Levelling up my Twitter achievements

Eric Idle retweeted me! Screenshot:

The original link can be found here, but it's not as obvious from a direct link to the tweet itself that Eric Idle retweeted it.

High waists and tucked-in shirts

This year I've seen quite a few young women, especially teenagers,wearing high-waisted pants with loose shirts tucked in.  This surprised me because the first fashion I ever became aware of was a move away from high waists and from tucking in shirts.  When I was a child I wore waistbands at my waist because they're called waistbands and tucked my shirt into my pants because I thought that's what people do, but as early as Grade 4 people would make fun of people for doing that, saying it made you look like an old man with hiked-up pants.

I was wondering what people wearing this look think they look like (for instance, I think my untucked shirt and lower waist elongates my torso), and I recently had an opportunity to ask when the topic came up in an online community.  To my utter shock, Kids Today seem to think it's a 90s retro look!

In my experience as a teenager in the 90s, while high waists and tucked in shirts did exist, they weren't a deliberate look that people wore for fashion purposes.  They were something that people wore because they weren't super fashionable or that's what they were used to or that's what they had in their closet or the dress code required tucking your shirt in.  Before shirts got narrow, we'd tuck just the very very hem of our baggy 80s-style t-shirts into our waistband and pull as much of it out as possible in an attempt to emulate the look of an untucked shirt.  (The only reason why we didn't just untuck completely was either because baggy 80s-style t-shirts sometimes completely concealed the fact that you're wearing shorts, making it look like you're walking around in just a t-shirt, or because the shirt simply didn't drape well and made you look disproportionately fat.  But since the 90s narrowing of shirts, a reasonable proportion of shirts - even looser styles - have draped well enough that they don't need tucking.)  And even before hiphuggers arrived in the mid-90s, we'd wear our jeans (tailored for the waist) as low as physically possible.  A waistband that rose above your belly button was considered a major faux pas!

Basically, if someone was wearing high-waisted jeans with a tucked-in shirt, they either failed at their fashion attempt or weren't trying at all.  It certainly wasn't an on-trend fashion statement!

Analogy: I'm walking around in the year 2014 in boot-cut jeans because I don't feel good in skinny jeans.  But that doesn't mean that boot-cut jeans are representative of 2014 fashion.  They're a deliberate opt-out of the current trend, a throwback to my high-school days that I retain because I feel that it's more flattering to my figure, and I'd never expect a teenager finding their way into fashion for the first time to wear them.  So if 20 years from now someone wore boot cut jeans in an attempt to be early-2010s retro, they'd be doin' in wrong.

This makes me wonder if any of my various attempts to be retro have so egregiously misfired.

Jockey underwear seems to fit differently depending on where it was made

I recently bought two packages of Jockey Elance French Cut panties, which is the closest I've been able to find to my late lamented old version of the Victoria's Secret cotton panties.

I threw them all in the wash before I wore them, then yesterday I took a pair out of the dryer, put them on, and was surprised to notice that the fit was different from the ones I already owned, so I originally planned for today's blog post to be about how Jockey had changed the fit of these panties and the pros and cons of this change.

Then, this morning, I took another of the new pairs out of the dryer, and was shocked to discover that it fit like the ones I already owned! 

I looked more carefully at the label, and I discovered that one was made in Costa Rica and one was made in Honduras.  Here are the differences, at least as they apply to my body:

- Made in Honduras is roomier than Made in Costa Rica
- Made in Costa Rica has tighter elastics than Made in Honduras
-  As a result, Made in Honduras seems to be less prone to panty lines than Made in Costa Rica.
- And, despite the less-tight elastics, Made in Honduras seems to stay in place better.  Neither version is a wedgie machine, but the combination of the fuller coverage and the different elastics seems to leave all the elastics right where I put them without any drift whatsoever.
- However, the roominess of Made in Honduras includes a higher rise, which makes it look frumpier if you're standing around in just your underwear. It kind of emphasizes that your stomach isn't perfectly flat and makes your bum look a bit saggy, similar to how high-waisted short shorts look particularly frumpy on some people compared to shorts with unremarkable waistlines and hemlines.
- The fabric of Made in Honduras is stretchier.
- However, the fabric of Made in Honduras also appears to my amateur eye to be flimsier.  I wouldn't be surprised if Made in Honduras develops holes long before Made in Costa Rica.

