If you're in the market for nailpolish

Right now, PharmaPlus has Rimmel nailpolish on for $1.99, plus like five bonus air miles each. I don't remember if I've blogged this before, but the Rimmel Wear 10 polish actually does last significantly longer than regular polishes (it lasts a week on me, and generally my nails chip if I even give a passing thought to doing housework). So yeah, go to PharmaPlus and buy one in every colour that appeals to you.

For the lack of an interpreter, a life was lost

A translated transcript of the Dziekanski video.

I'm glad the G&M did this, because I'm too squeamish to watch a person die. I wish we had more context though. I'm not familiar with Vancouver airport and I haven't been on an international flight in years. Was he just in the wrong room and not leaving that room going looking for his mother? Or was someone preventing him from leaving that room? If someone was preventing him, why couldn't they find an interpreter? Wasn't he in there for 10 hours? It would make more sense if we knew the layout.

While I know the real issue is that the police tased him at least three times, but I keep thinking how this might never have happened if there had just been someone there who had enough Polish to understand him and enough English to navigate the airport. Which I can do, either alone or with the help of my cellphone.

I've never been in the situation of witnessing someone acting erratically in another of my languages, but I might rethink my reaction in the future. I've always been told by people who know better than I do that if someone is acting threateningly because of distress or a mental health problem, they're still a threat to me and I should protect myself accordingly. But now I think I should take the Starfleet approach and answer any distress signals I can decode, at least until someone better able to help them gets there. I've always been willing to intervene to protect a person from another person, but I never thought before about protecting people from themselves before the police come. I'm not the kind of person who trusts the police unconditionally, but I always assumed they'd be able to handle the situation of a person in distress in another language. It looks like I can't assume that any more, which means it's my job now.

Edit: So far, I've been thinking about this in terms of the difficulty of getting an interpreter in the context of everyday life, about how I'd handle the problem in ordinary public space. But, as a letter in today's Toronto Star from one Omer Lifshitz of Toronto (whose name I am deliberately making Googleable because he deserves credit for seeing something I missed) pointed out, Robert Dziekanski had just gotten off a plane from Poland! They knew where he came from, and there must have been members of the flight crew who spoke Polish since he managed the flight okay. It should have taken far fewer than 10 hours for someone to notice that he had been in the arrivals area for a long time, look at his passport and/or boarding pass, identify his language needs, and find someone who speaks Polish. Before I disagreed with people who said this is the airline's responsibility, but now that I think about it they had people, right there getting off the same plane as Pan Dziekanski, who could have explained things to him in Polish.

Coolest thing ever of the moment

I'm not too fond of marching bands, but as a band geek and a gamer I can't help but think this is awesome (like at least 100,000 hotdogs).

Sightings

Seen in the hallway: the neighbour dog who's been WOOFing at me every time I step out into the hall. Turns out its a tiny little schnauzer! I'm impressed by the little guy's lung power!

Seen on the way to the store: a lady with two adorable dogs, standing on the corner as though waiting for someone.

Seen on the way home from the store: a different lady with the same two adorable dogs, standing on the same corner as though waiting for someone.

Seen at Noah's: cookies called "Bowel Buddies". I'm surprised anyone would eat something with the word bowel in the name when they have the option of eating something without the word bowel in the name.

Seen at Dominion: those tote bags that they're trying to get people to use instead of plastic bags, redesigned with a seasonal motif. (And I'm using the word "seasonal" literally - pine trees and snowflakes). I'm wondering what went on in the strokey-beard meeting behind that. Why introduce the concept of seasonality to something specifically designed to be permanent and represent permanence?

Seen in my ZoneAlarm alerts: "Trillian is trying to act as a server. IP address: 0.0.0.0" Yeah, you do that.

