Archive for November, 2007

Humans hardwired? We can only wish

Published November 30, 2007 in slack woman. 4 Comments

They’re always saying humans are hardwired. Well, I don’t buy it. (Go here for column on subject)

If we were hardwired, then why can’t we do a Control-alt-delete on ourselves when we get overwhelmed with TMI?

And where is our reboot button? You know, when we crash? I didn’t come with one. Did you?

And why can’t we hit the “undo” button when we do something stupid, or hit the delete button when we say something we regret?

Why, why, why don’t we have a USB port to download things like the knowledge it takes to run a new computer program or to program a TV to record a show?

We can only wish we were hardwired.

My statistics are vital

Published November 29, 2007 in Uncategorized. 6 Comments

And until a few minutes ago, they’ve been down.

For a blogger, this is like unhooking life support. Our stats are our lifeblood, and those who say they don’t look at their stats are the same people who would tell you they buy Penthouse Magazine for the thousand-word articles, not the pictures.

Not sure what the problem was, but all my plugins went down, and I’ve been busy with too much work to investigate.

Having no vital statistics is a cruel reminder of how much we bloggers depend on hits. It keeps us going.

I have two stats programs. One gives basic hit counts, times and locations. The other provides more detail on bots, spammers and spiders. My stats indicate IP numbers but do not identify who the hitters are. So fear not, hitters. I do not know who you are.

About half my hits are coming from IPs registered in Toronto. (I heart TO!) A quarter come from Halifax (I heart Halifax 2) and the rest from everywhere else in the world.

Non-Toronto regulars include Utah, who checks every day at 11am. There’s also the one from William’s Lake BC, a couple of hitters in New York, and a gaggle of regulars registered in London, UK. Semi-regulars include IPs from Uzbekistan, Auckland, and Lima Peru. Semi-semi regulars include Houston, Sao Paulo and Rome.

It’s oddly reassuring to see the same IP numbers show up daily, and sometimes more than once a day. I don’t who they are, but I feel a great fondness for those numbers. They are the fuel for my fire. And the fire went out, cutting GT adrift.

But I’ve lit the match and got the flame roaring again. So please hit and hit often. You are my reason for typing.

Hockey: nice game or thug’s paradise?

Published November 28, 2007 in Canada and culture. 6 Comments

It is said that football ((NAmerican translation: football = soccer) is a gentlemen’s game played by louts and rugby is a lout’s game played by gentlemen.

It is also said that Canada is a land of nice people.

So, in light of the recent brawl that erupted amongst eight-year olds at a minor hockey game, the sucker punch by Todd Bertuzzi that ruined the career of hockey player Steve Moore, or the violent crosscheck to the head that earned Ryan Kesler a 20-game suspension, to name but a few…

is it reasonable to say that the Canadian game of hockey is a thug’s game played by nice people? Or is it a nice game played by thugs?

 You tell me, because sometimes it’s hard to know.

Boycott gift cards - give money

Published November 27, 2007 in culture. 10 Comments

Big retailers are making a lot of easy money from unredeemed gift cards.

People lose them. People forget about them. People take them to the store only to discover that the expiry date has passed. People don’t spend them all the way down because there is nothing in the store for $12.62.

And where does all that extra money go? Into the pockets of big retailers. For them, it’s money for nothing. Aunt Betty’s Christmas wish to little Johnny, be damned.

The Aunt Betty’s of this typist’s youth gave money in the card. Cold hard cash. And we loved it because we could do with it what we pleased. Sometimes we even put it in the bank.

But with a gift card you only have one place to spend it and you’d better spend it before the expiry date is out. (Unless you live in places that have banned expiry dates on gift cards.)

Don’t get sucked in this Christmas. Give the gift of cold hard cash. Big rip off retailers, be damned.

Enough to make a grown man cry

Published November 26, 2007 in CBC Radio, Canada and culture. 7 Comments

This morning I flipped on CBC radio and heard a grown man cry.

No-one had died. The man’s village had not been devastated by a massive earthquake. He had not lost his job or discovered that his wife was cheating on him.

No, this man was crying because the Canadian football team he supports did not win a game on the weekend. It was a championship game and it is played every year.

I had no idea that the game of football (or “crash-helmet” football as a Welsh rugby-playing friend calls the NAmerican game) is so important or that supporters can be reduced to such emotionally fragility when their team loses.

It may be an outdated stereotype, but I always regarded football as macho-man game played by macho-man refrigerators players, supported by macho-man fans.

Who knew this game could reduce a grown man to tears.

