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[Nov. 22nd, 2007|01:59 pm] |
Here are some things I have discovered this week.
I was reading Franny and Zooey again for the first time in a long time, and was surprised to find that the voice of Buddy Glass as the narrator in Zooey was now being performed in my head by Alec Baldwin. Whether I liked it or not. It turns out I didn't mind.
I have a semi-doppleganger working as a Telus technician. He was in here this morning and I couldn't stop staring at him, seeing either myself or sometimes my dad in the look of his hair, nose, ears and mouth. He was a nice guy, though, which I took as a compliment.
A 45 centimeter diameter calzone is a lot of calzone. Probably more than you imagine. |
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| Mars in decline |
[Jul. 27th, 2007|03:09 pm] |
i had a very vivid apocalyptic dream last night about the destruction of Mars. Mars had been completely blown up, and as a result the Earth was moving to an orbit closer to the sun. This was causing all kinds of meteorological problems (which seemed to take the form of a lot of lightning storms wherever I was in the dream). It turned out that Lyndon Johnson had sent a rocket toward Mars in the early 60s, which had finally arrived in 2007 and triggered some sort of chain reaction that destroyed the planet. In the dream I learned this from the headline of a newspaper, which spun into view in the same way they do in old black and white movies.
I woke up absolutely terrified, and immensely relieved that it was just a dream.
I blame the dream almost entirely on the ill-advised combination of a Taco Time burrito and IMAX movie popcorn. I was also rather thirsty when I woke up. |
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| scratch and lose |
[Jun. 1st, 2007|12:21 pm] |
i find the current brouhaha about lottery retailers infuriating. if you haven't heard, the BC Ombudsman put out a report on whether lottery retailers are winning disproportionately. the local media has jumped on the story, with the idea that there are tons of retailers who tell people that their tickets aren't winners, then cash in the ticket themselves.
the problem is that nobody involved - the local papers, the BC lottery corp, and the government - seems to have the basic understanding of probability required to comment on the problem.
( excessive crabbiness behind a cut )
and FINALLY...are we really supposed to feel sorry for people who buy a lottery ticket but are unable to figure out whether they've won? they have to hand it over to some retailer to figure it out? maybe you shouldn't be buying lottery tickets in that case. maybe you should be planting it in the ground and waiting to see if a money tree grows*.
sheesh.
*hint: look for the glowing patches of dirt when planting your bags of money |
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| bom-bom-bom bom-bom-bom |
[Aug. 20th, 2006|12:35 am] |
what could be worth breaking 5 months of lj silence?
i can't get enough of it. |
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[Jan. 10th, 2006|09:17 am] |
just a quick note to pass on best wishes to ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) quinzaine and her fella this morning for the arrival of their little quinzaine. |
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| giant steps |
[Oct. 31st, 2005|02:31 pm] |
i just remembered this animation again, and had to go take another look. it's as good as ever! if you haven't seen it yet, it's definitely worth checking out.
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| herbaliser vs. herbalife |
[Sep. 20th, 2005|03:30 pm] |
while looking for a button maker to replace the shabby piece of business we got from badge-a-minit (it's no chicken, i'll say that much), i was sad to see that dr.don, who apparently makes the best machines, has a section devoted to 'herbalife buttons' on his website. i wouldn't even know about herbalife if it wasn't for the fine work of rob cockerham at cockeyed.com. i'd been a fan of his how much is inside work for ages, but it was relatively recently that i found out he's the source of all kinds of great information - and herbalife is one of them.
you know those 'work from home - $1500/month' signs that are always taped to telephone poles? that's herbalife! how about the 'i lost 40 pounds in two weeks - ask me how' signs taped to walls with the pull-away phone numbers? herbalife! but it gets worse - not only are herbalife members responsible for those signs, but the company itself is basically a giant pyramid scheme almost guaranteed to rip off those same members. the play-by-play of rob's investigation into herbalife starts here, and i highly recommend it. it's an entertaining read, as well as shedding light on the mystery of those annoying posters.
on a happier note, completely unrelated except for the alphabetic similarity, the latest herbaliser album is great. |
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| bog talk |
[Sep. 13th, 2005|10:14 am] |
in the absence of any meaningful news coverage (thanks, cbc management), i did a bit of googling and found a March 2000 report by the BC environmental assessment office on Burns Bog. it included the following section that i found interesting.