Overall, I prefer Made in Honduras as a functional and comfortable garment under clothes, and Made in Costa Rica when I care about what I look like when I'm sitting around in my underwear.

My next mission is to see if I can find Jockey Elance hiphuggers or bikini panties that were made in Honduras.  When I tried on these styles originally I found them unflatteringly low (I didn't notice where they were made when I tried them on), but if they were in fact the Costa Rica version and there's also a Honduras version floating around out there that's similarly roomier, a Honduras version of the hiphuggers or bikini might be just what I was looking for!

Update:  I have also found some Made in Bangladesh hiphuggers.  The rise is good and the shape is more flattering - what I expected the Made in Honduras hiphuggers might be - but the elastic is a bit tighter (not as tight as Made in Costa Rica though) so it's not free of panty lines.  Currently, the Made in Bangladesh hiphuggers are the best ones I have overall, but I'm glad I have the Made in Honduras French cut for days when I need a smoother look. I'm even more convinced now that Made in Honduras hiphuggers would be the holy grail.

Dementia brings back the monsters under the bed?

I've been reading Love and Forgetting: A husband and wife's journey through dementia by Julie Macfie Sobol & Ken Sobol, which tell the story of Ken Sobol's dementia (Lewy Body Disease) both in the first person and from his wife's (Julie's) perspective.

The following passage is a first-person description of the hallucinations he'd have.  As usual, any typos are my own:

Moving day was October 1, 2007. When I got up the first night at the new place to use the washroom, I was startled to find that the stacks of boxes, floor lamps and other scattered leftover from the move were providing material for new kinds of bizarre shapes. The forms were back again the next night. In fact, it got to so that virtually every evening I would find waiting for me outside the bedroom door a troupe of odd, inexplicable creatures doing their best to shake my grip on reality.

These were not like the alarming nighttime apparitions I'd seen in the hospital after the TURP procedure. the new ones came in two basic guises: animals of various sorts - mostly small, skittering creatures - and tall, thin types. Sometimes they ignored me. Sometimes, but only if I turned toward them and started, they became animated. Then, for example, the low rectangular radiator in the hallway might suddenly convert itself into a small sheep; a cluster of scarves on the coat hook might become a high fashion hat; an Inuit print could spring to live as a circle of wolves following me with their eyes. (A litho resembling such a wolf scene hangs on the wall of our home office.) Some of the more feminine figures, if that is the proper designation for them, carried what appeared to be small creatures in their arms.

At first, I freaked. No surprise there.But then I noticed that whenever I approached them, they would immediately rise and move off in a slow motion down the hallway, or simply disintegrate on the spot, before reforming into normal lamps, jackets and whatever other objects in the darkness had led me to imagine their existence.

On the nights that followed, some of the forms even entered our bedroom and then at times, I had to waken Julie to make sure they went away. (Not that she eve saw them, of course, but her voice was reassuring to me and commanding to the apparitions.) Ultimately, it seemed clear to me they meant no harm nor presented any real danger. All the same, when I later came across a reference book that called them "benign visions," I was relieved.

I rarely got a glimpse of the hall dwellers' faces; I wasn't even sure they had any. They never spoke, and except for one accidental instance, they always managed to fade away before I made physical contact. The incident where I touched one took place as I came out of the bathroom one evening and tripped on something (a shoe, I think,), losing my balance. As I thrust out my arm toward the wall to catch myself, so did a vaguely alpaca-like creature. We met and touched at a corner - Julie's terrycloth bathrobe and my shaggy Irish wool sweater hanging on the coat rack. The creature and I both sprang back in alarm. When I looked again it had disappeared, fading into the woodwork.

I didn't know what to make of this tactile experience; I still don't. But as time passed, I grew so accustomed to the apparitions that I began looking forward, albeit in a slightly uneasy way, to seeing what form they would take each night.

