I've officially switched teams . . .

I'm officially a Mac-guy!
 

I'm now the proud papa of a brand new 2.4 GHz Macbook.

My 3-year old HP/Compaq finally kicked the bucket when the power connector started breaking off the motherboard and despite my best soldering efforts I was unable to salvage it. I was really not liking the prospect of having to buy a new PC laptop and being forced to "upgrade" to Vista and when I got a chance to play around on my friend's brand new Macbook I was sold.

First of all this girl is beautiful, the aluminum unibody, CNC'd from a single piece of extruded aluminum is so sleek.  I love the light-up keyboard and the multi-function touch-pad/button combo is pretty cool too. 

I used to be wary of Apple products and thought they were all style over substance but after getting my iPod earlier this year I've slowly been won over to the other side.

I'm still grappling with some of the differences in OS X but I'm sure it won't be a steep learning curve.

This could be the start of a beautiful relationship :D

Social Networking from Work

My work has just unblocked access to social networking sites including Facebook, Myspace and Blogs (apparently)!

I guess that means they trust us enough to set our own limits as to when we access these sites on our personal time.

I feel like a teenager whose curfew has just been lifted :P

I'm still not allowed to access any web-mail services (Hotmail, Gmail, etc.) because it's apparently a network security risk.

Do the places where other people work block out these sites?


****************************************
EDIT:

It turns out the unblocking of social networking sites is part of a larger new policy on the usage of Web 2.0 technologies.

It's refreshing that the organization realizes that it's pointless to pretend that employees aren't posting on blogs and joining Facebook groups and that it's better to allow access to these sites and educate employees on their responsibilities when posting on blogs rather than take the head-in-the-sand approach.

It's a surprisingly progressive approach for my company.

The Sun Sets on the Land of the Rising Sun

Wow, what a whirlwind adventure to reflect on. I had such an amazing time in Tokyo and honestly didn't want to go back home.

Even though I traveled to Tokyo by myself, I was able to meet-up with several friends who were either also traveling in Japan at the time or working in Japan (Michelle, my friend from University) and I was also able to meet people while I was here (like a whole bunch of people who are teaching English in Japan) so I had people I could hang out with.

I knew Tokyo (and Japan) would present me with an onslaught of new experiences and I was fully bracing for the culture shock that I would experience being plopped into the middle of this hyper-frenetic futuristic mega-metropolis of 12 million people. Unexpectedly, that culture shock never really happened. Even though Tokyo is a huge city packed to the gills with people constantly coming and going at all hours of the day and night, I found it to be clean, organized, remarkably easy to get around and I found Tokyoites to be remarkably courteous and considerate people.

What I didn't expect was to instantly take to Tokyo the way I did and I didn't expect to feel so comfortable and to frankly fall completely in love with the city the way I have.

I love how exciting and cosmopolitan Tokyo is. The city constantly hums with an excitement and energy that gets under your skin and courses through your veins. I felt so alive in Tokyo.

Tokyo carries itself with a distinguished grace but it also has a wicked sense of style. I felt so dumpy-looking and constantly felt under-dressed while in Tokyo. I was amazed how virtually everybody there seems to be a fashionista, or at least extremely style conscious. From the school kids wearing expensive cashmere Burberry scarves as accessories to their standard school uniforms to the teens in Shibuya and Harajuku with the outrageously big anime-style hair-dos (I'm talking about the guys!) and matching elaborate emo-outfits to the young salary men dressed in fine European suits, Tokyo is probably the most fashion-forward city I've ever visited, and I've been to some of the fashion capitals of the world; London, New York, Paris, Milan, Tokyo outdoes them all in terms of the everyday stylishness of its regular citizens.

Even though I only know a handful of tourist phrases in Japanese, I found it remarkably easy to get around with a combination of miming and the average Tokyoite's ability for basic English. Though they'd often coyly reply "no" when I asked "eigo ga hanasemasuka?" (do you speak English), I soon realized that they often did in fact speak it and spoke it quite well and that the "no" was just the subtle self-deprecation and humility typical of the Japanese.

