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Jessie Farrell at the Backstage Lounge

Last night I saw Jessie Farrell at the Arts Club Backstage Lounge. It was a pleasant surprise--she was a commanding performer with a strong voice and a tight band. She plays kind of folk-pop music--sort of the Corrs meets Sarah Mclachlan. If this sounds appealling, go to her site and check out some of the MP3s there. To be honest, I thought she sounded better live. At her age, performers develop quite quickly, though, and she may have grown a lot since those recordings.

Given the venue, and her dreadlocks and singer-songwriter stylings, had I been unmarried with two goofy sidekicks, the evening could have turned out like that scene from High Fidelity. Had she, you know, been attracted to a slightly geeky guy with glasses. And if, you know, dreadlocks didn't kind of gross me out.

I have Bree to thank for this discovery. She recently linked to the Tyee, which had a feature article on Ms. Farrell, which piqued my interest and brought me to the show. Thanks, Bree.

Steve Dallas is Gay?

As Waxy.org reports, Opus is back. I'm so pleased. Bloom County was my favourite comic growing up, and its oddly-named creator Berke Breathed is back after a lengthy hiatus. Waxy also reports that newspapers have cut several long-running, incredibly humourless strips--Mary Worth, Prince Valiant, Herman, Marvin, Ziggy--to make room for Opus, and people are upset. That link did lead to this interesting meta-comic online comic book. Unfortunately (bastards), you can't view Opus online. Hopefully it will appear in my local paper tomorrow.

Link Round-Up: Games

All about computer games, or games on the computer, or gamers, and so on.

• The sexiest gamer competition. A kind of Renaissance Faire hot-or-not. It's reflective of the gaming demographic when the guy is winning with a 3.5/10.
• Feel like a 16-year-old boy in the backseat of your Toyota Corolla again. I certainly did. Turn up the sound, but not particularly safe for work.
• Gamers buy toys for kids in hospital. Nobody gets shot.
• A Flashtastic voyage through classic games of the 80s, to the dulcet tones of Eddie Van Halen.
• Play Pacman and Space Invaders in that popular gaming platform, Microsoft Excel. Install at your own freakin' risk.

Achetez Rien Demain!

Apologies for the lousy, lousy French. Tomorrow is Buy Nothing Day. This won't be a problem for me, as I work from home and, you know, rarely leave the seven foot square cave that is my office. Buy Nothing Day is brought to you locally by the tireless people at Ad Busters magazine. They're providing posters, clip-art, web banners, handbills, radio-clips or stickers to anybody who's keen to do a litle cultural-busting. I wish I'd known about their Christmas Gift Exemption Voucher before pitching the family about my all-charitable donation, no-gift Christmas concept. I might have caught less grief.

Two Tech Jobs in Ireland

One of our clients in Ireland is look for some new staff. Specifically, a Web Application GUI Developer and a Test Engineer. These jobs are only available to those in Dublin, or interested in moving to Dublin. Incidentally, I can recommend it. If you're interested in either of these positions, drop me an email and I'll forward you the job description.

Joy Kogawa's House

So I linked to Stuart McLean's weblog, which sn0wangel followed to this page about saving Joy Kogawa's childhood home in Marpole, a Vancouver neighbourhood. Joy Kogawa wrote Obasan, a pretty important novel in Canadian history. It's about the internment of Japanese citizens during World War II. Pretty much ever child in English Canada read this novel in high school or university.

While I'm generally in favour of saving important historical buildings, I'm not sure this one qualifies. If the house becomes a kind of museum to this shameful chapter in our history, then that might make sense. There is already a Japanese Canadian National Museum, so maybe it could be moved into this house.

However, the Kogawa Web site doesn't necessarily suggest that. They appear to just be in favour of saving the house. That, in itself, isn't enough, and will just turn it into a third-rate tourist attraction.

Speaking of the Media

Sean Bonner links to an interesting story from the BBC. Generally I'm not down with the media reporting on themselves, but when they're criticizing the American news organizations, I'll cut them some slack. The unfortunately-named BBC Director General Greg Dyke attacked the US media:

In his speech, Mr Dyke quoted research that showed that of 840 commentators aired on US TV, only four were opposed to the war. "I have to tell you if that was true in Britain the BBC would have failed in its duty," he said. "Telling people what they want to hear is not doing them any favours. It may not be comfortable to challenge governments or even popular opinion, but it's what we are here to do."

The article also mentions that The Kumars at Number 42 received an award. This is an extraordinary chat show, set in a British-Indian home and hosted by the whole family. They invite their guests in through the front door of their home, and offer them tea and Indian treats before heading to their backyard studio. It's quite funny and a refreshing take on an otherwise tired format.

Gráinne Ní Mháille, Pirate Queen of Connaught

In English, that's Grace O'Malley. She was apparently a heck of a sailor, among other things:

This wonderful, yet ardous life on the sea, gave her great physical strength and vigor. Sydney, the Lord Deputy, who met her in 1576, described Gráinne when she must have been in middle age, as being "... famous for her stoutness of courage, and person and for sundry other exploits done by her at sea." Whatever formal literary education Gráinne received in her youth, must have been from the Carmalite Friars on Clare Island. Although she was later married to two of the greatest chieftans in the West, it's very likely that Gráinne knew and cared far more about rigging and sailing a galley and warfare than she ever did about drawing-room accomplishments.

I never heard this story while in Ireland--I saw some of a documentary on her yesterday. Apparently the patriarchal historians didn't think she was an appropriate female figure in Irish history. Of course, I never asked anybody: "Hey, do you have any famous female pirates?"

Incidentally, Gráinne is pronounced GRAW-nya. It is one of many Irish names that take some getting used to. Other favourites for women include:

• Aoife
• Áine
• Niamh
• Sorcha
• Dearbháil

If I've got the right name, I believe that last one is pronounced Dervil. With apologies to all those sweet colleens so named, it's not the most poetic of first names.

The Other White Meat

For minor health and ethical reasons, I don't eat red meat--I only eat chicken and fish. In the latter case, I try to eat free-range chicken and non-farmed fish. Regardless, when I'm explaining my culinary choices to people, this conversation inevitably occurs:

ME: I don't eat red meat.
THEM: You'll have some pork then?
ME: No, I don't eat pork, only chicken and fish.
THEM: But pork's the other white meat.
ME: That's just marketing.

