Time(')s (Up) Square

I'm usually disappointed that New Years TV shows are dominated by such lightweight pop.  But it occurs to me that it's appropriate for them to have one-hit-wonders on them. If you think of the show as a celebration of the past year, it makes sense to celebrate it with artists who will be forever associated with this year. And the artists themselves will want to appear on the shows. Aside from needing the exposure, they need to convince themselves that their careers will in fact survive into the new year. I have to admit that a part of me expected Psy to disappear in a puff of smoke as soon as the Times Square ball hit bottom.

Perhaps these broadcasts should be entirely celebrations of the ending year. Not just the musicians we won't be seeing next year, but the products, trends, etc.  Bring in late night talk show hosts to do one last round of jokes about the easiest targets of the past year, then let them go forever. 

Now, Winfield Probably Just Wants a Nice Quiet Retirement

Recently, Sportsnet celebrated the twentieth anniversary of the Blue Jays' 1992 World Series win by replaying all six games of that series.  Desperate for something to balance all the College football on TV, and with no hockey and most channels dominated by repeats or marathons, I found myself actually watching a lot of it.  Partly it was nostalgia, partly fascination at how much the sport and television has changed.

So here are the some of the interesting things that I noticed during the 1992 World Series rerun:

• There isn't much advertising in the stadium, just a few Labatts ads in the Skydome.  Even stranger, some of the ads in Atlanta are for Marlboro, one of them complete with the Marlboro Man.  Another is for Fuji Film.  Remember film?
• Where are all the tattoos?
• Even after all these years, it sounds wrong to hear American announcers call Manny Lee, "Manuel" Lee
• For that matter, I can't believe they only have two announcers.  Where's the gratuitous roving audience reporter?
• The SkyDome looks totally different when it's full.
• Brett Lawrie is the spiritual successor to Kelly Gruber. To answer one comment I saw on Twitter, I think he's the one that will follow Gruber and Todd Stottlemyre in the Jays' tradition of cutting his chin in an ungraceful slide in the World Series.
• What's with the giant graphics?  Were our TVs really that small then?  And so plain looking; My phone could do better.
• Speaking of which: nobody in the stands is on a phone.  How are they telling their friends they're on TV?
• And I have to wait for them to put up the score?  What's wrong with leaving it in the corner of the screen?  Oh, it would be too tiny on their itsy-bitsy TVs.
• All the stats are just the simple ones I learned as a child.  Where's the WHIP and OPS?
• I still can't believe how easy Devon White makes centre field look.  Or how small a bat looks in Dave Winfield's hands.
• That pale green Astroturf really looks bad.
• Since a lot of the people in sports audiences aren't up to the latest style to begin with, everyone in the stands looks even more out of date than twenty years.  There wasn't nearly as much flannel as you would expect for the early nineties.
• It's been a while since I heard anyone marvel at how modern the SkyDome is the way the commentators did.
• On the other hand, calling it the SkyDome doesn't really seem that odd, which I take as a measure of how the Rogers Centre moniker hasn't fit.
• I still can't believe how into the game Jane Fonda gets.  You'd think she and Ted Turner would have lasted.
• Atlanta's old stadium looks, um, "short".  I've become used to baseball stadiums having three decks of seats and a wall of luxury boxes.
• The transitions between replays and live shots (with a sort of zoom-in diamond shape) looks like something out of the seventies.  I expect computer-generated baseballs rolling across the screen and exploding or something.
• I'd forgotten what great moustaches baseball used to have.  Sid Bream and Jack Morris, we miss you.
• It's a little depressing to watch it already knowing which players wouldn't be back the next year.
• A part of me can't believe they won it again.

Fiscal Bluffs

I haven't really kept up on the Fiscal Cliff issue.  So I guess I'm not really that different from most journalists.  There seems to be a lot of dumbing down and summing up going on.  And by that, I mean jumping to the worst possible outcome.  Many aren't even bothering to say it could dip the U.S. into recession, and just saying that the cliff will cause a new recession.  Most frustratingly, by saying it that way, it means they'll likely be right.

Here's what I think is happening here:  The (Republicans/Democrats) have spent years saying that it's very important to have (low taxes/government programs).  God forbid those other guys will get in power and (raise taxes through the roof/slash spending to the bone) - that would cripple the economy.  Of course, it's true that in order to give the public (low taxes/government programs) it'll require (less spending/high taxes).  But don't worry, that's not a problem; in fact, it may even be a good thing, since (rich people have money to burn/poor people have become dependent).

