Nerding it up with nerds…

Since launching the Unknown Studio last June with Scott, we’ve both variously been trying to find ways to promote the show. Some of that has meant appearing on other podcasts… Or, one other podcast, anyhow. Our third episode featured a good friend, Ramin Ostad, and on that episode we discussed storytelling using video games as a medium. Since that episode, I’ve been trying to sync my schedule with Ramin’s, who also co-host a show called UserCreatedContent, a great little podcast dedicated to all things video-gaming in Edmonton.

Sick days: how I know my co-workers missed me

It’s pretty easy to tell when my work colleagues miss me. I was out with the flu (or something) last week, and I was sent a few telling images that both professed my colleagues’ love for me, and their dismay at my absence from work.

Feeling ill… and not just because of the flu!

All my vague memories of staying home sick as a child involve watching the Price Is Right, being waited on hand and foot, and generally having a very good time of it. Now that I’m an adult, being home sick absolutely blows.

Used smartphones for sale

I’m a slave to my gadgets. I’m the kind of person who always wants to have the newest, coolest tech. So it’s kind of weird that I only just now got an iPhone 3GS. Such are the perils of being a slave to the Big 3 Telcos in Canada. But I digress.

Things that go bump in the… well, anytime really

I’m not a huge believer in ghosts. I definitely fascinated by the possibility of their existence, and I love hearing people’s ghost stories — particularly when they’re first-hand — but I’m one of those people who has to see it to believe it. I lack faith, even in Class V Free Roaming Vapors. I’m like the crotchety, nay-saying geezer who scoff and waves dismissively at such nonsense.

Life in bullet points, Vol. 3

You know when people say things like, “It’s been one of those days,” and all you can think is that they’re being really vague and you wish they’d use more precise language, and oh my gods!, they’re wearing the exact same scarf as you, how dare they… but you still get it somehow?

Well.

It’s been one of those months.

Fog

Last week, we had a few really wonderful evenings (and mornings!) of dense ice fog down in the river valley. At no time was this more apparent than on Tuesday night, when my roommates and I waded through the mist with two idiot dogs.

Music to enrage the savage beast

You would be surprised how many of our clients ask to have music with auto-play inserted into their websites. I always discourage this line of thinking, but it always seems to come up.

‘Dave? I’d take a bullet for ya’

I’ve had politics on the brain lately, as we released episode 9 of the Unknown Studio this long weekend. On this episode, we discussed the state of politics, citizen engagement and the party system in Alberta and Canada with guests Dave Cournoyer and Duncan Wojtaszek (you can download the episode here or subscribe via iTunes).

The bestowing of appreciation

There’s no question that spoiled suburban-raised brats like myself take everything for granted. I don’t mean to. It’s a rare thing to take a step back and really look at your life and be thankful for the things you’ve been given.

Get to know an awesome person

Welcome to the first [only?] edition of Get to Know an Awesome Person. Some weeks ago, my friend Brittney Le Blanc sent me an email asking me to answer some questions about my working life and life in general living in the City of Edmonton.

Peeking back, looking forward…

I was unfortunately unable to attend Pecha Kucha Night 5 last night at the Horowitz Theatre on the U of A campus. However, by all accounts, it was a tremendous event.

Life in bullet points, Vol. 2

As life continues to be a hilarious comedy of errors, leaving me little time to actually blog (excepting this week, where I’ve made a fairly concerted effort to get ‘er done), I’ve begun compiling some notes and links to share with you in the absence of something meatier.

Getting to know the Unknown Studio

Scott C Bourgeois and I started the Unknown Studio as something of a lark… We both wanted to dip our toes into the podcasting pool, but had up until the beginning of our discussion lacked the tools and will to do so.

Games night: the Raddening

When I think back to my childhood, I can’t really remember what I did to keep myself occupied. I think most of it involved riding bikes, breaking limbs (my own, not those of others), and beating up (or being beaten up by) my brothers.

TwitterTrek: Dr Pulaski is teh sucks

My good friend Chris and I had a chance to sit down together last week and watch another episode of TNG. This time, we selected something from that shameful second season, where they’ve swapped out the young, buxom Dr. Crusher with that old mule Dr. Pulaski.

Life over the last few weeks, Vol. 1

It’s been tough finding time to post about anything, really. Between work, meetings, managing the hockey sites and everything else, life’s been a cluster**** these last few weeks.

The Great No-shavesperiment, part deux

It’s been over a week and a half since I’ve updated you on my beardly progress. A lesser man would have little to report, other than maybe a slightly thicker beard. With me, this is not entirely the case.

The Great No-shavesperiment

As fall is rapidly approaching, and one can tell such a thing from the drastic dip in temperature from Thursday to Friday last week (temp went from 30°C to 17°C), that means two things: socks are fast becoming a mandatory rather than an optional clothing choice; and I guess I’m going to have to grow me beard out again.

Democracy *can* be beautiful

A few days ago, I got to spend some quality time with my business partner Andy. Andy’s lived near the Alberta Legislature Building for a few years now and is selling his place. It’ll be a good move for him. But he’s sacrificing something pretty huge to make the move: one of the best views of the city.

Missing: Alberta’s premier

Dave Cournoyer and I had beers last week. It was the beginning of something beautiful, as Dave filled me in on his take on politics in the province and country, and I told him why I am variously awesome.

In my humble opinion, you suck

A few recent comments at one of the other blogs I moderate — OilersNation.com — have got me to thinking about some of the language people use that makes them sound like, for lack of another term, complete and utter douchebags.

First-time Fringers…

My co-host Scott C. Bourgeois and I had the opportunity over the weekend to spend an hour interviewing Mike Young and Simon Crowley, co-writers of the Edmonton Fringe production of Captain Hook versus the Zombies. Click here to read more and download the podcast.

TwitterTrek: for a bored generation

Every now and then, when good friend @ChrisHenderson and I get together, we’ll chat for a little while… And when the awkward silences become too unbearable, we’ll watch an episode or two of Star Trek: The Next Generation.

Old-media for trolls

On rare occasions when I happen to pick up a copy of Edmonton’s newspaper of record, the Edmonton Journal, I frequently stumble upon the “Venting” section. It’s a place where people can share their views on a host of topics in short snippets — essentially the newspaper equivalent of Twitter. But there are several key differences.

Imitation: the sincerest form of flattery

Awhile back, I’d tweeted about the image search on Microsoft’s Bing search engine and how it’s pretty awesome. Apparently, Google agrees with my assessment: Bing’s image search functionality is the tops.

YXD addendum: a letter of explanation from my city councillor

I was obviously happy with the decision Edmonton City Council made about the downtown airport. And even though I didn’t receive a response to my letter from both of my city representatives at the time (only an acknowledgment from Councillor Jane Batty), I received a lengthy and well-thought-out justification for the decision from Ben Henderson, Ward 4 councillor today.

The Great Pyramids of Edmonton

A few weeks ago, Rachel took me out for my birthday. We’d talked a lot about going to the recently re-opened Muttart Conservatory, located in the very picturesque neighbourhood of Cloverdale (and in fact one of my favourite neighbourhoods in all of Edmonton). Talk turned to action when she took me down to this gem of the river valley to celebrate my being old.

Edmonton’s problem

The other day, stalwart blogger and friend Mack Male posted a tweet about his dining experience at Sabor Divino. His tweet said: “Overheard at Sabor Divino, waiter to patrons visiting from Texas: ‘Of all the places you come to Edmonton?’ – That’s our problem.”

I like my culture like my potatoes: all mashed up

I like the ideals of the copy-paste culture that is the very substructure of the Internet: share and share alike.

French curse words and jam

This is the third in a short series of posts about my family’s history, living in Canada as landed immigrants in the 1950s and 60s. You can read the second tale here, and the third one here. This particular series discusses my mother’s experiences living and working on a southern Alberta farm as a child. This will be the final post of this brief series.

Bed knobs and… well, brushes

This is the third in a short series of posts about my family’s history, living in Canada as landed immigrants in the 1950s and 60s. You can read the second tale here. This particular series discusses my mother’s experiences living and working on a southern Alberta farm as a child.

I wish I could say that my Mum and René left Georges be. But if they had, I wouldn’t have such tragic and funny stories to tell. So we plod on, and discuss some of Georges’ evening habits… and his fears (aside from the twin spawn of my grandparents).

When I last spoke with Mum and René, they told me and my brothers that Georges had a bizarre aversion to gophers. He didn’t dislike them as some people do magpies or mice. He was afraid of them. Evil vicious little things, he thought.

Naturally, the twins wanted to leverage this little-known fact. And since the last story I told you dealt with Georges’ morning routine, I’ll tell you a little bit about his evening routine.

The ever-expanding Oilogosphere

Earlier this afternoon, a lad named Antony Ta sent me a direct message asking me to provide some content for a new Oilers blog he was launching. Knowing as little as I do about the nitty-gritty of hockey (particularly in terms of statistics and the like) I naturally agreed.

Georges’ slippers

This is the second in a short series of posts about my family’s history, living in Canada as landed immigrants in the 1950s and 60s. This particular series discusses my mother’s experiences living and working on a farm as a child.

I guess life on the farm is extremely routine and regimented. It has to be. Mum lived on a dairy farm in southern Alberta, near Lethbridge, for most of her childhood. I remember hearing stories about how awful the children in her school were to her and her twin brother René. You don’t speak the language, you’re different, and so you’re the object of extreme prejudice by the other — more Canadian, more normal — children. I count myself lucky I never had to experience anything like that. But whatever happened at school, Mum was lucky enough to have René, a built-in best friend. I can’t imagine what it’s like having a twin sibling…

‘Family’s always embarrassing’

I spent the past weekend in Calgary with my little brother and sister-in-law. We decided to spend a few days down visiting my aunt and uncle — themselves visiting from Montreal and staying with my parents, a very rare thing. My aunt and uncle tend to keep to Lower Canada, seeing Alberta (sometimes rightly) as a little too redneck for their tastes (my interpretation, not their own admission). To put it into context, the last time my uncle visited Alberta — at his other sister’s 50th wedding anniversary — his nephews got into a fist-fight. With each other. High-larious, but doesn’t really make you want to come back for more. I so often look on my extended family with incredulity and bemusement, though I do love them all dearly — foibles, faults and all (because, hey, I’m certainly not bereft of those things my own self).

Thank you.

It might sound weird, but I am exactly the worst person at dealing with my own problems. I’m a whiz at helping other people out (I like to think, anyway), but when it comes to myself, I let a lot slide.

How blessed am I to have you in my life, to remind me that I’m not alone. Today was special, even though we didn’t spend it together. It made me realize what I’ve found. What I have. What I will always hold on to.

Thank you. I love you.

A shifting discourse

I just read Todd Babiak’s recent column on the turning tide of the Edmonton City Centre Airport debate and how a group of largely young (younger, anyhow) upstarts became engaged, involved, and subsequently lobbied to ensure that their desired outcome was achieved, namely the eventual closer of YXD.

In his piece, Babiak makes these rather bold statements:

“What happened this week was a masters class in the present and future of political organization. [...] [I]t must have been devastating for the city’s most powerful men and women to watch a group of virtually connected — but politically unconnected — young people creating and controlling public debate with speed, elegance and respect.”

I’m somewhat skeptical of the statement, in spite of having been engaged and involved in the debate, going so far as to e-mail my city council reps Jane Batty and Ben Henderson about the issue. However, the more I started thinking about it, the more it occurred to me I’m too entrenched in the issue, too much a part of the whole story, to really take a long view of whether or not this is truly a significant shift in the way discourse is performed, and the way changed is achieved. I will endeavour to take the long view anyhow.

Moon Song’s swan song

Clara, one of my roommates who’s lived here for a year, moved out last week. She was easily one of the best roommates I’ve ever had. Equal parts hilarious, brilliant and chilled out. I will never forget how awesome it was living with her and knowing her.

It’s pretty unreal when you can put out an ad on a service like Craigslist or Kijiji and wind up meeting someone who isn’t a terrifying sociopath. When Scott and I needed a third person to move in — after our previous roommate Julie moved out to go travelling — we knew several things: our roommate had to be a girl, she had to be very patient, she had to like staying up late, and she had to be able to dish out the sarcasm and snide remarks that so constantly get floated about in this house. Turns out she was the perfect choice.

In favour of closing YXD

Below is a letter I wrote to my city councillors regarding the vote to close or maintain the status quo for Edmonton’s City Centre Airport. I have rather strong feelings about the issue, and though they aren’t fleshed out too much in the letter below, I thought I wold share with the internets all the same… A great run-down of reports on the City Centre Airport can be found here. And Councillor Don Iveson shares his thoughts on YXD here.

Good Afternoon Councillors,

My name is Adam Rozenhart. I’m a Ward 4 constituent living in the picturesque neighbourhood of Riverdale. I’m writing you today concerning the hearings on what to do with Edmonton’s Downtown Airport. I implore you to vote in favour of closing its doors and redeveloping those lands for residential and commercial in-fill.

I’ve been listening to the discussion over the web the last three days, and I fear (as Scott McKeen pointed out in this recent column in the Journal) the pro-airport speakers have unduly influenced councillors with dire forecasts of medevac failures and the bleeding of businesses down south to Calgary.

Forgive me, but I call bullshit.

The casting of pods

I had the opportunity a few months ago to reconnect with former colleague Scott C. Bourgeois at a tweetup in Edmonton. We chatted, we drank, we discussed the various experiences we’ve had driving past — and indeed creating — roadkill. And certainly that was most of the discussion of the evening. That, and survival horror videogames.

Our paths didn’t cross so much between then and now, but Scott and I managed to meet up a few times to discuss launching a podcast. We didn’t know what we were going to call it, we didn’t know what it was going to be about, but we knew we were going to do it. If it killed us or drained us financially (I doubt it will do either, but what’s a good yarn without poverty and death?).

Edmonton’s non-pirate radio

I had a few wonderful conversations this evening, involving some wonderful people who are so replete with wonderful ideas that it’s hard to believe the planet isn’t a better place JUST BECAUSE OF THEIR EXISTENCE. Yeah, they both smell great.

I spoke with my dear friend @andrealown over Skype tonight about the re-purposing of a blog we created last fall in Toronto, this time with a sharpened focus and eventually visual identity and branding. But that’s not what I want to talk about in this post, because I also met with @scottybomb at Next Act for a beer and a discussion about the creation of a loosely-Edmonton-focused podcast which would feature local guests, and topics that we enjoy and think others will too.

The irony of an oft-used phrase

Pal ‘o mine and blogosphere titan Dave Cournoyer was once told to govern [himself] accordingly when he was rather hastily threatened with all kinds of legal mumbo jumbo over the fact that he owned the domain name edstelmach.ca (read about the controversy here and here). It’s a phrase that gets kicked around hilariously still, every now and then, and one I used the other night on Twitter to chide the Alberta Legislature during the third reading of the much-publicized Bill 44.

Online game experimentation

Working for Ignition Media’s been really exciting and extremely eye-opening. I started in January with the title Account Manager. However, it’s a small shop — only five employees plus the owner — so we all sort of wind up doing a bit of everyone. I’ve been trying to carve out my niche in new business and social media.

We’re trying to find innovative new ways to increase brand impressions for current clients, as we cultivate new ones. Of course, this has meant a lot of research into using Twitter, Facebook, and online games to try and increase traffic and enhance the overall user experience for client websites. We’re looking into the creation of interactive microsites for some clients, and just additional features on current sites for others.

On RFPs, crappy and not…

My business – and that of many of my friends, colleagues and tweeps – quite often involves responding to requests for proposals (RFPs). It’s a necessary process for getting new work, new clients and tackling new challenges. And it can be a fairly arduous process. It takes time to craft a response that’s detailed enough, but not so detailed that you actually find you’re already a quarter of the way through a project you haven’t even been awarded yet.

Over the last month, I’ve put together myriad proposals – some large and some small. And while most RFPs carefully spell out the requirements of a project, there are many out there that are so poorly written (or so obviously boilerplate with little thought given to the exact requirements of the particular project they’re meant to address) as to be nearly impossible to properly respond to. It is the poorly-written or unclear RFPs I want to discuss in this post.

What I thought about in Cuba…

For some reason, whenever I saw one of those ancient 1950s American cars in Cuba, all I could think of was this

On ‘awesome’ and my alleged overuse of the word

As someone who considers himself schooled in the art of the English language — a riotously funny statement for me to make, but certainly well in line with how highly I think of myself — I can be pretty self-conscious about the words I choose, it turns out. Lately, in particular, I’m finding that I use certain meaningless, cliché words to express my sentiments over weighty things. Try describing to someone you’re really into them, without spending hours spewing douchey prose about flower petals and clouds and shit. Pick one word to describe why you’re into someone, like a significant other.

WSMD? OR What Should Mastermaq Do?

A few of my dub5 colleagues and I regularly give Mack the gears for the way he signs off from Twitter every night. “Sleeping,” he says, and we’re meant to believe that this is actually what he’s doing. Mack’s a pretty neat dude, and I’ve been fortunate enough to get to know him a bit better over the last six months. That’s why I’m fairly confident in saying that he’s probably a cyborg (not to be confused with a Cylon).

