Kings don't kill babies, sharp pointy swords do

I am continually disappointed with the way news broadcasts prioritize stories. Stories that are important take a second to prolonged reporting of something sensationalized to the point of non-coverage. (This was especially prevalent in late 2001 to the point that TV news was no longer watchable.)

Today, a reporter cut off an environmental expert discussing the harms of drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge so that they could report on the recent trend of barbie butchery in childhood play. Now if they had added some sort of meaningful analysis about why I should care about tortured toys, be it Mattel's reaction or the impact on childhood development, that would be one thing. But nope. Just that Barbies are being mistreated.

They truncated the report about why we should care about the Porcupine Caribou, why the Representative from Alaska could get away with piggy-backing his unrelated ANWR-killing oil-drilling bill onto the defense spending bill, and why we should all cry a little on the inside for the triumph of six months worth of oil over thousands of species and pristine arctic beauty for what? To hear about the maiming, burning, torturing, and occasional microwaving of a 46-year old plastic symbol of lowered self-esteem?

Who knew, some part of me does like hugging trees.

1 exam and 6 days to go!

Exams and no TV make Sharon go something something

Go crazy?

Don't mind if I do.

That's why in the case of Studying v. Watching Simpsons Reruns Inc., [2005] 12 S.O.A. 15, the defendant's use of the following line made me laugh:

That D.U.I. is a She-U.I.

I think at some point I started to ponder how things fit into one's brain. mmm... Synapses

7 days!

Surreal space monkeys redefined

So I was at this place tonight for this thing and this octogenarian with whom I was conversing (about baths and Ireland, Yay 10 days!!!) gets completely distracted by a 16 or 17 year old in a kilt. She then proceeds to gush about guys in kilts. Apparently after WWII she and her mom went to see the troops on parade. When she saw the Scots marching with "their pipes and their kilts and sporen swaying" she decided that that was the only way she would ever go to war; apparently otherwise she'd pretend to play dead the second her foot touched foreign soil. The narrative was interrupted every time kilt-boy walked by and she stared and gawked.

Oddly, that was a lot less surreal than the conversation with a delightful 40-year old.

I think these exam things are making me loopy.

Why are you dreaming of a White Christmas?

It has been beautiful in Edmonton for the last few days. The annoying minus sign that my car had been displaying in front of the double digit temperature has disappeared, I've learned that if one is too lazy to shovel the driveway the snow will melt off on its own, and my winter coat is once again on where it belongs - deep inside my closet.

As I walked outside the other day, I remarked about the general amicableness of the unseasonably warm weather: Nice weather, eh?

To which my friend responded: "Unpleasantly so."

What??? How is 8 degrees Celsius in the middle of December unpleasant?

"The snow is all melting away and it will ruin Christmas."

What is the North American obsession with having a white Christmas? In most of the world (especially the parts where people actually should be living, rather than this winter hinterland), there is no snow during Christmas and there is especially no snow in Bethlehem. Obviously, snow is not an integral part of Christmas. In fact, the thought of living in a sub-zero environment might lead people to be increasingly grumpy. One's Christmas spirit suffers when your car won't start, it takes hours to drive anywhere, and you can rarely feel your fingers and toes. So why do people want a white Christmas? Let's leave the snow for penguins and polar bears and crazy explorers that end up dying or eating each other.

Although, in the US, church groups are starting to boycott companies that wish people a happy holidays instead of a Merry Christmas, because they now seem to support the commercialization of Christmas that they had once fought so vehemently. Perhaps the integral elements of the holiday are quickly changing and perhaps in North America people cannot enjoy the thought of gathering around a garishly decorated tree without the presence of snow outside.

Either way, the nicer weather makes for a nicer Channukah.

Only 15 more days til Dublin!!!

Kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, species - these are the hierarchy

I think I've been in law school too long.

I have started to classify people as being pre-charter or post-charter.

I am discriminating between them based on this distinction.

The irony is delicious.

*yawn*

I miss nap time.

Alien stream of consciousness

I wonder how many times a day someone googles "proof of aliens" or "proof that aliens exist" or some similar phrase. If they want proof, they should attend a bridal shower.

Bridal showers don't make sense. You already get the couple a wedding gift (fair enough, weddings tend to be big events/milestones/celebrations/reasons to give gifts), you may even get them an engagement gift (ok, so there's nothing wrong with rewarding people for agreeing to a commitment that statistically is 50% likely to fail), but a bridal shower gift? How many gifts can you get someone for one event? Does the bride really need to be showered with gifts yet again? And how much more can people be joyful for two people they don't even really know? Stupid Hallmark. Yes that's right, I blame Hallmark.

I think I'd be a lot less mad at Hallmark if they created cards for events that are more essential for the fundamental underpinnings of a democratic society, rather than silly unnecessary events like bridal showers.

