the Hubb hub

What’s in a synonym?

2011-09-16T19:32:00.000-07:00

I place the blame for my regular indecision over which shower gel to buy squarely on the shoulders of 11th century Normans.

It was common in the Middle Ages for invading forces to replace the existing culture, religion, language etc. with their own, so as to not leave people in any doubt over who was in charge and prevent any patriotic resurgence.

But not the Normans that invaded England from France in 1066, oh no. Rather than cement their dominance through forcefully replacing the existing language they just let the peasants use the existing Saxon words while the elite used French, and we thus have many words duplicating the same meaning.

Many say we owe the Normans a debt of gratitude for a colourful language replete with a multiplicity of synonyms; I say, look how it has complicated the personal hygiene industry.

My particular dilemma is centred around how I want to feel after taking a shower. While shopping for shower gel I was confronted by two bottles of product of the same brand. One of which, according to the label, would ‘invigorate,’ (from the Latin, invigorare) the other would ‘energize’ (from the Middle French énergie). After consulting a dictionary I found the only significant difference between the two words was their spelling.

But then why make two almost identical but not quite products? Looking along the shelf I realized that all brands sold gels that were the same in almost every way but labelled with a different synonym. Competition between brands I can understand, but for a company to sell products that compete against itself—how does that help anyone?

Having a multiplicity of synonyms raises questions (or queries, same thing) over which words to use. The ‘vernacular’ we use is almost identical to the ‘dialect’ we use—both defined as how people in a specific region speak. Perhaps ‘purchased’ fits the rhythm of a sentence better than ‘bought’—both of which are defined as “to obtain/acquire for money or its equivalent” in the American Heritage dictionary.

Unable to discern the difference with intellect only, I decided on a practical research solution. I purchased one and bought the other.

For the first week I lathered myself daily with the blue shower gel and felt undeniably invigorated—but, in all fairness, I also felt energized. And when I switched to the light green gel I would be lying if I said I didn’t feel, as per the label, totally energised—but also more than a little invigorated.

The bottom line here is that they produced the same result regardless of the adjective on the bottle or the colour of the contents. So if they do the same thing and the adjectives mean the same thing why don’t the companies in question save themselves a lot of effort and me a lot of confusion by just selling a single shower gel?

And how did such a plethora (excess, overabundance, glut) of products identical in all but adjective and colour come into being?
“How many shower gels should we put on the market?”
“Well, how did our test subjects report feeling after their shower?”
“Err, one of them said they felt invigorated.”
“Great. Look up all the synonyms for invigorated and that’s how many products we launch. Good job I took history, those Normans knew a thing or two about marketing.”

I submit therefore that despite the company’s inability to choose a single descriptive word and stick with it, that it is impossible to have a shower and not feel both invigorated and energized. Refreshed even. Which, incidentally, derives from Old French and is available in lilac.

Having eliminated the adjective and the colour, I turned to the ingredients. It might be that I am not sensitive enough to differentiate between the advertised sensations but its true their ingredients are not exactly the same. ‘Invigorate’ had identical ingredients as ‘energise’ with one added exception—Tetrasodium. Tetrasodium, a miracle of modern-day chemistry—guaranteed to invigorate without energising.

Then again, only ‘energize’ contains Polyquaternium-7 so maybe that’s what gives energise a different, if unidentifiable, shower experience.But Polyquaternium-2 (which one can only assume is a close relative of Polyquaternium-7) is found in another of the almost identical gels, only this one’s called ‘relax’—a word that is, to any linguist ancient or modern, the complete opposite of energise. I showered in ‘relax’ and felt both invigorated and energized, though confusingly, I could have also quite easily taken a nap.

What about natural ingredients? ‘Invigorate’ contained natural lemon oil and spearmint, whereas ‘energize’ contained lemon grass and citrus lime. Maybe its common instinct for all members of the animal kingdom to know that to be invigorated you suck on a lemon, but to be energized you suck on lemon grass, but this nuance was lost on my freshly bathed person.

Why brands of shower gel have multiple flavours—all of which simultaneously do something that is both different and exactly the same as their related products—eludes me.Though I admit to being perplexed as to why none of them advertise themselves as being good at making me clean (unsoiled, spotless…sparkling?). Which is generally my reason for showering.

The Once and Future Divas

2011-02-01T05:13:00.000-08:00

What is really astounding about renaissance paintings is their size. Perusing a book of art, regardless of how big a coffee table is needed to hold it, gives you no indication that the originals are often so huge they are too big to put anywhere unless you have a castle or a palace. Which most of the original owners had of course. The biggest painting in the Louvre is Les Noces de Cana which is an astounding 22 feet high by 32 feet long. It is a curious thing then that thousands of people each day ignore it, because they are straining for a glimpse of the 30 inch by 20 inch work that hangs opposite, The Mona Lisa.

When I saw the most famous painting in the world I could hardly help but be underwhelmed. Sorry, no really I really am. The trouble was I already knew it so well; what it looked like, its history, and various interesting factoids about it (It’s painted on poplar wood, not canvas). And it’s not just a case of having seen it once or twice, I’ve seen The Mona Lisa everywhere all my life—children’s shows, the news, documentaries, comedy sketches—enough that it is very familiar to me; as I’m sure it is to much of the world.

Her every facet has been examined and discussed for generations. On television, professors of art reveal facts and secrets the casual observer does not perceive no matter how hard they look at the real thing (it took four years to paint—that’s three square inches a month). Reproductions on posters and in books allow you to see more detail than you can when you’re in front of the real thing; and in colors that are actually more true to when it was created than the original now shows. The morning I was at the Louvre I’d seen the image a dozen times, bigger, in better color, more detail, and less crowded conditions than the original itself.

So what added benefit then does seeing the original have? I argued to myself that one day the original will not be with us but I will always be able to say I saw it. Except of course the original will likely outlast me so I’ll never actually be able to say that unless I live to a ridiculously old age. And if that happens, the gathered audience will likely be more fascinated by my impossible longevity rather than the fact I saw a painting whose image they would surely have already seen.

There are things of historic import about the painting to be sure, but the vast majority of us don’t know them or wouldn’t realize their significance if we did (especially if our name is Dan Brown). The question of who she was created mystique and her various thefts gave her notoriety. But so what? Dare I suggest that in the age of celebrity, The Mona Lisa is mostly famous for being famous?

Elsewhere in the museum another well-known diva awaited and I had time, barely, to see her, which was lucky because she could barely be seen—The Venus de Milo.

The Venus de Milo is armless. Unless she falls on you. You feel sorry for her though. She stands at one end of an entire wing of impressive white statues, all of which have a complete set of limbs, making the whole scene like a snapshot of life in a school playground. The other statues hang around in groups, but none go near the ‘special’ kid, the one that’s a little ‘different.’ And unable to actually use sticks and stones, names is all they’ve got.

‘Don’t you wish you could point like us?’ they taunt.

‘You’re pointing at a ceiling tile,’ she retorts with a defiant sniff.

‘If you had arms to hold up that blanket you wouldn’t be showing so much,’ they mock, adding ‘it’s only because you’re not covered they come to see you.’

‘Like you can talk—Mr. Where’s my fig leaf gone?’

‘Bet you wish they’d put you in the armoury.’

‘Shut up.’

