Fun music meme

Okay – found this linked from Robot Johnny. Anyway – the idea is this. Find the top 100 songs from the year you graduated high school here. Highlight (bold) the ones you like, cross out the ones you dislike, underline your favourite and ignore the rest. Kind of silly but still looks like fun. Anyway – here are mine from 1987:

1. Walk Like An Egyptian, Bangles
2. Alone, Heart
3. Shake You Down, Gregory Abbott
4. I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me), Whitney Houston
5. Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now, Starship
6. C’est La Vie, Robbie Nevil
7. Here I Go Again, Whitesnake
8. The Way It Is, Bruce Hornsby and the Range
9. Shakedown, Bob Seger
10. Livin’ On A Prayer, Bon Jovi
11. La Bamba, Los Lobos
12. Everybody Have Fun Tonight, Wang Chung
13. Don’t Dream It’s Over, Crowded House
14. Always, Atlantic Starr
15. With Or Without You, U2
16. Looking For A New Love, Jody Watley
17. Head To Toe, Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam
18. I Think We’re Alone Now, Tiffany
19. Mony Mony, Billy Idol
20. At This Moment, Billy Vera and The Beaters
21. Lady In Red, Chris De Burgh
22. Didn’t We Almost Have It All, Whitney Houston
23. I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For, U2
24. I Want Your Sex, George Michael
25. Notorious, Duran Duran
26. Only In My Dreams, Debbie Gibson
27. (I’ve Had) The Time Of My Life, Bill Medley and Jennifer Warnes
28. The Next Time I Fall, Peter Cetera and Amy Grant
29. Lean On Me, Club Nouveau
30. Open Your Heart, Madonna
31. Lost In Emotion, Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam
32. (I Just) Died In Your Arms, Cutting Crew
33. Heart And Soul, T’pau
34. You Keep Me Hangin’ On, Kim Wilde
35. Keep Your Hands To Yourself, Georgia Satellites
36. I Knew You Were Waiting (For Me), Aretha Franklin and George Michael
37. Control, Janet Jackson
38. Somewhere Out There, Linda Ronstadt and James Ingram
39. U Got The Look, Prince
40. Land Of Confusion, Genesis
41. Jacob’s Ladder, Huey Lewis and The News
42. Who’s That Girl, Madonna
43. You Got It All, Jets
44. Touch Me (I Want Your Body), Samantha Fox
45. I Just Can’t Stop Loving You, Michael Jackson and Siedah Garrett
46. Causing A Commotion, Madonna
47. In Too Deep, Genesis
48. Let’s Wait Awhile, Janet Jackson
49. Hip To Be Square, Huey Lewis and the News
50. Will You Still Love Me?, Chicago
51. Little Lies, Fleetwood Mac
52. Luka, Suzanne Vega
53. I Heard A Rumour, Bananarama
54. Don’t Mean Nothing, Richard Marx
55. Songbird, Kenny G
56. Carrie, Europe
57. Don’t Disturb This Groove, System
58. La Isla Bonita, Madonna
59. Bad, Michael Jackson
60. Sign ‘O’ The Times, Prince
61. Change Of Heart, Cyndi Lauper
62. Come Go With Me, Expose
63. Can’t We Try, Dan Hill
64. To Be A Lover, Billy Idol
65. Mandolin Rain, Bruce Hornsby and the Range
66. Breakout, Swing Out Sister
67. Stand By Me, Ben E. King
68. Tonight, Tonight, Tonight, Genesis
69. Someday, Glass Tiger
70. When Smokey Sings, ABC
71. Casanova, Levert
72. Rhythm Is Gonna Get You, Gloria Estefan and the Miami Sound Machine
73. Rock Steady, Whispers
74. Wanted Dead Or Alive, Bon Jovi
75. Big Time, Peter Gabriel
76. The Finer Things, Steve Winwood
77. Let Me Be The One, Expose
78. Is This Love, Survivor
79. Diamonds, Herb Alpert
80. Point Of No Return, Expose
81. Big Love, Fleetwood Mac
82. Midnight Blue, Lou Gramm
83. Something So Strong, Crowded House
84. Heat Of The Night, Bryan Adams
85. Nothing’s Gonna Change My Love For You, Glenn Medeiros
86. Brilliant Disguise, Bruce Springsteen
87. Just To See Her, Smokey Robinson
88. Who Will You Run Too, Heart
89. Respect Yourself, Bruce Willis
90. Cross My Broken Heart, Jets
91. Victory, Kool and The Gang
92. Don’t Get Me Wrong, Pretenders
93. Doing It All For My Baby, Huey Lewis and The News
94. Right On Track, Breakfast Club
95. Ballerina Girl, Lionel Richie
96. Meet Me Half Way, Kenny Loggins
97. I’ve Been In Love Before, Cutting Crew
98. (You Gotta) Fight For Your Right To Party, Beastie Boys
99. Funkytown, Pseudo Echo
100. Love You Down, Ready For The World

