Orange Ginger Beginnings

The past two days I’ve been tidying up my apartment in the mornings and then heading out to spend time with friends and indulge my bookworm side. Yesterday I had a grand time with Andrew and Allison downtown, including some comic shop browsing and today I met with my friend Ashley at a library near where she lives and was just at another library tonight to pick up a book I had on hold. Combining that with a stack of books I got through a mutual loaning session last week leaves me with a ton to read through in the next couple weeks. I’m quite happy to have such an overload of content to drink in.

Saturday night is surely going to be a highlight of my year. I’ll be seeing Broken Social Scene, one of my all time favourite bands, and Bedouin Soundclash in concert. I’ll be going with a bunch of the wickedest folks I know, which will make it especially enjoyable. Jana, Pegah, Allison, Andrew and Nathan will all be joining me for the evening’s extravaganza. Rumours have me thinking it’s going to be a surprising night. Any of my fellow Haligonians that are going and want to drop by here for a pre-show gathering are welcome to.

Autism is an interesting condition that is often misunderstood. Some truly amazing people have been diagnosed with it, and there has even been speculation that Einstein, my favourite scientist-mystic, had a mild form of it. One case that shatters any doubt that brilliance can be found in those afflicted with the disorder is that of Gilles Trehin, an artist and imaginative genius who has created the imaginary but realistic city of Urville. Through a profile and a short video I’ve become facinated by the complexity and thoroughness of his life’s work on the city. Urville, the book compiling his work will be released this year, and I’m looking forward to exploring his city. For more information visit his Urville website.

I’ve been a Nintendo loyalist for a long while. Though I don’t often play video games these days, I do appreciate Nintendo’s consistant push for innovation. Not only is the Revolution the most innovative console in history and a sleeper winner of this generation of video game systems, but the Nintendo DS is the most impressive portable gaming system on the market at the moment.The company has been consistantly impressing me, so much so that later this year I might own a gaming console for the first time since the days of the NES in my childhood. I’m almost certainly sold on the Revolution, but the DS will finally have a web browser later this year in the form of a version of Opera. It makes the system very appealing to me now that it will have the one feature I was considering a PDA upgrade to have.

I recently came across an interesting blog promotion website, 25 Peeps. Essentially, people submit a 100 x 100 px image and hope it gives them enough clicks on the 25 Peeps page to stay on the 5 x 5 grid. There are some interesting folks there, belying the superficial appearance of the method. Check it out and look for my face to be up there in the coming days.

I enjoy beverages of all kinds. Sodas, teas, coffees, sakes, you name it. There’s one product that I can’t wait for, however. Programmable beverage containers are simply a brilliant idea!.

Give me a bottle of Jones with that and I will be in heaven! Innovation is a marvelous thing.

A friend of mine introduced me to the music of a friend of hers, Simara Rose. I can’t come up with an easy categorization of her music, because it combines disparate bits of jazz, alternative, metal, industrial and other genres. Not only is the music brilliant, but her visual style is oh so pleasing.

My continuing interest in biofeedback and binaural beat lead me to discover yet another resource for experimenting with it. Through “Hack Your Brain with an iPod” I came to find Brain Wave Generator and the exciting selection of presets it offers. Want to get a caffeine rush with only a pair of headphones? You can, as well as experiencing a large number of other states. I’m actually considering having a gathering of some of my friends who are interested in doing a group experiment with the technology using some of the more entheogenic (as a hint for those of you not familiar with the term, its etymology is ‘generating the divine within’) signals.

A short while ago I received a postcard of the Imperial Forums of Rome from Susana while she travelled in Europe. Aside from being a nice jesture, it stirred up my wanderlust a bit. Tonight, still in that mindset some, I signed up at Postcrossing. Postcrossing is the creation of a fellow from Portugal with a love for postcards that allows people across the globe to exchange postcards. While they might not be as special as a card from someone we care about, I’m looking forward to sending and receiving some.

I’m a constant used of Last.FM, the finest on-demand social music service there is, but sometimes I like using the lesser but more accessable service provided by Pandora. A new bridging site by Real-ity allows users to listen to Pandora and submit those songs to Last.FM, making Pandora a far more appealing service to me.