#194 - Fox Sweaters and T&T

Sleeping in was the salve in sorely needed.

I felt much better this morning. Nine o’clock wakeup is more my speed.

I started the day with a cup of vanilla earl grey and a flask of the AG1 supplement. I skipped any food for breakfast, I was still feeling full of last night’s pizza fest and key lime pie. My stomach is still distended from all the food in the last few days. I may not even eat anything tomorrow.

I will certainly skip breakfast.

I had a ten o’clock meeting that went well and I was able to get some work finished before that started. It was raining a during the lunch hour, so Robyn and I decided to just have some lunch together instead.

We had leftover Ruby chicken that I had freezed and was meant to be eaten on Thursday until the train station was evacuated and we never went into the studio. It was as delicious as when it was made fresh. We still had some left-over pomegranates to sprinkle on top and a little corner of naan bread too. We were both very happy to sit and eat the meal.

After we ate, I did a load of laundry so I would have clean clothes for the TAAFI conference. I wanted to wash my company hoodie for the occasion. Since I was already downstairs in the basement, I took a few moments to hook up the new used twenty-seven inch monitor my brother-in-law donated to me. It was an LG er27. I was thinking I might buy one of those monitor arms for it, but it turns out it doesn’t have the standard mounting brackets and instead use a proprietary mount for the stand. That probably means the monitor is a bit older, but it was a better fit than kiddo #1’s massive gaming monitor. I think this one fits my needs better and no one is about to come home and take it away from me.

I hooked up it to my laptop, and it worked flawlessly first time. I remember a time adding a new monitor meant all kinds of software issues. Drivers had to installed from a CD or a floppy disk, and then you had to scrub all instances of the old driver from existence. We are truly living in the future.

I went back to my studio space and worked for a half hour before our second meeting. This meeting had more people in it and took a bit longer, but my input wasn’t really needed, and I was just there to observe and absorb information. A low effort meeting for me.

I ended the day by do painting revisions and by approving people’s work until just after five PM.

Robyn and the kiddo went for a walk, something they do almost nightly these days, but I got a call to come and pick the kiddo up. Apparently, he stressed himself out about some assignment from school. The assignment is done; he is just stressed because he hasn’t got his mark back yet and others from his class already received theirs. As a a bonus, my wife bought me an apple fritter and a steeped tea. So, I went home with tasty treats.

Back at home, I made a new list on the Listonic app to see if I had all the ingredients to make a Tres Leche cake for kiddo #2’s birthday by request. And I am glad I did because I didn’t have one of the key ingredients, sweetened condensed milk. I’ve started a new thing recently where I use transparent rectangular buckets from the Dollar Store and fill them up with all the things I need to make the recipe. It makes the cooking and baking so much easier to do. I guess it’s a form of knowling but without the aesthetic element to it.

I’m representing the animation company I work for at the TAAFI industry day tomorrow.

I’ve determined that I need to catch the eight-twenty-four train tomorrow morning to arrive at the TIFF Lightbox building by nine thirty. And that means getting up at seven-ish again. I’ll try to get some writing done on the train; it should be significantly less busy on the weekend. But I can’t miss the train, because they only run every hour on the weekend.

I’m hoping to see some people I haven’t seen in a while and have a fun day talking to students and people from the industry. It’s a very long and exhausting day but it’s something different from what I normally do.

I found out one of my co-workers, whom I have known for seven years used to write scripts, so I might get to pick her brain about that and hear about her experiences.

One I’ve learned about these events is to bring plenty of beverages and lots of gum, mints and breath fresheners. Your mouth gets Sahara Desert dry in a short period of time.

And if you are attending, please, please wear extra deodorant. Some of the kids get dangerous levels of stress sweat at these things. Remember, we are all just people and most of us don’t bite.

I was pleased to see the Artemis II crew landed safely back on Earth. Sending humans back into space fills my heart with joy. Some people think it’s all a waste of money, but I disagree.

The minds that take us to space need a place to think and work. How many cool inventions and breakthroughs have come from the space program. We often learn something new from unrelated areas of expertise and when the two meet it opens entire new fields of study and the ability to do something that was once thought impossible. I wonder how many new materials have been created because of the space program.

Ya to me, it’s just money well spent.

