Strategic Voting

Here is the quandary I find myself in, along with many, many other Canadians:

Neither the Conservatives nor the Liberals have earned my vote. They won’t do anything to help the people of Canada, and the rich will get richer and the poor will get poorer. For the Liberals, it’s because they just won’t do anything, and for the Conservatives, it’s because they’re actively evil, and will work hard to make sure anyone in the middle class ends up in poverty as soon as possible. And then take away any social services which might have helped us. And then, when we’re all poor and broke and living in the gutter, they’ll give us hefty fines for living in the gutter, which will be considered trespassing. And then they’ll take the money from those fines, and give it to rich people. Who will use it to pollute the environment, and lobby to try and enact laws making it legal to hunt homosexuals for sport.

So what does this mean? It means that I should vote for another party, like the NDP or the Green Party. My understanding is that the Green Party in Canada is a joke (as opposed to many other countries in the world, where the Green Party is a very progressive party), which means that it’s the NDP who would probably get my vote. In fact, in the last little while, I’ve been pretty impressed with what the NDP has been able to do for Canadians, by strategically playing the Liberals. So they should get my vote, right?

But wait. There’s a problem. Because so many Canadians have a “two party system” mentality, they have it in their heads that they should vote for either the Conservatives or the Liberals—the two “real” parties. So now, because everyone is so disappointed with the Liberals, a lot of people are shifting their votes to the Conservative party. And therein lies the quandary: I really don’t want to vote for the Liberals, because they won’t do anything, but if I vote for the NDP or the Green Party, it will “split the vote”. What this means is that the votes needed to defeat the Conservatives will get split up among the other parties, and none of them will get enough votes on their own to defeat the Conservatives—meaning that the Conservatives will win. (And thus the whole “two party system” mentality becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy...)

So now I have to seriously consider voting Liberal, just to keep the Conservatives from coming to power, and killing us all. (Quickly, by making us all poor and eliminating social services, and also slowly, by poisoning the environment.)

GAH! My brain hurts.

My Cartoon

EDIT: Warning! This post is out of date! I’ve finally taken the plunge, and uploaded the video to YouTube. You can see it on my blog here, or on YouTube here.

Don’t bother following the instructions given in this entry, because I’m removing the video from the link below.

Ah, forget it. Rather than trying to figure out if I want to join Google Video, I’ll just post a link here to my cartoon. In order to enjoy the cartoon properly, you’ll need to have your sound turned on. (No, this isn’t one of those cheezy things where everything is peaceful and then suddenly a face jumps out at you and yells “Boo!”)

1. You can follow this link to go to my Yahoo! Briefcase site, where I put a copy of the movie. There will be a list of folders (of which there was only one, when I wrote this):



2. Click the link called movies. This will list all of the movies I’ve saved there (of which there was only one, when I wrote this):



3. Right-click the movie name, and choose Save Target As:



4. Save the file (which is a WMV) on your computer.



5. Watch and enjoy.

Diet and Exercise Addendum

Further to my earlier post, let me just set your minds at rest, and confirm that I did go out jogging last night.

Pictures

Although I pride myself on having a mostly text-only site, I was very excited when I found out I could upload pictures to Blogger, and post them here. (I don’t have a Flickr account or anything where I can post pictures, and my Yahoo Photos site—while great for allowing me unlimited space to post my pics—isn’t really geared toward including my images on other websites.)

However, as it turns out, I don’t really put up pictures here that often. Probably because I don’t tend to bring a digital camera around with me everywhere I go.

I was thinking about the situation this afternoon, which is what prompted me to put up this post. I just wanted to put up something that had pictures...

People are strange

When we were in Barbados, we came across the following graffiti:



“Ha ha!”, we thought. “People wrote their names on that plant! How funny!” We even got a big print of this picture, which we put up in our bathroom.

And then we went to Venezuela, and we saw the following:



Apparently, this is some type of world-wide epidemic! All over the place, people are finding plants, and carving their names into them.

So, just to keep the trend alive, we got a big print of this picture, too, and put it beside the first one in our bathroom.

And that’s all I have to say about that.

Google Video Update

Update: I still haven’t decided if I want to upload my cartoon to Google Video.

That is all.

Okay, this is kind of funny...

Last week I was posting about the blogger party they hosted here in Toronto. (“They” being Raymi and Paige.) (Do you like how I just refer to these people by their first names, as if I know them?) But in Raymi’s blog, she referred to it as a “stupid gay blogger party”, because she didn’t know if it was actually going to be fun or not.

They got an email from someone who hosts some kind of gay blog, who thought the party was for actual gay bloggers.

Yeah, actually, you know what? The more I think about it, the less funny it is. But I did get a laugh out of it this morning...

4:30 on a Tuesday

What a long, boring, pointless day. Aside from the fact that * ******* *** ** ** *********, nothing special happened today.

Maybe tomorrow will be more exciting. Although, if the last 365 days are any indication, probably not.

Work

I would love to post about work right now, because one of my colleagues is a—

But I don’t post about work, so I can’t finish that sentence.

Diet and Exercise

First of all, let me just say this: I have not given up on my resolution to get exercise every night, and eat more fruit.

However, my plan has hit a snag, and that snag is weekends: Friday nights, I have Youth Group, which makes it unlikely that I’d be able to get home in time to go out for a jog. (I normally get home just in time to fall into bed.) Saturdays are also probably going to be bad, because we have plans most Saturdays. (I forget what we did this past Saturday, but I know that I wasn’t able to go out walking/jogging.) So the first two thirds of most weekends is probably going to be shot. Sundays are probably going to be fine, for the most part, but not always. (We went to a prayer meeting this past Sunday, which meant I wasn’t able to go out then.)

And then I was out last night picking up my package, which means that last night got messed up, too. Which means that I haven’t been out for a walk/jog in more than half a week.

But at least I have a repaired Axim now, so the next time I do go out jogging (which should be tonight) I can bring along Windows Media Player and listen to music...

Good news

I went and picked up my replacement Axim last night, and so far so good.

If it is going to break, I hope it does so in the next 50 days or so, because I believe my warranty is running out then.

Waiting...

Have I mentioned that waiting is the hardest thing? Oh, yes I have.

I’m waiting for a phone call right now, and until I get it, I don’t really have much to do. Which is why I’m writing this quick blog entry, even though I have nothing to say.

I’ve already read through all of the blogs I normally read (that have new posts), and the news sites I keep up with. Anything more substantial isn’t worth it, because I won’t have time to finish...

I hope you all feel as sorry for me as I feel. Not that that’s too likely, but anyway...

Raymi's Blog: The Gateway to Fame and Fortune

In a previous post, I had claimed that a good way to get your blog noticed is to get a link to it on Raymi’s blog. As it turns out, Fil has discovered that this is true. (Please be warned that there is a bit of nudity in some of these links. Also, please be assured that this is not why I was following the links in the first place...)

Who knew? I might be smarter than you thought I was.

Swiss Chalet has sold me out!

I just got takeout from Swiss Chalet—from whom I order on a regular basis—and was informed that they’ve switched from Coke products to Pepsi products. This is very disappointing—I always get a bottle of Nestea with my “quarter chicken dark with fries”, and they don’t have Nestea anymore. They have Brisk, which I dislike intensely. (A bottle of Coke would have been my fallback position, but I don’t drink Pepsi, either...)