And so Venus is shunned by the other statues, defiantly upright though it must hurt inside. Longingly she looks over the heads of her human admirers, wishing she could join in with all other statue games, while they flaunt their ability to point, wave, hold things and otherwise make a single endless gesticulation.

Harry Potter and the Deadly Tedium

2011-01-15T09:56:00.000-08:00

The seventh Harry Potter film (part one) was less exciting than watching a sloth. A sloth that trails behind all the other sloths because it can’t be bothered to keep up. A sloth that other sloths call ‘Mr. Lazy Pants.’ It was too long, too dark, and far too boring. Not much happened, then not much happened again. Something started to happen, but was quickly shamed into not happening by the other non-happening things. Every time I thought the engine was about to kick in and run all on its own it stalled right back to another ten minutes of Harry Potter and the Tent in the Wilderness. The Order of the Phoenix was pushing the boredom envelope—a great fight scene at the end but it was all of ten minutes long and you had to sit through two hours to get to it. I suspect many only saw that scene because their limbs were unable to get them out of their chairs. Deathly Hallows though makes seven years in Tibet look positively fast-paced and snappy; and I don't mean the movie—I mean seven years in Tibet.

Let me be clear, I am a Potterite. I have looked forward to each new Harry Potter installment. And they have, overall, done an outstanding job making the film versions. But my loyalty doesn’t stretch to praise just because it’s the latest addition to a franchise I’m a fan of.

Where to begin? (yes, spoilers follow, but they spoiled it for me first). How about the return of Doby the elf who is summoned by no-one yet appears at the right moment and saves the day stating that he “is always there to save Harry Potter” in a tone of voice that suggests this is a well-established and oft used catch phrase and that if you didn’t surmise it from the last four films during which he made no appearance, you’ve simply not been paying attention. It was also a bit of a fib. Doby’s method of saving them from a dungeon is to save everyone else in the dungeon and, with a “meet me at the top of the stairs in ten minutes,” leaves Harry and Ron find their own way out. And if he’s always there to save Harry where was this two-foot nothing bastion of salvation when Harry faced the newly embodied Voldemort at the end of Goblet of Fire, or any of the other myriad perils faced since they first met?

Or what about the lack of good character moments? In a franchise known for giving singular roles to its staggering line-up of world-class acting talent, this installment gave nothing to remember. Where was Snappe’s tour de force? Where was Hagrid’s comic relief? Where were the one-movie wonders of the Gilderoy Lockhart or Rita Skeeter mould? Any new faces (and all well-known ones) were instantly forgettable because the screen time for anyone not named Harry, Ron or Hermione amounted to less minutes than it takes to soft boil and egg.

Humor has been an element of all the films so far but here the funnies are only half attempted and seem out of place. Unexpected use of magic in everyday life (not to mention action sequences) has also been a staple up to this chapter but both are as absent from this film as our teenage heroes are from Hogwarts. There was great potential for an incredible action sequence with dozens of wizards battling on brooms but it happened, apparently, just off the edge of the screen I was watching. The special effects budget was instead spent on multiple Daniel Radcliffs in various states of undress. And not a white horse in sight.

The plot (boys meet girl, girl has tent, they all go camping) is decidedly holey. Potter and co. as Dumbledore’s army have taken out death eaters but when the clearly less powerful snatchers show up our heroes run, chuck a couple of token ‘poofs’ in the bad guys direction, get surrounded and...give up. The kids couldn’t travel by apparate at the start—which justified the wizards on brooms fight that no-one saw, but once that was done, they could travel by apparate because, well, frankly, we now need them to so Harry suddenly has had a birthday and that explains that.

And if they had to open the Horcrux locket in order to destroy it with the sword, why didn’t they open it when trying to destroy it before they knew they needed the sword?—because it would have wiped them out, silly. More to the point—why wear the locket? If you come into possession of a locket you know contains part of the very soul of the Dark Lord neither your first or last thought should be “I know, I’ll put it on; it goes great with my hiking boots.” Even after they knew it made them grumpy and irritable no one said “shouldn’t we wrap it in a Kleenex and carry it around in a pocket,” they just kept wearing it.

I’m sure many Potterites are currently preparing a statement along the lines of “there’s so much more in the books that explains all this.” And “Ooo” say the filmmakers “there’s so much to pack in,” presenting those as excuses for dull, bite-ridden, jerky, story-telling. But that doesn’t mean you can’t tell the story well on film. Lord of the Rings did—and the HP franchise has done it successfully more than once (with the director of this film too—even more baffling). A film should explain itself internally and not rely on some outside source. If I have to read a book in order to understand a film why bother seeing the film?

And I don’t accept it’s because this one is darker. A darker plot does not mean a film needs to retain nothing of the reasons we originally became fans of the stories. “This film is darker” the Pottersville creators say with each new installment, as if convinced that’s the only thing that will get audiences in to see it. Where are the things that made us love the franchise in the first place? Many a good series on TV and film has been ruined because the makers tried to fix what wasn’t broken and I fear that has happened here.

Nor do I buy the argument that “the books (and films) have had to become more adult as the readers of the series have gotten older.” Readers of all ages enjoyed the first ones and no one said it wasn’t dark enough or that there wasn’t enough undressing. “But the characters were younger then” Yes, they were. So? Older doesn’t inherently mean darker. At this rate if any of them survive till their twenties the plots will be so dark they’ll need Ingmar Bergman to direct.

And the argument that the plots and characters have matured to accommodate the ageing of the generation that grew up with them, excludes every following generation that starts the series (and every one before). The fact is most Harry Potter fans have not and will not grow up alongside the Harry Potter characters, so that argument is an excuse for making a darker film not a reason.

Yes, I shall be in line to see part two, because I am forgiving enough that one bad film (and a less exciting one) in such an immense franchise is allowable. But I find this one more alienating than entertaining. So much time spent being moody and sullen without any of what made the first movies watchable and interesting. Here’s hoping Harry Potter and the Perpetual Doldrum is not coming to a theater near me soon.

What's that in old money?

2010-08-27T15:43:00.000-07:00

Recently I was reminded of my inevitable aging in a new way.

Commentary on getting old is not an original topic. Birthday cards joking about age abound, grey hairs arrive, and I swore I’d never grow too old for pop music but by the curly left horn of the great Jipply Gargler what the blazes is that ear crud the kids listening to these days? I mean, the fact that so much of today’s pop music uses samples of 80’s pop music proves that it was better back then surely?

Anyway I met a guy that sold hand-made wooden toys and—in a completely unconnected and somewhat baffling diversification—key rings made from old coins. He takes old coins, drills a little hole in them, puts them on a tiny chain, and arranges them in rows by decade.

Some were very cool. There were huge pennies from the 1800s when they put more metal into a penny than is used today in a hatchback; and there were coins so old the monarch effigy is male (though even if the queen were that bald it wouldn’t be immortalized on a coin). Many, of course, were of denominations or designs that no longer exist—like the three penny piece or the shilling.

But on the top row were coins that had no right being there. For example there were five pence pieces exactly like the ones in circulation when I was growing up. Ten pence pieces like the ones I used to balance on my elbow and then try to catch with the hand of the same arm without dropping any. What were these coins doing there? Suddenly, the no-longer-shiny-but-nothing-that-a-good-dollop-of-steak-sauce-wouldn’t-clean-up penny dropped. The coins given me as pocket money are not only defunct but are being made into novelty key rings. And looking at them were spotty, overly self-conscious teenagers giggling at the coins they used to use ‘back then.’

