Les Bonnes Choses

A few days ago, I was complaining about the way that life begins with a Social Security number down here. You can't do anything without it, and just about everybody asks for it (though with the exception of your employer and banks, both of whom pay you money, your are not obliged to give it out to anybody). Thus, millions of Americans trust their key piece of identification in the hands of minimum wage employees every day. So there's a certain amount of schadenfreude that I experience when I read that the chairman of the fed was a victim of identity theft. It's not quite irony, because Ben Bernake doesn't administer the Social Security office, but it's kind of poetic nonetheless.

You know, there are methods, known to cryptographers, of devising sets of numbers, one publicly known and the other private, that might be useful in this sort of situation, Using something like RSA would require an overhaul of how SSNs are administered, but maybe the savings might be worth it.

I was all prepared to mock the UK government after reading this BBC article, entitled Tax rise as UK debt hits record :

The chancellor tore up a key New Labour election pledge by unveiling a new 50p tax rate for earnings over £150,000

I was under the impression that p stood for pence, which would amount to the government trying to dig their way out of a record debt by asking the country's well-to-do to check between the cushions for loose change.

Instead, I will be mocking the BBC for using the amazingly ambiguous p as a stand in for the universally understood '%' sign. Maybe it's a keyboard thing. We don't have the £ symbol on our keyboards, so they probably don't have the $ symbol on theirs. Perhaps the online copy editors just took it too far and assumed that, in addition to missing the symbol for pounds sterling, we might not also have access to some of these other key glyphs. Except maybe the ones used to spam about \/!@GR@ and (!@L!$ -- those must be pretty much universal.

I was just on kijiji looking for a big bulky something that we really don't need cluttering up our kitchen when we're trying to declutter our most amazingly cluttered house in preparation for listing it with the real estate agent. Fortunately, it was not to be found - here, Toronto or Chicago. While on Kijiji, I found the following ad (spelling corrected):

One large room for rent in a 3-bedroom apartment, south facing balcony. Hydro, water ,TV cable & internet cable included. Share washroom with a girl, it will be available on May 1st.2009.

I'm not sure if it's a result of studying things like discourse comprehension, where one often sees incredibly strange and contrived phrases constructed to prove a particular point, but I habitually search for multiple interpretations of much of what I read. I found the above ad amusing when read in the context of the stereotype of women preening forever in the washroom. I imagine the current occupant's roommate just couldn't hold it in until May.

Rebecca knits. So do a number of friends who have come to form a tricoterie. I don't knit, myself, on account of being a dude and all*, but I glean vicarious enjoyment out of sporadic knitting nights (now long overdue). I also gain direct enjoyment out of teasing Rebecca about just how extreme knitters can be. Take, for example, the fact that celebrities exist within the knitting subculture -- and I'm no anthropologist, but I'm sure that they qualify as a legitimate subculture; they even have their own cant.

So there's plenty of fodder for my amusement. Or, at least, there was until this week, when the knitting scene became just a little more edgy. As the world literally collapsed around 98 year old Maria D'Antuono, living at or near the epicenter of the earthquake that struck Italy earlier this week, she whipped out a pair of crochet needles and worked on a smart easter shawl.

Okay, knitters. You win. You're hardcore.

I like news headlines because their lack of critical parts of speech, such as prepositions, makes them prone to comical misinterpretation, and general hilarity. For example, today The Ceeb had the following:

Stunning 82-year-old hospital patient with Taser was justified.

Now, you might click on the link with eager excitement at the prospect of reading about an elderly invalid in a fabulous black evening gown who's got a good excuse to be carrying around a non-lethal sidearm -- but you'd be disappointed. Instead, you'd read about how Canadian law enforcement means business. Forget that polite stereotype. Around here, laying on a gurney (or wielding a stapler) is a good way to get yourself zapped, my friend.

Of course, we could also be defined by what we don't do. For example: fund research. My thin envelope from NSERC arrived in the mail today. I didn't have to be Johnny Carson to know what it said. One thing I did forget about was that it had a brochure about applying for the Industrial R&D Fellowships program.

Dear Canadian Funding Agency Purseholders,
If I wanted to work for a large multinational conglomerate, I would have spared myself the last 6 years of graduate work and tens of thousands of dollars of tuition and applied to work at a bank directly out of my undergraduate career. Then I could have been doing something that the business community finds useful for the last several years. Like help run the world's economies into the ground, for example.

A few years ago, when I held an NSERC Doctoral scholarship, it was appropriate to put a little NSERC logo on the posters when I presented my research. Because, you know, they supported me so I could do the research. I regret that, for the time being, I will have to put an unacknowledgement on my conference posters: the Canadian government had nothing to do with this discovery or innovation. Is embarrassment effective at influencing policy?

I just read a headline on the CBC website:

Hundreds to be hired to process EI claims, says HR minister ...

... and promptly find themselves out of work.

This evening, Jude watched a youtube clip of James Blunt singing a song called My Triangle on Sesame Street:



Somewhere in the song, he used the word hypotenuse, which caused Jude and I to laugh, though presumably for different reasons. Tomorrow is a school day for Jude, and Rebecca said that she and Jude were talking about telling the class about the hypotenuse tomorrow. He's in bed now, and will in all likelihood forget about it overnight. Still, the prospect of a preschooler using the word hypotenuse is irresistable.

My dad tried to teach me a little bit about calculus in second grade. I remember telling Matt MacGregor about parabolas one summer evening when I saw him as I rode my bike. The kids in my grade pretty much all got along well. I can't imagine any other reason why that sort of talk didn't get me beat up.