Not that I think it will do any good, but I went to their website, and sent in the following complaint:

I just ordered takeout, and was informed that Swiss Chalet has switched over to Pepsi products, instead of Coke products. As a customer, this is disappointing, because I much prefer Coke products. (Not just specifically Coke over Pepsi, but I also much prefer Nestea over Brisk for iced tea.)

I'm not going to go overboard, and claim that you're losing my business--although I will have to start only ordering Swiss Chalet when I can do takeout, and supply my own drinks, which will, I suppose, reduce the number of times I go to Swiss Chalet. I'm only writing this in the hopes that others are complaining too, and maybe if you get enough complaints you might switch back.

Yes, I fully realize that nobody will care about this besides me. Or, at least not care as much...

Insert Witty Remark Here—And Then Laugh At It

I wish I had something clever to say right now, but I don’t. Even the title of this blog is ripped off. I’m just sitting around, right now, waiting for Andrea to call and let me know she’s ready to leave work.

I do have a substantial post that I’m planning to write, but I just don’t have the energy to type it all out right now, so if I were to try, it would be much less intelligent than I’d like it to be.

My new Axim should have arrived today. I’m hoping to go and pick it up tonight, assuming that I get home in time to get to the depot before it closes. (And assuming that it really did arrive today.) I just hope Dell doesn’t ship through UPS; the last time I got electronics shipped through UPS, the idio^H^H^H^Hdriver just left the package sitting on my front porch, in -20 degree (Celcius) weather! Which is unfortunate, because it means I can’t shop at TigerDirect.ca anymore, since they ship their merchandise through UPS.

Which reminds me... of nothing. I have nothing left to say for this blog entry.

Monday

I currently have nothing interesting to say.

Actually, that’s not true. I have something I want to write about, but I don’t have time to do it right now, because I have meetings all day, and I have to run to the caf to get something to eat before the next one.

Maybe this afternoon I’ll have some time to myself, and be able to type it up. Apparently Andrea might be working late, so I might have to sit around occupying my time for an hour or two after my marathon session of meetings is over...

Last Night

By all accounts last night’s event was a success. (Yes, when I say “all accounts” I mean just two accounts. I’m much to lazy to start combing through the blogosphere looking for accounts of last night’s party, to see if everyone else agrees...) I’m glad, because Raymi was a bit nervous about it ahead of time.

Hmm. Am I spending too much time just posting links to other peoples’ blogs?

Anyway, I’m not too sad that I missed it, because the Youth Group had a great time last night. We went to Mandarin for supper, and everyone ate to their content. And then had a couple more plates for good measure. And then had dessert.

My Sense Of Humour

What you have to understand about me is that I have a self-deprecating sense of humour. I have no problem pointing out my own faults, and am usually the first to do so. I amuse myself, and have no problem whatsoever laughing at myself. (Part of it is that I just really honestly don’t care if people have a good opinion of me or not.)

This sometimes causes me problems, because some people don’t understand this type of humour. (Not major problems, by any means—if people don’t get me, I’m not too worried about it.) Sometimes I make some kind of joke at my own expense, and people just don’t know how to take it; they can’t fathom that someone would not only allow himself to be made fun of, but even be the one who does it.

But if you’re reading something on this blog, and I’m talking about myself, and you can’t quite figure out what’s going on, it might be because I’m making fun of myself, and you’re one of those people who can’t understand it.

Attractive Bloggers?

Every once in a while I offer additional proofs to myself that I am a sexist pig. Here’s the latest:

I sometimes come across links to other blogs. (Often on Raymi’s blog, or Philogynist’s.) And sometimes those links have pictures, of the blogger or of the contents of the particular blog posting being linked to. And I’ve noticed that I’m much more likely to follow the link if the person in the picture is attractive than if they’re not. And even if I don’t click the link (because I firmly believe that most blogs are boring and useless—mine is a case in point), I’m still tempted to do so.

Now, I fully realize that this is stupid. The attractiveness of the person writing the blog has nothing to do with how interesting their words will be—if anything, there is an inverse relationship. (I know a lot of attractive but boring people...) But that doesn’t stop my impulses.

So... yeah. That’s it.

Blogging Party Tonight in Toronto

If you have a blog, and live in Toronto, there is a party tonight that you’re more than welcome to attend. For details, check out Raymi’s site, because she’s organizing it. Or helping to organize it. Or something. I’m not going, because I have plans tonight (and it would be hard to explain to my wife, who doesn’t really get blogging in the first place—not that I do, either).

I saw mention of it on Raymi’s site a day or two ago, and I’ve had mixed feelings about it. On the one hand, it might be fun, but on the other hand, my initial reaction was “Wow. Sounds lame.” But in order to understand that, you have to understand me...

Ever since high school, I’ve always been one of those people who never gets involved in anything. If you picture people who were in the glee club, or were cheerleaders, or any of that crap, I was exactly the opposite. Any time anyone would mention anything having anything to do with things like school spirit, my reaction would always be along the “sounds lame” lines. I don’t know why I would include a “blogging party” in that category, frankly. It’s just some kind of wimpy defense mechanism I’ve got going.

Now, I’m not trying to romanticise my past. Don’t come away from this thinking that I was in any way “cool” in high school. I wasn’t. As proof, I offer this: I had a mullet. Nobody who had a mullet can claim that they were cool, at the time they had that mullet. They weren’t.

Anyway, I’m just blabbing, and looking back over this post, I haven’t really said anything. (Not that that will stop me from posting it; none of my entries say anything.) The fact of the matter is, if I wasn’t busy tonight (and if I was single, and didn’t have to try to explain this to my wife), I probably would go. I just thought I’d take a few minutes to analyze myself, and as it turns out, I didn’t do a very good job of it. And now you’ve wasted a few minutes reading it.

Burn.

I've got bad news, and I've got good news

First the bad news (because I always do the bad news first):

My Axim is having problems. It’s started freezing randomly on me. (For more information on what an “Axim” is, see my I’m such a nerd post.) It’s still under warranty, but I feel like a sap fighting Dell to send me a new one, because I’m on the verge of buying a new device, that will end up replacing it. (I finally settled on getting the SMT5600, instead of the RAZR. The RAZR is ultra sexy and all, but the more I think about it, the more the SmartPhone is sounding like what I want.)

But now the good news:

I called Dell tech support, and after a false start, I talked to a guy, told him the problems I was having, he listened to me, told me to hold for a minute, and then came back with a ticket #, and told me that the new one should be arriving Monday—or Tuesday at the latest. Great! I was expecting him to run me through the normal bull, make me reset the device, I’d tell him it’s still hanging, he’d make me do a hard reset (which erases all of the data), I’d do it, I’d tell him it’s still hanging, and then he’d decide to send me one. This was like a breath of fresh air! Get this: I told him that I’d done a hard reset, and it didn’t work, and he believed me! That does not happen when you talk to support people.

Of course, I still have the problem that I’ll be getting that new device, so soon I’ll have an Axim lying around that I’ll probably want to give away. But at least I’ll have a working unit to give away, instead of one that freezes every 30 seconds.

Apparently, I shouldn't cook

I made chicken last night; some kind of frozen mandarin chicken from President’s Choice, because there is nothing that PC can’t make (except for plastic wrap). Andrea didn’t eat, because she’d had a big lunch.

Unfortunately, I managed to poison myself. Those of you who follow my blog—all one or two of you—will remember that the last time I poisoned myself, it was also on chicken. (I would normally put a link here, to the previous blog entry from when I poisoned myself, but a quick search didn’t turn up the post, so I won’t.)

