we interrupt our regular broadcast to bring you a special edition of “bizarre consumer products” just in time for the holidays…

in case a gumball machine was too cliched: the “i cannot tell a lie” toy axe. but didn’t lincoln have wooden teeth?

in case you’re on santa’s naughty list: fiddy cent’s own brand condoms and sex toys. awww, yeah – doin’ it gangsta style. or perhaps you prefer the s&m themed ipod, if you like a little kink with your coffee.

and for the scientist who already has everything: cuddly plush microbes! nerdy guys need something warm to curl up to at night.

for the ostentatious ponce in the family: a dolce and gabbana mobile phone. which i suppose you use to call your butler when he’s in the east wing.

finally: framed flotsam. because people will buy sewage in a shadowbox.

(how much longer until christmas??!?!)

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so I just downloaded itunes, something i’ve never bothered with before because a) I never buy downloaded music and b) i don’t have an ipod. even when i reinstalled quicktime, i installed the previous version, as the newest comes packages with itunes, and i just despise that kind of marketing – i shouldn’t have to download something i don’t want. but recently someone turned me on to a few cool podcasts, and realplayer doesn’t support podcasts, so i thought i’d give it a whirl.

well i’m here to tell you it sucks. after installing it, I decided to try out some of the m3u playlists i put up on my website. it’s anarchy. first of all, itunes randomly inserts songs from the playlist just any old place in the library. so if perhaps you had (oh, just for example) a bob dylan playlist, you will suddenly find “all along the watchtower” interpersed between gorillaz and the arcade fire, whilst “rolling stone” is underneath modest mouse, for no apparent reason. completely defeats the purpose of a playlist.

secondly, some song links wouldn’t play at all. upon investigation, i found that these were all links with spaces in them. turns out, that even if the original link is url encoded, itunes de-encodes it so that it can no longer follow the download. e.g. if the original link from the playlist for “the aeroplanes – don’t stop me” is http://www.kingsofar.com/mp3s/Dont%20Stop%20Me.mp3, itunes reads it as http://www.kingsofar.com/mp3s/Dont Stop Me.mp3, and can’t download it. when you rightclick “get info” on the clip, go into “edit url” and replace all the spaces with “%20″, suddenly, like magic it works. grrr.

then, even if your m3u playlist has no spaces (not always possible, considering the links are generally done by someone else), itunes will play the first song, then stall. that’s just crazymaking. so you either have to download the playlist to your desktop first, then drag it into the source sidebar (this is, by far the best option, as it eliminates the problems above), or install a third party application like m3u2itunes to get it to work properly. bloody hell.

there’s more techie complaints here, but suffice to say, i am not impressed.

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Wow, it’s less than 2 weeks to Christmas, and for some reason, I just really haven’t caught the spirit yet.  Part of it is because J and I aren’t really doing gifts this year (spending £3400 on our plane tickets seems extravagant enough) so I haven’t had reason to be out amongst the throngs of shoppers and revellers.  We put "Lucy the Tree" up this past weekend, and while she is lovely to behold, it’s still not giving me the feeling – you know, holiday cheer.  I’ve not received any cards, or done any skating. 

I’m just not getting that sense of wonder and joy that usually makes my heart feel like it’s full of pure cool oxygen.  The feeling you get from festive shop lights and mulled wine and making paper snowflakes.  I know I idealise it, but it’s true.  Christmas is, and always has been a big deal for me – not only because it’s my birthday, but also because we always had so many traditions surrounding it when I was growing up.

For my mum, Christmas itself wasn’t enough – so we had the holidays and events leading up to it, and after it as well.  Christmas was a full season unto itself, and my mum drew heavily from traditions around the world.  Before Christmas, there was Saint Nicholas Day, when we’d put out our shoes and get candies and little toys in them.  After that, there was Saint Lucia’s day, where we made saffron buns and paraded them around whilst holding candles (since a blazing wreath on the head was a bit of a safety hazard for a small child with poor hand/eye co-ordination).  There was the making of Christmas pudding, and baking cookies for all the neighbours.  There was a big tree-trimming evening, when we’d fight over who got to hang which ornaments, whilst listening to old-fashioned carols.  There was Christmas Eve, with a big smorgasboad dinner with a dish representing each of our ethnic countries (all 8 of them!), and the traditional reading of "the night before christmas", and the leaving of cookies and milk.  Sometime in the wee hours, we’d hear Santa say "ho, ho, ho!", then at the crack of dawn creep downstairs to collect our stockings (which bought my parents another hour of precious sleep).  We’d have hot cross buns and cocoa for breakfast, open a few presents, then attend church.  In the evening, we’d have birthday cake and presents for me.   Following Christmas Day was the New Year, of course, but even after that, there was Epiphany (Three Kings Day), when we’d have cake with small trinkets hidden in it. So you can see how anything less than a full two months of holidays and celebration would pale by comparison. 

