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Upgraded to WordPress 3.0 – Huzzah!
Posted On Thursday, June 17th, 2010 By Zen Render
Now, if only I had something to SAY on here from time to time.
Why aren’t they doing this all the time in the Olympics?
Posted On Wednesday, May 12th, 2010 By Zen Render
Freakyawesome.
Posted On Thursday, May 6th, 2010 By Zen Render
Like, backyard sized, maybe PNE ride-sized. Then I can stand on the roof with a little headset on, going “Okay to go… okaaay to gooo…. okaaaaaaay to GOOOOOO.” Seriously, how awesome is that thing?
Been a while
Posted On Tuesday, February 9th, 2010 By Zen Render
(Posting from my Blackberry, so we’ll chalk up any sentence/grammar weirdness to Transit rage). Hey there. Been a couple of months (seriously, MONTHS?) since I last posted but wanted a quick “Don’t delete my RSS feed yet” before I forget entirely that I even have a blog. Twitter’s been my primary method of getting the word out, and since that’s limited to 140 characters, I guess I haven’t had much word that needed getting out as of late. Work’s good, family’s good, there’s the Olympics coming, and so Vancouver is suddenly swamped with seemingly equal numbers of teal-jacketed volunteers, and black-jacketed security/police. Come the revolution, it’ll be like game of Risk, fought in colours. Over xmas, I ripped ALL of my CDs to MP3 format (that I had left and/or re-bought, after two break-ins in the mid 90s), and I’ve come to the conclusion that I don’t actually like very much of my music. Wait. That’s not true. I don’t like it on shuffle on my iPod. It’s like having everyone you’ve ever had a meal with come by and eat one fry with you, and then leave again. It’s jarring, you know? I didn’t ride my bike to work Continue Reading
End of NaBloPoMo 2009: Hooray, I Blew It!
Posted On Tuesday, December 1st, 2009 By Zen Render
So, National Blog Posting Month wasn’t exactly a action-packed thrillride adventure, but it’s good to at least feel guilty about not writing every day, so I have some reason to take note of the world around me, and at least think “Hey, I should probably write about that tonight, so I have something for Nablopomo.” Oh well. I think I only missed three or four days. Not too shabby. Today, during my ride to work, I was listening to something from an EP by Burial, and at the 3min mark of the first of two 9min tracks, I closed my eyes for a moment (I’d been reading Twitter feeds, and for some reason, sitting sideways on the bus was making me a little queasy), and was suddenly and completely taken away, lost in the track. That hasn’t happened in a long time for me. Music is something that keeps me motivated when I’m cycling, keeps me sane when I’m overloaded by the maddening crowds, and keeps me focused when I’m at work and there’s too many things going on that threaten to knock me off the task at hand. But it’s been a while since music just pulled me completely Continue Reading
People, Places, and Things
Posted On Monday, November 30th, 2009 By Zen Render
Helped Jonny Vancouver moved yesterday, but he was so planned that I was 30 mins late to get to his place to help load the truck, and he was already gone by the time I got there. Now THAT is fast. Many many years ago I moved out of a place on Pacific, but I was such a packrat I had WAY too much stuff, hadn’t thrown out enough, and hadnt packed in a reasonable way (too few boxes that were too big). The fact that Arwen didn’t leave me during that move is just further proof that uh, that she… uh… that I… Yeah, I’m just really REALLY lucky she didn’t leave my ass that day. Tate and I went out to the mall together, which I was happy to do, ’cause he and I rarely get time to hang out just the two of us. Funny, too, to find out that half of the stuff that Tate and I did that *I* thought was new stuff for him was stuff that he does every time he goes to the mall. Tonight we’re we had dinner with Crankenflaire, which was nice, ’cause we get our collective acts together about Continue Reading
Lens Flare: Movies Kicking You Out of the Movie
Posted On Saturday, November 28th, 2009 By Zen Render
