Well, I'm certainly never going to end up being one of those people who needs to hire a consultant to tell them what to do with their time in retirement, that's for sure. I found that my time was still quite full despite the fact that I'm not in the office 8 hours a day. I also find that what I'm sacrificing to be in the office 8 hours a day is sleep, stressless mornings, and TV and gaming that makes me happy. This past week I've slept all I've needed, went about my morning routine without any sense of urgency (sometimes stretching it to 2 or 3 hours) and watched all the TV and played all the computer games that I wanted it. Some people would call that a waste of time, but every moment of it served to actively make me happy. I was actually twirling around my apartment, in my bathrobe at 2 pm, saying "I AM SO FUCKING RELAXED THIS IS AMAZING!" I don't think I need any satisfaction or fulfillment or anything from my job, I just need the money. I guess I like the respect it gets me, too, but if my bank account would stay full without me working, I would be so out of there!
Lessons learned: just because I'm not working doesn't mean I have extrovert energy. I can do multiple small errands within the neighbourhood, but my attempts to thoroughly investigate and try on at multiple Yorkdale stores were just too much. (Of course, this is exacerbated by the fact that the Gap's dressier pants now have narrow ankles - no more boot cut!)
Friday, January 05, 2007
Thursday, January 04, 2007
Brilliant Ideas That Will Never Work: emotional alimony
In marriages when one spouse is generally dependent on the other spouse for financial support, if the couple divorces then the supporter is expected to pay a certain amount of alimony to the supportee, especially if the supporter initiates the divorce. This can be temporary or permanent, depending on the circumstances.
But married couples don't just support each other financially. What if there was alimony for the other things that married couples provide to each other? Examples:
Emotional alimony: you must provide your spouse with moral support, a sounding board, a shoulder to cry on, until such time as they can develop their own resources.
Social alimony: you must provide your spouse with access to your social network and an escort to any major social events, until such time as they can develop their own resources.
Household alimony: if you are solely responsible for cooking/mowing the lawn/sewing on buttons/killing yucky bugs, you must provide your spouse with support in these areas until such time as they can develop their own resources.
No, I have no idea how it would be calculated or enforced.
But married couples don't just support each other financially. What if there was alimony for the other things that married couples provide to each other? Examples:
Emotional alimony: you must provide your spouse with moral support, a sounding board, a shoulder to cry on, until such time as they can develop their own resources.
Social alimony: you must provide your spouse with access to your social network and an escort to any major social events, until such time as they can develop their own resources.
Household alimony: if you are solely responsible for cooking/mowing the lawn/sewing on buttons/killing yucky bugs, you must provide your spouse with support in these areas until such time as they can develop their own resources.
No, I have no idea how it would be calculated or enforced.
Jumping in front of trains
Via WMTC, this guy in NYC jumped in front of a subway train to save someone's life. Of course, this sparks discussion of whether you'd jump in front of a train to save someone's life.
The thing is, in that sort of situation, I don't think I'd jump in front of the train. But it's not because I'm not up for risking my life to save someone else's (I once unthinkingly ran out into traffic to save some random toddler's teddy bear - the teddy bear and I both emerged unscathed), it's that it would never occur to me that my presence down on the tracks would help the guy. It seems the rescuer piled on the rescuee and held him down so the train wouldn't get him, but it just wouldn't occur to me that that would work. I never thought there was room for two people under the train - one, maybe, but I never thought that piling on the fallen person to hold them down would help. If the train wasn't right there, I totally would have jumped into the tracks to help the victim back up to the platform. But if the train was in sight, I would have either run screaming to the end of the platform to hit the power cut, or reached an arm down in a desperate (and probably fruitless - I have weak arms) attempt to pull the victim back up to the platform. But it simply would not have crossed my mind that jumping in front of the oncoming train would be helpful.
Also, I like the quote here: "Transit officials recommend staying away from the platform edge and never jumping onto the tracks."
The thing is, in that sort of situation, I don't think I'd jump in front of the train. But it's not because I'm not up for risking my life to save someone else's (I once unthinkingly ran out into traffic to save some random toddler's teddy bear - the teddy bear and I both emerged unscathed), it's that it would never occur to me that my presence down on the tracks would help the guy. It seems the rescuer piled on the rescuee and held him down so the train wouldn't get him, but it just wouldn't occur to me that that would work. I never thought there was room for two people under the train - one, maybe, but I never thought that piling on the fallen person to hold them down would help. If the train wasn't right there, I totally would have jumped into the tracks to help the victim back up to the platform. But if the train was in sight, I would have either run screaming to the end of the platform to hit the power cut, or reached an arm down in a desperate (and probably fruitless - I have weak arms) attempt to pull the victim back up to the platform. But it simply would not have crossed my mind that jumping in front of the oncoming train would be helpful.