Then there were those other apparitions, the ones that could come at any time and that manifested themselves not as things I see, but as things watching me. They lurked just outside the corner of my eye; if I glanced their way, they also would run away, as if they didn't like being seen. (Of course, maybe they were just getting old and cranky, like the rest of us when we reach a certain age.) A few times I found myself addressing one of them, momentarily forgetting that I was asking for an opinion from a pile of clothing or perhaps quarreling with something as vague as a wisp or memory.

What struck me about this passage is the extent to which his apparitions resembled the monsters that haunted me when I was a very small child.

My monsters very rarely moved around, instead preferring to stand around menacingly.  I was never brave enough to engage with them so I don't know what would have happened. But his description of how everyday objects would turn into apparitions really reminds me of my childhood monsters.

In the past few years, with my grandmothers declining and various people around me having babies, I've been thinking that old age in some ways resembles a reversion to early childhood.  But it never occurred to me that that could apply to cognitive processes as well.

My farmer's market dilemma

There is a farmer's market in my neighbourhood.  I'm glad there is, because it's only a very recent development.  For most of the time I've lived here, we haven't had a farmer's market.

However, most of the booths aren't really farmers.  They're selling baguettes or macrons or local organic vegan lunch.  I prefer the few booths that are farmers - I want to be able to buy fresh produce from someone who can have an informed conversation about the quality of the produce and the realities of growing it.

The problem: the quality of produce available from the actual farmers at the farmer's market isn't as good as the quality of produce available from small neighbourhood stores like Summer's Best, or sometimes even the quality of produce available from the local Metro supermarket.

The asparagus at the market is wimpy and skinny, whereas Summer's Best and its peers have nice fat asparagus. The varieties of apples at the market are non-yummy, whereas the greengrocers and the supermarkets at least have McIntosh.  And the farmer's market is never cheaper, and is often more expensive.

I'm torn.  I want to support the farmer's market so there will continue to be a farmer's market right in my neighbourhood.  I want to support the farmers selling fresh produce so farmers will continue to sell fresh produce at a farmer's market right in my neighbourhood.  But I also want the better produce.  I want to buy the better produce in order to create demand for the better produce and incentivize produce sellers to sell the stuff that I like right in my neighbourhood. Plus, of course, I want to eat the yummiest possible food.

I do get that the farmer's market might need some time and TLC to take off, and I want to give it the opportunity it needs.  But where's the threshold?

Voted

An uncomfortably hot day - normal summer temperatures, but early enough in the summer that I'm not used to them yet -  but a quick and easy vote.  I actually got my voter card in the mail (a first for an Ontario election, even though I've already voted six times provincially (including 2 by-elections) over the course of 15 years, and three of those times were at this address.  There was no line, the polling station people were friendly and cheerful, and everything went as smoothly as humanly possible.

Except that dogs are avoiding me today.

As I've blogged about in previous elections, good election outcomes correlate with me petting a doggie on my way to vote.  So I took the most roundabout route justifiable to my polling station, with the goal of petting a doggie along the way.

Unfortunately, the dogs just weren't buying it!

I greeted every opportune dog with "Hi puppy!" and a face full of love and enthusiasm, which usually gets them to try to jump up on me.  But none of them seemed interested.  I commented "Oh, what a cute/gorgeous dog!" to promising-looking dog owners, but got a lower response rate than usual, and, even when the human responded, the dog was uninterested and didn't engage with me at all.

I don't get why dogs aren't interested in me today! Do I smell?  Do I not smell? Can they tell I have an ulterior motive?

Ultimately, I gave three dogs a single tap on the back (while admiring them in a socially-appropriate manner, with their humans encouraging the interaction), but they didn't consent to more.  I hope that's enough to count as petting a dog for election outcome purposes.

Things They Should Invent: list added sugar separately in nutritional information

There has been a lot of news coverage lately about the health risks of added sugar, but the general consensus seems to be that naturally-occurring sugars (like in fruit) don't present the same health risks.

Unfortunately, the nutritional information boxes on food packaging don't distinguish between these.  For example, the organic unsweetened applesauce in my fridge contains 12g of sugar per serving.  The supermarket ice cream in my freezer contains 13g of sugar per serving.  But I suspect the ice cream has far more of the added sugars we're supposed to avoid!

