How to get my organs

Dear Government of Ontario:

So you want my organs. Great, I want to give them to you! Here's a law you can pass to make sure that happens:

If you have clear consent from the prospective donor, don't require consent from the next of kin.

I have a health card, driver's licence, donor card and will all indicating that I want my organs donated. I also have some relatives who are kind of irrationally uncomfortable with organ donation and cannot necessarily be trusted to dispassionately carry out my wishes in their time of grief. Depending on the circumstances, these relatives may end up being my next of kin when I die.

Why give them the chance to veto my wishes to the detriment of the greater good? Why put some doctor in the position of having to talk them out of their irrational grief-fuelled preferences in order to carry out my wishes and serve the greater good?

There's going to be a lot of public opposition to presumed consent. I doubt there's be nearly as much public opposition to preventing people from overriding their loved-ones' clearly set out wishes.

Where exactly are you from with that dialect anyway?

Lacey on Corner Gas says soda (instead of pop). But she also says Tranna (instead of Tor-on-to.)

Does that combination of markers even exist in any known dialect? Any Canadian who's had enough US influence on their dialect that they're going to say soda to a bunch of hosers in Saskatchewan is NOT going to say Tranna.

The only possible explanation is an American upbringing, followed by a move to Toronto in late adolescence/early adulthood (giving her enough time living in TO to start calling it Tranna, but not feeling any peer pressure to stop saying soda). But if Lacey were USian, I'm quite certain we would have heard about it on camera. At the very least Oscar would have complained at some point.

Wow.

I want half a million dollars next time someone makes lewd comments about me!

Actually, if the payout were automatic every time you get lewd comments, I think most people could support themselves that way. Just walk around, go about life, and every once in a while you run into some dickhead and get half a million dollars. It wouldn't even need to happen that many times to get you set for life.

Reminder: how to boycott the olympics on the internet

With the olympics starting to make the front page, I thought I should post a reminder.

If you feel like you should be boycotting the olympics but can't manage a full boycott, here's how to boycott them on the internet.

Quote of the day

"it's unusual for dogs to care for tiger cubs, but it does happen."

Wherein I become one of those boring people who talk about muscles

1. My previous miracle fitness discovery was to put the newspaper on the floor and read it while I do push-ups. I've made another discovery: bustle around all evening getting things done and finally get everything done and get into your pyjamas and you're about to go to bed and then remember that you haven't done your pushups for the day yet and have an argument with yourself ("But I'm in my jammies and my bed is so comfy!" "But I've been making progress and don't want to lose momentum now!") and then put a book on the floor (because you've read the newspapers already) and decide to just get the fucker over with real quick so you can go to bed without guilt.

My personal best set - of the day and of my lifetime - was 23 in a row. (Despite all this, my arms still look the same and I haven't noticed any improved strength or anything IRL.)

2. There's this Tide commercial where this overly-perky lady gets way too enthusiastic about washing the tablecloth. I always noticed that she has mad crazy arm muscles, moreso than you usually see on TV commercial actresses, and seems to be dressed to show them off. I thought this was interesting because to have arm muscles like that she'd have to put in mad crazy gym time, which would peg her this really driven goal-oriented GO GO GO type of person, which is entirely consistent with the character. So I thought it was really clever casting to find an actress for whom these minor details of her physique epitomized the character, even though it's just for 30-second detergent commercial.

Then I found out that it isn't some anonymous actress from central casting in the commercial, it's Kelly Ripa, who was cast because she's a celebrity (apparently she's on some talk show or something with this other chap who's been in one or two other things?), not because her look perfectly epitomizes the character.

Make your own microloans

In case you haven't heard of it yet, Kiva is a site where you, yes you personally, can provide microloans directly to entrepreneurs.

The Toronto Star has an article about it.

Remember 0.7%? Run the numbers on that, then go to Kiva and take a look around.

Things They Should Invent: ask the commenters on ratings sites questions

My regular doctor is on a long-term leave of absence, I don't know why, and I have mixed feelings about the doctor who's replacing her. And I'm going to need to get my prescription renewed within the next three months. So I was looking up the replacement doctor on RateMDs.com, and someone said that he's a bad doctor for women's health issues, and that he prescribed her (presumably it's a woman) unnecessary treatments. Now when I read bad at women's health, my first concern is whether I'll have difficulty extracting birth control pills from him. Other commenters have described him as a bit judgemental (and he administered my last Gardasil and seemed a bit judgy about it, despite the fact that I had already discussed it extensively with my own doctor and had already started the treatment), so this makes me worried that I might have to jump through hoops to get my pills. But the same commenter (and others) also suggested that perhaps he overprescribes, which is a good thing for me since what I want is a prescription. Plus in my googling I found him on a website of health care providers for people with HIV/AIDS, and it seems to me that a doctor who would advertise/allow himself to be advertised to people with HIV/AIDS wouldn't be the kind of person who would give someone shit for a routine birth control prescription.

