Checksum Arcanius

Today we started the ramp up in our movie schedule towards tomorrow’s climax of four movies by watching two — the first at the Ryerson University Theater was a Samuel L. Jackson movie called “Cleaner,” a fun little whodunnit movie about a cop turned legitimate crime scene cleaner who gets involved in a less-than-legitimate job and has to extricate himself and his family. The plot was not-quite guessable, and it was fun, but it didn’t feel great — I’ll give it a 3.0/5.

Next we traveled South the the Elgin Theater for Atonement, a well-done but depressing movie about the overactive imagination and misunderstanding of a young girl royally screwing over a bunch of people. It was well-made, but not any fun, and not terribly thought-provoking either. I want either entertainment or thought; this unfortunately provided neither. I’ll give it a 2.0/5.

Next came the CN Tower, which I have been looking forward to this whole trip. We decided to try our luck with 360, the rotating restaurant at the top of the tower. I ordered a Caesar salad and came close to picking up my third grilled Atlantic salmon of the trip, but went instead for what I thought would be a safe steak fillet with a somewhat adventurous foie gras, which I have never had. The bread that arrived first was excellent. The salad was among the best I’ve ever had. The vegetables that came with my dinner with also very good. Which makes it all the more the mystery why the main course was so terrible. The meat was tough, unseasoned, unsavory, and really quite bad. The foie gras was not to my liking either. So basically everything was perfect except for the main course which sucked balls. I wasn’t the only one — Scott didn’t like his cut of meat much either, although he, unlike I, was able to finish his meal.

After the meal, we visited the glass floor, which gave a very real sense of incredible vertigo when I ventured onto it and peered straight down over a thousand feet. Now that is trusting an engineer! It was exhilarating and amazing and wonderful and awesome all at the same time. Of course, looking straight down into the Yankees-Blue Jays game going on in the Sky Dome (aka Rogers Centre) was pretty cool too. After the glass floor and a loop around the observation deck, we headed up another couple hundred feet to the tallest observation deck in the world, the Sky Pod, to watch the sun finish setting along with a panoramic view of all of Toronto and its environs. Scott and Dan wanted to go, but I wanted to bask in the feeling of being on top of the man-made world (until the tower in Dubai is finished, at least), so I stayed up on top for another hour or so, just soaking it all in. Despite the meat meal mishap, I am going to say that the experience was well worth it — nothing really compares to being on top of the world, physically or metaphorically.

A Canadian flag at half-mast today. I like these people.

On Monday we saw the movie The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, a slow, methodical drama with a long title and a deep, refreshingly textured outlook on the event of it portrayed. Two and a half hours of deliberate film making — good, but not terribly exciting.

4.0/5

Today we saw Into the Wild, a self-discovery movie about a young man’s existential quest away from his plush life into the Alaskan Wilderness. I started out not liking the main character, but I gained respect for him — a theme that was repeated throughout the movie with many of the characters. It felt like it was showing people in all their glory and agony — the good, the bad, and everything in between, just as all of us really are.

4.0/5

After our one and only movie today, followed by a late lunch, Scott and I returned to the hotel for a bike ride. Dan remained in Toronto for some shopping and to catch another movie. Scott and I actually headed back towards Toronto this time (a few days ago we went North, deep into Mississauga). Our target was a peninsula that we thought would give us a unique view of downtown Toronto, without actually going all the way to the Islands (which we considered doing yesterday, after finding that the CN tower was booked for the evening). At any rate, we made it where we wanted to go, but it turns out that the best vantage point was on the way there. It was also getting late, so we turned around and began hightailing it back in the fading light. Just as we started, I thought I noticed a flash of lightning off in the distance, where, of course, we were heading. Hooray, an adventure, thought I. Scott was less enthusiastic. At any rate, it was lightning, and we rode straight into a flashing, thundering rain storm. By this time all was dark, and the rain was coming down so hard with strong headwinds that we couldn’t keep our eyes open, so we took shelter under a nearby building until the rain died down a little. Soon after we took off again, we passed a huge group of about 30 bikers. At a fork two passed us; we decided to follow and ended up having to turn around after about a mile down a wrong road. Still, it wasn’t so bad, and the rain had stopped, so despite cold feet and many miles (kilometers?) to go, we retraced our steps and got onto the right road.

