Away On Business (Slava Sakhnenko)

Monstaaaaa Truuuuucks!!!

2008-01-24T07:31:35-08:00

This past Saturday, Marianne & and I went to a Monster Truck show at Skydome, which was totally awesome!! Here’s a short video clip from the event :)

Set to the Jens Lekman song “Friday Night At The Drive-In Bingo”

Hamilton Trading Company

2008-01-23T09:23:00-08:00

Keith Hamilton hosts Sunday nights at The Boat (in Kensington Market) where he brings local acts to perform acoustic sets alongside with his own Hamilton Trading Company.

Elizabeth and I went there last Sunday and this is my favourite song of theirs.

And they started off with this neat cover of a Peter Gabriel song.

26

2008-01-22T22:24:37-08:00

Some photos from the birthday party at my apartment:

The Trials of Ezra Levant

2008-01-14T22:43:18-08:00

This might run a little long, but bear with me since I think this is important.

The above video was shot by Ezra Levant during the opening statement of his interrogation by the Alberta Human Rights Commission.

Until his resignation, Levant was an editor of Western Standard - a famously conservative/libertarian news-magazine based in Calgary, Alberta. In February 2006 he re-published the infamous Danish Muhammad cartoons, which drew the ire of many a Muslim radical.

Now, instead of issuing their standard-order fatwas, one extremist Imam (Syed Soharwardy of the "Islamic Supreme Council of Canada" - whatever the fuck that is?!?) thought out to corrupt our Canadian legal system by filing a complaint with an out-of-control Alberta Human Rights Commission.

The pathetic thing about this commission is that anyone who feels slighted or offended by some politically incorrect expression, can file a complaint which the defendant will have to spend money and time to fight. No matter how baseless the accusation is. To add insult to injury, far from being controlled by actual judges or even competent attorneys, the commission is ran by bureaucrats and bottom-of-the-barrel divorce lawyers.

Rather then attempt to fight the charges that are actually pretty laughable, Ezra refused to acknowledge that the government had any right to put-on these mock trials, or (in case of a conviction) to force him to apologize for what he has done.

Instead, he videotaped the whole proceeding and published them on his blog with comments and explanations. You can watch them all here... it won’t take that long and it’s honestly the closest we’ll get to that scene from Atlas Shrugged where Hank Rearden delivers the speech at his trial (this time with a goal of promoting free-speech rather than unchecked capitalism, which is all that much more admirable).

Here's a quote from his last post, and a video of the closing argument:

As the 90-minute interrogation proceeded, it became obvious to me that it would be morally inconsistent to end by asking for an acquittal, or any other "mercy" from the government. The logical conclusion of denying the legitimacy of the commission was to demand its worst. The point of civil disobedience is not to get off scot-free, but to willingly accept the punishments of an unjust system, to shame that system into reform.

Here's how I phrased it.

P.S. It's quite obvious that Ezra is a dedicated conservative who, let's be honest here, often comes across as being a bit of an asshole who's filled with self-righteous indignation, and who no-doubt made plenty of enemies back in his publishing days. But it's just depressing to see the only mainstream media mentions about this thing come from other conservative publications. I would've figured this was something all journalists could unite under.

PlanetEye Party

2007-12-13T20:17:34-08:00

My brother just put up a whole bunch of awesome photos that he and I took at the PlanetEye Christmas party last night. Check out this Flickr set, and here's a small selection:

Duelity - Evolution vs. Creationism

2007-12-12T07:40:14-08:00

Duelity.net

This is officially my favourite thing right now!

Get this: Two videos, designed to be played simultaneously...
One, describing Creationism with the language and animation style of a scientific iconographic presentation (similar to the "Remind Me" video by Royksopp); the other, shows the story of Evolution through Christian imagery and a particularly affected religious speech.

Here's a quote from their website:

According to the records of the General Organization of Development labs (GOD) it took a mere six days to manufacture a fully-operational universe, complete with day, night, flora and fauna, and installing Adam as it's manager to oversee daily functions on Earth.

That's one story.

If thou salt believe the Book of Darwin, t'is five billion years after The Big Bang that we behold what the cosmos hath begat: the magma, the terra firma, the creeping beasts, and mankind, whose dolorous and chaotic evolution begat the gift of consciousness.

2007-12-07T21:19:03-08:00

Is Photography Dead?

