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Counting Crows and the New Avatar
Posted: August 05 2024 | Written: August 04 2024
At the end of June I went to a concert, which I don't do very often. The last concert I was at was Iron & Wine at the Danforth Music Hall in February of 2020, just before all the pandemic shit went down. Before that, Third Eye Blind in 2014 I think. I don't go out to see live music very often. But this year the Counting Crows were on tour and I think I bought my ticket in early February, before Bingo got really sick, and one of my bicycles suffered serious frame damage and became unusable.
I never really looked at what day of the week it was on, a Wednesday, I think if I knew early on I might've given it more serious thought about going. I had a long day that day, had to bike home in a rainstorm, change clothes, eat, then take a different bicycle to the show because I couldn't risk my new bicycle being stolen for a concert. I was exhausted when I left for the show at 6pm.
The rain stopped before I left and the ride there was easy. The concert was at Budweiser Stage, where I've clearly never been before but I knew the general area. I locked up my bike to a fence infront of the entrance gate, had my small bag checked by security and I was in quickly. I bought a single large 710ml can of budweiser for $20. A goddamn shocking price.
I made it up to the upper lawn section, there was lots of room and I sat down on the slightly damp grass and sipped my very valuable beer. Another concert goer told me I looked tired, I was, and I simply told him "It's been a long day".
Counting Crows took the stage a few minutes earier than advertised, which was nice really. I was so far in the back I could barely make out the band members, the large screens to either side of the stage helped me make out what was going on down there. The music at this distance was great, loud but not deafening. I relaxed and sat there, in a tired mellow state.
I took a few quick photos before it became too crowded. A few of my view, what little I could see. Then I decided to take a few pics of myself, which I rarely do, to document what I look like at the rare moment of actually going to a concert. I then remembered I needed a decent selfie for a new avatar.
A year or so ago I saw a meme making fun of the average conservative avatar, regardless of platform they all seemed to have the same style of avatar. Selfie camera, inside their vehicle, sunglasses on.
See I understand why anyone would take these pics in this setting. Sitting your car in a parking lot, warm and dry, windows providing good lighting, no wind, sunglasses so you don't look cross-eyed or looking off into the distance. If I still owned a car, my avatar would've been like this too. The problem came up with more and more aweful online posts and people noticed that the people making all these terrible far-rightwing posts had something in common, the drivers seat & sunglasses selfie.
What I've been using for maybe the past eight years wasn't much better.
| Old Avatar. Photo Taken: Sometime in 2016 |
I took mine on my balcony, selfie camera, sunglasses on. I never seem to be looking in the right direction in photos so that's why I went with the sunglasses, it was also bright outside and I wanted good lighting.
I remember it was a cold day, I was out there briefly taking photos and checking them, that's how little I do selfies, I'm not that good at them. My pic had the same arms length as the rest of them so it looks like it should belong to the alt-right brigade of fascist morons. So I've been meaning to replace it for ages, only I don't really care that much about it, so I let it go for months and months and now I'm writing about it to pass the time.
I figured a picture of myself, no sunglasses, somewhere authentic and spontaneous, a concert, which I rarely attend seemed like a good place.
| New Avatar. Photo Taken: June 26 2024 |
I went with a weird upward angle, it could be the cover of a weird folk-rock album, although the ladyfriend says it makes me look angry. I haven't touched an instagram filter in years, there are so many more than I knew of ages ago, but I'm a bit red in the face from biking in the sun and had to use one of the filters to reduce that look because nobody likes the lobster or super-furious look.
| Counting Crows, Albeit Very Small. Photo Taken: June 26 2024 |
Santana was up next, they were headlining but they weren't what I was there for. I watched a young man, nineteen or twenty years old get a very stern lecture from some very serious security guards, and then they confiscated his beer, and walked him out of the venue, only minutes before Santana took the stage.
His friends gushed to each other what happened. I tried to read lips and guestures, I think he was a bit aggressive with the bar staff, too pushy perhaps, or maybe downright rude. I'll never know. But Carlos Santana isn't young and that young fella might never again have another chance to see him perform live because he wanted to be rude.
