Super Bon!

as in the show sold out before we got there. We got what we deserved for trying to do too many things in one evening and not getting out of the apartment soon enough. Still, it was a great evening between the party and getting Carrie her consolation prize — a smoked meat sandwich (lean) from Schwartz’s Deli. What does a vegetarian eat there, you ask? Not much, but I will say that their coleslaw was the best I’ve had in Montreal. Carrie’s been wanting to go there since we arrived and intimated that she was craving a sandwich as we drove by (1) on the way to the sold out show. The scene is priceless and at 11pm on a Friday, you can actually get a couple of seats.

About the Watch

It is a Czech pocket watch from 1904. The case is silver with an engraved floral pattern and might shine more with a little polish. I suspect the glass over the face has been replaced — it’s too perfect. But the thing runs beautifully. You have to wind up every day and then it makes this exquisite, quiet ticking sound — like timepieces are supposed to make. It’s also very well built, and the woman who sold it to my student said “this will work longer than you live.” I don’t doubt it. I’m not quite ready to take the plunge and start carrying around a pocket watch as an affectation, so I’ll have to figure out my proper relationship to it. But it is definitely very cool.

The Busy Season

is coming. Committee work is heating up and so is the guest lecture and conference circuit. Next weekend, it’s the conference on sensory display. And Lev Manovich is in town. The following weekend is Donna Haraway, except that Carrie and I screwed up and planned our trip to Florida a day earlier (it’s the classic “academic gives invited lecture and takes spouse along for the ride” scenario). I swear there is something every single weekend in March, and April has me travelling again, this time for my own invited lecture gigs and (hopefully) another dissertation defense in Pittsburgh. I guess it’s a good thing football season is ending because I’m going to be a man in need of my Sundays.

Blablablabla work work work work I’m so busy I’m so busy

Academic blogs. Yeesh. What did you expect? At least we’re having a few football fans over for the Super Bowl (2) this evening, and will serve a couple healthy foods (pineapple was on sale!) and a lot of less healthy football-type foods like nachos with perfectly plasticine “cheese” dip. Trust me, it’s excellent.

—

1. Yes, we drove. the party was in Westmount (west, as its name suggested) and the show was up Main, so we thought we’d economize on time and cabfare by driving. Turns out it didn’t matter.We didn’t make the show AND scored a parking ticket because the nose of the car was a couple inches (sorry, a few CM) into a no-parking zone.

2. We tried to invite everyone who showed us an interest in football. If you have shown us an interest in football and not received an invite (and live in Montreal!), drop me a line about the event. As was our practice in Pittsburgh, we are only inviting people who actually like the game. The invite-everyone whiz-bang party will happen later.

After reading Michael Berube’s blog entry on uniform determinism, I have nothing to add on the subject of the Super Bowl, except of course, “Go Eagles!”

And now, I’m off to a party and then to catch a band whose very name will no doubt raise the rank of this lowly blog in search engines everywhere: Lesbians on Ecstasy.

I’m a February 2005 book of the month over at David Silver’s Resource Center for Cyberculture Studies. That’s cool. Hope I didn’t overdo it with my author’s reply.

–back from Pittsburgh: mission accomplished, one more Dr. in the world.

–wondered at the majesty of Pittsburgh’s gothic beauty at dusk. Enjoyed seeing people.

–received very cool 1904 Czech silver pocket watch as a gift from said new doctor. Will blog about it shortly.

–used airplane rides to catch up on student prose and journal articles I’m supposed to read.

–realized that recent blog entries look like giant iPod ad. Am annoyed, don’t like Apple very much as a company.

–have had a string of really awesome intellectual conversations this week.

–enjoying sentence fragments.

More details anon — after I catch up and get my students their reading questions for Monday.

A move always disrupts your life in countless ways that won’t necessarily be apparent until months after the fact. When we packed up to move, I was only about halfway through sucking the souls of my CD collection onto the harddrive for iTunes management and iPod portability. Our collection was already a bit of mess when we packed, but we sort of knew where things were so it was okay. Since McGill actually pays for movers to unpack you, we had our CD collection unpacked and shelved for us, which was cool but meant further disarray. I should add that there are few things I hate more than filing and organizing. I prefer just to do stuff.

So today I had many and sundry tasks to do, include making slight edits to letters of recommendation and printing out countless copies for various recipients (each one gets a custom version. how nice of me). In honor of the less-than-thrilling-yet-utterly-necessary task, I walked over to the CD collection to pull out some fresh material. Stuff I hadn’t listened to on the computer or iPod for some time (might as well take advantage of the fact that it’s broken, eh?).

Among the CDs I pulled down was Metric Old World Underground, Where Are You Now? This was one of those CDs in the collection that I couldn’t quite place. Did someone loan it to me? Did I buy it at a store after listening to it and misfile it and never really listen to it? Did I buy it years ago and not like it? I put it in. Sounds vaguely familiar. Sounds really good. I listen more. Eventually, after a bunch of letters are ready to go, I go check them out on the web. Toronto band. 2003 album. No new releases. Mystery solved: they opened for Broken Social Scene in Pittsburgh last year. I missed most of the set but liked what I saw and picked up the CD. Given how complicated my life was right about then, I’m not surprised that I put it away and never gave it the time it deserved. Ah well, time to make up for past mistakes. This one will be in heavy rotation in the near future. . . .

I’m doomed. The cost to repair my iPod is MORE than the cost of a next-generation unit with 20gb storage. What a racket. When I told the tech on the phone that I was simply following their directions on the reinstall she said “maybe it was a bad download.” Buyer beware! As usual, Apple tech support is pretty awful (though not as bad as Dell, where the tech I called about a problem with an LCD monitor clearly had no idea of what it even looked like). I still have a grudge from 2003 when they told me that I could install OSX on an old beige G3 computer and there would be “no problem.” I said I was double checking because I didn’t want to put money into a new hard drive, spend the time fixing up the thing, etc., if I would wind up having to get a new computer anyway. I was assured that OSX was fully compatible with beige G3 computers. Except that once I set everything up, I discovered that OSX didn’t recognize the old serial printer port. When I called back, the tech (a different one) acted surprised that I actually wanted to use the computer to print.

Despite all my complaining, I am going to happily shell out for another unit unless I can find someone to repair the unit for cheaper (I already tried the local suspects). I just like the thing too much. Hell, I’ll probably upgrade now that I use it so much.

In Other News

–This week’s movie nite was Sideways which was surprisingly good. At least I was surprised. Without giving away anything, I’d simply say that the wallet chase scene was priceless, and very well filmed.

–I sent two piece of writing out today. Hooray.

–I’m off to Pittsburgh in the middle of next week for a dissertation defense.