Les Bonnes Choses

This afternoon, I went with my mom to Fabricland because word on the street is that they have some high-grade boxes there. I'm reasonably sure my mom is under the impression that I am more familiar with the staff there than I am, because I really have no idea who any of these people are. Yet the deficiency is clearly mine, because they always know exactly who I am. Anyways, she took me to the manager's office (really, not much more than a closet with a desk) to see Ann to ask for boxes. My mom volunteered that I'm looking for boxes because we're moving.

"Really?" asked Ann. "To where?"

"I don't know."

It's strange when that's the most truthful answer to that question that you can give. But on the upside, I'm looking forward to seeing the house get decluttered as things go into boxes (or sold on kijiji). I have no idea how much it's going to cost to get the lawn in a presentable condition. I do not plan on asking the Weed Man to do it, though, as you may recall my previous dissatisfaction with them.

See, nobody out there gives me feedback except for good old K, and maybe the odd nudge from C (I have taken to using initials because that's what K does, though in my line of work, when people are referred to by their initials, it's usually because they have brain damage). As a result, that's who's calling the shots. However, I'm going to try to swing the topic around to a proto-rant that's been forming in my head. I think you'll find it flows nicely, though.

A bunch of whiners have recently petitioned Ottawa to try to get their hands on some Can-con funds for internet media. As the argument goes, there is such a fund to ensure that Canadian music and TV gets produced, so why not require ISPs to pony up some cash to fund Canadian-made content that appears on the internet? Please allow me to outline why I think that's a stupid idea:

• Canadian media producers have repeatedly demonstrated an inability to produce anything that people might want to watch. Our niche seems to be derivative works from the Anne of Green Gables mythology and Just For Laughs specials.


• Who exactly would qualify for this money? I'm Canadian. I'm writing original content to appear on the internet. I'd never see a dime. This fund would just get tacked on to your monthly internet bill and either get frittered away by some bureacracy, or else fund Wind up my Backside: the Flash game


• Most damningly, we all know that the internet is really just a vehicle to deliver porn. A Wall Street Journal piece reported that 69% (yes, this was the real figure) of all paid sites were porn related. How much of this porn was created in Canada? Like, zero. And you know why? Because it's too bloody cold. Regardless of how well funded it may be, Canada will never be a porn superpower as long as we have to contend with goosebumps and shrinkage for 8 months of the year.

I was reading this article on Wired the other day, which was timely because it touches on a number of things that bug me about North America.

I tried to find some clips of the 1950's future of transportation spots that I think coincide nicely with where it really started to get out of hand. Disney seems to have been pretty diligent at keeping them off youtube. Some marketers got the funny idea in their heads that people would just love to take a nice long ride in their convertible to their nice suburban home in a quiet neighbourhood of well-manicured lawns. Urban planners must have seen these films because they went kind of nuts designing sprawling cities with miles of concrete to link all these neighbourhoods. (North America was born on the notion of land ownership - much to the chagrin of the aboriginal people who lived here before us - which I think is why we use land so inefficiently). So from about midway through 20th century, North America has been designed around the car. Most people are effectively obligated to own a car because there's no other practical way to get to work, do groceries for your family, etc. (it takes me 40 minutes by bus to get from home to the school; it takes me 25 minutes door-to-door by bike).

And so our economy revolves around the automobile in so many ways: oil is a big one, and we'll even go to war for it; 1 in 7 jobs are tied to the automobile industry; every kilometer of asphalt has to be maintained with taxpayer dollars as do the sewers and water delivery pipes that follow all those roads to newly developed suburbs. Not only do sewers crumble, but water pipes are not actually water tight, and I learned from a former neighbour who worked with a regional utilities managing company that something like 25% of the water pumped in from the lakes actually leaks out into the ground as it flows through those pipes: longer pipes mean more leakage.

So I'm somewhat ambivalent about the situation that car manufacturers find themselves in lately. On one hand, unless cities were radically redesigned, we're still screwed without them. On the other hand, for the reasons I outlined above, I think 'good riddance'. That's why I want my own planet. I think this one is a do-over.