His friends stayed for the show, there was no solidarity for their impolite comrade.
| Carlos Santana, The Man in the Orange Suit. Photo Taken: June 26 2024 |
I stayed to watch Santana play next for a few songs, they did Black Magic Woman, Soul Sacrifice. Carlos Santana is very old now, and has said some less than kind words about transgender folks, I didn't need to stay any longer than I did. The screens show clips of him playing at woodstock, in case anyone could forget he was at woodstock. I have several of his records on vinyl but I wasn't in the mood to stay and watch him all evening in a bright orange suit and play his guitar. By now all the other members of the band have come and gone. As I was leaving an inebriated older gentleman could be heard griping to his friend "He's just sitting there not saying anything! He doesn't sing, it's just fucking kareoke up there!". And I agree with him. It could've been a Disneyland animatronic of Carlos Santana for all I could see.
I left at 9:30pm, got home at 10:30pm, not just exhausted, but overtired. I was still tired all the next day. But I can finally say I watched Counting Crows perform live.
-cheers
Photo Friday - That Thing on King
Posted: August 02 2024 | Written: August 01 2024
I missed this weeks wednesday writing post, but I'm not going to beat myself up over big updates and then miss little ones.
This week's pic is of a new development downtown. I love new buildings going up but I am impatient and I want them up now, and then I want even newer new buildings, and I also want those up now-ish aswell.
This oddity, called "King Toronto", which is on King Street West, has been going up the past few years, I think the entire pandemic. I refer to it as "That Thing on King". I think my name is better.
| "King Toronto". Photo Taken: July 24 2023 |
Toronto has been in a building spree pretty much since I moved here, I'm going to have to write a post about it aren't I? Well that's for another day.
-cheers
Monday July Two-Four Catch-Up
Posted: July 29 2024 | Written: July 28 2024
Alright let's actually post about something that's not the site, because posting about posting feels a lot like comedians doing standup about standup-comedy instead of just telling jokes. It's not that enjoyable for everyone.
| Dawn on a hot muggy morning. Photo Taken: July 06 2024 |
July has been a hot and stormy month. Early in the month I got this pic from my balcony at 5:52am. When you see the haze inbetween the trees like that you know you're in for a muggy day.
| "Whot Me Stole?". Photo Taken: July 09 2024 |
There was an LCBO strike this month, it lasted only two weeks and I support the LCBO Union's right to strike. It also meant I had to stop at a beer store on the way home and that's where I found this beauty.
For those of you not from Toronto, this is a city rental bike. I still call them Bixi's after the original company name, but that company in Toronto went under and the city took it over and expanded the program as it was very popular. So I spot this Bixi locked up, it's labels and ad decals all peeled off and "Whot Me Stole?" scribbled across the rear fender. This is a complete work of art.
| Bike Lane Parking on York Street. Photo Taken: July 11 2024 |
Moving along, there's a new bike lane being installed on York Street as it's being turned into a two-way street between Queen and King. It's very new, but the paint should be a clear indicator to drivers that it's no longer for them. However this motorcycle's owner decided to park right across the bike lane, on top of the bicycle stencil. I mean c'mon.
I talked to a nearby traffic cop about it and he explained that while the lines are painted, the signage hasn't been changed and he can't give a ticket for it. My immediate reaction was "That is bullshit", to which he replied, "Yes, that IS bullshit."
| Sun Showers on Danforth. Photo Taken: July 12 2024 |
We had some heavy rains at times this month, at the beginning I snapped this picture on my way home, it was hot, muggy, sunny, and raining the whole way home. I didn't even notice until resizing this photo that there's a very faint rainbow in the upper-left corner.
This rain was enjoyable, not too heavy, actually felt nice in the hot weather. But what came soon after was much worse.
| Flooded Don Valley Parkway. Photo Taken: July 16 2024 |
We got some heavy rains on the 15th, at that point I thought it was the heaviest rains I have ever biked through. Until the next morning. On the 16th rained all morning and it was incredibly heavy rain. The previous days rains had already saturated the ground and the water levels kept rising. Parts of the waterfront and lower financial districts were flooded aswell as the Don Valley Parkway.
The rain quickly tapered off around 1pm and it quickly got hot and sunny but then most of Toronto's downtown core lost power due to the flooding. I snapped the DVP flood pictures on the way home when I took the Gerrard Street bridge and snapped some pics. There was a tesla stranded below in the flood.
| Unknown Toronto Cycling Group Ride. Photo Taken: July 19 2024 |
One Friday evening, after stopping off at the Spadina Beer store. Which was nearly picked clean by the way. I came across a group ride of cyclists, all on similar beach cruisers. I asked what their group was but I don't remember it anymore. They were big on pop-a-wheelie's.
| House Googley Eyes. Photo Taken: July 22 2024 |
Finding bus stop ads with googley eyes stuck to it almost always amuses me.
| Bike Thief Tools. Photo Taken: July 25 2024 |
Bike theft is still a big thing here in Toronto, here's a terrible quality cable lock hanging smashed from a bike post, next to it is the tool used, a brick.
| Balcony Garden. Photo Taken: July 27 2024 |
The girlfriend has been working hard on her balcony garden. We've added a nice fountain this year which we think works as a nice end piece to the whole setup.