And it’s also my birthday – and though i do protest, the fact that there are always festivities and parties and ribbons on my birthday, does make me feel just a little bit special.  I can’t help it.

 Still, even as i get older, it is the small things that I hold fast to – my tree ornaments from when I was little, my love of Christmas pudding (an acquired taste for most Americans), my carols at midnight mass.  these are deeply ingrained in me, and I need to connect with them – to tap into that star-struck feeling that still overwhelms me when i hear "silent night". it’s essential to my being.

 christmas is part of who i am, at the most fundamental level.  i was born with bells ringing.

 So I need a little Christmas.  Right this very minute. I need a little Christmas now.

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christmas spirit

I have only just now realised how very close our round the world trip is!  I mean, xmas is nearly upon us, and after the new year, there’s only three months of work left and we’re outta here! (I’ll be finishing my job at the end of March, 2 weeks before we leave…)

It’s seemed so far away for so long, that I haven’t really been thinking about it, except in a very abstract way.  I haven’t researched anything.  Obviously, a great deal of the itinerary will be flexible, but I want to at least know what things I don’t want to miss.

Also, need to figure out how to structure my blog.  Updating from the road should be simple enough, since I can blog by email.  I need to think about storage for all the zillions of photos, since I’ll have to download them at some point, and internet cafes are probably not too conducive for uploading 300MB worth of pix at a time.

Irrespective of that, though, is deciding whether to just integrate it into my existing blog, or make it a separate blog all together.  Also, changing the layout to make it easier to do stuff like maps and stuff.

So much to think about/arrange/research/buy and so little time! I have decided I really, really want this pack because it’s like carrying *air*.  And considering that no matter what kind of pack I have and no matter how little I bring, I will, at some point during the 6 months, want to throw my pack into the nearest lake, I figure if it cuts down on that impulse even a little, then it’s a good investment.  I already bought these trail shoe/sandals which just feel incredible on my feet.  I also need some of these pants for travelling and this black/green reversible skirt (I know, I am sooo not a skirt person, normally, but a long, loose skirt is sooo comfy on long flights).  Also, maybe this first aid set – I’m a bit undecided on that.  Part of me says bringing syringes is overkill – the other part of me says I don’t want to need a shot in rural Laos and not have something sterile.  I need a travel towel and a travel clothesline and a travel alarm clock and a usb card reader and a big memory card (maybe santa is reading!).  Soon we have to start getting our yellow fever and hepatitis and tetanus jabs.  decide whether or not we’ll need malaria pills, etc., etc., etc.

Anyway, in the spirit of documenting all this, I’m starting a new category… updates to follow as I start to get my shit together!

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now *this* is snow:

photo courtesy of boston.com

yet somehow, boston continues to function, with logan airport only shutting down for two hours due to visibility.

in london, the city would be shut down for a month.

in other boston news, there has been a lot of criticism of boston’s efforts to promote inclusiveness, with a “holiday tree”, and of mayor menino personally, as the catholic mayor of a predominantly catholic city, who also happens to support gay marriage and abortion rights.

i’ve never been a huge fan of menino, though I will admit, the city seems to be doing well under him. but I have a newfound respect for someone who tells jerry falwell, the catholic action league, and the rest of the critics that his faith is his own business, and they need to fuck off.

…what moves me most about being a Christian is what Jesus taught us about being religious,” Menino said. ”He did not give priority to piety. He didn’t make holiness the big thing. And he did not tell us to go around talking up God, either… What Jesus said, and what he showed with his life, was that the way to follow him was to take care of people… How much clearer could the Lord have made it?

< *insert applause here*>

if only more politicians had the balls to follow his lead.

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apparently, if you google “upside-down chrismas trees”, my site comes up at the top of the list. in spite of the fact that there is no misspelling in my post.