What’re yours?

Did I just black out?

So this morning I was definitely running more slowly than usual. The alarm clock went off at 5:30 but it felt as if it were 3:30. Outside it was rainy and windy. Inside it felt as if I were slogging through pea soup. Everything took ten times longer to do than it should have, everything took ten times more thought to figure out. Finally, half an hour later than I intended I headed out the door and into the wind and rain.

The cold rain didn’t do anything to wake me. It seemed to be impossibly difficult to figure out how to balance my mp3 player, my backpack and my wet umbrella in a way that I could stand. Finally, about 5 minutes in, relief was in sight. My favourite Tim Horton’s which is inside an Esso station (For you Americans, yes, we still have Esso here and as far as I can tell, no Exxon – maybe the name change didn’t happen). As I got off the bus, a sign caught my eye. Regular: 119.6, Mid: 125.6, Super: 130.9. It took a second glance for it to really register. Those were the gas prices – almost $1.20 per litre (just over 1/4 of a gallon). At that point, my addled brain cramped for a moment. Was it possible that I had somehow been on autopilot for a year or so and just blacked out? Was it now 2006 after a 2005 filled with incremental gas price increases. It was then that I remembered about Hurricane Katrina and that an impact on gas prices was expected – I just thought yesterday’s price of $1.039 was the impact! I’ve talked about this before so I won’t labour the point. I am really somewhat glad to see the price going up. Today at work I heard people who a few weeks ago thought it was charming that I rode the bus but wouldn’t dream of doing it themselves, were considering taking the bus to work. That said, I do feel for the folks who live places where there are no alternatives. Hopefully there are some other alternatives soon. Actually – that’s not entirely true – there are a couple alternatives that people who need to drive might want to consider. The first is to get a diesel car and run on recycled vegetable oil. It takes a bit of effort but friends of ours have done it and have driven all around the US on it. It can be a little bit of a pain in the winter since you’ll need a block heater to enable your car to run but it can be done. The other is the Aircar. This car runs on compressed air. The technology is intriguing – expanding compressed air powers the engine instead of exploding gasoline. The end result is that if you use cleanly generated electricity you have a zero emissions vehicle. Someone at work said he heard on the radio that they were going on sale for $10,000 and that they can go 100 km on the highway or 200 km in town without a recharge. Very exciting stuff.

I’ve been reading a bit about what has been going on in New Orleans and Mississippi. On the one hand I am very sad for those affected. That is a horrible thing for the people there to go through. It is a horrible thing for others to have to come back to. On the other hand – disasters like this really need to be heeded as warnings. New Orleans shouldn’t be rebuilt. People aren’t supposed to be living well below sea level next to the ocean. This is particularly true with climate change raising sea levels and increasing severity and frequency of hurricanes. There will be big insurance payouts for this. I hope everyone uses theirs to pick up and move inland. use the FEMA money not to rebuild but to clean up and pack up. The same could be said for much of Florida. I understand that many people couldn’t afford to leave and that that’s why they stayed where they are. But now, everything is gone. In my opinion they can’t afford to stay. My sympathies will be much diminished to hear the same people complaining of their losses when the next big one hits them in another five years. I really don’t mean to sound callous but to me it is so much like a person who repeatedly goes back to their abusive spouse hoping that “this time it will be different.” Guess what – Butch will always beat you and hurricanes will always batter the Gulf Coast. Move on no matter how sweet it can sometimes be.