I think that's a good catch-up for July, lots of pictures, lots of topics. Decently entertaining.
-cheers
Sundays Are For Attempts
Posted: July 28 2024 | Written: July 28 2024
So last week I made myself update, even going so far as typing an article out and copying it over to the web-editor entirely using my phone. I had been working on a story to post for wednesday, and I have plenty of pics to choose from for Photo Fridays. But the week was tougher than planned. I had planned to finish the story on thursday and redeem myself on friday by at least posting a photo on time.
Then a whole lof of news from home came down which I won't share here, everthing's fine, but at the time I pretty much had to put everything on the backburner.
Summer is when I tend to let digital stuff get away from me, it's too nice outside to focus, I'd rather relax with a beer. So attempting to get into an updating routine during July is ambitious for me.
Although I should mention that for some reason, every late-february and/or march I tend to go on a two or three week digital hiatus. I just stop checking almost all social media, chatting, etc. I just watch tv and sleep. I think it's the dreary change of the seasons and by that time I've been really into being online all winter as a distraction and I must reach some sort of digital saturation point. I've had friends reach out to me asking me if I'm ok, which I am. I'm just watching reruns of shows and movies and eating snacks. It generally lasts a few weeks until I get the itch to chat online again.
So today is a very hot windless day, my favourite, I love hot summer days. And I'm here at my desk, next to the open window, with a cold pint of beer, working on a personal website. This is current me doing a serious favour for what my friends and I sometimes refer to as "Tomorrow-Man". Usually I treat Tomorrow-Man terribly, staying up late drinking, going to bed late, etc. And the next day you generally then curse Yesterday-Man. That guy is a dick. Well I'm going to try to mend some of those Tomorrow-Yesterday relations. Not fully though, but a little.
So a Sunday post. I'm then going to work on the backlog of posts for at least this week, which is what I really need in case any more sudden events happen.
-cheers
Begin Again Until It Takes
Posted: July 22 2024 | Written: July 22 2024
Let's begin again shall we.
Earlier this year I started trying to update this site, I had plans to update a little bit, to get used to it before trying to commit to a update schedule. However life got in the way, my cat Bingo became ill in February and passed away in March. I spent weeks sleeping on the couch next to her sleeping spot to keep an eye on her and her passing severely affected me.
But I always intended to come back to this site. I thought about it frequently. I always get an idea for a post when I'm off riding my bicycle or about to go to sleep. It made me think that maybe if I had some sort of computer in my brain I could write it up as I went about my day. But then I think about any bit of tech installed in a human body would instantly be hacked by the worst type of people. So I'm trying to do the next closest form of writing, by typing this out on my phone and pasting it into the site editor.
I need to build up a small backlog of posts for this site. I'm thinking Mondays are for an actual written post like this, although I'm not really sure if a post about writing other future posts really count.
Fridays will be a photo post and perhaps a little description or context to go along with it.
Wednesdays are for writing, shirt stories, wandering mukti-part stories, all fiction. I want to write more and I've decided to start by just doing it, even if it's terrible.
In other news I am becoming quite tired of living through all these once-in-a-lifetime events. Economic collapses, land-wars in Europe, record heat waves and rainfalls every other week, presidential assassination attempts and presidents announcing they won't be seeking re-election. I need that country to just be cool for a bit so we can work on our other issues.
-cheers
Posting and Bingo
Posted: March 10 2024 | Written: March 10 2024
Ok so I said I'd try to post once a week, and this is just under the wire for this week. But my cat Bingo has been very ill and that has pretty much taken up all my spare time and concentration. I've been sleeping on the couch all week just so I'm near her in case anything happens during the night. When things improve with Bingo, then things will improve here. It's a very draining experience.
