I line my garbage cans with ordinary plastic bags that I get when buying things from stores. I don't know how common this practise is, but I do know a number of other people who do it, and I've never had anyone say "Why the hell is there a plastic bag in your garbage can?" so it can't be that unusual.
As it happens, Shoppers Drug Mart bags fit perfectly in my bathroom garbage can, but my other garbage cans are not nearly as compatible with plastic bags. Occasionally a bag from a store I rarely shop in will fit perfectly in one of my other garbage cans (and, before the LCBO cheaped out on their plastic bags, LCBO bags used to fit perfectly in my kitchen garbage), but it isn't at all consistent. Bags from Dominion, where I do the vast majority of my shopping, don't fit perfectly in any of my garbage cans.
I think stores like supermarkets, drug stores, walmart, etc., should sell small, indoor garbage cans that are the perfect size and shape for their bags. Or, if it's more cost-effective, they should make their plastic bags the perfect size and shape for garbage cans that are available in the store. I would totally buy new garbage cans if I knew they would perfectly fit plastic bags I have on hand, and I would totally make a point of going to a specific store for something like soap or shampoo (i.e. something that I could easily and conveniently buy at any one of several stores) just to get plastic bags that would fit perfectly in my garbage cans.
Sunday, March 12, 2006
Saturday, March 11, 2006
Red coats and big fuzzy hats
You know those british soldiers with the red coats and big fuzzy hats, who have to stand guard and aren't allowed to move or talk? I wonder what happens to them if they do move or talk?
When I was little, I thought they were executed if they moved. In retrospect, that's not terribly likely. And I suppose that if there is a genuine emergency they should react in some way. (Mental image of a typical cartoon robber being chased down the street by a red coat fuzzy hat guard).
When I was little, I thought they were executed if they moved. In retrospect, that's not terribly likely. And I suppose that if there is a genuine emergency they should react in some way. (Mental image of a typical cartoon robber being chased down the street by a red coat fuzzy hat guard).
Cool thing in the Sims
In Sims 2, if you click on the wants or fears, you'll get a little blurb telling you how to fulfill/avoid the wants/fears. And if you click on the memories, you'll get a little blurb about that too.
Yes, I just noticed this :)
Yes, I just noticed this :)
Friday, March 10, 2006
Things They Should Invent: expect the impossible for our political leaders
This train of discussion usually starts when I let slip one of my unpopular pacifist sentiments. For example:
Me: I don't think it's appropriate to use armed forces to impose or enforce peace.
Interlocutor: How on earth do you expect them to do that?
Me: I don't know exactly how it could be done. I have no specific training in that sort of thing.
Interloctor: See? It's impossible! You can't expect them to do something like that if you have no idea how it should be done.
But that's it exactly - I have no idea how it should be done. But I'm only 25 years old, I have but a single undergraduate degree, and I doubt I have the leadership skills to organize a birthday party. That's why I'm not leading the country. Anyone who claims to be qualified to lead a whole entire country should be able to come up with ideas that are so vastly beyond anything I can possibly think of that, until I learn of the ideas, I would have thought them impossible.
Our expectations of anyone who would dare think themselves worthy of leading us should be far beyond our expectations of ourselves. Accepting anything less is doing us all a disservice.
Me: I don't think it's appropriate to use armed forces to impose or enforce peace.
Interlocutor: How on earth do you expect them to do that?
Me: I don't know exactly how it could be done. I have no specific training in that sort of thing.
Interloctor: See? It's impossible! You can't expect them to do something like that if you have no idea how it should be done.
But that's it exactly - I have no idea how it should be done. But I'm only 25 years old, I have but a single undergraduate degree, and I doubt I have the leadership skills to organize a birthday party. That's why I'm not leading the country. Anyone who claims to be qualified to lead a whole entire country should be able to come up with ideas that are so vastly beyond anything I can possibly think of that, until I learn of the ideas, I would have thought them impossible.
Our expectations of anyone who would dare think themselves worthy of leading us should be far beyond our expectations of ourselves. Accepting anything less is doing us all a disservice.
Wednesday, March 08, 2006
Angst! Drama! Tragedy!
