My widescreen monitor dreams came true - Gerald bought me a new 20" LCD for Christmas. Yay for best sibling! I picked out a couple of possibles on newegg.ca, and we discussed prices and sizes, settled on one, and ordered it. It arrived on Wednesday, and there really is nothing like more screen real-estate. Easier to do work on it!


new desk - top.
I've decided to just run the single screen and save my laptop's screen for when I'm mobile. I've noticed the laptop screen getting a little bit iffy over the past few weeks. Right now the cable clutter behind the laptop and the screen is unimaginable. I'm also running low on USB ports (there are only 3 on the T60). I went and got the keyboard yesterday.

Desktop wallpaper ganked from the amazing Orioto's game remake art. This one is from Worms. Ain't it a beauty? I've also used the FFIII (SNES), the Lemmings, and the Zelda ones.

The little white case at the bottom of the picture (what a mismatch) is the Nintendo DS Lite. I bought it 2nd-hand off a dude last week for a very decent price. He had bought it a couple years ago, but shunned it for the PSP, saying that "the DS isn't for hardcore gamers". I almost rejected the sale right there, but I wanted it too badly. I'm currently playing The World Ends with You, it's pretty awesome.


I was telling J all about the guy later on, and he was reading this review of Chrono Trigger, this first line of which goes, When it comes to Role-Playing Games there are essentially two groups: those who have played Chrono Trigger and those who haven’t. I balked at that. Come on. If you really want to be so pedantic about it, then when it comes to RPGs, there are two types of gamers - those who've played D&D and those who've not.

'strewth.

Yesterday evening we took kitty to the vet.

Tuesday morning, I was up, eating breakfast and catching up with stuff on the computer, trying to ignore the constant mewing she emits every morning until we feed her (she gets breakfast at 9am). Eventually she stopped mewing, and I heard her go dig around in her litter box. A few minutes later I heard strained huffing and puffing behind me.

I turned around and there she was, preparing to take a dump on the rug.

I freaked out, naturally. J was still in bed, and I hollered at him while frantically searching for a piece of paper I could sacrifice from my desk. I found an envelope, and by the time I reached her, there were three malodourous pebbles on the rug, and the cat was walking away - and get this, I swear she was looking extremely pleased with herself.

Kitty has always been incredibly good with her toilet habits (she's probably more regular than most of us), despite the few freak accidents here and there. I was initially puzzled, it couldn't be that she was pissed we wouldn't feed her until 9am - we'd been doing this ever since we got her. While I cleaned the rug, J went to check the litter box and found another pebble on her mat outside of the box. I call them pebbles, because that's when we realised her poop was rock-hard.

She displayed no other behavioural problems otherwise, and we hadn't changed her food lately. I did scrub out her litter box a week ago so now it smells like nothing, but she had evidently been using it before the incident. I figured she was probably constipated.

And since she needed a regular vet check-up, we made an appointment with the Animal Hospital 2 blocks down the street on Wednesday evening when I got home from school. Since it was only 2 blocks and we didn't have a carrier, we slipped the harness and leash on her, and I carried her down the street.

5 minutes of freaking-out and yowling later, we straggled into the clinic (it was drizzling), where a huge labrador was incredibly interested in her, and she spent some time hiding beneath the chairs and hissing at everything in sight. Eventually she calmed down enough to lay in my lap while glaring at the resident orange tabby (such a sweet little thing). J had to do all the administrative stuff and registration because I couldn't get up.

When it was our turn to see the vet, she couldn't cuddle up to us enough. We'd never gotten so much voluntary cuddling from her before. She spent most of the time on the table growling, and even tried to bite him. He confirmed her constipation, prescribed some malt laxatives and weight-loss wet foods, gave her a general checkup (she's 5.28kg, just a tad overweight), stuck a thermometer up her bum.

When we left the consultation room and J was waiting to pay, two ladies began cooing over kitty. I warned them that she wasn't in the best of moods, but one of them was pleased that she could pat her. I had my misgivings, but I let her do it. The lady sat down, and kitty jumped into her lap. At this point my misgivings got worse, but I figured she jumped into her lap willingly, what could possibly go wrong?