-cheers
Photo Friday - Garrison Crossing and Love Park
Posted: March 01 2024 | Written: March 01 2024
Well I'm posting twice in a week, but I think photo posts aren't as involved as a larger text post. Although setting up my watermark photoshop file took a little bit of work. In previous site incarnations I would add a little watermark in the corner of any pics I uploaded, but we all know how easy it is to crop out a watermark so I've decided to overlay them all across the pictures. If I'm going to do the work, I'm going to mark what's mine.
| Garrison Crossing. Photo Taken: August 16 2023 |
Taken last summer on what looks like a hot day, Garrison Crossing is a pedestrian/cycle path that connects the waterfront to Wellington West Ave via two very nice bridges. It's a favourite route of mine, although it's not maintained during the winter so you have to hope the weather is nice for it to be passable. It also has this very nice view of the downtown core.
| Love Park. Photo Taken: June 27 2023 |
Another test picture, the first pic was for a portrait, and this one for landscape pictures. Just look at those watermarks, wonderful.
Love Park, located at York & Queens Quay West, opened last year. It was delayed, like everything, by the pandemic. It has a large shallow pool in the shape of a heart with a small island in the center for a large tree.
People seemed to get upset last year that the water of the new park turned green, turns out that was the plan, the city wanted it to be more of a natural pool, and it takes a while to get to that healthy balance, so the colour green was apparently expected.
It also has several bronze statues around of various animals, maybe later I should go get some pics of them when the weather is nicer.
I think "Photo Friday" might have to be a regular occurance.
-cheers
We Start with the History, and the Rules
Posted: February 26 2024
Written: February 26 2024
Welcome back to Surfacingpoint. I first launched it back in 2002 on server running from my desktop computer, I didn't have a dot-com name back then so I had to post the IP address in my MSN Messenger name, mostly because every few weeks my internet provider would rotate the IP addresses and suddenly no one could find my tiny little site.
This was a site for only a few friends to view. It was one-half blog, one-half personal experimental photoshop abstract art showcase in the form of weird site designs, every page was different from the last, I wanted the internet to be weird and artsy back then, I think I still want that today.
Later I would get a dot-com name, and clean up the site a bit more, trying to make my artsy site into a weird hybrid of abstract and corporate. Throw in a lot of css and a small php script and the designs used to change every thirty minutes, I could have nice bright designs in the daytime, darker designs later on, before Night Mode was a common feature on the apps, actually it was even before the apps. Clearly I recieved no credit for this, no one really visited my site. There wasn't much reason for repeat visitors back then.
I was bad at posting, and surfacingpoint just became an online bookmark site for myself, mostly for the long list of webcomics I read back then. After a while I let the hosting go, kept the dot-com name, its still safe and registered, but it will stay dormant I think for a while longer. This incarnation of surfacingpoint is going to skip the artsy design, slick php/css gimmicks, I'm going to try to focus on posting. Instead of sitting down everyday, being creative daily, which is often interrupted by everything else going on, I came up with an idea.
Maybe I should just write my posts in advance, bank them, take the pressure off myself.
So that's what I plan on doing, write what I'm thinking about, or maybe just post a picture of what I see while I'm out and about, although I think all picture posts should be accompanied with some sort of description, or context. I dislike it when people post a picture with no words attached. Oh I've been meaning to think up of some rules.
I have some rules, these as of yet personal unwritten rules might have to be finally written down. Let's give'er a try.
-Pictures should have a description/context accompanying it. Even if it's just a pic of a street, the when and where is nice to have.
-Don't post personal information, the internet rules from the 90's are in effect. I won't be posting super personal info, nothing about my address, or what I do for a living. I don't trust most people, I really don't trust the weirdest of those online. Yet I still think I can post while enforcing these conditions.
-Post for myself, but also as if complete strangers are reading this. Back in the day I used to like finding a blog or a livejournal of someone who posted semi-frequently, read about their life, like a little one-person soap opera. Some were really interesting, but most slowly went quiet and stopped posting. While every post should be for myself, and not pandering, I do like to think "what would a stranger think about this, am I making any sense to them?" Post for me, but be clear enough for others.
But now we are back again, I found out about neocities.org almost by accident, free site, no ads, decent hosting space. I jumped at the chance to have a free little site again, I joined about a year ago, again I was distracted, but it was always on my mind.
For now the goal is to post at least once a week until I get back into the swing of things. Don't use up all my post ideas right away. Someday I'd like to have daily posts, give friends and strangers a reason to visit my little corner of the internet. I have project ideas, things I'd like to slowly develop here. I want to go through my digital collection of photos I've taken over the past twenty years, maybe find some gems in there.
I've got ideas and things I want to share and I wanted a place that was all mine to do that. I've been becoming unimpressed by the state of the social media platforms lately, and they can go away in a blink of an eye and you can lose everything, accounts can be hacked, banned, poof, gone.
I have resurfaced again, here at surfacingpoint.
-I don't even know if I should sign my name here, maybe that could be a topic for another day?
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