Take an Albert Hein’s stroopwafle, spread on some maple-walnut cream cheese and topped with fresh berries. ZOMG.

This intersection is two major city blocks away from my apartment. According to BlogTO, people were on top of the streetcars for more than an hour.

Notice closely in the photo, that’s TWO streetcars abandoned by the drivers for people to climb up and celebrate their Canadian, I meant, Spanish won. It was a happy day with perfectly happy weather, so I don’t actually have any complaints about the celebration, but it’s amazing how different Toronto streets were just two weeks prior.

I was actually down the street from where the major gathering was, but all along College St. in my neighborhood, all you could see was yellow and red and all you could hear was honking, cheering, oleoleoleole, and of course, the vuvuz. From as soon as the game ended (around 5pm or so?) until at least midnight, because that’s when I went to bed, people cheered on as if they were the players themselves.

Last World Cup in 2006, I was living in Italy and watching the game in my living room from an Internet stream which had a significant lag time (did the same thing this year, but the stream was a bit faster), so by the time I saw that Italy won, Treviso’s streets were already filled with the national flags, horns, cars, people partying and all the rest.  This year, I didn’t expect to witness such celebration, but now I’ve learned that Toronto can totally hold their own in World Cup street celebration – no matter which nation was gonna win.

Having followed the World Cup this year from beginning to end, right in the Toronto neighbourhood where soccer runs deep in the blood of my fellow inhabitants, it was an amazingly fun event.  Not because I’m a big soccer fan nor because I was rooting for any particular team, but there was this collective sense of excitement in the air and it was something that everyone agreed was important – not for work or for money – but just for pure sake of being happy about the game.   And it’s pretty awesome.

That intersection in the photo above is my block. Not where we live, but just around the corner from there is our office.

Yesterday (Saturday) a peaceful protest to welcome the world leaders of the G20 summit to Toronto was supposedly hi-jacked by an anarchist group dressed in black who started smashing store windows. And then they proceeded to burn a couple of police cars. For a couple of hours, these “hooligans” using “Black Bloc” (media jargons that’s been hammered into my head) tactics went buck wild in downtown Toronto. Which makes you wonder: where were the police? And why would they let their vehicles unattended? In other areas where there were relatively no violence, the police were busy beating their batons on their shields, trying to control the crowds. Eventually made some random arrests including several journalists on the scene.

Today (Sunday), as the world leaders leave town, the police seem to be kicking into to high gear, arresting people here and there, and the picture above is probably their ultimate show of force.

These websites have a lot of coverage: Torontoist, BlogTO, Spacing… and of course, #G20 on Twitter

They say it was Prime Minister Stephen Harper who wanted to host the G20 summit in downtown Toronto. He wanted to put Toronto on the ‘world stage’ (whatever that means). The city of Toronto then spent $1 billion in taxpayer money to host this one-day meeting of the leaders, mostly to beef up security around the convention centre. One. Billion. Dollars.

Couldn’t you have flown them all to some far islands where the poor protesters can’t get to? It’s not like any of these world leaders and their entourage got to see the city of Toronto. It’s not like they would care where it’s hosted, right?

Anyway, this account from a photo journalist who was held in the make-shift detention centre was a walk down memory lane for me. It seems that there is a standard, inhumane tactic for dealing with protesters, carefully designed to break down any dissent mentality. Then I learned though this link that it’s called the Miami Model.

A popular police tactic is called “kettling.” Officers on bike or horses herd protesters into an enclosed space, so they can’t leave without trying to break through the police line. Take the bait; you provoke a beating or arrest.

Makes my blood boil.

But then again, if this is true, then it appears that the police in Bangkok didn’t know about this Miami Model or kettling tactic. Thai police never made any mass arrests-hell, they still haven’t made any arrests for the arsons or shootings-for all that two month long nasty riot in Bangkok. Had they any idea of how to control a riot (and have the balls to actually do it like their Western counterpart), it might not have gone out of control.

However, there should be no reason for any cop of any country, really, to do this:

We were sitting in our office: Mark at his desk, me at my desk, David at his and Adam, our new intern member of team Aesthetec, also at his desk. As usual, we all stared at our monitors with fingers clicking away, typing or browsing or whatever. When all the sudden I felt the floor move. Kind of like when you’re in a boat where everything sways, or a trampoline where someone else is jumping and you’re riding along.

