Duffy Is A Big Cat

Like most cats who meet me, my mom-in-law's cat considered it a personal affront that I didn't immediately rush over and shower him with loving attention. For the record, I -do- like cats; I'm just allergic to them. Anyway, Duffy heaved his bulk upright and waddled over to me to turn on the cat charm in earnest. When I still resisted, he retaliated by rolling over onto my foot and meowing. I steadfastly avoided his gaze and eventually he went away.

If we weren't allergic and if we had room in our lives for a pet, though, Jeff and I would get a dog. Cats are too smart, and too good at manipulating people. :-)

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Memories: John Caspell

(Photo I took of Brooke and John at OVFF in 2006)

Brooke Lunderville (John's music partner and close friend) has posted an update about what happened yesterday. She says that if people post happy memories of John in her journal, she'd print them out to show his family.

Here's what I posted:

- I remember the first time I heard John perform in open filk. I had the impression he was quiet and shy, but then he opened his mouth and out came a bawdy/funny song I had never heard before. I never thought he was quiet and shy again.

- When John started smiling with an evil glint in his eye, you knew you had to watch out.



- At FKO last month, I enjoyed hearing John help out in Juliana McCorison's concert. I remember thinking that I had the impression that John was more of a loner type when I first met him and that obviously I had been SO wrong back then. He seemed to really enjoying himself on stage, and it was a joy to watch that.



- I loved seeing John's goofy side -- this tended to come out way more when he was with Brooke (she has that influence, y'know :-D). I remember being surprised but delighted when he clowned around for a photo I took at OVFF back in 2006, which I've posted at the top of this entry. I was flattered when Brooke and John decided to use it for their group webpage.

John, you will be deeply missed.

Health goals

I've been letting weather and a hectic schedule lend me an excuse for not exercising as much in recent months. Inspired by my friends Tanya and Ju at FilKONtario (I notice Allison's been inspired by them, too!), I've decided to smarten up.



Jeff and I don't own a weight scale. I weigh myself once a year when I go to the doctor's for my annual check-up. However, this doesn't mean that I don't know when I'm putting on the pounds; I can usually tell from the fit of certain form-fitting clothing. And well...it's time. :-)

For me, the solution is finding a way to stay accountable, and this means keeping track of what I eat and how often I exercise. Just the act of keeping this sort of journal makes me much more conscious of my fitness/eating habits, I find.

Anyway, I'm trying out the Livestrong.com app for the iPhone. It's $2.99, and synchs with Livestrong.com (a joint project between the Lance Armstrong Foundation and Demand Media), which has a free "Daily Plate" service where users can track fitness and food goals.



I wanted an app that would make it easy for me to keep track of food and exercise. The downside: you have to be connected to the Internet for the app to be able to access the nutrition database of more than 525,000 food and restaurant items. The upside: I usually AM connected to the Internet because of my iPhone. And when I'm not, I figure I can occasionally be able to wing it with common sense. (Have I mentioned that I love my iPhone?)

I also like the fact that in addition to my calorie count, I also get a summary of daily fat, sugar, carb, and protein intakes. I realize that the numbers are all just estimates, but even rough figures give me a better sense of how I'm doing than before, especially with my sugar intake.

My goal is to get into a healthy lifestyle again so that by the time colder weather rolls in, it will be much easier to keep it going through the winter.



Livestrong.com also enables users (if they want) to connect up with a whole community for mutual encouragement and support. I'm opting to keep my profile private (the screenshots today, by the way, were taken from the iTunes store...I don't tend to have glasses of champagne on a regular basis) and use friends for mutual support.

Like tonight, when I meet up with Allison and Jodi!

Also trying to cook healthier meals. Last night I made an Eggplant-Beef slow cooker meal ("Greek style") from The Healthy Slow Cooker by Judith Finlayson, and served it with bulgur. Jeff loved it, yay! I've loved all the recipes from this cookbook so far; they do require more prep than typical slow cooker recipes, but I've always found the result to be well worth it.

Happy Thursday, all.

Why I Love My iPhone

I've had my iPhone 3G since July 2008, and I find more to love about it each day. I've read reams of posts about the iPhone: critiques and wish lists and so on. And yes, there are things about the iPhone I'd like to see improved but sometimes I feel like telling everyone to take a deep breath, step back for a moment and just appreciate the sheer AMAZING COOLNESS of this little gadget.

