Personal Weblog - Viewing Archives: January 2003

Halabja

A War Crime or an Act of War? Here's an article discussing the gassing of civilians in Iraq, one of the key points in Bush's state of the union speech. You decide.

Posted by Michael Aivaliotis at 10:31 PM | Comments (0)

New MT

It looks like a new version of Movable Type is around the corner. I can't wait. It's in my nature to always want the latest and greatest. It adds some improvements to entry formatting, goody goody. Since my entire site is built on the MT engine, I'm always watching the latest developments closely.

Posted by Michael Aivaliotis at 12:51 AM | Comments (0)

Turkey to grab a chunk?

Since it has obviously been decided by the US that the invasion of Iraq is a given, let's look at what will happen the day after.

It looks as though my predictions are becoming reality. Turkey is not going to sit by and watch the US liberate a huge Kurdish population which presently lives in IRAQ. They perceive this as a threat and will act (with invasion) accordingly. Obviously oil is the main issue. The US in the meantime wants Turkish cooperation and is willing to pay for it.

Posted by Michael Aivaliotis at 12:14 AM | Comments (0)

Girl Culture

Girl Culture is a photo essay with interviews about how teenage girls struggle with body image in todays society. I dread when it's my daughter's turn.

Posted by Michael Aivaliotis at 09:55 PM | Comments (0)

Lord of the Rings movie this Sunday

Trying to plan to see The Lord of the Rings this Sunday with my brother and his wife. I have a feeling it will not come to fruition. It's hard to plan an outing when you have children because of the babysitter planning. I must see this movie since I thing I'm the only one on this planet that hasn't seen it yet.

Posted by Michael Aivaliotis at 01:50 AM | Comments (0)

Child Vomit

I know that reading the title of this entry is not very pleasing, but holding the pail with one hand and your nose with the other is even worse. Thus began the week with Jasmine sick with some sort of stomach bug on Sunday. She was puking all night and it broke my heart to see her go through it. The first time it happened we had to change all the bed coverings since it happened in bed. After that I tried to go to bed but was woken up a few hours later with another incident. Second bed sheet change later and at this point the house is smelling... we have lots of laundry this week. By Monday she was feeling slightly better but no school for her.

We have this reference book on childcare (doesn't every parent?) but it only went up to age 5 and Jasmine was 6. Oh well, I decided to risk it and read up on vomiting. If you try to read into every detail of this type of book then you can get very panicky very fast. You'd end up in the emergency room every week. Looked up Vomiting in the index and I noticed the sub-index had the word "projectile". Hmmm, I don't recall Jasmine's head spinning around and the bed elevating so I guess it's not "projectile". I should double-check in any case.

Lets see: Pyloric Stenosis
This is a congenital condition in which the valve leading from the stomach into thr intestines won't open up enough to let food through. As a result, the baby may vomit with force, a phenomenon known as projectile vomiting.

Ok I guess it's not that. Further digging and I realize that it's only serious if acompanied by fever and if it lasts for more than 24hrs. While I was reading Merlyn decided to turn to another source of information, the new provincial telephone health system called Telehealth Ontario. What a crock of shit this is. I can't believe our tax dollars are going into this bloody thing. It's just a bunch of nurses with no decision making capabilities saying it may be this or it may be that and just to be on the safe side... go to a doctor. I think the whole purpose is to prevent people from flooding our already crowded emergency rooms. This is the second time we've called them for help and the response has been pretty useless.

Tuesday afternoon rolls around and it's Alexander's turn to increase the laundry load, only one bed cover change for him though. Twentyfour hours later and he's back to normal now. Merlyn and I hadn't been up in the middle of the night for a long time. We've forgotten what it was like to have sleepless nights with babies crying, diapers that needed changing, bottle feeding... This latest vomit fest reminded us how vulnerable and needfull the kids still are.

Ok I promise to stop talking about pukeing. Well, until absolutely necessary.

Posted by Michael Aivaliotis at 02:35 AM | Comments (0)

Blogwhore

Well, the second Blogwhore game is now under way. This is like a last man standing type game but with bloggers as participants. Our Canadian representation this round is our very own GTA Blogger Liz. Good luck Liz! Kick some Blogwhore ass.

Posted by Michael Aivaliotis at 11:28 PM | Comments (1)

Blinded by the Light

I was 9 years old when this song came out. I think this is the age when you start remembering songs. Now, whenever it plays I get memories of lying in my bed late at night with the clock radio playing at my bedside.