It looked cooked, but halfway through I noticed that it was kind of soggy, and when I looked, it turned out that big huge pieces of the chicken weren’t cooked at all. I don’t think I ate too much of it, though, so I’m still alive today.

Luckily for you, because if I was dead, you wouldn’t have this blog entry to read.

Diet

Based on my exercise post, I had the following conversation in MSN Messenger, with someone who wants me to eat properly...

Tara (~38 days!) says:
All Bran Buds they contain psyllium and help break down triglycerides. very heart healthy.

sernaferna says:
A) I don't know what "psyllium" is.

sernaferna says:
B) I don't know what "triglycerides" are.

sernaferna says:
C) I *do* know what my heart is. So I'm not *completely* stupid.

Tara (~38 days!) says:
triglycerides = big bad fat = line walls of arteries = strain heart = heart attack = death.

psyllium = highly soluble fibre = absorbs big bad fat = less on walls of arteries = no heart attack =

sernaferna says:
What, no emoticon for death?

Tara (~38 days!) says:


sernaferna says:
Anyway, I'm not going to change my diet, yet (except for making sure i eat fruit every day), so it's not a deal.

Tara (~38 days!) says:
it's not changing your diet. just pour some on your morning cereal. bran is good for ya for a number of reasons.

Tara (~38 days!) says:
your colon will thank me

sernaferna says:
I don't eat cereal in the mornings; I don't have much of *anything* for breakfast...

Tara (~38 days!) says:
tsk tsk

Tara (~38 days!) says:
you should have breakfast

sernaferna says:
yeah yeah....

sernaferna says:
Speaking of eating, brb... need to grab some lunch, so I'll have time to eat it before my 2:00 meeting.

Tara (~38 days!) says:
get something healthy!

sernaferna says:
I'll try.

I'll try...

sernaferna says:
b

Tara (~38 days!) says:
that was remarkably fast.

sernaferna says:
I haven't eaten it yet; I just brought the food back up to my .

Tara (~38 days!) says:
is it healthy food?

sernaferna says:
Herb-marinated Salmon Loin, on a bun. Of course, I'm fairly sure salmon don't *have* loins, but that's what the sign claimed...

sernaferna says:
And fries.

sernaferna says:
'n Gravy.

Tara (~38 days!) says:


Tara (~38 days!) says:
well at least the loin (if that is indeed what it is) is good...

sernaferna says:
It's not bad....

sernaferna says:
Oh, and there are veggies on the bun, too. Along with the "loin".

Tara (~38 days!) says:
what kind of veggies?

Tara (~38 days!) says:
a tomato slice?

sernaferna says:
No, they're grilled; I think I see some onion, and some red and green peppers. Not sure what else...

sernaferna says:
The way they grill the veggies, they come out all drained looking...

Tara (~38 days!) says:
that sounds appealing

sernaferna says:
I'm probably not doing them justice; I just don't like grilled veggies. I prefer them to be steamed, or raw, or whatever.

Tara (~38 days!) says:
ANY veggies are better than no veggies.

Tara (~38 days!) says:
are you drinking 8 glasses of water per day?

sernaferna says:
I don't think so, although I'm probably not too far off. I do drink a lot of water every day...

Tara (~38 days!) says:
do you still have your little microwave?

Tara (~38 days!) says:
excuse me -dishwasher?

sernaferna says:
Of course, I'm having Coke for lunch.

sernaferna says:
No, we have a full-sized dishwasher now. I gave the other one away.

Tara (~38 days!) says:
you didn't offer it to me

sernaferna says:
Nope. I offered it to someone else.

Tara (~38 days!) says:
*feeling not-so-important*

sernaferna says:
I'm sorry you had to find out like this. *snicker*

Tara (~38 days!) says:
mmhmm.

well, I suppose there are worse things to find out... herpes, for instance. or a yeast infection.

sernaferna says:
True enough. Although I doubt you'd find out about either of those through .

Unless you have a *very* modern doctor...

sernaferna says:
Or is offering a new service.

"hold your genitals up to the monitor, and wait 30 seconds for your diagnosis..."

sernaferna says:
"Result: You have herpes. Probably contracted from holding your genitals against computer monitors in internet cafés...."

sernaferna says:
hehe

Tara (~38 days!) says:
weird. you're just so weird.

besides - everyone knows that you don't get herpes from computer monitors in internet cafes... you get GONORRHEA from computer monitors in internet cafes

sernaferna says:
lol

Tara (~38 days!) says:
I think that would be awesome. hold up various body parts to the monitor and get a diagnosis? They could have animated versions of your 'disease' appear on-screen to tell you the prognosis?

"Hi, I'm Timmy Tonsilitis. Guess what you've got!" or "Howdy, I'm Kidney Stone Katie. Careful when you pee!"

sernaferna says:
I meant to say this earlier, but I was on the phone at the time:

lol

Tara (~38 days!) says:
Wow. I shouldn't have held my breath for that response

sernaferna says:
lol

sernaferna says:
BTW, do you mind if I blog some or all of this conversation? (At least as much as I still have in this window... )

Tara (~38 days!) says:
how much do you still have?

sernaferna says:
It starts with your suggestion to eat Bran Buds, whatever those are...

Tara (~38 days!) says:
give'er. Blog away

Tara (~38 days!) says:
(it makes me feel really special that you don't blog any OTHER conversations that you have )

sernaferna says:
lol Most of the other conversations aren't as weird.

sernaferna says:
I mean interesting! Not as interesting.

Exercise

I wouldn’t exactly call this a “New Year’s Resolution”, but I’ve decided to get myself back in shape. It just coincidentally happens that I started Monday, which was the first night of the new year. (I know, Sunday night was actually the first night of the new year. But we were at Andrea’s aunt’s, that night, having more good food, so I couldn’t start then.)

I keep saying “night” because the major thing I’ve decided to do is go for a walk/jog every night after supper. It’s both a walk and a jog because I only jog part of the way—I know my limitations, and right now I’m not able to jog all the way around the block. Which is some indication of how out of shape I really am right now. (Although it’s not as bad as you think; “around the block”, for me, is about 1.7km, according to Google Maps and a make-shift ruler.) So I start out walking, and then about halfway I start jogging, and then when I can’t go any further, I go back to walking. All I want, really, is to get my heart working, and try to improve my cardiovascular system.

I’ve also decided to make more of an effort to eat fruit every day, and take some vitamins. But I think the exercise is the main thing. I’m not planning to do anything about my diet, at this point; if there is no improvement at all, I might have to consider it, but for the time being, I’m leaving my eating the way that it is.

Email

Wow, I was really out of the office for a long time; I completely forgot my routine.

It was 11:00 before I remembered to check my email, and delete my spam. Normally I’m doing that approximately every five minutes.

Insert Title Here

hahaha aren’t I clever? I said “insert title here” for my title, like a million, zillion other bloggers have done over the history of blogging! It’s like I didn’t fill it in... but I really did fill it in! I’m so smart, and clever, and funny, and handsome, and witty.

Anyway, the reason I’m writing this: I just read a line in someone else’s blog (which had a better title), which I wanted to share with y’all:

happy 2006. i hate even numbers.

Word For Your Mother

Based on some conversation around the house on the holidays, between my cousins and my mother, I decided to do some more work on my book on Microsoft Word. Once I got the enthusiasm going, I did a bunch of work on it over the last couple of weeks. (It’s up to about 200 pages, with three or four chapters that I haven’t even started yet.)