Tokyo is Mecca for foodies! I ate so well while I was there. Having grown up in an Asian household the every-day foods here in Tokyo didn't really surprise me as much as it might for other Westerners. In fact, I loved being able to get prawn chips from a vending machine, and I also loved how my package of assorted rice cracker snacks included little dried, salted fish. Grabbing breakfast from Japanese bakeries every morning was a treat, I love the buns with "sausage" (aka hot dog) baked inside them or the flaky pastries filled with red bean or egg custard, since I'm so used to eating these things when I was growing up, foods that might normally seem odd to Westerners were actually familiar comfort-foods for me.

Other foodie pilgrimage sites that I visited in Tokyo include the Tsukiji Wholesale Fish Market, I visited on my first day since I was jet lagged and you have to get there super early (the action happens between 4am and 8am). Seeing the acres upon acres of every type of seafood imaginable was an awe-inspiring site. I was also able to cap off my visit with a breakfast of the freshest and most delicious sushi I had ever tasted, I'm totally spoiled now, that previously-frozen crap we have at home just won't cut it anymore!

Another interesting site was Kappabashi-dori, the restaurant wholesale supply district where they carried every type of kitchen and restaurant implement you could think of (yes, including kitchen sinks). I especially loved the stores that supplied the plastic food models that many Japanese restaurants display outside their doors, I was tempted to buy one of those faux plates of spaghetti bolognaise, complete with a fork sticking in the air.

The department stores all have restaurant floors where you'll find a collection of eateries ranging from noodle shops to sushi bars and yakitori houses to Italian spaghetti houses and oyster bars. I took full advantage of these essentially upscale food courts. Department stores also have large food markets in their basements and I hit up the one at Isetan regularly to pick up bentos for dinner. The variety of the food available in these places was stunning and I loved the fact that it was all laid out like a fancy boutique. When I bought a piece of cake at a French pastries counter the attendant basically gift-wrapped it for me.

The standard of service in Tokyo is outstanding, it's the best service I have ever had. The service people I encountered in Tokyo were without exception, extremely courteous, polite and went out of their way to make me feel comfortable. This fact was especially amazing since there is no tipping in Japan so they really do their jobs so well out of a sense of duty and propriety and not because they want a bigger tip for their service.

Other than the food I just enjoyed being in Tokyo and seeing the sites and having uniquely-Tokyo experiences;

Meeting up with friends at the Hachiko statue in Shibuya then crossing the insane all-cross intersection at the same time as hundreds of other people at Shibuya Crossing,

Window shopping and gawking at all the haute-couture boutiques in Ginza and Omote-Sando,

People-watching in Harajuku (yep, lots of real-life Harajuku girls, and boys),

Shopping in Akihabara the electronics and defacto-Manga district in Tokyo and seeing the girls dressed up as french maids (Maid cafes are huge in Akihabara),

Visiting the international district of Roppongi, going up to the top floor of Roppongi Hills and seeing a breathtaking aerial view of Tokyo from the outdoor Sky Deck on the roof.

Getting lost for half an hour while trying to find my exit in Shinjuku station (the station is the second-busiest commuter train station in the world, serving 3.5 million people daily and it is gigantic, if you take the wrong exit you can end up miles from your destination),

Walking around the blazing neon streets of Shinjuku (the neighborhood where I was staying) was a total sensory experience. It was the Tokyo that I'd always dreamt of. Basically, take all the lights and people on the entire Las Vegas Strip, concentrate it and condense it down to the size of about one New York City block and then repeat and you have Shinjuku. It was constantly a beehive of activity and was as busy at 3am as it was at 3pm.

Also in Shinjuku, I had a great time walking through Kabukicho, the red light district and seeing all the "love hotels" (exactly what you'd think they are with that name) and the Nigerian guys trying to hustle me into strip joints.