PBS is fundraising with Andrea Bocelli instead of showing my Monty Python! When will they even show Monty Python again????? This ruins my whole day! :(
Helpful hint: if you're selling food, don't make comments that could trigger your customers' food insecurity
This morning I went into my local "Quickie-mart" to buy some food for breakfast and lunch. I had a long day of work ahead of me in which I had to stay at my desk, and hadn't had breakfast, so I bought a bagel with cream cheese, a salad, and a wrap. At the last minute, I impulse purchased some candy. I wanted to make sure I had enough food so I wouldn't get hungry and cranky, as I couldn't leave my desk to go look for more food.
So I take my purchases to the cash register, and the guy behind the counter says "Wow, big lunch!"
Now, this didn't bother me. I just smiled and said "It's breakfast AND lunch." But there are a lot of people out there who would be really uncomfortable with that comment. Some people don't like to be seen eating large quantities of food. Some people, rightfully or not, think that others are judging them for what they eat. Some people have eating disorders that can be triggered at the slightest provocation. I don't fall into any of these categories, but the guy behind the counter had no way of knowing that. There must be a lot of people around who would feel insecure about that comment - the comic strip Cathy is widely syndicated for a reason, after all - and I think a lot of that insecurity would be found in women of my demographics and proportions.
So while I don't care what random people think about the size of my lunch, Mr. Counter Man had no way of knowing that. He should really keep his comments to himself, or one day he's going to lose himself some customers.
So I take my purchases to the cash register, and the guy behind the counter says "Wow, big lunch!"
Now, this didn't bother me. I just smiled and said "It's breakfast AND lunch." But there are a lot of people out there who would be really uncomfortable with that comment. Some people don't like to be seen eating large quantities of food. Some people, rightfully or not, think that others are judging them for what they eat. Some people have eating disorders that can be triggered at the slightest provocation. I don't fall into any of these categories, but the guy behind the counter had no way of knowing that. There must be a lot of people around who would feel insecure about that comment - the comic strip Cathy is widely syndicated for a reason, after all - and I think a lot of that insecurity would be found in women of my demographics and proportions.
So while I don't care what random people think about the size of my lunch, Mr. Counter Man had no way of knowing that. He should really keep his comments to himself, or one day he's going to lose himself some customers.
Monday, March 06, 2006
Something Positive!
Hee hee hee!
Okay, check out Branwen's comments on Sept. 12, 2004. (Yes, that's Branwen on the left and Davan on the right.
Now check out what happened today.
I couldn't actually see Davan and Kharisma hooking up, but it was just so clearly set up 1.5 years ago!
Okay, check out Branwen's comments on Sept. 12, 2004. (Yes, that's Branwen on the left and Davan on the right.
Now check out what happened today.
I couldn't actually see Davan and Kharisma hooking up, but it was just so clearly set up 1.5 years ago!
Sunday, March 05, 2006
The Pants Age Test
Consider the following situation:
You have to wear regular pants (i.e. not shorts, not capris, not those stupid cullotte things).
You have to wear regular socks and shoes with your pants (i.e. no bare feet and sandals, no hose and pumps).
Your day is spent in equal parts sitting down or standing up, visible at all times to people you don't want to look frumpy and gross in front of.
There are only two lengths of pants available. The shorter length looks fine when you stand up, but rides up when you sit down, so that you can see the skin of your legs above your socks. Even if you pull your socks up and the pants down, the interplay of pants and socks and leg shape will always cause the hems of the pants to ride up above the socks in short order. The longer length looks fine when you sit down, but drags on the floor when you stand up. You aren't going to trip on the hems, but you might tread on them occasionally.
Do you choose the shorter pants or the longer pants?
I propose that, regardless of your chronological age, if you choose the shorter pants you are old, and if you choose the longer pants you are young.
You have to wear regular pants (i.e. not shorts, not capris, not those stupid cullotte things).
You have to wear regular socks and shoes with your pants (i.e. no bare feet and sandals, no hose and pumps).
Your day is spent in equal parts sitting down or standing up, visible at all times to people you don't want to look frumpy and gross in front of.
