thesubwaywalls's Xanga

Come and get it!

Sat, 05 Apr 2008 23:01:13 GMT

Friday, April 04, 2008

Fri, 04 Apr 2008 15:49:19 GMT

My first real post is up here. You no longer have to register to post comments, so all you anonymites can comment away.

It's called hibernation, people!

Tue, 01 Apr 2008 03:26:56 GMT

"thesubway walls has no pulse"

Ouch. So, according to Xanga, I am dead, and hence, they felt they could change the furniture willy-nilly. This new interface is confusing me greatly. It takes me 5 minutes to figure out how to post and I'm not a fan of that.

A new blog was already in the works, but all these changes and then the less than enthusiastic welcome when I log on, has given me the gusto to make a decided departure from this corner of the blogosphere.

I'm packing up and heading over here.

Come and visit. I think you'll like the view.

Something's in the Air

Wed, 26 Mar 2008 03:25:11 GMT

Namely, spring and, hence, change and new life.

I'm embarking on a new adventure soon. And working on a new blog, where I shall unveil the details of that adventure.

Hopefully both the blog and I are ready to go soon.

Thursday, December 06, 2007

Thu, 06 Dec 2007 05:49:15 GMT

I thought I would break out of my blogging lethargy (or is it blogging acedia, Ms. Collins?), to post a bit about, well, the Post, prompted by the website re-design of CanWest's Mothership.

About two months ago, I became a subscriber to the National Post, not out of a strong inclination to get a big wad of newsprint on my doorstep every morning, but because a really cheery Newfie was selling subscriptions in the foyer to Save-On and she roped me in long enough to tell me that half of my subscription would go to a scholarship for poor kids--after that revelation, how could I say no?

So, I've been dutifully reading my right-wing news source for the last several weeks, and I must say that the paper has been a pleasant surprise in many ways. While the editorial line is fairly predictable and the news is the same banality I could get at any number of sources, what I've enjoyed most is the whimsy. Intelligent whimsy is hard to come by, but the Post does it well. Not everyday of course, but sometimes they really hit the nail on the head. This gem of a full-page spread adorns my fridge and causes me to smile at least once a week. That's bang for my buck.

And it's part of the reason why the Post is starting to come between me and my long-time companion, the Mop and Pail. Of course, my little opinion doesn't matter much in the world of corporate media, but I have my suspicion is that the National Post is becoming a bit more savvy in how it delivers the news, than its other national counterpart.

Let's compare re-designs. Both papers underwent a 2007 make-over. The Globe early in the spring and the Post in the fall (the first copy that landed on my doorstep, actually was the first day of the re-design, how fortuitous?).
-Both papers changed their mastheads, see Globe old and new here, and NatPost old and new here. Essentially, the Globe preserved the masthead's orientation, but changed the font, while the Post rotated the masthead, but left the font the same.
My winner: the Post.
My reason: Font is brand, font is comfort. Logos can be placed anywhere. You would recognize the Coca-Cola logo if it was in purple and pink and mirror image, but what if the "C" lost its long meandering tale? You would still recognize it, but it would throw you off. Now imagine those two lovely, hyphenated words were in a non-cursive font. The image would lose it's impact entirely. By preserving its font the Post has brand continuity, with a little spice. The Globe on the other hand, still jars me eight months later.

-Both papers changed their page size. I can't tell you if they're exactly the same size, but I consider this a tie, since smaller is easier to handle in both cases. But read on to find out what each paper did with their smaller space.

-Both papers changed their typset. The Globe introduced a smaller font, set closer together, so that no content would be sacrificed with the smaller page size. In their words: "we didn't want to give up an inch of ground on the qualities (strong reporting, great writing, seriousness of purpose)." Um, maybe a few editors and journalists should take themselves a bit less serious and realize that hardly anyone reads beyond the third sentence, let alone the thirty-third paragraph.
The Post, on the other hand, increased the font size and spaces between the lines of type, which makes a lot of sense to me, considering that most newspaper readers are 50 and beyond (again, the Torontoist has a good comparison here). You know what they say, the eyes are the first thing to go.