Favourite debt quote

Published November 25, 2007 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments

Michael Bentine is confined to bed with a severe overdraft

- Spike Milligan, Irish comedian, writer, musician, actor, member of The Goons. Bentine also member of The Goons

Words that should be banned: “Christmas came early this year when …”

Published November 24, 2007 in words. 15 Comments

It hits every year at about this time. I’m bracing myself. I know it’s coming. But no matter how prepared I think I am, I wince every time I see it. It’s the worst cliche in journalism:

“Christmas came early this year when….”

It shows up in local newspaper stories and occasionally on TV broadcasts when reporters attempt to link two unrelated events in the lead of their story.

So we have Mr. So-and-So receiving that WWII pension raise he’s been fighting for since 1959. He happens to win his fight at the end of November, ergo we have: “Christmas came early this year for Mr So-and-So when he received a cheque from the Department of XXX to compensate him for pension claims blah blah blah.”

You could almost, not quite, but almost forgive a cub reporter for writing that, but never an editor for letting it through. It’s dull, lazy, cliche journalism.

It should be banned forever.

The one-eyed pirate, the hot day and Joy to the World

Published November 23, 2007 in culture and slack woman. 8 Comments

I had to wonder what was up a couple of weeks ago when I went out to do my Halloween shopping and found the store heaving with plastic elves and fake trees. Go here for the column.

What’s going on?

All the Halloween stuff had been cleared away for Christmas and Joy to the World was blasting over the speakers. A week before halloween.

I did manage to find a pirate with one eye gouged out, but he was stuffed in a sale bin at the back of the store. You know, to make room for the plastic elves.

And when I got outside it was hot, 25C. Hot! A week before Halloween. And this wasn’t Florida. Where I live, it’s supposed to be cooling off at the end of October, not heating up.

I hate to be one of those old farts blathering on about the way things used to be so I just be an old fart blogging about the way things used to be. It’s supposed to be cool and full of Halloween in the last week of October. Not hot and Christmasy.

So what’s up with that?

If there’s a heaven, let it be London in the swingin’ 60s

Published November 21, 2007 in beauty and culture. 12 Comments

I met Pat in September when I started a weekly art class.

I was the newbie and Pat extended herself to me on the first day, offering a friendly smile and welcoming questions about how long I’d been painting and how I managed to find my way into the popular class.

By the second week, we’d established common ground. We’d both lived in Britain and loved it.

She’d been in London during the swinging 60s. She’d told me about the outrageous Mary Quant miniskirts she used to wear, traipsing up and down the Kings Road and hanging out on Carnaby Street, the epicenter of swinging London.

They were the best years of her life, she told me. And she meant it. You could tell by the smile in her eyes.

She moved back to Canada in the late sixties but she’d never quite got London out of her system. She went back many times to visit old friends and remember the good times they had together in the 60s. She envied my dual citizenship and said she’d move back in a snap, if she could. I got the sense that things weren’t so going great for Pat these days.

The last time I saw her was two weeks ago. She asked me for drive to the next class because she wasn’t sure her usual lift would be available. I offered to pick her up. She gave me her number and said to call first.

When the day of the next class arrived, I called to offer a drive. After four rings, I heard Pat’s voice but it was on the answering machine. I assumed she found a drive with someone else, but she wasn’t in class when I arrived and no one had heard from her. Strange.

The next week she was absent again. The woman who sometimes drove Pat was worried. Pat hadn’t returned her calls or answered the door. Had anyone else heard from her? No one had.

I had a funny lump in my stomach that stayed with me the whole day. I phoned Pat later that day. Her voice answered and told me to leave a message after the beep. I didn’t.

The next morning, I opened the paper and saw her face. In the obituaries.

Pat died on Nov. 6th a few days before I was supposed to drive her to art class. There was no explanation of what happened, no funeral or service. Sometimes obituaries communicate more by what they don’t say.

If there is a heaven, I sincerely hope that it’s heaving with leggy, long-haired Londoners, traipsing up and down the Kings Road dressed in Mary Quant minis and wearing smudgy eye make-up. And I hope Pat will be right middle of it all for all eternity.

Celine Dion in a snit

Published November 20, 2007 in Canada and music. 12 Comments

It seems the Schmaltzy One has her knickers in a twist, a self-interested twist.

Last week, her production company canceled her mega concert in this town, saying the venue was not appropriate for her production requirements. It was appropriate for The Rolling Stones, but not for The Schmaltzy One.

Today we learn from the Schmaltzy One’s husband that she didn’t like the tone of some local media stories (and blogs?) about the choice of Celine Dion an for an outdoor concert in a muck-pit. We weren’t welcoming enough for the Vegas chanteuse, apparently. Oh dear.