There are only two lengths of pants available. The shorter length looks fine when you stand up, but rides up when you sit down, so that you can see the skin of your legs above your socks. Even if you pull your socks up and the pants down, the interplay of pants and socks and leg shape will always cause the hems of the pants to ride up above the socks in short order. The longer length looks fine when you sit down, but drags on the floor when you stand up. You aren't going to trip on the hems, but you might tread on them occasionally.
Do you choose the shorter pants or the longer pants?
I propose that, regardless of your chronological age, if you choose the shorter pants you are old, and if you choose the longer pants you are young.
The Big Book Catch-up Post of Doom!
Between my persistant cold and my nasty habit of reading several books at once, I finished a bunch of books lately and failed to blog them. So here they all are!
Hell's Corner: An Illustrated History of Canada's Great War, 1914-1918, by JL Granatstein.
This is an excellent book on WWI. It describes the deroulement of the war and the experiences of everyday people (both soldiers and on the homefront) in a way that can easily be understood by a 21st-century readers. It does go into the politics of the time, but, again with the modern-day reader clearly being the target audience. It's very Canaa-centric so you get very little idea of what was going on in the rest of the world, but it's still a good starting point. The mixed blessing is that it's a giant coffee-table sized book. This is good because it has rooms for lots of good pictures, but it's bad because you can't read it on the subway. It's still worth perusing at home though.
The Introvert Advantage: How to Thrive in an Extrovert World, by Marti Olsen Laney
This book is all about me! It explains precisely how my brain works, with diagrams and neurological explanations and everything! It turns out introversion affects my life in more ways than I originally thought, from my Hufflepuff approach to relationships, to my childhood self's feeling insulted that my parents felt the need to bring toys to amuse me on long car rides. It turns out that my low novelty seeking is a direct result of my introversion. Because of the way electrical signals travel through the brain (I'm not quite at the point of fully understanding this, but I'm very close), introverts don't have as much need for dopamine, and can actually feel overstimulated if they get too much dopamine. In practical terms, this means that I'm perfectly happy reading my book and think a big party sounds exhausting - which I already knew, but it's cool that there's an actual neurological reason for it. Introversion can also affect a person's ability to think of stuff to say - their mind might go blank when called upon to speak, but they'll be able to articulate their thoughts perfectly later on. I've never experienced this in English, but I get it all the time when working in other languages, so it was quite reassuring to learn that it's not a flaw in my mastery of other languages, but rather a neurological thing that simply is not as apparent in the English part of my brain. This book is interesting for anyone who is an introvert, but it is an ABSOLUTE MUST READ for anyone who is an extrovert but has an introverted partner or child. My life would have been much easier if my parents had read this book when I was little, but they couldn't because it wasn't published until 2002.
Dark Age Ahead, by Jane Jacobs
I learned so much about so many things from this book! It's so broad ranging, and every part was enlightening. For example, did you know that General Electric was behind most major cities' decision to switch from trolleys to buses? Did you know that pre-industrial agrarian societies had to be inherently conservative for their survival, but once industrialism came aloneg, technology started to grow exponentially, and society changed into a culture that had to be progressive in order to survive. This is an interesting parallel with the fact that modern rural society tends to be more conservative and urban society tends to be more progressive (obvoiusly the cause isn't the same because modern rural society is still highly influenced by industrialism, but it's still interesting). This book also finally managed to explain the whole fiscal imbalance thing to me in a way that the many newspaper articles on the subject could not. I'd always found complaining about fiscal imbalance distasteful, because I thought of it as the same as wealthy people who complain that they have to pay more taxes than poor people. But Jacobs' explanation made me realize that Toronto, for example, is not a single entity that has to pay more taxes because it's wealthy. It's a collection of 2 million individuals living in close proximity in order to take advantage of economies of scale. Each individual is taxed differently depending on their own income, so the taxation itself is still fair, but the whole equalization thing takes away the benefits of economy of scale because provinces are really artificial entities, but certain aspects of federal legislation consider them a lot more important. But I digress. Overall, this book is very interesting, well-researched, and well-written. It falls under the "read this to feel smart" category.