John K is OK: the Weakerthans in Edmonton

John K Samson on March 20th in Halifax | Photo by Ryan Heise

There are worse ways to spend a Thursday night. My typical Thursday evening involves wine and 30 Rock. But I received a reminder earlier last week that I was meant to attend the Weakerthans concert in Edmonton at the Winspear Centre (on April 23). Two of my dear friends from elemenatary school, some beer, and some music. I didn’t feel bad for missing Liz Lemon and Tracy Jordan’s antics.

CanWest deathwatch. Well, sort of

I’ve been sort of passively paying attention to the constantly moving deadlines that CanWest Global keeps being granted to shore up its debt. However, I really lack the technical savvy to understand why CanWest keeps getting a stay of execution. So I asked my business partner — who most people know only as @WanyeGretz — what the deal was. What follows is the conversation we had about it over email

The ‘Laptop Diaries’ contest

The Power Trio with Gord Steinke

Over a year ago, my business partner and I went to an Oilers game, as we sometimes do. It was there, after several crack-powered Rexall beers, that we happened upon Lynda Steele from Edmonton’s Global News. Lynda was selling copies of her book the Laptop Diaries. Having just launched OilersNation.com, we were looking for prizes to give away, and since the proceeds from Lynda’s book went to charity, we thought we’d buy a few and have her autograph them. A few means, like, seven, by the way. I had three left over, and being the random idiot that I am, I decided to give them away today by asking my Twitter followers trivia questions.

Easy there, Pop

I wasn’t going to write about this… Didn’t see the need, didn’t want anyone to reassure me, don’t need it. I STILL don’t need that. So if you’re reading this, please, immediately realize this: I know I’m not the only person to go through something like this, and I’m not writing about it to elicit sympathy. I’m writing about it to sort out my own thoughts and feelings about it. This medium just happens to be public, and I happen to be OK with that.

This is for me, not you. Just count yourselves lucky you get to peer through the looking glass into my life. Yes, I’m being tongue-in-cheek. Seriously, I’m OK. Read and be entertained or horrified. I expect nothing more or less.

A different kind of cubism

About a month ago, Nissan Canada undertook a rather unusual marketing strategy for the launch of the Nissan Cube. Rather than access their typical advertising channels — TV spots, radio ads, etc — they set out to do try and build buzz in a rather novel way: entirely by word of mouth. Viral marketing using social media tools like Twitter, Facebook and other social web tools isn’t entirely unusual. However, it’s the scope and scale of this campaign that’s really remarkable.

Coffee FAIL 3: lower lip malfunction

Just to bring you a bit of jesus-egg-day cheer, after tweeting about how much I hate Tim Hortons coffee (which I do) I failed to pour said coffee into my mouth, instead looking down in horror as drips of the horrible brew smashed down upon my desk in what seemed like slow motion.

YEG Twitter Boys Calendar

Most everything I say, tweet, or write is designed to elicit a specific reaction from people — often shock or laughter. I’m usually quite satisfied. But sometimes I’ll say something without thinking (OK, oftentimes) and the results exceed my expectations or go off in an entirely different direction. That’s what happened this morning on Twitter when I suggested #yeg tweeps create an Edmonton Twitter Boys Calendar for 2010.

Et tu, My Brute

One of the designers here at the office discovered this website last night. We were trying to look at ways it could be used as a marketing tool, but basically abandoned that pattern of thought because the game’s too much fun.

A belated farewell

When I was a kid, I thought my Uncle Ron’s manner was severe and reserved. I wasn’t perceptive enough at a young age to really get sarcasm and dry wit. I know now that Ron was one of the most intelligent people with whom I ever had the good fortune to cross paths.

Name your tabs

When I’m at work, I always have between three and five browser tabs open. Partly because my job and the internet are, like, totally best buds. But also because I enjoy the web as a diversion every so often when my work involves sitting at a computer more or less all day. So today, just out of curiosity, I polled my Twitter followers and asked them what browser tabs they have open all day long.

Want to bring in business? Try free wi-fi

Given the proliferation of wireless devices — iPhones, iPods, wi-fi-enabled smartphones, and of course laptops — it still floors me when I go into a service-based business like a restaurant or coffee shop and there either isn’t a wireless signal at all, or there’s a locked signal, or — and this is the worst — you’re expected to pay for wireless access.

Viral Coffee FAIL

The very excellent Shauna of @out_inc fame is blaming me for her own coffee inadequacy.

Coffee FAIL the second…

As I was typing my last tweet, I paused to sip upon my [very shitty] extra-large single-single. Big Mistake.

Coffee FAIL

I have a real problem with always spilling coffee on myself. Henceforth, each time it happens, I will hold myself to account

UPDATED: Tees, please

**UPDATE**: I sent an email to Glennz.com, thanking them for being awesome. At the bottom of this post, you’ll find their response.

It’s a rare thing to come across a company with exemplary customer relations. Oh sure, sites like The Consumerist help to keep businesses in check, but quite often those businesses pegged as unscrupulous or negligent undertake damage control to manage their reps rather than proactively serving their customers. It’s a sorry state of consumerism, but a reality many of us have come to accept.

Sweet shit, it sure doesn’t have to be this way. And today, when I got home from work I was confronted with a new reality: not every business is a bag of douche.

Kapla!

Apparently, some guy in Colorado Springs robbed a few convenience stores using a Klingon Bat’leth. The story’s funny on its own, particularly the last few ‘graphs:

The Startrek.com Web site describes the Klingon weapon as crescent-shaped and about a yard long. It has points on both ends, two points in between and a handle on the outside.

Klingons were warlike enemies of the good-guy United Federation of Planets in the original “Star Trek” series but were allies in “Star Trek: The Next Generation.”

But it gets better when one of the designers at work sent around this image to go with the story. Priceless:

Things I learned today…

Here’s a more or less random list of things I uncovered to day from my various wheelings and dealings:

• There’s a place in BC called Hudson’s Hope which, for me, evokes images of Hadley’s Hope Terraforming Colony on LV-426 from the Aliens movie. I imagine a town of more-or-less happy British Columbians who occasionally suffer the effects of monsters busting open their rib cages.
• This Lil John mashup is awesome; this recommended video I received at the end is not.
• I don’t know what peanut butter and jelly sandwiches have to do with SEO, but PBJ is defined on this SEO terms page for some reason. So is sausage link — cute.
• I absolutely love TweetStats. @missmarsh introduced me to it. Wordle is also rad… Creates some really excellent artwork!
• You know those road signs that tell you the bridge it out? Yeah, here’s how to access them to change their messages (via BoingBoing).
• Uh, what the hell?

I need some Ginkgo

I’m currently working on trying to come up with individual taglines for a line of nutraceutical products, like Ginkgo Biloba, Ginseng, and Echinacea. I can’t help but feel I’d be getting more done if I was using one of these supplements to stimulate my brain and sharpen my focus.

It’s been challenging, and will continue to be, to shift my focus from working in a staid, bland office-drone position to working in a vibrant, chaotic creative services firm. I’m up for it, it was the right choice, it was about time and all that good stuff… But It’s still tough to shift gears so suddenly, when I was so used to being bound by process and policy.

Fortunately, there’s always levity. So given that I’m working with scientists to market their new line of products, I thought I’d drop some sort-of pseudo-science on your asses. That is, after all, the misspelled name of this blog.

Thanks to @ink_slinger on Twitter for sending out this inspirational link.

A twit indeed

I recently started a new job, working for a full-service creative firm. I’m doing some communications planning, some client management, some art direction, and some actual writing. It’s ideal! Or rather, it will be. This is only my second day, but I’m already up to my face in research, particularly on leveraging social networking into viable, sustainable marketing strategies. My main focus today has been Twitter.

I use Twitter, currently, on two fronts: for myself as an individual (@bingofuel; also, see the right-hand sidebar for my most recent tweets) and for OilersNation.com (@OilersNation). I’ve found it to be quite a lark for personal stuff, and a really excellent way to find like-minded, interesting people. I’m actually looking forward to the next Edmonton Tweetup (@edmontontweetup), as I felt I was too much of a newbie to attend the last one.

As a personal tool, Twitter connects you with people. People around you, people far away from you. It allows you to filter through broadcasts and read and respond to the things that you deem most relevant. It forces the users to be concise in their messaging (you’re only allowed 140 characters per tweet). I can see its utility as a tool for personal communications and connection to others. As a tool for businesses though—and I’m speaking strictly about my very limited experiences with it for OilersNation.com—I’m not really sure where to begin (and yes, I’ve read Caroline Middlebrook’s Big Juicy Twitter Guide). I’ve used it to broadcast new posts on the Nation’s website that I deem interesting. I’ve used it to broadcast information on contests and such. I’ve even done some very minor live-tweeting of Oilers games. But the key to using Twitter for business, I think, isn’t just sending out promotional information. It’s doing things like what @ComCastCares does: showing the human side of your company or organization. Here’s one of the key things I took from the Big Juicy Twitter Guide:

“[...] if you are approaching this from a purely business perspective then you need to have something to offer your customers. What I mean is, if you use your Twitter account to just pitch, pitch, pitch, you will not get many followers. Twitter is not something that can be effectively used as a direct selling medium without adding extra benefits [...]“

Businesses using Twitter should be doing so to try and start or continue one-on-one discussions with their clients. Twitter brings organizations into the fray of communicating with users who might have an interest in their brand or product. It’s really neat how people and businesses are finding new ways to use the system to get the message out — or, in @ComCastCares’ case, bring the message in and do something about it.

I <3 Twitter. And I know I’ll have a hell of a lot more to say about it as I convince a few clients to start using it to get the word out.

The way I are

Sorry I’ve been away for so long… I’m still writing, but you’ll find most of my work over at Ironical Monocle, a blog some friends and I started. We’re funny, smart and the whole world ought to know about it.

We’ll be tweaking the design and carving out a niche for ourselves over the coming months, but I’m hoping there’ll be quite a bit of posting over there, as it’s a group effort. Please check it out!

A whiter shade of Palin

For those of you who don’t know, Sarah Palin is the Governor-of-Alaska-cum-Republican-vice-presidential-nominee for the forthcoming election in the US. She’s also incredibly dumb. Like, staggeringly so. Her responses to interview questions are so utterly devoid of any sort of actual detail or knowledge, it worries me that her over-the-top dumbness will somehow cripple the minds of the American electorate once again, and result in the poorest choice possible for the President and VP. I don’t know how her being stupid will result in stupidity at the polls, but stranger things have happened.

Fortunately, there are many on both sides of the spectrum who are crying out against McCain’s choice for running mate. One such person is Michael Seitzman from the Huffington Post. His recent post on Palin was brief, smart, and basically makes all the right points. To wit:

Now, I want to be clear and speak directly to those of you who LOVED that Palin interview. You’re an idiot. I mean that. This is not one of those cases where we’re going to agree to disagree. This isn’t one of those situations where we debate it passionately and then walk away thinking that the other guy is wrong but argued well. I’m not going to think of you as a thoughtful but misguided person with different ideas who still really cares about the country and the world. No, sorry, not this time. This time, if you watched that interview and weren’t scared out of your freakin’ mind, then you’re mentally ill, mentally disabled, or mentally disturbed. What you are NOT is responsible, informed, curious, thoughtful, mature, educated, empathetic, or remotely serious. I mean it.

The Wet Coast is the Best Coast, Pt V

Day 7

Cullite Creek wasn’t a particularly nice spot. It was a beautiful location, but we arrived at the end of Day 6 with the wind sweeping through the cove and up and creek making it less than ideal. We immediately erected our giant tarp as a wind shelter, but we also weren’t located in the best camping spot. When we arrived on Day 6, we were so hungry that we ate two meals for dinner—having already planned to exit the trail on Day 8 instead of Day 10.

We broke camp rather quickly in the morning, knowing full well that the ground we had to cover to get to Thrasher Creek would all be overland. In order to make it around Owen Point—which was the beach route—we would have had to beat the tide and hop larger-than-life boulders as well. Julia had done this part of the trail before. This time we were going to skip it. It’s supposed to be an amazing part of the hike, but very challenging. We figured the overland trail would be less technical. You’d think after seven days on the trail we’d not have been so naïve.

At this point in our trip, we were taking on the most challenging portion of the West Coast Trail, a full 13 km worth. We were tired, we were hungry, and the weather wasn’t particularly nice—overcast and always with the threat of rain. I would say that Day 7 and the beginning of Day 8 marked the lowest point of our trip, in terms of emotion and exhaustion. We were reaching our limits and most of our discussion (what little of it there was) during the walking parts of our days turned to nachos and beer.

(Me, after hauling ass across Camper Creek in a cable car)

Day 7 was challenging, frustrating, and de-motivating. Already tired, we were forced to hoist ourselves and our packs over massive fallen trees, balance on those same trees, move around uprooted plants… This was some of the slowest going on the trail. And by the time we arrived at the 70 km point, which marked the fork in the road to continue to the end of the trail (at the 75 km mark) or head down to the beach at Thrasher Creek, we still had a minimum of one km to hike.

We stopped briefly at the 70 km sign and applied a lot of bug spray. The air was still, the sun blocked by the forest canopy, and the mosquitoes were plentiful. At this fork in the trail we met a trio of hikers—a elderly guy, probably in his 60s, hiking with his grown sons. As we applied our spray and watered our dry mouths, they proceeded up the one km switchback trail to Thrasher, a trail soaked by tiny streams of water, flat, slippery stones, and hidden roots.

We followed and pass the two sons soon enough, crested the trail and began our descent toward the ladders that would eventually take us down to the beach. As we approached the ladders, we watch the elderly guy take a spill, which seemed like not such a big deal. As we approached to assist him, he was breathing through his teeth and rubbing his left knee.

“I’m OK,” he told us, though the expression on his face belied his words.

“Are you sure you don’t need a hand,” we asked him.

“No, no, I just need to catch my breath, stretch out my knee and walk it off,” he said. He wished him luck, mentioned that we saw his sons not too far behind us, and started our descent.

I wish there was something we could have done to help the man, but he seemed fine. He’d just need to tread lightly the next few days so he did exacerbate this injury. He climbed down (more bloody) ladders, and found our friends Sandy and Kat again. They warned us that the tide liked to creep right up to the camp site here at Thrasher, and Kat then showed us their second-choice campsite right next to the creek just off the beach. We appreciated that our few-days-old friends were so eager to help us. We setup, ate, and crashed. We were exhausted and eager to exit the trail. After Night 7, only 5 km to go.

Day 8 – The Final Haul

Sunlight, and a strong desire to leave the trail grip us in the morning. I get up first, and make for the composting toilet, picking up our food from the bear locker after I’m done. Who do I see limping down the beach but the elderly guy who took the fall the previous day. In that condition it’s doubtful he’ll be able to continue the hike. He’s not just limping a little, he’s limping A LOT.

We ate a quick breakfast, both agreed it was time to leave, and out to hike the last six km of the trip, and some of the toughest as well. This portion of the trail was a CONSTANTLY up and down. Consequently there was no fast-moving, easy walk. This was a HIKE and the kilometre markers seems much further than 1 km apart.

I don’t recall talking very much at this point except to snap at each other. A bit. We took very few pictures, as the goal was just to get ‘er done.

Around the 73 km mark, we started seeing fresh, new, clean hikers arriving on the trail. They were very encouraging to us. Lots of “You guys are almost done,” and “Great job!” was heard. I being the grouchy dude I was (am?) thought about how funny it would be to tackle each of those people, sit on them, and then shout at them about how hard the trail is while I force them to sniff my armpits.

But I didn’t do that. Because I’m BETTER than that.

By the time we reached the end of the 6 km, we were bagged. We photographed our dirty boots, called the ferry driver, and checked in at the trailhead office. There, we discovered the elderly dude who was limping around actually had to be EVACed from the trail. He and his sons were fetched from Thrasher by a zodiac, and they were being brought back to the office. The man’s wife and presumably one of his daughters was on-hand and we had a chance to tell them about how we witnessed his little fall.

Apparently, they were going to keep going, slowly, and hike the trail anyhow. But the guy aggravated the injury when he went to fetch water from the creek. It was pretty sad, actually. He became, I think, the 22nd person at that point in the season to be taken off the trail. It definitely made me feel fortunate that I didn’t take a bad step. I probably fell over a few times because I was tired and carrying a heavy pack, but nothing serious. It made the triumphant end of the hike a little more somber. At least he was going to be OK.

And who has time for somber anyway, when there’s a pub in Port Renfrew waiting for us. A pub with hamburgers and, you know, food that isn’t freeze-dried.

The warden in the Parks office called us a cab. And by cab, I mean a dude with a pick-up truck who apparently shuttles hikers back and forth between the town and the trailhead office. He kindly dropped us right in front of the pub, where we spent the next four hours drinking and waiting for the bus back to Victoria. Kat and Sandy were in the same spot as us, so we said our goodbyes.

At around 4pm on July 3, 2008, we left Port Renfrew, and bid the West Coast Trail farewell. We were stuffed (from the pub), buzzed (from the pub), and exhausted (from everything else). We slept the entire ride back to Vic, and would spend the next three days reintegrating with society at or near the Inner Harbour. As the days from the end of our hike increased in number, the vow we shared to not return for a long time seemed more and more ridiculous. Personally, I will be back on the WCT inside of five years. This trail, this section of VanIsle is probably some of the most beautiful, powerful scenery in all of Canada. If you’re thinking about hiking the WCT, stop thinking and start planning.

