Countdown To The Final, With Europe

The World Cup of Hockey is over.  Going into it, there was much talk about the two oddball teams, North America (Canadians and Americans under 23) and Europe (people from outside the countries that got their own teams, Sweden, Finland, Czech Republic and Russia.) The concepts weren't very popular when they were introduced a year-and-a-half ago. I was actually pretty surprised that the  NHL (organizers of the tourney) went through with it.

But the big surprise was how the fans really came around on the new teams.  The North America team was predictably fast and exciting, and fans couldn't help cheering for their enthusiasm.  There was much disappointment when they narrowly missed the knockout round. It was also a good showcase for the talented young players in the league, which was presumably the driving force behind the idea.  And the Europeans outperformed expectations, finishing as runners-up, and they probably offered the champion Canadians their biggest challenge. They took their underdog status and turned it into motivation as great as the national pride the other teams had.  The only downside was that they were hard for us in Canada to hate.  Even beating Finland in 2004 was more satisfying.

So what's going to happen in the future? Let me be the first to suggest: seven-game series, Canada vs. The rest of the world.  Also, let's have a Soccer World Cup team featuring the best from outside Europe, South America, and Africa.

The other change is that now, hockey fans will admit that they were too quick to reject a new idea, and will have new respect for the leadership of the NHL.  Ha, I had you going there for a moment.  Of course not, they'll just go back to hating everything. It's too bad, because the fandom's hatred for Commissioner Gary Bettman has really gotten out of hand. I don't really like Bettman either, but booing him at absolutely every public appearance is pretty childish.

And let's face it: it's not because of anything he's done, but who he is. I've always been amused by how people involved with hockey have unending trust in "good hockey guys." And that seems to be their answer for everything, we need to get some good hockey guys to handle it.  Gary Bettman is not a hockey guy.  Not literally - he cut his teeth in the NBA.  And he definitely doesn't seem like a Hockey Guy: he's short, American, intellectual, and a lifelong big-city dweller. He seems like exactly the person who destroys the sport in Don Cherry's nightmares.

Over Analyzes Popular Culture, Like A Boss

I just saw that the Anti Defamation League (fighters of anti-semitism) has listed Pepe the Frog as a hate symbol. Yes, he's just a generic meme cartoon, but he's become such a favourite of of hate groups that he made the list. It's just the most extreme example of something I've been watching for a while: the way that memes can go in so many directions and mean so many things.

As an example is where I'm coming from, I grew up in the eighties, when Garfield was everywhere. Yes, today you may know him simply as one of the last comic strips standing, but back then he was one of the most widely-licensed characters in pop-culture. Of course, being a licensed, trademarked property, all the products he appeared on built on the same concept: Garfield is lazy, pro-lasagna, anti-Monday. That attitude of blandness with a soupçon of rebellion clicked with many children and their parents, and the cat's image was slapped across all kinds of products. But none of it really challenged Garfield's basic personality.

Today, I think the closest property to that would be The Minions. I see them on products, and I see them on memes passed around Facebook. I mean harmless memes, not the hateful ones. Though, I don’t know, maybe they’re on the racist memes too, after all, you’d only have to cut and paste some graphics and you’ve got Minions campaigning for white power. Okay yellow power.  But even in the part of the Internet that I frequent, I've seen the Minions used for everything from Dad Jokes to 9/11 memorials.  My point is that they appeal to the sort of family demographic, but now it's the people themselves who are deciding how the characters are used, so sometimes they stray from what the creators and marketers originally intended.

But in the social media world, any idea can be attached to any image. It’s a lot like the Winnie The Pooh trying to quote Camus that I mentioned a few weeks ago. I’ve also seen Kermit drinking tea saying some really snotty things that even Miss Piggy would think is a little harsh. And Captain Picard has been supporting surprisingly anti-intellectual concepts.

