A taste of childhood
A couple of weekends ago, inquisitive guitar girl invited people to come along to one of her first art exhibits. It wasn't exclusively her exhibit (there'll be one, but that's not for a while); she was one of several local artists who brought their stuff to be a part of a larger Waitangi Day (New Zealand holiday) festival. The festival is quite a distance from where I am, but I was staying with family that weekend who live closer to where the festival was being held. So, I selected 'Attending' on the Facebook invite, and told her I'd show up for a bit.
The festival itself wasn't huge (neither is the city it was held in, even by New Zealand standards), but it doesn't take a huge festival to draw in the fast food stalls and carts. Even small events manage to rope them in - I'm reminded of a hot-air balloon festival I went to around Easter last year which was pretty small, but the food carts all made an appearance: hot dog stands, hot chip stands (basically anything you can add tomato sauce to), hot drink and coffee carts (or anything that's best served at high temperatures), cold drink and ice cream stalls (OK, so there are some exceptions to these rules), and lots of candy stalls. Basically, if it can be served within minutes and doesn't reside anywhere near the bottom/healthy sections of the food pyramid, you will find a cart/stall for it.
One cart at these events always catches my eye, and that's the Lil' Orbit donut cart.
In my search for decent images of these donut carts, I stumbled across their website which is, well... it's a bit shit. OK, it's quite shit. The Lil' Orbits site is very much stuck in the past with it's tiled background, animated images, and inconsistent use of several fonts. In these days of clean lines, smooth corners, and easy-on-the-eye colours, seeing the Lil' Orbits site with it's sharp edges and large red Times New Roman links of the late 90s is enough to make the web designer in me cry. Here, take a look and judge for yourself:
*shudder*
The donut cart occupies a very positive part of my memory; the section of childhood memories that is always seen through rose-tinted glasses and can't be sullied by things like time and outdated websites.
A looong time ago, when my age could still be counted on one's fingers, shopping was one of the least-exciting activities you could subject me to. It meant being taken to several places for reasons I couldn't then understand, often resulting in not coming back with anything after hours of 'just looking'.
Subjecting a child to hours of nothing leads to restlessness and whining. If one of the stores we frequented during these trips didn't have a display model Gameboy with Tetris running on it, I couldn't be held responsible for what damage I might have caused. As a deterrent to bad behaviour from either my brother or I, my mum would reward us with donuts from the Lil' Orbit donut cart that was outside Deka (a department store chain in NZ that isn't around anymore) at the end of the shopping trips.
Those donuts are probably the sweetest, fluffiest little treats I have ever had, and the taste is something that has imprinted itself on my senses since those days. Nowadays, when I see a donut cart and am feeling the need to satisfy my sweet tooth, I always end-up buying a bag of donuts for old times' sake.
When I bought a bag at the Waitangi Day festival after finding my friend's art exhibit and doing another round of wandering, I realized several things about childhood memories:
1. Everything is a lot larger back then compared to now (that's what she said?)
The same sort of phenomena as believing that your dad was really tall, or that the walk to school was really long: your sense of scale was very different then. I remember those donuts being large enough to hold in my hand. Now, they're about a quarter the size of my palm.
2. You never cared what it was that made something sweet, sweet. You just cared that it was sweet.
Looking at the bag of donuts, I could see now why those things were so sweet: the donuts were thrown into a bag filled with brown sugar that clung to the donuts like a stubborn food stain on the crotch area of your pants. I found myself shaking some of the sugar off the donuts, just so I could tip the donut:sugar ratio in the donut's favour.
So what did I learn about my childhood memories? That they lied to me? Sort of. If anything, I lied to myself, but only because at that age I didn't know any better. Regardless, I still find myself drawn to the donut cart: no matter how bad the company website is, no matter how much smaller those donuts seem to get, and no matter how much I learn about health and nutrition, I am willing to put up with crappy site design, tiny donuts, and bags full of sugar, to sample a taste of childhood.
