"I didn't have time..."

I took the today's photos while Jeff and I were out on a walk yesterday. I'd love to know the story behind the single silver shoe we saw in the snow by the sidewalk on one street corner. And Jeff made me take the second photo because a couple of our friends worked on VideoWave a while back.

Busy weekend. I spent most of it figuring out Movable Type 4, which is surprisingly different from Movable Type 3; I'm going to be moving my Blatherings to a different server soon.

The current Blathering design (what you're looking at today) is pure hand-coded HTML, but I figure that it's about time I switch to using CSS.

I've been gradually teaching myself CSS, but my main challenge is finding time. There are so many things I want to learn and do outside of my regular work hours, and only so much time to do it. Lately I've been devoting more time to practice and songwriting for Urban Tapestry, for example.

As I get older, time has become more and more precious to me. No, I'm not talking "I'm going to die soon" (I've already mentioned that I plan to live until I'm 102, after all) but rather that I've become more aware of time.

Even in how the word is used in language. Whenever I say "I didn't have time for that," for instance, the truth is that I'm actually saying "I didn't make time for that." Of course I had time; I just chose to do something else instead.

The subtext: "I didn't have time to do X but I had time to watch my favourite show YY on television instead, or time to catch up on my LJ friends' list instead etc."

But of course saying this OUT LOUD carries negative connotations, so most people (including me) opt for the safe "I didn't have time, sorry."



There's nothing wrong in choosing fun over not-fun, of course. What's important, I've learned, is being honest with yourself about HOW you're choosing to use your time. I'd go nuts and turn into a rampaging bitchy trollqueen if I always opted for work over fun, so I'll purposely choose to spend time engaged in totally frivolous activities that don't earn me money but are good for my soul.

The difference is the awareness of choice. I'm going to enjoy an hour with a good book or taking a nap far more if I'm doing it purposefully than if I'm guiltily sneaking in the reading/snooze time when I think I should be doing something else.

Or if I'm just letting life happen to me rather than taking control of it. Like suddenly noticing it's the end of the day and that I let all those hours slip away without realizing it -- hours I will never EVER get back-- and getting no enjoyment or satisfaction out of any of them.

Speaking of time, I can't wait for spring. This is the time of year when I'm tired of embracing the beauty of new-fallen snow and the joys of winter, and am yearning for sunshine and being able to run on the sidewalks again without worrying about falling flat on my face.

And seeing our garden again! I want to plant more thyme. One of my garden dreams is to eventually have a big plot of different types of thyme...at least then I'll feel as if I have thyme to do everything I want to do, even at the cost of a bad pun.

:-)



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Online video survey

I've only recently started exploring YouTube more closely and I quickly discovered that my hesitation was well-founded: HOLY TOLEDO, is this place a time-sink.

Not just for instructional videos for every kind of discipline and hobby you could possibly imagine, but fascinating documentaries, music videos (pro and amateur), and adorable animations like the following Simon's Cat videos:





Both videos are by an English animator called Simon Tofield who works for an animation company called Tandem Films. Thanks to Jeff for pointing me to these videos.

What about the rest of you? Do you tend to regular check online videos? If so, what type? And where?

Babylon Five Virgin Updates

SPOILER WARNING: The blog posts below focuses on my reports while watching Babylon Five for the first time. An LJ feed is also available. If you haven't seen B5 yet and don't want spoilers, please DO NOT click the links below.

Cover spoiler, JMS poster, and a song

Pilot: The Gathering




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Music and dim sum

Had a great practice with Urban Tapestry yesterday, prepping for our concert at FilKONtario in a couple of weeks. Allison brought over some delicious homemade poppy seed bread as well as strawberries w/chocolate sauce, and Jodi provided other mouthwatering snacks including Lesser Evil Caramel Corn. Yum. Walter joined us later in the evening, and gave us each a gift in celebration of our 15th anniversary as a group. Here's what he got me. :-)

I haven't posted any food pics for a while, so here are some I took at Cha Liu recently.



The staff at the restaurant are pretty used to my photo-taking by now. I don't do restaurant reviews for blogTO anymore, so take photos purely for the fun of it. Here's my favourite dim sum dish at Cha Liu (Supreme Shrimp Dumplings):



Have a great weekend, everyone!









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Will Write For Chocolate updated

Will Write For Chocolate has been updated.

I don't think I've mentioned lately how much I love Scrivener so here I go: I LOVE SCRIVENER. Scriptwriting (for my graphic novel project) is super-easy, and you can customize the formatting. Sadly, it's only available for Mac only right now. I don't feel at ALL guilty, though, because SO often I come across cool-sounding apps that I get all excited about but then find out aren't available for Mac people.

Here are the answers to yesterday's Game Identification Challenge:

Battleship:




Scan:



Password:



Outburst:



Funny Bones:



Poleconomy: The Game Of Canada:



Dominoes:



Labyrinth:



Diamant:



Bananagrams:



I think I must have played at least half a dozen games of Bananagrams this past weekend. It's short and quick, plus can be played by two people. Some luck, some skill, and can be played by kids as well as adults.

Musicstuff / cookingstuff:

Finished writing two songs this past weekend. Time was of the essence since Urban Tapestry is singing both of them in concert at FilKONtario early next month! Allison and Jodi are coming over tomorrow for an all-day practice. We're also hoping to put together a homemade CD of songs for donation to the Interfilk auction, but it will depend on how it all comes together during the session.

I'm making Beef and Chickpea Curry With Spinach from the The Healthy Slow Cooker by Judith Finlayson. Slow cooker meals are great for this sort of get-together; I can just dump the ingredients in during the morning, focus on the music practice in the afternoon, and everything will be ready by dinnertime!

Tonight I'm making Thai-Style Coconut Fish Curry from the same cookbook above. I use Not Your Mother's Slow Cooker Cookbook by Beth Hensperger and Julie Kaufmann more frequently but Finalyson's gourmet recipes lean toward unusual combinations of ingredients and that appeals to me sometimes, making the additional prep worth it.

And now I'm hungry.



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Game Piece Identification Challenge

Game #1

Jeff's aunt and uncle were kind enough to let us use their ski cabin on the weekend, and I came across a number of old games ... some familiar, some not. We also brought along some games of our own.

So a quiz, for everyone out there. Which of the game pieces pictured in today's Blathering do you recognize? Which have you played? I'll identify the games later this week.

Jeff and I have finished watching the first season of Babylon Five; I'm definitely hooked. See my most recent episode reports in Babylon Five Virgin (Babylon Squared, The Quality of Mercy, Chrysalis). From my stats, it looks as if my B5 Virgin blog has an audience of about 1200 so far (based on number of unique users).


Game #2



Game #3


Game #4


Game #5


Game #6


Game #7


Game #8


Game #9


Game #10

Video O' The Day

Happy birthday to Ryan Couldrey today! Ryan is one-third of the creative team behind DearToronto.com, a new video podcast I mentioned recently.

Here's their latest video podcast:

Toronto Ice Race




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