Imagine if Hallmark made an election line of cards like "happy voting day" or "happy election campaign season" cards, or "at least you get to vote" cards, or "my condolences for the choice of candidates you have this year" cards. I could definitely use a few of those, poor Calgary-West.

I guess the problem with this round of federal elections is that we still have to vote for one of the current parties. Would it be wrong to vote on some arbitrary aspect of the candidates, like shoe size or hair colour or something? At least that way I won't have any expectations for the resulting parliament.

Time to invent a time machine

I wish I could somehow take the time I spent procrastinating a few weeks ago and insert it into my day right now. If everyone could decide where to insert idle time, time in general could be allocated so much more efficiently. And efficiency is a good thing. Not as good as chocolate or excel or leaving for Ireland in 25 days, but still a good thing.

It really would be awesome to get to sleep and to finish my work properly.

Now if only I could take the few minutes I spent on this post and somehow reinsert them in about an hour when I'm tireder and still not done.

Ravenous rabid rabbits

Was the rabbit at the end of Monty Python and the Holy Grail a vampire bunny, a were-rabbit, or just some sort of aggressive ravenous rabid rabbit?

1. Being really tired can impair one's realization of double entendre.
2. One should not buy shoes that are a half size too large. However, it does make them easier to throw at people.
3. It can take more time to recover from a weekend than a week of classes.
4. Throwing big chunks of granite at each other is a good way to relax.
5. Overtime Grey Cup victories are awesome.

Penguin Geneology

Interesting factoid of the day: Ponko the penguin is a facsimile of the penguin toy that belonged to the photographer Herbert Ponting who went to Antarctica with Captain Scott (after whom the Scott Polar Institute was named).

Flapping my wings but I still can't fly

My best friend is studying in Cambridge.

For Halloween she carved a pumpkin and named it Rodney. Apparently that is the name of a rather flamboyant TV show character and her co-carver re-named the pumpkin Bruce. (Apparently Halloween isn't as celebrated in the old world like it is here in the new world.)

She is studying polar studies at the Scott Polar Institute.
(She's really smart.)
She sent me a penguin named Ponko.
He's cute and smells like soap.
He isn't very adversarial, so he isn't debating at Hugill like Bismarck did.
But he is very soft and huggable and against demanding journalists to reveal their sources.

I miss you Tinna!

In other news, my nonagenarian grandmother volunteered to come along to Ireland if anyone needs an extra judge.

Less than four months until St. Patrick's Day

Christmas themed commercials start airing right after the back to school rush.
Valentine's specials are promoted before boxing day sales even die down, followed promptly by preparation for Easter.
Then there's the summer marketing blitz, then the back to school season, and we're back to the Christmas campaign.

Amidst this frenzy of consumerism and Christmas Carols, people don't seem to get a break to sit back and relax (and listen to Channukah songs).

Now while I hate to crowd the calendar, I think that it's time that people realize that St. Patrick's day, everyone's favourite Irish holiday, is on the horizon and fast approaching. Less than a third of the year to prepare! People start panicking about Christmas shopping with more time to spare. So in the spirit of preparing for St. Patrick's day, I think people should start preparing by drinking more beer.

Or by going to Ireland. (Yay! Leaving in 1 month and 3 days.)
And visiting the Guinness Factory.

I hear that it's a gorgeous country. According to one travel guide, Cork is 17 shades of green, none of which are jaded.

Dysfunctional semi-permeable membrane

You know what's stupid?

The fact that the US keeps finding ways to ban (or limit) anything Canadian from going south of the border. Except fossil fuels.

In news from the other side of the world, wouldn't it be cool to be nicknamed "the Bulldozer"?

Putting all the eggs in one basket

I wish people bickered less.

If they had cookies in their mouths they wouldn't be able to bicker. If they did, they'd spray people with cookie bits, which would be a waste of perfectly good cookie particles.

Cookie Conundrum

I've been told I'm a brat.

When presented with a container of cookies, containing some whole cookies and some broken pieces, I'll take one of the whole cookies, even if I only want a small piece and end up breaking it off (leaving more cookie pieces).

But it's not my fault! Whole cookies taste better than cookie pieces. (Although cookie pieces still taste better than nothing at all, which tastes better than broccoli.)

I think it's because the cookie fragments increase the surface area to volume ratio, increasing the rate of loss of fresh-cookie-yumminess (a proper scientific term, of course).

I also think that more people should bake and share cookies. How would I go about lobbying to get a date set to national cookie day?

Politically Incorrect

Inspired by a comment questioning the name of Edmonton's CFL team (The Edmonton Eskimos), I realized that this rant against the increased prominence of political correctness is long overdue.