Continue reading "Blinded by the Light"»
Posted by Michael Aivaliotis at 10:49 PM | Comments (0)

Spanakopitta

Great vegatarian dish!

The other day I made Spanakopitta which literally means spinach pie. It's made with spinach, feta cheese and filo (feelo) pastry. I make it every now and then especially for my children who love to eat it. Yes, you heard right. They can't get enough of it. If you want your little ones to eat their greens then give this dish a try. It doesn't take too long to prepare and is relatively easy to make. It makes a great side dish for any meal. If you've never tried it before, next time you go to Greek town, ask for a slice. I make it in huge quantities so it can last at least 2-3 days in our house.

Continue reading "Spanakopitta"»
Posted by Michael Aivaliotis at 09:31 PM | Comments (7)

Icon Wars

Icon Wars is what happens in Windows XP after you go to bed.

Posted by Michael Aivaliotis at 09:27 PM | Comments (0)

Jesus Hates You

Hey girls! Jesus is looking for a date!

Posted by Michael Aivaliotis at 07:52 PM | Comments (0)

Crazy Drivers

A third of the way into my work day and I get a phone call from home. "God bless our soul" my wife says in a controlled voice. "what happened?" I question, thinking that something extremely terrible happened. My first thought went to the kids. She continues to describe how a maniac driver zoomed an inch front of them and almost wiped out my whole family. I just sit there listening to all of this, stunned. I just think how different it could have been had they been walking just a little bit faster. Both kids started crying after the incident. The driver slowed down after the incident but quickly sped off after glancing back... One thing that really upsets me is that it was a controlled intersection AND there was a crossing guard on duty AND it was during lunch where many kids were in the area. If Merlyn hadn't been holding both kids hands I don't know what would have happened.

This bloody crossing guard is definitely not doing her job. I mean she stands on the sidewalk and watches people as they cross the street. Hello! you're suppose to be going into the middle of the road with your stop sign raised. Everyone who's crossed there, including Merlyn, has taken up the issue with her. "Are you my boss?" she consistently asks. She claims her "boss" only told her to cross children not accompanied by an adult. This seems very strange to me. I could bet you this much, if the crossing guard was there in the middle of the road with her stop sign up, that car would think twice to turn into the intersection.

Posted by Michael Aivaliotis at 09:10 PM | Comments (0)

Do You Smoke?

If you are a smoker please view this. (real meadia player required).

Posted by Michael Aivaliotis at 11:57 PM | Comments (0)

I coexist in a blogger world with this?

I'm feeling really good about my website and about blogging in general now. Many exciting blogs have emerged like the William Gibson blog and several authors and journalists have blogs of their own. I feel like i'm in good company, so far the blogs i've been reading are thoughtful intelligent and have opened my mind to free thought. But a few minutes ago I came across this entry:

ummmmmmm….. no schooooolllll….. woohOO!! Thanks to martin LUTHER KING JUNIOR! Hahaa..!!! ermm so yeahh… now I’m getting EXCITEDERRR and EXCITEDERRRRr till my brozzyyy comeeeezzz backkk.. oh the JOY!!! Yeah00!! I HOPE HOPE HOPEEEE he gets PSP 7. my dad told him *specially* to get iitt for me.. ahh makes me feel soo special. Hahaaaaa!! yEAh00!! Andd maaz is all excited that ermmm.. he’s gonna get his remote control car.. hez weird.. INSANE!! hhhahaaaa…..

so howz life fine? Yeah same hereee.. of coursee!!! Umm.. so my broz friendz are alllll crazyyyy…. They don’t GET THE MESSAGE THAT it ain’t HAMZA or maaZZZZZzz… grrrrrrr….. I END up bothering them and they get reaaaalllll scared. Haha weirdoz. And then when they ask my brozas my broz say “NO! it wasn’t mee.. prolly my sis” and then the nex time they IM they stillllllll say who is this? And I gettt annooYEEDDD so I say hackerz scammerz, etccc and they say, “no I kno you are hamza’s sister” SO I GET REAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLlllllll maaaaaaaddddd and say THEN WHY DID YA ASKKKK?????? Haha they say ok and they be quiet. Good riddanceeee.!! okay so I think I’m gonna go insaneeee.. buh byeee foreverrrrr and neveeer

ps: tagboard is down.SAAAAADDDD FOREVEEEEERRRRR!! no fyaIRRR! AIIIII!! *sobz and runz away*

If you read further into the above bloggers posts you'll read about their desire to become an author when they grow up. Oh yes, i'm not joking.

