I tested a friend’s theory that listening to AC/DC whilst playing pinball makes you better at pinball. I’m sorry to report that this is unfortunately untrue. Neither Thunderstruck nor T.N.T. improved my performance in World Cup Soccer ‘94 on PinMAME. I haven’t tried Shook Me All Night Long yet.

Ahh I hate when people use words like “holidaze” trying to be clever. It’s not clever, it’s a cliche. I’m using it to be ironic, which is different from being clever

Anyway, this is the odd period in between Christmas and New Years, which means it’s not a holiday, but it has the same kind of productivity as a holiday, which is to say none. This year, I’m trying to cram a lot of things in though, because I’m off to San Francisco in a couple of days. My flight takes off at 7am on Friday morning, so I’ll be staying at James’s house in King City on Thursday night. Until then, I’ve got my schedule pretty much packed up with things to do, working and meeting friends and stuff.

Christmas was great. It was good to reconnect with family. I haven’t seen Jadine in ages. I think it was last Christmas, actually. And of course, we had multiple opportunities to eat way too much in the last few days. I’m still full from dinner three days ago. The only problem is that we had a lot of equally big meals since then. I’m almost hoping there’s no food in San Francisco.

I got some fun gifts. I got a tiny stove-top espresso maker, an assortment of funky Japanese candy, my tiny Canon camera, a memory card for it, a variety of Indian spices, a cookbook of 30-minute recipes, and a 14-month calendar on a mouse pad. That’s exactly what I need because I haven’t been able to do all the things I’ve wanted to do in a year in the standard 12 months. The two extras will come in handy. I’ve been enjoying the little camera. It makes photography a much more casual process again when the camera fits in your pocket. The espresso machine is deceptively large. It looks tiny, but actually brews about 4 cups of espresso at a time. Since I was making espresso for myself, I ended up drinking all four by myself. I couldn’t stop my fingers and toes from tapping–vibrating really–for the next three hours. Ahh good times.

I got early Christmas presents for myself. A new jacket, a couple of winter hats (only one shown in the photos below), and a shirt, possibly made with the national tartan of Jamaica

The jacket is yet another of the spring/fall weight that I desperately do NOT need. I already have about three or four perfectly good jackets for this kind of weather. What i really need are casual winter coats. Maybe I’m in denial, and I’m buying for weather I really want to experience instead of what we’re likely to get in the coming months. It’s damn cool though… Calvin Klein, and it fits me like it was custom made.

I made this last image for my webcam on dA

I was thinking this morning about improv, and how in many ways, the goal is to create another world. That is to say, improvisers create in their own minds and the minds of the audience a world that is similar to our own, and at the same time different. It’s a world in which anything can happen. It got me to thinking about the movie What the Bleep Do We Know? I saw last week, and also the Discovering the 10 Dimensions link that Olya had in her blog a while back. Quantum theory talks about the potential of infinite possibilities, which fold into our reality as we make choices. During the course of a normal day, we make normal choices, which collapses the potential things that can happen into something more or less normal for us. Improv allows us the freedom from consequence to make those bold and courageous choices that create entirely different worlds. I found that to be a neat thought this morning. I hope these thoughts give me the inspiration to make bold and courageous choices tonight. Big in Japan is performing in a kind of year-end show. If anyone wants to go, it’s at the Bad Dog Theatre on the Danforth at Broadview at 8pm.

The Matt Dusk photos are in today’s Hamilton Spectator. The story is about my client Damon Allan who owns Alexander Steel and provides Matt’s clothing.

The feature is something nice I can hang up on my wall. Maybe it will bring some exposure too.

UDPATE:
I spent all kinds of time scanning, stitching together, and cleaning up the newspaper clippings. Meanwhile, the Spec has PDFs of these pages available on its website here and here…