It's pretty glaringly obvious if you're comparing ice cream to applesauce, but what if it were a fruit smoothie?  Some of that sugar is going to be the naturally-occurring sugar contained in the fruit, and some of it is going to be the added sugar that we're supposed to avoid.

If they want people to take this seriously, they should list the added sugars separately from the naturally-occurring sugars in the nutritional information.

How I inadvertently embarrassed a couple of goths

The other day I saw a couple of goth kids.  They were very young (maybe 14) and clearly just beginners, but the look was definitely goth, which I haven't seen around in quite a while.

I have a certain affection for goth as a concept, which dates back to my transition from middle school to high school.

After doing time in a middle school where you'd get bullied for wearing jeans in the wrong shade of blue, I was delighted to discover that a wider range of fashion was perfectly acceptable in my high school.  People wore jeans and t-shirts, or skirts and heels, or flannel grunge, or funky thrift store outfits, or surgical scrubs (they were trendy for some reason), or baggy gangsta pants, or pink-mohawked punk, or earth-mother hippie skirts, or full-out goth.  There weren't distinct fashion-based cliques and quite often people would wear vastly different looks from one day to the next.

I liked the goth aesthetic (and it's well-suited to my long dark hair and pale skin), but I lacked the talent and discipline to go fully goth.  So I dabbled, incorporating bits and pieces here and there.  And I found the actual goths didn't mind that I was dabbling, and generally turned out to be kind and intellectual people, all of which was quite a relief after middle school!

Many of the teens I see around this season are wearing fashions that I rejected.  Things like leggings, tight jeans, pants tucked into boots, high waistlines, baggy shirts (sometimes even tucked into high waists) and tank tops with enormous armholes seem to be worn by a surprising proportion of teens, but for me they're all things that made me feel frumpy and gross.  I wore them because I didn't know better or didn't have a choice (wearing a narrow-fitting shirt isn't an option when all the shirts commercially available are baggy).

But, also around the time I started high school, fashions evolved.  Shirts became fitted and were worn untucked, waistlines dropped, and jeans became hip-hugging flares.  This is all far more flattering to my curvy long-legged short-waisted narrow-shouldered body, so around the time that social fashion policing went away in my corner of the world (allowing things like goth to exist), fashion also evolved in a way that allowed me to dress in a way that was flattering and attractive for the first time in my life.

The fashion cycle hasn't returned there yet, but seeing the goths reminded me that we're probably on our way back.  Seeing them, I felt a sense of nostalgia for a time and place where, for the first time in my life, fashion trends were available that I could use, subcultures were available that I could dabble in, and kindness and intelligence could be found in the most surprising places.

Unfortunately, this combination of affection and nostalgia manifested itself in my saying aloud, in the tone of voice one might use to herald the first crocuses of spring, "Awww, look! Goths!"

And they heard me.

Bad instructions (and dishwasher detergent)

I recently received a sample of dishwasher detergent, and I noticed a problem with the instructions.  A scan of the packaging is below (click to embiggen).  Can you spot the problem?

The answer: step 2 of the instructions is the run the dishwasher.  Step 3 is to check to make sure the items are dishwasher safe.

Shouldn't you check to make sure the items are dishwasher safe before you run the dishwasher??

***

I don't recommend the actual product either. The little detergent pack got stuck in my detergent dispenser and didn't dispense at all, meaning my dishes were still dirty after the cycle ended.  I had to pry it out with a spoon, which punctured the detergent pack and made detergent powder explode everywhere.  So I decided to run the dishwasher again, thinking maybe the detergent exploded everywhere would at least clean the dishes (and, if not, running the machine was easier than cleaning up the stray detergent), but it still didn't clean the dishes.  That's two cycles of water and electricity for nothing!  I eventually had to put my usual liquid detergent in to get the dishes clean.

I've tried a number of different powder packs (they seem to be a popular item to give out free samples of) and I always have similar problems. Powder just can't compete with liquid, and I don't know why they're going through all this trouble to keep trying!

Summer's Best (a.k.a. where to get Cortland apples in Toronto right now)

Summer's Best is a small store selling produce, flowers, and an assortment of other foodstuffs.