Posted by Michael Aivaliotis at 08:54 PM | Comments (1)

Small World?

So my 6 year old daughter and I are watching TV and she turns to me all of a sudden and says "Daddy, it's a small world and and we live in a big city". I look at her and say "what?". Then she goes on and asks "If the world is round and we're on the outside then why don't we fall off?"...

Posted by Michael Aivaliotis at 08:44 PM | Comments (0)

Mike Spanakis

Like anything on the web you never remember how you come across a link. Web surfing is very much like the thought process that goes on inside the brain. If you just sit there and start thinking about something you find yourself jumping from one idea to another and something in one thought triggers the brain to jump to something totally different. These various trains of thought flow from one memory link to another, much like the internet. In the end you find yourself thinking "aha"! Rarely do you backtrack your mind and analyze what each individual thought combined ended up to that aha moment.

Mike Spanakis is such a link like many others I come across that puts my life in focus and highlights parts of my past that I sometimes forget were even there. Mike is just a kid living in Greece on the island of Crete. To anyone else it's a curiosity but to me it's a mirror. I lived in Greece for eight years. I remember doing all those things he mentions on his website, going to the beach, checking out tourists, partying, going to school with all my wacky freinds... Like him, I was born in another country and always had to read another language (in may case english) so I wouldn't forget it. I spent my last two years in Greece on that same island, Crete, studying electronics at a technical college about a 2 hour drive from where Mike lives. Those were some of the most fun times in my life. If I could go back and visit myself and tell myself something it would be this: "stay where you are".

Well, I'm here now and can't go back, that's how it is. I'm happy with the way things are now. I couldn't have imagined back then that I would now have 2 beautiful children that i would sacrifice anything for.

I miss Greece very much.

Posted by Michael Aivaliotis at 10:40 PM | Comments (4)

Photoblog

I finally put some images to my photoblog.

Posted by Michael Aivaliotis at 02:17 AM | Comments (0)

Sean Cullen

Ok, I've been hyped up for days in anticipation of the Sean Cullen show which aired tonight on CBC. When I first saw him as part of Corky and the juicepigs I thought that there is something there worth looking into. Having his own TV show must be great with his comedic talent.

I feel sorry for my wife. I forced her to sit through 30 minutes of torture and pain. "Canadian comedy is boring" she exclaimed. "Yes most CBC shows are boring but I think they have a winner here" I countered. Boy, was I wrong. Right off the bat, he's wearing a three piece suite through the whole show, he sticks out against the menagerie of other characters who he plays with. Next, I hate when the audience chimes in unison to every request by the teleprompter. For example, when a character comes on stage, Sean would say "look it's Betty" and the audience would say: "hello Betty!!", very tackie. I don't care about the audience, I don't want to know about the audience.

Another thing I find is that Sean has a facination with dwarfs. I guess the word dwarfs is suppose to make people laugh? Another popular item, sausages. Yes, he sings funny twisted songs and makes sure his eyes look bug-eyed all the time but I'm sorry Sean it just doesn't work well in the variety format. I think Sean Cullen is a great talent but he has to find the right outlet. I don't think this is it. There are other such Canadian talents that just haven't found the right outlet. Look at what happened to Tom Green, he was a twisted channel 10 hit but when he went to the movies he bombed.

Posted by Michael Aivaliotis at 11:11 PM | Comments (1)

First Mirrorproject Entry

I entered the mirrorproject. You can't call yourself a blogger and NOT be in the mirrorproject. When I first stumbled across this link on someone's web site I thought it was something to do with a network server which was a mirror of data, like a backup. It just goes to show how entrenched I am in the tech jargon... what happened to that creative guy inside me? The one that wanted to be an architect? Anyway, here's my first submission.

Link to Mirrorproject entry

Posted by Michael Aivaliotis at 11:20 PM | Comments (0)

Were have I been surfing?

Going through my links of the past few days I found this which is a collection of posters based on WWII propaganda posters with a twist. The above is a sample that is very relavent to the present hearing for the US pilots who bombed and killed 4 Canadian soldiers in Afganistan...