Mostly it’s just kind of incongruous, or so silly it can’t be taken seriously. Though it sometimes bothers me how it misrepresents a work. Take Peanuts, for instance. It seems that people believe a couple of things about that strip:

• The Comic Sans font looks like Charles Schultz’ lettering
• Peanuts is a good medium for Christian messages.

I can’t explain the first point, but the second is not too surprising, since it was one of the few big media properties to make religion an unapologetic topic. But Peanuts was also distinctive in being one of the very few media properties to approach religion from a troubled, melancholy perspective. Instead of giving simple and easy religious solutions (<cough> - B.C. - <cough>) it assumed that there were Christians who could discuss the spiritual intellect, and if necessary, doubt. So it seems wrong to see Charlie Brown and Linus assuring everyone - in the wrong font - that you’ll have no troubles if you just accept Jesus.

Speaking of fonts, it's also weird that The Meme Font can represent so many things.  (Apparently it's just Impact with dark outlines.) Yes, I know, it's just a font. But it used to be that fonts sort of meant things.  Take Helvetica, for instance. You can print anything you want in it, as long as you pay the royalty to the trademark holders.  But for some reason, it gets used for generic things: packaging, instructions, signs giving directions.  The Meme Font, on the other hand, gets used for anything. It could be heartwarming, spiteful, clever. I've seen it used to spread both information and lies. It belongs to all of us and none of us.

Maybe sometime soon we'll see marketers crack down on the use of licensed characters in consumer-created graphics.  Or maybe they'll try to taylor their characters to be all things to all people.  Take the Smurfs, for instance.  They each had a different personality, so whoever you are and whatever Facebook meme you want to create, you can find the Smurf for you, even if you have to use White Power Smurf.  Okay, Blue Power.

Fill Ms. Fission And Charge Up The Flex Resistor

I want to assure you that I’m not going to talk about cars for a third straight post. This is about technology and media, and it’s only tangentially inspired by cars.

Earlier this week I wrote about the big rumour that Apple would buy McLaren. That was reported all over the net, but the Yahoo! article attracted attention for the wrong reasons. Their article referred - both in the headline and the article - to McLaren being vaulted to fame when their car was used as the time machine in Back To The Future. Of course, car fans, movie fans, children of the eighties, and pretty much everyone else, knows that was a Delorean. It’s hard to imagine that you could confuse the two: McLaren was only making race cars when the movie came out, but wouldn’t go into street cars until more than a decade later, by which time Delorean was long gone. Also, McLaren been pretty profitable, and haven’t yet had any cocaine scandals. Pretty much the only thing the two have in common is five of the letters in their names.

So it begs the question of how this could have happened. I mean, I think of myself as having a good memory, and I’m not getting paid to do this. Yet if there’s any chance that I’ve misremembered a fact, I look it up to confirm it. Why do I do this? Because it’s the Internet, and you can look up anything in five seconds. So it’s hard to imagine the mentality of someone who is evidently writing about topics they don’t know well, but doing it all from their flawed memory. In fact, the article somehow stayed up for at least another 24 hours with the incorrect reference (it’s down now.)

Of course, Yahoo! had something else on their mind for those 24 hours: news that they’d been hacked two years ago, exposing the information of the whole half-billion people with an account, and they didn’t even know about it until now. Many people asked how they could have made such a mistake, but I was thinking yeah, I can see that.

But let's not make it all about Yahoo!; Really, this is part of a bigger problem that the news media doesn't value knowledge. I'm not sure what exactly they do value, but it's clear that the people in front of cameras and keyboards don't know more than most people. It's also a good reminder of the work needed in Internet news. During the current election campaign, I've been increasingly believing that the current media establishment is doing more harm than good, and that I can't wait for new media to paradigm-shift it out of existence. Well, perhaps that new media isn't ready.

Three Hot Tips For Designing Cars!

My appologies for doing two straight articles on cars, but while researching yesterday's article, I came across news that Cosmopolitan has designed a car for women. And I can't let something like that go by without comment.

