Owner: Geoffrey\'s Periodic Inanities URL:http://milderweather.blogspot.com Join Date: Sat, 06 Jan 2007 11:33:04 -0600 Rating:0 Site Description: A critical analysis of things that have little or no impact on our lives, brought to you by another iconoclast on the world wide web with delusions of grandeur and a receeding hairline. Site statistics:Click here
My First Yoga Class... 1970-01-01 00:59:59 I've been busy, trying hard to increase my level of fitness for one reason: to become a better mountain biker. This means I'm out on two wheels, three days a week, and I'm cross training by trail running on Wednesday evenings. I wanted to add something to my exercise regimen that was neither running nor biking, but that would compliment both activities, so I've jumped on the most popular of fitness bandwagons and tried yoga for the first time. As a practice, Yoga has existed for thousands of years. The focus on meditation, stretching and strengthening are all benefits I had in mind when I took this class, but there is one distinct benefit I hadn't anticipated—all the attractive women. I was left with one agonizing thought, why the hell don't more men do yoga?! Not that I'm going to complain too loudly, there's something about being in a room with a 10:1 female to male ratio, where tight fitting, elasticized clothing is encouraged, where there's an emphasis on flexib Read more:First
My New Shirt... 1970-01-01 00:59:59 Having recently celebrated my 29th birthday, I used my recent day off to enjoy the spoils of ushering in a new year of my life. Mom had kindly given me a gift certificate to a beautiful men's wear store—I'm not sure if she was trying to suggest something to me, but it was a generous gift, and she knows that I've wanted a new dress shirt for some time. Duggers, the store that my gift certificate was for, is the type of place that asks for a financial statement before allowing entry to their patrons. It's a place where if you aren't naturally good looking, for a small fortune you too can look capable enough of gracing the cover of GQ or any variety of men's magazines. Given my lifestyle, that of the somewhat bohemian outdoor enthusiast (rest assured, I do shower every morning and after exercise) walking into Duggers was not the most comfortable experience I've had in my life. I wouldn't say the staff were rude, but there was a visible apathy to my entry like they could Read more:Shirt
Adventures In Dental Hygiene 1970-01-01 00:59:59 Have you purchased a toothbrush recently? I made the attempt today, and though ultimately successful, it's a far more daunting task than I had intended to undertake. Presumably, there was a time when one and only one style of toothbrush existed. I imagine that the bristles were fashioned out of copper, carbon steel, or whalebone, but the fact that there wasn't a whole lot of choice in terms of what to wipe your pearly-whites with suggests an efficiency that seems to be compromised in this day and age. I can only assume that there are poor souls out there, so lost in the dental hygiene aisle, confused by the voluminous propaganda that would rival the misinformation in a good war, perpetuated by competing toothbrush brands, as to have their teeth rot out before they ever settle upon a tooth scrubber. Lessons from dental hygienists of my youth reminded me to buy something with soft bristles—but if this what's recommended, why do companies even produce medium or hard bristled brush Read more:Adventures
, Dental Hygiene
, Hygiene
Adventures in Sushi 1970-01-01 00:59:59 Konichiwa, dear reader. Not being an eater of fish, a sushi restaurant is a strange place to find me. Having said that, being in a relationship with a woman that loves sushi, the inevitable was bound to happen and the other night I made a trip to a sushi restaurant to indulge Leah's gastronomical cravings. Sushi
restaurants are a strange place for the uninitiated—food that I would never have enough imagination as to consider edible, is on the menu. I mean, who was the man who decided that sea urchin, despite it's spiny, sometimes poisonous exterior, would taste smashing on a bed of sticky rice? Or that tofu, rather than eaten fresh, might be aged like cheese to gain a particular ripeness? Likely it's simply my Western ignorance that has blinded me to the presence of such delicacies, and though I'm usually open minded when it comes to the food of other cultures, I was somewhat relieved to see the yakitori and vegetarian maki on the menu. I once had a friend that thumbed his no Read more:Adventures
Not Just Another Roadside Attraction 1970-01-01 00:59:59 We hosted the final event of our 2006 adventure racing season in the fabled province of Prince Edward Island, home of Anne of Green Gables and her escapades, countless beaches and a philosophy simply known as I.W.O.L (Island Way Of Life). But the trip from Halifax to Alberton, PEI is not a short one and the four-hour drive can be a little tedious when mixed CDs become repetitive and the impending stress of hosting a race becomes an obstacle to conversation. Thankfully, a faded sign painted on the side of an old barn, caught my attention. "Andy's Dummy Farm" it read. I was perplexed. Was "dummy" some agricultural colloquialism that I hadn't heard of before? Was this actually a farm of, or perhaps for dummies (what the politically correct might refer to as mannequins)? After seeing another sign for Andy's Farm on yet another decrepit barn I knew we must take the detour to discover the majesty spoke of in the advertisement. I had a hunch that Andy's Dummy Farm would be muc Read more:Attraction
