Archive - Jan 2007

Okay.. it's time for a feminist rant.

Hugh who is dear to my heart in more ways than I can name and who got me the job I love has just done something that generally makes me see all shades of red.

What did poor Hugh (who has no idea I am taking the piss out of him as we speak) do?

He made a list of cool Montrealers doing stuff and 90% of the list-makers are dudes.

It seems so obvious, it oughtn't be a problem, but then if I truck on over to Julien's post about cool tech stuff happening in Mtl, I get the same feeling, 41 comments and not counting AJ (boy, girl you tell me?) there is but 1, not counting mine, from a lady.

Do chicks n'existe pas in the tech scene? I know some of our number (Maya MK, Sophie) did leave this fair isle for other islands where people eat sheep guts and ride tubes. But still...

Dad: So your uncle is taking care of most of the family-time planning for our trip.

Me: What's on the schedule?

Dad: Well it's an overnight thing. All the Flink-Family will spend the night at a recreation centre.

Me: So like camping?

Dad: Well yes, but we will sleep indoors.

Me: So like a resort?

Dad: Um.. It used to be a large farm, and where our family will be staying actually was a building that held sheep.

Me: Like what a stable?

Dad: It's a very large stable. Your uncle said it sleeps 80.

Me: 80 people or 80 sheep??!!

Dad: That is a very good question.

I was going to just call this post "I hate Academic writing" which I was thinking to myself as I said fuck you! quite literally just now to an assigned essay, after reading the sentence;

"A more post-structuralist, and political emphasis on performance as kinesis, as movement, motion, fluidity, fluctuation, all those restless energies that transgress boundaries and trouble closure."

It's beautiful phrase, but what is it really saying ? And to whom ? and just where do post-structuralists get off pretending that they are all open-ended and uncertain when much of their sentence construction is the most didactic and leading stuff I have read in a long while.

So the week-end started on an amazingly bad note. A note that resulted in a late night game of drunken scrabble and a whole lot of Tom Waits. We all have our coping techniques, I guess.

Saturday some drastic physical action was required to extricate myself from the drift of bad karma. So we went skating, up on Beaver Lake. I have to tell you - despite the fact that my mother was a prize-winning figure skater, and my dad is a Dutchman, I am not such a hot-shot on the blades. I tried my hardest to wiggle out of the skating commitment - saying I needed to go to tae-box etc.. Allison and Will were having none of it. Besides, when the lake came in sight I realized it was time to face my fear of yet another broken arm and get out there.