This is a classic example of marketing-speak insinuating itself into our culture so that it becomes a pseudo-fact. "The other white meat" was part of a very successful $54 million marketing program that started in 1986. Don't believe me? Go visit (and I kid you not) http://www.otherwhitemeat.com, brought ot you by the NPB. That's the National Pork Board for the acronym-challenged.

I'm not some kind of vegan terrorist or anything. I'd like people to eat ethically, but that's not my point. My point is is that people seemed to have embraced this largely-false notion that suggest that pigs have more in common with chickens than they do with cows. Clearly, on the great food chain of life, the cow and pig and siblings, while the chicken is a distant cousin. The NPB deserves real credit, because they really seem to have modified consumers' beliefs with regards to their product--a tall order.

I note that the Pork site has a gallery of over a hundred images of pork. That's a lot of pork pics.

That pork site is kind of an adult companion piece to that favourite of teen beef sites, brought to us by the National Cattlemen's Beef Association.

Man, you could cut the sexual double-entendres in this post with a knife, couldn't you?

Twenty Years After the Day After

In 1983, 'The Day After' was, as they say, a major television event. Like many other overly-imaginative youths of that time, I had major nuclear paranoia. I was pretty certain that I was going to die in a blazing mushroom crowd or become a deformed, staggering mutant in the aftermath. My parents wisely didn't let me watch this TV movie, and I've never seen it. Now, twenty years later, here's an article from the town where 'The Day After' was set:

Although ABC set up 1-800 lines and distributed half a million "viewer's guides" as a way to help the Cold War-paranoid audience psychologically deal with the subject matter, even they couldn't prepare for how much of a social impact the film would have. "The Day After" debuted on Nov. 20, 1983, to a maelstrom of publicity and controversy. Nearly 100 million viewers tuned in -- a record audience for a made-for-TV movie.

There are even some video clips from the show, which helps those of us who were too young or paranoid to see it the first time.

UPDATE: John (not Irish John, another John) writes to recommend two British nuclear war films: Threads and The War Game. He also mentions the recent interest in mini-nukes as a 'safer' nuclear weapon.

Link Round-Up: Themeless

These bad-boys are too random to permit a theme:

• Stuart McLean's (CBC icon) weblog.
• A Fark Photoshop contest for the ages--the last thing you'll ever see. This one in particular is superb.
• The off-key but amusing Ukes of Hazard bring us their hit video, Gay Boyfriend.
• A blow-by-blow look at lip augmentation.
• Bryan Berg, card-stacker. No relation to cup stacking.

iPod Battery Fracas

As an iPod owner, I was interested in this entertaining video that John forwarded to me. Basically, it's a recording of a conversation with Apple support that indicates that an iPod battery only lasts 18 months, and that it costs an arm-and-a-leg to replace them.

John helpfully followed up with developments from MacRumors, and an enterprising company that is offering a cheap and cheerful replacement strategy. Consumers 1, Apple 0.

UPDATE: My friend John writes to add this Kuro5hin story to the fray. I've also mentioned this on my day-job weblog.

Wind Power for All

The always informative Mirabilis points to this Guardian article about a consumer-sized wind turbine from Windsave (heads up, high winds and Flashy Flashness ahead). I'd do the usual thing and cut and paste some text about their turbine from their site, but the whole site is frickin' Flash (with awful diagrams), so you'll have to go check it out yourself. Suffice it to say it's a nifty invention that enables you to generate wind power at very low wind speeds (5 km/h).

Miss Digital World

You know, it's a good thing that I never got into 3-D computer animation, or I'd be a bigger geek than I already am. Now that the technology is available at the consumer level, I can see the temptation to build oneself the perfect digital woman or man. The Miss Digital World contest only encourages this sort of thing:

Miss Digital World is the first ever virtual beauty contest, strictly for the most beautiful and intriguing virtual models made using the most advanced 3D graphics tools. Miss Digital World is aimed at digital artists, advertising agencies, cinema production companies and videogame programmers who have created famous (or even not so famous) virtual models, following the success of videogame heroines such as Lara Croft, digital anchorwomen like Ananova and cloned actors, as in the third Matrix film.

There's even a market for rendered synthespians (because a number of the virtual models are naked, not safe for work). For example, check out the hirsute and well-hung Eddie or Victoria and her cut-off jeans. It's all a bit creepy, but the texturing is pretty amazing.

Buying DVDs

As regular readers know, I'm something of a cinephile. I really like movies. Yet, I'm not one of those people who have a collection of hundreds of DVDs. In fact (and I'm embarassed to confess this), I've only owned a DVD player for, like, 6 months.

Why don't I have a lot of movies? Well, I guess I've never wanted to watch a movie more than three times. Or if I have, it's been over a significantly long period of time, five years or more. So, if I really wanted to watch it, I've always figured that I could just rent the movie or borrow it from my DVD-hoarding friends. I'm not critical of the DVD collectors, it just isn't my thing.

I currently own about seven DVDs. The reason I own these is because I highly value the content on them, and they'd be difficult or impossible to rent or borrow. They are:

• Buffy, Seasons 1 through 4
• Natalie Merchant: Live in Concert
• Peter Gabriel's Secret World tour (among the top five concerts ever filmed, in my opinion)

So, DVD collectors, why do you buy all them movies?

This all arose because I was kicking around the idea of buying the new Gretzky DVD. I didn't really watch hockey for the first half of the Great One's career, so I missed a lot of the good bits. Ah, the odds are that I'll be able to rent it somewhere.

The iPod Replacement?

Slashdot has a discussion of the new 20 GB Rio Karma. It has a small form factor (2.7"x3.0", that's it in the middle), but is considerably thicker than the iPod. So, while the iPod is like a deck of cards, I guess this is like, what, a squarish hockey puck? It's got some bells and whistles that the iPod doesn't, but nothing extraordinary.

One advantage over many other Windows-based MP3 players is that it supports USB 2.0, a new standard which has only become common in PCs in 2003. USB 2.0 purports to be as fast or faster than Firewire, the excellent Apple cable standard. This is a bigger deal than you may think. I recently got another MP3 player for my Dad and set about loading my 3300 songs onto it. All told, it took like 12 hours to move that data on my USB 1.0 connection.

Weee, the Tyee

Bree points out that the Tyee, "online news and views of BC", has launched. I admire their hutzpah:

Because big media in this province are owned by a powerful few with their own agendas. Because that leaves many people here hungry for news and comment that reflects their actual lives, their own values.Because “The Big Smoke” of Vancouver/Victoria hears too little from the rest of the province and together we have plenty of challenges and solutions to talk about.