Woman in Bronze, by Antanas Sileika
This book needs to be a movie! It's historical and epic and coming of age and doesn't want to be put down. Plus, the action is actually action, so it would translate perfectly to the screen. Someone make a movie of this!
Souvenir of Canada 2, by Douglas Coupland
I get the impression that Coupland didn't have quite enough material for the a second book. Most of it was just as interesting as the first book, but there were many self-indulgent pages in the middle dealing with Canada House, one of Coupland's own projects, plus some of what felt like filler material. Some of it worked for me, like the adorable pictures of baby goslings, and some of it didn't, like a page containing nothing but a list of all the men who died on the Edmund Fitzgerald. I don't know whether this was all part of the artistic vision or not, but it felt to me like filler, which kind of ruined the effect.
Hell's Corner: An Illustrated History of Canada's Great War, 1914-1918, by JL Granatstein.
This is an excellent book on WWI. It describes the deroulement of the war and the experiences of everyday people (both soldiers and on the homefront) in a way that can easily be understood by a 21st-century readers. It does go into the politics of the time, but, again with the modern-day reader clearly being the target audience. It's very Canaa-centric so you get very little idea of what was going on in the rest of the world, but it's still a good starting point. The mixed blessing is that it's a giant coffee-table sized book. This is good because it has rooms for lots of good pictures, but it's bad because you can't read it on the subway. It's still worth perusing at home though.
The Introvert Advantage: How to Thrive in an Extrovert World, by Marti Olsen Laney
This book is all about me! It explains precisely how my brain works, with diagrams and neurological explanations and everything! It turns out introversion affects my life in more ways than I originally thought, from my Hufflepuff approach to relationships, to my childhood self's feeling insulted that my parents felt the need to bring toys to amuse me on long car rides. It turns out that my low novelty seeking is a direct result of my introversion. Because of the way electrical signals travel through the brain (I'm not quite at the point of fully understanding this, but I'm very close), introverts don't have as much need for dopamine, and can actually feel overstimulated if they get too much dopamine. In practical terms, this means that I'm perfectly happy reading my book and think a big party sounds exhausting - which I already knew, but it's cool that there's an actual neurological reason for it. Introversion can also affect a person's ability to think of stuff to say - their mind might go blank when called upon to speak, but they'll be able to articulate their thoughts perfectly later on. I've never experienced this in English, but I get it all the time when working in other languages, so it was quite reassuring to learn that it's not a flaw in my mastery of other languages, but rather a neurological thing that simply is not as apparent in the English part of my brain. This book is interesting for anyone who is an introvert, but it is an ABSOLUTE MUST READ for anyone who is an extrovert but has an introverted partner or child. My life would have been much easier if my parents had read this book when I was little, but they couldn't because it wasn't published until 2002.
Dark Age Ahead, by Jane Jacobs
I learned so much about so many things from this book! It's so broad ranging, and every part was enlightening. For example, did you know that General Electric was behind most major cities' decision to switch from trolleys to buses? Did you know that pre-industrial agrarian societies had to be inherently conservative for their survival, but once industrialism came aloneg, technology started to grow exponentially, and society changed into a culture that had to be progressive in order to survive. This is an interesting parallel with the fact that modern rural society tends to be more conservative and urban society tends to be more progressive (obvoiusly the cause isn't the same because modern rural society is still highly influenced by industrialism, but it's still interesting). This book also finally managed to explain the whole fiscal imbalance thing to me in a way that the many newspaper articles on the subject could not. I'd always found complaining about fiscal imbalance distasteful, because I thought of it as the same as wealthy people who complain that they have to pay more taxes than poor people. But Jacobs' explanation made me realize that Toronto, for example, is not a single entity that has to pay more taxes because it's wealthy. It's a collection of 2 million individuals living in close proximity in order to take advantage of economies of scale. Each individual is taxed differently depending on their own income, so the taxation itself is still fair, but the whole equalization thing takes away the benefits of economy of scale because provinces are really artificial entities, but certain aspects of federal legislation consider them a lot more important. But I digress. Overall, this book is very interesting, well-researched, and well-written. It falls under the "read this to feel smart" category.
