the daily snivel
What are you doing New Year's Eve?
For all those who haven't made plans yet, consider joining myself and many fine folks (including myself and the all three of my highly collectible siblings) tonight at the Dominion Tavern, located at 33 York Street in Ottawa. The point is to celebrate New Year's Eve the way it was intended -- drinking copious amounts of alcohol and engaging in massively festive Roman-esque debauchery and hedonism without paying a cover charge.
Dang I wish I had me one'a them digital cameras. I bet there are going to be some great photographs coming out of this.
Friday, December 30, 2005 Dang I wish I had me one'a them digital cameras. I bet there are going to be some great photographs coming out of this.
Friday Random Ten - New Year's Chillout Edition
Ten random songs from my iTunes shuffle mix. What are you listening to right now?
Thursday, December 29, 2005 - Radiohead - Motion Picture Soundtrack
- Weezer - Hold Me
- Barenaked Ladies - If I had $1,000,000
- Telepopmusik - Breathe
- Squirrel Nut Zippers - Plenty More
- Slim Cessna's Auto Club - Viceroy Filter King
- The Cure - The 13th
- Hole - Miss World
- Blur - No Distance Left to Run
- Dido - White Flag
Christmas and everything after
This has been one of the nicest holiday seasons I've had yet.
It's been a tradition over the past few years in my family to have the big Christmas do on December 26, as my older brother Scott regularly works on the night of the 25th at the Dominion Tavern in Ottawa's Byward Market, where he tends bar. Accordingly, I got to sleep in on Christmas Day, lounge around in my underwear while Natalie (who is equally putting me up and putting up with me until I find an apartment) was at her mother's house opening presents and having X-mas dinner, and read my new copy of Terry Pratchett's "Thud!" in the warm glowing glowy glow of the tree in the living room. Then it was off to the Dominion, which is another Christmas Day tradition in my family, where I hung out with my older brother and was joined by the lovely, enchanting, and hilarious Tara, her fiancée Nick, while I awaited the arrival of my younger brother, who had recently returned for the holidays from Alberta (where he is working as a welder). Unfortunately, he ultimately wasn't able to attend that night, being out in Smiths Falls at our mother's house without transportation, but his absence was certainly compensated for by the presence of an old, old friend named Ryan who was also out enjoying the fun but non-festive atmosphere of the bar (which lacked so much as even a single strand of tinsel).
On the 26th, my family descended upon my brother and my sister-in-law's new home, which they have been renovating since last Spring. It's an old post-war bungalow in Vanier, and as I hadn't seen it since the summer, its current state was amazing. There used to be this dreadful green linoleum flooring all over the house, and they'd pulled that up. Underneath that was another layer of awful linoleum tile, so that had to come up as well. Underneath that was a wooden base that had been nailed down right over the original hardwood floors. Beautiful, untouched hardwood floors that had probably been buried under unbearably tacky flooring for 40 years. It took my brother two weeks to pull up all the boards and nails parasitically piercing the living beauty of the hardwood underneath, and then the hardwood had to be sanded down and refinished. But the result is stunning and probably added a huge chunk of change to the value of the home. They also put down porcelain tiles in the kitchen, and in a small corner of the living room. There they had a small, energy-efficient woodstove that was heating the entire house. It had glass doors that allowed you to watch the fire and it was extremely cozy to sit around while my brothers jammed on guitars with our uncle Thomas (who through a quirk of a grandfather's remarriage is actually younger than my older brother). They'd also renovated the entire bathroom and had almost finished the kitchen -- though my brother still had to cook in the smaller kitchen that had been put into the basement by the previous owner.
