I remember the first time I blogged with WordPress. It seemed so magical, but at the same time it was this discrete entity under my control. I owned the server and the database and could do with it whatever I pleased with not a care in the world. Occasionally someone would read my posts and occasionally they were immature, and I still regret some of the things I said. But it was exciting having my own little space in the world to make words.
Contrast that with now and this blog is just another amorphous cloudy glorb with secret inner workings that I don’t care to understand let alone do anything with. The magic has been lost amongst the noise and ads and monthly subscription charges. And that’s part of how we’ve gone months between posts, dear diary.
I’m thinking now the world’s changed I should write more. The closest I’ve come to keeping a diary is my alt Twitter, locked away for nobody but myself. But that tends to capture the worst of me for no real reason other than the convenience of shouting into the void. I sometimes miss composing the odd paragraph or two for the screaming abyss. So, I suppose, that’s this.
I also remember the first time I composed a blog post on my phone, the little T9 keyboard of my Nokia 6120c worn bare from the exuberance of modern technology. Now it seems so normal to lay in bed unable to sleep and swipe out a wanky obituary to good times past. I’m sure someday I’ll fondly remember these with the same tint.
I’m on the train to Maryborough now. At the last minute I decided to get the tilt train straight to Maryborough West rather than the slower, cheaper Gympie North train then drive the extra 45 minutes north.
I’ve spent the past week camping on Ben’s floor and as much as I love and appreciate that man, I’m ready for… camping on my parents floor. Okay, not much has changed there, but I’ll have a room to myself and I won’t be in the way all the time.
Living out of a suitcase is hard y’all! I wasn’t expecting it to be amazing, but after three weeks now I’m just about ready to head back to Amsterdam. I’m leaving on Sunday and I’m sure I’ll have changed my mind by then.
I’m of two minds about heading back to Amsterdam. On one hand it’s where my home is, but on the other I’ve lately not been enjoying my time there for reasons I can’t really put my finger on. I think the thing I miss the most is being able to roam anywhere and do as I please; in the Netherlands it’s either too cold or too crowded for outdoor activities. The second the sun comes out the entire country is out in force to sunbathe in city parks and dine crammed together on narrow city streets.
The other thing I’ve really missed is the food. I had a nightmare the other night that I went to a Dutch restaurant and they served croquette on mashed potato, the whole speaking indecipherable Dutch. I miss pub food, Asian cuisines, fresh vegetables. Arnott’s Shapes ffs. The only thing interesting about the food in Amsterdam is how expensive it is.
That’s not to say I’m not enjoying my time in Europe, but you know. I don’t think I’m going to stay there forever. I just don’t know where forever is going to be (or how long, given our current climate).
Yeah, I’m being a bit of a downer. I’m just exhausted at the moment, so hopefully a few nights with my parents should cheer me up.
Singapore was fun. I landed in Changi Terminal 2, and took the underpass to the MRT, where I found I needed to withdraw cash. A quick escalator to Terminal 3 and a Starbucks OJ later, I was downstairs again at the MRT.
The ticket machine was not good. The EFT terminal was broken or not in use, and it would only accept up to ten dollar notes. Thankfully my OJ split my fifty and I had enough cash to get me to the hotel.
The MRT trip made me feel all kinds of nostalgia. It was mostly empty, but I got to (kinda) watch the sun rise through the window. I had to transfer from the airport line at Tanah Merah, at which point the MRT was super full and I stood up most of the way.
As we arrived closer to the centre, things started to get really familiar. The thick jungle grass, the ERP tolls, the checkerboard kerb painting. This is the Singapore I remember.
My hotel was a block or two from the metro station and it was a great relief to drop my bags and check out the amazing views from the tower.
That morning I headed out and immediately stumbled on a Japanesse style pancake place, probably the most extravagant pancakes I’ve had in my life despite living in Amsterdam. Afterwards I realised that most places in Singapore only opened after 10am and changed my plan to just walk around the city.
I saw a lot of cool stuff including Raffles Hotel and the Fountain of Wealth, but probably the highlight of my day was heading to Giant Hyperfresh, a giant supermarket with a LOT of cool Asian goodies.
Heading into the trip, one of the pieces of advice I received was to take it slowly. Spend a few hours out, then retreat to the aircon to recover. I think my morning trip was too ambitious after the plane flight because I was thoroughly shattered once I got back to my hotel.
That evening after a lot of water and several hours napping, I headed out to Clark Quay, had a chicken noodle dinner, and walked the length of the quay taking time lapses and admiring the city.
As it was only a brief trip, the next day was my last day to see the city.
I started by heading out to Kampong Glam to check out the famed photogenic streets. I poked around the shops, and avoided the temptation to pick up tat, and thoroughly enjoyed the cosy streets, intense decorating, and colourful street art. I hadn’t been to this part of town the last time, and it shifted my perspective away from wanting to see the same old things to discovering new and exciting bits.
I found a nice Turkish restaurant to have breakfast. More specifically the man out the front gesturing to the menu caught my attention, then the laid back outdoor dining and large industrial fans maintained it. I was looking for breakfast, so the Menemen sounded great (it’s like shakshouka). The wait was fairly long, but it was worth it to sit in the shade and watch the hustle and bustle of the street. The meal itself was delicious and I would definitely recommend the place if you’re in the area.