I also decided on a working title, which was actually suggested by my cousin: Word For Your Mother. Andrea is pushing for Word To Your Mother, to really make sure everyone gets the pun, but I’m still holding out for Word For Your Mother, because I’m a purist, and that title is more accurate.

In any event, I still haven’t decided if I would try to get it properly published. But there were enough people gathered at my family gathering who didn’t like/understand/know how to use Word that I figure there is still a market for this book. Of course, there are a million other books out there on Word, so one of those books might be better for them...

Back. Didja miss me?

Okay, I’ll do the same thing as everyone else does, and post a recap of my holidays. But be warned: Nothing exciting happened.

Christmas was fine. We spent the day with my in-laws, and then went to my parents’ on Boxing Day, where we stayed for a few days. Normally, when I go home for Christmas, I spend most nights at my friends’ house, but it didn’t really work out this year, and we only spent one evening with them.

While we were “home” we didn’t do much; but Andrea got a lot of writing done. It was a pretty uneventful trip.

For New Years, I went back home, and spent the night at a friend’s house. We stayed up all night watching less-than-great movies (that I enjoyed anyway). To whit:

• Payback, with Mel Gibson, which also had Lucy Liu in it.
• Then, because I was still in a Lucy Liu mood, and one of us hadn’t seen Charlie’s Angels 2, we watched that.
• Next, because I hadn’t seen it, we watched Mr. and Mrs. Smith, which got horrible reviews, but wasn’t as bad as I was expecting. (Halfway through this movie we stopped to watch the ball drop in New York; see below for more information on that.)
• Then, because I hadn’t seen it, we watched The Punisher.
• Finally, everyone else went to bed, and I stayed up and watched The Chronicles of Riddick.

Many of these were movies that I never would have seen with Andrea, because she wouldn’t have enjoyed them at all.

As I mentioned, we stopped partway through one of the movies, to watch the ball drop on the Dick Clark special. And Mr. Clark was actually on, this year—which he shouldn’t have been, in my opinion. He looked bad. I felt really sorry for him; he looked (and sounded) like he was barely alive.

And that’s it. All of the blogs I read regularly had people who did a lot more exciting stuff than I did—if you count getting drunk every night “exciting”. But I enjoyed myself, and my time off, so that’s all that counts.

Book Review: Necessary Illusions

Any time I read a book by Noam Chomsky, I get multiple things happening in my head.

First of all, I start feeling superior to people. “Why can’t everyone see what is so obvious to me?” (When Chomsky points it out to me, of course...) This effect is heightened by the fact that sometimes he points out things that I had always sort of secretly believed, but never with any kind of analysis, or with the hard evidence that he brings to his books. Definitely nothing I could ever articulate, but when I read it in his books, it has a feeling of familiarity to it.

The other feeling I get, unfortunately, is a deep-seated feeling of helplessness; I feel like things will never change, and the ruling powers will always rule, because they’ve been doing it for so long, and they’re so good at removing opposition.

In any event, I present to you another book by Chomsky, which will make it onto my Recommended Reading list right after I’ve finished writing this review: Necessary Illusions. The thesis for this book, if I may clumsily sum it up in one sentence, is that the media in North America (specifically the States, but not exclusively) is not much more than a propaganda machine for the US government. “Wow,” you may be thinking, “that sounds a bit extreme, Chomsky. Surely that’s an exaggeration, in order to make a point.” But it’s not.

Chomsky’s argument is that there are certain pre-conceived notions in North America, which everyone must hold to: the U.S. is benevolent; the U.S. is pursuing democracy, and helping to foster democracy, throughout the world; any violent acts committed by U.S. enemies is an act of terrorism, while any act of violence taken by the U.S. is retaliatory, and, by definition, not an act of terrorism; etc. He points out, throughout the book, that while the media often portrays itself as presenting divergent viewpoints, those viewpoints are always within the confines of the pre-conceived notions.

As Chomsky himself states it:

In the democratic system, the necessary illusions cannot be imposed by force. Rather, they must be instilled in the public mind by more subtle means. A totalitarian state can be satisfied with lesser degrees of allegiance to required truths. It is sufficient that people obey; what they think is a secondary concern. But in a democratic political order, there is always the danger that independent thought might be translated into political action, so it is important to eliminate the threat at its root.

Debate cannot be stilled, and indeed, in a properly functioning system of propaganda, it should not be, because it has a system-reinforcing character if constrained within proper bounds. What is essential is to set the bounds firmly. Controversy may rage as long as it adheres to the presuppositions that define the consensus of elites, and it should furthermore be encouraged within these bounds, thus helping to establish these doctrines as the very condition of thinkable thought while reinforcing the belief that freedom reigns.

Most of the events studied by Chomsky in this book took place in the 1980s. The two main examples cited are the U.S. involvement in Nicaragua, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

So, for example, in the 80s the media presented multiple views on the situation in Nicaragua, debating whether Reagan’s policies would ultimately be successful in bringing democracy to that country or not, but never questioned the policies as to whether the U.S. should be there in the first place—financing a treasonous army, trying to overthrow a democratically elected and popular government, against international law (which is ignored by the U.S. when deemed necessary). In addition, because the U.S. decreed that Nicaragua was not a democracy—even though they’d had democratic elections, and elected a leader who had a 90% approval rating by the people—this is the position the media took: Nicaragua is a dictatorship, and we must free the people.

Chomsky also refutes the idea that acts of violence committed by U.S. enemies are acts of terrorism, while acts of violence taken by the U.S. (or its allies) are acts of retaliation. (In practice, this is a thought which is never specifically voiced in the media, for fear that people would draw their own conclusions; it’s simply taken as a given, any other position on the idea being “unthinkable”.)

As he says:

There are many terrorist states in the world, but the United States is unusual in that it is officially committed to international terrorism, and on a scale that puts rivals to shame. Take Iran, surely a terrorist state, as government and media rightly proclaim. Its major known contribution to international terrorism was revealed during the Iran-contra scandal: namely, Iran’s perhaps inadvertent involvement in the U.S. proxy war against Nicaragua, a topic of much attention by the media, which succeeded in not noticing this uncomfortable though perfectly evident fact. The U.S. commitment to international terrorism reaches to fine detail. Thus the proxy force attacking Nicaragua is directed to attack agricultural cooperatives—exactly what we denounce with horror on the part of Abu Nidal. In this case, the directives have explicit State Department authorization and the approval of media doves. The U.S.-organized security forces in El Salvador follow the same policy.

“Terrorism is a war against ordinary citizens”; “the terrorists—and the other states that aid and abet them—serve as grim reminders that democracy is fragile and needs to be guarded with vigilance.” So George Shultz thundered at the very moment of the U.S. terrorist attack against Libya. “Negotiations are a euphemism for capitulation if the shadow of power is not cast across the bargaining table,” he added, also condemning those who advocate “utopian, legalistic means like outside mediation, the United Nations, and the World Court, while ignoring the power element of the equation.” The sentiments are not without precedent in history.

It has required considerable discipline on the part of the “specialized class” to maintain its own studied ignorance while denouncing the terrorism of others on command and cue.

(emphasis his)

There are numerous other examples I was going to cite here, but the review is already getting long. (In fact, whenever I “review” books by Chomsky, I do much less “reviewing” and much more regurgitating facts—there’s not usually much I’m critical of in his writing.) I highly recommend this book, so do yourself a favour and go and buy it.