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upside-down xmas trees

good stuff coming through my inbox recently:

long needles for big butts: mark morford goes off about the ever widening girth of americans

… have you seen the average American try to squeeze into, say, a Miata? Like a melon into a coffee cup, baby. Not pretty.

boston-based babaloo’s unique brand of punk mambo beat, for you aural pleasure – songs from their new album, online now! check it out:

MP3 playlist (M3U)

and lastly: take action – help the aclu support the john mccain anti-torture bill by emailing your representatives

Senator John McCain, who heroically survived torture and abuse while he was himself a prisoner of war during the Vietnam War, introduced legislation that bolsters the prohibition on the government’s use of cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment. The Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, John Warner, and an array of retired generals and admirals–including former Chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Colin Powell and John Shalikashvili, support this legislation.

Vice President Dick Cheney is personally lobbying Congress to exempt the CIA from the McCain amendment, so that the agency can continue to torture and abuse people in its secret prisons.

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A tribute to john

MP3 playlist (M3U)

here’s the podcast feed

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Call me schmaltzy, but I miss John.

I was only 8, so I don’t think I really registered that he was gone until I became a huge Beatles fan at 12. Only then did I realise what a massive hole had been left behind when he died. Something I don’t think anyone since has been able to fill.

As a pacifist, his ideals have always resonated deeply with me.

The world is that much poorer without the presence of such a creative and visionary man.

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john lennon, anniversary

a few things i’ll never really understand:

the notion that british television is somehow superior to american. i’m here to tell you that it just ain’t so. unless, or course, your idea of “good television” is:

a) hour upon hour dedicated to pre-roman british history/birding/ww2 analysis/cookery

b) show after show doing a “top 100″ list. as in, “top one hundred sexiest television moments” and “top one hundred most shocking television moments” and “top one hundred most dramatic television moments”. do ya think there’s much overlap?!?

c) drama after drama with piss-poor production values. now I know that u.s. television is *overly* slick, overly glossy, etc…. but really, who wants to watch a show that looks like it was shot in super-8 with the next door neighbours as lead actors? and here’s a hint: if you’re on television regularly, you’re probably making reasonably decent money, so for god’s sake, go see a dentist!!! i appreciate that they look like real people as opposed to plastic mannequins, but if i wanted that much oral-hygiene reality, i wouldn’t be sitting in front of a television.

d) bad american sitcoms which only *just reached* the threshold number of episodes required to go into syndication. do you remember a show called “daddio”? neither do i. lucky thing i can catch up all 10 episodes over here!

e) “friends”, “friends”, and more “friends”. now, granted there are 10 years worth of episodes to go through, but when it’s on 4 times a day (i kid you not), you find yourself saying, “didn’t i just see this one last week??” even though I stopped watching “friends” in the u.s. after season 7 or so, over here, i was really excited to see it at first – it was soothingly familiar, funny, and eminently watchable. so it was on while i was getting ready for work in the morning, or making dinner in the evening. but now, it’s almost all that’s ever on. really. 24-7 friends. it’s sickening. and the sight of ross or rachel just makes me want to throw up.

f) randomness. on the off chance that something good *is* on, i can never remember when or where. trying to follow the television scheduling over here takes mensa-level feats of memory. because there is no frikken consistency. shows don’t come on at the hour or half hour. they come on at 10:15, or 7:55, or 3:22. and if you want to watch one thing which doesn’t end until 9:25, whilst the other thing you want to watch starts at 9:10, well then… you’re just shit out of luck.

so, no. british television is not all it’s cracked up to be.

i will also never get used to the british paranoia over electricity. i get cranky about it every year around this time, because of christmas lights. see, despite having twice as much voltage as the u.s., (240 compared to our measly 120), the british are terrified of it. this bizarre fear manifests itself in several ways, such as:

a) no outlets in the bathroom. you cannot plug in a hairdryer anywhere within 10 feet of a tub. there are separate “shaving outlets” in some homes and hotels, but you can tell they’re put there only grudgingly. so instead, the carpet in my bedroom is about three feet thick with shed hair, and lacquered with many layers of hairspray mist. this is infinitely harder to clean than just wiping down a bathroom sink. (unless, of course, you are unlucky enough to have a hideous *carpeted bathroom*, a unfathomable notion which sends chills up my spine, and sends anyone with a germ phobia right over the edge.) but allowing water and electricity in the same room is highly dangerous. as is, apparently, allowing cold and hot water to mingle from the same tap… but that’s another post.

b) every outlet has a separate switch, and many have fuses. that’s right – you have to turn the electrical socket on. there’s only so many times you can turn on the electric kettle (an invention, by the way, which is astounding, in that it completely flouts the aforemention water/electricity ban described above), come back 15 minutes later to find it stone cold because you’ve forgotten to turn on the outlet, before you just want to tear your hair out in frustration at the lengths of unneccesary caution these crazy people go to.