-And finally, both papers have updated their websites this year. G&M wins on being the best at garnering comments and reader interaction. But I must say the new Post site is pretty stellar layout. Of course, anything would look miles better than that hideous, and ultimately useless, layout with the fade-out yellow header. Lines are crisper, graphics actually exist (beyond headshots), and the article font reminds me of the NY Times site. All good moves if you ask me, now if only the rest of the CanWest family could get in on the website makeover. Alas.

So that's my very amateur breakdown of design--but what about the experts out there? What are your thoughts on Canada's national newspaper designs.

A Greener Right

Wed, 10 Oct 2007 05:29:05 GMT

Back in the good ol’ days, you could count on a conservative not to get all caught up in this greenpeace hullabaloo about global warming. Not anymore. Now we'v got Terra Rossa, "Where Conservatives Consider a New Energy for the Future," and the Evangelical Ecologist, a cluttered little corner of the world wide web, where Christians--of all people--advocate for a greener way of life!

Even my home town, arguably one of the most politically conservative places in Canada, the locals are getting brainwashed by the ubiquitous environmental drivel. One of these days, says my dad, he might retire and subdivide the farm into one of those eco-friendly communities. And on Thanksgiving Day, instead of going off in our own vehicles, me, my parents, and half of our extended family pile into one van to make the hour-long drive to our Thanksgiving Dinner locale. Even Alberta, the land of big trucks and bigger exhaust pipes, has fallen victim to car-pooling.

I jest. I am pleased at these developments, but I am surprised nonetheless.

I've often wondered why conservatives aren't better conservationists. After all, any junior etymologist can see that the root of both words is "conserve," which means to "keep," "guard," or "observe." But this shared origin hasn't led to an overwhelming support for the green movement on the right side of the political spectrum.

Perhaps it's because North American conservatism is actually liberalism in disguise. The classical kind of liberalism, that is. The kind that wears a suit and worships at the Church of the Free Market, not the mushy relativist kind that does, well, whatever. As its name might suggest, a "free" market doesn't always encourage the restraint that living a holistically conservative life requires.

Maybe conservatives don't buy into environmentalism, because it's an issue that to date has largely been identified as an issue that belongs to the Left, people with whom Conservatives and Republicans don't generally identify. As a very general generalisation, left-wing politicos believes that more government is a good thing, while their right-wing counterparts feel that less is more, when it comes to government intervention. More government almost always means more taxation, so when left-leaning voices start clamouring on behalf of an issue, the average Conservative starts worrying that the government will start dipping deeper into his or her pockets.

There might be many other reasons why conservatives haven't been traditionally green, or perhaps it's all a spiteful painting of the picture by those who adhere to the Religion of Green. I've certainly read my share of articles that demonise those "dumb" Conservatives. This is certainly a failure by those ideologues who fail to see that there is more than one way to save the earth, and that if we're actually going to take care of this planet we call home, it will require many and varied tactics that bring people of every political stripe on board.

So what would environmentalism look like if it became more widely accepted by conservatives. Or, perhaps the question to ask is, what kind of policies would make this possible. My preliminary suggestions follow.

1) More carrots, fewer sticks: I don’t just mean more rebates for fuel efficient cars, although that kind of thing is not all bad. But there are inherent benefits in being more energy efficient, namely in the region of the pocketbook. As Susan Riley, Ottawa Citizen columnist, recently wrote:

“The political paralysis is inexplicable. What is the downside of encouraging, even regulating, frugality - especially for Conservatives? Has no one noticed that individual Canadians are taking matters into their own hands? Energy efficiency has the makings of a national moral crusade.”

Riley isn’t exactly known for excessively Conservative viewpoints, but she even understands that

everyone (with the exception of the super-rich and the super-stupid), enjoy a little savings at the end of the day. And there’s nothing Christians like better than a good moral crusade! (Okay, inappropriate comment, I know.)