After that I wandered a bit more, checking out the street art and the local shops, and finally the 7-Eleven for some fluids in the form of aloe drink.
The other thing I wanted to check out from my youth was the Sim Lim Square electronics emporium thing. It was a few blocks walk in the beating sun, but once I got there it was an immediate air conditioned blast.
Sim Lim was exactly what I remembered, except instead of PC components it was a lot more mobile accessories. My favourites were the vast displays of USB fans, and the little upmarket photography/videography shop.
I only ended up buying one thing, which was a nice pink aluminium iPad stand for my mum for Christmas.
After this I walked back to the hotel, realising I’d barely travelled a few blocks in my entire stay. There’s so much to do in Singapore, apparently, and I wouldn’t mind spending more time there in the future.
For a while I’ve been wanting to update my website, but I’m really not a designer and I knew any attempts to improve on what I already had would be a haphazard mess.
I was looking for a new job as a React developer and really wanted to hone my skills, so I thought what better way than to build a new site in React?
As for design… why not pay homage to one of the most influential operating systems of my youth: Windows 9x. And for fun, why not make it all fit on a floppy disk.
The rise of retro nostalgia
Windows 9x is the loose name for the operating systems from Windows 95 through ME. They were pretty shoddily built on top of MS-DOS and kinda sucked. But they were revolutionary at the time, and we didn’t know better.
The design aesthetic, particularly in the Windows 98 era was something to behold.
In present day, retro tech is really making a comeback. One of my favourite examples of this is Paul Verbeek-Mast’s horrible excellent website which was kind of an inspiration for me through my design process.
But there are plenty of other amazing examples of retro nostalgia including the gorgeous poolside.fm streaming radio, and this fun game concept:
Ultimately the entire site is designed to fit on a 3.5″ floppy disk, attached to a Raspberry Pi running nginx, sitting on the shelf under my TV.
That means the entire site is 1.44 mb (or less) at any given time, and served to you straight from the ’90s.
The site is using Hexo to render out the static content, which includes a bunch of custom theming to make the data hook together nicely.
It’s also using Netlify for builds and Cloudflare as a CDN, so chances are you’ll never actually have to wait for the magnetic drive to spin up. But you never know! I get a little thrill out of that.
Update: this is back on Netlify while I’m at Fronteers Conference since I don’t have time to put the pi back together.
React & open source
This site was largely built with Preact (A fast 3kB alternative to React with the same modern API). The content is built with Hexo then progressively enhanced, so you can disable javascript (with the skip link for accessibility, or in the Start menu just for kicks) and the site still mostly works.
The interface is inspired by the more nostalgic bits of Windows 98 and ME, which were my operating system of choice in my more formative years.
If I’m honest, this was a terrible choice because the (p)react lifting state/render model is not great for large applications like this, and I led myself into an architecture that’s super inefficient and hard to maintain. But at this point I dont care, it’s working pretty well.
The UI components and some of the apps have been released on Github as a library called ui95. It’s a bit rough but you can use the library to create your own sites, apps, or just as a learning tool. Interestingly Artur Bień has been working on a parallel component library of Windows 95 styled components as well, so that’s probably worth a check-out too.
Some apps were built by third parties, including Paint and originally I was planning on including Webamp but it was too big to fit in my size budget. You can check each app for license information.
Where to from here?
Not sure. I’d like to post more on my blog and maybe find a local computer group.
But in seriousness, this was a fun project and I learned a lot putting it together. I hope you get some inspiration out of it and bring back a little of the whimsy in the retro web.
In 2018 I wanted to buy a Google Home because I was working at ABC News on chatbots and figured immersing myself in the voice assistant hype would give me a better perspective on how to create for them.
Maybe I could write an app! Or at least understand better how they could fit into people's lives. I was never especially convinced of the broader applications, but it was cheap enough so I figured it couldn't hurt.
After buying a second for the bedroom and using it for a year and a half, I finally tipped over the edge and given up on the platform for good.
What's so good about Google Home?
Ultimately voice assistants have different use cases for everyone.
One of my friends uses an Alexa for music and managing the contents of their fridge. Another uses it to control home automation (and terrorize the cat).
Personally my main uses were checking the (variable Dutch) weather and asking about the time. The latter actually surprised me, it's super useful when you're in the shower or in the dead of night and don't want to open your eyes to look at a clock.
The problem was that aside from turning on and off my lights, it really wasn't doing much for me. I'm not interested in radio, could never get podcasts working, and the news is easier to read online. On top of that, finding apps on Google Home is downright impossible.
I'd say outside of Google's main offering there were no killer apps. It's not a great ecosystem.
Then the bugs
From the get-go I couldn't use the full set of functionality because I have a Google Apps account rather than a plain old Google account.
For a while I could create calendar events, but that feature disappeared unceremoniously one day. I couldn't send messages, dictate emails, or receive notifications and there was no real integration with any major Google features. I'm not sure how much of this was due to my Apps account, and how much was just missing features in general.
But the thing that frustrated me the most was the reliability of the system. In the past few months it seems to have completely tanked.
At various points I've had the assistant light up and start listening for no reason at all, switch to another gender and accent, and more recently it stopped recognizing devices on my network like my TV and smart lights.
As an isolated event this was frustrating, but the frequency it was happening killed my faith in the system.
Setting alarms, weather updates, setting timers when cooking. Also telling it good night so it plays soothing sounds for me.
