Well I survived the competition last week. There were a lot of things I was unprepared for, that unless I had previously participated, I don’t think I would’ve ever figured out. The little things, the details, small bits you neglect to pay attention to are what really gets you in the end. I ranked a respectable fifth place, if you consider that all the rules weren’t adhered to as well I would be up there in fourth! Not bad for my first try. The judges’ score sheets are an invaluable little bit of scrutiny that I’ve already applied to my daily routine at work!

Speaking of the judges, I do not envy them. Well specifically I do not envy the sensory judges, they had to consume a ridiculous amount of caffeine across the two nights. I don’t think my boss got an hour’s rest in the next two days, the coffee took its toll. I think that the technical judging, while not an easy task, puts a lesser impact on the body. Watching a contestant so closely, making note of every little flick of the wrist and checking for real specifics when they barely have time to glance at their scoresheets must certainly be no simple job. Kudos to all the judges those nights, we (really) couldn’t have done it without your participation.

The most fun I had was watching everybody else compete. There were plenty of unique touches and styles from everybody, I just kept thinking “I wish I’d done it more like that” during everyone’s routine. There was a great spread of variety in the signature drinks with ingredients including, but not limited to rosemary, applesauce, tobacco, pancreas glands, cream cheese and even a mojito inspired beverage with fresh mint and ginger (my favourite of the drinks I tasted).

Next year, I’ll be ready.

My Dad, on the other hand, had himself quite the rush the next night. He was a fighter in Contenders White Collar Fight Night 7. It was his first fight, and he did it at the tender age of fifty five! Three one-and-a-half minute rounds, it doesn’t sound like a lot, but even just watching, those are very long ninety second rounds.

He won his match with a four to one vote from the judges. It was a strange moment of being proud of my dad, strange because of the unconventional circumstances. Seriously, whose father voluntarily begins training to fight the same year he plans to retire? He did great, kicked some ass, took some punches, and walked out tall, and all for charity. Ok, I’m sure that wasn’t his primary reason.

I wish I could post some pictures but I was without a camera that night. Maybe when I get ahold of some, I’ll update this post.

Tomorrow evening I will be participating in the JJ Bean Coffee Roasters in-house barista competition. The desirable outcome of this event will be to select 2? 3? baristi to represent our company in the upcoming Western Regional Barista Competition in August. My nerves are an absolute wreck.

Competition is something I’m unfamiliar with, it is foreign territory fraught with perils and opposition. Basically I’ll be stepping far out of my comfort zone, a zone I’ve lovingly padded with cushions and candies over the past year down at my workplace. A constant plague of tiny, yet fully reasonable, doubts is nagging at the back of my mind, telling me I’m forgetting this or that. I need to relax, and soon.

The night itself (actually the span of two nights) should be a lot of fun. Once my fifteen minutes is up and my stomach has settled I can get down to cheering on my fellow workmates doing what they do best. Everyone says not to be stressed because everyone I’ll be performing for are friends, and most know what it’s like to be in that very same spot. I think it’s for this exact reason that I am a nervous wreck, my reputation is at stake! I’m kidding, I don’t have a reputation, or at least one that does me any grace.

A barista competition is basically broken down into three parts, serving twelve delicious beverages, being efficient and clean, and entertaining your judges. Cram all of the above into a fifteen minute span that feels all too short and you have an embarassingly brief description of what the competition involves. I would go into more detail but there is plenty of information to be found with even the quickest google.

Right now I’m heating up some milk and steeping some star anise for my signature drink tomorrow. So far everyone who’s tried it has reacted favourably to the taste. I found this surprising since anise is quite often an acquired taste, but even my girlfriend, who loathes anything similar to licorice, enjoyed the drink. Combined with tapioca syrup to sweeten and orange zest the drink is a nice burst of taste and smell on the senses. Hopefully the judges agree.

Wish me luck!

Almost eleven-o-clock at night on a Sunday and I’ve got a strange craving for a sugar loaded grape Crush soda. Let me pause before continuing so I can collect one of these delicious treats.

Several minutes pass

Well so much for that idea. The grocer across the street probably hasn’t had a carbonated grape drink pass through it’s automatic sliding door since Capers/Whole Foods moved into the neighbourhood a couple years ago. Now that I think about it, the last time I even saw a Crush Grape soda was in a hardware and lumber supply store, stacked in 24-pack flats in the center of the aisle, next to orange, root-beer, cream-Soda, and probably some sort of lime flavoured variant.