Woman in Bronze, by Antanas Sileika
This book needs to be a movie! It's historical and epic and coming of age and doesn't want to be put down. Plus, the action is actually action, so it would translate perfectly to the screen. Someone make a movie of this!
Souvenir of Canada 2, by Douglas Coupland
I get the impression that Coupland didn't have quite enough material for the a second book. Most of it was just as interesting as the first book, but there were many self-indulgent pages in the middle dealing with Canada House, one of Coupland's own projects, plus some of what felt like filler material. Some of it worked for me, like the adorable pictures of baby goslings, and some of it didn't, like a page containing nothing but a list of all the men who died on the Edmund Fitzgerald. I don't know whether this was all part of the artistic vision or not, but it felt to me like filler, which kind of ruined the effect.
Saturday, March 04, 2006
Did they see it coming?
The casualty rate in Afghanistan seems to be higher than I would consider acceptable. What I would really like to know is did the people planning this mission foresee this? Are the blindsided by the quantity of casualties, or is their idea of an "acceptable" casualty rate higher than mine?
Riscal Tempranillo
I should be satisfied with this wine, but I'm not. It's perfectly good and fruity and there's nothing wrong with it that I can articulate, but it feels like something is missing, although I can't tell what. I don't like that I'm dissatisfied with a wine that has nothing actually wrong. It seems rather, I don't know, spoiled? ADD? High novelty-seeking? Not something I want to be. Maybe I should just shut up and drink up.
How feminism affected my life
Today's Star had articles by two women of different generations talking about how feminism affected their lives. For me, born after the influence of second-wave feminism, its effect very simple: "Because I am a woman" does not exist as a reason for any of my decisions or life choices. With the possible exception of stepping into the women's washroom when there are two washroom choices (although I have no problem with unisex or coed washrooms), I have never thought "I must/must not/should/should not/can/cannot/will/will not do X because I am a woman."
Even when I do make choices or decision that, in previous generations, would have been based on the fact that I am a woman, "because I am a woman" is not my motivation. Instead, it's "because I am introverted" or "because I am arachnophobic" or "because I am in love with mi cielito" or "because I live alone" or "because I have an aptitude for languages" or "because it amuses me".
The only time my being a woman even comes into play is in the bedroom, the doctor's office, and the clothing store and even then it isn't about gender roles, but rather about strict physiology. None of this taking modern perceptions of prehistoric human behaviour to be a biological imperative and using that to support one's own concept of morality bullshit. It's strictly about the presence of a cervix, the proximity of labia to the urethra, the ratio of hip circumference to waist circumference. These issues would need to be addressed in the same way if I were FTM. "Because I am a woman" becomes a shorthand for a number of physical realities, parallel to "because my eyesight sucks" or "because my feet are messed up," but it isn't actually a basis of decision-making.
So that's what feminism has done for me in my own personal life - it has made gender completely irrelevant as a basis for life choices.
Even when I do make choices or decision that, in previous generations, would have been based on the fact that I am a woman, "because I am a woman" is not my motivation. Instead, it's "because I am introverted" or "because I am arachnophobic" or "because I am in love with mi cielito" or "because I live alone" or "because I have an aptitude for languages" or "because it amuses me".
The only time my being a woman even comes into play is in the bedroom, the doctor's office, and the clothing store and even then it isn't about gender roles, but rather about strict physiology. None of this taking modern perceptions of prehistoric human behaviour to be a biological imperative and using that to support one's own concept of morality bullshit. It's strictly about the presence of a cervix, the proximity of labia to the urethra, the ratio of hip circumference to waist circumference. These issues would need to be addressed in the same way if I were FTM. "Because I am a woman" becomes a shorthand for a number of physical realities, parallel to "because my eyesight sucks" or "because my feet are messed up," but it isn't actually a basis of decision-making.
So that's what feminism has done for me in my own personal life - it has made gender completely irrelevant as a basis for life choices.
Thursday, March 02, 2006
Open letter to the Mexico tourism authority
In light of recent events, and without any speculation or presumption as to what the real truth is, I give you two important pieces of information.
