DarrenBarefoot.com

Come Together

In my early adolescence, I made a number of mix tapes from my father's extensive record collection. One much-played tape included the Beatle's 'Come Together'. When I recorded the song, though, the record skipped once on 'he got walrus gumboot'. It actually sounded like 'he got walrus-guy, walrus gumboot'. Now, whenever I hear the song, I expect this little effect in the third verse.

I mention this because I just watched an extraordinary Flash animation of this song. It's exceptionally expressive, and captures so much of the song and the band. It's both reverential and irreverent, if that's possible, and accurate down to the suits the Fab Four are wearing on the cover of Abbey Road. I rarely watch Flash animations to the end, but I actually watched this one twice.

I don't know much about animation, but when I see works of art like this I feel like it's on the cusp of overtaking live-action cinema in terms of artfulness and relevance.

Greenpeace's 404 Page

For the non-geeks present, a 404 page is the page displayed when you click a hyperlink but the linked resource (the page, image or whatever) is unavailable. 404 refers to the status code in the HTTP spec. Here is a much finer definition, Strong Bad style. CNN did a piece on 404 pages a couple of years ago as well.

I was mildly amused, then, to see Greenpeace's 404 page, which features a dodo bird in the top left corner, and a number of possible explanations for the missing page. The first one reads 'the page may be extinct, like many whales, chimpanzees, and gorillas in the wild could be without your help.' Never miss an opportunity to lobby your target market, I guess.

Leaders, Not Supervisors

With the election now in full swing, I've increasingly observed how woefully uninteresting the party leaders are. They seem universally to lack chutzpah. Where's the panache of Trudeau pirouetting behind the Queen? Kim Campbell starkers behind her legal robes? I'd even settle for Steven Harper occasionally throttling a protestor like Chretien used to do. The current crop of leaders seem to be running for the role of national supervisor or custodian. They're practical, efficient and really, really boring.

Their achievements aside, the leaders we remember and honour all have flair. More people will remember Chretien's final year in office for his comments about trying marijuana once he retires than his stance on Iraq.

I did see Jack Layton making snow angels with Rick Mercer, so that's a start. That was before the election was called, though (it was Ed Broadbent, thanks Mike). The candidates may have more flamboyance than I give them credit for. They and their spin-doctors realize that slow, steady and boring wins the race. Perception is everything, the media are everywhere, so leaders have to tread very lightly. I expect that I'll have to wait until a leader gets into power before I see his true colours. Given the current crop of candidates, though, I don't hold out much hope.

Signs, Signs, Everywhere a Sign

Cross-posted to ye olde Election Blog at Blogs Canada.

As you know, every election, our country becomes covered in clapboard and plastic signs advertising the candidates. As the campaign proceeds, four or five signs can sprout on a single street corner, competing for the 'eye-share' of passing commuters.

Oddly, signage seems to be a cornerstone of campaign marketing.

The signs are generally all the same. In the party colours, they feature a serious head shot of the candidate, their name and party and, if they're lucky, a little endorsement from the party leader. There seem to be two sizes: the large 4' x 8' ones and the small 2' square ones. Because of budget, the smaller parties tend to stick only with the smaller ones. I was driving in West Van yesterday and the Green Party candidate's tiny mustard-coloured sign was positively dwarfed by the shoe-in incumbent from the Conservatives (check out the awfully-pixelated photo on his site).

Clearly, a great deal of money and effort are spent on these things. As a marketing and PR professional, I have to wonder, is it really worth it?

The average urbanite sees at least 500 advertising images every day. Now clearly a timely event like an election will make the signs stand out more than, say, a random Diet Coke ad. However, I can't imagine that the ads are really influencers. They all look the same, they cluster together (diminishing their value) and, ironically, do absolutely nothing to differentiate the candidates. A group of signs essentially says 'we're some folks running for office'.

Presumably the sole reason for campaign signage is that standard marketing chorus: 'get our name out there'. Candidates are clearly worried that, come election day, voters won't know who they are or what party they're associated with. This latter point is rather silly, as the ballot clearly states their association.

For the non-marketing savvy, spending money and effort on signs may seem a sound approach. The signage, however, is a shotgun approach and lacks any kind of finesse.

I used to run a theatre company. For a given show, we might post a 1000 posters around the city. That had a meagre impact, however, compared to getting a single reviewer out to the opening. Much of that money and time is better spent on more effective public relations. When a candidate appears in the media, they're going to leave a far more lasting impression on the voter.

If You Hear This Sound, Panic

Via Engadget, we get some instructive audio files from Hitachi Corp:

My hard drive is experiencing some strange noises but I am unsure if the drive is failing. How can I determine if the noises are due to a failing hard drive?

There are various noises that may indicate a failing hard drive. If you are experiencing any of the noises, please contact the technical support center at: 888-426-5214.

I've heard one of these before: Bad Head #2 (WAV file) (insert cheap oral sex joke here). The sound was followed by my hard drive coughing up some blood, asking for some whiskey and bleeding out.

Updated African Photos

Counting both our digital and film cameras, we took over 700 photos in South Africa. Don't worry, I'm ruthless in culling photos (I hate looking at other people's vacation photos as it is), so we've reduced that to the best 60 or so. I've uploaded them, grouped based on location, here.

My Aunt Lynn doesn't like looking at vacation photos either. Instead, she insists on only seeing the best three pictures. In that spirit, I think these are three of the best:

• Cheetah surveying the landscape
• One tired lion
• Tree at sunset

Urban (or Traveling) Geek as Mugger Magnet

There's an interesting discussion thread on Slashdot about how geeks laden with expensive devices avoid being robbed. This topic comes a little late for South Africa, where I was carrying around a digital camera, iPod and 12" PowerBook everywhere I went. It was all in an innocent-looking backpack, though, and I was careful where I took out the laptop. Still, it gives you pause to consider that you're hauling around CAN $3000 worth of stuff in a crime-ridden country.

Mondegreens

From Canadian Headhunter, we get this most excellent wanted word: mondegreen. It means:

A series of words that result from the mishearing or misinterpretation of a statement or song lyric. For example, I led the pigeons to the flag for I pledge allegiance to the flag.

