Beyond my operating system, there are a few utilities my workflow really can’t live without. Google Calendar, Firebug, Simplenote, Notational Velocity, Google Reader, TextMate, Synergy. I’ve written about most of these. And then there’s Xmarks, the cross-platform, cross-browser, cloud-based bookmarks synchronization app we’ve all come to know and love. It’ll be discontinued as of January […]
Posts Categorized: Complaint Department
In which Catherine is even more conspicuous than usual
“Wow, Catherine! You’re wearing a sling and everything!” Yeah! I tore my rotator cuff1 doing extreme sports. “It’s a good thing you wore your loosest possible jeans to work then, isn’t it? Really tight ones would make going to the bathroom really, really difficult.” It sure would. Dammit. Yes, again. [↩]
Failed slogans: “Woodbridge: the wine that takes 2 hours to choke down”
So there I was, waiting to meet a friend for sushi, when she called to let me know she was running a little behind. What to do, what to do? Why hello, Liquor Store! This particular BC Liquor Store is located in Vancouver’s classiest shopping establishment, Kingsgate Mall. Home to the Worst Washroom in Canada,1 […]
Pride by any other name
As a quick aside, one argument I’ve heard about the Gay Pride Parade recently is that if its purpose as an activism tool has ended in North America, maybe it shouldn’t be called “Pride” anymore. Honestly though, we have virtually no holidays or traditions that make any sense when viewed from their original contexts. Seriously, […]
Blogathon 2009: Infographics, Part 1: Why the CBC sucks
Okay, this is something that has bugged me for a while. People who say “interactive” when they mean “hard to use” and “Flash scrollbars”. While otherwise a competent, irritatingly underfunded news organization, the CBC sucks at infographics. Most of their “interactive features” are just text that requires a lot of clicking and scrolling to read. […]
Won’t you be my neighbour?
For the past few years, I’ve lived in a Vancouver Special, chopped up into a few suites. My entire street, and in fact, most of my neighbourhood is like that, I suspect. It’s the sort of apartment realtors and landlords describe as “cozy”, but it’s decent. I know a few of my neighbours: There’s the […]
Adventures in self-checkout UI
Part of being me is that basically every possible task I decide to undertake in my day-to-day life is completely unaccounted for by city planners, architects, designers, doctors, software engineers, and so on. Sometimes, this is simply due to the fact that I am tall[1], as in the case of the face-level wall sconce mounted […]
A friendly neighbourhood reminder
To whom it may concern: Firstly, I want to assure you I have nothing less than the utmost sympathy for what you are going through. I can certainly appreciate the sheer number of emotional and logistical challenges inherent in caring for a dog as large and as gravely ill as yours appears to be. On […]
Attention Catherine’s Neighbours:
Please do not mow your lawn in Vancouver in July. It’s dead. You’re just spraying dust into my kitchen window.