Also, I like the quote here: "Transit officials recommend staying away from the platform edge and never jumping onto the tracks."
Another thing I wish I could say literally and neutrally
"I have nothing to say to him. I wouldn't care if I never saw him again."
I want to be able to say this literally, but it sounds like a dis. But I don't want to dis the person, it's just that they're not at all relevant to my life (which sounds like a dis in and of itself.)
It's like how you'd feel about some kid who was in Grade 1 with you, who wasn't your friend and wasn't mean to you, was just sitting there unremarkably in the classroom. You may or may not remember them, you probably have never given a moment's thought to where they are or what they're going. If someone said to you "Hey, remember Joey Smith from kindergarten? Well this is an opportunity to catch up with him!!! Isn't this wonderful and amazing????" You probably wouldn't feel that enthusiastic. The best you could probably muster is "Meh, it might be interesting." Joey Smith could well be an interesting person, it's just that given what you know about him, you feel no need to actively seek him out. It's nothing against him, it's just that if you never saw him again, you probably wouldn't feel like you're missing anything.
I wish there was some way to express this without it sounding like a dis.
I want to be able to say this literally, but it sounds like a dis. But I don't want to dis the person, it's just that they're not at all relevant to my life (which sounds like a dis in and of itself.)
It's like how you'd feel about some kid who was in Grade 1 with you, who wasn't your friend and wasn't mean to you, was just sitting there unremarkably in the classroom. You may or may not remember them, you probably have never given a moment's thought to where they are or what they're going. If someone said to you "Hey, remember Joey Smith from kindergarten? Well this is an opportunity to catch up with him!!! Isn't this wonderful and amazing????" You probably wouldn't feel that enthusiastic. The best you could probably muster is "Meh, it might be interesting." Joey Smith could well be an interesting person, it's just that given what you know about him, you feel no need to actively seek him out. It's nothing against him, it's just that if you never saw him again, you probably wouldn't feel like you're missing anything.
I wish there was some way to express this without it sounding like a dis.
Things They Should Invent: digital cameras at glasses stores
The problem with trying on glasses is you have to take off your glasses to do so. But with your glasses off, you can't see very well, so it's harder to see how the frames you're trying on look. I can manage by leaning in really close to the mirror, but lots of people have worse eyesight than I do.
Solution: provide digital cameras that customers can use while trying on glasses. So you put on the new frames, take a picture of yourself, put your own glasses back on, look at the picture on the camera's little screen thingy. That way, even people with the worst eyesight can actually see what they look like before they buy their glasses.
Security concerns? Tie the cameras to the glasses shelves. Set up one of those beepy security things in the doorway to go off if someone walks through with a camera. Make people leave collateral. Lots of options!
Solution: provide digital cameras that customers can use while trying on glasses. So you put on the new frames, take a picture of yourself, put your own glasses back on, look at the picture on the camera's little screen thingy. That way, even people with the worst eyesight can actually see what they look like before they buy their glasses.
Security concerns? Tie the cameras to the glasses shelves. Set up one of those beepy security things in the doorway to go off if someone walks through with a camera. Make people leave collateral. Lots of options!
Tuesday, January 02, 2007
Strange translation decision of the day
In my kitchen, I have a product called, in English, No-Chicken Broth. (Q: That's just what I need! Where do I get it? A: Noah's Natural Foods, or the organic section of some Dominion stores.) However, the French side of the box says "Bouillon à Saveur de Poulet." I'll admit that it's quite possible I'm missing some small connotation, but it looks to me like there's nothing in the French name that says that there's no meat. The French name just says "chicken-flavoured broth," while the English name places greater emphasis on the fact that there is no meat in the product. Your Anglophone chicken-soup-craving vegetarian may well grab the product off the shelf based on the name alone, confident that something called No-Chicken Broth will contain no meat. But the Francophone chicken-soup-craving vegetarian has to notice that it says "Bouillon à Saveur de Poulet," not "Bouillon de Poulet". "Une échappatoire?" pense-t-elle, and then hoping against hope she goes to read the ingredient list and sees that yes, there is NO CHICKEN! And there was much rejoicing! But the Francophone vegetarian needs to get to that point of desperation where she's reading the ingredient lists in a desperate hope that she can enjoy some comfy soup without sacrificing her principles. Meanwhile, the Anglophone need only glance at the product name as she scans the shelves, allowing the product to catch the eye of the anglo veggie who isn't actively craving chicken soup, and make her think "Hey, chicken soup! I haven't had that since I was a kid!"
I wonder why they chose this translation in French, as opposed to something along the lines of "bouillon sans poulet." Is it a suboptimal translation, or is there some connotation/marketing thing for the French audience that I, as an anglo, don't know about?