Was watching a commercial tonight for Disney, and it opens with two Dumbo cart things flying through the city. As they swing past us in that opening flight shot, there’s a lens flare, and… …and I start thinking about lens flare, and I was thinking that Ripley and Tate don’t know what lens flare is, as they haven’t yet seen movies that uses gigantic lenses for the, for the glass of it, y’know? Lens flare is an artifact of using glass lenses, and is something that’s become a cliche for computer-generated film folks, as it’s one of the first tools that people started playing with in Photoshop while making the pamphlets for their illegal rave, or their new Business Improvement Project, or whatever. But it’s supposed to invoke the reality of an actual camera filming something, to make you think you’re watching film of Dumbo flying over the city. That’s all well and fine for ME, ’cause I know what a camera looks like from the shoooter’s side, but do my kids know? They have always known digital cameras, with framing your shot by looking at the little 1.5 inch screen on the back of the unit, and not looking Continue Reading
Sunday in point form
Posted On Monday, November 23rd, 2009 By Zen Render
Up at 7:00am… well, to be honest, up at 7:07, 7:15, 7:23, and finally up and out of bed at 7:30 Finished reading a short story by Stephen King last night about a guy who has OCD because he’s guarding the world from destruction, and because I always read in bed right before falling asleep, it took me a few nights to get through the story, and every night I’d take about a page to remember what the story was about. Went to Quaker meeting today. Sat in silence for 45 minutes with a group of people who are also sitting and thinking (or not thinking) about whatever comes to them. Sometimes people talk about what they’re thinking, but mostly it’s just silence. It’s interesting, can be meditative, but can also be surprisingly… what is it? Apt. Apropos. From outta nowhere, yet outta somewhere. I described it today as hearing a song you don’t quite know, and when the 3rd verse starts, having someone else say that first word, and suddenly you’re clicking into it too. Interesting. No pressure. Very little “Lord Christ Jesus” vibe. Very unlike my experiences in Chilliwack. Lunch at WhiteSpot,with Pirate Packs for the kids, and Continue Reading
Home, Home I’m Deranged.
Posted On Sunday, November 22nd, 2009 By Zen Render
Low-key day. Made breakfast for the kids, which included a smoothie. We opened up the fridge, crammed banana, blueberries, an orange, some baby carrots, two icecubes, and some milk* into the cup thing for our brand new immersion blender we picked up at the Supastow yesternight. Time to fire that baby up, and see what it can do, yeah? Oh great and powerful OZ was it loud at 8am. Milk with bits of blueberry was flying everywhere, it was making a huge mess, Tate started yelling “WoooOOOOOOooooOoOoOo” in tune with the blender (are kids trying to do some sorta noise canceling when they yell in harmony like that?) So yeah, after I cleaned up the cutting block thing, and poured it into cups for the kids, Ripley scarfed his down, but Tate (who’d wanted the smoothies in the first place) wasn’t convinced after maaaaybe one sip. *Didja spot the mistake I made there? Watched TV with the kids and alternated between telling them they couldn’t have candy at 9:30 NOR could they play with the computer. I’m the meanest dad in the whole wild world. Ignored my Saturday Blackberry calendar item that’s been there for about a year and a Continue Reading
You Down With LHC? (Yeah, You Know Me.)
Posted On Friday, November 20th, 2009 By Zen Render
The Large Hadron Collider is this most amazingly technical thing, and yet I have absolutely no idea what it does. I mean, I get that it’s a thing that catches particles and whips them around in a gigantic circle (27 kms or something, right?) and then they… uh… measure the… trails… um… with the uh… doohickey… But hegoly sheggit is it pretty. Reminds me of the tunnels the Canada Line, only with about a billion times the technology. I’ve been taking transit more often than I’d like lately, but the weather’s been rainy and cold, and I promised myself and my wife that I wouldn’t ride my bicycle if there’s a chance of ice, and as I found of today, it doesn’t have to be icy for people to lose control of their vehicle… What you’re looking at there is a parked car turned almost 90 degrees onto the sidewalk, the front passenger tire is torn almost completely off the rim. Behind that is the car that hit it as it came out of the underground parking lot across the street. That tree is crowded by our building, so it’s quite lucky nobody was hurt. What strikes me is that Continue Reading