DarrenBarefoot.com

False Creek Geek: Miles' Future

This week's column from the Yaletown View is about my nephew, and his digital life 18 years in the future:

When I think about the future, I think of Miles. Miles is my eight-month-old nephew. As the speed of technological change increases, Miles’s generation will interact with the world like no other generation has. So, when I try to imagine what a computer or a phone will look like in the distant future, I begin with my nephew.

But the distant future is the realm of science-fiction authors and popcorn futurists. Let us imagine May 11, 2021, Miles’s eighteenth birthday.
Miles wakes to the sound his alarm clock, which not only announces the time and weather, but also reminds him of assignments due and appointments throughout the day. Most of the electrical appliances in Miles’s apartment are ‘aware’ in one way or another. Not only is the clock able to synthesize speech, but it also recognizes commands. So, when a groggy Miles mumbles “snooze”, it abides.

Later, Miles drives his electrical/internal combustion hybrid, the Honda Agitprop® to school. Miles’s car is used, and he can’t yet afford one of the fancy new hydrogen-powered fuel cell vehicles. Cars look pretty much the same as they do today—the automotive industry is resistant to change. There are no computerized drivers yet, but Miles’s car can park itself. Given that he’s inherited the family gene for lousy parallel parking, it’s a handy feature.

During first period, Miles checks his schedule on his Palm Wafer®. About the size of a credit card, the Wafer folds out into a sheet of 8.5” by 11” electronic paper, and is Miles’s window on the world. He can access his calendar, check his email, surf the Web and even listen to music through a headphone jack at the paper’s edge. None of this information is actually stored in the Wafer, it just has a wireless Internet connection to Miles’s home computer. In fact, the whole city is set up for wireless connectivity. Now, everyone leaves their data at home.

That evening, Miles’s friends take him out for dinner and karaoke. When he grabs the microphone to camp it up and sing Madonna’s “Like A Virgin”, the TV shows him in Madonna’s video. Madonna, in her fingerless gloves phase, sings along with him, adjusting to his pace and tone. His image is seamlessly integrated into the video, as he appears to steer Madonna’s gondola through Venice.

Back in May, 2003, When I first posted photos of Miles on my website, I asked the question “I wonder, in fifteen years, will he be able to find this page on the Web? Will he still call it the Web?” I doubt that he’ll call it the Web. Terms for rapidly-changing things tend to change with them. Refer to ‘cyberspace’ these days, and you’ll sound desperately 1996.

I’d bet, however, that Miles will be able to find that page on my site, even if www.darrenbarefoot.com has long drifted off into the Internet ether. Humans are deeply nostalgic creatures, and already movements are underway to ‘record’ the Internet. The Internet Archive (http://www.archive.org/) already stores over 300 terabytes of data (if you copied the entire contents onto floppy disks and laid them end to end, they would stretch from New York, past Los Angeles and halfway to Hawaii), and by the time Miles can vote, should be wrestling with ten or a hundred times that.

The nice thing about predicting the future is that, unless you’re Nostradamus, people tend to forget what you said. I have to wait 17 and a half years to determine if I’m right, and by then, no one will remember.

My Lousiest Songs

I'm in a list kind of mood today. My MP3-playing app du jour, iTunes, encourages you to rank your songs. You assign one to five stars to each track (I do this about 40% of the time, as I'm listening to each song). This enables you to generate optimized playlist of, say, your favourite jazz songs.

It also enables you to generate lists of the crappiest songs you own. I've got about 3500 songs, so there are likely to be some duds. Here's a little sampling of my least-favourite songs:

1. Angels We Have Heard On High - Amy Grant
2. America is Waiting (with Brian Eno) - David Byrne
3. I Can't Make You Love Me - George Michael
4. Praying For Time - George Michael
5. Scream If Ya Wanna Go Faster - Geri Halliwell
6. Pieces of You - Jewel
7. Angel Standing By - Jewel
8. Amen - Jewel
9. Satellite of Love - Milla Jovovich
10. I Love You (BT Mix) - Sarah Maclachlan
11. Dead Leaves And The Dirty Ground - The White Stripes
12. Not Such An Innocent Girl - Victoria Beckham

Should I feel shame for not deleting these? I suppose, but you never know when you're going to need a couple of tracks by ex-Spice Girls.

Give Us Cinema or, Like, Give Us Death

This is a great story. Seven girls from the auspiciously-named Petaluma, California, spent two and a half years getting a multiplex built in their hometown. As Metafilter points out, it'd make a great 80s teen flick:

Flanked by developer Matt White and Petaluma Mayor David Glass, the seven were ecstatic as they lifted golden shovels and turned over the first piles of earth. Ignoring the night breeze in their nylons and black satin '50s style jackets, some of the girls giggled and teetered on their high heels in the dirt lot -- decorated with black and white balloons and a long red carpet -- where a new building soon will rise.

I'm already imagining the final scene. With the building freshly completed, the seven girls, alone in a theatre, watch the latest teen flick with satisfaction. A door at the back of the theatre opens, and one of the girls tells whoever it is to get lost--this is their private screening. The person approaches, ignoring the girl's warning. Oh my God! It's, like, the star of the teen flick, who made it to the theatre opening after all! He smiles his perfect, ear-to-ear grin as the girls gasp and the credits roll.

Cashing In on Your Fifteen Minutes of Fame

When an ordinary person becomes temporarily famous, there is a short window in which to make as much cash as possible. Whether you're Tonya Harding or Monica Lewinsky, you need to exploit the short time you have to generate revenue from books, TV movies, blue dresses, etc.

It used to be that you'd have to achieve a certain level of national renown before you could cash in. There was a Warholian event horizon to cross. After all, if you're only famous in Oregon, literary agents are hardly going to come knocking. The Internet, however, has changed all that.

Now, you can seek reward based on an extremely brief spike in attention. Save Karyn, the woman who got herself out of credit card date debt through effective PR, is a classic example. Sure, she got some media attention, but if I asked people on the street 'who is this 'Save Karyn' woman, 9 out of 10 people wouldn't know. Still, she enjoyed enough online woofie to make, whatever it was, US $20,000.

There are plenty of similar shallow schemes to make cash, but without some online fame, you're not going to get very far. I was thinking about this phenomenon when I read about BC's own Mike Rowe (you remember him, don't you?) selling his Microsoft Cease-and-Desist Letters and WIPO book on eBay. Why not cash-in while you can? In two weeks, nobody will remember who Mike Rowe is. So, if he can net US $30,320.00 (which I heartily doubt is a legitimate bid), then all power to him.

Mail Order Catalogues

For most of the twentieth century, mail order catalogues were a critical link to the outside world for rural Canadians. Furthermore, they were an important retail model for selling just about anything--from seeds to tea sets to lawnmowers. The National Library of Canada has scanned and catalogued an incredible variety of these catalogues. The site includes interesting articles on alternative uses for catalogs and remote personal shoppers.

Bonus Canadiana link: A Fark Photoshop contest whose theme is Photoshop Geddy Lee of Rush on a toboggan. The winning entry is viciously incisive.

Who Makes These Movie List Memes?

The idea is that you post the list, and indicate in with bold text which movies you've seen. I've done this, but I'm perplexed by this odd assemblage of films. Do you suppose these are the originator's 100 favourite films? Or the last 100 she'd (and I'm guessing that it's a she) seen? Maybe I'll assemble my own list. Regardless, thanks to sn0wangel, here's my list:

1. Snatch
2. 25th Hour
3. Godfather I II III
4. Memento
5. Roxanne
6. Shallow Grave
7. Nightmare Before Christmas
8. Jackie Brown
9. Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels
10. Formula 51

11. Pulp Fiction
12. To Sir with Love
13. Burnt by The Sun
14. Cabaret Balkan
15. Beautiful Girls
16. La Femme Nakita
17. Edward Scissorhands
18. This Boy's Life
19. Four Weddings & a Funeral
20. About a Boy
21. Goodfellas
22. Casino
23. The Usual Suspects
24. Seven
25. Punch Drunk Love
26. Fargo
27. Bend it Like Beckham
28. My Big Fat Greek Wedding
29. Notting Hill
30. Shakespeare in Love
31. Young Frankenstein
32. Blazing Saddles
33. Life of Brian
34. The Joy Luck Club
35. Othello (the one with Lawrence Fishburne)
36. When Father Was Away on Business
37. Mother
38. True Romance
39. Dog Day Afternoon
40. Scarface
41. The Other Sister
42. Domenick & Eugene
43. Broken English
44. Reservoir Dogs
45. Snapper
46. The Onion Field
47. Pretty in Pink
48. The Breakfast Club
49. The Green Mile
50. Philidelphia
51. Antwone Fisher
52. Corina, Corina
53. Goin' Down The Road
54. Sound of Music
55. Madame X
56. Imitation of Life
57. The Replacements
58. The Wizard of Oz
59. Fiddler on the Roof
60. The Road to Perdition
61. Dead Man Walking
62. The Player
63. Doctor Zivago
64. Schindler's List
65. The Dirty Dozen
66. Monty Python and the Holy Grail
67. Lolita (the original)
68. Shallow Hal
69. The Fine Young Cannibals
70. Round Midnight
71. American History X
72. The Outsiders
73. Rumblefish
74. Perfect Storm
75. A Bronx Tale
76. Fight Club
77. 12 Angry Men
78. A Patch of Blue
79. Remember the Titans
81. Little Odessa
82. Moonstruck
83. Sixth Sense
84. Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean
85. The Professional
86. The Valley of the Dolls
87. Dead Calm
88. As Good as it Gets
89. What's Up, Tiger Lily
90. The Party
91. Wait Until Dark
92. To Kill a Mockingbird
93. Empire
94. Mrs. Doubtfire
95. Save the Last Dance
96. My Girl
97. Paris is Burning
98. Priscilla, Queen of the Desert
99. This is Spinal Tap
100. Pay it Forward

Follow-Up: Poached Eggs

Thanks to all of the readers who advised me on poaching eggs. Apparently the modus operandi for the perfect poached egg includes:

• Some lemon juice or vinegar in the water.
• Use an ordinary, not a shallow pan.
• Heat the water to a slow boil, not a rolling one.
• Use a whisk to create a vortex, and pour the egg (from a dish) into the centre of the vortex.

Readers also sent these instructions on poaching eggs, and a link to an old-school egg poacher on eBay for only $9.99. Finally, these page describes how to determine the age of eggs.

Sarah Harmer at the CBC

This afternoon, I had the good fortune to attend a recording at the CBC of Sarah Harmer playing songs from her new album. For those unfamiliar with Ms. Harmer, she's from Kingston, Ontario and had great success with her fantastic first album, You Were Here.

About 25 of us descended three stories of cement stairs below the CBC building n downtown Vancouver. Like a cliff face, the building seemed to get older the deeper we went. Down in the bowels (really, the colon) of the CBC, we emerged in a small recording studio. After instructions on when to clap and how to be really quiet, the host introduced Ms. Harmer. She played six songs from the new album, combined with snappy patter with the host. The songs were great, and her voice was in excellent form. She has brilliant tone, an admirable range and a warm stage presence.

Yes, I'm a fanboy and I got her to sign my CBC backstage pass thingy.

I saw her in nearly-as-intimate circumstances two years ago, while living in Ierland. We saw her at a dodgy, mostly empty club on the north side of Dublin. There were about 50 people there. When most of them cheered when she said she was from Kingston, she asked "is there anybody here who isn't Canadian?" My Irish friend Alan sheepishly raised his hand.

Her new album, called All Our Names, is due out in late March. The show will be played on CBC Radio 2 (despite it being a CBC 3 production) on Saturday, March 20 at 8:00pm.

