Wednesday, May 26, 2004

Warning! May lead to psychedelic Beatles consumption

You really have to take a look at the Focus on the Family's new website. They're the creepy people who are doing those "pro-family" (read: anti-gay marriage) ads you might have heard. This website, however, called Plugged in focus on movie, television and music review, from, well, a unique perspective.

For instance, the summary for Beatles Anthology 1 reads in part:
Now that the Beatles are being embraced by young music fans again, Anthology 1 may also help bridge a generation gap in many homes. However, it may lead teens to sample subsequent Anthology discs covering the more "psychedelic" stages of the band's career. Use discernment.


Can you imagine! Not psychedelia! Next thing you know they'll be wanting to listen to disco!

More goodies:

Phish: "floundering spirituality keeps it from being a keeper." And here I thought it was just the band's fans that were floundering.

ESotSM: "Sadly, the minds behind Eternal Sunshine eschew absolutes and embrace relativism." I hear that they stoop so low as to quote Nietzsche.

Troy: "If these ancients had embraced the God of Abraham instead of diverse mythological concoctions, some of their scripted credos would have been terrific..."
Silly bronze-age grecians. You would have thought they should have known.

Freaky Friday: "On a more positive note, Tess rebukes Anna for dressing like "a little harlot." We need more harlot calling in daily life.

Mean Girls: "[It] has forced me to wonder if teen culture has declined to the point that it’s now impossible to create a bitingly relevant commentary on it without resorting to objectionable themes."

Shakespeare in Love: " In light of its numerous Oscar nominations, Shakespeare in Love has been virtually guaranteed a longer shelf-life than it deserves. That's too bad. This film is severely marred with sensuality and explicit sexuality. Viewers are cheated out of a positive portrayal of true love and passion and given instead a royal dose of adultery and lust." All that and cross-dressing too!


And that's just a random sampling, there's loads more goodies in there. I really have to finish my speech for San Diego. It's a pretty big deal for me professionally, and consequently, I'm doing a pretty good job of procrasinating.

Artichoke pictures, etc.

I'm still getting an alarming number of visitors (well, maybe half dozen a day) who come here looking for various types of vegetable porn. This is despite the clear warning that appears in the search (now number 2 on msn).

I'm glad you liked the monkey helicopter picture, Andrew. I stole the artwork from some kid, who had very clearly said that her work was copyright and could not be used without her permission. Kids these days. I do feel sorry for the younger generation.

Last night, I saw some slightly older members of the younger generation get into a bit of a tossle near my neighbourhood Coffee "Tip". The police came by and broke it up before they did too much harm to each other.

I go to the coffee "tip" fairly regularly. I like it because, usually, I'm one of the least weird people there. Plus they're cheap and close and the newspapers are often free. It is, however, a very different world. When I lived at my grandmother's house, I would go to the Starbucks on the corner of bathurst. Most of the time, I wasn't crowded, so I could read or work on my laptop or flirt with the very cute 'barista' who also worked nights Crocodile Rock. I tried to find a similar spot around here, but despite the much larger selection of choices, I couldn't find a place I was as comfortable in. The Starbucks and its ilk are too crowded or too far away and it just didn't feel right. The closest is probably the victory cafe, which is excellent, and most of the time, the little room to the left is often completely empty. But the victory is not opened days, which is when I need it.

The coffee tip is no victory cafe, with its trendy crowd and good scotch. It doesn't have lattes or anything with whipped cream. In class terms, it doesn't even attract the same sort of upstanding citizens that you'd expect at Tim Horton's. The fight last night was not the first fight I've seen there. Or even the second. It's a favorite of street people, who tend to sleep face down on their table. And overnight cabbies, who tend to take the same position. Once, I was watching part of a hockey game there during the playoffs and I was sitting next to a group of teenagers. There was this older guy, probably in his late 40's sitting with them. They obviously knew each other from somewhere, but the old guy kept trying to convince one of the girls to sleep with him. He started at $40 and got up to $1000. Another time, I was doing some marking and the place was fairly empty. There was a younger women sitting in the back, not doing anything, not reading, not drinking. I was facing away from her, so I didn't notice when she decided to get up, and take a full pace leap into the glass on the other side of the room. Bang. She had chosen to run into the window, next to this couple and right over their dog. The guy of the couple thought that she was trying to attack the dog, and he goes into defensive mode, holding her up by the throat against the glass, yelling at her. He lets her go and she's standing in the middle of the place, with the guy still telling her to get out. She doesn't say a word or make eye contact with anyone. The people who own it seem to be an asian family, with various members who take turns acting as staff. Their english isn't very good, and it seems to me that they hate every second of it. They seem shocked whenever something like this happens and their faces read like who are these crazy people and what did I do so wrong to be sent here. Someone does get it together eventually and one of the staff people finally tells the young women to leave or he'll call the police. She runs away. I've seen her there a few times since.

I'm feel sometimes that I'm slumming there. Almost being a class tourist, visiting a world that's very different from mine and one that I can leave anytime I want.

Sunday, May 16, 2004

48:17

Well, it has been awhile. That means it's time for a list posting!
  • Blogger has updated itself. Yay. I guess. The most exciting thing re:blogger is the offering of the gmail account. I'm happy with it, and especially happy with the 1000 megs of storage. I'm using GetMail to forward my hotmail account, but it any of you want to contact me directly it's michael*dot*chaiton*at*gmail.com. It's about as life changing as a new email account can be--which is to say not very. The only thing that's really bugged me so far is the lack of a save draft feature.
  • I've made a couple of trips to Ottawa and finally got to see Andrew as documented in his blog. In the next couple of weeks, I'll also be heading off to Detroit for my cousin's bar mitzah and San Diego to present a paper that I should probably finish writing before I go. I had to chicken out of the trip to Las Vegas with Andy, Dave, Sean, and possibly Chris because of a sudden engagement. But Las Vegas would be totally classic.
  • That sudden engagement: my friend and former roommate from King's is getting married in T.O. on that same weekend. Congratulations to Francis and Katie! Although there was a distant echo of a shotgun in the background, it seems like only a good omens for a very good couple. It's going to be the first wedding of one of a friend for me and I'm psyched for it. Lots of people I haven't seen in years are heading up to Toronto and it should be a right reunion.
  • Oh yeah--I did get into the PhD program at U of T. I'm feeling a little nervous about it right now. I think mostly because I want to be done with the Master's and I want a little time in between to give myself at least some mental space in between. (and of course to do a little travelling)
  • Congrats to Matt for doing the West Highland Way! I think that's something that I'd like to do one of these days, but I can't believe that you didn't think it wouldn't be a physical challenge. I'm not sure if there's anything that brings the words "152" "km" and "walk" together that won't do some serious damage to a good pair of hiking boots.
  • Speaking of physical damage, my knee is all better and I've been getting back into running and put another couple 10k races under my belt. The first one, I did purposely as slow as molasses, so slow that I finished in exactly double the time of my cousin Anne. It was a good run though, all downhill, straight along Yonge from Lawrence to the Skydome. This weekend, I finished in a far more respectable time (at least I broke 50 minutes). I'm enjoying it and I'll think I'll aim for a no-injury 21.1 in the fall.