As happens when you get a family together to celebrate Christmas, there was a lot of great food (prepared by my older brother, who is also a talented and experienced chef) as well as a never-ending supply of booze to keep everyone in the holiday spirit. That said, mine isn't the sort of family that requires the lubricating effects of alcohol to keep functions running smoothly and without sparks or overheating. My siblings and I simply like the drink (though our dear mum is not included in that equation), respectable citizens though we may otherwise be. In fact, I love how easy it is to talk and laugh and open up when I'm with my family. There are no weird tensions or feuds, or those sensitive, nerve-jangling issues that you Simply Don't Discuss when there's a certain person in the room. Most people flock to a bar like the Dominion on Christmas Day to get away after they've had dinner with their families -- I like the fact that it is with my family that I would feel most at home.
I think, because of the fact that my father died on Christmas Eve some 25 years ago, we've turned the holidays into a more personal, and less materialistic or formal occasion. This year, for example, my sister and her nieces spent Christmas Eve cooking and serving Christmas meals to the needy. I don't think you can hit closer to the "true spirit" of Christmas than that. They spent that time together and had fun while helping others and giving of their time. Similarly, spending time with my family (particularly when it is so hard to get us all under one roof, given busy lives and countless miles) and making it more about the company than the presents has resulted in me really looking forward to celebrating Christmas, as opposed to feeling ambivalent or melancholy about it as I once did.
I hope you all also had wonderful, happy Christmases. In this season of blowhards whipping up phony outrage about the "war on Christmas," fomenting rage and spraying bile to diverting people's attention about the real crises of the time, like unabated poverty, warmongering, and political corruption, it's important to enjoy those times of peace, charity, laughter, and intimacy.
Wednesday, December 28, 2005 It's been a tradition over the past few years in my family to have the big Christmas do on December 26, as my older brother Scott regularly works on the night of the 25th at the Dominion Tavern in Ottawa's Byward Market, where he tends bar. Accordingly, I got to sleep in on Christmas Day, lounge around in my underwear while Natalie (who is equally putting me up and putting up with me until I find an apartment) was at her mother's house opening presents and having X-mas dinner, and read my new copy of Terry Pratchett's "Thud!" in the warm glowing glowy glow of the tree in the living room. Then it was off to the Dominion, which is another Christmas Day tradition in my family, where I hung out with my older brother and was joined by the lovely, enchanting, and hilarious Tara, her fiancée Nick, while I awaited the arrival of my younger brother, who had recently returned for the holidays from Alberta (where he is working as a welder). Unfortunately, he ultimately wasn't able to attend that night, being out in Smiths Falls at our mother's house without transportation, but his absence was certainly compensated for by the presence of an old, old friend named Ryan who was also out enjoying the fun but non-festive atmosphere of the bar (which lacked so much as even a single strand of tinsel).
On the 26th, my family descended upon my brother and my sister-in-law's new home, which they have been renovating since last Spring. It's an old post-war bungalow in Vanier, and as I hadn't seen it since the summer, its current state was amazing. There used to be this dreadful green linoleum flooring all over the house, and they'd pulled that up. Underneath that was another layer of awful linoleum tile, so that had to come up as well. Underneath that was a wooden base that had been nailed down right over the original hardwood floors. Beautiful, untouched hardwood floors that had probably been buried under unbearably tacky flooring for 40 years. It took my brother two weeks to pull up all the boards and nails parasitically piercing the living beauty of the hardwood underneath, and then the hardwood had to be sanded down and refinished. But the result is stunning and probably added a huge chunk of change to the value of the home. They also put down porcelain tiles in the kitchen, and in a small corner of the living room. There they had a small, energy-efficient woodstove that was heating the entire house. It had glass doors that allowed you to watch the fire and it was extremely cozy to sit around while my brothers jammed on guitars with our uncle Thomas (who through a quirk of a grandfather's remarriage is actually younger than my older brother). They'd also renovated the entire bathroom and had almost finished the kitchen -- though my brother still had to cook in the smaller kitchen that had been put into the basement by the previous owner.
