While still pretty poor in the chubby-bucks myself, I've certainly softened and spread (ew, sounds like margarine) somewhat since buying the car (and thereby ceasing cycling to/from work), to the point where I've actually outgrown a pair of pants. This has never before happened to me, and it's a little bit of a shock, I have to say. I always thought I wanted to be a little bit overweight to be more "normal". Not "cut me out of my trailer, Oprah" kind of enormous, just enough so that people would stop saying things like "whoah, are you ever skinny!" Well, I was wrong. They've stopped now, and I really want them to start again.
Be careful what you wish for... :)
I'd like to say that I don't care who you vote for so long as you vote, but that'd be a lie. The most I can manage is to say that I think that voting, even for evil, is the closest we can get to ensuring that our government is at least representative of the wishes of the majority. Only the wishes of voters are counted, though, so vote. That's impartial, right? This isn't: if you live in Davenport, vote for Rui!
More info here: Elections Canada On-line | Élections Canada En-ligne
Tonight I rode my bike down a flight of thirteen stairs. On purpose. If you want to go look, the stairs are here:
To say that this was a difficult thing for me to do would be like saying that some water goes off a cliff at Niagara Falls. For maybe the last year and a half, I've been intending to ride down this flight of stairs. They have a short rise, so the grade is inviting. They're in what is a low-traffic area at night, so the risk of witnesses to a spectacular failure is low. There is still some traffic, so the chance of the body being discovered is high should a failure surpass the merely spectacular.
So I would ride, at a moderate to slow pace, towards the top of the stairs. Then I would stop. Well, my body would stop. My hands, that is to say, would grip the brakes, despite my brain's full intention that I should continue down the stairs. Then I'd maybe repeat this a few times before finally giving up in disgust and walking the bike down the stairs. A year and a half of this.
No more. Tonight's first attempt went pretty much by the book, but then something snapped. I circled back and rode straight down those bad puppies. 38 years old, and I finally managed, in some small way, to turn down the volume on my self-preservation instinct.
Today I am a man...
This is the week of the knee.
First, Pirkko neds some sympathy.
Second, I just discovered last night (thanks to the girls, of course) that if you straighten your leg fully without engaging your knee at all you can manually wiggle your knee-cap around. The degree to which people can "squish" their knee-cap around will vary somewhat, and I found the whole thing to be quite unsettling. I knew that the patella was a floating joint, of course, but I didn't realize to what degree this was true. Steph asked how I could get all the way to 38 and not know this, and it's a good question to which I have no answer. It's kind of cool and creepy all at the same time.
1050 CHUM Presents An Exhibition of John Lennon's Artwork "Imagine All The People... John Lennon's Words and Images Endure" - June 17 - 20
Anyone want to go?
I am the mastah of parallel parking!
Hah! I could so live in London now...
ANALOGIA: Star Estimator thinks I look like Scott Baio, Samuel L. Jackson, Leonardo Di Caprio, or maybe, get this, Orlando Bloom. Uh, no, I don't think so. Apparently if I were a girl I'd be Maria Callas. I think I'm okay with that one, actually... :)
bikeToronto: Toronto Police's 'Cycle Right' Education/Enforcement Campaign Underway
Obeying the rules of the road is a good idea for cyclists at any time of the year. Stopping for stop signs and stop lights and obeying highway traffic laws can save your life. This week it can also save you money. The annual 'Cycle Right' Campaign is underway for 2004. It will run from June 7th to June 20th 2004.
The photographer has pics from Savana and Michael's wedding available online here. Username is radley; password is 41242.
I love the safety videos on airplanes. Everyone is so eerily calm and cheerful in all of the emergency scenarios. Children wait patiently for their oxygen masks, and people follow the lighted strip out of the darkened, fallen plane at a measured, orderly pace. I generally wish that all the other passengers around me, who are by and large ignoring the demonstration, were taking note of this.
For the first time ever, I watched all three films on the plane from London to Toronto. Ben Stiller and Jennifer Anniston in Along Came Polly (which was flat despite my abiding love for Ben Stiller), Julia Roberts in Mona Lisa (sort of a Dead Poet's Society for girls, with Julia Roberts starring, as usual, as Julia Roberts), and many great actors (and Hugh Grant) in Love Actually (had some great moments but fell flat overall). At the end of it all I felt like I was really connected to 15 year old girls everywhere.
Overheard on the flight from Barcelona to London:
"You prefer the aisle seat?"
"Yes, I prefer to stay well clear of what's going on out there!"