Excellent. Another needful gap in my vocabulary closed. Another 145,000 words and I'll know them all. The first personal mondegreen that comes to mind is for Sarah McLachlan's Building a Mystery. I heard 'you strech your ass to wear' when the actual line, of course, is 'you strut your rasta wear'. Who knew? If you consult KissThisGuy.com, you see that others agreed with me. Am I Right is another similar resource.

Mondegreens--a cautionary tale in musical pronounciation. Rock mumblers of the world, take note.

Newest Musical Discovery: Kathryn Williams

I recently read a review of Kathryn Williams's new album, Relations. While she's apparently 'the first lady of British folk', I'd never heard of her. So, I visited her Web site, checked her out and was pleased with the results. She's kind of Natalie Imbruglia meets Beth Orton for Sunday brunch. I considered buying her CD, but it's only available as an import, so it's going for $30 Canadian. I don't like the fuzzy sound clips on her site that much.

I know I've droned on about this before, but it's always remarkable to me how unusable and uninformative most musicians' Web sites are. It seems like every musician has some Flash-obsessed friend do their Web site. Furthermore, once it's up, they seem to ignore it. This is particularly true of new artists, which is all the more foolhardy. The newer the musician, the more important their Web site is to their marketing effort.

Smart artists (like Blue Rodeo and the Cowboy Junkies) understand that their site provides an easy way to communicate with their listeners, and provide regular updates and features to bring people back to the site.

Great Canadian Song Contest Results

This follow-up is kind of late, but I like closure. Back in April, I was one of the judges of Dave Pollard's Great Canadian Song Contest. After much computation and discussion, we chose these 15 songs as most Canadian.

SONG	COMPOSER	PERFORMER
1. Canadian Railroad Trilogy	Gordon Lightfoot	Gordon Lightfoot
2. A Case of You	Joni Mitchell	Joni Mitchell
3. Northwest Passage	Stan Rogers	Stan Rogers
4. Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald	Gordon Lightfoot	Gordon Lightfoot
5. Four Strong Winds	Ian Tyson	Ian & Sylvia
6. Helpless	Neil Young	Neil Young
7. Barrett's Privateers	Stan Rogers	Stan Rogers
8. Acadian Driftwood	Robbie Robertson	The Band
9. Log Driver's Waltz	Wade Hemsworth	McGarrigles
10. It's Hockey Night in Canada	Lynn Miles	Lynn Miles
11. The Last Saskatchewan Pirate	Arrogant Worms	Arrogant Worms
12. Wheat Kings	Tragically Hip	Tragically Hip
13. Hillcrest Mine	James Keelaghan	James Keelaghan
14. Far Too Canadian	Spirit of the West	Spirit of the West
15. A Real Canadian Girl	Stompin' Tom Connors	Stompin' Tom Connors

There was some wringing of hands among the judges regarding the list's decidedly English-Canadian emphasis (the judges were all English-Canadian men, incidentally). As part of an email thread, I responded with these comments:

Well aren't these essentially Canadian questions? How do we include the distinct society while still being true to the majority? Is it fair to judge songs from another culture and in another language by the same criteria as we judge our own? Should we include a French Canadian song or two out of a sense of nationalist obligation?

I suppose to properly reflect our nation's diversity, we should have gotten a broad demographically representative group, based on ethnicity, provincial allegiance, first language, country of origin, etc. For now, though, my safest bet is to simply stick with what I like. I can try, but can't hope to accurately reflect the entirety of Canada's cultural experience. For example, there are nearly a million Chinese people in Canada--mostly first or second generation. We can't hope to represent their choice, so why try with the French? Ironically, given that I grew up in Vancouver, I'm more equipped to comment on Chinese-Canadian song preference than French-Canadian.

Link Round-Up: Discovered on Holiday

Various bits and pieces that I noted while traveling:

• Economic analysis of Star Wars: Galaxies (and some comments on that analysis).
• The Long Now Foundation is one of my favourite non-profits. Here are some interesting-looking seminars from its members. I haven't had a chance to listen to them yet, but will report back once I do.
• The OpenCD project. You may be familiar with this, but these guys provide a CD image of all of the best free software programs, from OpenOffice to Celestia.
• From the people who brought you Kazaa, Skype is a free VoIP client that looks like MSN Messenger. You can make 'phone calls' to any other Skype user anywhere on the planet for free, using your computer's microphone and speakers. I haven't tried it, but my Irish friends swear by it.
• Weblog of an S&M mistress (the next Belle de Jour?). Safe enough for work. While the Web is rife sex-worker blogs, why aren't there more steel-worker and lumberjack weblogs? 'Today I harvested 14 spruces, 6 pines and a Douglas fir.'

Darren Abroad - Darren's No Longer Abroad

Though he's always liked heels.

Sorry. Jet lag-induced pun there. After 31 hours of travel, four hours of forced wakefulness and 11 hours of beautiful, beautiful sleep, I'm sorting through spam and sending email. If you've emailed me recently, please give me 24 hours grace to get back to you.

If you're interested, all of my entries from abroad can be read here. All of our photos are being developed, so I'll post the best of them in the next few days.

Thanks to all of the guest bloggers, who kept things humming in my absence. I appreciate the borrowed content, and will be happy to return the favour.

To blog or not to blog?

Well, I suppose Mr. Barefoot himself will be returning soon to these hallowed web pages to continue his weblog. I'm afraid I haven't quite fulfilled the guest blogger duties as I should have -- I can't believe a month has passed already, but that real life can sure get in the way sometimes!

So while I still have access to this borrowed soapbox, I figure I should get at least one other post in.

It's interesting, serving as a "guest blogger" on someone else's site. I guess it's sort of like being a substitute teacher -- you've got (borrowed) authority, but then again -- you're just being tolerated til the real person shows back up.

And if you think it's difficult censoring yourself and figuring out the proper things to say on your own website, it's ten times as hard on someone else's! It all comes back to a syndrome I like to call the "blogger's conundrum."