c) every plug has a fuse. the plugs here are gigantic, because they have to accomodate the grounding pin (the third prong which you see on some plugs in the u.s., but which is standard over here), as well as a fuse. Yes, if you open up the plug, there is a miniature glass fuse inside. just in case the socket goes haywire. lest you think i am joking about all of this, please read the “plug and socket safety regulation 1994″

d) which brings us to christmas lights. because light strings in the u.k. do not plug into each other, male to female, the way they do in the states so that you can unobtrusively light your tree in such a manner that the cords are almost invisible. nooooo, not here. here, the strings are closed circuits. so each strand is really a loop which doubles back on itself, ending in the clunky giant plugs I explained prior. so you either have to get 2 0r 3 reallllllly long double-thick strands of lights to cover the whole tree, affix an extension strip to the trunk of the tree to conceal all the plugs, or just let your tree go nekkid.

clearly, adults are not to be trusted with things that *turn on*. my entire life i’ve used electricity, and not electrocuted myself, or burned anything down. obviously, this is due to pure dumb luck.

and lastly, i will never understand the phenomenon that is robbie williams. but maybe i’ll save that one for another day.

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lame: sony’s marketing attempt tries to cash in on the street cachet of old-skool grafitti

smashing peas: slate dissects “my humps”. (as a personal aside, i owned “bridging the gap” way back in the day… you know, when the peas were *good*)

and finally porn: is in the eye of the beholder. who knew a poached pear could look like that?

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canada, spain, belgium, the netherlands, and massachusetts all do it.

south africa is in process

and as of 21st december, the u.k. will join them

it’s happening all around the world, whether the u.s. likes it or not – gay marriage. call it what you will, but partnerships which are recognised by the government as conferring the same priviledges and responsibilities as those between heterosexual couples, are spreading like wildfire. I’ve made my views clear here and here before, when my home state became the first in the union.

Vermont, Connecticut, California, Washington, NY and Hawaii are all banging down the door as well. It’s insidious.

So you can pass your “Defense of Marriage” act, and you can even try to change the constitution to say “one man and one woman”. You can try to legislate love and family all you want. But you cannot keep people from demanding their civil rights. Not forever. Not for much longer.

Not for anything in the world.

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gay marriage, u.k., civil partnerships

I’ve been avoiding discussing my beloved boston sports teams of late, because it’s been just too painful. The patriots, though still leading their division, have been a pale shadow of their former selves, due in large part to a staggering injury list which has decimated the defense, but also (i think) in part due to the regrouping needed after the departure of romeo crennel, the defensive co-ordinator. luckily, a few players are slowly coming back off the bench, and we’ve been stregthening week by week. still, i don’t have high hopes for the big game this year.

and my poor bruins – i really am not sure why they’re not doing better. granted it must be difficult coming back from the strike, but we had most of the same players as the last full season, when we at least made it to the playoffs. and joe thornton and glen murray, the terrible twosome, were back together again. they weren’t playing badly, from the few games i got to watch. yet something is clearly not gelling, since we are way at the back of the pack. in a sign of desperation, the team traded joey thornton last week. and in more sad news, *my boy*, Jonathan Girard announced his retirement from hockey (his comeback from his massive car crash apparently didn’t work out, even though the B’s had signed him to another contract), so i won’t get to see his dreamy face on defense any more. all in all, not good.

and my soxies – well, theo epstein left the team as the most successful general manager in mlb. we miss him already. and while we’ve picked up a talent in Josh Beckett, the winter trading happens in earnest now, and there’s already mumbles that the fabulous Johnny Damon won’t be back. This sport is a business, I know – I just hate this part of it, because I get so attached to them, and then they’re gone. Even players I thought would never leave are sacrificed (Nomar anyone?) It’s a hard thing to be a fan of an entirely different team from year to year. A sad reality for those of us who love them.

So that’s the recap to date. Mixed news, to be sure – but then again, isn’t it always??