She looked up at the lady's face and HISSED at her.

We were completely mortified. J and I talked about it later and agreed it was like bringing your 3-year-old out to a restaurant and having him yell "fuck you!" at the waitress.

We eventually managed to get home, with kitty hanging on to my neck for dear life.

Kitty's been good so far, but we've had to smear the laxative paste on her nose to make her eat it.


my little black bear.

Gmail web-based email or thunderbird email client?

I've been using thunderbird for a long, long time. I have several email addresses that can be easily filtered into two gmail accounts (work and play). Recently I've been thinking about getting rid of thunderbird altogether. Just seems simpler now that I pretty much have guaranteed access to the Internet anytime I guess.

Thoughts/comments?

So a few weeks ago, Ubuntu 9.10 (or Karmic Koala) was released. I waited a little bit before upgrading, mostly because the servers and mirrors are always slammed in the first week, and also to have a little time to let any latent bugses get sorted out. A few days ago, I backed up /home/ to my external, and let the upgrade run overnight.

Apart from the font hinting in the Firefox 3.5 upgrade, everything ran perfect right off the bat. And then a couple of days later, I got used to the font hinting. Sure, it still looks a little odd, at times, but it really doesn't interfere with my work.


Looks good.

Anyway, what is ubuntu? For everybody who've ever griped about how they dislike their computer, I like to lightly recommend ubuntu. Ubuntu is an operating system (two very common operating systems are Windows and OSX), one of many linux distributions.

Why use it? So many reasons. Apart from the fact that it's free and open source. Free as in beer, and open source as in you can do whatever you want with it. Free is enough to get me going though; I'm not enough of a programmer to tinker with the source code (of course I wish I could, but that's another hobby..). But it's also light, it runs on computers that don't run Windows XP very well anymore (I'm not familiar enough with Macs to say anything useful about them), it works, and you don't have to pay a single cent for anything you want to use on it.

Like Firefox, to surf the net with. Or Open Office - word processing (with ability to save in any format AND export to pdf!), spreadsheet, presentations, database, etc. Free, free, free. Free to use, free to change, free to burn and distribute without feeling slightly shady.

Peeling the the Windows XP stickers off my laptops was one of the most exciting moments of my mousy little life. No logo! (ok, except for the Intel Centrino Duo and the IBM ThinkPad ones).

I also use it to be free of all the proprietary software that inevitably comes with paying for operating systems like Windows and whatever it is Mac calls their OS (maybe I'll call it OS n). You don't have to use their products, which usually comes with some kind of price tag. I can build a new computer system without having to go out and purchase some kind of operating system (or its CD-key), and have it run from scratch, and it just works, only having had to pay for the hardware.

Ubuntu - it just works, and you don't have to pay anything for it.

I want one of these!



Dual-bay, because the more the merrier. From thinkgeek.com, but probably available elsewhere too.

I would also love to have a nice, widescreen LCD monitor (it makes reading, writing and preparing presentations that much easier).

and a Nintendo Wii, and a DS, and and and and... ;)

(because I'm writing and need a distraction every 5 minutes).

(Kitty is a good reason to love working from home).

(also, for riendel)

For your snorgles, I present:


A study of kitty's paw pads.


Kitty's little fuzzy snout.

We're pretty sure she loves him more. I think it's because his lap's more comfortable than mine, and he smells stronger than I do. The red strap and blue leash is her harness. We've pretty much succeeded in getting her used to it, and she doesn't struggle anymore, or even try to chew it off. When it's not too wet out one of us will take her out the back and let her wander about the deck until we get too cold and have to come back in. This outside thing might end soon - we can't take hanging around in the cold like she can.


morning kisses


kitty's in on the video gaming, too.

Here's a good excuse I've got when I'm late for school.

Kitty's on my schoolbag!

We got back on Monday morning (6.30am), and while Jeff headed straight to bed when we got home, I showered and got dressed and headed to school to TA.