One of the biggest sticking points for me was that for Google Assistant to work, you needed to enable Web & App Activity on your Google account.
This is an all-encompassing feature that logs all your interactions with Google, including searches. It's not just for your voice assistant.
I was initially hesitant to turn this on because it's super creepy having your Google searches stored in perpetuity, especially when dealing with sensitive or embarrassing topics. But I did it because I wanted the hardware assistant to, you know, actually work.
While you can delete Web & App Activity from the My Activity site, it was still kinda chilling and I started using a lot more tools like Duck Duck Go, more private windows, and Firefox Focus (a private browser for mobile which I highly recommend).
But last month after a period of Google Assistant constantly misunderstanding, getting things wrong, and at one point playing loud rock music instead of white noise in the middle of the night, I decided to turn off Web & App Activity and see what happened.
Using Google Assistant without Web & App Activity enabled
Spoiler: not much changed when I turned off Web & App Activty, which surprised me a little.
When I first started using the device this was a mandatory feature, and it wouldn't work without it. But it seems they've some done work on making the hardware devices work without logging enabled.
That said, it wasn't perfect. I lost access to my third party integrations such as LIFX lights and Chromecast controls so it wasn't a complete solution and made the devices pretty useless beyond just the time and weather.
Turning lights on/off, playing music, setting timers. Trying to make it say funny shit…
So my two Google Home Minis have been sitting on my bedside table for the past week and I'm not sure what to do now.
I like the idea of voice assistants and would consider getting another in the future, but right now the Google Assistant isn't very useful. I'm not a big fan of Amazon, and I hear Siri is pretty useless too so I don't hold out hope on things changing any time soon.
From my brief question on Twitter, it doesn't seem like many others are using them for much more than basic tasks. While race to the bottom in terms of price and smartphone ubiquity has contributed to these things being in everyone's homes, I genuinely wonder where the voice assistant revolution is heading from here.
Hi, I've searched a bit in the Readme and in the issues here, I did not find why we do not use Proptypes.function and Proptypes.boolean like we do for object (vs. obj), etc.
Why the shortnames? Are they reserved words? If not, it would be nice to create aliases maybe for these two ones no?
Which was followed up a few hours later with the answer:
Yes, you can't do const { function, bool } = PropTypes in JS because they're reserved words.
Which… is a little more satisfying.
Except we've already shown booleanisn't a reserved word. So what's going on? 🤔
boolean: a reserved word in ES3
Having found the reason why PropTypes doesn't use boolean, I needed to connect the dots. Why is it considered a reserved word?
I eventually landed on the MDN Docs on Javascript lexical grammar which lists the full set of reserved words for Javascript, as well as some previously reserved words from older specs.
The following words are used as keywords in proposed extensions and are therefore reserved to allow for the possibility of future adoption of those extensions.
abstract enum int short
boolean export interface static
byte extends long super
char final native synchronized
class float package throws
const goto private transient
debugger implements protected volatile
double import public
The bingo card of Javascript features
Looking at the list there's a good mix of keywords that eventually made it into the spec. const, class, import, all big ticket items.
"boolean", however, was eventually removed from the list and is no longer reserved.
I'm not sure what it would have been for, but alongside "int" and "short" you could wager it was intended to be part of a fully typed Javascript spec.
Whatever alternate history we avoided, "boolean" is no longer a reserved word. Regardless, it left its legacy on the PropTypes package and many a Failed prop type: prop type is invalid error in our consoles.
Lol speaking of annoying to spell, import PropTypes from "prop-types" and set it on "propTypes" 🥴
It happened almost by accident that I moved overseas.
I've always had it in the back of my head that I'd like to work internationally at some point in my life. Just a year ago I was honoured to be invited to speak at a conference in Amsterdam, and It was my first time leaving the Asia/Pacific region. It was a total blast and was really nice to make new friends around the world, but it kinda set a few ideas going in my head.
So when I saw an off-hand remark from a school friend about an opportunity to work in the Netherlands, I followed it up nonchalantly. This started a chain reaction that ended with me selling all my stuff, renting out my apartment, and moving to another country with little more than a general sense of confidence things would work out.
So here I am. I'm in bed at my temporary hotel, having just got home from a night of drinking with my surprisingly international (and incredibly boozy) coworkers, after my third week at the company. Things have generally been pretty good.
I'm still working my way through a bunch of issues (currently trying to get Suncorp Bank to let me make a damn bank transfer), but after three weeks things are generally looking good. I am especially excited to move into my new apartment at the start of next month, so it will be nice to have a place to call home again.
There's no set plan for what I'm doing, but from here I am looking forward to making new friends, getting to know the city, and going even further in my free time to explore the rest of Europe.
To make things a little more fun I've been trying to keep a video blog. You can keep updated by subscribing on youtube if you're interested in that sort of thing.
When I was at school the mobile phone went from a luxury item to something that was affordable and even kinda essential.
I remember that Nokia cycled from orange backlights all throught the colours of the LED rainbow until eventually you could get them in white, which was really fancy among the kids at school.
I don't recall which came first for me: IRC or ICQ.
But either way, back in the early 2000s when text messaging still cost 25 cents a pop, the freedom and possibility of being available 24/7 was super exciting (as long as the dial-up connection hadn't crapped out).
I'd stay up all night just chatting to people, and for an antisocial teen it was an amazing enabler.
