January 2014
Blogged from under blankets
- by admin
Slept till nearly noon.
Ate soup, tea, bread from Stella's.
Which always makes me feel a bit fancy even when I'm not.
Usually I can't eat when I'm sick but today if I could I'd consume
everything
in this apartment.
If only I had the will to leave the couch.
Hurried hard yesterday
- by admin
Which is curling speak for "frantically sweeping the ice in front of the 40lb granite stone sliding down the ice so it gets to where you want it to go while your friend, the skip, yells at you".It's ridiculous and a ton of fun, as I discovered when Tyrone, John, Bree and myself went to the Granite Curling Club to practice for the Manitoba Music Rocks Charity Bonspiel next weekend.
Because we decided to sign up to curl in a bonspiel without ever having curled before.
Naturally.
Luckily everyone involved with the sport is kind and amazing and the manager of the club let us use the ice and equipment for free, and the three older guys who had been curling for 40+ years and were there to practice for their badass team took time out of their day to teach us how to properly play the sport and not just mess around stupidly like we had been doing previously.
Even though curling is a Scottish sport it feels so Canadian.
Before you play you shake hands with the opposing team and say yr name, so now everyone's friends.
You don't yell or jeer at the other team to break their concentration.
Or otherwise be a sportsing asshole.
You drink before the game
during the game
and then after the game the winning team pays for drinks for both teams.
It's basically polite people being polite playing a nice game of sliding heavy rocks down some ice and one person on each team yelling stuff like
HURRY HARD!
DIE!
EASY!
OFF!
RIGHT OFF!
and others that I don't remember while getting outrageously drunk
It might be the best sport ever.
Big thanks to the Granite Curling Club and the fabulous gentlemen who made my introduction to the game such a fantastic one!
Weeknight wings
- by admin
Post-gym we met up with @adriantrimble to catch up on stories and giggle like schoolgirls.
The last frame is empty because our server was so efficient that she cleared away my empty bowl before I could take a photo.
I was impressed/annoyed.
Cheap okay-ish beer. Suitable for a Thursday, though.
Fortunately Adrian is much taller than me and blocked a lot of the wind as we walked home in a snowstorm.
Still had time for a selfie, though.
her
- by admin
To beat the cold on the weekend Ty and I made thin crust pizzas and curled up under blankets and watched her which is the latest film from Spike Jonze that has audiences swooning.
I wish I could disagree (no I don't) but I don't.
I loved it.
The sets with stark backgrounds and pastel shades and high-waisted pants and hairstyles that hinted that this wasn't quite in the present.
The contrast between the too-happy workplace and Theodore's crumbling personal life.
Joaquin Phoenix's portrayal of Theodore, a man who seems to be fading out of his own life due to his inability to face his own mistakes.
ScarJo's voice, of course, perfect as the voice of the OS, Samantha.
As well as how compartmentalized the movie was. The film focused on Theodore's experience with the OS and only revealed small snippets of the effect that a sentient operating system was having on the larger society.
I liked it that way. The movie focusing on Theodore's life was complex enough and I feel it would have detracted from the overall feel and message if the plot had tried to tackle a broader range of issues and subjects in such a small time frame.
Because ultimately her is a movie about a lonely man who does what a lot of lonely people do: they fall for the wrong person. They try to fill that gap in their heart with something that they shouldn't.
In Theodore's case it was a charming, cute operating system, and the way the Jonze frames their developing relationship makes it seem so completely plausible. Watching the film I couldn't help but think
"Yeah, that makes sense".
It's to utterly, terribly human that it hurts, and it serves as a reminder of the complexity of our emotions.
How we can't help who (or what) we love, and our relationships are entirely our own interpretation.
But the biggest lesson that a viewer can take away from this heartbreaking, beautifully sad story is this:
Small phones win out in the end.
Swimming makes me happy
- by admin
It also makes me feel like this:
And sometimes makes me with I'd stayed at home like this:
But working it in with my regular workouts is making me feel like I can take on the world.
And that's pretty cool.
On Winnipeg, and negativity
- by admin
One of my most popular posts is a post I wrote praising Winnipeg a few years ago. I still stand by it.
But I didn't always.
I used to be one of those winter-hating, downtown-bashing, sad excuses for citizens who felt that the only positive aspect about living in Winnipeg was that I was able to bitch about it.