Not surprisingly, it's a big pile of stereotypes, emphasizing the car as a place for "gossip sessions" and noting that the headlights are "eyeliner shape." But this is a surprise for some, as Cosmo is currently trying to revitalize its image, becoming more than just the supplier of an apparently endless list of sex tips. I had no idea; I'd lost track of the cultural positioning of that magazine when my grocery store introduced self-checkouts. But whatever they're trying to do as a magazine, their car is just a pretty ordinary subcompact.  It comes in a bold shade of purple, which is unusual in our monochromatic auto market. The interior is pleasant, but hardly the height of style or practicality. It's not too different from a Fiat 500.

This is the hardly the first time anyone has tried making a car for women.  Automotive historians will remember the Dodge La Femme, a 1950's attempt to crack the female car market. Of course it was a monstrosity of male preconceptions, with flowery seats and a palette of colours directly from a tampon ad. So that was kind of a non-starter.  Since then, car companies have slowly realized they need female customers, but they've mostly responded through marketing, rather than making cars specifically for women.  Yes, seriously, for the last thirty years, car ads have been made by people who know they're supposed to be marketing to women.

In the early 2000's, Volvo took a stab at a woman's car, though only as a concept car. Being in a more enlightened time and a more enlightened country, they actually assembled a team of female engineers to design it. The YCC (Your Concept Car) was a modern-looking, seemingly pretty nice car. A lot of interesting ideas went into it, though I'm not convinced it's the perfect women's car. Their central thesis was that women demand more out of their cars than men, so the YCC was loaded with lots of features your average car doesn't have, from run-flat tires to a dirt-resistant body.

And that's why the project stuck in my mind: I had to ask whether that thesis is correct.  I don't really think it is.  I mean, I'm sure that women would appreciate a car with all those features, but then so would I.  The question is, would women be any more willing to pay for them.

As a thought experiment, there used to be a person in my apartment building who drove a BMW SUV.  Of course, that's a very nice, expensive car, but I was still surprised to see it in my parking garage.  Sure, I'd love to be able to afford such a vehicle, but if I could afford it, I'd move someplace nicer.  Apparently, this person had different spending priorities to me, since they bought a nice car rather than find nicer lodgings as I would have. So I'd invite you to think of the men and women you know, and think about the cars they drive and the places they live. This is totally unscientific, but in general, the women I know have more basic transportation and nice houses, while the men I know are more likely to have nicer cars, even if they have to stretch their finances. So I'm skeptical that women would want an expensive but feature-laden car.

And You Thought The iPhone 7 Was Expensive

You can see that "cars" and "technology" are two of the biggest tags on my blog, so I'll take ant chance to combine the two. And today I have a great opportunity to do that, with rumours that Apple is planning to buy McLaren, makers of race cars and high-end sports cars.  Later in the day, McLaren shot that down, saying there were no discussions between the two companies.  But they would say that, wouldn't they?

Mainstream business reporters are taking the rumours as further proof that Apple is planning to build a self-driving car. But people more closely following the issue are saying, huh? It had seemed that Apple was determined to go it alone and do everything themselves, however crazy that sounded. A few weeks ago they reorganized their automotive department, with big layoffs. That was taken as evidence that they were scaling-back their automotive ambitions. Partnering with an established car company would seem to be further evidence of this reduction of plans.

My new McLaren

But there's the further question: Why McLaren? After all, this is a company that makes a small number of very expensive cars, so it's hardly the ideal partner to start a technology revolution. The other potentially revolutionary news on the car front is that GM is closer to delivering the Chevy Bolt, an all-electric car. It's going to be competing against Tesla's upcoming Model 3, as the best attempts yet at building practical, reasonably-priced electric cars. So if Apple is serious about competing as an electric car maker, they'll have to compete against a huge company trying to convert to making electric cars, and a small electric car company ramping up to mass-produce cars. So a company that hand-builds cars out of carbon fibre isn't in the best position to compete.