Why Blog?

Be warned, before you start reading, that this is a pretty nasty post. So if you have a blog, you can skip this post, if you want, and save yourself the trouble of sending critical comments later...

The very first post I ever wrote on this blog dealt with the question of why I started it in the first place. (Well, okay, that was actually the second post. The first post just said “I have a blog now”. But I’m not counting that one.) Of course, that second post also included the phrase “I’m a writer and writers write!”, for which I lambasted myself in my third post. (Well, maybe “lambasted” is too strong of a word... I might have gone a bit easy on myself.)

Then, a bit later on, I put up another post questioning why anyone would bother reading this blog, since it’s of no importance to anyone. That one was important enough that I included a permanent link to it, off to the side, so that newcomers can go and read it, and realize that they don’t need to read any further.

So here we are, months later, and there is still no good reason why I would bother blogging. All of the reasons I put up earlier for why you shouldn’t bother reading this are still as true as ever (except that I can put up pictures now—but I hardly ever do).

In order to kill some spare hours, on my last work day before Christmas, I was about to start looking over some of my past posts—another task that I’ve made fun of myself for, in the past—when the futility of the whole thing struck me again.

But here’s the thing: It’s not like I’m the only one. It’s not like my blog is boring and narcissistic, while every other blog out there—or even most of them—are interesting or deep. Or useful. Or well written. Take a random sampling of the blogosphere, and see what you get. There’s even a handy Next Blog button at the top of this, and most other, Blogger blogs, that you can use to jump to a random blog. Try it, and here’s what you’ll get:

J. Random Person’s Blog
Monday, January 1, 2005
Another Boring Monday
Today I went to work. For lunch, I had a sandwich. It was so-so; not too good, not too bad. I’ll probably have another one tomorrow.

Survivor
I watched Survivor again today. I love that show!

Sunday, December 31, 2004
Life, Love, and Happiness
Why can’t I find someone to love? I know there’s a perfect person out there, but I haven’t found [him | her] yet.


Blah blah blah, etc. etc. etc. So many of them are the same! And, of course, off to the right or left there will be a million links to other blogs, that may or may not be as interesting as this one. (I think people spend as much time adding links to their blogs as they do actually writing... It’s the blogosphere equivalent of yearning to be popular.)

There are definitely blogs out there that are exceptions to the rule. I find the Raymi the Minx blog pretty interesting to read on a consistent basis, because it’s different. (It also has nudity, occasionally, so be warned if you plan to go there.) Similarly, I read Philogynist’s blog on a regular basis. (He happens to be Raymi’s partner—that’s where I found out about his blog.) His blog isn’t interesting because of the interesting life he leads, but simply because I like the way he writes it. There is also a blog called Self Titled that I read on a regular basis, which is also very not normal. Actually, now that I think about it, I first heard about that blog from Raymi, too. Let that be a lesson, people: If you want your blog to be popular, suck up¹ to Raymi, and maybe she’ll put up a link to it.

(For all of my Christian friends, I haven’t yet found a Christian blog which is interesting to read on a regular basis.)

And yet, there are millions of blogs out there. You can go to Blogger and start one for free, or if you’re on MSN you can start a space on Spaces, which will be integrated right into MSN Messenger. People all over the world are jumping on the blogging bandwagon. And a lot of them are using their blogs for interesting things; there are people out there blogging the news, or blogging about politics. I’m planning to publish a book online using Blogger, once I’ve finished the editing process (which may never happen). Some people are using their blogs to meet people.

But I’m not using my blog for anything. It’s a pure waste of bandwidth, to which I add on a fairly regular basis. And which I’ve spent a lot of effort on! I went to a lot of work to create the little “definition hyperlinks”, that you can click on for the little pop-ups. And customizing HTML-Kit so that I could create these [useless] posts as quick as possible. And uploading all of the MSN Messenger emoticons for use when I post Messenger conversations—which I still haven’t used. (That last link wasn’t 100% related; only about 90% related.)

So there. I’ve vented, and I feel better. By the way, please keep in mind that I’ve blasted my own blog as much as I’ve blasted anyone else’s. So if you read this and got personally insulted, thinking that I’ve made fun of your blog, before you post a comment, take a moment to ask yourself whether I’m right. Is your blog as much of a waste of bandwidth as mine is? If so, deal with it first. (Then post your nasty comment...) Not that I’m telling you to stop blogging—I’m sure not going to. Just be self-aware about it. And if your blog is nothing more than an online diary, then don’t be too disappointed if nobody visits it. I’m sure not disappointed if nobody visits mine—as I’ve said many times, there’s no point in reading this thing, so I’m not expecting anyone to.

¹ Actually, I don’t know if you’d have to suck up to Raymi to get your link on her blog; I’ve never met her or talked with her—maybe she’d put up a link out of the kindness of her heart. Or maybe she’d turn you down flat, and think you were a loser for trying to be popular like that. Who am I to say? Just because I read her blog, doesn’t mean I know anything about her...

Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas and Everything

Since I don’t tend to blog too much when I’m at home, I might not write anything new here until the new year. So, just in case that’s what ends up happening, I should say all of my “happy holidays” wishes now.

But... on the other hand... what’s the point? Are you really going to feel a warming in your heart when you read “happy holidays” from some blog? Especially when the best I can do is a general “happy holidays” to the world, rather than a specific “happy holidays” to you?

I don’t think so.

So, although I do hope everyone who reads my blog (and everyone else in the world who have holidays at this time of the year) have happy holidays, there’s not much point in saying so here. And don’t comment on this accusing me of being lazy—it took more typing to say all this then it would have to just say “happy holidays” and be done with it.

Waiting is the Hardest Thing

“Even harder than lifting a car over your head?” you might ask.

Yes. Yes it is.

Poor serna. Poor, poor serna...

I’m tired, and I have a headache, and I just want to go home and lie down. But I can’t... I’m stuck at work, waiting for an email to come, so that I can compile some code, so that I can be ready to come in early tomorrow morning, to test it.

Bah!

Where does the day go?

Hey, look at that! It’s 2:00 already, and I haven’t even had lunch yet.

It’s the week before Christmas; I’m supposed to be taking it easy! Why am I so swamped with work?!?

Stuff

Just some random thoughts:

• I realized today that I haven’t posted any MSN Messenger conversations, since I went to all the bother of uploading all of those emoticon images. Was it wasted work? Only time will tell. Is it because I haven’t had any interesting conversations on Messenger lately? Meh. What I consider an interesting conversation changes from day to day; there very well might have been some interesting conversations that I could have posted, and just didn’t bother.
• There is a particular blog that I tend to read pretty much every day, and it takes forever to load in my browser. I don’t know what she’s done to the formatting of that thing that makes it take so long...
• I read a conspiracy theory today as to why Chappelle’s Show might have gone off the air. I don’t think I believe it... but I read it.

Heh

I was reading a blog just now (no, not yours) (probably), and I realized something:

My life may be boring, but it’s not that boring.

So, uh... yeah. Burn, ’n stuff.

Conservative Party Update

Luckily, my saga ends here, and it was a very short story: The Conservative Party people came and removed the signs from our fence yesterday.

