Category: Personal Reminiscences

Shaving redux

Daily life / Musings / Personal ReminiscencesOne Comment

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In mid-May, 2018, I published a post about my change in shaving technologies and techniques. I described why I thought it was a more environmentally friendly method, and somewhat of a homage to family tradition. Now I want to bring you up to date on my progress to date. Before I took the step back to the double-edged safety razors like my father used, I did (as is my wont) a lot of reading and research on websites and forums. Thankfully, there’s a lot of content about everything online, albeit that quantity doesn’t guarantee quality, or truthfulness. One of the ……… click below for more ↓

Brian’s new campaign slogan

Collingwood / Council / Deceit / deception & secrecy / Disrespect and bad behaviour / Election 2018 / Entitlement / Ethics and behaviour / Humour & SatireLeave a comment

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Brian Saunderson needs a new campaign slogan, now he’s officially filed papers in his ill-fated race to become mayor against the hard-working, well-liked, ethical, community-minded, former police chief, John Trude. It’s not good enough for Brian to run on his slogans from last election – “I’ll Show ‘Em Who’s Boss!”, “My Way or the Highway!”, “Why Be Open and Accountable When Secrecy and Deception Get My Way So Much Better?” and the local favourite, “I’ll Get Even With All of You!” Last election, he launched his campaign on the coattails of a phony OPP investigation based on innuendo, wildly unfounded ……… click below for more ↓

The greening of shaving

Daily life / Environment / Family history / Musings / Personal Reminiscences / Social Order & Disorder4 Comments

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But my brother Esau is an hairy man, but I am a smooth man. I recall those lines from a Beyond the Fringe sketch first released in 1964 (see below).* And so it was in my family: my brother was the hirsute Esau to my near-hairless Jacob. I didn’t need to shave until my late teens and even then it was iffy. That was in the late 1960s when sideburns and moustaches were the rage. By the time I could grow enough, everyone had gone back to being clean shaven. Eternally unfashionable, I was, even back then. In another era, ……… click below for more ↓

Of mice and men, and trackballs, too

Computers & Programming / E-books & E-readers / Games & Gaming / Personal ReminiscencesLeave a comment

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Late last year, I purchased another laptop to separate my work and recreational uses. After a long search in stores, and a lot of online reading and comparing models, I decided to get an MSI gaming rig (an entry level in their pantheon, admittedly). That process got me thinking again about how we buy and sell computers.* Computers are, for the most part, sold like muscle cars: what’s under the hood gets the attention. The processor, ram, speed, drive capacity all get writ large in ads and promoted in stores. But it’s all a bit misleading. For most uses – ……… click below for more ↓

Those we lost in 2017

Culture / Musings / Personal ReminiscencesLeave a comment

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It’s not just because I’m older that I am reading more of the obituaries than ever in my past. At least, I don’t think so. I seldom read local newspaper obituaries (in part because the delivery here is too sporadic to make it a habit), and I don’t regularly share death notices on social media unless they are of very well known figures. But I do admit I think seem to notice these reports more these days than in years past. It’s not a fear of death, either, just an awareness that it’s closer than it was and that it ……… click below for more ↓

The House on the Borderland

Books & Reviews / Daily life / Family history / Musings / Personal Reminiscences / Scifi and fantasyLeave a comment

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“But for a few touches of commonplace sentimentality [it] would be a classic of the first water.” So said H. P. Lovecraft of the 1908 novel, The House on the Borderland, by William Hope Hodgson. But, Lovecraft admitted, the book was also a major influence on his own, later work. And for good reason: it created the ‘unknown horror’ effect that Lovecraft (and later writers) exploited so well. House on the Borderland is a seminal work in its genre and, despite its age, deserves not to be forgotten by modern readers. Here’s a passage from the book: And then, as ……… click below for more ↓

A farewell to 2017

Blog & Blogging / Musings / My Writing / Personal ReminiscencesOne Comment

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Twenty seventeen has a special significance for me, beyond merely another year in the ever-lengthening calendar of my life. I find it difficult, sometimes, to believe I am as old as I am – who, after all, lives this long? I used to think that. Back then, back in my salad days of my misspent youth, fifty was impossibly old. Sixty? Ancient. Beyond that? Methuselah old. Or perhaps I simply don’t act my age. I still listen to the Beatles and the music of my youth, and play computer games. I still watch Godzilla movies and play tag with my ……… click below for more ↓

Shin Godzilla: the reboot

Culture / Fables / Film & Reviews / Godzilla / Legends & Myths / Personal Reminiscences / Philosophy3 Comments