These were just some of the highlights from my trip I could go on and on.

I did manage to get out of Tokyo for a couple day-trips. I went temple- and shrine-hopping in Nikko and Kamakura and visited Japan's second largest city Yokohama.

Yokohama was an interesting trip, it has some stunning architecture and the cruise ship terminal in the port was amazing. I also visited Yokohama's famous Chinatown (the largest in Japan) but was somewhat disappointed in it. It definitely is large (several square blocks) but there was something a bit off about it. I described it as a Chinatown if it was run by Disney. There are several Chinese-style buildings and monuments, the lanterns were strung along the alleyways in the hyper-kitchy style but it all seemed a little fake to me. Chinatowns are supposed to be ghettos, they're typically located in the oldest most run-down parts of town, they're supposed to be a bit gritty with all sorts of funky smells and Chinatown restaurants are supposed to be a little bit intimidating to non-Chinese. Think of Spadina Street in Toronto or Canal Street in New York City. Yokohama's Chukagai was clean, the restaurants were impeccable and many had people on the street promoting them, it really made it feel a bit too sterile and artificial to be authentic. Plus when I subtly tried to drop a few words in Cantonese they reverted to Japanese pretty quickly . . . you know it's not a real Chinese restaurant when the owners speak the local language fluently. As for the food, I walked around sampling different items, the food was okay but nothing special and I didn't come across anything I hadn't had a much better version of in Toronto or even in Ottawa.

But every time I day tripped outside of Tokyo I found myself anxious to get back to the city.

I'm completely enamored with Tokyo. I came expecting to feel a bit alienated and alone by the end of my trip and was completely surprised at how comfortable I was in the city. Maybe it's a more-telling truth that after flying half-way around the world and immersing myself in this city of 12 million people, virtually none of whom I know and with whom I can barely communicate, I don't feel any more alienated or less alone than I do back home.

In any case, I really felt at home in Tokyo and it has become one of my all-time favourite cities and I would totally love to spend more time there, maybe even live and work there for a while. I really am sad to have to leave Tokyo and can't wait to come back!

In Tokyo

So I finally made it to Tokyo after a full day of traveling.

It's insane here, it hasn't even registered with me that I've flown half-way around the world!

I checked into my hotel, it's pretty swanky, it's decorated like a boutique hotel but the room is about the size of a cruise ship cabin . . . should be interesting when my friend comes to visit me next week.

Anyway, I'm off to go sightseeing.

Sayonara

Chasing the Tokyo dawn

I'm packed and ready to fly to Tokyo!

I'm über-excited about my first trip to Japan. I love traveling and don't do it nearly enough.

I especially love trips where I can explore and discover new cultures. There's something about visiting a country where you can't speak, read or understand the local language and where the social customs are so different than your own frame of reference that really heightens your senses. I'm actually really looking forward to being plopped into the middle of this alien world where I'll definitely be outside of my comfort zone.

I'm also very excited to visit Tokyo. There's something about Tokyo; the blazing neon and concrete jungle, the city that never sleeps, the densely-packed throng of humanity, the frenetic buzz and relentless pace of life, that really appeals to me. I love visiting cosmopolitan, world-class cities and Tokyo, like New York and London has a palpable energy that is derived by the dense accumulation of the sheer number of inhabitants in one space. I love tapping into the energy of the city and feeling it course through my veins. It makes me feel so alive. I can envision myself standing at Shibuya Crossing, staring up at all the neon lights and electronic screens and excitedly proclaiming "Woo!!! I am in Tokyo!!!"

I'm looking forward to exploring the different neighborhoods of Tokyo, the fabulous shopping and of course there's the food. I love sushi and one of the biggest draws of Japan for me is the opportunity to sample some of the freshest and highest quality sushi on the planet. I'm definitely a foodie and I love trying as much of the local cuisine as possible even if it means that those foods are "spoiled" for me. I haven't found gelato quite as tasty as the varieties I had in Italy and I'll never forget how delicious that fresh seafood paella I had in Barcelona tasted. Tokyo is a foodie's wet dream and I intend to take full advantage of it!