For those who provided suggestions on how to handle the situation (burn the signs, or write “I won’t be voting for” at the top), please note that these suggestions might have landed me in the slammer. Well, maybe not, but I might have been slapped with some fines or something; there are laws about interfering with a campaign. So the most I would have done is remove the signs myself. The only reason we wanted them to remove the signs was for the principle of the thing.

Illness

Illness still abounds in the serna household. Andrea still has a sore throat—the darn thing just won’t go away, and it’s been almost a month now.

And I was feeling better, but just noticed today that I have a bit of a sore throat again.

Let’s hope this doesn’t affect the Christmas holidays too much—not that we had any big plans, or anything, but I’ll hate the three hour drive to my parents’ house if I’m not feeling well.

And let’s also hope that Andrea gets better soon. She sounds really pathetic, these days, what with the constant coughing and throat clearing. She’s suffered long enough, I say.

The Conservative Party

I’m having a minor dispute with the Conservative Party right now. They put some signs—really big ones, actually, and two of them—up on my fence, without my permission. Now, I’m not a fan of putting up signs in general, but even if I were, it wouldn’t be for the Conservative Party! They’re the last people who would ever get my vote.

So Andrea called them yesterday, and demanded that they take the signs down. They tried to “explain the situation” to her, but she wasn’t having any of it—she was pissed. (As was I, when she called me about it after.) But they didn’t take the signs down.

So I called again this morning, and they promised again to take the signs down. They still gave me some song and dance—oh, sometimes the people who are putting up the signs get confused about the addresses, blah blah blah—but they at least promised to take them down. Again.

So, to sum up, here is what the Conservative Party has done so far:

1. They broke the law, by putting signs up on private property, without getting permission from the owners.
2. They broke their promise, when they told Andrea they’d take the signs down.

I would love to be able to report them for doing this, but Andrea is pretty sure there’s nobody we can report it to, except possibly our MP (who is apparently a Liberal).

My Book

I’ve sort of decided not to bother trying to get my Christian book published. Instead, what I think I will do is publish it online; I’ve even been thinking about ways that I can just publish it through Blogger. That way, it can reach a much wider audience, which is all I care about for that one—I didn’t write it for the money. And it’ll be free, which is a plus.

I’ve given it to a couple of people to read, and one of them got back to me with feedback. And now I owe her an email to answer a bunch of questions she asked.

Of course, if I ever finish either of the other two books I currently have on the go, I don’t think I’ll go for the online publishing route; those I’ll try to get properly published, in book form. Unless I can’t, but still think that they’re good, in which case I might do it just to generate “buzz”, or something...

Been a long time...

I’m sure I’ve created a post before with this same title.

I realize I haven’t posted in a while—it just didn’t happen. I must have been busy or something.

The Jehovah Shalom concert went well on Saturday, I thought. Soon Andrea and I will have to fix the JS website again, because the concert is no longer “upcoming”, it’s now “recently passed”.

I got a coffee from Tim’s this morning, but when I got back to my desk, and took a sip, I felt something in my mouth (besides coffee, that is); when I looked to see what it was, I realized that the cream was bad, and there were big lumps of it floating in my coffee. So I had a quick internal debate as to whether I should take the coffee back, and demand a new one, or just pour it down the sink, and go and buy a new one. Now, I know that 90% or more of the people reading this blog will be thinking “Why did you even have to debate it? Just get your money back!” Which is reasonable, and is where I was initially leaning. But then I just decided it was too much hassle, and poured it and went and got a new one. I know, I know... $1.20 down the drain.

And that’s all for now. Maybe I’ll post again later today, but probably not. I have to drive across the city this afternoon, so I think much of my day will be spent just driving.

Venezuela Pictures

Edited post

Although I tend not to edit posts, once I’ve put them up, this one’s an exception. I’ve modified the links to my photos site.

Probably not that important, but I’m anal-retentive, that way.

I’ve finally got my pictures of Venezuela edited, and put online. If you wish to see them, you can do so at this web site. There are a few different albums there, for different sections of pictures. (Along with the old pictures from Guyana and Barbados, of course.)

Be warned, before you go, that there are over 400 pictures there, so it might take you a while to go through them. Also, for some reason, when I upload photos to Yahoo Photos, they end up in a completely random order. (Unless I upload them one-by-one, which I just don’t have the time to do.) Also, because of the way they were uploaded, they’re in the wrong order. Not that I think it makes a difference, for the most part, but it bugs me, when I look at them online.

Unfortunately, the photos didn’t come out as well as I’d hoped. But I looked through them again tonight, and there are still a lot of good ones in there.

Since there were so many, I broke them down into separate albums. Here is a breakdown of the different albums, and what they contain:

• Venezuela: This is the main album, and contains any of the pictures that aren’t in the other albums.
• Tourist Trap: This is a village where every tourist to Venezuela has to go. My relatives kept calling it “the tourist trap”, so that’s what I kept calling it too. At any rate, whatever it’s called, we had a good time—as we did everywhere else.
• Glass Factory: As the name implies, this was a famous glass factory, where we were able to go in and see them making things out of glass. (Actually, there were two that we went to; the last two pictures in this album are of the second factory.) I also got some videos of the glass being blown, but of course I can’t post those.
• Parade Ground: This is where the Venezuelan army marches, on special days. I... don’t have anything really to say about it, other than that.
• Coffee Plantation: This place was an old coffee plantation, and is now a museum. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to get as many pictures as I would have liked, because we weren’t allowed to take pictures in most of the rooms. (And it was pretty dark in there anyway.) In fact, when we first got there, there was a group of school kids going through, and they let us just wander around, until they were ready for us—and the first couple of pictures in here I shouldn’t have taken. Whoops. I took them before I noticed the signs...
• Mountain: This one’s exactly what it says. We took a trip in a jeep up onto a mountain. It wasn’t foggy that day, those are clouds that we’re driving through. I also got some great shots of Caracas from up there—or, what I thought were great shots of Caracas. Some of them didn’t come out as well as I’d hoped. And, just because it seemed like a good idea at the time, some pictures of some advertisements that interested me.
• Park: These were some pictures of a park we went to. (I did a pretty good job of naming these albums, eh?) The inexplicable pictures of a bunch of people in front of a blue screen had nothing to do with the park, per se—they were just there filming for something at the same time we were there.
• German Village: These are pictures of Colonia Tovar, the “German Village”. There’s an interesting story, behind this one. At one point, one of the previous dictators of Venezuela decided that he wanted more European blood going around Venezuela, so he brought in a group of German settlers. But when they got there, they decided that they wanted to stay separated from everyone else, and so they built their own little village. It was interesting to see the German architecture (and signs printed in German) in the middle of this Spanish-speaking country. (Source: Our tour guide for the day.)
• University: These are pictures of the Universidad Simón Bolívar. Andrea’s cousin taught there. And, yes, there are indeed a lot of pictures of ducks. They were wandering around the grounds, and... well, I don’t know why I took so many pictures of them.

So there you have it. My Venezuela pictures.

For those of you who were on the trip with me, if there were any pictures you were expecting to be here that you can’t find, I apologize. A lot of pictures didn’t come out very good at all, so I deleted them.

Ludacris

I was talking to Andrea about this briefly this morning. I really like the way Ludacris raps. I think he’s immensely talented, he’s got great rhythm, and he’s creative in the way he puts words together, and paces his rhymes. He’s also playful, which makes it really fun to listen to his music. Also, for the most part, he’s also very creative when it comes to his background music, which makes it interesting to listen to.