The blogger's conundrum centers around the dilemma most bloggers experience regarding what to post. When I first started my blog, it was the culmination of insomnia and boredom at 2AM. My readers included myself and a couple friends. Nowadays I have a modest audience -- ranging from my thesis supervisor (yikes) to my mom (double yikes) and a hundred or so others.

Needless to say, the personal rants I could write two Augusts ago would NOT be suitable to today's post. Mainly because the issues or people I'd be writing about -- would be actually reading my page!

Plus, the larger my readership gets, the less personal I can be. Don't get me wrong, I never wrote about my breakfast contents or any specific heartbreaking moments -- but now I'm finding that I censor what I write more and more. And maybe that's not a bad thing, after all.

But despite the drawbacks, I'm really happy with the relationships and contacts I've made through my web journal. It's odd (while flattering) to be recognized and to start up a conversation with someone I've never met, but who has read my web journal. I've had a chance to keep my family posted on my daily life, while also making contacts with long-lost friends. I even had a writer I quoted in one of my papers contact me to compliment me in my academic work.

Not bad for a hobby. And it's a suitable one for me, considering my aptitude for talking (which is quite a lot, apparently. My blogger profile pegs me for almost 250,000 words so far).

Anyway, it's been fun sub-ing for Darren while he's off globetrotting. Now that he's returning home, I suppose I can put aside those insanely jealous feelings I had for his trips around the world. ttfn!

Darren Abroad - Dealing with Heathrow

Having wrestled the tmobile wireless access to the ground, and located the epicentre of the hotspot, I'm sitting in Heathrow, awaiting the final leg of our epic journey back to Canada. Basically, it's a 11.5-hour flight from Cape Town to London, a 7-hour lay-over and a 9.5-hour flight from London to Vancouver. Both flights are direct, so I can't really complain.

Here's a travel tip we discovered this morning. There's a Hilton that is about 5 minutes walk from Terminal 4 at Heathrow. While the rates for day rooms there are exorbitant, you can use their gym for a 10 pound fee. This means that you can have a nice shower (towels and beauty products provided), wash the last flight off, and stave off deep-veined thrombosis with a light workout. If you've brought your bathing suit, there's a pool as well. Plus, there's WiFi in their lobby. I feel almost human.

Darren Abroad - Update

Just a quick note to say that we've got a couple of days left here in the Cape and then I'm coming home. Check this return schedule: Seven hour wait at the Cape Town airport (long story), fly to Heathrow, seven hour wait there, then fly direct to Vancouver. The odds on my surviving the trip as a functioning, sane human are fifty-fifty.

The last week has been all sunny, wind-swept beaches, salt air and sea houses. I'm regularly reminded of a line from Sarah Harmer:

Holidays are made for reading
And thinking of things worth repeating

So, I should be back in the posting saddle on May 28th or so. Expect a long treatise on jet lag.

Darren Abroad - Gates within Gates

I write this from the sunny veranda of a sea house in Hermanus, a town in the Western Cape (later, I'll upload it at an Internet cafe). My view of the azure Indian Ocean is marred only by a ten-foot steel fence topped with jagged spikes. If I wasn't outside, I'd be protected by the fence, a solid wooden door, and a metal folding gate just inside the door. There are actually four doors and gates at the back of the house. All of the windows are protected by tasteful bars, each bar offset from the previous one. This house is typical of white-owned property in South Africa

From the 2003 Lonely Planet on South Africa, Lesotha & Soweto

South Africans are obsessed with not becoming victims of crime. This has always been a violent country and the police force has never been in a position to enforce the laws effectively. The big difference since the 1994 elections is that the white community is suffering from the crime that has long plagued other communities. The vast majority of South Africans are just as worried about crime as you are, not surprisingly this worry can cause paranoia. This situation isn't helped by the government's refusal to publish crime statistics.

Afrikaaners trade crime stories like we discuss the weather. Every person I've met has a half-dozen violent anecdotes at the ready. My family is very cautious, and constantly impress upon me the threats to our safety.

This constant flood, combined with the lack of hard numbers, has made it very difficult for me to assess the actual danger level in any particular situation. I'm constantly asking myself 'am I at risk here?' but it's impossible to know the answer. Practically speaking, I've never felt threatened, but then I've taken care where and when I've left the house.

I could never live this way. From the suburbs to the center of the city, every house and business is its own tiny prison. Personal safety is the central concern of every outing--which route to take, how much currency to carry, who to greet and who to ignore.

Because of my uncertainty, and because of the gates and fences, I probably won't come to this country again. I don't mind feeling unsafe, but I don't like feeling locked in. I might go on safari, which, ironically, is much safer than sitting on this veranda, but I won't visit South Africa's cities or towns.

South Africans are deeply concerned about the state of the country after Nelson Mandela's death. He's a healthy-if-frail 85, but he's lived a hard life, and nobody has any misconceptions about the number of years he's got left. Without his calming influence (one black South African told me that 'Mandela is like Jesus in this country), things could get messy very quickly.

The stationery beside the phone at our Cape Town hotel asked 'Have you phoned your loved one?' There are two messages in that question: One, obviously, 'use our phone and pay exorbitant rates'. Two, 'call home to reassure your family that you haven't been butchered while visiting our dangerous nation.'

I've just spotted a whale. It's a southern right, an early visitor to its warmer breeding grounds just offshore. It's a pity that I can't see it better, but this fence is in the way.

Grammar is tough

As I previously mentioned here in my guest-blogger debut, I am creating a seminar on business writing. Today I started the participant guide, in which I intended to include a brief summary of grammar and punctuation before I moved on to greater topics such as style and the proper application of a topic sentence.

Well I'll be. Who would have ever thought that writing about grammar would be one of the toughest assignments I've taken on since as far back as I can remember? I'm at 11 pages, including title page and table of contents, and I've only just started to touch on where and how to use a comma. I have made great use of Google to help me find comprehensible descriptions of the concepts of subject and predicate. I am sure I will dream of compound sentences and subject-verb agreement, and more exotic things like double negatives, and where to put punctuation when using double quotation marks.