Continue reading "Were have I been surfing?"»
Posted by Michael Aivaliotis at 09:52 PM | Comments (0)

Chili

Can you guess what I made today?

Back when I was single, alone (and happy), I used to make chili. I got sick of eating Kraft dinners all the time so this was my attempt at "real" cooking. I mean I could make breakfast like scrambled eggs and stuff but this was different, exotic - and easy! I don't know what it was, maybe the need to go back to that time period, but I got a craving for it again. If you want to try it it's really simple but be warned that it is spicy so if you don't like that kinda stuff stay away. Personally I LOVE hot foods, bring it on. My favorite hot food is spicy roti but that's a different story. Here we're talking chili and lots of it...

Continue reading "Chili"»
Posted by Michael Aivaliotis at 11:30 AM | Comments (0)

Kitty Christmas

I sit here petting our little seven week old feline fuzz ball, her purring reverberating throughout her tiny little body. The memory of the other cat that could have taken her place still lingers in my mind...

Continue reading "Kitty Christmas"»
Posted by Michael Aivaliotis at 06:54 PM | Comments (3)

William Gibson

William Gibson has his own blog. That's nice, now we won't be able to shut him up. Admittingly, I will bookmark him and frequent his site to read the latest installment of his mind. So far however I am surprised by his attitude towards technology. I mean, this may be a narrow view of the man since I never obsess about an author like some do. Before this I never knew what kind of person he was or what his childhood was like. One thing I didn't expect to read was that a science fiction writer, and especially one who invented the word "cyberspace" would not read books on a PDA. Well, why not Mr. "Johnny Mnemonic"? Yes, the paper feels nicer, but is that it?

I only read one of his books (the one we all read) but now I think I will delve a little deeper and go through them all. I need to read more. Well, I read but not books per say. I read websites and blogs, that's not the same. I can't read a book on the net or my laptop for that matter because it's too much to flip open or lug around. One thing I know however is that I will read his books on a PDA. Why? Because I can download them in an instant, read them, store multiple books and it's small enough to carry around. No, I won't pirate them, I will buy them.

So, Mr. Gibson, i'm sorry... but I'm a technology guy, I have to have and use it...

Posted by Michael Aivaliotis at 10:56 PM | Comments (0)

clones

We live in a world where copying a human is legal but copying a CD is prosecuted.

"Clonaid - a company linked the Raelians, a Quebec-based religious group - claims to have produced the world's first human clone. The company says that Eve, a baby girl born Dec. 26, is a genetic clone of her 31-year-old American mother."

Posted by Michael Aivaliotis at 08:32 PM | Comments (0)

Doing just fine

Every new year's eve is relatively uneventful for me. In the past I felt left out, not part of the "in" crowd. If I wasn't at an all night bash drinking it up and with a hundred other people claiming to be my friends, then I thought something was wrong with me. Cultural cliche's tell us that new years eve is a time for extreme cazyness, where we have to party because if we're stuck alone at home watching TV then that means we're social outcasts doomed to be alone for the rest of the year and possibly our life. Of course even if I wanted to be "normal" I couldn't. How can you go party with friends you don't have? That was how things went back then, seven times out of ten I spent it at home, staring at the TV. I watched new years eve count downs on every channel (US and Canadian)...

This new year's eve i'm staring up. Staring up at two frightened eyes of a young girl. A young girl who is hanging 20ft. off the ground with a harness strapped around her waist that apears to be made for a child many years older than her. She's stuck two thirds up the side of a rock climbing training wall. She's in what appears to be a dilemma. Do I give up and climb down, or do I show mom and dad that I'm made of more than they expect? "Go on, you can do it!", I yell at her from below. Inside of me, my gut says she will give up and be on the way down. I'm already preparing my speech about how it's ok and at least she tried and I'm proud of her anyway etc. Externally I was still smiling and could not show any disapproval, not even a flinch. She could read that.

She flipped her head back up and streched for a small simulated rock knob. A few inches was all it took and she was stepping 1, 2, 3... she made it to the top. The smile on her face. The free fall... that was nice. Hugs and kisses for the little 6 year old billy goat.

So, do I feel depressed and "left out" this new years eve? Not a chance. Funny thing is... I missed the count down... hmm, that's too bad I guess. Maybe next year.

Higher Ground Climbing Gym

Posted by Michael Aivaliotis at 11:32 PM | Comments (0)