Maybe I should have a chat with Jude again before he leaves for school in the morning.

As if my education hasn't continued long enough, I received an email from Fanshawe College on Friday from their continuing education program. That I am on their mailing list isn't really surprising, as I took the highly recommended motorcycle driver's ed course, which in this area is run through Fanshawe's continuing education program. A suggestion that I would make to the program's registrar, however, is that they not try to drum up business with an email from fees@fanshawec.ca. If that's the email they use for marketing, it makes me wonder what account is used to notify a person when his or her tuition is in arrears.

I already expressed these sentiments in a comment on my own note on Facebook, but that was before I made the return trip home. I just got back from a trip to San Diego where I am a candidate for a postdoctoral position at UCSD working with Jeff Elman and Marta Kutas -- though I quickly figured out that, in saying you work in so-and-so's lab, all you are really doing is indicating where your mail should be routed, because everyone works with everyone down there. It's like some kind of research orgy or something. Probably pays something like $88/hr (see Carrie's note if you can).

I don't travel quite as much as, say, John, or Chris, but I have made a decent number of trips into the US over the span of my postgraduate career. I can truly say that I have never before had a more pleasant trip. Sure, on the way down there was a brief period of panic when I was unsure whether I would catch my connecting flight out of Detroit. But in all my interactions with the various incarnations of what is now the Department of Fatherland Homeland Security, everyone was pleasant and non-confrontational on both ends of the trip. Compare this to the last time I went through the border crossing, coincidentally for the purpose of my first meeting with Jeff Elman. Back then, the inquisitor at the Ambassador bridge gave me quite a rough time. When asked what the purpose of my trip was, I replied that it was for a meeting. The moron actually asked, "So why doesn't he come up there to meet you? Why do you have to come here?" I still fantasize about smacking him in the face and calling him a dipshit, but that fantasy always comes to a grinding halt when I get charged with assault and barred from entry into the US in response. Apparently, my ability to fantasize is impaired by my mind's insistence on imposing realistic constraints, and so unlike most people, I fantasize about being able to fantasize.

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.

This week, Hasbro bought the rights to Trivial Pursuit, and announced that they would be taking the game in a number of new directions. What does this mean for my many friends and family members (including my wife) who are big fans of the board game genre, but do not consider themselves to be nerds? Let me tell you about the new directions Hasbro (and its subsidiaries) have taken some other games:

• They acquired Magic: the Gathering, the granddaddy of collectible card games. Some might even call it "gibberish"


• They acquired Dungeons and Dragons from TSR (or maybe just ate the whole company). Among other things, they made a collectible miniatures game out of it.


• They took the WWII strategy board game Axis and Allies, and turned that into a collectible miniatures game.


• Hasbro has always owned the Transformers brand (at least, in North America), but yes, it's a collectible card game.

My dear friends, don't be surprised if you find yourself in the not-so-distant future among the (literally) unwashed nerd masses, in some stinky comic book store buying booster packs of Trivial Pursuit questions. I hope they save the Canadian geography questions for the junk rare cards.

Last week, a couple of neighbourhood girls came to the door sometime in the early evening. When I opened the door, they asked if I would donate "to charity", and presented me with a nondescript clear plastic container containing a few coins. I asked the girl who had presented the container what the charity was.

"Um...," she said, as her face betrayed a look of horror. She exchanged glances with the other girl, who spoke up after a moment.

"For kids ... who have no clothes or any food to eat or a place to live," she said. The girl carrying the change then said something else to further embellish the charity description. I forget what, exactly, because at the time, I was thinking to myself that this was the ballsiest act I had ever seen perpetrated by a child under the age of 12. Now, I should note that, even though I am willing to bet my one-and-only liver (I estimate the black market value to be $50,000, based on the $20,000 one can get for a kidney) that they were not canvassing under the auspices of any particular charity, I cannot completely rule out the possibility that they were perhaps inspired by something that some random kid did, and were going to take that money straight to school the next day, and get some guidance from their teacher. However, even if they had figured out a rather novel, if not morally reprehensible means of making a bit of spending money, I felt that the dollar I gave them from my pocket was worth the story.

And while I am on the topic of hucksters and thinking outside the box, an idea came to me this afternoon. I received a call from MNBA, telling me about their platinum Mastercard, and how they are the first credit card to be endorsed by the UWO Alumni Association. I think the telemarketer was a bit confused when I congratulated her on that accomplishment. Anyways, after I declined the offer three times, I hung up. Then part of my brain must have gotten to work on a solution to the telemarketing problem. Here's what it came up with: How would you like to get your home phone service from a phone company that automatically redirects all incoming calls from telemarketers representing some company to the home phone numbers of the members of the boards of directors for that company. That would be sweet.

I have been encouraged to mention my dream from a couple of nights ago which was extremely random. In it, I was some kind of investigator driving around in either a convertible, or else on a bicycle (and probably both, intermittently). I was looking for some kind of shady dealer, who ended up being some made-up person from the Gosnell family (Tom Gosnell is one of London's past mayors, is presently on city council, and his family does well for themselves with their company, Gosnell Paving). And after I caught up with this made-up Gosnell character, we had to duck under a bridge and keep out of the searching beam of light coming from the flying spaghetti monster which was circling above like a helicopter. That last part I think came from me being able to hear the sound of the fan, which I have turned on every night for the white noise to drown out the incessant whine of my tinnitis (and for all I know, the constant hum for 8 hours a night is aggravating the problem).

Last night's dream just involved Amy chastising me because my experiment that I ran using cohort and rhyme competitors didn't use ERP. Or something like that. I think it made sense at the time. But in your dreams, most things do.