, Roadside
My Purolator Delivery Man 1970-01-01 00:59:59 Like most businesses we have a door for our customers and a receiving entrance for deliveries. This isn't to say that I support segregation, but there are a few logistical reasons why this is done, amongst them are that I have a staff that I pay to serve customers, not accept deliveries, and that a pile of cardboard boxes in the middle of the store is unsightly. Despite this being the norm for retail establishments, there is an unceasing line-up of couriers that feel that they are the exception and that they should be allowed to deliver through any door they damn-well-please. Yesterday, the Purolator driver once again delivered his boxes to the front door, and was once again reminded of the delivery door. He scowled and turned around, and muttered under his breath, "stupid bitch" expressing his opinion of the woman who had asked him to go to the correct door to deliver his goods. My staff member didn't hear his comment, but two of my customers did and brought it to my attention Read more:Delivery
Musings on eBay and Frozen Coffee 1970-01-01 00:59:59 It's a lazy Saturday and I have the day off—having recently discovered eBay, I spent a couple hours this morning doing nothing more than see what items I wasn't winning. eBay is one of those things that reminds you how far technology has gone in such little time: I registered my name, password, the typical technical stuff to give us a false sense of security when we're on certain websites. There was an item that I wanted to bid on, so I did so. It was nearing closing time for the auction and I realized, "my god! I might just win this damned thing!" So I immediately jumped into action to see about how one goes about paying for things if one should win an auction—behold PayPal. I'm a little nervous, so as I do in most endeavours which are new, nerve wracking and somewhat exciting, I call Leah my know all girlfriend. She comforts me, tells me not to fret, but warns me that there may be time delays in getting a PayPal account, "at least that's how it used to be, but I th Read more:Coffee
, Frozen
, Musings
Elite Inspiration 1970-01-01 00:59:59 I just finished writing an article for a magazine. It's a fitness mag, and often the topics I write don't hold a lot of interest to me--this one was the exception (partially because I suggested the topic). I interviewed a man named Derek Linders, an individual with a Jedi's vision of what's important in exercise and physical activity, whose exercise philosophy has such an understated Zen quality to it, that Yoda himself would be proud. Yes, the article will eventually be printed on glossy sheets of quality, high-bond paper (ok, maybe not that high-bond) but as an egomaniac (which most of us bloggers are) I felt a need to publish it ASAP, thus its appearance here on my blog (the fact that I didn't want to write an additional blog entry also helped motivate me to hit the "Publish Post" button). Let me know what you think.EliteInspiration
We place elite athletes on pedestals. They serve as our idols, and are supposed to inspire us through their physical accomplishments, despite the f
Lost...In a Grocery Store 1970-01-01 00:59:59 It would take the genius of every Nobel winner from 1954 till present, to come to reason the layout of grocery stores. Is there a design intention to the incomprehensibility that is the modern grocery store? Or are we to stray helplessly from isle to isle in hopes that we stumble across the right item, with an expiry date far enough in advance that our eventually-to-be-purchased item doesn't go bad before we find our way out of the labyrinth? To the layman, there appears to be no rational to the unintelligible layout, the counterintuitive locations of tomato sauce, tomato paste, and crushed tomatoes, but I'm guessing that somewhere, hidden in some groceteria manual, is an explanation as to why it takes me an hour to find toothpaste, grape leaves, and toilet paper.In fact, there is. Though the reason is frustrating to anyone with a comprehensive shopping list, or a limited amount of time to get your sundries, navigate your way back home through traffic, and cook before company arriv Read more:Grocery
, Grocery Store
, Store
Meditation on Moving part Deux 1970-01-01 00:59:59 The moving continues. We're at the 80% moved mark—a percentage that gives me hope that at some point in the next two weeks, I will feel as though I have a home. In an attempt to make the new apartment more "homey,' I hung up some paintings and photographs which had the effect of making the space bigger, though I have yet to be sure whether this is an optical illusion, or the fact that I removed them from the floor. The stress level really hasn't subsided since we started this laborious project two weeks ago, and the stress level didn't get lower with the phone call I received at 8:30 this morning."Hello?" Said that voice on the phone."Gary?" I replied, wondering if my derelict former landlord had removed himself far enough from the neck of the rum bottle to dial my phone number."When were you going to tell me that you moved?" Said Gary, his voice beginning to become ireful. "What are we going to do about rent?"I paused, carefully plotting my next sentence. I Read more:Meditation