I mean, holy cow. Think about it...this is something about the size of a pack of cards, that I can hold in the PALM OF MY HAND. And thus far I've used it for:



I can read. I've lost count of the number of books I've read on my iPhone, as well as magazine and newspaper articles. I have several dictionaries in different languages. Just recently I downloaded a rhyming dictionary to help me with my songwriting. There are new e-reading software packages coming out all the time, with constant improvements. I can change fonts, size of text, colour of text and backgrounds, orientation, and a multitude of other options. Yes, the screen is small but I'm still amazed and delighted by the fact that I can fit a ton of books AND read them in an object that fits in the palm of my hand.

Plus authors and publishers are finally realizing that with the iPhone, you don't have to just stick to straight text. I just recently read a wonderful multimedia story called First Things Last which is part interactive book, part movie, and uses the Iceberg Reader from ScrollMotion. It was only $1.99 so I figured it was worth checking out, and I wasn't disappointed. Looking forward to more instalments!

I can find my way around. The built-in GPS has come in handy many times; I get lost easily. :-) Plus partnered with a ton of useful apps, the iPhone enables me to instantly locate nearby stores and other places of interest, map them, find out more info about them, call them with one screen tap. I can call up a satellite image of where I am, or a place I want to visit next week.



I can write. I thought my old Nokia phone was cool with its mini keyboard. With my iPhone, I can take notes easily and attach them to pretty much anything, depending on the app I'm using. I've recorded story ideas and random thoughts on the go. Because the keyboard and input is software-based, there are more and more ways to enter information into my iPhone, and more and better ways to organize that information.

I can organize. Being a multitasker and always having a bunch of projects on the go at once in my personal and work lives, I rely heavily on lists. I no longer rely on paper lists and scraps of paper which get lost in my various bags and pockets. Right now I'm mainly relying on Remember The Milk, synching between my iPhone and desktop, but there are hundreds of other options out there for iPhone users.

I can listen. I use my iPhone as an MP3 player. I'm not one of those people who has to have ALL their music on their MP3 player, so my iPhone works just fine. During prep for FKO, I was using my iPhone to listen to the most recent Urban Tapestry practice recordings. I also listen to audiobooks and podcasts while I'm out for a walk or a run.

I can watch. I watch video podcasts on my iPhone, and rented movies. During my recent illness when I spent most of the past week in bed, I'd watch part of a rented movie on my iPhone while curled up beneath the covers. This has also been handy on plane flights when the plane movie screen hasn't been working or hasn't been showing any movies I've liked.

I can tune. I used my iPhone to tune my harp using Cleartune.

I can learn. In spare moments, I can go through my Japanese alphabet flashcards or browse an Art History multimedia app. There are SO many apps about SO many subjects. Just browse the Education category in the iTunes app store for a sampling.



I can cook. Ok, maybe it doesn't help me actually COOK, but it's a huge help when I'm in the grocery store and find something's on mega-sale and HEY, I can look up some recipes right there in the store so I can make sure I have all the ingredients (using the Web or a recipe app).

I can text. I can send a quick text e-mail to someone -- handy for situations where a phonecall might too interruptive and an e-mail too slow. I've used this with my friend Walter, for example, when we're confirming when he's going to be arriving at a convention hotel, or with Jeff to confirm a shopping list (that way he has a text record rather than having to listen to a phone message).

I can write songs. This has been my most recent "omigomigod I LOVE MY iPHONE!" moment. Because of tendinitis, I've found it more difficult to use the guitar to write songs. With all the great guitar and piano apps coming out for the iPhone, I've been using my iPhone to write music. Just recently, I've been using FourTrack to record separate tracks on my iPhone when I'm away from my desktop, then synching the individual tracks to my desktop to work with further. I used my iPhone on stage in performance as a pitch pipe for a capella pieces.

Someday I'd love to put together an iPhone orchestra for fun. :-D

I can network. It's easy to update social networking pages and blogs with the iPhone, as well helping me to keep up-to-date with others. While waiting in line in the grocery store, for example, I can catch up on friends' blog entries.

I can e-mail. I can read and send e-mail from any of my accounts.