Reader Survey: The Mouseover Effects

I'm generally not down with the self-referential posting, but I wanted to survey people as to how they felt about the new mouseover effect. I scored it (with some kind instruction) from Pericat at Unlocking the Air. I admired the way the mouseovers gave you contextual information about the hyperlink. On the other hand, as one reader reports, you may find them tremendously annoying.

So, what's the popular opinion? Useful or lame? I'm more than willing to kowtow to the masses.

UPDATE: Thanks for all the feedback. I believe that we're quorate on this topic. I'm going to restrict the fancy-fancy mouseover effect to the sidebar and those links whose destination may be obscure, unsafe for work or otherwise worth publishing metadata about.

Link Round-Up: Strange Products and Services

Today we look at the strange things people will (apparently) pay for.

• Velvetize your favourite photo (thanks, Coudal lads).
• Can you say 'specific fetish'? Girls stuck in the mud. In their cars. Fully-clothed. Safe for work, as far as I can tell (thanks, unsafe-for-work Fleshbot).
• Get anything you want written on a rock.
• Carpooling by chaos theory.
• The Quiet Party--a singles scene phenomenon.

My Keyword Phrases are Kinda Gay

I was looking at the keyword phrass that people most often used to locate my site this month. The following are all in the top twenty:

1. jem and the holograms
2. josh hartnett
5. ashkan sahihi
6. gay wrestling
13. emmanuel sandhu
20. josh hartnett wallpaper

Huh. I suppose these are offset by very more macho keyword phrases like "slightest touch", "technical writer" and "therblig". Right? Right?

Exciting News Indeed

Wow! I get to pay for something that used to be free! That's extraordinary! I'm so excited!

Following the trend, as Jay Currie reported, of the National Post and many other newspapers, the Vancouver Sun and Province are offering an 'electronic version' of their paper. This means that what we used to get for free (albeit in a crappy site), we'll have to pay for.

I understand that it costs money to run a Web site, but this is an absurd approach to recouping those costs. How many subscribers do they really think they're going to get? I can't imagine that they're actually going to profit from this venture. Experts in online publishing can't much money online--how well are hoary institutions like newspapers going to do?

As I was instructed to do, I called the Vancouver Sun today, to enquire about the pricing of the electronic edition. I'm never going to pay for it, but I wondered about the price. Get this: they didn't know. They announced this service on page three of the paper and online today but couldn't tell me how much it cost. In fact, the skilled saleswoman who answered my call suggested that I "call back next week." Wow, CanWest Global Communications, way to sell that product.

If newspapers must generate money from their Web sites, I prefer the New York Times approach. It's free for a week, but then you have to pay for the archived version. It's not ideal, but at least it permits free access (and, therefore, an exchange of ideas) over a short period of time.

Here's an even better solution: like it or not, newspapers are part of our national heritage. The National Archives should start a program to archive newspapers from major Canadian cities. There are plenty of content management solutions that could automagically extract the newspaper content and dump it into a well-organized database that was universally accessible. If the newspapers are concerned about losing subscribers to because people can access it for free online, then implement a 72-hour blackout period. That is, you can see Monday's news at the archives on Thursday. There could even be some incentive cash for the newspapers to provide their data. Once setup, the costs would be relatively small but the long-term benefit would be extraordinary.

How Do You Poach Your Eggs?

I like poached eggs. They're probably my favourite kind of egg. However, I rarely have them because we don't own any poaching aids. That is, we just crack the egg into boiling water and hope for the best. This process seems to sacrifice a lot of the egg. Furthermore, you end up with terrifying, chickens-raised-in-a-nuclear-reactor shapes.

Growing up, my family had a dedicated egg poacher. This sizable appliance had an amber-coloured lid, four little egg cups that you had to grease with margarine, and you plugged it into the wall. I tried to search for such a device, but my 8-second attempt proved fruitless.

How do you poach your eggs? Do you have a dedicated pot? Or just one of those poaching inserts?

An Interactive Coffee Table

Via Metafilter, we find this nifty coffee table that provides a bird's eye view of England. You can apparently 'steer' it, by shifting items on the table:

The Drift Table allows people to float slowly over the British landscape from the comfort of their own home. The distribution of weight on the table controls the slow scroll of aerial photographs displayed on a central viewport. Progress is slow, but the Drift Table can be used to visit favorite places, look at geographical features, or simply watch the world go by.

As someone who often questions the efficiency of coffee tables--they do little more than occasionally hold up your coffee--I can buy into this. We use an antique steamer trunk for our coffee table, which is stuffed full of roller blades and ice skates.

Ashes to Ashes

While waiting for the fire alarm in my building to shut off (the new janitor was apparently using the fire hose connection to hose down the parking garage), I read a great article about cremation in the Vancouver Courier. This paragraph really surprised me:

North American Cremation Association statistics show Vancouver has the highest cremation rate of any city in North America-about 80 per cent-while B.C. tops any other Canadian province or American state at about 76 per cent.

Apparently the trend driven my cost as well as the transient population of Vancouver. When the first crematorium opened in Vancouver in 1912, the cremation rate was 2%.

The Vancouver Courier, I might add, has done an excellent thing by making its back issues since 2000 available for free online.

Gun Violence in Canada

Over at Being American in T.O., Debbye fosters some fear about gun violence in the Toronto area. She cites three articles which discuss this issue. These articles (from the always reserved and incisive Toronto Sun, which today features three busty starlets on the masthead) speak of a 'gun craze', 'snapshot of a violent weekend' and 'an emergency'. One article offers this wicked quote from Councilor Giorgio Mammoliti: "This is an emergency. And the way you deal with emergencies is through emergency meetings." How is this guy not our prime minister? He also advocated a plan to immediately hire 600 more police officers.

I note with interest that none of the three articles cited actually specify how many gun-related injuries or homicides there have been. One article says that 'gunplay' (a vague term in itself) is up 35%.

Let's pause and consider some facts:

• In 2003, 31 people were killed as a result of gun violence in Toronto.
• In Toronto, it's estimated that 94% of shootings are believed to be gang-related.

So, if gun-related homicides are up 35%, and (as that 94% figure seems kind of high), 80% of all shootings are gang-related, in 2004, three innocent Torontonians will be killed. 3.35 to be precise. Even if you want to include all of the gangland shootings, roughly 42 people will be killed. 42 people in a city of 2.5 million.

Does this constitute an emergency? I think not.

Compare that with the 511 people shot to death in Chicago in 2002.

Firearm death rates (as for all forms of crime) have been consistently decreasing over the past 25 years. Debbye wonders 'does a baby have to be killed in cross fire before people wake up?' Wake up to what? That we're safer than our parents' generation was? That the odds of a non-criminal being killed in gun-related violence is infinitesimal (on a national scale, based on the 80% estimate of criminals killing criminals, roughly 1 in a million)? That last weekend in Toronto was a statistical blip?

Sure, I'd like the number to be the number to be 4 instead of 42. I'd like to be like Australia or Switzerland or Hungary, but it's hardly time to start panicking over gun violence.

Note: Many of the statistics for this entry came from here and here. Those links go to a gun control organization, but all of the facts that I've cited come from major newspapers (The Globe and Mail and the Toronto Star) or the Toronto Police Department.

Blogging for (or near) the Corporation

A while back, I had an email debate with a journalist who had started blogging. His blog is on his employer's (a major magazine) site, and is branded with the magazine's logo, look and feel. The site itself is not a Web portal--it's more or less a corporate site for the magazine.

I was confused as to whether his weblog reflected only his views, or those of the corporation for which he worked. He argued that it was totally clear that his views were his own, and not those of the company.

I bring this up because today I happened to look at three personal weblogs by Microsoft employees. All three of them contain clear disclaimers at the top of the page indicating that their views are their own and not those of Microsoft. If you have a look at weblogs run on the Microsoft site (or other corporate sites), you'll find no disclaimers and a far-more-apparent party line.

In short, if you want to speak freely, and want your readers to understand that you are speaking freely, choose a host independent from your employer.

In Short, DRM Sucks

Cory Doctorow takes Robert Scoble to task. Scoble argues that, because Windows has more licenses for its DRM'd audio format, it's preferable to the iPod. Cory's point (which I wholeheartedly agree with) is that DRM is lousy, regardless of the flavour. Whether you get your music at MSN.com or the iTunes store, you just getting a different flavour of lock-in:

Microsoft can pursue the bone-stupid strategy of kowtowing to the music labels instead of delivering the tools its customers want, but it's a dead end. When Sony invented the VCR, it did so after the movie companies had already decreed that they would only license their movies for use on the "Discovision," a hunk of shit best forgotten on the trashheap of history (much like the products that Sony later delivered instead of MP3 walkmen). With the VCR, though, Sony delivered what its customers wanted, and the movie companies got rich off of it, dragged kicking and screaming to the money-tree again.

Until there's a reliable, reasonably-priced, DRM-free subscription service, I'm never going to pay to download digital music. Once that's available, I'll be all over it like a drunk salesman at a Christmas party.

Link Round-Up: Images

This particular link round-up theme seems to emerge quite regularly. Mostly, I'm just too lazy to group items into more compelling clusters.

• Christopher Burkett brings us all the colours of the seasons.
• Abandoned bicycles of New York.
• Henry Lim gets into some extraordinary LEGO mosaics.
• "Honey, I can't seem to get into that parking spot." "Use the force, dear."
• Photos of photographers.

Hello, My Tiny, Winged Precious

In addition to having one of the most attractive personal sites I've seen, Raymond takes awesome photos, mostly of insects. He's just converted a bunch of his photos into desktop wallpaper. Frankly, they don't compare with the wicked wallpaper I made a while back, but they're still pretty cool.

In Other News, Sun Rises

Reuters reports that Internet users watch less television than non-Internet users. This is about as insightful as saying that non-drivers get in less vehicular accidents than drivers:

A few years ago, a UCLA study determined that Americans who surf the Internet watch less television. Now, an international version of that same study concludes that to be a worldwide pattern. Example: In Hungary, non-Internet surfers watch 17.5 hours of TV per week, while those who use the Internet watch only 11.8 hours per week, a difference of 5.7 hours.

Usually when surveys like this are publicized, you have to pay thousands of dollars to see the complete results (as opposed to the factoids included in the press release). Not so here. The World Internet Project has posted the entire 89 page report (PDF) for all to, uh, enjoy.

The Clement-Harper-Stronach Issues Matrix

I was recently talking to several people about where the new Conservative Party of Canada falls on the political spectrum. That is, is it nearer to the old Alliance party, the old PC party, or in-between? A couple of people pointed out that the answer depends, in part, on who gets elected as leader. Obviously, the sum of a candidate's opinions does not a leader make. There are plenty of other factors--experience, vision, charisma--to consider, but I thought this would be a good place to start.

In order to keep track of the platforms of the Conservative Party candidates, and to determine whether I might support one of them, I've created the Clement-Harper-Stronach Issues Matrix, or CHSIM for short. I've assembled a list of issues which interested me, and then sought out specific information on where the candidates stood on each issue.

As you can see, the CHSIM is still in its infancy, and has more blanks that quotes. This is because of the all-Stronach news cycle that we're just coming out of, I haven't had time to search more extensively, and I assume that candidates haven't offered their perspectives on all these issues.

I'd appreciate any assistance that you can furnish on completing the matrix. If you spot a quote from a candidate on one of these issues, please email me at darren AT darrenbarefoot FULL-STOP com. Also, if there are other issues that you think should be on the matrix, let me know.

If you want to send me some data, please include a source. A web page is preferable, but "heard it on the radio" is acceptable to. I'll include that as the source reference, and people can take it for what it's worth. Obviously, some sources are going to be more reliable than others. Additionally, I'm seeking specificity for these issues. For example, probably all three leaders will talk about lowering taxes, but I'm interested in the details of how they propose to do so.