, Moving
Season's Greetings... 1970-01-01 00:59:59 Well the holiday season has arrived, and with it the snow—much to the chagrin of rush hour commuters last week. Twenty minute drives were turned into four hour odysseys as people tried to get home from their workday. Here at the store, life has gotten similarly hectic, the day's procedures accelerated by people, who, motivated by the snow, have come in to indulge in products to suit their outdoor recreation, snowshoes and cross country skis leading the charge. Of course, there's also that small matter of the holiday season and gift giving, which imply gift buying, and suddenly the store is chock-a-block with customers who look lost as they attempt to find that one perfect item, that gift that will transcend all other gifts when it's opened underneath the tree on Christmas morning.Christmas gifts have been a source of extreme frustration for me. I don't make a lot of money, yet I insist on spending above my means for people that have little or no appreciation for the gifts tha Read more:Greetings
, Season
Meditation on Moving 1970-01-01 00:59:59 It has been a crazy week. In fact, crazy is an understatement. Four weeks ago Leah identified not a mouse in the apartment, but a rat. Perhaps not the size of a the famed New York sewer rats, but a rat nonetheless—and as our minimal research on rodents has taught us, that like icebergs the rats that are visible account for only a small percentage of the entire rat mass. At that point we weren't simply motivated to leave our decaying apartment, but compelled to do so; fears of the bubonic plague began infiltrating our dreams and our waking moments. I have never been under any illusions with our apartment. Despite it's incredible floor space, room size, and cheap rent, the latter isn't without it's own social costs. Example: we had a leak from the upstairs apartment dripping through the ceiling and down the wall of the hallway for three months before the landlord ever repaired the source of the leak. The damage to our apartment however, has not been touched, the ceiling now fea Read more:Meditation
, Moving
The 1/2lb. Cheddar Bacon Double Melt...of Death 1970-01-01 00:59:59 Across from my place of work is a Wendy's, and sometimes when my mind feels particularly unoriginal with its determination of what to have for lunch, I find myself there in line; dutifully scanning the menu for whatever fast-food delight strikes my fancy. As with most fast-food restaurants Wendy's menu has special features, some combination of bun, meat, bacon and cheese which through it's caloric content and the necessity of a signed waiver negating both the food server and food service establishment from any liability in regards to any future coronary malfunctions and/or diseases, differentiates itself from the other items on the menu.This month's special is the "1/2lb. Cheddar Bacon
Double Melt," a fast-food item of such horrific composition and proportions as to force consumers to cross a picket line, set up by PETA, before ordering one of these ungodly monstrosities. It is made up of the following: one ground beef patty, a slice of cheddar cheese (the real stuff), thre
Meditation on Travel 1970-01-01 00:59:59 Early mornings have never been my forte; my general frustration with waking before the cock crows is only exacerbated by the cab honking for my attention, from the street outside my window. Today, I'll fly from Halifax to Toronto via Montreal, to enjoy the fellowship of friends and family, and eat from the cosmopolitan array of restaurants that have yet to come east to the Maritimes. Travel
, is a break to help justify the general monotony of my daily ritual: wake up, go to work, come home, go to bed, repeat (I've read shampoo labels with more complicated instructions than my daily routine). Not that I'm complaining too loudly—I have friends that have moved into the business world, and burnt themselves out in a manner of months, not something that I'm interested in doing. But I digress. Travel has never been one of my strong suites. I love visiting other places; I enjoy the sights and sounds and food of locations far from my home in Halifax. It's the act of traveling, the ca Read more:Meditation
A Little Bit of Christmas Cheer 1970-01-01 00:59:59 Make another hole in my belt, for I've just finished another Christmas
dinner. Whether it's due to the alcohol or good cheer, the only pain that I felt last night was the distension of my belly. It was a wonderful night, full of turkey, mashed potatoes, peas, turnip, corn, stuffing, and coleslaw, in such quantities, that if I had had the desire, a bigger belt, and pants with an elasticized waistband, I could have kept eating till this morning; any reservations that I had about my first Christmas without the company of my Mom, dissipated at the first seasonal drink (rum and apple cider) that was poured for me, by my uncle.Holidays, particularly Christmas, are fraught with a variety of emotions--not all of them good. But for reasons unexplained, or for reasons I choose not to explore, I'm confident in saying that this will go down as one of the best Christmases in recent memory, which means that it ranks high on the list of best Christmases ever. To feel the comfort of relatives arou Read more:Cheer