Having published magazines and newspapers in the past, I know how much work the content generation and editing is. Good luck with that, Tyeers.

Downloading Music (Legally)

Der Menschschnitzel

This news story out of Germany is Steven King-esque in its grossness:

A German accused of killing and eating a man he met on a website for cannibals has expressed regret for his actions. Mr Meiwes, from Rotenburg, says his victim was a willing participant who ate part of his own body before Mr Meiwes stabbed him to death and stored his remains in a freezer.

The cannibal in question apparently ran an ad on a website seeking 'young, well-built men aged 18 to 30 to slaughter'. There are several bad jokes to be made here, but I can't bring myself to write them down.

Letter to the Editor

On page A3 of today's Vancouver Sun, the entire top half of the page featured not a news story, but a silly infographic about a job posting for a police dog training dummy. Clearly, this isn't the sort of thing one wants or expects in a non-tabloid newspaper. So, I wrote a letter. And, surprise, surprise, the Editor-in-Chief (or somebody claiming to be her) replied. I wrote:

Have the Sun's editorial standards really slipped that far? You'll agree with me that, on any given day, secondary only to the front page, page three should covert the most important news stories--local or international. When I opened the paper this morning, what did I find on page three, under the sober but misleading title of 'News'? An ridiculous infographic about a police job posting covering the top half of the page. Discouraged, I hopefully turned to page five, where I was greeted by a prominent article about about the sartorial habits of muslim pageant contestants.

Explain to me, then, why the story of two bombs going off in Istanbul was consigned to page eight? Is this truly a reflection of your readers' values? They'd rather read about an attack dog dummy that actual news? If so, and if this trend of superficiality continues, I'll be cancelling my subscription.

And she replied with:

Thank you for writing with your concerns about the arrangement of today's paper. We normally reserve page 3 for local, provincial or national stories. The bombing story in fact was placed on A1, then given a full page and a half, facing, (8 & 9) inside the paper. Page 3 and 5 would not have afforded as much space. The one thing I am told over and over again by customers is that they get tired of bad news; they want good news, and some levity. It was in that spirit that we parsed the job posting on page 3. As for the beauty pageant contestants, it is a social issue story. I accept that it is not to your taste or interest, but others feel differently. That is the thing with a daily newspaper in a market as diverse as ours: you have to try to find something to satisfy a broad range of readers. I can only hope you continue to find things you do like and appreciate. Once again, thanks for contacting us.

And so I fired back with:

Thanks for your reply. While I recognize the bombing story did get a mention on the front page (well below the sensationalized content above the fold), it doesn't invalidate my point. I wonder, would the beauty pageant story have run on page 5 if it weren't about two beauty contestants?

In short, you've hit the nail on the head when you described your readership as "customers". I cling to some idealized notion of a past age when newspapers were journals instead of products, when the people who read them were readers, not consumers and when market forces didn't determine what news was printed. I have to recognize that today's newspaper is no more or less than a fashion magazine--it exists only to sell advertising.

While I don't blame you for listening to your customers, I can only hope that they don't ultimately determine what you print. After all, shouldn't the actual news content, bad or good, determine what goes on page three?

And she replied (with, I might add, a verb that's new to me):

Thank you for your thoughtful comments. Newspapering is not strictly a commercial venture; there is a public interest element to what we do. It is a factor to greater and lesser degree each day, depending on what is happening. But if we don't give our customers/readers what they want, we soon won't have a newspaper left for anyone to read.

Taking the Concert Home with You

DiscLive is an exceptional, obvious idea:

DiscLive offers fans the ultimate opportunity: a chance to take home the show you experienced on CD, just minutes afterward. No longer do you have to suffer through poor quality and outrageous prices to remember the shows you attended.

I'm a collector of live and bootlegged music, so I think this is a great idea. I was so pleased when, last year, I found a recording of a Cowboy Junkies show I'd attended in 1996. I know that Pearl Jam did this with their tour last year, releasing live CDs of every show. Of course, many bands would be reticent to do this, worrying about brand-quality and all that bollocks.

DiscLive has a truly meagre set of bands so far (Billy Idol? Jefferson Airplane?). Is there a more popular, similar service? These guys can't be the market leaders. Thanks to Coudal Partners for the link.

Link Round-Up: Images

Another link round-up about images, because I just have too many links:

• Fantasy Celtic fans. Obsessive much? Safe for work, though from a distance it looks like you're browsing Irish pr0n (I know Celtic the team is Scottish, but we're talking appearances here).
• Jamie Oliver's loaf.
• Early maps of the world (or parts thereof). Here there be dragons indeed.
• Amazing street painting.
• Pseudo-erotic art generated by mathematic algorithms. Apparently not safe for work, but it's art, so you might be okay.

Warren Zevon's Last Album

Having been more or less MP3-only for the last three years or so, I just bought my first CD in a coon's age. I felt slightly nostalgic when I smelled that new-CD smell, and enjoyed the smooth pleasure of the plastic hinge.

Though I've never been a big fan, I bought Warren Zevon's The Wind. It's a critical success, and was intriguing if for no other reason than he wrote it knowing that he was dying of inoperable lung cancer. It's a lovely, spare album with an impressive list of guest artists and Zevon's trademark black humour. The final song, Keep Me in Your Heart, is unadorned, beautiful and rivals Johnny Cash's cover of Hurt for its haunting quality.

Internet Personals

If you read Salon, Nerve or a slate (no pun intended) of other online magazines and journals, you're familiar with the ubiquitous personals ads. You know the ones, where a different person is featured every day or so? Despite the fact that they're branded for each site, they're operated by one company and draw on the same database of people (here are all the sites that use this service).

Regardless, the guys at the geek humour site BBSpot have been doing an excellent thing lately. For each personals ad that goes up, they make one of their own to put underneath it. Here's today's (for comparison purposes, I put them side by side):

Huh. Note the Die Hard poster in the corner of the second photo. Don't know about that.

House Smells

Everybody's house smells. Growing up, I remember how the suburban house of my Chinese friend Albert's house smelled. It would have worried me had I not, earlier in life, experienced a similar phenomenon with my Greek friend, Rod. They didn't smell bad, just foreign to my Caucasian, middle-class nose. I'm sure that my house smelled equally weird to them.

