The Rantbook

If you're ever in NYC and looking for a bite and a brew in the day or a rowdy party at night, check out Point Break. It's a funky little surf-themed bar with Das Boot, The Wheel of Shots, Beer Pong and a booking station slash wall of shame for people who get a bit too fucked up. Music is a pretty chill rock/pop mix. The Stones just played; Time Warp played before that, now it's on to Snoop Dogg.

Apparently, just four months ago it was a bar & grill catering to the corporate crowd. Companies would often rent out all three floors for parties. However, Bear Stearns was their biggest customer and when they tanked, so did the grill's business. Renos ensue and presto chango, Point Break is born.

The more locals I meet, the more I end up putting real stories and faces to the big news items of this past decade. It's interesting.

[edit]: Oh Broken Lizard, how you've taught me. I nearly spilled beer all over myself drinking out of Das Baby Boot until I remembered their trick. Thank you, Beerfest :P

So I'm going to save the year in review for later, mostly so I don't have to type it all out on my phones keyboard.

Right now, I'm chillin in the common room of our hostel. Its on 45th less than half a block from the centre of Times Square. Jaime's been out in the crush for the last 4 hours or so, apparently having a blast. The NYPD has locked down our block along with everything else that surrounds Times Sq. I swear, there's more cops in these 10 sq blocks than there are in all of Canada. Its pretty mad. Still not as crazy busy as I thought it'd be though.

It took us a couple days to leave Midtown except for the one night I spent wandering nd drinking in the Village. That was a pretty rad night. First was McSorley's Old Ale House where there are two kinds of beer (light and dark). It was too crowded to really move in so I drank my beer and effed off pretty quick. After that and a pint in the Peculier near NYU, I stepped past the legendary Bitter End and into Wicked Willys ("Time flies when you're having rum" as their sign proclaims). Inside I found custom built beer pong tables and a tournament. I paired up with a med student in town from London, ON and lost in the first round. Still had a great time though. Made friends with a Sgt about to be redeployed to a-stan and was sorely disappointed by his drinking abilities. Really guys, patrone is about as smooth as water. Man up.

When I finally decided to head home, a rockin' Brooklyn native named Dan (who resembled our B.O.D. more than a little) directed me to a few great little restaurants before we got into talking about 9/11. It was a very enlightening conversation that left me with a wholly different outlook on what happened.

The last few days have been spent touristing. Walked through the village, chinatown, the financial district and central park in a single day. Rubber legs. Todays been chill. Attempted to do the Empire State building but the lines were ricockulous. Bought tickets so we could skip the line tomorrow or Saturday.

As for New Years... well, I hadn't been planning nything special. Most of the bars, restaurants and Times Sq shops are doing big open bar parties but I didn't eant to go alone. Well, everythings got a way of working out right? After chatting with a few planless aussies and americans last night, we decided to go together on a VIP table in some club. Apparently we'll get access to a skybox overe looking lincoln square (I think?) Where fireworks will fly up from at midnite. Should be entertaining :D

Speaking of which though, I think its time to get everyone together and get ready. Happy new year all!

the trip so far: stayed up all friday night, got on the train at 6am saturday, got to seattle at like 1130. spent a couple hours at fado. seatac was boring so i drank. (regretting it now of course. ugggh.) met a cool seattlite at the bar who'll be in NYC this new years as well. apparently he and his girlfriend have a limo lined up for the night. their goal is to get naked, stand in the sunroof and fuck like bunnies as the ball drops (no pun intended). he explained this plan before even telling me his name. needless to say, dude found his way into my good books pretty quick :P

anyways, landed fine at jfk on time around 6am local time. drunkslept the whole flight (yay!). got on the A train to manhattan and rode for a while. i spaced out while reading inherent vice (which is amazing thus far) and when i snapped back to reality, i realised that i had no idea what stop i should be getting off at. no big deal right? just hop off and look at the map. turns out the hop-off-to-check-the-map-station was exactly where i wanted to get off. i stumbled out of fulton/nassau station and blinked at the strange natural light for a moment or two before picking a direction and walking it.

i found broadway by accident and kept walking. surprised by how few cars and people were out. *shrug* this is sunday in a business district after all. i stumble along doing the tourist rubberneck thing (the architecture!) before my body reminded me of a severe lack of nutrition. yes body. food, yes, i know body. right away, body. i thought this was the city that never slept, why is everything closed dammit? hey! there's a place advertising breakfast right across from that construction site. wow, i can hardly read those construction site signs. mental note: get fucking glasses. whatever, food time! it's a pretty typical dining hall type place. i get my usual: bacon, eggs, potatoes and toast. While waiting for my food, i got to looking around the place. lots of memorial photos and fdny tributes then something different. a personal letter from some pharmacist in cali to the owner of the cafe. turns out that they turned that particular cafe into one of the primary med centres during 9/11 and this pharmacist helped set it up. wait a tick... that was no ordinary construction site outside. that was ground zero! not going to lie, when i finally wrapped my eyeballs around the size of the site, i was a bit astounded. was the original wtc this big too? i'd like to come back and see the site after it's all built and finished.