This brings up an interesting point: Back before portable devices made them super cool, Apple was just a company that made computers, and a tiny percentage of computers at that. Whenever Apple execs were asked if they were worried about having such a small share of the market, they responded by drawing an analogy to the car market. They pointed out that Apple's share of the computer market was more than BMW and Mercedes' combined share of the car market. Those two car companies weren't worried about having such a small share, because they were positioned as the luxury manufacturers, and made more money on each unit, much as Apple did on its relatively expensive computers. (And much as it still does on its phones and tablets.) But even applying that analogy doesn't work here. Even if you assume that Apple now wants to take BMW and Mercedes' positions literally as well as figuratively, McLaren still doesn't have the size to do it.

There is another aspect to this that may explain it. As a really dedicated racing fan will know, all Formula One cars have electronics supplied by McLaren, regardless of the car's manufacturer. McLaren actually makes a wide variety of high tech things, so a purchase might not be all about cars. Or at least, not about the manufacture of cars. So I guess it's conceivable that this could make sense, in as much as Apple making a car makes sense.

Lies, Damned Lies, And Satire

Jimmy Fallon is taking a lot of flack for his interview with Donald Trump, in which he ruffled Trump's hair, asked him a bunch of softball questions, and generally made him look like a regular human being.  That might not seem fair, given that he hosts a talk show, and a fairly light-hearted one at that.  But at the same time, in our Post-Stewart world, the lines between satire and news reporting have been blurred, and we're used to the idea that humourists often say the things that reporters are afraid to.

But there's a bigger issue here, and that is that politicians and voters have blurred the lines between entertaining and campaigning.  As this American election keeps proving, most people vote based on feelings rather than anything logical.  An oft-used test is that people are looking for the candidate they'd most like to have a beer with.  When you look at it that way, you realize that even a relaxed talk show appearance is image construction. It's more important to the candidate as any hard-hitting interview with a journalist, because it has more of an impact on what the public cares about.  So really, even entertainers like Fallon have to consider the political impact of politicians on the show, since the candidates are considering the impact of the show on their campaign.

Another campaign media development got people talking, though this was in the more traditional news media.  It was a New York Times report on the now-infamous press conference in which Donald Trump relented on the Birther issue, but then tried to pin it all on Hilary Clinton and take credit for putting an end to the controversy.  As you hopefully know, Clinton has never had anything to do with the Birther concept, so that was a brazen lie, even by Trump's standards.

What was interesting in the Times' coverage was that they just came right out and said, in their coverage on the front page, that it was a lie. That's unusual, because the way journalism has operated recently is that the media reports what both sides say, without any implication as to who is right, except perhaps on the op-ed page or some other in-depth reporting deep within the paper. It was only a small thing, but it represented quite a philosophical shift, so this could be a big turning point for the paper, if not all of journalism.

And now let's put together those two topics of talk shows handling the election and the discarding of journalism's misguided attempt at neutrality. Often is seems as though late night hosts are having the same struggles as journalists: they're trying to be even-handed, joking about both sides equally.  For one thing, that's proving difficult.  For all her imperfections, Hilary Clinton isn't a goldmine of comedy, as David Letterman's interminable pantsuit jokes proved.

But the other problem is the same one journalists face, that it's hard to hit both sides when one is a whole lot crazier than the other. It's interesting to see how they handle it. The venerable Daily Show hasn't always handled it well.  Of course, they've gone after Trump far more often, but they tend to stick to the idea that this is just a weird election.  Compare that to their alumni Samantha Bee and John Oliver, who take an approach that's more like, "I can't believe this is happening, am I the last sane person in America?"

Not to speak ill of the dead, but I was really turned-off of The Nightly Show in its final months as they struggled to find a position on the election.  Their writers and cast were firmly in the Bernie Sanders camp, and it often seemed like they were working harder against Clinton than against Trump. And speaking of Daily Alumni, Stephen Colbert seems a bit undecided about how to approach this election.  At times he seems to be able to put together the clever critiques that made him famous, and you can really feel how he's feeling more comfortable with the material than he is trying to do light chatting with the band leader.  But at other times, Colbert tries to walk the line and appeal to everyone. He tries desperately to channel Jay Leno, but it just isn't him, nor is it what we need right now.