But there were too many apps
Chat networks sprung up like weeds, everyone was writing them. Even I had a crack, which is to say played around with Visual Basic building what was a terrible (but in my memory quite slick looking) GUI app.
Eventually folks came up with the incredibly smart idea to reverse engineer a bunch of chat protocols and build an app that could connect to them all at once.
As the first of many apps to do this, I loved Trillian to bits (but as a skeezy high school student never managed to pay for it). Eventually I moved to Linux and Pidgin was good enough, so I ended up using that for yeeeaaarrrrss before it fell into obscurity.
Obscurity because after a period where all the disparate chat apps started federating and talking to one another, all the old guard died off and got replaced by a new and vastly less interoperable bunch of chat apps.
Which is where we are now.
Chat apps suck, and I'm so over it 🙄
Facebook (and by extension Messenger) have been tarnished by the stink of their inappropriate data collection and sharing. A lot of my friends use Instagram, but I doubt anyone is going to trust Facebook again.
Slack just shut down their IRC/XMPP gateways leaving you to use the slow, bloaty Electron app that barely works. No joke, I have to close it whenever I boot a VM because it uses so much RAM.
Twitter is trying their hardest to destroy all the goodwill of the early adopters by plastering ads and featured content in the timeline and push notifications, while at the same time killing third party API support. This is a burning platform, and I'm done with it.
Whatsapp is just plain ugly. I have at least one friend boycotting it at the moment, otherwise this would be a contender for the messaging platform most of my friends use.
Signal security is questionable at best, with at least two exploits this year that I know of, and a frustrating dependence on Electron. I've had so many issues with the Android app in the past, I don't think it's worth anyone's time.
iMessage only works on iOS and MacOS. It's the height of arrogance.
On top of these, the remainder of things I've used in the past couple of months are Discord, Hangouts (lol), Microsoft Teams, various hook-up apps (I'm only human), Skype, Meetup, and of course regular trusty old text messaging. There are jsut too many things.
I don't even know
Twitter has been my go-to messenger for a little while now. I wanted it to be the universal SMS of the Internet, but right now they're more focused on trying to be the World Cup news hub (side note: exploding head 🤯 should really be a ligature so you can join it with other emojis such as rolling eyes 🙄).
The other day I cracked it and uninstalled it from my phone. Which leaves the question of which trade-off messaging app do I use to talk to my friends?
So despite being burnt by buggy Android group texts as recently as last month, I'm just about ready to go all-in on SMS. Relive the glory days of standards and interoperability with a service I'm paying for.
So, you know. Send me a text. (International fees and roaming charges may apply)
Heading to Amsterdam to talk at Fronteers Conf next week. I’m starting my journey from Brisbane after a looong day of packing and goodbyes. It’s a 23 hour trip, so I’m planning to front load as much sleep as possible, but will see how that goes.
Anywho, I’m off to find the duty free kiosk. Will connect back up in Abu Dhabi.
My first moments in Europe
October 2nd, 2017 5:36am
Arrived in Amsterdam at about 3 PM, after some 23 hours in transit. Thomas, one of the conference organizers, met me at the airport and shuttled me to my hotel despite my arriving super early. It was a nice gesture.
My hotel room is tiny. It was a deliberate thing I booked because it looked cute (it is), but I had to shift the mattress to the floor because I don’t fit on the bed otherwise.
After checking in, having a shower, and a change of clothes I went for a walk. I was really happy with myself to have found the Amsterdam sign with only a cursory glance at the map as I left the hotel.
On the way there I saw a girl on a boat nearly get a concussion while passing under a ludicrously low bridge. Also there was also a game of polo going on nearby which isn’t something you see every day.
I kept walking, ended up getting lost in the Vondelpark before giving out to find a supermarket to pick up supplies. It was all in Dutch so I was excited to go around the produce aisles finding the the names of things I learned from Duolingo.
After that I had a burger and Sprite (it’s sugar-free here and tastes of lemons), then caught a tram back home because it’s getting late and despite my claims of not being jetlagged, I’m going to have an early one tonight because I’m exhausted.
Preparations for the conference
October 9th, 2017 7:52am
After my first day, things started to get busy. In preparation for my talk I spent a couple of days in the lovely The Thinking Hut, who charge by the hour and have fast Internet and a really sweet industrial chic. This meant I got to explore the Amsterdam Oost (East) neighbourhoods.
So I walked around, went to the botanical gardens, took a metro ride, hired a FlickBike then couldn’t find anywhere to park it, and ordered a vegetarian roti with egg from a suburban Indian kitchen in bad Dutch. I felt really good about that last one until it came time to pay and I realised I don’t know any numbers in Dutch. Oops.
Tuesday night was the NLHTML5 meetup, which I guess is kinda comparable to the defunct Web Design Group back in Brisbane. This meetup was resurrected from the dead by the industrious Paul VM especially so that it could run around Fronteers time, and was a cool crowd and a good way to ease into the tech festivities. There were three speakers; Ola talked about standards and how to report bugs, Stephanie went through how she built her awesome pixel art hardware project, and Martin talked WebVR which made me really want to build some VR projects of my own.
Wednesday night we had the speaker dinner at Pakhuis De Zwijger. We met in the hotel lobby and from there the organisers shepherded us onto a boat. This took us for a ride out the gracht (canal), down the Amstel river, and into the IJ to get to the venue. It was nice, we all got to know each other and network a bit. There were local folks and peeps from all over the world together in one place, and it was a good evening.
