I say it's spring, and I say the hell with it...

No cat, no cradle.

If the shoefitis, wear it

For weeks I saw them dangling there, high above the intersection. But I had no idea why anyone would bother to toss not one but two pairs of sneakers onto the power lines that criss-cross Lisgar and O'Connor streets.

Then I stumbled across the term for this footwear phenomenon: shoefiti. It seems the dangling running shoes have been spotted everywhere from Australia to Poland.

What's it all about? Well, theories abound, from reassuringly innocent to downright disconcerting. Could be kids messing around. A sign that crack cocaine is sold in the neighbourhood. A gangland ritual to celebrate a murder. An act of dissent against government. Or, the most obvious explanation, a vivid illustration of New Wave polysemy.

And then there's this outlandish notion from Eric Nygren, quoted in the Indiana Daily Student. "It's pretty simple," Nygren said. "It's a stupid college thing people do. Somebody probably got drunk and thought it would be fun."

Publog Research: Preston Hardware

Fieldwork by the Research Director and Coyote, Easter Weekend 2007:

Pluses (Features to emulate)

• FREE! ESPRESSO! SHOTS!

Minuses (Features to Avoid)

• FREE! ESPRESSO! SHOTS! TO! COYOTES!

Summary: I realize we normally don't PuBlog non-food establishments, but the Research Director asked if I wanted to ride shotgun in the Bookmobile with him on a consumer survey. And he offered to roll down the window so that I could hang my tongue in the breeze. Really, he had me at "ride". As usual, I digress.

A serious round of research found us at Ottawa's shrine to hardcore hardware cognoscenti, viewing an automated espresso apparatus selling for many thousands of bonez. At the tap of a touchscreen, this gizmo automatically grinds fresh coffee onboard, tamps it into the filter and pumps espresso at a precise temperature and pressure into two demitasses, all untouched by human hands. (Huh. I can do that last part for a lot cheaper. Uh, I digress again.)

The knowledgeable salesperson explained these complexities, then showed it off and gave us FREE! ESPRESSO! SHOTS! -- This was coffee of a velvety blackness to make roadside Elvis painting hawkers weep, with perfect crema and a mellow richness that seems to be taken for granted at every little store along Preston Street, even as certain international chains that shall remain nameless sometimes struggle for the same effect. Gotta love Little Italy...

Ummmm. But. Somebody shoulda warned the sales guy. And the Research Director. I can't think who would be responsible for that.... The RD placed my FREE! ESPRESSO! SHOT! on the floor so I could slurp it. I slurped. I ran in circles. I peed on the Research Director's immaculately polished footwear. (Missed the pant leg, though. I'm proud of that.) Close readers of my solo project may recall that someone inadvertantly let me snarf down too much chocolate about a year ago. And that I reacted predictably badly. People, again: you should never feed a dog chocolate. Even a two-thousand-year-old, semimythical one. Apparently, we must add espresso to this list, too.

Moral: Free espression carries with it great responsibility...

Exploring Outer Space without a Spaceship

With the serious shortage of positions for trained space pirates, I've been forced to find creative ways to explore strange new worlds. This weekend, Coyote joined me on an inner solar system tour of Ottawa.

Lounging on Mercury

We started Friday evening with a voyage to the Mercury Lounge.

We arrived as the inhabitants were engaged in what is apparently a regular celebration they call World Beats and Eats.

Formalities at the entry port were easy, we simply exchanged currency and received a stamp. As we had no passports, they stamped our wrists.

Coyote and I pondered why the females were generally dressed much better than the males. Coyote said he'd heard that females dress for each other. I observed that I had no proof of this, but suspected it might be true of the males as well. Maybe the males deliberately dress like slobs so that other males will not assume they are gay and beat them up.

The Coffee Planet

Our next stop was Planet Coffee. All the natives were consuming a tasty warm beverage and we did our best to blend in. Coyote also ordered a lemon square (apparently sometimes a canine is not in the mood for biscotti). I ordered a Nanaimo bar. It turned out they don't have Nanaimo bars and the young woman taking our orders thought I also ordered a lemon square. This meant that I got a cheesecake square for the lower price of a lemon square.

While Coyote and I enjoyed our beverages, I teased him about his cousin Adrian in Chicago. Bad enough he was discovered and captured, but in a Quiznos!

Planet Ink and Universal Tattoo

Our orbital path home took us past both Planet Ink and Universal Tattoo, but we decided to save our explorations there for another day. Coyote seems to be particularly concerned that every part of his anatomy is heading towards flabby sag and therefore unsuitable for permanent markings.

Breakfast on Venus

Saturday morning the Research Director joined us at the Café Venus for a morning repast. We all enjoyed our breakfasts. I had to ask Coyote what type of meat he'd been given because I didn't recognize it. "Sausage," he told me. As a space explorer, you have to be prepared for this sort of thing: sausage that is flat and rectangular.

We had a wide-ranging discussion. The others were intrigued by my discovery of the PlentyofFish dating service where they make the users do a Meyers-Briggs personality test before they let them search for potential mates. As an ENTJ, this makes excellent sense to me. God forbid I should wind up with and E or I SFP.

Another feature of the PlentyofFish that we all found amusing is that people can specify criteria that others must meet in order to send them messages and one that women seem to often choose is "Must not have messaged users looking for intimate encounters or sex."

Apparently, these women live on a planet where they have a chance of finding a man who has never been interested in casual sex.

[The Ottawa Solar System Map]