A week or so ago I discussed the problems that arise from having spent most of my life in the company of people who reacted to me in an irrational manner.

I have a follow-up half-formed theory. Let's suppose that the irrational reactions of people around me were simply a function of their having been children at the time. I'm sure we all remember how confusing it is to be a child and how you sometimes don't understand how things work. Let's suppose this is the main cause of their irrational reactions.

If this is true, we can posit that other people, in fact most other people, also had this situation of being surrounded by irrational reactions. Obviously different people react differently to a given situation so not everyone responded by becoming skittish like me, but it would have an effect of some kind on everyone's life.

Therefore, this is why people tend not to mature fully until they are around 30ish. That's the age when you will have spent the majority of your life in the presence of rational reactions, so the part of your mind that reacts like a kid in a schoolyard can finally go dormant.

My favourite red wine is now Sangiovese, and my favourite white wine is Pinot Grigio. That's unfortunate, because I seem to have developed a distinct taste for pretentious-sounding Italian wines. It would be so much more socially acceptable if my favourites were like Merlot and Chardonnay (which I certainly don't mind, but aren't my favourites).

A while back, I googled "Jeans that don't gap in the back" and turned up something called Lee One True Fit. Apparently they are specially designed so they don't gap in the back. Further research showed that they are available at The Bay. So today I went down to The Bay to try them on. They SO gap in the back! I could wear a fanny pack INSIDE those jeans! Now I'm sad and my zen is gone :(

Civic officials won’t be forced to marry gays

A copy of my email to my MP re: this article:

I was surprised to see such a bizarre headline in the Toronto Star. While I can see the point of not forcing religious institutions to marry anyone they feel doesn't conform with their religious beliefs, I would like to know how exactly the government plans to go about implementing something similar for civic officials without trampling over the rights of citizens in the process. What will be done to ensure that an officiant is available whenever a same-sex couple wants to get married? Would this measure mean that civic officials are free to refuse to marry anyone whose marriage they find distasteful, no matter what the reason? The article says these things haven't been decided yet, but surely the federal government must have something in mind before boldly proclaiming something that seems so unfeasible!

My ROTK Extended Edition arrived today! I wasn't expecting it until at least the 16th! The shipping confirmation was emailed at 9:43am, and the package was at my door when I got home!

The only problem is that no one I know has gotten theirs yet, so I can't watch it until someone confirms the bad chapters for me...

I just saw the weirdest shadow outside my window. It looked like someone walking past the window. But that's impossible - I'm on the 14th floor.

Interesting new thing from Google. As you type into the search field, it autocompletes based on what common searches are. I typed in one or two rather obscure searches that I've done in the past, and they showed up! Scary!

Some choice phrases from my new bottle of body wash:

"Feel the wild freshness of Fa Body Wash and turn your daily shower into an exciting ritual."

"...provides your skin with a perceivable unique freshness experience."

"Feel it, live it - directly on your skin."

"Work into a rich refreshing lather."

"Fa Body Wash is pH-skin-neutral. Dermatologically proven skin compatibility."

I got promoted yesterday. So I decided as a reward to myself I get to stay home in comfy clothes all day today instead of going to the Eaton's Centre as originally planned. So I slept in, played Sims, and read Paul Quarrington's Galveston all the way through. Amazing book! Go read it! At first it's tempting to put it down because the characters are initially presented as rather unsympathetic, but as they are fleshed out further in depth the book becomes better and better and wow!

Because there is a certain degree of bizarreness and a certain degree of
insanity in what I do for a living, I am often tempted to do silly, childish
things at work. The vast majority of the time I resist this temptation - I
just giggle quietly to myself about the idea that occurred to me, then go on
working in a mature, responsible manner.

The problem is, I want credit for not doing the silly things that occur to
me. I want to go up to my co-workers and say "It occurred to me today to
replace the holiday ornaments on the intranet site with pictures of little
green aliens. It also occurred to me to cartwheel down that section full of
empty cubicles, rearrange the nameplates on the offices of the ladies who
are on maternity leave to see if they go to the wrong office when they get
back, move documents from cubicle to cubicle via paper airplane, and send an
office-wide email informing everyone 'IT'S SNOWING!!!!!!!!!1' But I didn't
do any of these things. Now give me a prize."

But of course I can't tell my co-workers that these ideas occurred to me or
they'll think I'm psycho.

Theory: anything in the world is intrinsically funny if you think about the
fact that someone invented it - someone thought it up at a time when no such
thing existed and proceeded to sell other people on the idea.