It’s a sad statement about our society when we have to re-educate people about basic frugality. Instead of doomsday lectures about global warming, which may or may not be as bad as Al Gore think, how about some instructions on how to live positive lives that contribute to the environment and to the people who live in it.

2) Make life simpler: This idea could get play on a lot of formats. One thing Conservatives are generally not a fan of, is too much change (um, yeah, hence the conserve part). So every little technological innovation that is supposed to make our lives easier and better, actually serves to frustrate a lot of Conservatives. Incidentally, they generally require more energy to operate. This might just be the curmudgeon in me ranting, but what would be wrong with encouraging people to live simply, to read more and watch TV less, to go outside in the daylight hours rather than sit indoors with the lights on, you get the idea.

Life could also be made significantly simpler on the bureaucratic front. Why not make it easier to get those rebates on efficient cars or easier to install energy saving upgrades in the home. I could go on for some length here, but I won’t.

3) Celebrate human existence: It’s true, people have treated their home planet pretty badly. I’ve never been to northern Alberta, but I don’t need to see too many pictures like this one, to understand the phrase “raping the land.” While there is gave moral responsibility at stake, it’s also true, as these boys from Salon point out, that nature has done some spectacularly horrible things to itself—volcanoes, meteorites, among others—without human beings so much as lifting a finger. I’ll be the first to admit it—self-loathing is a real hoot! And humans have a unique ability to carry on this sort of behaviour, but I’ve read enough article in the vein of Alan Weisman’s book, The World Without Us, and I don’t think this kind of thinking solves anything. For better or worse, we’re stuck with ourselves and there’s no point in self-destruction by physical, chemical, biological or intellectual means. As the Salon article points out:

“The ethics, and politics, born from joy, mystery, and gratitude of overcoming adversity will be radically different from the ethics born of the sadness of living in a fallen world pervaded by fears of the eco-apocalypse to come. The truth is, there are still ancient redwoods to behold and great rivers to swim in. There is still the Amazon and the Boreal. There are still seven billion wondrous human animals, each one of us capable of making ourselves into something utterly unique. And there is still great wildness abounding inside and outside of ourselves.”

And a baby is more than a carbon footprint.

That’s about all my thoughts for now. I’m not sure how the future of the green movement will play out, and if all the ink spilt on it will do anything good about it, but thanks for reading this far, nonetheless.

Life at "The Pit"

Sun, 23 Sep 2007 03:08:56 GMT

Well, once again it's been awhile since I've put anything up here. To be honest, I've gotten quite bored of writing about my life and I am thinking of scrapping this blog and bringing it back in a completely re-incarnating on a totally different theme. BUT, I thought I would put up one more good old-fashioned, "Hey world, look what I'm doing" post up before The Subway Walls left the the station.

So here is a brief re-cap of my life since moving into a place that is lovingly referred to as "The Pit." Now, I'm not quire sure why it was dubbed with such a descriptive moniker. It may be because it's a wee bit of a dive. But it's a dive with character, albeit some rather chilly drafts on a windy day.

But it has a pool, and who can argue with that on a hot    It also has great new friends, like Amanda.
August days?


Great ambience, means great parties . . . .                Even nerdy, back to school book parties.

But we're excited to be nerds, aren't we my friends?            Well, maybe with the exception of "The Marrieds."

Oh, okay, they were just kidding.

Three generations of Managing Editors.                      Editor, Mama Editor and Great-Great Grandma Editor.

One Visual Editor/New Californian and a s p a c e s Editor also made an appearance.