I wonder why they chose this translation in French, as opposed to something along the lines of "bouillon sans poulet." Is it a suboptimal translation, or is there some connotation/marketing thing for the French audience that I, as an anglo, don't know about?
Monday, January 01, 2007
Open letter to Blogger
Dear Blogger:
So you can't upgrade me to the new Blogger yet because my blog's too big. That's fine, no problem, I can wait. But in that case could you please stop giving me great big UPGRADE NOW notices whenever I log in or try to post a new entry? It's annoying! I CAN'T upgrade, so stop telling me to upgrade!
So you can't upgrade me to the new Blogger yet because my blog's too big. That's fine, no problem, I can wait. But in that case could you please stop giving me great big UPGRADE NOW notices whenever I log in or try to post a new entry? It's annoying! I CAN'T upgrade, so stop telling me to upgrade!
What it's like to hate sports
Every time I blog about how being forced to do sports just makes you hate it (like I did below), I inevitably get backlash from people who love sports. There's a key miscommunication here: people who love sports simply cannot conceptualize what it's like to hate sports. They have this idea that sports are fun, and they don't seem able to see the other side. This is a problem because all the expert-consultant-type people on trying to make society more active are all phys. ed. teacher/kineseology student types, all of whom enjoy sports, because if they didn't enjoy sports they would ahve picked another profession.
So here are some truths you need to understand for us to have a reasonable dialogue about physical activity:
- Physical activity is not fun. If I happen to be having fun doing some sport or active game, it's despite the fact that it involves physical activity, not because of it.
- If you increase the physical exertion or competitiveness involved in something I enjoy, I will enjoy it less.
- If I am bored, doing physical activity will not make me less bored. In fact, it will probably make me more bored, because part of my brain has to focus on the physicality of the activity, which reduces my ability to think my own thoughts.
- If you said to me "Hurry up, you have to do [insert sport here] right now, this is your last chance ever in your life to do [insert sport here]!" I wouldn't be motivated to change my plans. There is no sport or physical activity in the world that I care about or enjoy enough that I'd even blink if I never had the chance to do it again. With many sports, I'd rejoice in the fact that I never have to do it again.
- If you said to me "Hurry up, this is your last chance to do any sports at all ever again!", I still wouldn't be motivated to change my plans for the same reason listed above. Again, I'd probably rejoice.
- For me, physical activity is a chore. It's like doing the dishes or taking out the recycling. If you gave me a choice between the dishes doing themselves for the rest of my life or never having to do physical activity for the rest of my life, I would pick no physical activity, without hesitation.
- For me, physical activity is undignified. Sweating, running after a ball, stretching - they aren't the sort of thing I want people to see me doing. Putting me in a situation where other people can see me doing physical activity is as humiliating to me as having those people watch me take a dump or getting a pap smear or drooling in the dentist's chair.
At this point, all you sports-lovers out there are saying "But that's not true!" But this is my point: even if these statements aren't true for you, they are true for me, just like for me olives and cantaloupe are yucky. If you want to cook a dish I'll enjoy, you have to take as a given that olives and cantaloupe are yucky; if you want to create a physical activity scheme that will work for me, you have to take as a given that these statements are true and plan accordingly.
***
ETA: Same thing, but in analogy form.
You've never been too fond of scrubbing the floor. You've been exposed to it your whole life as your parents exposed you to most aspects of everyday life, but you've never really liked it. If you could choose anything to do in the whole wide world, you would never choose to scrub the floor.
However, they recently did some studies that found that the nation's floors are perilously dirty, so they added floor-scrubbing to the school curriculum.
Floor-scrubbing classes made you start to actively hate scrubbing the floor. You had to wear this ugly floor-scrubbing apron and use this grungy industrial sponge that everyone else in the school has used for the past who-knows-how-many years. Your teacher would stand over you and yell at you whenever you missed a spot, even if it was just that you hadn't gotten to that spot yet. Your knees always hurt if you kneel a long time, but if you don't stay on your hands and knees you lose marks for poor technique; this results in a grade that's significantly lower than all your other marks, and brings down your overall average. Plus, your classmates have always tormented you at the slightest opportunities, and floor-scrubbing class gives them a lot of fodder. They mock you for being in the undignified hands-and-knees position, they poke at your bum (and the teacher deducts marks for poor technique if you use a position that protects your bum), they throw dirty water at you when the teacher's back is turned, they deliberately walk on your section of floor with their dirty shoes...
So when you've completed your final mandatory floor-scrubbing class, you're ecstatic.
From then on, you do everything possible to avoid scrubbing the floor. You take on other chores instead, leaving the floor-scrubbing for your roommates. Once you move into your own apartment, you vacuum and mop and spot-clean, avoiding scrubbing unless absolutely necessary. Your floor is clean enough for your purposes - there's certainly nothing unsanitary about it - but it will never be as clean as the floors of those people who love scrubbing the floor, and scrub it on their hands and knees every day. And you're fine with that, you don't need it to be surgically clean. (In fact, secretly and to yourself, you kind of think that people who keep their floors surgically clean must be rather dull individuals, and you have no desire to meet or socialize with such people.)