How dare they. 'back then’ indeed. I wanted to shout at them “Without ‘back then’ you wouldn’t have anything to plagiarize for what you define as pop music you melodically challenged generation of sample saturated, flossy eared, one hit wonder loving, flash in the pan dreamers. I’m a gen Xer, I used bigger currency and was proud of it! You, history will remember as the generation that let money slip through its fingers because it was so small and fiddly. Look, these coins on the lower rows are older and even bigger—aren’t they funny!”

So now when people ask ‘how old are you?’ I can't help but know I’m old enough that I can no longer use my magic disappearing coin box with the coins currently in use, even if I wanted to. (And I do).

Hands-Free Soap Pumps. Why?

2010-08-15T13:03:00.000-07:00

Dettol and Lysol are both advertising hands-free soap pumps which are currently top of my list for devices you simply don’t need. Yes friends, the liquid soap you used to squirt into your hands through personal effort is now available not at the press of a button. Lysol pitch the hands-free soap pump with the thought that hands come into contact with millions of germs every day but what about the ‘germs ending up on your soap pump?’

Well what about them? First of all it is standard practice that once you’ve squirted soap into your palm you immediately use it to wash your hands. Surely the microscopic nasties that leap to your finger (just the one) from the top of the soap dispenser are the shortest lived germs of any that you acquire; being, as they are, immediately immersed in germ killing liquid soap and, if you’re any kind of smart, hot water.

When was the last time you squirted the soap into your palm and then thought ‘You know what, I think I’ll walk the dog first,’ and then strolled down the road with a leash in one hand and a glob of liquid soap in the upturned palm of the other? "No I wont shake hands, I'm covered in soap. Could you get the door for me?"

And why focus on this particular source of germs? Never mind door handles, sinks, drains, and other people’s sneezing kids—let’s throw our substantial corporate R&D efforts at the germs that are acquired by the tip of a single finger from the top of a soap dispenser. Stephen King could no doubt turn such an idea into something terrifying but coming from the soap company it just smacks of a desperate need to make money from faux fear.

Anyway, to conquer this tiny and very short-lived threat to our health the solution is, apparently, to prevent us from having to touch the dispenser by encasing it in another dispenser, albeit a high-tech one.

So now we have liquid soap in a non-degradable plastic container, which we put inside another non-degradable plastic container, which only dispenses the soap if we also buy electricity in the form of batteries. Yes, it takes power to get your hands clean.

It is a staggeringly resource-heavy solution for a non-existent problem. Even now Kim Jong Il is kicking himself for not having thought of it first. We are using more plastic and generating more spent batteries and the net result is simply that a single fingertip that is about to be washed anyway, will not be slightly dirtier for a couple of seconds longer than its fellow digits.

What next? A campaign to target the germs that accumulate on the outside of shampoo bottles that are kept in the shower or on the packaging of septic wipes?

If only soap weren’t a liquid. Imagine a world where soap didn’t run everywhere if it found itself outside of the bottle. One day I’m sure science will create soap in a solid state that doesn’t need two dispensers and four AAs. If only soap were solid it could be sold in, Oh I don’t know, maybe a nice convenient bar shape.

Think Happy Thoughts

2008-09-12T12:25:00.000-07:00

I recently got tagged by a good friend. “Tagged? Is she a correctional facilities officer?” No, She blogged on ten things that make her happy, and then tagged ten people to do the same (after being tagged herself I believe). I was the only boy she tagged, meaning she sees me as manly or effeminate.

The rules are thus: If you get tagged, you have to list 10 things that make you happy. What are the things that tickle your fancy, make you smile or still give you that butterfly sensation? What things do you seek out and truly enjoy? The only rule is that you can't say your kids or your spouse...it's too easy (you’ll note I’ve steered clear of that one).

Writing
I do like getting a good idea, jotting it down, playing with the rhythms and having someone else like it. Notice I don’t say blogging though. I tried to blog regularly about daily happenings but a) I don’t have the time and b) I just can’t write like that. I’m most comfortable writing in essay format about specific topics, so that’s what I do. I can’t accept a first draft. Everything I write is rewritten at least twice, left for a day (or in the case of this essay months), until I ‘feel’ it’s right.

Flying
To see from above how the land looks like generations before me couldn’t. I love seeing traffic get smaller and slower after take off. I like the obscure signs of man seen in remote places; looking down over deserted areas and seeing dusty roads that lead through hilly areas to a lone building with a large antenna, or a going over mountains and suddenly seeing one with its top missing, its sides stepped, and digging equipment everywhere. And I like the solitary feeling in the plane.

The BBC
But first, the news.
I have huge issues with US news media which I think does a great disservice to the people. That’s just my opinion, but seeing as US TV news thrives on opinion rather than actual news they might take more notice, or more likely, offence. BBC news however—Oh yes please. (NPR does a not too shabby job Stateside).
Then, drama. Lots of girls I know believe you can’t have too many adaptations of a Jane Austen story and the BBC certainly delivers there (almost monthly it seems). Not for me though. I had a few friends watch the first episode of Life on Mars. First the BBC one then the rough cut of the ABC one (obtained two months before its broadcast from “friends” with connections). Everyone agreed that Auntie Beeb’s version was great and ABC’s version was unlikely to get past episode three before being cancelled (though it has been reshot and recast apparently). So we can all agree that BBC do that well.
The comedy. Have I Got News For You—clever, funny, scathingly satirical, and would not get near being shown on a US network for their fear of alienating a sponsor.

(This doesn’t mean I don’t like US TV – House is great, as was BSG up to season three)

So, BBC news, comedy, drama, does that count as three things?

Thunder storms
England has, in my opinion, too much rain. On the other hand, Los Angeles has too little. I long for a good rolling of static power above my head, the wind whining between buildings, and rain. Then I love the walking in it, sometimes with hat and coat, sometimes without, but I’m not allowed in until I feel the wetness seeping through seams or trickling onto my scalp. Then it’s back inside for a warm-up shower and a cozy blanket while falling asleep to the sound of the rain hitting the windows. Native Angelinos are seriously disturbed by this behavior. They are raised thinking precipitation is evil, and if it touches them they rush to the cosmetic surgeon to buy new skin and/or to their priest to buy absolution. Why do I live in a non-rain zone? My body is not awake if there’s no sunlight around.

Things I don't like
I love things I don’t like. First off it's so much easier to whine. Here I am halfway through a list of ten things that make me happy, and already I find I have to stop and put effort into thinking of things that make me happy, while, with no effort at all, I am suddenly reminded how annoyed I get when at the end of some TV show it completely gives away what's going to happen the next week leaving me no surprise or enjoyment. I hate that. But of course things I don’t like allows me to write stuff (see item one); network news, buying tickets online, gum wrappings etc. So having a good whine about something that makes me mad, makes me happy. Pysch majors, have at it.

Green arrows at busy intersections (when its me turning).
When driving on those wide multi-lane roads, and you need to turn across the oncoming lanes its annoying to have to stop at the light and wait for the green arrow. But, when the turn arrow comes and you’re the only car turning…several lanes full of cars have to wait while you and you alone get to continue your journey. Do it slowly and savor the moment.

