Les Bonnes Choses

I normally think of The Globe and Mail as being a slightly more high-brow sort of newspaper. After all, I can't tell you how many times I've opened up the pages to see a multi-million dollar house featured in its pages, and rarely does the Drive automotive section review anything but the sort of car you might find in the driveway of a medical specialist or financial broker. When I became a regular visitor to their online presence, I thus found it rather incongruous to see discussion questions at the end of most of their stories -- questions like, "Do you think minimum prison terms should be raised?" following a story about some incorrigible convict re-offending after being released. CBC.ca has long allowed readers to comment on their stories, and I have often been pulled into reading the train wrecks that take place there. It wasn't until recently that they re-vamped the commenting system to allow comments to be easily hidden that I could avoid the temptation. Incidentally, their commenting system is still broken, as submissions go into moderator limbo unless you've posted a sufficient number of comments. In other words, they've filtered out the run-of-the-mill idiots, and now only allow blathering idiots to post.

They must have changed things around at the Globe and Mail, as at the end of this story, where I was expecting to read "Is 29 too young be a grandparent? Are young parents more in-tune with their kids?" they seem to have done away with their discussion question, and thus provide the uninformed with absolutely no guidance at all.

The title of this post? That's a reference to this clip from That Mitchell and Webb Look.



That pretty much sums up what I think about people sometimes. It's unfortunate. I fear it might also be a sign I'm a bit of a jerk.

Update: The Globe and Mail are back to their hard-hitting questions. Should one can of soup be considered one serving? I would agree without hesitation! Because if the Eurozone countries should -- wait, soup? Nevermind.

Wow! Some weekend, hey? This year I've experienced some pretty extreme weather in Chicago, from snowmageddon to record heat and associated storms bringing flooding, knocking over grand trees and taking my power out with them.

And then there's Amy Winehouse.

Police have said the cause of her death is being treated as "unexplained," and have said speculation that she might have suffered an overdose is "inappropriate."

They're right, of course. It could have been a grizzly attack.

So, now that I'm "on vacation", I'm continuing a post I started a couple days ago. And because I'm so meta, I wanted to write about how the process of barfing up one's half-digested thoughts has become complicated. I have no thoughts about Twitter, as I have never used it, but I do make use of Facebook, LinkedIn and now Google+ (sort of).

Facebook

The grand-daddy of social networking sites. Or maybe not grand-daddy. Maybe a great-uncle whose extensive collection of Norman Rockwell prints leaves you feeling just a little uncomfortable. I don't mind facebook so much, except they seem to step into some kind of a privacy issue every other month. That, and those bloody apps that -- sorry if you've been inviting me to play them with you -- I block as a matter of course. 9 times out of 10, I'm just on there in the mood to be a smartarse.

LinkedIn

One thing that keeps my smartarsery in check on Facebook is that I'm associated with "respectable" people on there. LinkedIn seems to be the place to maintain those connections. It doesn't seem to be possible to post pictures there, which is just as well, as I think photos are responsible for 99% of the hilarity that ensues on social networking sites. And in general, commentary I see on LinkedIn is very professionally directed. It's been interesting to see some of my former colleagues issue statements about topics and using jargon I would never have expected to hear from them just a couple of years ago.

Google+

Holy crap, Google, what are you trying to do to me here? I'm still trying to work out what, if any, role Google+ might play. I know some people are drawn to Google+ because it's not Facebook; some of them have abandoned Facebook accounts. But for those who are already heavily invested in Facebook, playing with the new kid on the block requires a doubling of effort.




I see this in terms of duplicating material published to Facebook, and in trying to make sense of the structure and concepts they use in their implementation of a social network. Given the culture at Google ("do no evil"), my gut feeling is that Google is going to end up with a platform that I would tend to prefer. Unfortunately, that leaves me somewhat ambivalent at the moment.

I'm not ready to push out my next thought, but I just wanted to mention that people like this kick ass (link goes to story about daring good samaritans).

A lag of twelve days is easily accounted for:
I'm at a conference in Florida during what appears to be a heat wave. Near as I can tell, if you don't like baking by a poolside or surfing, this is not the place for you. St Pete Beach, the community in which this conference is being held, has an odd geography. It basically looks like a paved sandbar:


View Larger Map

The A on the map marks where I am staying. The conference hotel is about 1.5 miles to the south. I hear the walk along the beach is okay, when the sun isn't beating down. I wouldn't know. 30 minutes in this sun would probably kill me.

So a week or so before this conference, I was making preparations so that things would go smoothly in my absence. Unfortunately, in the days leading up to the conference, things started to go decidedly UNsmoothly. A fierce but short-lived storm blew through my neighbourhood, knocking down trees and branches and severing power lines. We were without power for three days. Unless Gill went on a binge shopping trip, we're also now without food. That, incidentally is a second reason I didn't update recently. I recall having a couple of topical ideas about which to write, but with no means to publish them, I have since forgotten them.

July first and fourth mark the dates that Canada and the United States respectively told their contemporary reigning English monarchs that they had things pretty much under control. So happy Sod-Off England weekend to all!

As I drove around today, I heard an ad on the radio that struck a chord. It was for the Airmiles rewards program. The theme was things that are awesome. The example was getting carded at the age of 37. It was a little close to home for me. I am approaching the age where I was of legal drinking age when people who are now of legal drinking age were born. In some jurisdictions, I am already there. Nonetheless, I continue to get carded when I go to the local grocery store. Signs posted there indicate I should expect to be carded if I look under 25. Twenty-five happened quite some time ago for me, and is now just a fond but vague memory of living in an apartment storage-closet in Toronto's Parkdale neighbourhood. That I continue to get carded suggests to me either an inability to think critically, or else an inability to discriminate a fifteen year age differential. Both of these, I think, qualify as a real handicap. I refuse to believe I look youthful enough to just possibly be less than 21 years of age. If so, that might speak to how perception of age may have undergone a recalibration to account for sun damage and air-borne pollutants.

I could brush this off as a flattering mistake, were it not so much bloody trouble. The local store requires government-issued identification. American states count as governments. Canadian provinces often do not, it seems. The first time I had this problem, there was a big to-do, involving the summoning of the store manager. Next time, I was told, I should bring my Canadian passport, which is inconvenient (it doesn't fit in my wallet), makes me nervous (losing it would be a disaster), and bothers the hell out of me (just on principle). My Ontario driver's license would be satisfactory identification to the Chicago police, were I to be pulled over. The local grocery store, on the other hand, fancies themselves a branch of the Department of Homeland Security. As if a grocery clerk is any more expert on Canadian passports than they are on Ontario driver's licenses. If I wasn't afraid of running afoul of a number of laws, I'd have a bogus passport done up just to prove a point. I suppose I could just as easily make my point by asking the cashier what colour my passport should be, and what should be on the cover, but they don't get paid enough to deal with my crap.