There are several terms that are loaded with negative stereotypes that lead to marginalization and perpetuate a negative stigma. Many of those terms are quite prominent in older TV shows and books because at the time they were deemed acceptable. I think that in general the trend to decrease the common place nature of words that have derogatory connotations is a good one.

Most of these aforementioned terms are deemed politically incorrect by modern standards. (Most of these words tended to be racially charged.) However, recently there has been a trend towards making everything politically correct and the PC movement has really gone to far. (This may or may not coincide with a bunch of womyn started whining and now everything is bad.) Currently, almost any adjective is technically politically incorrect:

-people aren't celebrating Christmas, they're enjoying the holiday season (fair enough, yay religious inclusively);
-people aren't mailmen or chairmen, they're letter carriers and chairpersons (ok, so gender neutrality isn't terrible);
-people aren't "The elderly" or "Old people", they're "seniors" or "older people" (this is getting silly);
-people aren't juvenile delinquents, they're troubled youth or children at risk (really!);
-people aren't from Macau or Taiwan, they're from "Greater China" (less politically charged but I think it's more offensive);
-people aren't short, they're vertically challenged (this is too much);
-people in Britain aren't failing exams, they're deferring success (wtf?);
-people aren't stupid, they're a freakin' pain in the ass (ok that's a truism).

I think that this over-application of political correctness can be best illustrated with an example from the Simpsons (yay Simpsons):

"Pizza day will now be known as Italian American Sauce Bread day."

There needs to be a balance between preventing the perpetuation of negative stereotypes and being able to call a spade a spade. But until then, I shall continue to be politically incorrect by cheering for the Eskimos (eating my earlier words) and getting mad at people who call ombudsmen ombudspersons (or ombuddies).

Saturday Nights Live

Saturday nights are awesome. There is the default presumption that nothing productive will be done that night, and there is no expectation to do anything the next morning.

Last Saturday night, I played poker for the first time in my life. I understand the game, I've seen it played before, however, I had never had the opportunity to play. I was part of an 8-player poker game that kept me out well into Sunday morning, and it was Fantastic. There also appears to be some sort of poker-competency in my genes; alternately I had some wicked beginners luck, because somehow I won.

This Saturday night, I was watching the Toronto-Montreal hockey game. I was getting really sick of the fact that most of the rinks in the league still read "Thank You Fans" in mid-November. We get the point, the NHL apologizes that it wasn't on the air last year, because it meant we had to watch stupid TV shows or lesser sports games and the NHL lost a lot of revenue. But it's freakin' November, stop "thanking" us already. Fortunately, in Montreal they share my sentiment, and they got rid of the icy thank you note. Now if only they could've beaten the Leafs.

As well, tomorrow is one of three CFL games that is worth watching in the year. And Edmonton cannot possibly be that crappy two games in a row, right?

I was brain-dead, locked out, numb, not up to speed

In October I spent 3 consecutive weekends on 3 out of town trips. Vancouver, Vancouver, Calgary.

I love returning home to my own bed.

Best quote of the last weekend:

"There's a difference between cuddling and huddling." -Alan

It was a good enough line for him to be attacked by a group of girls.

He Said... She said...

1.
She: *sticks out tongue*

He: What was the tongue for?

She: I bet you've never asked a girl that before.

He:

2.
He: I'm looking for a quiet place to study.

She: How about the library?

He: That's too much of a keener thing to do.

She: So is studying over lunch hour. If you're going to be a keener, you had best go all the way.

He: But...

She: You're a guy, I bet you've never said no to going all the way before.

He:

Absolution

If you put absolute value brackets around a person, will that mean they will no longer have any negativity? If so, does that mean that they have been absolved? I wonder if the Catholic Church knows about this.

Dressing Up

What is it about Halloween that compels ladies to take off their clothes and men to put on ladies' clothes?

Looking perpetually freshly-showered

While driving home on the QE2 highway today, I had the distinct misfortune of driving behind a motorized hunk of blue metal controlled by the worst driver I have ever encountered.
Never before have I wanted to euthanize a car before. Stupid women drivers. I really don't know why they license women to drive. I know some of us mean well, but of all the people to put in control of dangerous machines...

Speaking of the QE2 highway, the functions of monarchies in present societies are fascinating. As far as I can tell, being Queen Elizabeth the Second means having her picture on coins and in Alberta the monarchy means regal purple signs for a renamed highway.

On that note, I have a few quick questions:
Does throwing coins in fountains constitute defacing the Queen? (I don't think that she would appreciate being left below water.)
Does naming a ridiculously frustrating and usually slow moving highway after the Queen constitute as a terrible insult? (If so, is the Alberta government guilty of treason?)

Little Miss Muffet

Doing homework my basement ,
foregoing a delightful soiree.
When along came a spider that slid down besides me
and I scream and killed the damned bugger right away.

If it rains tomorrow, Edmontonians of a superstitious persuasion may have cause to blame me.