But what makes a house smell a particular way? Pets, obviously. You always know when you're visiting a dog-enabled house, don't you? Cooking, too, I imagine. Presumably that's why Albert's house smelled the way it did, but that wasn't an issue for me, because his Mom made wicked food. Mold makes your house smell too. In our house, my older brother got shafted out of the basement bedroom with ensuite bathroom because of his allergies to mold.

This contemplation arose because we've got Irish friends coming to visit next February. We're considering trying to rent an apartment down the hall, which is owned by a Chinese family who only visit it once a month. It occurred to me that my Irish friends have probably never been in a Chinese house, and aren't familiar with the scent.

How does your house smell?

The GUI Gallery

What a nostalgic place the GUI gallery is:

On these pages you will find many screen shots of various desktop computer Graphical User Interfaces and operating systems. Many different people have had different ideas of how a GUI should work and these screen shots show many of the more popular ones.

I'm loving these screenshots of Windows 1.0.

Word of the Day: Deuteranopia

deuteranopia
noun. kind of colour blindness: colour blindness in which red and green are confused. Also called red-green colour blindness.

On one of the mailing lists I monitor, someone incorrectly used it to describe all forms of colour blindness. Bad technical writer, bad!

The prefix deutero refers to second or secondary. I was also pleased to learn a new word: deuteragonist, which means the 'second most important character: a character second in importance to the leading character (protagonist) in ancient Greek drama'.

She's About Your Size

The business section of today's Vancouver Sun includes a feature article on La Senza's newest lingerie selling technique: Web casts of scantily-clad women in underwear fashion shows. This is not safe for work, because if your co-workers spot you squinting at jittery video of under-dressed women, they'll think pr0n for sure. La Senza, for the uninitiated, is kind of a Canadian Victoria's Secret.

If you watch some of the video, it's an interesting lesson in marketing. Clearly this isn't really an online catalog or buying aid. In fact, I'd say the site is strictly a media relations effort. It's a way to get the media to cover La Senza--your standard manufactured news.

Gamers' Vocab

A remarkably thorough look at the sizable world of the gamer's argot. I knew 90% of these usages, but it's remarkable to me that there are so many of them, and that I learned them all by just playing:

Power gamers seek to power level, increase in ability in the game quickly--often with the help of a more powerful character who provides buffs to allow the character to gain experience rapidly. This practice is called twinking--gaining quickly in power or level in a semi-illegitimate fashion through assistance from a more powerful character. The term is obviously derived from Twinkie, but the association with a sugary snack is not obvious--I surmise that the usage may come from gay slang, in which a "twinkie" is a cute young man with an older lover.

A few terms that weren't included in the article:

• teams: Means the opposing teams in a multi-player FPS are uneven and need to be reshuffled or evened up.
• ready up: Used to instruct players to click the Ready button at the beginning or end of a round of fighting, to move to the next round.
• tank: A variation on brick, used to refer to a tough fighter in a MMORPG who can draw a creature or mob's attention while the rest of the party attacks with ranged weapons and spells.

Dispensing with Old Clothing Samples

My aunt is Shaneen Huxham, a New York fashion designer of some repute. She designs gloves and handbags, mostly. She has a few samples from last year's collections which she has neither the time nor the inclination to sell. So, my sister Lynsey, who was recently in New York, offered to do it for her.

Because of market forces and the exclusive tastes of her glitterati clients, Shaneen can't sell the stuff in New York, so Lynsey's thinking of selling it out here in Vancouver. How would you recommend selling it? We've come up with several options:

• Consignment stores: A good option, though labour intensive.
• eBay: Less work, but you could probably only sell a few items at a time for fear of saturating the market.
• Flea markets: A possibility, but how much does one expect to pay at flea markets? Where are the flea markets in Vancouver?

What do you think of those options? Any other thoughts?

Link Round-Up: History

Links about history and technologies past:

• Who doesn't remember Microsoft Bob?
• Play, reassembled from mummy guts, receives first showing in 2050 years.
• The dream toy of every boy in the 80s. All right, not every boy.
• The greatest album covers that never were.
• A review of Internet kitsch.

The World's Biggest Liar Competition

Oh to be in Cumbria this November, where this Thursday they're hosting the annual Biggest Liar Competition:

Way back in the 19th Century, a famous Cumbrian called Will Ritson (1808-1890) was a popular publican who lived at the head of Wasdale Valley in the Western Lake District. In this remote but beautiful valley Will always kept his customers enthralled with stories of the folk heritage of the area. The valley was already well-known for having England's deepest lake, Wastwater - the highest mountain, Scafell Pike - the smallest church, Wasdale Head Church and Will Ritson achieved the fourth superlative when he became the World's Biggest Liar.

Lousy Movies Descriptions

As I mentioned, I get 76 channels and a lot of lousy movies. Because I get my cable from the good people at Novus Telecom, I must rely on a dubious weekly magazine called Urbantrenz for TV listings. This magazine includes one-liner descriptions of the movies being shown on television.

So, a new feature here at DarrenBarefoot.com: lousy movie descriptions. That name is intentionally ambiguous, as some are descriptions of lousy movies, others are lousy descriptions of movies, and some are both. For bonus points, you can try and guess the movies. They're mostly obscure, so good luck with that:

• WW II veteran helps childeren fight a callous kennel owner.
• A lunar expedition finds a race of telepathic cat women.
• A 60-year-old handyman revels in his irresponsibility.
• An assertive teen wrestles mom for control of her future.
• Two youths befriend an itinerant paleontologist.

Those movies are all playing today. They all sound a bit like headlines in a neighbourhood paper, don't they?

The Matrix Explained, Kind Of

In response to my many questions, Michelle kindly sent along this explanation (warning: massive spoilers ahead) of some of the quandaries in the Matrix movies. Despite the poor spelling, the author makes a number of interesting points. I particularly like this summary of the Biblical characters in the film: Heck, the French Man (Merovigchian) is the Devil...The Architect represents God - i.e. the creator of the world and its destroyer whenever things don't go as he wants. He even has you to chose a select group of people to restart Zion again sort of like Noah's Ark. Neo is Jesus, the one who realizes that peace and love is the answer, not war. And the Oracle represents the Holy Spirit - the conciousness that resides in all of us. Then who are Morpheus and Trinity? Apostles, I suppose. And I suppose that dude who betrays them in the first film is Judas, then?

Oh Dear...