But I'm starting at the end.

Last Wednesday
4am in the morning, we got up, got dressed, got out of the house to walk half a city-block down the street in 0°c before I realised I didn't have my cellphone on me. Ran back to the apartment and stuck my hand in my pocket only to realise I'd taken my office keys with me instead of my house keys. Ran back up the street to Jeff, who then had to walk me back, since we were going to miss our scheduled bus (that goes straight to the airport). Ran up, got my house keys, got my phone, left my office keys. Walked back up the street and 3 city blocks to Bloor, where we had to catch the next bus, which wouldn't go to the airport but went only halfway, and we were dumped out at the edges of the city to wait for the airport bus.

We still got to the airport with plenty of time - flying domestic is simple as pie, really. I read some Martian Chronicles (R Bradbury) and slept some on the plane while Jeff played Star Ocean and marked assignments. Karen and Andy were waiting for us with umbrellas when we arrived. Good stuff.

On the way to their place, we had brunch at this lovely egg place. I don't remember the name of it. But it was good. Mmm, eggs benny. [eta: Paul's Place Omelettery, 2211 Granville St.]

After we dumped our bags and rested up a little, we headed out to Granville Island to poke around a little. Lovely place. The condos along the bay on the south side of the downtown area reminded me of Hong Kong and Macao. After some munchies, we headed to a Chinese restaurant for some xiao long bao, and then did some groceries and went back. We mooched about while Karen made shepherd's pie for dinner, and had an easy, relaxed evening.

Thursday
Andy went to work, and the three of us headed to Chinatown (Hastings/Main) for an incredibly comforting Cantonese lunch at Hon's (I had the liver and kidney congee with pei dan and yau zha gwai). We wandered about, then headed to T&T, where Karen bought some groceries. We poked around downtown for a bit (regular stuff, with a side of window-shopping, but nobody was that interested), then headed back.

In the early evening, Jeff accompanied me to UBC for the conference registration and reception. Regular obligatory show-your-face stuff. Juice and soft drinks were free, but alcohol cost $3 each, and the finger-food were meh. Met up with a whole bunch of people, but ultimately just way too much forced pleasantries - usually better when people are slightly drunk, but I didn't want to pay for alcohol. Eventually JM (whom I'd met just once before, about 3 years ago), who had no problems with buying his drinks, and who'd had about 5 glasses of wine, suggested we blow the joint and go to his apartment, cook dinner, and have some drinks. Bored out of our skulls, we agreed, and it turned out to be quite the fantastic time.

JM had a weird assortment of food but between the three of us, we managed to whip up some sort of hybrid fried rice (with beans, cranberries, and tuna, among other odd ingredients) that was surprisingly good. He even had absinthe - and served it to us French-style (according to him), and taught us how to make a burnt martini (ice-cold gin + whatever single-malt scotch you have lying around that you don't like neat). Great stuff. He turned us out at 10, though, because he had to go get another conference delegate from the airport. We left him with only 2 beers, heh.

Friday
Crawled out of bed while it was still dark to catch the bus to UBC for conference day 1. Ok stuff. Met up with Karen later and hung out at her office, then we met up with Jeff and Andy, and went for Singapore-Malaysian food at Tropika with JM and Mark (who had spent some time doing research in Singapore and Indonesia, respectively). Such good food. The sambal was incredible.

Saturday
Crawled out of bed, etc; had my presentation after lunch on a Singapore panel that turned out to be surprisingly very good. I was impressed, and I think JM was very pleased with his organisational success.

That evening it rained so heavily there were rivers running down some of the roads, and some intersections were flooded (what is this? Saigon? Rangoon?). When I got back to Karen's, we decided to go for sushi nearby. While we were deliberating over the menu, a pipe in the restaurant wall burst, and we were flooded out. We decided to head for another sushi joint a couple blocks down the street, but halfway there started getting worried about the possibility of a flooding situation in Karen's house. Andy was sent to get take-out from the other sushi restaurant, but Jeff had forgotten to bring the keys, so we had to wait for Andy, who brought back the menu.