However, I am quite sure that the causality in the superstition that claims that killing a spider will mean rain the next day. Spiders, like other animals, seem to sense the weather and react in advance. So if spiders sense rain, they head indoors, which is when people are most likely to encounter and kill them. Spiders don't have umbrellas because they know to get out of the rain. (Well that and I'm sure that with eight legs, their feet would get all tangled.)

On a related tangent, many individuals profess to having an aversion to the sound of nails on a chalkboard. I think a far more heinous assault on the senses is the feeling of getting caught in a strand or two of a spider web.

61

If I had rabies, a lot more people would be dead right now.

Why is it that internal censors don't work at 2 am?

I don't know, but hopefully there is no link to community service.

I apologize that only 2 people will make any sense of any of the above. However, I would suggest that a lack of understanding is a good thing here.

Balloon mortal combat

How to be condesending - Lesson 1:
State the obvious in a very explanatory voice, conveying the impression that this might be something unknown to the other person.

example: "There are three parts: part 1, part 2, and part 3."
Really I thought that the three parts would be part 1, part root 3, and part vodka.

edited to add:
example 2: "We're concerned with anything that has come out since the 1985 publication. So anything from 1986 to the present day."

Bilingualism kills trees

[Name deleted for a good reason, I'm sure] makes me want to bite people's shoulders.

In happy news, hockey is back. :)

The most fun you can have with a broom

Curling season started again.

There is an unspoken majesty about a perfectly thrown rock curling down a sheet of ice to take out two other rocks.

It's inspiring.
It's enthralling.
It's a great way to release pent up aggression.

Tiger Training Contract Killer

While out for drinks with a few of my law school friends, a girl friend of mine asked
"is it ok that I want to have kids when I'm older?"

Apparently her perception from the first few weeks of school is that having kids and practicing law are mutually exclusive if you are a woman.

Is there something wrong with this picture?

"I'd rather vacuum my floor mats..."

I have been promising my car a good washing for a few weeks. Since I like to keep my promises and I have a soft spot for my car, tonight was car wash night.

Coin operated car washes are brilliant. You control the way your car gets washed, they are a great way to bond with your car, and inevitably there can be a water fight.

I pulled into the local car cleaning place. There are four bays. Three were filled with men and their trucks. I got the fourth. I love Alberta. I stood out more for driving a car than for washing my car in heels.

My car looks hot.

Is it a bad thing if I like my car more than you, gentle reader? Well at the least you know it's safe getting a ride with me - I like my car too much to let any harm come to it.

HYPER

Ok, so if energy cannot be created or destroyed, then where does hyperness come from?
And why can't one literally jump off walls?

Confession

I have a deep dark secret.

Even though it was still summer, I liked crunching dried leaves.
But now it's autumn, so the leaves are allowed to fall and be crushed.

Proof that aliens exist

The rules for citing works in different forms are ridiculously and needlessly complicated.

There is no way any one could have been that anal about punctuation as to develop these rules.

That's where the aliens come in.

The Monkeys are coming! The Monkeys are coming!

Question of the day: suppose you were a reasonable monkey and you could chose between picking your own bananas and taking them out of the hands of other monkeys. What would you do?

Once upon a bus-ride dreary

I made my best friend laugh today.

That is not a terribly remarkable feat in and of itself; the notable difference this time around was that I made her laugh by saying: "I've done my all my readings for my classes today; that's the third day in a row."
"That's cute. This will last until what? Next week?" quoth she.

Actually my readings are remarkably engaging (once one gets through the introductions and prefaces).

There are intriguing case names like the Montana Mule case, and interesting cases about spelunkers.

There are insightful summarizations like "one very simple formula of reasonable restraint that appeals alike to reasonable monkeys, wolves, gangsters, Salmon packers, and Roman emperors is the rule of first occupancy."

But perhaps the best part of my readings for the night was a reference to the case of Miner v CPR where the defendant mistakenly read the word "Bawlf" as "Banff" and put a corpse off at a wrong station.

Similarly, during a regrettably unforgettable field trip in grade 8, a classmate of mine made the exact same mistake. So instead of really seeing the mountains we saw Heisler. Followed by ice cream.

Has anyone else ever realized a trend of having ice cream after unpleasant experiences?

Jumping from the frying pan into the fire

If you believe some scientists, then it would seem that the world as we know it will shortly be devastated by the effects of global warming. However, with the summer that has just been suffered in Edmonton, one might argue that global warming should hurry up already so that there might be some sun and heat. (Anyone about to suffer an Edmonton winter would undoubtedly concur.)

