Census

The current census raises many issues about privacy and equality and other important things.

But I didn't notice.

I was too excited about filling out forms.

You see, when I was a little girl, I liked to play at filling out forms. My parents would give me the subscription cards from their magazines, and I'd have fun writing in my name and address and telephone number. Sometimes I'd even get one of those product registration cards that asks for all your demographic information, and that would keep me amused for a terribly long time.

It turns out the part of my brain that was satisfied by filling out those subscription cards is still there and active, and it was made very happy when I got the long form census. So yeah, there are issues, but I just can't deny my inner little girl who's all excited about this great big form to fill out.

"What if?" of the moment

What if you were offered a sufficient salary for life - enough that you never have to worry about money - on the condition that you never contribute productively to society again? You can do what is necessary to take care of yourself and your household, and indulge yourself hedonistically as much as you want, but you cannot, at all, ever contribute to society or the economy or the greater good. Would you take the offer?

My first thought is that I would, because I don't have any grand abstract need to contribute to society. But then I think of the specific things I wouldn't be able to do. Would that mean I couldn't walk dogs at the Human Society? Would that mean I can't engage in political activism? Would that mean I couldn't do little informational translations for family and friends?

Would giving up these things be worth lifetime financial security? Maybe, maybe not. I don't know.

All statements can be interpreted as accurate, except "silver". Silver? WTF?

Your Birthdate: December 22

You tend to be understated and under appreciated. You have a hidden force to do amazing things, doing them your own way. People may see you as strange and shy, but they know little. Your unconventional ways have more power than they (and even you) know. Your strength: Standing up for what you know is true Your weakness: You tend to be picky and rigid Your power color: Silver Your power symbol: Square Your power month: April

What Does Your Birth Date Mean?

Rules

The following rules are effective immediately:

1. Anyone who says anything to the effect of "Wassa matter, you scared?" in a political debate (in the broadest sense of the term) automatically and instantly loses the debate.

2. Anyone who uses a reference to participation in a sex act as an insult or a synonym or metaphor for humiliation is henceforth forbidden to receive pleasure from said sex act.

3. Anyone who says anything to the effect of "Can't you take a joke?" is henceforth deemed to have no sense of humour. Those present also have the option of interpreting any joke the offender makes from that moment forth as being intended as serious, with all the appropraite consequences.

4. Anyone who utters the phrase "No offence, but..." is henceforth deemed to have no communication skills, and should therefore not be trusted with communicating anything important, the reasoning being that anyone with communication skills should be able to present any necessary statement in a non-offensive manner. Those present also have the option of interpreting any statement the offender makes from that moment forth in the most offensive manner possible.

Movie scene bunny, free for the taking

In big movie musicals, people often burst into song in a busy city street, and dance through the street in perfectly choreographed precision.

I want to see a musical where people burst into song in the typical cliched manner, perhaps sing the first verse without dancing, sing the first chorus dancing in place, then attempt to dance down the street. However, all the street traffic keeps getting in their way, and their valiant efforts to complete their song and dance are increasingly hindered by pedestrians and dogs and streetcars and hot dog carts.

Thoughts for today

1. The deli where I buy my breakfast was giving out candies to its female customers for Mother's Day. They offered me one, and I said "No thanks, I'm not a mother." The deli manager said "Oh, you don't have kids yet?" I couldn't think of anything to say, so I just took my breakfast and went back to work.

Obviously the problem with his statement is the "yet". I'm childfree, so there is no yet. Of course, the deli manager clearly has no way of knowing that. However, by not finding a way to politely clarify that I'm childfree, I missed an opportunity to correct the common misconception that all women intend to have children.

Given that the manager knew nothing about my private life, the offer of candy was not inappropriate, but the "yet" was. I wish I'd found some way to politely address that.

2. Fun fact: the word ptak is an epithet in Klingon, but it means "bird" in Polish.

Signs I've been working too hard

Last night I dreamed that I was charged with a violation of the Official Languages Act because the brand name on my running shoes was in English only.