Also, I find that when I travel it is almost always a chance for self-discovery and self-realization. The backpacking trip through Europe I did in the summer of 2005 turned out to be one of the most formative experiences of my life. When you leave the comfortable little bubble in which you live and the regimented monotony of the daily grind you are really forced to observe things from a different point of view and I find it really puts things in perspective.

I'm ready to take on the full brunt of what Tokyo and Japan are going to hit me with!

Dreaming of a Midsummer's Night

I just got back from this amazing production of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's dream directed by Tim Supple and featuring an Indian/Sri Lankan cast. It was performed half in English and half in various Indian dialects like Hindi, Bengali, Sinhalese and Sanskrit.

First of all the production design was visually stunning; there were live musicians playing Indian instruments and I found that the incorporation of Indian cultural elements like song and dance actually made the "fantasy" elements of the play a lot more organic and flowing.

I was amazed at how amazingly multi-disciplinary the cast was, not only were they required to deliver Shakespeare (which they did with a passion, emotion and raw sexual energy I've not seen in any Western Shakespearean production) and to be able to dance and sing but the staging also incorporated a lot of physical/aerial acrobatic elements. They had a climbing wall as the back drop and the actors would scamper up and down as they delivered lines.

The performance also featured quite a bit of web and aerial silks skills but they were incorporated into the staging, the "fairy" characters would use them to descend from the back wall or swing out, or they were used as hammocks for when the characters slept.

I thought it was so awesome that the actress playing Titania (Queen of the Fairies) would deliver her full Shakespearean monologue then climb up a strand of silks.

There were also a few abstract scenes where the artists did roll downs and other tricks on the webs and silks. It was amazingly well-done and completely flowed with the action of the play.

It was very avant-garde but also surprisingly accessible, I don't remember the last time the audience was on their feet dancing and rhythmically clapping along at the end of Shakespearean play performance.

Check out the video trailer at the show's website: http://www.dreamonstage.co.uk/ it gives you a sense of the energy and visual splendor of the production.

A Midsummer Night's Dream Directed by Tim Supple from Dash Arts on Vimeo.

Boom de ya da!

This new Discovery Channel commercial makes me happy. It's cute, catchy and makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside whenever I watch it.

Pomegranate

So I was walking to work this morning when this random guy on the street gave me a free pomegranate . . .

Um, okay . . .

When I got to work I put it on my desk and then I noticed there was this sticker on it advertising a website:

http://www.pomegranatephone.com

Take a minute to click the link and explore the site, it's highly entertaining and a great example of guerilla marketing.

Blue Man Group in Concert - Thoughts and Analyses

I was really moved by some of the music and imagery in the Blue Man Group's concert last night in a way that I didn't expect to be.

Create Your Own Video

To start BMG based their concert on a concept album they released a few years ago called The Complex; a dark, social commentary with themes of modern isolation and alienation, individuality versus conformity, information overload and the paradox of the information age. These themes really speak to me and they're explored really well in the concert.

What Blue Man Group did for the Complex and subsequent arena rock tour was take the iconography from their resident stage shows (the wacky invented instruments, the psychedelic projections, the characters like the Shadows and the Wire Men) and added to these icons and expanded them to express the themes of the show by visually supporting the music and lyrics. They basically took the essence of Blue Man Group and expanded it while maintaining the Blue Man's original spirit.

Here are some of my favourite songs and images from the concert:

Sing Along: The first single released from The Complex, the album version featured Dave Matthews on vocals. The song is catchy and the lyrics are simple but they really serve to illustrate the individuality versus conformity theme; "If I follow along will it mean I belong, or will I keep on feeling different from everybody else?"