To reconcile the doomsayers' predictions of impending calamity with the seemingly colder reality, I have a theory. Having an infinitesimal knowledge of the subject, I anticipate that a gentle reader with a vaster wisdom might be able to correct my misguided and unscientific hypothesis. Until then, my postulations:

1) If the trend of increasing global temperatures do occur, resulting in melting ice caps, then there would be more water, higher water levels, and in general a greater surface area that is filled with water.

2) My grade 4 science classes taught me that water evaporates; I later learned that higher temperatures or higher surface areas would increase the rate of evaporation, therefore, if 1) is correct, there should be higher rates of evaporation.

3) Water in its different forms is part of a greater water cycle: evaporation-condensation-precipitation. If 2) is true, then there would be more water going through the cycle. If so, this would explain the increase in precipitation in Edmonton this summer.

4) If 3) is true and there is an increase in precipitation, this precipitation is likely to cool down the global temperatures, temporarily suspending the trend of global warming.

5) Or not.

Walked around my good intentions

Having just attended my first day of classes, I have received some good advice:

The quicker you fall behind, the longer you have to catch up.

Ground Control to Major Tom

I can remember May.
It was followed by June.
After that, July was memorable too.
Then there was the Fringe;
and now it's September.
Somehow I lost August.

But, I remember some random snippets from that late summer blur:

-Best wisdom I've heard in a while: Girls are evil, boys are dumb. (Good things science has found a way to eliminate the dumb half of the world.)

-The background music to Trogdor can be addictive. If can also be abused by some people.

-There is something primal and wonderful about bonfires. It comes from the same part of the brain that likes senseless destruction and shredders.

-Big Macs have infiltrated too many countries.

-Watching spaghetti break is amusing. Actually breaking it is addictive.

-I was invited to give a speech at my friends' future wedding to wish them a future that is filled with good fortunes and smushed spiders.

-Question of the day: do you instinctively want to kick pumpkins when you see them.

Today's sensicality has been brought to you by protein pills and pool sharks.

The pirate days are over once the river starts to freeze

I can't believe that the leaves are already changing colours and falling off the trees. Don't the trees realize that it is still August?

Up your kilt

I love meeting interesting, wonderful, fun people.

I hate it when it's time to say "see you around."

I hate it more when that realistically translates to "have a nice life."

Hey Culligan Man!

I like it when commercials do not falsely represent the product or service being advertised because it restores my faith in the existence of some “corporate morals.” After all, getting what one is expecting is usually a good thing.

And sometimes you just need a new water cooler. Otherwise how do you differentiate between a coffee break and a morning water cooler gathering break?

Now back to working and then fringing.

This lesson in reading between the lines has been brought to you by the words fedora and paralyser.

A series of firsts

It's August. I recognize that August means summer and not Christmas. However, on Thursday, I decorated a Christmas tree for the first time in my life.

It's been raining a lot lately. Apparently there are nine days of rain in August on average in Edmonton; this year we were at 13 days with rain by the 18th. However, on one of those non-rainy days, I went golfing for the first time in my life. We ended up at 9 over par, and I was the only person in my group to not lose a golf ball. I still think golf is a silly game. I suppose that as a commerce graduate that is heading into law I'm likely going to be condemned to a future that involves golf. But that doesn't make me want to accept it.

Advertised gas prices in Edmonton jumped over a 100 cents per litre. This is worthy of mention because most gas stations are only equipped to post prices that have two digits prior to the decimal place and as such are unable to post their prices as per usual (although some places, like Save-On-Foods gas bar, have just rounded up to the nearest penny instead). While many people are sad that the price of gas (and oil) is so high, and while I have no sympathy for the gas stations being inconvenienced in posting their prices, what strikes me as absurd is the fact that since gas stations are taking 3.5 cents (or more) off at the pump but are advertising the higher price anyway - why not just post the at-the-pump price on the sign. To me, posting the higher price just seems like bad business sense. First, I think that consumers are being unnecessarily patronized - there seems to exists an engrained psychological barrier to paying more dollars than you get litres, especially when 10 years ago, gas prices were 39.9. Second, what store in the world would advertise their prices as being higher than the actual price and think it's a smart idea? If you look at phone companies, they show the lowest rate plan and then nickel and dime customers with hidden fees, the last thing they would do is list the full cost to the customer, let alone a higher one. I suppose that gas stations felt that advertising a higher price with 3.5 cents off at the pump might seem like a better deal rather than just posting the actual price, however, even if mathematically 99.4 or 102.9 minus 3.5 are the same thing, I think that the former seems a lot less scary. So why don't gas stations just advertise the real at the pump price? It would make it easier for them to post their price, it makes better business sense, and it would make the advertised price more palatable to their customers.

Absence makes the heart grow fonder

It didn't really sink in until last night.

I was at a random house party, and there were a lot of boys standing there drinking their beers in deep discussion. There would be the occasional shouting match, much disagreement, and lots of emotion. They were even resorting to asking the magic 8-ball questions to predict the future.

