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Kel & I just got back from a long weekend up in Toronto, Ontatio. It was a mixed bag of great food & experiences and horrible weather.

We booked the trip thinking it’d be a little cooler than Connecticut and (having consulted the weather forcast) packed accordingly. We were completely unprepared for the record-breaking heatwave they’ve been experiencing (the hottest in 70 years according to Joe Clark). I have never sweat so much in my life, and that’s saying a lot… I lived in Florida for 13 years. The heat was oppressive and the city was filled with smog and haze, making the ambiance a little less than we’d hoped for.

That said, we did have fun shopping (or was that running down Queen Street ducking into whatever shops had AC?) and eating throughout the city. I touched base with Joe a few times on the phone while we were there and he made recommendations on the best places to eat in the city. Queen Mother Cafe was a fantastic little Asian fusion restaurant on Queen St near McCaul. It was very cozy and café/pub-ish in feel and decor and the food was unbelievable. We took a few shots of our entreés, if you’re interested. Another notable was Udupi Palace in Little India. It is purely vegetarian and serves South Indian cuisine. We got their just before they closed (10PM on Sundays… make a note) and the food was quite tasty and different from the North Indian fare we are used to. Also of note is Tea Shop 168, a cute little coffee/tea chain which serves tean and coffee with “bubbles” (tapioca beads). It brought back memories of the Cassava Lounge in Boston a bunch of us met up at during MacWorld 2004. “Tea with balls” – I love it.

On Sunday, I went off exploring on my own while Kel napped (exhausted from the heat). My mission was to pick up some new music and I set my sights on visiting Rotate This!, a great little indie record/CD on Queen Street, west of Bathhurst. I thumbed through some of the LPs and CDs before deciding that I was not sure where to begin reimursing myself in Canadian indie rock, so I asked the girl behind the counter to pick out some stuff for me to listen to. After listening to a few records, I left with Death From Above 1979’s You’re A Woman, I’m a Machine, Arcade Fire’s Funeral and The Russian Futurists’ Our Thickness. Each band is quite different from the others, so it provides a nice balance of the different sounds developing in Canada right now. I am sure I will write more on these later, once I have time to digest.

On the way back to the hotel from Rotate This!, I stopped off to take some photos of the massive hip-hop/graffiti festival which was taking place in the alleys south of Queen Street. At first it seemed like some brazen taggers out in the middle of the day, but then, there were so many people involved, it became obvious it was some sort of organized event. The art was amazing and was all part of Style In Progress 2005. It was pretty incredible to watch true graffiti artists at work (something normally only possible with night vision goggles). There are some great shots in our Flickr gallery from the trip.

Monday was another scorcher, but we took a short cab ride over to the Distillery District to have a mid-morning coffee with Joe at Balzac’s Coffee House. We had a good time (it was the first time Kel had met Joe and they got along rather famously) and introduced Joe to the art of Alphonse Mucha. After catching up for an hour or so, we headed back into the heat and up to Kensington Market and Chinatown before walking back onto Queen Street and, finally, back to the hotel to catch the shuttle to the airport.

The trip home was a disaster. Our 8PM flight out was cancelled, but we managed to make it out on an earlier one, only to get stuck in Philadelphia until some time after 1AM (I really have no idea what time it was). We finally arrived back in Hartford at close to 3:30AM Tuesday morning. Exhausted, we still had to drive the 45 minutes home. Not the best travel experience by far. I can’t say I will be rushing to travel with US Airways again any time soon. I could go on and on about the airline industry, but I’ll save that for another post on another day.

Anyway, if your’re interested, you can see our shots from the trip on Flickr.

So my order from Jinx arrived today and I finally got a chance to read the back of the “Revolution is not an AOL Keyword” tshirt I bought. For those who are too young to recognize the allusion, “The Revolution will not be Televised” was written and performed by poet/musician Gil Scott-Heron (1 April 1949 -). I have a copy of it on Black Power: Music Of A Revolution, an ablum I highly recommend for anyone interested in the Black Power movement’s speeches and music (both of which are collected on this 2-disc set). Anyway, enough history.

“Revolution is not an AOL Keyword” was penned by Eddan Katz in March of 2003 and uses the same structure as “Televised” to great effect. Here’s a sample:

Revolution will not promise penile enlargement.
Revolution will not get rid of spam.
Revolution will not earn you up to $5000 a month
Working from home, because revolution is not
An AOL Keyword, Brother.