If either party had total control, they'd do something that a lot of people wouldn't like, but they'd be assuring us that it's not that bad.  But now we have a situation where the terrible thing that each party dreads is going to happen, but without the reassurance of the other.  For instance, Republicans have long said that the welfare state should be reduced.  Well now it is being reduced, but rather than tell us what a good thing that is, they're distracted by the prospect of higher taxes.  Likewise, many Democrats have suggested letting the Bush tax cuts expire.  Well, they're about to, but they can't celebrate, because many unemployed people are about to lose their benefits.  If only both parties would see the glass as half full.

Whatever your political affiliation, you have to realize that some big changes to the American budget are needed, at least assuming your mathematical affiliation is with reality.  Great news!  Those changes are about to happen.  Once the public's expectations have been readjusted, we can refine things to popular tastes later.  But for now, forcing a big shift in perspective could do us a lot of good.

Smartphoning It In

I was going to write a post here, but there seems to be an embargo against producing any new content in a communication medium this time of year.  One is only allowed to produce retrospectives and best-of lists.  What am I supposed to do, my ten most obscure post titles?

Well, they do have some stats here at blogger let's see what we can do.  Here are my most popular posts of the year (and thus all time):

1. Keep Calm and Something Ironic
2. Prodigious Firestarters
3. I Think You Can Read 'Bout Dyson
4. Katy Perry doesn't get Demographics
5. Beeb Fever
6. Olympic Butthole Surfers
7. How Not to Look Foolish on the Internet
8. Jason Lets Slip His Quaint Media Experience
9. Cracking the Maclean's Code
10. Hockey Night in the Eastern Bloc

Pa-Rum-Pum-Pum-Pu-u-u-u-um

I used to feel sorry for Justin Bieber.  Sure, I hate commercialized pop driven by tween girls' hormones as much as anyone, but he doesn't deserve the level of vitriol he's received. 

At least that's what I thought until I heard his version of "Little Drummer Boy" during today's basketball games.  Look, Bieb, inserting extra notes to show off your vocal abilities Mariah-Carey-style is merely annoying, but that's if you can actually hit all those extra notes.  Pointlessly meandering notes in a really artificial auto-tuned voice is neither entertaining nor impressive.

I have new respect for David Bowie and Bing Crosby.

DJ X-Mass

Supposedly the Saturday before Christmas is the busiest shopping day of the year, even busier than Black Friday in the U.S.  Fortunately - and uncharacteristically - I finished early and was able to avoid it all together.  But there's one thing you can't avoid unless you complete your shopping a month-and-a-half early: Christmas music.  Of course it's not just in stores, it's also on much of the radio dial and many TV commercials too.  For the Christmas overloaded like me, the non-stop music is the hardest thing to take.  I realize I can't stop it, so here are some tips on how we can make the Christmas tunes a little less annoying:

Go Easy on the PC Winter Carols

A lot of songs we associate with Christmas actually never mention it:

• Winter Wonderland 
• Marshmallow world
• Jingle Bells
• Sleigh Ride

So these songs are a safe solution at PC civic events and in stores holding hopes of sucking religious minorities into the buying frenzy.  But like most attempts to genericize Christmas, it annoys many while fooling no one.

Look Deeper into Back-Catalogues

Just about any well-known artist has recorded a Christmas song at some point in their career, even if they haven't gone the full Christmas cash cow- I mean, "album".  For instance, last year a number of radio stations seemed to remember U2's "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)"  So it's worth a look.

Try Tangentially Christmassy Songs

The Pogues' "Fairytale of New York" is not technically about Christmas, but it does mention it.  All the music from the Peanuts Christmas special is just instrumental, but it's become associated with the holiday.  And if you're filling a month of songs, you're going to have to consider that close enough.

Never Play "Simply Having a Wonderful Christmas Time"

It's modern, light, and by one of the most beloved musicians in the world, so it seems like a marketing dream.  Too bad it's such an annoying song.  I don't like to exaggerate, but this song may just cancel-out Paul McCartney's positive contributions to music.

