Author: scruss

urban critter

A big raccoon just walked along the back wall of our garden.

Yeah, I know, I really should stop being amazed by city wildlife. Maybe when I grow up.

Farewell, Mayor McCA

I hear that Hamilton’s beloved Mayor McCA is heading off to London (UK, that is) indefinitely. We’ll miss you, CA. Our loss is London’s gain.

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concrete Picaresque

I just scored a used copy of The Decemberists‘ Picaresque. And it’s not even due out for a couple of weeks.

You’ll like the photos. They’re very silly. Chris Funk looks good as a tree.

stewart speaks!

When: Thursday 10th March 2005, 6–7pm

Where: Bahen Centre BA 2179 (40 St George St., Toronto)

What: As part of the ESC/EWB Power Shift lecture series, I’m giving the following talk:

Stewart Russell currently works for Zephyr North, a wind energy consulting company. As an executive of Windshare, he contributed his years of experience in the Scottish wind industry to establishing the TREC wind turbine now installed at the CNE. His presentation will contrast the case of large, industrial wind farms with the technological solutions that are appropriate for developing countries. He will outline the special issues that arise when siting and designing modern wind farms in Ontario, and discuss the special challenges of creating simple, small wind turbines out of locally available materials.

Toronto Spring Bike Show

Oracle Cycleworks' beautiful and light Omega USS recumbent
above: Oracle Cycleworks‘ beautiful and light Omega USS recumbent. Image links to my mediocre photogallery.

I scooted around the Toronto International Bicycle Show last night. As usual, there were the usual huge amounts of offroad bikes, but there were a few surprises:

  • The standout for me was the Oracle Cycleworks Omega (available from triketrails). This light, USS recumbent was stunning, and designer Jack Sochacki was extremely proud of it. Their Jack Squat suspension looks like a more refined version of the HPVeloTechnik’s NoSquat system. The lack of chain guide rollers is a nice touch.
  • Urbane Cyclist had the Rans Fusion semirecumbent, and the extremely inexpensive Sun EZ Tadpole trike.
  • BionX had an electric-assist hub that looked like it would fit standard rear axle widths.
  • Backpeddling of Guelph had some beautiful custom cruisers from Firebikes, and the quite over-the-top Hello Kitty and John Deere cruisers from Nirve.
  • … and Raleigh have re-released the Chopper. They’ve removed the product-liability-on-a-stick gearshift, but let’s hope it retains its legendary speed and agility (cough!)

Lowriders were even more prevalent than last year. While they’re not the most practical of rides, they do have a certain panache that all those MTBs lack.

Aargh, couriers! %^$%&$!!!

What took two hours out of my life, involved my getting lost in a snow drift in the middle of nowhere, and is ultimately only the size of a postage stamp? This:
256 MB Memory Stick PRO Duo

When I registered my Cybershot, I got a $20 coupon for the SonyStyle store. The coupon was about to expire, and I noticed that I could get a spare Memory Stick for less than any of the stores. So I paid on the website, and expected the thing to turn up.

Wednesday evening I came home to a Purolator delivery note. Catherine was in the house when they tried to deliver, but the courier didn’t make enough effort to actually check. When I called them to reschedule, I was dealt with someone who knew exactly how much of a mess of my day they could make by being wilfully stupid and obtuse, and used this knowledge to its fullest.

So in the end, I trogged out to the depot. This is hardly in a central location; Silver Star Boulevard is remote. It didn’t help that the street sign was missing if you were heading north from Finch Avenue East, as I was. So I ended up half-stuck in a snowdrift just south of McNicoll, plaintively calling Catherine from my mobile for directions. Sidewalks run out just north of Finch on Midland, you see. Also, Purolator’s customer service line shuts down before their depots do, so you’re stuck if you call between 8–9pm.