Youtube – the ultimate clipping service
Clips of shows I watched when I was a child,
clips of shows I can’t get in the US.
Clips of things I was actually at.
Clips of things I wish I could have been at.
I love clips I’m the first to find among my friends (so I look cool).
I love clips they send me that I had no idea existed until they arrive (making them look cool).
Commercials from long ago, and/or far away; clever music videos, rare footage, Cool things, the list goes on.

Speculative fiction
Which comes in many subgenres, but sci-fi, some fantasy, and I’m quite liking the recent uprising of superhero films. Isaac Asimov is a hero in the short story area, batman and X-men rule the superhero world. Combining fantasy and humor is rare so one could argue that Terry Pratchett has no real competition. One could also argue he’s the only one that could pull it off and deserves credit for forging his own genre, anyway Discworld books I like. I’d also recommend Good Omens.

How many to go, two? Two. Well then I like the number

two.
Two is great and makes me happy. Who doesn’t love two? Do you like two as well? (I say as well because if I added too to two, it would be three 2's in a row which is, of course, six, and that's just confusing).

And finally, please don’t expect a drum role, this list is not exhaustive or in any order…think…think…lemon cake! Yes. Oranges for eating and smelling, lemon for flavoring. When it comes to fruit I don’t do berries or whatever family plums fall into. I do do a lot of apples and melons. But when it comes to cake and especially icing, lemon is the favorite. And not any of this ‘hint of lemon’ stuff, give me lemon curd so strong it melts your taste buds and sends a sharp lemony sting round your mouth, through your cheeks, down you leg and across the road to the bus stop.

And that’s it. I now tag ten people. Some who will thrill to do this, some who have no time for such shenanigans, and some should really be in touch more than they are. DB, SL, KP, LC, RL, SE, EC, JC, MP, MH, give it up.

Six word memoir

2008-09-07T14:11:00.000-07:00

Legend has it that Hemingway was once challenged to write a story in only six words. His response? “For sale: baby shoes, never worn.” SMITH Magazine re-ignited the recountre by asking its readers for their own six-word memoirs.

loads to be read on their site (you can submit your own too), or in the book.

Here's mine - more of a biography but still.

Inhaled, perspired, acquired. Exhaled, retired, expired.

Mother said not to medal

2008-08-17T16:00:00.000-07:00

So it’s Olympic season, bringing with it the usual wow moments of amazing feats, the tut-tutting over bad calls by the officials, the antics of ruffled athletes, and a staggering amount of indifference on my part. I am not a sports fan. I’m not against them mind, I just don’t have a personal need to know what’s going on sportswise.

Except I’ve found a discrepancy on the way the overall winner is determined. Sports have many rules to ensure a level playing field, the Olympics themselves have strict rules of conduct and sportsmanship, but the medal count...that seems open to interpretation.

I present to you the medal results as reported by American network NBC on Sunday, August 17 at 3:30 p.m.

America is top with 65 medals won. China comes in second and Great Britain comes in fifth. Well done everyone I’m sure.

At exactly the same time and date though, the BBC reports things differently. China is in top place, the U.S. is second and Great Britain comes in third.

It’s nothing to do with time delay in the reporting—there is a four hour difference in the "as of" times on each site, but both tables show exactly the same numbers of medals for those countries. No, the NBC medal table is ordered according to total number won, the BBC (and the IOC) orders according to number of gold medals at the top, and when the number of golds is tied, you look at the number of silvers and then bronzes.

I’m not the first to notice. Sports fans are spitting venom at each other all over the place about which way to determine the best sports nation. But this blog is occasionally read by friends and cyber-wanderers, not daily by thousands that value it for its up-to-the-minute commentaries and behavior altering revelations, so maybe its news to some of them like it was to me.

Oo - and thanks to DG who sent me this link . It lets you sort medals won (golds or total) by polulation. By which method the most succesful team of these games is either the Bahamas (one medal for every 165,500 citizens) or Jamaca (one gold for every 452,000 citizens).

Extra Thick Shakes

2008-07-30T14:17:00.000-07:00

When I was a kid I was amazed and astounded at San Franciscans. How smart was it to live in a city between major fault lines and where there is a 63 percent chance of a major quake in the next 30 years? Now I'm older, I choose to live in Los Angeles, which has a 67 percent chance of the same. Yes, I amaze and astound myself.

Yesterday was my most prolific earthquake experience so far. For those that have a few minutes here’s my account of those few seconds.

Little shakes are not uncommon in Los Angeles (especialy with kiddy meals), but today’s earthquake was a more substantial 5.4, and the epicenter (I’ve always wanted to go to a gig at the epicenter) was about 30 miles away from downtown where I work.

People talk about time slowing down in crisis situations. My theory is that it’s because you think faster than you can move (this is true even for Superman). For the few seconds the quake lasted I had an agile thought process that went through dozens of questions, scenarios and possible ways to react, but in the same amount of time there was room for only one action.

Big trucks shake vibrate my building so frequently it doesn’t really register. Luckily my subconscious, normally content to sit quietly and stay out of the limelight, keeps track of the mundane and raises the alarm when the normal becomes abnormal. Like a streaker in your office, you subconscious has the ability to make you stop whatever you are doing and demand you attend to what’s out of place.

My subconscious caught my attention, something was not normal. This is the point in any crisis where awareness is suddenly heightened. Your thoughts come more quickly and you stop typing memos and focus on what is out of place in the environment around you. The building was vibrating, and it was lasting longer than a truck would cause. You ask yourself questions: Is it a really, really big truck? An ATAT Walker coming down the street? Did something hit the building (I didn’t hear screeching tires)? Or, I asked, finally arriving at the reality I hoped to avoid, “is this an earthquake?” In the the time it takes to go through the process of realizing it is an earthquake its arrived.

Just as I discarded all the other possibilities the entire building lurched. Up or down, left to right? You don’t know which way it’s moving any more than a leaf knows which way it’s being blown; you just know the building moved suddenly and you were left to catch up with it; like jerking forward and back when you suddenly slam on the brakes of a car. So the question adjusts to “how big will it be?” the answer is, “no one knows, idiot,” so I quickly progressed to “should I get under the desk, stand under the door frame, leave the building, or run naked down the corridor like I’ve always wanted in case it’s my last chance?”

This last of course would really confuse people’s already overactive subconsciousness, “of course I froze officer, there was an earthquake and a streaker...”

I had just enough time to push my chair away from my desk to prepare for a heroic dive under it, when the shaking stopped. “Was that a foreshock to something bigger?” There was a prolonged creaking from somewhere and one of the office doors swung gently on its hinges for a few moments, but that was it.

While I’m sure everyone had a different experience, I think everyone asks themselves questions. Parents wonder about their kids. Off duty firemen wonder if they will have to go in. Earthquake experts wonder “is it an L wave or a R wave?” historians ask “will be similar to the 6.6 that happened on this day in Nepal back in ’95?”

The biggest aftershock was the avalanche of news media coverage that went over all ten facts about the quake ad nauseum. No one was hurt, there was no warning, 5.4, some books fell off a shelf. Without any major damage or injury they quickly started going on about The Big One and how it is sure to happen in the next 30 years. Something they are sure to not mention again until it happens, or there is another non-fatal shake.