Then one day you see a newspaper article about the shameful state of the nation's floors. Some floor-scrubbing experts - the kind of people who love floor-scrubbing so much they studied it at a post-secondary level - are recommending that floor-scrubbing be manadatory year-round throughout students' entire educational careers. It's also offering parents tax credits for enrolling their kids in after-school floor-scrubbing classes - but only for the kind of floor-scrubbing that's on your hands and knees with a sponge. If the kids prefer mopping - or if they prefer to learn how to cook or garden instead - the parents don't get any tax credits.
Do you really think these additional measures are going to help? Or do they just strike you as cruel humiliations that will just make those kids hate scrubbing the floor as adults?
So here are some truths you need to understand for us to have a reasonable dialogue about physical activity:
- Physical activity is not fun. If I happen to be having fun doing some sport or active game, it's despite the fact that it involves physical activity, not because of it.
- If you increase the physical exertion or competitiveness involved in something I enjoy, I will enjoy it less.
- If I am bored, doing physical activity will not make me less bored. In fact, it will probably make me more bored, because part of my brain has to focus on the physicality of the activity, which reduces my ability to think my own thoughts.
- If you said to me "Hurry up, you have to do [insert sport here] right now, this is your last chance ever in your life to do [insert sport here]!" I wouldn't be motivated to change my plans. There is no sport or physical activity in the world that I care about or enjoy enough that I'd even blink if I never had the chance to do it again. With many sports, I'd rejoice in the fact that I never have to do it again.
- If you said to me "Hurry up, this is your last chance to do any sports at all ever again!", I still wouldn't be motivated to change my plans for the same reason listed above. Again, I'd probably rejoice.
- For me, physical activity is a chore. It's like doing the dishes or taking out the recycling. If you gave me a choice between the dishes doing themselves for the rest of my life or never having to do physical activity for the rest of my life, I would pick no physical activity, without hesitation.
- For me, physical activity is undignified. Sweating, running after a ball, stretching - they aren't the sort of thing I want people to see me doing. Putting me in a situation where other people can see me doing physical activity is as humiliating to me as having those people watch me take a dump or getting a pap smear or drooling in the dentist's chair.
At this point, all you sports-lovers out there are saying "But that's not true!" But this is my point: even if these statements aren't true for you, they are true for me, just like for me olives and cantaloupe are yucky. If you want to cook a dish I'll enjoy, you have to take as a given that olives and cantaloupe are yucky; if you want to create a physical activity scheme that will work for me, you have to take as a given that these statements are true and plan accordingly.
***
ETA: Same thing, but in analogy form.
You've never been too fond of scrubbing the floor. You've been exposed to it your whole life as your parents exposed you to most aspects of everyday life, but you've never really liked it. If you could choose anything to do in the whole wide world, you would never choose to scrub the floor.
However, they recently did some studies that found that the nation's floors are perilously dirty, so they added floor-scrubbing to the school curriculum.
Floor-scrubbing classes made you start to actively hate scrubbing the floor. You had to wear this ugly floor-scrubbing apron and use this grungy industrial sponge that everyone else in the school has used for the past who-knows-how-many years. Your teacher would stand over you and yell at you whenever you missed a spot, even if it was just that you hadn't gotten to that spot yet. Your knees always hurt if you kneel a long time, but if you don't stay on your hands and knees you lose marks for poor technique; this results in a grade that's significantly lower than all your other marks, and brings down your overall average. Plus, your classmates have always tormented you at the slightest opportunities, and floor-scrubbing class gives them a lot of fodder. They mock you for being in the undignified hands-and-knees position, they poke at your bum (and the teacher deducts marks for poor technique if you use a position that protects your bum), they throw dirty water at you when the teacher's back is turned, they deliberately walk on your section of floor with their dirty shoes...
So when you've completed your final mandatory floor-scrubbing class, you're ecstatic.
From then on, you do everything possible to avoid scrubbing the floor. You take on other chores instead, leaving the floor-scrubbing for your roommates. Once you move into your own apartment, you vacuum and mop and spot-clean, avoiding scrubbing unless absolutely necessary. Your floor is clean enough for your purposes - there's certainly nothing unsanitary about it - but it will never be as clean as the floors of those people who love scrubbing the floor, and scrub it on their hands and knees every day. And you're fine with that, you don't need it to be surgically clean. (In fact, secretly and to yourself, you kind of think that people who keep their floors surgically clean must be rather dull individuals, and you have no desire to meet or socialize with such people.)