Fire has been an element of the Burns Bog ecosystem for a long time and has been suggested as
one of the drivers of hummock-hollow processes (Hebda 1977; Banner et al. 1988). Prior to
European settlement, fires in Burns Bog likely affected small discontinuous patches in a largely
wet landscape. This pattern would have met the criteria of a steady-state (sustainable) ecosystem
mosaic (Pickett and White 1985). Basically, fires were not likely a threat to the ecosystem
because the Bog was large and relatively wet.
Today, the fire disturbance regime is different for several reasons. First, the undisturbed
vegetation of the Bog occupies a much smaller area than it once did (Figure 4.19). As a
consequence, the relative impact of a fire is much greater. Had an 80 ha fire, like the one in
1996, occurred in the undisturbed area, the fire would have destroyed 10% of it compared to less
than 2% of natural bog vegetation in the 1930s. Second, though much of the Bog remains wet,
many of the wet areas are in the early stages of succession (Madrone Consultants Ltd. 1999) and
do not yet function (ecologically or as sites for species) as fully viable bog communities. Third,
much of the Bog has dried out over the past few decades, and as a consequence, fire-prone pine
stands have spread, now forming a greater proportion of the vegetation than in the past (Hebda
1977; Hebda and Biggs 1981; Madrone Consultants Ltd. 2000). The extent of fires in pine
woodland is certain to be greater than in wet Sphagnum heath communities. Fourth, intensified
draining over the past decades has resulted in drying of the peat and put the vital acrotelm zone,
and even the upper parts of the hydrologically critical catotelm, at risk. Fifth, the frequency of
fires may be greater now than in the past because of increased human use of the Bog.
As a result of these historic changes in landscape composition and configuration (see Pickett and
White 1985), fire is no longer simply a disturbance agent, but is now a known and quantifiable
risk to ecological integrity and viability. Assessing the frequency and extent of this impact in the
context of remaining bog ecosystem and the rate of recovery provides a direct method of
analyzing size requirements for a viable bog.
In the last decade, fires burned about 4.7 % of the Bog with the three fires distributed across the
Bog (edges and middle). It is useful to compare the actual area burned to important ecosystem
characteristics. Had the 80 ha fire of 1996 occurred in the north-west part of the Bog it would
have destroyed most of the known habitat of Southern Red-backed Voles in BC and perhaps all
the voles themselves.
The entire report is here, if anyone is interested in the context. i can't find any news information on where in the bog the current fire is, to try to guess whether it's in the more sensitive north-western section.
in what feels like my previous life as an environmental science student, i was lucky enough to go on a guided tour of burns bog, and it is a really amazing place. when you read 'peat bog on fire' in the national news, it doesn't sound like somewhere that you could get too excited about visiting, but it's actually really cool. parts of it feel like you're walking through a miniaturized forest - there are trees that look almost identical to a full-size pine tree, but only come up to your shoulder. the ground itself is floating on the bog, but you can't really tell by looking - the ground looks like regular solid ground. but if someone jumps up and down 20 feet away from you, the ground under your feet rises and falls. it's neat.
fingers crossed that the fire won't spread further, and that it's impact is not too severe. |
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| race and class |
[Sep. 7th, 2005|09:08 am] |
i'm still completely overwhelmed - outraged, saddened, stunned, you name it - by the situation in new orleans. it's to the point that i don't want to say 'by the hurricane', because it seems like so little of what is affecting me has to do with the actual weather event any more.