Resumes in the Tech Industry

Via Slashdot, we find this rant from software pundit Joel Spolsky, on writing and submitting resumes for tech jobs. It turns out that it's not just technical writers who are grammarians (though, in truth, his requirements are pretty basic):

OK, this one really bugs me. Learn where spaces go in relation to other punctuation. Attention, the entire population of India: whenever you have a comma, there is always exactly one space and it's always after the comma and never before it. Thank you.

Punctuation: the final barrier to tech jobs outsourcing.

Blogging Canada's 2004 Federal Elections

As I've grown older, I've become increasingly interested in Canadian politics. To this end, I've joined up with the E-Group Election Blog, a project by the industrious Jim Elve. There are plenty of political heavyweights in the group, so I'll probably read more than I post. Regardless, it should prove an interesting cross section of ages, regions and political views.

Winning Oscars the Poor, White Trash Way

Today I watched Monster, the account of Aileen Carol Wuornos, a prostitute-turned-murderer and her love affair with a woman named Selby. It's serious, predictable and despairing in a Boys Don't Cry sort of way. With the exception of Charlize Theron's remarkable transformation into Wuornos, it's a pretty unremarkable true-crime story.

Theron is at the heart of my concerns about the film. Because she's a big name actor, and because of all of the media attention around her metamorphosis (compare this with this), the film seemed as much to be about Charlize Theron as it was about Wuornos. Her performance was unquestionably over the top, and so the film seemed like a real ego trip for the performer. I would have sympathized more with the protagonist--a difficult person to like--had she not been played by your standard Hollywood ingenue. This was, in part, what made Boys Don't Cry a grittier and more compelling film--Hilary Swank was a relative unknown. Of course, her performance was far more natural as well.

Regardless, Theron's a shoe-in for the Best Actress Oscar. Poor white trash roles win for women as often as the sick and the psychotic win for men. Consider these recent wins:

2001 74th Academy Awards
Halle Berry - MONSTER'S BALL (uh, technically poor black trash, I suppose)

2000 73rd Academy Awards
Julia Roberts - ERIN BROCKOVICH

1999 72nd Academy Awards
Hilary Swank - BOYS DON'T CRY

If an actress wants to guarantee an Oscar next year, she should play a poor, busty, African-American, cross-dressing lesbian.

Landmine Hunting Rats

The ever-informative Mirabilis points to this fascinating article on how animals are being put to work in unorthodox ways. For example, alpacas apparently make excellent shepherds. The bit that interested me most was about the mine-hunting rats:

In Mozambique a Belgian charity called Apopo has deployed African giant pouched rats to help clear some of the 500,000 landmines that litter the landscape after the country's long years of civil strife. Elsewhere dogs have sometimes been used to clear the detritus of war. But rats are lighter, so less likely to detonate a buried mine, and smaller, so easier to transport. They also work harder and learn faster than dogs.

That got me thinking:

US WMD Inspector Resigns, Resumes Hunt for Remote Control

Via Fark (where my paraphrased title also comes from), the BBC reports that Iraq Survey Group (a charming euphemism, if I've ever heard one) team leader David Kay has stepped down:

In a statement released by the CIA, Mr Kay said: "While there are many unresolved issues, I am confident that the ISG (Iraq Survey Group) will do everything possible to answer remaining questions about the former Iraqi regime's WMD efforts." But in a telephone interview with Reuters, Mr Kay said of the alleged weapons stockpiles: "I don't think they existed. What everyone was talking about is stockpiles produced after the end of the last Gulf War and I don't think there was a large-scale production programme in the 90s."

Despite my scepticism about the US-led effort in Iraq, I really believed they were going to find something (besides those hummus-covered mortar shells). Particularly since they captured Saddam Hussein, I figured it was only a matter of time before something emerged out of the desert.

Kay's quote is intriguing. Did he always think that the WMD weren't out there? If so, was he really the right guy for the job? Or is he just practicing political butt-coverage in case some WMD do show up?

I've already expressed my concerns about what the lack of WMD says about the US administration or their intelligence services.

The Vintage Clothing Gender Gap

There's a thriving industry in vintage clothing for women. From Salvation Army thrift shops to fancier affairs, every city I've lived in or visited has a healthy supply of used clothing for sale. The main appeal of these shops are the sartorial rarities and bargains to be had. Even if you're not a 17-year-old raver chick after cargo pants and trucker hats, there are usually lots of options.

Not so for us men. In Vancouver, used clothing stores for men are few and far between. There's the reliable Deluxe Junk, (with a surprisingly fancy website) and a couple of other places, but I could count them all on both hands, with fingers to spare. I'm surprised at this. To lean on a stereotype for a moment, I would guess that Vancouver would, with it's high population of gay men, have a surplus of male vintage clothing shoppers. How many such shops can there be in, say, Regina?

Why this gender gap? Obviously, women shop more than men. There are more shops for women than shops for men. Also, shopping for vintage clothing takes more thought and effort than visiting the Gap. The shops are in peculiar locations, they may not have your size and you have to evaluate the condition of potential purchases. This scares the average man, who can't reliably purchase the correct hue or style of (non-vintage) socks.

I don't shop very much, but if there were more men's vintage stores around, I'd frequent them. Why? Because I'm less likely to own the same shirt as 8000 other Vancouverites. Also, the clothes are less likely to have been made in some Third World sweatshop.

Link Round-Up: Web Crack

It's Friday, waste some time.

• Dolphin Dash: A seizure-inducing, frantic, vaguely-Japanese flash game.
• Anti-porn du jour: girls eating sandwiches. Safe, as far as I could tell, for work.
• This site brings me simple, unabashed joy.
• An interview with the inventor of the greatest time-wasting device in world history. The subject is not, technically-speaking, Web crack, but it's close enough.
• Collecting a piece of trash for the Internet every day.

Bonus link: I've referenced it before, but this is very fine, Bolivian Web crack. Bolivia's for cocaine, isn't it? Where does the best crack come from? Detroit?

Beacoup du Technical Writing Resources

Docsymmetry has a whole shwack of writing and resources about technical writing. She's (and I know she's a she, because we exchanged emails, but I can't find them now--technology fails us so often) got tips on wide range of topics, including how to get a job without any experience:

• Join the STC
• Create an Error-Free CV
• Write Grammatically
• All of Your Writing Experience Counts
• Know Thy Software

She ignores a common and effective strategy: complete an internship. That's how I got into the industry, completing a two-month internship with Radical Entertainment. On the final day of my internship, Radical laid off 40 people. So, the odds were slim of my getting a job. Fortunately, a couple of weeks later, (and, no doubt, to his eventual despair) Todd hired me at MPS Development.

The internship trick works in most fields. If you can afford little or no salary for a couple of months, it's an excellent way to get your proverbial foot in the door and demonstrate your worth to a company.

The FA Cup Rocks

Is there a better league competition in all of sports? Basically, it's a football (er, soccer) tournament in which teams from any level of professional and semi-professional in British English (thanks, Chris) soccer can compete. I'm a little sketchy on how a team qualifies, but it means that, on rare occasions, tiny, underdog teams can play against the nation's very best.

This year's example is the tiny Scarborough playing the massively huge and wealthy Chelsea. To put this into Canadian hockey terms, this is the equivalent of the Merritt Centennials playing the New York Rangers. They playing at the Scarborough home ground, capacity 6,500 (Chelsea's pitch, by comparison, can host about eight times that). The underdog will no doubt get their butts served to them with a mouthful of turf, but what a thrill to play against their heroes.

A fringe benefit is that Scaraborough will make a mint on television rights, providing financial security for the club for years.

Tell Me About the Rabbits

For the local readers, my friend, Jedi School dropout, actor, playwright, Canuck booster and all-around fine young man Kennedy Goodkey is in Of Mice and Men at Video In Studios from Jan 27th to 31st. Go here for more information (caution, irresponsible use of Photoshop textures ahead). He's also on a double bill with Arthur Miller (though he assures me that he's never slept with Marilyn Monroe) at Two's On First Studio Stage, Jan 14 through 31.

I googled his ass, and he's also written this missive on the game theory of Survivor.

Holy MusicPlasma

A meme du jour is MusicPlasma, an incredibly fast and gracefully-designed site that maps the relationship between musical artists. I was blown away by how quickly and attractively it rendered its results.

It was intriguing to look at a couple of search results. The Cowboy Junkies were an isthmus, with Lisa Loeb and Sarah Mclachlan on one end and Gillian Welch and Lucinda Williams on the other. Warren Zevon, on the other hand, was orbited by the likes of Lou Reed, Richard Thompson and (gulp) Little Feat.

This site no doubt uses Amazon's API to render the relationships between artist nodes. The basis of those connections--the actual data sets used--isunclear.

One complaint: the colour of the node appears to only serve an aesthetic purpose. It'd be cool if it reflected something about the artist as well.

Link Round-Up: Good, Bad and Weird Inventions

Inventions that do, might and probably don't work:

• I wish I'd known about this service before I'd start freakin' ripping my CDs. It's a great idea, but about two years too late.
• This is exceptional thinking from some guys in Quebec. Nobody ever wants to be a goalie when you're playing shinny or floor hockey, so you end up shooting at a milk crate or something. It's a bit pricey, but I could see rinks and rec centre buying a couple.
• Dry-clean your clothes at home? If The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe were a sci-fi novel, this would be the wardrobe.
• Forget about fuel cells...just stay outside with this jacket.
• This freaks me out. I mean, I'm sure it doesn't work, but we live in a world where someday, something like it might.

Bonus link: I spotted most of the techno-gadgets that I write about on Gizmodo, the royal scribes of emerging consumer technology.

Another World, Indeed

I live a sedentary life. I work from a seven by seven foot 'den' in my apartment, seated in front of my computer. In the morning, I rise from the bed, get dressed, walk about nine feet, and start work. I pause for lunch. Sometimes, about three times a week on average, I leave the apartment to meet with clients or have lunch with friends. My evenings and weekends are more exciting, but my week days tend to be uneventful.

When my simple life takes a surreal turn, it's disturbing.

This afternoon, I went down to my apartment building's gym to work out. There is no one else in there, and so I'm pleased to be working out by myself. I've been on the elliptical trainer for about twenty minutes when, over the music of my iPod, I hear some commotion behind me. A young man with pointy, jet-black hair and a plain green t-shirt with the sleeves cut off has come in. I hear him leave, and return a couple of minutes later.

When he comes back, he has brought a luggage cart laden with objects stacked about shoulder height, all covered in a shabby grey towel. The elliptical trainer faces outward, and he's directly behind me. It's difficult for me to see what he's doing. There's a great deal of noise, but I don't want to appear snoopy, so I finish my workout on the trainer. When I turn around and climb off, I'm shocked.

My fellow exerciser has set up one of the weightlifting benches in front of the stationary bike. He's placed the luggage cart on top of the bench. The luggage cart has a television, VCR and a box bungied to it. A television and VCR. He's brought his own entertainment centre!

The box, I soon learn, contains a standing fan. He nods to me, as if this were standard gym equipment, extends the fan to about four feet, and plugs it in. Then he asks me if he can turn off the lights. Unsure of what else to say, I consent, and the room gets very dark. I look around, trying to decide whether I'm in a porn or horror movie. In the semi-darkness, I struggle to finish my workout quickly.

While hanging up a floor mat, I manage to glance at what he's watching. He's taped a soap opera. I wouldn't know which one, but the hair lights and heavy make-up are unmistakable. I hurry out of the gym before he asks me whether I think Victor really killed Catarina.

When I got upstairs to my apartment, I tuned the television to the channel that shows the feeds from the 20-odd security cameras around the building. Most of the screen shows the front entrance, and the rest rotate in a small picture-in-picture. To validate the strangeness, I took a photo of the gym feed.

The Car is Sold

Thanks for those (precious few) who expressed interest, but the green machine is now the property of a 21-year-old South African Capilano College student.

