The Coming Appocalypse

It's a dreary day outside, but I'm enjoying my Friday nonetheless. It's been a productive day so far, and I'm currently taking a break to sip some coffee and see what the new records of the week are. Out of the corner of my eye, I see my iPod light up; it is the siren song of someone playing a word in Words With Friends, one of my favourite little time wasters. I got the iPod free when I bought my MacBook last summer, and it's been a great device. Super sleek and trim, it slips into a pocket with ease, and provides musical accompaniment wherever I go. The functionality doesn't stop there though; ever since I got it, the various apps have hooked me. Sure the App Store is full of a lot of junk, but there are also a lot of quality programs on there-- and a lot of the time, they are free. Let's take a look at some of my favourites!

My January Playlist: Summer in Winter Edition

Is it summer yet? I'll even settle for spring right about now. I've been getting through the winter doldrums with a playlist of summeresque tracks that are all about sun and fun. It's time again to treat your ears to my custom monthly mixtape, so join me! Download the playlist HERE.

And as always, a description of what's going on here:

Straddling the Line of Normalcy

If you're a regular reader of my blog, you've probably come to know me fairly well. You know that my life is a relatively average one that doesn't differ too drastic from other peoples' my age. As I write this, I'm simultaneously enjoying/mourning the last Pez from my Incredible Hulk dispenser, listening to Ben Folds Five's classic debut record, coaching someone through a wireless router setup, and reading an article about how scientists have created indestructible robot forearms. It's not exactly glamourous stuff, but c'est la vie. That said, sometimes chance has it that my life veers from the path of normalcy, and I get treated to unexpected pleasures. It's always nice when that happens, but the laws of averages say that if something good happens, something bad has to happen to set me back on course. The past few days illustrate the principal nicely, so why don't we just jump into a story.

After all, at the rate technology is progressing, we're going to have T-101s hunting us down in the robot apocalypse soon enough, and this will all be a moot point anyway.

The End of an Age

I got in our van and made my way down the all-too-familiar path to the sushi restaurant today, distraught yet excited at the same time. I hadn't made the decision yet, but it had been a long time coming now-- maybe I was fooling myself in thinking that the option to turn back existed at all. One rendezvous with my buddy Stefan later, I found myself seated opposite him, staring down at a wicker basket of shrimp and calamari tempura. As I deftly wielded my chopsticks with the seasoned hand that only comes from years of sushi adoration, I picked up a piece of the squid. The moment felt like an eternity, yet was over before I knew it: I took a bite of the familiar favourite, and after eleven days of fierce vegetarian competition, I had conceded to my rival Lana.

I think I should set the record straight, however. I feel like I could have gone on longer in the competition (see my previous post for details on our vegetarian challenge), but I decided to throw in the towel because it seemed like Lana had no intention of giving up any time soon. I honestly didn't mind not eating meat during my time as a vegetarian, but life seemed a little boring without it. The other factor in my decision to concede was that I really wasn't going about being a vegetarian the right way. While Lana had done her research on balancing nutrients and taking supplements, I was just eating a lot of eggs and cheese. It got to the point that I was sure that my new diet of non-meat was much more unhealthy than my old one that had meat.

We fought a good fight, but it looks like dinner's going to be on me this time. Lana was happy to hear that the challenge was over when I chatted with her earlier today (her friends thanked me for "giving them their friend back"), so it looks like things are back to normal. To my vegetarian brother-from-another-mother Steve, who placed a bet on me winning, I apologize for my resignation. We had a fun time being vegetarians together, but the dream is coming crashing down now.

But it's on to bigger and better things now anyway! After all, that picture of a rabbit for Jackie Chan's Chinese New Year contest isn't going to draw itself. Ciao for now, readers!

My Descent Into Madness

Well, the holidays are over; no surer sign of that than heading back to school and driving by the Christmas Tree graveyard in the parking lot of the mall. The snow is continuing to fall, but it somehow isn't quite as endearing as it was last month. These early winter months have a tendency to be drab due to the weather and because we get back into our routines again, so I've decided to try something new to spice up my own life. It's not a New Years resolution, more like a willing descent into madness; as of the 3rd, I've been a vegetarian.

vegetarian
- noun

A person who does not eat or does not believe in eating meat, fish, fowl, or, in some cases, any food derived from animals, as eggs or cheese, but subsists on vegetables, fruits, nuts, grain, etc.

Though I prefer Urban Dictionary's definition:

vegetarian
- noun

A bad hunter. Someone who survives by consuming not food, but the stuff that food eats.

I enjoy meat. A medium-rare steak. A grilled burger. Sushi rolls. Tempura shrimp. Barbecue chicken. The list goes on. For me, it's not even so much the taste of the meat, fish or poultry; I enjoy the act of cooking itself (or more often, the act of watching cooking), and a large part of this is the variety of ways that meat can be prepared. If you strip the meat out of a meal, you are usually left with something pretty uninteresting in my opinion. For a similar reason, it's also just a lot harder to come up with meals without a central meat to base them around (trust me, as I've been doing this all week-- with the help of my adoring mom). No longer can you just choose a meat and pair some agreeable sides with it-- you have to rethink the entire process of constructing the meal.

So why am I doing this again?

My Top 50 Favourite Records of 2010

Excuse the lengthy hiatus between posts. Would you believe that I have been agonizing over putting this list together so much that the madness consumed me wholly, leaving you (my intrepid reader) entertainmentless?

No?

Well, in truth, it is a crazy time of year, and between finishing up assignments and exams for school, and getting some last-minute Christmas shopping in, my brain wasn't really feeling up to writing extracurricularly for a while. But I'm past all that now, and I have the post that you've all been waiting for: a thorough list of my favourite records from the past year.

I joked earlier, but in a way, I have been paralyzed by this list. I began my process by ranking all of the albums I listened to this year (that were from 2010) in order from favourite to least favourite. Each new entry in the list was placed relative to other entries, and so the list grew. Instead of presenting those findings in their entirety, I narrowed the list down to a Top 50 (since all the cool kids are doing Top 50 lists anyway, right?). All of this was fairly easy to do, but placing the top ten entries (and even more so, the top five) has proven to be quite a challenge for me. Even now as I write this, I have a list whose top ten is still in flux… Only I will know its arrangement for sure when I hit the "Publish Post" button later this evening.

Why I Love Winter; Or, a Love Letter to Canada

"Is he having an identity crisis? Didn't he just write a blog post called 'Why I Hate Winter'?"

It reminds me of when Leonard Nimoy released his second autobiography, "I Am Spock." Twenty years earlier, his original book ("I Am Not Spock") came out to fan outrage because people felt as if Nimoy was somehow turning his back on the character he played on the popular television show Star Trek. This was in fact not the case at all, but to set things right, he deliberately chose a contradictory name for his second autobiography to rectify the misconception.

Now, do I hate winter? No. As a child, I loved all the pleasures that are associated with it: tobogganing, building snowmen, snowball fights, etc. Naturally, as we age, these activities become outdated, but there are still things I enjoy about the season. Things like snow days. Things like candy cane hot chocolate at Tim Horton's. Things like watching the snow collect outside from inside a warm house. Most of all though, I think I enjoy the association that snow has with Canada.