Never Play "Santa Baby"

That's such a creepy song.  For one thing, it's sexualizing Santa, a concept I felt dirty just typing.  If you think about it, that song is exactly the thing "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus" is making fun of.  We don't need to hear about how much mommy wants to kiss Santa Claus.  The fact that the song has such a dated feel only accentuates the feel of listening to your mother's love song.

Might I Have Some Time Alone

Today, many a media personality has been pointing out - with varying levels of deadpan irony - that we are still here.  That small subset of Mayans who believed the world would end today were wrong.  What a surprise. 

This non-story about a story that we knew would not be a story might have you lamenting all the time wasted on this issue.  But think of this: we're about to start 2013.  Yes, a year with a famously unlucky number in it and I haven't heard a thing about it.  The whole world's superstitious population has been successfully distracted by the end-of-the-world fear.

But what caught my attention today was the stories about the descendants of the ancient Mayans celebrating.  Even though most Mayans didn't really expect an apocalypse, it was still the end of one of the cycles of their calendar; I suppose that's the equivalent of the turn of the millennium.  To them it was a great moment of reflection and rebirth.  It might have been nice if the rest of us could have participated in that celebration, but no, we advanced nations were too focused a prophecy of disaster that hardly anyone ever believed.

That's Great It Starts With An Earthquake

Like most people, tonight I'm busy building a shrine to the Mayan god Q'uq'umatz.  So here's an end-of-the-world essay I published on Facebook three years ago:

I'm a pessimist, so I'm not really shocked by all the problems of the world. And yet there's something not-quite-right about what's going on now. I finally decided that it's not that the world's going down the toilet that's worrying me, it's just that I didn't think it would play out anything like this.

Swine Flu

Disease is really not how I pictured civilization ending. A disease generated amongst livestock as part of intensive farming techniques? That's just not homo sapiens style. Nuclear war, ill-advised genetic manipulation, maybe even pissing off a powerful alien species — that's the sort of thing I was expecting. Placing the products of wisdom in the hands of the foolish or emotional: that's the humanity I know. But dying of disease was more fitting for the Martians in War of the Worlds — not us. On the other hand, we're about to face millions of deaths and we're more concerned that calling it "swine flu" will hurt pig farmers; that is an appropriately silly touch.

But it still doesn't seem right. As a committed cynic, I always pictured that — however we manage to screw ourselves — I'd be able to bitterly turn to the person next to me and say, "told you so." As it stands, a Muslim or Jew will say that to me.

Pigs: okay, maybe they deserve it. Did you know that after primates, marine mammals, and elephants, pigs are the next most intelligent animals? So the fact that we eat them in such numbers violates even our usual flimsy division between pets and food. And sure, we forced them to live unnaturally in their own filth, then made them the paragon of uncleanliness because they live in their own filth, so there's plenty of poetic justice here. But I still would have bet on killer bees or tsetse flies.

The Environment

As a child looking into the future, it always seemed like the only way we'd avoid environmental disaster would be to gain a new awareness of our place in the world and our responsibility for the ecosystem and our effect on it. That awareness seems to be an all-or-nothing proposition: you either notice and do something, or ignore it and go on as you always have. So I figured we would either achieve a hippyish love of the earth, or run the planet into the ground. As it happens though, we've found ourselves in a kind of in-between-state of awareness of the problem and paralysis of action.

What kind of a state is that? We're a race that's usually caught in either desperate action or defiant ignorance. Easter Island is often held up as a microcosm of our environmental predicament: they died out after destroying all the forests on the island. They didn't just destroy some of the forest, stop and say, "oops," then fade away in a slow decay. No, they died like humans are supposed to — stubbornly cutting down every last tree. But look at what we're doing now: we kind of realize we have to change, but we're hemming and hawing trying to come up with a plan to change. It's so...Canadian!

2012

If you haven't yet heard, the story here is that the Mayans had a calendar that that ends in 2012, which has led everyone with a new-age bone in their body to be convinced that the world will end in 2012. Specifically, a few days before Christmas — man those Mayans were jerks; I'm glad they disappeared. That of course brings up the next obvious point: the Mayans don't generally have a good record when it comes to seeing disaster coming.

Is this the best we can do for an omen of doom? No explanation of why the world would end. No cryptic description of how it will happen, no signs we can argue over. Just a date. There's nothing to this end-of-the-world prediction except the end itself. It's the Final Destination of apocalypses.