More on Conservative Sites

I'm obsessing on this subject, but bear with me. The end is in site. Here's a Globe and Mail article that evaluates the three contenders' sites, and aptly compares Ms. Stronach's site to
Martha Stewart's. That explains the urge to cross-stitch I felt when I visited Belinda's site.

Tasty Macro Photo

Via the Bloggies, I discovered Sam's fantastic photos. Yesterday's image looks alien yet strangely familiar. Can you guess what it is? His page explains the subject.

Baby You Can Drive My Car

Before Christmas, we made a half-hearted effort sell our car. Now we're serious, running ads in the paper and such. If you're interested, let me know.

Hey you. Yeah you. What're you doing walking? What you need is a car. And not just any car. You need a 1994 Ford Escort GT in rich teal. With fancy decaling down the side. That's right, you can't get that standard. That's a custom job.

Click on the photos below for larger versions.

It's hard to believe, but I'm actually parting with this extraordinary automobile. But we've got another hand-me-down car from my brother, which is five years newer and, frankly, cranberry. So, I'm selling our car.

My mother-in-law has been driving it for eight years, with no major problems or accidents. We bought it from her nine months ago, and it's certainly been reliable for us. Here are the details:

• Ford Escort GT, a two-door hatchback with massive trunk space
• Automatic transmission
• Power windows and locks
• 4 cylinder, 1.8L (surprisingly peppy) engine
• 156,000 kms
• Driven by a single female driver for 90% of its life, used for commuting between White Rock and Langley.
• It's been very well-maintained, receiving regular, scheduled servicing throughout its life.

All for the low, low price of $3000. I'll listen to all reasonable offers (well, those about purchasing the car). If you're interested, email me or call me at 604.682.4822.

On the Web Friendliness of the Conservative Candidates

Bree has an interesting entry on Ms. Stronach's new blog. Despite Todd's cutting (and accurate) comparison of her site to a 'Pier-1 e-store', she scores points for being the Web-friendliest candidate. Of course, when she's competing with the awfully-Photoshopped image of Tony Clement and his MS Word (MS Word!) documents, it's hardly fair.

I also applaud the mere modernity, directness and marketing-savvy of Belinda Stronach's site. Compare it with Steven Harper's top banner, which bravely attempts to encompass 9,984,670 square kilometres in 581 pixels. I see that www.stevenharper.com was already taken. Thank goodness that guy doesn't want to lead our nation.

Bienvenue a La Lavandiere

We've got some friends in the south of France, Dannielle and Julian. In the summer, they operate a barge that takes well-heeled Americans and Brits up and down some canals. They recently purchased an old barn in the village of Argeliers and converted it into a villa, which they'll rent out in the summer and live in in the winter.

In exchange for a week at their fine villa, I agreed to build them a website. I recently (almost) finished www.lalavandiere.com. It's a humble affair, but I'm pretty happy with it. Thanks to vanderWoning.ca, from whom (with his permission) I borrowed the layout and some stylesheet bits that I've always admired.

One question for the design fiends out there. As you'll see, in IE, there's a single pixel gap between the top banner and the navigation bar. For the life of me, I can't figure out why it's there. Any suggestions?

UPDATE: Mark, who is a star, suggested the solution. Basically, in my code, there was a carriage return between the image and the table. While this shouldn't make any difference, clearly IE wasn't happy with it.

Cancelling Your Wedding

The Tyee features a fraught tale on how to get dumped by your fiance and cancel your wedding:

In April I sold my condo and removed the final subjects for buying our new home. This should have been a joyous occasion. Small detail: The day after I sold my condo my fiancé announced that he was infatuated with a woman in his master's program and didn't love me enough to marry me.

You'd think this would have been a hint: "We had the engagement ring crafted in July, yet my fiancé procrastinated over proposing to me until I set a deadline for the end of summer."

Belinda Stronach and the Ferengi

As you may know, auto parts magnate Belinda Stronach has declared her intent to run for the leadership of this newfangled Conservative Party of Canada. However, as I understand it (which, in truth, is not all that well), Stephen Harper is more or less a shoe-in for the party leader. This is too bad, for, as Rick Mercer pointed out last night, times are tough when Harper is the most charismatic person available for the job.

As I understand it, Stronach's politics are far more centrist than Harper's. Combine this with her youth, gender and freshness, and she's really the only candidate that would make me consider supporting the Conservative Party in the next election. That's not a likely scenario, but with Harper at the helm, you can forget about it.

This entry's title refers to this entertaining post on All things Canadian, which speculates about a cyber-squatter's Ferengian (Ferengiesque? Ferengite?) approach.

My Brother's Maps of Canada

Hot, Bagel-Slicing Action

So I'm down in the Zodiac Cafe in the main floor of my building, getting some breakfast. Somebody orders a bagel, and I watch in amazement as the barista (and, I suppose, bagelier) uses this fab device to slice the bagel without slicing his hands. In truth, I'd never want such a thing myself--can you say counter-space waster? However, it's a pretty handy device for a cafe.

In my youth, I worked in various capacities at the beautifully-situated Horseshoe Bay Boathouse. One of my jobs was cutting bread--at least one loaf for every table. We used a very sharp serated knife, and on a nightly basis somebody would end up spraying blood all over their loaf. Obviously this bagel slicer wouldn't have been applicable, but it still reminded me of those days of scarred fingers and discarded, bloody loafs.

Bonus link: While searching for the correct spelling of 'barista', I discovered this wicked action figure. Apparently "her beans are always freshly ground, she never tamps the filter basket too tight and her foam is perfect." That sounds kind of dirty.

Somebody's Got an Inferiority Complex

Via Fark, I found this nifty site that offers do-it-yourself Star Wars props. While surfing around the site, I found this photo:

Check out that dude on the right. Why did he choose to dress as, like, imperial lieutenant #317? In the movies, these guys are typically thrown across the bridge in an explosion or just remotely strangled by the guy on the left. I don't even think he's got a weapon. Points for originality, I suppose, but, c'mon man, get some cajones.

Apartment Web Sites

BoingBoing points to a weblog run by tenants of a LA apartment building. While that's pretty cool, my building has a whole Web site that includes a discussion forum. This is not only handy for discussing building issues, but also provides a handy repository for things like strata minutes (you're legally required to provide all of these to potential buyers). It's all down to our particularly geeky and effective building manager.

As a side note, I recently observed how technology can improve our lives in tiny but perceptible ways. For security, our building manager installed cameras in most common areas. The camera feeds rotate on channel 39 in our building, and enable you to assess how busy the gym and pool are.

For Buffy Withdrawal Symptoms

I bring you the Encyclopedia of Buffy Studies, which features with such evocative titles as:

• High School is Hell: Metaphor made Literal
• Myth Versus Faux Myth
• Killing Us Softly? A Feminist Search for the 'Real' Buffy
• The Buffy Effect or, a Tale of Cleavage and Marketing (by the unfortunately named Rachel Fudge)

You've got to love academia, eh? Now, I certainly enjoyed the show, but this is agetting a bit carried away. This list comes from that most intellectual of Buffy fan sites, Slayage.tv. In truth, when I was at university, I loved inventing goofy titles for my papers. It was a tiny reward after writing the things.

Clever Puns Don't Fly with Microsoft

The meme du jour is about one Mike Rowe, a local 17-year-old who started a Web design company called mikerowesoft.com (currently down, no doubt from bandwidth issues). His cheekiness got him a lengthy legal letter from the other, slightly larger, Microsoft:

But the folks at the world's biggest software company aren't smiling -- they've demanded that he give up his domain name. Mike, a self-described computer gook, registered the name in August. In November, he received a letter from Microsoft's Canadian lawyers, Smart & Biggar, informing him he was committing copyright infringement.

I fear that this is all going to end in tears. It seems, as usual, that Microsoft couldn't care less about the lousy PR this is genereating.

UPDATE: The lads on Slashdot point out that the article is technically incorrect, as Microsoft should be filing against Mike Rowe for 'trademark infringement', not 'copyright infringement'. This highlights, I think, how much the average journalist understands about digital rights.

The Great Work Begins

I just finished watching Angels in America, a two-part, six-hour television film. It's an extraordinary, sometimes profound story of hope, redemption and loss. It's a tricky piece to summarize, so read the Spark Notes version.

When I see a great piece of art, I'm often left speechless. It's an incredibly ambitious film--it seems to encompass politics and religion and faith and suffering in a single, coherent story. One moment the film is an intimate drama about mourning a dying lover, and the next it's a fairy (pun entirely intended) tale about a blind prophet and a gay Mormon.

Everything about the production is well done. The ensemble acting is humble and polished, the cinematography is showy without being ridiculous, and the special effects are admirably understated (the film features the first convincing fire effect I've ever seen--they always look lousy, even in Return of the King). It was clearly a labour of love for all involved (it's not like Emma Thompson or Al Pacino need the work).

This sort of neo-mini-series--Band of Brothers is another example--gives me hope for television.

Here's a Mormonish perspective on the film, and CNN's two bits. There's also a fine piece from the New Yorker.

Goal of the Year and a Hockey-Related Pet Peeve

Last night, I watched the desultory Canucks get beaten by the Anaheim Mighty Ducks, who simply wanted to win more. The one goal we did score was an unlikely, end-to-end, stand-up-in-your-seats goal (temporary MPG file) from Henrik Sedin.

Though many rose from their seats as he scored, I, being difficult to impress, did not. This is unfortunate, because the guy behind me shot out of his seat and sloshed a wave of cold beer onto my head. It was as refreshing as the goal, I suppose.

That same guy, who apologized extensively for his lack of beer-control, illustrated one of my hockey pet peeves. In his running commentary of the game (a pet peeve in itself), he only referred to the Canucks by the nicknames that their fellow players use:

"C'mon Nazzy. Shoot, Bert, shoot! Hussle up there, Sopes! That's a nice save from Clouts!"

For the hockey ignorant, those players are Naslund, Bertuzzi, Sopel and Cloutier.

This highlights the strange, personal affection fans have for employees of Orca Bay Sports, Inc. After all, it's not like the guy behind me golfs with Trevor Linden or carpools with Mattias Ohlund. He's probably never met them. His use of nicknames suggests an unhealthy belief that he's familiar to these players when clearly he's not. It's bizarre.

Colour-Blind Casting

I was having a discussion recently about Sex in Vancouver, an episodic series of plays from Vancouver Asian Canadian Theatre. This serialized play "centres around a quartet of modern women dealing with life-changing relationship issues: infidelity, commitment, and marriage."

This sort of thing is so disinteresting to me. Episodic plays are, universally, a recipe for disaster. In my experience, they're poor copies of TV sitcoms, with less wit and weaker performances (I see that this company associates their production with Sex in the City). But, while it's not my cup of tea, I applaud the Vancouver Asian Canadian Theatre for creating an opportunity for more Asian performers to get seen.

In my conversation, I also observed that, given that I had never, ever seen an Asian actor on a stage (any size stage--from Havana to the Stanley) in BC, I wasn't optimistic about the quality of the performers. We paused then, and tried to think of any play we'd ever seen that included an Asian performer. We could think of some dance pieces, but the closest we came was that the New York-based touring production of Rent featured an Asian woman in the role of Mimi. I also thought back to when I was in theatre school and then ran a small theatre company (and my wife worked for a big one), and there was nary an Asian face to be seen.

UPDATE: I did think of one. John James Hong, who appears often at the Arts Club. Mind you, he's only half-Asian, so I guess he half counts.

Why is this? I imagine that there are two main causes: Asian cultural stigma and casting directors. Certainly none of the parents of the Asian kids I grew up with would have approved of a life in the theatre (a life, as David Mamet teaches us, spent giving things away). Also, I expect there are plenty of directors who aren't keen to cast Asian people, for one reason or another.