But lest you think all I do is party, I thought I would point out that, in fact, the last few weeks have been taken up with quite an ambitious little project, if I do say so myself. One of The Pit's little idiosyncrasies is strange room decor. It's everywhere--from the bathrooms to the entryway to several bedrooms. Weird, weird, weird. Most of it would fall into the category of retro '60s, but my room, fell into the cateory of "Childhood Nightmare Revisited." When I moved into this room it looked like this:

But actually worse, because I forgot to take the "Before" picture until after I had removed the cartoon animals of the jungle wallpaper border that joined the two nusery school shades of blue. Also, these photos fail to capture the electric blue shag carpet. Yep, it was a nightmare.

The funny thing, is I actually CHOSE this room. Yep, I could have picked another one, but the worker-bee in me thought, "Golly gee, it would be fun to paint a bedroom." And so, I plunged forward, into the abyss of unknowing.

After stripping (the wallpaper, silly), priming, and bringing home enough paint chips to start my own Home Depot, I made my colour decisions and started painting, with more than a little nervousness.

And I must say, I was pleasantly surprised with the results.

Is it a perfect paint job? Nope, there are a few smudges on the ceiling and drips that I didn't catch in time, but I'm probably the only one who will notice them.

Do the walls match the flaming blue carpet? Not exactly, but then again, would anything?

Has everyone who's seen it so far told me they like it? Yes, but that maybe because I told them I don't want to hear any negative comments.

Much thanks to Amanda and Alana for helping with the sticky job of wallpaper removal; Jeremy for helping with the wallpaper and the priming; and Veronica, for weighing in quite forcefully with colour suggestions.

That's all for now -- come visit me in soon. (In reality, not cyberspace.)

Changes, changes

Sun, 29 Jul 2007 01:25:52 GMT

Hey there friends,

well, as you might have noticed, I didn't quite finish the narrative of my European adventure. I guess I kind of ran out of steam and besides, in London, I had to pay for internet, so there wasn't as much motivation to write away. It's kind of sad, because I never got around to describing my favourite city, Krakow, and now it seems to late to bother. All I can say, if you have a chance to visit Eastern Europe, don't skip Krakow, it's a beautiful city with an incredibly relaxed and peaceful atmosphere. Oh, and I can recommend a great hostel, too.

The two weeks since I got home have been pretty insane as far as Life Decisions go. There were definitely a few sleepless nights and a few days of nail-gnawing agony, but it seems that things have settled down a bit now. I ended up quitting an internship, getting a new job, having my laptop of four years die, buying a new on, deciding to move to Abbotsford, then Langley, then, after all, deciding to stay where I am living in Walnut Grove (the pool in my backyard was just too attractive). Actually there were some other reasons behind the decision to stay put, and I'm fairly happy and settled with the outcome of my house search. Of all the other things I've made up my mind about in the last two weeks, I'm most convinced that quitting the internship was the right thing. In theory, it should have been a great experience for me. I was a books and culture writer at an online newspaper. Writing, books, music, etc--things I love, right? Well, for some reason, it actually ended up causing me more anxiety than anything. I blame it partly on burn-out, I was just too tired to be creative. And I didn't have anything that I really wanted to write about, which is kind of a shocking experience for me. As much as I hate quitting something, I was really too miserable to push through the last four weeks. If it had been a job where I checked my brain at the door, I would have done it no problem, but it just wasn't like that and I think the last four months would have been as frustrating for my editor as it was for me. Fortunately, she was incredibly gracious when I explained my situation to her. Writers are nice that way.

So what am I doing writing now, you ask, if I'm so "burnt out"? Well, that's a good question. I haven't journaled much since January. But now, in the midst of life chaos, I haven't been able to stop journalling and I guess it's finally spilling over into the world wide web (which, thank goodness for all of us, is a pretty big place.) Don't worry, though, I won't be posting a lot of "journal" type entries in the near future. I don't think I'll be posting a lot of deep, poetic, meaning drenched one's either. I'm aiming for more like quirky, funny things that I observe in life, or maybe in my new job. Which, by the way, is working for a certain member of parliament from a certain political party. I don't really know how well blogging and politics mix these days, so I might not be too specific about who or where I'm working. Not that anyone notices little ol' subwaywalls, I'm sure, but just a little discretion, so I can share funny stories, without strangers knowing where they come from.