Strawberry Fare(well) - part 2
(continued from Strawberry Fare(well) - part 1)
So in part 1 of this story I explained that I was at Strawberry Fare for a goodbye dinner for an overseas friend I had met through dance classes, who was returning to their home country the following day. Actually, I lie - I spent most of last blog post explaining why the Strawberry Fare restaurant was such a big deal for me and the weird way in which my stomach finds new places to store food when it's overflowing - but that's where I left off, saying that it's the second overseas-friend-goodbye I've had to do in the span of a month.
The first goodbye had no fanfare surrounding it because a terrible rainstorm and hurricane-strength winds decided to defecate all over the plans we had for their last weekend in New Zealand with us. I had to settle instead for a very long conversation from my cellphone in which I must've spent 3-months worth of my normal cellphone credit just talking about pretty much everything while avoiding the saddening topic of their imminent departure.
For that person, the whole 'I miss you' feeling didn't really kick-in until they were back home (Belgium) and had a go at me over Facebook chat, berating me for not having Skype and a webcam/microphone like a good IT person should.
Of all the lessons I've learned as part of the 'growing-up' process, having to say goodbye to people is still the one that gets to me the most. Hell, the first time I learned it, it spawned my first space pic and started my whole foray into using the digital space art medium as an outlet for general angst.
Despite the years since then and the number of people I've had to say goodbye to, it never really got any easier.
So there I was, dinner at Strawberry Fare, already feeling a bit tired because I had been at work all day (and on a Saturday too FFS!), and being all selfish about how this farewell was going to impact me.
"My social calendar is gonna be empty now with you going away." I managed to say to the goodbye girl sometime during dinner when she sat beside me. "You're 1 of maybe only 2 people from dance class who ever invite me to anything!"
"Aww, you'll be alright Em." she said.
Will I? I wondered. The only reason I have anything on my calendar now is because I've signed-up to keyboard/piano classes to fill-up my free time. While relearning a long-rusted skill is particularly exciting, it's no substitute for general hanging-out with friends.
So, hugs were exchanged, a kiss on the forehead was made, and I tried ever so elegantly to walk out of the restaurant, after paying for my epic dinner/dessert of course, when said meal was sitting in my expanding stomach and causing me to waddle once again like a penguin.
It made for an awkward exit, made even worse by the fact that I walked into the door when I turned-around to leave.
Well, making people laugh isn't the worst last impression you could make right?
I went to Strawberry Fare last night! :D
OK, so I guess I should explain why that is such a big deal for me. It started a long time ago, back in high school...
*cue flashback sequence harp tune*
Back then, I had a friend (still have, although I don't see her much nowadays since she moved city, although I'll be attending her wedding come April!) who often went to Strawberry Fare. Now, her family didn't go there so often as to think that Strawberry Fare was all they ate every Saturday evening, but enough times to make you think that it was one of their favourite places.
Strawberry Fare is a dessert restaurant, specializing in gigantic meal-sized desserts - yes, you can swap-out your dinner for one of their desserts and feel full. Every time my friend would come back from this place she'd regale us with tales of how decadent the dessert was, or how sweet the cakes were, etc etc ad infinitum. The stories fed-upon my curiosity and my sweet tooth, building atop each other from high school through university, and eventually my mind painted a picture of a place bathed in glowing reviews and surrounded by an aura of good times to be had.
The details of the stories faded once my friend moved away, but the feeling they left inside me stayed for a long time, and were still with me when I would finally eat at Strawberry Fare in late 2008.
(Note: I have mentioned the Strawberry Fare story before in my post: Too. Much. Food. as part of Blog Every Day April 2009. If you've already read that one, then think of the following paragraphs as filling-in the gaps of that story)
I was with a bunch of people who I knew mostly through work. We had eaten dinner at a nearby restaurant already, and were actually pretty full (we ordered and shared food expecting 1 extra person who didn't turn up until near the end). That late guy though, having not eaten as much as us, said he'd stick around for dessert. Somebody came-up with the idea of going to Strawberry Fare for dessert, and all of my senses heightened (imagine a dog's ears going up in alert) and focussed on that suggestion.
"Yes!" I said, not heeding the fullness of my stomach. It's only dessert, I thought, it can't be that much, despite what everyone else has been telling me for last almost-decade.
So the group all headed for Strawberry Fare, anticipation building inside me like a child on the eve of Christmas.