I feel moved to blog about them because they not only have Cortland apples (yes, now!), but these apples are decent-sized and smell like apples (yes, now!)

(Apples often lose their smell in the off-season, probably as a result of however they store them, so when fall rolls around and the first apples of the new fall harvest appear in the farmer's market the first thing I notice is that the apples smell like apples again.)

Neither Metro nor Loblaws nor any of the other small produce stores I've passed by have Cortlands, but Summer's Best does.

So if you're in the Yonge Eglinton neighbourhood and looking for Ontario produce that's still available and yummy even though it isn't in season, try Summer's Best.  It's at 2563 Yonge St., just north of Sherwood.

Update:  As of May 8, they seem to be out of Cortlands :(  I still recommend the store though.

Positive physical changes that correlate with getting older

I recently ended up walking from Bathurst to Yonge for various boring reasons. This is significant because shortly after I moved to Toronto I also ended up walking from Bathurst to Yonge for various boring reasons, and my feet and glutes hurt like hell the day after.  I just wanted to lie down with my feet up and do nothing the next day.  But this time, I had no ill effects.

I don't notice any difference in my external appearance or day-to-day functioning, but I guess I must be in better shape than I was in my early 20s!

I've noticed a number of other healthish things that are better than they were when I was younger:

- If I have to climb the stairs to my apartment, I don't get lactic acid in my legs, which I did in my early 20s.
- I can fall asleep in a reasonable amount of time. Up until my mid-20s, it took me 2 hours of lying in bed to fall asleep. (This can be directly traced to my parents' consistently setting me bedtimes that were way too early for my internal clock.)
- I'm not painfully thirsty when I wake up, and I don't have disgusting amounts of crust on my eyes, which often happened in my teens.
- My voice works every time I try to use it.  When I was a preteen, it didn't always work, especially in the morning.  Sometimes I'd try to talk and nothing came out, so I'd be trying to test my voice without anyone noticing in case I got called on in class.
- I hardly every get stiff and sore from using the computer for extended periods of time, which I often did in my early 20s.  (This may well be a result of ergonomics.)
- I can translate on zero sleep, which I couldn't do at the beginning of my career.  I can't do final copy without quality control, but I'm not useless.  (This may well be a sign of being better at my job rather than being healthier.)
- I feel like things like zits, blisters, cuts, etc. heal faster.  I'm not sure if this is true or if it's just that time passes faster when you're older.  Acne is more likely to scar (although the scars do eventually heal), but the zits themselves seem to go through their lifecycle faster.

Attitude Carcinogen Free Body Wash

In the drug store, I saw a body wash that prominently announced "Carcinogen Free" on the label. The brand name is "Attitude", and the label specifies that the carcinogens of which it is free are 1,4-dioxane and ethylene oxide.

So I started looking at the other body washes.  I grabbed a couple of random ones off the shelf (St. Ives and Aveeno), looked at the one I use (Ivory), and looked at the cheapest one (Rexall).  None of them contained 1,4-dioxane or ethylene oxide.

So it seems that the prominent "Carcinogen Free" portion of Attitude's label is just as meaningful and informative as the "body wash" portion of their label.

tl;dr: Buy my translation services, they're gluten-free!

A new personal best on Twitter!

Once upon a time, Eddie Izzard retweeted me.  It was the best thing that had ever happened to me on Twitter and I danced around like an idiot and called up people on the actual telephone to tell them that this had happened and saved the screenshot under the file name "I win at twitter".

Today a new personal best happened:

@impstrump Should be available for download on http://t.co/VCaehm4wyk We are exploring options.  It seems nuts no one can buy it...
— Eric Idle (@EricIdle) April 27, 2014

That's right, ladies and gentlemen, that's Eric Idle. Of Monty Python fame.  Replying personally (and nearly-immediately!) to a question I asked.

The Icy Hot mystery

As I've blogged about before, I absolutely adore Icy Hot for muscle stiffness, but I've noticed something odd.  When I apply Icy Hot to a joint, it makes the adjacent joint a wee bit stiffer.