anyways, that's been my morning thus far. at the moment i'm in a diner just off the financial district, sipping coffee and listening to frank sinatra play on the house stereo. mom and fuzz should land around noon. they nearly didn't make it though. they chose to save some dough and fly out of fargo. well, a blizzard stuck it's icy cack into I96 and ditched some untold number of drivers. they're old pros when it comes to 3ft snow drifts though and they made it through on backroads.

goddamn i need a shower.

so i'm up at stupid o'clock in the morning, getting the last bits of packing done. i never can sleep the night before any sort of trip so i figure that's the best time to pack. and by best, i probably mean dumbest. anyways, i've got some dishes to do and some batteries to charge, then a little downtime before the early morning trek to the train station. i'll be in seattle for a good eight hours before i settle in at the departure lounge. after that it's off to new york! i should be arriving somewhere around 6am eastern time. wee! my tired ass is going to need a beer with breakfast around noon tomorrow.. er, today.

for once, i'm packing light on the book front. all i've got is dance dance dance and there's only a quarter or so left to go. although russell lent me his little asus 10" eeepc. i'm already addicted. loaded ubuntu and spent most of tonight tinkering. at the moment, she's soaking up some music and movies for the road. i've also got a book on rails to try and force some learnings into my dusty attic.

anywho, time to finish packing.

oh and don't tempt fate, stay home this boxing day. lest you end up trampled by shoppers outside best buy.

this popped up in my inbox today:

> totally forgot this story when I was writing the xmas letter...you may
> or may not know that I do ceramics, I like painting and putting together
> different pieces especially for the yard...we do these logs with a
> variety of critters on them, fairies and such like, and I glue them on
> with silicone and put a solar light in them also with silicone. I was
> putting together such a piece one night for someone's xmas gift, and was
> using the caulking gun, which blew the bottom out of the tube of caulk I
> was using. So I took the tube out and was using my fingers to scoop the
> caulk out of the bottom as I didn't want to waste the whole tube. So I
> have caulking on both hands putting this post together, when, wouldn't
> you know, the phone rings. And it's my brother. Whom I had just talked
> to the day before. So as I answer the phone with my elbow, and finally
> get it under my chin, can't touch it because of the sticky fingers, by
> now I am a little peeved and after saying hello, I say in a cranky tone,
> 'can I call you back in a bit, I have my hands full of caulk right
> now'....dead silence on the other end, and now I am pissed cause I think
> he hung up on me after I went to such lengths to answer the damn phone,
> and I say, 'did you hear me?? are you there??' To which my brother
> replies...'uhhhh yah I heard you, ummmm I will talk to you later, k bye'
> and THEN he hangs up.
>
> So I finish what I am doing and as I am wiping the caulk from my hands,
> I am thinking back on the conversation wondering why my brother was
> acting so strangely, and finally I get the joke....I guess I shoulda
> spelled caulk for him, huh. So by the time I go to call him back I am
> pissing myself laughing, wishing I could have seen the look on his
> face....and I finally spit out what I was ACTUALLY doing, but I am not
> sure he believed me......

Is killing plants ethical? http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/22/science/22angi.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss

No really, every kid knows that a plant is a living creature. It doesn't look like it can move, talk or feed but it often does all of these just the same. Amateur gardeners and experienced horticulturalists have claimed that plants that are loved and spoken to do better than plants left to their own devices (although I don't remember what Mythbusters had to say on the issue...) I accept that my meat-eating may compromise me ethically in the eyes of some, but the next person to point it out will get a gentle reminder that plants live lives too. They even manage to do it without killing anything (usually).

At it's base, this is your typical CNN puff piece but you should listen to this kid's responses in the interview. His arguments are reasoned and thought out. He's taken abuse from classmates for his decision. He's even faced discipline from the school administration. Best of all: he's only 10 years old. Goddamn, if I decide to spawn one day, I hope my kid turns out half as brave and intelligent as this young one.

Come on Canada, they're beating us to it.

New Polaroid cameras *and* film in 2010! :D

i wasn't going to rant about this but it's pissing me off more with every mention.

i simply don't get how they justify giving obama the peace prize.. he's made a few speeches on the subject in the short time he's been president while past winners (ie: mother teresa, ghandi, the dalai lama and even jimmy carter) have spent most of their adult lives working towards a serious goal. no peaceful plans have been set in motion, troops in iraq and afghanistan aren't being removed, he hasn't opened up talks for any of the war-torn middle eastern nations beyond one-on-one short semi-formal chats. hell, he won't even meet with the dalai lama. if he was truly a multi-lateral peace pusher, wouldn't he sit down with the Chinese and the Tibetans? if all of our prime ministers going back to the mulroney days could do it, why can't he?

now yes, obama has admitted that he doesn't feel worthy to be included among past recipients and the nobel group has stated that it was awarded to build momentum behind middle eastern peace, nuclear disarmament (note: the americans are supposed to be doing this anyways but they have either been at a standstill or, during the bush years, have actually be *growing* their stockpiles) and yadda yadda yadda. it's just more hot air though. have the nobels really become as empty and hollow as the oscars? doesn't the award criteria (you know, the one that says that recipients should have significantly advanced peace as a cause) mean anything anymore?

ron paul made a good point (see the video below, he gets into it right off the bat) on this topic: the nobel application deadline came up *12 days* after he took office. remember what he was doing then? that's right, entering pakistan's borders and bombing the fuck out of the countryside without pakistan's permission.

what a fucking sham. i don't care how charming and eloquent their speeches might be, give the prize to someone who deserves to be recognised for their actions.