The desserts all looked pretty expensive, so at first I thought this place was overcharging. I stuck with a pretty safe bet - a cheesecake, elegantly described in a blurb that contained more words than there were actual ingredients in your average cheesecake - and when I made my order the little cynic inside me started disbelieving that a cheesecake could cost so much.
The little cynic quickly shut up when I got served THAT MUCH cheesecake.
I was full, but somehow that didn't matter anymore. I had to go on because a) I was finally at Strawberry Fare and was learning that all the legends were true, and b) I am going to have to pay for this at the till later.
So I ate. I got through half of the cheesecake before my stomach reached capacity and started calling-in favours from the nearby organs to use them to store any excess food.
*return from flashback*
So what was I doing there last night? I was there for a goodbye dinner/dessert for an overseas friend returning to their country of origin (USA); the second overseas friend I've had to say goodbye to within the span of a month...
(to be continued, because I really shouldn't be up this late when tomorrow is Monday and I gotta go to work; Monday is bad enough already without me adding sleep-deprivation to the mix)
Question: what the hell is FQ?
No-longer-on-dial-up girl's Facebook status made mention of her being exciting about it being out. FQ? I thought, WTF? Last time she did this, it was ANTM, which, thanks to Google, I was able to find-out meant America's Next Top Model.
So I started thinking that maybe it's another TV show, but nothing that came to mind had a 2-word title with the first word beginning with F and the last word beginning with Q. Google wasn't much help this time either, pointing me either to fashion publications, or letting me know that it's the SMS version of "fuck you".
So I just asked her what FQ could possibly mean, and she dodged the question by pointing-out one of my eccentricities instead.
There are just way too many acronyms for me to keep up with now. I don't know whether to blame computing (where almost every new technology or idea conceived can be shortened into a TLA (three-letter acronym) or XTLA (extended three-letter acronym)), or the trend towards laziness in our written language that I mentioned in my last blog post, for this over-abundance of acronyms.
There was a time when I used to refuse putting my written words into acronyms. This was when I was first introduced to the world of IM when a friend of mine suggested I install ICQ on my computer, circa 2000 AD. From then I was exposed to a new language; a language of LOLs, ROFLs, OMGs, and emoticons. For a long time I replaced LOLs and ROFLs with "hahah" and the like, and expanded every word I could because I thought I was 'above' degrading my English. (Looking back, I realize I was just being a pompous jackass in the same way some people say "I don't have a television; I read.")
I did eventually succumb to the use of acronyms in chat messages, texts, e-mails, and this blog. Hell, I even say LOL in real life. I did draw a line somewhere: I continue to refuse using those kinds of acronyms and smilies in more important communiques, like essays, reports, documentation, or other formal messages. And in all of this I continue to use proper punctuation and grammar, because nothing makes baby Jesus cry like reading a headline that says: Students failing because of Twitter, texting
Aside: the first acronym ever given to me over ICQ was ASL (age/sex/location), by some random Australian girl who found me just 1 day after I had installed ICQ. I had to ask her what it meant, because Google didn't exist then. She was the only random IM chat buddy I ever had.
So I still don't know what FQ means in the context of no-longer-on-dial-up girl's status update. Ideas?
Number of acronyms in this blog post: 23
Young on the outside, old on the inside (and uncool all-round)
My perceived age seems to be a running theme on my blog as the running-into and meeting several new people thanks to dance classes has my age coming into question time and time again. What about how old I am on the inside then? Well, according to a study that has recently come out about social media amongst young adults (which has been getting referenced a lot this past week from the sites and blogs I follow) I'm likely to be 30 or older.
According to the study, blogging amongst teens and young adults declined since 2007 (went up with the 30+ crowd over the same period) who have exchanged "macro-blogging" for micro-blogging with status updates. It's more likely the status updates are just confined to their online profiles on sites like Facebook, as the study also showed that a majority of young adults have a Facebook profile, but not a Twitter account.