Karen's entrance hall had flooded.

Anyway, after the cleaning up, we had sushi delivered, and everybody snuck off to bed, exhausted.

Sunday
Headed out to Richmond for possibly the best dim sum I've ever had. Best char siew pau and the freshest egg tarts (I burnt my tongue on them!), and just incredible siew mai (topped with scallop!). Overdose of fresh, meaty prawns. mmmm. I don't remember the name of this place. [eta: Empire Seafood Restaurant, 7997 Westminster Hwy, Richmond]

Walked around Richmond, taking in all the HK-Chinese sights, malls, supermarkets. So classic.

We had dinner at Trattoria - once again, really good food, and surprisingly very affordable for such a chi-chi-looking place. Jeff and I were a little bit worried when we arrived, but most of the pasta mains were $11-$15. We had complimentary kobe meatball appetizers and really good foccacia to start with. Jeff and I shared the pasta platter, which gave us a portion of kobe-beef lasagne, spaghetti with kobe meatballs, penne pomodoro, and gnocchi pesto. Oh SO GOOD.

We rolled off to the airport after that, full and happy. We met up with Priya (UBC postdoc) and had a drink with her there (we were bringing some stuff back to Toronto for her), and then boarded the plane for our too-short red-eye back to Toronto. Too short because I was trying to get some sleep, but it was the briefest night ever - taking off at 11pm and arriving at 6.30am after 4 hours.

We had a really amazing time there, and love Vancouver a lot... except that it just rains way too much. I was getting SAD from all the grey. I'm also now down with the ickiest cold I caught somewhere there. But many, many thanks to Karen and Andy for their excellent hosting. :) It was good to see them again, and Jeff finally got to meet Andy. :) :)

A couple days ago I noticed that my razer deathadder was double-clicking about 50-60% of the time. Initially I ignored it as a minor problem, I was busy putting together my presentation for the CCSEAS conference I'm heading off to in Vancouver tomorrow morning.

But then things became problematic. Double-clicking isn't fun when you're in a hurry, and it does all these weird things you don't want it to; and it's not fun when deleting emails - first the one you've read, then the next one you haven't.

So after resetting and replugging it, I've passed it to Jeff to see how it's reacting with his computer. Meanwhile I'm using my old razer diamondback, which has another problem. See, a few years ago I cleaned this mouse with some rubbing alcohol (believe me when I say your mice and keyboards are some of the dirtiest places around). Well, the lovely black matte non-slip buttons disintegrated and now it's all sticky and gooey, and the only way I can bear to touch it is to place a piece of tissue over the thing with a hole torn out for the scroll-wheel.

Yeah, ghetto's my middle name.

I need to go raise an argument to somebody regarding the fact that ex-razer employees should have a lifetime supply of razer mice because we've all been spoilt. I can't go back to any other mouse.

ANYWAY. Jeff and I are off to Vancouver early tomorrow morning. I cannot wait, not because I'm really excited about presenting my paper at the conference, but because I'll get to see Karen and Andy, and other people like Elaine and Jia and all those crazy wet West-coasters.

And I've had a fantastic Thanksgiving (the Canadian version) this year. It's the first time Jeff and I have spent it together - Saturday with his family at Belleville - we picked apples and hung out with Grandma Henry; and Sunday with my crazy Canadian family Ernest and Amar and Jesus and Lyshia and all the other ex-Londonites (Ontario) right here in Toronto at their beautiful new house at Yonge and Eglinton. Ate too much, having stomach problems, hope I won't have to spend too much time in the plane toilet, etc.

I remember her fourth year urban geography course and our field trip to KL, class of '01-'02.

And I'll always remember her graciousness, her support and encouragement in Feb 2005 when I made my second application to YorkU to do my PhD. At a time in my life when my confidence and sense of self-worth were already shot and completely misplaced, the words of comfort and encouragement she had for me are still indelible in my mind. And I recall them often, as frequently as when my self-esteem dips and the struggles of the past resurface.