My apologies

I seem to have fallen into my book. Between reading that, working, and hanging out with houseguests I’m short on time to write. Okay – I admit it, I’m also a bit short on inspiration tonight too. Seems like today just flew by without much of anything of note happening. I’ll start back up with the Back to Basics entry transfer soon, also.

This trip brought to you by Karma

This trip downtown, on which I am writing this entry, is brought to you by Karma who has befouled the backpack I carry my laptop so as to make it unpleasant to wear. Of course it wasn’t until I was on my way to work that I noticed it so I had to unload it and stuff it in my desk so as to not bother other workers. Hopefully it really was enough to put it in the drawer rather than my getting used to it. Of course nobody spent much time near my desk so it could be that the drawer was not enough.

Here’s a picture, though, of the times we live in. I figure that someone may find a use for this pack either through a dilligent washing or a nose that didn’t work and I tried for a bit to think of a way to leave it for someone else to use. The first idea I came up with – leaving it next to the trash at the corner of Yonge and Bloor seemed like a sensible idea at first. And then I began to imagine the fallout – the whole intersection and TTC hub shut down while the bomb squad comes to figure out what was in my backpack – possibly suspecting chemical weapons were involved given the foul stench emanating from it. And while that story would make for good blog fodder I know I can’t do that. Heck, I can’t even stuff it in the trash for the very same reason. Yes, somehow, backpacks have become synonymous with bombs in the way that shopping bags, recycle bins, and young coconut shells for that matter are not.

Yesterday afternoon Badger, Bea, and I went out to the Bana Y’Africa festival and had quite a good time. It was a small festival in an urban park near King and John (that’s about two blocks south of MuchMusic, Andrea). There was good music (two Juno award winners showed up), good food, and a surprisingly small turnout. At its peak there were maybe 300-500 people there. Bea of the “Canadians are nice but seem to have sticks up their butts” fame (give her a break – last time she saw Toronto was about 30 years ago and I’m told that it was very different then) pointed out something really funny. After a performance by a really great band all decked out in what appeared to be Zulu warrior garb she pointed out the stereotypical Canadian reserve – nobody was dancing. Toes were tapping, the occasional person was bouncing but nobody was really dancing. Bea and Badger both remarked that if that same performance had been in St. Louis there wouldn’t have been one person sitting still.

Another funny moment came when we were all sitting eating dinner from a Carribean food stand and watching some dance performers. A woman with green, yellow, and red hair wrap and skirt came by to hand out some promotional material for a local reggae band. When she saw Bea and Badger rolling cigarettes (loose tobacco is much cheaper than rolled cigarettes) she said “I thought you were doing something else! I was going to ask if I could join you!” Badger and Bea made “I wish” noises and were reassured by the woman that soon it would be legal here. And like Sage, I think that in most cases it really is legal in a “just don’t flaunt it” sort of way. And as there were cops about 15 feet behind us watching the gate at the Beer Garden I think doing it there would have constituted “flaunting it”.

Being there made me a bit introspective about Toronto, diversity and relations between people of different races, colours, and religions. I realize that Sage and I talk alot about the harmony that is here and make it sound as if we’ve moved to Shangri-la but really, we both realize that there are problems, and there are still bigots, there is still discrimination and you can still find hate crimes being committed here. That said, I got a real insight into what makes this city so pleasant for me. The difference between here and any other place I live is that I am surrounded by so many people with a common vision for the future. So many people imagining harmony between people of diverse backgrounds, a vision of a greener world with sustainable development a priority, so many people with a vision of equality between all people. So many people here not only want these things but actually believe they’re possible and are working towards making them a reality. And we have had enough successes along the way to encourage us to keep on doing what we’re doing.

This will end up being a short entry – partly because I’m almost to the subway now, and partly because I want to read “The Twentieth Century” by Howard Zinn a bit more. I started it a couple days ago and am totally hooked. I think the biggest thing I am taking away from it is that all the things that I am blaming the Bush administration for are not invented by them but have been going on almost since the founding of the US itself. The lead-up and execution of the Spanish-American war sounds so much like 9/11 and Iraq as does the lead in to World War One. So much deception and creepiness. The question I am left with, though, is where does the deception end. Are all senators corrupt and know about the deception or are there a core few people leading the whole country through deception? Where does it change from deception to ignorance?

Time to end this – we’re about to pull in the station.