It was though, a valuable experience. That earthquakes come with no warning is known, but until you experience that you don’t realize the implications. I know for myself that there is literally time to get under a desk and nothing else. There’s no heroic picking up a kid and running to safety, definitely no chance to get into a shelter or even dress down ready to streak. In the time it takes you to walk ten paces it’s done and over. In ten paces you are either back to typing memos or in a pile of rubble.

Do Not Delete

2008-05-23T12:42:00.000-07:00

There were 120 e-mails waiting for me when I got to work this morning. Some of these messages are so important I received literally dozens of duplicates. Many people would callously delete them without so much as glancing at their content but that’s just plain rude. If someone’s taken the time to compose a message for me I give it the respect it deserves.

The first one, for example, happily announces that Dr. Piero Nete, a responsible attorney, has been looking for me. Turns out a distant relative died tragically three years ago leaving five million dollars (US) and I am the sole remaining next of kin. In a panic I call my parents but they are both alive and well. I forward their details to Dr. Nete because, after all, it should go to them first.

“Your degree is just a phone call away!” the second through twelfth mails announce. The degree is offered by a “prestigious non-accredited university”—which is fine by me; there are some accredited ones that are not prestigious. This online bastion of education eliminates everything from books to classrooms to homework to actually teaching! They issue a degree “based on my present knowledge and life experience.” How’s that for consideration of my fast-paced lifestyle? I shall call them as soon I decide which of my life’s experiences deserves a degree.

A colorful mail informs me the VIP Casino jackpot is at $10 million. Who couldn’t use $10 million? But to prove how important my e-mail is to me I shall finish going through them before I sign up.

Next is a mail from Shirley (Hi Shirley!!). I don’t actually know any Shirley’s but clearly she knows me as my name is in the subject line (and it’s my e-mail name, so I’m sure we’re chummy). It only has the word “hi” in it and a link with no explanation. Looks like she accidentally hit the send button too soon and I hate to ruin the surprise so I’ll wait for her to resend when she realizes her mistake.

Now, I am suspicious of the next one. It’s about my order #529510 from a pharmacy. Apparently it’s not unusual for me to order from online pharmacies, sometimes several times a week. I never remember actually placing the order, but it must be legitimate because their e-mails always list the order numbers. I’m assuming the medications are for a memory disorder I have. None of the deliveries has arrived yet (I’ve been waiting years for some), but my credit card hasn’t been billed either, so I don’t think I have grounds to complain. This next email however is from a company listed as (I kid you not) agebottom.com. In my family that kind of problem was always solved with grandma’s special mixture of aloe and onion juice, so why would I need to order something?

A couple more e-mails with my name in the title. One of them is “2 me,” the other is “4 me.” I am 2 BC 2 open them now (U C, I F 2 P) so I’ll w8 and open them l8er.

Okay I’m back, and while I was gone another 47 e-mails arrived and each must be given due attention. I could get a prestigious, if non-accredited, degree in this.

Well here’s a turn-up…my loan has been approved! Although it’s followed by ten mails informing me my mortgage application is awaiting more information from me. I’m so confused, am I approved or not? The VIP Casino might well negate the need for both of these so I’ll leave them for now.

The next big thing on the stock market will be Honest Ron’s Airlines. I have a limited time to take advantage of its soon to be “soaring” profits if I “get in at the ground level” before it “takes off.” I call my portfolio manager but he can’t locate Honest Ron’s market ticker symbol. I tell him to call me when he does.

Oh hey, the VIP Casino jackpot has apparently gone up, $17 million. AND I get a $500 line of credit. I’m going to wait and see if it hits $20 mill.

The textuous style of the verbose mail next in line is a run on sentence of no small proportions but very small font that gives breath little chance and I think but can’t be certain as to its intention to incite me to overthrowing a government and then tangent the battle between nature and science without use of a scythe but wait you can’t end a sentence with a comma of which the young people of today are clearly suffering a lack of grammar skills and I could not agree more up the revolution my friend with a haircut would be nice,

My heartstrings are being tugged by the next one. It’s the story of Ernest Dillwedger—no, I’d never heard of him either. Born the youngest of 26 children to a poor Southern family, he suffered from extralaevuslobeius (an extra ear on the left side). He achieved his dream of becoming a fighter pilot, only to have his extra ear blown off by a stray land mine during a dogfight (between two greyhounds). Traumatized by the loss of his abnormal hearing, he hopes to undergo a revolutionary surgery where his big left toe will be grafted to where the extra ear once was. Any donation, however small, will help. How can I not do something? I forward him the tip on Honest Ron’s Airlines; that alone is worth more money than I can give.

Good news for me though, I’ve won a $500 gift voucher for groceries. Also an iMac, a flight on Jetblue, and a years supply of Lego. All free. Interestingly these mails all have missing graphics. Where a picture should be is one of those little red Xs telling me it’s missing. With great foresight though they have put links in for just such an eventuality: “if picture does not load click here.” Unfortunately most competitions in the US contain in the small print that you have to be a US citizen to enter and I’m not, so I have to let these go. Shame.

Missed my chance on the VIP Casino! The jackpot has dropped to less than $7m. That’s what greed does to you.

I C+AN’T BE_SUR,E BUT “I” TH1NK+ TH*IS O,NE is OFF,ERI+NG TYpIN+G LESSSONS.

A KI,N*D OFF_ER =) +BUT
I ”

+TH,!NK I_DO OKA-Y COM+PARA_TIVLEY SpEAK!NG

“Undeliverable: Sorry, this mail cannot be delivered. Follow the link and reset your password for access.” I can’t understand all this computer jargon; I forward this to the tech department.

And so it goes on. Most of these mails offer an unsubscribe link but why would I want to? E-mail is a key means for us to know what goes on in the world and so few people take full advantage of it.

As much as I warn against quick deletions of possibly important mails I must state that online vigilance has its place. Scam artists exist online as well as in the real world and some e-mails that look legitimate are anything but. Right here my last e-mail purports to be from my bank. It contains the correct security picture from my profile and the correct last four digits of my account number. I referred my roommate to the bank a month ago and apparently he opened an account so I get a $25 reward if I click to verify. Well that I just deleted. Free money from my bank, what am I, naïve?

This Article may be distributed with attribution for non-commercial use (click icon for details). Work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

Remembering President Hinckley

2008-03-22T11:23:00.000-07:00

Gordon B. Hinckley, president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, passed away in January of 2008. Many personal stories have been recorded to honor his memory. This is one of mine, and it’s all true.

President Hinckley would have only one 90th birthday and only one 90th birthday celebration. If you were a student reporter assigned to cover the event, you would either be there, or write the “lost and found pets” column for the rest of the term.

I was assigned to report on the event along with Photographer Greg for BYU’s student paper The Daily Universe. It was my first actual “go-and-cover-this-story” assignment for my journalism class, and I admit to being both excited and a little nervous.

We barely started our hour-long journey from Provo to Salt Lake City when the air conditioning in Photographer Greg’s truck, desperately needed in Utah’s June heat, coughed and gave up with a shrug. We both developed instant coatings of glistening sweat. Several miles later other, more vital, bits of the truck showed they could shrug and give up just as well as the air-conditioning. The vehicle lost power, then suddenly lurched forward, then lost it again. Any obvious engine problems ran away and hid when we pulled over to investigate, only to reappear when we started toward Salt Lake again.