If only his lyrics weren’t so filthy! Every song I’ve heard from the man has been X-rated; after I hear one of his songs, I feel like I should go to God in repentance.

Laundry

I should be in bed by now, or at least heading in the direction, but I felt it was important to say this one last thing, first:

I hate folding laundry. I don’t mind doing laundry, but I hate folding it, after. I don’t know why—whether it’s the tedium of it, or what. But I don’t like it.

That is all.

Photos, Photos, and More Photos

Still not done uploading the photos from Venezuela, yet. There are a little over a hundred still left to go. Hopefully I’ll get to do them tomorrow, and then I can stop worrying about it—and posting useless blog entries about it.

Rapex

If you would like to understand this post, go and read this article, first.

I haven’t yet formed an opinion of this device. The article raises some points why I might be against it, but it doesn’t mention one important one: How effective would it be? By “effective”, I mean could it reliably be used in a way that would harm the man but not the woman? Is it hard to use correctly?

Also, probably just as important, if not more so, is the fact that most rapes are committed by men who know the victim; this brings a dynamic to the problem that I’m not sure if this device can really help with.

But even if it’s effective, I’m not sure if I’m for it. One of the important things they mention in the article (although only in passing):

Charlene Smith, an anti-rape campaigner, said it “goes back to the concept of chastity belts” and would incite injured rapists to kill their victims.

(emphasis mine) This is the most dangerous part of it, I think.

Another point raised:

Some women’s activists call the device regressive, putting the onus on women to address a male problem.

So I don’t know what to think.

My first step will be to pass this on to Andrea; she works on violence against women and children issues all day long; she will have a better analysis on first glance than I ever would.

Pictures of Venezuela Still Not Up

I know, the weekend has come and gone, and there aren’t any more pictures of Venezuela up then there were on Thursday. I was pretty busy this weekend, and didn’t have a couple of hours to sit down in front of the computer and upload.

Maybe tonight, but probably not, since I think Andrea already has a couple of things planned that we need to do tonight.

No title. Live with it.

One of the more annoying things in the world: My coworker’s cell phone ring tone. Which he seldom brings with him, when he leaves his desk, meaning that I hear it all day.

Another thing, which is just as annoying: The other ring tone it uses, when he gets a voice mail. This often follows the first ring (mentioned above).

Geeky Apostrophe Thing

That last post got me to thinking:

If I’m writing the word “em”—as in, “that’ll show ’em”—should I use the ‘ open quote or the ’ close quote in front of the “em”? Should it be ‘em or ’em?

Funnily enough, I’m realizing that it doesn’t matter too much, in this font, because they look basically the same. Let’s try again, in another font:

If I’m writing the word “em”—as in, “that’ll show ’em”—should I use the ‘ open quote or the ’ close quote in front of the “em”? Should it be ‘em or ’em?

These are the types of things I worry about, that nobody else in the world cares about...

My MSN Messenger List

I know, I know, I spend too much time blogging about my MSN Messenger list. We already know I’m a geek; let’s just move on, eh?

That being said, I have two things to share:

• There are two (2), count ’em, two, people on my MSN Messenger list named “me”. That’s a bit confusing.
• There is someone else whose name says “Ughh! Finals are brutal! Its a good thing I’m so smart”—which I find funny for two reasons. And I won’t tell you what either one of those reasons is.

You might guess, based on the nature of this post, that I’m bored today. The thing is... I don’t know if I am or not.

Run DMC

There’s a song by Run DMC called Peter Piper, which uses a set of bells in its beat. (Originally sampled from a song called Take Me To The Mardis Gras, by Bob James.) I hear these bells all the time, in other hop-hop songs, and every time I hear it, I think to myself “I have to get a copy of Raising Hell on CD!”

So I heard another song today that had those bells, on Flow, and as usual I thought to myself “I have to get a copy of Raising Hell on CD!” And right after, as I was still thinking about it, they announced that they’d be playing a Run DMC song, next, as a “flow back”. And I thought to myself “quite a coincidence—but I bet it will be one of the newer Run DMC songs”. But, as it turned out, they played Peter Piper! Maybe someone at Flow was making the same connection I did?

Unfortunately, they played it just as I was getting to work, so I only heard the first little bit of it. (Because of the snow I was already late this morning, so I didn’t feel comfortable sitting in the parking lot listening to the rest of the song.)

Partial Venezuela Pictures

Edited post

Although I tend not to edit posts, once I’ve put them up, this one’s an exception. I’ve modified the links to my photos site.

Probably not that important, but I’m anal-retentive, that way.

I have started to upload my pictures from Venezuela—however, it’s taking forever for the files to upload. If you want to see what’s there so far, feel free. They’re at my photos site.

When I’m finished uploading them all (there will be multiple albums), I’ll post a description of the albums here. I don’t know when that will be, though—apparently, I’ll have to set aside a couple more hours to get them all up there.

(Frankly, I don’t even know how long it will take. When I look at the upload status for the pictures as I’m uploading, it’s all over the place. It’ll say 30 minutes, then 9 seconds, then 3 minutes... So who knows?)

Device Update

A further update on my two current device choices, if I switch my mobile phone:

• I looked more into the SMT5600, and found out that the operating system is Windows Mobile 2003. I emailed Audiovox, and asked them if there would be an upgrade, to Windows Mobile 5. They got back to me—very quickly, I might add—but unfortunately the answer they gave was that no, they won’t be providing an upgrade to WM5.
• I happened to be in a Rogers store the other day, and I took a look at the display model for the RAZR. But it felt really cheap and flimsy. I’m hoping that that’s just because it’s a display model—I hate the fact that they make display models out of a different type of plastic; the whole reason for having one is so that people like me can see what the device feels like in your hand!—but now I’m kind of leery, until I can find a RAZR I can hold in my hands, and investigate the heft, solidity, etc.

Traffic Limits on Spaces?

A few of my friends have blogs on Spaces (since it integrates so nicely with MSN Messenger), and every once in a while I go there to check up, only to get this message from MSN:

Space not available
This space is temporarily unavailable. Please try again later.

Is this because there are limits for how much traffic you can get to your Spaces site, and these people are always going over? Or does Spaces just suck?

Coffee

Although I’m sick, I had a real craving for coffee yesterday. But I withstood my temptations, because coffee doesn’t help your immune system.

But now I say: screw that noise. I’m getting a coffee today. I’m not that sick—I barely have any symptoms. So why deprive myself?

Okay, okay, the question “why deprive myself” brings up a slew of religious issues; but drinking coffee isn’t immoral, so I think I’m on solid ground here.

Chatting

Alternate Title: Yes, I know that I’m a nerd! Stop reminding me!

You know what I miss? A good, fun internet chat room. I’m sure there are some out there, but all of the ones I used to go to are either no longer in existence, or just aren’t fun anymore.

Unlike most internet chat geeks, I never really got into IRC; I just couldn’t be bothered. So the first chat room I got involved in was Chathouse, which was actually HTML-based; you’d type in your message, and click Submit, and it would load the next screen of stuff people had said. You wouldn’t see others’ messages unless you refreshed. Sounds strange, eh? But it was a great place, with a lot of really fun people. But it’s dead now; all of the fun people I used to chat with don’t go there anymore, and the last time I checked, it was literally empty.