Back in university, I tried to convince people that the world would end on September 29, 1997, but at least I had misinterpreted bible verses to back it up. Even Y2K had a story behind it, albeit a silly and poorly understood one. This is just the Mayan calendar stopping without explanation.

Now the fact is that I'm something of an expert on the Mayan Long Count Calendar. Of course, I'm using the modern definition of “expert,” meaning that I didn't only read the Wikipedia entry, I read a couple of other web pages too. It turns out that the Mayan calendar doesn't really end in 2012 — that's just the date when this creation exceeds the age of previous, imperfect creations. Even the Mayans themselves didn't believe that would mean the end of the world. That's a pretty flimsy justification even for a Hollywood blockbuster, never mind for people actually getting worried.

Truth and Reason

I don't want to get too wrapped up in the American health care debate. Let's just agree that there are a lot of good arguments for each side. But, well, that's kind of the problem: no one is actually using those arguments, they're just yelling at each other. As if that's not enough, most of what they're yelling isn't even true. Again, this isn't how I imagined it.

I guess 1984 and Brave New World ushered us towards a view of a future that was dystopian, but was at least an organized dystopia. The citizenry would be held in check by a system of lies, but at least they were well-written lies told by professionals. I never expected that disinformation would be coming in the form of a chain e-mail from Aunt Jean who hasn't read a newspaper in thirty years. At least it fits the human pattern: smart people develop something (here, the Internet) then it gets mishandled by everyone else.

Add to that another problem: for a while now, there's been an over-analysis of politicians' everyday decisions. Everything from the President's choice of beer to his jeans has been criticized. So it's now official, we're living in 1984 in reverse, with the Proles spying on and lying to Big Brother.

Finance

Whenever unusual things happen in the financial world, I like to try to understand it by going back to basic principles and looking at the big picture. Economics is really just a system for allocating resources. So I try putting aside the common terms and abstract ideas, and explaining it like I'm trying to explain it to someone from another planet. For instance, when the price of oil goes up, it's just the system telling us that more people are using a fixed resource, so we're going to have to try to be more frugal with it.

In the case of the housing collapse, it all comes down to the system mistakenly devoting far too much of our resources to building houses in the US. In a way, that's not surprising: as an apartment dweller, I've noticed that people always go a little crazy when they buy a house. Well apparently our whole society went a little bit crazy. The last thing I need is another reason to hate suburbia, but now I can see that it's not only destroyed our environment and our culture, but our economy too.

One of the strangest parts of the financial crisis is that it originated in the US, but they aren't even the hardest hit. Who has been hurt worse? Eastern Europe and India. It hardly seems fair that Americans go nuts trying to buy houses, and the people who suffer the most can't afford houses. I guess the British were hurt too, but if you've ever watched the British house-buying programs on HGTV, then you have to agree there's some kind of real estate karma there. But then there's Iceland; their economy was devastated and their currency devalued. They ended up so poor they couldn't even afford to keep their McDonald's outlets open. That's like being officially demoted out of the First World.

The one group that might benefit are the Chinese. Their economy hicupped when the Americans stopped buying, but now they're moving again, with the Americans recovered enough that they can afford the cheap crap the Chinese make, even if they're still too nervous to buy the expensive stuff Americans or the Japanese make. And now the Chinese — just when it seemed their world domination couldn't get any more inevitable — will end up as America's largest creditor.

And as an aside, let me say this: The Chinese make terrible global villains. No crazy ideology they insist on spreading, no vendetta against anyone, not even a wacky leader. Just people who want to be middle class, and a government that has no aspiration beyond staying in power. Again, so Canadian.

Perhaps more than anything, I hate how this financial crisis has turned everyone's ideologies around. Harper is running up a deficit, the Chinese government is actually acting socialist, the Americans are nationalizing companies. I don't even know who to root for anymore.

If Everyone Else Had A Hammer

There are many things I don't understand about apartment living.  Today I'm wondering: what is with the hammering?  I find I often hear someone hammering something into the wall.  It doesn't go on all the time, you understand.  But I've had to hammer something into the walls maybe once a year, that doesn't nearly account for how often I hear people pounding the walls.