And yes, the nachos taste so much sweeter when you’ve had to haul ass through 75 km of beach and forest wilderness with your home and all your belongings on your back.

-fin-

>> the rest of the trip:

• Part I
• Part II
• Part III
• Part IV
• Part V (you’re here already)

Security Shenannies

I came across this little gem at BoingBoing.net. Seems the US Department of Homeland Security is going to use machines to read your mind before they let you board a plane:

MALINTENT, the brainchild of the cutting-edge Human Factors division in Homeland Security’s directorate for Science and Technology, searches your body for non-verbal cues that predict whether you mean harm to your fellow passengers.

Sweet shit, are you kidding? The last time I was on a plane I meant harm to several of my fellow passengers: that big moth-ball smelling old dude who fell asleep on my shoulder, the screaming baby whose mother was too fried on no sleep to shut him up, and the bubbly flight attendant who wore way too much make-up and spoke with a severely exaggerated French accent. All of these people would have suffered my wrath if only I actually acted on those impulses.

Few people do, though (the ones who do are often labeled with any variety of psychosis, doncha know). I can only assume the DHS will be forcing planes to leave the tarmac with half-full cabins.

Air travel is stressful at the best of times, and most often made MORE stressful by these ad hoc and seemingly random security theatre measures. Chances are, you’re going to find a lot of passengers with a lot of ill will toward airport staff, fellow travellers, and even god and Jesus themselves. The claim is that this machine can differentiate between a terrorist and a harried traveler. Yeah, I’ll believe it when I see it.

The Wet Coast is the Best Coast, Pt IV

Day 6

The morning at Bonilla was cold, and wet. Today we would push ourselves. A discussion at some point that morning brought us to the realization: we eat too much. Or rather, the food we’d planned to bring wasn’t lasting us as we thought. We needed energy, and lots of it, to clear the next 27km. Hiking this thing in ten days, as originally planned, wasn’t going to happen if we were expecting to eat at all the last few days. So on Day 6 from Bonilla point, we would hike 11km to Cullite Creek, if we didn’t feel like killing ourselves when we arrived at Walbran campground, only about 5km down the trail.

We hiked the soft, wet sand along the trail to Vancouver point, just as the tide made our way on the beach impassible. We made for the overland trail: damp roots, high steps, wetness.

I recall this part of the trail being tough and discouraging. Just endless up and down. We came across about a dozen hikers who all said the stay at Walbran would be lovely. But we’d arrive there by late morning, and staying the day wouldn’t work with our food supply. We stayed at Walbran for a snack. It was a lovely camp ground, though, pushed slightly inland and defended by tall rock sentries at either end of the beach. We checked out the Walbran Creek “office” before we continued  down the overland trail, past Logan Creek and up to Cullite, which would end up being miserably cold and windy.

This part of the trail is best summarized photographically with roots, overland boardwalk and exhaustion due to cable car:

And so when we arrived at Cullite, we hunkered down for the night. Tomorrow, Day 7, would be our last full day on the trail, and we were soon to learn, the most challenging section of our hike yet. There would be a lot of snapping at one another, grunting, and constant use of words beginning with “f”. I’m going to leave Days 7 & 8 for the next installment of “The Wet Coast is the Best Coast.”

>> see also:

• Days 0 & 1
• Days 2 & 3
• Days 4 & 5

The Wet Coast is the Best Coast, Pt III

Day 4

It’s hard to leave a place you completely fall in love with. It’s hard, knowing you might not ever see a place again. That was my struggle to leave Tsusiat Falls the morning of our fourth day. We spent two days in this magical place, where a rush of fresh water tumbled into a small pool, which eventually meandered its way into the Pacific Ocean. But we had to leave. The reason for our journey wasn’t to stay, but to carry on and hike all 75 kilometresof the West Coast Trail.

We awoke at about 5am, the sun barely a glimmer on the horizon. The steady sound of the falls played us through our morning routine: a jump across Tsusiat creek to the other side of the beach, to the composting toilets. Wash up, pack the tent, roll up the sleeping bags, eat. We needed to leave before the tide climbed above 2.1 metres, otherwise we’d have to hike the overland trail and miss the incredible sight that is the Hole in the Wall at Tsusiat Point.

As we hiked out of the site, crouching beneath massive pieces of driftwood I cried, something I couldn’t believe I was doing. I cried because I knew it would be many many years before I would see this place again, wade through the cool, fresh water, sit on a rocky stump and watch the grey whales breach way off in the distance. Julia looked puzzled, but the glint in her eye told me she understood how I felt. In a perfect world, we’d have made our lives here, greeting hikers and saying goodbye to them as they passed through the campsite to conquer the trail.

We said goodbye to Tsusiat at about 6am and headed toward the Point, stepping past the footprints of three hikers who’d left earlier than we had.

The hike to the Hole in the Wall was about two kilometres, made easy by a soaked beach which supported us and the weight of our packs. We were treated to the sights of eagles perched on rocky outcroppings, and the zooming past of fishermen’s boats anchoring themselves off the shore and fishing for halibut in the cool, rough waters.

When we arrived at Hole in the Wall, we knew we’d made the right choice by suffering an early-morning wake up. We passed through a giant rock hole, around which the water lapped furiously into the sand and rock, splashing mist upon us. In the distance, a sentry eagle watched schools of unseen fish swim past. He was gathering his strength for the day’s hunt.

We walked fast through the overland trail after we left the beach, through damp forest and Aboriginal reserve land to a tidal lake called Nitinat. Nitinat Narrows are too deep to wade, the current too strong. We waited for a boat to come and take us to the other side. When it finally did, after only a fifteen minute wait, we managed a quick rest before we trudged through the bog on the other side. Boardwalks were half-buried and broken along the way, and our gaiters barely kept our socks dry. But the mud slowed and tired us. By the time we mounted a cliff overlooking the ocean, we were beat. And we still had another seven kilometres before we could stop.

On our way through the bog and up the dirt paths, we met a group of hikers being followed by a dog named Charlie Parker (we weren’t to discover his name until the next day, so we just called him Dexter). Charlie met up with us at the end of the day, at Cribs Creek campground. He spent much of the evening walking up the beach with us. When he grew bored, he set off further down the trail. We wouldn’t see Charlie again on our journey.

Day 5

Another early morning on Day 5, as we attempted to beat the hot sun. This day, it wouldn’t matter as we would be covered by cloud with the threat of rain all day. This would be an easier day for us, though. Not covering 16 kilometres, like the previous day. This was a day of grace, not unlike our two-day stay at Tsusiat. But the eight kilometres we would cover this day wouldn’t be easy, as the lack of sun contributed to a subdued mood.

From Cribs Creek, we made our way about two kilometres to a point on the beach leading into the overland trail via a series of ladders, rather than concern ourselves with a great deal MORE stairs and ladders at the base of the Carmanah Point Lighthouse. This bit of forest hiking was damp, full of roots and technical stepping, which made for some exhausting going. When we arrived at Carmanah, we took a few photos, mused about what it must be like to live and work at a lighthouse on the trail (according to the board posted at the entrance to the lighthouse grounds, living there is nothing short of “awesome”) and kept going.

About one kilometre after the lighthouse, we found ourselves at Chez Monique, a makeshift home belonging to Monique, who’s lived on the trail for around 19 years. She’s argued long and hard with the government to stake her claim on the West Coast Trail, and she is appreciated by hikers wandering along the trail from both directions. She offers gourmet hamburgers and delicious breakfasts (including beer) for a hefty price. Julia and I could only afford a chocolate bar each.

It turns out Charlie Parker belonged to Monique. He wanders up and down the trail and only comes home when he gets hungry. This is complicated by the fact that hikers will often feed him (not us, though. We didn’t have a bit of food to spare). After a quick stop and a refresh of our supplies we continued down to Bonilla Point, home of a lovely waterfall and tiny campground. We arrived at about 1pm, and made camp. Then slept till dinner. We needed to catch up after so many early mornings. We met up with Sandy and Kat while we were there, but they were on their way further down the trail. So we used their tree branch to hang our food and provisions. Sleep. That was our priority.

>> see also:

• Days 0 & 1
• Days 2 & 3

History’s greatest moron

I’m not sure what I think about Oliver Stone’s latest project. A movie about a still-sitting US president who is so… goofy, strange and stupid? Hmmm…

Stone on meeting then governor Bush at a Republican breakfast: ”I wanted to prove that even though people thought I was a leftist I wanted to hear what they had to say. The minute I walked in the room the sound of the silverware kind of died. People were like, ‘What’s he doing here? Satan has walked in.’ But I met George Bush and I remember thinking that this man was going to be president.”

The Wet Coast is the Best Coast, Pt II

Day 2

We decided that in order to maintain a decent schedule of walking—to be able to arrive at our campsite with a decent enough amount of daylight left to set up camp, eat, and clean up—we would need to wake up early. Like, around 6 or 7am. Since we’d just spent our first night on the trail, we were running, ah, a little late.

The “sleep” that first night was rather furtive for me. I had visions of mice chewing my new tent to pieces. Most anyone offering advice about the trail won’t tell you how to survive a bear or cougar attack. But they will tell you that if you have anything in your tent that smells remotely interesting, a mouse will find its way inside (usually by chewing a hole through the tent wall) in order to get to it. All I could hear all night was their scurrying and squeaking. I would often clear my throat or shift in my sleeping bag to discourage their invasion.

We were greeted that morning by a lovely sunrise and a cool breeze. Breakfast up, tent down, packs packed. Some bickering (actually, considering the ways in which you rely on your partner on trips such as these, there was surprisingly little arguing), and then onwards. We would need to make 13km in order to get to Tsusiat Falls, the most stunning campground on the trail.

The hike wasn’t too bad, initially. We even made friends with some Canadian Naval Officers who took a trip to the WCT at the last minute. Sandy and Kat (I think her name was Kat… I missed it!) were a great pair to bump into every so often along the way—very friendly, and often helpful.

The last kilometre of the day was brutal. We arrived at the top of Tsusiat Falls which was fairly technically difficult (a lot of stump jumping) and included a pretty dramatic increase in elevation. Once at the top of the falls, our journey upwards continued. It was frustrating. A lot of high-stepping and using our trekking poles to haul ourselves atop tall ledges. When we finally crested the maximum elevation, we were greeted by a series of about four tall ladders down to the beach. Neither of us was particularly thrilled with the last 30 minutes of our hike.

But once we stepped off the boardwalk and onto the sand, everything changed. Fine sand interspersed with massive hunks of driftwood and the tents of already-arrived hikers dotted the landscape. The ocean stretched out in front of us, broken up by points of rock and the vague shadows of the US mountains to the southwest.

All of this, of course, was completely dwarfed by the roar of the Falls themselves. Huge, wide, fresh-water chutes drained into a waist-deep pond, which in turn drained into the ocean. At its most crass, Tsusiat is a place to shower. At its most romantic, it’s the most awesome place on the Trail. The photos we took hardly do it justice.

We set up camp next to Kat and Sandy. We ate dinner with Jeff and Cheryl. Before bed, we decided we weren’t going to leave in the morning. Tsusiat was too beautiful to just be an overnight campground.

Day 3

This time, the mice made their mark. (This would be the first and only time on the trail that they would cause us any problems. And given the few horror stories we’d heard about holes in packs and missing food, I think we came out of things rather well.) My beautiful new tent had tiny bite and claw marks on the sides and rear screens of the tent. I was not a happy camper. But my soaring spirit couldn’t be deterred.

It was around 9 or 10 when we crawled out of bed. Cheryl and Jeff came by to bid us farewell. They were only going to be on the trail for seven days, and we were scheduled for ten. We could afford to languish, and they couldn’t. We knew them for a brief few days, but it was still sad to see them go, knowing the chances of us catching them on the trail were minimal.

Sandy and Kat left as well. Those two were movers and shakers. Sad to see them leave too, but we’d meet up with them several more times in our travels, so no worries.

With all of the other campers on their ways up and down the trail above the falls, we were left to do our own thing for the whole day. There were only two other people at the site with us. So we showered, explored the beach and some caves, and just hung out in the sun. It was a nice break from two days of straight hiking. It was great to wander around in sandals the whole time.

We planned to leave early in the morning (5am!) on Day 4, to beat the rising tide at the Hole In The Wall point, about two kilometres up the beach. I’ll tell you all about how I cried in the next post.

>> see also:

• Days 0 & 1
• Days 4 & 5

The Wet Coast is the Best Coast, Pt I

It’s now been just about a month since Julia and I flew to Victoria with 50 lb backpacks, lots freeze-dried food, and three litres of camping fuel. Our intent, of course, was to spend ten days hiking the 75km stretch of backcountry trail called the “West Coast Trail.”

The trail was created by the Canadian Government around the turn of the century. Originally called the “Life-saving trail,” the WCT served as the point at which the survivors of shipwrecks could be accessed and rescued. For a good long while now, it’s served as a hiking trail maintained by Parks Canada and three Aboriginal tribes whose lands the trail passes through.

This year was the trail’s 100th anniversary. Since we’d talked about hiking it for so long, Julia decided it was time to suck it up and just go. So we booked all our travel, permits, and accomms at each end of the trip, bought gear and food, packed and got ready to haul all this stuff on our backs for over a week.

And really, when you think about it, 75km isn’t that far. If you’re really hoofing it, you could probably cover that ground in a day. On flat ground. On flat paved ground. And that was sort of my attitude going into it.

I’ve been backcountry hiking before, and I’ve done more than two dozen day hikes in the Canadian Rockies. But I’m not in the greatest shape of my life. Still, I didn’t figure this trip would be quite as exhausting as it was. This is all completely mitigated by where you are when you’re on the trail, and that fact that you’re actually, you know, doing it. But still: we planned for ten days on the trail. In reality we stayed for eight. Here’s a multi-part series about our adventures on Canada’s beautiful West Coast Trail.

---

Day 0

We arrived in Victoria in the evening, having struggled that morning back in Edmonton to ensure our packs could hold everything, and that they’d make it past the airport security people without hassle. It was a busy morning, as we had to also get the dogs to the kennel, which is past the airport. A lot of driving around. I was looking forward to parking my car for ten days.

When we arrived in Vic, we took the airport shuttle to our hotel, checked in, bought some food for the evening and generally just acted lazy. We tried to expend as little energy as possible. I filled up our fuel bottles with the white gas that had been purchased for us, and dropped off at our hotel by friends of ours in Victoria. I stupidly haven’t thanked them for doing that for us yet.

We slept early. We had a bus to catch the next morning at 6am.

Day 1

5:30am wake-up. Walk five mins down the street to catch the Trail Bus. 6:00am we leave. Two hours later we drop off some hikers at the Port Renfrew stop. Pick up a few other hikers. Then, for the next 3.5 hours, we drive the bumpy, winding logging roads across to the Bamfield side of the island. We’re dropped off at around 12:30pm, a half an hour before our scheduled trail orientation. We won’t get onto the trail until about 2pm.

At the orientation, we’re warned of campground wash-outs, cougars and bears, and various other reported hazards from the trail. I’m amazed when an elderly fellow walks into the park office and tells us he’s just finished the trail—solo—in six days. This dude had to be in his late 60s. And walking the trail for him seemed like it wasn’t a big deal. So it shouldn’t be for me, right? Uh. Right.

We leave the trail office after filing all our documents and buying ferry passes (mid-way through the trail is a giant tidal river at Nitinat Narrows that’s impossible to cross except by boat), lug our packs onto our backs, and start the 12km we’re meant to cover that afternoon. We made for Michigan Creek campground, which we’re told by several finishing hikers was very busy. We cross a beach, realize the videocamera we’ve brought is busted (later discovering this is due to a manufacturing error and learn of a recall taking place) and haul ourselves across about 11km of wet, muddy overland trail.

Walk 1km through a city, and it probably won’t take you that long. But kilometres on this trail are tough slogs. Big tree roots or soft sinking sand add a ton of slow-down to what might otherwise only take a few hours. That first day, all told, we hiked about 5.5 or six hours. And that was with about 30 minutes of stop-time to take photos, eat, and explore the grounds of the Pachena Lighthouse.

By the time we arrived at Michigan, we were tired, sweaty, and hungry. But we were treated to a beautiful sunset (see the top of the post), in front of which countless gray whales were breaching in the distance. We met a wonderful couple from Arizona, Jeff and Cheryl, who we would see often over the next few days. And we didn’t have to walk again until the next morning!

Now that we’re back home, the thing I miss the most about the Trail is the constant, reassuring sound of the ocean as the tide advances and recedes. You fall asleep to it every night. And this first night was heavenly, but for the sounds of mice scurrying all around our tent.

In my next post, I’ll tell you about the two wonderful nights we spent at one of the most beautiful places on this planet. I cried the day we left. I would have stayed forever if I could have.

>> see also:

• Days 2 & 3
• Days 4 & 5

Quick Pemberton thought

Funnel cake: neither a funnel, nor a cake. Discuss.