Then one day you see a newspaper article about the shameful state of the nation's floors. Some floor-scrubbing experts - the kind of people who love floor-scrubbing so much they studied it at a post-secondary level - are recommending that floor-scrubbing be manadatory year-round throughout students' entire educational careers. It's also offering parents tax credits for enrolling their kids in after-school floor-scrubbing classes - but only for the kind of floor-scrubbing that's on your hands and knees with a sponge. If the kids prefer mopping - or if they prefer to learn how to cook or garden instead - the parents don't get any tax credits.
Do you really think these additional measures are going to help? Or do they just strike you as cruel humiliations that will just make those kids hate scrubbing the floor as adults?
The problem with the tax credit for kids' sports
They have or are going to introduce a tax credits for costs associated with kids' sports, but it only applies for certain sports that are deemed to involved sufficient physical activity.
There's one major problem with this scheme that I haven't seen mentioned yet: it's the kids who have to do the sports, but the parents get the tax credit. If we assume that the tax credit is sufficient motivation to get people to change their behaviour (which I don't actually think it is, but since this seems to be one of the key assumptions behind this plan I'm taking it as a given for the moment), then the parents are motivated to have their kids do sports from the approved list. But it doesn't provide any motivation for the kids themselves. It isn't motivating people to have an active lifestyle, it's motivating people to force other people to do certain physical activities that have been approved by a third party. There's nothing in it for the people who are actually doing the physical activities. If the kids want to do the approved sports, they'll be doing the sports anyway. If the kids don't want to do the approved sports, their parents are more likely to be making them do it anyway for the parents' own personal gain. As I've blogged about extensively before, being forced to do sports in childhood simply makes you hate sports in adulthood, and adulthood is much longer than childhood. So if this tax credit does have the social engineering effect it's intended to have, it will simply make more people hate sports in the long term.
There's one major problem with this scheme that I haven't seen mentioned yet: it's the kids who have to do the sports, but the parents get the tax credit. If we assume that the tax credit is sufficient motivation to get people to change their behaviour (which I don't actually think it is, but since this seems to be one of the key assumptions behind this plan I'm taking it as a given for the moment), then the parents are motivated to have their kids do sports from the approved list. But it doesn't provide any motivation for the kids themselves. It isn't motivating people to have an active lifestyle, it's motivating people to force other people to do certain physical activities that have been approved by a third party. There's nothing in it for the people who are actually doing the physical activities. If the kids want to do the approved sports, they'll be doing the sports anyway. If the kids don't want to do the approved sports, their parents are more likely to be making them do it anyway for the parents' own personal gain. As I've blogged about extensively before, being forced to do sports in childhood simply makes you hate sports in adulthood, and adulthood is much longer than childhood. So if this tax credit does have the social engineering effect it's intended to have, it will simply make more people hate sports in the long term.
This is a good holiday
The great advantage of New Years Day as a statutory holiday is that nothing is expected of you and the day itself is of little significance. On xmas you're supposed to visit your family and get presents and have the Best. Day. Ever. On Thanksgiving you're supposed to visit your family and eat turkey and be all thankful and shit. On Victoria Day you're supposed to go to the cottage and watch fireworks and OMG summer starts! Labour Day is OMG the end of summer and we have to make the most of it, all while being haunted by the spectre of school starting the next day.
But New Years Day is nothing. The big deal happened the night before. The day after isn't really a great big return to anything. It's just...a day off. Very easy, very low-pressure. Plus, there's no pressure to be productive and get stuff done, since stores are closed and we can't do our errands anyway. It's just one simple day where we are fully justified in doing absolutely nothing. As I'm typing this, it's 3 pm and I'm in my bathrobe, but no one can really fault me for that. Get dressed and do something productive? Why, what would you have me do? Go out, have fun, make the most of the day? Why, where would you have me go?
More statutory holidays should be like this.
But New Years Day is nothing. The big deal happened the night before. The day after isn't really a great big return to anything. It's just...a day off. Very easy, very low-pressure. Plus, there's no pressure to be productive and get stuff done, since stores are closed and we can't do our errands anyway. It's just one simple day where we are fully justified in doing absolutely nothing. As I'm typing this, it's 3 pm and I'm in my bathrobe, but no one can really fault me for that. Get dressed and do something productive? Why, what would you have me do? Go out, have fun, make the most of the day? Why, where would you have me go?
More statutory holidays should be like this.
Sunday, December 31, 2006
Things They Should Invent: dog stroller
I don't have a car, which is fine considering where I live. I want a dog, which would normally be fine without a car, considering where I live. Everything I or a dog could want is within walking distance. Even going to the vet shouldn't be a problem, since a walk to the park would involve walking right past the vet's office, so if I take the dog to the park frequently, it won't realize we're going to the vet until we actually walk in the door.