At least I'm assuming it's hammering.  I know, you're thinking that it could be, um, another activity that may cause furniture (among other things) to bang into walls.  I've thought of that, and given that I don't hear any of the associated noises, I'm assuming that's not it either.  So what could it be?  Do other people have way more art hanging on their walls than I do?  Does someone enjoy a carpentry hobby in their one or two bedroom apartment?

One Revelation Per Post

For several years now, I've been following the story of One Laptop Per Child.  It's an effort to develop a cheap and durable laptop that can be distributed to children in developing countries.  It's interesting to me because it combines global altruism with technology.  It also came from Nicholas Negroponte, director of MIT's Media Lab, which is my favourite unfocussed academic institution.

So you can imagine how surprised I was to see this ad for OLPC Canada:



Really?  Gene Simmons?  I guess he might have similar interests to mine.  And it's good to see that he's lending his celebrity to a cause.  I've never seen Bono do a One Laptop Per Child ad.

But then it hit me.  I'm caught up on which celebrity is unexpectedly promoting a charity, and totally missed the real shock: native Canadian kids have to resort to a product designed to help kids in the Third World.

What We Have Here Is A Failure To Communicate

Saturday evening when I attempted to brush my teeth after dinner, I found that the water was out.  That's not unusual in my building: though it's not old, there seems to be inordinate plumbing troubles, and the water gets shut off for repairs every few weeks.  But that's planned for during a weekday; I've never experienced it going off without warning during a weekend or an evening.

So I start wondering: is this something with my apartment?  My floor?  The building?  I figure this is a job for the super.  I could have phoned her, but I've never bothered getting the number, so I head down to the ground floor. 

After travelling a few floors down in the awkward silence of a crowded elevator, I decide to ask, "So, anyone have water problems?"  Yep, that's why all of them are going down.  Also awkward: the super was at the building's potluck that I had neglected to attend. 

When I found her in the crowded lounge, my elevator posse and I didn't even have to explain why we were there.  The super had already answered inquiries from many others and immediately gave us the same spiel: the whole building's water was out, and several nearby buildings as well, and the city was probably working on it but she couldn't get through to them to find out what was happening.

So I went back to my apartment to cross my legs and wait it out.  I also checked the city utilities web page to see if they had any info, but it was just your basic page of unchanging general information.  So I was still in the dark.

Which brings up something I find weird about our world: that there are still so many areas where we completely fail to get information out.  The building's only way of communicating with tenants is notes on the elevator wall.  That's fine for advertising, say, potlucks.  But the only way we can get immediate info is in person or on the phone from the super, wasting her time either way.

As for the city, they just use their web page to offer rental water-heaters, when a quick note about current system status could alleviate our worries.  And if a water emergency had led to a boil-water advisory, we probably would find out about it unless we see in on the local TV or radio station (in which case, I'm a gonner.)

What's frustrating is that it wouldn't be too hard to fix all this.  I'm not asking for any new technology or massive new expenditures.  A few years ago it would have been expensive/time-consuming for a building to have its own web page.  But now any idiot can have his own blog. (Pause for your jokes.)  And it wouldn't be too hard for a city utility to tweet changes in the system's status.

And just so you know, the water wasn't out for much more than an hour.  I take responsibility for fixing it: It was just as I got my coat and shoes on to go brave the pre-Christmas malls that I heard the water re-entering the building's pipes.

Thank You For Such A Useless Gift

Oral-B is running a strange ad right now for their electric toothbrushes.  Of course, their ads have been odd for a while, what with their idea of using teams of dancers running around the Bonneville Salt Flats interpreting the life of a toothbrush bristle.  And it gets even more disturbing at the end of the commercial, where they show a close-up of one of the dancers running her tongue over her apparently immaculate teeth, enjoying the taste of clean teeth far more than anyone should.

But what's extra strange about this ad is the final line from the narrator: "You can find the perfect holiday gift at a store near you."  I always want to respond to that by saying, "That's nice, but where can I find one of your electric toothbrushes?  I'd like to buy one if only to thank you for your lovely if cryptic advice that I can find the perfect gift at a store near me."

It's one of the unfortunate sides of modern Christmas, this annual attempt to convince us to give mundane products as gifts.  Really, it's to be expected:  Whatever else Christmas is, it's now a huge boon for business, so every company wants to get in on it, not just the toy companies.  It's great for the economy: you can bet central bankers the world over wish they could make everyone feel obligated go out and buy extra stuff.  But it's a bit of a downer if we just buy the same stuff we normally do, but more of it.  Buy a family member an electric toothbrush in June and it's just a purchase.  Do it in December and it's a gift.