My grandfather never said “If trucks were meant to crawl they’d have limbs,” but if he had I’d have remembered his wise words at this point. Photographer Greg’s truck was crawling admirably. Salt Lake was getting nearer at the rate of 15 to 30 miles an hour depending on whether we were going up hill or down. We would barley make it on time and an air of uncertainty settled over the trucks increasingly clammy interior. Certainly the back of my mind was already working on new ways to report on lost pets.

Eventually the truck decided it was much too fine a day to be doing anything but sunbathe; it lurched its last and the engine died. As a subtle reminder that we should not loose our tempers, the truck had given up the ghost opposite the LDS temple at Jordan River about 15 miles south of Salt Lake City.

In his jeans and boots, Photographer Greg was far more suited to be walking alongside the dusty freeway than I was in my dress shoes, shirt and tie, and suit. In barely the time it took to say “dust” it covered our clothes and stuck to our non air-conditioned skin.

The priority was to get to a payphone (in answer to your question, no; cellphones among students weren’t nearly the epidemic in 2000 they are today). As luck would have it we were close to a multiplex that was sure to have one. All we had to do was get over the eight foot high wire mesh fence that ran along the freeway in each direction as far as the eye could see.

Photographer Greg was also better dressed to climb the fence.

As we walked toward the cinema I felt a pleasant breeze on my leg. Then another. In fact I felt a breeze every time my left leg took a step. I glanced down and saw a rip in my left trouser leg, extending from my waist, to below my knee. Step, flap, step, flap. A tear big enough to hide the Grand Canyon in exposed the seldom aired whiteness of my left leg to the elements.

Grimy from sweat and dust we walked into the air-conditioned lobby of the multiplex. Two young men behind a desk asked cheerfully if I would like a free membership to Gold’s Gym for a week. “Does it come with a complimentary sewing kit?” It did not, and the problem of getting 15 miles in 20 minutes eclipsed every thought of physical fitness.

I called an old roommate in Salt Lake who owed me a favor; a favor which I had decided was to be trouser shaped. No answer. “Lost any pets recently?” I asked the Gold’s Gym reps, planning a flying start to my new column that was looking likely to begin the very next day. Photographer Greg had better luck getting in touch with some relatives who lived nearby and arranged transport. Five minutes after we should have walked into the Conference Centre, we were again standing next to a sunbathing truck in the summer heat on a dusty freeway. Greg’s kinfolk pulled up in a big white truck and we continued our journey Salt Lakewards.

I thought the odds that they had happened to bring a pair of charcoal gray, self-stripe, 34 waist suit trousers with them remote, so I didn’t ask. But they did have a roll of clear packing tape which it was agreed I could take.

There are 160,000 people living in Salt Lake City and every one of them that owned a car was driving it around the Conference Center. Those that didn't were on foot, blocking the crosswalks. Realizing I could barley name three breeds of dog, I found myself planning emotionally charged lost pet stories and heart-warming found pet stories facilitated by my kidnapping and returning of the same.

At 6:25 p.m. Photographer Greg and I left the confines of the truck and walked (flapped) the remaining blocks. The parting in my trousers, big enough that I expected to see the children of Israel cross it any second, was too big to disguise, but people were too kind or embarrased to mention it and we entered the building without incident.

I quickly found a restroom and readied my suit for repairs. The packaging tape lived up to its name in that it was ideal for packaging. It was fully aware that sticking to cloth was not a compulsory part of its job description, and its efforts to stick to my poly/cotton trousers were half-hearted at best. I therefore used a lot of it, applying liberally down the tear, across the tear, and all the way round the inside of the leg at several places. My trousers could now stay up whether or not I was in them. I was as ready as I would ever be to go and see the prophet’s birthday celebration.

My every step was accompanied by a very audible crumpling noise and there were some curious looks from people as I walked across the lobby sounding like a giant packet of Doritos. But at 6:55 p.m. I finally walked into the media room and discreetly sat in a corner, legs permanently outstretched. Photographer Greg disappeared into the auditorium and I set about taking notes for the story. Gladys Knight closed the evening by having the entire congregation sing Happy Birthday to President Hinckley. I could well be the only person in history to sing Happy Birthday to a prophet while wearing a suit held together by packaging tape (though never let it be said I did not also have faith and hope).

The celebration over, we set out to find Photographer Greg’s kinfolk. He had arranged to meet them by the nearby Delta Center. The Delta Center takes up a whole block and we had not specified where around it we were to meet them, so for 40 minutes he walked and I crumpled around the Center until we stopped to stand conspicuously on a street corner. Had we known they switched their truck for an SUV we would have had a better chance of spotting them.

All had worked out for the better though. The prophet was 90 and well, we were on the freeway heading back toward Provo with words and pictures, and I did not expect to be writing stories that included the phrase “answers to the name of” any time soon.

The SUV lurched. And again. It sputtered, shrugged and lost power, and soon enough we found ourselves in a stationary vehicle at the side of the freeway. “I’m not jumping over any fences,” said I, but I didn’t have to. The SUV, perhaps realizing we didn’t have any more important appointments to keep, decided it wasn’t worth the effort to not make an effort. We restarted the engine and while there was no more lurching, the drive continued both cautiously and very, very slowly.

The next day in the newsroom I requested a reduction in stories requiring travel from my editors. I simply didn’t have enough trousers.

23 June 2000

The article about President Hinckley’s birthday celebration became my first published—albeit in the online edition only. This “story of the story” I made public for the first time in March 2008, a few weeks after his passing.

Best (check) Before

2008-02-06T15:44:00.000-08:00

I don’t want to kill, cripple, or otherwise infect myself by eating out of date food. I would have thought the food industry doesn’t want me to either, if not through fear of lawsuits then because I am a guaranteed future income for them. Its not always the case however.

This jar of honey, for example, has printed on its underside ‘best by Mar 09.’ Helpful, easy.

This can of soup however, isn’t so helpful. Printed on its underside is ‘FF154225OCTA2.’ Yes, I see 25OCT amongst the other alphanumerics—standing out like a special forces sniper in a jungle—but only because I was stubborn enough to insist there was a date in there and kept looking till I saw it. Of course, it doesn’t say 25OCT is the ‘best by’ date. For all I know printing 25OCT on everything was the machine operators way of not forgetting his wedding anniversary again. If 25OCT is the expiration date, the question of what year the soupy contents becomes toxic to my person is anyone’s guess. The chunks in chunky soup are hard to identify at the best of times so I don’t rate my chances of working out which ones have grown in the can since it was sealed.

Then there’s the complete mystery stamp. This can of peaches has ‘619C5 1616’ printed on it, though it is hard to make out (only the top half of the digits are in italic you see). This code, I’m sure, comes in handy when the empty can is pried from the hand of a newly deceased digester of its contents, and is checked against a peach packaging database by investigators. The code may reveal such information as which factory sealed the can and where it was delivered to; or it may confirm an extreme case of out-of-dateness, and that a deadly virus that grows exclusively in out of date cans of peaches was likely involved. I don’t have access to such a database so I don’t want to risk my well being on its contents. No matter how organic it purports to be. But a Google search of the first part of the code tells me that if the 619C5 is referring to a computer chip, it is indeed way out of date.