Dancing through the streets

Evening rush hour. It's dark out, which we're still getting used to since it's only a week into standard time. I'm standing directly across Yonge St. from where I need to be, but unfortunately there's no crosswalk at that point. I'm clad entirely in black, wearing four-inch heels, burdened with shopping bags, and pondering whether to risk a jaywalk at this point or to walk a block to a proper crosswalk.

An older woman in a similar predicament is also pondering the same thing, so we catch each other's eye and wordlessly form a temporary alliance. We are soon joined by another woman pushing a baby stroller. We scope out the traffic, use the power of our numbers to assert our position in the curb lane, and then on some unspoken signal run across after that taxi cab, while that SUV is making a left turn, myself and the older woman flanking the stroller by some unspoken agreement in case it's too low for the cars to see. On the other side of the street we unceremoniously dissolve our alliance and hurry off our separate ways, with only a brief glance back to make sure the mother managed to get the stroller up on the curb.

I think this is why people in cities don't make small talk with each other.

I've previously theorized that it's because of sheer numbers (I cross paths with 100 people on the way to the subway this morning - like hell I'm going to say hi or even smile and nod at all of them!), but now I think it's that by having so many people crowded together, we automatically have to engage in quite a few positive social interactions that generate goodwill, just as part of walking around without being an asshole. So because of this, maybe we don't have to chitchat to get positive social interactions or goodwill, because we're already sated.

For example, on the way to work I have to do the door-holdy dance 10 times. I get to a door, take it from the person who's holding it from me, say thank you, hold it for the next person, receive their thanks. There are also two elevator dances, where everyone in the elevator positions themselves in order of anticipated departure, where the person near the buttons tries to offer to press buttons for everyone while everyone tries to press their own buttons without invading any personal space, where you either hold the door and the person running apologizes for making you old the door, or someone opens the door with the call button and then apologizes for delaying you while you apologize for not seeing them. Half the time there's a dog in the apartment elevator which means we also have to do the doggie dance, where I'm gracious about the fact that the dog is sniffing and/or jumping on me while the dog's human is gracious about the fact that I keep petting and babytalking at their dog. There's also a dance at every subway stop (Are there any free seats? Does anyone need my seat more than I do? Am I in anyone's way? No, no, you go ahead, I'm getting off soon anyway) and every subway staircase (I have to make my train and not be in the way of the people going for the other train and I can go fast but still I'm wearing heels and it's downhill so I'll go in front of this old lady to break a trail for her (I hope she realizes I'm helping her and not budding) and behind this big tall man.) Plus people often ask me for directions or to help them with strollers or something - I'd say it happens at least three times a week.

So in total, we're pushing 20 positive social interactions just on a wordless, ipoded and sunglassed, 17-minute commute to work. Who needs chitchat after all that?

The weirdest thing about In Flanders Fields

The last two lines, my bolding:

We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders Fields

Though.

Though implies an expected cause and effect. Even though poppies are growing here, we still cannot (or will not) sleep. As if the narrator expects that the reader is thinking "WTF? Why can't you sleep? There are poppies growing there!"

The only conclusion I can draw from this is that it's a drug reference.

And yet they have schoolchildren recite this?

One drink a day for women and two for men

I keep seeing that people limit their drinking to one drink a day for women and two for men.

What I really want to know is whether this gender difference is due to the difference in average body mass between the genders, or some other factor.

I'm 5'7" and 150 lbs. It certainly wouldn't be out of the ordinary for a man to be exactly the same size. So would a 5'7" 150 lbs. man be able to safely drink twice as much as I can safely drink? Or is his limit slightly less because he's a bit smaller than the average man? And does that mean my limit is more because I'm somewhat bigger than the average woman?

Or are there some kind of metabolic differences between the sexes independent of body size?

We could really use this information, and people who are far bigger or smaller than average could probably use it even more.

Strange cartoon?

I'm trying to figure out if I'm reading today's Toronto Star editorial cartoon right. (Yes, that's the Hamilton Spectator cartoonist - that's what the Star printed today.)