It would be great if Christmas was not just an artificial boost for our collective finances, but an artificial boost for our psychology too.  So I encourage everyone: resist the urgings to do your gift shopping at the grocery store.  Restrict your Christmas purchases to completely useless things you would never normally buy.  Let's keep Christmas impractical!

Things I Should Like #2

I Should Like
Futurama

Why should I like it?
A fish-out-of-water sci-fi comedy, it's basically The Simpsons meets The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, a combination of my two favourite humour franchises of the twentieth century.

Why don't I like it?
It's really just too goofy. While the Simpsons and the Hitchhiker's Guide usually had a societal commentary just beneath their surreal surfaces, Futurama always comes across as just a bunch of silliness. There's nothing wrong with that (hello, Family Guy) but it's just not what you would expect given its pedigree and following. And although I know it is a favourite of the geek community, it always seems like it's more broadly focussed. It's less a clever spoof of sci-fi than a broad spoof of what normal people think sci-fi consists of.

And then there's Fry. I've never really liked the dumb-protagonist kind of comedy, but it particularly doesn't work when you have a silly guy in a silly world; Fry seems more at home in the future than he does in his home time. But speaking of silliness, it's always interesting how many characters in the Simpsons aren't that funny (quick, think of a funny line from Marge.) That show seems to understand the value of The Straight Man. In Futurama, all the characters act as clowns, with no one to bounce off of.

Arrhythmic Nation 1812

Great, 2012 is almost over and I still haven't said anything about the War Of 1812 Bicentenary.  Yes, I know, the war lasted into 1815, so I still have plenty of time to talk about it.  But I'm sure the anniversary hype won't last that long, so here goes...

It reminds me of the 500th anniversary of Columbus's voyage to the Americas.  Remember how awkward that was?  This anniversary isn't nearly as bad - we don't have to dance around any genocides this time.  But there's still plenty of pretence nonetheless.

First of all, there's the strange way both Americans and Canadians think they won, because each think they were provoked by the other, and thus won because they successfully defended themselves.  In a lot of the world, that sort of disagreement would lead to hurt feelings at best, another war at worst.  But not here, because of the next weirdness: we're each trying to draw esteem from a war we fought against a country that's now our close friend.  I mean, if we looked back on the war with regret or as an event we'd outgrown, that would be understandable.  Lots of countries have eras they've come to regret.  But we still look back on 1812 as a meaningful achievement, not the unnecessarily triggered and incompetently fought incident it was. 

The Canadian government has been running TV commercials publicising the anniversary, and glorifying it as a defining moment of Canadian history.  If the Americans saw these ads, I'm sure they'd be so angry they'd quit arguing with each other and find something Canadian to boycott.  Say, Blackberrys.  Well, something they aren't already boycotting.  The point is, they might actually have justification for being angry.  As we seem to be doing more often, Canadians  are taking a self-important attitude we'd find infuriating coming from Americans.  And I'm sure Native Canadians loved that friendly nod between Sir Isaac Brock and Tecumseh implying such a wonderful sense of togetherness.

One ad carried the implication that the war was "to keep us free."  Let's think about this: at the time, Canada was a colony in an empire that was still (at least partly) ruled by an unelected monarch.  And that's before you even get to the fact that the elected officials in Canada in the early 1800's were horribly corrupt.  But the country we got invaded by was democratic.  We were hardly fighting to keep free.

And this is a big problem with Canada's attempts to build a national story: our antagonism with the Americans wasn't due to any desire to be free, or anything associated with today's Canadian values.  It was blind loyalty to an archaic institution that was already outdated.  It may be true that most Canadians are in favour of the monarchy today, but that's the symbolic museum-monarchy we currently have.  The idea of siding with an unelected leader against a democratic government is a decision hardly any modern Canadians would choose.  Yes, in retrospect most of us (myself included) are glad we're independent.  But that was really just a lucky accident; eventually we're going to have to come to terms with the fact that our predecessors didn't defend the country so they could achieve universal health care and tolerance to immigrants.