She was a wonderful professor and a great teacher.

RIP Prof Ooi. You made a difference in my life, and I'm so thankful to have been taught by you.

It suddenly got really (erm, relatively) cold, overnight. It was a real pleasure waking up in the middle of the night to find kitty laying right at my feet, and I took the opportunity to stick my toes under her fuzzy body. But suddenly we're back wearing socks, long trousers, and sweaters at home, and drinking tea and hot water in the mid-morning to ward off the chill again. Seems too fast.

On Monday we went to catch George A. Romero's Survival of the Dead, which was part of the Toronto International Film Festival. Another fantastic zombie offering from Romero, it's a re-imagining/alternative telling of the events in Diary of the Dead, which came out in 2007. It was good, respectably visceral, and much easier to watch than the latter (DotD having been shot in the shaky-cam-verse). One of the best things about seeing it at TIFF was that 3 of the main cast were sitting in the row right in front of us. :)

Brilliant.

Tonight we're attending the gala of Love and Other Impossible Pursuits, starring Natalie Portman. Hope it's good, and that we see her there. heh.

Right now, there's tons of work to do - school has really started again, which means lots of administrivia to deal with and various other things, but also, and more importantly, a renewing and redoubling of efforts to write. Other than that, there's a furry ball of kitty on the blanket next to me, and all's right in the world.

It's fall! Summer's ending, but many other things are starting. School's starting, my commute is worse than ever, I used two blankets last night. Fall sports leagues are starting, too. Softball starts today, and basketball (indoor) is starting in a couple of weeks. I've started salsa again, too, since Jana is here and I now have someone to go with. It's been pretty awesome getting my dance-feet back.


Morning glories, corner Mansfield & Clinton


My favourite intersection, Clinton & Gore


What we call "ship kitty" - look ma, no legs!


Ship kitty from front.

Not sure if many of you use Google Reader, but I keep finding more uses for it. One of the great discoveries I made a couple of weeks ago is ticTOCs, a journal Table-of-Contents service. I'd been having problems keeping up with and keeping track of the journals I should be reading (without paying memberships and for them to mail them to me every quarter), and this provides quite a handy solution.

Essentially it aggregates the titles and abstracts of your journals-of-interest and publishes them to your GReader when they're published so that you can scan them and pick up anything you find interesting. It's pretty brilliant.


ticTOCs journal selection page
Just search and save your journals of interest (oddly, I could not find Annals of the AAG - but they might get on it with time, I suppose), export them (to your computer), and then Import your subscription to GReader. Easy as pie to set up, journal updates forever.


Journal subs in GReader
Awesome stuff on the web that gets more powerful everyday. Love it.

The cat's getting more and more comfortable by the day. Last night we had a bbq party for the softball team and she handled the crowd pretty well, except that she was upset and sulky that we were all out on the back deck and she wasn't invited (we're not letting her outside, ever). Plus we had blocked off the kitchen window with cereal boxes to make it impossible to sit at the window, and to discourage her from jumping up (mainly safety issues, because I caught her walking on the stovetop a few days ago). So she eventually retreated to the white chair in the living room (now covered with her fur) and sulked in the dark all evening. When people tried to pat her, most were met with a snarl and a pointy paw.

She was quite ok earlier in the evening when a few people were over and we were still inside preparing food in the kitchen. Then she was quite happy lolling about on the floor, and accepting scritches and pats. The trouble only started when we got the bbq going and everyone was outside.

After everyone had left, and I was cleaning up in the kitchen she became hyper-kitty and spent some time racing in and out of the rooms, pretending to attack my feet, and then bouncing away to hide. Cute behaviour, but super noisy. She almost sounds like a human running about.

She also discovered yesterday that my workchair is an extremely desirable place to hang out.


She scared the crap out of me when she jumped up behind me. But then she slowly settled down and attempted to claim more space by trying to push my ass off the chair. She eventually fell asleep there.

Strange for a cat who doesn't really like to be touched.

