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Japan – Day 1

Before I even arrived at the airport in Saskatoon, good fortune already fell upon me. A mishap at the drive-through caused a 10-pack of Timbits that Andrea had bought for the kids to fall onto the ground. Without missing a beat, the woman at the drive-through insisted it was no problem and that she’d get us another pack. I jumped out of the car and found the box, unopened, on the ground. When we offered to give back the replacement pack, they told us to keep both. That’s how I scored a 10-pack of donut holes for my flight. Things are looking up.

I’ve landed in Calgary and am about to board. Sitting in the terminal, I’ve been people-watching and thinking about how many people are glued to their phones. I’m not much of one to talk – typing away at my MacBook – but I do like to talk to strangers.

Anyway, at the very end of my first flight, I struck up a conversation with my seat-mate, who is going to Tokyo to climb Mt. Fuji. She’s also going to visit some of the parks around Sapporo. That’s the danger of chatting with strangers: FOMO sets in quickly. Should I also be planning a climb of Fujisan? It’s not in the cards for this trip.

On the main flight, I sat next to what appeared to be the only baby on this nine-hour transpacific flight. Luckily, he was a champ, sleeping most of the way and lighting up the cabin when he woke. He’d already flown four hours from Toronto earlier that day. His parents were kind, and we chatted about our travel plans as well as our kids. I’ll say it again: chatting with strangers is one of the things I love about travelling.

Getting from the plane to my hotel bed was next. My friends had warned me that while tap payments do exist in Japan, they’re far from ubiquitous. I ran into trouble paying train and subway fares without resorting to credit cards in the wrong currency. The roughly $2 CAD subway fee derailed (pardon the pun) my trip home for nearly 20 minutes while I figured out how to pay, because the machine wouldn’t take anything but cash or a metro card. I finally bought a reusable “unlimited” 72-hour subway card online, then used a QR code to get the machine to print it for me.

When I finally arrived, I turned on some Japanese TV and found the shows exciting and bizarre: game shows, news, and something resembling America’s Funniest Home Videos, but with picture-in-picture shots of guests predicting what would happen next. Considering the ups and downs of the journey, it was a pretty fortunate day – much better than the one those featured on the show were having.

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  1. I don’t know what the show was called, but it’s a missed opportunity if they never titled it “Ow, My Balls.”[↩]
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Dr. Chelsea Matisz on Brain and Gut Health

Back in October, My close friend, Chelsea Matisz gave a wonderful TEDx Talk called, “How modern life could affect gut health”.

Last fall, I had the opportunity to speak at TEDxCalgary about an idea I’ve been thinking about for years: the way that many modern struggles stem from the mismatch between the world our gut and brains evolved for, and the world we live in today.

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Japan… Again!

It’s been 33 years since my childhood trip to Japan and next month, I’m going back!

My friends and their family are currently on a four month exchange in Sapporo so I’m going to stay with them before they head back to Canada.

That original trip to Japan was so formative in my life and something that I’ve been able to look back on as a core memory. Travelling is so good for broadening perspectives and cultivating new ideas. I highly recommend it.

Stay tuned for more about my upcoming trip.

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How to Get Out of Bed

Against all odds, after a 53 year dry-spell, the Knicks won the NBA championship last Saturday in a dramatic underdog story that will probably be made into one or more Netflix documentaries.

Mike Monteiro thought about the series and turned it into a useful metaphor for life: How to Get Out of Bed, which you should read.

There is no 28 point shot in basketball. The only way to come back from a 27 point deficit is one shot at a time. Two points here. Two points there. A few three pointers sprinkled in. Some timely foul shots. And you have to do all of this while the other team is trying to do the same thing. Trying to grind you down. You just have to score a little bit more than they do over a set span of time. And if you score just one more point than they do at the end, you win.

(via)

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Siri A.I.

Today during WWDC 2026, Apple announced it was releasing Siri A.I., a profoundly more capable version of Siri, but when I downloaded and installed the developer beta, Siri A.I. was no where to be seen. After some searching in the settings, I discovered a “Try the new Siri” button which then said that Siri A.I was not available and that I could join a waitlist. I’m not sure if that’s because I’m in Canada or if that’s what everyone on the developer beta is getting.

Update: Looks like the waitlist is for everyone.

Update: Five days later the new Siri showed up on my phone.

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Would a Satanic Panic by Any Other Name Sound as Sweet?