The Woman That Could Stop Time 1970-01-01 00:59:59 My friend Amy is a superhero. She can stop time. The space-time continuum isn't in jeopardy, and Dr. Who can keep his title as Time Lord, but put a quartz watch on her wrist and before too long the sweep hand that should make a full revolution of the watch's face every sixty seconds, gets suspended in time, clicking back and forth, but never moving forward."Is it true?" I wondered, shocked at the idea that a watch, a staple of modern times is unusable to those few people whose idiosyncratic body chemistry, or electromagnetic field could stop a watch in its track. Surely this is more of a Stan Lee brainchild than a reality. My eyes rolled with the sentiment of "you've got to be kidding me," but Amy's face, like those of the watches that met their fate at her wrist, didn't change. "Seriously, give me a quartz watch, and in two days I'll stop it. If it's an expensive one, it might take a week" "What about a Swatch?" I replied, still skeptical, subtly express
Meditation on Halloween Candy 1970-01-01 00:59:59 As sick as I felt, I ate one more piece, and then another, and then another. The massive receptacles, which would otherwise serve as salad bowls at a wedding buffet for 200, seemed to be bottomless pits of confectionary. Situations like this exemplify the problem with Halloween
candy: that in its diminutive size, somewhere deep in your psyche, you're quite convinced that you can eat yet another piece. So the morning of October 31st saw me wading through two massive bowls of candy that had come to roost on the front cash at work. I nibbled my way through the Nibs, the Twizzlers, and relished each of the 50 odd Tootsie Rolls that I jammed into my face. I was quite content with the selection until I realized that I missing chocolate from my sugary diet. Like a hound on a scent, I discovered the box of Cadbury's products that my boss had cleverly hidden deep in the recesses of a drawer—my sense of entitlement taking over from the first bite of Crispy Crunch, Crunchy, Caramilk, and th Read more:Candy
, Meditation
In Case of Emergency 1970-01-01 00:59:59 The airline business is a tough one, especially these days when the luxury of flight has been replaced by security measures, connecting flights and lost luggage. Canada used to have two national air carriers, Canadian, and Air Canada. Somewhere in the year 2000, its competitor Air Canada swallowed Canadian, and now we only have one national air carrier in our country. During my recent move, I discovered a brochure regarding Canadian Airline's emergency protocol should the plane fall out of the sky. As I leafed through the brochure I quickly discovered the real reason for Canadian's demise. And yes, this is an actual brochure for the Boeing 737, the one-time workhorse of the Canadian fleet.Firstly, Canadian Airlines was terribly exclusionist. Unless you were a labourer or a member of the Village People, safety seating was not for you. My question: if you already have a hard hat, why would you need a seat belt? Once again, safety redundancies have accounted for wasted money and were t Read more:Emergency
Meditation on clogged drains 1970-01-01 00:59:59 The water level rising above my ankles let me know that the shower drain was plugged. Despite my thinning hair, I'm confident that it's Leah's long locks that are impeding drainage of the standing water…or rather, the water I'm standing in. When Leah gets home I will let her know that from now on, the duties of unplugging the drain are hers, a consequence of her lovely long hair. No doubt she'll protest, saying something along the lines of, "but I thought you liked my long hair?" And though that may be the case, I will casually remind her that although I like hamburgers, I'm not obliged to knock the horns off a cow so I can eat one. The luxury of modern, first-world living is that I can have what I enjoy while eliminating all the aspects that I don't enjoy. I need not grow the potatoes so I can eat potato chips, or distill juniper so that I can have a martini. I think my rationale is sound, so Leah, the shower is now your responsibility to unclog from now on. As for Read more:Meditation
Mediocre Post On Things In Banff... 1970-01-01 00:59:59 There are four things that the city of Banff has in abundance: scenic mountain views, exorbitant prices, elk, and Japanese tourists. In fact, it's hard to turn a corner, or even turn around without being confronted by at least one of the four aforementioned items. Often it seems, they work in conjunction with each other: Elk, attracted by the geography of the mountains, in turn attract Japanese tourists, who congregate in herds that rival the herds of elk they photograph. The cultural difference that seems to encourage not simply one, but multiple modes of media recording is not something that we typically see in North American culture, save the most tech savvy individuals. But here they are, a platoon of curious onlookers from a foreign land, being toted from scenic vista to scenic vista, shutters clicking in a cacophony of preserved memories, future cocktail conversation, and stories to make their relatives sick with envy. I can even understand the bounty of digital images of gorge Read more:Mediocre
