77percent™

I’m very interesting in working with polaroid at some point in the near future.

in other news, I’m going to being in Montreal for a few days after christmas / before new years. drop me a line if you’d like to get together or something.

I’m really looking forward to my year off. I don’t really understand why it’s such a rarity on this side of the pond, I don’t think it should be. For those not in the know, I’m planning on spending next year working with Habitat (for Humanity), probably in S. America, but I’m not entirely certain where yet. It’s going to be completely different and quite great. I think we get more than a little too comfortable around here, not just with our luxuries but also with the unnecessary evils of our world. At least I feel like I’m getting desensitized to the Bad Things; this, I think, can be dangerous. It’ll be refreshing to get out/away of/from it all for a long while. What I’m really after is some tangible satisfaction in what I do everyday.
In the meantime, I’m working with Ottawa’s local Food Not Bombs, an organic community kitchen (via), anyone else who’s interested should let me know and I’ll be sure to wake you up every sunday morning for 11am.

I’ve been away from my home [one-seventeen] for more than too long and I’m hoping to move back in as soon as possible. I’m going to miss the old charms of that place, but the new plan does have its ups.

A Brief, albeit ironic, History of One-Seventeen Mackay
… so we bought the place as we supposedly outgrew Avon Lane, all my memories of Ottawa from my earliest years are defined by Avon Lane. Immediately after the transaction, we were posted to Cairo and never got to move in. John rather liked the place and has had some high hopes for the ancient structure (in which they’ve just uncovered, and replaced, some asbestos, not to mention some lovely nineteenth century electricals made with porcelain/etc as well as maps and news papers dated from the late 1800s). We finally move in, on our way out of the World Bank / the District, in the end of summer ‘05 and I think we were all very happy with the place … I know I was, I had my fair share of great times and countless winter barbecues. Largely due to technical issues with the structural integrity of parts of the house, but also some ambitious plans for a little bit of new, my humble abode has been a construction site for half a year now. Anyways it’s been quite a bit of effort and certainly also a learning experience for the family and I, the father and myself have done most of the planning and have actually worked with the good folk rebuilding the place for us, it’s been very rewarding (at least a little bit of the reason I got interested in Habitat for next year rather than some other NGOs), and mum’s helped a lot with the (re)packing/unpacking.

Some day, in the not too distant future, we’ll be barbecuing on the roof/deck … it’ll be great.

I’ll leave you with a link to this rather thought-provoking essay on How Art Can Be Good by Paul Graham.
And, before I forget to mention it, my copy of JPGmag arrived a couple days ago, I’m quite happy with it; I’m also catching up on the last few issues of Adbusters from over the summer, amongst other things on my reading list.

and just one more link : by FP, via kottke, The Top Ten Stories You Missed or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the News Corp.