Les Bonnes Choses

I feel I should write something as 2008 draws to an end, yet I find myself without any keen observations to make. Karen has finished her blogging, and I have left demands in the comments section of her blog's carcass to step up with a new blog for the new year. I have given up on waiting for any of the others to resume blogging; they know who they are. That is my gift to them this year: soul-crushing shame. What did other people get me this year? A few things from my wish list, found just over there to the right on my blog. I have (or will shortly) scratch the portable DVD player and replacement hard disk for my laptop off of that list. My laptop is very recently mostly restored to its full former glory (albeit with much more disk space). All that remains is for me to reinstall ePrime for that fMRI project with Marc. I'll need more participants in the new year, so drop me a line if you're interested and right handed with no history of neurological impairment.

Hmmm. Brad never did get me that pipe & cherry tobacco...

There is a predator in Masonville Mall. She's caucasian, possibly from the Mediterranean region, about 5'4" - 5'6", 120 lbs., brown hair and very aggressive when approached.

You will find her manning the temporary booth on the first floor, selling Dead Sea skin products. I was shopping yesterday for a stand lamp for Rebecca when I was approached by this woman. It's a bit of a blur, but this is what I told the police:

She addressed me by asking whether I would like to try some lotion. My hands are presently very dry, as in the sort of condition you might expect my skin to be in if my job was to scrub floors all day. Without gloves. With lye. So I figured, 'hey, what's the harm in getting some lotion on my hands?'
She squeezed a blob of this revolutionary lotion on my hand, and I rubbed it in, only then realizing that this was a very feminine smelling product. She then told me how this lotion was made with ingredients from the Dead Sea as the final horror sunk in that I was now going to be walking around the mall smelling like a floral arrangement.

Now my mind was racing to figure out an exit strategy, so only part of my attention was focused on her - just enough to allow me to react in case she jumped at me with an avocado facial.

"Do you want to see something amazing?" she asked.
"Something amazing?" I repeated, estimating that she would probably not show me anything sufficiently amazing to justify what I had just endured.
"Show me your fingernails. What's your worst finger?"
'Oh my God, I smell like flowers and now she wants to give me a manicure,' I thought. "No, thanks," I replied, now walking away.
"Don't you like the cream?" she asks after me.
"It smells a little -- girly," I replied back, I'm sure with a disgusted look on my face.

Shortly after this encounter, I came across one of the members of my Cohort, Jon, who was also shopping for his wife. Wait. Let me be clear: He was shopping for his wife, and I was shopping for mine. I was not also shopping for his wife. Whatever. In any case, I could not greet him by shaking his hand because my hand smelled like Aunt Esther. It was awful.

Yesterday I finally got myself to see the family doctor. I brought Jude along too because we've both been afflicted by some sort of contagion for the last 3 weeks, with Jude's most troubling symptom being that he coughs until he hacks up a lung and throws up at least once daily. Me, I also had a cough, but my coughing-fu is much more advanced. In the end I was prescribed some antibiotics, and Jude was left to suck it up, as the doctor figured he's just been suffering from a series of viral infections by way of the germ spawning ground known as preschool. Ironic (coincidental?) thing is that shortly after I left the doctor's office, I noticed that my lungs felt clear for the first time since I defended 3 weeks ago. However, I also noticed the onset of a head cold at the same time. So I'm back to feeling miserable, and my nose is red, despite my strict adherence to the policy of using Puffs lotion-imbued facial tissue.

Speaking of contagion, I have just started reading The Andromeda Strain, by the late Michael Crichton (if you have invited him to anything, he will in fact be very late). This book is going by much more easily than the unabridged original version of Sense and Sensibility, which, most liberally, makes use of needless commas; semicolons as well. I meant to read a Cole's notes version, or Wikipedia entry on the book so I could get my head around what the hell was going on.

Now, off to the rings and blankets party. My contribution is less than stellar, and I can't taste it (or anything, for that matter). I appeal to my illness, should anyone choose to judge me.

If you're reading this on facebook right now, take a look at the right hand side of the page. That's where they display paid advertisements. Now look closer at one of the ads. Underneath are three icons: bad ad, good ad and next ad. The intention is for you to have an opportunity to rate the ads. Is it me, or is a bizarre expectation? I'm going to have to agree with sentiments expressed by some of my other friends about consumerism. It's as if we have gotten to the point where marketing has become the end-goal. They even have a link at the end of those ads to see even more ads. Unlimited ads? Sign me up!

Speaking of useless "products", on the way to my parent's house, there is some business set up in the plaza where I get my car serviced (plug: Teeple Tire. I highly recommend them). They have one of those black portable road-side signs. I'm not sure what the business is; all I take away from the sign is that they use lasers as a solution to many of life's problems. Want to quit smoking? They can fix that for you with lasers. Whiter teeth? Lasers. Depressed? Lasers. Death Star threatening your planet? Lasers (but they have to be very precisely aimed with The Force). I'm going to stick my neck out here and take a position on lasers as a panacea: they're quacks, and it's a waste of money. Now, let's assume I'm right, for the sake of argument. I wonder how many social problems could be solved by the amount of money taken in by snake oil salesmen?

