What does the library think we're doing with CDs?

The Toronto library lets you take out CDs for 3 weeks, even though it only allows 1 week for DVDs.

What do they think we're doing with CDs for 3 weeks? I'd assume most people take them home and copy them for personal use, and if not they take them home and listen to them once.

What does the library think we're doing that we need 3 weeks?

Because my blogging hasn't been vapid enough today, an iTunes meme

Open up iTunes, if you have it (if not, improvise), and answer the following questions:

How many total songs?

3207 songs, 41.2 days (I think the timing is wrong), 14.97 gigs


Sort by song title - first and last

Abandoned Masquerade - Diana Krall
99 Luftballons - Nena


Sort by time - shortest and longest

Shortest: Silence by Klaatu (really just the sound of a mouse getting caught in a mousetrap): 4 seconds

Longest: Glenn Gould's 1981 Goldberg Variations: 51:19.


Sort by Album - first and last

First: Abba Gold
Last: 1 (Beatles)
(followed by a bunch of tracks for which no album is listed)


Sort by Artist - first and last

First: Aafje Heynis
Last: 69 Charger


Top five played songs:

You Know I'm No Good - Amy Winehouse feat. Ghostface Killah
I'll Feel Amazing By Tomorrow - Lenlow
Mercedes Beck - Lenlow
Ugly - Bon Jovi
Freakshow - Ani DiFranco

(I don't think this thing counts times played on the ipod, only on itunes)


Find the following words. How many songs show up?

Sex: 39 (30 of which are due to the presence of Eddie Izzard's Sexie album, 2 of which are due to the presence of The Sex Pistols. Sorry to disappoint you if you were looking for music about sex, but then all music is really about sex)
Death: 4
Love: 158
You: 327
Home: 18
Boy: 46
Girl: 63

First five songs that come up on Party Shuffle

Just A Girl - No Doubt
I've Got The World On A String - Diana Krall
Luv Lies - Aerosmith
Teeny Little Super Guy - Sesame Street
Promised Land - Ani Difranco

Stop talking about Julie Couillard's cleavage!

There's one very important point that everyone seems to be missing: Julie Couillard wasn't wearing cleavage. For cleavage, the breasts have to touch. Like this:

( . Y . )

Julie Couillard was wearing her breasts down, like this:

( .   . )


Regardless of whatever else happened between Maxime Bernier and Julie Couillard, the fact remains that that is not cleavage. It is merely potential for cleavage

By talking about her alleged cleavage, you're not only a) making it look like we have nothing more important to worry about than someone's neckline and b) embarrassing us on the international stage by making it look like Canadians can't handle cleavage, you're also embarrassing us on the international stage by making it look like that's what we think cleavage is, as though we can't do better.

No wonder Eddie Izzard isn't coming here!

Things They Should Invent: target-shooting guns that can't kill anyone

Whenever there's talk of tightening restrictions on guns, people are always like "OMG, but target shooting! It's a sport, ergo it's a good thing!"

Now my first thought in response to that is "But why don't you just not do target shooting?" But I feel that way about all sports, so let's assume for the purposes of this post that target shooting is a reasonable activity.

What they need are guns for target shooting that fire some sort of special bullet that can't kill a person. I don't know enough about guns to get more detailed than that. But target shooting guns, which would be perfectly legal for sporting purposes, could only fire special harmless bullets and would be incapable of firing bullets intended for killing. Then there would be no excuse for having killing guns.

Added bonus idea: anyone who turns in a gun intended for hunting and waives their right to hunt for the rest of their life gets a lifetime supply of free meat.

The other problem with that polygamist cult

I have a few hairstyles in my repertoire that lift my long hair up off my neck while still giving the illusion of volume. These are good for hot, humid weather when my hair goes perfectly flat against my head and neck at the slightest provocation.

But now, anything I do with my hair that is up and pouffy makes me look like a polygamist! Even with my standard french twist ponytail (which always looks good on me and always gets compliments when I return to it after having done something else) makes me look like a polygamist if I do anything to give it the slightest bit of volume.

And if I don't give it volume, I look like someone from the movie Trekkies. I know, I am a trekkie, but I don't think it's strictly necessary for my hairstyle to reflect that.

Open Letters to my cosmetics

Dear Jolen: Your bleach is without question the best on the market, but your packaging is very user-unfriendly. Please provide proportionate ratios of cream and powder, a larger and bowl-shaped mixing thing, and a larger spatula that's appropriate for applying arm-sized quantities.

Dear Olay Definity Eye Illuminator: You are a miracle and well worth the higher price. I can never use anything else ever again. However, you are egregiously over-packaged. Seriously, it's ridiculous. Please get reasonable packaging.

Dear Sally Hansen Hard as Nails Xtreme Wear: I think you have the best cost/quality ratio I've ever met. I've been wearing your Indigo nail colour for a week now, and it has only chipped the tiniest most imperceptible amount and still looks completely civilized. Please get some nice subtle professional-looking colours in addition to the fun colours you have now, and I'll wear you every day forever.

