So apparently Kanye West did an interview with BBC recently where he said many things, among them that he was the one who came up with the idea of leather jogging pants. I didn’t even know leather jogging pants were a real thing but I did some looking and holy smokes, they are. If you look here, a pair will only set you back $3400 but it ships free though.
Kanye got super mad at Jimmy Kimmel for the above video though, which only made things even more weird.
There’s a clothing alterations shop right downstairs from where I live. For all you loyal readers, that shop is where I saw that half-naked girl earlier this summer. For a year now, this is the place where I’ve gone to get my pants hemmed. When I was working, I’d either go in on Saturdays or the two days a week that they were open past 6pm. Of course, when I had this summer off, I had lots of time to go get my pants hemmed.
I recently bought a pair of pants about two weeks ago. I was expecting to get it hemmed at this place. As this store is located right by where I enter my apartment building, I see the storefront a lot. Last week I noticed a change in their posted hours. They are no longer open on Saturdays, so they are now closed all weekend. They are no longer open late on any days and in fact, are closed at 5:30pm on weekdays. They don’t open until 10:30am everyday. Those hours don’t fit with my schedule at all. I’m gone for work well before 10:30am and getting back from work before 5:30pm is an impossibility. So effectively, this store doesn’t even exist for me. Everyday when I leave my building, the store is locked up and dark, and when I return it is the same way.
I’m not sure why they reduced their hours but I can’t see this as a good sign for business. For most working people, those hours just don’t fit their daily schedule. Does a store even exist when you never see it open?
I made a rack of lamb this evening. This is my third time making a rack of lamb. It was only when I realized my parents had given me three racks and all of them were still sitting in my freezer that I decided I needed to do something with them. I used a recipe that you can find here. For me, the most time-consuming step is the mincing of the garlic. I’m still really bad at chopping up all the individual cloves.
This is a very good recipe. It’s not that difficult to follow and the results are delicious!
For the last several weeks I’ve been thinking of enhancing my home security with a network-enabled camera. Some of you might remember that I set up a camera when I first moved into my apartment a few years ago. That was very much a ghetto set up. I used a $9 web cam that had the resolution of a toaster, which had to be connected to a PC, and used freeware software to drive the whole thing. It was also a pain in the ass to access the stream from outside my home network. In the intervening years, cloud-enabled network cameras made things much easier. Cameras no longer need to be connected to a PC, are now wireless, and can be accessed easily and quickly through a PC and even mobile devices.
I had my eye on this particular model for a while. It was cheap but had all the functions I wanted, including a night vision mode that allows the camera to see in the dark. It even allows you to see your camera stream from a smartphone or tablet. I ordered the thing from Staples when I received a $20 discount coupon via e-mail. I did the ordering online in the morning before work so I was a bit groggy still. As I was entering the shipping address, I put my home address instead of my work address, which would have been a lot easier. Obviously I’m not home in the daytime. I only realized what I had done after I hit the “submit” button to place my order. I didn’t think it would be a big deal since many of Canada Post deliveries just go next door to the post office if I’m not here. I just pick it up in the evening after work. I read through the shipping FAQ on the Staples web site and saw that they use a delivery service and not Canada Post. If you’re not there to take the delivery, they take the package back and try again two more times before they give up. Your order is then cancelled. Damn.
My only recourse was to leave a note addressed to the delivery guy that stated I was ok with him leaving the package at the door to my apartment. I’d then have to risk having my package sit there at my door for hours. I didn’t want my order to be cancelled so that’s what I did. I was hoping the delivery would happen later in the day, like around 5pm, so it wouldn’t have to sit there too long. No such luck. The delivery dude buzzed my phone at 11am and I let him into my building. He dropped off the package at my door while I was at work. All day at work I wondered if my camera was still going to be there when I got home.
I didn’t get home until 7pm and I was cautiously optimistic about my chances. The people who live on my floor are generally very nice people. Only three other apartments are on my side of the floor, so only they would see this box lying at my door step. One of those apartments has a couple that I’ve been friendly with in the past, so I didn’t think they’d take my stuff. There was a chance some random guy could walk by and take it but my building is secured and you can’t just walk into my building.
As I ran out of the elevator on my floor upon my return I held my breath as I turned the corner. I looked down and… there it was, a small box on my door step. My camera had sat there for almost eight hours and no one had taken it. Was it pure luck or that my neighbours are just good people. I like to think it’s the latter.
As many of you have read in my previous posts, I was fairly active during the summer and attributed that to part of my weight loss. With the end of summer and arrival of fall, I wanted to continue to be out and about, getting exercise. I also know that with the fall, the temperatures will drop and the rains will be coming in full force. In fact, this morning the rains were already heavy and monsoon-like.
To prepare for this I’ve been shopping around for weather-appropriate gear for my walks and short hikes. My plan was to get three items, all water-repellant: shoes, pants, and a jacket. The pants were the easier part. I picked up a pair of cycling pants from MEC. Yes, they’re for cycling but they look great, are easy to move in, and they’ll keep the elements out. With the shoes, I was having a hard time deciding between trail running shoes or light hiking shoes. Both are designed to be light and allow you to move quickly. I wound up going with a light hiking shoe. It didn’t feel too heavy on my feet and it’d keep the water out.
