1. They spent several months doing construction on my section of Yonge St., with the normally four-lane street reduced to two lanes during that time. The two-lane street was obviously less convenient for drivers, but it made jaywalking much easier. Now the street is back to four lanes, and jaywalking is still easy! I'd say a good 75% of the time there's a clear jaywalk opening within sight when I arrive at the curb, and 95% of the time I can find an opening before I hit a crosswalk. (Previously, I'd have to wait for an opening nearly every time.)
2. It seems they're selling Kindle in Canada but without a browser. I didn't know Kindle had a browser, but I would totally get one if it did! The main reason why I don't have an iphone or a blackberry is that I can't justify the price of a data plan. But apparently with Kindle there's no monthly data charges?? I am not in the market at all for an ebook reader in and of itself, but I'd totally pay $260 upfront for free web access on a device I can carry in my purse!
3. Speaking of books, I sometimes see people describe intellectual vacuity in others by saying they have no books in their house. I have very few books in my home, but I read constantly. It's just that I read from the library. My holds list is constantly maxed out, with an overflow list on my computer. But on my bookshelves there's nothing but my dictionary collection, a few stray university textbooks, Harry Potter, and whatever rereadable favourites I've found in the dollar bin at BMV. I wonder how many people actually buy everything they want to read? I'd go broke doing that.
4. I've heard a number of times of people sending their kids to private school so they won't get bullied. Why do they think there aren't bullies in private schools? Have they never met a rich kid? I have, and a representative proportion of them are bullies. I've also heard of people joining the military because they were bullied and didn't want to be bullied any more. Have they never seen a boot camp movie?
5. Sometimes you see in newspapers advice for parents whose kids are being bullied. (But there's never advice for the actual kid who's being bullied.) There's always something along the lines of "talk to your kid and help them make a plan". As though you and your kid together can make a plan to stop bullying. I don't know how to stop bullying! My parents didn't know how to stop bullying! (And if I did anything my parents advised me to, my bullies would say "Did your mommy tell you to do that?") Why do they think we could work out a viable plan? (Also, why do people have kids if they don't know what to do to stop a kid from being bullied?)
6. I had an order on Amazon set for Super Saver Shipping, to ship when everything is ready. Some of the items hadn't been released yet, so it was on hold for a bit. I decided to see how much it would cost to ship it as items became available, so I logged in, changed the shipping settings, saw the total cost was more than I cared to pay, and changed the settings back. In the time it took me to do that, one of the items changed to "ready to be shipped" status. I just checked the time stamps on the notification emails, and I had the settings changed for no more than two minutes. In this two minute window, they managed to ship me one of the items and charged me $2 for the privilege. But, on a positive note, I now have the new Eddie Izzard DVD in hand. (And therefore might be a bit quiet for a while.)
7. Conspiracy theory: employer medical plans are designed to keep you healthy while you're working, but avoid enabling you to live too too long once you're retired and collecting a pension. I have no basis for this except that isn't that what you'd do if you were a big evil corporation?
8. An informal tool we frequently use in translation is what we call a Google Vote. If you're trying to figure out which term is more commonly used or which phrase sounds more idiomatic, you google the possible choices and go with the one that has the most google hits. GoogleGoogleGoogleGoogle will simplify that immensely.
9. A baby otter playing with toys (via Malene Arpe):
10. The future feels longer and more full of potential now than it did when I was a kid. I look at how much I've learned in six years of doing translation, and I look ahead and see another 30-40 years of work ahead of me (or twice that if retirement ceases to exist) - the potential is mind-boggling! Or I look at the things I've been able to do since I started working on Entitlement, which are unremarkable in and of themselves, but if you multiply it by my remaining lifespan it's astounding!
2 comments:
Various responses, on:
1. I'm glad to hear you jaywalk.
2. You mean if you have Kindle with a browswer you can go to any site w/o a data plan? Really? Wow. I use a Blackberry w/ no data plan for the same reason as why you don't have one. This is very interesting.
3. Very good point. I grew up in a home with very few books and was a voracious, non-stop reader. Some people do buy every book they read, even some really big readers. They have more money than us!
4. Wow are they stupid!
5. "Also, why do people have kids if they don't know what to do to stop a kid from being bullied?"
This is the only time I've ever felt you were being a bit unfair to parents. Parents can't be expected to know everything in advance of parenting. They can still be good parents and want to learn the best approaches for their children's needs. No?
7. Do big evil corporations still have pension plans?
9. Melt.
10. Cool.
2. I've been googling around to try to prove myself wrong on the Kindle thing, and I haven't been able to. As far as I can tell, US users get to have the internet in their purse just as a sort of added-on extra.
5. I'm thinking that unless the parents were only children who were homeschooled, bullying should be well on the list of Things That Might Happen.
7. The people I know who work for big financial corporations have pension plans and full benefits etc. This isn't a huge number of people, but it's a significant percentage (maybe 20%) of the people I know who have pension plans.
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