All of this leads me to colour-blind casting. In most circles, people believe this to be a good thing. While I agree with its spirit, I can't really buy into it. When we cast actors for theatre (or TV or film), we consider every aspect of them: their height, their weight, their hair, their demeanour, where they put their hands, their pronounciation. So, why would we consider everything but ethinicity? A person's ethnicity has a lot to do with who they are. To ignore it, in my opinion, does a disservice to the production and the actor.

For example, if I'm trying to produce a historically-accurate version of, say, She Stoops to Conquer, I'm not going to cast African-Americans. Why? Because it's set in London in 1773. The only reason I would cast a non-Caucasian person is if I wanted to make a specific point about race.

Generally, Shakespeare and Moliere are more flexible and historical accuracy is less of a concern. For example, I might intentionally choose to cast slight Filipino actors (if I could find them) in the roles of Hamlet and Gertrude, and cast Claudius as a tall, wide Caucasian. This would highlight the daunting task put before Hamlet and the 'counterfeit presentment of two brothers'. Presumably Hamlet's Dad dyed his hair to acquire 'Hyperion's curls'.

Of course, ethnicity in casting becomes less important in late twentieth century plays. Who cares about the race of the actors in Glengarry Glen Ross or Arcadia? It's a factor to consider, just like height or weight.

By recognizing that ethnicity should be a casting consideration, are we denying minority actors work? If we recognize weight (or, dare I say, attractiveness) as a casting consideration, are we denying overweight (or ugly) people work? Of course. Acting is a cruel business.

Link Round-Up: Bookmark Dreck

I've got way too many bookmarks kicking around, so here's a bit of a themeless core dump:

• The man really loathes our nation. "Reason #24: Their self-appraisal that they are A polite people". How unpleasant. I may have to write him a stern but carefully-worded letter. I also like the rating system on the Movie Ruiner (predictably, spoilers ahead) page.
• The lovely and fascinating Matchbook Museum.
• Finally, a handy spot for all my sexual consent form needs.
• Find your Christian soul mate. I mostly cite this page to highlight it's lame slogan: "intelligent matching for compatible couples". Gosh, that sounds like fun.
• Movie credits are getting kind of lengthy.
• URL of the week: www.stormgasm.com. Yes, it's safe for work (though there's kind of a suggestive photo of a tornado on the home page). It's all about storm-chasing.
• Are these a great idea or just plain stupid? I'm perplexed.
• A wonderful, simple, addictive game. It's a downloadable EXE, but it's worth it. It's what you'd get if Da Vinci built Pong 2.0 in 1981.

Can Con Can't

Craptastic brings us the excellent Can Con Hall of Shame:

Here are some "artistes" that benifited from having a Canadian passport and little else. I'm tempted to give everyone on this page off the scale ratings but I've tried to assess their lack of talent honestly so some rankings might seem a little generous.

It's hard to argue with most of this list. I'd say the Barenaked Ladies shouldn't count, only because they've enjoyed considerable success in the States, where, obviously, the laws of Canadian Content don't apply. He's dead-right about many artists--one-dimensional Northern Pikes (though I used to like them, and played 'She Ain't Pretty' in a high school), Alannah Myles (though I had a crush on her--loved that 'Black Velvet' video'), and Gowan (I never liked him)--but others deserve better. The Grapes of Wrath and the Crash Test Dummies had redeeming features, and I still really like Spirtit of the West.

Still, the whole list was a trip down the 80s Can Con memory lane. Where are Sue Medley and Bootsauce these days?

Hmmm...this guy's lost all credibility. While briefly surfing around his site, I found this page, where he actually defends Rush. Rush, of course, is indefensable.

One More Posting on Political Celebrities

I will try your patience no further on this subject, but Alan over at Oy Va VoY! links to this interesting development. Apparently the comedienne Margaret Cho (among other left-leaning celebrities) was speaking at a MoveOn event. Matt Drudge subsequently posted excerpts from her speech, and she was innundated with hate-mail for being overweight, Chinese, gay and a Democrat. Cho (or her Web assistant) then posted all of this hate mail, complete with names and email addresses, on her Web site.

This is a great move, as it highlights the ignorance, racism and homophobia of the senders. According to Cho, people are begging her to remove their email addresses from her site. Once again we've got a reminder that the world may read what you write in an email, and it lasts forever. Online, you always reap what you sow.

So, this is another side of 'coming out' as a political celebrity. I'm sure the Dixie Chicks suffered a far greater onslaught of character assasination (they're fortunate to be straight and Caucasian) after their off-hand remark on their European tour.

Bonus Link: The winners have been announced in the Bush in 30 Seconds awards.

Sports Celebrities Don't Speak Out

Further to the compelling and civil (thanks for both of those) discussion we're having on the politics of celebrity and the celebrity of politics, I was thinking about sports celebrities. With rare exceptions, they don't get political.

Isn't that a bit odd? Obviously Michael Jordon or Wayne Gretzky have as much (or more) public profile as, say, Tim Robbins or Charlton Heston. Yet, they seem to practice restraint on political issues. In my experience, when sports figures do 'give', they do so in the local community, often in ways associated with their sport. For example, Canucks superstar (heck, he's got his own Nike commercial) Markus Naslund rents a luxury box at GM Place and brings in special needs and underprivileged kids to watch the games. I suppose it's good PR, but I think they're motivations are relatively pure.

I suppose nobody asks David Beckham what he thinks about immigration law (I'm not sure Beckham can spell 'immigration law'), but that's not really an excuse. Plenty of other celebrities speak out without being asked (see also the Dixie Chicks)? So why are sports figures above (beside? beyond?) politics?

Celebrities, Stick to the Singing and Dancing

At the moment, I'm disappointed to announce, an article by Sean Penn is at the top of Blogdex. (for the uninitiated, Blogdex is one of several sites that analyzes and ranks what people are talking about online). Would this article get this much attention if it was written by, say, Ed Wilkowsky of Bent Elbow, Saskatchewan? I think not.

I've only skimmed this article, because Penn's opinions about Iraq don't interest me. Why don't they interest me? Because he's a frickin' actor! If he wants some credibility, then he should go study foreign policy for a few years, or work internationally as a journalist, not prance like some melancholic baboon in the moving pictures. I should note, that, while I don't much care for Mr. Penn's work, this rule applies to almost all celebrities.

I'm desperately tired of spokespersons of all political flavour and background weighing in on issues. They may have a speaking platform, but generally they've only got platitudes and baseless suggestions. Whether its Charlton Heston (he may be firearms industry expert, but I certainly haven't gotten that impression) or Janeane Garofalo, stick to what you do best: entertaining us. I'm opposed to innter-city sweatshops because they're exploitative, not because (the hotness that is) Julie Stiles thinks they're totally lame.

I can hear my dear readers protesting already: "but they give voice to an important issue!" Indeed, certain celebrities may highlight issues that are important to you. However, the sum total of all famous people everywhere weighing in on their favourite issues only raises the general din of advocacy. Nobody benefits.

Maybe when, you know, Bach was explaining to crowds about the plague-stricken, sewer-dwelling homeless, he might have gotten some traction. But once Pachelbel started arguing for musket control, and Vivaldi advocated more public hangings, and Corelli worried about horse-and-carriage pollution, the public stopped paying attention. Just play the music, boys.

I make two exceptions to this rule: benefit concerts and expert celebrities. At benefit concerts, celebrities are really just applying their core activity--the singing, the dancing, the what-have-you--to a cause they believe in. That's admirable, and is the same as me writing marketing content for, say, Sierra Legal. If they want to hold forth on AIDS or Our Troops Overseas at these events, then fine. After all, they're preaching to the masses.

Informed, well-read expert celebrities are few and far between. Generally, they're famous because of their work in a given field, not because they're actors , singers or (shudder) 'it girls'. Michael Moore is a good example, as is Stephen Hawking. Now, I don't want to hear Moore discuss quantum physics or Hawking discuss firearms control, but you get the idea. Also, if a mainstream celebrity has dedicated considerable time and effort to an issue, I'm likely to pay some attention. For example, Tim Robbins has been a lifelong environmentalist.

Also, I don't mind them making appearances on humiliating game shows that illustrate their ignorance for charities.

To the Moon (and Beyond)

As you no doubt know by now, President Bush has pulled a Kennedy and announced an aggressive plan to put people on the moon and Mars. Here are a few random, related links:

• Interview with NASA chief.
• The International Herald Tribune recommends skipping the moon and going straight to Mars.
• Todd points out that we may have forgotten how to get to the moon.
• Jay Currie is enthusiastic about heading into the ether of space.

I share Jay's enthusiasm. Obviously, Bush's announcement comes at a pivotal time in his term as President, and is a carefully crafted public relations move. Nonetheless, I applaud the spirit of exploration that is behind it. Humanity has always wanted to see what it couldn't see, be where it couldn't be. Much of our scientific development has resulted from this idea.

To those who argue about the cost (in dollars or human lives), I'd say this: what if the English, the French, the Portuguese and the Spanish had let the cost prevent them from exploration? Where would we be today? Well, I suppose the First Nations peoples would be better off, but the 20th or 21st centuries sure would look different. I certainly wouldn't be here writing this entry. So, to quote Buzz Lightyear, to infinity and beyond!

UPDATE: Anybody who disagrees with funding the aforementioned space program should also consider this madness. Nevermind why...how do you spend US $1.5 billion on healthy marriages? Sexual aids for 50 million couples?

Area Codes and Prefixes

This is a minor factoid, but one I've always found interesting. My Dad owns the Pharmasave in the small town of Merritt, BC. It's got a population of about 10,000.

As I understand it, every telephone number in town starts with 378. So, if you meet somebody new who lives in town, you just have to give them four digits. How cool is that? Is this a common practice across Canada?

Where Was This When I Was 13?

Celest is 21, 5'11 with blonde hair and blue eyes and from Tennessee. She's auctioning off a particularly useful service to geeky, introverted lads:

I'm auctioning 2 months of an imaginary online/penpal relationship with me! This includes a letter every week with cute girly stationary, perfume, and cards detailing whatever it is you want me to write to you! Have AOL? I can get any screen name you like along with a profile and fawn all over you in chat rooms, and send you frequent emails with or without pics. (no naked pictures!) This auction does NOT include any real face to face dates, or much effort from you. All you have to do is tell me what you want in the letters when you send payment or by email. I'll even call you up to four times within the two month period of our "relationship." After your time is up, you can "dump" me however you like!

She's apparently working on a PhD in human resources (huh? Who needs a PhD in that? Never mind), and needs the money. What a fantastic idea. Myself included, I know a half-dozen young lads who could've used her during the cruel days of adolescence. Imagine the looks on the pimply faces of your teenage peers. Talk about street cred. I can't believe that she only got US $15.50.

Just Some Old Hummus

As it turns out, those old mortar rounds that the Danish turned up last week just had some old hummus on them. From Yahoo News:

"The expert group from the Iraq Survey Group have investigated five ... and none of them have showed any trace of chemical substances," the Danish Army Operational Command said in a statement.

That's some crack work from the media. Way to report that story before adequate scrutiny had been applied.

Genesis and the Origin of Cain's wife

Over at g.girl, the hostess is discussing how goofy Genesis--the first book of the Bible--is. I wrote a reply there, and thought I'd expand on it here:

Being agnostic, I like to think I've got a relatively objective perspective on Genesis. True, anybody who actually believes the Bible is literal truth must be something of a nutter. I mean, there's not much to that argument what with 900 year-old-people and floods, etc.

Most moderate Christians, in my experience, treat much of the Bible (particularly the Old Testament) as parable. After all, what's the message behind the flood myth? If you're bad and wanton and what-have-you, you'll be punished. Or, only those living pure lives, favoured by God, will endure. I'm not advocating these messages, just pointing out what they might be.

Obviously, at the centre of Christianity, are the teachings of Christ. So, the Old Testament is mostly back story.