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try it, you’ll like it

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holy moly. where the hell are my thirties going? In 22 short days, I’ll be 33 years old. that’s only 6 short years from official middle age. how the fuck can that be? this past year has been unbelievably lightspeed fast. i feel like i must’ve missed half of it. i swear, i still don’t even feel mature enough to own anything of substance. the biggest purchase of my adult life so far was a couch, that I bought new for like $1000.

here’s a secret: most days, i don’t even know what i’m doing. i go to work and hope i don’t get called on for an answer. i wouldn’t even begin to know how to buy a car, since the only vehicles i’ve ever owned have been purchased from family. the notion of buying of a house sends a bolt of panic through my heart. our round-the-world trip plans are equal parts exciting and petrifying, and i wonder what the hell i’ve gotten myself into. i don’t want kids because i’m terrified of never getting my life (or body) back. then i worry that i’ll decide i want children only once it’s too late.

every day i envy people that seem to know what they want and where they’re going, and every evening i keep hoping to wake up with some magical sense of self assurance that i’m doing the right thing. i feel like everyone else has it and i don’t. and every birthday i wish for *this year* to be the year i finally figure it all out.

maybe 33 is the year.

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i wish the u.s. had the option of a “no confidence vote”. I love it. you fuck up badly enough, you’re out.

ooops, my ignorance is showing. i wish i’d paid more attention in my high school civics class (sorry, mr. micelli, i know you tried!), because despite living in canada for two years, and here in the u.k. for almost three, i know very little about commonwealth-style politics, aside from the most rudimentary grasp of parliament. luckily, the canadian government has put helpfully put together a little document called “How Canadians govern themselves”, just for donderheads like me. long story short: there’s the house of commons, which is elected by the public, the senate (or in the u.k., the house of lords) which is appointed (and to be perfectly honest, i still don’t fully understand their role [though j assures me it's the same legislative role as the u.s. senate], particularly where in the u.k. the house of lords are members of nobility, i.e. inherited), and the prime minister and cabinet are the people chosen by the (usually) majority party to lead. there’s are three federal parties and there are no term limits, therefore when people want a change, they don’t have to wait another 3 years or pray for an assassination.

(at this point, i am going to deftly sidestep the whole “monarchy” part of the constitutional monarchy, except to say that it seems people really love tradition [this also goes a long way towards explaining the queen's christmas speech, btw.] if you want to know more about where those strange and fascinating royals fit into today’s government, you can read about it here.)

but the thing that i particularly love about the parliamentary system, is that it’s so responsive and accountable to the people. politicians don’t get to rest on their laurels, just because they may happen to be part of the majority party – they’re constantly being called to account from all sides. there are no guarantees, because they can be tossed out on their ear at any moment. it’s hard to draw a line in the sand, or try to make your party look better by emphasising contrasts, because there’s always a spoiler on the sidelines. that third party is so important in keeping the balance, because it means neither side can go to extremes or stray too far from the center without risking political viability. some would say it’s more wishy-washy, but there’s less chance of polarisation, and a far greater need to listen carefully to public opinion.

what a stark contrast to the u.s. – where the parties try to create their definition through opposition, where spiteful entrenchment is the name of the game, and where, as a result, there are precious few opportunities to implement real change. every politician worries so much about losing ground to the “other party”, they never stop to examine what the public actually like about the other side. the prevailing attitude is a “my way or the highway” stubbornness which creates division so deep that either a) two sides of country are fighting at each other through the polls antagonistically rather than making a collective decision, or, more and more worryingly b) becoming so disillusioned and disgusted that they can’t stomach taking part in the electoral process, leaving the government to run amok without a true sense of direction.

i truly believe that what the u.s. needs is a viable third party to snap people back to reality. can you tell i voted for nader? because i wonder what the outcome of a “no confidence vote” in bush would be if we took a poll today?

actually, i don’t really wonder at all.

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politics, canada, u.s., government, parliament, "no confidence"

****catchy****




MP3 playlist (M3U)

(featuring: the arcade fire, ted leo, gorillaz, jamie lidell, and crash poets. if this doesn’t make you tap your toes, you gotz no soul.)

here’s the podcast feed

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a few statistics:
there are more than 40 million people living with hiv and aids
23 million people have died
global spending on hiv research is $3 billion
u.s. spending on bird flu is $7 billion
8000 people per day die of aids
in the minute it takes you to read this post, 5 people will have died
in zimbabwe the hiv infection rate is 33% – that’s one in every three people
more than a half million children died of aids in 2005
if we continue on this way, there will be 45 million more infected by 2010.

i cannot believe it’s nearly 2006, and in spite of more than 20 years of research into the biggest epidemic this planet has ever seen, we still have no vaccine, no cure.

go give money. wear a ribbon. challenge the government. scream at the top of your lungs.

this is no longer acceptable.

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