“We live in a culture dominated by pixels, increasingly unmoored from corpor-eal reality. Movies are stuffed with CGI and, in such “performance animation” films as “Beowulf,” overwhelmed by them. Some big pop-music hits are so cyberized the singer might as well be telling you to press 1 if you know your party’s exten-sion. Even sculpture has adopted digital “rapid prototyping” technology that allows whatever a programmer can imagine to be translated into 3-D objects in plastic. Why should photography be any different? Why shouldn’t it give in to the digital temptation to make every landscape shot look like the most absolutely beautiful scenery in the whole history of the universe, or turn every urban view into a high-rise fantasy?”

I don’t know about all that, but I’ve just purchased three Istoica prints last night, to compliment a Rannie canvas print and a Davin Risk photo (“Disco Ball” and “New Grass” respectively). I should really set aside a budget for regularly purchasing pieces from local photographers.

You can check out the “the too-explicit injustice of kind population!” show featuring some prominent Toronto photo-bloggers right now at the Whippersnapper Gallery.

Home Page

2007-12-03T14:21:19-08:00

Ha! Here's the new PlanetEye home page that we started using this week on our private beta site.

Mango on BoingBoingTV

2007-11-26T08:04:15-08:00

Haha! Mango is now even more famous on the latest episode of BoingBoingTV!! And Elliott has been telling me that he's been seeing the "Hacking Photo" of Mango all over the place :)

Tumble

2007-10-23T21:04:57-07:00

Heh, I'm not posting here as often as I used to, unless I have some personal experience to share. In parallel though, I started adding content to my Tumblr blog at: http://avenues.tumblr.com/

Tumblr.com is an incredibly easy to use blogging platform that lets me highlight interesting stuff that I come across online with very minimal time investment :)

I mostly use it for sharing photos that I like, but also for videos and quotations that catch my eye. You can subscribe to it if you have tastes similar to mine, I usually update it a few times a day. Enjoy!!

Running Up That Hill

2007-10-15T14:19:14-07:00

By chance yesterday I discovered Chromatics, a Portland noise-rock band that recently re-branded themselves as elegant purveyors of synth-led Italian-discopop songs.

Admittedly these sparse, bleary-eyed, late-night anthems are not for everyone. But personally, listening to this music on a cold, cloudy autumn evening makes me wish for nothing more than to drop this whole web-development game, move somewhere on the Italian coast, find a pretty, sad girl with shadowed eyes and 60's bangs and start a band, writing melancholy songs for club kids driving home late at night.

Running Up That Hill (Kate Bush cover)

And if I only could
I'd make a deal with God
And I'd get him to swap our places

Be running up that road
Be running up that hill
Be running up that building

...

You
It's you and me
It's you and me, you won't be unhappy

P.S. "In the City" video

The Cake is a Lie

2007-10-12T08:56:39-07:00

Ok, allow me to get a bit nerdy here for as minute. I'm not a big gamer, but I'm a huge fan of any game that Valve releases, especially anything related to Half-Life. So this was a great week for me since they released The Orange Box - a collection of games consisting of Half-Life 2: Episode 2, Team Fortress 2, and Portal.

Portal, by far, was the biggest surprise in that it turned what was essentially a technology proof-of-concept for the Portal Gun (shoot a projectile into a point A and a point B and you can walk from A to B seamlessly) into one of the most heart-warmingly funny, albeit the humour was rather dark, gaming finales I ever saw.

The short (3-4 hour long) game finished off with possibly the greatest credit-roll sequence ever created, as GLaDOS (an AI villain of the game) sweetly recollects what happened in the past few hours in a rousing song which I included bellow. Spoilers be damned.

My favourite part of the whole thing is the story about how Valve took advantage of the gaming/web community in creating Portal.

The core "Portal" idea: Valve's Gabe Newell saw a student project Narbacular Drop from DigiPen Institute of Technology which features movable "portals". Gabe hired that whole team on the spot and brought them into Valve to work on the project.

The GLaDOS dialogue: The script for the hilariously sinister voice that guides you through the game with promises of a "warm, moist cake" was written by the staff of a legendary satirical game-humour site Old Man Murray who are now working for Valve. Perhaps it's not a coincidence that they are also running a web community site called Portal of Evil :)

The Finale Song: This clever tune was written by another famous nerd, song-writer Jonathan Coulton, who some of you may know from a song Code Monkey. He also accompanied one of my favourite authors - John Hodgman - on the book tour for The Areas of My Expertise.

And now that the end of "Half-Life 2: Episode 2" ties in nicely with the going-ons of the Portal story line, I can only hope that the Portal technology will come into play when the Episode 3 rolls around.

START WEARING PURPLE!!!!

2007-10-10T09:09:36-07:00

Whoooo, last night was the crazy Gogol Bordello show at the Kool House. Here's the mix of clips from the concert, although it was pretty hard filming and often times I had to put away the camera during the best parts (like the Start Wearing Purple choruses) because the crowd got too wild.

