Les Bonnes Choses

I got to do a little detective work yesterday. I was waiting at the bus stop at the end of the day when I noticed a blue cell phone sitting on a concrete ledge. Nobody was anywhere near it, and by the time the bus rolled up to the stop, it was apparent that it had been lost. I know what kind of person I am, and I figured that the owner was better off having the phone in my hands than leaving it there for the next random person to find. So I grabbed the phone and tossed it into my backpack and boarded the bus.

Shortly after getting home, I took the phone out so I could try to get a hold of the owner. I encountered two problems. First, the device was unfamiliar to me, and, despite my proficiency with general purpose computers, when the functionality of an electronic device is limited to making phone calls, I am flummoxed. I would have been able to overcome the first problem more easily had it not been for the second problem: the owner of the phone was clearly proficient enough in Spanish to select that as the language in which all menu items were displayed.

Worst case, we have an undergrad in our lab who is a native Spanish speaker, but I felt that it was too early to give up, and fumbled around the menu. Fortunately, there are enough Spanish cognates of French and English that I was able to make enough sense of the interface to find the address book.

I had assumed, given the ratio of female to male names in the phone book, that the phone belonged to a female student. I didn't want to invade the owner's privacy more than necessary, and the owner's sex was irrelevant to my task anyways, so I didn't look elsewhere on the phone to find out. I tried calling a couple numbers with mobile phone icons, figuring that I'd be more likely to immediately get a hold of someone whose phone would reveal the identity of the mystery owner. Everyone had their cell phones turned off, it seems. I left a message with someone called "Dad".

Eventually, the phone's owner called the phone, and I was able to direct him to my house to retrieve his phone. I suspected the owner was an athlete, given the number of coach so-and-so entries. I'm not sure what sport he plays, but the guy was about 6' 2", and looked like he was from a Nautica billboard. No wonder he's got so many girl's numbers in there. I wonder how many of them know about the entry "bootycall".

Kids these days.

Every now and again, I happen to be near a networked computer when an idea for a blog topic hits me, but I do not have the time to properly formulate an entry. This would be exceptional, as the usual conundrum I face is the pressure I feel to write something, while having nothing in particular to say. When the kernel of an idea does hit me, I try to at least jot down something about it so I can revisit the idea on a day like today, when I can see some of my buddies have checked in and left disappointed.

Going back to mid-August, I see that this story caught my attention. Fortunately, it was still available on the CBC website. In the event that it gets deleted some time in the future, or that you just can't be bothered to read the article, it was about a group of parents in midwestern Ontario who are concerned that "the wifi" is giving their kids unexplained illnesses.

When I first saw the article, I was probably thinking that the blog entry I wrote would be one in which I mock this group of parents for their lack of knowledge about the electromagnetic spectrum and effects it has on the human body at the sort of levels that require you to hold your laptop over your head while standing in a steel door frame in order pick up a signal strong enough to allow you to check your email. Especially considering their kids are getting more radiation exposure when sitting in front of the television.

But that would be unfair, because not everyone has the resources to get informed. No, instead, I will mock the parents on their lack of knowledge about... well, their kids. From the article:

"...the children's symptoms all disappear on weekends when they aren't in school."

Yes, I suppose one interpretation is that something in the school is making the kids ill. However, I don't appear to have suffered childhood amnesia to the same extent that these parents have, and vividly recall the sort of techniques that one can employ to get the day off school. Number one on the list: feign illness.

Sick
"I cannot go to school today,"
Said little Peggy Ann McKay.
"I have the measles and the mumps,
A gash, a rash and purple bumps.
My mouth is wet, my throat is dry,
I'm going blind in my right eye.
My tonsils are as big as rocks,
I've counted sixteen chicken pox
And there's one more--that's seventeen,
And don't you think my face looks green?
My leg is cut--my eyes are blue--
It might be instamatic flu.
I cough and sneeze and gasp and choke,
I'm sure that my left leg is broke--
My hip hurts when I move my chin,
My belly button's caving in,
My back is wrenched, my ankle's sprained,
My 'pendix pains each time it rains.
My nose is cold, my toes are numb.
I have a sliver in my thumb.
My neck is stiff, my voice is weak,
I hardly whisper when I speak.
My tongue is filling up my mouth,
I think my hair is falling out.
My elbow's bent, my spine ain't straight,
My temperature is one-o-eight.
My brain is shrunk, I cannot hear,
There is a hole inside my ear.
I have a hangnail, and my heart is--what?
What's that? What's that you say?
You say today is. . .Saturday?
G'bye, I'm going out to play!"
-Shel Silverstein

I can see from the hits to yon blog that I'm overdue for an update. Nothing is sadder than seeing Sherbrooke, PQ, hit up the same entry twice.