When I finally got to the depot, there was a huge line. It took about 20 minutes to finally get my package. This was a pretty sizeable box; it could easily have held a good-sized telephone directory. In it was about ten of those air pillow packaging things, and my tiny Memory Stick. It was, of course, ensconsed in one of those ridiculous PVC blister packs that weigh at least 5× the product inside.

I’m regretting that I scarfed a Harvey’s indigestiburger at Union station before setting out. Silver Star Boulevard’s one saving attribute is that it’s right in the Agincourt Chinese Restaurant Zone. I’m sure I could have had all the food I’d have wanted for about 2/3 the price of the processed muck I had.

Next time I’ll check before ordering if a company plans to use Purolator. If they do — see ya later! It’s not worth wasting 2½ hours of my life on again.

approaching the sensible bicycle

scooterbike urban
Hub gears and brakes, almost full chain guard, mudguards, rack, lights; the Scooterbike Urban is almost perfectly sensible.

I do fear it might be rather expensive (it’s £1225 in the UK; meep!), and the company name could use some help: Used. I don’t think it translates well. While I suspect the designers were looking to reinforce utility, to me it sounds like it’s had a previous owner or two …

pencils, pencils, PENCILS!!

Man, I bought a lot of pencils this week. There’s nothing quite able to cure that tactile jones than writing with a blade-sharpened wooden pencil on good paper. Let me see:

  • 10 Canadiana Naturals bare wood pencils (which, with irony almost morissettian, are made in the USA).
  • 2 Canadiana red marking pencils
  • 2 Faber Castell 9000 pencils. These are almost worth the 5× premium over Canadianas, as they don’t have those semi-useless erasers on the end that destroy the pencil’s balance.
  • a Staedtler 0.9mm mechanical pencil (which I’m never going to use the Opinel on, never fear).

So all I need now is a couple of non-photo blues and a bible highlighter or two, and I am the king of pencils!

I’m reminded of the “world’s biggest pencils” that were the coolest things an 8-year-old could have in a Scottish primary school. Brought back from exotic holiday locations, they were enough to win playground approval for a few days by letting your friends have a shot. I always wanted one of these 40cm überpencils, but it didn’t happen then.

When I did get one, it was three years later, and the cachet was gone. To compound the disappointment, the pencil I got depicted the staid provincial crests of Belgium on a cream-of-chicken-soup–coloured background. To write with it was to be a hamfisted infant again; it looped and swayed against my will. Its lead was narrow and the wood was tough, resisting all sharpening. There was no “sharkener” (as sharpeners were pronounced in my primary school) that would point the thing. It was soon consigned to the back of the cupboard.

music nite!

We were at Hugh’s Room last Thursday to hear The Wailin’ Jennys. Support was Gregory Hoskins, who has the voice of Jeff Buckley, and the sensibilities of Tom Waits.

The Jennys were on fantastic form. Their lineup has recently changed, with Annabelle Chvostek. We’d seen her open for Evalyn Parry a while back.

Canadian music is a small world. Earlier in the week, I’d been told not to miss The Duhks, but I couldn’t make the show. Wouldn’t you know it, but WJ Ruth Moody was the lead singer of Scruj MacDuhk, the precursor of The Duhks.

first groundhog siting of the year!

8:48 this morning, on the south side of the tracks about half way between Appleby and Burlington, I saw a groundhog digging. Though it’s still a bit parky (something like -6 °C), it does seem that winter might finally be on its way out.

The sight of groundhogs always fills me with more joy than it should. I mean, the idea that a terrier-sized rodent can still live in decent numbers in an urban environment with having been hunted out of existence, amazes this Scot.

Still, there’s a lot of weather to go by before we hear these guys again …

The Passing of The Grammarian

Eleanor Gould died last week.

In subsequent years, friends at the magazine would visit or send gifts: books, flowers, a basket of cheeses and fruit. But after a while she found such attentions hard to bear. She missed the work that she could no longer do. To one correspondent she sent a beautiful letter, frank and kind, needlessly grateful, which ended with the sentence “Please forget about me.”