Go see them if you get a chance.

The Organ

2007-10-07T23:13:48-07:00

I was at a BBQ this past Friday and my friend Lee put on The Organ on his speakered-up iPod. I can't believe I haven't heard of them before! The (all-girl) band only managed to release one LP before breaking up a few years ago, and I've been listening to that record -- Grab That Gun -- for most of the weekend.

My favourite track is Memorize The City [lyrics] :

...

We pulled a boat down to the dock and stole two sturdy oars
I pushed you off into the dark: Acrisius favours
And from above the great abyss
You threw pennies in and wished
For the feeling of wanting nothing more

I walk through the streets and memorize the city
I count every light until i reach the shore
Sometimes i close my eyes and you’re not very pretty
Sometimes i can’t believe i’ve had those thoughts before

2007-10-07T21:16:08-07:00

McSweeney's Internet Tendency: "A Few Years after the Complete Collapse of the Global Economy, a Consumer Reporter Reviews the iPhone"

Much has been made of how the iPhone is really more than just a phone. And the point bears repeating, especially now that all communication networks have been destroyed in the Great Food Wars. But even in our post-apocalyptic agrarian wasteland, this technological marvel still boasts an impressive set of functions, a partial list of which includes:
Walnut cracker
Canned-goods smasher
Slingshot projectile for hunting small woodland game
Pestle for grinding wheat into flour (and flattening pemmican)
Nonporous preparation surface for mixing blow-dart poisons
Reflective signal mirror for coordinating attacks on rival scavenging tribes
[more...]

(via Gerry Canavan's blog)

Braindead Megaphone

2007-10-07T20:55:34-07:00

I just finished The Braindead Megaphone, a collection of essays by George Saunders. The writing was great, often movingly so, and the combination of intelligent though experiments and journalistic, first-hand experiences really helped make these stories ring true. [There was however an odd stretch of four 'humour' essays in the middle of the book that I found awkward to the point of embarassment, luckily things really picked up after that brief detour]

The book finished with a written manifesto for a club, or rather a social movement that Saunders and billions of others belong to (possibly EVEN YOU!!!) called People Reluctant To Kill For An Abstraction (PRKA). Slate published the full text on their website, but here's a quote from the tail end of the Manifesto:

Who are we? A word about our membership.

Since the world began, we have gone about our work quietly, resisting the urge to generalize, valuing the individual over the group, the actual over the conceptual, the inherent sweetness of the present moment over the theoretically peaceful future to be obtained via murder. Many of us have trouble sleeping and lie awake at night, worrying about something catastrophic befalling someone we love. We rise in the morning with no plans to convert anyone via beating, humiliation, or invasion. To tell the truth, we are tired. We work. We would just like some peace and quiet. When wrong, we think about it awhile, then apologize. We stand under awnings during urban thunderstorms, moved to thoughtfulness by the troubled, umbrella-tinged faces rushing by. In moments of crisis, we pat one another awkwardly on the back, mumbling shy truisms. Rushing to an appointment, remembering a friend who has passed away, our eyes well with tears and we think: Well, my God, he could be a pain, but still I'm lucky to have known him.

This is us. This is who we are. This is PRKA. To those who would oppose us, I would simply say: We are many. We are worldwide. We, in fact, outnumber you. Though you are louder, though you create a momentary ripple on the water of life, we will endure, and prevail.

Join us.

Resistance is futile.

And if you're illiterate, don't worry too much. There's a podcast of Saunders reading the whole section up at The Writer's Block website.

Rumours and Speculations

2007-09-29T15:20:50-07:00

Well lookie here! PlanetEye is nearing our private beta release and things are getting pretty interesting pretty fast.

PlanetEye Launch Imminent - StartupNorth writer Jevon wrote a nice post heralding the eventual arrival of the website that I spent a good portion of my post-university life (which, admittedly is not that long) working on. It's all very exciting and re-affirming, but Jevon had to go and start speculating about the details of our financing, which would've been cool if he didn't get nearly all of it wrong. Unfortunatelly, all of the juicy bits have already been redacted form that post, so good luck finding what it said :)
From the Trenches - When they get it wrong - It didn't take long for Rick Segal to respond to Jevon in his blog and politely correct him with regards to some pertinent details about PlanetEye. I'm mostly impressed with the length of the actual post which is longer then most of the essays I wrote in UofT...