On the radio someone is commenting on the fact that videogames can be educational. This is new? We had educational videogames when I was a kid! Operation Neptune anyone?

Anyway, I'm blogging at this strange hour because I want to record two analogies I thought of in the shower.

1. Why I don't like being thought of as "someone who is on a diet", even though I have been watching my weight for the past few months: Dieting is a temporary unpleasant chore. I don't want it to define me. For example, suppose your kitchen floor is dirty, so you start scrubbing the floor. As you're doing this, the phone rings. You answer the phone, and your friend asks you what's up. You say "I'm just scrubbing the floor". From then on, you're thought of as a person who scrubs the floor. You're given a bucket and brushes for your birthday. When a fun activity is planned, they don't invite you because they thought you'd rather spend the time scrubbing the floor. Whenever they see you doing something else, they say "What are you doing? Why aren't you scrubbing the floor?"

2. Why I don't need a religion: Suppose that when you're a kid you have a dog. It belonged to your parents before you were born, and it's just a part of the household. It's rather surly and grumpy and keeps trying to frighten you. Your parents say it's just being friendly and playing, but it looks to you like it wants to hurt you. This isn't helped by the fact that your parents keep making you scoop the poop from the backyard even though you don't like this dog. Then you grow up and move out of your parents' house. You find that, living on your own, you're relieved to be free of that dog, and you don't feel that you're lacking anything not having a dog in your life. Would you assume that a) you just haven't found the right breed of dog for you yet, or b) you don't need a dog?

According to a recent study, using a laptop on your lap causes low sperm
count in men. Blogger is being slow so I'm posting by email so I can't
provide a link, but go to Google News and type in "laptop".

So if you're a man and you want to have kids, use your laptop on your desk.
And if you're a man and you don't want to have kids, use your laptop on your
lap.

I overheard a conversation on the subway today where someone mentioned
giving their super a year-end tip. Is this a requirement (like tipping
waiters, hotel housekeeping, taxi drivers etc.) or just a nicety?

The Narrows by Michael Connelly is your standard detective story. Basically
film noir for the 21st century. Not bad, but not particularly exceptional.

I love my library holds list, simply because I never know which book is going to come in next, or when it's going to arrive. I find randomness rather aesthetically pleasing, (when I was a kid, I would reach into my crayon box with my eyes closed and colour the next part of my picture with whichever colour I drew out) so books arriving randomly makes me happy.

Discussion topic of the moment:

Adult privileges, in the order in which I think of them: stay home alone,
babysit, drive, vote, drink, smoke, consent to sex, take legal
responsibility for yourself, gamble, get a job, see movies with various
levels of adult material, get body piercing and tattoos.

Suppose you didn't have these privileges yet, and you get to choose in what
order you get them. What order would you ask for them in? If I missed any,
feel free to add them in.

Enlightenment of the day: the root of most of my problems is that, for the
majority of my life, I was constantly exposed to people who would react in
an irrational manner to things I did. They would yell at me, criticize me,
mock me or attack me for things that were, objectively, not a transgression,
thus hindering my acquisition of the common social code. Not everyone
around me did this, but almost every day I was exposed to at least one
person who did. While I no longer experience this in my daily life, it was
the norm for most of my life. As a result being treated in a rational manner
is something of a novelty; it feels like a warm sunny spring day in March -
a recent exception, not the rule, not something you can count on.

So because I simply cannot make myself believe that people will react in a
rational manner, I'm shy about people. I don't like making requests of
people - not even to ask someone to do something that's their job, or to ask
a friend for a minor favour. I don't like exposing my habits or likes and
dislikes. I apologize in advance for my eccentricities. I don't like social
interaction with people who aren't trusted friends, because I have no idea
what they'll do.

And every once in a while, even now living as an adult surrounded by adults,
I do end up being exposed to someone who acts in an objectively irrational
manner. This doesn't happen too often, but it does occur frequently enough
that, combined with my personal history, empirical evidence suggests that
random or unfamiliar people will behave irrationally. And so the story
goes...

A half-formed theory, based solely on heresay, conjecture, and anecdotal
evidence:

People with higher novelty-seeking get more pleasure out of physical
exercise. People with lower novelty-seeking get less pleasure out of
physical exercise. I haven't yet decided why, although it could be a result
of the effect of endorphins on an addictive personality. I have low
novelty-seeking, which is why I hate exercising.