Tonight is one of those rare nights where I’m able to enjoy some modest spurts of productivity amidst the barrage of online distractions. Between a rampant deluge of Tumblr, Twitter, Facebook status updates, e-mails, and Blog posts I barely have time to copy and paste. I’m being overly dramatic, I don’t follow Twitter at all.

As for the previously mentioned productivity, I was able to churn out a few work related bits in illustrator. Nothing really fancy, just replacing some worn out signage and thought I would use this opportunity to give it a little charm instead of the tired center-aligned Times New Roman or Comic Sans notices that every office computer hooked up to a printer has spit forth at one point or another. I really enjoy spending the time it takes dragging out vertices and setting up guides to produce something in Illustrator. Far too little of my time has been invested in this interest lately and I can really tell a lot of my interface muscle memory is now atrophied.

“MAHAKALI”, ( Kali is the feminine of “kala”- “darkness”, Maha is “great” ) is named after the mythical indian goddess of death and destruction, as mentioned in the Mahabarata and other indian epics. – The Living Jarboe

While working diligently on my up and coming design studio I of course come across lots of goodies I would like to procure, you know, for research materials. Books are always a welcome addition to any home and something I feel I should spend more time with. This being said, my time should really start veering away from the general wizards and warrior themes I often find myself returning to.

On occasion. with varying degrees of success, I have dug into a few pieces of classic literature. After picking up a copy of Bulgakovs The Master and Margarita I found my interest waning around half-way through. Since then I haven’t returned to the book nor picked up any new ones. I intend to change that in the upcoming months, just with less challenging themes, or even without words. Hahah.

Now we’re talking! Okay maybe this would be too ridiculous to read as I’m neither a huge fan of Jane Austen or Zombies. I mean Zombies are pretty cool, but I think best served as plot devices in late night movies or video games. Let’s investigate further.

Hey, now this is nice. Two years ago I posted about Stephan Doitschinoff and literally, just this minute I stumbled across a book of his work. Tempting, very tempting.

The reason I stumbled across that last book was due to scouring up information on Vania Zouravliov who also has a book of work available on the same site. Furthermore there is one print in particular I find enchanting, for obvious reasons.

So if you have a spare two hundred Euros lying around you can send to me via paypal. I can trade you with $1.65 in Canadian Tire money. Hey, it’s good to spend on Ebay, who knew?

First things first, I’ve uploaded another day of photos from my trip this summer. Yeah yeah, I’m not very quick at this am I? Perhaps by the time I’m done uploading all three weeks worth of photos I will be all set for another trip somewhere! Here’s to hopefully thinking. Just click on the little kitty to visit the gallery.

So I had probably one of the best Christmas days in years. Lots of good food, gifts, and cozyness. Snow everywhere, too much gift wrap (my parents are making an effort to re-use fabric as wrapping paper for the following years instead of throwing out garbage all the time), and some fun tobogganing. I hope everyone managed to make it safely to their respective holiday engagements and were able to indulge and relax. Boxing day was back to the grindstone slinging Soy, Skim, and Spro.

Christmas is fast approaching, a mere handful of days are left to go. I’m busying myself by coughing up all sorts of mucus and phlegm in the morning and consuming as many tissues as I can without eroding my nostrils so there is only a single ‘nostril’ remaining. Thankfully, after a chaotically busy saturday, my weekend has arrived.

The next two days shall be spent sleeping in, eating comfort foods and playing animal crossing. Oh sure I may very likely venture out into the sub-zero air, running small errands, only to quickly return back inside and cozy up next to a toasty space heater. I’m fortunate enough to of completed most, if not all of my holiday gift shopping. There’s a stack of elegantely wrapped boxes right next to me and a sleeping cat. There’s the possibility that on Monday I might go beyond walking distance and collect a few stocking stuffers, but no promises.

I’m looking forward to my families Christmas dinner this year. Mostly because a big deal (at least it sounds like) has been made regarding the menu. There will be both Turkey and a Ham, a rarity for our family. An epic feast is anticipated and behind it all this year is my Sister. She has taken on the task of preparing all our eats this Christmas. I would find such a thing so daunting as I can barely work a toaster oven on a good day. Cooking and cellphones, those are my weaknesses.

Meanwhile, In a complete derailment, I’ve been grooving to the latest Terminal Sound System release, Constructing Towers. There is a really big drone or drone metal influence to this record that I find quite pleasing. Electronic drone effects, I’m always a big fan. Additionally there is a real atmospheric and uplifting vibe throughout this release. One might even describe it as epic.