The big pleasant surprise has been Seth Meyers.  For one thing, it's surprising because he's at NBC, which is also the home of the aforementioned Fallon, and fellow Trump pawns, Saturday Night Live.
It's also surprising because I had thought he was a bit of a lightweight contender in this golden age of televised political satire. But he's often the most effective voice when it comes to calling Trump on his antics. That's in terms of both humour and in drawing out precisely what is wrong with that day's controversies.  It makes me sorry about the post last year when I accused him of nerd-self-hatred.

Not Apparent

So the Emmys happened this weekend.  As a Canadian geek, I mostly only cared that Tatiana Mislay won best actress for Orphan Black. But I also saw that Jeffrey Tambor won best actor in a Comedy for Transparent, for the second straight year. That's going to be a bit controversial, since that program, despite being about a trans woman, is not popular with all transgender people.

See, they're kind of ticked that their story is being told by a cismale actor and a cisfemale show runner, rather than hire actual transgender people.  That dislike of the program went into overdrive after Tambor's Emmy win, because he used his acceptance speech to call on Hollywood to hire more trans people.  On the one hand, good on him for calling for that, but on the other hand, he is taking one of those potential jobs, so it comes off as hypocritical.

So I can understand why people would be angry with the show.  But I've been bugged by the complete dismissal that I've seen in online discussion. That is, there's an attitude that because this show is not coming directly from transfolk themselves, that renders the show useless.  Or worse, it's condemned as worse than nothing, because it's seen as the mainstream assimilating a culture.

But I don't buy the idea that it's not doing anything positive.  The fact is that there is a positive effect of helping people get inured to a group of people who are different.  A lot of prejudice comes from fear and uncertainty, and as I've mentioned before, that lack of experience is going to be a problem for transgender people seeking acceptance.  Though Transparent may have problems for other reasons, getting cis people to see a trans character on a popular TV program will go a long way to making them less mysterious and thus less scary. That positive effect doesn't go away just because it's not the oppressed group themselves doing the storytelling.

Using My Religion

Last week I saw a woman in a grocery store who was talking on the phone while shopping. That's not unusual these days, of course. And she was wearing a hijab. That's also not unusual these days. But here's what's notable: She had her phone tucked into her hijab so she could talk hands-free, while pushing the cart with both hands.

Of course this is a time when public displays of Islam are controversial, what with Europe having a hissy-fit over the "burkini." Yes, in Canada it was a joke on Little Mosque on the Prairie, but in Europe it's apparently the last straw. So I'm wondering if the phone-hijab will lead to more or less acceptance.

Sure, people who are just looking for something to get angry about will combine their hate of cell phones with their Islamaphobia. But for other people, I think they'll see this as something that humanizes muslims. Yes, they have silly little practical problems just like everyone else, and occasionally come up with clever little ideas.

And this isn't unusual, apparently. I've found that there are a number of practical secrets of hijab wearers, other than the phone trick. They can be used to cover both items and fashion faux pas. For instance, you can cover both earbuds and their wire, and no one will know you're listening to music. And here's the kicker: they'll be the only people on earth who won't be losing Apple's new bluetooth earbuds.

I'd always wondered if hijabs had more practical applications. I've seen women wearing ball caps under them, and wondered if they couldn't combine them into one item. A hijab with a built-in bill, presumably with logos of your favourite team on them, that would probably sell. I can't find any evidence of such things, despite the existence of sports yarmulkes. So there's a revenue source for you, sports teams. Now, my idea of a combined hijab/bike helmet may not be physically possible, so I won't hold my breath. Though I am pleased that there are some oh-so-Canadian knitted toque hijabs.

Smallball

Last night, while I couldn't sleep, I discovered TSN was showing Futsal, the indoor form of soccer. For those of us of a certain age who remember indoor soccer in North America, no, this isn't the same thing. It's played on a something akin to a basketball court, with hard surface, small dimensions and no walls.