After Chathouse, I wasn’t really into chatting as much, until years later, when Andrea and I broke up for a while. I started looking around for ways to fill my time, and tried going back to Chathouse—only to find out how little of the fun remained. And then I discovered the MSN chat rooms, and specifically the Kisses room. Yes, I know what you’re thinking when you read the name. And I can’t say that I blame you. But the room was really fun. I made a lot of friends in there (many of whom I no longer talk to, because I’m not good at keeping up with people like that...), and really felt free to just talk and have a good time.

And then MSN started charging for the chat rooms. Which was fine, sort of, because by that time Andrea and I were back together, and engaged, so I didn’t have as much time for chatting anyway.

But... every once in a while, I get a couple of hours of free time, and I get to reminiscing about the fun chatting can be. And when I do, there’s nowhere to go. Any time I do see a chat room advertised, it’s usually in connection with some type of dating service, which I’m not really interested in. I tried another chat room, but the people there just aren’t fun, like the ones I used to chat with.

As with most of my posts, there isn’t a point to this one. (So no, I don’t need anyone to send suggestions for chat rooms I can try.) This post is just serna killing some time, since he has nowhere to chat anymore...

Fisherman's Friend

I’m really getting sick of the taste of Fisherman’s Friend. Blech!

Politics Revisited

I had promised to start covering some of the issues in Canadian politics, in preparation for the upcoming election. However, I’m having trouble finding the web site I was hoping to use as one of my main sources; I know it’s out there, but Andrea can’t remember the location, so I’m resorting to Googling for political information.

Hopefully I’ll have something soon...

What's wrong with my ears?!?

I went out to grab something for lunch today, and on my way past the security desk there was a guy talking to the security guards, and I could have swore I heard him say “I just want to fondle your bum”.

But I probably heard incorrectly. As you know, if we’ve met in person—or as you tell me over and over again, if you’re Andrea—my ears don’t work very well.

P.S. for lunch I grabbed a Montreal smoked meat sandwich from Druxy’s, which turned out to be not very good at all. Which surprised me, because I’ve gone there a couple of times in the past, for the same thing, and it’s always been great. The Rice Krispie Square was good, but let’s face it: it’s not hard to make a decent Rice Krispie Square. (Comparatively speaking, of course).

P.P.S. But if you want a really good Montreal smoked meat sandwich, go to Montreal. (I love to state the obvious...) There is even a specific deli that I would have sent you to, because they had great smoked meat sandwiches there (along with some local Montreal-brewed beer), but it closed down. So, I guess if you do go to Montreal, you should go to Reuben’s. I’ve never actually been, myself, but everyone says that’s the place to go, so you should go. Because everyone said to.

Update

Still sick. Picked up some Fisherman’s Friend lozenges on the way to work, but haven’t taken any yet (as of time of writing), because I’m still drinking my orange juice.

I wish I had something more clever to say, but I don’t.

There is a particular blog that I read almost every day, and the writer of that blog is constantly being interviewed by people. (I know this, because she posts the interviews.) Now, notwithstanding the fact that most of the interviews are really boring, because the interviewers are intimidated by the fact that the interviewee is very cool, so they try and make their questions cool too, and it ends up sounding really stupid... but notwithstanding that, I’m still jealous of the fact that she’s getting interviewed all the time—albeit by idiots, and I can’t get past that point, apparently—whereas I can only get interviewed by myself.

Before you read this, and volunteer to interview me: No, I don’t want to be interviewed. I’m just sayin’, is all.

Formatting Change

I decided that if I’m going to gripe about people who have blogs on Spaces, and have tiny, tiny text that I can barely read, then I should probably increase the text size on my blog, too.

I have now done so. Which means that I’m free to complain about people who have blogs on Spaces, and have tiny, tiny text that I can barely read. Which I will now proceed to do:

People, there must be an option in Spaces somewhere where you can adjust the font size! (Also, you must be able to use the Enter key from time to time, to include multiple paragraphs in your post... They can’t have set Spaces up to force you to enter one long paragraph for every post...)

Editor’s note: Don’t be fooled by the rhetorical devices included here. I know for a fact that you can change the font size, because I have a friend who changed her font size on Spaces. Because of my complaining.

Sick

To celebrate the fact that I’m now using Andrea’s real name, I’d like to mention that I’m sick, and I caught the sickness from her. She’s been banging around the house sick as a dog for the last couple of weeks, telling me that it’s too late for me to get sick, because she’s past the contagious phase—if I was going to catch it from her, I would have caught it by now.

Well... I’ve caught it. It hit me very suddenly, too; I was fine this morning, felt a bit of a throat thing at about 1:00, and it’s been getting steadily worse for the last couple of hours. (I think I have some nose symptoms, and I definitely have a headache now.)

I foresee sick days in my future, because I don’t tend to handle illness very well.

My Wife

My wife took a quick look through my blog the other day, and told me that she doesn’t want to be referred to as “my wife” on here anymore. I told her that this was pretty unavoidable, since I don’t want to use her real name.

So she told me that she would rather I use her name than keep saying “my wife”. So, from now on, I’ll be referring to my wife as Andrea (which is her name).

Dream

I had a dream the other night that I was invited to spend the weekend with a couple of people. The thing is, the people I dreamt I was staying with aren’t people that I actually know—they’re just people who have blogs that I read. Which is weird; I don’t even know these people, but apparently I think about their blogs enough that I actually dream about them. Luckily I don’t tend to put any real details in here about my own life, so complete strangers probably aren’t having dreams that they’re staying over at my house for the weekend.

Oh, and if it matters, the people live in an apartment (according to their blogs), but in the dream they had a really nice house. And I was a good guest, but they were even better hosts—if they ever invite me to stay over for real, I’ll probably go, because I had a really nice time in the dream.

Copying...

I’ve been staring at this for the last hour. Talk about a productive morning! (He said, sarcastically.)

Traffic Updates

If you live in Toronto, and drive a car, you probably listen to 680 News (AM 680) on a regular basis, for their traffic updates. (“Every ten minutes on the ones, at 1, 11, 21, 31, 41, and 51 minutes past each hour...”) But sometimes I’m leaving the office at just the wrong time—it’s 4:43, and I’ve just missed the traffic, and won’t hear it again for 8 more minutes, but I need to decide which highway to take now.

Luckily, 680 News has introduced a new feature where you can get traffic reports on demand, on your mobile phone. If you text message the word “traffic” to the number 680680, a computer will call you back on your cell phone, and play back a recording of the last traffic report that was given. (For some reason, they will also send you a text message back, to let you know that they’ll be calling you, which is kind of unnecessary. Also, my phone often rings with the call before the text message even arrives, which kind of defeats the purpose.)

If you want to try this feature, keep in mind that it costs fifty cents per call.

New Toy?

I was thinking about my devices over the last couple of days, and I thought that maybe I should change my approach. What I’d been hoping to do was get one device, preferably running the PocketPC (now called Windows Mobile) operating system, that would be both my phone and my PDA. The front-runner was the SMT5600, which is currently being sold by Rogers.



However, I’m now thinking that maybe I should go another route; instead of getting one device, maybe I should just get a really simple phone, but one that has Bluetooth capabilities, and just keep my Axim. (For more information on the Axim, refer back to the “I’m such a nerd” post, here.) Then I can just maintain all of my contacts and stuff on there, and when I want to call someone, I can get the Axim to make my phone dial the number. I’ve never actually tried this, because I don’t have a phone with Bluetooth, so I don’t know how cumbersome that will be.

So, if I do go that route, I think I know what phone I would get. Which would be the Razr, pictured below.