A few days ago I was watching a documentary on LaughLab. One of the things they did in their experiments was ask people to rate how funny each joke was, and then they ranked this by country. Germany ranked the most jokes as funnier, while Canada was a distant tenth. The people at LaughLab said this means Germans have the best sense of humour, but I'm not sure if thinking everything is funny constitutes a sense of humour.

Then today I read about an experiment where they asked people of various ages to pick the punchlines for some jokes from a multiple choice list. Younger people got all the punchlines correct, while older people missed a few. They concluded that this means older people lose their sense of humour.

I think they're missing a factor that can explain the findings of both these experiments: the internet. There are a lot of jokes on the internet, possibly every joke in the world. Jokes get posted onlines as quickly as they get thought up. I know that since I got online, hearing a joke I have never heard before has become an extremely rare occurence. And the vast majority of these rare occurences happen online.

Canada is one of the most wired nations in the world. While everyone in the laughlab experiment must be online, it is more likely that Canadians have been online longer than some other nationalities, and therefore have heard more jokes. Canadians rate the jokes lower simply because they've heard them before. I love the joke about the two hunters that won the title of funniest joke in the world, but I know it already so I might not laugh when you tell me it. Meanwhile, I might laugh at a not-as-good joke that I've heard before.

Similarly, young people are much likelier to be online than old people. Since being online increases the likelihood that they've heard the jokes used in the experiment, they are able to complete the punchline not because of a better sense of humour, but because they already know the joke.

I expected better from the Toronto Star. Phys ed classes are not going to get kids to embrace a healthier lifestyle. It may get them moving for a couple of years, but it is not likely to have good long-term effects.

Two questions to ask yourself:

1. How many people do you know who developed a great love of athletics and fitness because of gym class? ("because", NOT "despite")


2. How many people do you know who developed a great dislike of athletics and fitness because of gym class?

People who think gym class is panacea may have forgotten that it's nothing but torture for everyone, with the possible exception of the kids who are already athletic.

A lot of the political analysis I've been reading lately seems to point to one thing. Politicians ignore young people's key issues because young people vote in very low numbers. It's easy to understand why - most parties that represent our views are traditionally marginalized, it's harder to vote when you're in the limbo between living in one city for school and having your permanent address in another city, and those politcians really don't seem to care about us.

We have to make them notice us by voting, of course, but we also need to make them notice us before there is anything to vote on. So the homework for everyone reading this who is under 25 is to engage in one piece of political activism at each level (local, provincial, federal) before each respective election. A piece of political activism can be writing or emailing your representative, writing a letter to the editor, starting a petition - anything to indicate your support for or disapproval of any issue. Those who have two addresses depending on the time of year can rightfully write to their representatives in each jurisdiction, thus being heard twice!

If every young person in the country spoke out and said "I'm here, and I have political opinions too!" those grownups would think twice before marginalizing us.

So get out there, do something, and pass this message on.

The problem with the movie Thirteen is that it will make parents freak out. Parents will hear about the plot of this movie (even if they don't see it themselves) and think they have to supervise their daughters better, and then they will keep too tight a rein on normal, shy, awkward, confused adolescents who just want to spend a bit of time with their friends without their parents breathing down their neck. Normally-attentive and over-protective parents will supervise their kids even more, keeping them from having a normal social life and thus alienating them from the peer group and making them more inclined to indulge in risky behaviour when given the opportunity in order to assert their independence from the oppressive regime at home. Meanwhile neglectful parents, to whom the cautionary aspect of this tale was likely originally directed, are not likely to notice. This movie is a bad strategic move on the part of everyone involved.

Someone should invent a way to do a search-and-replace through an entire folder of documents instead of having to S&R each document individually.

I took a sick day this afternoon. It's weird - I wasn't hugely sick, but I had this crazy headache that seemed immune to Advil, and it was preventing me from working. I simply couldn't think. So I went home and lay down in my dark cool room and slept for four hours. I feel a bit better now - I could probably still sleep through the evening, but I have laundry that badly needs doing. I still don't know what was/is wrong with me. It almost seemed like a migraine, but I don't get migraines.

Someone needs to make an algorithm that will index the Webtender database and determine what combinations of ingredients will make the most possible drinks. I.e., this program should be able to answer the question "What ten ingredients should I buy to allow me the most drink-making possibilities?"

Bonus points for a program that will tell you which ingredients to buy to make the most possible orange-juice-based drinks.

I just realized that all day today I was using "I typed it by hand" to mean "I actually typed the words into the computer rather than copy-pasting them from somewhere." Sign of the times?

Why do elevators have stop buttons? I can't think of any situation in which bringing an elevator to a sudden stop would be helpful. Unless, I suppose, it was in freefall, but I doubt a button would help then.

I got tomorrow off too! WOOO five day weekend!!!

I love my job :)

On Thursday, before all the drama started, a Canada Post delivery notice was put in my mailbox. I assumed it was my latest Amazon order and I thought "Whoa, that was fast!" But I just checked at Amazon, and my latest order hasn't shipped yet. I have no idea what this package could be and I have to wait until tomorrow to find out!!!

Lewis Wheelan, RIP

Poor Lewis, he deserves better. This is the problem with the warnings they give not to use air conditioning and not to call 911 except in a real emergency. I'm sure everyone would agree that Lewis' case was a real emergency, but, knowing him, it is very likely that he heard on the radio "Don't call 911 unless it's a real emergency" and decided to wait it out, saving 911 services for seniors and people trapped in elevators.