This morning, as I was brushing my teeth, Jude wandered into the bathroom. After a moment, he looked up to the shelf to my left where we keep the children's Motrin. I don't know what flavour it's supposed to be, as I have never tasted it and don't remember what the box says. Whatever it may be, we have never had a problem getting Jude to take it because he likes the taste. So when he noticed the Motrin bottle on the shelf, he asked if he could have it. It took me a moment to figure out what he was asking for, before we had the following exchange:

Me: "No, you can't have medicine. Medicine is for when you're sick."
Jude: "*cough cough cough* Can I have medicine? Pleeeeease? *cough cough*"

A request has been made for me to hurry up and get on with writing another blog entry. However, as I just got back from an intimate little conference in Niagara Falls, formerly the Honeymoon Capital of the World, but now the Schlock Capital of the World, I haven't had much time to reflect on the sorts of issues that allow me to deliver the kind of hard-hitting pieces to which you have become accustomed.

So I thought I'd take advantage of my lack of direction and make this a little exercise in creativity. I decided to pick my topic by selecting an article from Wikipedia using the random article link. So, without further ado, I present to you my thoughts on ...

Ingolfiella longipes

Hmm. I can't say much about it, aside what we can all read from the wikipedia page. It turns out I'm not really as good at this as I thought I might be. It took me a couple passes to read the name though. That species name looks alot like long-pipes. Really, this fun-loving crustacean has a name that could be a character from a Harry Potter novel or something. Ingelfella Longpipes, that quirky defense against the dark arts instructor, who's always fumbling about his magical pockets for his tin of tobacco.

I don't think I'll try this exercise again.

On the morning of February 15th, 1983, one of my classmates died in a house fire. His wheelchair-bound mother also died in that fire. Word on the playground was that he had gotten up after his dad left for work and had set the curtains on fire while playing with matches. Whether this is an embellishment I don't know, but the story I remember was that, after setting the fire, Eric had run to his mother's side, though her disability left her unable to get out of the house. Eric was a red-haired boy that I remember as being not very popular. I don't know why, though this was the third grade -- kids in third grade don't need a good reason.

I remember walking home from school that day, and taking an alternate route that would pass by Eric's house. I could see his orange-lined green winter jacket hanging in the entryway, and remember thinking how nobody would wear it ever again.

It seems like traces of most people can be found on the internet. When I did a quick google search, for his name, I didn't find anything. But I still think of him every February 15, and how he barely had a chance to count the valentines that his classmates grudgingly gave him the day before.

...for anyone left standing with a AAA credit rating.
I was just reading an article in Slate about how Sirius XM satellite radio is in a very bad place. I agree with the author: considering the ubiquity of portable music players like the iPod, satellite radio is pretty lame. The author talked about getting out of the satellite business and just market their programming over the internet. Okay, maybe. But what about those 7 satellites they have floating up there? If they're up to the task, snapping those things up in a fire sale to offer satellite internet access would be sweet.

Okay, it's a half-baked idea, but more than once have I left an idea in a half-baked state, and someone else comes along a few years later, throws it in the oven at 350° and makes a mint. It's irritating.

At this point I have been tagged a sufficient number of times that I can justify getting on this bandwagon. Really, these are 25 things I would have eventually revealed in my blog anyways, but over a longer period of time. So without further ado, here are 25 random facts about me, selected using the interval between beta particles emitted through the radioactive decay of Cæsium-137.

0) This one's free. I should actually be marking introductions for the distance studies course I am teaching. Instead, I am writing this list.

1. Let's get this out of the way: I am a geek, as you probably could tell from my preamble. However tests have confirmed that I am a cool sort of geek, as opposed to the socially awkward sort of geek. For example, I (used to) play Dungeons & Dragons, but then, so did Vin Diesel. My uncle Dave is the one who got me into it in the first place, and I always thought he was cool.


2. I am a horrible sleeper. I take forever to get to sleep and often wake up throughout the night. I can't get to sleep if I'm hot, but this reverses somewhere in the middle of the night, and by morning I am burrowed under the blankets.


3. Some of you might know that I met Rebecca in the first grade. We both knew how to read already, so we used to read under the teacher's desk while the other kids were learning their alphabet or whatever. What none of you know, including Rebecca, is that I thought Rebecca was kind of cute in fourth grade. But in fourth grade, you don't really know what the hell to do about it. It will be amusing when Rebecca reads this.