the enormity of what's going on, and the seeming indifference of so many people, blows my mind. i couldn't figure out for a while why everyone i saw on streets of vancouver didn't seem to be as stunned as i felt. but i think lil_octopie has it right - the media coverage up here is really really thin, especially with cbc on strike. and it's only because of the internet that i've found out as much as i have about what's actually going on. and there aren't *that* many people who spend their entire day in front of a computer, with the opportunity to stay up to date that way.
having said that, i've seen a couple things on tv in the last few days that i appreciated. first, the cbc must be having second thoughts about locking out their employees, because i've seen some bbc interviews that are really really good - it's a bit of an eye-opener of what we're missing, even when the regular reporters aren't locked out. second, jon stewart did a pretty good job last night, i thought. in a half hour show that's supposed to be entertainment, not news, he managed to highlight a lot of the most outrageous events. but the hands down best in (tv) show, for me so far, has to be tavis smiley on pbs. i've only started watching his show (sporadically) in the last few months, but it is terrific. i've been on the verge of cancelling cable for ages now, but i think this show might be worth keeping cable for.
last night he had on two survivors from new orleans, and their stories were harrowing. summarizing it won't do it any justice, but the full transcript is i can't do them any justice here, but (as tavis said) those two were genuine heroes for going through what they had to go through. after that he had on the head of the naacp, and i finally heard someone in the media say the thing i've been saying to anyone who will listen to me - 'why the hell isn't anyone in the media talking about race and class'?
i know kanye west called out gb for not caring about black people. and i respect him for that. but my two cents is that george bush, and a WHOLE lot of other people in north america, doesn't care about poor people. and probably cares even less about poor black people. but here in north america there's no concept of class, because of the fucked-up american dream that anyone can be rich if they just work hard enough. so in the mainstream worldview, there's no concept of discrimination by class. in general (here in canada, anyway), there's a basic acceptance that racism, sexism, and even homophobia exist, are real, and should be addressed. that doesn't mean that they DO get addressed, or addressed sufficiently, but at least they are recognized. they are in the criminal code. but classism doesn't register. if you want to discriminate against people because they are poor - go nuts. and it's not very different here in canada, so it's not just an american thing. missing women from the downtown east side is only the most glaring example of how we're all in the same boat here.
anyway. here's another journal entry from me that isn't very fun to read. it kind of sucks, because when i started this journal i had this idea that i'd try to write only things that would be uplifting - make people's days better - instead of bringing people more stress. but it turns out i need to use it in a more self-centered, cathartic kind of way - to get out things that just keep going around and around and around in my head. oh well. |
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| good reading |
[Sep. 3rd, 2005|02:35 pm] |
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i'm still feeling a little too overwhelmed to write anything coherent, but i thought i would put in a plug for tom tomorrow's site - a lot of the things being said there really resonate with me. there's probably a little bit of taking advantage of a chance to bash bush, but i think it's merited for the most part. the comments don't really get into the race/class issues (last time I read the site), which i see as a really big part of the disaster, but i found his comments about the sheer inadequacy of the response really compelling. since 2001, the u.s. has had a department of homeland security that should have been working out ways to get better at dealing with catastrophic disasters, and they clearly haven't. |
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| apartmentalization |
[Aug. 10th, 2005|02:36 pm] |
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well, it seems like demoderby and i have decided to stay in this building a little bit longer - the apartment hunting was a bit of a bust - but now my brother (who also lives here in town) is looking for a place. so if anyone knows of a relatively cheap 1br/studio, or of someone who's looking for a roommate, let me know! thanks. |
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| mark me down for the trifecta |
[Aug. 5th, 2005|03:14 pm] |
with inspiration from loshildas and deerscare, i tried the google "your name is" game. i had to throw in a "has" to get a few more hits, but i like the direction these are going:
Mister Sweets is a very versatile horse
Mister Sweets is progressing nicely
Mister Sweets is an importer and distributor
Mister Sweets has Won a 0-75
Mister Sweets is an attractive and solid business partner
Mister Sweets has never won on the a/w, though put in a few fair displays as a
maiden
i must say, i sound fabulous! |
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| beanerismology |
[Jul. 29th, 2005|09:11 am] |
so everyone has probably heard the latest on the jjbean thing in demoderby's diary. i thought i'd add my final thoughts.