Haven't posted about Neil Gaiman for a bit. Came across a post on his library last night, and I thought, yeah, that's where I'd like to spend the rest of my life.

link!, or complete set!

Good stuff, particularly if you're ever wondering, "hmm, what should I read next?"

Speaking of which, I've just finished Norwegian Wood.

In woods as dark as the depths of her own heart, she hanged herself. Once upon a time, you dragged me into the world of the dead, and now Naoko has dragged another part of me into that world. Sometimes I feel like a caretaker of a museum - a huge, empty museum where no one ever comes, and I'm watching over it for no one but myself.

- Norwegian Wood, Haruki Murakami, p.276

Now that summer's practically over. I swear, it was summer for only 1 week in August, when it got so hot... for about 3 nights. We've barely even used the fan.

Kitty's a lot more energetic now that she's used to us and the apartment, and in the cooler weather (we got her at the beginning of the hottest week of the year). Like us, she's got habits and routines, and it's been quite the thing getting used to each other.


Hmm, what's outside the window?
As you can see, she's still a little tubby, so we're still keeping a firm hand on the feeding. She associates food with everything. The problem with adult cats is they have all these learned behaviours from their previous owners, who gave them up for the right reasons, but imprinted all these weird habits.

Like I said - food. When we get home from a long day and give her the requisite rubs and cuddles, she heads straight for the food bowl within seconds. When we brush her (an average of twice a day), her body turns, and her head immediately points toward the food dish no matter which room we're in. When we get up, when we're in the kitchen, or in the bathroom (her dishes are just outside the bathroom door in the kitchen), she follows us, and makes a pit-stop at the food dish.

Even when it's empty. Then she turns around and gives us the most pitiful "you're starving me!!" mew. She couldn't be anymore obvious. When the bowl's empty, she mews to get our attention, walks over to sniff the bowl, sits down, and gazes at us with these mournful, hungry eyes.


now I've got you in my sights... with these hungry eyes.
LOL.

So we're training her to get used to having an empty food dish. Unless we're out all day, no more kibble grazing.

She's a strange cat, though. She likes to be near you, but doesn't want no stifling hugs and cuddles. She'll come and sit about a foot away, and sleep, or watch you, or look out the window. But if you come too close and touch her, or give her more pats and scritches than the threshold level (currently still pretty low), she'll get up, walk 2 feet away, and lay down again. It makes us feel a little bit hurt, all this taunting, like she's mocking us. But I guess that's just the way she is.

She follows us into any room we're even, even the bathroom (where she would guard the door). In the morning it's not uncommon to wake up to see her perched on the end of the bed, facing away, on her haunches, and I think, "gargoyle kitty", like she's watching out for bad dreams or something.

Currently our new problem is her discovery of the wonderful pigeon-and-squirrel-filled world outside the kitchen window. No picture yet, but she enjoys jumping up on the kitchen counter and squeezing her furry ass in between the coffee maker and the wall on the kitchen window to watch all the wildlife on the deck. She knocked a glass of water into the sink the other day, scaring the wits out of everybody, but she was back up there again in about 2 days. Silly cat.

So I'm just idly surfing the 'net and clicking on random articles. And we all know one of the major banes of the WWW is the amount of advertising that gets thrown at you from every which way.

Here's how MSN/bing is DOIN IT RONG.
( cut for large screen-shot )
You can't read an article when the ad, which has no X button on it, is blocking half the article.

I don't normally surf MSN or even use bing, and this just sealing the deal for me. WTF, really.

In happier stories, I recently installed Ubuntu 9.04 (Jaunty) on the Mays' grumpy home desktop (Sony brand, Winxp) following an episode with a trojan that half a day with Microsoft tech help could not fix. I was a little concerned about the new OS, because Roger's the only one who uses that computer (Gale has her own Macbook), and he's a little cautious about tech. Ubuntu installed like a dream, and barring some problems caused by a cranky update (which has since been fixed), it worked perfect right out. Even better, when I went back on Thursday, I found that Roger had been having a good time clicking around on his own and finding out more about the OS and how to use it. And he likes it.

Linux conversion win.