Meditation on Bathroom Reading 1970-01-01 00:59:59 In the past, I never found the process of using the toilet so time consuming or mundane that I felt I required reading material while I evacuated my bowels. And yet, many people do. There it sits beside the throne, magazines, novels, and little bits of ephemera that keep us company while we do our business. I'm not sure that our present culture of instant gratification has led to this need for us to be constantly entertained, or whether our work-a-day world is so hectic that the only time to reflect on the written word is while we're on the john, but there is a social statement to be made when one accomplishes two tasks at once, especially when the tasks are slightly more complex than walking and chewing gum. I have recently found myself a convert to flipping through magazines or reading a page or two of a novel while my body works its way through involuntary functions. In fact, I have completed more than one novel while in the loo, one being the sizable work, "Life and Death in Read more:Meditation
, Reading
The Blog-Metaspace Crossover 1970-01-01 00:59:59 I credit blog friend Greg Mills, with coining the term "blog-metaspace crossover" to describe the convergence of people who, up until that point, have only had contact through the blogosphere. Technically, Greg coined the term "blog-meatspace crossover," which is infinitely more humerous, and in a strange way makes sense, but I think it was just a typo. Anyways, over Christmas I had my very first blog-metaspace crossover, having finally met none other than Peanut Butter and Ham's editor in chief and blog poster girl, Stephanie Hamilton.I can only compare the sensation of a real-time meeting with someone that I've only emailed and chatted with via blog comments, like Alice stepping through the looking glass. It's a surreal experience and has the infinite potential for disappointment, but here I was in the bowels of the Art Gallery of Ontario waiting for my date to arrive so that we could take our time going through the Ansel Adams/Alfred Eisenstadt exhibit—the perk of a
Memes and Cultural Capital 1970-01-01 00:59:59 I have never been fond of memes, or tagging—those blog equivalents of the chain letters of the 70's. Typically, when I'm tagged, I don't bow to peer pressure and answer the requisite question, preferring to write what I want. However, this weekend I've hit a creative drought, which isn't to say that there's suddenly less to write about, but rather, for some reason, unbeknownst to me, I have temporarily run out of things to say. Thankfully, the lovely Pursey Tuttweiler has eliminated the need for me to come up with my own topic by tagging me for a meme. A meme is a unit of cultural information—transferable from one mind to another, without the aid of a Vulcan mind-meld, or those electrodes that used to be strapped to my head before I was able to escape from...nevermind. Given my cornucopia of cultural capital, I've got more memes than you can shake a stick at (even though I believe that stick-shaking is a reasonable way to while away the time). So, for those of you th Read more:Cultural
, Memes
The Halifax Farmer's Market 1970-01-01 00:59:59 The recent plunge in the thermostat was a not-so-subtle reminder that we are in Canada, and it is, in fact, January. Having grown up in a country infamous for its winters, many Canadians posses the innate knowledge that there's comfort to be had in the warm embrace that is a handmade scarf, and the repeated action of pulling one's toque over one's ears. Though the harsh Atlantic wind can peel exposed skin in a matter of minutes, the rosy cherubic glow that it lends to cheeks, and the tips of noses, brings smiles to faces…once they arrive in doors. And so I ventured off to the Halifax Farmer's Market
, on this beautifully sunny albeit frigid day that requires multiple layers of clothing for comfort and survival. The Market has its weekly congregation of vegetable sellers and craftsmen; a multiplicity of ethnic foods for sample and purchase; fresh baked bread and locally grown, cured and butchered meats; and the inherent warmth that accompanies this close sense of community. On
Happy Valentine's Day! 1970-01-01 00:59:59 Hey Folks, it's been a while. Life seems to have picked up its pace in the last couple of weeks, and I've been struggling to find some free time, let alone enough time to actually sit down and post something redeeming. I have a few things on the go, namely an interview/article I'm putting together about Atlantic Canada's "Women's Health" (read: sex toy) Queen, and on Thursday I'm flying south...way south, to visit my dear Papa in Louisiana, at which point we will take the opportunity to hit Mardi Gras in the Big Easy. For today, I thought I would share with you my Valentine
's Day gift to Leah; my girlfriend and bestest buddy in the whole wide world. I will simaltaneously be bringing attention to a recent discovery, The Wippets. This is a gang of local trouble makers that has started a puppet troupe that is like an "R" rated version of Sesame Street. Somewhere, Jim Henson is rolling over in his grave.Happy
Valentine's Day wishes to all! I'll be back soon with much more to read-
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