An article coming from the The Globe & Mail made a few good points worth absorbing - Obama's prize premature: World peace has not advanced Alfred Nobel would probably regret what his prize has become.

A warning to anyone using Windows, PayPal and Internet Explorer, Google Chrome or Safari: A new exploit released into the public domain yesterday (first discovered over 9 weeks ago) takes advantage of a glaring hole in Microsoft security libraries and specifically targets PayPal users. Basically, it will allow an attacker to impersonate the secure section of a website. This will allow the attacker to intercept all communication (this includes passwords, credit card information, email addresses, billing addresses, banking information, etc.) between you and the website you're using.

There is no way to tell that your connection to the website has been hijacked and the exploit can be put into place anywhere in between you and the website's servers.

There is no fix and no patch available yet, but the latest Mozilla browsers remain unaffected. The information PayPal keeps could easily allow a successful attacker to drain any bank accounts and credit cards that you have tied to PayPal's systems. Your best bet is to avoid using PayPal until a fix from Microsoft can be implemented.

The article also notes that similar certificates could have been issued for other websites too.

fuck yeah man, our generation is going to see all the cool shit. more evidence: fabric antennae capable of GPS and two-way satellite voice communications and a planet that rains frigging pebbles.

You think the Downtown Eastside is bad? Even babies get stabbed in Winnipeg's North End.

This seems especially fitting today:

Go placidly amid the noise and haste,
and remember what peace there may be in silence.
As far as possible without surrender
be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly;
and listen to others,
even the dull and the ignorant;
they too have their story.

Avoid loud and aggressive persons,
they are vexations to the spirit.
If you compare yourself with others,
you may become vain and bitter;
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.

Keep interested in your own career, however humble;
it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.
Exercise caution in your business affairs;
for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is;
many persons strive for high ideals;
and everywhere life is full of heroism.

Be yourself.
Especially, do not feign affection.
Neither be cynical about love;
for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment
it is as perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of the years,
gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.
Beyond a wholesome discipline,
be gentle with yourself.

You are a child of the universe,
no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God,
whatever you conceive Him to be,
and whatever your labors and aspirations,
in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul.

With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful.
Strive to be happy.

Max Ehrmann, Desiderata, Copyright 1952.

oi. what a week. definitely the longest and shortest week of my life. burning man was incredible. 1 part enlightenment, 1 part marathon, 5 parts fun. got a couple battle scars (one from an enormous astro-turf slide and the other from our camp's dome), met some amazing people, made some new friends (hi anj! hi munch!), renewed some old friendships (hi dan!), said some goodbyes (have fun keith!), drank a lot (oh so much vodka), frolicked among art installations and hung out in some crazy-ass camps. i'll write more about the details when pictures are in.

the ride back was definitely epic. sean and i left the playa right after the temple burned (so moving), driving all the way back to seattle in one long go. we stopped for a couple hours in klamath falls to nap, again in oregon city to shower/eat at sean's parents' and finally in seattle to off-load the van. while driving past bellingham in the golf on my way to canada, the headlight toggle switch decided to burn out. luckily i found a chevron service station and a helpful attendant. he kept the shop open while i chopped up a couple bits of wire and macgyvered the headlight contacts in the dash. couldn't get the dashboard or tail lights wired up but at least i didn't have to sleep in the car until morning.

anyways, i'm back in canada, safe and sound. all my stuff is covered in playa and needs to be washed at the laundromat tomorrow. for now though, sleep.

WiiSpray Teaser from Martin Lihs on Vimeo.

so apparently i'm going to new york for new year's?

Les Paul: Guitar Hero, Pioneer, Inventor. 1915 - 2009. Rest in peace.

Stephanie Sydiaha, a school bus driver from Saskatoon, stood up to her employer and refused to let an American company perform a background check on her personal information. She was concerned about what might happen to her information once it crossed into a country with notoriously lax (and poorly enforced) privacy laws.

One thing that surprised me: Apparently the privacy commissioner's office in Saskatchewan can only investigate the concerns of public sector workers, not private sector workers. With so many things - from simple customer rewards memberships to online shops - requiring addresses, credit information, SINs and drivers license numbers nowadays, everyone deserves protection from anyone who might abuse all of that personal information.

Are you ready to have your mind blown? If the answer is yes, prepare for the bass stylings of one Hyunmo Kim, a South Korean man who “hopes to be the world’s greatest stupid idiot bass player”. He does this in a dress. With pigtails. He is a pigtailed man in a dress with mad bass skillz who does not drink milk until he gags or examine his delicate faux-cleavage with the aid of his camera. You must be imagining things. It’s probably the awesomeness of his bass, frying your brain.

via Coilhouse