The last piece of the puzzle has been the most difficult. So far, I haven’t found a jacket I’m totally happy with. I’ve narrowed it down to a few North Face selections but I’ve yet to make a final decision. In the process of looking, I’ve discovered some simple looking rain shells can cost around $500. For that, I’d expect a jacket that you could wear all year and that makes french fries in the pockets.
The funny thing is, while I’m doing all this shopping, I can’t but help feel like I’m some sorta yuppie poseur, buying gear that won’t even see the summit of Kilimanjaro. Oh well, I think it’s a noble attempt on my part to stay active and outdoors during the fall and winter months. I can’t wait to wear these things to the mall!
It’s now late September and the long, hot days of summer are at an end. Indeed, this Sunday is the fall equinox. Here in Vancouver, summer is hanging on as we’ve had some surprisingly sunny and relatively warm days this week. No matter how good the weather though, the sun is starting to set earlier and earlier, the temperatures don’t quite get up to where they were before, and the nights are beginning to feel cooler.
In fact, the last couple of evenings, the wind picked up and there was a noticeable chill in my apartment. I’ve had my sliding patio door wide open since probably late May. It hasn’t been closed since. I thought about sliding it closed just a bit, not all the way, but I resisted. It was mostly out of stubbornness, as a refusal to accept this great summer was coming to an end. Soon winter will be upon us and once again I’ll try to go another cold season without turning on my heat. I wish I could say I was looking forward to it but visiting Hawaii would be a lot better.
While I am generally very pleased about where I live, the one very minor lament that I’ve had is that there seemed to be no businesses in the general vicinity that were open beyond midnight. I’m glad that the Safeway and the Shoppers is open until midnight, which is pretty good actually, but the nearest convenience store that is open 24 hours is several kilometers away. It would be awesome if there was a 7-11 nearby. During the “summer of me”, I was awake at all hours of the wee morning, sometimes wanting a snack or sorts but thinking there was nowhere close by to go.
Well, yesterday I was walking by the Tim Hortons below my apartment and I heard someone say it was open 24 hours. I thought they were wrong because I just assumed they closed at 11pm or something. Then I realized I’d never walked by that Tim Hortons anytime after 10pm. Maybe that person was right? So I walked in to the store and I asked an employee. They are open 24 hours a day and had been since day one apparently.
All summer here was this place that was open every hour of day, ready to serve me doughnuts, coffee, sandwiches, and sugary drinks, whenever I wanted, just an elevator ride away. Perhaps it was a good thing I didn’t know this during those four months.
It pleases me to know I can conveniently get a coffee and a Danish at 4am if I wanted to.
I’ve been at my new job exactly two weeks today. As you know, I’ve been really concerned about getting fat again now that I’m back to work. I haven’t weighed myself since I started work, partly because I was apprehensive about what the scale was going to show. Well, this evening I sucked it up and stepped on the scale. I was pleased to see the digital needed edged just over 156 pounds which was what I was around during my most active period of the summer. Granted, it has only been two weeks and I should wait a whole month before I feel some real satisfaction. I do believe I’m headed in the right direction though with my diet at work. In these two weeks, I’ve avoided any greasy breakfast items like an Egg McMuffin (even though a McDonald’s is along the way to work). For lunch, I’ve been careful to steer clear of major carbs. I did falter once when I got some fried rice for lunch one day at Noodle Box. It was definitely a moment of weakness but fried rice and stir fry noodles are so good though. For the most part though, I’ve been trying to keep my lunches low-fat and low-carb. I also don’t snack during the day as much as I used to at my last job. It definitely helps that there’s not that much free food in the studio. No more potato chip snack breaks at 4pm anymore.
I’m also trying my hardest to keep active. For this month, I’ve walked as much as I did in the whole month of June, when my weight really started coming off. If by November I’m still going good I’ll be really happy. Steady as she goes.
Just like it says in the title.
About a year ago I was at a book store when I decided to buy, 11/22//63, my very first Stephen King novel. I know he’s a very talented and prolific writer but the horror genre that he best known for isn’t my first choice when it comes to reading. Even amongst the many movies (both TV and film) that are based on his works, I’ve only seen It which I thought was fantastic.
I did some research though and I discovered 11/22/63 was different though. It was not a horror novel and it featured two subjects that I’ve been fascinated about since I was just a small child: time travel and the Kennedy assassination. I remember I was in elementary school when I first learned about how JFK died. One evening, there was some sorta TV special that came on focused on the conspiracy theories surrounding his death. Since I was a kid that knew nothing about 1960s, many details on that eventful day were revealed to me for the first time. It culminated in me seeing the Zapruder film, uncensored, for the first time in my entire life. This was way before the advent of the Internet so this was also the first time I saw a man’s head get blown apart. It just happened to be the President of the United States. The footage shocked me. The raw reality of such an important man being killed despite all the people surrounding him was hard to believe. From that day forward, everything around that historical day kept my attention.
