Custom clothing
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On the one hand... I've been doing a bunch of reading/YouTubing lately on tailoring (particularly historically-informed tailoring that verges on experimental archaeology) which is reigniting my interest in having something made for me.
On the other hand... I have literally zero excuses to wear anything vaguely nice these days. It's a red letter day when I wear something with a collar, usually in the form of an overshirt to make an outfit that's one step above just another day in a hoodie.
So while I could go see a tailor (I even know which one I'd call on first) and get a jacket, some shirts, or even a full suit, such an effort would be thoroughly pointless.
But maybe a hat? I still wear the long overcoat in cold conditions, and the Ascot cap of the last, er, 15 years isn't at its best any more. Once upon a time I even knew a milliner, and I suspect she would still recognize me if I darkened the door of the shop where she plies her trade.
I could do with something brimmed in heavy felt.
Irreconcilable differences
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I was in the comments of a UK-based YouTuber that I'm not that familiar with yet but does interesting things, and I came across one that said (paraphrased, because it's gone now):
I recently learned that this person is a Reform UK supporter. As a Nigerian immigrant I can't support someone like this and I urge you not to either.
At first, my reaction was "hmm, does this really affect my enjoyment of a guy doing ludicrous trekking things in England" (like crossing London north to south while staying off roads in a single day).
Then I thought a little more, and I did seriously wonder if I could enjoy the work of someone willing to embrace a political view I find xenophobic, shortsighted, and intellectually lazy.
My third and concluding thought is that in the absence of any corroborating evidence (and I certainly didn't get that vibe from the content), perhaps this is just some yute trolling for lols.
But... if I did somehow get confirmation, I probably would give up on this guy. Although it's also worth thinking about the lengths that so many YouTubers I follow are exceptionally judicious about being completely apolitical.
Talking into a hole
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Without noticing, earlier this year I passed 19 years of journal-style blogging and also 6000 total entries. If those entries average 2 per page/~250 words each (maybe less, I can be...laconic), that's six 500 page volumes, which is a lot to think about. Admittedly, not all of those are worth saving for posterity.
The BlogBooker (née "ljbook") tool will turn your entire blog into a PDF, ready for printing. I also have a dump of all my entries in XML format for safekeeping. Maybe I should see just how long it would be.
Anyhow, the experiment continues.
I sometimes think about trying to figure out how to feed the complete corpus to a local LLM with a goal of either a) asking it to analyse the text ("find the most interesting entry", etc), or b) producing an ink_13 bot. Both choices would be weird.
Not least of all because there are things that have happened and key personal facts not recorded here at all.
Extremely short car reviews
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2023(?) Chrysler 300 edition.
On my trip to Nova Scotia I booked again on the "whatever" level. Upon arrival at the rental desk, it was a classic Seinfeldian "we actually have no cars" situation, but seeing that my account has status (because of transfer from airline status I think?) they said they'd try and get something nice for me. And so, this car, the last Chrysler sedan (in Pentastar V6 form, not V8 muscle form).
I couldn't get the radio to connect to my phone for media in any way shape or form: not by USB (nothing), not by Bluetooth fallback (it would say "PHONE ONLY"), so for the most part I used one earbud and trusted Google Maps' audio directions. Also the touchscreen didn't work most of the time.
It's well-trod ground that this is a late-90s Benz at a chassis and suspension design level, and it drives like it, which is to say "not nimbly". That V6 does push 300 ponies, but the car also weighs almost two tons, so while it moves, it's not a hustler. The interior feels cheap and I found it challenging to get it perfectly comfortable, but at the end of two days with it I say we hit a level I would call "okay". At least it has adaptive cruise, a sunroof, and lanekeep assist.
But a European-fighting distance-crushing cruiser this isn't. I'd say the GTI is just as comfortable with a better interior and superior acceleration.
It does look hella boss, though, particularly in black (as this one was).
