Category Archives: Distractions

Christmas Present

Distractions, Personal Bits, You Magnificent Bastard

Traditional, right?

Are you full from your turkey, or ham, or roasted butternut squash? Whatever you’ve tucked into after a day of gorging yourself on prezzies?

More importantly, are you happy with what you got?

I’m happy with what I got. And I don’t mean presents, I mean with the family I’ve inherited.

Over the last 7+ years, every time we travel to Vermont or Quebec to celebrate Xmas, I’m constantly blown away at the pure hospitality offered to me. Even when I would wake up in a strange bed in my Mother In Law’s home, where neither one of us could communicate well to each other, beyond hand signals and grade 9 level of vocab, I always felt like I was welcome.

That's right... a sleigh ride on Xmas Eve, in VT.

This year I was on emotional pins and needles. Though my father and I rarely ever celebrated Xmas in the last decade (he was pretty much “wintering” out of the country or down in Niagara Falls staying with his best friend) this was the first time I didn’t send him a card or get him a gag dollar store gift or even just call him on the phone. For weeks beforehand I was wondering how I was going to cope with this glaring emptiness during the season. To say I was uncomfortable was a bit of an understatement: would I burst into tears from a comment or a shard of a memory?

Here’s where I share some love: I commend my Sis-in-law for her ability to keep me “occupied”. Not that I was distracted like a baby with car keys in front of my face the entire time at her house. No. But before Da’s passing, she created a new base of traditions, like little excursions to local spots of interest around her home, or gift giving stylizations that are heart warming and comforting (read: home made gifts). She had created traditions that when Da left us, had me prepared to sail through Xmas without much distress. It wasn’t 100% fool-proof: I did manage to have a nightmare where I had to relive my father’s death all over again, so the thoughts were there, but this particular Xmas felt…right. Things were in place to make the holiday still feel good. The sleigh ride through the VT country side, on Xmas eve was certainly a highlight. It was surreally like a Currier and Ives painting.

I love my new family.

Okay with that gooey stuff out of the way, let’s get to the consumerist, greedy list of cool things I got:

  • You all know that I got SharkBoy and I a couple of Stormtrooper outfits. One traditional trooper for him, and one for me, so we wouldn’t be fighting over who was wearing what on such and such holiday. Happy Life Day!
  • I got super mouse pad and table place settings with a couple images from my Flickr account. Syl knew my favorite pics somehow and printed them up
  • And speaking of made, Syl made me a couple of pillowcases with UFOs on them. Rocks!
  • In the “Way too Generous” category, we both got $50 worth of DisneyWorld credits each. Kitchen Sinks for all!
  • Subcategory: “Holy shit, stop it!” comes from both mothers, in-law or otherwise, $150US cash each.
  • Endless candy.
  • A massive stocking full of fun gifties, like kitchen utensils, bath soaps and fun housewares.
  • A herky jerky robot
  • A remote controlled robot
  • Epic Mickey and Star Wars Unleashed II – the next two months until the vacation will zip by!
  • and a watery foot massager. With “Smart heat” and “Toe switch on and off” Heaven!!

Here are a couple pics. I hope your holiday was fun and fantastic and family.

This was breakfast. Yeah. I know. Good.

Husband. I love him.

Bags of goodies!!

Lots of Arty Shots

Me and My Niece - note no black undersuit.

WE ATE LIKE KINGS!!!!

I’ll Never Do An “It Gets Better” Video

Distractions, Queer stuff

I thought about jumping on the band wagon and doing one of those hip and trendy “It Gets Better Video” that everyone is doing but I sort of have to take myself out of the equation.

See, in grade school, I was the bully.

Okay I wasn’t a good bully, not like some character out of a Steven King novel, materializing out of nowhere at the last page of a chapter and relentlessly terrorizing the hero for three hundred subsequent pages. No, I was just a jerk.

In grade 5, there was a kid I absolutely hated. Time has eroded the reason why but I remember standing in line to get back into the school after one recess and thinking that That Shillkin kid need a face full of knuckles to shut him up. At the time I was a weedy kid. Thin and unremarkable. As my gaze drifted over the crowd I saw Peter. Peter Hickling. Now HE was a bully – taller and thicker than any other kid in his grade, yet stupid as a cedar plank. Probably why he was a bully. Hum. Probably why I was a bully…

The next day I took a dollar to school and got Peter alone. I offered him cash to punch That Shillkin kid. He’d get paid when the job was done, preferably after school away from teachers. Yeah, that’s right I was a little thug.

Later, as I walked home from school, right in front of the St Francis Xavier church, in broad daylight, Peter and a couple of his friends cornered me and shoved me down for that dollar. I never learned if I got what I paid for. Sort of.

I did decide from that moment on I would never interfere with anyone’s life in a negative way, ever again.*

Of course, as a teenager, I broke that rule so many times – like a politician to a prostitute.