Why doesn't this happen more often? After all, TSN has five channels, they don't all have to show endless repeats of SportsCentre all night. I assume the Canadian rights to the Futsal World Cup  didn't cost much.  It was probably less than TSN pays the guy who keeps pressing the button to replay SportsCentre all night. Why not show unusual sports from elsewhere in the world: This particular game was Morocco vs. Azerbaijan, which adds to the sense that I've stepped into a parallel earth.

I have to say, it's a pretty entertaining sport. It's fast-moving, there's a lot of individual skill involved, and the tactics are easier to see than they are in regular soccer. I guess you can think of this as like Arena Football: a concentrated version of the big sport.  If you're willing to stretch the concept a little, there are several other sports that are "mini" versions of other sports:

• volleyball - beach volleyball
• tennis - table tennis
• speed skating - short track speed skating
• Rugby - Rugby Sevens

Looking at what they mostly have in common, it would seem that the general idea is:

• fewer players
• less space
• less time
• faster action and quicker reaction times
• common sense fixes that can't be made in the big sport because of tradition

I wonder if other sports could use a small version. Basketball is already a small indoor sport, so I don't think you could apply the formula there. Mini baseball? You'd have to create a way of preventing the ball from going far; perhaps use a badminton shuttlecock.

As for hockey, it could use a small version. A while back I saw an article about how the TV ratings for hockey in the US were not much better than those of Arena Football. That made me wonder: if you invented a smaller version of hockey, one more easily marketed to Americans, could it get bigger than hockey? If it was, you could pay more than NHL teams, and start drawing players away. And so that's been my fantasy that I go back to whenever the sport's dark side shows up: destroying not just the NHL, but the whole sport, and forcing Canada's beloved hockey heroes to play by my dorky rules for the benefit of Americans.

But putting aside my sports business revenge fantasies, I think you could make a fun alternate version of hockey on a basketball/futsal sized court (so presumably on rollerblades.) I'm thinking:

• three-on-three
• much shorter periods
• smaller rosters
• bigger nets

It'll be like watching the All-Star game all the time.  Fans of physical play won't like it, but it should be entertaining. Any crazy Canadian billionaires out there interested in bankrolling it?

My Tiff With TIFF

It's time for the Toronto International Film Festival, or TIFF. I kind of dread hearing about it. Sure,  I like movies, and I'm proud that we've got one of the world's biggest festivals here in Canada.  What I hate is how the Canadian media goes all star-struck and treats it like a big celebrity get together.

Yes,  there are a lot of celebrities in town, but the whole event is about movies, so that should be the focus of the reporting,  not whether you saw Leo on the red carpet.   And I realize that there are plenty of people out there who want to hear about celebrities, but we've created specialized outlets for those people.  They aren't watching the news I'm  watching, they're watching a bunch of celebrity-focused news programs I could try recounting the names of, but won't for fear of embarrassing myself.

So CBC News Network shouldn't be excitedly reporting celebrity sightings first and movie news second,  since the viewership has different priorities.  If got really cared about fame,  you shouldn't be working at the national broadcaster, you should have sold your soul and gone to work at CTV.

I'm Walkin' Here

I saw this graphic being passed around on Facebook:

I was wondering who actually said this, so I looked it up. Most graphics attribute it to author Albert Camus. Now first of all, I invite you to think over the implication of a Camus quote being associated with Winnie The Pooh. This is a guy whose most famous novel is about an unemotional man being tried for murder. I figured that somehow this graphic was put together by someone who didn't know the origin of the quote. Certainly it was by someone who didn't know the application of modern copyright laws. Winnie The Pooh is a Disney property, and you don't want to tangle with their lawyers.

But after you've come to terms with existentialist Pooh, then you can try to come to terms with this: I found many other graphics on the web that attribute the quote to Camus, but are just as cutesy.