Today I will treat you all to a snapshot of my highschool years, while preserving one of the best recipes ever for all time in the carbonite that is teh interwebs.

Back in the day (and this is several days back, I warn you), a merry band roamed the Forest City. In a sort of Robin Hood-esque way, they would crash parties, rob from the pantries, and give to the revelers. Often times, they would leave the party goers wondering who the hell just showed up at their party, not-baked some treats and left.

Okay, so maybe we -- I mean, the merry band -- were more like culinary vandals. Regardless, the following recipe is why this merry band are now remembered as folk heroes of legend. We folk heroes had a reunion this past weekend, and stayed up late eating no-bakes and having the kind of conversation that would have given anyone else an excuse to not stay up late. I present to you the recipe for No-Bakes: Iron Chef Edition. What relation does the recipe have to the Iron Chef competition? A secret ingredient. There must always be a secret ingredient, and it must be something on-hand.

Iron Chef No-Bakes
3 tbsp cocoa powder
3 half-cups (that's 1 ½ cups) of sugar
½ cup milk
½ cup butter
3 cups rolled oats
½ cup peanut butter
3 tsp vanilla
Variable amount of the secret ingredient.

You will notice that all amounts are in either 3s or halves. Although this may have been coincidence, the original recipe from Martin's mom's recipe book called for 2 cups of sugar, so we reduced it because less sugar was sufficient, and also to fit the 3s and halves mnemonic, and having a mnemonic is important unless you want to bring a cookbook with you to every party. How lame would that be?

Okay, so bring the cocoa powder, sugar, milk and butter to a boil over medium heat. Once it hits a boil, let it boil for 3 half-minutes (that's 90 seconds), then remove from heat.

Stir in the peanut butter until it melts, then add rolled oats and vanilla. Finally, add your secret ingredient. You may voluntarily impose the 3s and halves constraint upon yourself, but think about what you're doing, and scale the quantity according to the ingredient. We used 1 ½ cups of marshmallows this weekend, for example. We've used raspberry jam with success in the past, but a cup and a half of jam would just be gross.

Finally, spoon your mixture on to a cookie sheet and refrigerate to cool.

Ta da! I 100% guarantee that any confusion you generate at a party will be more than compensated for by their gratitude.

Pardon my absence. I was back in the Forest City this past week knocking a bunch of things off my to-do list -- most notably have my 10-year-old car emissions tested as a requirement of renewing my license plate sticker. The perceptive reader will infer from this that my birthday is approaching, and by remarking on the perceptive reader's savvy, I can clue the less perceptive reader into my impending birthday without anyone losing face. All this, of course, is to afford all readers, perceptive and clueless alike, the opportunity to send me a gift (preferably monetary).

Naturally, the Ontario emissions test required that I drive the car back from Chicago. It was with some trepidation that I made the trip, for the car had been seldom-used while in Chicago (I tend to bike, walk or take public transportation where possible), and the first time it went on the road in the spring after a long winter hibernation ended with steam billowing out from under the hood and a trip to the mechanic. With that in mind, I was momentarily nervous just outside of Chicago when it smelled like my car was on fire. My first reassurance that all was well was that I had just purchased a AAA membership the day before. The second, and arguably greater comfort, was the signage that reminded me I was passing through Gary, Indiana, which unfortunately (for the residents of Gary) always smells like a tire fire being used to boil eggs.

I made the trip without further incident, and the car passed the emissions test. I also had the mechanic check out the rest of the car, in case there was anything that was missed by the unfamiliar mechanic who repaired the car back in the spring. He did catch a few problems, some left by the previous mechanic, one left by me when I replaced the battery. This would be a good place to mention that the mechanic that I feel is worth driving 8 hours to visit is Teeple Tire on Wonderland Rd. in London, Ontario. Ask for Emil. Tell him that I sent you. He'll fix you up real nice. If you live in London, you are doing yourself a great disservice if you bring your car anywhere else.

