Tamtams and journée des Patriotes

I was walking home yesterday, when I saw a huge crowd and what appeared to be a protest next to Mount Royal Park. My first guess was the usual Sunday Tamtams, but when I got closer I saw a large number of Fleurdelisé. I assumed it was just a pro-sovereignty rally and continued walking to go record a bit of the tamtams madness. But last night while doing my rounds in the blogosphere I found this interesting article on the topic which answers my questions about the rally and I think it’s a good read.

And here’s the video I took yesterday, but unfortunately I had my earphones on and didn’t get any of the audio. I have to say the sounds of hundreds of drums playing was incredible!

Making work for myself

These days I’ve been spending my time home somewhat idly. So, to break this bad pattern here’s my solution:

1. jot down some ideas I’ve had (mostly computer related)
2. start with the easiest one and hope the rest will follow

I’ve now completed step 1. Lets see how step 2 goes! My easy idea is to re-work the photo gallery that I have on the site.

Omidreza Mirsayafi 1981-2009

He was my age. I’m not sure what he studied, and what he did to make a living. But on his time off he was a blogger, and criticized Iranian society and government openly. Last year he was sentenced to two years in prison for “insulting the authorities”. And now he is dead. Just before the new Iranian year. Many bloggers are lamenting his loss: here, here, and here and here’s an English language post. And the interview with Omidreza’s lawyer is here.

My Surfing Habits

Yesterday I was feeling a bit unproductive, and a bit guilty for not doing more during the work day. So I looked at my trends on Google Reader and realized I could improve by looking at its data.

So as the data above shows my websurfing is at its highest on Mondays after coming back from the weekend. This statistic makes sense to me, considering I don’t read any news over the weekends and I try to catch up on the news. But on the other hand, I think the opposite would be better for my productivity. Where I work getting the bulk of work done on Mondays and Tuesday is more beneficial and leaves me the rest of the week to debug and troubleshoot.

This graph is a bit embarassing and I could do a lot to fix my work habits just based on this. Here’s what I see along with my excueses in italic:

• I do most of my browsing during the work day. I guess it’s a form of a mental break at work!
• At 9am and 10am I do a lot of websurfing, along with 12pm (during lunch) and at the end of the day. I just start my day a little slowly that’s all!
• My surfing remains high during the work day and is never that high in the evenings. I prefer to chill at home!

So what’s the point? I’m not sure. Can you interpret these graphs?

Driving On Country Roads

The other day I was driving back from a weekend trip. I decided to take a less traveled road, a highway that is only 2 lanes and goes through many small towns. About an hour (or maybe less) into the drive, I felt guilty. In an age when everyone is saying the evils of driving gasoline-powered cars, and the concern for the environment is at an all time high I was actually enjoying the drive! There was no one but me on the road, and I was taking in the beautiful scenery as well as the twists on the road. I felt like I understood the purpose of driving wasn’t to get from

At the end of the trip I took about 20 minutes longer to reach my destination and to ease my conscience, the total distance traveled was less than if had taken the main highways!