Then I went to Radio Shack to buy something, and I handed over enough cash to pay for it, but then the cashier (who may have been Klingon) insisted that I tell her my account number. I asked her which account - bank? credit card? Air Miles? - but she refused to tell me, just insisting more and more forcefully that I tell her the account number.

Then the universe exploded, and I woke up.

Look at me, I'm a human!

A long time ago - I think it was almost five years ago, based on where I was living at the time - mi cielito thought up this scenario of aliens who are spying on Earth doing a mocking imitation of the planet's inhabitant's. "Look at me! I'm a human! I'm walking aroud! I'm wearing a hat!" It doesn't translate very well to this medium, but it was hilarious.

So naturally, I was very amused when I stumbled upon this Pooch Cafe:

Changes I would make to Sims 2

1. I would like the option of giving all my Sims full autonomy, including major life events. I want them, when left to their own devices, to be able to find and quit jobs, move in and out of household, marry, divorce, have children, buy things etc. whenever they are so inclined.

2. I want to be able to make non-nuclear families in the family creator. For example, a married couple who each has children from their first marriage, or adult siblings living in different households. I know you can make this happen by playing the game, but it's time consuming. I want to be able to define as a given that one adult in household A and one adult in household B are siblings, rather than having to go through all the steps of creating the parental family, moving the adult children out, and having them each form their own nuclear families all BEFORE I can start playing the scenario I want to play.

3. When creating a family, I want to be able to precisely define each Sim's age. Right now you can define them as toddler, child, teen, adult or elder. If I have a household with three teens, I want to be able to make them all different ages instead of having them all be in the first year of the teen stage.

I'm going to be all gauche and talk about my google hits

Apparently someone got here by googling "How to convince your parents to let you be in a band". That's odd, because when I google that phrase I get no results whatsoever. I cannot recall writing about bands, so I have no idea how that search brought someone to my blog.

In any case, if you actually want to convince your parents to let you be in a band, it's my sister you want to talk to for advice, not me. If she's reading this, she's welcome to post her advice on convincing your parents to let you be in a band in the comments. GAH! Too many prepositions.

In other TMI news, it's quite possible that triphasic pills affect my mood, but I'm not entirely sure. So if I'm unbelievably cranky exactly four weeks from now, please bear with me and placate me with puppies and funny stories, and I will definitely get a prescription change.

My inner adolescent just won't die

I get nervous around people who are cooler than me. But not cooler than me by adult standards - most people I know are cooler than me by adult standards and I get along with them just fine. No, I get nervous around adults who are cooler than me by adolescent standards. Someone who comes across as the kind of person who would have been terribly cool and confident in high school - the kind of person on whom my adolescent self would have had a distant crush (even though my adult self doesn't really develop crushes, having a consistent outlet for those energies). And the thing is, when I get into this weird mental place where I'm assessing other adults by adolescent standards, I'm comparing them with my adolescent self. Any cool points that I may have gained in the past seven or so years simply don't count in this bizarre exercise. I'm essentially feeling nervous or intimidated by the lady in the store or the guy who works at the LCBO because I perceive that they were cool adolescents, and their adult selves are cooler than my adolescent self was.

This is so not cool.

Lookit me, I'm famous

The Unorthodox Tips for Riding the TTC printed two, or possibly three, of my submissions. (One of them was the same idea, but worded differently. I can't tell if they edited it or if someone else just submitted something similar). I submitted anonymously, so don't bother looking for me, I'm just amused that they actually accepted my stuff. I'm also amused to see several submissions by this random guy I went to elementary and high school with.

Lessons learned from exhibitionist Sims

1. If your Sim is male, wants to have a baby, and doesn't have a female lover living in the same house, he can still "Try for Baby" with a female Sim by doing a Public Woohoo. I don't know yet if the birth of this baby on another lot will satisfy his "Have a Baby" need or not.

2. A Public Woohoo with a certain Sim counts separately from a Woohoo done in the home. So if your Sim wants to Woohoo with a large number of Sims, doing one Public Woohoo and one at-home Woohoo with the same Sim will count as Woohooing with two separate Sims

From the No Shit Sherlock school of science

A University of Missouri psychologist found that women said they'd be more likely to have sex with a man shown in a photograph giving a cookie to a baby than with a man shown taking a cookie away from a baby.