Afterwards we took the boat to Tolhuistuin across the water, where the FrontCheers pre-event party was taking shape. I figured I’d stay for one drink because I wanted to get back to my room to agonise over my talk, but after having a few beers and chatting to everyone I was among the last to leave. It was late enough the transport was sporadic, so we had to walk back to the hotel in the cold and the rain on the eve of the conference 😮
Fronteers 2017
October 9th, 2017 8:30pm
The conference itself was inspiring. The venue was breathtaking, and the production was flawless.
The first day was great. Sara Soueidan was a great MC and opened the day perfectly, leading into Niels’ opening presentation and fun history lesson.
By far the most poignant talk of all was Jessica Rose’s talk on imposter syndrome. The entire trip I’d been wondering what the heck I’d gotten myself into, and was terrified that I’d arrivve and people would exclaim “oh, sorry, we were expecting the _other_ Ash Kyd who does cool stuff and is actually supposed to be here”. The talk sparked a lot of conversations and basically was a cathartic start to the festivities.
I really enjoyed all the talks, but I think my favourite tech talk of the day was Alice Boxhall’s “Debugging Accessibility” which ran through the stuff the Chrome team have been doing to improve accessibility. It introduced me to a lot of new concepts on the technical side which I’d love to play with more to produce tools to help improve accessibility testing.
The talks were a lot softer than I was anticipating, which is a good thing for the audience as it leaves a lot of room for the imagination to do it’s thing. Though I was starting to worry mine was a bit much, and mightn’t hit the right targets.
That evening we went to De Industrieele Groote Club for drinks and lightning talks. I was on edge beause this time I _really_ needed to go through my talk for the next day, and the talk titled “what not to do when presenting” was probably useful but very not helping my cortisol levels. So I left after the first few, though not before Jake Archibald thoroughly destroyed the audience with a mind twisting, but very highly produced pop quiz.
Back at my room I ran a bath, prepared my clicker, and ran through my slides on my phone until the fingers on my other hand were dangerously pruned.
My talk
October 10th, 2017 8:30pm
On the second day I woke up early after not enough sleep so that I could practice one final time. I was prepared, the talk was good to go, and honestly I was feeling pretty prepared.
I missed the first talk because I was late to the venue. This was fine, I listened through the doors as I faffed around my slides. After the first talk finished, I snuck in through the side door and took a seat. I don’t recall much of that morning, I was too involved in my own anxieties.
As the conference took a coffee break, myself and the other speaker Ruben set up our laptops, prepared the video output, and made sure we were ready to present.
As we left the stage and the crowd came back into the theater, I realised I had forgotten to pair my clicker, and had no idea if it would work when I went onstage. It’s a Bluetooth thing, and I’ve concluded that buying it was a mistake because it’s so opaque, I don’t even know how to turn it on without re-pairing it every time. So I frantically texted anyone if they had a presenter via our secret speaker back-channels, and Martin thankfully came to the rescue loaning me his.
The talk went… well. I was told that I looked collected, but I felt nothing like that. It’s an interesting feeling speaking in front of a large crowd, and to some extent I think my awareness of my situation disappeared when I went onstage, and aside some minor clicker issues I think things went smoothly. I eagerly await the video so I can dissect it, beat myself up, and ultimately improve for next time.
The rest of the day was a whirlwind of talks, indecision, “the best burgers in Amsterdam” feat. a waiter for whom it was their first day on the job, an after party, and an after-after party including karaoke (bad) and an Irish pub with the stragglers at 2 AM in the morning. It was a very good time, and I want to write up a proper Fronteers wrap on my proper blog over at my prroper site at some point.
Queer encounters
October 11th, 2017 8:30pm
On the Saturday I wasn’t sure what I was doing, so my new local friend Mystery T offered to let me stay with him for a night. At the same time one of his friends had been pushing him to go to a gay party night for the local rugby team, the Amsterdam Lowlanders.
T was reluctant but asked me if I wanted to go, I was reluctant but wanted to experience the night life, so we ended up agreeing we’d check it out and leave if it was too much. I dropped my bags at his and we sat around chatting for a while until it was time to tram back into the city.
A few days beforehand I walked down a street (Reguliersdwarsstraat) with a bunch of bars and rainbow flags hanging out windows, which I presumed to be a gay street. Turns out this was correct, so we walked to one of the bars to meet R (whose name I can’t remember but that it starts with R).
After getting to know each other and sharing stories (and talking about airline points, how has my whole life become talking about points) we left for the actual venue. After two trams and some walking, we were at our destination; a somewhat unassuming building with blacked out windows and a big “We <3 Rugby” football out the front.
The party itself was amazing, it was full of bodies (mostly shirtless) dancing in an old industrial style thing. The music was nothing special, and the drinks were expensive, but everyone was having a great time and they gave out icy poles at one point which was cute and refreshing. I wasn’t feeling sugary,so I declined.
It started to wind down around 3:30 and got a bit depraved so we left soon after.
The next day I booked a little Airbnb in Rotterdam and we took the train down to explore the city. From Wikipedia:
The near-complete destruction of the city centre in the World War II Rotterdam Blitz has resulted in a varied architectural landscape, including sky-scrapers (an uncommon sight in other Dutch cities) designed by renowned architects.