Postscript – I couldn’t stand it – I had to get rid of the pack as soon as I had a replacement and wrapped it in the plastic bag my new one came in before tossing it in the trash. It doesn’t appear to have caused any trouble (fortunately!)

The goofy guy waving at the camera…

As you know, Kite, Badger, and Bea are all visiting. We’re all getting much better at this visiting thing in my opinion. Some of Kite’s first visits were difficult for all of us – tension filled to say the least and often ending in tears and requests to leave or similar. Fast forward ten years to today and the experience is a totally different one. Visits are filled with laughter and good cheer these days and we all look forward to them and are pleased to see that each time they get beter. So far by all opinions, this latest visit is one of the best yet. Partly I think we’re all figuring out our roles and routines. Sage and Paul hang out with the family while I often putter around in the kitchen making one exotic meal or another. When I’m not cooking, Sage and I have been playing tons of backgammon while Kite and Paul hang out. On this trip, Paul has been very much in a lego mood to the exclusion even of computer time. This is a significant change since previously as 8:30 approached he would be watching the clock and maintaining a countdown. Now it is us that make sure he doesn’t want his computer time (we don’t want it to occur too late in the evening and get him wired at bedtime). Most times he has said that he wants to skip the time since he is in the middle of one lego project or another.

One of our routines when Kite visits is that Sage and I get to have a day out as grownups in Toronto. Today was that day and so about 1;00 this afternoon we walked out the door and out into the world. Okay that isn’t entirely true. We walked out the door and were met by a snarling pug dog in the hall that made so much noise that Kite had to stick her head out the door to make sure that we weren’t being eaten. Then we went out. Our plan was to go out to have a coffee, then head over to Spadina and College to get blank DVDs and then maybe have some dinner. My plan was to try out Merchants of Green Coffee since it came recommended by one of my clients. Finding the place, though, was a challenge and the neighbourhood sucked the life out of us. It was all paved, very hot, and dismal. We finally came across the store only to find that they didn’t seem to have any brewed coffee but instead had a bunch of wonderful-looking coffees to choose from and other hardware for roasting and brewing your own coffee. We left, being more in the mood for coffee and dessert than that. I do have to make an observation, though. I don’t know if it is intentional but it seems as if the store might be more trendy because it is in a post-industrial dystopian part of Toronto. It certainly gave me the feeling that I was in on some secret – just walk around the corner – past the building with the broken windows, past the guy doing crack and into the run-down warehouse and voila! You’re in yuppie coffee heaven!

We left there empty-handed and headed back to the streetcar and took it further down resolving to stop at the next coffee place that looked good. We ended up at a Tim Horton’s near Yonge and King where we got donuts, danish, and coffees and then sat outside on King street chatting and watching the city go by. That part of town is one of my favourites – it is really the only part of town that feels like a stereotypical vertical city – despite it being hot and sunny elsewhere in the city we were in perpetual shade due to our being surrounded by tall buildings. Wanting to take a bit more of this feel in, Sage and I headed over to a courtyard near a big office building where we took out our travel backgammon and got right back into our routine – playing backgammon and listening (okay – in this case singing) songs by the George W. Bush Singers. After a couple of games (we each won one as I recall), we headed over to get our DVDs.

We ended up at Crispy Roll (one of Sage’s favourite sushi places) before deciding to go see a movie. As we walked to the theatre, we walked past someone from CityTV setting up a camera and spotlight on Queen Street. As we had a few extra minutes before the movie we ended up having espresso at Starbucks. I may never have it there again – it tasted terribly burned and was hugely disappointed. The folks at Bulldog Coffee and Cafe Latte (on Yonge north of Eglinton) have totally spoiled me for espresso. (Cafe Latte by the way, has me totally addicted to affogatto – imagine a scoop of vanilla gelato floating in a double espresso. Totally delicious)

While we headed over planning to see Broken Flowers we ended up seeing The Brothers Grimm. I’ve always loved Terry Gilliam’s work and this was no exception. Very dark (think Tim Burton Dark), very surreal, and all in all quite wonderfully done. After the movie I was captured, as I always am by the lights of the Toronto highrises just outside the neon-trimmed windows of the theatre. People will always be able to tell that I grew up in the country – in so many ways I can be such a hick.