Here's a tidbit for you: I happened to be in church over Christmas, and, bored with the whole liturgy, I was leafing through Genesis. If you check out an early section, you'll see that Cain slays Able. Shortly thereafter, he takes a wife. From Genesis 4:

16 And Cain went out from the presence of the Lord, and dwelt in the land of Nod, on the east of Eden. 17 And Cain knew his wife; and she conceived, and bare Enoch: and he builded a city, and called the name of the city, after the name of his son, Enoch.

Up to this point, there have only been four people on earth--Adam, Eve, Cain and Able. 'Knew his wife'? Where'd the new missus come from?

I recently put this question (among others) to my wise uncle, Pastor Gerry. He explained that there were several theories about where Cain's wife came from. The most popular was that Adam and Eve had many children, and so Cain's wife was just unmentioned up to that point. I suppose that makes sense, though, if you ask me, it's a pretty convenient explanation for a Biblical plot hole.

Link Round-Up: Site Specific

I Love Everything points to a fine series of top ten lists on the video game news site GameSpy. Several of these took me on nostalgic, pixelated walks down video lane:

• Oddly, I'm only familiar with a couple of the Top Ten Babes in Games. Clearly, I'm playing the wrong games.
• Top Ten Dying Game Genres is particularly observant, and makes me pine for the sideways shooter or beat 'em up classics like River City Ransom.
• I'm loving the camp quality of Top Ten Video Game Movies. Truly a wasteland of exceptionally awful cinema (Milla Jovovich's zombie-fighting teddy notwithanding).
• This is a bit obsessive even for me: Top Ten Worst Covers. Nobody looks at the box once they've opened it. Hmm....I may have just coined a maxim.
• Alas, poor Yoshi! I knew him, Mario: a fellow of infinite jest...Here hung those lizard lips that I have kissed I know not how oft. Top Ten Videogame Sidekicks.

Link Round-Up: Wacky Stories

I've collected a number of stories and articles that I don't have much to say about, but are compelling for one reason or another.

• Jon Udell gets mistaken for a stalker of children, when really he was just checking his email.
• RIAA busting heads ol' skool and keepin' it real.
• Interesting and controversial article from Kuroshin about sexual services for the disabled.
• Bill Nye explains all this Martian business (thanks, Becky).
• Woman discovers prophylactic in her chowder, gets all litigious.

Bonus link: As predicted, I got my ass kicked in the latest Fark Photoshop contest. It's a particularly fine one, and the third place entry is awesome in its creativity and simplicity. This was my entry, which was uninspired and probably too obscure. Still, I'm happy with my execution.

Ticket Booking Bogosity

This article, with a big inforgraphic, is on the cover of the business section of today's Vancouver Sun. It reports how a study finds that travel agencies have the lowest prices for flights in Canada:

Canadian companies pay too much money for airline flights if they bypass travel agents and buy their own tickets over the Internet, according to a study funded by corporate travel agencies in Canada.

Funded by corporate travel agencies? How does this story even qualify as news? It's clearly placed by the PR people of the Canadian Corporate Travel Association (they don't appear to have a website). Admittedly, the reporter speaks to a representative from an online travel site, but he hardly trades in facts. Any reader knows that the large info-graphic expressing the CCTA's party line is far more effective than the article's text. This is shameful laziness on the part of the newspaper...they are essentially reprinting the CCTA's press release. If they were actually interested in writing about this subject, they should have conducted their own survey.

This is incidental to my point, but in terms of reliability and service, I'll always go with an online travel site over an agency. The only times I've had heinous travel experiences are through agencies.

A Grow Op to Shame BC

I saw this on the news last night, but Jay Currie conveniently links to an article about the biggest marijuana bust in provincial history. Using a abandoned Molson brewery near Barrie, the operation was complete with an employee lounge and bunkhouse:

Police said "thousands and thousands" of hydroponically grown marijuana plants were found in the huge, three-storey building that's a landmark for motorists driving Highway 400. Ten people were arrested, and police said they expect charges to be laid within days. The early morning raid involved more than 100 officers from the Huronia Combined Forces Drug Unit, who spent hours searching with dogs for weapons, drugs, and possible suspects hiding inside.

I wonder if they offered employee benefits too?

The Monday Report

I just caught the second half of the premier of Rick Mercer's new CBC show, the creatively-titled The Monday Report. The man who brought us Talking to Americans is back (he never really went away...just to Kabul), and funny as ever. I was laughing out-loud, a rarity for TV shows.

I particularly liked how he pointed out that power seekers go into provincial and federal politics, but crazy people go into municipial politics. Hence, the Who is Canada's Craziest Mayor contest? I also liked the extremely Canadian Celebrity Winter Advice with Shirley Douglas and Torontonians equalizing all that SARS-related goodwill with explanations why their city is the best in the known universe.

Gender Differences

Why is it, when a woman points out another woman and says 'she's so pretty', I rarely agree? Is this a common phenomenon? If so, what are the men seeing that the women aren't? Discuss.

(The knee-jerk response here is that men like the big-breasted blondes, while women have more subtle (and, I might add, objective) tastes. That's certainly not true for me, as my freebie list attests.)

Hear Me Speak About Technology Writers

Next Tuesday I'm going to be speaking on a panel for a combined meeting of the High Tech Communications Exchange and the Society for Technical Communication. Whew, that's a couple of long society titles. Here's the subject:

Technical Communication and Marketing Communication: Join us from 7:00-8:30 pm for an informal panel discussion about integrating the fields of marketing and technical communications. A panel of three speakers will be introduced by Catherine Ducharme and moderated by Rahel Bailie.

It would be of interest to anyone who is (or wants to be) a marketing or technical writer and wants to expand their purvue. It's with some irony that I note that the HTCE site has entitled this seminar 'The value of integrating technical and marketing communications' while the STC just called it 'Technical Communication and Marketing Communication'. That alone says a lot about difference between the two fields.

Photoshopping for Fark

I resisted for a long time, but I've finally caved in and participated in a couple of Fark Photoshop contests. I haven't broken any records, but I think I've done respectably for my first outings.

I got 12 votes for this Mars government cover-up and 8 votes for Dorf doing something other than fishing. My user name is 'TheFoot99' if you want to look for my entry in context.

There's an excellent one going public tomorrow where the challenge is to 'Photoshop video games made from movies which should never have been made into video game'. I don't stand a chance. Incidentally, this summer I wrote a short essay on the Art of Fark.

An Encore! Huzzah!

The Washington Post features an excellent article about encores, and how they've become an integral part of a concert:

We're a long way from the original intent of the encore, which started centuries ago as an extraordinary reward to classical orchestras and musicians for sublime performances. The concept was slow to infiltrate rock; the Beatles didn't play encores in part because they faced the logistical problem of how to hightail it before fans mobbed them. You were much more likely to hear "Elvis has left the building" than get another glimpse of the King early in his career.

The article goes on to describe the all-too-familiar practices of the band saying "thank you, goodnight" knowing full-well that they're going to return to the stage in five or seven minutes. Bands often hold their biggest hit--particularly if they've only got one--for the encore. In short, it's bogus and reflects how rote pop music has become.

In my experience, the more musical bands tend not to treat the encore as expected. Additionally, they tend to play their hits during the main set, and surprise you with the encore. For example, the last time I saw the Cowboy Junkies, they closed the show with a cover of Springsteen's 'Thunder Road'. The Dave Matthews Band also tends to make unusual encore choices.

Straight Acting

Having watched the first half of Angels in America last night, maybe I was feeling a little gay this morning. Via one Richard Evans Lee, I spotted this handy quiz to determining how straight I act. Seeing as I am straight, I thought I'd do pretty well:

You lead a normal everyday life and it's 'no questions asked' as people just assume you are straight. Every once and awhile a very aware person might notice something that causes them to think 'fem' but it's a fleeting thought because you turn around and surprise them with more masculine traits before they even have time to fully analyze the last one.

Level 0 is as butch as you can get, while level 10 is the height of queenliness. I expect that it was the love of broadway shows and having more than 5 candles in my apartment that lowered my average.

(Another) Year of the Sequel

As regular readers know, I often complain about Hollywood's lack of originality. Via the excellent cineastes at Tagliners.org, we find this article about the very same subject:

That’s because more than 20 sequels will glut film screens during the next 12 months; they’ll range from highly anticipated potential blockbusters such as “Spider-Man 2” and “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban” to seemingly absurd fare such as “Anacondas: The Hunt for the Black Orchid” and “Blade: Trinity.” Add in a concurrent flood of remakes (“The Alamo,” “Dawn of the Dead,” “The Big Bounce,” “Walking Tall,” “The Stepford Wives”), a flurry of TV spin-offs (“Bewitched,” “Starsky and Hutch,” “Teacher’s Pet”) and the now-standard gaggle of comics adaptations (“The Punisher,” “Hellboy,” “Garfield,” “Catwoman”) and you have to wonder if anyone in Hollywood can manage an original idea these days.

Disappointingly, "Blade:Trinity" does not feature an ass-kicking Carrie Anne Moss. Though I do see that it features the excellent Parker Posey, Natasha Lyonne and Callum Keith Rennie. Is this some funky, New York-ironic indie sequel? Did Woody Allen direct?

An Unreported Fact about Canadian Figure Skating

The Canadian figure skating championships are on this weekend, so I'm a skating widower. My wife is a former national-level competitive skater, and spends much of the weekend yelling at the TV.

I've become quite informed about the sport, and, in a pinch, can tell a lutz from a loop. Here's an interesting fact that never gets mentioned in broadcasts. They often state that the top five skaters (or pairs, where applicable) in each event earn 'international assignments'. This means that they're sent to Grand Prix events (for example, Cup of Russia or Skate America). However, if you place in the top five, you receive funding from Skate Canada. For skaters' families who have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on their develop, this money is critically important. I guess the commentators don't want to sound mercantile, but this is often a bigger deal than the international competition.

False Creek Geek: Technology that Fails Us

My latest column for The Yaletown View. I'm wasn't particularly happy with this one. It reflects that it was written in haste during the stress of the Christmas season.

We humans have come a long way. Just a few hundred years ago, we lived short, violent lives of manual labour and ignorance. We’re still pretty ignorant, but we’ve made a lot of progress in improving our quality of life. We’ve got the Lexus where we only had the horse, medical science where we had leaches, telephones where we had, well, shouting.

Yet, much of today’s technology lets us down. It doesn’t work the way it was intended to, and there’s no salvation in sight. Here are three products we use every day that consistently don’t work well enough:

Change Machines

Since I was old enough to ask for money, I’ve played arcade games. Arcade games require change. So, I’d have to convert the $5 dollar bill my Dad gave me into quarters. This always required more patience than I had. It involved standing in supplication before the change machine altar and begging it to convert my bill into coins. Who hasn’t spent ten minutes smoothing out their money and feeding it—gingerly, with both hands—into the machine’s mouth? Nine times out of ten, it spits the bill back out at you. It’s the 21st century…isn’t it time we were able to reliably make change?

Cellular Phones

Many people—the fools—think cellular phones are a gift from the gods. They are a wonderful invention, and now that most people can afford one, they have transformed our lives. However, it still seems like one in three calls goes like this:

ME: Hello?
CALLER: Hello?
ME: Who’s this?
CALLER: Can you hear me?
ME: Who is calling, please?
CALLER: No, I bought some pants.
ME: What?
CALLER: Can you hear me now?

And so on. When will we have a reliable cellular network that doesn’t drop calls or sound like people are phoning from the far side of the Moon?

Computers

It amazes me that normal humans, as opposed to geeks like myself, use computers on a daily basis. They’re moody, delicate creatures, prone to failure at the slightest misstep. They seem to break, or at least act petulant, more often than they work, and they require a sullen expert from the IT department to fix them. Each of us develops work-arounds to avoid our computer’s foibles—‘just ignore those big red X’s, that happens all the time’—but shouldn’t they be a little more reliable?

