crows to burnaby

So we kind of meant to go to the Parade of Lost Souls on Saturday night, but our group headed over a bit late and didn't really know where it started or ended. We hovered in the Commercial Drive area near Grandview Park and saw the occasional elaborate dragon, but they seemed to be isolated incidents rather than the actual parade. But we had a great time, gawking at the costumes and being gawked at in return.

Greg in particular was a celebrity. He'd done a fine job as the main character, V, in V for Vendetta. We expected to see other Vs on the street, but didn't run into any, and so Greg was extremely popular, with lots of people stopping him and asking to take his picture. At one point he had a crowd formed around him, taking turns taking pictures with him, flashbulbs going off like paparazzi. It was dizzying. (He told us afterwards that he had had a cookie in his mouth the whole time, but because it was under the mask no one could tell - but he couldn't take a moment to remove the cookie or finish eating it.)

I decided to take advantage of my newly-recharged bright red hair, and went as a red fox. I made a tail and ears, which for me is pretty impressive as I'm not exactly famous for my crafting & sewing ability. I wouldn't look too closely at the seamwork, but, well, there you go. I don't have it on in this picture, but I also had a cardigan in the same colour, upon which I pinned on some white fake fur so that it looked more foxlike. It's a challenge to come up with a Halloween costume that keeps you warm outside but doesn't look all bloated and puffy, and I was pretty pleased with this one.

Hopefully the people dressed as bunnies and mice weren't too disturbed by my stalking and hunting them. But hey, it's instinct, what could I do?

• It's bad enough that most Vancouverites don't bother wearing bicycle helmets. But riding your bike without touching the handlebars, sitting back, with no helmet on and earbuds plugging your ears - that just seems like a flat-out death wish.
• When you email my freelance business site asking me if you can join my "company's team", it makes it fairly obvious that you haven't really read over my site and don't really know what you're applying to. So I'm probably not going to hire you. Even if I could have employees.
• Some part of my brain just tried to Google my purse to make it easier to find my lip balm.
• We can tell that dogs dream. What I want to know is, are their dreams as surreal to us as ours are to them? And do they forget them instantly upon awakening, or do they wonder where that giant neon cat disappeared to?

Okay, this may just mean there's something really wrong with me.

But I know what I want to do at Christmas this year.

*hops excitedly from foot to foot*

Hey, I can't help it, I've been a fan of this since I was, what, twelve?

After my last show, I had a few comments from people who missed it wondering if I had a mailing list. Which I didn't, having just sent out a few haphazard messages to people who I thought were interested, but not wanting to spam people who might not be.

At any rate, I threw one together this evening and if you'd like to get announcements by email on when I'm next performing and what I'm up to musically, you can sign up over at Treehorse.ca.

• I had a great time playing at Wired Monk last night. It's a very warm and welcoming room, lots of people, bunch of great friends there, and I felt very much at home. Brought out a brand-new song that was well received - well, not like most people really know my old songs yet, but the new one was completely unheard. I should be playing there again sometime in November; will keep you posted.
• The new ARCTIC CD is now available on CD Baby and Apple iTunes, which makes it seem even more official and stuff. Although if you're lookin' to buy it cheap, the mp3 prices are still lower on Amie Street for now - and you can hear the whole song, not just a 30-second clip from some random spot in the middle. I do wish we could pick the best 30 seconds...
• I am so diggin' the new Radiohead album. It took few listens to really get a feel for it - it's fairly mellow and mature, not as earthshatteringly groundbreaking as OK Computer and Kid A, just damn fine music. Nigel Godrich's production is pretty obvious - I have to say I think he borrowed a few things from his work with Beck, but that was good too, so I'm not really complaining. It's all lovely and it's all getting stuck in my head all the time (except "Videotape"... I can't get into that one). Looking forward to getting MORE when the Discbox set comes out.

Yay!

Yesterday in the grocery store I found myself contemplating a bottle of blueberry juice on the shelf, and became suddenly aware that the song playing in the background was "Blueberry Hill".

I started paying more attention, and also heard Harry Connick Jr's "Recipe for Making Love" and "Linger" by The Cranberries.

Can it really be a coincidence that there's something food-oriented about all of these songs? How much more subliminal can we get?