Similarly, I can see seniors in need deciding not to turn on their air conditioning because Ernie Eves is telling them to keep it off, thinking "Meh, I've been through worse than not having A/C" They should tell people "If you have a medical condition where you are affected by the heat, go ahead and turn on the A/C. If you have such a medical condition and you don't have electricity yet, call 911 so paramedics can evacuate you." Or they should just tell everyone to set their thermostats to 30 degrees, and then everyone will have A/C only when they absolutely need it.

I don't understand why people are so pissed off that it took the politicians so long to give press conferences. I wasn't expecting to hear from politicians, I was expecting to hear from their communications and media representatives. I didn't think there was anything wrong with the absence of politicians, I figured they would be receiving information, making decisions, taking action. Aren't our elected leaders supposed to be providing leadership? If I knew that their job was simply to be talking heads for their jurisdictions, I would have voted for the person with the best diction.

THIS IS SO COOL! Now when I'm trying to cook I never have to mess around looking for a measurement unit converter again!

I'm bored. It's weird - I'm bored because I can't go out. (Well, I can go out, but there's no point in doing so because the subway is down and most places in my immediate neighbourhood are closed, so it's not worth the trouble of walking down 14 flights of stairs). If this were a normal weekend, I wouldn't be bored. If you told me last Thursday that I'd spend Saturday sitting at home, reading, eating, watching TV, playing computer games, I'd think that sounds nice and restful. I have two newspapers and 2 unread novels in addition to 100 TV channels and the entire freaking internet! But just the fact that I can't go out makes me antsy and bored.

My face is freaking out. I'm covered in splotchy red zits and I have no idea why. The grocery stores in my immediate vincinity remain closed while they deal with spoiled merchandise. Grumpiness for me today.

Why does it bother parents so much when kids watch TV and play video games?

People, most of whom weren't affected by the blackout, are going "What's the big deal? People didn't have electricity for centuries!"

It wasn't that big a deal, mostly a minor inconvenience for me personally, but a few thoughts:

- My stove is electric. Before they had stoves people would use fire to cook, but I don't have any safe place to make a fire because my building was built decades after stoves were invented, so the ability to safely make a fire would be a luxury.
- I live on the 14th floor. Before the invention of the elevator, buildings weren't more than 6 storeys tall. I am quite capable of climbing 14 flights of stairs, but the fact that pre-elevator buildings were never this tall is testament to the fact that it isn't reasonable to do so every day.
- My local grocery stores are closed because their register and inventory systems are all electronic. Not all stores can just spontaneously switch back to a manual register like they had before electricity.
- Same thing with banks. Even if the branch were open, they can't process my withdrawl manually.
- Water is pumped by electric pumps. Before the existence of this sort of system there were hand pumps, springs, and wells. However, I'm not likely to find a well in midtown Toronto.

PS: Mayor Mel: how can you tell all the businesses to close, and then tell everyone to go buy a flashlight all in the same breath?

Well that was interesting. I was very lucky. I was in the office when the blackout hit, so I managed to get a ride home with a co-worker. The stairwells in my building were pitch black. It was like one of those movies where they put a prisoner in dark solitary confinement and he goes insane. I was fully prepared to sit in the lobby and wait, but then these two old ladies convinced me to go up with them. So we were slowly walking up, counting our steps, narrating our journey, feeling our way along the walls, and on the sixth floor we met this guy with a candle, so he escorted all of us back to our apartments. That guy is a hero!

Luckily I hyper-cool my apartment when I'm at work, closing all the curtains and cranking up the air conditioner, so it was still cool when I got home. Water wasn't working, but fortunately I had 7 water bottles, 2 big bottles of coke, 24 cans of iced tea, plus some lemonade and wine and orange juice, so I'm not going to die any time soon. I had a peanut butter sandwich for dinner so I wouldn't have to open the fridge and read the newspaper and Harry Potter until it got dark.

I took a sleeping pill at sunset - I don't like to take them but the last thing I needed was to be in pitch dark in a power outage freaking out because I can't sleep. It's surprising how dark things are without electricity! Candles produce so little light! (Don't worry, I had my candle in a very tall jar and kept it well-supervised). Life must have been so bleak before the invention of electricity! I quickly nodded off, and woke up at about 4:45 am when the power came back on. I listened to a bit of radio and watched a bit of TV and puttered around. Took a shower even though I don't know if I'm supposed to. I was surprised to see a Globe and Mail at my door, but that gives me something to keep me amused.

I assume I don't have to go to work today. I'll stay home until someone calls and says "Why aren't you at work?" anyway. It's a state of emergency and I'm certainly not an essential service, so I doubt I'd get in trouble for not going. I'm trying very hard to be a good girl and conserve energy, but it's very hard to sit at home all day and not use energy. I obviously have my computer on, I did have a shower (since I don't know if the power and water will go out again, I may as well be clean), and while I'm not keeping my TV on 24/7 I will turn it on when I find something I want to watch. I also cooked some pasta so that I'll have food if the power goes out again. I could really use some groceries, but I doubt stores are open. The problem with having taken a sleeping pill is that I'm not tired at all, and napping would be a good thing to do today.

Ah well, I had been sort of hoping for a day off.