Is there an easy way to do this?

Darren Abroad - Mondo Update

We're in Cape Town now, and finally have an Internet connection to my laptop. I've been writing a few pieces about being on safari over the past week. In the interest of historical accuracy, I've posted them on the day they were written. You can access them below:

• Darkest Africa
• On Spotting Wildlife
• Londolozi
• Lion Kill

We've taken two cameras to Africa--an old-school 35mm Pentax and a mediocre 3 megapixel Canon. Though I'll be more organized and extensive when I get back, for now I've uploaded some of our better digital shots here.

Haiku

Suppose you (or any other sane person for that matter) were to wake at 2:30 AM. A car had backfired, perhaps, or your cat launched herself onto your chest. Most of you would simply roll over and go back to sleep. Granted, this might take a few minutes, particularly if you were subjected to the cat scenario and you have to deal with a load of adrenaline, but you would do it.

I cannot. There is a tiny window for me, a bathroom window of opportunity, during which I can go back to sleep when awakened any time after about 2:30 AM. I have learned that once that little, teeny window has passed, I am not going back to sleep under any circumstances.

Thus it is that I am writing this at 4:00 AM, having moved the separate chapters of my Work in Progress (a portentious term for "Massive Exercise in Self-Delusion") into a single document, read the news on Google, and eaten a little.

It's not real insomnia: I am a very early riser by anyone's standard, and waking at 3:00 instead of 5:00 is like you, a normal person, waking at 6:00 instead of 8:00. It's close enough, though, for me to imagine the torments that real insomniacs suffer.

It was in this state that I recalled encountering error haiku some years ago. The ones I remember come from the original article at salon.com. The winners:

Three things are certain:
Death, taxes, and lost data.
Guess which has occurred.

Everything is gone;
Your life's work has been destroyed.
Squeeze trigger (yes/no)?

I'm not nuts about either one of these. In the first place, the final line of a haiku is supposed to appear unrelated to the first two, and is supposed to reveal its relation to them only upon reflection. In the second place, haiku is poetry, and it needs to feel poetic.

This one is much better, in my opinion:

Windows NT crashed.
I am the Blue Screen of Death.
No one hears your screams.

The first two lines need work, though. And who remembers what Windows NT is any more? How about:

Your document lies
Shattered on a floor of stone.
No one hears your screams.

Better. I think it can still be improved.

Your document lies
Scattered on a plain of stones.
Your screams echo not.

Hmmm, the first two lines are better, but now the last one sucks.

Your document lies
Scattered on a plain of stones.
No one hears you cry.

Now we're getting somewhere. "No one hears you cry" speaks of the grief of the receiver of the error message when his or her document is not found. It is also a general statement about the world: it is true that for most people, no one really hears you cry. "Scattered on a plain of stones" is clearly metaphorical unless you're dealing with someone who believes it literally true (and the less said about that sort of person, the better), and it evokes a hard, pitiless, cheerless place.

Perfect.

Darren Abroad - Lion Kill

At dusk, our Land Rover rolled to a stop in front of seven lions lazing in the long grass. They looked every bit the house cats, licking one another and playfully rolling on their backs in the evening light. We were positioned about 25 feet away, but they were completely oblivious to us. This has been universally true in Kruger and Londolozi--it's a strange phenonmenon, but the animals are either so accustomed or so apathetic to the vehicles that they pay them no heed.

The first rule of open Land Rover wildlife viewing is that you DON"T STAND UP IN THE VEHICLE. This 'breaks the profile' of the vehicle. To the animals (and the big cats in particular), you stop looking like a massive, growling beast and start looking like a tasty treat.

The lions yawned, and got to their feet. The first one walked toward the vehicle, and we all froze. Up to now, I hadn't felt concerned about any of the animals and their proximity to us. That changed in an instant as the lion's big amber eyes seemed to stare through me. I glanced at the ranger and tracked, but they seemed unconcerned. Each of the lions got within spitting distance of the Land Rover, then turned and walked behind us.

We followed them at a cautious distance as they wandered through the brush. They walked in a long line, and you could see how the black on the back of their ears and the tips of their tails helped them follow each other. They lazily wandered along an animal track for several minutes, and then suddenly froze. Ears twitching, they crouched and began to spread out, flanking an unseen quarry. We laid back at this point...it's important not to disturb an animal while it hunts.

The alpha female pounced, bursting forward. The others followed, and they all closed on something in the underbrush. The ranger lurched the Land Rover forward. As we approached the kill site, we could hear the lions' throaty growls and the whine of another animal. There was also a strange odor--a musky smell a bit like that of a skunk, but not as powerful.

The lions had caught a honey badger, and were struggling with it. One, then another, would drag it through the grass, trying to kill it. Surprisingly, four of the cats gave up on it, and walked off. The other three settled down, and continued their grisly work. You could hear their teeth on the badger's bones. The ranger explained that badgers were particularly difficult to kill, and that the other lions weren't interested in working so hard for so small a prey. Furthermore, the badger had released a musk, which probably discouraged the predators as well.

Eventually, the other three lions gave up as well. Once they left, we rolled up on their discarded dinner. The badger, about the size of a skunk, lay on its side, mortally wounded. We could heard its shallow, gurgling breathing. This being a game reserve, we couldn't actually put it out of its misery. However, we were certain that something would come along soon and have an easy meal.

Darren Abroad - Londolozi

This morning I watched a leopard stalk and attack an impala. The leopard was spotted before she could strike, so there was no kill (fortunate or unfortunate, depending on who you're cheering for). After that we sat in the Land Rover surrounded by a herd of massive cape buffalo, some close enough that you could touch them. Later, we watched an elephant suck nine litres of water into its trunk and dump it into its mouth.

This is the Londolozi private lodge. It's part of the Sabi Sand (those are two rivers), a game reserve home to a group of private camps. The reserve borders Kruger park, and shares a border with its much larger public cousin.