I looked up to Mark, who was looking up at me, both of us were getting ready to say “hey, stop that” to each other, but realizing that we weren’t doing it. We turned to look at Adam, he looked at both of us and with hands raised, said, “hey, it’s not me!” We all continued looking at each other, not knowing what to do. Is it the neighbour’s loud music? (but there’s no music!) Is it a big truck going by? (but we don’t hear no truck!) And then after a bit, it stopped.

“What the heck was THAT?!”

Bewildered, we all turned back to our computers and resumed the tasks at hand. Mark wondered if it was an earthquake. And I wondered if this part of the world actually gets earthquake. Then we shrugged.

I finished an email I was writing, then checked my twitter feed five minutes after we’d dismissed it.

Twitter, Facebook and the rest of the Internet soon confirmed that there actually was, an earthquake, being felt all over from Montreal, Toronto, Ottawa and even some parts of the U.S. Earthquake is not known to happen around here, but I suppose mother nature always has a couple tricks up her sleeves (or we humans just have short memory).

For archival sake, here’s my Tweetie screen shot from when it happened (taken retroactively):

Might have been a freak of nature, a once in a blue moon occurance kind of thing, but I’m proud to say that I FELT IT.

Finally, I’ve upgraded to the grown-up computer. W00t!

@ Peter’s drive-in, a Calgary landmark. $4.50 milkshake, choose 3
flavors to make your own combo.

I was hungry… Not sure if I am this hungry tho…

having a ‘husband is working on a contract job in Calgary and I’m just
here shopping" kind of day.

Dinos ripping apart luggage is the decor theme for this baggage
claim. Little cheesy, but adds character, I suppose.

it’s like i’m a fan of some weird nerdy sport from another planet.

(post Thai parliament debate vote on the no-confidence motion.. or, you know, however you explain that democratic process)

sorry, if you’re not a Loster, don’t bother watching.

Hello summer in Toronto! I’ve been waiting for you for so long…

REUTERS/Adrees Latif, from Big Picture blog

The feeling of devastation is beyond words. How does a city I know and love plunge into this apocalyptic war zone mess.

Now that it is over – after I’ve watched YouTube videos after videos, posting and checking links on Facebook, followed more and more foreign journalists in Thailand – looking back on the past three months and judging on what I know, I guess it is suffice to say that this probably couldn’t have ended any other way. If you throw a rock at a glass window, the glass is going to break. The red shirts didn’t offer any room for negotiation. The government couldn’t step down. It was written from the beginning that they’ll either win or lose, and there was no compromise.

I thought I would offer my analysis, but the New York Times, as always, is much more eloquent, so here it is, quoting in parts:

“It was tragic,” said Anusart Suwanmongkol, a senator who supports the government. “Yesterday was the most tragic day in my memory, in Thai history. Nobody gained anything. Nobody won. The country lost.”

Having worked on a history museum in Bangkok, I have had some great conversations with historians who told me about the past political ‘revolutions’. The uprises have always ended badly, and if you look close enough, the same cycle just goes on again. Same shit, different people. This time though, there is something else that is going to be haunting Thailand’s future. I wonder if we’ll simply just go back to the way it was.

Hopes for a peaceful election, whenever it comes, seem faint, and in an increasingly polarized and violent political arena, it seems unlikely that the loser would accept the results. Antigovernment sentiment has hardened in the northeast and north of the country, the homes where many of the protesters were returning Thursday.

Political opportunists have harnessed their yearnings into a powerful political bloc, indoctrinating them on community radio stations and in the amplified speeches of the protest stage, with a new vocabulary of exploitation, about “serfs” and “aristocracy.” …

“We have been poor for hundreds of years, even thousands of years, and they are living in fancy resorts and mansions,” said Srirasa Reungrat, a middle-aged woman from Chiang Rai in the north, as she stood at the back of the temple Thursday morning. “They have been doing this to us for a long time.”

The difference this time is precisely just what she said. Thai people, being Buddhists, normally accept the circumstances of their lives – their economic well being (or not), their education level (high or low), their jobs, their choices, etc, because one is born into whatever one is destined to be. There’s a complicated belief about karma from the past life, paying for it in this life, and saving good merit for the next one. It’s kind of a convenient way of not blaming yourself or other people for whatever meager means you have, you accept it and live it out. But now, these self-proclaimed serfs (note, I’m not calling them serfs, they did) are turning their long internalized anger at their masters. Forget karma, they have a new prophet.