Karlin Lillington refers to Diego's site, where he discusses an ad for the Ireland vs. Canada football friendly tomorrow. It sounds like a funny ad. More importantly, we're going to get our arses kicked. Mind you, the Irish lads did get robbed last night, so they might be shaken up for the game.

For local viewers with plenty of time in the middle of the day, it's on Sportsnet at 11:30am. Faith and begorah, we's gonna get hockeyed!

An American Thought Experiment

BlogsCanada points me to How to Save the World, where one Dave Pollard asks his readers to turn the tables:

Suppose that some time in late 2000, Russian and Chinese leaders, with the covert support of some other national leaders, were convinced that the US election results had been materially altered by a small right-wing clique, and that as a result the US was in fact no longer a democracy, and its weapons of mass destruction, now apparently in the hands of an unelected, psychopathic and illegitimate group of radical religious extremists, posed an imminent threat to world peace.

He raises fair and articulate questions about how the American people would respond to an occupying army, UN-led or not.

I'm holding out for a tailor 'til the morning light

I have a Harris Tweed coat ('completely produced in the Outer Hebrides from pure Scottish wool') that I'm very fond of. My brother, if I recall correctly, bought it off the street in New York. As with many things in our youth, when he tired of it, he passed it on to me. I've often wondered how old this coat is, and who owned it before it reached me.

Regardless, the lining is torn to shreds and needs to be replaced. So, I need a tailor. Vancouver readers, search your cerebral databases and find me a skilled tailor who can sort me out. As a bonus, send along any advice you might have for choosing a tailor. Being a post-modern geek myself, I've rarely had need of one before.

The Oldest Computer in the World

Okay, maybe not the oldest, but it nearly predates me. Todd and I were browsing through Tilley Endurables on Broadway earlier today, when we spotted this gem in a back office. Todd begged permission from the ever-vigilant salespeople and snapped a photo. Apparently that computer can calculate pi to two digits!

Boardmatch.org

Regular readers may recall my failed attempts to volunteer for various organizations over the summer. Things haven't really improved, but I have discovered an option that is promising. To quote myself:

I don't want to be Envelope Stuffer #64 for the rest of my days. I don't mind starting out that way, but I imagine it's tricky to climb the volunteer org chart at, say, Greenpeace.

Let's be honest, I don't want to be Envelope Stuffer #64 at all. Boardmatch.org offers a nifty alternative. It helps match interested volunteers from the business world with non-profit organizations and charities looking for board members. I attended an orientation seminar last night that was professional, cogent and, most importantly, efficient. I'm definitely going to sign up and keep my eye out for an environmental NGO that interests me.

Having run a non-profit in the past, I have some insight into the difficulties of finding committed, valuable board members. If you know anyone in the non-profit sector, pass this on to them. I expect they'll thank you.

The British Love Lists

While in Ireland, I couldn't turn on the BBC (I know, they got the Beeb...it's a whole love/hate thing between Ireland and England) without seeing a show based around some survey or list. Inevitably, if these lists had an international flavour, they'd always be ridiculously British-centric. So, it was no surprise that this Guardian article about the world's 40 best directors has two Brits in the top fifteen. C'mon, people, British cinema is about as influential as Inuit hula dancing. The top five:

1. David Lynch
2. Martin Scorsese
3. Joel and Ethan Coen
4. Steven Soderbergh
5. Terrence Malick

And Malick at #5? The man has directed one film in the past 25 years! And those poncey Brits seem to have snubbed Steven Spielberg. Just because he's made billions of dollars doesn't mean he's not an effective artist. But no, they had to put the world's most boring director, Lynne Ramsay at #12.

Diary of a London Call Girl

Belle du Jour (sexual content, but no naughty pictures) is a witty weblog by an apparent London call girl. The writing quality is above-average the subject matter is pretty interesting:

Luckily the client was very understanding and offered me a drink. I love English archetypes: public schoolboy, thirties, MD of his father's company. The sort of person who says 'chin chin' before a drink. Fan of Boris Johnson.

Me: "So what do you want to do?"

He: "I want to make love to you."

Me: "Like the full-on Barry White kind?"

He: "Oh yes."

Is she really a call girl? Presumably anybody who had done some research could write what she does. Mind you, in light of how entertaining her site is, it doesn't really matter.

A Parable About Entropy

Those wacky Germans. Some guy goes into a currency exchange and keeps converting his Euros into US dollars until there's nothing left. I love a bit of absurdism in my lessons on international monetary conversion:

"And now, I would like to exchange these - to Euros."
"We can cancel that."
"No."
"But you'll take a loss on that."
"Well, that's the nature of things."

From the good people at Boing Boing.

More Travel Sites

A couple of weeks ago I provided a list of interesting travel sites. Here's a couple more that I've recently discovered:

• Hotel Chatter appears to be a weblog about hotels. It's an admirable project, but surely a database-oriented site would make more sense for comments about hotels?
• I've mentioned this one before, but GeekTels lists the tech specs for hotels around the globe. You can learn here, for example, that Vancouver's Opus Hotel has 'Guest-Tek high-speed Internet access available in guest rooms and meeting rooms.' Geek-built sites are always usually a joy to use--no Flashly Flashness, no fuss, no muss, just the facts, ma'am.
• This guy's first experience in a Japanese capsule hotel.
• Wikitravel. Read about a place, add information about a place. I learned that Carrauntoohil is the highest point in Ireland, at a towering 1041 meters. WikiTravel assures me that it "is a real mountain." Somebody's got a complex.

Another Tech Writer Survey

Apparently I completed this survey at some point, and so they (Metri-Mark Inc) sent me the results. I guess there aren't really any surprises, though the following are noteworthy:

• 11% of respondents are unemployed.
• Only 52% of the surveyed writers work in high-tech...I'd have thought that'd be considerably higher.
• "Lack of work for your staff" was ranked as the 4th most common problem for managers.
• The STC apparently pulls a lot of weight in terms of finding new employees.
• 33% of these people are making more than 80K a year? What the hell? Sure, half the people surveyed are managers, but that's a heck of a lot of moola. And half the respondents say they're underpaid!

What is (Up With) the Matrix?

So I took some time out this afternoon to watch The Matrix: Revolutions. Compared to the second film, it was more comprehensible and more ordinary. Though the dialogue wasn't a strength of any of the films, it was pretty weak in this movie. This was contrasted with a really strong spiritual/use the Force vibe that lent some depth to the film.