I’m three Kronenbourgs and a Caeser into the night. What better time to write a post about nothing than now? Let’s kick things off with some Yo Majesty, because they are everything aweseome right now on my stereo.

Actually to be honest that’s not whats playing right now. I’ve spent most of the week listening to shoegazers like Spiritualized, Brian Jonestown Massacre, and The Black Angels. This short list by no means covers everything. The last.fm radio system is a great tool for trying out music that is similar to what you want. Feel free to add me.

For a day off in a generally busy time of year I’ve been rather unproductive. Sure I tossed a few bucks into a couple gifts, but for the majority of the day I spent my time wandering the streets in the already packed down by the hundreds of weekend Christmas shoppers snow. I started off at the new Elysian Room with my girlfriend for a nibble and a coffee. Ignore the website, there is another location and it is located on the corner of Broadway and Ash Street, across from the massive London Drugs, Whole Foods, Olympic Skytrain, Condo construction zone. After escorting m’lady to work I wandered aimlessly around the West 4th area and down unto Granville Island. It would seem holiday festivities of some sort were taking place, something to do with giant gingerbread men on stilts. I would know more, but honestly that kind of outdoor performance art stuff isn’t really my bag.

After walking about the main market as briefly as I could muster (I basically B-lined it to the bank machine), I had a short visit with some co-workers keeping weekend holiday shoppers caffeinated. From there I wandered into the Kids Market. I don’t know why I even go in there sometimes, it always makes me feel kind of grim. It never fails, a parent will be yelling at a child who is yelling because they aren’t getting something they want and the situation will somehow be so out of control volumewise it’s hard not to want to involve yourself somehow and mediate things. Being the holiday season things in the Kids Market were especially frantic with parents desperate to stay on task and children running amok and literally in some cases climbing the walls. I probably didn’t learn my lesson and will be back on my next visit to the ‘island’.

It was a relief to get back out into the biting cold and walk along the water and under the Burrard Bridge into Vanier Park. It’s almost always a nice walk that direction, and never is it very busy with foot traffic despite it’s easy access.

Someone (my mother) asked me this week what I would like for Christmas this year. Despite what a large amount of my blog posts might tell you, I don’t spend much time clamouring for gifts. The fact is, making a list of “cool shit” that I find when browsing around the net and then posting on my blog is essentially just laziness and my lack of inspiration to write anything actually worth reading. With that said, please carry on reading as I still wouldn’t mind finding something off this list stuffed into a large sock come Christmas morning.

I think I will start with the nerd/geek items first.

Seagate FreeAgent Go – I can always use more storage space. These might be a little hard to find just yet in Canada. I’d suggest using Ncix, as they seem to be able to order up just about anything. Yes, It’s the red one I’m pining for, blue as a secondary choice.

A Logitech G15 Keyboard would be a great upgrade to my current chunky brick that I acquired from work several years ago when they were tossing out all the old computers.

I don’t really know if this Spy Lens will fit on my camera. It should be ok with a 58mm lens adapter. Neat idea and solution to a common problem.

I’ve always wanted to shave with a straight razor. The savings of not having to replace your blades (with proper care) alone make the idea tempting, but of course I just think it would be badass to trim the old fashion way.

Okay, I suppose I’ll cut this short as this is basically what I thought it would be, a “cool shit” list. I’m also very distracted by something.

Meanwhile back in Cubetown Sizzly J is taking over in his strawberry suit! I am so (re)addicted to this game it hurts.

When you take a lot of digital photos, you often find yourself wanting to share a quick image with a friend now and then without much hassle. Putting aside the issues of transferring files, there was another problem I often encounter with my photos, they are absolutely huge. Since nobody likes to receive a 3 megabyte photograph I like to resize things down to a digestible dimension. I caught myself right clicking on the files looking for a resize option, no dice.

My next step was the internet where I knew I could find the solution. I was expecting to find perhaps some over bloated software that added this function, or maybe some little open source project of windows add-ons. Imagine my surprise when Microsoft themselves actually offer exactly what I wanted with absolutely no extra fluff installed.

Image Resizer

Now I can quickly nab some monstrous 3264 x 2448 from a folder, right click, and pick a more managable 800 x 600. No need to open any image editing software, just fire and forget. Clearly I am pleased with this as I chose to post about this nonsense.