I was describing these disappointing technologies to a Japanese friend of mine. She pointed out that most of these effortlessly work all the time in Japan. So maybe our tech shortcomings are cultural?

Regardless, it’s time that we stopped inventing things and started perfecting the things we’ve already invented.

Link Round-Up: Shorts

Not those shorts. Short movies:

• More, claymation goodness about a lonely inventor
• Fifty Percent Gray, metaphysical animation with a lesson for everybody.
• Truth in Advertising, amusing honesty from the set of a TV ad. Safe for work if you've got headphones (thanks, Meg).
• 405, remember this classic?
• 20 Years of Macintosh, the chick with the hammer (those red shorts are so 1984) has an iPod?

The NHL's Getting All NBAish

Molvania: A Land Untouched by Modern Dentistry

I just recently discovered this amusing faux travel site, which is apparently the online version of a book. It's all about the country of Molvania, whose exports include beetroot, spittoons and low-grade heroin. From the useful facts page (in my experience, also true of many actual countries):

In Molvania it is not generally necessary to tip unless of course you want something done. However, as a gesture of goodwill it is common to reward anyone who has been of assistance, whether they've driven you, carried your bags or simply performed a minor surgical procedure. Most restaurant and hotel bills include a small service charge (10-15%) as well as a smaller charge (3-5%) for including the first charge.

Wrapping Up WMD

The Marines may turn over some rock in the Iraqi desert and find a chemical plant and a hundred surprised scientists in chem suits. That scenario, however, is growing increasingly unlikely.

It looks like there are no weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in Iraq. As this lengthy and informative Washington Post article puts it, 'Iraq's arsenal was only on paper'.

We all know that the Bush administration used the WMD as a principal argument for invasion. There were other major reasons--the war on terror, capturing Osama Bin Laden--but there's no denying that WMD were critical to their effort. In particular, the Brits and other allies seemed to be enamoured of this anti-WMD approach.

From these facts, we can draw one of two conclusions about the American government:

1. They lied to their people and allies about the WMD.
2. They were mistaken about he WMD.

#1 isn't all that shocking. Governments of all shapes and sizes lie, embellish, play-down and spin all the time. Not, perhaps, on such critical or life-imperiling issues, but everybody does it.

#2 is far more worrying. How did the most vaunted intelligence organization on the planet get things so dreadfully wrong? It's no wonder they couldn't prevent the September 11th bombings. With all of the expertise, technology and air superiority they had, with all of the eyes watching Iraq over the past decade, they weren't even remotely accurate. They weren't even in the same ballpark.

If I were an American citizen, that might keep me up at night.

Drink Feck Girls

Sarah Carey, Irish colleague, political activist and recent mother, references a new section of the Fine Gael site (one of Ireland's two major parties, the other is confusingly named Fianna Fail). It lists, among other things, the price of bottled water in various pubs around Dublin. As a non-drinker and former-Dublin resident, this was of interest.

At Ron Black's in Dublin, a mineral water (likely 250 ml) with a twist of lemon costs CAN $7.67. Suffice it to say, it's expensive to live in Dublin. Interestingly (and, I might add, typically), the price of alcohol is regulated. The price of a pint of Guinness costs the same at the Shelbourne Bar in Dublin as it does at, say, at O'Shea's of Borris. Because of the commonality of the EU, it's always interesting to comparison shop across the EU.

You know, I've just read something that seems to contradict my alcohol-prices-are-regulated thinking. DrinkFeckGirls.com (a reference to the immortal Father Ted) indicates that prices do vary across the Republic. Can any of my Irish readers sort me out? Cheers.

Link Round-Up: Writers and Writing

Some links for the writers in all of us:

• The journal of a nonagenarian.
• Ten mistakes writers don't see.
• Great speeches of our time.
• For Canadians only: the Great Tragically Hip Poetry Contest.
• James Bow's Carnival of Scribes.

A Lesson in Sunblock

A friend of mine spent Christmas in a tropical paradise. Unfortunately (but fortunately for us), his girlfriend was, uh, less than exemplary in applying the sunblock to his back. The result is chilling:

You can actually make out her hand print from her apparently half-hearted attempt. Also, it's kind of like you can see the outline of his lungs. Ew.

Cheeses of Nazareth

An email conversation between a friend and I:

SAM: Jill's mom wants to open a cheese shop and call it "Cheeses of Nazareth." Isn't that wonderful?

ME: That rocks...think of the products: Monterey Joseph, Calvary Camembert, Golgotha Gouda, Garden of Edam...

SAM: I know! Bethlehem Brie, Praise the Parmesan, Hymns 'n Havarti,
Manger's Mozzarella...

ME: And think of the employees

And I created and sent her the following photo (the intensively-Christian and humourless may be offended, but I don't think Jesus would have been):

Amazon's 800 Number

For my American readers: Apparently you won't find this number on their Web site, but Kevin Kelly has located this semi-secret number for a real human at Amazon customer support: 800-201-7575.

UPDATE: Champ asked if there was a contect number for Amazon Canada. A quick search brought me to this page, which indicates that the 7575 number is good for US and Canada. I stand corrected. That page led me to this page, which seems to be the bitter center of the Amazon customer service number universe.

The Sims as Childcare Training

Friend and grade 2 buddy Rob sends this article that discusses The Sims as metaphor for childcare.

"So it's crying while I'm trying to juggle everything else, like getting the parents to work and making sure they clean the house." After a few hours of domestic chaos, her virtual baby was whisked away by a digital caseworker. "I was devastated! I was sure that I wouldn't be able to handle a real baby," Craig says with a laugh. She kept playing though, and by the time her actual baby arrived, she felt like a pro. "My family thought I was nuts, but I swear it got me through the pregnancy," she says.

As regular Sims players will know, it's the most metaphysical of games. Amongst all the micro-management, it asks the profound question "what makes us happy?" Will Wright is the games inventor:

That means that you, the player, must learn and obey the rules that govern Sim life, many of which are hauntingly familiar. "You want to buy them a washer-dryer?" Wright asks. "OK, but you might not have enough money left over for a phone. So what's more important, communication with your friends, or saving time cleaning?" he laughs. "It lays bare all these ethics of everyday life. What you shop for implies these moral choices."

Personally, the Sims wasn't for me. I gave it the old college try, but its open-ended nature didn't appeal. I had the same sort of issue with online RPGs. Regardless, I was interested to read about the innovations coming in The Sims 2:

: In the new game, Sims will age and die. What's more, the events of their youth will leave them with psychological baggage as they get older. "If your Sims have particularly happy childhoods--or unhappy ones--you'll be able to see the way that's going to impact them later in life. You can see how they kind of ricochet on into the future," Wright says. He suspects it'll turn the game into an even more precise emulation of our existence--"a spreadsheet for life."

Nominations are Open

As Sean Bonner points out, nominations are open for the eponymous Bloggies. If you're the sort of who writes weblogs, or reads a lot of them, go on over here and nominate people. The nomination form is intimidatingly long, but you don't actually have to complete all the fields. This is fortunate, because I'm a bit short on African blogs.

More on Apple and the iPod mini

I suspect that Paul Wells has never used an iPod before. Today, after some quick math, he asks (in his weird pseudo-blog) "Why on earth would you buy an iPod Mini?" Here's how I answered:

Clearly, if cost were the only factor, one would never buy anything from Apple. This includes MP3 players--there are plenty of models with similar storage as the big iPod that cost less. However, there are plenty of sound reasons to buy from Apple: reliability, robustness and coolness, to name three.

I should mention that I'm not an Apple snob--I've been a lifetime Windows user. However, I've got an iPod. Why? Because, simply put, it's one of the coolest, most gracefully-designed pieces of consumer electronics around. It's extraordinarily simple and intuitive to use, and blows every other MP3 player I've ever seen or used out of the water.

I did recently break down and buy an Apple laptop. Why? Because all of my smartest, geeky friends have Macs. These aren't urban hipsters--they're hard core programmers with plenty of initials after their names. They think thoroughly and objectively about any technology decision they make. It's clear to me that Apples have something going for them that Windows-based PCs don't.

Hopefully I've illustrated why one might buy an iPod mini. Here are a couple more practical reasons: it's about half the weight and two thirds the total volume. Here's another reason: the iPod is a portable music player, not just a hard drive. While I do have a 20 GB iPod, it's not like I really need that much storage on-the-go. 4 GB would do fine. That is, if I set my iPod mini with its 1000-odd songs to random, I'm going to have to jog a long way before I hear the same song twice.

Mini iPod in the Haus

This puppy's going to shoot up the meme charts like a Martian lander. My Irish friend John writes to say that Apple has come out of the closet and revealed the oft-rumoured iPod mini (I'm already irked by the small 'm') in all of its pastel glory. It's freakin' tiny. Check out these photos of it in the hand of some human.

Unfortunately, it's still hard drive based. This means that when you run around with it, it will still skip. That's my only complaint about my existing 20 GB iPod Macro. Still, this model will sit snugly in an arm belt, so that might mitigate the skipping problem.

Mind you, it only holds 4 GB. So, I'll have to trim my 17 GB of songs significantly.

While We're on the Subject

I was thinking about politics and criticism today, and happened upon this notion:

Online and in the real world, we have lots of President Bush bashers and supporters. Additionally, we have lots of Prime Minister Martin bashers. However, where are the Martin supporters (besides in the Liberal caucus)?

I think this equation (Presiden bashers = President supporters, Prime Minister bashers = x) is true of any president and prime minister, not just Bush and Martin. Presumably this is down to American patriotism. In the States, it's generally seen as a good thing to "support the President". In Canada, we're not quite so forthright.

Maybe it's because the Liberals are so middle-of-the-road in Canada. Because of this, and their dominance, you don't get the outspoken polarized elements that the US two-party system seems to foster. These days, Martin seems to get assailed on both sides, from the NDP on the left and the Reform/Alliance/Whatever-the-heck-they're-called-this-week on the right.

If anybody could point me to an independent pro-Liberal site or two, I'd appreciate it.

On Political Weblogs

I recently sent this to a Canadian right-wing writer, whose weblog I was giving up on. I'm not keen to cite the recipient, but thought the sentiment was worth expressing publically:

About a month ago, I decided that I wasn't reading enough conservative-oriented content, and went looking for a few thoughtful right-wing weblogs to read. My own politics are pretty near the centre of the spectrum, but most of the people I've read up to now have been more left than right.

I tried a few. I immediately rejected http://www.nicedoggie.net, but read yours, as well as http://debbyestratigacos.blogspot.com/ and http://www.jaycurrie.com. I'm just writing to say that, while I'm sticking with the other two, I'm given up on your weblog.

You seem to suffer a common malady of political activists at both ends of the spectrum: you're thoroughly convinced that everyone on the other side of the fence is an imbecile. Don't get me wrong--I've seen plenty of liberal sites that do the same to the right. I don't read those either.

Clearly, this is not a particularly healthy approach to political discourse. I want to read informed opinions from across the political spectrum. You seem to be familiar with the issues, but are uninterested in discussing them without constant slurs. This is why I appreciate Jay Currie--he may disagree with their attitudes, but he seems to mostly be above slandering and insulting the left at every opportunity.

Canadian Mind Products and Jainism

My friend Alan writes with this bit of Internet weirdness:

While looking for a glossary entry for the Java JAIN standard, I came across this odd thing: http://mindprod.com

Noticeably, it has a Jainist undercurrent even though the glossary entry is for the Java version of JAIN. Speaking of which, it's a strange collection of glossaries on this page. I wonder how African Americans and homosexuals feel about being lumped together in the "Black & Gay Glossary"...

Indeed, particular when the glossary has to offer "how-to essays on oral and anal sex, massage as seduction, my personal ads, my personal love history, civil rights, etc". I believe there's a misplaced modifier there (or some such grammatical error), as I don't think he's offering how-to essays on my personal love history.