Predictably, I've got a bunch of unanswered questions. NOTE: Movie-wrecking huge spoilers ahead. If you haven't seen the film, I wouldn't click on the comments either.

Once more, HUGE SPOILERS AHEAD.

Some of these no doubt are answered in the second film, but I only saw that once and have forgotten large chunks of it. In no particular order then:

• At the end of the film, now that Neo is apparently 'dead', what's stopping the machines from just massacring all the people in Zion? Neo's deal? The machines presumably aren't beholden to human concepts like honour or trustworthiness.
  
  To suggest an answer: Neo is not really dead. After all, the Oracle says he'll be back and he's rendered as a brightly-glowing thing during the film's denouement. He wields some control over the machines.


• Sure, Neo bargained a deal, but the devil's in the details. How will the machines survive? Will the humans re-occupy the surface of the world? When the machines free all those humans, what are they going to eat?


• As the Oracle said, Neo never was the One. The One is actually Sati, the little girl? After all, she could change the sky in the Matrix, something more powerful than Neo could apparently achieve.


• Why didn't the poncy French dude have better bodyguards? I mean, he had those two wicked twins in the last film. Why wouldn't he have some equally-talented thugs at his side now?


• Are the machines--meaning the sentinels, etc--actually sentient, or controlled by a central network?


• What did the Oracle do to Agent Smith after he, uh, assimilated her?

Best Ear Plugs Ever

The always fascinating Kevin Kelly's Cool Tools discusses top-end ear plugs:

Until then, I've settled on cheap, high-quality disposable earplugs by Howard Leight. I use their "MAX" model, with an NRR rating of 33, the highest I've been able to find; the higher the NRR rating, the more sound they block. I've tried every kind of earplug, from balls of silicon to wax and cotton and these work best for me. I buy my earplugs from here. It's amazing to me to learn that there is an "Earplug Superstore" in this world, but there you go.

I developed an affection for earplugs while living in Dublin. For a year we lived in a great apartment on the North quays. The only problem was that there are (until that frickin' tunnel gets finished) many, many trucks who use the North quays. So I embraced the ear plugs to sleep through the early-morning truck noise.

A while back, I sent Kevin a review of the iTrip. I recently got this nice note from him:

You wrote at least one cool tool review for me in the past few years. I've just taken all those reviews and I put the best of them into a nifty book which I self published. It's in color, perfect bound, and I only printed 200 copies of it. I'd love to mail you one copy before I run out of them.

Way to pay it forward, Kevin.

Digital Girl

Ever since seeing those deeply mediocre movies Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within and S1m0ne, I've been curious about the potential of photo-realistic computer animation. How long will it be before we are unable to discern real people from synthespians? Regardless, the exotically-named Alceu Baptistao has created a pretty convincing digital girl named Kaya. Well, the stills are great. The movies are a little dodgier. Still, we're getting closer.

Funny Thing du Jour

Let Us Now Praise Famous Men

It's Remembrance Day here in Canada, and I've just returned from a ceremony. I was pleased by the number of people who showed. There were many young people, and an ever dwindling number of veterans. The bagpipes sang, the flags cracked in the wind, and old men stood proud. Lest we forget, here are a couple of my favourite poems about war and remembrance:

In Flanders Fields
by Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

Ducle et Decorum est
by Wilfred Owen

From my mother's sleep I fell into the State,
And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze.
Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life,
I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters.
When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.

The Mattress Line

Here's an interesting example of a meme in action. I regularly read and post to the Canucks newsgroup. A fellow poster, one Asweepay (don't ask, I don't know), posted this message about the Canucks current forward line of Sedin-Sedin-King:

Allright, let's hear your suggestions for line names for the Sedins and King.

Mine are
"The Mattress Line"
Why ??? 2 twins and a king.

Everybody thinks that's pretty funny, and, crediting Asweepay for his brilliance, I email the folks at Sportspage (the most popular local TV sports show). I get the following reply from one of the hosts:

very solid Darren .......
we might just use it!!
Thanks much!!
Sincerely,
BMac

A meme is born. Not only is it heard shortly thereafter on Sportspage, but the term starts showing up all over the place. It's heard on CKNW (local talk radio), then on the NHL Network and most recently on ESPN, TSN and CNN. It has also turned up in other discussion forums. That was quick.

It's remarkable to me how quickly these ideas move through our culture. As an experiment, I'm going to use this entry to try to keep track of as many of the "mattress line" occurences as I can. A chart may result.

UPDATE: The term 'Mattress Line' has now appeared in USA Today, Canucks.com and various other forums and fan sites.

Don't Ya Think?

Oh, those wacky, unpredictable French:

Amid a countrywide crackdown on reckless driving, two French ministers were caught speeding as their cars raced outside Paris - to an unveiling ceremony for new radar speed traps, a French auto magazine said Monday.

How ironic is that? In a rich tradition of opposing, well, pretty much everything, apparently some French folks later 'calibrated' the radar cameras avec une hammer.

The Great Link Clearance Sale

As I chaos-surf the Web, when I find links that I want to refer back to or write about, I put them in a folder. Over time, this folder tends to bloat in size, because I don't write about everything I find. So, today we're cleaning it out. Here's a bunch of stuff, some of it months old, some from old memes that have long died, some that might be compelling to someone, somewhere:

• Butch mushroom, a wacky but entertaining Flash game.
• The truth about musicians and autotuners.
• A strange new magazine.
• Lousy drawings of classic cartoon characters (nice URL, incidentally).
• The new weblog of founding member of the digirati Bruce Sterling.
• A (kind of gay-looking) quote monster.
• One heck of a nifty car ad.
• Christian urban legends. Learn what Janet Reno really meant.
• Remote control bladder manager.
• An excellent weblog that I've started reading about, among other things, archeaology.
• An entertaining Photoshop contest about hockey.
• A to Z sex euphemisms. My favourite will always be the Shakespearean: 'your daughter and the Moor are now making the beast with two backs.'
• Wholesomewear.com: modest clothing for 'wearever'. Check out the hot swimsuits.
• Rejectionline.com. Enough said.

Whew. I'm spent.

Best of New Geekery in 2003

The ever-informative Gizmodo links to this Popular Science article about the best of what's new in 2003. They include the hybrid Toyota Prius, a pretty revolutionary water purifier and a 60-inch rear projection television that is only 10 inches thick.

UPDATE: Time magazine has a similar Best Inventions of 2003.

