Month: June 2012

Last year was our last time toasting Canada on the Viccari balcony. For many. many years, Ben and Anne Viccari combined birthday celebrations for Ben and Canada. The country, of course, was born on July 1st, Ben on July 2nd.
Ben was a huge Canada booster as well as a champion of multiculturalism. On Canada Day, he decked himself out in a red T shirt and white pants. He was born in England (as was Anne), but Ben was also fluent in his father’s tongue, Italian, and was very proud of that heritage, too.
Both Ben and Anne are gone for this year’s Canada Day, but I thought we should remember their annual birthday party one more time. Many Viccari friends and fans have been on that balcony on July 1st. Good times.

It’s been years since I took the ferry across to Centre Island, but Danica has inspired me to plan a visit this summer. She walked all around the island parks yesterday with longtime friend Jane, stopping for lunch at the Rectory Café [pictured above]. Of course they dropped by for a look at the “clothing optional” beach, too. No hunky males were spotted (I am told).
Some more photos from the day…

“Your website is being very serious indeed,” said John in a recent email. To remedy that, he gave me a crack at coming up with an idea for his next book cover. After a few iterations, we arrived at one that works for John, his publisher and me. I just sent out the finished art.

Both or either. Pide (pronounced pea-deh) is delicious food. I lunched with a friend at the Danforth’s Mr. Pide today and learned a couple of things. First, the yogurt drink called ayran didn’t appeal to either of us. I’m sure it’s healthy but neither of us liked the taste. We did better with fruit juices and Turkish tea.
We ordered two pides… spinach and feta for one choice and an assorted with meat, sausage and chicken for the second. Lamb was standard on the assorted but I asked for ground beef as a substitute. Fact is, ground meat, lamb or beef, doesn’t work for me on a pide. The crumbles fall off the crust too easily. Spinach with feta was the better choice. Delicious.
Here’s the thing… Mr. Pide on the Danforth had some nice qualities. The attractive young lady who served us was polite and helpful. The whole front of the restaurant opens out to the street, adding atmosphere. (No air conditioning today, but ceiling fans were going. Warm, but acceptable, I’d say.) We received creamy garlic sauce at Mr. Pide that I don’t recall getting at Pizza Pide. And yet, I’ve got to give a slight edge to Pizza Pide on Gerrard. The pide is equally tasty and Pizza Pide offers more choices of toppings. I like their presentation on the plate much better, too. The Gerrard place has less atmosphere, I suppose, but it’s bright and cool.
While on the Danforth, we looked for a Turkish grocery store I’d heard about.

I’m a latecomer to this free service that lets you snap photos, doctor them with preset effects and email them to your friends. Or you can post them to your social media site. Kinda fun.
There are many other cloud-based photo manipulation sites, of course. Diptic is one that caught my eye (99¢) The MobileMonet app for iPads, iPods and iPhones has a free version I used to make this fake line drawing. I can’t see much use for it, since I have Photoshop, but it’s easy to use and the pay version saves higher resolutions and has more features than the free one.

When a cabinet minister acquires a nickname, it’s time for oblivion. Bev Orange Juice knows this. Peeping Vic is looking worried. Flyin’ Peter should have left his toy airplanes at home. Tony “Gazebo” Clement wishes everyone but his local constituents would forget how he spent that money. Poor old P.O.S. Kent got an apology from Justin Trudeau, but the name stuck.
Peter Van Loan and lookalike James Moore haven’t received their nicknames yet, but both are working hard to get theirs.
John “Pitbull” Baird and “Gnome of Ottawa” Flaherty will be exceptions to the policy.
Other nickname-bearing cabinet ministers have retreated into self-imposed obscurity, hoping to avoid complete oblivion. We can still see you, Julian, Joe, Gerry and Maxime, but maybe your boss doesn’t.

Well, when it’s a waste of your valuable time. I don’t mean to pick on the free House & Home app in particular, but it strikes me as a bundle of advertising messages padded with trivia. It lived on my iPad for a few minutes until I retrieved the space for better use.
Most of my app downloads go the same way, even ones that cost a buck or two. What I really use on my iPad is the web browser and the Mail app. Sketchbook Pro is worth having. I have other apps, but I can’t even think what they are without looking.

In addition to knowing more about popular music and bands than anyone I’ve ever met, Merrill is always learning new ways to produce music himself… studying classical guitar or, now, delving into the world of digital performance.
Via email and webcam, he has been showing me how he created the mp3 below on his computer. He starts with real sheet music, gets that into the computer with mouse and keyboard, then outputs guitar music. The software is Guitar Pro. To my ear, it sounds very pleasant… nice on such a hot day.
(The volume jumps up unexpectedly in a couple of places, but this is work in progress.)

Morning Has Broken. Cat Stevens version for guitar. Rick Foster’s adaptation for classical guitar

Charles Eames, designer of the famous Eames Chair said this:

Innovate as a last resort. More horrors are done in the name of innovation than any other.

He has a point. It is a popular fantasy today, that innovation will save economies, repair a damaged planet, employ idle hands, feed the hungry and prevent insurrections. Pundits tell us that we are all creative, peddling techniques to help us have innovative ideas, frequently and steadily.
Perhaps this is nonsense.
Perhaps we would be wise to study ideas that have already been seen to work. Perhaps we could gain more by appreciating the achievements of those who have gone before us, learning the details of their success.
How ironic that famous phrase, “New and Improved”, has become.

Brian sent an email full of funny old ads. I’d seen a lot of them but had to laugh and shake my head all over again. Gun-loving, cigarette-puffing sexists learned how to nourish infants with soda pop and tame their adoring women.
Advertising is always bullshit. Today’s stuff will look just as ridiculous with the perspective of time. My favourites are the saccharine offerings of eco-saintly oil companies and beneficent, loving governments.
BTW, in my days in the B.S. mills, the Government of Canada was far and away the biggest spender on advertising… bigger than any of the largest corporations. I don’t imagine this has changed.