4. I also thought Natasha Mosler was cute in fourth grade. Rebecca did know that already though.


5. I never told anyone in my family I liked girls for a very long time. My dad's side of the family are brutal teasers. Uncle Bob and papa were especially bad. No way in hell was I going to give anyone any ammunition, so as far as anyone knew, I didn't like girls until I dated Marianne in 12th grade. Until that point, I think my sisters speculated that I might be gay.


6. A few summers ago, CBC Radio One aired a show entitled The Gayest Music of All Time, hosted by Sandra Oh. I was amused to find that about 90% of those songs are in my Mp3 collection. There's nothing wrong with ABBA. Sometimes you just wanna dance.


7. I like disco and funk. In fact, I am an awesome disco dancer. The secret is: the tackier you dance, the more amazing you look.


8. I drink alot of tea. No, I mean ALOT of tea. I drank at least a liter and a quarter of tea today, for instance. The only person I know that drinks as much tea as I do is John.


9. John, of all my friends, is probably the most similar to me. If he ever does one of these 25 facts things, half of his entries will probably apply to me too.


10. I like to do unexpected things just to keep people on their toes. No, seriously. I strongly believe that nobody should think that they have everything all figured out, so I like to inject a little error into the system. Anyone that does any modeling would understand.


11. I often think I have everything all figured out.


12. I used to want to be a writer. I kind of still do. I'd like to write a science fiction book one day. My favourite high school English teacher thought I would be a good writer, as did my 1st and second year university English teacher.


13. Even though I'd like to write a science fiction book, my favourite writing style is satire.


14. I have tinnitus, and sleep with a fan running, pretty much every day of the year. The fan is sometimes used to keep me cool though (see #2), even in winter.


15. In general, I like knowing how to do stuff. It bugs the hell out of me when I need to do something but don't know how to do it. Not that I don't like relying on other people -- no, I don't like relying on other people. Sometimes other people are busy, or find you irritating. So yeah, I like to know how to do it myself, just in case.


16. I refinished my basement myself. Or at least, mostly myself.


17. I knew I wanted to study psychology in 11th grade. My friend Daan's dad was a clinical psychologist. It was either that or psychiatrist, but psychiatry involves med school, and the prospect of working with cadavers and being on call for 36 straight hours in residency made me take the psychology route. Before high school, I wanted to be: an architect, dentist, and paleontologist. I never wanted to be a fireman or astronaut.


18. After taking a second year clinical course, I realized I was not interested in clinical psychology. Instead, when Albert wrote the word CAT on the chalkboard and said that we could not help but to read it, I got into cognition.


19. When I was little, I liked The Incredible Hulk. My grandparents had some old, ripped purple jeans, probably that my uncle Dave had outgrown, that they used for rags, until I co-opted them for playing the Hulk when I visited.


20. This is a Miranda-type story: One day when my mom went to pick me up from the nursery school, she was told that I had been terrorizing the other kids that day by jumping up on the table, ripping off my shirt, and roaring at them like the Hulk. I do not do this anymore.


21. I used to live in a storage closet when I lived in Toronto with Brad, Ed and Mike. The closet was just a bit narrower than the width of my futon mattress (it fit with the edges slightly curled up), and just a little bit longer (allowing me to use a Rubbermaid container as a dresser/table). I felt like a vampire everytime I went to bed. I really liked that period in my life.


22. I applied to grad school in 1998 and didn't get in. UCSD ignored my application, Northwestern wrote back to say I was missing some documents (which were sent in the same envelope as my application, so they lost them), UIUC completely lost track of me until 5 days before their open house when they called to invite me down (I had tonsillitis at that time, plus was hardly prepared to make a last minute trip). Someone at Carnegie-Mellon had agreed to take me on until one day in March, when she wrote to say she was going on sabbatical, and reneged. I gave up on becoming a psychologist that day. I have since interviewed at UCSD and Northwestern for postdocs.


23. That day, Brad took me out and bought me a consolation Gin & Tonic, saying he thought I'd probably like it. I did. In fact, G&T has been "my drink" ever since.


24. I like to cook. That's related to #15, but I do take some pride in it. One of the most offensive things anyone ever said to me was when a woman I worked with in Toronto said something to the effect that, as a male, I could only be capable of cooking hot dogs and Kraft Dinner. She said other stupid things too on different occasions.


