Posts by Catherine Hayday

  • In the Blog

    “Make sure you eat. Food is good. Eat, eat, eat.”

    April 28th, 2008     by Catherine Hayday     Comments

    I love using free weights – so I completely enjoyed seeing Sitara Hewitt on CBC’s Steven and Chris (I’ll blow right past the overall quality or not of this show) talking about weightlifting. As well as displaying some refreshingly healthy attitudes to food and exercise. Check it out here. … READ MORE

  • In the Blog

    The Ontology of Video Game Design

    April 23rd, 2008     by Catherine Hayday     Comments

    Or “you can’t get ye flask”. I’m in the middle of moving, so while I box my worldly possessions, I’m putting up some excerpts from Randy Smith’s column in the May 2008 issue of Edge Magazine. It’s an excellent article, and if it wasn’t a bit too long (and a bit too legally dodgey) I’d post it here wholesale. It’s a then-and-now analysis on the dominant paradigms of video game design (and, y’know, life). Randy makes his … READ MORE

  • In the Blog

    The Taste of Tea

    April 18th, 2008     by Catherine Hayday     Comments

    A couple of weekends ago our good buddy Mike came over for movie night. Which consisted of I Am Legend + The Taste of Tea. I only really wanted to see I Am Legend (on Blu-ray) for the CG scenes of empty New York. Which it delivered on. It didn’t deliver on much else. (Solid performance by Sam though – pictured at left). The clear winner was The Taste of Tea. Mike … READ MORE

  • In the Blog

    A Few Good Games

    April 9th, 2008     by Catherine Hayday     Comments

    Videogames are the dead horse that we flog over social dysfunction. Kid punched another kid? Videogames. Kid didn’t finish homework? Videogames. Whether there’s a connection there or not, videogames are not one thing any more than “movies” or “books” are. Absolutely, there are abominably crap videogames. And for the same reasons I will never see a Saw movie, I will never play Manhunt. I’m not an apologist for the industry – … READ MORE

  • In the Blog

    Alarmist much?

    March 28th, 2008     by Catherine Hayday     Comments

    Woman told to remove nipple ring, with pliers. … READ MORE

  • In the Blog

    Cycling Awareness Test

    March 27th, 2008     by Catherine Hayday     Comments

    A great example of when the right answer isn’t. Also, it’s funny. … READ MORE

  • In the Blog

    Videogames escape; run amok in the real world.

    March 26th, 2008     by Catherine Hayday     Comments

    I love videogames. I’ll talk about why and what I enjoy in bits and pieces as we go along. But here’s the short version of what I don’t like: Videogames, in North America at least, somehow got themselves treated as a special kind of media. Videogames, and people who play them, get referred to as a distinct subset in a way that doesn’t happen with other modes of entertainment. We don’t call … READ MORE

  • In the Blog

    U of O shuts down paper for misogyny

    March 20th, 2008     by Catherine Hayday     Comments

    The most recent issue of the Oral Otis, the University of Ottawa’s Engineering Students’ Society paper, featured misogynistic content. Again. The Bad Professor Kathryn Trevenen, with U of O’s School of Political Studies, “said the article was in such poor taste that she doesn’t think students should be paying for the newspaper out of their non-academic fees” (full article at the CBC). The article in question was an advice column which contained “graphic references to anal sex, … READ MORE

  • In the Blog

    Airbrushing anatomy away

    March 19th, 2008     by Catherine Hayday     Comments

    …or putting in a little extra. We all know now that just about any image of a woman on a poster, ad, billboard, or album cover has been (heavily) manipulated. Smoothed and cloned and lifted and trimmed. But it’s refreshing to know it in a tangible “look at that right there” way as opposed to a more hand-wavy ephemeral way. To that end, I give you Photoshop Disasters. It’s a site dedicated to posting and mocking any and … READ MORE

  • In the Blog

    Ch-ch-ch-changes

    March 14th, 2008     by Catherine Hayday     Comments

    What do Reality Bites, Lost in Translation, and Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon have in common? It’s alright, I’ll wait. … Yeah, okay, so not a whole lot (other than that I happen to have these all in my DVD collection). What they have in common is they’re all movies where I thought I knew how I felt about them/their characters. Then on rewatching them I had almost completely different reactions than I remembered. Take, for instance, Reality Bites: The great … READ MORE

  • In the Blog

    Another one bites the dust

    March 12th, 2008     by Catherine Hayday     Comments

    Hey team – inaugural Wired Wednesday post. w00t! And I’m kicking it off with the hugely sexy topic of… hi-def optical disc formats! No, come on, it’s gonna be good. I know, I should do all the shiny this week – when robots fall and Rock Band and Google 411 in Canada. And we’ll get there, I promise. For this week though, we’re going practical. Because there’s nothing more Shameless than walking into a … READ MORE