As we walked back to the subway we noticed a crowd was just dispersing at MuchMusic. We tried to see who was there but there were no signs of who was there (Mary Kate and Ashley are due soon but I don’t think that was them). I’m going to bet, though, that Andrea knows who it was. One of these days I have to just call her from outside the station and ask her to tell me who is on TV – and not to pay any attention to that goofy guy in the glasses on the cell phone waving to the camera behind them.

After that we headed home to find an empty apartment. Everyone else was out in our front yard enjoying the evening. Sage went down and got them and then we all sat around eating veggie burgers and poutine from Burger King (I know the gravy isn’t veg) and looked at Paul’s latest creation. He and Kite made a wind up lego robot that stirs your drink. He was quite pleased with himself. Who can blame him.

I can hardly believe that my vacation is effectively over. Sure I have two more days left but it isn’t the same – it’s now just a regular weekend. I really should have taken 2-3 weeks off instead of the one I requested originally. Maybe I’ll take an extra day or two over the labour day holiday.

Back to Basics (Without a Gun) – November 2000 Entries up

I just put up the November 2000 entries. It is odd to think as I read them that as settled in to the yurt life as we are we will be there for only about 3-4 more months. I had no idea that we were going to be leaving soon. Amazing how quickly our plans can change.

I’m half asleep now and so I think I’ll go change into my sleeping clothes, be the tooth fairy (Paul lost his first tooth today and though he knows that the tooth fairy isn’t real he wants to play the game) and then head off to bed. Entries can be found here.

Is it just a matter of perspective?

Okay – bear with me a moment. I’m going to suggest something rather crazy.

Humans are not the first creatures to significantly change the environment. Microbes have been doing it for millions of years. Many bacteria removed carbon from the atmosphere to make carbonate thus significantly cooling a greenhouse effect that was happening at the time. Others have been pulling nitrogen from the atmosphere and bringing it into the ground making plants like beans very happy. Others removed carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and gave off what could have been viewed as a waste product (pollutant?) by many living creatures – oxygen.

So could it be possible that human beings in our stupidity be doing something a little less horrible than previously thought? Could our changing the climate of the earth be a bad thing for life as we know it today but make way for some new and different form of life that couldn’t exist today?

Not that I think it is a good thing or anything. Just wondering.

Care to vote?

Okay – so as I mentioned earlier, I put together a new theme (or rather something of a remix) for Sage’s podcast (hopefully she doesn’t mind my spoiling her surprise). Anyway – I just was playing with it a bit more and I came up with a second, version with a different drum voice that may just be a bit too much of a blast back to the 80’s for what we’re trying to do. Anyway – here are the two versions – any preferences? Should we just keep the old theme and use this one for my (sadly too few and far between) podcasts?

Original Recipe
Now with parachute pants and vans

If everyone else is doing it…

I remember when I was about ten years old I came home from school to find my mother in tears and beside herself. I asked her what was wrong and she told me that my parents marriage was over and that they were getting a divorce. I asked her why and she told me that her friend Doreen was getting a divorce and that they had a really great marriage and therefore if they’re getting a divorce with their great marriage than her own marriage was doomed. Now what I found out later was that she was quite drunk (I couldn’t tell at that age) and it was about ten more years before my parents would end up divorced (at least five years too late, in my opinion).

To a lesser extent, though, I’ve had the same sort of thing happen. No, I’m not concerned about our marriage in the least. This past summer, though, the parents of Paul’s best friends have decided to send their kids back to school. And though I was far from drunk (maybe a little insufficiently caffeinated) I started to question our own homeschooling decision (or at least our methods) for the mere fact that other people whom I respect have decided to put their kids in school.

Fortunately, though, thinking it through gave me new strength. I realize that the only thing that I am concerned about with Paul’s education is not the fact that he might not be getting what he needs to be a successful adult – I know that when he is ready to go to university he’ll have all he needs. I’ve read enough accounts by university admissions officers even from Ivy league universities that homeschooled and even unschooled kids are often better prepared for university than other kids My only concerns stem from imagined difficulties in adjusting to school should we decide in the next few years to send him to school. And of course this isn’t going to happen.

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Yesterday was Paul’s seventh birthday – it seems impossible that seven years have passed since he was born. That said, I definitely feel like I am finally getting a handle on parenting. I guess that means that in my case I needed a PhD in parenting – or at least nearly 8 years of equivalent experience – to feel like I sort of know what I’m doing.