Quote of the day

“Terrorism springs from rigidity and rigidity springs from literalism.” — The New Yorker

This is a quote from a prominent Islamic leader (sorry, I don’t have the name and date of the article in front of me). What struck me about this were two things:

1. That an oft-touted radical religion would have a leader who would say something as poignant as this; and,
2. This literalism is spreading, particularly among fundamentalists from all walks, not just Islam. Literal interpretations of religious texts lead to conflict (with other teachings and among people) and very little good, if any.

I found the quote interesting because it shows the potential steps leading to terrorism. And wouldn’t you know it? Literalism marks fundamentalist Christian movements as well. Gods help us.

Criminalizing Canadians

The Conservatives revealed their version of the US DMCA today. This piece of copyright legislation is all-around terrible for Canadians. It panders to the demands of a powerful Hollywood lobby and ignores what is a better and balanced approach for Canadians. Check Michael Geist for details. And mail and call your MPs to tell them you don’t want this thing to ever become law.

The digital lock provisions are worse than the DMCA. Yes – worse. The law creates a blanket prohibition on circumvention with very limited exceptions and creates a ban against distributing the tools that can be used to circumvent. While Prentice could have adopted a more balanced approach (as New Zealand and Canada’s Bill C-60 did), the effect of these provisions will be to make Canadians infringers for a host of activities that are common today including watching out-of-region-coded DVDs, copying and pasting materials from a DRM’d book, or even unlocking a cellphone. The liability for picking the digital lock is up to $20,000 per infringement.

For Tick

Wizardly wisdom

What I feared most for myself at your age was not poverty, but failure.

[...] Failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me. Had I really succeeded at anything else, I might never have found the determination to succeed in the one arena I believed I truly belonged. I was set free, because my greatest fear had already been realised, and I was still alive, and I still had a daughter whom I adored, and I had an old typewriter and a big idea. And so rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.

You might never fail on the scale I did, but some failure in life is inevitable. It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all – in which case, you fail by default.

I snagged this text from a post at Boing Boing. As far as commencement speeches go, JK Rowling’s is one that resonates with me the most: failure is something that once prevented me from pursuing the thing I wanted to. It’s hard to be courageous, especially when you feel the weight of expectation upon you. And while I didn’t need to hit rock bottom, as Rowling did, to pull up my boots, I’ve had my share of pitfalls in this short lifetime. Everyone does.

Rowling also speaks of the power of imagination, and not just of the kind that conjure best-seller fiction novels. She talks of her experiences working with Amnesty International, and how it helped to shape her:

If you choose to use your status and influence to raise your voice on behalf of those who have no voice; if you choose to identify not only with the powerful, but with the powerless; if you retain the ability to imagine yourself into the lives of those who do not have your advantages, then it will not only be your proud families who celebrate your existence, but thousands and millions of people whose reality you have helped transform for the better. We do not need magic to change the world, we carry all the power we need inside ourselves already: we have the power to imagine better.

Read the whole speech here.

 

The Next Generation…

Rap, sex & Star Trek: together at last.

(via Geekologie)

When ‘creativity’ = bad

I work with a lot of accounting-types in my day job, and a lot of them are up in arms with CMA’s new advertising campaign. They’re rebranding the designation, which is “Certified Management Accountants” to “Creative Accountants.”

Now, many people mistrust accoutants. At the very least, they consider these people to be loveless number-crunching robots. But for some reason, these people are eyed with as much suspicion (at times) as lawyers. So calling them Creative Accountants is going to have some negative image consequences. When I read “Creative Accountant,” I think of cooked books and pseudo-legal tax evasion. Whether that’s the intention or not (I’ll assume it isn’t) is irrelevant.

The people at CMA need to think long and hard about what a marketing campaign like this can do to their good name. And just so you have a taste of what I’m talking about, check out this YouTube post below…

On self-employment

Working for oneself is an incredible, exhausting, and rewarding experience. And it’s little gems like the one below, courtesy one of my partners, that makes the experience often gut-busting. Just when levity is needed, it arrives:

Unless a huge show-stopper crops up, I want [the software] to be released by the end of the day. It’s going to suck, so we’ll have to really stress the alphaness of the software, and tell them that they’re seeing software when most people shouldn’t.

I’m still working on retrieving contacts so it doesn’t hammer the server. That’ll be done shortly, then I need to really lock down the sign up process to avoid confusion.

Also, I just took a fantastic poo. It was magnificent.

Thanks for that, Jeffu.

Clang, clang, clang

I usually think Edmonton Journal writer Scott McKeen is a goofy blowhard. He’s like a peacock: all showy and whatnot, but when it comes to actually flying? Foggedabadit!

However, McKeen wrote a great column this morning derided what he anticipates Edmonton City Council will do about ETS trolley buses: keep them. His point is that they should be scrapped. I agree with him. From the article:

Yet when [University of Alberta professor David] Checkel looked at all the data, he concluded the city would be wise to scrap its trolley program and invest in either hybrid or diesel buses.

Checkel’s financial projections are striking. He compared the costs of purchasing and operating the three types of buses on a downtown Edmonton route. While the clean diesel and hybrids were similar in cost, at about $2.50 per kilometre, trolleys were $10.26 per kilometre. 

>>read more…

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety

Despite his Nottingham University supervisors insisting the materials were directly relevant to his research, Rizwaan Sabir, 22, was held for nearly a week under the Terrorism Act, accused of downloading the materials for illegal use. The student had obtained a copy of the al-Qaida training manual from a US government website for his research into terrorist tactics.

The case highlights what lecturers are claiming is a direct assault on academic freedom led by the government which, in its attempt to establish a “prevent agenda” against terrorist activity, is putting pressure on academics to become police informers.

>> read more…

(via Boing Boing)

Springtime in the neighbourhood

I hereby vow to take more photographs. There’s so much all over my neighbourhood, city, province, country that must be captured. Enjoy a selection of photos from my own backyard…

Not that there’s anything wrong with that…

If Battlestar Galactica was a gay porn, would it be called Battlestar Fudgepacktica?

Work is boring today.

Run-on sentences and Marlboro men

This is from a sort-of joke email I wrote to a co-worker about another co-worker—a very mysterious engineer who looks and sounds like he’s lived 100 lives already. I wish he and I were friends…

I love Steve’s coat. I wish that Steve would be my friend and we could drink Jack Daniel’s together and talk about how dumb everyone is and he could tell me about the days when he rode across North America in a box car and traded food stamps and liquor with other tramps and then magically got into university and became an engineer slash business man and started to climb the corporate ladder and how he eats only really healthy food now but that is all counteracted by the fact that he smokes seven packs a day and has a gravelly voice and could be a great jazz musician if he really put his mind to it.

dot-ridiculous

I grew up with two brothers. The group dynamics of three boys in a five-person family are complicated to say the least. But we weren’t slouches. We knew who buttered our bread, and we also knew the best ways to get things out of our parents: get the youngest child to ask them.

My little brother had this supernatural power of getting my parents to agree to ridiculous things. My older brother and I caught on to this. Consequently, when we figured we were in need of something as simple as Dairy Queen Blizzards, a Nintendo, or a new car, little brother would have the unenviable task of asking for—and somehow receiving—the object of his (or our) desire.

If our household was a country, it would have been Canada—run by some older folks who had some, but certainly not a complete, understanding of the behaviour of their progeny (let’s call us kids provinces, then). I was exceedingly relaxed as a kid. Didn’t really get worked up about anything. Was contented to enjoy the clouds drifting by and languish in just being. I guess that makes me British Columbia.

My older brother was far more uptight. He would answer only when asked, would worry about niggling details and minutae of life, and watch a lot of hockey. Let’s call him Ontario.

My little brother, then, who always got his way whether it was fair or not, could probably be called Quebec. He could get Mum and Dad to agree to anything, and in my eyes at least, he never got into trouble. I blazed the trail for doing bad things. I was punished. And he just got to do bad things while my parents tsk-tsked at him, patted him on the bottom, gave him $20 and told him to stay out of more trouble.

Now that we’re older, the playing field is far more level. Big bro still worries, little bro is far more self-sufficient, and I’m living in Alberta… wishing I was in BC.

But if you look at the actual Nation of Canada, in spite of the fact that the provinces are older and potentially wiser, Quebec is still behaving like a spoiled youngest child, making noise about how it’s special and should get the things it wants as a result. To wit, this piece from the Globe and Mail:

Daniel Turp has started a petition to convince the ICANN, the international authority responsible for Internet domain names, to create an extension that would be unique to websites in Quebec.

Mr. Turp says one way to identify a nation is for it to have its own web extensions and that if his efforts are successful, Quebeckers would use the extension .qc.

I used to buy into the Quebec as a distinct society thing. But the fact that one speaks a different language is not in and of itself adequate to give a group of people a mark of distinction. Quebec operates under French common law. OK, that’s distinctive, I guess. But where does one draw the line? Beyond a certain point (and I certainly think we’re beyond it), all of this becomes petty nonsense. A good point was made in the discussion section of this article:

S Roddick from Ottawa, Canada writes: The last time I looked at a map of Canada, Quebec was still there. If Daniel Turp really thinks that International Standards Organization is going to agree with that he’s out to lunch. It requires that the Root DNS servers be updated for it. Not that I think that that is impossible but if one state, province, territory or district gets one why can’t all of them… Do you really know how many individual subdivisions of countries there are in the world. There are 83 states, 10 provinces, 2 federal districts and 17 territories in North America alone. That’s 112 entries for North America and 195 country entries. If Mr. Turp wants to get the domain names set up for this that’s ok, but I doubt he will get exclusive access to them for Quebec. [snip]

I know squat about the technical implications of adding a .qc domain to root DNS servers, but “S Roddick” makes an interesting point. What’s good for the goose should be good for the gander.

The whole situation reminds me of an old O Henry commercial where two Inuit are sitting out in the Arctic cold. One of them is enjoying a chocolate bar, and when his cohort asks him if he can have some, he’s told: “If I give one to you, I have to give one to everybody else.”

Whereas this ad contained only two actors, Quebec’s move affects internet users/companies/denizens/whoever the world over. Maybe instead of bickering over petty nonsense like this, Quebec’s government should be worrying about the real economic and social issues affecting its people. If I were in Quebec, I’d have grown tired of this whinging a long time ago.

And I’m supposed to be all chilled out like BC…

Also, congratulations to me on my 100th post!

… Lonely and dreaming of the west coast

Where my summer plans were up in the air before, I now know that at the end of June I will both treat and punish myself by walking 77 kilometers along Vancouver Island from Port Renfrew to Bamfield. The people at I-needtoknow.com have this to say about the West Coast Trail, and more:

it’s a near perfect hiking experience in pristine Canadian wilderness

on no other trek have we taken as many photos

mystic dawns and mind-blowing sunsets

pretty beaches, cool caves, hidden pocket coves, weird cliffs and coastal geology

it’s challenging — though 99% of those who start (somehow) finish

thrilling boulder and log walking between Thrasher & Owen Point

scrambling up slippery Sandstone Creek

playing at Hole in the Wall

impossibly situated pretty Tsusiat Falls

walking in impressive old growth forest

share the trip with whales, sea lions, mink. Maybe bear and cougar. Or even wolves!

ship wrecks and other historical artifacts

cable cars and ladders can be “fun”

campfires below the tide line

no biting insects

So you can see that Fish and I are in for some challenges. Between now and when we leave, we’re both training to get closer to peak physical condition. For the rest of the summer, I’ll be biking to work every day (unless it snows, like it’s supposed to next week) and training at the gym about five times per week.

This process overrides the Fat Zombie mission. Since I got my bike a few weeks ago, I’ve trimmed down, but not lost any weight. So now it’s Training for the WCT. I may or may not keep you updated on my progress.

Arrested Development no longer arrested; now in development

It was with a great deal of satisfaction and anticipation that I read this. And then confirmed the rumour by checking the IMDb.

Does this mean we’ll get to see all the Bluths do their chicken impressions on the big screen? I can only hope!

Cycling Chic

My dear friend Sarah has started a blog which encourages women of all stripes to abandon their cars in favour of cycling. OK, that description hardly does Sarah’s blog justice. She explains in much finer prose the purpose of Girls and Bicycles (Advocating beautiful girls on bicycles in a city addicted to cars):

Biking in heels and a dress is not atrocious. In my northern Canadian city it may be rare, but stylish women need to stop running to the car every time they need to get somewhere, and start thinking about how they navigate the city of Edmonton.

Take a clue from other cities with flourishing bike cultures. Beauty and cycling do not have to be at odds. It’s not just a sport, it’s how you choose to get around. Do not compromise your style, and start pedaling.

As I grapple with the best way to bike to work without being a sweaty mess, it’s good to know people like Sarah are doing their part to encourage more sustainable behaviour. The people of this city are married to their cars. I’m pleased to say that every time I climb into trusty old Chloe, I feel a pang of guilt.

So although I’m not a girl, I’m behind Sarah’s call to spokes: ditch the car. Take a few extra minutes to ride your bike to wherever you’re going. It’ll save you money in the long-term, and you’ll have a minimal impact on the environment.

Welcome to the blogosphere, Sarah.

This spoon is exceedingly large

Anti-rationalism in North America

I came across this piece via Blurbomat. A compelling (and somewhat tragic) read. From the article:

The problem is not just the things we do not know (consider the one in five American adults who, according to the National Science Foundation, thinks the sun revolves around the Earth); it’s the alarming number of Americans who have smugly concluded that they do not need to know such things in the first place. Call this anti-rationalism — a syndrome that is particularly dangerous to our public institutions and discourse. Not knowing a foreign language or the location of an important country is a manifestation of ignorance; denying that such knowledge matters is pure anti-rationalism.

>> read more…

‘Weeks passed…’

Owning your own businesses is really cool. You set your hours, work at the pace you want (depending on the revenues you want, which typically means working like a dog), and basically do want you want. And that’s the fun side of things (except that the day job interferes sometimes, but that’s manageable)!

But then there’s the other side where you have to schmooze and compromise and bargain and negotiate and talk in circles and feel like you’re being screwed over (whether you are or not). It’s a tough slog, as me and my business partners are fond of saying. It what’s kept me from writing here lately.

But I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Why? Why!? WHY!?

So, I noted that I recently rejoined Facebook, although in a much more diminished capacity. I have not filled in any profile details about myself, and I’m being much more selective about who I befriend. Not because I’m a grouch, but because I’d prefer to maintain contact with those people in my life who are important to me, rather than be concerned with what Johnny Douchebag from high school can glean from my profile.

Having been back on the social network for under a week, I’m finding myself far less motivated to participate as much as I had before. Facebook is a communications tool for me. It’s not an ERP that will help launch my career, organize my life, or do my dishes. Nor is it a gaming platform, or a place for me to publish my interests to the masses. That’s what this blog is for, and I have much more control over how Pseudo Psyence behaves. Thus I will treat Facebook as a diversion.

I realize that when I disabled and zapped my account, Facebook likely kept all my demographic information, so really there’s nothing to hide from. But I won’t provide the network with more fodder so I can be advertised to. The irony is that I’m working with partners right now to develop a software application that will serve ads based upon users’ personal information. I will happily use this system, because it provides significantly more value than Facebook, and we’re designing it so it will never spam anyone ever.

Like, ever.

So welcome back to Facebook, me. You swore you’d never return, but you realized after a fashion that it’s better to be a part of the system and to analyze its failings from within than to not participate at all. Sounds like an excuse, doesn’t it?

Then colour me excused.

My boy’s takin’ it to the net!

Paul—a friend of mine whose passion for music is matched by a very select few other people I know—got really big into mash-ups a few years back. He went from listening to music on CD, to MP3 and vinyl, and now the man remixes his own tracks. And kids, these mixes are excellent get-you-dancin’ mash-ups.

If you have a second, peep Paulcasts.com.

My discovery of Paul’s new website was prompted by something I’ll be writing about later on today or tomorrow: I’m back on Facebook. Stay turned for a list of reasons and excuses.

File-sharing lawsuits: not just for coporate douchebags in the record industry!

Ars Technica is reporting today that at least one of the targets of the RIAA’s file-sharing lawsuits is fighting back. It’s nice to know that, finally, someone is. From the article:

Andersen is a single mother living in Oregon who was sued by the record labels in February 2005. She eventually filed a counterclaim against the RIAA, and when the labels voluntarily dismissed their case against her last June, she filed a malicious-prosecution lawsuit. In it, Andersen accuses the RIAA of fraud, racketeering, invasion of privacy, libel, slander, deceptive business practices, and violations of the Oregon state RICO Act.

Last month, a federal judge dismissed Andersen’s original complaint, saying that she had “not adequately stated claims for relief,” but gave her a one-month window to refile. Her attorney, Lory Lybeck, told Ars that he plans to file a new 80-page complaint tomorrow. “The focus of the amended complaint is essentially the sham litigation and abuse of the federal judiciary to operate this criminal enterprise that has harmed Tanya Andersen and thousands of other people,” Lybeck said.

>> read more…

Sit your butt down

I have this little calendar at work called “Dumb Dares for the Office.” Today’s dare wasn’t phrased very well, and there was some ambiguity. The dare says this:

Post a sign-up sheet offering your services for free lunchtime chair massages.