Meme du Jour: Church Signs

One Ryland Sanders has created this nifty Church Sign Generator, which is currently a most popular meme. I couldn't resist:

He's got a whole page of apparently legitimate clever church signs.

Bird Note

Thinking of Found magazine, I picked up this note off the street near my apartment. It's pretty unremarkable, but there's a hint of a story when you flip it over:

It's really not Found-worthy. Still, http://www.wctropicalbird.com/ is a remarkably old school Web site. I did find this cool story about Dante Thauma, a particularly resilient African Gongo Grey parrot.

The Power of Public Relations

This article was on the cover of the Vancouver Sun today:

It's been a longer haul than your average pizza delivery, but Boston Pizza is on track to deliver 2,200 medium pizzas more than 10,000 kilometres to just about every Canadian soldier in Afghanistan next Tuesday. A shipment of frozen ingredients left Canada on Oct. 31 and arrived in Kabul Nov. 2, and with the help of some culinary savvy from the Richmond-based restaurateur will form the basis of a Remembrance Day feast.

You can't buy that kind of advertising. Well, I guess you can with 2200 pizzas. Regardless, a brilliant tactical move by the marketing folks at Boston Pizza.

Way to Go, Ms. Mclachlan

Vegetarian, Nova Scotian audiophile Herb links to a very elegant fan site (Flashy, Flashy goodness ahead) who links to an extensive USA Today article about music piracy:

Canadian singer Sarah McLachlan has her own opinions on the high costs of CDs, piracy and greed: "The industry needs to listen to what the kids are saying. If they can't afford a CD, I don't blame them (for file-sharing). Lower the damn price!" McLachlan and her record label, Nettwerk, are pricing her new album,Afterglow, 20% below the usual suggested retail in Canada (U.S. prices not set).

Nice one, Sarah. Mind you, I'm sure the new album will sound a lot like the last album, which sounded a lot like Fumbling Towards Ecstacy, and so on. Sarah doesn't really need the money, because in addition to having produced just five original studio albums in her career, she's released two live albums (five if you count Lilith Fair) and three rarities, remixes and B-side albums. So, I'd say she's got the mercantilism down to a science.

Christmas Shopping Follow-Up

To follow-up on my previous discussion of Christmas gifts and charities, I sent this to potential gift-givers last night:

As some of you know, I've been doing some thinking recently about Christmas gifts. The truth is, I've got everything I need. Furthermore, I can't speak for everyone, but I find Christmas shopping a pretty heinous experience.

So, this year, here's what I propose: If you haven't already bought me a Christmas present, please take whatever money you were going to spend on me and donate it to my charity of choice, the David Suzuki Foundation. If nobody minds, I'd like to do likewise for the charity of your choice. Please let me know what that charity is, and I'll start writing cheques. Merry Christmas!

What is the Meatrix?

Given the Warchoskis' most recent effort, and the aforementioned discussion of anti-agri-corp movie is timely. It's really well-done and pretty entertaining.

Writing about this reminded me of some quote from Shaw about the jam that coats the pill of morality. Does anybody remember the exact quote?

Thank you again, Sean Bonner.

Ever Dream of Being a Roadie?

Yeah, me neither. It looks like a lot of hard work and black T-shirts. Sure, if you manage to climb the ranks up to, say, guitar technician (who are frequently better guitarists than the band members, only fatter), you do get to go onstage before the show starts. And the sound men get to say 'check, check, check' to twenty thousand people. Still, a roadie's life is not for me.

It is, however, for some people, including the writer of this interesting article over at Kuro5hin. He crewed for, among others, New Kids on the Block:

So if sex, drugs, music, partying and hanging out with famous bands is why you want to be a roadie, your career has the life expectancy of a blind frog with two broken legs crawling across the LA Freeway during rush hour. If you don't mind travel and a lot of hard work that everyone loves to hear you talk about, read on.

The Ettiquette Ladies

Lewena Bayer and Karen Mallett are apparently recognized as “Canada’s etiquette experts”. They offer courses in everything from He says, she says - Gender relations in modern business to Don’t be a cocktail weenie! They've also got a column on workplace ettiquette. While I could no doubt greatly benefit from these courses, (what's this thing beside my fork? What's a nap-kin?) I had no idea that there was a viable market for this kind of corporate training.

Bell Canada, Shameful Advertisers

It's issue week on darrenbarefoot.com, but this particular phenomenon deeply offends me. The shameless bastards at Bell Canada have followed in GMC's footsteps in exploiting Remembrance Day and what it stands for. So, they're getting a letter too. And maybe a phone call:

Dear Sir/Ms: I was truly appalled to see that, with your recent advertising campaign, your organization had attempted to associate itself with the bravery and selflessness displayed by Canadian soldiers in the last century. How dare you commercialize their sacrifice? How dare you lessen their accomplishments by turning them into your seasonal marketing campaign?

It goes without saying that I won't be using your company's products in the near future, and will encourage my family and friends to do likewise.

If you truly wanted to educate people about our military history, then your organization could have made a quiet donation to veterans organizations. Instead, you've chosen to exploit some of this nation's best citizens. Shame on you. Those Canadians did not die so that you could sell long distance plans.

Search Terms du Jour

I haven't discussed how people have found my site in a while. These are some of the search terms that led readers to my site in the past few days. As a bonus, they're linked to their original context:

• Slightest touch
• fetish spacesuit
• cowboys bar calgary
• german forklift
• group wank

Taking the Money and Running

Sean Bonner (who also has an interesting page of celebrities--including Yanni!-- spotted at Starbucks) rants about the guys at Friendster, who recently turned down a $30 million buyout offer from Google:

How do you say no to $30 million dollars for an idea that isn't even that good, not to mention your own? And one that isn't even making any money on it's own? Anyone remember the last time companies started making mega dollar amount offers for companies who's business plans consisted mainly of banner ads and membership fees? Didn't these guys learn anything from that?

Sean makes several salient points. What the heck are these guys smoking?

Strange Flash Hilarity

Free Drugs

As many of my readers know, Vancouver has a serious drug problem. I've been meaning to mention a radical, inventive approach to this issue: free heroin. Here are several articles on the program.

The one-year study will allow some 450 addicts 25 and older to inject heroin up to three times a day. Then, they will have three months in which they are weaned off heroin, Sayers said.

