A multi-media meme
I don’t usually participate in memes that make the rounds on facebook and blogs, but a couple people have tagged me for this album cover meme and I couldn’t resist the chance to practice some random creativity.
Here’s the deal:
Create your own RANDOM Band and Album cover!
1 – Go to “wikipedia.” Hit “random” or click http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
The first random wikipedia article you get is the name of your band.
2 – Go to “Random quotations” or click http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php
The last four or five words of the very last quote of the page is the title of your first album.
3 – Go to flickr and click on “explore the last seven days” or click http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days
Third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.
4 – Use photoshop or similar to put it all together (I used Gimp).
5 – If you’re using Facebook, post your result with this text in the “caption” and TAG the friends you want to join in. If you’re not using facebookm do whatever the heck you want to tag people!
I’m going to tag some folks via Facebook, but if anyone else feels like posting this to their blog please meme away!
Target: Women
I’m not usually big on funny internet video memes, but a couple month ago I discovered the excellent series of Target: Women videos by Sarah Haskins and I have become a huge fan! Her videos shed a hilarious light on the ridiculous methods televisino advertisers use to target female viewers.
The latest video about chocolate (just in time for Valentine’s Day!) is great, but my personal favourite is the yogurt edition:
Blushing border guards
I occasionally order items from the US and have them sent to TSB Shipping in Point Roberts. When my items arrive I usually bus and/or bike down to Point Roberts to pick them up, and I always declare them on my way back into Canada.
Customarily, once you declare an item you’re supposed to go into the border offices and pay taxes (and sometimes duty) on whatever you’ve decalred. However, twice now the guard at the crossing has just waved me on without making me pay anything, and I am beginning to see a pattern…
The first time was almost a year ago, when I declared the DivaCup I had ordered online. The words “menstrual cup” had barely left my mouth before the guard’s furious waving-on commenced!
It happened again today. I purchased some high end unmentionables at a deep discount from the US Home Shopping Network and picked them up in Point Roberts this afternoon. As soon as I declared I was bringing back “underwear” the guard sent me on my way.
So a tip for all you cross-border shoppers: Make sure you bring back something embarrassing and you may just get off tax free!
Frugal Fitness
Rebecca just announced a new series on her blog called Fitness Friday, where she’ll talk about her own fitness progress and experiences at Fitness World (and perhaps elsewhere?). Anyhow, it got me thinking about my own fitness activities here in Vancouver.
One of the things I love about this city is that it’s just so easy to stay fit! And you don’t need to buy a gym membership to do so. As a starving grad student I’ve managed to find tons of inexpensive activities.
Here are some of my favourite (and frugal!) ways to stay fit in Vancouver…
1. Kayaking
This summer we’ve really been enjoying two-for-one Tuesdays at Ecomarine Kayaks. A single kayak rental usually costs $34, but on Tuesdays you can rent two for that price, which drops the price to a very reasonable $17 per person for two hours of kayaking. Foursomes can rent two double kayaks for $46 – an even better deal! We usually rent from Ecomarine’s English Bay location since it’s just steps from out apartment, but they also have locations at Jericho Beach and Granville Island.
2. Yoga
Vancouver has undoubtedly got to be the yoga capital of Canada. However, sometimes it seems like the price of a yoga class can run you almost as much as a fancy Lululemon tank top! 
But if you look hard enough there are some options for not-so-flush fans of yoga. Several local studios offer karma classes.
Yaletown Yoga runs two karma classes on Friday nights: hot yoga and power yoga. These classes are both by-donation, and proceeds are donated to local charities.
Unity Yoga currently offers its members a karma class on Monday nights. While this requires you to sign up for an annual membership (only $25), the class itself is free. Attendees are encouraged to bring non-perishable items for the food bank.
During the summer you can enjoy free yoga at Sunset Beach every Saturday morning, weather-permitting.
3. Running
Vancouver is blessed with a plethora of lovely places to go running. Since I live in the west end I tend to spend a lot of time on the seawall. However, there are great multi-use paths all over the place! When I lived in North Burnaby I used to frequent the Burnaby Mountain and Burnaby Lake trails.
Need some running buddies for extra motivation? Many local running stores have free run clubs. The Running Room hosts theirs on Wednesday nights and Sunday mornings. The Nike Runner’s Lounge in Coal Harbour also hosts a variety of free running clinics.
4. Cycling
It’s certainly no Barcelona, but Vancouver is pretty cycling-friendly for a North American city. And a decent bicycle doesn’t have to cost you a fortune in this town. Check out Our Community Bikes or The Bike Kitchen, both of which offer reasonably priced used bikes. They also offer lessons on how to do your own bike maintenance and repairs.
Once you’ve got a bike, visit Translink’s Cycling Around Greater Vancouver page. It includes maps of cycling routes in Vancouver and the surrounding area, as well as other useful info for local cyclists.
Come up with a fun cycling outing. One of my favourite rides is over the Lions Gate Bridge and around North Van, with a stop at Whole Foods on the way home for some yummy treats. To plan your route, check out the Cycling Route Planner developed by UBC’s Centre for Health and Environment Research. It uses Google Maps along with info about local bike routes to help you plan trips based on various criteria including least traffic pollution, most vegetation, or gentlest slope!
And there you have it! My mini-guide to frugal fitness in Vancouver. What’s your favourite inexpensive way to stay in shape? Let me know in the comments section!
Water-ful long weekend
Much of my Canada Day long weekend was spent competing in fun sporting activities that gave me the opportunity to enjoy some wonderful Vancouver area lakes.
I did a triathlon at Whonnock Lake on Sunday that included an 800m swim. I’d never been to the area before and was pleasantly surprised with the lovely lake and beach area. I was also pleasantly surprised by the water temperature: It was a balmy 18 degrees, so I opted not to wear my wetsuit. Transitioning from the swim to the bike was a breeze since I didn’t have to spend any time struggling to de-suit!