I've never stayed in a more luxurious place--it's like Martha Stewart's Ewok village. There are 160 staff to care for 60 guests, and everyone of them knows your name from the moment you arrive. The setting is extraordinary--the main lodge stretches out from a cliff face, with an exceptional view over the jungle. The lodge itself has 30 exceptionally-appointed rooms, mostly standalone houses above the Sand River.

Each day we go for two three-to-four hour safari drives, one at 5:30 AM and another at 3:30 PM. One day we also did a walk through the bush, an hour-and-a-half back to camp. We saw everything--you name a southern African animal and we watched it. Plus, we saw a vast range of birds and plants. We were assigned a game ranger and a tracker for the entire visit, and they were exceptionally knowledgable. We learned a tremendous amount, not only about flora and fauna, but also about conservation efforts and wildlife management. The tracker--oddly named Exxon--seemed able to pick up tracks out of seemless dirt.

After Kruger, with its massive space and intermittant sitings, I was skeptical about Londolozi. Were we just going to see pop-up animals? Londolozi is still big--we saw new terrain and portions of the reserve each day. But I feared that the private park would feel artifical.

In truth, it seemed pretty natural. Our sitings were vastly improved over the private game park, but I put that down to four factors. One, we rode in Land Rovers, which aren't required to stay on the rode. These amazing vehicles can go pretty much anywhere--they regularly drove over small trees. Two, the skill and experience of the rangers and trackers. Three, the communication between the staff. Though we rarely saw another group, the rangers were in constant contact by radio, discussing the position and behaviour of the animals. This meant that if another group spotted and followed a leopard for a while, we could pick up the pursuit after they left. Lastly, the reserve has been there for at least 60 years, so there are plenty of animals who are natural residents.

Big League Dreams

Growing up in Edmonton, I had a rink across the street from my house. In winter, I would play shinny on it every day, often till my feet were numb from cold, pretending I was a star in the big league. Now, Making the Cut offers a chance at realizing my dream.

No, "Making the Cut" is not a reality show about the day-to-day exploits of hairdressers or plastic surgery gone awry, but rather "a coast-to-coast search for the best unsigned hockey players in Canada" says the website press release.

The concept goes like this: NHL wannabes can sign up for a series of cross-country tryouts led by NHL coaching legends Scotty Bowman and "Iron" Mike Keenan. Anyone willing to pay the $55 fee can enter. From these tryouts -- which will likely draw thousands -- 68 players will be selected to advance to a two-week intensive training camp where they’ll battle for the ultimate prize – an invitation to attend a real NHL training camp. Through it all, cameras will capture the gripping action both on and off the ice. CBC intends to broadcast the results over 13 episodes next fall. I picture a lot of locker room machismo, off-ice backbiting and ill-conceived alliances between competing players.

The idea of practicing with Bowman is alluring, if for no other reason then to see what kind of drills he would run. But then I have horrific visions of flailing, spread-eagled, through a line of practice pylons after attempting a basic stick-handling maneuver. No doubt the bulk of the competitors will be fresh-faced twenty-somethings bent on grinding up old guys like me. But what the hell - I'm going to sign up anyways.

Finally, I get my shot at the big league.
-------
As this is my first post, here's a quick bio:
I'm an independent marketing/technical writer specializing in the technology sector (sound like someone you know?), mid-thirties, living happily in Vancouver's Kitsilano district with my girlfriend and two black cats.

My personal interests include jembe drums -- which I thump spastically -- as well as independent film and documentary (a doc project is in the works), most sports, design, photography, and traveling (successive summers have been spent in Italy and France/Scandinavia/Berlin).

Darren Abroad - On Spotting Wildlife

It's a particular skill, spotting wildlife. You all load into a 'combee'--a minivan (all 9 of you, even though there are only 8 seats)--at 6:00 AM, right when the gates of the camp open. The African sun, like a glowing Mandarin orange, is hastily rising over the vfeld, or bush.

You drive out of the camp and pick a direction, heading down a 'tar' (paved) or dirt road. At 6:00 AM, there is a mass diaspora from the camp, with minivans and SUVs heading off in all directions. Although a lot of people leave the camp then, you quickly lose sight of most or all of the other cars. In a park the size of Wales, there's plenty of road for everyone.

You start looking as soon as you pass through the gates, cruising along at 40 or 50 km/hour. The terrain varies, but generally it's knee-high grass dotted with short trees and bushes. You apply the same technique that your driving instructor taught you--look into the middle distance, and everything closer to you will still be in your field of view.

None of the animals are easy to spot. You'll generally see impala, because they're so prevalent--there are 150,000 in Kruger alone. And wildebeest and zebra almost always travel in herds. Even massive animals, like elephants and giraffes, however, are difficult to separate from the landscape. If it's not close to the road, elephants mostly look like big thorn bushes, and a giraffe may be concealed behind a tree.

Other, rarer animals are even more tricky. Other antelopes--kudus, duikkers, elands--are rare, and their coats provide them with excellent camaflouge among the trees. Hippos and crocodiles spend much of the day in the water, and they'll often look like logs or submerged rocks.

The trickiest of all are the big cats--lions, cheetahs and leopards. You've only seen two lions, and you had a tip from an excited Afrikaans driver passing in the other direction along a dirt road. Crawling along, you spot the lions' spore or dung in the road (you've become something of an animal shit expert). Your entire car stares out of the right-hand side of combee, scanning the vegetation. You've learned from your more-experienced combee-mates (in particular, a 79-year-old woman with eyes like a fish eagle), that, as the day heats up, cats will seek the shade of bushes and trees.

Finally, you spot them, two young males lounging in the shade of a thorn bush. Like most of the animals in the park, they couldn't care less about you. They scan the horizon briefly, lick their lips, scratch behind an ear, and just hang out. You watch them for 15 minutes, awed at their beauty but slightly miffed at their inactivity. Eventually, one of the lions puts his head down, signifying that the chance of much action is nil. You move on, craning your neck for the next sighting.