So there you go, the fun is just beginning and information is slowly trickling out. Although I never got why we are constantly branded as a "stealth" start-up. While I never go into discussing funding details and usually gloss over business matters, if someone asks, I tend to go on and on about what PlanetEye does for travellers and why it's so exciting to work on this project. But pretty soon you'll get a chance to check it out yourself... just go to PlanetEye.com and sign up for the beta!

P.S. I went to a birthday party last night not too long after Jevon posted his post and had to endure things like:

"Oooh, I heard you guys are worth millions of dollars, I would've
expected you to dress better!"

Wankers.

Travelling

2007-09-23T21:39:16-07:00

As we're nearing a beta-release of PlanetEye I will share with you some travel-related material of interest:

"Wonderlust King"

To start, here's a brilliant song and video by a New-York based band of Ukrainian gypsy punks Gogol Bordello.

"Wonderlust King" goes on at length about how in order to understand the world one needs to go beyond just reading about it, listening to stories, watching movies and looking at photos (on PlanetEye or elsewhere) and actually travel, meet people and discover things through first-hand experience for once. [Wanderlust being an awkward sounding term for "the love of wandering the world"]

...
I traveled the world looking for understanding
Of the times that we live in
Hunting and gathering first hand information
Challenging definitions of sin

I traveled the world looking for lovers
Of the ultimate beauty
But never settled in

I'm Wonderlust King!
I stay on the run!
Let me out...
Let me be gone
In the world's beat up road sign
I saw new history of time...
New history of time!!!

So You Want To Be a Tourist?

ALSO! There is a meticulously researched and wonderfully written essay up on SomethingAwful with some very useful instructions for those wishing to travel to Europe and I would pay attention to them very carefully IF I WERE YOU!

Quotation:

"You, and your group, look stupid "trying to hold the Leaning Tower of Pisa." On top of that, there is no reason to visit Pisa other than seeing the leaning tower. Meaning you traveled on a bus for two hours just to get the most clichéd and obnoxious photograph ever imagined. Congratulations, jackass."

i

2007-09-05T13:56:28-07:00

Got a new iMac at work :)

Ukrainian Festival

2007-09-01T17:00:59-07:00

Me and Audrea just went to the Ukrainian Festival last night at the Harbourfront.
The food was beyond amazing and the dancing was supa-fun!

I LIEK IT HERE :(

2007-08-29T09:58:08-07:00

Wow, another photo of Mango was featured on I CAN HAS CHEEZBURGER?

Although I must admit, the commenters on that site creep the hell out of me...

CHEEZBURGER?

2007-08-21T09:15:49-07:00

Ha! It's nice waking up in the morning and seeing a photo of your kitten as the first post in the Google Reader.

I knew it was just a matter of time until Mango got herself into 'I CAN HAS CHEEZBURGER?'

Here's the Flickr link to the original.

Endarkenment II

2007-08-20T09:28:34-07:00

Ha! My last post on the Endarkenment made it into BuzzFeed purely on the strength of the awesome MC Hammer illustration: "1490s vs 1990s infographic shows cultural evolution at a glance".

A bit of a follow up then... I was watching Richard Dawkins' programme "The Enemies of Reason" on Google Video (via dcscience.net) and he had a good portion of the show dedicated to astrology.

Now... I understand completely that for most people Horoscopes are nothing but some quick fun - akin to reading tabloids - and they don't actually believe that rocks and gases light-years away have any say in their day-to-day lives. But it seems that some people are reeeeaaally into it: buying books, drawing charts, attending seminars, getting paid to write columns for newspapers, etc.

So just for the hell of it I surveyed a cross-section of Horoscope columns to see what the day holds to me, and whether there's any consensus what-so-ever among the experts.

Yahoo.com

Friends or family members come to you asking for help with an argument. You can play referee quite well, though you may need to make a ruling that irks one or even both of them. Stand by your call!

Toronto Star

There is a limit to how bad a certain situation can get. Just think how great you are going to feel once this is sorted out.

United Press International

You tend to have wild, impractical ideas today. You need reason and experience to sift what's worthwhile from the merely zany. Creativity is strong and must be matched with practicality.

Philadelphia Daily News

Remain positive: Life morphs to fit your optimism.

New York Daily News

Money is always a favorite topic of Capricorns, not necessarily spending it, but making it. If money is slipping through your fingers, apply strong management skills by managing the financial portfolio. It's time to get strict about the budget. Start recording every dollar and cent you spend; it will be enlightening as to where your money is going.

San Jose Mercury News

It doesn't cost a single penny to be kind. Do a good deed or bite back an unkind word before it leaves your mouth. You will be less lonely if you consciously strive to be diplomatic.