For example, when I apply it to my shoulder, it makes my elbow a bit stiffer, in that I feel a little something in the elbow and I feel the need to crack it more.  (And when I do crack it, it's louder).   When I apply it to my knee, my snapping hip syndrome gets louder and I become aware of an old injury in the metatarsal area.

If it makes a difference, I have observed this when using the Icy Hot cream, as opposed to the patches.  I haven't used the patches since I discovered the cream, so I can't tell you whether or not it also happens when I use the patches.

This atteinte of the adjacent joints is nearly negligible compared with the relief that Icy Hot brings me, but it's still very mysterious.  Any thoughts?

The folly of live-tweeting Earth Hour

I was surprised to see the number of people who were promoting Earth Hour by live-tweeting it, i.e by tweeting during actual Earth Hour.

This is totally contrary to the spirit of Earth Hour!  Even if you're not plugged in and are tweeting from a battery-powered device (even if you're making a big show of doing it by candlelight - and why would you need candles when your screen lights up?), the electricity you use will just have to be charged off the grid after you're done. Plus, if you're connected by ethernet or wifi, your modem is also plugged in and using power.

Not to mention that by posting new content during Earth Hour, you're creating incentive for other people to be online during Earth Hour, using their modems and computers or devices, which will also need to be recharged from the grid even if they're not plugged in. If nothing new appeared on the internet during Earth Hour, people wouldn't have any reason to be watching their feed.  By posting, you're part of the problem.

If you don't want to shut down for Earth Hour, that's fine.  I don't do it myself, for the reasons I explained here. 

But don't claim to be doing Earth Hour if you're still online, even if you did turn out your lights!

Saving face

Walking home today, I saw a lady walking two dogs on a patch of grass near my building, and another lady started yelling out the window at her to pick up her dogs' poo.

I have no horse in this race - I neither own a dog nor use the grass - but the way the lady was yelling out the window inspired in me a feeling of "I don't want her to win!" and my mind, unbidden, promptly started brainstorming ways to make window-yelling lady feel bad or to give dog-walking lady a perfectly good reason to walk away without picking up her dogs' poo. I pondered whether there was a way to make one of the dogs run away, and then Dog-Walking Lady would have to chase him.  I calculated whether I could lob a dog poo high enough that it would land in Window-Yelling Lady's stupid yelly face.  I contemplated yelling back at Window-Yelling Lady "The dogs aren't even finished pooing yet!" (Which was true.)  But I couldn't think of anything that would be effective, not escalate the situation, and not make me look crazier than Window-Yelling Lady.  So I just kept walking and didn't see how the situation ultimately played out

But this provided a perfect example of something I learned back in my professional writing classes: you have to give your interlocutor an opportunity to save face.  The way Window-Yelling Lady was making a big scene, trying to embarrass Dog-Walking Lady, and just kept yelling and yelling in a way that suggested her intention was to keep yelling until Dog-Walking Lady picked up the poo, created a situation where picking up the poo would be appearing to let Window-Yelling Lady win.  If Dog-Walking Lady had waited until her dogs both finished their business and picked up their poo - even if this were here intention all along - it would look like she did it in response to Window-Yelling Lady's yelling.  There was no way for Dog-Walking Lady to give Window-Yelling Lady or any other random onlooker the impression that she was intending the whole time to pick up after her dogs as soon as they actually finished pooing.  As a result, because she has no way of not looking bad, the temptation increases to exact vengeance on the person who's making her look bad by leaving the poo behind.

However, if, instead of yelling through the window and publicly embarrassing Dog-Walking Lady, Window-Yelling Lady had instead chosen an approach that appeared to give Dog-Walking Lady the benefit of the doubt - for example, offer her a baggie and say "It's the worst when they just have to go and you don't have a baggie, isn't it?"  This not only saves face for Dog-Walking Lady by treating her like a perfectly reasonable dog owner, it creates a scenario where Dog-Walking Lady would have to introduce assholicness into the situation by walking away and leaving the poo behind even though the nice neighbour lady had just helped her out by giving her a baggie.