My Latest Beans On Toast

I know I've complained about payday loan companies already, but I have something else to complain about.  It's not my fault: they just keep making stupid commercials.  It's not like the old days where their ads' biggest crimes were trying to find slangy ways to make their rates sound less scary, as in the classic MoneyMart line, "It's like three bucks on a hun'." (tip of the hat to my one time collaborator Ralph Leibniz)

But now in addition to the companies I complained about earlier, there's a new entry to the market trying to get their name out there: Wonga.  Apparently, this is a British company and they've decided to make their Britishness a key part of the brand.  Okay, I guess people think of Britain as stable and reliable so that makes sense.  Well, it makes sense if you haven't watched the news in five years.  And how are they showing their Britishness?  By having a bunch of old ladies (in puppet form) as their commercial spokespeople.

Believe it or not, I - a person of English background - can live with that.  You want to think of the entire nation as elderly, fine.  I guess they won all those Olympic medals this summer for nothing.  I can even deal with the ad looking like a pale imitation of the classic Spitting Image.

But what really ticks me off about those ads is the fake British slang.  It's obviously a North American's idea of how the British actually talk, written by somebody who hasn't noticed that true British slang is usually unintelligible to others. "He's hotter than a teapot?"  People don't actually say that.  Try "cor, he's well 'ard."  At the very least, you could learn the rules of cockney rhyming slang and make something up: "He's hot" becomes, say, "He's Pol Pot."

And the other ad has her saying music makes her "want to crumpet?"  That's even worse, since "crumpet" is actual slang, and doesn't mean what they seem to think it means.  I'll leave you to look it up at urban dictionary if you really want to know what, but it's not your typical ad language.

1% Inspiration

You may have seen the news this week that a company called Golden Spike will be offering trips to the moon for $1.5 billion.  First of all, I'll believe that when I see it.  Though it may seem like an astronomical amount of money (pun not intended) that's no where near enough money to go to the moon.  Presumably they're counting on a lot of people taking them up on the offer, and pooling the money into one big effort.  I know, it sounds to be talking about economies of scale for a product with a cost in the billions, but it could happen in today's world.  What I question is: are there really enough billionaires in the world that would part with a significant portion of their fortune for a one-off trip to the moon?  Yes, the Russians have already carried paying customers into space; but that was for the relative pittance of $20 million.  Most of those tourist astronauts couldn't afford this moon trip.  But I do find this concept reassuring in one way: rich people could finally start spending money on impressive stuff, not just any old expensive thing. 

Income disparity is a big concern these days.  I'm not happy to see the income gap myself, but I do concede that it has one possible positive:  New technologies and ideas - too expensive to enter mass-production - can be offered in smaller numbers at a higher price to the rich.  We've already seen how lots of electronics can enter at the top of the market, gain customers and investors, then spread through all of society.  To put it another way, I don't have much confidence in money trickling down, but technology often does.

Trouble is, a lot of what rich people buy is expensive but not really innovative.   Look at an area I know: cars.  The famously most expensive car in the world is the Bugatti Veyron.  With a 250+mph top speed, it's certainly an impressive car.  But technologically, it isn't much more advanced than your average compact.  Yes, it has a thousand horsepower, but that's not because the engine is "better" than any other car, there's just more of it (16 cylinders and 8.0 litres to be exact; essentially the size of four compact car engines.)  You could think of it as the car equivalent of a mansion: the large house isn't better at being a house than a suburban bungalow, there's just more of it.  I don't know that much about the world of expensive products - I've been in the dark since Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous went off the air - but it seems this patter repeats itself in many areas: expensive things are big or rare, but not unprecedented and original.

Hopefully the super-rich will decide that putting millions of miles on the private jet is less impressive than one round-trip to the moon.  I'd even let them keep the Bush tax cuts then.

Step Aside, Grinch

I - like many people these days - am getting sick of the hoopla around Christmas.  It's nothing about Christmas itself: it's the inescapability of it.  I've voluntarily looked at Christmas related products in stores, and participated in Christmas activities.  Yet I go a little crazy when every public place is playing non-stop holiday songs starting a month before the big day.  Worse, the start of the Christmas season is getting earlier and earlier every year, threatening to overwhelm Halloween.

But today, I saw a way we can combat it.  Ironically, it was among the seasonal display in Walmart.  There, in between the figurines from the 60's Rudolf TV special and the Kiss tree ornaments, was the thing that will stop Christmas from taking over the whole calendar. 