As happens when you get a family together to celebrate Christmas, there was a lot of great food (prepared by my older brother, who is also a talented and experienced chef) as well as a never-ending supply of booze to keep everyone in the holiday spirit. That said, mine isn't the sort of family that requires the lubricating effects of alcohol to keep functions running smoothly and without sparks or overheating. My siblings and I simply like the drink (though our dear mum is not included in that equation), respectable citizens though we may otherwise be. In fact, I love how easy it is to talk and laugh and open up when I'm with my family. There are no weird tensions or feuds, or those sensitive, nerve-jangling issues that you Simply Don't Discuss when there's a certain person in the room. Most people flock to a bar like the Dominion on Christmas Day to get away after they've had dinner with their families -- I like the fact that it is with my family that I would feel most at home.
I think, because of the fact that my father died on Christmas Eve some 25 years ago, we've turned the holidays into a more personal, and less materialistic or formal occasion. This year, for example, my sister and her nieces spent Christmas Eve cooking and serving Christmas meals to the needy. I don't think you can hit closer to the "true spirit" of Christmas than that. They spent that time together and had fun while helping others and giving of their time. Similarly, spending time with my family (particularly when it is so hard to get us all under one roof, given busy lives and countless miles) and making it more about the company than the presents has resulted in me really looking forward to celebrating Christmas, as opposed to feeling ambivalent or melancholy about it as I once did.
I hope you all also had wonderful, happy Christmases. In this season of blowhards whipping up phony outrage about the "war on Christmas," fomenting rage and spraying bile to diverting people's attention about the real crises of the time, like unabated poverty, warmongering, and political corruption, it's important to enjoy those times of peace, charity, laughter, and intimacy.
Look down
Just in case you missed the update of December 24, which only just appeared minutes ago, it's tucked down below the housekeeping post which follows this one. I occasionally begin posts and then save them as drafts, and sometimes they don't get finished until I've gone on and written a subsequent post. I'd hate for this one to get lost (I spent a lot of time on it and I know people have been clamoring for more updates), so I'm just drawing your attention to the appropriate place.
Monday, December 26, 2005 Some light housekeeping
Having spent a festive X-mas night out with my good friends Tara and Ryan at the Dominion Tavern, it came up that, firstly, Blogger supported RSS feeds and, secondly, that my site would be a lot handier if I enabled RSS feeds so that people could subscribe to it instead. I looked around on the Blogger site and it told me that RSS feeds were a "BlogSpot Pro" feature only (and you can't upgrade to "Pro" on Blogger anymore), but it did have Atom site feed and, in any case, recommended feedburner.com for those interested in adding the feature. So, I went ahead and have enabled RSS feeds for those who find that kind of thing sexy.
You can subscribe to my RSS feed here: http://feeds.feedburner.com/TheDailySnivel.
P.S. I really will start updating my site much more frequently.
Saturday, December 24, 2005 You can subscribe to my RSS feed here: http://feeds.feedburner.com/TheDailySnivel.
P.S. I really will start updating my site much more frequently.
Five plus five plus five plus five plus five plus five
It's my birthday today. More than that, today is my thirtieth birthday, a turning point on the old odometer which doesn't exactly come along every rotation of the earth around its sun. I spent it out with my friends Natalie, Celeste, and Mélanie, where we went out to dinner at the Royal Thai (where I enjoyed my perennial favourite order, veggie spring rolls and a vegetarian Pad Thai Chay), had deep-fried ice cream in the Byward Market for dessert, and rounded out the evening over pints at the Dominion Tavern. Aside from last year, when I attended a wonderful surprise birthday party with my nearest and dearest, I think this was one of the most enjoyable times I've had out -- it was simple and relaxing and was free of hellish things like the stress of exams and crippling X-mas student poverty for the first time in ten years.