The confusion arises over whether or not anyone’s office chair really needs a massage. So my colleague Michael drafted the following advertisement for chair massages:

Is your chair feeling a little run down? Does it seem to have a week-long case of the Mondays? Well bring your chair to Cubicle 37 today! At Cubicle 37 we specialize in chair massages and other relaxation techniques to soothe and comfort your work chair.

And these services are not just for work chairs! Bring in your kitchen chairs, bar stools or even foot stools. Remember footstools are people too!

We are so confident that your chair will feel and work better we offer a complete money-back guarantee. If your chair is not completely satisfied with its massage, you get your money back! That’s right! Your money back!

Cubicle 37—located at the corner of “Working? and Hardly at All!
We Care, About Your Chair

Where do you go to network?

This lovely image courtesy Le Monde (click to enlarge):

Question authority

Cory Doctorow has an excellent piece in the Guardian about how important it is that citizens question security measures, and not be punished for something like taking photographs simply because it might breach security (hey, if my photo-taking breaches security, maybe you ought to consider that your security licks ass). From the article:

We can’t rely on the authorities to defend us against attacks that outstrip their capacity to adapt to them. Remember, the same police force that’s plastering London with signs exhorting us to “let experienced officers decide what action to take” is the same police force that gunned down a Brazilian for wearing an overcoat, and shut down Soho when a Thai restaurant burned its chilli sauce, releasing spicy smoke.

Security literacy can only be acquired through continuous practice and evaluation. The more our society punishes those who question security, the less secure we all become.

>> read more…

Wasting students’ money one stamp at a time

I received an email from Geoff yesterday explaining the ongoing harassment he’s had to suffer since he graduated from our alma mater, the University of Alberta, in 2003. It begins: “So ever since graduating back in like 2003, I keep getting notices from the U of A that I owe a $5 library fine. I chuckled at this folly until this week, when I decided to take action and sent the following to their online appeals system [...]“

I wish to appeal my $5.00 late charge at the Sci Tech library. I don’t have any excuse for this charge; rather, I am appealing because maintaining this fine is costing you too much.

I apparently incurred this fine in 2003, which is also the last year that I attended the U of A.  In the 4 and a half years since, I have been receiving a quarterly statement in the mail reminding me of this grim financial burden. Each time you mail me this notice, it costs the University 52 cents. By now, the U of A has spent $9.36 of some poor student’s tuition money on my $5.00 fine. And this is solely on postage. What about the cost of the printing, the envelope, and the lost time required to administer your relentless collections juggernaut? Surely you are now pushing the $15.22 mark, depending on how well you negotiate your bulk paper discounts.

And all of this is to say nothing of the toll that your oversized envelopes and reminder slips take on the environment. For shame, Library Services. Your actions speak louder than the students in Rutherford South.

Maybe focus on root causes…?

Check this bit from Wired: 

[Yesterday's] release of Bully: Scholarship Edition on the Wii and Xbox 360 has a group of teachers up in arms over developer Rockstar Games’ attempts to market violence.

While all Rockstar releases generate some amount of controversy, this latest spat is most notable for the fact that the title already generated almost identical controversy when it was initially released on the PlayStation 2 in Oct. 2006.

Now, we all agree that bullying sucks. But these groups getting up in arms over a videogame will do nothing except maybe get a bit of publicity.

These groups MUST focus their energy on attacking root causes to solve bullying problems in schools. They will never be able to prevent Rockstar from making violent videogames, nor should they. It’s up to parents to monitor what kinds of vids their kids are playing, TV shows they’re watching, ill shit they’re getting involved in, all to ensure that the little douches don’t turn into complete assholes.

This Place Sucks

I took yesterday off to recover from the weekend… Didn’t get nearly as much done as I’d hoped to, aside from laundry that is. So, not it’s Tuesday and I have a case of the Mondays. Oh well. As my day-job boss is fond of saying, “Onwards and sideways!”

Nothing beats a bluebird day…

I spent about $600 last January on a pair of skis, some poles, and bindings. I didn’t hit the slopes at all in 2007. And I’ve only skied three days this year. But man, oh man, do I ever need to get at least seven more good days in.

This past weekend, I went down to Kicking Horse with Fish, my brother Josh, and a big posse of people. The trip was arranged through Backside Tours, a company based out of Edmonton that organizes tours focused on balancing the party with the riding (as opposed to just focusing on drinking, which is what many of the other tour companies are known for). We stayed in some unbelievable accomms: Whispering Pines condos. We had ten people in our unit, and each of those people got to sleep in a nice bed, enjoy a private hot tub, eat in and a huge kitchen and chill in the comfy chairs of a big living room. We also played our fair share of drinking games.

Sunny, clear skies, calm nights and warm temperatures made sure we didn’t waste anytime: good runs, a few tumbles, and clean, fresh mountain air. I wish I wasn’t home. Must take advantage of the rest of winter. I recommend you do the same.

The Facebook Conundrum

Even though I deleted my Facebook account a good long while ago, I’m thinking of re-registering. While I was getting a perverse kick out of being on the fringes of what my close network of friends were doing, it’s turned to something of an inconvenience. I miss out on old friends coming back to town, and I’m far less informed about what’s happening with people’s day-to-day—I’m a busy guy, and like it or not, Facebook enabled me to better stay in touch with people.

I still have qualms with the privacy implications of the system, and whether or not I want people to know what I’m up to, but there are ways around that. Scotty, my roommate, isn’t on Facebook either, but he said he’s thinking of signing up. “I’ve boycotted it long enough,” he told me this afternoon. “It’s become inconvenient to not be on it.”

But there are, of course, other more complicated reasons that make me think I should stay away. Stupid as it may sound, the big one is pride. The I-told-you-sos I expect to have lobbed at me are plentiful. I would probably NYAH someone was well, if they returned with their tail between their legs. I know a few people who’ve left and comeback: Jorge and Fish come to mine. But I cannot seem to fully buy in to being easily connected to people again.

I’m going to think about it over the next few weeks, but I know that as people leave for the summer, Facebook will enable me to stay connected. And I’ve noticed already there are some people with whom I’m not longer speaking simply because it isn’t convenient.

I should probably feel worse about what that says about my laziness than about people saying “I told you so.”

A B.Sc., with a major in Warp Theory

It seems as though Cumberland Regional College in Saskatchewan has a logo inspired by Star Trek:

I think you can clearly see where they got their inspiration from:

 

This is important

According to the Observer, the Pentagon thinks that climate change is perhaps an even greater national security concern than terrorism. That kinda throws a monkey wrench into Bush’s policies, doesn’t it? Especially since his administration has repeatedly denied the scientific validity of climate change.

Well, Bush, even your own hand-picked, mouth-breathing policy-type people recognize that a rapidly-changing climate will result in global war, as individuals, communities, and nations defend what precious little resources they have. Oh, and the insufferable English will be living in a Siberian landscape inside of 20 years. Fun times!

From the article (via BoingBoing):

A secret report, suppressed by US defence chiefs and obtained by The Observer, warns that major European cities will be sunk beneath rising seas as Britain is plunged into a ‘Siberian’ climate by 2020. Nuclear conflict, mega-droughts, famine and widespread rioting will erupt across the world.

[...]

The findings will prove humiliating to the Bush administration, which has repeatedly denied that climate change even exists. Experts said that they will also make unsettling reading for a President who has insisted national defence is a priority.

>> read more… 

I know it’s wrong…

… But I really love this hoodie from thinkgeek.com:

The description from the site:

Meetings. They happen no matter what you do. Even in the future, they haven’t managed to find a cure for the common meeting. Take Battlestar Galactica, for instance. Adama meets with the Cylons on Galactica. The resistance has meetings to review escape plans. The Quorum of Twelve holds meetings to decide upon new laws for the colonies. Meetings, meetings, meetings. And they’re still unbearably long. And you’re sitting there, quietly, in the back thinking to yourself, “What did I do to deserve this?” [chug coffee, time passes] “Any idiot knows that plan will never work.” [doodle on notepad, time passes] “What the frak is that guy thinking?”

It’s like this every morning…

R-E-S-P-E-C-T

Jay Morrissey… this guy is, in a word, the shit. I don’t even know how I came across his blog, but every single post I read there is like a little gold nugget. Except I don’t want to exchange it for cash, my gods no. I would rather hold onto it, show others, and bask in its yellowy glow.

OK, so that metaphor got away from me. So far away, it boarded a plane bound for parts unknown. But this is the kind of thing I’m talking about then it comes to Jay Morrissey:

[...] It is important to learn to communicate effectively with those who hold a different perspective to our own. In fact, an important lesson is to prioritise human respect ahead of challenging another person’s belief. [Emphasis mine.]

>> read more…

I used to be rather impetuous and judgmental. I still am. But I keep that to myself. I’ve learned you have to choose your battles, and that no matter how much your beliefs might differ from someone else’s, that doesn’t mean that someone else’s belief are no less valuable than your own. How long did it take me to realize this? About 26 years. And I still need to be reminded every now and then.

But Jay discusses it far more succinctly than I ever could. So read ‘im.

Them’s ma’ peoples

Ah, smalltown Alberta, with your intoxicating aromas, intoxicating sight lines, and intoxicated drivers. So intoxicated, and so high-larious, as to make it onto Reuters’ Oddly Enough:

Police in the western Canadian town of Wetaskiwin didn’t have to do much work when they arrested a drunk driver at the weekend — he had parked his car next to their offices and wandered inside.

>> read more…

It’s really not funny—dude could have killed someone. But he didn’t. The only thing this man killed was his own buzz.

All the right type

Hailing from a background of newspaperism and editorial management (and wordmakeupology), I have a tendency to get a figurative (and sometimes literal) boner for all things design. Like typography.

Typefaces, fonts, letter and word forms… if I were a fetishist with an infinite about of money, I can guarantee you I would be buying fonts left, right and centre… Perhaps even up and down as well. I would fetishize that shit in three fuckin’ dimensions. And you, my dear friends, would learn to love it.

(this image from www.typography.com—a typeface called Archer)

That’s why I now read this site, and why you should too. Because text doesn’t have to be a fetish object. But if it is to you too, we now have something in common. Maybe we should date.

Free hockey stuff!

Hey hockey fans: want to win an Oilers jersey? Go to Oilersnation.com and suggest a trade in the comments here. You could be picked as a finalist, at which time the entire community would get to vote on your suggestion!

Easy forgettence

It’s so easy to forget. Everything.

I’ve worked with, gotten to know, like, dislike, love, regret, pine for, and laugh with/at so many people in a life that’s only spanned 27.5 years. I always, and will always, have one regret: I am just fucking rotten at staying in touch with people. Case in point: Jorge.

Now that Jorge lives one province over, it’s rare to see him. And we don’t often communicate other than a random email or text message.

I visited Jorge in one of my favourite cities last summer, and it was good. Great. Beer, coastal sunsets, non-gay handholding… good times.

Miss you, Jorge. I found you by way of Loxy. Here’s hoping you catch on to the notion that you’re now on my blogroll.

Ratings, ratings everywhere

How many of you out there use the rating function on iTunes (or on any other music player)? I use it a lot—I actually spend hours going through and listening to unrated songs so I can give them ratings. I’m trying to take advantage of this rating system as much as I can, so I don’t waste any time unwittingly listening to crappy, unrated music. (Note: some form of the word rate appears six times in this paragraph.)

Naturally, the harshness of the ratings applied depends on the artist. I’m way more forgiving of the Red Hot Chili Peppers than I am the Strokes. The more I like a musician or band, the more selective and extreme I am of how many stars I give them. If I don’t like a favourite group’s song, I really don’t like that song. On the other hand, I would rate their great songs with six stars if iTunes gave me the option.

We’re extreme when it comes to things we feel strongly about, obviously. Mediocrity’s hardly worth consideration. That’s why it’s called mediocrity. It will always only get three stars. No more, and no less.

Filed under “WTF”

The mayor of a small town in Texas has resigned after secretly keeping her neighbour’s Shih Tzu while pretending it had died. Neighbours had asked Alice Mayor Grace Saenz-Lopez to look after the dog, Puddles, during a holiday. She called them to say it was dead. But the dog, which Ms Saenz-Lopez had renamed Panchito, was later seen at a dog groomer’s and at her sister’s home.

This article puzzles me for two reasons:

1. I don’t know what the hell Saenz-Lopez was thinking by stealing her neighbour’s dog and then lying about its death; and,
2. I don’t know why the hell the reporter wouldn’t address this question in the article.

This is one of the problems with journalism nowadays. The focus on balance or impartiality or whatever has completely stiffled any sort of true exploration of the issues reported on in the news. Why didn’t anyone think to ask the mayor of Alice: “Seriously, your honour, what the fuck? The citizens of this town voted for you, and they have a right to know why you thought you could steal your neighbour’s dog.”

Seriously, just ask her! What’s she going to say, “I’m too shit-fucking crazy to answer that, so, uh, no comment.”

We’re leaving this criticism up to the likes of Michael Moore, Jon Stewart, and Stephen Colbert. And I’m glad they do what they do; despite the humour these guys use to present their ideas, they’re hitting the nail on the head where “real” news shows aren’t.

Fat Zombie: Day Six

I’m doing well. I’m still not eating terribly well (and I am not dutifully keeping a food journal), but I’m not eating myself stupid like a gourmand. My progress:

And for those of you who need the visual of my steady decline to non-fatness (or less fatness), peep today’s chart:

I can’t seem to avoid beer. It’s plentiful where I live, and something of a tradition to drink one or two with the roommates after a day at work. I know, I know: bad bad calories. But beer’s just so… wonderful and comforting.

One thing I have to admit I’ve quite proud of is the fact that I’ve cut down on the amount of cheese I eat. My family’s a cheese family. My mum is from France, and it’s tradition to finish off a many-coursed meal with some cheese, fruit and wine. Of course, I’ve done my damnedest to carry on the tradition, but have thus far succeeded in avoiding it.

Tonight is a cheese-based night, though. Wine, cheese, and DVDs with Fish. I just have to limit myself. I need your help, Fish!

Security Theatre

Ars Technica has a great piece on the new TSA blog. Author Jon Stokes asks a very salient question, one I’ve often considered myself:

My experience in airport security line conversations over the years is that everyone who takes a moment to turn three or four neurons’ worth of attention to the much-hated liquids policy comes to exactly the same conclusion: if it takes, say, 20 ounces of bomb juice to blow up an airplane, then you can just send two terrorists with 10 ounces of bomb juice each on board, and they can combine their bomb juice to make a 20-ounce bomb. So why the seemingly idiotic limits on the amount of liquids in my carry-on bag? And why, if I’m in the security line with a bottle of water or a cup of coffee, can’t I just drink some of it to demonstrate that it is not, in fact, bomb juice?

Coal: Cheap. Abundant. Cheap

Fat Zombie Day Five

I was unable to report day 4, everyone. Work and life were too insane. However, I was still paying the price from eating a slice of homemade pie. Today, things are much better:

• Starting weight: 85.4kg
• Current weight: 84.4kg
• Total lost: 1.0kg

From yesterday, I’m down 500g. And I ate well yesterday.

The weekend will be the true test, as this is when everything typically goes to hell. Except that I won’t let it. I’m monitoring my portion sizes and eating only good food… like a delicious lentil soup I made the other night!

The Social Networking slide

Andy brought this interesting Register article about Facebook’s slide in popularity to my attention today. From the story:

“I remember a time, long long ago, when tech companies spent their own venture capital on each other, so revenues were all booked from the same small pool of money. Yeah, as I recall, it didn’t end well.”

We’re not suggesting that social networking sites are totally useless or are going to disappear anytime soon (Friends Reunited is still around? Who knew!) – they’re a boon for prying journalists and recruiters for sure, and damn it, Scrabble is a good game. But today’s shocking confirmation that their “phenomenal” growth isn’t impervious to human nature does make the $15bn valuation Microsoft slapped on Facebook when it paid $240m for 1.6 per cent equity seem even more preposterous, if it were possible.

The weather outside is frightful…

My day job includes working with a rag-tag group of English, Australian and Italian contractors. They’ve had to move here, as they’ll be working on big construction projects with our company for at least the next five years. One of the British guy’s wives sent us the following poem to express her sadness with the weather:

It’s winter here in Canada
And the gentle breezes blow
Seventy miles an hour
At twenty-five below.

Oh, how I love Canada
When the snow’s up to your butt
You take a breath of winter
And your nose gets frozen shut.

Yes, the weather here is wonderful
So I guess I’ll hang around
I never could leave Canada

‘Cause I’m frozen to the ground!

Rideless in Riverdale: Chloe hybernates

I mentioned before that my car bit it the other day. A broken thermostat (I think). A $30 part.

Here’s the problem, though: I could totally replace it myself. Except I don’t have a garage, and the prospect of working on my car outside in this weather is less than ideal, especially because I’d have to drain the coolant before doing anything. Drive it to a garage? Tried it on Tuesday. This is how it went:

Adam gets into car, starts it up fine because it was plugged in. Adam scrapes off windows, making it almost possible to see out the windshield. Adam climbs into car and scrapes inside of windshield as well. Adam begins driving, hunching over with chin almost resting on steering wheel so he can see through the narrow gap on the windshield that isn’t completely frozen. After about 600 metres of 20 kph through the neighbourhood, Adam realizes there’s no way he can get his car the 13km to the west end to have it serviced. Sadness abounds. Adam turns back, parks car, and spends rest of the day in his pyjamas.