Up to the Roof: Sung by the tour's powerhouse female vocalist named Adrian Hartley, I can really relate to the lyrics of this particular song. It's sung from a point of view of a person who's been trained to follow rules about what to do, where to go and what to believe. I draw a parallel to the dogma of organized religion or societal/familial pressures. The song's basically about rebelling against those rules and dogmas and making the decision to follow your own intuition and decide your own fate. One lyric speaks to me especially profoundly, it's a metaphor about the stairs the singer was told to take not leading her anywhere so she decided to take the fire escape to the roof instead, "I'd rather look at the sky than wonder why I let you take my time." I love it for its "fuck you" attitude to authority.

There are several particularly striking songs (both musically and lyrically) that explore the isolation and alienation fostered by the compartmentalization and separation that individuals experience in modern society and by the kind of artificial coping mechanisms we develop to survive in our society;

Persona is a haunting song about how we innately compartmentalize our personalities and create false images to fool others and even ourselves into believing certain things about ourselves. The singer's mournful moaning in between verses suggests that he's longing to stop hiding his true self but fears the vulnerability that exposing himself can create.

Shadows Part 2: The title is a reference to the track "Shadows" on BMG's first album (the soundtrack to their resident stage shows). In the concert the song is explained as "Taking the audience on a Jungian journey into the collective unconscious by using the shadow as a metaphor for the primal self that gets repressed by the modern persona and also by using an underground setting and a labyrinth office design to represent both the depths of the human psyche and the dungeon-like isolation of our increasingly mechanistic society which prevents people from finding satisfying work or meaningful connections with others" That pretty much sums it up. The song features an awesome "scratch war" except the "scratching" is done by two performers on Airpoles, one of BMGs invented instruments consisting of a flexible fibreglass antenna that makes an acute "swish" sound when whipped through the air, the dexterity it takes to do an airpole battle that sounds like a DJ scratching must be enormous.

The same theme of being crushed under the monotony of daily life is again expressed in the album's title song, The Complex, the lyrics vividly illustrate the maddening monotony of the daily grind. It could be an anthem to anybody stuck in a job they hate. "I saw my picture on the bathroom door today . . . So far in, I can't get out". It brilliantly illustrates the tragic mindset of someone who's abandoned the pursuit of his dreams and settled in a nine-to-five desk job but yearns for something more. At the climax of the song they showed a movie of all these office-dweller-type characters emerging onto the rooftops of the city and looking up at the sky, finally re-connecting with something primordial. The image really got to me.

But of course, the show is not all dark, moody explorations, most of it is actually light and fun. The BMG also does brilliant covers of The Who's Baba O'Riley and Donna Summer's I Feel Love, in both cases replacing the electronic synthesizers with their acoustic PVC pipe instrument. The PVC sounds amazing imitating the fast synthesizer arpeggios of these songs.

In the end everybody in the audience is jumping up and down together in unison in this artificial construct of the rock concert environment we manage a transcendent experience of coming together as a group . . . if only for the duration of the song.

Beatlemania - Quebec-style

Oh my god, I was at the Paul McCartney concert in Quebec last Sunday and it was absolute insanity!

Over 200 000 people showed up for Sir Paul's free show on the Plains of Abraham, the historic battleground in Quebec City.

I went with a friend who's a huge Beatles fan, he dragged me outta bed at 4:30AM the morning of the concert so we could secure a spot in front of the stage.

We got to the park shortly after they opened the first "staging area" at 5AM and spent the day waiting in line, it wasn't exactly exciting but they at least piped the sound check through the sound system and let us listen in. At 5PM they opened the second staging area, behind the stage. Finally at about 5:45PM they threw the gates to the main site open and it was a free for all.

We managed to get a spot relatively close to the stage (about 100ft back), we could at least see the stage and had a good view of one of the giant screens. Looking back on the sea of humanity on the plains was surreal, you don't really have a mental concept of what 200 000 people look like until you see it for yourself. I hadn't been in a crowd that size since Soleil de minuit in Montreal.

When Paul took the stage the roar from the crowd was deafening.