Of course, like I always do, I'll just leave this box open for people to observe that the same could be said about aestheticians and luxury yacht salesmen.

I should preface this by admitting that I have never taken an economics class. But like I said before, I am now authorized to spout on about whatever I want. So I was thinking this evening about how I would like to have a front-loading washing machine "in the new house"*. Naturally, I started thinking about how (at least the last time I was in the market for a washing machine) those ones come at a premium. One thing that seems to be a constant is that, well, price points are constant. A really good example of this is in computers. As long as I can remember, stores have been selling desktop computers at three or four price points. There's always an entry level system for about $999, then two more models, say at about $1299 and $1599 and then there's that deluxe gamer system for $2299. Check again 6 months later, you still see the same prices, but all the hardware has moved down a rank. Most of the hardware that made up the superdeathmachine computer is now found in the mid-range office computer, and so on, down the line until you get to the old entry level system, which is no longer offered at any price. What occurred to me was that, in the stock market, you can do something called shorting, which basically amounts to a gamble that the price of some commodity will fall in the future. But things like computers and washing machines that are sold at various price points are virtually guaranteed to fall in value. I don't want a front-end loading washing machine now, but I will in the future. But that entry level front-end loading machine may not be available then. It will be replaced by a fancier machine at the same price.

Okay, so the solution is probably going to be to go to some clearance center, but I thought maybe by writing about this finance construct and trying to apply it to something like buying a washing machine someone would have a useful idea. I'm an idea guy. I try to find connections between seemingly disconnected things. And that's why I'm not in chemistry, where seemingly disconnected things are disconnected on purpose ... so that they don't blow up.

*The new house is shared fantasy about the future held by Rebecca and I. It can be approximated by imagining a Utopian world shrunk down to a quarter-acre lot.

I don't know how I remembered the conjugation of that verb.

Another email sitting in my inbox is the motivation behind this entry. I have been asked to review an article for Brain Research, which is kind of cool. The first article I was ever asked to review was from some unknown online European journal. I was also asked to review for CogSci 08, but given that Ken was one of the organizers, and at least one of the editors is personally known to me, that didn't seem especially remarkable. Things started getting kooky when I was asked to review a neuroimaging article for Brain (especially kooky because I have no neuroimaging publications at this time), and today I am asked to review an ERP paper. I guess "they" are actually taking me seriously. How interesting.

UWO staff (and possibly students) received this email today:

As you may know, The University of Western Ontario has been in negotiations with the International Union of Operating Engineers (IUOE) Local 772 since June to negotiate a new collective agreement for 10 employees involved in operating the steam plant that produces heating and cooling for both Western and University Hospital.

I'll suggest that the University's position should require assurances that the employees actually maintain the buildings at reasonable temperatures. We're always complaining in the Social Science Building about it either being too hot and stuffy or else too cold.

I've been looking up recipes for the upcoming rings and blankets potluck. The only food item that makes use of blanket technology is 'pigs in a blanket', and variations thereof. That is extremely limiting. I may have to invent something. Miranda and Daniel should be whipped with wet noodles for coming up with this theme.

Speaking of appropriate punishments, this morning Jude was refusing to cooperate in getting dressed, and threw a fit. When I told him to knock it off, he asked to go to the naughty spot in between sobs. He even prepared the naughty spot by moving his stepstool into the hallway so he could sit on it. That boy is weird. He's like a little George Washington. He'll chop down a cherry tree one day, and then come tell me about it so he can be appropriately reprimanded.

Karen's about to get grilled. She doesn't even get to fully enjoy her day though, as she has to give an exam later on. That is sad for her. Happy for her is that she's just about done.

Bonus points if you can figure out why I chose this particular title for my entry.

There's always one straggler at the end of the exam: one student who takes right up until the bell rings. In my case, the bell rings in about 15 minutes. Then I get to trudge back from the Health Sciences Building, up UC hill to my office in the Social Science Center. I'm looking forward to getting back home. Hopefully the Pokes will be in bed asleep by then. I'll need a decent night's sleep if I am to get to school in time for Karen's talk. I've got to look into this ASL sign for 'boring'. Maybe I'll do 'fox' - it's the only other nose one I know.

Karen is probably at home right now, doing last minute prep for her big day which, unfortunately for me, begins at 9am tomorrow. I hope others are able to make it in for her public lecture. Maybe I can get dropped off.

Now that I'm finished, I'm still coming in regularly, mostly because the ancient version of PDP++ that I'm using for this project with Stefan has a crap load of windows and is unusable with less than 2.4 megapixels of screen real estate. I need to invest in a new monitor for home, I think. The other thing I have to do is take a look at the fMRI data for three participants that I have run so far, to make sure everything is on the up and up. Plus, my participants might like to have their brain for a desktop image.

