Les Bonnes Choses

With all the biller notifications I've been doing lately, I've been in a considerable number of phone queues in the past week. Without exception, each wait has been interrupted by a message indicating that the call center is "experiencing a higher than normal volume of calls". This is not the first time I've called many of these numbers either, and I've heard the refrain before. To say that a particular volume, or rate, of calls is normal is to say that it is the average. To calculate the average rate of phone calls at the call center, one would sum the number of calls received over the period, and divided by the period. If, however, it subsequently becomes customary for calls to trickle in at a greater rate, the average (or normal, if you will) call volume will also increase. So either people are calling at an ever-increasing rate (and thus the instantaneous rate will always be "ahead of the curve"), or else the more appropriate phone queue interruption should say something to the effect of, "sorry, we don't feel your time is important enough to justify us spending the money to sufficiently staff our call center. Your patience is both appreciated and obligatory." Hearing this message is most infuriating when you've called a long-distance number.

So, that's my lesson on Calculating the mean. Today's bonus lecture is entitled Correlations: implied causality and zero correlations. There's an ad on the radio for Sleep Country Canada, where Christine McGee talks about supplying the Canadian olympic team with Serta mattresses. She finishes by reminding you that, whenever you see a Canadian win a medal, they slept on a Sleep Country Serta mattress the night before. The implication, of course, is that the mattress had something to do with winning the medal. Well, yes, all of the medal winners did get a good night's rest on your mattress. But so did the losers. In fact, if you really want to talk numbers, there will be far more athletes who slept on your mattress and didn't even make the finals than those who make it to the podium. Sorry, Ms. McGee, the numbers don't lie: Sleep Country Serta mattresses cause you to lose.

...And that's what it looks like when statisticians get catty.

If you're serious about crispy bacon, here's what you need to do:

1. Set your oven to to 425°F. There is no need to wait for it to preheat


2. Place a sheet of aluminum foil on a cookie sheet


3. Place a cooling rack on top of the cookie sheet


4. Lay strips of bacon across the cooling rack and put in an unheated oven


5. Place the cookie sheet on the middle rack of the oven and cook for about 8 minutes, or until the bacon looks cooked (I just did cooked bacon this way, and by the time the oven had reached 425, the bacon was cooked, but I didn't pay attention to the time)

I did some internet-based research on crispy bacon, and concluded that the secret is to render out the fat, which fast frying doesn't do very well. The relatively slow cooking in the oven, combined with preventing the bacon from wallowing in its own fat seems to do the trick. Incidentally, this is how my mother-in-law cooks bacon. It's awesome. Now, if you will excuse me, I will go make myself a BLT.

In our venerable Ford Focus, Jude was always kicking the back of the seat in front of it, unless it was moved sufficiently forward. This was possible only if Monsieur Jude was behind the passenger seat. The rear-facing car carrier for Le Petit Monsieur similarly required the seat in front of it to be moved forward, so there was no configuration in our car that would allow all of us to travel comfortably, especially for the long distances between Chicago and London. The solution was to purchase a new car. After a considerable amount of research, I settled on a 2009 Toyota RAV4. We really love the car, but we knew from Amy's experience last summer that they don't like to have people bringing over vehicles with liens on them. On the day we purchased the car, we mentioned this to the sales guy. We mentioned this to the finance guy. We were assured that this would not be a problem.

It's a problem.

Had they been straight with us, we would have done things a little differently. As it is, I have 7 days to pay off the balance with Toyota Financing and get some documentation that the car is paid for; after that, we're in the long weekend and then moving day.

Update: we can import the car whenever we want, but we wouldn't be able to get an illinois license plate until it's been imported. But I don't plan on doing that anyways, especially since I just spent a pile of cash on Ontario license plate renewal stickers that expire September 2010. So it looks like Rebecca can just bring that paperwork when she comes back at the end of August. Or something.

So, imagine this:
You're in your driveway one weekend afternoon, washing your car, when some random dude walks up your driveway and into your house. Moments later, he comes out with your car keys, and hands you a piece of paper, gets in your car and drives away. As you stand there dumbfounded, you look at the piece of paper that you're holding and see that it's from some authority, say the federal government, and it gives the bearer permission to have a turn driving your car around town.

I think we'd all agree, that would be messed up. Is it any wonder, then, that kids have a problem sharing their toys? I'm trying to think up remedies. Maybe it would be a good idea to allow kids to have some set of favourites that they don't have to share, and the rest of the toys can be public property. It would probably help if they don't have as much crap as we do.

I came on here to see if anything new had been posted in the last few days and was disappointed. Being the author, however, I realized I had only myself to blame.

I am presently at the university, for what will certainly be one of the last few times. I had tried to do some statistical analyses on my fMRI data but alas, my home computer didn't have enough memory. I have lots of personal effects in my office, and haven't even begun to collect them. Most of them, I suppose, can be tossed out anyways. The rest I may donate to Coco, just as George before me had passed on an extensive collection of philosophy books and a toy basketball net. I'll also have a few bucks coming my way as I return my office keys to get my deposit back. If only it collected interest over the last 7 years.