He played for about 2 and a half hours and along with his solo stuff and Wings stuff he threw in a bunch of Beatles songs; Let it Be, Drive My Car, Get Back, Eleanor Rigby, Blackbird, Yesterday, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, Lady Madonna, Back in the U.S.S.R., he did Something as a tribute to George and a medley of A Day in the Life and Give Peace a Chance as a tribute to John and of course threw in Hey Jude.

While going in, I was really just a casual Beatles fan tagging along with my hardcore friend, leaving the concert I really felt I had experienced something special. It's definitely an experience I'll remember for a long time and in the end it was worth getting up at 4:30AM for.

The crowd (really half the crowd, there was an equal amount on the other half of the hill that didn't fit in the frame):


The stage:


Paul takes the stage:

Comme une pluie dans tes yeux . . .

There are stories that are not even stories, they're memories, only memories . . .

One must always remember
the first rainstorm of the season.
Don't open an umbrella.
Let the life fall on your body.
Happiness is like rain, it arrives instantaneously
and then it goes away when it wants.
That kind of memory never fades.

Once in a while you come across a work of art that stirs your emotions, that makes you pine nostalgically for days past.

I enjoyed Rain by Cirque Éloize so much.

I love director Daniele Finzi Pasca's approach of using subtle, artful melancholy to invoke nostalgia. The show is simple but the results are beautiful and moving.

I really hope to see the new Éloize show Nebbia soon. Even if it is just more of the same, it's a style that really appeals to me.

Double Double Toil and Trouble, Electric Guitarias and La Habañera

We're in the full thick of winter now and it's COLD, the days are still short and it's too miserable outside to do anything. I've been taking in some performing arts events this past week to get through the boredom of the winter doldrums:

Macbeth

I took in a performance of The National Arts Centre's production of Macbeth. I studied Macbeth in Grade 11 English Lit but this is the first time I've seen a live-stage version (if you don't count MacHomer a one-man version of Macbeth done with the Simpson's characters). I'd been to other NAC productions of Shakespearean plays before (Othello, Hamlet and Love's Labour's Lost) but I found them lacking. If you have a play like Hamlet that's been staged thousands of times you really need to give it a fresh point of view to make it relevant to contemporary audiences otherwise it's just a costume pageant.

The Macbeth director understood that, he transposed the setting of the play to World War II era Europe and made really effective use of the symbols of that era; air raid sirens, bombs, scratchy radio broadcasts and he appropriated Nazi/fascist iconography to underscore the ruthless tyranny of the Macbeths' ascent to power. I thought setting the play in WWII was a brilliant choice since it allows the audience to draw modern parallels to the story plus Second World War imagery still invokes a visceral reaction in today's audiences.

Another interesting choice the director made was casting children in the role of the Witches ("Double double toil and trouble"), it made for a creepy effect in addition to underlining war's toll on the innocent.

I also loved how he staged the final act, the siege of Dunsinane castle by MacDuff and Malcolm's troupes. He had actors in World War II combat gear crawling around the stage like in a trench battle then, once inside the castle they were ducking around corners like the door-to-door combat of the Italian campaign. And then for the final showdown between Macbeth and MacDuff; a good old-fashioned Shakespearean sword fight. It made for some great theatre.

I also liked the production design, at the back of the stage they had this semi-transparent frosted-glass divider and when performers stood behind it they could be lit to give a ghostly aura which was a simple but really cool-looking effect.

The East Village Opera Company

Last weekend I went to a concert by EVOC, a band that does Rock-arrangements of operatic arias. It was a special concert being recorded for CBC Radio and they were trying out a bunch of stuff from their upcoming album.

I love this band they have some really original ideas for the arrangements and they totally rock.