Many visitors come on safari interested only in 'The Big Five'. These are the five animals (selected, no doubt, by some 19th century marketing team), that can kill a man with ease. They are the elephant, the buffalo, the rhino, the leopard and the lion. You've only seen three of the big five, but that's not really the point, is it? You've seen dozens of other animals--some of them very rare--and spend several days in a landscape like no other. Ultimately, safaris are as much about the getting there as the actual spotting.

Toe the Line

Toe the line - it's often written as "tow the line", but this is incorrect. It is easy to understand where the confusion came from, particularly when the phrase is combined with an entity, as in "toe the company line" or "toe the party line". It is easy to visualize a poor wretch toiling with the company rope over his shoulder.

The phrase is clearly "toe", however, and the origin is straightforward. It refers to stepping up and putting your toe on a starting line. It's related to another phrase, "up to scratch", discussed below.

"Toe the line" has become corrupted from its original meaning. Now, when you hear of someone "toeing the line", you tend to think of someone brought to heel (see here for an example), of someone staying within prescribed behaviour, rather than the original meaning of someone stepping up to a challenge. This original sense is still maintained in the phrase "toe the mark", a more British saying, which retains the feeling of someone preparing for a contest (at least to my ear, it does.)

Up to scratch - The origin of this phrase is related to "toe the line". In early prizefighting, a mark would be scratched in the dirt, and the fighters would each place a toe on the line, or "scratch". They would then attempt to drive the opponent off the mark with their fists. Such fighting clearly requires a great deal of physical courage and endurance, and thus it was admirable to be "up to scratch".

Room to swing a cat - this one puzzled me when I was young. Why would anyone need room to swing a cat? I envisioned someone taking a housecat and swinging it around by the tail. This makes no sense, and is cruel to boot.

I have learned since that the origin is nautical, and refers to the 'cat' or 'cat-o-nine-tails' with which errant sailors would be flogged. Not having room to swing a cat meant not having room to enforce discipline. And, yes, it's cruel too.

I need to clarify: in my previous post on words, I said that the I before E rule was a pet peeve. What I meant was that I heartily dislike the I before E rule. I think it a pox and a vexation. English users everywhere should stand up (or, rather, sit down) and reject it wholesale. Why can't we all just agree that 'ei' is pronounced 'ay' and 'ie' is pronounced 'ee'?

Darren Abroad - Darkest Africa

I write this from the spartan comfort of a ronduval (a round hut) in Talavarti Bush Camp, Kruger National Park. Outside of my window, in the blackness, I have heard lions roar, elephants trumpet and hippos grunt. The sky at night here is extraordinary--the Milky Way is clearly visible and there are more stars than I've ever seen. I know next to nothing about astronomy, but I assume this has to do with being so far south. The sun, by comparison, seems hotter and closer down here.

We arose at 4:00 AM this morning and drove into the sunrise for hours. In South Africa, the orange sun seems to rise and fall as if on a window blind. Dawn and dusk are extraordinary times, with the landscape lit with an amber glow I'd previously only seen in theatrical lighting gels.

Kruger National Park is an extraordinary place. Founded in 1926, it is one of the oldest camps of its kind in Africa. It streches from the south-east coast to the northern border with Zimbabwe, and is equal in size to Wales. The park has a couple well-maintained, paved roads that run north-south, and a web of decent dirt roads that lead to camps, lodges and watering holes. Traffic is incredibly sparse...we might go half an hour without seeing another car.

Crucially, you're not permitted to get out of your car. In fact, our hosts encourage us to keep our windows up unless we're shooting a photo. You never know what might reach in and grab you.

When you see another car, and it's stopped, you stop too, because there's likely big game around. According to the locals along on the trip, we had a remarkable first day of wildlife spotting. We saw a herd of at least 20 elephants, including several darling new-borne babies. We saw more elephants elsewhere, several graceful giraffes, curious but savage baboons, tiny velvet monkeys, many paranoid impala, and some skittish water bucks.

We spotted a mother, bull and young elephant near the side of the road. There were a couple of cars in front of us, and the bull elephant charged at one of the cars. Ears flapping, trunk and tusks raised, it was a menacing site. Fortunately for the car and its occupants, it was a false charge.

All agreed that the most impressive and rare site of the day was a herd of maybe 200 cape buffalo (think yak and you're pretty close) crossing the road in front of us. They were glistening from a trip to the water hole, fighting, mating and generally carrying on. Apparently they're rarely seen in such large numbers, so we're very fortunate. On top of the animals, we saw an amazing array of birds I'd never seen before, and probably more flowering plants and trees than all of Canada has to offer.

2nd Day and 3rd Day:

Giraffes, including a family
Elephants -- a massive herd of about 50 across a river
All sorts of antelopes, including kudu, waterbucks, springboks, duikkers, klineskopper (or some such thing), eland
Crocodiles
Hippos
Meercats
Many, many birds

On the third night, a ride on a Land Rover through the veld, with a gawky, gregarious guide named Andre:

Bush babies
Jackals
Chameleon
A hare

Darren Abroad: In a Pretoria Mall

After our restive weekend down the country, we've had an insanely busy week in Dublin. Between meeting with (and working for) existing clients, talking to potential new clients, socializing with friends and visiting our favourite Dublin haunts, it's been madness. The holiday didn't really start until we climbed off the plane after a surprisingly-tolerable eleven-hour flight from London to Johannesburg.

On the really long hauls, you get personal TV sets, even in economy. These are connected to some kind of fancy media server, so that you can view movies, TV shows, play games, etc in the (relative) comfort of your own seat. This is a serious air travel improvement, and is not one I've enjoyed before. After playing a ton of video poker, I sheepishly watched the Dead Poets Society clone Mona Lisa Smile. The mediocrity of the film aside, all those attractive women helped wile away a couple of hours.

I've only been in South Africa for about six hours, so I don't have too many impressions. We immediately left Johannesburg for Pretoria, where we're spending the night at my step-grandmother's house. Highways are pretty much the same from one country to another. The flora and geography in this region reminds me of the Costa Brava region of Spain--rich red earth, rolling hills and plenty of golden foliage.