But what if the dog needs to go to the vet because it's sick or hurt in a way that makes it painful or impossible for the dog to walk to the vet? If it's a very small dog, I can carry it. But I'm not particularly strong and the vet is a few blocks away, so I may well not be able to carry the dog all the way to the vet in a way that's safe and comfortable for both of us. I could call a taxi or a pet taxi, but it seems a ridiculously short distance to be driven. I would walk it myself if I were in pain, it's just that I wouldn't make my dog walk if it were in pain.
I was pondering this in the shower today, and the best solution I could think of is making some modifications to a granny cart. However, this doesn't seem a particularly pleasant environment for a dog, especially since the easiest way to move a granny cart is to tilt it and pull it backwards - pushing it flat and forwards is harder.
So what I want is a stroller-type device specially designed to safely and comfortably transport a dog, just for those situations where the dog can't walk but I can.
But what if the dog needs to go to the vet because it's sick or hurt in a way that makes it painful or impossible for the dog to walk to the vet? If it's a very small dog, I can carry it. But I'm not particularly strong and the vet is a few blocks away, so I may well not be able to carry the dog all the way to the vet in a way that's safe and comfortable for both of us. I could call a taxi or a pet taxi, but it seems a ridiculously short distance to be driven. I would walk it myself if I were in pain, it's just that I wouldn't make my dog walk if it were in pain.
I was pondering this in the shower today, and the best solution I could think of is making some modifications to a granny cart. However, this doesn't seem a particularly pleasant environment for a dog, especially since the easiest way to move a granny cart is to tilt it and pull it backwards - pushing it flat and forwards is harder.
So what I want is a stroller-type device specially designed to safely and comfortably transport a dog, just for those situations where the dog can't walk but I can.
Saturday, December 30, 2006
Vacations are better when you're a grownup
I'm taking the next week off work. This is the first time I've taken any serious amount of time off since I started my job 3.5 years ago. I've taken lots of long weekends, but never a whole week before.
I just realized something incredibly cool: I can actually take this time off! There isn't anything else I "should" be doing! Ever since I started high school, vacations have come with a sense that I should be having a job or doing something productive. All time off school was spent either working, looking for work, or feeling guilty for not working. (Plus practicing music, getting ahead on schoolwork, etc.) And there was no such thing as time off work, because if I didn't go to work I didn't get paid.
But now I have paid vacation time, and since I still have a job and am still getting paid (unless something diastrous happens in the interim), I can legitimately and without any guilt whatsoever do whatever the hell I want. I can sleep until noon, eat ice cream, and play videogames all day if I want, and anyone who would tell me that I should use my time more productively would be way out of line! This is so cool!
I just realized something incredibly cool: I can actually take this time off! There isn't anything else I "should" be doing! Ever since I started high school, vacations have come with a sense that I should be having a job or doing something productive. All time off school was spent either working, looking for work, or feeling guilty for not working. (Plus practicing music, getting ahead on schoolwork, etc.) And there was no such thing as time off work, because if I didn't go to work I didn't get paid.
But now I have paid vacation time, and since I still have a job and am still getting paid (unless something diastrous happens in the interim), I can legitimately and without any guilt whatsoever do whatever the hell I want. I can sleep until noon, eat ice cream, and play videogames all day if I want, and anyone who would tell me that I should use my time more productively would be way out of line! This is so cool!
Thursday, December 28, 2006
Doggie disaster near-miss
There's an adoptable dog on Dogster that I had my eye on. Her size, breed, and temperament seem a good fit, and she even has floppy ears! But, after some thought, I decided to postpone getting a dog until I've got the new apartment. A few more dogless months seemed a reasonable sacrifice to give me a the best possible chance of getting a dishwasher and in-suite laundry in a brand-new building. So I stopped checking Dogster on a regular basis.
But today I did decide to look at Dogster, just because I was in a doggie sort of mood. To my surprise, the dog I was thinking of adopting was still there. To my greater surprise, she had a litter of puppies! I googled up canine gestation periods, and it looks like she was newly pregnant when I was first considering adopting her!
But her profile never said she was pregnant when I first looked! It's quite likely that her humans didn't know yet, but imagine if I'd accidentally adopted a pregnant dog! I mean, puppies rock, but I'm far too novice a dog owner to have a whole litter of brand new puppies! I don't even know how to go about rehoming dogs, and my apartment is way too small for six dogs!
So, lessons learned: Make sure that any dog I adopt is spayed/neutered. Maybe even have a vet look them over before I commit (is that socially acceptable?)
Another lesson learned: I had to look up a dog gestation period, I didn't know it offhand. This means that I should get a book on basic dog medical stuff. I never thought of that before - I've been focusing on psychology and training - but obviously I don't know enough if I had to look up the gestation period. Can anyone recommend a doggie medical book that can be understood by someone who never even took biology in high school?