The Kansas City Star

You might want to assume a different approach and follow through with a boss. Dig into your resourceful mind when dealing with a work or daily issue. The solutions could be endless if you just let it happen. Tonight: Say “yes.”

The Courier News (Chicago)

The wheels are set in motion by the goodness of your heart. Those things you do so unselfishly for others will produce unsought benefits for yourself and your friends.

New York Post

Appearances can be deceptive and no matter how honest and trustworthy a certain person may seem to be you must be on your guard over the next 24 hours. Make sure they stick to the facts. Don't let them bamboozle you with big words and big ideas that, when it comes to the crunch, mean nothing at all. (Me: Aaah.. I get it now.)

And, of course, the always-right Free Will Horoscope. The only source that anyone should be using anyway:

Free Will Horoscope - The Village Voice

Welcome to the Season of Temporary Insanity, Capricorn. According to my analysis of the omens, your imminent immersion in lunacy, delirium, and freakiness won't hurt a bit—and may even stir up exotic varieties of pleasure and amusement. For best results, keep the following advice bubbling and frothing in the back of your mind.
"Only when he no longer knows what he is doing does the painter do good things." —Edgar Degas.
"Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment." —Rumi, translated by Coleman Barks.
"All of us are crazy good in one way or another."—Yiddish saying.
"You are either losing your mind—or gaining your soul." —Julia Cameron.

Travel Vices

2007-08-19T19:20:36-07:00

I just realized that Vice Magazine put up the videos from their Vice Guide to Travel online and spent a large portion of the evening watching all of them.

Here are the five most disturbing episodes that I saw, ranked from least to most messed up:

#5 - Chernobyl :: View Episode

Not particularly disturbing visually, but having grown up not too far from Chernobyl it hits close to home. It's eerie how empty the abandoned city seems, the schools, apartment buildings, the amusement park that was supposed to open a few months after the nuclear plant blew up. And the insistent clicking of the Geiger counter is creepy as hell.

#4 - Ghetto Doll Brothel :: View Episode

Vice correspondents travel to Japan and visit a brothel where one can purchase some time with a sex doll dressed up as a school girl (or something else... depending on your preference). True to form, the Vice co-founder actually went through the experience. And filmed it.

#3 - Bulgaria :: View Episode

In "Bulgaria" Vice travels to that country and interviews a construction entrepreneur / arms dealer who used to have business relationship with Osama Bin Laden, and who can get you a nuclear dirty-bomb if the money is right.

#2 - Filipino Feed Lot :: Part 1, Part 2

The first part, I guess, is not that bad. If you can stomach watching an able cook chop up some bull balls and prepare a dish called "Soup #5". The second part is messed up though. To create a dish called "Killing Me Softly" Chicken, the correspondent had to go buy a live chicken and watch as it was tenderized (with a machete) and burned with a blow-torch. Without the initial beheading.

#1 - Asses of the Caribbean :: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

Apparently in some parts of Columbia it's perfectly normal for young boys to get their first sexual experience by fucking donkeys. Honestly, some footage just shouldn't be shot. Do Not watch Part 3!!!

Seriously.

Mango & Soya

2007-08-19T00:26:01-07:00

So... I was in the kitchen tonight, chopping some garlic. I notice Mango jumped on the dinner table, looking into the kitchen with mild bewilderment in her eyes. Seems that she noticed a fly buzzing around the stove and wanted a piece of it.

I though she looked kinda funny so I grabbed the camera and took a few photos.

Obviously realizing that she's not going to catch the fly -- who, by this time, I already named Soya (because the whole naming thought occurred to me as I was taking soy sauce out of the fridge) -- from her vantage point, Mango hopped over to the ledge of the kitchen window to get closer.

At this point, Soya was flying close to me so I slapped the poor thing and it fell straight to the ground. Mango - seizing on the opportunity! - jumps down, grabs the fallen Soya (with her mouth!) and makes a break for it. I figured Soya was as good as gone for when I heard Mango meowing emphatically across the apartment.

I go to check it out, and what do I see!?!? Mango is sitting confused on the floor, looking down as Soya, unable to fly, drunkenly stumbles all over the place.

I picked the little thing up, placed it on a napkin (FOR CONTRAST!) and proceeded to take loads of photos.

I even reunited Mango & Soya briefly, letting them take a look at each other; from a save distance.

It was all fun and games until, gunning for some better lighting, I brought Soya close to the dining-room chandelier. At that very point, seemingly rejuvenated by the life-giving powers of a 40W light-bulb, Soya took to flight and buzzed away from me like nothing has ever happened.

... but we'll always have our memories :)

P.S. Here's a link to a few photos on Flickr.