All of the times I broke that rule were stupid, dramatic teen crap, but the one time I regret the most is calling a gay kid in school a “fag”, yet knowing exactly what I was at the time. It’s a stain on my moral past I just can’t seem to erase, no matter how much club soda I use. I’ve since come clean to him via Facebook (yay internet!) but ultimately, being Italian and ex-Catholic, the embarrassment of that still sits around.

So while I agree utterly with the whole “It Gets Better” campaign, I don’t feel I have the right to speak about it.

…which I’ve just done…

But you know what I mean. I guess I’d say “Yeah it does get better, but don’t mess up the foundation of how things get better.”

Oh and also, “Clothes get better too.”

*I know how hypocritical it is to say this yet I work in Online Marketing. Shaddap

Project ing

Celebs and Media, Distractions, Tech

Around 1995 I picked up a magazine called “Wired” and knew that graphic design was something that could be manipulated to manipulate. At the time, nothing was like Wired. They broke new grounds in typography and in design with head-scratching layouts that angered or amused, depending on your intelligence. The magazine embodied the spirit of “technology molding culture”, the very masthead they built the magazine on.

I remember one layout for an article had 2, 4 page spreads dedicated to just two quotes – something that will never be copied today (unless some advertiser paid huge dollars for it, or your magazine is called AdBusters). The printing was silver on silver and you had to angle the page just so to read it. Bad boy publishers indeed!

Today, Wired is tired. Oh it still has some pretty cool infograpics and splashy layouts but it’s not a leader in design anymore. It may even be transforming itself to curmudgeonly, what with the stir of their last article “The Web is Dead“. They may be displaying truth in numbers but the web never actually played to anyone’s rules. That’s another blog post. Point is, ad space and the “death” of print seems to have quieted their creative side.

Yesterday Sir Richard Branson (re)dropped his hat into the publishing world by releasing PROJECT. An entirely digital magazine (not the first, lets be clear) available through the iTunes store [iTunes link]. The smart move? Putting Jeff Bridges on the “cover” with a video overlay of TRON-like effects, tying in this month’s release of Tron and a Fanboy’s raving need for Tron things. Geeks, meet your new eReader.

I had some troubles downloading my initial copy from the Project servers (I suppose it was a busy day for them) and while I was at a Starbucks free WiFi, I wasn’t surprised. It took me two attempts, deleting and reinstalling the app, restarting the iPad and just plain “let it sit” patience for me to finally get my issue. In terms of App space, it’s a hog. I’m not surprised considering how much video is included with this issue, not to mention the audio files (Jeff opens up in little soundbites about Tron, Tron Thongs, The Dude and more). Also some transitions kakked out between finger swipes.

All that aside, I would say that Sir Richard got it right. He and his designers clearly wanted a Minority Report style magazine and they’ve managed to deliver.

For me. It was like picking up Wired magazine back in the 90’s all over again.

So far today I’ve learned that Jaguar has managed to put two twin micro turbines in their latest electric car, Alaska used nukes to create a harbour (and still may continue), Jeff Bridges is a wicked laid back guy and loved his head shave the most when it came to the movie Iron Man. And that’s not even an hours worth of playing with Project.  I’m told that there are Easter Eggs to find too, so I’m set for a while. Next issue is Dec 23rd.

Click to see some screengrabs:

Pre swiped

Swiped

Gallery - touching the numbers advances the images/videos

Front Cover:

PROJECT magazine cover video from PROJECT on Vimeo.

I Get Face

Distractions

In the 70’s there was a class of gay man called “clones”, pre-cursors to the now popularly known “Bears”. To the unwashed, a “Clone” is a gay man who wears jeans, white tee-shirts and has a mustache – no matter what variation you might have made with the jeans or the shirt, it inevitably made you look the same. Hence “Clone”. As you can imagine it was a look, probably co-opted by Freddie Mercury. Clones died off when it became popular to be a coiffed gay in the early 80s (see: Karma Chameleon).

I mention this only because whenever SharkBoy and I travel, locally or internationally, we get called brothers. Or “clones” if you will.

While at Disneyland, we were one of that day’s first riders on the Monsters Inc ride. At the end, the animatronic character of Roz (the slovenly, gravel voiced company secretary), operated remotely by an unseen cast member piped up and asked us if we were brothers.

A few Canadian customs officials have asked if we were family… er.. sort of…

Countless waitresses wanting to make small talk in hopes of a better tip would ask if we were brothers.

Today I even had my computer suggest we were brothers from the same mother. iPhoto thinks that SharkBoy and I are the same. Well iPhoto also thinks that a porn star I took a picture of a few Prides back is me. Or a hot cop from the last Santa Claus Parade (bless iPhoto’s little heart!!) And also that my Mom and my English brother in law is me (Really, iPhoto? My mom?).