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yk7KaxjTz-0 I’m almost embarrassed to admit that, of all the Godzilla films I’ve watched, I can recall the exact details of few. I cannot remember, just by looking at the title, which monsters were battling which. I need to look at the slipcase cover to see a picture to remind me which foe Godzilla was battling this time. Or foes, because there’s often more than one. In many ways, I prefer the original premise: a single Godzilla versus the world rather than Godzilla versus other monsters. Easier to keep track of the players that way. But that hasn’t happened in ……… click below for more ↓

Gojira, the original kaiju

Culture / Film & Reviews / Godzilla / Legends & Myths / Personal Reminiscences4 Comments

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At the end of most Godzilla films, the audience is led to believe the giant reptile has finally been killed off. Blown up, defeated by another monster, killed by technology, sunk to the bottom of the ocean or suffered some similar fate. And yet there he*** is, hale and hearty in the next film, rampaging through Japan once again, and facing yet another kaiju (giant monster) – or often several. After 32 films, Godzilla still comes back. And so do I.* I was thinking about Godzilla this week, today in particular. This is the 100th anniversary of the Halifax Explosion. ……… click below for more ↓

Guillermo, monsters and me

Arts / Culture / Film & Reviews / Godzilla / Musings / Personal Reminiscences / Pop CultureOne Comment

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Tucked away at the bottom of a tall display case in the ‘At Home With Monsters’ exhibit at the AGO is a small collection of seven old, well-thumbed books, all by the 19th century French naturalist and entomologist, Jean-Henri Fabre. At the very bottom of the pile, its title almost hidden in the shadows, is The Life of the Spider, first translated into English in 1913, but not translated again until 1971. The books subtly reflect the importance director and artist Guillermo del Toro places on insects in his works. He calls them “living metaphors” and adds, “They are so ……… click below for more ↓

Remembering those who served

Family history / History & Biography / Personal Reminiscences / War & MilitaryOne Comment

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It’s at this time of the year, as we approach Remembrance Day, that I think most about my family, especially those who have died. I wish I had known when I was younger what I know today, so I could have asked them more about their lives, and about their service in the military, about their wars. I have read a lot about those wars, about the military and political history of the last century; it’s a topic I never tire of reading about. I wish I could have learned more from my own family about what it was like, then. ……… click below for more ↓

It’s about the process, stupid…

Blog & Blogging / Collingwood / Conspiracy Theories / Council / Critical Thinking / Disrespect and bad behaviour / Ethics and behaviour / Personal Reminiscences / Political fads / Utilities: electricity and waterLeave a comment

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My negative comments on the impending privatization of our electrical utility (and potentially our water utility once the first deal is sealed) drew some online criticism recently. None of those critics refuted any of the facts I offered, or attempted to debunk any of the numerous documents I quoted and linked to. Nor could they. After all, they are easily proven, well-documented facts. But still, they called me a liar and attempted to use other cheap ad hominem tactics to discredit me.* However, regardless of their like or dislike of me, the facts remain, the facts speak for themselves. Facts ……… click below for more ↓

Ollie and pet rescue

Animals & BIology / Behaviour & Psychology / Daily life / Personal Reminiscences / Pets / Pets & Animal BehaviourLeave a comment

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We are suckers for the face of a cat at the window, a hungry cat, a cold cat, a lost cat, a cat someone has abandoned to fend for themselves and is doing a poor job of it. The pleading eyes, the rough coat, the quiet shiver in the rain or the cold. How can you turn away from that and still call yourself human? Ollie, our latest addition to our household, was one of those faces, quite recently. We had seen him in the neighbourhood for a few weeks, getting thinner each time we caught a glimpse. We asked ……… click below for more ↓

Legends of Horror

Culture / Film & Reviews / Musings / Personal ReminiscencesLeave a comment

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Legends of Horror is the title of one multi-DVD collections of films I own. Fifty films in this package. They’re B-films for the most part (and a few of lesser quality), dating from 1927 (silent) to 1980, mostly in B&W, but those dating from the mid-1960s on are usually colour. The collection title is misleading: it’s really a mix of early horror, mystery and suspense. It’s one of several similar sets and single DVDs that make up my personal collection of B films (a very few, but far from all, shown in the photo on the right). Most of which ……… click below for more ↓

Forty years of geekitude

Computers & Programming / Daily life / Personal ReminiscencesOne Comment

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It was forty years ago this fall, in 1977, that I bought my first computer. I had little experience with computers prior to that – a few weeks working after hours on an APL system at the U of T, mostly to play games against the machine, reading a few magazine articles on the coming ‘personal’ computer wave. Nothing seriously hands-on, experience-wise, and no programming skills either. But as soon as I saw one, I had to have it. And so I bought one. Since then, I have not been a day without one, and generally had more than just ……… click below for more ↓

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