Like every other house in the neighbourhood, the house we're staying in has high, spiked walls and a series of gates that protect particular regions of the house and yard. What a peculiar way to live. It's very surreal, actually. It feels all very colonial, sipping tea on the veranda in the afternoon sun while an African prunes a palm tree in the adjoining yard.

Speaking of the surreal, I'm typing this entry from a large mall near my step-grandmother's house. In the middle of it, there's an ice rink. A full-sized freakin' hockey rink with blue lines and ice marshalls and everything you'd see in a Canadian rink. Including, oddly, no black people on the ice. I guess I can't blame them--they're wearing toques and sweaters while I'm walking around in a T-shirt. Clearly, our internal temperature guages are set differently.

Tomorrow at four (four!) AM we're heading off for five days on safari in Kruger Park. I'm not optimistic about Internet connectivity (let alone Wifi). Thereafter it's on to Londolozi Private Game Reserve--again, access is dubious. So, I'll probably update in about a week in Cape Town.

Free(way) Speech

Freeway Blogger: Before the internet, before television and radio, photography or even the invention of the printing press, there was the sign. Five hundred, one thousand, even three thousand years ago, if you wanted to get your message out, you made a sign.

You made a sign and then put it up in the most public place you could find, so that as many people as possible would read what you had to say. If you were smart, you used durable materials and hung it in such a way that other people couldn't take it down... at least not easily.

Even in complex times like these though, it's the simplest ideas that work the best, and for pure, unadulterated free speech to a mass audience, you really can't beat sticking a sign on the freeway. Using cardboard (free in the dumpsters behind your local corporate retail outlet - for large sheets go behind furniture stores,) house paint, duct-tape and coat hangars, I've made hundreds of signs that have been seen by literally millions of people: all for a total cost of about forty bucks. (from the FreewayBlogger Manifesto)

What a great idea! I posted about this site on my weblog this last week, and even garnered a response from the Freeway Blogger him/herself. The "scarlet pimpernel" wrote: Although the site centers on the larger, more in your face signs, it's the little ones posted along the peripheries of the highways that last the longest and ultimately reach the most people: "The War is a Lie." "Osama Bin Forgotten" and lately just the word "Fiasco." What good this does is negligable I suppose, but I want to live in a country where there's at least one person mad enough to litter the freeways with their thoughts - until that guy shows up for work I guess it's my job.

Good luck on your paper and I'll keep you posted on ongoing campaigns: ("Rumsfailed" is the one I'm posting these days.)

It's inspiring to know that not everyone back home is an automaton of the administration or believes the lies Faux News is promoting about the "war on terror."

I may have to make a sign, myself.

EDIT: For recent sign postings, check out the FreewayBlogger's weblog.

Bitten by Van Helsing

I'll be taking the plunge tonight to see the summer's first blockbuster movie, Van Helsing. I'm somewhat of a "try anything once" kind of person, and once I'd tasted Underworld I was hooked on the goth-popculture movie genre.

We'll see if I survive the cheesy effects, silly plotline and over-the-top special effects which we've all come to know and love from the summer movie season. Thankfully Shrek 2 is out next week so I can kind of even out my month with some cuddly ogres.

-- by Jeremy W.

A Writer's Tools

I originally happened on Darren's blog while looking for sites concerned with writers and the writing life. I assume that people who read this space regularly have similiar interests. To that end, a one-sided discussion of writing tools.

These are the tools I use:
An old laptop - I use an old IBM ThinkPad that I bought used. I like the fast, crisp keyboard, and the fact that the screen is close by. The machine has a couple of development tools on it, and SQL Server 2000 (developer version), but nothing much in the way of games or diversions, so a 10 Gb hard drive is big enough.
A text editor - when writing simple or HTML-enhanced text, I use a straightforward text editor, like Notepad or Crimson Editor. I'm working in Crimson Editor right now. Crimson has one oddity: when it wraps a line, it inexplicably breaks before punctuation, so you often end up with a line that starts with a period or a comma. If you can live with that, it's an excellent editor, particularly if you do any programming on the side.
Microsoft Word 97 - I have little use for the gee-whiz features of newer versions of this excellent word processor. I write with a monospaced font (Courier New), and a simple single-spaced style, easily converted to double-spaced for submission purposes. Word 97 is plenty powerful enough for this. Not to mention the fact that it runs faster on this mildly anemic old machine.
Coffee - I am at my best and most creative in the morning. Coffee enhances that for some strange reason. When I sell my first book (when, not if) I'm going to buy an espresso maker and drink cappuccino in the morning.
A dictionary - In a measure of just how much things have changed, I use an online dictionary. I'm a good speller and have reasonably large vocabulary, so I don't use it more than once a week or so. Yes, it's an American dictionary. I have taken to writing fiction with American spellings on the assumption that I will be targetting the American market. I still use Canadian spellings everywhere else.
Possibly because I write software to pay the daily bills, I believe that a tool should not become an end unto itself, but should instead be as simple and transparent as required. Nothing should get in the way of the writing.

Darren Abroad: Down the Country (and Heathrow)

I wrote this on Sunday morning, but wasn't able to post it until today. The Internet access in rural Ireland is predictably scant.

It is 5:45AM GMT, and I'm seated on a rock wall that lines a tiny cemetery in County Wexford. There's a cacophony of birds--the rough coughs of the crows, the monastic mutterings of the pigeons, a hundred other calls I don't recognize--punctuated occasionally by the occasional insistent crowing of the resident peacock. Though it's overcast, the sky is brightening, and I'm confident the air is warming up. At the moment though, I have to blow on my hands after each paragraph.

At first I was sitting with my back to the graveyard, looking out across a field to the mouth of the river. However, it wasn't quite bright enough to guarantee that no zombie named Paddy O'Neil wasn't going to rise from his 200-year-old for a quick snack of Canadian back bacon. So, I turned around and am vigilant. Given the tall grass and rockery, I'd normally be worried about snakes as well. This is Ireland, however, and I have St. Patrick to thank for that.

I've left my warm bed because of jet lag. I've done well to sleep six hours, actually, but can no longer depend on my general exhaustion to ignore my long-standing membership in the Pacific Standard Tribe.

