the flying squirrel

I can’t eat out too much these days, which is too bad, since there seems to be a resurgence in interest in finding decent places to eat in the area.

[The 100, episode 4](http://ideastransform.ning.com/profiles/blogs/the-100-episode-4) had a great discussion about the local restaurant scene. Although I took some exception to the Kitchenerite panel disparaging the selection in Waterloo. Come on, Kitchener is more than twice the size of Waterloo, people! Of course it has more restaurants!

The main argument was that while Waterloo had some nice, upscale eateries, it didn’t have any of the great, family-owned, hole-in-the-wall ethnic places where you could get a decent lunch for cheap. Which isn’t true at all. Just off the top of my head, there’s Classic Indian, Home Garden, Jia Jia Lok, Al Madina (expensive, but they use local, unofficially organic meat and produce, even if they don’t advertise the fact), Brady’s Deli, Masala Bay, Kismet… and then there’s a few new places that have opened up that I’d like to try if I was able to eat out.

I can eat out vicariously through others, though. The [Food in Waterloo Region Facebook group](http://www.facebook.com/group.php?v=wall&ref=nf&gid=106445362726415) just started up this week and may end up being more useful than the venerable [kw.eats newsgroup](http://groups.google.ca/group/kw.eats/topics), which can be a little crotchety at times. [Loudlunch](http://loudlunch.com) is a brand new blog dedicated to finding decent lunch spots in the area, mostly around downtown Kitchener. Well worth keeping an eye on. [Sapphire Martini](http://sapphiremartini.blogspot.com/) posts fairly infrequently, but has been around for ages and has a decent catalogue of reviews.

April Fools Day was maybe kind of fun for a while, but now it just bugs me.

There’s no point in reading anything, because even if it’s true, you can’t believe it. I’m not even complaining about the quality of the humour. There are some jokes–a very few–that are really clever and funny. But it’s not worth the frustration.

So I’m out. Tomorrow, April 1st, I am taking a day off from the World Wide Web. Blogs, Twitter, RSS feeds, all ignored for the day. I’ll still be accessible on email, IM and so on, but no content. If you post something momentous or cool tomorrow, sorry, but you’re going to have to tell me about it later. I’m fasting.

I’m actually finding myself looking forward to turning it all off for 24 hours. It’s been a while since I disconnected myself like this (with no intention of catching up later). I’m thinking it’ll be kind of fun.

* Not that the Internet doesn’t lie on other days, of course. April 1 is just the day when it’s the most blatant and annoying.

[Hilary](http://rqmagazine.com) asked me to be on [The 100 this week](http://ideastransform.ning.com/profiles/blogs/the-100-episode-3) to talk about local transportation issues.

Which is awesome. But I can’t believe I forgot to mention [TriTAG](http://tritag.ca).

The 100 is a podcast about local culture, events and issues (roughly in that order), coming out of [Ideas Transform](http://ideastransform.org). I know Bevan from [Kwartzlab](http://kwartzlab.ca) and I’d met the other hosts through [CultureCamp](http://ideastransform.ning.com/events/culturecamp-communication) (in person, anyway).

They asked me to come chat about transportation and urban design issues, since I’ve been writing about that a lot on [WWBA](http://waterloowellingtonblogs.org) lately:

* The Bearinger Road [Road Diet](http://waterloowellingtonblogs.org/2010/03/road-diet.shtml)
* [What Is Rapid Transit For?](http://waterloowellingtonblogs.org/2010/03/what-is-rapid-transit-for.shtml)

I think it’s a good chat, but I feel like I left a lot out. Ah well. Follow me on WWBA and maybe I’ll flesh out the ideas a bit more. I am happy I got a plug in for [Richard’s OpenStreetMap meetups](http://www.meetup.com/Waterloo-OSM).

[The 100 is awesome](http://waterloowellingtonblogs.org/2010/03/the-100-a-podcast-about-local-news-and-events.shtml). If you’d like to subscribe to the podcast, [Will Spaetzel](http://spaetzel.com/)’s fantastic [Castroller](http://castroller.com) service has automatically generated [a podcast feed](http://castroller.com/podcasts/The100). I’m prodding Hilary and Bevan to get it into the iTunes store, hopefully in the next week or two.

[Kwartzlab](http://kwartzlab.ca/) is hosting our first Ubuntu Global Jam!

The newly-formed [Kitchener-Waterloo chapter of Ubuntu Canada](https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-waterloo-region) is having its first Jam, to be held at Kwartzlab. We’re getting together to help make Ubuntu better: hang out, fix some bugs, test the [new release](http://www.ubuntu.com/testing/lucid/beta1) and work on documentation. [Txwikinger](https://launchpad.net/~txwikinger) is going to show us how to do bug triage. I’m really excited. It’s going to be awesome.

Want to come? [Sign up here](http://loco.ubuntu.com/events/team/40/detail/). Yeah, you’ll need a launchpad account, but you need to create one to mess around with bugs anyway.

Well, at the very least, I’m indifferent towards the Olympics.

As far as I’m concerned, sports already gets a disproportionate amount of time and attention in our society. It’s not important and, frankly, it’s actually pretty silly, if you stop to think about it. Yet it gets about a third of the total news coverage time and takes up a good chunk of the public airwaves.

And that’s okay, I guess. It’s a free market and people have their preferences. But given the number of people already paying attention, it doesn’t need me. My time is better spent elsewhere, I think. I have more important things to obsess about. Things like programming paradigms and Doctor Who toys.

So I absent myself from the universal “experience” that is the Olympics, but I get [Sylvester McCoy with umbrella accessory](http://doctorwhotoys.net/seventhdoctor.htm) in exchange. I think it’s worth it.

I (try not to) harp on people who get excited about the Olympics. That’s just not cool. It doesn’t do either of us any good for me to tell them the thing they’re so excited about is stupid. I get excited about stupid things too! And that’s okay.