Oct 31
The long held human dream of inflicting post traumatic stress disorder on ourselves in the comfort of our own homes has come a step closer to fruition. From Singularity Hub The Gadget Show, airing on Channel 5 in the UK, recently embarked on creating the most true to life simulator for first person shooter games ever built. They …
Jul 03
the art of alex varanese – alt/1977: we are not time travelers. Alex Varanese looks at modern products through a 1977 lens.
Feb 04
Whatever happened to good old fashioned opium? These days people are uploading their lives, not into a solitary hallucination but into a shared network of fantasies. According to the CBC documentary, Strangers in Paradise, this effects relationships in the raw world. Marriages are breaking up, children are abandoned and Mom becomes a biker’s bitch. Basically, …
Nov 17
I can’t claim to be a huge Pacman fan. It was a bit before my time. As a youth, I remember that he had been all but replaced by Miss Pacman and, besides, my favorite video games were on the newfangled Nintendo Machine. I did play some of the arcade ones but I think it …
Sep 23
The Blue Jays season is drawing to a close. And yes I know that they’re now called “The Jays” but they’re still the Blue Jays to me. Even if they don’t play like it. They certainly had a pretty bad season. At the start I thought they could do well as long as they didn’t …
Dec 13
I love video games. Especially the Civilization Series. Some people –crazy people– think that the hours I spend playing Civ 4 are a waste of time. I couldn’t disagree more. I’ve learned a lot from this game. Here’s a few pieces of wisdom about the realpolitik that I’ve picked up: 1. Oil is a perfectly …
Oct 12
I know you’re probably busy watching your baseball. I like baseball too. (Go Tigers!) And it was fun to watch the Yankees, er, crash and burn. But Hockey season has started. I just figured that you guys should all know that our national anthem up here isn’t that “Oh Canada” nonsense. Most of us don’t …
Sep 26
I did not post when Tie Domi retired. But, thankfully, he is back in the news. This time it has nothing to do with hockey. It’s all about Canada’s second love; politics. Apparently, Mr. Domi has been engaging in congress with Belinda Stronach. The lucky bastard. There are few fantasies that I hold as dear …
Jul 21
It appears that the Pacman playing crickets in my last post are already obsolete. They have been replaced by robot crickets, who are smarter, faster and play a better violin. But the organic crickets are not going down without a fight. They are at war with the machines to see who will control cyberspace – …
Jul 20
I love Pacman. As a child I spent endless hours in bars playing table top versions of that game. But these days it’s kinda hard to find. Sure, I know that you can get it on a computer and blah blah blah but it just isn’t the same. So imagine my surprise when I found …
Although Ryan Oakley began his career as a simple rake (drunk) he has since become Toronto’s most renowned flaneur (no car) and notorious dandy (overdresses). A misanthropic composer of psycho-geographical fictions (sci-fi), he is also a server of food, a tender of bar and a washer of dishes. While performing all these functions with efficiency and elegance (disdain and malice), he somehow finds the time to publicly criticize friends, strangers and cultural crap.