It made me smile.

Hockey is back.

Now so long as the Oilers get an awesome forward and don't waste money on getting Messier, this season will rock.

It takes one to know one

It’s amazing how fast time flies during the summer. It is hard to believe that school has been out for three months, and that there is only a few weeks left before it starts again.

However, rather than talking about my summer, I’m going to take up the challenge offered to me by Anastasia to come up with 5 reasons why I’m a dork. Apparently this exercise should lead to interesting results.

1. I have an unnatural and consuming love for excel.

2. I helped organize a knitting night. It was lots of fun. (Since I now knit, curl, and play bridge, I think I should start planning my retirement.)

3. I make nerdy comparisons. For example:
-I think there is an interesting correlation between the current papal succession and CBS anchorman succession (one old white man replaced by an even older, slightly more conservative, white man).
-I compare major sporting events to debate tournaments. To me, the Masters Games was the Diefenbaker of the sporting world, whereas the IAAF was like McGoun and the Olympics are like Worlds.
-I think that Stephen Harper’s makeover is the Canadian equivalent of the “I want to be a Hilton” reality show.

4. I often ponder how Miss Manners would advise one to eat twizzlers.

5. When reading the latest Harry Potter book, I was irked at the ubiquitous use of the words “oi,” “oho,” and “wonkers.” However, that was mostly redeemed by the profuse use of the word “snogging.”
That was fun. You should try it too.

Are you really egg-killers?

In Winnipeg, there is a pilot project to put minnows in standing water, in hopes that the minnows will eat the mosquito larva, thus reducing the spread of west nile virus.

SKINNER: Well, I was wrong. The lizards are a godsend.
LISA: But isn't that a bit short-sighted? What happens when we're overrun by lizards?
SKINNER: No problem. We simply unleash wave after wave of Chinese needle snakes. They'll wipe out the lizards.
LISA: But aren't the snakes even worse?
SKINNER: Yes, but we're prepared for that. We've lined up a fabulous type of gorilla that thrives on snake meat.
LISA: But then we're stuck with gorillas!
SKINNER: No, that's the beautiful part. When wintertime rolls around, the gorillas simply freeze to death.

Mad musings

Do people who are going mad ever wonder to themselves if they are going mad?

"Can I lick your fingers? Meet me at the mail slot."

I love the Simpsons, it's like a modern day Shakespeare.

The Simpsons, like Shakespeare, appeals to audiences on two levels: slapstick base humour coupled with sophisticated quips and intelligent allusions. As such, both have wide appeal that transcends class, gender, or age.

As well, both Shakespeare and the Simpsons have created their own words. Some of my favourites include Shakespeare's "sluggardly" (bonus points for anyone who can name the play), and the Simpsons' "d'oh" or "ovulitious" (more bonus points for knowing the episode).

Furthermore, both have many memorable quotes, the sort that are cited often and suit many situations. Be it "the lady doth protest too much," or "the black ram is tupping your white ewe" versus "me fail English? that's unpossible" or "what's wrong Marge? You're not in any kind of physical pain - the only sort of pain a man understands."

I guess a show of the Simpsons has three acts, whereas Shakespeare preferred five. I think that the difference has to do with today's shorter attention spans.

Either way, both the Simpsons and Shakespeare are requisites to make any claim of cultural literacy.

Men at work?

Every once in a while, I come across a word that utterly tickles my fancy in a way that no combination of syllable should. The mere mention of said word will make me smile, as if its existence means that there is something a little bit right in the word.

In the past, words like defenestration, spork, and obsequious have held such honours. And now another word is gaining the same prestige. Please allow me to introduce my new word of the past 1.64 months:

Degradomics.

The word has something to do with a breaking down process used in proteomics (the science of protein engineering that roughly parallels the work done on the genome project, but for proteins). I think that it could also be a word coined to refer to the economics of the environment.

If nothing else, my job as a finance assistant is definitely expanding my science-specific vocabulary.

Speaking of things being broken apart, it's amazing how quickly construction can actually get done during the summer. On my way to work this morning, there was a perfectly good sidewalk on the west side of 114 street, just north of University Avenue. On my drive home, the sidewalk had been replaced with a gaping hole and barricades.

Unfortunately, it seems a lot easier to tear things apart than put things together. I get the feeling that after today's amazing display of men actually working, the southbound university area traffic will now be subjected to very little work being accomplished and a lot of men standing around holding signs declaring themselves to be at work while they laugh at the cars being constricted to one lane.

Bull's-eye

On the way to work in the morning, I listen to the radio; mindless dribble is about all I can comprehend before 8am.

This morning, there was a discussion about superstitions and the practices or events that people thought would bring good or bad luck. One lady called in and said that she heard that it was a sign of good luck if a pigeon pooped on one's head. I don't know, but to me that seems like a sign of incredibly bad luck.