In fact the social conflict in Thailand is more complex than a simple uprising of the poor. This is a society built on harmony and, until politicians hardened the divisions, the pressure for change was less confrontational.

Thailand’s rural people are not serfs. They have been called some of the most comfortable poor people in the world. The economic boom of the 1980s brought them paved roads, electricity, brick houses, television sets, motorbikes, cellphones and factory jobs.

Political analysts now call them “post-peasants” and “middle-income peasants.”

But as their standard of living rose, the wealth of the well-to-do in Bangkok rose faster, and the aspirations and resentments of the lower classes grew, too.

They underwent a process known here as ta sawang, or a “brightening of the eyes” — an awakening, a realization of a truth they had not recognized.

When their eyes brightened, they focused in many cases on Thaksin Shinawatra, the former prime minister whose genius was to recognize this untapped electoral bloc, to answer some of its needs with low-cost health care and financial assistance and to secure its support.

Mr. Thaksin was ousted in a coup in 2006 and lives abroad, evading a conviction for corruption. But he stays in touch with his supporters through audio and video messages and a flow of fatherly messages on Twitter. He remains the single most influential political personality in Thailand, and many see him as the master manipulator of the protests.

And not to be cynical, but I don’t think he’s finished yet. Not unless the Thai government can banish and cut his communication completely. Those red shirts who went home, they’re waiting.  He’d promised them the moon and he hasn’t delivered.

Whatever the future holds for Thailand, one thing is for sure: the power of the media and Internet in 2010 just changed Thailand’s face to the world forever. The tourism authority is going to have a hard time with their “Amazing Thailand” logo.

If capable people aren’t in charge (and those are hard to find) of pulling the pieces together, and perhaps re-educating Thai people on what it means to be a “democratic country”, I think it’s going to be a shaky ride.

REUTERS/Adrees Latif, from Big Picture

When you take a photo with Dr. NakaMats, you stand with him, look into the camera and say “Doctor Nakamatsuuuu” while holding out peace fingers. He does this with everybody and seems to enjoy the consistent process. Before we took this picture, I asked for an autograph and he took a picture of me using his video camera.

Prior to reading about the documentary “The Inventions of Dr. Nakamats”, I had never heard of Yoshiro Nakamatsu. And upon learning of his inventions, I feel as if I had been hiding under a rock. How is this man not world famous by now? He claims to hold 3,367 patents – compared to 1,093 by Thomas Edison – a fact he frequently boosts with pride. Amongst those, the most well-known ones are the floppy disks (invented in 1950, 20 years before IBM) and subsequently the basic technology for CD and DVD, synthesizer for sampling music, karaoke machine, taxi meter, spring shoes, Celebrex sleeping chair, and the Love Jet – which is a sort of natural female viagra that he invented to help solve the population problem in Japan. He also invented a hydrogen powered engine for a bike.  The list goes on.

According to Dr. NakaMats, too much sleep is bad for the brain, as well as too much food. He claims to only sleep 4 hours a day and eat only one meal at dinner. He drinks his ‘Brain Drink’ an invention of his as a result of 34 years of photographing every single meal and retroactively analyzing his own blood (for which he won an Ig Nobel Prize in nutrition). The Brain Drink, then, contains nutrients that is good for the brain and he says that he drinks it all the time. At the age of 80, he keeps very fit by lifting weights daily and he gets his best ideas when diving under water. For that, he invented an underwater notebook so that he can jot down his ideas because the brain is functioning very well at just 0.5 seconds before running out of oxygen. He is determined to live to the age of 144 and to have 6,000 patents.  And from the looks of it, he just might.

My favorite thing about Dr. Nakamats is the way he dresses. At the screening, he showed up in a suit complete with a striped bold purple shirt and dotted purple tie. Throughout the movie, his many shirts and suits are impeccably styled with bold stripes and bright colors, kind of reminding me of Willy Wonka. Some of his inventions and sayings are absurdly hilarious, yet he’s always serious and stone faced, commanding respect like an Asian grandfather. At times in the movie, he came off as grumpy and his self-promoting ways is very egocentric, always stamping his name on everything (well, he made them, right?) and even demanded that a hotel room’s name be changed for his birthday party. I don’t know whether to take him seriously because a lot of his claims seem counter intuitive and he’s always consciously promoting his NakaMats brand – but then again, I didn’t invent the floppy disk when I was in college, so what do I know. Quick, someone in Japan, send me a pack of Brain Drink!