But that's not the resignation I'm talking about. As the family prepared to leave the house this morning, I was holding le petit monsieur, who has the opposite of a cast iron stomach. The little guy spits up half of what he takes in. I had just rummaged through my drawers to find the perfect 3/4 length t-shirt to wear on this middlingly tepid day, and had been wearing it for no more than 5 minutes before it got barfed on. So I wanted to reflect on my decision to go ahead and wear the shirt today because it was "just a little bit of puke."

You may or may not recall the concern I had about a month ago regarding my impaired hearing. The problem remedied itself during the visit to Chicago, on the same magical day that our house sold and we found a kickass place to live. At the time, I complained how weeks had passed since leaving the doctor at the UWO walk-in befuddled, and I hadn't heard a thing (no pun intended) about the promised follow-up with an audiologist. An appointment was eventually made, and, even though my hearing was now back to normal (or, at least, what I remember as being normal), it was useful to get a baseline in case the problem ever cropped up again. Unless I misinterpreted the photocopy of my report, I passed with flying colours. As one ages, one's hearing begins to decline, so that frequencies one can hear in their youth, can no longer be heard later on in life. Some businesses had taken advantage of this and started blaring these frequencies over loudspeakers to dissuade mobs of teens from loitering. Today's youth being clever, it was soon realized that ringtones using these same frequencies would not be heard by most adults, and would be ideal for classroom shenanigans. I came across a website this evening where one can download tones at various frequencies to be used as ringtones. Each tone can be previewed, so it was interesting to test my hearing on the frequencies. I got as high as 17.7 KHz, well beyond what would be expected of someone my advanced age, though I could only hear the tone if I tilted my head just so. Tones in this range are what my tinnitus sounds like, so perhaps I don't have tinnitus after all; maybe I have just always lived around dog whistles. If this is some kind of superpower that I have, I must say, I sure have been ripped off. Super hearing must be just a step above the ability to make a pink dot appear at will. Exceptional hearing, of course, only gives fodder to my nasty uncle Dave, who cruelly teased me for having big ears all my life.

Anyone who has ever entertained (or been entertained by) Jude for any length of time knows that he prefers playing Cars to any other activity, save for maybe getting new cars. It can be good for a hoot for a few minutes, but you probably wouldn't be surprised to find that reenacting scenes from the movie with die-cast 55:1 scale cars gets a bit tiresome as the day wears on. This afternoon, aunt E has been doing a fine job keeping Jude occupied. To say that E has a bad memory would be an understatement, but considering she's missing a good chunk of her left hippocampus, she's adapted amazingly well. Always one to look on the bright side of things, it occurred to me that someone with even worse memory would be absolutely perfect at entertaining such single-minded kids. With the ability to reset by just leaving the room, I bet HM, rest his soul, would probably have happily played Cars all day long.

Given how clever entry titles like "sexy elderly" seem to be attracting reader with a certain je ne sais quoi (actually, je sais quoi: une -- comment est-ce qu'on dit "girlfriend"?), I decided to go with an entry title which might randomly pull in a different sort of crowd, thereby improving the math-geek to perv ratio among my readership.

Today's title relates to the ongoing -- no, scratch that. Nothing has been going on, which is the problem. I have a problem with the display on my IBM Thinkpad. I have been in the habit of purchasing 3-year extended warranties on notebook computers because that's the useful lifespan of the type of notebook that I tend to purchase; after about 3 years, I find I start contemplating a newer, more capable computer anyways. When I called the Lenovo customer service number, the fellow with the southern drawl to whom I spoke on the phone was extremely helpful. Being still under warranty, I had the option of boxing it up and sending it out or going to a local service depot, for which I was given two phone numbers. Unfortunately, one of those companies no longer does notebook repairs for Lenovo/IBM (nor are they in London anymore, as far as I can tell). That leaves the inappropriately-named Attache Group -- inappropriately named, because, as far as I can tell, the group comprises one person. One person who must be on vacation, because I have reached his voice mailbox every day for the last week. When I do finally reach him, I'm going to suggest he change the company name to Attache Guy or something else more reflective of his company.

This afternoon, as my linux workstation chugged away at a pile of fMRI data for my project with Marc, Ken, Larry, Kyle and Alex, I created a little spreadsheet so I could compare all the quotes I received from various moving companies. Long distance movers charge by the pound, and many of the movers appear to have rates that vary depending on the weight: they charge more per pound for lighter loads than for heavier loads. Unfortunately, they don't make their formulas available in their quotes, and their estimates of the weight of all of our belongings range from 4800 lbs to 8000 lbs, and rates that range from $0.41 to $0.469 per pound. The cheapest rate belonged to the company that also estimated the highest weight for our belongings. Still, I think they will work out as being the least expensive option, unless they use some kind of nonlinear formula to determine shipping rates. It is interesting that weight estimates varied so much because each company received the same inventory list, provided by TopMovers.ca, who act as some kind of referral agent.