I might have my brother pull the car to his house with his truck, put it in his garage (which is about -10°C rather than -27°C) and work on it there on the weekend. Or I’ll have her towed to the dealership sometime in the next few days. I haven’t decided yet. Either way, my car—dear, sweet Chloe—is parked. I need to go out there later to see if she’ll even start. I’m not hopeful.

Thank gods the bus service is superior in my neighbourhood, or else I’d be right fucked. Also, I need to buy cat food.

Human sexuality

An old colleague of mine recently started a new blog called Chamber of Comics. He’s now turning his cartoons into video. Here is his most recent foray into the genre of “full-motion cartoons”:

Fat Zombie: Day Three

Yesterday was a bad day for me. I was snowed in, in a sense—stuck at home waiting for a tow truck to bring my car to the dealership. This never happened. And it won’t. I was home all day. And I ate too much. 

What I consumed yesterday:

• Five cups of tea
• One bowl of Raisin Bran with milk
• A bowl of Butternut Squash soup (low sodium)
• An open-faced tomato and tuna sandwich
• A handful of granola
• 6oz of beef, some potatoes and green beans
• four beers
• two slices of pizza

There was a hockey game on, and my roommate brought home beer and ordered pizza. Two things I clearly don’t need, but ate nonetheless. I paid for it:

• Starting weight: 85.4kg
• Today’s weight: 85.0kg
• Total lost: 0.4kg

 

So, a definite setback. But missteps are to be expected. More discipline is needed. I didn’t even feel happy after I ate the pizza; I just ate it because it was there.

Onwards and sideways!

And the winner is…

Wired Magazine is hosting a contest to name the current geological period—you know, like Triassic, Cambrian, and Pleistocene. the unnamed period is the one we’re in now, defined by the impact humans are having on the planet. You can vote for them here.

The top votes right now include:

• Jackassic
• Anthropocene
• Obscene

Only one of them is serious. The other two are very serious. Anyway, click the link to cast your votes, or come up with your own suggestions.

Fat Zombie: Day Two

The post-shower weigh-in was encouraging!

• Starting weight: 85.4kg
• Today’s weight: 84.6kg
• Total lost: 0.8kg
  

Because of the awful weather, I’m stuck at home until I can get a tow-truck to my house to take my car in to have the thermostat fixed. Right now, my windshield is just a thick layer of frost. So, no coffee for me today. Just tea. I’ll give you my end of day notes, and hopefully you’ll see a trend of me not eating terribly.

It’s cereal time!

Edit: for you more visually inclined folks, the graph:

Fat Zombie: Day One Notes

Today I consumed:

• 2½ cups of coffee with two creams each (throughout the day)
• One serving of Quaker brown sugar oatmeal
• 250g of cottage cheese and two mini-oranges
• A small bag of mini-eggs
• A small Voortman cookie
• 1.5L of water
• 2 glasses of red wine
• One spinach salad with a salmon filet

This really goes to show you how bad I am with my eating. And this is better than most days!

The wine was drunk because I was at a business meeting. I have no excuse for all that coffee, the mini eggs or the cookie. And I didn’t drink enough water (but I’ll have at least two more glasses before bed).

I expect that I will weight 85kg tomorrow morning. And by expect, I mean hope! There’s nowhere to go but down!

Don’t be talked down to

I came across this gem browsing the web when I should have been working. It’s just a short list of strategies for managing and deflecting verbal intimidation. Check it:

Much like fishing, the bait is used to lure you in for an off handed attack. The attacker’s aim is to plant hurtful or accusatory phrases in seemingly innocent conversation to lure you in. Here’s an example:

Hi Sophie, I know you’re busy but I need this document written up before noon. It’s so easy, even you could do it. Thanks Sophie.

The bait here is “even you”. If Sophie is like most people, she will take the bait and respond with:

What do you mean even I could do it? I’ve been working here for 8 years and …

Sophie took the bait, and now she is justifying her existence to the instigator. To which the instigator could simply reply, “you’re over reacting”. Sophie will lose her power in this conversation. Her aim, and your aim should be to NOT take the bait. Ignore it. Pretend you didn’t hear it.

This will make your verbal attacker recoil. You did not give them the response they were expecting. You do not need to explain yourself to anyone. If someone throws in a bait, they want you to get upset and emotional – sometimes make a fool of yourself. You simply respond to the question or statement, ignoring the bait altogether. If you repeat this process with serial verbal offenders, they will soon give up entirely.

Fat Zombie: Day One

I weighed myself this morning after I showered. It was bad, but not as bad as expected, given the gourmet meal of stuffed chicken breast, stuffed potato, tiramisu, and a pail of cookie dough that Fish and I consumed on Saturday.

• Current weight: 85.4kg
• Goal weight: 73kg
• Left to lose: 12.4kg

I should elaborate on my goals: I plan to lose 5.4kg by February 14. By the time March 31 rolls around, I will weigh 73kg. I anticipate that if I’m eating properly and exercising regularly, I should be down to 73kg long before the end of March, but I’m giving myself some wiggle room. Click on the graph below to see how this will trend out. Yes. I made a graph.

Like I said, not terribly difficult. But changing my bad eating habits (late-night snacking on garbage, lots of beer and wine) is going to be the biggest challenge. So is getting to the gym, especially when there’s a high of -27°C today. Yeesh. Also, my car is broken.

But at least I won’t be fat for much longer!

‘So you’re a zombie, huh? That must really be something…’

Meth is, I’ve just now read, a bad way to lose weight. Not because you don’t lose weight—you do—but because you’re, you know, a shell of a human being after getting hooked. Like one of those zombies from 28 Days Later, except rather than try to eat people, you try to score and smoke more meth.

Marijuana is equally ineffective, though that particular drug renders you more like one of those zombies from Night of the Living Dead—slow-moving, moany (or giggy, depending on the type of zombie we’re talking about here), and downright snacky. You can see how this isn’t terribly conducive to weight loss.

For my purposes, I would need a weight-loss narcotic that would make me more like a zombie from the MJ’s Thriller. Hot, super-dancy, a lady-killer (j’aime le double-entendre!), and with a life narrated by Vincent Price, who I believe is also, now, a zombie. A thin one.

In the last two months, I’ve gained about 6kg which is astonishingly bad. I’m about 13kg away from my target weight of 73kg (that’s 27lbs for you haters of the metric system). By February 14, I want to weigh 80kg (a baby-step goal for myself), a feat I believe is totally doable. I just need to hold myself to account, which is why I’m filling the rest of you in on this little goal of mine.

So, the next little while will be interesting. Through a combination of better eating and working out, I’m going to achieve my goals so I look like a fucking Adonis the next time I don my red cap and Speedos. I’ll post my weight every few days, beginning tomorrow.

Let the not eating hamburgers begin!

Bacon: the fairydust of the food world

I get to see Jim Gaffigan at the Winspear on Feb 1. He and I have something in common: a love of bacon.

But bacon is that good. I bet if you put bits of bacon on a strip of bacon, you could travel back in time. It’s like a tasty vortex.

The peaks and valleys of the VC game

I was referred to this site today. Man, there are some interesting profiles on VC firms here. If you’re looking for venture capital, you might want to have a peek at www.theFunded.com first.

An excerpt:

Allen Frazier brought Jon Gilbert from Arthur Anderson with him when he formed Frazier Securities. Jon is a former cop, who despite getting an MBA is better suited eating donuts and drinking bad coffee. Allen puts Jon on the boards of his companies, even if the CEO’s [sic] have never met Jon before. Jon destroyed our $150 MM company, just by his actions on our board. His constant whining and squealing at board meetings eventually worked, as he undermined the CEO, and forced the company to be liquidated for $15 MM.

(Thanks CDiddy!)

Stay Puft

I know I’m getting carried away with the YouTubes, but this was too good to pass up. If there are any Japanese speakers who can translate this, please comment if anything hilarious is being said. Otherwise, I think the video speaks for itself.

(Thanks Anna!)

Flipping a coin

Above is one of my favourite Bonobo songs. It’s called “Pick Up,” and it’s from the album Dial M for Monkey It’s the jazz flute, don’t you know.

Electronic music is probably my favourite genre, because as music goes, it has the ability to conjure a plethora of images. There’s no way in hell I would ever have conceived of this video had I been asked to produce it. This song manifests images of old jazz clubs in the 50s and 60s, people picking fights, panning cameras, sweeping views, and tableaux with a million details in a dim, smoky room.

That’s the beauty of electronica, and I guess of music in genre. It’s different things to everyone. What’s it to you?

Autobots: roll out!

It’s remarkable, and sometimes puzzling, to see what queries people use to stumble across Pseudo Psyence. Some are completely mundane, like “cowboy billy.” Others bear a malicious tinge to them, such as “allergies Harper’s broussard evil demon woman.”

But some are so bizarre as to be, perhaps, a window into the psyche of people who maybe shouldn’t be allowed to use the Internet. Or are in an institution that permits limited web access. Like the person who stumbled across this blog by searching for “Inuit Culture Toilet.” Whoever you are, welcome to my quaint blog; I seriously doubt you came close to finding what you were looking for. Like your Prozac.

And what of this culture toilet? Presumably it seeks to devour Inuit culture. Or, uh, something? The person who entered this search term no doubt found a post on being afraid to go to the washroom in public, and another on that quintessential Inuit signpost. But a 2000 Flushes in the shape of an inukshuk? Shit, I don’t know if those exist… yet.

For curiosity’s sake, this is what you get from Google Images when “Inuit culture toilet” is entered. The first image:

It’s true… the Inuit Culture Toilet is Megatron.

So, given the weird confluence of search terms and blog posts here, I will report in the next few days what additional searches on Autobots, Megatron, Toilets, and other random words brought strangers to this place.

All the same: Welcome.

You don’t know how good you have it…

An excerpt from a discussion between Fish and myself. Her cellphone randomly freezes and shuts off; mine sometimes delays receiving emails. I, apparently, have nothing to complain about:

please. you’re basically saying “my 60 gold nuggets aren’t shiny enough” and I’m saying “my brown piece of shit is too stinky” at least thats my dumb analogy for me being annoyed that my phone DOESNT WORK, and you being annoyed that your blackberry hasn’t made your coffee yet after you asked it like 78 times in the past 4 minutes gosh.

Isn’t it Scrabulous?

Mattel & Hasbro are trying to get the makers of Scrabulous to take their application off Facebook, as the two companies believe it infringes on their trademark and copyright. And it just might…

But here’s the thing: Mattel & Hasbro have done sweet fuck all to get their popular boardgame online. The creators of Scrabulous saw a hole in the market and they filled it. Mattel & Hasbro should be talking to the creators—two Indian brothers—about working for Scrabble. They should be bought out and hired on to help Mattel & Hasbro get their shit together putting their most popular boardgames online.

But they’ll sue instead. Because of principle. And because they were too slow to put Scrabble online. Fools.

A snippet from BBC:

Some said the decision to launch the legal action was “short-sighted” and could only damage their reputation. In one discussion thread more than 100 people said playing Scrabulous had led them to buy a copy of the board game.

“Never played Scrabble until I played ‘Scrabulous’,” wrote Alexandra York. “This is the best application on Facebook and has brought Scrabble to many people who have never played before whilst allowing friends and family to enjoy the game in spite of living far from each other.”

Incidentally, the save Scrabulous group on Facebook has over 13,000 members. 13,000 people who signed up in one day.

Our dumb online atlas

The Onion’s more or less accurate take on a few select countries:

• The USA: “The United States was founded in 1776 on the principles of life, liberty, and the reckless pursuit of happiness at any cost—even life and liberty.”
• Japan: “In 1945, two atomic bombs were dropped on the nation of Japan, destroying entire cities and instantly killing millions of citizens. However, some survived, and from the radioactive ash rose a mutant race of super-submissive, ultra-vulnerable people able to feel 100 times the shame of any ordinary human.”
• India: “Mired by rising poverty levels, polluted groundwater that threatens the lives of millions, and a rapidly crumbling infrastructure, the nation of India has every intention of addressing these problems just as soon as it finishes telling Midwesterners how to install Windows XP on their home computer.”
• England: “For nearly 200 years, England ruled over 500 million people on six continents—a time in which it was commonly said that the sun never set on the British Empire. Today, however, the sun sets on the British Empire at precisely 5:47pm GMT.”
• Italy: “Italy is known as one of the most racially intolerant nations in the world, where citizens base their opinions of other ethnicities on appearance and stereotypes alone. But then, what more do you expect from a bunch of greasy, filthy womanizers?”

More here.

The long drive…

Back in high school, if I had to go to the bathroom for a #2, I used to drive home. I shit you not.

Read:

Who can be affected by Toilet Phobia?

Toilet Phobia can affect anyone at any time and ranges from a mild disruption through to a significant disruption of daily life.

Causes of Toilet Phobia

Toilet Phobia can be caused by a variety of factors including anxiety, fear, specific experience or trauma and learnt behaviour from someone close. Causes of Toilet Phobia can often be a combination of these factors or none of the above.

Treatment of Toilet Phobia

It is generally accepted that CBT (Cognitive Behaviour Therapy) is the recommended treatment for Toilet Phobia due to the fact that it is an evidence based therapy, however, many individuals cited Clinical Hypnotherapy, Counselling, guided self help and other lifestyle changes as being helpful in providing benefit to managing the condition.

Under my skin

I never really realized it, but I’m fairly curious about Inuit and First Nations spiritual and tribal symbols. I remember coming across a Haida artwork print of a frog when I was in Tofino one summer. I meant to buy it but never did. Regretted it for the longest time. Then, in Waterloo, Ontario of all places, I came across it again about three years later. I bought it.

Three years after that, and I still have the print. I’ll never lose it:

Looking for meaning? Aren’t we all:

Frog is often associated with copper and great wealth. Legendary Haida princes are said to have attended feasts wearing necklace chains made of living Frogs. The Haida carved Frog on house pole to prevent them from falling over. They also included them in many other carvings, from feast bowls to totem poles.

EDIT: There, Andy. Now you’ve seen it.

Premier bully

Dave, an acquaintance of mine from the university, has been threatened by Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach for registering “edstelmach.ca” and using it as a redirect to his blog. Before this threat letter, he had had no contact with the premier’s office. Snippet:

This letter was sent to me regarding my ownership of the domain name edstelmach.ca, which I purchased for approximately $14.00 on April 4, 2007 (four months after Mr. Stelmach became Premier of Alberta). The letter accuses me of interfering with and misappropriating Ed Stelmach’s personality (I’m really not sure where Ed Stelmach’s personality is, but I certainly didn’t take it).

It’s being covered quite heavily by local media, and there are lots of comments at Dave’s blog. Some expound on the legal virtues of Dave’s case—i.e., that there are none and ICANN rulings on the issue mean Stelmach might win this fight—but I think there’s something even more interesting here that Dave touches on: the ridiculous route the premier’s office decided to take with this.

Rather than try and get in touch with Dave to see if they could get him to somehow hand the domain over to Stelmach, they’ve gone ahead with all their muscle and are threatening to sue him. For someone who isn’t doing so hot in the polls, this is an absurdly shortsighted direction to take. Whatever your politics, you can certainly appreciate that the optics of suing a starving student over a $14 domain name aren’t terribly positive.

Good luck to you, Dave. And shame on you, Stelmach.

Signposts

I’ve always been enamoured of this symbol. When hiking was a weekend ritual for me a few years back, I would create one along the way, or at the terminal end of a hike to signify my having been there. Fitting, then, that the word inukshuk translates to “substitute for a person.”

Inuksuit differ from some cairns in significance. The Arctic Circle, dominated by permafrost, has few natural landmarks and thus the inuksuk was central to navigation across the barren tundra.

Inuksuit vary in shape and size, and perform a diverse array of tasks. It is a symbol with deep roots in the Inuit culture, a directional marker that signifies safety, hope and friendship.

(from Wikipedia)

The spectre of DRM might soon just be that: a spectre

Ars Technica had this lovely little tidbit today:

You can imagine our delight when a reader alerted us to the fact that Sony tacitly recognizes the inconvenience caused by its DRM usage and even recommends that iPod users circumvent some of its own DRM.

(via Michael Geist)

(picture sourced from Business Week)

Even better than that, though, is this Business Week article, quoted in the same Ars story. A snippet:

In a move that would mark the end of a digital music era, Sony BMG Music Entertainment is finalizing plans to sell songs without the copyright protection software that has long restricted the use of music downloaded from the Internet, BusinessWeek.com has learned.

Ding dong, the witch is nearly dead!

Office life

I came across The Office Newb blog today, and have thoroughly enjoyed the posts I’ve read. An excerpt:

After all, who would you rather trust to get your important project done? The person with the great hair and coordinating accessories (shoes, necklace and purse) who was thoughtful enough to detail to make it all match or the person who shows up to work in sweatpants and their college sweatshirt who couldn’t get it together long enough to put on a decent pair of pants before leaving the house?