Anyway, I am *smitten* by this eccentric man. If “The Invention of Dr. Nakamats” screens anywhere near you, don’t miss it. I’m a little sad that his website doesn’t have full English translation.

Here’s an excellent interview with Dr. Nakamats on PingMag from ’06.

The tiny red box in bottom of the map shows where my sisters’ house is.

The big red street that runs from left to right in the map, that’s Ratchadamri Road which is home to uber luxury condominiums, top-notch five star hotels, and even more upscale shopping boutiques.  I’m told that the protesters have blocked traffic from normally 3 lanes on each side to a single lane.  The rest of the street they’re using to pitch up tents and hang out in there.  The hotels have sent tourists away and shut down their operations due to security concerns.  And according to the article:  ”One section of pavement down the street from the Four Seasons was devoted to an arsenal of crude weaponry where Red Shirts sharpened hundreds of long bamboo rods and piled them into tall stacks. Broken up pavement stones were heaped in other piles.”

Meanwhile, the soldiers and riot police are out in full force.  Some red shirts wear bandanna that says “I’m not afraid of you”, but in a much a cruder language than how it sounds in English.  The frustrated Bangkokians who have been restricted to stay mostly at home (since shopping malls and night clubs are all closed) and stuck in even worse traffic are now coming out to the streets to yell at the red shirts.  It’s kind of unbelievable how the situation has deteriorate to this point, and even worse is the fact that it may not end any time soon.

I guess the frustrating part is that these red shirters actually think that they’re being heroic, when they’re just pawns for the bigger, more corrupt, politicians who always want to keep their people stupid anyway. I’ve always been fascinated with and supportive of protests, in a sense that I believe people should have the power to make their voices heard. But this is just putting protests in a bad name. It is mayhem. It is anarchy. And it is definitely not cool.

Some photos from daylife:

Two foreigners (bottom L) skateboard past “Red Shirt” anti-government protesters as they stand behind a barricade during a rally on Silom Road in the financial district of central Bangkok on April 20, 2010. Thailand toughened its stance against anti-government protesters, warning security forces would use live ammunition and tear gas in any fresh clashes.
AFP PHOTO / ROSLAN RAHMAN (ROSLAN RAHMAN/AFP/Getty Images)

Anti-government “red shirt” protesters stand behind a barricade built with bamboo poles and tyres at an intersection close to the Silom Road financial district in Bangkok April 20, 2010. Thailand’s “red shirt” protesters called off a march to Bangkok’s business district on Tuesday after a stern warning from the army, but they threatened to stay in the capital’s shopping district “indefinitely”. REUTERS/Vivek Prakash

Anti-riot police stand guard at an intersection close to the Silom Road financial district in Bangkok, where pro-government supporters have gathered for a counter-rally near anti-government “red shirt” protesters, April 21, 2010. Thai anti-government protesters occupying an upmarket shopping area of Bangkok said on Wednesday they were open to talks through a third party to prevent bloody clashes with armed troops threatening to forcibly evict them. REUTERS/Sukree Sukplang

A group of pro-governement residents shout at “Red Shirt” anti-government protesters behind a barricade from a distance on Silom Road in the financial district of central Bangkok on April 20, 2010. Thailand toughened its stance against anti-government protesters, warning security forces would use live ammunition and tear gas in any fresh clashes. AFP PHOTO / Nicolas ASFOURI (NICOLAS ASFOURI/AFP/Getty Images)

And I like this banner: We have democracy already, you idiots. Although I’m not sure if writing in English is too effective.

Pro-government supporters hold banners and shout slogans asking for an end to the protests on Tuesday, April 20, 2010 in Bangkok, Thailand. Soldiers in full combat gear guarded other nearby sections of the capital in an increasingly tense standoff that has shuttered 5-star hotels and glitzy shopping malls and threatens to damage Thailand’s sunny image as a tourist paradise. (AP Photo/Wong Maye-E)