mike the mountain

For all of you that had to suffer through that last site design template of mine: I am so sorry.

I work on a Mac. I use good browsers, like Safari and Firefox. I don’t use Microsoft’s Internet Explorer.

When I picked that last template, I thought is was just a neat, simple, minimalist layout, fairly tasteful while still being relatively unique. I saw a bunch of Javascript in there, but I couldn’t ever see what it was supposed to do, so I didn’t worry about it. Figured it was just broken or something.

No matter what your personal tastes are, you should always consider how your actions will be viewed by others. This works here too. I really should have checked to see what that design looked like in IE.

Why didn’t anybody tell me I had pretty little stars cascading around the cursor? I may as well have had an animated My Little Pony gif dance across the screen…

I discovered this because I’m visiting my family in Edmonton right now and decided to check how the site looked on my sister’s computer. Suffice to say, until I have time to rework the layout to bring back the other stuff, this template will do. I don’t think there are any dancing ponies… but please, tell me if you see them again!

Finished reading The Ring… I liked it. Well written (or translated I guess), explains a lot from the movie(s). I want to read the sequel, which is probably the best recommendation anyone can give.

If you have access to a “Farmer’s Market” where you live, and most if not all of you do, then you really need to stop wasting your time, money, and epicurean propensities on that cut-rate trash you buy at the mega-mart. The shorter distance and least time between when the food is harvested/prepared and when you consume it is inversely proportional to the quality of the experience. In other words, the fresher your food the better it tastes. Unless you live ON A FARM, the Farmer’s Market is your single best shot at finding out what food is supposed to taste like. Tonight for dinner I had a plate of apple slices, goat’s milk gouda, and spicy farmer’s sausage. Every bite was exquisite, and far better than anything I’d get from Loblaws or or Safeway or Whole Foods or any of those other chains. Same reason why the food at my old restaurant tasted so good, we got as much as we could straight from the source.

Hmm. There’s even more of a lesson there, cutting out the middle man, stuff like that, but I’m not in the mood to analyze further. I like food. Fresh food tastes better. Farmer’s market is the freshest food. Support your local producers, save money, and get better quality produce. I’d say it’s worth a trip to the market, wouldn’t you?

Fixed the post title problem. Yay.

Noticed that the “E-Mail This Post” icon at the bottom of each of my posts has disappeared. Boo.

Put a scrolling socio-economically relevant Simpson’s quote at the bottom of the screen. Yay.

It’s stopped showing up. Boo.

I noticed a bunch of Javascript in the template I’m using. I have no idea what it does, or is supposed to do. Guh?

Brain hurts. Time for pizza and Simpsons.

Resume’s done. Tomorrow morning I send out the first one. Toronto Humane Society. As planned, I’m going to focus my search initially on jobs of, shall we say, a socially conscious nature. Humanitarian, Environmental, Charitable, Not-For-Profit. Interesting. Rewarding, not just financially, but I guess spiritually as well. Toronto International Film Festival, Royal Ontario Museum, Ontario Social Justice Association, United Way, Sick Kids Foundation. Any other ideas?

I’ll let you know how it turns out.

AND WHY WON’T THE TITLE APPEAR WHEN I HAVE MORE THAN ONE POST IN A SINGLE DAY?!

This crap keeps up and it might drive me to LiveJournal!

AAAAAHHHHGGGGHHHHH!!!!!

http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif

http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif

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Stupid Toronto, too much ambient light. Can’t ever see any stars at night, no matter how clear the sky is.

Sorry, wrong topic.

My buddy Steve recently posted about having trouble sleeping. I just looked back and noticed that my last four posts have all been written between 1 and 2 in the morning.

I need a job.

AND WHY DOES THIS “http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif” CRAP KEEP APPEARING EVERY TIME I ADD A HYPERLINK?!?!

Enough already!! I’ve been going cross-eyed trying to come up with a cool new template for my blog. I’m pretty happy with what I’ve ended up with here… I got the original code from a template called “Tangerine Taste” (by this person) that I found on BlogSkins. I changed the colours, a lot of the text and layout, and had to fiddle with the code forever to get things like my comments and post titles to show up, not to mention all the fun stuff in my sidebar. There are still a few little kinks to work out, but I’m happy that I finally have close to my own design, as opposed to one of the pre-fab templates that came with Blogger. Let me know if I’ve missed anything, or if anything looks wonky on your screen. I know for sure I still need to find a way to have it scale automatically to the window, right now you can only see everything at full screen, 1024×768 rez or higher. But like I said, enough for now. Good night.

I took a page from my man Wil‘s design book and included a few personal graphical touches on the side. Hopefully you can see the “Atom” logo, click there to get an aggregator news feed for my site. Book or books I’m reading, music I recently got a hold of, last movie I watched worth noting (ie: the last 30 minutes of “Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves” that’s playing in the background now doesn’t count). And more pretty pictures never hurt either.

I know with the amount of music I listen to and the number of movies I watch, this could end up being somewhat labour intensive. But hey, you’re worth it.

Oh yeah, and you can use the little “mail” icon at the bottom of any posts to e-mail them… wherever you might want to. Good night!

Do you keep a diary? A journal? Any private record of your thoughts, emotions, maybe some bits of poetry or other expression? A place where you write for yourself, to get things off your chest, to bitch, brag, lust, vent, and spew about whatever inspires you at any moment?

How would you feel if you found out someone read it?

Guys aren’t too big on this kind of stuff, but I know many girls who would consider this cause for justifiable homicide.

Now, if you were dumb enough to put your writing up in a public space, say on the wall of a coffee shop or maybe a website, you obviously give up any expectation of privacy. Perhaps initially this isn’t any concern, since nobody knows about it so who’s gonna see anything? Then maybe enough of an ego kicks in that you start to hope someone will read it, so you have a little fun, maybe tell a few people. Suddenly more people are reading what you write. People start telling you what they think about your writing, commenting on your ideas, debating your opinions. There’s nothing private about it anymore.

Now every time you start writing, you think about who’s going to read it, what they will think. What if you want to write about someone in particular, maybe something personal or unflattering? Can you? Is there anything personal about your writing anymore? Or has the entire purpose of this particular project been hijacked by your own… what? Ignorance? Conscious choice? Ego?

At what point do you accept that this particular venue is now maintained purely for the “public”, i.e.: writing with full awareness of an audience. This is not a journal/diary anymore, it’s an article. A regular column. You are still welcome to write about anything you like, but you can no longer pretend that it’s the same thing it once was.

This isn’t a negative thing. If you are fortunate enough to have people who enjoy what you write, then embrace it! Maybe you’re a talented writer, maybe you live an interesting life, maybe you share a passion with your audience.

But keep your diary in your dresser.

(and hide the key)

Last day at The Fields, doing my favourite part of the job: bartending for a big party. Democrats Abroad are in to watch the US presidential debate.

Lindsay. She’s back, we’re back, maybe, don’t know, crap, HELP!! We’re just about ready to make a fresh start of it all here in Toronto (where she always wanted to be in the first place), when just this morning she gets a dream job offer… in Montreal. She’s taking it of course, I wouldn’t have it any other way. But what am I going to do? I can’t turn my back on her and what we had/have/may have again. I also can’t turn my back on the opportunities I have here. Can I have both?

Parent’s want me back out West, got a bunch of cool job possibilities out there. Lindsay wants me in Montreal, a city I’ve always wanted to live in, but the job prospects are kinda crappy. Not impossible, just not great. If it was only me then I’d take a run at Toronto, lots of jobs available, and some exciting projects already in motion. Too many good things happening all at once… wow, what a problem to have! I can’t wait to see what happens next!