And as a complete non-sequitur, 23 years ago today, Argentina surrendered to Britain on the Falkland Islands.

As pesky as their mosquitoes

Once a year I stumble across a pair of free football tickets.

Free tickets are the best way to learn that one is out of shape on the trek to the top row - number 84 for those that have not had the pleasure of seeing a game from a vantage point where the players are almost as big as on TV. But rather than looking this gift horse in the mouth, I go to the games and enjoy myself. It's always a fun time, I get to hang out with a friend, and it is cheaper than going out for tea.

As well, up until today, I had never gone to a game where the Eskimos did not win. Based on the way they were playing in the first quarter, I felt assured that this record would be upheld; the Esks were dominating the game, making nice plays, and building up a nice lead. Then they started to fall apart. I think that the refs threw more flags on the field than the Esks threw completions. Since when should the Esks feel lucky to tie against Winnipeg?

At least they didn't lose.

The other fascinating feature of professional sports is that it is reassuring to see a regularly apathetic group of people unite in support of something (or against Calgary, as the case may be). Despite the rain and the lack of an enchanting rival, over half the stadium was filled.

However, North Americans cannot seem to get as excited as Europeans about sport. It seems that at 10 minutes before the end of the game, people just started to leave. For the entire fourth quarter, the score was either tied or within a field goal. I can understand leaving to catch the train when there is a 2-touchdown difference, but a tied game? Who cares if you have to walk slower to the LRT, it's a fricken' tied game. Maybe it's because alcohol sales were finished, maybe our attention spans really are shorter than it used to be, or maybe the stadium was filled with reverse vampires that needed to be home by dark. Either way, Dawn and I were disappointed.

Now I can't wait until we get some hockey back, so I don't have to resort to football talk.

Pomp, Circumstance, and a big yellow building

I played whack-a-mole for the first time in my life today. It was greatly therapeutic.

I convocated for the first time in my life yesterday. It was rather dull. (Except for meeting the Lieutenant Governor.)

Time for new adventures

Every time I tell someone that I'm going to Israel for my summer vacation, I get the inevitable response of "aren't you scared?!?"

Well no.

I've been on buses in Tel Aviv, I've walked around Jerusalem, and I've shopped in Israeli malls and I'm still ok. As well, there are plenty of bomb shelters, the Katyusha rockets usually either go overhead or don't quite get to the town where I stay, and it’s not like I’m going in search of unattended luggage and dancing a jig on them.

Moreover, it takes too much effort to severely restrict one's activities out of fear.

Some people will agree and will further tell you that life is too short to worry. I usually kick those people.

Rather, I come to much the same conclusion by extrapolating too far on the principles taught in Economics 101. For example, one can assume that individuals want to maximize their utility. Fear in and of itself places contrived constraints on an individual, preventing utility maximization, which leads to a lower level of happiness; therefore they won’t bother with being scared. By the way, did anyone else live through Kamp? If so, you don't get to ask if going to Israel is scary.

Besides, there are tons of scarier things than traveling through Israel... like spiders, heartbreak, and a world without duct tape.

So in a few hours I’m off for the next few weeks. Until then, I bid you adieu.

My favourite Egyptian River

I remember when I was about 5 and played hide and seek on a regular basis, it was fun. It was also common practice to declare "if I can't see you, you can't see me!"

If you don't have to acknowledge reality, it doesn't exist, right?

I miss being 5.

ctrl + z

Ever wonder why life doesn't have an undo button?

Because 6 billion people pushing the undo button at once would make the system crash.

I know my science fiction knowledge is a bit lacking, but from what I have gleaned from movies and books, if a general undo button was suddenly put into place now, it would result in one of two outcomes:

1) At any given moment on earth, there is probably someone regretting something that they would like undone (even if countries with dictators restrict access to this button, I'm sure that there would be enough regrets accumulating somewhere). Now if every time the button was pushed, time was rewinded to the point before the incident, that earlier point would likely coincide with another undo-seeking individual. etc. etc. etc. The world goes back to the beginning of mankind, where some greater being undoes the process of creating an undo button.

2) If the undo button did not rewind time, and just undid an incident, then some Einstein comes into play: for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. For example if someone wanted to undo ever meeting someone, then one of the two individuals would likely have to be somewhere else at the original meeting time. This means that once the button was pushed, everyone who could be impacted by the change would suddenly be in a different present, having gone through a different course of past events. Like in the Simpsons episode where Homer uses the toaster as a time machine and goes back in time and usually steps on something. The end result is a different earth each time, meaning that everyone had to have accumulated different experiences in the interim.

So while I recognize that a general undo process would likely result in either going back to before I was born or completely changing the course of my life, I still wouldn't mind my own personal undo button.

