Entries Tagged 'updates' ↓

Last week, I liberated an old Velo Sport from a neighbor’s yard. For Brad! For brad, I tell you! This week, I removed (almost) all the extra parts. No more shifters, rear derailleur, front derailleur, 6-speed Atom 77 freewheel, or very-long chain. Now it’s a nearly-respectable, very civilized single-speed bike.

Notes:

• The mtb pedal clips are a little too deep, though joyously wide and tall
• I still need to cut off the offending and extraneous outer chainring on the front (but I don’t have a dremel tool or angle grinder)
• The seat is pretty cheesy; after riding one of those pressure-relieving seats for a couple of years, this one feels like a golf ball is constantly being shoved up my wazoo
• The brakes are pretty awesome
• The steel wheels and Maillard hubs are perhaps not the lightest, but I like them. They both need cleaning.
• The beautiful aluminum sleeve in the center of the drop bars concealed a lousy steel bar under the tape. And the bar was not bilaterally symmetrical! Geez…
• This bike needs a serious bath, and probably everything repacked and lubed
• There is a definite clacking, possibly in the bottom bracket, with every pedal revolution; must diagnose and fix… someday
• The chain that was on this was too skinny to fit over the BMX freewheel, so I got an inexpensive BMX chain
• BMX chains don’t fit in regular chain tools

Anyhoo, I took it for its voyage of rebirth today, and that was fun. I went over to the Chedoke Golf Club and climbed the stairs, then rode along the ridge through the ritzy neighborhoods, then a bit on Bruce Trail, then back through Ancaster and down the mountain on Wilson St. Good ride. I like the bike.

There is another bike in our already-somewhat-small apartment. It’s a free bike that a lady nearby was giving away. It’s a 12-speed Velo Sport average-joe-grade road bike. The size is very nice for me and/or Brad, and everything works. I’m glad I didn’t take Brad’s bet last night, because I pumped up the tires and they’ve held 80 or so psi for several hours, now (I thought they would be punctured, but no). The frame has small bits of rust on it, not visible on casual inspection. There are nice little details, too, like Shimano quick releases on both wheels, lots of aluminum parts, those brake-release-thingies on the brakes, the gum hoods on the levers still intact. More details after the cut: Continue reading →

Billy of Dark Mean Lays down a groove

 Last night was a lot of fun. Constant K went well, and beforehand I realized that — now that I am no longer an actohr, I can hang out and watch the musicians play their sets before the shows. Dark Mean was completely great. I like their sound. It reminds me of The Ocean Blue, Radiohead, etc. Then, we wandered to the Spotted Pig pub in Hamilton, and hung out while a really excellent man named Ted regaled us with his tunes. Then he let us Play and sing, and then there was dancing and general good times… very  nice.

Pic of the day: Three people and a muppet. for some reason.

I’m supposed to be working. Right this minute. But I’ve just spent an hour reading through the (for me) interesting back columns on Measure for Measure, the NYT’s (thankfully non-subscription) blog about songwriting, by songwriters. Okay, so i went there just for Suzanne Vega’s recent piece, but I ended up reading a whole bunch of stuff. Yay! Songwriting! I should do some more of that, someday… my songs are getting stale, like cookies left in the cupboard too long. And I should write about something other than the ups and downs of dating, since I no longer have any dating ups or downs. I do have a song about a dead possum. And some snarky songs about politics. I could become this generation’s roadkill/protest singer. I shall get right to work on that.

Anyway, as I was saying, I have lots of work to do. None of it (sadly; so sadly) has anything at all to do with writing, singing, or even listening to songs.

Sigh. I think I need some Suzanne Vega, now. Yay, MP3s!

Alex’s latest play, The Constant K… etc. was housed in an awesome old 3-story building with an art gallery on the ground floor, a theater on the second floor, and a gorgeous massive loft on the top. The building is called “The Pearl Company.” I recently found out why. It used to be a jewelry factory. These pictures show leftover pearls still embedded between the floorboards in the art gallery. (one more photo after the cut). Continue reading →

Picture: Jeff Santa Barbara, Constant K Director, looks pleased, despite his dark and gloomy surroundings.

The Constant K Determines the Ultimate Fate of the Universe opened last night. It was rough in some places, but overall a success. It will just get better across performances, too :) I discovered that I am no longer the boy who could not get enough stage time, back in my early 20s: I was nothing but relieved when my 5 minutes of fame was over.

In other news, it occurred to me that we need a glossary for the show (no, I’m serious), so here it is.

Altruism

Performing a helpful act without any selfish motivations; helping purely to help the individual in need, or for helping’s sake alone.