I think this is a great idea. There have been similiar sucessful programs in the UK, Switzerland and the Netherlands. In Vancouver, this trial means that 160 people who otherwise might (heck, probably would) be engaged in criminal or other anti-social behaviour in order to obtain drugs won't have to. Removing that aspect of their lives can only have a positive impact. They go from being disdained, desperate junkies to merely impoverished people with a treatable addiction.

Call me heartless, but I care more about the impact on our society than on these individuals. Heroin addicts who obtain their drugs illegally cause a burden on our policing and healthcare resources. For 160 people, this program eliminates half of this burden. Sure, I'd like these people to kick their habit, and this program will go a long way to helping them do that. But for now, safer streets are a good place to start.

UPDATE: While replying to a comment, I remembered what I forgot to mention earlier. I wonder if a lot of free heroin will have the same impact on the illegal drug trade as the RIAA claims file-sharing has had on the record industry. Profits will go down, drug runners will be released from their contracts--the drug dealing industry could see a serious contraction. Nice one.

Link Round-Up: Technology

• There is some crazy, sci-fi stuff going on in Austria.
• Good article comparing the iPod to its pretenders. I definitely concur on the battery life issue.
• CNN article on abandoned Web sites. It references a fascinating site called Votexchange2000.com...read more here.
• Napster's back...whoop-freakin'-ee.
• We should have seen this coming: Bluetooth spam.

Born to Hand Jive, Baby

I have an acquiantance who is a hand model. She apparently has the smallest hands of all the adult hand models in the city. And, indeed, her hands are tiny and lovely. So, she mostly models toys. She tells fascinating stories of life on hand model shoots, including how they often fly hand models up from LA to do some of the work. One of them is a ten-year veteran! Surely her hands are a little old for the children's set, aren't they?

Has anybody else modelled anything interesting? Feet? Navels?

Her latest shoot featured (and I'm not making this up) Flavas from Mattel, the makers of Barbie. They're scantily-clad tarts with the hizzy in the schizzy, the bling-bling, and all that other bollocks:

Flava, according to “Hip Hoptionary: The Dictionary of Hip Hop Terminology” by Alonzo Westbrook, means personal flavor or style. With the introduction of Flavas (pronounced FLAY-vuhz), the first reality-based fashion doll brand that celebrates today’s teen culture through authentic style, attitude and values Mattel has created a hot hip-hop themed line that allows girls to express their own personal flava.

Flavas embraces the highly-popular hip-hop trend with breakthrough concepts never seen before in the older girl toy market. Flavas also represents several other firsts in the doll aisle. Just like real teens, Flavas reflects true individuality through a variety of sizes, face sculpts and styles unique to each character within the line.

Creepy Site du Jour

I suspect that this is a hoax in bad taste, but either way it's effectively done. It's a fascinating and deeply creepy read:

My son Peter has always loved to play hide and seek. In fact, he loves it so much that he will wake me up in the middle of the night to play. The only problem is that Peter has been dead for eight years. This website documents the hell I've lived and continue to live every night.

There's even a nifty bit of video.

A Few Notes on Foie Gras

My sister Imogene recently returned from Paris, where she's apparently been eating her fill of pâté de foie gras. That side of the family is South African, and I've never really seen them pause to consider the ethics of their diet. So, my sister may be unaware of the following gruesome facts about how they make fois gras.

For the vegan and non-gourmands among us, foie gras is pâté made from duck and goose livers:

• Birds are routinely confined to small cages or crowded pens, where they are force-fed tremendous amounts of feed via a 12- to 16-inch plastic or metal tube, which is shoved down their throats and attached to a pressurized pump.
• The force-feeding may be performed twice daily for up to two weeks for ducks and three to four times daily, for up to 28 days for geese.
• Force-feeding causes the liver to increase in size about 6-10 times compared to the normal size for a bird.
• Increased liver size forces the abdomen to expand, which makes moving difficult and painful.
• Ducks and geese are social animals who suffer when confined in individual cages.
• Ducks and geese also suffer when they're not allowed enough water to swim and preen, which they do naturally in the wild.

These grisly facts and others come from the informatiive Humane Society of the United States. That, ladies and gentlemen, is one unhappy goose:

The Simpsons Outsource

There's an interesting discussion over at Slashdot about a guy actually inventing Tomacco. That led me to a Simpsons news page, which features an article from the New Orleans Times-Picayune, about an ex-Orleanian who is a script supervisor on the show. The article features this tidbit, but fails to really follow up on it:

After each "Simpsons" script is locked and the show's brilliant voice cast has recorded the dialog, layout drawings are sent to a team of animators in South Korea, where the characters are brought to life.

Who knew? I imagine a huge room of Korean animators, slaving over their cells. It certainly casts a different light on those episodes which feature Asian stereotypes, doesn't it?

Full-Contact Figure Skating

My wife is a former competitive figure skater and occasional coach, and takes great joy in watching skating on TV. I take great joy in watching and listening to her watch. She's a very vocal sports fan. She'd be an excellent commentator...the current ones apparently don't know their ass from a divot in the ice.

Here are a list of a few things I've overheard from the livingroom:

• 'What kind of crap-ass program is this?'
• 'That dress is capital H horrible.'
• 'He's the flounciest flouncer on Flounce Street.'
• 'Didn't have any consistency? Are you on crack?'
• 'Here's Emmanuel Sandhu: prance, prance, fall on my ass, prance, prance, fall on my ass'

Incidentally, the International Skating Union has implemented a revolutionary new judging system this year. It's truly transforming the sport, making it much more fair and balanced (to borrow a phrase).

Fill this Cup

My athletic friend Chanelle writes to follow up on the Whizzinator and how, if she'd required it, it would have let her down after her latest race:

Last night after our race I was chosen for a doping test from the Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport. The whizzinator wouldn't work as they make you lift your shirt to below your breasts and drop your pants to your knees, then watch you pee into a cup.

Supposedly a few years ago a woman had hid a condom filled with urine up her hoo hoo and used it to fill the cup. Now they watch you pee. It was odd.

The kicker is that I then had to take my cup of urine, pour it into two glasses and shake it up. As I did this, it began to spill everywhere. So there I am with my coach and the drug doping guy with pee spilled all over the table. But in the end they gave me a free t-shirt to promote their website. Isn't that nice?

It's a good thing that most octegenarians can outrun me, so I'm not the racing type. Otherwise, I'd have to give it up for fear of being tested. I don't think I could micturate under all that scrutiny.