I lost my chess game again today. Maybe after Sunday I might regain my mental acuity. Life has just been too Helter Skelter lately for my mind to rest. Chess is like a little test I take everyday to see what state my brain is in. I find it interesting.

We had a bit of laugh today when the kids biological father called my wife to ask the kid’s birthdays, full names and when did he get married. Filling out forms can be tough.

I watched a guy use pickle flavored puffs to make fried chicken on YouTube. He crushed the puffs and used them to batter the chicken before deep frying. That is a recipe I think I will skip. Nothing wrong with regular old fried chicken as far as I am concerned. He also used to as crust for grilled ham and cheese sandwiches. And for some reason I am okay with that.

I guess chicken and pickles isn’t a combo I can get excited about.

Sounds like my wife will be able to join me at the conference for a little while. She was able to get a morning pass to get into the building. This will give her a chance to see some of her old school friends and past colleagues.

I often come home with some interesting stories from these TAAFI things, and they make for better conversations with my peers later in the week. I joked today with my supervisor that the only reason I go to these things is to bring back entertaining stories to enthrall them.

I got demo my friend Paul’s website today. He had a beta version up and running. It’s going to be a website and app that shows you were all the food deals are in your area. You can search for wings for example, use your location or pick an area, and all the deals pop-up on map. The refresh rate was fast, and the user interface was simple and easy to use. I hope it turns into something big for him and I wish him well in this new venture. He and another friend, Ray, also have a YouTube channel where they taste test beers and visit breweries, so this is a natural extension of that.

I posted the poor choice of words I used in one of my stories to the Canada Writes Facebook page. There was a post asking how everyone’s writing week had gone. I thought my recent faux pas might put a smile on their faces and it seems to have made plenty of them react with smiley faces. Thanks to my beta reader John for point out that I wrote, He put is arms around her waste, instead of, he put his arm around her waist.

One word change and you get two completely different types of stories.

Not sure I would want to read or write the first one. But you never know.

I noticed lately that some of the YouTubers I have been watching regularly for the past five years of more have really slowed down on how often they post. I imagine it gets exhausting posting on a regular basis. Many of them have made so really cool videos and I appreciate that we live in a world where you can see how others live, think and experience their lives. I have very eclectic interests so a platform like YouTube is like an encyclopedia of everything I was ever interested in.

But I have to imagine every single content creator that has been at it for a few years or more experiences some form of burnout. I hope the ones I subscribe to are taking a moment for themselves and getting in a little selfcare.

There used to be and maybe still is an Asian grocery store in Toronto called T&T. It was huge and had everything. There was also an amazing hot food area that was great to just go and eat at. It turns out the owners opened a location not far from where I live. I love many of the Japanese snacks they carry just because they are so different from what we get here. Want a green tea Kitkat bar? They have it.

I will be making a trip there as soon as I can find the time and I’ll be bringing home some tasty treats. It’s one of the few places you can get onigiri. And I love those. It’s kind of like a sandwich, but with rice instead of bread.

In other weirder news… the sweater worn by Ryan Gosling in “The Hail Mary Project,” is apparently causing a bit of a stir amongst knitting enthusiasts. The design features foxes on the front and is based off an older pattern from a Canadian company. Someone from the movie spotted it in a used store in London and sent a pic to the directors to see if it would be good for Gosling’s character.

Everyone liked the sweater, but thought the wolf images looked too aggressive. The person bought the sweater for themselves anyways and ended up showing to Gosling. Ryan loved it but asked if the wolves could be changed to foxes. The pattern was altered, and there was a mad rush to get the new sweaters made. It should come as no surprise that Gosling loves foxes, and that was the reason he requested the change. And now the new pattern is available for purchase from the original Canadian pattern company. But if you want to own the sweater, you’ll have to knit it yourself.

The popularity of the film has also led to a VR game where you can play as the main character, who has a new mission with Rocky on the Hail Mary. The games story was written by Andy Weir, the author of the book the movie was based on.

Even the astronauts from NASA’s Artemis II mission watched a screening of the movie before they launched.

You could easily say the reviews were out of this world!

It must be past my bedtime if I just wrote a sentence like that. I apologize for the use of a pun. There is no excuse for doing that to people I like.

Time to call it a night. I am up in seven hours.

Night all.