Everything is social these days. Exercise is no exception. I always found the social aspect of working out to be a strong motivator. After all, if you've got a gym buddy, odds are you're going to make it to your planned workout, even if neither of you are particularly feeling it that day (of course, the endorphins released during your workout almost guaranteed that you'd both leave quite happy with your decision). However, back in the day, social exercising meant working out with someone. Now it's a different story. Not a day goes by where I don't sign into my facebook account and see some app update about how far my friends have run. Though I may wholeheartedly approve of my friend's decision to keep active, these social network apps have, from time to time, made me feel somewhat inadequate.

Now, apparently, Nike has a social network app that automatically tracks not only how far you've run, but also where, using GPS. So, in the next week or so, I'm going to drive to a truck stop and tie a Nike running shoe to the underside of one of those long haulers.

The lab in which I am presently proving my excellence now holds five postdocs with the addition of a newly minted PhD from Michigan. I remember from my undergrad studies in psychology that the dynamics of small groups was said to depend on the size of the group. For example, in a group of 3, often the members will align 2 vs 1; a group of 4 stabilizes at 2 vs 2; a group of 5: 3 vs 2. I can think of several examples where this holds true. If you're familiar with Axis & Allies, you'll know that the Allies (the good guys) were comprised of the US, Britain and Russia, and the Axis (the bad guys) were comprised of Germany and Japan. An analogous arrangement can be found in our lab where the iPhone Axis (Gill and Jerome) are opposed by the non-iPhone-carrying Allies (the other postdocs). After Gill signed a pact with AT&T and joined the Axis, aggression stepped up when Gill, in a show of Axis power, gratuitously googled something over wireless. The technologically inferior Allies scrambled for a response, but were able to muster only a feeble, "hah hah! Your attempt to 'bump' failed over wifi! Nice app, suckers!." Meanwhile, there seems to be a stalemate in the conflict. I do believe the Allies will soon have the upper hand, however, as I am the only one with a blog, which I guess would be the Manhattan Project of this conflict.



If you've ever seen any sci-fi movie or program, you'll agree that advanced communication devices are imagined to be ubiquitous in the future. There are a number of similarities between Star Trek's tricorder and smartphones like the iPhone. One could even take this as evidence that the iPhone has brought the future to the present day. Could it really be? Is a new age of peace, prosperity and discovery being heralded by this fantastic piece of technology? In a word: no. There has never been an episode of Star Trek in which any members of the away team had to check whether they were close to using up their data plan quota for that billing cycle. I can only conclude from this that the iPhone is not the technology of the future.



I expect the Axis to capitulate sometime early next week.

So ends day one of this little experiment of ours to see whether we can indeed get to live in "The New House".

Over dinner, I noted a peculiar inconsistency with the way things are measured here in the USA: generally, the imperial system is used. There was a push back in the '60s for the US to get on board with the 99.9% of other countries who came to realize that a hogshead is a rather disgusting unit of measurement unless you happen to be a wicked witch. But 'Merkins will be damned if anyone is going to tell them how they're going to dole out their whiskey, so recalling the wisdom of their forefathers, replied, "and if all the other countries jumped off a 30M high bridge, would you?" and so died the metric system in the US. Or did it? One notable standout in the grocery store is the 2L bottle of soda (or 'pop', as we call it back in Ontario). This is particular only to soda, however, as you will find your sports drink or distilled water sold in fluid ounces or gallons, respectively. I am unclear how the presence of carbonation seems to make all the difference. Another curious exception is in the automotive industry (a quintessential American institution if there ever was one), where engine displacement is measured in liters (as in a 5.0 L Mustang) or cubic centimeters (i.e., milliliters), as in my late 250cc Kawasaki Ninja 250R (may he/she rest in pieces).

In all fairness, Canadians are also inconsistent in their measurement. Carpentry is typically done using imperial units, and I know my weight in pounds, and my height in feet/inches. But my driver's license lists these measurements in metric, miles are practially meaningless to me, and I feel like I'm in some kind of game show when I stand at the deli counter trying to figure out how many pounds of potato salad I want. The Celsius scale makes perfect sense to me, whereas the Fahrenheit scale just seems like they're just trying to use impressive numbers. Oooh! It's a hundred in Houston! 3-digit numbers like that are on my oven. The southern states must be populated with superhumans!. Though, it seems to me that southerners might be the ones most likely to oppose the switch from imperial units to metric units (ironically, it seems to me, as the imperial system is so named because of the British Empire) so perhaps I'm on to something. Maybe someone should introduce them to the Kelvin scale (it will be a balmy 300 °K tomorrow).