But today I did decide to look at Dogster, just because I was in a doggie sort of mood. To my surprise, the dog I was thinking of adopting was still there. To my greater surprise, she had a litter of puppies! I googled up canine gestation periods, and it looks like she was newly pregnant when I was first considering adopting her!
But her profile never said she was pregnant when I first looked! It's quite likely that her humans didn't know yet, but imagine if I'd accidentally adopted a pregnant dog! I mean, puppies rock, but I'm far too novice a dog owner to have a whole litter of brand new puppies! I don't even know how to go about rehoming dogs, and my apartment is way too small for six dogs!
So, lessons learned: Make sure that any dog I adopt is spayed/neutered. Maybe even have a vet look them over before I commit (is that socially acceptable?)
Another lesson learned: I had to look up a dog gestation period, I didn't know it offhand. This means that I should get a book on basic dog medical stuff. I never thought of that before - I've been focusing on psychology and training - but obviously I don't know enough if I had to look up the gestation period. Can anyone recommend a doggie medical book that can be understood by someone who never even took biology in high school?
Wednesday, December 27, 2006
Slow news day?
The following pieces of advice were found in the Boxing Day edition of the Hamilton Spectator:
1. Feed your children whole-grain food whenever possible.
2. Buy fresh, locally-grown produce when in season.
3. You might want to put some lotion on your hands so they don't get dry or cracked.
4. Strictly speaking, your belt should match your shoes.
5. Down bedcovers are very warm.
1. Feed your children whole-grain food whenever possible.
2. Buy fresh, locally-grown produce when in season.
3. You might want to put some lotion on your hands so they don't get dry or cracked.
4. Strictly speaking, your belt should match your shoes.
5. Down bedcovers are very warm.
Tuesday, December 26, 2006
Back
Got back this afternoon, in time to do my laundry and enjoy most of the Enterprise marathon. Things were okay, but being chez les parents reinforced my desire for an urban, carfree life completely separate from them. I'd forgotten how much friendlier Toronto dog owners are though. I saw the most adorable beagle ever and said "Hi puppy!" and its people looked at me all suspicious, like "Why are you talking to my dog?" (In Toronto, people tend to either engage me and allow me to engage the dog, or just smile at me, or heel the dog if they're trying to train it, which I take as a sign to stop attempting to engage the dog. I never get negative reactions about talking to other people's dogs here.)
I was staying at my parents' overnight but my sister wasn't (b/c she lives much closer), so I got to be an only child, which I haven't been able to do since I was two. Unfortunately, sleeping in my childhood bed makes me dream that I'm in high school again.
I got to see my cousins and aunts and uncles and grandmothers, got to laugh at assorted fathers being all squicked out that my one (female) cousin now lives in the gaybourhood (why are people allowed to have daughters when they can't even empathize with a female perspective?), got to enjoy lots of good mommy-food and babcia-food and take leftovers home with me. I am a bit tired though from all the constant people, and I have to work all the rest of this week, so I'll be back with more later once I decompress some. Luckily I get the first week of January off so I can recover properly from xmas.
I was staying at my parents' overnight but my sister wasn't (b/c she lives much closer), so I got to be an only child, which I haven't been able to do since I was two. Unfortunately, sleeping in my childhood bed makes me dream that I'm in high school again.
I got to see my cousins and aunts and uncles and grandmothers, got to laugh at assorted fathers being all squicked out that my one (female) cousin now lives in the gaybourhood (why are people allowed to have daughters when they can't even empathize with a female perspective?), got to enjoy lots of good mommy-food and babcia-food and take leftovers home with me. I am a bit tired though from all the constant people, and I have to work all the rest of this week, so I'll be back with more later once I decompress some. Luckily I get the first week of January off so I can recover properly from xmas.
Saturday, December 23, 2006
Better than using it an an audition piece...
Whoever can translate the introduction to Everything Is Illuminated should get a prize! Whoever can effectively translate it into Ukrainian, while retaining a reasonable amount of the humour, gets to be god (until a more difficult translation challenge comes along.)
New Rule
Taken in a vacuum, I don't mind if people don't send me a birthday card. I tend not to notice the absence of something anyway.
Taken in a vacuum, I guess I don't mind if people send me xmas cards. I'm not religious or anything, but I can accept that some people have this bizarre need to send a generic greeting to everyone they know for some weird reason.
The problem is when people - like family and friends, real people with whom I have a greeting card relationship - send me a xmas card from their generic "OMG must send a card to everyone I know!" list, and pretend that's suitable acknowledgement of my birthday. I'm not even xian! Just because you sent me a generic card for some holiday near my birthday doesn't mean you've acknowledged my birthday! It makes me feel like you don't care at all about me as an individual, and instead value me simple because I make your list of "People I know" one name longer. I'd rather get nothing at all than a xmas card but no birthday card. If you choose not to acknowledge me at all, that's fine, but I'm sick of being given greetings for a religious thing I don't even celebrate and expected to take that as greetings for my birthday!