So I really wish I could ask some of these commenters to elaborate on how, exactly, they think he isn't a good doctor for women's health issues. If they don't like how he's treating their menopause or infertility, or if he's quick to prescribe oral contraceptives for endometriosis or something, then at least I'd know I don't have to worry. But if other people have had trouble extracting pills from him, I'd like to know so I can make a backup plan. (My backup plan for if my regular doctor ever mentioned "Hey, you know, you've been on the pill a long time, that's not always a good thing" was to say "All right then, let's talk about Essure" but that might not work as well on a judgemental male doctor who's not good with women's health issues.)

Also, I recently saw an article somewhere suggesting that pharmacists should be allowed to prescribe in simple cases. I would love that! (Or nurses, or nurse practitioners.) The vast majority of my doctor's appointments in my adult life have been about the pill, and it's almost always routine. (And when I've wanted to switch pills, they look stuff up in a book before writing the prescription anyway.) My doctor also has patients with chronic conditions and complicated pregnancies and sicknesses that want immediate attention and degenerative disabilities and, presumably, HIV/AIDS. Is it really necessary to take up an appointment slot for "Everything's fine, blood pressure's decent, more pills please"?

Casting my playlist

I've decided that the person Blue October is singing to in Hate Me is the same person Ani DiFranco is singing about in Fixing Her Hair.

How to test Cuil

Cuil is clearly having teething troubles so I haven't been able to test it, but here are the things to search for when you're testing it.

1. Reproduce the last search where you were actively impressed by Google's results. A while back someone told me about someone they know who lives in Toronto and has two very disparate and very cool jobs. Googling the names of the two jobs with the word Toronto returned the exact person they were telling me about as the first result. Can Cuil compete?

2. Search for something you can't find with Google. I can't find a torrent of the 1973 movie soundtrack of Jesus Christ Superstar. I can't find certain people from high school I've tried to look up. I can't find the French lyrics to the Log Driver's Waltz. Can Cuil do better?

3. Search for some random article or website you read once. I once read a very good Miss Manners column where she lays a smackdown on a LW for attempting to fix up a friend (whose late husband was blind) with another blind man, despite the fact that the friend had quite specifically asked not to be fixed up. It was the first Google result for the keywords miss manners blind date, which was also the first keyword combination I tried. Can Cuil compete?

4. Search for the sort of thing you mindlessly google as part of everyday web surfing. I find legislation by googling its title, not by navigating justice.gc.ca. I go to the smog alert site by googling ontario air quality. I get to the Jeopardy website forum by googling Jeopardy boards. Would you have to change your navigation habits with Cuil?

The thing about aspiring to be a Google-killer is that you have to be not only as good as Google, but consistently and remarkably better. Remember when Google first came out in 98/99, how much startlingly better than the alternatives it was? You'd have to be at least that much better than Google to kill it.

Things They Should Invent: parking space management companies (for urban condos)

Apparently it's really hard to sell a condo that doesn't come with a parking space, even in the city. But there are also lots of people in the city who don't have cars (and general urban and environmental planning wants more and more people to be carfree). So that leaves condo buyers in a dilemma: do they pay for a parking space that they're never going to use, or risk not being able to sell their condo when they have to?

Someone should start a company to fix this problem. The company would buy the parking space off the buyer at market value (no fuss, no haggling) and sign a contract under which they're obligated to sell it back to the buyer at market value upon request, and they're obligated to sell it back at market value to whomever buys the corresponding condo next. In return, the company is allowed to rent out the parking space and collect income from it in the interim.

That way the company gets to make some money by renting and flipping property, and the condo owner doesn't have to dump money into buying this parking space they're never going to use, instead being able to dedicate the money to buying more condo or paying off their mortgage faster.

Yes, the condo owner could rent the space out themselves, but not everyone wants to spend time and effort finding a tenant and making sure they pay rent etc.

Why I want trans fats to be banned

People who oppose banning trans fats say that people should have the right to make their own choices to eat what they want.

That's exactly why I want them ban trans fats, so I can eat what I want.

I want to eat donuts. I don't want to eat trans fats. If they ban trans fats, donut-makers will be forced to find some alternative and I'll be able to enjoy donuts. If they don't ban trans fats, they'll keep making donuts with trans fats.

Alternative: allow products with trans fats to be sold ONLY if similar products without trans fats are sold alongside.

Fun fact

Assuming TranSearch's search engine is accurate and limiting myself to English-language searches because of interference from various conjugations of dire, the verb "to dis" has been used once in the House of Commons, zero times in the Senate, and zero times in Canadian courts.

How to advertise hardcore lipstick

You know how sometimes they advertise lipstick by promoting the fact that it won't kiss off?

Here's what to do: get two people, have one wear bright fire-engine red lipstic, have the other wear pale pinkish nude lipstick. Have them snog for the duration of the commercial. Then at the end of the commercial they stop snogging and you see that the lipstick hasn't budged at all. (If it does, in fact, work as well as they want us to believe it works.)

Why I wear heels

Antonia Zerbisias asks why we wear heels.

So why do women, who now run companies, wear shoes that they can't run in?

I can run in them actually, in a sort of mincing tripping way. But I don't want to run. I don't like running. It's not fun and it's not dignified. If I ran a company, I would certainly see to it that there's someone to do any necessary running for me. Not being able to run in my shoes is just as much of a problem as not being able to scale an ice cliff in them.