I finally got around to reading this book this summer, around July and I only just finished it this weekend.
So in King’s novel, the premise is actually quite simple. The protagonist, one Jake Epping, goes back in time from 2011 to September 9, 1958 with the singular goal of stopping Oswald from killing Kennedy. King deals with the time travel concept in an interesting way. There is no time machine per se, no stainless steel car that is the time vehicle. Time travel is done via a portal and the way he describes it, it sounds very much like a wormhole. There are also rules for the portal which is explained by Jake’s friend Al Templeton. It is Al who initially discovers the portal in the back room of his diner. We are told the portal always goes back in time to the exact same second of September 9, 1958. Anyone returning from the past always comes back exactly two minutes after they left, no matter how much time they spend in the past. Changes done in the past are immediately reflected in the world once you return to the present. Any changes in the past are reset if you go back to 1958 once more. Those are pretty much the ground rules in the novel.
Al actually spends a considerable amount of time in the past. In fact, he is the one who comes up with the idea to save Kennedy, embarking on his own journey to kill Oswald. Unfortunately, he decides he needs to wait until 1963 to do the deed, thus necessitating living out five years in the past. He is prevented from doing so in the fourth because he develops lung cancer. After spending four years in the past, he decides to return to 2011 because he knows he’ll die before getting to Oswald. To Jake, Al is a healthy older gent one day and then the next, he looks years older and in terrible health. Al divulges everything he knows about the portal to Jake. He also gives him all his notes about Oswald that he had been compiling for the years he spent in the past. Al almost begs Jake to take over the task because no one else can. After a few short test trips to 1958, Jake agrees. Al then dies, leaving Jake with no one else to turn to about the portal.
Jake enters the portal for real this time, taking with him several thousand dollars in 1950s cash, Al’s notes on Oswald, and a few sports results (for betting purposes). Now it’s here that I knew this would not have worked if Jake was anything other than a white male in his 30s. There was still a considerable amount of racism and misogyny in the late 1950s, so the job would have been much, much tougher for let’s say a black man to blend into the world of the past. I tried to imagine myself in the late 1950s and I’d even have trouble getting a normal job, let alone stop Oswald.
Before Al died, he told Jake he had to be sure Oswald was the only gunman that day. For whatever reason, that meant Jake couldn’t kill Oswald right away in 1958 and he’d have to follow Oswald around, more or less, for five years. Now here’s where I would have done things completely different. I would have become a hermit almost, keeping to myself, and making minimal contact with people as possible, while trailing Oswald. Jake, instead, ingrained himself into a small Texas community, getting a job as a substitute teacher, making many friends, influencing students, and falling in love with another teacher. I would have done none of those things which could have endangered the mission. I thought King did a great job of describing the five years that Jake spent from 1958 to 1963. I got a good sense of what America was like back then, from the food to the music to the cultural norms of the day. At times, I thought I was reading a genuine history book rather than a piece of fiction.
At the end of the novel, I thought that King had written a brilliant piece of work but I was left with a considerable amount of sadness.
SPOILER ALERT (highlight to reveal)
In the end, Jake did accomplish what he wanted to do. He stopped Oswald from killing Kennedy and JFK lived to finish his term, even winning re-election. All of that, however, came at a great personal sacrifice for Jake. Before Oswald could be stopped, he killed Sadie Dunhill, who was the only woman Jake ever truly loved in his life. Before stopping Oswald, Jake was viciously beaten by mob thugs, who didn’t like how he came up big on some improbable sports bets (which he made to fund his mission). The beating cost him his spleen, broke his kneecap, his arm, some ribs, and caused a brain injury which led to some amnesia. After finishing his mission, he had to return to 2011, leaving all his friends behind in 1958. All of that, however, paled in comparison to what he found in the new 2011 where Kennedy had lived. Jake discovered that all the time traveling he and Al had done, coupled with all the changes to the past was causing the universe to rip itself apart. Unless, he wanted to watch the world destroy itself in a few years, Jake had to go back to 1958 to reset everything and then immediately come back to 2011. Everything he had done, the five years of living in the past, watching the love of his life die in his arms, and stopping Oswald was all for nothing. So that’s what he did. He went back to 1958, which undid everything, and though he was tempted to go meet Sadie again, he returned to 2011 almost immediately. In the end, Jake was left with being five years older, full of memories he couldn’t share with anyone, lingering physical problems, and an undying love for a woman he could not have. In the end, Jake couldn’t change the past, which is perhaps what King wanted us to think about after we got to the last page.
END SPOILERS
So I’d recommend 11/22/63 to anyone who’s previously enjoyed Stephen King’s works or anyone who has a passing fancy in time travel and/or JFK. The book is nearly 800 pages but don’t let that discourage you. It can go by quick. With the fiftieth anniversary of the assassination coming up this November, it’s worth a read.