Of course, the snit and cancellation have have nothing to do with the fact that after she booked here, that the Schmaltzy One was offered a mega concert to celebrate Quebec’s birthday (paid for by Quebec taxpayers). The date? The night before our concert was scheduled.

The Schmaltzy One shows her true colours, me thinks.

 Good riddance Celine.

Words that should be banned: Have a nice day!

Published November 20, 2007 in Uncategorized. 5 Comments

There was a time when the phrase “Have a nice day!” meant something. It meant: have a nice day.

But through overuse and corporate appropriation, this phrase has been hollowed out, voided of sincerity and left on the side of the road as dry meaningless husk.

“Have a nice day!” (and there is always an exclamation point!) began its descent into insincerity when cash clerks in certain stores were mandated to say it after each transaction. Depending on the cash clerk, it was either delivered with a forced friendliness that was cloying in its dishonesty, or as a disinterested atonal pronouncement.

I prefer the latter, as it is more sincere. They are communicating the fact that “I have to say this even though I don’t feel it.” That, at least, is sincere and therefore more meaningful as a piece of communication.

But then “Have a nice day!” crept into the world of the automated recorded voice. That was its death knell. I hear it now when I call places that no longer have real people answering phones. I also hear it in in-coming automatic voice machines calls that inform me that I’ve just won a free week in Florida. (With a few minor conditions).

The problem is that “have a nice day!” is subject to inflationary forces. Overuse devalues its message. Insincere over use kills it. Even when it’s delivered by a well-meaning person, “Have a nice day!” sounds empty and cliche.

“Have a great day!!” only compounds the insincerity. And don’t get me started on “Now, you have yourself a nice day!!!” It makes me homicidal.

It’s time to ban “have a nice day” and come up with something new.

Favourite love quote

Published November 18, 2007 in quotes. 5 Comments

Where does one look to find eternal love? The English ladies’ tennis team scoreboard would be an obvious start

- Humphrey Lyttelton, jazz musician, humourist, calligrapher, BBC Radio 4 personality

(If Humph were a generation younger and this typist were a generation older… this typist’s  better half would have much to be worried about.)

Typist 1, Celine 0

Published November 16, 2007 in Canada and music. 13 Comments

It turns out that the Schamltzy One will not be coming this way after all.

Earlier this week, this typist told you that our mucky outdoor venue would not be  appropriate for Celine Dion’s brand of casino stage entertainment.

We have just had word that she has pulled out.

The reason? Our outside venue is not appropriate for her production requirements. (Pssst Celine, it worked for The Stones. Psst Celine, forget I said that and stick with your exit strategy. No. Really. Please. Don’t come.)

Clearly the politicians who booked this show are in lala land.

Thanks to YAM for alerting me to this good news.

Column: If it’s sympathy you’re looking for

Published November 16, 2007 in slack woman. 6 Comments

Don’t say you have a common cold.

 Tell them you have something really exotic like Humanrhino Virus 16? Same thing, but you have to admit, Humanrhino Virus 16 sounds far more serious and worthy of sympathy. Don’t you think?

Or choose a Victorian description for a cold: How about brain fever. Or putrid fever or an attack of the vapours.

But don’t say common cold. It will not get you the sympathy and hot toddies you so rightly deserve.

Now if only I could go into seclusion for a couple of weeks to recover from my putrid fever.

U2? Eagles, The Who? No. Celine Dion

Published November 15, 2007 in Canada, Uncategorized, culture, music and odd things. 12 Comments

Where I live, city politicians organize big rock concerts. (I know. I know.)

Last year we had the Rolling Stones play in an outdoor venue. It was raining cats and dogs, but devoted fans were defiant and stood in the mucky trenches for hours, wringing every drop out of the show. It was fantastic.

This year the politicians screwed up by trying to screw other promoters. Long story, but incompetence and lack of experience as concert promoters explains the problem. They are after all city politicians, not concert promoters.

Last week we had rumours of another big (100,000 people) outdoor concert in the works. The Who, U2, The Eagles, Red Hot Chili Peppers? Anything seemed possible. We did have the Stones.

But who did the politicians book for the super concert? Celine Dion.

I have nothing personal against the Queen of Schmaltz. She has talent, no question, but she is a performer of the Vegas casinos oeuvre. Her schtick belongs in enclosed structures with padded seats and good parking. She is not a rock ‘n roller.

Her slickly produced, highly-sentimentalized show is a poor choice for the outdoor super concert next summer. Think muck, Celine.

You don’t play hockey games on soccer fields. You don’t have Celine Dion on mucky outdoor fields. It’s sad when politicians are your concert promoters, even sadder when uninspired politicians are running the show.

If I were Celine, I’d run from this one. And I’d run fast. She has no idea who she is dealing with and what she is getting herself into.