1. The thought of possibly being murdered for no good reason does not make me less likely to go to Mexico. That could happen here or anywhere.
2. The thought of being falsely accused of a crime and then extradited to a foreign country whose justice system I perceive to be more corrupt and less respectful of human rights than my home justice system is enough to make me never want to go to Mexico, at all, ever.
I don't know what actually happened, but the thought of some random person being arrested to cover various asses rather than bothering to catch the real murderer is far more scary than the fact of the murders themselves.
I should write this in Spanish instead, shouldn't I?
1. The thought of possibly being murdered for no good reason does not make me less likely to go to Mexico. That could happen here or anywhere.
2. The thought of being falsely accused of a crime and then extradited to a foreign country whose justice system I perceive to be more corrupt and less respectful of human rights than my home justice system is enough to make me never want to go to Mexico, at all, ever.
I don't know what actually happened, but the thought of some random person being arrested to cover various asses rather than bothering to catch the real murderer is far more scary than the fact of the murders themselves.
I should write this in Spanish instead, shouldn't I?
Wednesday, March 01, 2006
More Pythonic censorship standards
Drawings and paintings of nudity are not censored (even though they're very realistic), but photographs are.
Monday, February 27, 2006
Legal rights for working animals!
In light of the poor Toronto Police horse who was killed by a hit and run driver, I propose that hurting or killing any working animal should incur the same punishment as hurting or killing its human handler. (With a possible exception of dogs that are trained to bite or attack, because there's a self-defence element there. I'm not sure how I feel about that yet).
Generally-accepted ethical standards consider a human life to be of more value than an animal life, but I think that for working animals, this is cancelled out by the fact that the working animal has no choice about being in the situation.
In the case in question, all the police officers made an informed decision to become police officers, fully aware of the risks they might face. The horse made no such informed decision. He was bought by the police department, and trained to be a police horse. Since there is no way to properly and fully inform a horse of the risks that he'd face being a police horse, he didn't even have the option of deliberately flunking his training so as to avoid being in the line of fire. Even if the horses can talk to each other and the other horses could tell him what they'd seen, they had no way of knowing about abstract risks that they might possibly face in the future but haven't faced yet. A human has some chance of figuring out that an enraged crazy person in a motor vehicle might try to run them over. A horse can't figure that out.
Because the horse is truly an innocent, his death should be punished more severely. I think it is most appropriate for the punishment to be the same as it would be for hit-and-running a human officer.
Generally-accepted ethical standards consider a human life to be of more value than an animal life, but I think that for working animals, this is cancelled out by the fact that the working animal has no choice about being in the situation.
In the case in question, all the police officers made an informed decision to become police officers, fully aware of the risks they might face. The horse made no such informed decision. He was bought by the police department, and trained to be a police horse. Since there is no way to properly and fully inform a horse of the risks that he'd face being a police horse, he didn't even have the option of deliberately flunking his training so as to avoid being in the line of fire. Even if the horses can talk to each other and the other horses could tell him what they'd seen, they had no way of knowing about abstract risks that they might possibly face in the future but haven't faced yet. A human has some chance of figuring out that an enraged crazy person in a motor vehicle might try to run them over. A horse can't figure that out.
Because the horse is truly an innocent, his death should be punished more severely. I think it is most appropriate for the punishment to be the same as it would be for hit-and-running a human officer.
Sunday, February 26, 2006
Things They Should Invent: Blog Anti-Tags
Most blogging software (although not Blogger - HINT HINT BLOGGER TEAM) has tags sorting the posts into different categories. You can click on a tag, and it shows you all the posts in the category. For example, if my blog had tags, there would be a link at the bottom of this post that says "Things They Should Invent." If you clicked on that link, you would see all my Things They Should Invent ideas.
I want something that does the exact opposite. I want to be able to click on an anti-tag, and get the entire blog, except for the posts that fall into that category. So if you were sick of me talking about politics, you could click on my "Politics" anti-tag and get a politics-free blog.
As a practical example, I'm going to pick on Wil Wheaton. I enjoy his blog, but see all that poker talk on the front page? I don't understand a word of it. If his blog had anti-tags, I could click on the "Poker" anti-tag, and get entries about everything but poker, so I don't have to go all scrolly scrolly, oh look a monkey, this looks interesting, no it's just poker, scrolly scrolly.