And, while quite humorous, it does pack a few strong political punches:

Revolution is not an AOL Keyword.
Revolution will not be brought to you on Hi-Def TV
Encrypted with a warning from the FBI.
Revolution will not have a jpeg slideshow of Dubya
Calling the cattle and leading the incursion by
Secretary Rumsfeld, General Ashcroft and Dick Cheney
Riding nuclear warheads on their way to Iraq,
Or North Korea, or Iran.

I don’t think any shirt I’ve bought has made me smile quite so much.

Other clothing arrivals include the now infamous “All Your Base…” and “Stop Laughing. Computers are cool now.” tshirts. And soon to debut on my car is the classic “Pirates are way cooler than ninjas” bumper sticker (don’t worry, I only put stickers on glass).

Also in the mail today was yet another addition to my ever-expanding reading list: Pragmatic Version Control Using Subversion. I am currently reading The Pragmatic Programmer and become more impressed with each page turn. It is like a philosophical/spiritual guidebook for geeks. I’m loving it.

And since I am on the topic of books, I wanted to throw out this teaser: I just finished reading the rough draft of a book by a good friend and colleague and I can’t wait until all of you can read it too. It reinforced a lot of my deeply-held beliefs and even taught me a few things. That’s all I am saying for now. I will post more on it later, when the book is nearing delivery, but I thought I’d peek your interest (well, the interest of the three of you reading this).

While in Joliet, Il for the WOW Tour, Molly and I ate a few times at the Cracker Barrel across from our hotel. If you’ve ever been in one, you’ve likely experienced the sensory overload that is the store separating the front door from the restaurant. It’s mostly junk, but occasionally you find a gem. I was not really looking for a gem when I decided to pick up How to Toilet-Train Your Cat: 21 Days to a Litter-Free Home as a joke for Kel. You see, our cats have been extremely defiant of late, leaving little presents on the new mattress we just bought from Ikea, so I thought the book might inject some levity into our normally curse-riddled conversations on the matter.

Much to my surprise, Kelly got really into it and she has now embarked on a crusade to “potty train” our two cats. We’d always laughed when we saw other cats do it in movies (most memorably Meet the Parents). I never thought we’d be able to get our cats to follow suit. Some of the information the book provides (beyond the training itself) is remarkable… if you are a cat person or simply interested in how domestication affects a species, it seems worth a read.

Anyway, in ≈19 days we should be litter free and we can start worrying about accidentally interrupting a kitty reading the morning paper. Should be pretty interesting.

Some of you may have seen my photo of Jim Wardelman’s fantastic “All your base…” shirt:

I did a little digging and found it on jinx.com. I ordered my own, as well as a few other choice t’s.

So for my birthday, Kel surprised me with a slip of paper. It was a printed copy of the email she received from a local greyhound adoption group talking about needing to place nearly 300 dogs in new homes (a nearby greyhound racetrack had closed). She said we could get one if I wanted one.

I’ve had two greyhounds in my life, both when I was living in Florida. As much as I loved the dogs, I lost both of them tragically and I am not sure I am ready to go that route again.

My first greyhound was Protocol (his racing name). Best we could figure is that he was deaf because he was retired after two races (he never chased the mechanical rabbit) and never seemed to react when you spoke to him. He was aloof and skittish (perhaps because of the deafness or the maltreatment most greyhounds endure on the racing circuit), but an otherwise friendly dog. When we were out of town visiting relatives, we boarded him with the person we adopted him from (the leader of the local rescue). While she was in the backyard with he and her other greyhounds, he apparently jumped a 4-foot fence from a sitting position and ran off. My step-father found him dead on the highway later that week. We’d only had him a few months, but it was heart-wrenching.

The woman who was taking care of him felt horrible and worked to find us another greyhound. We fell in love with Fifi (Firefly was her track name). She was probably around 4 or 5 when she was retired (she had a pretty long run, so I am told) and we brought her home. She was a wonderful dog. She was always so happy to spend time with us and followed us from room to room. It was obvious she was so happy to have a family to love and who loved her back. She was with us for nearly 8 years before her kidneys gave out on her (most likely a result of the steroids they dope the racing dogs with). I came home from college to be with her and could see her suffering. She was all swollen and in such pain she could barely move. We asked our vet if we could take her home so she could be euthanized in a familiar place.

Watching Fifi die was terrible. I’ve had several pets die since her, but few have had the same impact. I don’t know if I can adopt another greyhound right now, because I know I could end up going through the same thing again.

So I am faced with the question of whether I want another dog at all. There are a few breeds that I like (pugs, blue heelers, huskies), but I am not sure what is best for us. We have a nice size home with a small, but decent-sized yard. Of greater concern to me is our two cats and the state of our furniture. I really don’t want a dog that’s going to chew on stuff or get him or herself into a lot of trouble while we’re out.

What are your thoughts?