For the curious, I’ve got a Flickr photoset showing my current workplace, TSOT’s temporary office (we’re moving to the permanent office in January).
Click the photo to see the whole photoset.
I’ll be updating it from time to time, so check it often!
I noticed something strange on a sign on Bloor Street, just west of Avenue Road:
Note the services offered: “Imagineering”?
I read the sign: “Accupuncturist, cardiologist, dentist…imagineering? As in Disney ride engineer?” (Clearly Cory Doctorow has rubbed off on me.)
It turns out that Imagineering is also the name of a multimedia company. Ah well.
Switching jobs from Tucows to TSOT means that for the first time in four and half years, it’s quicker to commute by subway than by bicycle. Hence for the past couple of weeks, I have been doing something I haven’t done in a long time: I’ve been riding the subway during rush hour on a regular basis. I’m concerned by what I’ve been seeing.
It’s been a while since I was a regular subway rider, so my memories may be wrong. Could someone tell me if there’s been a downhill slide in the Toronto Transit Commission’s service? I’ll admit that my commute is incredibly quick — it’s a quick walk to High Park station, 10 stops to Bay station, then a quick walk to the office — but even in that short trip, I’ve faced trains too full to board, trains running at half-speed and trains sitting idle at the station, sometimes for five minutes at a time.
I know that when it comes to its website and to promoting itself through merchandise, the TTC often tempts me to declare “Toronto Transit Commission, Thy Name is Half-Assery!”. The TTC’s apparent attempt to mimic San Francisco’s MUNI’s core incompetency at public transport worries me.
Conservative columnist Mark Steyn declared me his reader of the day on his site:
The quote comes from my recent article on the Conrad Black case. Alas, thanks to some sloppy editing on my part, my quip is missing a couple of key words. It should read (and after editing, it does now):
While I have not been following the details of the Conrad Black case, the fact that such questionable characters such as Mark Steyn and Elton John defend him doesn’t help his case as I am concerned.
I don’t often agree with him, but I’ve got to hand it to him for taking it with good humour. Cheers, Mr. Steyn!
My original accordion, a Titano student model, has been through a lot, from the streets of Accordion City to Burning Man to saving my butt from a mugging in Prague (see this story for details). In spite of a few broken chord buttons, some missing key tops and a slight air leak, I can still get some sweet sounds out of it.
These days, I keep it at the TSOT offices in case of emergencies. You’d be surprised at the number of times having an accordion handy has paid off.
Click the picture to see the video on Facebook.
Last week, I did a quick little medley at the office, and my coworker Dan Williams shot some video of the event and posted it on Facebook. If you’ve got a Facebook account, you can see it here. I’ll see if I can get the video from Dan and post it someplace a little more easily accessed, like YouTube.
A friend of Dan’s saw the video, and she commented that if it were posted on a dating site like LavaLife, I’d get responses like crazy. The accordion has already served that purpose, but maybe it’s time for me to give lessons.
I’ve picked up a number of new readers in the past couple of months, so I thought I’d showcase this little seasonal blast from the past. It’s an entry from 2002 titled The Best Christmas Present Ever, a tale of Christmas, crablice, friendship and the true spirit of Christmas. Be advised that the story has swearing and — as you might expect — crablice.
Ever since I got my first digital camera back in 1998, I’ve made it a point to snap pictures of my workspace on a regular basis. The nature of my work has meant that I’ve rearranged or changed desks about every six months since I joined the workforce full-time back in ’95, so I’m glad that I have some sort of record.
I’ve posted the most recent picture of my desk at TSOT’s temporary office below. Until we move to the permanent space in January, we’re all working on folding tables covered in the kind of tempoarary tablecloth you can get from a party supply store. We got decent chairs and great computers from the get-go, so it’s not too bad. The spartan arrangements give me a feeling of deja vu — it takes me back to that time at OpenCola’s first office in San Francisco, a large warehouse space near Potrero Hill, where all the desks were unfinished doors set on two sawhorses.
My desk at TSOT’s temporary office, taken November 29, 2007. Click the photo to see it at full size.
I should gather up the photos of my previous desks and put them into a post — I think it would be an interesting study.