David Friedman’s essay on the power of rhyme: The Best Thing About the Satanic Panic.

For readers too young to remember, the Satanic Panic was a widespread moral panic in the late ’80s and early ’90s where some people believed that Satanic cults were abusing children and influencing pop culture through things like heavy metal and Dungeons & Dragons.

It was a moral panic over Satanism. A Satanic Panic. It’s maybe the most perfect name for anything ever. It works so simply. It describes what it is. It’s slightly sing-songy. And of course, it rhymes.

Like them or hate them, there is something intriguing about rhymes. I went to a trivia night hosted by the local public library a couple of weeks ago and one group of questions all had rhyming answers. Here are a few that I remember:

Click on any of them to reveal the answers.

A limousine’s shelf for holding liquor.

Car Bar

A shaky gobbler

Jerky turkey

A smelly homeless person

Fragrant Vagrant

A moonless playground

Dark Park

(via Kottke)

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Goodnight and Good Luck

Stephen Colbert’s run at the late show is over and it got me thinking about the tiny backwards message that he put into his 2007 audiobook, I Am America (And So Can You). So I updated my old posting about it from Shockwave Flash to instead play mp3s.

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The Case for Canada

I was collecting signatures for Corb Lund’s Water Not Coal petition on Tuesday when a lady blurted out at me and a couple of other people that were there to sign.

“Maybe Alberta should just join the United States!” she jeered.

Clean water and separatism aren’t the same issue at all, and one of the folks lined up turned to ask her why she would say that.

She exclaimed, “What? Do you like Mark Carney?”

“I’d take Carney over Trump!”

She shook her head and walked away, and that pretty much ended things, but it’s a snapshot of the political climate right now: a conversation about separatism is happening in Alberta. MLA Corey Hogan makes the case for Canada:

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Fall Guy

A couple months ago we had a ferocious wind storm that toppled over our neighbours’ giant spruce tree. It was one of those double trunk trees, so actually only half the tree fell over. It still left quite the impression.

Before
Before
After
After

The neighbours had the rest of the tree taken out within the week.

Last Friday, feeling a bit ambitious, I decided it was time to clean the gutters on the garage where years of pine needles had collected and solidified. I got out the extension ladder and my new electric leaf blower and, knowing how packed in the needles are, I also grabbed some scrap wood from the garage to loosen them up.

I made sure to check that the ladder was secured — but I guess I must have extended the ladder at the very last minute — and then headed up hands full.

I was about two thirds of the way to the top when as I stepped, I suddenly felt the extension half of the ladder come sliding down crushing my foot under my own weight. I pulled up on the outside wrungs enough to slide my foot out only to have the ladder continue downward on my other foot. Once again I wrangled my foot out and once again the ladder came crashing down on my other shoe.

It was at this moment I acted too hastily and decided I needed to get both feet out at the same time (somehow). I feel so stupid — here I am still holding on to the leaf blower and scrap wood in my hands — what was I thinking? Surely I could have had the presence of mind to ditch it but no, I was determined to make it up the ladder.

I ended up not being able to get my foot out right away and the next thing I knew I had lot all contact with the ladder except for my stuck foot and felt myself falling backwards off the ladder. I felt that existential dread as I wondered how hard the ground was going to feel from a two meter drop straight onto my back.

As much as the fall hurt, I could tell right away that it was my foot that was most injured.

So a week later and I’m feeling mostly recovered. It’s still a bit black and blue in places but the doctor said she didn’t think it was broken and that with sprains, you can walk on them but to just take it easy and try to keep it elevated and on ice occasionally. The eaves are still not cleaned and it’s going to be quite some time before I get back on the ladder.

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The Bad Review Revue

Michael: “As a popcorn musical, ‘Michael’ is an undeniable Thriller. As a work of biography, however, it’s Bad — and quite possibly Dangerous.” — Oscar Goff, Cambridge Day

Animal Farm: “Some adaptations, it seems, are far less equal than others.” — Liz Declan, Screen Rant

Super Mario Galaxy II: “We all have a finite amount of time on this Earth, and I cannot think of a single reason why you should spend any of yours on The Super Mario Galaxy Movie.” — Kristy Puchko, Mashable

Lee Cronin’s The Mummy: “The titular writer-director Lee Cronin puts the Cannon family through a gory and disgusting hell that somehow feels inconsequential. Also, and more importantly, it’s boring.” — Rachel Ho, Exclaim!