Over the weekend, we had to say goodbye to Doc Hudson. Jude dropped him on the way out to the car yesterday morning. We were running late and couldn't find where the heck the matchbox car fell in to the snow. Unfortunately, our neighbour's snow blower found it during the day. My mom found a shredded part of Doc's front end on the driveway this morning. That is sad.

I learned this evening that famous neurological patient H.M. died this week in his nursing home in Connecticut. I also learned this evening that 'Connecticut' has a silent 'c' in the middle.

Heather sent me an email a couple days ago. As I mentioned, she's checking out the housing market. Here's one of the reasons why:

I also lost it on my neighbours last night - I've told them at least 20 times before yesterday to keep it down, I've called the police on them for being too loud at 3am for 2 hours and I've gotten my landlord involved who at one point eluded to evicting them if they kept it up. I don't know what the grand total of "warnings" this amounts to but I'd hazard a guess and say somewhere in the vicinity of 40 over the course of 2.5 years which amazes me that last night they decided band practice was a good idea...DRUMS AND ALL. I marched outside in my PJ's, rang their doorbell, stood there for 5 minutes with my arms folded until someone came to the door and asked this little twirp of a guy to riddle me this: how many times I'll have to ask him to keep it down before he finally understands that I don't want to be a part of their household activities - to which he replied with "oh. you can hear that?" - like what the F&%$ do you think moron, you've plugged in a guitar and are whaling on drums and you're surprised that I find this disruptive???? You should blog about this or something.

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. I'd post the asshat's address because I'm all about culpability to the mob, but Heather and X also live at that address. Any lawyers out there feel like putting the fear of God in someone this holiday season with some pro bono work?

I think our members of parliament could benefit from a good public flogging.

So imagine it's the morning of the first Tuesday after Labour Day, and you find yourself in your new third grade class room following a long summer spent at basketball camp. There's a few other boys in the class that play basketball too, many of which were at that camp, so you guys are tight. In fact, there's enough of you to play a little 4-on-4 action at recess. During the first recess, you ignore the group of 5 or so European dorks wearing soccer jerseys. They can only twiddle their thumbs because, really, 5 is a useless number for soccer. There are 3 rocker kids who just sort of hang out and act all cool, but it's grade 3, so they're mostly harmless. And finally, there's that new kid to the school from out-of-province. He speaks with an accent, so nobody talks to him. He doesn't much want to be there anyways. I can't imagine why, because the student to teacher ratio in this class is unrealistically low, but anyways...

When the lunch bell rings, the kids pull out their lunchboxes and the teacher is unexpectedly called to the office. Chaos ensues. The guy with the best layup looks over at the soccer players and notices one of them with yet another alternative to good old peanut butter.
"What's that? Pudding sandwich? Nice sandwich, loser."
"It's Nutella, and who are you calling a loser, loser?"
"Don't they speak English in Europeland where you're from? I'm talking to you. You guys bring in the most retarded lunches. Do you have real food, or are all your dads unemployed or something?"
"Hey, dork, my dad lost his job. I have a baloney sandwich. How about I stuff it down your face," says the biggest of the rocker kids, pausing from drawing a tattoo in pen on his forearm.
"Whatever, you and what army?"
"I'll 'elp just to shut you up (tabernack!)," says the new kid, more convinced than ever that he wants to transfer schools again.
"Yeah, so will we," reply the rest of the soccer players, finishing their lunches.
"See you outside," one of the kids calls back, leaving the basketball players alone in the room.
The teacher returns.
"Miss,can we stay in this recess and clean the chalkboards?"

I believe the moral of the story is clear: do a head count before you run your mouth off. And also, no matter what you do, they will see you after school.

So it looks like my sister, Cake* is in the market for houses: her Facebook status says as much. Me, being a smartass, commented that there's some good deals in the Detroit/Windsor area. Then, out of a morbid sense of curiosity - the same one that causes me to go to the websites of online businesses that shut down, and probably the same one that causes people to slow down to see a car wreck, caused me to google Detroit foreclosures. There's alot. I saw a house listed for $6000. There was no picture listed for it, but the listing gave the address, and I figured out that I could use the street view on google maps to check out 15331 Cruse St, Detroit, Michigan. Okay, it's in a pretty sketch looking neighbourhood. You couldn't pay me to live there. Scanning further down the list, however, I saw a listing for an even more affordable $1095. Now, the ad says rent to own, so maybe I'm misunderstanding it and they are advertising the monthly rent and not a purchase price. But if I'm not, then that is very, very sad, because the house looks very similar to my parent's house.

This just in. The doctor called from the urgent care clinic that I visited this weekend. I might or might not have pneumonia. Don't let me kiss you.

*Cake is how Heather is known to Jude, which is funny. Also funny is how I originally typed Caka.