I'm seeing in that cartoon the passing the torch symbolism from In Flanders Fields, but it seems to be endorsing that passing of the torch. The characters might be smiling, and at any rate they certainly don't look particularly grim about it. Because they're all soldiers and only soldiers, and because they're all labelled as wars, it really looks to me like the poppy is symbolizing warfare itself. But then he passes it on to a child? With what looks like a smile on his face? Without hesitating or questioning why he's doing so? So they're essentially declaring warfare inevitable without questioning that declaration, or even bothering to look grim while they do it? I don't think that's what my great-grandfathers had in mind when they were sitting in muddy shitty rat-infested holes shooting at each other.*

The text to the right doesn't give a clear interpretation (I think it's a newspaper article, not the artist's own commentary), but it certainly doesn't do anything to make me think my interpretation is wrong.

(On a purely artistic note, the transition from sepia to b&w to colour is particularly good.)

Update (maybe?): No reply from the cartoonist yet, but it occurred to me in the shower that it would make much better sense if all those soldiers were dead. That would also explain why the Afghanistan soldier has a different colour background than the child (I assumed it was due to geography). Mr. MacKay? You still out there?

--
*I can't trace every branch of my family tree back to WWI, but based on pure geography it seems quite possible that half my ancestors were on the other side. I'll never know this for certain, because my surviving ancestors would not tell anyone if this were true. The more I learn about WWI, the less confident I am that it actually defended our freedoms or way of life, but even if it did then surely any gratitude I'm supposed to have to WWI veterans for trying to preserve half my ancestors' freedom and way of life is cancelled out by the fact that they were trying to destroy the other half of my ancestors' freedom and way of life? At any rate, all WWI seems to have done for me is created the conditions for WWII, which created the conditions for my family to flee Europe, which made it possible for my parents to meet and make me. And I'll tell you right now, as the person in the best position to know, my existence isn't worth all that trouble.

My inner child watches the news

From Calgary's CTV news:

"Prime Minister Harper will go one step further with the Dalai Lama..."

Yeah, if they're lucky and all goes well, they might get to third tonight...

I am superwoman!

Update to the "OMG the paper towels are behind the dryer!" saga:

I was trying to fish them out with a hook cleverly* fashioned out of a wire coathanger (yes, it only took me 2 days to think of that) when I gave the machine a frustrated push.

AND IT MOVED!

So long story short, through sheer brute force, my wimpy out of shape 150 pound body managed to move this big hulking 350 pound machine a couple of inches, which is enough to get one of my scrawny arms into the space between the machine and the wall and pull out the paper towels. The mirror is still back there somewhere, but at least it's not flammable.

That pill I missed yesterday must have upped my testosterone level or something.

*This cleverness is negated by the fact that I tried to move the machine back while the washer was running, and couldn't figure out why it was heavier all the sudden.

I think the mirror broke

So I wake up this morning, stumble to the shower, turn on the water, and it does that weird spitty thing that water does when the pump has been off. Then the water that starts coming out is a bit dirty-looking. I think okay, it got turned off at some point, I'll let it run a bit until it clears up. So I make myself some coffee and come back in five minutes...to find GREEN residue all over the bathtub. A frantic call to a frantic superintendent later, I learn that a booster pump turned off during the night and I should just let the water run until it clears up. So I let it run and run, but it isn't clearing up. Experimentation finds that only the hot water is contaminated, so (after a futile attempt to clean the green residue - I've got some of it off but the rest won't budge) I have a cold shower cum spongebath. (Why is the water from the cold tap actually cold instead of being room temperature?) Then I try to get myself ready for work, despite the fact that I'm running way late from this water problem and the supers keep running in and out of the apartment to check on things (times like this I'm glad they're gay, because some of my previous superintendents I wouldn't want around when I'm in just a bathrobe). Finally, after running the hot water taps for an HOUR (and hot water is already the biggest part of my utility bill) they start to clear up.