Another reason that I had such a nice birthday was that it was free of any need to take any kind of deep, serious account of my life given that one's thirtieth birthday is, I gather, a time of serious reckoning for many. I think many people see turning thirty as a turning point in their lives, given that you've ostensibly shed the irresponsibility of your twenties, or at least entered a new marketing demographic. And your back gets sore sometimes. And you can't stay up without sleep as long as you could -- or at least you've accepted the wisdom of naps. And when you sleep, you can't sleep through the night without getting up to go to the bathroom. And the ex-girlfriend you lost your virginity to eleven years ago has a blog now, and writes about how thick her pubic hair is growing now that she's that old. That kind of thing.
I feel quite good about turning thirty. There's no ominous sense of mortality, no cold grip of death on my shoulder, or a sense of lost time, or missed opportunities, or a ticking biological clock -- or any of that. I'd definitely rather be thirty than twenty -- and in particular, I'd rather be me at thirty than me at twenty. At twenty, I was a perfect specimen of a young man with lots of potential, but it was wholly unrealized potential. I hadn't realized the extent to which I could control my life and my anger and other emotions. I was at the beginning of my undergraduate degree, and still felt I knew a lot more than I really did.
Still, because lists are always good blog fodder, let's talk about why I feel so good about turning thirty:
I still feel really young, and I know the best is yet to come. I haven't jumped yonder shark, I haven't peaked, and this isn't all there is for me. So bring it on, thirty. You don't scare me.
Another reason that I had such a nice birthday was that it was free of any need to take any kind of deep, serious account of my life given that one's thirtieth birthday is, I gather, a time of serious reckoning for many. I think many people see turning thirty as a turning point in their lives, given that you've ostensibly shed the irresponsibility of your twenties, or at least entered a new marketing demographic. And your back gets sore sometimes. And you can't stay up without sleep as long as you could -- or at least you've accepted the wisdom of naps. And when you sleep, you can't sleep through the night without getting up to go to the bathroom. And the ex-girlfriend you lost your virginity to eleven years ago has a blog now, and writes about how thick her pubic hair is growing now that she's that old. That kind of thing.
I feel quite good about turning thirty. There's no ominous sense of mortality, no cold grip of death on my shoulder, or a sense of lost time, or missed opportunities, or a ticking biological clock -- or any of that. I'd definitely rather be thirty than twenty -- and in particular, I'd rather be me at thirty than me at twenty. At twenty, I was a perfect specimen of a young man with lots of potential, but it was wholly unrealized potential. I hadn't realized the extent to which I could control my life and my anger and other emotions. I was at the beginning of my undergraduate degree, and still felt I knew a lot more than I really did.
Still, because lists are always good blog fodder, let's talk about why I feel so good about turning thirty:
- I've graduated law school
- I've got a great job helping people who otherwise wouldn't see justice
- The people I'm working for think I'm a fantastic articling student, to the extent that I was praised at a recent hearing that "there isn't a lawyer in Ottawa who could have argued that motion better" than I did.
- In a matter of months, I'll be a full-fledged lawyer
- I've still got all my hair
- And I haven't sprouted back hair, nose hair, or ear hair in the meantime
- I'm still a regular at the gym and I can bench 250 pounds
- There's at least one landlord out there having nightmares about me and the awesome (if withering) cross-examination I subjected her to
- I don't live in Toronto anymore
- Despite everything that happened this past fall, "I'm feeling much better now"
- I'm surrounded by great friends and a wonderful family
- I'm not a conservative
- I have a wicked awesome music collection for someone my age
- Even at thirty, there's no pesky erectile dysfunction for me
- I finally got my frickin' driver's licence
- There's at least one cat out there who loves me
- I still have godlike leg muscles
- I've won a bunch of awards
- I'm way more fun in the sack than I was at my supposed "sexual peak" of 18
- I'm a much better cook now, too
- I dress myself a lot better than I ever did ten years ago
- I know that I don't know it all
I still feel really young, and I know the best is yet to come. I haven't jumped yonder shark, I haven't peaked, and this isn't all there is for me. So bring it on, thirty. You don't scare me.