Broke and repaired
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Yesterday, I was eating one of the last peaches of the season when I misjudged the size of the stone and accidentally bit into it. At first it felt like a little sliver of something was caught between my teeth, but I quickly discovered that, no, my 21 incisor (that is, upper left) had cracked.
This is less upsetting than it might appear at first because that tooth is, of course, already fake, a veneer built on what's left of my long-broken chomper. These things don't last forever.
My first reaction was to call the dentist's office, because the sooner I could get this fixed the better, and it turns out the soonest was "the next day" (i.e., today as of writing). The process was much like last time: grind away a little old stuff to create a bonding surface, build it up, grind it down.
The new one feels almost like nothing at all, which I think is always the goal. While I had that triangular void it was uncomfortable on the lips and tongue, whereas now that it's replaced it's like it was always there. There are subtle differences, of course, that will take a day or two to get used to, but not hugely noticeable.
I was, however, warned that if it fails again it's likely to be time to replace the veneer with a crown. So that's probably inevitable, but if this one lasts as long as the predecessor did, that's about 23 years from now, and who knows what advances in dental technology we'll see by then. Maybe the magic tooth-regrowing technology will have been developed in the interim.
Time away
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My old fiddle teacher invited me out to visit her in the Annapolis Valley for an Irish set dancing weekend. So I cashed in some Aeroplan points (and $100 to cover airport fees) and went.
Set dancing shares a lineage with contra dancing that runs in part back to the quadrille (it's a bit complicated, not least of all because both nearly died and were revived in the late 20th century), but I have to say that between them set dancing makes contra look like something for babies. The basic component moves are almost the same, but set dancing has more of them and combines them in a more complicated fashion.
(On the other hand, while it's true that in contra you can get away with walking all the steps, there's also an emphasis on spinning and flow that lets even intermediate dancers start to look smooth and fancy. My biggest frustration over the weekend were partners who wouldn't use the full 8, wanting to be poised 1 or 2 beats early for the next thing. But I digress.)
The weekend was taught by Pat Murphy, who literally wrote the book on set dancing. An incredibly gentle man with a classic Tipperary accent and a solid teacher. Workshops during the day when he teaches sets with more detail, and then ceilis at night where there is less handholding. My impression is that there's a vague expectation that the dancers will know complete sets by heart upon just hearing the name, but I can't keep those in my head once the set ends. Personally, I lean on the fact that I know almost all the component steps and the caller to keep up, and there were a couple of dances during ceilis that could have used a little more calling.
Aside from hesitant partners, the worst thing about the weekend was getting accidentally tripped Saturday morning by someone from a neighbouring set who lost track of things. I would have been OK but the floor was slick with talc that some people put on the bottom of their leather-soled shoes to slide even better. Me, I just danced in Blundstones, and I lost purchase after stumbling twice. I landed on the left side of my butt and seem to have gotten away with only a minor bruise.
All in a nice visit: J and her now-fiancé M (a farrier by trade) have a cozy apartment with a comfy guest room, and the east end of the Annapolis Valley is not really that foreign of terrain: it's actually quite a lot like Ontario around the escarpment (if you overlook the Bay of Fundy).
Do I have much more to say about it? Not really. I didn't open my laptop once (although the iPad got a workout) and it was a good break of a weekend.
Knowledge of changes
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The contract and schedule for fan coil replacement has landed. Alas, my end of the building drew the short straw and I don't get new FCUs until December. Presuming there's no schedule slip.
But... I suspect this means I have to bump the beginning of renos into January. We can do design work starting next month as planned. This makes more sense anyway, I can spend my end-of-year break the way I really wanted: packing up the entire apartment.
Not. But needs must and all that.
Part of the design discussions will no doubt be how much of my furniture survives this process. The lounge chair, the desk chair, and the antique banker's chair in the bedroom are all shoo-ins. The red couch, the IKEA IVAR bookshelves, the dining room chairs/table, and the mismatched bedside tables are obvious cuts. But things like the blue Joybird sectional, the bed, and the TV console will be tougher to lose.
Things that aren't staying I will attempt to sell, if only because I would rather that than cart them to the landfill.