I used to think that moving to Toronto would solve all my problems. That it would make me happy.
Who the fuck knows why.
A bigger city doesn't make you a better person.
A different climate doesn't change your personality.
A subway system or some skyscrapers or more clubs to visit on the weekends doesn't improve who you are.
Only you are in charge of that.
This seems to be something that people from Winnipeg forget about. People I see on Facebook and on forums and in newspaper comments.
They become so obsessed with associating their identity (read: personal misery) with where they live that they blame their city for causing them to be bored, broke, stuck in a rut or otherwise unhappy with their lives.
As though a city is to blame for their own personal choices and mistakes.
When someone posts something negative about Winnipeg, I wonder if they realize that it's a reflection of themselves? When they say "eugh what a shit-hole! This city sucks!" do they realize that they live here. They're a part of whatever problems they feel the city has because they're a citizen here.
Any by rejecting their own personal responsibility they put down those of us who are trying to stay and make things better.
By saying "I'm better than Winnipeg!" what they're saying is "I'm better than everyone who chooses to live here. I'm better than you."
Because instead of trying to figure out why they're unhappy here they blame Winnipeg. And they run away.
(Or say they're going to, anyway)
Most people who claim to "hate" Winnipeg never seem to actually go anywhere. They stay here and gripe because it's far easier to bitch about it than to actually take all the steps necessary to move away.
This is because people's perceptions of their problems are so deeply-tied to Winnipeg that most people don't ever actually leave. It provides people with a reason to be upset, with an easy scapegoat.
"My life would be so much better if I left this place"
"My career would be farther along if I lived somewhere else"
"I'd be a happier person if I didn't live here"
I hear people make these statements and it makes me sad for them. That their happiness is contingent on a population size, on street names, on landscape.
What a horrible way to go through life.
Don't get me wrong -I'm not saying nobody should ever leave. There are a multitude of good reasons for anyone to move anywhere.
But a shitty attitude shouldn't be one of them.
I know some brilliant people
- by admin
One of them is Skot Deeming aka mrghosty, who I met years ago through Tyrone and currently stalk via the interwebs since he moved away to Toronto and now to Montreal to earn his doctorate and become drghosty.
Today though he was in town to give an artist talk at Videopool about curating games and game-based networks as you can see in the above photo.
Because in addition to being a grad-and-now-phd student studying digital games (among other things) he's also interested in having conversations about games as art, the physicality of games, the ephemeral nature of pop-up arcades, and a multitude of other intellectual subjects pertaining to gaming that most of us don't think about day to day.
As an avid gamer myself I'm always interested in what Skot has to say, and it was wonderful to have the opportunity to hear him speak.
My Toronto peeps should make a point to check out Vector Gave + Art Convergence Festival which runs Feb 19-23 and everyone should make a point to keep up with Skot's work is through his twitter @mrghostyx.
As always Skot, it was a pleasure seeing you and getting to witness all your smarts.
xox yr Shaner
"Enjoy the fuck out of it"
- by admin
is something that my friend Adam (on the right) says a lot.He's one of the most ridiculous people I know. Incredibly sweet and hilarious and rocks harder than anyone else, guaranteed.
Recently I was thinking "wtf am I going to do with 2014?"
'Cause even though it's a giant cliche a new year is always a decent reason to stop & reflect on yr life and where you want to go and etc
and I always try to take some time to think about wtf I want to do with myself.
To be honest, I'm working on being more positive.
But not in that fake way. I hate that shit.
That "like omg you guys it's SO. GREAT. HAHAHAHAHAHA OMG"
bullshitty way.
Fuck those chicks.
(and it's always chicks who act like that, isn't it?)
I'm talking about being like
"s'cool. I've got this, life.
I can handle this shit."
I'm going to do my best to not stress the f out when life gets tough
to channel my inner rock like Adam would do
and enjoy the fuck out of it.
Little boy who fell down in the street
- by admin
I'm so glad we didn't hit you
As we drove along the super-icy
Frozen
Street to our destination.
I'm so thankful that your little
Four or five year old self
Bundled up in a black n red snowsuit
Got up quickly
And that our brakes worked like they should.
Your useless father should know better
Than to run across the street on a green light
(Especially in this weather)
And to run ahead of his little kids
Making them cross on their own.
Hopefully today taught him a lesson.
But somehow I doubt it.