I want something that does the exact opposite. I want to be able to click on an anti-tag, and get the entire blog, except for the posts that fall into that category. So if you were sick of me talking about politics, you could click on my "Politics" anti-tag and get a politics-free blog.
As a practical example, I'm going to pick on Wil Wheaton. I enjoy his blog, but see all that poker talk on the front page? I don't understand a word of it. If his blog had anti-tags, I could click on the "Poker" anti-tag, and get entries about everything but poker, so I don't have to go all scrolly scrolly, oh look a monkey, this looks interesting, no it's just poker, scrolly scrolly.
Open Letter to Men Everywhere
I do not accept acts of chivalry from strangers unless absolutely necessary, and I will not make small talk with strangers unless I am completely certain they are harmless and their intentions are benign.
Why this drastic policy?
As you may know, there are men out there who assume that the slightest bit of positive or neutral attention from a woman means that the woman is interested in them sexually. And there are men out there who think that their having the impression that a woman is interested in them sexually is an open invitation to aggressively pursue her, or even rape her. And there are men out there who think that if they do a favour for a woman, she owes them something.
You may well not fall into any of these categories, but I have no way of knowing that. You are a stranger, I know nothing about the way your mind works, so I am going to err on the side of caution.
On a less dramatic note, there are also men out there who assume that the slightest bit of positive or neutral attention from a woman means that the woman is interested in them romantically, and take that as an invitation to pursue her within the bounds of propriety. I am already in love and am not interested in any attempts at romance with anyone else, so I attempt to take strict measures to avoid leading people on.
Now I don't always read people well. You might not actually be interested in me. Perhaps you just have that Dale Carnegie Charm School approach to social interaction and you act like that with everyone. Perhaps you're gay and my gaydar is jammed - that has certainly been known to happen, especially cross-culturally. But I honestly do not need anyone else in my social circle, I have all the friends I need, so I would rather miss the opportunity to have a lovely chat with you than give you the impression that I'm available. That's just where my priorities lie.
So I tell you that no, I do not need any help with my recycling, back off and stop trying to take the box out of my hands. When your attempts at elevator small-talk are met with a cold, non-smiling "Hm," it's because I heard you say to your buddy "Let's get in the elevator with all the girls," so I think no good can come of anything resembling a friendly response. When you try to give me your card and I get confused and say "Why?" don't force the card on me. Maybe you really are harmless, but I have no way of knowing that. "But I was just trying to be FRIENDly!" Someone whose intentions were not benign would also say that. So stop making my life less pleasant and wasting your time, and go give your attentions to someone who is not actively trying to make you go away.
(Addendum: I am not addressing women in this letter because, while I have received unwanted attention from women, they do seem to consistently back off at the slightest sign of my disinterest.)
Update: In a Usenet post on some unrelated topic, some random Usenet person mentioned in passing that there's a certain system of "honour" among cads, in which they don't flirt with women they're not actually interested in just for the hell of it. Apparently cads who subscribe to this "honour" code only try to charm women they're interested in, even though less "honourable" cads might go around trying to charm everyone and anyone in order to, I don't know, feel all manly and shit? For some kind of strange middle-school schadenfreude? ("Ha ha! I talked to her and she thought I was serious!") I'm not sure the exact motivation.
But anyway, my point is, please allow the women you're attempting to flirt with to display the same "honour"! When we try to tactfully make it clear we aren't interested in you, leave us be rather than pursuing to the point where we have to be harsh and then calling us all sort of petty middle-school names!
Why this drastic policy?
As you may know, there are men out there who assume that the slightest bit of positive or neutral attention from a woman means that the woman is interested in them sexually. And there are men out there who think that their having the impression that a woman is interested in them sexually is an open invitation to aggressively pursue her, or even rape her. And there are men out there who think that if they do a favour for a woman, she owes them something.
You may well not fall into any of these categories, but I have no way of knowing that. You are a stranger, I know nothing about the way your mind works, so I am going to err on the side of caution.