Therefore, I am introducing a new rule: If you send me a xmas card and expect it to count as birthday greetings, for your birthday you are getting a greeting card for some religious holiday in a religion to which you don't subscribe, with nary a Happy Birthday comment added.
Taken in a vacuum, I guess I don't mind if people send me xmas cards. I'm not religious or anything, but I can accept that some people have this bizarre need to send a generic greeting to everyone they know for some weird reason.
The problem is when people - like family and friends, real people with whom I have a greeting card relationship - send me a xmas card from their generic "OMG must send a card to everyone I know!" list, and pretend that's suitable acknowledgement of my birthday. I'm not even xian! Just because you sent me a generic card for some holiday near my birthday doesn't mean you've acknowledged my birthday! It makes me feel like you don't care at all about me as an individual, and instead value me simple because I make your list of "People I know" one name longer. I'd rather get nothing at all than a xmas card but no birthday card. If you choose not to acknowledge me at all, that's fine, but I'm sick of being given greetings for a religious thing I don't even celebrate and expected to take that as greetings for my birthday!
Therefore, I am introducing a new rule: If you send me a xmas card and expect it to count as birthday greetings, for your birthday you are getting a greeting card for some religious holiday in a religion to which you don't subscribe, with nary a Happy Birthday comment added.
Friday, December 22, 2006
Happy birthday to:
Happy birthday to:
1. L.S. from high school. I can't seem to track you down online because of a quasi-celebrity with the same name as you, mais je te souhaite mes meilleurs voeux et j'espère que tout aille bien pour toi.
2. Musey. I don't think you still use that name (I no longer use the name I used when we met) but you know who you are.
3. Vidman, who I don't know at all, but has the exact same birthday as me (year and everything) AND hosts the French baguette commercial on his website, so he gets a free link from me.
1. L.S. from high school. I can't seem to track you down online because of a quasi-celebrity with the same name as you, mais je te souhaite mes meilleurs voeux et j'espère que tout aille bien pour toi.
2. Musey. I don't think you still use that name (I no longer use the name I used when we met) but you know who you are.
3. Vidman, who I don't know at all, but has the exact same birthday as me (year and everything) AND hosts the French baguette commercial on his website, so he gets a free link from me.
The REAL problem with all this xmas shit. For real this time.
I know, I said I've found the real problem like 12 zillion times. But I've got it for real this time:
The real problem is that people:
1. Go out of their way to do something xmassy in the public sphere. Decorations, parties, special meals, school assemblies. THEN...
2. Because they're supposed to be neutral, they take this xmassy thing that they're exceptionally going out of their way to do, and give it a "politically correct" name. Oftentimes they give it an overly excessive "politically correct name, like those people who use the word humankind when the perfectly good word humanity exists. E.g. "Happy Merry non-denominational winter holiday thingy!" THEN...
3. Declare this ridiculous excessive political correctness to be a War on Christmas and declare anyone who just...doesn't want to be all xmas all the time 24/7 to be oppressive and anti-xian and whatnot.
The real problem is not that things are labelled more inclusively. The real problem is that everyone is going to great, big, exceptional trouble to saturate everything with a xmas theme in the first place! All they have to do is not decorate public space and smother it with carols, not make special xmas events when you're supposed to be inclusive and simply change the nomenclature. If labelling something "Christmas" would be politically incorrect, just don't do something xmassy under another name. Let people do it in their own homes, in their own families and religions, where it has meaning.
The real problem is that people:
1. Go out of their way to do something xmassy in the public sphere. Decorations, parties, special meals, school assemblies. THEN...
2. Because they're supposed to be neutral, they take this xmassy thing that they're exceptionally going out of their way to do, and give it a "politically correct" name. Oftentimes they give it an overly excessive "politically correct name, like those people who use the word humankind when the perfectly good word humanity exists. E.g. "Happy Merry non-denominational winter holiday thingy!" THEN...
3. Declare this ridiculous excessive political correctness to be a War on Christmas and declare anyone who just...doesn't want to be all xmas all the time 24/7 to be oppressive and anti-xian and whatnot.
The real problem is not that things are labelled more inclusively. The real problem is that everyone is going to great, big, exceptional trouble to saturate everything with a xmas theme in the first place! All they have to do is not decorate public space and smother it with carols, not make special xmas events when you're supposed to be inclusive and simply change the nomenclature. If labelling something "Christmas" would be politically incorrect, just don't do something xmassy under another name. Let people do it in their own homes, in their own families and religions, where it has meaning.
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