Thinking of moving

Conspicuously absent from my spreadsheet was Atlas Van Lines, who I had contacted via their own website. Aside from the email I received after completing their request a quote page thanking me for my interest and promising that an agent would contact me shortly, I have received no communication from them. They continued to ignore me even after I tried to alert the service agent who had originally contacted me to this oversight by way of a reply email. I mention this only because I have a policy of recommending companies that have provided good service in the past, and embarrassing companies that have not, even in cases such as this where I haven't suffered any damages. At the risk of exaggerating my influence, this approach can be highly effective, as United Airlines was recently "persuaded" to reimburse a musician for a damaged instrument after he launched a PR-damaging campaign set to music. Check it out:

The graphic used in the Cialis commercial and website always bugged me. Sitting in a tub on a beach alongside your partner might seem quite romantic until you consider that somebody lugged two cast-iron tubs through the sand. Enjoy your heart attack, buddy.

Not endorsed by cialis, obviously. Though maybe the target demographic might also experience constipation?

I just realized now: I have never, in my entire life, received a manufacturer's rebate cheque, though I have sent away for a few. The Ontario government also owes me money for some kind of energy efficiency tax rebate, though in their defense, I was about 4 years late in submitting the form, so maybe that program has since expired. Still, I'm a bit embittered about the rebates thing. Problem is, it's been long enough that I no longer recall what companies owe me rebates. The lesson here is to just cost your purchases at the full price. Don't even bother with the rebate, as it may just end up costing you more in postage.

I've so far resisted blogger/google's suggestion to "monetize" my blog, which, as I understand, involves the insertion of links in my blog's sidebar, in an attempt to lure my readers away with offers to "cut belly fat", or "get your diploma online". Frankly, I think that's just a bad idea, as I don't want to suggest that my readers are overweight and uneducated. However, I don't mind giving word-of-mouth endorsements for products or services that I like, or, as in this case, I find just bizarre. We have a costco membership, so we periodically receive booklets of coupons. One item, for sale only online, just blew my mind:

I suppose I could find a use for one of these things. The online catalog entry suggests it can also be used for detailing, and maybe it could be useful when doing an oil change. But - wow. I can't get my head around it. Half the stuff that lands in your cart during a Costco shopping trip are impulse buys. You go there for a year's worth of toilet paper and come out with Season 1 of Scrubs, and 2kg of chocolate covered almonds to eat while watching it. I can't imagine someone deliberately shopping for a car lift, so would this be an impulse purchase?

I just came in from BBQing the sausages that the bunnies dropped off last evening. I often find myself pulling out backyard weeds while I barbecue. This habit hasn't stopped, even though I no longer feel a strong sense of ownership of our vast estate. Weeds have taken root in the new flowerbeds that I created just over a month ago, though because the flowerbeds are piled high with loose topsoil, the weeds are easily removed. I pulled a small clump of new dandelion greens and found myself wondering whether the dandelion greens that show up in fancy salads are similarly harvested. Rather than curse them, can I put the weeds I pull on my plate?

Update: Those sausages were really freakin' good. I mean, ridiculously so. Normally I don't really like sausages that much, but I'm about to eat whatever is left over on Jude's plate if he doesn't finish his dinner. If you haven't already done so, stop what you're doing, and run, don't walk, to get President's Choice Cheddar Smokies naturally smoked sausages.

MSWord just crashed on me while I was searching for clipart to help out Martin's brother, Justin, on a project. I sent an error report and received thanks and an invitation to click on a link for a solution to the problem. I clicked the link, which brought me to a page suggesting that I upgrade from Office 2002 to the newest version. Always wanting to be helpful, I provided feedback on the helpfulness of the suggestion.

Was the suggestion helpful? Not particularly. Was the information incorrect? No, not really. It's just that, if your program crashes, and your solution is to stop using the software and instead switch to a newer version, you're omitting an alternative, practically equivalent solution, which is to stop using the software and switch to an alternative product, such as OpenOffice. Just sayin' is all. I'm not sure if they'll incorporate my feedback in their help page.

Regrettably, I have just finished the last of John's pear jelly. I am also dreading the day that I finish the last of the mulled crabapple jelly that I made from last fall's crabapple crop from the tree in my parents' back yard. Had I not wrecked the first batch that I made (too few apples, leading to insufficient pectin for the syrup to gel), I may have been able to be a little more generous with my crabapple jelly, but as it was, I made just enough to give away 3 jars and keep 2 for myself, and have been hoarding the last jar for some while. Unless I find alternative arrangements, it's going to have to last me awhile longer because both logistical and natural considerations are working against me this year: I am extremely unlikely to within 600 km of the tree when the apples are ready this fall, and even if I was, the tree seems to be under some kind of stress that caused it to not really blossom this spring. Because there is a 1-to-1 correspondence between blossom and fruit, it's unlikely to have many crabapples to offer this fall anyways.

Sorry the post wasn't especially funny. But as a member of Blogger Local 120, I can't shy away from hard-hitting topics like toast condiments just because they're difficult or controversial.