25. I am quite nostalgic, even for things I have never experienced. In grade school, I took out every last book in the library about pioneers and "the olden days", some of them multiple times. One of my favourite places is Upper Canada Village. If I had a time machine, I would probably visit Victorian England quite a bit (even if it was full of cholera). But I'm also nostalgic for things in my own life. It would be neat to be able to re-experience my life. It's been generally pleasant, so far.

I had my phone interview today. I think it went fairly well, which is a good thing because I've gotten rejection letter #2 from these people today.

Point of clarification: it was the second rejection letter, and it was from these people. It wasn't the second one they sent. They aren't that mean about it.

I'm not sure why I feel I must advertise each time I get rejection letters. Maybe it's just to show everyone how, behind this facade of perfection, is a regular guy. A totally awesome, but otherwise regular, guy.

I have a phone interview on Monday, so I may have the option of working with Amy later this year.

Addendum to today's previous post about the nerd test, which has a question about taking apart VCRs. I would like to explain John's comment, because, as you will see, the nerd test is curiously applicable to my circumstances.

Eons ago (the early-to-mid '90s), before the widespread adoption of the DVD, my family had something called a VCR. It was an older machine with a curious squeak to it. Somehow, it had been discovered that rotating the machine would temporarily stop the high pitched chirping that really took away from the movie watching experience -- unless, of course, one was watching a documentary on crickets, in which case it was like you were actually there! So over the course of a feature length film, the VCR would slowly rotate like some kind of electronic rotisserie.

One evening, John was over and, for reasons which are lost to me now, we decided to try to eliminate this chirping VCR problem we had. So we took out some parts. And then some more parts. Near as we could tell, the VCR had its own little ecosystem, with noise-making parts, and parts that stop those parts from making noise. We reassembled the VCR, sans an identified noisy part, and the presumably-broken part that stops the noisy part from making noise. I think the VCR worked for a time after that. Fortunately, the DVD was adopted in our house before we could find out if one of those vestigial electronic organs were actually responsible for keeping the damn thing from bursting into flames.

Hey, speaking of progress, I received something in the mail today from JPM's postdoctoral alma mater. It wasn't quite a rejection letter, but it wasn't an interview request either. In the letter, they thanked me for applying, but went on to tell me that the search has been postponed due to financial constraints (surprise!). I have been encouraged to reapply next year if the search resumes at that time. I don't know if they would have just flatly rejected me if they thought I was an idiot, so I will just have to call this one "not bad" news.

K called me on it. Stupid facebook.

I have so far resisted the call to post some unspecified number of random factoids about myself on facebook. It's not that I am poo-pooing the idea -- in fact, I probably will come up with a similar list before too long. It's just that I'm going to wait until I have collected a number of pings before I do so. Plus, if I wait until it dies down a little bit, I'll have more time to think of some shocking things to reveal, and my list can get the full and undivided attention it deserves.

Oh, and the title of this blog entry? I have seen a number of remarks on the interwebs about the insane amount of snow we've had this winter that insinuate that perhaps this global warming thing is overblown. I don't know how to say this without coming off as a know-it-all jerk, so I'll just go out and say it: those people don't know what they're talking about. Aside from the issue of variance, when it's colder, snow freezes into smaller crystals that pack more tightly together when it falls. When it's warmer (but still at or below freezing), snow freezes into larger crystals that clump together into big honkin' flake clusters that form big poofy snow piles when they fall. Warmer winter = higher piles of snow. QED.

I have eleven students in my distance studies course. Eight of them are in London, so only three are actually studying at a distance. One of those three emailed me the day before the first graded part of their ongoing research paper was due: the dreaded reference list. The task for Stage I: Reference list was to come up with a mere 10 items from academic sources that might be used to describe the motivation and background for the chosen research topic. This student had emailed me to say that they had started the project that week and found that the UWO library system had inexplicably locked them out of the remote access, leaving them unable to use PsychInfo to look up titles and unable to retrieve any online articles for which UWO students have access through the UWO site licence.

About a month passed between then and now, and I received an email today saying that the issue of this student's ability to access the UWO resources has still not been resolved, and they consequently are unable to submit the 10-12 page introduction (+ reference list) that was due on Friday of last week. What the hell?