Going on around the web

The trip home from work these days usually leaves me with my feathers a bit ruffled. It's a one hour and fifteen minute two-bus, bumpy journey that frequently involves running for and missing buses, suffering through stinky co-passengers, and coffee-umbrella-book-bag juggling acts. Today, however, was pleasant as can be and has left me in a great pre-long weekend mood. To put a cherry on top of the seamless bus ride home,  I stopped in at Cobbs for a butter croissant. I crossed paths with a friendly neighbour on my way into the apartment and had a great chat. I'm in such a great mood and wearing such a big smile, and I want to pass on the pleasantry with some fun stuff I've been enjoying this week from all over the web.

Baby portraits: the perfect balance of looking like an adult yet being a baby makes these both eerie, adorable and hilarious.

An amazing boutique hotel on a rock face in Jamaica.

The new Wintersleep album

The cool monthly market I'm going to visit this weekend.

Some priceless commentary and photos on the fashion-impaired citizens of Vancouver.

A super-dorky, yet somehow endearing kid whose photo I stumbled across at work while doing some image research for an article.

This ultra-quirky music video for Grizzly Bear's song "Two Weeks."

Frank's Red Hot Sauce changed my life

Tomorrow marks the first day of my summer internship with a magazine publisher. And I think that to distract myself from getting too nervous my mind is trying to fixate on other things. All I can focus on is the chicken burger I ate tonight and the hot sauce that I put on it. Why has it taken me 25 years to put hot sauce on a chicken burger? Now I finally get that commercial with the old lady...take my word friends, I am going to put that shit on everything.

But back to the internship.....I've been nervously awaiting this for a while now. A first day anywhere is nerve wracking, but this is the first day that actually matters in my career. And this job comes with a scary new bus route. The trip planner on the bus website gave me about five different options, so I'm going with the one that only requires two buses, rather than bus/bus/skytrain. If the bus route makes me late...at least I have four more to try, right?

Some interesting incidents from the weekend

-I saw 2 homeless people fight on the bus and one threw a bag of cans and hit the other in the face
-Luc and I saw Avatar
-I threw out my neck putting a bag of chips in the cupboard
-Our fish died
-We picked the song for the first dance at our wedding
-A crazy old guy on the bus taught us (and several others) the rules of 'Pickle Ball'

I wish I had the energy to write out the full story that goes along with each of these points...but sometimes a list is just as good.

The concealed reader

More adventures on the bus! This morning I was seated next to a strange fellow. I think I'm pretty good at reading people and he was giving me a definite weirdo-vibe. And then I noticed something interesting and somewhat disturbing. He was reading an Ikea catalogue, but he was actually concealing some sort of handgun operating manual. Very creepy. He was surreptitiously training himself in the use of firearms, and thought the rest of us assumed he was shopping for a new bedroom suite. No sir, you did not fool me! But you sure did creep me out.

Let's see if you can follow my train of thought

It's quite remarkable the amount of inspiration and ideas that I draw from my daily bus rides. Today in class we were talking about new technologies and what the future looks like. More specifically, we were ruminating on the idea of whether or not eBooks will eclipse the printed book, much like the mp3 has done to the CD. Somehow that general seed of 'current and future technologies in society' led me to this:

Today a woman had each hand gripped on either door handle and was aggressively shaking them before the bus had come to a full stop. I thought to myself - "does she know something that the rest of us don't? Is this baby gonna blow? Not much else would call for such fervent shaking when the bus is still in motion."

No, the bus was not on the verge of exploding - she was just ignorant to the steps required to exit the bus. It's not even one of the more confusing technologies to grasp, but so many people seem to be stumped by it. Why is this? If you're not familiar with the bus door-opening technique in Vancouver transit, it's quite simple (as listed step-by-step below).

Step 1 - Wait until the bus has come to a complete stop.
Step 2 - Look for the illuminated green light directly above the doors
Step 3 - Lightly push the door handles
Step 4 - Step off the bus

I don't know why this vexes me so?!?!! But every time I see someone white-knuckling the handles and shaking them like they're in an argument with the doors, I want to scratch out my eyeballs. It makes me think of the people who get angry or judge, but never take the time to understand; and stretching it a bit further (in relation to our technology discussion), it makes me think of the people who are in denial of the progress happening in the world and who are ignorant of the transitions being made in our everyday lives. There are people who abhor technology and live their lives in its periphery - coming into contact with it when necessary, but even then, not taking the time to understand it. I can't relate to these people, because I grew up with technology and I love what it does for my life. So I can't understand the people that aren't even interested in learning about it before they push it aside or criticize it. However, because I can't relate to their position, I try not to judge them too harshly. That's one of the problems though - we condemn what we don't understand. It's a classic problem that is manifested in a myriad of situations. Taking the time to understand before you judge is a critical step, but it seems like when that step requires too much effort we cop out.

People have been blogging a lot about New Years Resolutions, and I think I mentioned that I didn't really bother making any. Like I often do, I've changed my mind: I'm resolving to take more time to understand before I judge. My first step was reading this article posted to a class website about twitter, then opening my own account. But I guess what I'm really trying to say is, the people that reef on the bus doors represent everything that is wrong with the world.