So blogging and Twitter are both uncool and for the old folk. *sigh* Can't catch a break can I? And all of this on the back of a dream I had a few nights ago where I was getting gray hairs O_o
I guess being told you're old on the inside isn't as bad as being mistaken for young on the outside. It carries with it a lot of the better connotations associated with age, like wisdom and responsibility, and it kinda makes me feel good about myself, much like that feeling you get when you did reading tests at primary school and were told by your teacher you had a reading age beyond your years. Pride, I think it is - the sense of achievement kind, not the self-important seven-deadly-sins kind.
Back to the study, it's probably just showing the trends of today: Facebook is an easy way to share certain content with your friends, and status updates are an easy way to do what blogging does but with less characters; say what's on your mind to those who are willing to read/listen.
When I started this website in 2001, I was just following the trends of those days which was to get your own Geocities (or equivalent free-hosting) page and add whatever spastic animated image or annoying follow-your-mouse-cursor JavaScript to the site. The blog was the natural extension of the personal website and so that was added quite soon afterwards, although I didn't start calling it a blog or blogging until late 2005.
Little did we know that maintaining the thing takes actual effort, and so came the decline of the personal website / blog, paving the way for the multitude of social networks, each with their own little way of doing relatively effortless things like uploading photos from that drunken 21st, or telling your friends about what food you're ingesting AT THIS VERY INSTANT.
If the long-term trend though is to replace effort-requiring things with effort-less things, then I wonder what will be superseding the Facebooks and Twitters of today? It's bad enough that today's kids have forgotten what punctuation is for in their goal to say as much as they can with as few characters as possible.
What are we going to forget next? The ability to act appropriately in social situations because everything is done with non-face-to-face communication methods?
Oh wait...
"Call me Ishmael."
I've said before that books, reading, and the local city library are a few of the things that rate very highly in my list of hobbies. Upon returning from my New Year's holiday, I went to the library and saw that 3 books I wanted to read were available, so I got them all, thinking that I could manage to read all 3 books within the 1 month borrowing period. It'd be like a reading challenge I told myself.
I wouldn't say I'm a slow reader, but the amount of time available to me for reading is the biggest hurdle to completing such a challenge: spare weekend afternoons being the largest chunk of available time, followed by before I go to bed at night, during my lunch break at work, and maybe even a few pages when I turn-on my work computer in the morning. (When I lived in the suburbs, I could add 'the train ride to/from work' to that list, which added about 40 minutes every weekday.)
1 month on, I did manage to read those 3 books, but for as long as I've been having this love-affair with the library, I've had this nasty little habit of borrowing another book whenever I return the one I've just read. It was never a problem before as it kept me with something to read, but now it's keeping me perpetually in 'reading challenge' mode which is starting to weigh on me. So I've still got 3 books to go, none of them the ones I originally borrowed after New Year's, and on top of those I also have the 2 books I was given as Christmas presents from my family (Scott Westerfeld's Leviathan and Michael Flynn's Eifelheim).
I'm trying to break the cycle - I don't want to feel eternally obligated to use my spare time reading books when I should redirect that spare time into other things like planning for Pizza 1.1, or practicing guitar now that I have someone to practice songs with - and with the last book I returned I did manage to leave the library without a replacement. However, something else has taken the place of my library habits, which is doing just as good a job of putting a new book in my hands: curiosity.
(and 10 points if you saw this image and thought 'Schrodinger's lolcat!')
Ever started at a topic in Wikipedia, and then followed the 'see also' and other links, only to find yourself hours later at a totally unrelated topic? (What, no? Well, XKCD has it documented, so I know it's not just me that does it) Well, that happened to me last week, and while I can't remember what it is I started with, I do remember ending-up on the Wikipedia entry for Moby-Dick.
I've never read Moby-Dick before. With all the cultural references to Captain Ahab and his hunt for the elusive white whale, I thought I knew enough of the essential plot points that I didn't need to read Moby-Dick. As I was reading through the article and the parts about the background, themes, and the effects the book has had on us to this very day, the curiosity in me took hold and I started wanting to read the book to get an understanding on all of this stuff and to join the bandwagon that has been rolling since it was first published over 150 years ago.
With the prospect of a slow weekend ahead, and against my better judgement (knowing that I had 2 more library books on my plate), I went to the library's online catalogue to see if a copy of Moby-Dick was available.
They had 1 left.
The opening line of the book reads:
Call me Ishmael.