Then, on Canada Day I did an open water swim at Sasamat Lake. The extremely hot weather we’d had over the weekend made the water even warmer there (21 degrees!) and I again went sans-wetsuit. My time for the race was definitely a bit slower without the extra buoyancy – I’d never swum that far in open water without a wetsuit before and didn’t realize how much harder it would be – but the cool lake water felt great on such a hot day.
I took a quick nap at home after the swim, then Dan and I decided to take advantage of 2-for-1 Tuesday at Ecomarine Kayaks; On Tuesdays you can rent two single kayaks for $34 plus tax. They’ve got a rental place at English Bay, just steps from our apartment, but in our year of living in the neighbourhood we had yet to check it out.
The rental was for two hours, and we spent that time paddling out past Third Beach, then back to Granville Island, and finally returning to English Bay. Because it was a holiday there was a lot of boat traffic on the water and it was a bit choppy. One powerboat full of idiots decided it would be absolutely hilarious to zoom around us doing donuts! We still had a great time, though, and have made a reservation for next Tuesday evening when the water should be much calmer and relatively powerboat-free.
HCI at the movies
As a user interface designer, I get a kick out of seeing some of the cool (or ridiculous!) interfaces that filmmakers dream up. Interactions, an HCI journal, had a neat article about this phenomenon a couple years back:
Can you remember the first science fiction movie you ever saw? What about the first science fiction program you ever saw on television? Can you remember what you thought about the user-interface design or user experience of any computer-based telecommunication system presented in these shows? And what about today? Do you cast a critical eye on the technology and its use whenever you watch the latest movie or video presentation about a world of the future?
CHI at the Movies and on TV, Aaron Marcus
I saw Iron Man last month and appreciated it as a great superhero movie, but also loved the fact that Robert Downey Jr.’s workshop had an elaborate gesture-based interface. Not something we’re likely to see in the mass market anytime soon, but not so far off from the bleeding edge of research!
The summer movie I’m really looking forward to, though, is Get Smart. If there was ever an opportunity for the filmmakers to dream up some ridiculous interfaces, this is it! (Shoe phone, anyone?)
Miss 604 is giving away tickets to a preview showing that’s happening tomorrow night, and I’d love to have them.
(b)logging
I’m shamelessly stealing Tony’s conversation posting style on this one… But that’s okay because he was the other half of the conversation.
K: So I decided to register for a blogging conference that’s happening in the forestry building at UBC next month.
T: Really?!
K: Yeah, i figure it’s good to see what’s going on outside my immediate research area, and I’m interested in that stuff anyhow.
T: Wow, I didn’t know you were interested in that.
K: Of course I am! Blogging, social media, all that stuff.
T: Wait a minute. Social media? What does that have to do with… – Oh. you said blogging! When you said it was in the forestry building I thought…
K: …that I was going to a logging conference?
T: Yeah.
Oskee Wee Wee
Dan’s dad is visiting next weekend and he’s a big football fan so we’ve bought tickets to the BC Lions playoff game on Sunday.
I haven’t been to a CFL game since I was a kid. Growing up in Hamilton I saw my fair share of Tiger Cats games, and when I was just 8 or 9 my gymnastics team even got to be part of a Tiger Cats halftime show! It was quite the thrill for me at the time.
Funnily enough, despite not attending a game in over a decade and a half, I still have the Tiger Cats cheer memorized:
Oskee Wee Wee
Whiskey Wa Wa
Holy Mackinaw
Tigers … Eat’em RAW!!
The Oskee Yell even has its own wikipedia entry! Well, sort of. Hamilton actually stole the cheer from somewhere else! It was popularized at Berkeley in 1941, but variations have apparently been around since the turn of the 20th century.
Delusional Calgaria
Found via a friend’s FaceBook posting, delusionalcalgaria.ca has me in stitches this afternoon. It’s a tongue-in-cheek ad campaign put out by the Government of Nova Scotia to encourage Nova Scotians to seek out opportunities in their home province rather than moving west in search of fortune.
(De-luge-unul Cal-gu-ree-uh) Acronym: DC
An affliction that affects 4 out of 5 Nova Scotians living away from home in Calgary. Symptoms include loss of balance, blurry vision and separation anxiety. Sufferers may show signs of acceptance of high costs in Calgary, lack of awareness of new opportunities to have a better life back home in Nova Scotia, and occasional upset stomach.
Make sure you watch the intervention video. It’s the best part!
A weekend of work and costume geekery
We launched a new version of Status Report this weekend – It is now driven by a content management system which will make it super-easy to keep up to date. I’m really excited to be involved with this project. Lately I have been a bit down on the whole research thing, as I feel like academic research in HCI never seems to contribute much to the real world. Using my computer skills to help a meaningful project like Status Report has made me feel like my training actually has some relevance.
Speaking of meaningless academic research… I’ve also been hard at work prepping my demo for the CSCW 2006 conference, which will be held in Banff next week. I’m excited to be returning to Banff for a visit and in addition to attending the conference I look forward to enjoying some beautiful hikes and possibly a dip in the hot springs.
In lighter news, Dan and I decided to display our geekiness this weekend when we went to two Halloween parties dressed as Battlestar Galactica Raptor pilots. (If you haven’t seen this show, I implore you to visit your nearest video rental store and pick up Season 1. It’s the best sci-fi show on TV today, and possibly the best sci-fi show ever!) Sadly, I didn’t bring my camera with me to the parties, so there is no photographic evidence. I plan to wear my costume again on Tuesday though, so I’ll try to remember to snap a picture then.