Well, that's all for now. I think I will go swim. Or mow the lawn. Hmmm. Tough decision.

Wednesday, July 04, 2007

Wed, 04 Jul 2007 16:05:54 GMT

I realise I'm not getting very far, very fast, so I'll go over Hannover quickly. We spent the day wondering around the city. Lyle's been there a few times so he knew where to go--we saw the city hall, the Herrenhauser Garden, which is full of statues and fountains, ate delicious Italian ice cream, and then bought chocolate and some other groceries for the next day. At about 9:30 we boarded a lovely train and played cards the whole way to Fulda where we switched onto a night train bound for Prague. We were so excited about sleeping on a train that we didn't actually sleep. Or maybe the lack of sleep had more to do with the constant motion that we were unacustomed to, or perhaps the narrowness/hardness of the beds is to blame. Whatever the reason, it was a restless night, but the enthusiasm of arriving in Prague helped ward off the exhaustion.

Finding the right subway line to get on wasn't too difficult, but finding the right direction to head after we got off it was. What should have been a two block walk turned into a tortuous crossing and criss-crossing of streets with strange names that had the tendency to change names mid-block. I believe we walked around three sides of one interesection three times trying to decide where to go. We finally made it to our hostel and dumped our bags in storage before heading towards Wenceslas Square--the site of at least five revolutions in Czech history. Nowadays it is full of stores selling clothes, shoes, books, electronics, postcards, jewellery, fastfood and numerous money exchangers who will gladly change your euros, pounds, dollars, etc into Czech crowns, about 20 of which are worth 1 CAD. At the base of a four-story Bata store, we met up with Lukas, a Czech guy that Dana met last summer while working at the U of Alberta. The plan was to go for lunch and we were so tired, we just said "Don't ask us to make a decision, Lukas, just take us somewhere good." He was more than happy to oblige so we tasted our first Czech meal--meat, sauce, heavy dumplings, and the requisite beer.

After eating our fill, Lukas took our tourist mapped and marked it up with all the sites to see in the next few days. Then he took off for work after pointing us in the direction of the old city square and Charles University, one of the oldest in Europe. Walking into the old square for the first time was truly breath-taking. It's surrounded by amazing buildings, decorated ornately and painted so many different colours. There's two churches and a clock tower and dozens of windy little side streets leading off it. A Salvador Dali exhibition was housed in one of the many buildings so we took that in for about 70 crowns. After that we just basically walked around for a couple hours before heading back to our hostel to move into our room and take a much-needed nap. Later that night we headed to a park with a pretty great view of the city and had a picnic with the groceries that we'd bought the day before. The buns were a bit dry and the cheese a bit soft, but we enjoyed it nonetheless. We chilled for a bit in a coffee shop part way home and just as we were about to leave the sky which had threatened part of the day let loose and we watched as water gushed through the cobblestones. We waited for a bit longer and then made a dash to the subway station where we caught an underground ride home and off to dreamland.

The next morning dawned bright and sunny in Prague. Actually, most of the brightness had to do with the ridiculously yellow paint job on our walls and the sun was not so welcome as it had, by 8 am, already warmed our 6-person room more than necessary. But regardless of that, we downed a hearty hostel breakfast and headed for the BIG DEALS of Prague--namely the Charles Bridge and the Prague Castle. You may have noticed that two things in this city are named after this guy Charles (Carol, Carlova or Carolina, in Czech, depending on the noun it modifies). He was a king once upon a time and his bridge is lined with at least 20 statues of various biblical and saintly people. The castle where he lived once upon a time is on the other side of this bridge from the main part of the city. So we toured parts of it that were free--the basilica, the courtyard, that's about it. Then we did pay to walk down this street called the Golden Lane, which as it turns out is a place with lots of shops where you can buy all kinds of Prague things. Imagine that--you pay for the opportunity to buy things. Ahh capitalism, how great. We did some other stuff that day and then came back and crashed at the hostel again, before heading out to meet Lukas at Bata, again. This time we brought Garreth, our Welsh roommate from the hostel, and Lukas brought his Czech friend, David. We ate more hearty, not-so-healthy Czech food and then hit up a jazz club, which appeared to be in an old dungeon, or armoury, or was just made to look like one of those places. According the the jazz afficionadoes in the group (of whom I am not one) the jazz was only so-so, but the atmosphere was so great. Bed again.