I made it around the sun again

Birthdays are rather odd ways at assessing the passing of one's life: "Ooh look at me, I made it around the sun again, let's celebrate!"

That said, there is nothing wrong with just celebrating. Even if it is celebrating at someone else's expense (what can I say, I'm a terrible person).

In related news, I learned that watching Jeopardy is useful. See Final Jeopardy answer the other day was about the only word in the English language that has the letter combination "gnt" appearing together in a row. It was in the news a lot in July 2004. I thought it was a neat piece of trivia. I was later talking to Nick Tam (a person who prides himself on his vocabulary prowess), and decided to test out my newly acquired knowledge.

It proved to be hours of amusement, and here is the conclusion for your entertainment. It also includes the question for the Jeopardy clue. Enjoy.

Edit: Nick did eventually figure out how many scrabble points it would be worth.

Avoiding talk of politics is hard

You know that Simpsons episode, where Homer rennovates Bart's room? Bart ends up with a bed that looks like an evil clown and he is scarred of his bed.

Now which federal politician reminds you most of an evil clown, especially when he smile?

I'm done

I finished my BComm today.

This is the closest I get to a yearbook.

Following the white rabbit

Before I get to the post itself, I have an update on my life's quest for irony. As I was nearing the end of the typing my post, my computer ate it. I have retyped it quickly so that you can share in the irony.
___________________________

I started my summer job two days ago.
I am a finance assistant with a corner office and love-hate relationship with nepotism.

It's a fun job. I don't think I have played with this many stickers since elementary, and I know I've never been paid this much to sticker things. I was also introduced to the photocopier, colour printer, laser printer, broken shredder, and plethora of computers with which I will be dealing.

Have you ever notices that computers (and electronics in general) are ubiquitous? If so, have you ever noticed that technology in general can be rather perplexing?

I realized that I don't know much about computers (and technology in general).
I know that they are a time sink.
I know that they can be useful.
I know that they crash when you need them most (stupid toshiba photocopier).

I also know that they plug into an electrical outlet.
But what exactly is a volt or an ohm or an amp or current? Sure they tried to explain it to me in Physics 30, but I think it was all a conspiracy to cover up the truth.

The more I deal with computers, the more I begin to suspect that even though they may plug them into a wall, the real source of their energy is from consuming people's time. If energy can not be created nor destroyed, perhaps all the energy that we put into using and being frustrated with computers is what makes them tick.

Technology is like a girl in a relationship: constantly yearning for attention. Especially when you have better things to do.

Is your computer messing up? It just feels it hasn't been getting enough of your time.
Your computers' favourite food: time you don't have.
Your computers' favourite pastime: making you late and stealing your attention.
Your computers' biggest enemies: books, baths, and babies. They take up too much computer time and can be used to harm the computer.

In my office, we have resorted to naming our printers, talking to our computers, and coaxing our photocopier and broken shredder to work. But as long as we continue to let them have an impact on our lives they will continue to try and win our attention by holding our work hostage.

My solution: a mass defenestration of computers to teach them a lesson.

I want to jump out of a plane

My sister went skydiving in Winnipeg last weekend.

I am ridiculously jealous; I have always wanted to be the one that jumps out of a plane. Besides, I thought she was afraid of heights, for example when we were in Turkey, she didn't go cliff jumping with me.

She landed in a bunch of trees.

I thought irony was better tasting

I am a business student. Well I was a business student, since I have no more classes in business, but a paper and an exam still stand between me and becoming a BComm (stupid paper and exams... grrrrr). Either way, for the last 4 years, I have studied business-y courses.

I have learned a lot from my degree:
-People are resources.
-Some of those people are even employed in the field of human resource management. That's where they learn that apparently resources have feelings.
-I have an undying love for excel and spreadsheets.

I have a rather prevalent disdain for people in general, so viewing people as resources, or a means to an end, makes my life easier. I recognize that some people would disagree and find this to be a rather harsh and cynical outlook, but those are the sort of resources that you don't employ in Human Resources for efficacy issues.

Now here is where the aforementioned irony comes in. Despite my view that humans are resources, whose purpose it is to drive the bottom line, I place a higher premium on people than many individuals with whom I have dealt as of late do.

In fact, regardless of what my courses have told me, I believe that there are things that are more important than money. (I think that the little economist in me just died a little.) As such, if a person has made a mistake or needs help, one should try and help them out and not just look at the bottom line and the marginal benefits and marginal costs of helping them. After all, there are somethings mastercard can't do that are still important. But I guess money really does corrupt. That is why some individuals place money at a higher premium than people and organizations.

Personally, if I were stranded on a desert island, money would not be my first choice of resource. So I am glad that my business degree taught me that money in and of itself is just another resource, and not the be all and end all; which makes it easier to justify all the money I paid for my degree.

peer pressure

It's a bad thing.