It’s a really cool city, the center is modern and well laid out, whereas the surrounds are still traditional row type buildings.
I stayed out in the suburbs in a strange, converted house under the hofbogen, which is an abandoned elevated rail line which has had buildings build up underneath. The Airbnb was a two floor affair with stairs steep enough I’d consider it a ladder, but it was very cute indeed. A bad photosphere follows:
I only stayed a night, leaving the next morning on a Eurostar to London!
The Motherland
October 12th, 2017 8:06pm
I arrived in London and things immediately felt different. Being back in an English speaking country was kind of a relief, but it also spoils the magic of a place to overhear people having the same mundane Bad Takes just with a different accent.
But still, what an interesting city!
I arrived in the evening and the very first thing I did was pop outside St Pancras to take a photo. Once that was out of the way I grabbed an Oyster card and made my way on the Underground to Soho to find my hostel.
After taking some time to recuperate and charge my devices it was time to head to Brixton to see Grizzly Bear play. A cursory glance at the map suggested it was walkable, but the sheer scale of London eluded me and it was actually much further than I expected.
Still, I walked past a handful of landmarks including Trafalgar Square, Scotland Yard, Big Ben (which I passed without noticing at all, oops). Once I got to Vauxhall I’d had enough and caught the tube the rest of the way.
The calibre of the venue compared to anything in Brisbane was kinda eye opening and the event was amazing! I wasn’t especially taken with the autotune stylings of the warmup act, but Grizzly Bear themselves were stellar and well worth the trip. The venue was totally packed, the vocals were spot on, the band had some fun banter, and the bass was incredible!
The crowd favourite was probably Two Weeks. Overall A+ event.
Not wanting to jump straight on the Underground, I went for a walk to Stockwell tube station and subsequently got lost on the metro. Apparently not all tube lines are equal, and while Google suggested I change from the northern line to the northern line at a particular station, I scoffed and ended up inexplicably at London Bridge.
I feel I need to take a moment to express how shit London Bridge, the bridge actually is. It’s just a concrete thing with no defining features at all. I assumed it would be grand and British and some kind of landmark, but I would bet if it fell down tomorrow nobody would care at all.
I did have some good views of Tower Bridge as I walked across though, and that’s an impressive structure.
After getting some safe and sound I had a late start the next day. Instead of actually doing anything, I wanted to wander around and explore the place. Soho itself is super glitzy and honestly I didn’t care for it. So after stopping at McDonald’s for a bottle of water (Europe is dehydrating!) I trekked back out to St Pancras to do the only other thing I especially wanted to do in London: see the Black Books store.
They say you should never meet your heroes. Probably fair. Still, I have the selfie!
The rest of the day I walked around (about 10 km) exploring the place. I found a section of the Underground that was above ground which I thought was fun. There was a very handsome gentleman giving out Coke Zero out the front of King’s Cross station. But generally it was nice to admire the varying architectures around the place.
After a couple of hours it was time to meet Tom and Shashi for pizza and 2-for-1 cocktails at The Black Horse, SE8.
“Okay now pull a face” I said. Shashi pulled the very best face, but hated it so much afterwards that I had to censor it for the benefit of probably everyone.
Whirlwind tour of London
October 15th, 2017 1:55pm
Third day in London I packed up my hostel and lugged my stuff to Tom and Shashi’s place. My original intention was to travel with carry-on luggage, but I had acquired stuff in my travels so I was working with three bags at the time.
One of the bags was full of stroopwafels and drop (dutch licorice) as a gift for Tom and Shashi, which I bought before finding out they both hate the stuff.
I mentioned I wanted some time out to catch up on Internet stuff so Tom suggested I have lunch at London Velo. I wasn’t expecting anything fancy, but it turned out to be a cafe/bike repair shop with a resident dog called Maurice who was super cuddly and plonked himself on my feet for scritches. What a cutie.
After doing some blog, checking some emails and all that I went for a walk to the DLR (Docklands Light Railway) to catch a train to Canary Wharf.
Every time I say the name Canary Wharf Tom screws his face up in disgust, saying “what do you want to go there for?” It’s pretty much a blando modern office precinct, but I wanted to see it because it was on the DLR line, and having grown bored of the touristy areas I kinda wanted to walk around.
I didn’t spend long there, but I had a look around and marvelled at the glass monoliths blocking the sky.
After that I started walking along the Thames path, finding misleading signs and locked gates galore. I read The Guardian’s take on Privatised London: the Thames Path which is a fascinating tale of people and developers being bad dudes.
From the Isle of Dogs to Tower Bridge, just how much of London’s riverside walking route is actually open to the general public? This specially assembled Guardian exploration party would stop at nothing to find out
I walked as far as Wapping before Tom and Shashi finished work and summoned me to dinner at the upscale food market Mercato Metropolitano.
Afterwards we toured a bunch of miscellaneous London landmarks.
The next day I was feeling a bit out of sorts so spent a fair portion of it inside. We did go for drinks and dinner, where there were several more dogs to play with.
London is a very Dogs place.
Toronto
October 16th, 2017 11:00pm
On the Friday I caught the train to Gatwick airport, and flew to Toronto.
Pearson International in Toronto had a weird inter-terminal shuttle train with rubber tyres driven by some sort of cable system. This took me to the train station where I caught a diesel train to Union Station. None of the tracks are electrified, so all the trains run on diesel in 2017; mind blown.