Crane Games

You know, I just happen to have seen two bizarre stories about those crane games recently, so I thought I'd share them:

• Lobster-o-rama. You know, animal cruelty organizations are complaining about this one, but how much crueler is this than the usual tank-o'-lobsters? Slightly, I guess, but surely they've got bigger wars to fight.
• Child-o-rama. Again, no cruelty here. The kid probably deserved it.

eBay Wrap Up

I realized that I hadn't mentioned how my first ever eBay sale turned out. Quite well, actually. I had ten bids, and the price went from CAN $28.99 up to $53.01. The winner was from Winnipeg, but we won't hold that against him. Seeing as I received the game for free, that's pretty decent money for relatively little effort. I don't think I'm going to become an eBay fiend, but it's nice to know it's a viable option.

Link Round-Up: Movies

Just a few random links about movies (more or less):

• A lower-tech cousin of MetaCritic, the Movie Review Query Engine lets you search 36,000 titles for reviews.
• A weblog about movies...it's new to me, but it looks pretty nifty.
• This is only tangentially related to the movies, and I'm generally not down with silly Web quizzes, but this one is too cool to ignore. From freakgirlspew, the 12-Pixel Heroes. I did pretty well at 18 out of 21.
• Via BoingBoing, a remarkably obsessive analysis of the little things in the Star Wars trilogy. Of particular interest are the subtle changes made for the special editions of the first three (chronologically-speaking) films: "An extra walks by with unkempt dark hair, a tan long-sleeve shirt, and by the looks of it, Han’s pants."
• I couldn't find a decent fifth link, so here are two familiar but excellent movie review sites: RottemTomatoes and Mr. Cranky (don't miss his foul-mouthed riff on The Tigger Movie).

A Network Called 'Internet'

An Inside Bet

I made a bet with a couple people last night. I can't actually reveal the subject of the bet, because, as Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle teaches us, that would possibly influence the outcome. It does, however, need to become part of the public record. So, here's this cryptic piece of paper.

Abtastic

This device is my nemesis. I try to include crunches or sit-ups as part of my workout, and my apartment gym has one of these Ab Trainers (while searching for this thing--'ab device', 'abs machine', 'ab torture fetish'--I happened upon this insightful cartoon).

Despite having read the posted instructions, and having practiced several times, I can never make this thing work. That is, as I rock back and forth in it like some kind of mental patient, I feel nothing. Experience has taught me that if I feel nothing while working out, nothing is happening. The same, I've learned, can be applied to sexual intercourse. I try to work harder, but I just feel foolish, and look like a crippled version of those dipping bird toys (which, as you'll recall, gave Homer so much trouble in this episode). It seems like my shoulder and neck are doing all the work, and my abs are remaining as slack as, well, Homer's.

So, does anyone have any advice on this whole Ab Trainer business? In the meantime, I've gone back to crunches with my legs up on a bench. After about 40, this starts to hurt, so that's promising.

Social Software Update, or Check Out the Open Marriages

Something must be wrong with Friendster, because it reports that I've got 65,896 people in my personal online network. That can't be correct, as I don't even have 6.5896 people in my real-world network.

I was rooting around my Friendster network, and discovered this interesting fact: there are 3054 people ((291 of them in Vancouver)) in my network who report that they are living in an open marriage. That's 4.6%--surely that's above the national average. I imagine social software network demographics tend toward the young and liberal.

Incidentally, if you want to extend my Friendster empire even further, you can reach me with this email address: darren at darrenbarefoot dot com.

Meanwhile, I also checked out People Link, the latest network to get some play. They trade in FOAF (friend of a friend) files, which are XML files used to describe you, your site and your connection to others. Here's my hastily created FOAF file.

Thugs, Guns and Cities

Over at the Canuckistantian (which, I might add, lays bare its perspective with its title), Jack writes about gun ownership and preventing accidental deaths. He offers some sound advice on--should you choose to have a gun in your home--how to educate your children about it.

(If they're not a hunter or target shooter, I've got no idea why a Canadian would want a gun in their home. It can't be crime prevention. There are only 85 robberies, 78 sexual assaults and 2 homicides per 100,000 people in this nation. More importantly, the crime rate has been falling for the past 15 years.)

What I want to take issue with is this statement:

If a society decides to disarm itself for whatever reason, it creates an ideal climate for thugs to move in and take over. We are seeing that now as gangs from foreign countries with no inhibitions regarding the acquisition or use of illicit firearms turn our streets into war zones and our cities cower in fear.

I'm afraid this doesn't stand up to the slightest scrutiny. Let's pick the nations with the lowest rates of recorded gun violence--Ireland, Japan and Spain. All, coincidentally, have very restrictive gun laws. Where, I wonder, are the gangs of thugs? All of these nations manage to be a heck of lot safer than the gun-friendlier USA. In fact, all of them have a crime rate that is one quarter or less that of the US.

Now, I appreciate that crime and gun ownership are complex issues, and that there are many other variables to consider. In fact, I suspect that it's nearly impossible to statistically demonstrate that gun ownership laws--regardless of their strictness--significantly affect the crime rate. There are just too many other factors which influence crime.

In truth, one of the few stats we can rely upon is this: fewer guns mean fewer gun deaths. I just wanted to point out that, without supporting evidence, all Jack's statement does is foster fear and ignorance.

Dogs Know About Fire and Water

I was recently told the tale of a New Year's Eve fondue party that went horribly wrong. Apparently some fuel spillage caused the table cloth to ignite, which in turn set the wall on fire. Somehow, the family dog's butt went up in flames as well. The dog--clearly the smartest mammal present--bolted straight out the door and dove in the neighbour's swimming pool.

It surprised me that a dog recognized that fire can be extinguished by water. I mean, it's not like he's built a lot of campfires or anything. Mind you, he probably did appreciate that water cools hot things, and seeing as his rear was very hot, the pool might help. Regardless, 10 points to the puppy for using what evolution gave him.

Molly Parker

Molly Parker makes me stop and watch her. Regardless of what I'm doing, if she's on TV, and I'm nearby, I stop what I'm doing and watch her act. She's an extraordinarily natural actress--one of Canada's finest. Julie was watching Marion Bridge--a charming film (adapted from the Daniel MacIvor play) about coming home and fragile family ties set in the Maritimes. I was sort of casually watching it while doing various household tasks. However, every time Molly Parker was onscreen, I'd stop and watch her.

In the spirit of full disclosure, I should mention that Ms. Parker is on my freebie list. As a bonus link, while looking for a decent photo of Ms. Parker, I found this site of Canadian film actresses. Yes, folks, we're responsible for both Rae Dawn Chong and Pamela Anderson.

We're Back on Mars

While the European Beagle 2 has failed to call home, the Mars Exploration Rover Spirit (what a goofy-ass name) has successfully set down and taken some photos. This site has up-to-the-minute reports on what the the little Martian robot is doing.

I'm Getting on the Elevator Today...

And these three teenage girls are in mid-conservation:

GIRL ONE: That actress had the biggest nipples I had ever seen.
GIRL TWO: They were totally abnormally large.
GIRL ONE: You could fit, like, three nipple rings on each one.
ME: Uh, what movie was this?
GIRL ONE: 21 Grams.
ME: I see.

I must assume they were referring to Naomi Watts, as she's the lead in the film. It's on my list of films to see, so, you know, here's another reason.

New York Times's Top Ten Movies Lists

Here are the top ten lists of three New York Times critics:

Elvis Mitchell
A. O. Scott
Stephen Holden

I agree most with Elvis Mitchell's choices, but they're all pretty decent (with the exception of the poncy Master and Commander: The Other Side of the Place Beyond the Known World Where There Be Dragons and Other Peculiar Things). You can also hear the critics talk about their picks in this naff flashy flashness.

Incidentally, despite it being a two-part television mini-series, Steven Holden cites Angels in America as his favourite film. In the recent past, I bemoaned the fact that this wasn't available in Canada. Fortunately, the folks at Movie Central will be showing the series on Jan. 11 and 18.

der Marken Anerkennung

Via BoingBoing, BrandMarker offers an insight into how and how much people remember about popular brands:

An attempt to evaluate the actual power of brands by making Austrian people draw a total of twelve logos (nine international, three typically European) from memory, 25 people per brand.

Predictably, the simpler the logo, the more accurately people remembered it. Compare the Apple drawings with the nightmare dragons that are Peugeot. UPDATE: Johannes of the very busy Monochrom writes to correct my German: "It's not "der Marken Anerkennung", the correct form is "die Markenerkennung". your version would mean something like "appreciate their brand", hehe.

Movies by Mail

Netflix is a popular service that enables you rent DVDs by mail. I first read about it about a year ago in Wired magazine. They're being threatened by brick-and-morter rental shops like Blockbuster and DVD sellers like Walmart. One proposed insurance policy to help them survive from this CNN article is getting into porn.

Regardless of your cinematic tastes, Netflix is a USA-only affair. If you leave north of the 49th and want to rent movies by mail--a likely scenario, given the holy place in the reliquary that the Sears catalog has in Canadian culture--Alan offers these alternatives:

Movies For Me
DVD Rental
Cinema Flow (a dubious name, if there ever was one)

Personally, I don't rent a lot of DVDs, so this isn't for me. Mind you, if I ever live on that remote island paradise, then these could become lifelines to the civilized world.

Dating and the Shopping Theory

Over at Bunniblog, there's an entertaining essay on how women (particularly those over 25) date:

Women date the way men shop for shoes. When a man goes shoe shopping, he knows exactly what he wants. He knows the size, the style. He knows what he wants it for ( sports, casual, work). Some men know what they want so specifically that when their old shoes wear out, they order the exact same style and size online. Men know what they want, exactly, when it comes to shoes, and that is all they want. No innovation, no discovery, no surprise. Men can't handle that whole woman thing of "Oh they look like they have nice shoes, so I thought I would just walk around and take a look and see if they have anything I want."

Women date in the same manner, particularly women over the age of 25. No woman goes into a date with a "Hmmm wonder if I'll find anything here since the window looks so nice" approach. I gotta spend time picking an outfit, doing hair, make up, suffering through high heels and a push up bra sometimes even a tight skirt-yeah you're damn right I go in with an expectation, with a goal. If I was just "window shopping", I wouldn't bother wasting half my day modeling ensembles for my cat.

I had no idea. Well, I had some idea. Still, it's refreshing that men and women can think alike, if about different things.

Working in the Movies

I remeber Roger Ebert discussing work and jobs in the movies. In particular, he spoke about Michelle Pfieffer's character in the forgettable One Fine Day:

I amused myself by trying to figure out Michelle Pfeiffer's job. She works for a big company, I guess, but her only colleague seems to be her elderly and powerful boss. When she trips and falls and breaks the model of a big architectural project, it's her job to take it downtown and hire a guy to glue it back together again, and yet she also seems to be the designer, or planner, or salesperson, or broker, or something, of this whole undertaking. We don't know for sure because it's all flimflam. Her job scenes should be subtitled ``Obligatory Scenes Necessary So Little Maggie Can Be Taken to the Office.''

This is a common phenomenon in films: the job only serves to advance the plot. We rarely see films about working. For example, with rare exceptions (Pirates of Silicon Valley springs to mind), there are no major films that discuss the dotcom era of the software industry. Well, you might say, who wants to see films about work? We work all day...we don't want to go home and watch that. On the contrary, we love to watch that. Steven King insists that readers are always telling him that they love to read about work.

This is just a long lead up to this link: local writer Crawford Kilian references Busfilm, a weblog about business in the movies--an admirable if underappreciated topic. Why the blogs author--one Larry Ribstein--has the latest entry at the bottom of the page, I'll never know. Still, informative reading. In particular, I like his list of the most and least business-friendly films.