in my opinion, the bottom line is that jj bean is just another company looking for employees who will keep quiet, not rock the boat, and toe the company line. which certainly isn't that unusual. hell, the majority of the post-secondary educational system works on the same premise - rewarding people who can follow the rules and will jump through the hoops. so jjbean places an ad that will attract those sort of people, and repel others. the drawback here being that their ad also gets read by potential customers (us) who they might not have wanted to alienate - they don't really care what our politics are if we're looking for a hot drink and have cash.
and all we can really do, aside from writing a few crabby letters, is to stop giving them our business. they sure aren't going to change their hiring policy based on our complaints. they might change the tone of the ad so that their motivations aren't laid quite as bare, but it won't change their general opinion of employer/employee relations.
it still feels a little weird, because there are probably other businesses i give my money to on a regular basis that operate on the same principles - they just weren't dumb enough to put it in writing somewhere. i'm not really outgoing enough to walk into tisol (where simon gets his grub) and say 'so, how are you all treated as employees'. but i still think it's important to let places like jj bean know that there are still people around who think this kind of thing is out of line, and important for me to try to support alternatives. i know the effect will be tiny, at the end of the day, but i still think it's important. it's another small bit of resistance against the direction that our culture is headed - probably not enough to stop or even slow it down, but maybe it's not picking up as much speed. |
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| the current entitlement fad |
[Jul. 22nd, 2005|03:11 pm] |
a jj bean coffee shop just opened up in the neighbourhood, which i had visited a few times as an alternative to the usual neighbourhood shops. it turns out that my trip there on wednesday was my last. this just in, courtesy of the vancouver craigslist:
we are the fun and funky people of jj bean, (a local micro roaster),
looking for quick learners to work in a fast paced enviroment, with tons of passion for the bean.
Barista’s passionate about coffee
Must be grateful to be alive; aware that hard work builds character (and that this is a good thing); punctual; goal-driven; a non-participant in the current entitlement fad.
PEOPLE WHO THINK. PEOPLE WHO DO.
PEOPLE WHO GET IT.
Compensation: starting at 8 bucks with lots of chances to move up
so if you want to make $8/hr, you better be grateful to be alive. i've already made a somewhat snarky reply to their posting, but i thought i would cross-post in case there's anyone else in town who thought that jj bean was some kind of alternative to the coffee mega-corps of the world. |
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| well i never |
[Jul. 22nd, 2005|09:33 am] |
after being called out - er, tagged, i mean - by asteroidbelt, here are 7 songs i'm really liking these days, and maybe you will too:
In no particular order:
1. dub styles - roots manuva
2. life on mars - david bowie
3. ambush - lateef and the chief
4. tacoma - neko case
5. st. louis blues - artie shaw
6. every planet we reach is dead - gorillaz
7. garvey's ghost - max roach
whew i just used up all my friday morning energy on that list. i'm a little bit tired today. |
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| tap tap tap |
[Jul. 11th, 2005|02:45 pm] |
partly because carnivalesque and i don't seem to have anything better to do today than laugh at each other entries, i was reminded of her earlier post on noises that bug you, and that i hadn't got around to responding to it.