Source: The Washington Post

Attn: Sympatico customers

Frequent disconnects? Is your internet connection dropping every 1/2 hour to hour?

Lots of people are having that problem, as you can see on dslreports.com or on the Sympatico forums.

If you're having this problem, we NEED you to call 310-SURF and report it. Yes, it's annoying to have to convince the techs that you have a problem (although I got a really good tech - YAY John!). But until 100 people call in and report it, their tracking system doesn't consider it a widespread problem, so they'll consider you a one-off unless 100 people call.

So if you're having this problem CALL! They seem to be open 24/7, although I can't guarantee that.

Brilliant Ideas that will Never Work: Stop Networking!

Attention everyone: stop networking right now! Just stop it! Don't try to make friends unless you're interested in social friendship. Don't try to make contacts who can get you a secret unadvertised job. Apply for and pursue only advertised jobs (although you can accept any unadvertised job that lands in your lap with no effort on your part - I'm not an ogre here!)

If everyone does this, then employers will have to actually advertise their jobs, and the whole employment market will become far more reasonable.

Coffins

Really, it isn't my intention to talk military every day, it's just that these issues keep coming up.

Now the federal government has banned photographing flag-draped coffins of soldiers, which is really odd because, while the US government did implement a similar ban recently, I hadn't heard anything about it being an issue in Canada.

I have opinions on this, but they don't matter.

The opinions of only two groups of people matter:

1. Families and other survivors of deceased soldiers
2. Soldiers themselves

Does it bother the survivors if their deceased loved-one's coffin is photographed? Would it bother the soldiers if their coffin were photographed after their death?

If so, they shouldn't photograph them. If not, it's fair game as much as any other occurrence.

Some rhetoric is equating photographing the coffin with photographing the mourners. This is not an apt comparison. Consenting to photographs of one is not equal to consenting to photographs of the other.

I can tell you that I would not want my picture taken while mourning, but I would not mind if a picture were taken of my coffin, or if a picture were taken of a loved one's coffin. If the casket were open, I might feel differently, but a flag-draped casket obviously isn't open.

But that's just my opinion, and it counts for nothing here. The issue should be left up to soldiers themselves and their survivors. Not elected officials, not military policymakers, not voters. Just the people directly affected.

Westside Red

This is a California wine, but apparently it was designed to imitate certain European reds of impenetrable geographic names. To my untrained palate, it does this quite well. It's a very attractive bottle, and certainly worth seeking out if you don't feel like remembering the ridiculous names of Rhone wines. Which, I do realize, is quite possibly the stupidest reason ever for choosing a particular wine.

Half mast or not half mast

Apparently the government declared that the flag would no longer be lowered to half mast each time a soldier is killed (instead having all fallen soldiers be memorialized on Remembrance Day), then apparently reversed that proclamation.

I'm not sure how I feel about this.

I like half-masting because it's noticeable. I like the idea of it being very in-your-face every time someone dies - it keeps the debate alive on whether what they're doing is worth doing rather than having our soldiers shipped off places to warmonger to various degrees while the public sits by complacent. On a personal level, I like it because it's a reminder of when I've been derelict in my keeping-informed duties. If I see a half-mast flag and don't promptly know what it's for, then I know that I should read my newspaper more closely.

On the other hand, I am opposed to anything that glamourizes soldiering. I am of the highly-unpopular "What if they had a war and nobody came?" school of pacifism - I firmly believe that it is every human being's duty to reject all forms of military involvement (Yes, I am aware of the arguments against this position. No, that's not the point right now), and I think that any action that makes people think they'll be Great Big Glamourous Heroes if they get involved in the military is ill-advised in the long term. (This is why I've always been uncomfortable with Remembrance Day ceremonies).

I'm not sure whether a half-mast flag glamourizes combat deaths. I'm not sure whether the good achieved by keeping "OMG! People are dying!" in the forefront of the public mind outweighs any potential glamourization. Personally, based purely on intuition, I think I'd rather have a half-masting for every death and no Remembrance Day, but obviously that isn't feasible.

I don't presume to have any answers today - just a few good questions at best.