So here’s the theory. The longest lasting foods have the most cryptic codes on the packaging. You see, if the can’s contents have a shorter shelf life they put on a clear best before stamp, that date comes and goes, I throw it out and replace it. But if it’s a can of food that lasts a really long time…well they wont make any new profits off me if they put on a clear best before date will they? So they slap on an ambiguous code, spread a few urban myths about mad peach disease, knowing that when I look at the base of the can I will have to err on the side of caution, throw it out and go buy some more.

A Big Hit

2008-02-04T13:47:00.000-08:00

I'm really not into sports so I don't know how cool it is to have a friend in a Superbowl ad. But here it is, Eric hitting on Carmen and then getting hit by her body gaurds. Incidentaly, he reports she's really nice in person, none of that "My trailer is the wrong shade of pink; where's my tantrum advisor; I only eat fat-free, low-cholesterol, protein-enriched grains of rice" stuff.

The Royal Wave

2008-01-15T11:59:00.000-08:00

Over the Christmas break (Dec 20, 2007) Queen Elizabeth became the longest living British monarch. If she makes it to 2015 she'll also be the longest reigning. Among her many contributions, waving...

Queen Elizabeth II Will Leave Behind Long Legacy Of Waving

Ee Buy Gum

2008-01-03T15:55:00.000-08:00

The first in a series of posts tagged 'annoying.'

There are settings in which the act of chewing gum is not acceptable. Exchanging wedding vows is typically not done while smacking and popping sounds come from your constantly working jaw. Don’t chew gum at a job interview or while having a tooth extracted.

But gum has a very important place in society in terms of freshy breathness. It’s essential in certain social settings. It helps you concentrate in exams. So why is it so hard to get gum out of its wrapper?

Gum used to be packaged in one way, a stack of flat sticks, each individually wrapped in both silver and regular paper, and then collectively wrapped in a bundle so tight you needed a crowbar to get the first one out.

The trend now is to sell gum in little match-book-like boxes, you open the box and a dozen individually wrapped sticks offer themselves to your mandibles desires. What you don’t see is the other end, the end in the bottom of the box that holds on for dear life as you try to pull it out and when you do the paper lining the box comes with it as do all the other sticks of gum.

Regardless of wrapping the cost of getting that first bit of gum out is the sacrifice of at least one other bit of gum. Hopelessly squashed and mangled, its wrapper torn, possibly flung on the floor, you discard it before you can extract a useable piece.

Annoying huh?

Xmas stuff

2008-01-03T15:30:00.000-08:00

A fabulous Christmas in the motherland.

Since last I was there, the family has moved northward and into a locale small enough to be rightly called hamlet (hard to imagine Shakespeare having success with a play called Village isn't it).

There was a reunion of Notability, the cheesily named vocal group of chums, some of whom I hadn't seen for a decade. Amazingly we all looked very much like when the group broke up. Would we sound the same? yeah, no one wanted to know, least of all us.

There was much traditional food that I miss so badly, and I got to practice my British accent among those who know it best. Interestingly (and quite flatteringly) the only two people to tell me I had lost my accent were from 'up north' from when I used to live there. I interpret that to mean I've lost any northern accent I may have once had but that the actually UK tones are relatively okay.

Here's me with the newest niece, and one of the kids climbing all over grandad.

For a New Year's resolution I resolved to make a resolution. So that's me set till next year...

...and merry Christmas

2007-12-26T08:54:00.001-08:00

thanks to JH for this one

Mac Ads

2007-11-27T18:44:00.000-08:00

So I realized this week the ads for Macs shown in the US are different to the ones shown in the UK. Same idea “I’m a Mac,” “and I’m a PC” but using different actors.

I offer you both versions of an ad called "stuffed."

As far as I can tell, only four commercials are copies, the rest are unique to each market. In the UK, many Mac ads lean toward letting us know that Macs do in fact run Microsoft Office, while the US ads have been attacking Windows new Vista operating system. (As a Vista user I have to agree with Apples take, too late to change though).

You Brit types can have all sorts of fun looking at the US ones here:

While you Stateside fellows can see the Brit ones here:

Though I can’t help but post my favorite UK ad, The Naughty Step (incidentaly, the Brit Macad actors star in a sitcom together--great idea to use them).

And my favorite US ad, Counsellor

I didn't post any of the Japanese ones, no idea what they're going on about.

A Bout About a Boat

2007-09-29T10:52:00.000-07:00

Barely five minutes out, I knew it was not going to be pretty. A twenty-eight foot boat sailed from Marina Del Ray in California with just six of us on board. The sky was clear, the temperature warm. Motoring out of the harbor we passed moored boats with names like Serendipity, Lazy Days and Knotty Problem. Their names often began with Miss or Lady, instilling a sense of maternal caring. Our boat was christened The Dark and Stormy which I should have seen as obvious foreshadowing.

In the relative calm of the harbor, the boat lilting gently from side to side, I found a surprising amount of my conscious mind being devoted to feeing okay rather than making small talk.

Beyond the break-water wall we cut the motor and were surrounded by silence and bigger waves. I looked at the rising and falling of the ocean. We were going to have a swell time.

Our two crew skipped nimbly around the deck, hoisting canvas sails, using terminology we didn’t understand, and offering us dried fruit-and-nut ‘sail-mix.’

Shortly, someone noted “You’re being very quiet.” I did not even have the energy to reply. It was all I could do to nod feebly in agreement. The night before I’d performed the rite of gluttony at Mariella’s (fine Italian cuisine), and was now being harrowed by giant zombified raviolis marching through my intestines.

“It helps to keep you eye on the horizon,” said a well meaning voice. As is so often the case what ‘helps’ was the exact opposite of what I could do. Looking up from my increasingly hunched position took supreme amounts of effort. On the horizon loomed an inevitable and sudden weight loss.

“You’ve had Dramamine?” I managed a single nod.
“We have a relief band.” I hoped the relief band would be U2 playing a charity gig for nauseous Englishmen, but it was actually a watch-like device for preventing motion sickness. It is in fact the ‘only electronic, patented, FDA-cleared, commercially available Nausea-Vomiting device to prevent sea sickness.” The wordy sales pitch was matched only by the lengthy tiny-print instruction manual. Not something you can actually read in the same moment you need to use it. The device on, it began sending electric pulses into my wrist at level three. In normal conditions I would say it sounded slightly less therapeutic than astrology, but there are moments when woozy overrides reason, and you try anything.

“It helps to sit at the stern and look forward.” This may or may not have been true. You can only get so far from someone on a twenty-eight foot yacht and everyone was already as far forward as they could get.

I couldn’t move. Any movement on my part would cause my digestive tract to do what I wanted The Dark and Stormy to do and reverse course. The next twenty minutes were spent settling into a rhythm of feeling either terrible or worse. I chose one of the terrible moments to go downstairs. The rocking of any waterborne vessel is far more pronounced inside the boat. After successfully making use of the appropriate facilities I went back on deck and sat at the back of the boat facing forward, hoping I had eased tensions enough that I could make it back to safe harbor.

“Did you have breakfast?” said a voice. I could nod again, a good sign.
“Ah. I’ve heard that breakfast is a good thing to have,” the voice said. But the look on the face that owned the voice clearly showed it now considered me a potentially indiscriminate projectile weapon of a type usually regulated by UN inspectors.