Of course, all these graphics have one thing in common: they are graphics of quotes on the Internet, therefore they are inaccurate. I looked it up, and although it is cannot be proven diffinitively, he probably never said it.

Please people, if you're going to pass around inspirational images of Camus quotes, at least use something he actually said:

Cabbie Presents Baseball

I just read that drivers in Russia have bought thousands of baseball bats to protect themselves in disputes. And apparently a lot of taxi drivers in particular have them. (You can search Youtube for the videos of Russian cabbie fights if you so desire.) This is one of those stories that's weird on so many levels. For one thing, this won't help the taxi drivers to fight their biggest threat, unless they're headed to Silicon Valley to take some swings at the Uber servers. And no offence Russians, but I still prefer the approach of American Taxi Drivers.

But it also brings up a question I've always wondered about: who are these psychos who sell baseball bats in Europe? This isn't the first time; you'll often hear it after a riot or a clash between soccer hooligans that they had baseball bats. It's never cricket bats: I assume that would be undignified.

Doesn't it occur to anyone as a little suspicious that people are buying equipment for a sport that's not very popular? It's not like they're buying gloves and balls to go with them. Imagine if we suddenly sold ten-thousand Scottish shinty clubs. Wouldn't someone ask some questions?  Why not have some sort of test before you buy a bat in Europe.  Say, you have to explain the infield fly rule in under a minute, or no bat for you.

Will You Still Click Me, When I'm 64

I keep seeing clickbait ads that say something like, "You Won't Believe What The Cast of Major Dad Looks Like Now!" Sure, I will admit a little curiosity (probably not for Major Dad, but say, for a show or movie I actually watched.) But generally, it's easy to resist the urge to click, since I can guess the answer: they look twenty years older. In addition, since they're in the entertainment business, they started off better looking than most, and they probably have better than average knowledge of make-up and clothing, so they'll look significantly better than others the same age. But still, they'll just look good, but older.

I know this, because I have particular insight into how people's appearances change as they age. That is to say, I'm on Facebook. So I constantly have the experience of seeing what people look like after a couple of decades. It's a little intriguing, but in the end it's a pretty mundane part of life.

I suppose my generation is the first to see this as commonplace. It used to be that you either lost contact with people, or you stayed close enough to them that you weren't conscious of their aging, since you saw it one day at a time. Your only opportunity to get a real perspective on aging was at a reunion. But now I get a reminder of the aging process quite often. I have to say, I think my generation has actually aged fairly well. You'd think Generation-X would have developed more Worry Lines.

So I really don't want to see what such-and-such celebrity looks like now. I'm sure that years ago, this sort of clickbait would have made sense, If clickbait had existed back then. You're looking at the cover of the Entertainment section of the paper, and you see the page-turn-bait headline, "You Won't Believe What The Cast of My Mother The Car Looks Like Now!" You'd probably turn right to page C6.

Millennial

It's my thousandth post! So I'll take the opportunity to look back on what I've been writing about all this time.  Unleash the spreadsheets!

Sports, technology, politics.  Yes, that sounds like me.  But which sports?

Really, I wrote about cricket once? But it's not surprising that I spent so much time complaining about hockey.

Wow, Blackberry takes a beating here too.  But the others do seem to be in proportion to how much I use them.

TV ads are the real king of media. And comic strips made the list; that was when I still had a physical newspaper.

Again, why did I block about the fifties? And of course, the oughts still haven't become a real topic of nostalgia.

I guess that's about right for the last few years.

Didn't see that one coming.  Of course, mostly those posts were complaining about pop-culture.

See mom and dad, the degree came in handy after all.

Another big surprise, and those Baby Boomer posts weren't even all complaints.

Yikes! I've contributed to the centre-of-the-universe syndrome.  Of course, the Toronto posts were inflated by the Rob Ford Era.

Okay, there was a bit of bah-humbugishness in those Christmas posts.

Not surprising that the most popular countries were my own, the noisy neighbours, my family's origin, and then the places that are usually in the news.