TIFF
TIFF began this past week and all the craziness that accompanies it. While I certainly appreciate all that the festival does for this city there are aspects about it which really get under my skin. Chief among these is their voice in vehicles for driving around staff and celebreties. Is there any sane reason that they HAVE to use Escalades the biggest most gas guzzling vehicles around? (see pic). Just a small nod to the environment would be greatly appreciated.
Truth in Advertising
Clubland can be a strange place. Just try walking the streets there at night ok the weekend. I actually dread leaving the movie theatre knowing I'll need to navigate the club lineups, drunks and men, no boys, with their pathetic attempts at picking up the nearly naked women. I think this ad I came across crystalizes what goes on there. All those bored, cloistered suburbanites are busy pretending they are even a tiny bit urban while quite literally throwing up on the city. There is a reason most downtowners avoid clubland.
Resolutions (the New Year’s variety)
I've given up on new years resolutions for the most part. I have het to actually succeed at any of these so-called promises. They always end up in the dustbin of history, so to speak. So instead I am making a couple of promises to myself. Now, since I actually made these promises about a month ago, they are NOT new year's resolutions (or so I'm telling myself). So here goes:
- I promise to actually blog steadily. I've gone though all this work to create this site, I really should use it. I'd love some advice though on how to get people to actually go to the site. Also, UrbanPix.ca started off good but I've let it slide - I will not do that again!
- I promise to have greater self-respect. This means - dressing better, ironing my clothes, going swimming/to the gym, eating better, going to the dentist/doctor (yes I have a irrational fear of dentists) etc.
That's it for now. So, I'll be at Irena's parents' place for New Years (exciting eh?) and I'll see everyone when I get back.
Happy New Year!
An End to Personal Consumerism (for a month)
So, after a lot of thought and a bit of a shock while looking at a credit card statement (why do they up your limit without telling you!), Irena and I decided that for the coming month and a bit (till April 2) we would pledge to spend nothing, nada, zero! The only exceptions to his are food (groceries, not restaurants), bills and some paint for our planned paint job this March Break.
Can this be done? I'm not so sure. Normally we spend in excess of $800 a month on food (including groceries), going out etc. (oddly we don't really buy much 'stuff', we just go out - and let me tell you, that money doesn't go as far as you think it would)
However, so far our diets are doing well so hopefull this follows the same trend. I think it will be a remarkable learning experience about how much we really do spend and how much we substitute valuable time working on projects, seeing family and reading with spending money and supporting rampant commercialism.
Plus, it has the added goal of going a VERY long way to cleaning up our credit cards!
Wish us luck. If you have any suggestions for things to do that are free, let me know. Also, if you want to drop by for a games nights or something, definatly let me know 
The Earphone Generation
I remember reading an article a little while back, labeling today's generation of youth (teens to late 20s or so) as the Earphone Generation or something to that effect. Basically the argument went that the invention of ultra-small MP3 players and the like has meant that almost everyone now travels around town filling their head with music on a constant basis. In fact, the earphone has become ubiquitous and something of a symbol of the generation. For evidence all you need to do is look around you on a street, a bus or even in my classroom! Almost everyone is busy tuning out the world, and often destroying their hearing at the same time. There is even a Sony ad I remember that glorifies the headphone as a way to tune out the 'noise' around you.
Not to be left out, I've bought my fair share of MP3 players. In fact I currently own two types of iPods plus at least one or two other smaller players. Each time I buy one of these things I think 'hey, this is great idea, what could be wrong about listening to music 24/7'. However, every time I go to use these, I realize a couple of things:
- the volume required to 'tune out' the world is rather painful
- I'm constantly taking them off so as not to be rude to people in stores, TTC drivers etc. (on a side note, I remember some teenager getting mad because a store had asking people to remove their headphones when ordering food, wow the nerve, that's not a person taking your order, of course not.)
- Most importantly - I keep realizing that I LIKE the sound of the city around me. Why would I want to tune it out. People's conversations, the sound of traffic, subways, streetcars, stores, sirens, street music etc, these are all signs of a vibrant, interesting city. This is life in the city and that is why I live where I do. What piece of music can ever compensate for the true sound of the city alive?
Why?
It's amazing how something will tell you that you should be doing something, but that same thing will also work to prevent you from doing just that.
How Attitudes Shift
It is quite amazing how one's attitudes change over the years, as you age. On two separate occasions recently, I found myself think about this. About a week ago, I was having drink with a long-time friend of mine, and we were talking about how recently we seem to want less stuff. You know, we spend less and less money on things, on physical objects. Most of our free money goes to entertainment or stuff we need to make our life better or keep going. There is very little that goes into stuff for stuff's sake. For me it seems to be an issue of my ever evolving left-leaning philosophies. For him, I think it was more a matter of 'where am I going to put the stuff'.
The second incidient was today. I had went looking at bikes, since I don't have one anymore, and discovered just how expensive a good bike is now. However, I found myself not looking for the cheapest bike, but rather the best quality (and thus expensive) bike. I've noticed that I've been doing that a lot with food, goods, clothes etc. Whereas money used to be the deciding factor, more and more I'm willing to spend, or save up to spend, to get quality over just having something I can afford. It's an interseting shift in my thinking. May be more expensive in the short term, but I think in the long term this different type of thinking will be good for me.