It also reminded me of something that comes up in advice column forums.  Sometimes, for letters dealing with fraught social situations where one party is not exhibiting the desired behaviour, the advice columnist or various commenters might suggest an approach that presents the desired behaviour as a pro tip (e.g. "We've found it helpful to respond actionable emails acknowledging that we've received them - just a quick "Thanks!" will do - so then the other person doesn't have to worry about whether we got it.") or by requesting it as a bit of a favour in response to a personal quirk or a one-off situation (e.g. "Could you do me a favour and let me know you got this email? The mail server has been erratic lately.") However, there are always people who always argue against these more subtle approaches, saying you should simply tell the person to engage in the desired behaviour ("Stop not answering your email!"), regardless of whether you have any authority over them, often even saying that you should tell them to engage in the desired behaviour pre-emptively (the email example doesn't work for this one, but it does apply to my mother's habit of telling me to hang up my coat before I've even taken off my coat, or telling me to say thank-you before I've even opened the present.)

I've been trying for some time to articulate why I don't think this approach would be productive, and Window-Yelling Lady showed me why.  It creates a win-lose situation, and labels the person you want to engage in the desired behaviour as Someone Who Won't Engage In The Desired Behaviour.  If they do it, it looks like they only did it just because you told them to, and therefore your nagging is necessary.  If they don't do it, it makes them look like Someone Who Won't Engage In The Desired Behaviour, and therefore your nagging is necessary.  It doesn't leave them any room to be seen as Being Good or give them any credit for their positive actions, so their only remaining incentive for the desired behaviour (other than the fact that it's right, which the nagger obviously doesn't believe is sufficient incentive) is to stop the nagger from nagging, which probably isn't going to work anyway because the nagger is going to think their nagging caused the desired behaviour.

But if you allow them to save face, it creates a win-win situation: you've extracted the desired behaviour from them, and they get to look like they're doing it on their own initiative.

Helpful household hints

1. Mr. Clean Magic Eraser is good for degriming shower tiles

Based on the colour, the grime seemed to be related to my hair conditioner, and normal cleaning products plus elbow grease wouldn't budge it.  But the Mr. Clean Magic eraser wiped it right off with only slightly more than the absolute minimum of effort humanly possible.

2. How to declog a paper shredder

The problem: the shredder wouldn't "grab" the paper, not even when set on "Forward" (i.e. run regardless of whether you think there's paper poised to be shredded.)

 First I ran the shredder forward and backwards like the instruction manual said, but that didn't work.

After switching it off and unplugging it, I tried manually removing the bits of paper I could see stuck between the blades, but I couldn't get at all of them.  I then tried blowing at it with compressed air (i.e. this sort of thing), but that didn't get rid of all the bits.

The ultimate solution: take the long, skinny straw-like thing on the compressed air can, and stick it down the slot of the paper shredder where I could see the bits of paper still stuck in there.  (Making sure the shredder was still turned off and unplugged, of course!)  It's skinny enough to get into the slot, flexible enough to get in between the blades without damaging them, and inconsequential enough that it didn't matter if I damaged it in the blades (which I didn't).  And it got all the cloggy bits of paper out of the way, and now the shredder works more enthusiastically than ever.

3. How do get rid of bird poo without touching it (and without a hose)

The problem: bird poo on the outside of the glass outer wall of my balcony (i.e. the bit under the railing.)  I can see its ugliness, but I'm too vertiginous to reach over the railing to clean it off (and would be too squeamish to touch it even indirectly with paper towels and rubber gloves even if I could reach it).

The solution: first, wait for a rainy day when the rain is beating rather heavily against the surface to be washed.

Spray some OxiClean Spray on the surface, above the bird poo.  It will drip down, cover the poo, and the enzymes will get rid of a lot of it.

Next, after the OxiClean has either all dripped down below the mess or the rain has washed it away, squirt a dab of dish soap (the hand-washing kind, not the dishwasher kind) above the poo.  It will drip down and cover the poo, and the rain will make it into a lather, which will wash the rest away. 

The last step is to take some Windex, and spray a generous amount over as much of the area as possible, focusing on the top so it can drip down.  This will clean off the build-up left by the Oxi-Clean and dish soap, so once everything is dry you won't even be able to tell anything happened there.

If you have a bird poo problem somewhere where you have access to a hose, you obviously don't have to wait for it to rain.  But the approach I've described here works in cases where a hose isn't possible.  As an added bonus, if you're very careful to spray the stuff only directly on the wall, it won't land on any passers-by who might be walking below.

