playlist”. And I wonder why after three generations they can put in details such as automatic pause when the earphones gets disconnected, but yet haven’t gotten around to labeling the earphone buds with “R” and “L” in a way that doesn’t get immediately obscured by the foam covers.

SIGGRAPH all of next week.

MidSouthRaves.org has transformed my fridge into a rallying icon for spring cleaning.

California was warm.

Harvie Krumpet was strange. Nibbles was just very bad.

Todd Bertuzzi is a goon. Unfortunately, he’s our goon.

I’m trying to be insouciant, but it’s hard.