On a less dramatic note, there are also men out there who assume that the slightest bit of positive or neutral attention from a woman means that the woman is interested in them romantically, and take that as an invitation to pursue her within the bounds of propriety. I am already in love and am not interested in any attempts at romance with anyone else, so I attempt to take strict measures to avoid leading people on.
Now I don't always read people well. You might not actually be interested in me. Perhaps you just have that Dale Carnegie Charm School approach to social interaction and you act like that with everyone. Perhaps you're gay and my gaydar is jammed - that has certainly been known to happen, especially cross-culturally. But I honestly do not need anyone else in my social circle, I have all the friends I need, so I would rather miss the opportunity to have a lovely chat with you than give you the impression that I'm available. That's just where my priorities lie.
So I tell you that no, I do not need any help with my recycling, back off and stop trying to take the box out of my hands. When your attempts at elevator small-talk are met with a cold, non-smiling "Hm," it's because I heard you say to your buddy "Let's get in the elevator with all the girls," so I think no good can come of anything resembling a friendly response. When you try to give me your card and I get confused and say "Why?" don't force the card on me. Maybe you really are harmless, but I have no way of knowing that. "But I was just trying to be FRIENDly!" Someone whose intentions were not benign would also say that. So stop making my life less pleasant and wasting your time, and go give your attentions to someone who is not actively trying to make you go away.
(Addendum: I am not addressing women in this letter because, while I have received unwanted attention from women, they do seem to consistently back off at the slightest sign of my disinterest.)
Update: In a Usenet post on some unrelated topic, some random Usenet person mentioned in passing that there's a certain system of "honour" among cads, in which they don't flirt with women they're not actually interested in just for the hell of it. Apparently cads who subscribe to this "honour" code only try to charm women they're interested in, even though less "honourable" cads might go around trying to charm everyone and anyone in order to, I don't know, feel all manly and shit? For some kind of strange middle-school schadenfreude? ("Ha ha! I talked to her and she thought I was serious!") I'm not sure the exact motivation.
But anyway, my point is, please allow the women you're attempting to flirt with to display the same "honour"! When we try to tactfully make it clear we aren't interested in you, leave us be rather than pursuing to the point where we have to be harsh and then calling us all sort of petty middle-school names!
O Canada
I fully understand the symbolic value of singing O Canada bilingually, but the problem is that it makes far less sense when you understand everything they are saying. The two versions do not say the same thing at all, and it just sounds strange - like alternating Twinkle Twinkle Little Star with the alphabet song.
The smartest show on television?
When the TV show Frasier was running, it was often described as the smartest show on television. I just saw something that made me disagree.
I turned on the TV and a Frasier rerun was playing. Frasier and Roz were sitting in a restaurant. Roz was crying for some reason, and Frasier was consoling her. He had his arm around her and she was crying onto his shoulder. Frasier tells Roz that he is not going to leave her alone until he sees her smile. Then another woman comes up, clearly intended to be uber-sexy, and asks Frasier if he'd like to have a drink with her. The joke is clearly intended to be that as soon as Frasier says he's not leaving Roz, temptation to leave her walks right up.
But there's a huge problem with this: if you're going to attempt to pick a guy up, you're not going to do it when he has JUST put his arm around another woman! And even if it was clear to the other woman that he was consoling her, why on earth would she interrupt this clearly much-needed consolation?
That is stupid, not smart.
I turned on the TV and a Frasier rerun was playing. Frasier and Roz were sitting in a restaurant. Roz was crying for some reason, and Frasier was consoling her. He had his arm around her and she was crying onto his shoulder. Frasier tells Roz that he is not going to leave her alone until he sees her smile. Then another woman comes up, clearly intended to be uber-sexy, and asks Frasier if he'd like to have a drink with her. The joke is clearly intended to be that as soon as Frasier says he's not leaving Roz, temptation to leave her walks right up.
But there's a huge problem with this: if you're going to attempt to pick a guy up, you're not going to do it when he has JUST put his arm around another woman! And even if it was clear to the other woman that he was consoling her, why on earth would she interrupt this clearly much-needed consolation?
That is stupid, not smart.
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