 - From “To Dress or Not to Dress“

I have to admit to sharing some (most?) of her views on dress code. Incidentally, she’s now on the blogroll.

About six months ago, I worked for another subsidiary of the parent company I currently work for. Call it GasCo. I’m now at ElectricCo.

While at GasCo, I would frequently whinge about the dress code: the expectation was that you would always wear a tie (for the men, anyhow), and there was no such thing as casual Friday. When I started at ElectricCo, I lauded their relaxed dress code… until I saw some people wearing crew-cut sweatshirts with stains on them and dirty jeans. It occurred to me that this simply wasn’t right.

I had a conversation with my boss about this. She reminded me that people are judged by how they dress, and she suggested people should dress “how they want to be paid.” You want to be paid a six-figure income? Dress the part, buddy-boy (or buddy-lady).

I actually enjoy wearing nice business attire to work, so it wasn’t too much of a stretch for me. But for the first week, everyone kept asking me if I had a job interview, which speaks volumes of the corporate culture at ElectricCo. Still, one day when I’m running my own company full-time, I’ll dress relaxed: jeans and a sport coat, Hank Scorpio-style!

The Katz out of the bag

The Edmonton Investor Group (which owns the Edmonton Oilers) has a 10-member board that reports to twenty-something other investors. This board has recommended that the EIG reject Daryl Katz’s offer of $188 million to purchase the team. The question everyone on the planet seems to be asking is this: double-you tee eff?

(This image shamelessly stolen from the OilersNation)

I’m hoping this lapse in judgment for the EIG, who clearly can’t see an opportunity and the sweet plum of their return on investment. Set ego aside, and consider what’s best for the city and the team, instead of trying to hold onto the crown jewel of owning a pro-sports team.

Hey you! Make with the face-humping!

Fish uncovered this most sinister (though honest) of advertisements on Craigslist:

 I have an apartment. You need a place to live. Seeking Relationship. – 23 (Upper East Side)

————————————————————————
Reply to: pers-526674625@craigslist.org
Date: 2008-01-02, 11:39PM EST

I live in a nicely sized apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. I’m financially stable, pay off my credit card in full every month, and am successful. I’m also fucking good looking.

You’re a student, or just plain poor. You wish you could move out or your parent’s house, but you’re just… too poor. It’s fucking pathetic.

E-mail me. We’ll skip the dating and you can move in with me and be my girlfriend.

Why was my girlfriend looking up roommates ads in New York city, a place a full 4,000kms away from where we live? Uh, good question. Fish?

Poetic justice

[Ed - looks like the ad is no longer up, which leads me to believe that the item sold, or this was a hoax. Does anyone have any information on this one?] 

So, this guy’s pissed at his roommate for ditching out on his share of the rent, and then dropping $300 on a copy of Rock Band. Some people’s children…

First of all, yes I know this falls in the really mean category and yes I know they’re supposed to really be hard to come by, but you’d be this pissed too. I can understand paying for plane ticket to see fam during Christmas, but dropping $300 on a video game while skipping out on his share of the rent during a really expensive time?!?!?! WTF?

Well payback’s a byatch. I will consider this as the December rent. Highest bidder gets a PS3 Rock Band Special Edition. Comes with drums, a guitar, and a mic apparently. I need this done by next week, for obvious reasons.

Yes it’s been opened and he played for two hours before having to leave for the airport. But Mr. Anal actually packed it away because he didn’t want anyone else playing it while he was gone. *Are you kidding me? At least it saves me the trouble.

Oh and if you’re reading this, consider this your last payment. To everyone else, have a happy holidays.

(Thanks Andy!)

Stop the douchebaggery!

The illusion of security

This article by Patrick Smith, himself a commercial airline pilot, articulates the points that many disgruntled air travelers have considered. Now the question is, do we possess the power to change this three-ring circus? I’m not so sure…

The three-ounce container rule is silly enough — after all, what’s to stop somebody from carrying several small bottles each full of the same substance — but consider for a moment the hypocrisy of T.S.A.’s confiscation policy. At every concourse checkpoint you’ll see a bin or barrel brimming with contraband containers taken from passengers for having exceeded the volume limit. Now, the assumption has to be that the materials in those containers are potentially hazardous. If not, why were they seized in the first place? But if so, why are they dumped unceremoniously into the trash? They are not quarantined or handed over to the bomb squad; they are simply thrown away. The agency seems to be saying that it knows these things are harmless. But it’s going to steal them anyway, and either you accept it or you don’t fly.

(via Boing Boing) 

Food allergies: exaggeration?

The following is an excerpt from an article called “Everyone’s Gone Nuts: The exaggerated threat of food allergies,” by Meredith Broussard (subscription required). It appears in the most recent issues of Harper’s Magazine:

There is no question that food allergies are real. Yet instead of creating the healthy, happy children shown here [a photo from a Food Allergy & Anaphylaxis Network brochure is pictured], exaggerating the threat may actually do as much harm as the allergies themselves. The peril is now perceived as so great that psychosomatic reactions to foods and their odors are not uncommon. Recent surveys have also shown that children thought to have food allergies feel more overwhelmed by anxiety, more limited in what they believe they can safely accomplish, than even children with diabetes and rheumatological disease. One study documented how food-allergic youths become terror-stricken when inside places like supermarkets and restaurants, since they know that allergens are nearby. Such psychological distress is exacerbated by parents, who report keeping their children away from birthday parties and sending them to school in “No Nuts” T-shirts. Having been fed a steady diet of fear for more than two decades, we have becomes, it appears, what we eat.

I suppose it’s old news, but fear and anxiety over allergies seems to fill people, probably because of the immediacy of allergies. I’d wager a lot of people know someone with an allergy and they’ve maybe witnessed a reaction, or had such an event described to them. Are severe reactions typical?

Who knows? All I know is a fuckin’ love peanut butter, and pass the friggin’ milk.

Wasting time

I am hopelessly addicted to this game.

Wine update!

I added a wine to the “Vino” list. A Beaujolais. So yum!

Now, I must go and think of creative days to kill the day and try not to eat so bloody much. Christmas has been a terrible time for my waistline.

Evolving language, and the news sites that try to explain it

Earlier in the month, Merriam-Webster crowned “w00t” the word of the year. Reuters has a good story on this, and hilarious descriptions and explanations of where the word comes from:

Massachusetts-based Merriam-Webster Inc. said “w00t” — typically spelled with two zeros — reflects a new direction in the American language led by a generation raised on video games and cell phone text-messaging.

A new direction? Maybe. But Merriam-Webster President John Morse’s take on “w00t” and other l33t speak is pretty laughable:

“People look for self-evident numeral-letter substitutions: 0 for O; 3 for E; 7 for T; and 4 for A,” he said. “This is simply a different and more efficient way of representing the alphabetical character.”

I fail to see how using a number in place of a letter is “more efficient.” How does one really even pronounce a zero? If we call letters as they sound, then w00t should be pronounced “wuhzerozerotuh.”

But it isn’t. Because that would be dumb.

w00t!

Things are as bad as they seem

Even though the world is replete with anger, fear, and sadness, it’s nice to know that a sense of whimsy still exists out there. I hope everyone has had or will have a chance to spend time with family and friends over the next few days. Stay warm, and stay hopeful.

And feel the levity of this:

A man from the US state of Oregon has stunned friends and relatives by sending them Christmas cards, two months after his own death.

The 34 handwritten cards were sent and signed by Chet Fitch, who died in October aged 88, with “Heaven” given as the return address.

Silent night

The utility company office is very quiet today. I think everyone except for me and a handful of others took the day off. All I can hear is the air exchanger and the quiet hum of the laser printer in the cubicle next door.

But I also hear John, one of our employees-in-limbo who doesn’t really know what his job entails. No one does. Not even our supervisor. She told me as much a few months ago. This is why John can so often be found sleeping in his chair.

John was hired as an estimator. Though near as I can tell, all he does is sigh extremely loudly, and sneeze often. Dramatically. He wants you to know that he’s sneezing and that even though it happens frequently throughout the day, often in pairs or trios, it startles him every single time it happens.

He clears his throat as though he’s about to declare war on a global superpower. And it’s a war he’s confident he’ll win.

It’s a treat to catch John making his noises in the bathroom. His sounds take on an orchestral quality when reverberated off the tile. It’s an orchestra being conducted by Hitler’s corpse, and the only instruments in this orchestra are woodwinds, all with broken reeds, so all you can hear is air sighing through these woodwinds very very loudly. Also, obnoxiously.

He coughs. Sniffles for a sustained three seconds. Clears his throat. Says “aaaaahhhhhhhhhh.” Sighs.

It would be comforting to know he was there, if I were blind and missing two legs. And laying in a trench in the Ardennes forest in the winter of 1945.

But this is a warm office. And no one’s dropping mortars on us.

Merry Christmas, John.

About as funny as a screen door on a battleship…

There’s something about Donald Trump that I can’t just put my finger on. A familiarity, a sense of having seen him in another lifetime, or some other equally odd phenomenon. But it’s a lot simpler than that, actual. Donald Trump is the real-life genesis of an alternate 1985, as created by old Biff from 2015.

Donald Trump is what happens when someone steals a Delorean, takes it back through time to 1955 and gives themselves a book documenting the entire future history of sporting event outcomes until 2015.

Donald Trump is Evil Biff Tannen. The same Biff that killed George McFly (aptly portrayed by the lovable, few-hit wonder Crispin Glover), that tried to through Marty McFly off the roof of the Tannen Casino, and that essentially duped Lorraine McFly into marrying him. The evidence is pretty compelling:

I know it hardly seems possible, but there it is. Any of Trump’s successes can be attributed to a Sports Almanac of the future. Donald Trump is the reason principal Strickland now lives on the wrong side of the tracks and answers the door by firing a shotgun.

The future is now. (Inspired by IMdb.com trivia after the fact. Because after I wrote this, I looked at IMdb to discover that this similarity was, in fact deliberate. But I’m honest, so there you have it.)

An open letter to my Blackberry

Dear Mobile Phone,

We’ve known each other for about three months now, and I think it’s safe to say that we’re pretty good friends. You connect me to people, remind me I have things to do, and you even finish my sentences for me.

But there’s something you really ought to realize by now: I almost never use the word “duck” in my day-to-day conversations. More often than not (actually, let’s just say “all the time”), when I’m SMSing or writing an email, and I press 4-3-7-6 I’m typing something entirely different.

You’ve consistently failed to pick up on this, though, and it results in the loss of precious seconds as I furrow my brow and briefly consider finding out what it would sound like if you hit the nearby wall at an impressive velocity.

So, please, if you’re thinking of getting me anything for Christmas, just rewrite that small bit of your program that keeps ducking everything up.

An excellent comment from a copyfighter

A user who calls himself Ryan Ramage, a local software developer (oh, and I don’t mean to imply this isn’t his name. But these are the internets, after all), made some excellent comments today on michaelgeist.ca about copyright as it relates to innovation and creativity. Maybe not the kind of comment that blows you out of the water, but still: he gets it. A surprising amount of other people do not.

Time for me to chime in. 
 
I work in Edmonton as a software developer. I have consulted for many various business and government entities. I have seen first hand how the “open source” movement has fostered and allowed innovation for the products I deliver to these entities. In this “remix” mindset, productivity for everyone in my industry has improved drastically over the last few years. I have contributed to and developed open source software myself. There are personal benefits. I have used my work on these projects on my resume, to gain experience, and network with others.  
 
I feel that as our society closes itself off around the copyright issue, we loose this innovation capacity. This mindset of sharing, remixing, building on others’ work is key to furthering our industry and heritage. When we lock down with copyright, we claim we are doing it to promote competition, but instead it stifles it. I have also seen in my industry many bullying cases where the “big guys” can easily close down other amazingly innovative ideas because they have the lawyers and money, all using copyright and DMCA-style takedown notices.  
 
For a magazine to equate this cause as left, or communist or pop-Trotskyite is insane. This fosters competition. It builds industry. I have seen more innovative bands (music) outside the big labels than I have inside. These are the ones that want others to hear their music, and art, and what they do for the real reason. They get compensated for what they are doing but not as much as what they have done.  
 
Everyone builds on what others have done. As the cost of making digital copies approaches zero, we should hail this time in history as a triumph. We are not thieves, we are champions. Champions of a new way of thinking. Build and share digital works and recognize the author. The author builds this portfolio and gets compensated for new work because people/business want to use the industry leaders, not the industry protectionists.

A young cowboy named Billy Joe grew restless on the farm

Today, work p0wned me. It sucked.

I worked my ass off in the morning to little effect, went for a lunch with the intention to get a few odds n’ sods for Xmas goons, and failed at that as well.  I was stuck in a staff meeting from immediately after lunch until 3pm.

 

When I got out, I had a message from our receptionist: security, it seems, had a package for me. So before my 3:30 meeting, I took the lift downstairs to pick up this mystery gift. And wouldn’t you know it? It was a beautiful mini Christmas tree, about six inches tall with a string of garland for me to decorate with, and a lovely note from my love.

And honey, you not only made my day, but you made my year. Just in the knick, too.

The epilogue to this story sucks. I was at work at 7am this morning. And I didn’t leave until 6pm this evening. And now? Now, I’m on beer numereau deux.

Merry December 18th!

Trying to catch the Devil’s herd across these endless skies

Famous Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer turned 100 on Saturday. And the man is still working on designing Brasilia, the capital of Brazil, in spite of his age. Some of his work is astounding in its form, and very modernist. The BBC has a ten-slide show dedicated to his career. Check that out here.

Whatever your opinion on modernist architecture (I would never live in one of these designs, but I can certainly appreciate them), some of the forms Niemeyer has created are astounding. Here’s an example from Getty Images:

The beer I had for breakfast wasn’t bad, so I had one more for dessert

I have a cat. She irritates me. But then, I irritate her as well.

It’s a love/hate thing. I feed her; she loves me. She wakes me up at 5am; I hate her. I come home and snuggle her; I love her. I chase her around the house trying to poke her in the bum; she hates me.

It’s a symbiosis. And that symbiosis means that whenever I’m sitting at my computer, she wedges herself between my back and the chair’s back. The result is this:

Yes. She’s wearing mittens.

Eventually, I grow tired of her pushing her feet into my ass, and I retreat to the couch with my laptop. She stares, though. She knows victory is hers.

And in a few hours time, it will be hers again, when she jumps on my bed to proclaim, at 5am, that it is indeed time for her to eat.

I want a Delorean

If any of you are still trying to think of what you should get me for Christmas this year, the answer is very simple: a Delorean equipped with a Flux Capacitor. I want to go forward in time to about 2015 (I know, not very far), buy a Sports Almanac, then come back to 1955 and bet on the outcomes of all the games in history, thereby increasing my wealth to the point where I can own all of Hill Valley.

All of this is just meant to introduce this fantastic diagram, created by the Buddhist monks at the New Shelton Wet/Dry. It clearly shows the timelines involved in the entire Back to the Future series. And it looks hot.

Why you should care about CIA renditions

From a story at Salon.com on a man who was held captive by the CIA for 19 months, not charged, and suddenly released with no reason given:

Bashmilah’s story also appears to show in clear terms that he was an innocent man. After 19 months of imprisonment and torment at the hands of the CIA, the agency released him with no explanation, just as he had been imprisoned in the first place. He faced no terrorism charges. He was given no lawyer. He saw no judge. He was simply released, his life shattered.

“This really shows the human impact of this program and that lives are ruined by the CIA rendition program,” said Margaret Satterthwaite, an attorney for Bashmilah and a professor at the New York University School of Law. “It is about psychological torture and the experience of being disappeared.”

Everyone on the planet should care about this because, as proven by this man’s story, rendition could happen to anyone. You don’t have to have done anything, and one day you could be scooped up, not to be seen again for years.

This is coming to you…

I’m not even sure what to post. I just clicked “write post.” And here we are.

How about this: things that have figured big in my week—a list in no particular order

• Fish
• Michael Jackson
• Red wine
• Adam Sandler
• Not cleaning
• Being late for work
• Not going to bed at a reasonable hour
• Drinking
• Free food
• Mini Eggs
• Art Blakey’s “Moanin’”
• Excel & VLOOKUPs
• RIM & their Blackberry devices
• Procrastination

That, friends, is all.

$85,000 for mobile porn

I have very little sympathy for a Calgary man who racked up $85K in cellphone charges because he didn’t know you couldn’t download the entire internet to your handset.

Staniaszek said he signed up with Bell Mobility to pay $10 a month to use a mobile browser on his cellphone. “I thought it was the same thing when I plugged it into the computer and used it as a modem – I guess not,” he said yesterday. 

Honestly, ten years ago, I might have thought this guy deserved a break. But everyone knows the mobile telcos are going to hose you on data charges. That might all change is anyone can ever convince one of the Big Three in Canada that they need to offer a truly unlimited data plan.

I don’t really understand how this guy could be charged so much, though. I’ve browsed the net on my phone, and it looks like absolutely dog’s ass. It’s pointless to even bother with it. Unless you have an iPhone. Then it’s preeeeeeeeetty!