it reminded me of a visit to my parents a little while back. everyone (my parents, my brother and demoderby) were sitting around watching a movie. there was a certain amount of tension in the air, which is usually the case during that kind of visit. about 20 minutes into the movie my mum took down a small drum from a shelf and started hitting it (my parents have the kind of place where small drums are lying around in the room. if there's an emergency and you need a drum, or a piece of wood, or a set of antlers - well, that's the kind of emergency they can handle). it was driving me crazy, but i kept telling myself (quite forcefully) to just ignore it and it would probably stop. i continued telling myself this and trying to watch the movie for a few minutes when suddenly someone said "OK, that's gotta stop". and it turned out that i was the one who had said it, despite my best intentions. i apologized a bit for being so abrupt, but i guess that particular noise falls into the 'drives me crazy' category.
furthermore, i was very surprised that (tap tap tap) there hadn't been (tap tap) any comment from (tap tap) asteroidbelt (tap tap tap) on the original (tap tap tap) post. hmmmmm? |
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| news to me |
[Jul. 11th, 2005|01:58 pm] |
i'm confused lately by the pronunciation of the word 'processes'. i've always pronounced it in the same way as 'guesses' or 'tresses'. but lately i've been heard a lot of 'processeeees', as would rhyme with trees, indices or parentheses.
if i'm reading the Pronunciation Key at dictionary.com properly, either way is correct (the -sez with the bar over the e is the seeeez sound, i think, based on the entry for seize).
i was surprised to see that, and when i hear someone pronounce it that way (usually in a work meeting), there's still a part of me that thinks 'put a cork in it, you pinenut'.
can anyone out there let me know whether i'm completely off base here, or if it sounds weird to you too? |
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[Jul. 7th, 2005|10:46 am] |
i'm having a hard time working out where to begin. first and foremost, i guess, that i have deep sympathy and offer condolences to anyone with friends or family involved in the bombings in london. i'm trying to keep in the front of my mind that the bottom line is that these are human beings with families and friends, and those people are going through pain i can't begin to understand right now.
after spending hours this morning listening to cbc coverage i started feeling a little weird. guilty, really. because i was feeling affected by these events much more than i did for the similar bombings in madrid, or in istanbul, or in bali. which i can't really come up with an explanation for other than an inbred anglocentrism (a form of racism, bluntly) that has me viewing commuters in london differently than commuters in madrid. it takes very little introspection to understand that those killed and affected by those bombings share the same human experience as those in london, the same one i share.
which can't help but lead me to think about the civilians killed in similar circumstances in iraq and afghanistan, on almost a weekly basis in iraq. the same conclusions apply - human lives being ended, families devastated. the main difference, maybe, that those in the middle east didn't enjoy a life of privilege before they were killed.
i find it overwhelming - the combination of the sheer volume of tragedy, combined with my own powerlessness to bring about the smallest change in the situation. and what's worse is knowing that in a few days, i won't feel as strongly about it. i'll be trying to bury the memory so that i don't spend half my day crying, or just because it's easier to sit down and watch cartoon reruns than to think about this kind of thing. and in a few months, i'll be back to life as usual - griping about the state of the world, but not actually doing anything about it.
awful. |
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| yeah i'm a hypocrite....but for the left |
[Jun. 25th, 2005|02:25 pm] |
so i finally picked up the latest gorillaz album, demon days, this week. i partly picked it up out of a kind of obligation - we had been listening to the first album a lot lately and in my opinion it has aged really well - i still really like it. and i've got this idea that if a band makes an album that good, i owe it to them to take a chance on their next album sight unseen (or sound unheard, i guess). to be honest, some credit goes to loshildas for using 'dare' to kick off a fantastic mixed cd, but the theory still stands.
as it turns out, the cd is FANTASTIC. different than the first in a lot of ways but so very good. i realize that this is blasphemy in some quarters, but to my taste this is the best stuff that damon albarn has ever done. by a long shot.
even after i realized that the reason one verse of 'feel good inc' sounded so familiar was because it was in a damn iPod commercial, i still can't get enough of this album. no shortage of irony/hypocrisy there, after i was suitably outraged by the minor threat/nike shenanigans only yesterday. ah well. |
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