Like so many other places, Ontario has many good drivers and a few jerk-offs. On the four lane road we shared on about half the ride, a lot of drivers got out of our way and passed on in the left lane, an easy task as traffic was light. A few decided it would be better to honk at us and look at us with evil eyes while they (eventually) passed us in the left lane. Some of them got fingers. We made it back, wet but happy. Quite the ride; quite the adventure. This town is pretty nice.

Somewhat to my surprise and chagrin, we are checked into a hotel that doesn’t have the internet readily accessible. While there is a single computer in the lobby that is connected to the internet, there is no wireless or wired connectivity provided by the Ports Hotel. There is some “interspot” company offering wireless access, which we have been sporadically able to use, but their hours of operation are extremely limited and so far we haven’t been in the area when they are open to attempt to purchase connectivity from them. Of course, they have to automated system, which Dan and I would have both readily used. So tonight, I wandered around with Dan in search of internet. The first trip yielded some temping morsels, but no luck. So now that everyone is asleep or headed there, I took off again in search of the internet. And, as the last post and this one makes clear, I found it, to the tune of 18 Mbps on the Linksys Community Network.

At any rate, it is nice to be able to check my mail again. I just hope Canada is as safe as it is cracked up to be. Actually, I’m not worried — after all, I biked through the lightning today. For reals (see next post).

Last Saturday, after Frisbee, a few of the gang hopped into my car to head to Jamba Juice, a nearly weekly tradition. While the 1996 Saturn SL1 sedan I drive had been working fine on the way to frisbee, when leaving I quickly noticed that it was not shifting into second gear, a gear I use very frequently. It felt like something the shifter connected to had come loose — somewhat like the connection between a sink drain plug and the knob used to set it, had fallen off. The problem quickly grew worse — after Jamba Juice, the car would no longer shift into any of the gears that involved pulling the shifter down — namely second, fourth, and reverse. Needless to say, getting out of the UVilliage parking lot was difficult — thankfully, Ananth and Boby were both there to push. Nevertheless, I managed to persevere for the first half of the next week — I park on an upward incline and can therefore back out without reverse. At work and around town, I parked in a way that allowed me to exit by pulling forward. Nevertheless, things were still worsening. On Wednesday, I was beginning to have trouble shifting out of gears. Wednesday after work, I found that I could no longer shift out of first gear at all. So, it was definitely time to visit the shop. The drive to Saturn of Bellevue was a bit painful — I couldn’t shift out of first so the trip involved a lot of slow, high-rpm travel. On flat areas of the road, I would bring the engine up to about 5,000 rpm, which would bring the car up to about 35 miles per hour, then I would coast down to about 15 and repeat. Up hills, I just let the engine run at about 3,000 rpm and took the hit in speed. I finally made it — and even managed to park the car backwards into a stall by using gravity and a little bit of fancy footwork. My Dad picked me up and I ate dinner with the parents before heading into Seattle to pack for the trip to Toronto that I am currently on. On my way out of Cleveland to Toronto, I talked to my Dad and recieved the happy news that the repair cost only $65 — $60 for labor and $5 for the piece that had broken.

Meanwhile, to coincide with my trip, I took my mountain bike, a Giant DS2 ETX into Recycled Cycles for some more planned maintenance. The estimate came to a cool $265 for a new cassette (rear gears), a new middle gear on the front (the old one was bent), a new chain (the old one was stretched and worn), a new rear wheel and tire (both practically falling apart), and a new cable and cover for the rear derailleur (the old one had become frayed and kinked). The repairs will actually total more than I paid for the bike originally, just about a year ago. With the use its seen since then, I think this maintenance is well worth the price.

With this latest addition, my overall GPA has reached 3.7 — w00t. The X simply means no grade — I have to complete another 6 credits of 482 before I get a grade in that class; it is my Bioengineering Capstone project.