But I'll tell you why I wear them.

Because I like being six feet tall and having every step I take click authoritatively. Because I like asserting my adulthood by wearing things that are grownup. Because I feel kick-ass when I move furniture or carry eight bags of groceries or physically wrestle with the giant printer at work while dressed girly. Because when I was a kid my parents would rarely let me dress girly on the basis that it's impractical, so now I'm making up for lost time and asserting my independence.

But it's mostly because whenever I succeed at looking feminine, it's a victory. My internal gender identity is very femme - the more I think about it, the more I'm surprised by just how femme it is - but my genetics aren't so very. I'm hairy and oozy and smelly with loud bodily functions. I've never been dainty or petite. I walk too fast and say the wrong thing and move clumsily and speak with a harsh voice. I've never been swept off my feet by a lover because I've always been too big and heavy. I learned the truth at seventeen; I'm simply not destined to ever be pretty.

And then, as I entered my 20s, I started to figure out how to make myself pretty. I slowly figured out how to make the makeup work. I slowly figured out how to put together clothes that are actually flattering to my body (part of which is wearing heels) rather than just being funky clothes in and of themselves. I discovered the virtues of underwires. I came up with a trick or two to do with my hair. I got a decent pair of glasses, then a better pair of glasses. And every so often, when the stars and the laundry cycle and my hair's free will all align correctly, I look like a woman! Something that should be just a small pleasure but one I figured would always be denied to me, I now achieve on a regular basis. I totally win!!! And as I strut down the street, heels tapping, hemline swinging, hair bouncing, face perfectly made up, I am declaring victory.

The heels are a part of that. I can wear whatever I want - I have a few pairs of flats and a good pair of athletic shoes and my job has no dress code - but most days walking down the street declaring victory is far more appealing than walking down the street marginally faster and more comfortably.

Things They Should Invent: seasonal storage for the homeless

A lot of my local homeless people wear coats, even in the summer, even during heat alerts. I assume this is because they need their coats in the winter, but they have nowhere to put them in the summer.

Can't we do something about that? Yeah, I know, ideally we should be ending all homelessness at all ever, but we clearly haven't worked that out yet. So until we do, can't we just give them somewhere safe to put their coats so they don't have to lug them around for months?

Things They Should Invent: birth control pills that cause your sex drive to wax and wane over the day

Birth control pills can affect the user's sex drive. Depending on how the hormone levels in the pill interact with your body's natural hormone levels, they can cause your sex drive to increase or decrease, both of which can be either convenient or inconvenient, depending on your situation.

But sometimes having the same sex drive 24 hours a day is inconvenient too. A high sex drive is fun when you're at home with your partner, but inconvenient when you're at work (and vice versa). Unfortunately, the way current pills work is they give you the same sex drive the whole time you're taking that particular hormone level, so it's the same for a week or three weeks or all the time depending on the kind of pill and how you're using them.

To address this, they should come up with a pill that gives your sex drive a peak and valley. They tell you on the package that your sex drive will peak X hours after you've taken the pill and bottom out Y hours afterwards, and you can time your doses accordingly so that you peak when you're home with your partner and valley when you're at work.

These wouldn't be intended to replace existing pills - you wouldn't want to lose the option of being ON for your whole honeymoon, or killing your sex drive to keep yourself for doing anything foolish after a devastating breakup. I'd just like them to exist as another option.

(Also, I wish doctors were a bit more open to patients swapping around through different pills to game the side effects in our favour. If you know from firsthand experience that a certain pill has a certain effect on your sex drive (or your acne or your weight or whatever) and you want that effect for whatever reason, I don't think you should have to go through the Spanish Inquisition with your doctor.)

It's PMS week, that explains everything

Yesterday I got all pissed off because someone was wrong on the internet. Today I'm getting all pissed off that random people aren't taking into account things that I've already diligently and thoroughly explained in my blog.

Yes, this blog, read by like five people, written by me with all my stellar credentials of um...er...that is...yeah.

I think during PMS week I shouldn't be allowed to do anything on the internet except look at cute puppies, watch funny youtubes, and read good fanfiction (but only good fanfiction because bad fanfiction pisses me off too.)

Frustrated

Yes, I'm still up. Because someone is wrong on the internet!

I'm kind of frustrated. In a community I lurk in (but don't post in because the people there are so smart and cool they're eons out of my league) someone posted something that's wrong - the kind of wrong that Snopes would normally debunk, but Snopes hasn't touched it yet. And they're planning to take action based on it.

I know this thing is wrong from knowledge that I happen to have but have no formal training in, combined with critical thinking, but I'd need to make a big massive long cited essay to prove it to someone with whom I have no particular credibility. And that's not exactly the politest way to delurk, especially not in a community full of people who are way smarter and cooler than me.

It's just very frustrating seeing a normally very smart person be misled like this, and watching other similarly smart people be similarly misled on the basis of the first person's usual credibility, and I just can't come up with any way to swoop in and announce that a credible regular who's normally way smarter than me is just wrong wrong wrong.

My kingdom for a Snopes link.