It was a shelf of Teddy Bears, finely outfitted in either a party dress or a vaguely Heffnerian robe, all with "2013" on the heel.  Yes, they were New Years decorations.  With more than two weeks to go before Christmas, Walmart already has the New Years decorations out.  And this is how we can win: by doing to Christmas what Christmas has done to everything else in the bottom quarter of the calendar.  So I'm calling on all natural allies of New Years Eve/Day to support them on this:  young people, football fans, partiers, drunks.  Buy any New Years favours you can find, and buy them now.  Convince retailers to get the Christmas stuff moving out as soon as possible.  After this attack from the rear, Christmas will still be an ubiquitous cultural force, but only for two weeks in early November.

The Truth About Cats And Dogs

I've never been a cat person or a dog person.  It seems like most people are one or the other, but I'm neither.  It comes down to their personalities.  Dogs are in-your-face, cats are cold and remote.  So most people find something in one or the other.  Me, I don't like people with those personalities, so I'm definitely not going to buy animals like that.

What's annoying about this is that we created dogs and cats.  Yes, we the humans domesticated dogs and cats out of wolves and wildcats.  So why couldn't we make them a little more pleasant to be around.  Or more importantly, with all the dog breeds and their huge variation, why have they concentrated so much on appearance, while the behaviour is limited to vague claims of "loyalty."  Couldn't they have bred at least one for politeness, or respect for personal space.  You would think that they would have thought of that before they thought of dachshunds.

Two different pet personalities is clearly not enough for all of humanity.  So let's domesticate a new animal.  Do what we did before: take a carnivorous mammal and breed it into a cuddly companion.  I'm sure Jared Diamond will have some explanation why this can't be done, but hey: this is humanity dealing with nature.  Why start limiting ourselves to what's "possible?"

I think we should start with bears.  They always seemed relatively laid-back for giant meat-eaters, and everyone loves teddy bears.  So let's start the selective breading now, and in a few millennia, our descendants will be able to have a cuddly little pet that's friendly but not too pushy.

Get Behind Me Santa

I've never really understood the obsession we have with believing in Santa.  Personally, I don't really remember a time when I believed in Santa, though I'm sure at some point I did.  No, my parents didn't spoil the idea for me.  But on the other hand, they didn't exactly work hard to keep up the ruse.  Once I became conscious of the planet's size, they didn't try to convince me of the existence of sleighs with warp drive or million-strong teams of elf assistants.

And that's the thing I don't understand.  There are lots of instances were we make up something to defend kids from the complexities or evils of the world.  It's the insistence that kids maintain that belief even though they've long outgrown the need for them.  Maybe we're afraid of our kids growing up and Santa is a way of hanging on to their innocence.  But normally we celebrate the milestones of a child's maturity.  I know, compared to walking and talking, accuiring the brains to understand the aerodynamic limitations of reindeer doesn't seem like much.  But it is progress, and normally parents aren't exactly shy about trumpeting their child's accomplishments.

Some make the point that it's important to believe or imagine.  Believing in something is a big part of most religious beliefs.  Is Santa a sort of introduction to religion?  (No one mention this line of thinking to Richard Dawkins or we'll never hear the end of it.)  As for for the idea that Santa belief is important for imagination, I have to ask, is lack of imagination really that big a problem in our society?  Wait, before you answer, go take a look at the folks camping-out to be first on line for The Hobbit and then get back to me.

Neo Tokyo, We Have a Problem

I came across this article about how the Japanese space agency is creating a robot to assist the Japanese astronaut who will soon be going to the International Space Station.  But this isn't some utilitarian machine to do esoteric technical work.  No, it's a cute, human shaped robot whose primary task is to make conversation and keep the astronauts company.

That's what love about Japan: I don't think there's any other country on earth that is as gloriously, unapologetically reaffirming of its own stereotypes.  The Americans didn't put gun racks on the shuttle.  The Russians didn't put a little spacecraft inside a bigger one inside a bigger one.  And the Chinese spacecraft, to my knowledge, was both expensive and made of non-toxic materials. 

Here in Canada, our greatest contribution to space exploration has been the Canadarm.  I suppose that's a little stereotypical: it's practical, it's not flamboyant, in a pinch it can be used as a bottle opener.