From there I tried to catch what I thought was a bus to my Airbnb, but actually turned out to be a subway train.
It was a bit of an ordeal because I couldn’t buy a ticket with my card so had to find an ATM to withdraw cash, then buy Pringles to break the note in order to put it in the machine to get subway tokens to use the subway.
Yeah, the subway uses tokens in 2017; mind blown.
My accommodation turned out to be right at the edge of all the action, overlooking Ryerson University, and three buildings across from where Dayle and Adrian used to live.
Sez Dayle:
Holy shit! That’s our old hood! We lived at <redacted> gerrard for years! And i went to Ryerson for years too!!
Small world, right?
As I hadn’t bought a North American power adapter with me, I walked to Best Buy and bought one. Best Buy is pretty great; I talked to the dude in the Google display about the new stuff, and I’m thinking of getting a Daydream before I go back to Australia because they’re $40 cheaper than back home.
With my electronics sorted, I faffed around town for a bit (and accidentally bought a smoothie bigger than my head) before retiring for an early jetlag bedtime of 10:00 (3 AM London time).
Day 2 in Toronto I was starting to feel pretty nasty and coldy, so I lazed around in bed for a few hours before getting up and facing the day.
There were a few landmarks I wanted to check out. One of them was the Loblaws that was just around the corner which Dayle said used to be a historical hockey arena before it was converted into a supermarket. It was massive and beautiful and they had Australian style licorice which I was tempted to get for the kitsch factor, but the CAD 6.50 price tag was sobering and I quickly calmed myself.
The next stop was Kensington Market which was a chaotic bohemian neighbourhood with lots of little shops and food stalls. There were bikes everywhere, people with bags and dogs all over the place!
The thing that caught my eye most was the stand selling empanadas. Having seen Empanada Dog and not really knowing what an empanada is, I really wanted to try one for myself.
However the little shop didn’t have a card reader, and after Pringles and the subway I only had a few dollars worth of coins. Also I have only vague notions of how tipping works so I panicked and walked on by without buying anything.
No regrets.
The third stop of the day was Toronto Island Park. The ferry deposited me at Centre Island, and my destination was the bike rental on the far side, so I set out at a medium pace.
Unfortunately, when I got to the bike rental it was closed, along with much of the island because apparently everything shuts down for winter and hasn’t opened back up again yet.
There was a pizza place closing up when I got there, so I got an old slice of cheese (the couple in front took the last two pepperonis, damn them), and walked onto the pier to contemplate my lack of cured meats.
Toronto Island Park reminded me a lot of Rollercoaster Tycoon, everything was very quaint with amenities scattered around the place, and various bits of landscaping at intervals. However I really wanted to drop a handyman to mow the lawns and maybe toggle all the shops to “open”.
With nothing really to do, I ended up walking 40 minutes to the far side of the island so I could catch a glimpse of the planes landing at Toronto Airport, where I caught a ferry back to the shore.
The last stop was the Rogers Centre, and the CN Tower. Neither were especially interesting, but there were a bunch of old trains to play with and I got to walk on a skybridge to get to the subway.
With only a couple of hours left until the concert I went back to my room to change and recharge my batteries.
Travelling right round the world to see two of my favourite bands play on the one night
The concert itself blew me away. Massey Hall, built in 1894, was an incredible venue. Though it was all seated and wasn’t conducive to dancing, the calibre of the performances was just awesome.
Born Ruffians were one of my favourite bands for a period, but I wasn’t sure what to expect from them live. They were stellar. They gave a tight performance, had a super clean sound, and it was really well done.
Apparently they have a new album coming out which I’m really looking forward to. Here’s something from the old one: Oceans Deep.
The New Pornographers are wild; between three guitarists, two keyboardists, four vocalists and a strategic violin-percussionist they put on a great show.
The sound was a bit hit and miss with a few malfunctions, but it was still enjoyable and they know how to please a crowd.
My favourite bit was probably Simi Stone, touring member, singing Play Money — a song I can’t a good copy on Youtube anywhere (2022 update: here’s a nice one). Instead, here’s another I like: This is the world of the theater.
A food tour of Toronto
October 19th, 2017 10:39am
I took some time out to be a lazy bum the last few days in Toronto.
My “feeling a bit out of sorts” in London turned out to be a cold, which wasn’t super bad but rapidly moved to my shitty, asthmatic chest as these things do. So I spent the day lazing around eating Pop Tarts, a local delicacy which I understand are only legal to buy in North America.
When the sun went down I caught up with a new friend Mx who took me for sushi then showed me around the neigh(gay)bourhood. We later went for Poutine, which was an excellent, terrible mistake and I don’t know if I’ll be able to eat again.
The next day I went and caught up with the Vox Pop folks (who do Vote Compass). They’re doing some really cool stuff, and it was fun to see what goes on behind the scenes. I was super embarrassed to have a coughing fit in their tea room, apparently I was talking too much.
After that it was time to head to the airport.
See ya Toronto ya filthy, charming mess!
Vancouver
October 19th, 2017 8:30pm
Air Canada is more generous/sensible with their carry-on luggage quotas, so I didn’t have to check my bags and went straight from plane to train!
Vancouver was decidedly more wet than any other cities I’d visited, it was bucketing down when I got off the metro. Luckily my Airbnb was only a few blocks from the station.