  • In the Blog

    The Yogurt Wars

    March 7th, 2008     by Catherine Hayday     Comments

    I’m pretty sure probiotics do good things for your digestion. Prebiotics too (prebiotics are the new probiotics, after all). But man do I dislike being “challenged” by my food. It must be exhausting to keep track of what all your foods are telling you to do. Only 4 days left to go on your dare with Metamucil. Wearing a red dress to show Becel you care about women’s heart health.* And now keeping track … READ MORE

  • In the Blog

    Goods 4 Girls: There’s Always Another Way

    March 6th, 2008     by Catherine Hayday     Comments

    About Goods 4 Girls: “You may have seen the commercials… the ones describing how girls in South Africa miss school when they have their period and how buying Tampax tampons will help them. There’s also a commercial for Always pads, with a similar message. … But what are the potential problems with donating disposable feminine hygiene products? … What would be a good alternative to help out these girls but without the environmental impact? … I started Goods 4 … READ MORE

  • In the Blog

    Say it with your hair

    February 28th, 2008     by Catherine Hayday     Comments

    While boots might still be made for walking, we’ve branched out to establish that “lips are for losing weight”, and the newest retasked body part – hair that “tells your story”. While at university, working on my smrts, I took a course in the History of Advertising. Where I was lucky enough to be exposed to Jean Kilbourne. Specifically Jean Kilbourne on advertising. And her expletively excellent book Deadly Persuasion (also released as … READ MORE

  • In the Blog

    Teh Future

    February 27th, 2008     by Catherine Hayday     Comments

    The other day I noticed that Shameless’ “Geek Chic” category is sadly underrepresented. Tech is important to me. I <3 tech. Poor little tech, not getting the love. Sometimes the line is blurry between the personal interests of one young feminist (<-me), and what might be interesting to young feminists everywhere. But when you get a great lead on some new (or overlooked) tech hawtness, one of the first things you do is share … READ MORE

  • In the Blog

    Hairspray (2007)

    February 15th, 2008     by Catherine Hayday     Comments

    I’m not big into high school movies, or song and dance movies, or remakes. So was Hairspray ever fighting an uphill battle with me. A friend of mine gets teen swag and sent some my way, in the form of the 2007 Hairspray DVD. I probably wouldn’t have seen it otherwise, which is good and bad, because if I hadn’t seen it I wouldn’t have all these damn songs in my head. It’s… fine. … READ MORE

  • In the Blog

    Just another day at the office

    February 14th, 2008     by Catherine Hayday     Comments

    Where do you work, and how do you dress for your job? Pick a sector, and I’ve probably spent some time working in a cube in it. Non-profits, government, tech, education, marketing, and back to non-profits and government a few more times. With the exception of tech (mmm graphic print tees, jeans and sneakers), my jobs have usually come with an implied business casual dress code. A sometimes tricky category, especially if you are trying … READ MORE

  • In the Blog

    Dead Bra Day

    February 6th, 2008     by Catherine Hayday     Comments

    Secrets From Your Sister, a great Toronto indie bra place and longtime Shameless supporter, is having a 20% off sale next Wednesday, February 13th. There’s a catch. But it’s a cool catch. The 20% off sale is for “Dead Bra Day”. You just bring in that bra that has never fit you right, has straps that are too skinny, too thick, too pink for your liking, and let it be repurposed, refurbished, and strapped on to support … READ MORE

  • In the Blog

    If your baseboard heater is already on 11…

    February 1st, 2008     by Catherine Hayday     Comments

    Adria Vasil’s always eco-practical column over at NOW magazine really spoke to me today. As I sit here in my two pairs of socks, two hoodies, long-johns and sweatpants – beside my completely cranked baseboard heater. Most Toronto rentals I’ve been in have baseboard heaters. So, on this chilly snowy day, here are Adria’s tips on how to get your baseboard heaters to work with you, not against you (and your wallet). < blockquote>Q My apartment … READ MORE

  • In the Blog

    “I hate you” should make you happy

    January 24th, 2008     by Catherine Hayday     Comments

    It would be sadly easy to make a habit of this. Posting the everyday things like weight-loss lipstick and security protocol videos that make me go “ew” for reasons that are so self-evident it’d almost be painful to write them out. This commercial, from Quiznos, has been running over and over and over (and over) on my limited selection of non-cable channels. If I could pay to make it stop, I would. If … READ MORE

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