So now I've got green stains on my bathtub that I don't know how to get off, my paper towels are still stuck behind the washer/dryer, I've got to run an empty wash cycle to make sure the washer doesn't turn anything green but I can't do that until I've retrieved the paper towels, I feel gross and smelly because I didn't have a proper shower, and I've got to take ALL the dirty dishes OUT of my dishwasher and run an empty cycle and put them ALL back in.

And on top of everything else, in all the confusion I forgot to take my pill this morning, so I was almost 12 hours late with it. Which, of course, causes my uterine lining to go "Warning, warning, ethinyl estradiol levels have dropped severely, all hands abandon ship!" Which, in turn, produces more laundry that I can't do until I've retrieved the paper towels, which I don't know how I'm going to do that because I couldn't find one of those hand-grabby toys anywhere.

Just For Laughs top 25

I don't think Russell Peters is #1. He's quite good and I don't begrudge him his place on the list, but he's not better than Rowan Atkinson's changing at the beach bit, he's not better than Mitch Hedberg, and, although I'm not usually into this kind of act, he's not better than that ventriloquist who could have three different voices going while drinking from a glass.

What surprises me though is the people who weren't on the list. I can't seem to google up the list of people you could vote for, but I am certain it included at least one Monty Python bit, Eddie Izzard, Wendy Liebman, and Lewis Black. Other people who have been on Just For Laughs (but I don't remember if they were in the voting or not) include Greg Proops, Omid Djalili, Margaret Cho, and Flight of the Conchords, (to say nothing of acknowledged classics like Bill Cosby, Bill Hicks, and George Carlin). None of these people were in the top 25, but Ray Romano and Drew Carey were? And at least two comedians whom I have already completely forgotten?

Another thing that was interesting is how some of the more iconic acts now feel stale. Tim Allen's bit, which got him his sitcom and skyrocketed his profile, just had me rolling my eyes thinking "It's been done." (Yes, it has, by him, 15 years ago). And Rick Mercer from 1997, and Seinfeld from like 1992 - I was sitting there thinking "Yes, I see that this is funny and worth of being on this list" but I wasn't actually laughing. Which, again, is why I'm surprised by the absence of all the people whose absence I mentioned above - with them, I actually laugh, even in repeats. I'm not just acknowledging that it's good, I'm actually laughing the sixth time I hear it.

That said, there were still many bits that were quite good. I was glad to see Mitch Hedberg there, I was surprised to be impressed by a ventriloquist, and early Jon Stewart was brilliant. None of these acts would be a weak link in a typical 30 or 60 minute episode of Just For Laughs. But I was disappointed to see how often the voting public went for the more bland and serviceable comedians on the list.

Bad luck

My package of paper towels fell behind my dryer, which is a problem because it's a stacked washer-dryer in a closet and i can't even move it an inch. So I spent two hours using various creative ways to try to fish it out, without success. Then I decided to give up and go buy one of those grabby toy things tomorrow. So I put back all the stuff that lives on top of the machines (don't worry, it's all too big to fall behind there) and in doing so accidentally knocked down the hand mirror i'd been using to look behind the machine. So now my paper towels are behing my dryer, probably causing a fire hazard, my towels badly need to be washed (and they're the one thing that MUST go in the dryer because they're too heavy for my clothesline thingy when wet, I now have to retrieve the stuff from behind the machines blind, and I've probably just broken a mirror.

And I'm still doing time for the last mirror I broke. I wonder if they're concurrent or consecutive sentences?

ETA: I think maybe an actual fishhook would help. Anyone know where to buy those?

Theory confirmed

I recently heard a theory that the mission of the US republican party is actually to put political parodyists out of business.

I believe that theory is confirmed with the following quote:

I will follow Osama Bin Laden to the gates of hell and I will shoot him with your products.

-John McCain, talking to employees of a gun factory.