Sage was more excited for his birthday than anyone. She was up at 3:00 AM excited for the day to start. Fortunately she was able to get back to sleep until about 6:00 before she could no longer sleep. I woke up a few minutes later and together we planned Paul’s treasure hunt for his first couple of gifts. All told it took about an hour of Paul’s searching to find his gift. It started with a robotic voice calling (our cell phone service allows us to send a text message to a voice phone and it says what we send using text to speech technology). The voice told Paul to go play his Harry Potter game on the computer. However, the shortcut for the game had been changed and now gave him a math problem. He had to take the stairs to the floor that was the answer of the math problem. At that floor a second clue directed him to take a different stairwell another eight stories back up. We arrived at that floor huffing and puffing and found a clue that led us to the nearby basketball courts. Paul asked if we could take the elevator – we were all tired after the eight stories of stairs and the idea of walking down several hundred stairs was daunting. Fortunately it didn’t matter and so we headed over to the basketball courts where he found his next clue which directed him down a disused stairwell on the grounds of our apartment complex. There he found a clue that led him back inside where he found about five more clues that led him to his gifts.

After that it was almost time to get started on the preparations for the party and I headed out to pick up the cupcakes while Sage and everyone else worked on the preparations here and at the park. By the time I got back from getting the cupcakes (and a quick sushi lunch) it was time to head over to the party and I met everyone there. We spread a number of blankets out on the ground under a big maple tree and spent the next 10-15 minutes hanging balloons in the surrounding tree branches. While we did that, Kite was nearby with a large bubble wand blowing bubbles. Before long she had attracted a number of the neighbourhood kids who spent quite some time making bubbles while we celebrated.

The party itself was a success – Sage, Paul, and I had created smaller versions of the treasure hunt for all of the kids who came by (the prizes were “coupons” for their loot bags) and after that we all had cupcakes and ice cream. Though my gut told me not to have ice cream I figured that despite my light lunch a cupcake wouldn’t hurt. Sadly I was wrong as within about 1/2 hour I was having a visual aura and the beginnings of a migraine. Fortunately the headache didn’t arrive during the party. In fact, it waited until after we went home and I made and ate dinner before coming on strong enough to make me go to bed by about 8:30.

Dinner, though, was extremely good and I’ll pass on a few simple recipes while I’m here. We made our usual refried beans, calabacitas and red chile. All of it was very simple and except for the red chile, ingredients should be available just about everywhere.

For the refried beans, cook 2 cups of dried beans (we use black or pinto depending on mood) and drain. Meanwhile, fry one onion, one pepper, and garlic (recipe says 2 cloves, I use about 5-8). When everything is soft, add 1 tsp salt, 1 tsp pepper, 1 tsp coriander powder, 1 tbsp cumin, and 1/2 tsp each of oregano, basil, and dill. Fry for a minute or so and then mash in the cooked beans and 1/2 stick of butter (or 1/4 cup of olive oil). Simmer for 20 minutes to blend flavours or if you’re impatient just eat right away.

For the calabacitas, shred one summer squash or zucchini and fry that until just soft. Add a spoonful of the pepper/onion spice mixture from above (easy to do if you time it right) and mix that in. Fry for a minute or two and then add the juice of one lime. Serve in the burrito with the beans or as a side dish.

To make the chile, take 10-12 dried New Mexico red chiles and add them to a pan with 3 cups of water. Bring to a boil and simmer for ten minutes. Meanwhile, fry one small onion and 4-6 cloves of garlic until they’re soft. When the onions/garlic are soft and the chiles have simmered for 10 minutes, add everything including the water to a blender and puree. Serve over burritos or use for enchilada sauce. As a variation (what I tried last night), also add 2-3 chipotle chiles to the water.

Today I’m considering going geocaching and though Paul said he was interested in going we might have to cancel. Lately he’s been on the lego train so to speak and if allowed to exercise his preference (and why not?) will probably spend his day working on legos.

Back To Basics (Without a Gun) – October 2000 Entries Up

Quick note as dinner plans need to be figured out. Anyway – the October 2000 entries are up. You can see them here if you’re interested.