How Google is making me not want to use Chrome

When they cancelled Google Reader, I wrote:

Google Reader and iGoogle are my primary gateways to the internet, and now Google has cancelled both of them.  This makes me fear for the future of Gmail and Blogger.  (Or search, for that matter).

Google just cancelled another thing that I use: Gmail Notifier.  It's a tiny, harmless little program that runs in your tray and alerts you when you have an email.  And the other day, it just randomly stopped working, and googling around the problem told me that Google had discontinued it.


The internet tells me they apparently sent out a message telling people about this discontinuation, but I didn't receive anything!

However, the part that annoys me is:

If you want to continue to receive notifications, you can use any of the following alternatives to Google Notifier Beta, using the Chrome browser. To see the number of unread messages in your inbox at a glance, install the Gmail Checker Chrome app. To preview new messages on your desktop, go to Gmail's settings and enable Desktop Notifications.

So basically they killed Gmail Notifier in an attempt to force people to use Chrome if they want to be notified when they have new email.

Originally I started using Firefox instead of Chrome because at the time the Chrome interface looked kind of "wrong" to me.  No big attachment or anything, I just tried two and I found one a wee bit visually irksome, so I went with the other.  However, since then, Google has been killing off things I use in an attempt to get me to switch to Chrome.  They killed the Google Toolbar for Firefox in an attempt to make us use Chrome exclusively if we wanted that kind of toolbar interface.  They killed iGoogle and suggested a range of Chrome apps as a replacement.  And now they kill Gmail Notifier and suggest a Chrome app as a replacement.

And every time they do this, it makes me more determined not to use Chrome.  I don't want them win!   I've found Firefox add-ons and websites to replace everything Google has killed, and I'm determined not to let this strategy of theirs be successful.  Before they started doing this, I had no objection to Chrome, I just chose to use Firefox.  But every time they kill something to get me to switch to Chrome, I dig in even more so they won't win.

An alternative to Rimmel nail polish in Crushed Pearl

My previous go-to nail polish was Rimmel Lasting Finish Pro in Crushed Pearl.  It's a subtle pink that alludes to the natural pink of my nails, but is a bit lighter and has a pearly finish, thereby making it more forgiving to my quickly-chipping nails.

Unfortunately, I can't find it anywhere anymore.  I'm not sure if it was discontinued or what, but it isn't in any stores or on ebay.  So this sent me on a mission to find an alternative.

After much trial and error, I landed on the following:

1. One coat of Cover Girl Outlast Stay Brilliant in "Pink-finity"
2. A second coat of Cover Girl Outlast Stay Brilliant in "Perma-pink"

Pink-finity is a matte baby pink.  It's very boldly baby pink in a way that's not nearly as natural as Rimmel Crushed Pearl and, because it's a shiny matte, isn't nearly as forgiving.

Perma-pink is a far more natural pink with a forgiving pearly finish, but it finishes somewhat sheer when used on its own (which I dislike).

However, in combination, these two colours produce a natural, forgiving, opaque pearly pink that's very close to Rimmel Crushed Pearl (a wee bit lighter and without that tiny drop of purple, but I doubt you're going to get close with what's currently commercially available.)  Although I'd really still prefer Rimmel Crushed Pearl.

Added bonus factoid: Sally Hansen Hard as Nails Xtreme Wear in "Pink Satin" is not a suitable substitute for Rimmel Crushed Pearl.  Even though it does have that drop of purple and appears similar in colour to the natural pink of my nails, it's far brighter and bolder, not subtle at all.  It can't even be tamed with a layer of Cover Girl Perma-pink over it.

Update:  If you don't want to combine colours, Revlon Colourstay Gel Envy in "Beginner's Luck" is also very similar.  It does have a tiny tiny amount of glitter in it though - it's extremely subtle on the nail, but is more difficult to remove like glitter polishes tend to be.

Pirate synchronicity

The following two comics were next to each other on yesterday's Globe and Mail comic page:

I like to think they're both the same pirate, getting all his medical exams done in in a row on his one day of shore leave.