Wine cheereth God and man

You’ll note that I have a particular fondness for wine. And for drinking said wine. A glass a day, they tell me, is best. So, I added another page to the old blog, called “Vino” (see the link above). I’ll add wines as I try them (or remember the one’s I’ve already tried) and I’ll even try and hook you up with a good food pairing as well. In the meantime, try the “House Wine” from the Magnificent Wine Company (USA):

It’s a fantastic blend of grapes: Cabernet Sauvignon 54%, Merlot 30%, Syrah 11%, Malbec 3%, Franc 2%, and awesome for just sipping while you blog in front of your computer.

For the love of food

I love food. And I love going out and eating it. But, because I’m on something of a diet and money-saving kick, I haven’t had the opportunity to go very much lately.

This young lady (now added to the blogroll) eats out a lot, and takes really excellent pictures of the things she and her friends eat. Here’s a sample of her photography This is a photo from the Capo website:

She’s basically an unpaid restaurant reviewer, and I love reading her posts. You will too. And if you’re looking for a place to eat just about anywhere in the world, see if she’s been there first.

Beacon illegal?

Turns out some aspects of Beacon were/are probably illegal. Check out this analysis.

Another member of a professorial mailing list I’m on asked whether Facebook may have violated the Video Privacy Protection Act of 1988. Nicknamed the “Bork Bill” (a newspaper published his video rental records during his confirmation hearings), the VPPA protects your privacy in the videos you rent and buy. Well, guess what? One of Facebook’s Beacon partners was Blockbuster, so some of the items that wound up in people’s news feeds were the names of videos they’d bought. Oops.

I dug a bit into the legalities of the issue, and this is roughly what I came up with: Facebook and Blockbuster should hunker down and prepare for the lawsuits. Their recent move to allowing a global opt-out may cut them off from accruing further liability, but there’s probably an overhang of damages facing them from their past mistakes. I should note that this isn’t my usual area of law, so salt the analysis appropriately. Caselaw on the VPPA is thin, but there might be other rules of information privacy law out there that would significantly change the bottom line.

A victory for the copyfighters!

Michael Geist has some good news:

The word this afternoon is that Industry Minister Jim Prentice will not introduce the Canadian DMCA tomorrow.  The thousands of letters and phone calls over the past week have urged the government to adopt balanced copyright reforms that meets everyone’s needs and does not unduly harm education, consumer rights, privacy, and free speech.  The delay provides an exceptional opportunity for Minister Prentice to consult more broadly and to factor those concerns into the forthcoming bill in the interests of all Canadians.

This is terrific news for all Canadians. And it’s a clear demonstration of how grassroots political action undertaken by the citizenry can still have a tremendous impact on the decision-makers in Ottawa. Many thanks to all the people who took time to have their voices heard by writing letters, calling their representatives, and spreading the word. The fight even got national attention in the media.

(All these links ganked from Michael Geist’s site)

There is no god…

There is only Mr Deity:

From Crackle: Mr. Deity and the Evil – Season 1, Ep 1

A nation of SINners

This article got me thinking about what Social Insurance Numbers in Canada are used for. The Privacy Commissioner of Canada has a good little fact sheet on SIN use, and who can ask you for it.

Your SIN is a confidential number that is restricted to income reporting purposes. There are a select and limited number of federal government departments and programs specifically authorized to collect the SIN.

When it comes to what you can do when asked for your SIN by some agency other than the feds, the Privacy Commissioner offers the following advice:

• Ask if you are required by law to provide it (see list below);
• Ask why the person needs it, how it will be used and to whom it will be given;
• Your SIN is not a piece of identification. If it is not required by law (and you are not satisfied with the explanation), tell the person you prefer not to use the SIN and offer other identification;
• If the organization refuses to give you the product or service unless you give your SIN, complain to the Privacy Commissioner of Canada;
• If you would like better legal protection for your SIN, call or write your federal Member of Parliament.

More information on authorized uses of your SIN can be found here. Know your rights.

“I think Facebook’s in for a rough ride…” — Andy

My good pal and business partner Andy believes that Zuckerberg and his pals will have “a tough row to hoe” when it comes to monetizing the FB platform. Facebook’s valuation right now is at about $15 billion. This is all based on the notion that there’s some way to make an awful lot of money off the system.

But, like Andy said, it won’t be easy. Read/WriteWeb agrees:

There is a myth floating around that contextual advertising is going to help Facebook justify its $15 billion valuation. The myth goes something like this: because Facebook knows everything about us, it will always be able to serve perfect ads. However, the reality is more like the following:

• Facebook does not know much about us
• The data that Facebook has is not structured
• People are not coming to Facebook to click ads

Like the author says, monetizing the beast isn’t impossible, and there’s certainly a team of bright folks running the FB show. The next few years will be very interesting on the social networking tip.

Et toot, Brutus?

A few days ago, a post about Donald Trump leaving a $10,000 tip to a server at a New York restaurant was made at derober.com. I came across the post at the new shelton wet/dry, one of my favourite blogs (and just added to the links section). I forwarded the link to Fish, and she informed me it was a hoax. So I told the people at new shelton. And wouldn’t you know it, they gave me props! But props are due, in large part, to Fish.

Thanks FISH!

In vino veritas

I’m not much of a wine connoisseur, though I like to pretend I am. I guess I’m just one of those people who really enjoys an occasional glass of wine with a meal. Or snack. Or on its own.

Every time I wander into a liquor store planning to buy beer or some equally blue-collar potable, I end up walking away with two bottles of wine: one red, one white.

I did this yesterday. I bought some Alexander Keith’s… And a bottle of House Wine (a blend of many reds, totally out-of-this-world good), as well as a South African Viogner called Fairview which I haven’t tried yet (you’ll all learn soon enough I’m really into Viogners when it comes to white wine).

Oh, I also bought a bottle of Merlot the other day. I don’t really like Merlot, but it was the only red available at the store from the, get this, Wayne Gretzky Estates Winery. I think myself and the fellas over at www.oilernation.com will likely buy a few more bottles of the stuff and judge it.

Even though those blue-collar shills only really like beer.

Calgary Catholic School Board misses the mark

The Calgary Catholic School Board has, in this blogger’s opinion, completely overreacted to the notion that The Golden Compass books are anti-religious. In typically overzealous style, they’ve pulled the books from their library shelves pending a review:

“Given the controversy related to the book, the district will not promote and/or use it to support instructional and/or literacy development pending additional information and initial review,” said a Nov. 29 memo to schools from Ms. MacKay’s office.

“At the same time, since bans and censoring tend to draw increased attention to the potentially inappropriate materials, a course of quiet non-participation is recommended.”

What they’re reviewing is a supposed anti-faith stance the book has. But the school board is missing the point: and the point is education. I’m aware that they are a Catholic school board, but they must decide what is most important. Is it more important to educate youngsters so they can make their way in the world (a world replete with multiple religions and worldviews), or is it more important to ensure that these kids remain Catholic, and never question their views or their faith? The key is balance – in both directions.

I think the primary function of the board should be to instill Catholic values in children while providing them with the most well-rounded education, and the most informed educational rubric, as possible. Hiding something potentially controversial from kids is exactly the wrong way to deal with it. Teachers could use the trilogy to show students a differing world view, outlining what makes the books atheistic and how a member of the Catholic faith might have approached the situations found in the books differently.

The school board is missing an opportunity to teach children something. Instead, they’re trying to pull the wool over their eyes. It’s a knee-jerk reaction that ultimately benefits no one.

The Flash in Tokyo

If you haven’t heard of this already, and you’re sucker for cool-looking watches, you’ll want to check out Tokyoflash.

I, personally, am a sucker for gadgets. I know some girls who like purses. Some people like shoes. I like watches. And anything made by the wizards at Apple. But that’s not the point. I also really dig watches. I own three, and I want more. My latest acquisition was the Biohazard Watch from Tokyoflash. It was only about CAD $150, and even though you need to do math to decode the time, it’s an incredible conversation piece:

This thing made it to me, direct from Japan, in five business days. Which is really unreal. The Japanese know how to do online commerce. Nineteen shopping days before Christmas. Maybe you know someone who needs a really awesome watch?

Done deed

I quashed my Facebook account using a dummy email account to do so. Then I zapped the email account. I’m not terribly confident that Facebook has actually eliminated all my details, but if it were to fall into the wrong hands somehow, I think my intention cannot be misinterpreted: I want to be less than a ghost.

But I find it interesting that after ditching Facebook, the three people who immediately took notice reacted rather bizarrely:

• Emma said: RIP facebook:)
• Melanie said: I saw you finally did it! Bravo! It takes a lot of courage to stay off 
• Erin said: Emma mentioned you’ve broken free from facebook!  Congrats!!
  

People will always have a love-hate relationship with FB. Still… intriguing!

What does DMCA mean?

Wellington Grey has an excellent slide show on what DMCA does (from boing boing). If IP and copyright issues interest you in even the smallest way, click on the image below.

One less Facebook user

After giving it considerable thought over the last few weeks, and with the advent and somewhat-demise of Beacon, I’ve decided that I’m going to go through the pain-in-the-ass process of deleting my Facebook account tonight. Some of the reasons include what Amy Tiemann said in this CNET piece:

You remember the old story about the frog placed in a pot of water that was slowly heated up, until it was cooked? When I read the about Facebook’s reaction to the anti-Beacon protests, my first impression is that Facebook’s concessions are essentially along the lines of, “OK, we turned up the heat a bit too much on this one, so we’ll turn it back down a little bit–for now.” Are marketers counting on the fact that we’ll get used to the warm bath, then the hot tub, calibrating their fine-tuned ability to stop just short of the lobster pot?

Moreover, while the web allows a largely indiscriminate flow of information, which has benefitted millions, certainly, the door swings both ways. And what little information I’ve been able to glean and share about my friends and acquaintances (willingly or not) during my short stint on Facebook (about a year), I’m growing old and curmugeonly, and am far less interested in what some douche from grade school is up to these days than I might have been a few months ago.

Ultimately, I just don’t feel comfortable with the lack of transparency around what Facebook is up to. If they were just straight and honest with their users, I might stick around. But right now, the risk of having my personal info up there, surrounded by all the uncertainly with what’s happening with that info, is unsettling.

I’ll just stick to emailing my close friends, thanks.

More on Canada’s forthcoming copyright legislation

Michael Geist is stepping up and asking the tough questions on copyright. Since Jim Prentice is unwilling to be interviewed by the CBC before the Canadian DMCA bill is introduced, Michael has crafted his own questions he wants to put to the minister.

Snippet from Michael’s blog:

7.   The Conservative Party of Canada pledged to “eliminate the levy on blank recording materials” in its 2005 policy declaration.  Why has that pledge been abandoned?  Similarly, the 2005 policy declaration stated that “the Conservative Party believes that reasonable access to copyright works is a critical necessity for learning and teaching for Canadian students and teachers, and that access to copyrighted materials enriches life long learning and is an essential component of an innovative economy.”  Why has the party abandoned this position with copyright reform that will make it more difficult for teachers and students to access copyright materials?

Coming of age?

An email from my mother this morning gave me pause. My grade one teacher, Mme. Johnson, passed away. She was two years younger than my mum. Mme. Johnson died after a hard-fought battle with breast cancer.

It is with sadness that we acknowledge the death of Evelyn Johnson. Evelyn began with Edmonton Catholic Schools in 1970 at Grandin School. She resigned for family reasons in 1974 and returned to Our Lady of Lourdes School in 1978. She then taught at St. Stanislaus and Holy Cross from which she resigned as well in 1989. She returned again in 1991 and was assigned to St. Angela School. She retired from there in 2003.

A celebration of her life will be held on Saturday, Dec 8th at Holy Family Parish in St. Albert. Please watch the Edmonton Journal for exact time.

Que son âme et l’âme de tous les défunts, reposent en paix.

I have a clear memory of Mme. Johnson’s face back in 1986 – soft yet stern.

I remember the classroom layout vaguely. My most profound memory is when I was accidentally stabbed in the hand with a sharpened pencil by a kid named Jason.

Mme. Johnson was the perfect teacher to bring me around to how cool school could be. I’m sure her other students thought just as highly of her.

I hope she’s found peace.

Wired for sound

Wired has an excellent article on the state of the music industry, as viewed through the eyes of Universal Music’s CEO Doug Morris.

A snippet:

Easy profits ended up blinding the industry to the threat of MP3s. Throughout the ’90s, a handful of insiders warned of the need to get out in front of digital music, but for the most part they were ignored. The big corporations that had snapped up record labels in the ’80s and ’90s continued to focus on short-term financial results, even as it become [sic] amply clear that the advantages of CDs — control, convenience, durability, flexibility — were even more pronounced with digital files. “There’s this mentality of always needing to make the numbers for the next quarter,” says Ted Cohen, a former exec at EMI and Warner Bros., now managing partner at the consulting firm TAG Strategic. “It kept me up at night. Some of us could see that something needed to be done, but no one wanted to do anything that wouldn’t maximize profit for that quarter.”

Zuckerberg’s ego

There’s been a huge buzz lately about Facebook’s attempt to roll out Beacon, an application that would effectively track anything you purchase online, and then post the purchase to your Facebook newsfeed. What I find most astonishing is that Facebook’s creator, Mark Zuckerberg, seems surprised at the backlash against Beacon.

First Coca-Cola jumped ship (though it’s not really clear how the Coke deal would work; every time I buy a soda from a vending machine people on my newsfeed will know? And they’ll know I’m drinking—gasp!—vanilla coke? Sweet shit!). Then Overstock. Now it sounds like Travelocity is getting the fuck out of Dodge.

How could Zuckerberg not have seen this? Duh. He’s surrounded himself with a group of people hell-bent on monetizing a largely useless web service. Yes it brings people together and allows them to share photos and wall posts. Then what? Yeah, exactly. That’s what big Z and his cronies are struggling with right now. They sit in the Barad-dûr penthouse, right beneath the eye of Sauron, smack dab in the centre of Mordor, and wouldn’t you know it? They’ve completely lost touch with the most important part of the entire Facebook network: the user.

The concept of social networks, as codified in web 2.0 format, is fairly new. And it’s easy to lose sight of what Facebook was trying to do in the first place (connect people better than MySpace or Friendster ever could), especially when they have a team of billion-dollar investors demanding to know just how the hell Z-berg’s going to make money.

Meanwhile, you have a bunch of mouth-breathers willing to fork over the most mundane and questionable details about their piddly little lives, and it seems like it wouldn’t be much of a stretch to invade their privacy just a touch more. But Facebook isn’t a Legion of Idiots. Some deeply intelligent people use it as well. To play Scrabulous.
And stalk their girlfriends.

And we… uh, I mean, those people are worried about privacy. They use Facebook out of necessity. Because everyone else does. Just like everyone else uses the telephone. It’s not that these people love Facebook. Some of them eventually grow to resent it, and abandon their accounts. But those who don’t have taken it upon themselves to protect the aforementioned mouth-breathers from their own feeblemindedness.

That’s where groups like Moveon.org come in. These excellent people fought the good fight and called to task the creators of Beacon and their Facebook progenitors. They pointed out some of the fatal flaws inherent in the application, and companies like Coke and Overstock took notice.

At its most basic, this means that Facebook friends in your network won’t be able to find out what you got them for Christmas. And it’s more important, it means people’s privacy will be violated only if they want it to be.

Urban Peasant, rest in peace

James Barber, best known to Canadian cooking enthusiasts as the Urban Peasant, died suddenly at his farm in Duncan, BC on Thursday, November 29, 2007 at the ripe old age of 84.

His legacy, [Barber's wife] said, would be the lives he’s changed for the better. “People came up to him all the time and told him that. He couldn’t go out without people coming up and saying that. I think he made people feel that they could do things they didn’t realize they could. He did it with his enthusiasm and passion. People would think they couldn’t cook, that it was a chore but he made it a pleasure.”

The Great Canadian Copyfight

The Canadian House of Commons is set to roll out new copyright legislation that essentially panders to American lobbyists’ demands that Canada do something about its alleged couterfeiting and IP theft problem. Michael Geist, a professor at the University of Ottawa, and one of my favourte intellectual property bloggers, tells you what you can do to make sure the Canadian Government listens to its citizens and doesn’t serve the interests of the US.

A snippet from Michael’s post:

The unfortunate reality is that there is nothing can be done about what the bill will look like when it is introduced – Industry Minister Jim Prentice has simply decided discard consumer, education, research, and privacy interests, ignore his own party’s policy platform, and the cave into U.S. pressure.  Once the bill is introduced, however, Canadians can send a message to their MPs, the Ministers, and others, calling for a fair copyright bill that addresses Canadian concerns (those in Calgary can do so in person on December 8th as Prentice hosts an open house).

BEGIN;

I had a blog for the longest time, but decided to eliminate it. It was more of an online journal, which was fun. But I’d sometimes post something morose after a bad day, and then random friends who read it regularly would message me to see what was wrong. Which wasn’t fun.

I’m back with Pseudo Psyence to catalogue my observations on culture, politics and business. I know. It sounds positively riveting. I can’t promise it won’t be boring for you. But this isn’t about you. This is about me.

Stay tuned.