To recover from our jet lag and prepare for the busy week ahead, we've headed down to Ireland's south-east coast, near the Hook Peninsula . We're staying overnight at Kilmokea Guest House, one of many beautiful Victorian estates converted into charming accomodations around the country. After a couple of insanely-busy weeks at work and a lengthy flight, it's a welcome respite. They have a large, splendid woodland garden near the house. It's the sort of place where you wouldn't be surprised if a mole or satyr sauntered up and invited you in for tea.

Despite my wife's notoriously-lousy travel luck, we managed the trip without event. All of our planes departed and arrived on time, with all of our luggage. We did have a five hour lay-over at Heathrow, which was unfortunate. Heathrow is the worst airport I've ever flown into. Each time I arrive I see that nausea-inducing carpet and wonder 'what fresh hell is this?' And it is indeed hell. It's always packed with unhappy people--it's dirty, grim and torturous to do anything. All of the food is appalling, and, like hell, they're always under construction. It's rare that I board an Aer Lingus flight gratefully, but today we were pleased to see that shamrock-bearing Airbus pull up.

It's particularly bad flying from Heathrow to Ireland, because they put you in what I refer to as 'the tube'. It's a length series of corrugated metal tubes that you walk through for miles, until you reach a slightly broader tube where you wait with all of the other sad, slightly-ashamed Irish folk. It's like they assumed that every Irish person was a terrorist and had a bomb in their luggage, so they put them in some cheap enclosure miles from anybody else. It's a bit like a scene from the famine emigration, in reverse.

I have photos of the journey, which I'll post as soon as I get around to sorting them.

Late Night Link Travels

Unlike Becky, I don't have a good reason to be awake at this hour. I just have a tawdry love affair with late nights.

Since this is my first post, I'll do a brief intro. My name's Colene (spelling counts!) and I'm a recent graduate of SFU (Communications major/Publishing minor) looking for work that doesn't require buying a squeege and skulking around Main and Terminal. I like cultural studies, air hockey, earl grey tea and using parentheses. I loathe low-rise jeans, orange juice pulp and the squeaky sound of styrofoam. Now that we've been properly introduced, on with the show!

I've found a collection of unusual art-related links for your perusal:

• Selling art from retired cigarette vending machines. Sadly, there are none in Canada (yet!).


• Imagine showing three years worth of snooze-button snapshots. That's alot of unflattering crusty eyes.


• Talking and snapping pictures? America's first phonecam art show.


• Matchbook art. What else can I say about this?


• Creativity on demand: get the story elements, write, shoot and edit a film in 24 hours. The last 24 Hr Film Contest was held last month (I was part of one!) and the films will be shown in the gallery shortly. Also see past winners and entries.

Get your cuddle on

"Remember when you were 6 years old and you and all of your cousins crawled into the top bunk and squealed and squirmed until your parents came in and had to quiet you all down? Or how about when you and your friends would make tents with the sofa cushions and whatever blankets mom would let you play with? Remember how you'd make the tent and then all snuggle up inside playing with Lego and dolls?

Short of making tents and trying to fit everybody atop a bunk bed, this is the feel Cuddle Parties are going for.

In today's world, many of us aren't getting our Recommended Daily Allowance of Welcomed Touch. Cuddle Parties seek to change that and change it in a way that's conscious, healthy and nutritious. Cuddleparty.com

Cuddling is now considered "nutritious?" Personally, I'm all about cuddling -- though I'm not too sure how I'd respond in a group-cuddling context.

But it's an interesting movement, to be sure -- complete with its own set of rules.

One vice or another, they're gonna get you

Tobacco companies have dropped out of the local sponsorship business, but B.C.'s breweries and wineries are stepping in to help bankroll cultural events.

The above is the opening paragraph/sentence from a page 3 article in this week's Business in Vancouver magazine. The article doesn't make much of a political statement, but merely provides examples of local wine/beer companies that are sponsoring various events. When I read this, my first thought was "great, we're replacing one vice with another." Wasn't the opposition to tobacco sponsorship rooted in the (somewhat Puritan) belief that it was wrong to allow vice to be promoted in connection with a positive cultural influence like the arts? To be clear, I have no problem whatsoever with sponsorship from any source. I am just waiting for the next wave of political correctness to come along and spoil the fun.

Who's going to be the first to step up to the plate and complain that alcohol is a vice, and that beer/wine sponsorship of the arts is promoting alcoholism and drunk driving?

One very amusing part of the article was the quote from Okanagan Spring Brewery's marketing director John Furch, who described the Pure Music Festival happening in Vancouver at the end of June as:

one big, 5,000-person beer garden with some pretty high profile bands.

I can just wait for MADD and AA to step up to the soapbox.

Reality TV?

Is anyone else annoyed with the influx of reality TV shows nowadays?

Last night on ABC's 20/20, Barbara Walters spearheaded a competition for a young teenager's baby between five couples. Ads stated: "Five couples desperate to adopt. All competing for her baby. Four will lose. One will get the baby of their dreams." Think The Bachelor meets American Idol. Nothing like broadcasting these extremely tough personal decisions for the benefit of a voyeuristic public.

But if this program isn't your style, there's always Fox's The Swan. The website states: "These women never believed they could compete in a beauty pageant -- But now, Fox will do the impossible. Get ready for the most radical transformations shown on television. 17 average girls, a team of plastic surgeons... and 3 months without a mirror will add up to a shock of a lifetime."

What does it say about our society, when shows like these (or Extreme Makeover) flood our airwaves? Most of the women on these shows aren't in desperate need of plastic surgery -- a new haircut, a trip to the gym, or a just better outlook can also do wonders for an individual.

I just cringe whenever I see people tearily confessing on camera that having these expensive surgeries are absolutely necessary in order for them to feel better about themselves.

The worst part about these shows has to be their popularity. Last week at a friend's house for supper, they turned to the Swan and started avidly watching it. When I asked them what the appeal was -- everyone agreed that it was an awful concept ... but that didn't stop them watching.

Before Rome fell, I wonder what sort of reality shows were popular?