Dear Rimmel Vinyl Gloss: I love you, but your container leaks when it gets tipped sideways in my purse. Please fix this.

Dear Rimmel Professional Liquid Eyeliner: You're a very good product and have the best brush ever. How about a waterproof version too?

Harm reduction

I wonder if people who are opposed to harm reduction have never been on a diet or something? Because if you didn't get your workout in this morning for whatever reason, going for a walk at lunch is still better than nothing.

Open Letter to Riddex Plus

Dear Riddex Plus:

I am more freaked out by household pests than anyone else I've ever met. And yet, I still think your TV commercial is a bit too sensationalist and fear-mongering. Tone it down a bit maybe.

Sincerely,

The person who should be your most likely customer in the world

(Commercial can be seen here. Contains life-like drawings of mice and bugs.)

Geordi La Forge

Geordi's best friend is Data. This makes me wonder if there's something wrong with Geordi emotionally or something.

Don't get me wrong, I love Data. He's my favourite. I'd love to be friends with him if he weren't fictional. But I'm just not sure if a person who is incapable of emotion can fulfill the best friend role. So I wonder what's up with Geordi that a person who is incapable of emotion gets the #1 friend spot, over and above all the people he knows who are capable of emotion.

Essential

The word essential seems to have become weakened. I was just writing a sentence where I used the word essential to mean "absolutely imperative must-have sine qua non," but it didn't seem to come out meaning that. It felt more like it just meant "yeah, important, just like lots of other things are important." I wonder when that happened?

Possible alternatives: vital, crucial.

How do embassies work?

So people are sending panties to Burma again. This is good timing - I actually do need to clean out my underwear drawer, and I'm about to get my period.

So you pop your panties in the post and send them to the Burmese embassy. I get that much. But what happens then? Are they actually going to get close enough to insult someone? Or does their summer intern just throw them straight into the garbage and no one notices?

What happens after the panties arrive at the embassy really does affect how I carry this out, like whether the panties are clean, dirty, clean but stained, stained with red or white or brown, etc. (Aside: I wonder if it's illegal to send bodily fluids in the mail like that?) If I knew they were going to end up literally in Than Shwe's hands, for example, I'd be shopping for a menstrual cup and a fine paintbrush and a Burmese dictionary. If they were going to end up with someone not particularly influential but the message will still be noted, maybe I'd send them laundered with some strategically placed set-in ketchup stains. If they aren't going to be effective, I may or may not bother (I do still have to clean out my underwear drawer) but if I send them I'll make sure they're clean, and maybe include a nice note thanking them for helping me with my spring cleaning. I wonder if some (unused) Always would also help? I accidentally bought the wrong kind a while back and haven't figured out what to do with them (you can't donate an open package and I opened it before I realized it was wrong.)

This also makes me wonder if something insinuating that Than Shwe wear's women's underwear would make a good googlebomb? On one hand, I can see how it might be the Burmese equivalent of small penis. On the other hand, it might imply that he's even more powerful if he can continue to rule the junta despite the draining effect of the panties. Any experts on Burmese male insecurity out there?

How far do I stick it in? (or: teach me how to wear noise-cancelling earbuds)

So I've got noise-cancelling earbuds, and I'll review them after I've used them for a couple of days. But first, I'm not sure how I'm supposed to be wearing them. I can just sort of rest them on my external ear without much thought or effort, and they work just like normal earbuds. But if I stick them in my ear a bit more, they're like wearing earplugs. If I talk, I can hear it inside my head way more than outside my head, and I can't tell how loud I'm talking. I can hardly hear myself type. (Although I did just hear my cellphone's text message beep with the earbuds stuck all the way in.)

It could be useful to have both these two options. But am I actually supposed to stick the earbuds in so far that it blocks out a significant portion of the exterior sound of me talking? Or do I just somehow have freakishly large ear canals and have managed to get my earbuds in farther than is safe?

Things They Should Invent: a googlebomb that mocks Than Shwe's penis size

The more I read about Burma, the more I'm thinking this Than Shwe fellow seems really insecure. Like bizarrely ridiculously insecure. After all, a real man who's in charge of a whole country and a whole army wouldn't need to go around oppressing people like that, he could get the people to do what he wants by the sheer strength of his leadership.

So what's the best way to express this sentiment? Googlebomb! Why am I posting this as a Thing They Should Invent rather than just starting it myself? Haven't decided on the optimal phrasing. Small penis? Tiny dick? Smallest penis in the world? Suggestions welcome.

(As an informational aside: in googling for potential phrasing, I found that small penises is a pornography subgenre. Good to know.)

Edit: Would it be productive for the googlebomb to imply that Than Shwe wears women's underwear? Or would that just imply that he's more powerful?

Why on earth would car people be opposed to public transit?

The Globe and Mail has this columnist, one Neil Reynolds, whose overarching thesis week after week seems to be "Public transit shouldn't exist, everyone should drive cars." And a lot of very loud people seem to be agreeing with him.