Nice headphones! I finally got around to reviewing them on the plane.
There’s a 3 hour difference between Toronto and Vancouver, and 10 hours difference from Amsterdam so the incremental changes were starting to catch up. I went to bed early, and was disappointed to find I’d woken at 6 AM.
It was a lovely, sunny day for an adventure so I headed out in the direction of Stanley Park with the intention to hire a bike.
After getting myself all mixed up and walking the dead wrong way for a bit (my internal compass is not calibrated for the northern hemisphere), I stumbled upon Urban Waves bike hire where I rented a fetching mountain bike named Norco.
Stanley Park is a peninsula to the north of Vancouver devoted to parkland. There is a seawall around the perimeter which is devoted to pedestrians and cyclists to tour the area.
From Wikipedia:
The land was originally used by indigenous peoples for thousands of years before British Columbia was colonized by the British during the 1858 Fraser Canyon Gold Rush. The land was later turned into Vancouver’s first park when the city incorporated in 1886.
So I set off on my bike, stopping every few hundred meters to marvel & take photos. Vancouver is a very pretty city, especially in fall when the leaves are starting to turn.
The ride is fascinatingly varied, ranging from city to harbour to the shipping lanes, a little beach, then back to the start via a Rhododendron Garden. It’s a painfully beautiful touristy thing to do, and I would recommend it for anyone who can ride a bike.
After that I stumbled on a local cafe chain and my life changed forever.
Let me cast my mind back to the year 2004 when I was a student living in Highgate Hill with two other housemates possessing equally terrible tastes in everything. On very special occasions when we were up early enough and could be bothered enough, we would trek down the hill on a 20 minute pilgrimage to the Crepe Cafe in South Bank for a $2 breakfast. It was glorious..
Over the years the price of breakfasts went up. First to $3, then to $5, and eventually breakfasts were the same as any other time, $7.50 for an Aussie Sunrise crepe (bacon, egg, cheese and spring onion). Still a bargain if you ask me.
In 2015 when I was working in South Bank, my colleagues would hate going to the Crepe Cafe for lunch because it really wasn’t value for money and tbh it was pretty gross food. But it held a special place in my heart (and it had a gluten free option so Gav would always be excited to come with me).
In 2017 tragedy struck and the Crepe Cafe closed its doors, never to be opened again. It was like a little piece of my youth had been torn away.
So when I saw that there was a Cafe Crepe in Vancouver, I was pretty excited.
It was a little piece of nostalgia, and branding aside felt exactly like the Crepe Cafe I knew and loved. I had a roast chicken crepe with a Pepsi Zero, and for a moment everything in the world was good again.
After the fleeting joy dissipated, I tipped 20% and left.
The next day was rainy as heck, so I wanted to find inside things to do.
To start I went to Best Buy to see if I could find a nice Chromebook (I couldn’t). After that I went to Cafe Crepe and ordered a ham and cheese crepe with a Pepsi Zero.
After that, having exhausted my list of things to do, I jumped on a metro train to see where it would take me.
It took me to Waterfront, which is kinda the interchange for all the trains, metros and trolley buses with the cruise liners, ferries and helicopters. It was a super impressive sight, made even better by my accidentally stumbling on the Vancouver Lookout tower which takes you up a big ol’ elevator to a viewing platform where you can see everything.
I don’t have any good pics, but here’s a part of a photosphere that shows the cruise liner, a ferry coming in, a bunch of trains, and the helipad behind the beam in the center. I thought it was awesome.
After this I caught a trolleybus to who knows where. It was a bit of a mistake because it took me out to Gastown which is usually lovely but was basically a river at this point. I grabbed a slice of pizza and a Coke Zero to get out of the rain but there was no end to it so I walked back to the station with my increasingly dilapidated umbrella.
By the time I got back to my Airbnb my shoes were drenched through, my jeans, jumper and t-shirt were varying degrees of soaked. I’d basically had enough of this whole exploring thing, and vowed never to go outside again.
With only one more day until my holiday was over, I was both pensive and relieved. It’s been lovely, but I can’t wait to sleep in my own bed again
Wet shoes, heavy soul, the last day
July 13th, 2018 8:30pm
It’s been weighing on me that I never actually wrote about my last day in Vancouver on here. I sort of did on my blog elsewhere but it feels like things are incomplete.
The last day was weird, I don’t know if it was timezones or the calendar or what but I thought I was going home much earlier than I actually was. So I took a walk, randomly following points of interest on Google Maps.
One of my first landmarks was the Davie Street rainbow crossing which I stumbled on by accident and it really messed me up.
I don’t know if it was the post-holiday blues or what but the thought of coming back to Australia in the midst of the Coalition’s reprehensibly “postal survey” was desolate. I might have cried in the rain at one point.
My walk took me down to the water, across the Granville Bridge, and all the way along False Creek to the science center, where I took the train back to my Airbnb and bought some new shoes since mine were completely soaked through.
The flight home was comfortable, with the though of being in the middle of the Pacific Ocean only vaguely terrifying. The soundtrack was Cut Copy’s Haiku From Zero (no fixed destination), which I think I will forever associate with that trip. The end.
In 2018 I wanted to buy a Google Home because I was working at ABC News on chatbots and figured immersing myself in the voice assistant hype would give me a better perspective on how to create for them. 