I also think this quote may demonstrate a lack of foresight and planning on the part of Mr. McCain. If you have followed someone to the gates of hell, and you want to punish them, wouldn't the optimal course of action to be to push them into the gates of hell? Isn't that the ultimate punishment? I mean, people do sometimes recover from gunshot wounds, and if hell is right there, why would you even risk another course of action?

What talkshows should do during the writers' strike

Apparently TV writers are going to go on strike and, among other things, this will stop production of talkshows like Leno and Conan.

So why not can the comedy part of the show and add another interview or performance segment instead?

I don't know the details of the unions involved, and I'm not trying to encourage scabbing, but the impression I get from the articles I've read is that TV shows can keep on working and producing and airing whatever they can manage to do, they just can't write new material. But you don't have to write interviews, you just have to get someone to interview.

On gilding the lily

One habit of mine that is unpopular with some people is that I don't decorate. My walls are painted whatever colour they happen to be, my furniture is what it is (mostly what I could get for free), I simply don't put effort into this area because I don't have any sort of creative impulses that can be expressed through the medium of interior decorating.

Another habit of mine that is unpopular with some people is that I wear make-up. I've blogged about this before - essentially it makes me feel good and gives me a sense of control over my body, but there are people who think I (and people in general) shouldn't do this because we should just learn to love and accept the appearance of our bodies as they are.

This leads me to wonder: are there also people out there who actively believe that everyone should just learn to love and accept the appearance of their homes as they are, without feeling the need to cover the flaws and paint over them to make something more attractive?

Death (or cake?)

I've been reading about doctors diagnosing cancer patients, and the patients deciding whether to go through with arduous chemo or just to accept the limited time they have left without chemo so they can enjoy it.

I've always assumed I'd want to know if I had a specific limited life expectancy, because that would change how I arrange my life. Right now the reason I work (and, consequently, structure a lot of my life around my job) is because I don't have enough money to support myself for the rest of my life. By working, I not only accrue money, but increase my likelihood of finding another job when I lose this one. But if I had six months left to live, I'd have enough money to support myself for that long, so I'd want to know so I could quit my job and have my time free. I might also buy some things I wouldn't normally (I'd rethink whether a region-free DVD player is worth the investment if I'm not going to live to see that movie released in North America, for example) or not buy things I was planning to (my black pants are getting a bit worn, but like hell I'm spending my last months on earth shopping for pants!)

But reading about these cancer patients makes me think that maybe I wouldn't want to know, because then there'd be such pressure to make the most of every single minute. Like right now I'm sitting in my bathrobe (yes, at 2:30 pm) drinking coffee and reading my book. I am content. But if I only had a few months left to live, would I want to be doing this? Do I care enough about this book to spend some of my precious time left reading it? I love sleeping until I wake up naturally, but is the joy I get from that worth spending my last months on earth unconscious? I've never been to Paris, but I don't particularly enjoy travelling. So should I go to Paris so I don't die without seeing it, or is that giving into social pressure? And what if I find there are people who want to spend time with me before I die, but I don't really care if I spend time with them? What's my responsibility to them?

I don't know if I'd want to have all these dilemmas every single minute of my dying days! Maybe it would be preferable to just get hit by a bus, even if does mean spending more time in the office than I would have preferred and doing without a few material indulgences that I could have afforded.

Things I Don't Understand: age, weight, and dress size

Some people, especially women, don't want other people to know stuff like their age, weight, and dress size.

But why would you feel the need to keep these secret from people who can see you?

Either it won't surprise them (in which case they have no more information than they would if you didn't say anything), or they'll be astoundingly surprised and admire your ability to take care of yourself/dress well/etc.

Esprit de l'escalier

I've decided the answer to "Why don't you just buy a small house in Hamilton?" (or some other place with cheap housing and a huge-ass commute) is going to be "For the same reason you aren't buying a dairy farm in Kazakhstan."