Now, if you're a car person, I get that. You like cars, all vroom vroom and stuff, you don't want to take public transit with all the smelly proles because that will make your penis fall off, we'll have to pry your car out of your cold dead hands. Message received and understood.

But here's the part I don't get: why do you want ME in a car?

Let's put aside for a minute the fact that I'm a terrible, nervous, skittish driver - let's pretend I'm a perfectly innocuous normal driver. If I'm in a car, I'm turning left in front of you, I'm taking up a parking spot, I'm merging into your lane on the 401 at the last minute, I'm trying to squeeze car in the tiny space next to your pretty shiny new car, I'm in front of you in line at the gas station, I'm taking up an appointment slot at the mechanic's.

But if I'm on the subway, I'm not doing any of these things. I'm not in your way at all, you don't even notice me.

So why on earth would you want me in a car? Why wouldn't you support public transit just because it keeps so many people off the road and out of your way?

Do blind people ever just want to be left alone?

I often see blind people on the subway, and random strangers always help them. Most people have obviously read the same pamphlets I have, because almost everyone does it right. They give them specific verbal instructions ("The subway door is two feet to your left"), they allow the blind person to take their arm and guide them to a seat, basically whenever there's someone with a white cane, everyone's looking out for them and someone almost always jumps in and helps.

I wonder if this gets annoying for the blind people though? If every time I see a blind person a stranger is helping them, then blind people must get helped by strangers all the freaking time! I wonder if that ever gets annoying to them? Sometimes when I'm making my way through the crowded city, I really just don't want to deal with any people at all. I wonder if blind people ever feel like this and wish people would stop helping them?

Wherein the LCBO makes me feel like a disenfranchised child

One day, when I was a kid, my family was visiting the zoo when it started raining hard. Since we had already seen most of the zoo and didn't have umbrellas, we decided to go home. I started walking towards the car. My parents started walking in the other direction. I told them that they were going the wrong way - we came in over the bridge, and the bridge is right there! They insisted that I stop dawdling and go with them. (Unfortunately, at this point I was still young enough that being walking away alone without my parents would have been too big and scary.) So we went the wrong way, walked across the whole entire zoo, got directions, then walked back across the whole entire zoo. By this point I was soaked to the skin, and if we had gone the way I said to in the first place we would have been literally halfway home by then. So I was really pissed off, and doubly disgruntled that my parents thought I was unreasonable for being pissed off. I was smart and diligent enough to remember where we parked, I did everything right, but I still got inconvenienced because the people who were wrong were bigger and stronger and louder.

This is exactly how I feel about the LCBO banning plastic bags. I've already solved this problem! I saw the problem coming, came up with a solution has more positive outcomes than a ban and is more convenient for everyone, wrote up a nice pitch, and sent it to the powers that be. I'm the one who came up with the best possible solution. (And this isn't ego, I haven't heard a single better solution. Got one? Post it in the comments.) And yet, I still have to be inconvenienced every single time I buy wine for the next 75 years just because the people who like the suboptimal solution are bigger and stronger and louder.

If I wanted to be treated like this, I'd go to the zoo with my parents!

Things They Should Invent: don't check warrants on people who call 911

This guy calls 911 to save his own life, and the police arrest him on an outstanding warrant.

So now people with outstanding warrants aren't going to call 911. You're thinking "But it was to save his life, of course he was going to call!" And I can see either side on whether they should check warrants on people who call for themselves.

But they should definitely never ever check warrants on people who call 911 on behalf of someone else! Imagine if you're injured or you've been attacked or your house is on fire, and the only person around doesn't want to call 911 because they have an outstanding warrant! Imagine if a driver with an outstanding warrant happens to get in a car accident, and instead of calling 911 to help the person in the other car they drive away so they don't get caught!

People who call 911 to help someone else, or who otherwise get involved with the authorities to help someone else, should have immunity from being arrested as the result of their helping.

Things They Should Invent: retirement homes that AREN'T like high school socially

Apparently retirement homes are like high school.

So someone fix this! Redesign it! Rethink it! Give people more privacy! Locate it somewhere within an easy (for seniors!) walk to amenities and transit so residents aren't dependenton the retirement home to provide their social life!

This only increases my determination to deteriorate and die in my own apartment, forgotten and unnoticed, my automatic pension deposits (if pensions still exist) feeding my automatic rent withdrawal, until someone starts noticing a smell. I quite deliberately left the fishbowl, there's no way I'm going back.

It is possible to make institutional environments not like high school. I lived and worked on campus throughout my undergrad, but I didn't feel like I was in the fishbowl. I can't articulate why it worked, but it did. So someone better figure out how to do the same thing with retirement homes.

Low-flying planes

Today in my five-minute walk to Shopper's, I saw two different airplanes that seemed to be flying really low, like way lower than usual. This was around maybe 3 or 4 pm. I'm in midtown, nowhere near the airport. Anyone else see anything like this?