I can research. I'm out with a friend and we're trying to decide what movie to see. We've narrowed it down to three movies, so we look up the reviews online, or view the trailers before deciding where to go. There are many apps to help with sort of thing. With SnapTell, for instance, I can use my iPhone to take a quick photo of a book, DVD, video game, or CD cover, and within seconds get info and links to the item on Google, YouTube, Wikipedia, IMDb, eBay, online bookstores, and more.

I can photograph. Some people have complained about the iPhone camera. My attitude is that I'm happy that my phone has a camera at all! It means that wherever I go, at least I know that I have -a- camera. If I know I'll want to take good quality pics, I'll take one of my regular cameras. But for convenience's sake, I -love- my iPhone camera. I've also just started exploring some of the many apps available for enhancing and manipulating the iPhone camera's photos. During our house renovations, I'd take a quick photo of part of the renovation that the contractors are asking me about, e-mail it to Jeff via iPhone along with the question, get a reply back within a minutes or so. Being able to send a photograph saved me much typing and time.

I can play. There are a zillion games out there for the iPhone, of course. My current favourite: Distant Shore by The Blimp Pilots. You walk along an endless beach and find messages in bottles as well as throwing your own into the ocean. You get some loser messages, of course, but I've been pleasantly surprised by some of the exchanges I've had with strangers around the world.

I can phone. I rarely use my iPhone as a phone. :-D However, the fact that I -do- carry my cellphone around wherever I go means that I carry around all the wonderful stuff that goes along WITH the iPhone as well. It means I end up carrying far less than I did before. Instead of carrying a phone, a book or two, my point-and-shoot camera, a Toronto map, a notebook, etc., I just carry my iPhone.

I could go on and on with many more reasons why I love my iPhone but I'll stop here and just say that I'd like to publicly thank everyone involved in creating the iPhone, especially my friend Andrew.

Apple gets a lot of flack because of their growing success. It always seems to me that the more successful a company or person becomes, the more people want to tear them down or point out what they're doing wrong.

I do think that it's important to stop with the nitpicking and bitching and pause every once in a while to marvel about what's been accomplished.

So THANK YOU, Andrew.

And THANK YOU, Apple.

The Red Balloon

Thanks SO much for all your responses to my Birthday Post. They meant a great deal to me. 

I received some wonderful gifts from friends and family for my birthday. Part of Jeff's gift, for example, was focused on my obsession with tea. 

And my friend Walter made me cry.

Walter's gift

The photo above is of The Red Balloon DVD and children's book adaptation. The 34-minute movie by French filmmaker Albert Lamorisse was one of my favourites from childhood; Dad had rented it from our public library and brought it home. I loved the book.

The story itself is very simple; if you don't mind spoilers, read this Wikipedia entry. The film won a bunch of awards, including an Oscar for Lamorisse for writing the best original screenplay in 1956 and the Palme d'Or for short films at Cannes.

One of my many early Red Balloon doodles
I had no idea that it was available on DVD until I opened Walter's present. I cried for somewhat complicated reasons, but partly because I was so touched that Walter knew how much this gift would mean to me, and that he had taken the time to track down the DVD and book.

I painted a Red Balloon on my office door!
Plus, ever since I saw that movie and read the book, red balloons have always been one of my very favourite things. It's not just about the children's story for me, but about the innocence and joy of childhood.

Another early Red Balloon doodle. You can tell my early drawings because I signed them "ohi" instead of "d.ohi".

I've told the following story in Blatherings years ago, but I can't seem to find it for linking, so am going to re-tell it here:

Shortly after graduating from university, when I was living on St. Patrick St. in Toronto with friends, I was feeling a bit down (I can't remember why). On impulse, I bought a red balloon and tied a little note to it with my address and a cartoon drawing of me.

I wouldn't do this now -- sending a balloon out into the wild isn't exactly environmentally friendly, and attaching my home address is just crazy. Anyway, some months later I received a letter in my mailbox from a little boy in Lockport, New York, where his father had found the balloon in one of their fruit trees.

Gift from a friend familiar with my Red Balloon obsession

We became penpals, and wrote for quite a few years before the correspondence finally stopped.

But my obsession with red balloons continued. :-)


Thank you, Walter, for your gift and your friendship.

I'm getting together with Allison and Jodi tonight for our last practice before FilKONtario. Only a few more days!

Yet another Red Balloon doodle from years back.