Comet

(See Meteor/Meteorite, Tumbleweed)

Dawkins, Richard

Popular ethologist and evolutionary biologist, originally prominent for his book The Selfish Gene, a seminal text for sociobiology, and for developing and popularizing the theory memes. Although he was originally known for his scientific contributions, he is lately more famous for using his considerable intelligence and education to browbeat and humiliate less-educated religious people in public forums.

Continue reading →

Rakhee Totally rocks… not that you can tell from this picture.

Alex’s first play this summer is Lee Blessing’s Two rooms. It’s painfully, heart-wrenchingly horribly sad. It’s the story of a husband and wife. He is blindfolded, handcuffed and regularly beaten by his Lebanese terrorist captors. She, back home, lives in self-imposed isolation and austerity, to share the experience with him, since she can’t get him released.

Rakhee Sapra (above) plays the wife. Alex plays the State Department worker assigned to manage her. There are only four actors, but it’s very powerful. That means people (possibly including me… I admit nothing) cry. Last night, the show got a standing ovation. Yay! I didn’t even start it! Yay!

I must say that all four actors are outstanding, my wife most wholeheartedly included.

Sadly, the show right before it (it’s been double-billed) is, in my opinion, not so good. It’s an interesting effort by a student writer, but it seems to boil down to all the sexual, scatological and drug content of shows like Up in Smoke and Clerks, without any of the original or socially redeeming bits.

On the plus side, the people who aren’t frightened away by that tend to really appreciate something substantial and satisfying right afterward.

Go Alex!

Addendum:  after a sort of creepy anonymous comment on this post (hinting at the possibility of negative social consequences of my negative statements), I have decided to expand my review of the play preceding Two Rooms. I wouldn’t want people to think I just hated it, flat out. In fact, the first play had some strong points. There were several chuckles and a few belly laughs yanked from my abdomen, and some of the physical acting and comedic timing was especially humorous. The actors, most of the time, put forth solid efforts. Unfortunately, the writing seemed to me, as I have mentioned, a collection of clichéd comedic elements from a style of movies that have become ubiquitous and played-out in recent years. I had the distinct impression that the shock-value-humor element was overdone in the context of the other elements, leaving me with a bad taste in my mouth and insufficient justification for having acquired it. Part of this bad taste involved a little gratuitous sexual prejudice and some probably-unintentional-but-still-problematic victim blaming and/or misogyny. However, I am still impressed by the fact that an undergrad wrote this. It flows nicely from moment to moment, it has coherent plotting, it has reasonably well-defined characters, and (as I said before), there are some genuinely funny moments. By the standards of professional scripts, it would not fare well, but by the standards of undergraduate work, I suspect it shines quite respectably.

So, all that annoying studying I did for the EPPP¹? It paid off! I got a 730, which means (if I have the scale right…?) that I KICKED A**!!!

The passing score for Texas is 500, and it’s a little higher for CA and some other places. I think (?) I got it all goin’ on, whichever state, province or territory I may wish to practice in. Course, I don’t wish to really practice (much) anywhere. But still. One more exam, and I can has license. The other exam is in July, in Austin². And the application and money are due tomorrow. Yeah, yeah. Poor planning. We’ll see. Otherwise, I’ll take Orals in January. Whatevah.

Now that I passed that suckah, there’s only a few things left to do:

1. Pass orals
2. Get my license
3. Sell my EPPP study materials to someone more desperate than I was when I bought them
4. Write a post detailing the picky annoyances of the test and the study materials
5. Oh, maybe get some kind of professional work opportunity or something, to try to pay back the stupid big expense of getting this far

1. the national licensure test for psychologists [↩]
2. reminder: I’m in Ontario [↩]

Still in IAH, had an hour conversation with a customer service lady, and another few minutes on the phone with another one. Final result: admission that I’m going to be late because Continental representatives made some very strange decisions, not because of weather. Yes, I’m going to be 2.5 hours late, but also, my next trip will be $100 cheaper. It’s not a full voucher, but it helps.

Also found out my luggage will probably not arrive today :(  The sucky things about that are not really the delay in luggage. They are (1) the line-waiting and delay and hassle of the claim process in the airport, and (2) the 6 hours of hanging around your house when the delivery folks call and say, “We have your luggage. We’ll be there sometime between 10 a.m. and 4 pm.”

Most important message: I’m not blown up, and I will see Alex tonight. Both of these things are Very Good.

The plane for our flight to Houston… is still in Houston. And is “not leaving anytime soon.” OK, so we’re about 2 hours behind schedule, now. It might still be possible to absorb this into the other layovers (e.g., Cleveland), but it’s best not to count on such things.