For the second encore they performed one of my favourite songs of theirs; When I am Laid in Earth (Dido's Lament) from the opera Dido and Aeneas by Henry Purcell. Dido, Queen of Carthage sings this aria at the end of the opera after her lover Aeneas has left her and she decides to commit suicide. She pleads to be remembered for the way she lived her life and not how she chooses to end it. The EVOC arrangement puts another melody, a lullaby for a child, in counterpoint and it gives this amazing sense of drama. It starts off subtly with Indian tablas and then builds to the electric guitar crescendo. I love it!



Carmen, The Passion

Tonight I attended a performance of Carmen, The Passion by the Royal Winnipeg Ballet. It's an adaptation that takes one of the most famous operas and transforms the story for dance.

The ballet featured an original score. I was unsure about that decision since the Bizet score is so iconic but I enjoyed the original composition, it featured a lot more authentic Andalusian stylings and references plus setting the ballet to an original score really helps the viewer focus on the story.

The staging was minimal; the set consisted of some scaffolds and projection screens. Unfortunately, the projections looked like cheap Winamp visualizations. I understand they were used to fill in the negative space overhead but they didn't add anything to the scene and since I was close enough that the dancers filled my field of view I just found the projections distracting.

The dancers were good, I always marvel at the training and discipline it takes to dance ballet. When I saw the RWB's performance of Dracula a couple seasons ago I thought that production lacked some of the passion, gothic darkness and sensuality that the Dracula story allows. Their Carmen however was passionate and full of sexual energy, it was hot!

jPod

I realized that it's been over a year since I read a novel. Most of my reading consists of non-fiction and classics and while those are interesting it's been a while since I picked up a novel and read it for "fun".

I've been meaning to read jPod for a while.



It's by Douglas Coupland, a Canadian author who's best known for his novel Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture in which he coined the terms "Generation X" and "McJob".

Since CBC is about to start airing the mini-series based on the novel I wanted to pick it up and read it before a made-for-TV version spoils it for me.

The novel is about six late-twenties workers who share a common cubical "pod" in the Vancouver office of a massive video game design company (a thinly veiled reference to Electronic Arts).

While the narrative surrounding the unassuming protagonist named Ethan is full of crazy plot twists and over-the-top scenarios involving his wacky family, at its core the book is largely a collection of wry, sardonic observations about contemporary corporate culture and is full of pithy observations belying the undercurrent of angst of today's average, corporate Microserfs (another Coupland-coined term).

I describe it as Dilbert re-imagined by Kevin Smith of Clerks fame. I really liked the style and slightly acerbic tone of the narrative. I can relate to the characters and it was really a lot of fun to read.

The novel is the opposite of timeless, it's about contemporary culture and captures the spirit of the times for today. While I doubt it will have the same resonance ten or even five years from now I think it works as a snapshot of the type of sarcastic detachment of today's young adults as a reaction to the media-overload we've had in our collective upbringing.

In between the chapters the author throws in artistically laid-out pages of techno-terms and non-sequiturs. Here are some of my favourites:

Engineers aren't funny or cute or nerdy. They're just damaged. I might be damaged, but they're way more damaged than in any other division of the company.

People say that everyone can be a success, but you look at the numbers and no, the world is way more about failure and compromised standards than it is about winning. The older the culture is, the less cutesy it is about saying, "Well, you're a winner because you tried your best." Can you imagine a Chinese person saying that? They'd just think you're a loser and buy all of your goods at fire sale prices during your bankruptcy yard sale.

TV and the Internet are good because they keep stupid people from spending too much time out in public.

I think computers ought to have a key called I'M DRUNK, and when you push it, it prevents you from sending email for twelve hours.

Even seasoned recruiters base their first impression on the basis of fuckability. The second thing they look at is whether you're competent, and the third thing they see is whether you're creative in disguising your lack of competence and/or fuckability.

"Hi, I'm Jeremy. I'm that high-energy new guy they stole from Remtech across the Parkway. I'm young, smart, good-looking and I'm using ever-escalating amounts of crystal meth to make me seem more alive than you. I'll either end up winning everything or be found holding up a cardboard sign and talking to myself at the Exit 23 off-ramp."