The next day we took a train to the countryside and saw another castle and some more of the same tourist junk for sale (it does get old). The best part of the day was being outside the city--Prague rhymes with smog for a reason. We tramped through some trees and even a canola field, which was a bit like being at home. We made it back to the city in time to head to Lukas's farewell party, which, incidentally was also in the country, on a horse farm to be exact. He's headed back to Edmonton, so we joined him and a bunch of his friends for a BBQ--good times with the locals.

The next day, which was probably Sunday, although who's keeping track, we slept in a wee bit and then headed to the museum of communism, which somewhat ironically is above a McDonalds. Then we took off for the modern art gallery and spent a few hours getting ourselves cultured. It was a surprisingly large gallery--at least 6 floors and lots of variety. I really enjoyed the Czech art from the early 1900s and there was a few Picasso, Monet and Cezanne pieces of interest. Feeling not so much like dumplings, we had some tasty Thai food as recommended in our Europe guidebook. We got back to the hostel and celebrated Canada Day with some Czech beer and two students from SFU who also shared our room. The next morning was an early one as we had to catch a flight to Warsaw and then another one to Krakow.

So that brings us to my favourite city so far, but I will leave you to have a little rest (and me too). In real time (not my belated internet narrative) I am off to London tomorrow!

Europe continued

Tue, 03 Jul 2007 17:09:53 GMT

Alright, so I left off yesterday having just arrived in Germany. We made it back to Engensen, the village my brother lives in and got a tour of his 150-year-old house/barn combination. Yes, the house and barn are actually all under one roof, although there is considerable space and walls between the animals living quarter and the humans living quarters. If you want to see pictures of said house, check out the photoblog at www.xanga.com/lylecweigum.

Shortly after the tour, Heinz, Lyle's boss and the owner of the aforementioned house, called and asked if the three of us wanted to go for dinner with him in Hannover. Now the invitation was extended by Heinz on behalf of himself and Ula. Who is Ula you ask? Well, Heinz is recently divorced, and even more recently, the beau of Ula--a nice, middle-aged german woman (which is okay, since Heinz is a nice, middle-aged German man). Now Lyle is not the hugest fan of Ula, although if he's honest, he'll admit that he hasn't known her long. So he didn't really want to go, but Dana decided that we should and I felt like it was appropriate since this man was putting us up in his house. After a windy tour of Engensen, Heinz arrived and whisked us away to Hannover where we went to The Brauhaus, a microbrewery, restaurant, and disco joint. We were shortly joined by Ula's daughter and her fiance and we all enjoyed a thoroughly unhealthy, but extremely delicious meal of various BBQed meats, fries, salads, and, of course, beer.

After the meal and some conversation which was a bit stilted due to the varying levels of English proficiency, we went over to the disco section of the Brauhaus where none of us danced but a few of us enjoyed some really rad cocktails. Yes, Germans do love beer and they are quite famous about it, but when they have a cocktail they do it up right. Mine was called a melon caiprihaina (not so sure about the spelling of that last word) which had some delicious rum, melon flavoured something and some crunchy, coarse ground sugar, with a big chunk of melon and a cherry sticking out the top. After all that, we returned to Engensen, slept peacefully and awoke to another windy day, upon which we set off for Hannover on the wonderfully proficient German train system.

and we're off to dinner, so I'll be back with more soon.