I'm not quite sure how to explain Sting's "Desert Rose", unless it's supposed to make you think about dessert.

I've chosen between a variety of possibilities recently. Here are some of them.

• Telus vs. Rogers: My trusty little Samsung phone finally cracked and started to have issues. It held in long enough to get me through my contract with Telus. After much contemplation, I ended up signing for a 1-year contract with them again. Earlier on I was really leaning towards getting on Rogers so I could have an unlocked phone and be on the right network when the iPhone finally is supported up here. But once I did the research, I really didn't feel like paying $400+ for an unlocked and unsupported phone just so that I can make my own ringtones. It's the principle of the thing, yeah, but when it comes right down to it, there are more important things in life.

  And the iPhone - well, who knows when it's actually coming out. Recent rumours - which are being heartily mocked - had it first appearing in October at Holt Renfew for $799 - twice the selling price in the US. However unlikely this seems, it does serve to remind how painfully overpriced Canadian wireless is compared to the States. I guess I'd be waiting a while to see what the prices would be like and how the competition would handle the arrival of the iPhone, even if it were available within the next few months. But in a year, I can always bail from Telus if it's worth it.

• Firefox vs. Opera: Firefox has been pissing me off to no end, even worse than when I fumed about it a few months ago. Problems that recur on a daily, nay, hourly basis include but are not limited to:

  - The apostrophe key, typed into a field on the page, opens up Quick Search
  - Doing a "select all" in the address bar will only select all the text on the page, not the address
  - If I type an address into the address bar and hit enter, nothing happens
  - I can't use the Copy function on any text
  - A window gets "stuck" on my second monitor and can't be moved, then all other windows lock into place somewhere I don't want them
  - I can no longer page up or down using the tab or arrow keys
  - It stops reading stylesheets, then I can't QUIT the program and have to force quit

  These are ridiculously sloppy, amateurish user interface bugs that should NOT be making their way into a released product. It doesn't happen much on my work laptop, but a little searching shows that these problems happen for others as well. No, upgrading hasn't worked - every time a new upgrade is released I think "maybe this time!" but there's no improvement.

  So I finally remembered Opera and am giving it a try, and I am really, truly impressed. It's very well designed, very intuitive, and they seem to have thought of everything. The downsides are:

  - it's noticeably slower than Firefox
  - it has trouble with Yahoo Mail Beta, though it tries pretty hard
  - it crashed today when using Myspace and lost all its bookmarks, which displeased me greatly and now I'm a little nervous about that happening again.

  But it's such a relief to, you know, be able to actually browse that I think I'll stick with it for now.

• Toast vs. English muffin: The texture of the English muffin is far superior to that of this particular kind of bread. But what is with the flour coating on the muffin? It makes your mouth dry and pasty and unpleasant.

Turns out the Wired Monk is closed Monday for Thanksgiving. Whoops. So I've been moved to Monday, October 15th. I believe I'm on at 8:30 and will post if it's otherwise...

Today I made my first joke about how something was cheaper "because it's in AMERICAN dollars".

Now, with the current Canadian dollar worth $1.00248 US, it's not really a noticeable difference. But it's such a strange thing psychologically. For most of my life I've taken it for granted that the US dollar is worth more than the Canadian dollar. Living in Newfoundland, we were always hesitant to order much from the States, because if the nasty exchange rate didn't get you, the shipping and duty probably would. Living in the States, I'd feel like a big spender when I visited Canada. Saying "...and that's in US dollars" was a simple way of emphasizing how expensive something was. Even though we've all seen this coming for a long time, it's so ingrained to think of the American dollar as worth more than it's hard to fathom the opposite.

As a few people have pointed out, just because the dollar is equivalent doesn't mean that cross-border pricing has become fair. How long before they stop printing separate US and Canadian prices on book covers, for example? If you're adding a lot to your library, it's got to be cheaper to hit the Barnes & Noble across the border than to buy books in Canada (and save on gas by tanking up while you're over there, too).

I've seen a whole lot of references to how this is actually going to damage the Canadian economy since many Canadian companies depend on appearing cheaper to American markets, but I haven't read them too closely yet. I can't control it, and whatever happens will happen.

Now, I wish we could catch up with the British pound so that that Radiohead CD & vinyl set would be cheaper... *grumble*