“What course should I set captain?”
“Au’derves and cocktails!”

Several hundred meters to my right Santa Monica beach was flouting its ability to not bob up and down. How I wanted solid ground beneath my feet, how I longed to be back at the dock. “I need a berth,” said I. And everyone gave me a wide one.

It had been an hour, which meant an hour back. I didn’t want to spoil anyone’s fun but could we please turn around? And use the engine?

We turned around. I felt the gauge on my spewometer go into the red. It was time. I grabbed the railings, lay over the side, and for the first time in over twenty years, emptied my innards through the wrong orifice. Most weight loss programs are short lived but the Chuck-O-Rama beats them all. Within a couple of minutes I’d clam chowdered until I was empty. Lighter and less green, I huddled under towels and blankets.

Back in the harbor the names of the moored boats had changed. Vomit Comet, Lady Upchuck and Torpedo Magnet all bobbed up and down knowingly as we passed by and tied up.

I won’t say I won’t try it again, but I feel I was enough of a sailor that I need not hurry back for more. I mean, everyone spoke like a pirate at some point, but I was the only one to heave too.

NOTICE OF EVICTION

2007-08-05T16:59:00.000-07:00

Pursuant to my obligations under the articles and laws of the occupation code and in my capacity as custodian of my own internal organs, official notification of eviction is hereby given to the stone in my kidney.

This eviction is issued on the following grounds:

One, that on or about 4 a.m. of a recent Friday you did (intentionally) cause a wakeful state in your proprietor, me, consisting of abdominal pain and extreme wind breaking, causing the bowels to explode, the windows to shake and the Richter scale to get some news time.

Two, that you did (willfully and wittingly), during the course of the ensuing work day, conspire to incite rebellion and discord among my internal organs, especially my kidney which you deliberately rubbed the wrong way.

Three, that on the evening of that same Friday, you did (consciously and cripplingly), in a public theater and with malicious intent, make a difficult task (watching Pirates of the Caribbean 3) even more arduous by spreading your discomfort to the groin area when you knew full well the concession booth did not sell bags of frozen peas.

Four, that on that same night, you did (flagrantly and flatulently), ignore warnings sent via such medications as Advil, Exlax, and Simply Sleep, and that you did in point of fact increase your aggravation of tensions in the abdomen area, and induce sweating, hyperventilating and a desire to curl up fetaly.

Five, that on that same night you did, in the UCLA Emergency Room, (calculatingly and Kathy Lee) cause severe strain upon my kidneys and credit card.

You are no longer welcome and will forthwith remove yourself and your affects from my organs, entrails and other innards of diverse purpose, with all haste.

To expedite your journey and ease your passing, copious amounts of liquid are being consumed and my M&M jar has been emptied of its regular delicacies and filled with vicodin.

Should you choose to leave quietly and with little or no resistance, your departure will be seen as a gesture of goodwill and you will not be sworn at much. If however, you choose to aggravate the situation further, you are hereby warned that such procedures as lithotripsy (shock waves) are not unlawful under the Geneva Convention of 1949, or the Comic Convention of 2007, and have not been ruled out.

The contract of occupancy has been updated to state that my kidneys shall at no time be stoned. They will be checked for solid concentrations of dissolved minerals on a regular basis. If it is found that you have not vacated my innards of your own free will and volition, or have returned, appropriate action will be taken up to and including donating of said kidney to medical science, a needy patient or the internal organ black market.

This Article may be distributed with attribution for non-commercial use (click icon for details). Work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

Dear Network News

2007-07-10T15:48:00.000-07:00

I am writing to congratulate you on your fine infotainment.

Things I don’t know about can’t affect me and no one understands this better than you. While newspapers still cover events in-depth, creating the fear that goes with knowledge, your broadcasts give little enough detail (and sometimes none at all) that I can live carefree and rest easy.

As I write this you are ten minutes into an hour-long evening broadcast and already you are telling me what the weather was today. This is a huge benefit. It is a great comfort for me to know that the atmospheric conditions I experienced were real and not imagined. The astonishing graphics entirely justify putting the weather ahead of the other news stories—I have even purchased a small pocketbook in which I record your temperature updates.

Your choice of anchors and presenters is equally inspired. What better way to make me watch the news than to have an impossibly beautiful person presenting it? Especially that one Asian girl…so utterly gorgeous, even in HD, that I sometimes miss what she is saying because I am so bedazzled by her unearthly good looks. I know, however, that it’s not enough to have stunning anchors, and I applaud your not letting them dwell on the more somber stories. It is important to highlight pieces that give presenters the maximum opportunity to smile. What's more, I’m amazed at how not quite funny they are. Throwing their almost witty quips around at the end of each show leaves me assured there was nothing in the broadcast I need be concerned about, while the lack of actual “funny” is inoffensive to the serious nature of what news is. Nicely balanced.

Your editing is second to none. I am speechless every time an interviewee, by the intonation of their voice, is clearly only half way through a sentence when you cut them off (to justifiably get back to the inevitably cuter anchors). Crackerjack timing every cut!

It is difficult to suggest improvements but I must. I don’t feel you give enough repeat play to dramatic video footage. Nothing brings home the point more than showing dramatic video footage over and over again; it really ingrains it into my awareness. But while you often show a clip in news promos, at the start of the show and before each commercial break—as well as when you finally get to the story—I seldom see it as a refresher while the credits roll.

You provide a great service in helping me think that I am informed. Well done network news!! Vanilla is my favorite flavor and with your broadcasts I get two scoops!!

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The Fed, White and Blue

2007-07-03T10:57:00.000-07:00

It is the fourth of July, you are in America, and you are English. What do you do?

As an Englishman living stateside for almost a decade, July 4th has come round with both the regularity of a well thought out calendar and an annual requirement for me to answer that question. A lot. Possibly even more than the one about how to pronounce tomato.

Most of my answers to The July Fourth Question are along the lines of:

“I’ll be defending any ship importing tea.” Ho ho.
“I’m hiring myself out to be shot at by anyone with the last name of Jefferson or Adams.” Ha ha.
“What you call Independence Day I call 'Talk Like an Australian Day.'” Chortle.

The truth is that being raised in England I didn’t think twice about July 4th. Or once for that matter. It’s not that the Brits don’t care or bear a grudge (we don’t), it’s just that while it’s a major part of US history, it’s not as prominent in that of the UK. Lots of colonies managed to escape being governed from England, and school curriculums there tend to be about the big picture: Tudor Kings and Queens, the Industrial Revolution, or the role of the Spice Girls in the beginnings of corporate created pop stars.

Since living in the US though, I’m all for it. Few and far between are the American’s that don’t make me welcome around Independence celebrations. (Though I’m not brave enough to wear my Union Jack T-shirt and run down the street demanding taxation without representation and the abolition of trial by jury).

Is it a Federal offence not to invite Brits to some kind of celebration? I always have several options to choose from; most involving obscene amounts of meat in buns, parades, and fireworks as far as the ear can hear. For that reason alone I embrace wholeheartedly American Independence and defend its inalienable right to ribs, burgers, and the pursuit of steak sauce.

So whatever quip I may answer with this Independence Day the truth is I shall be doing the same as always—gluttoning myself on the abundance of food and fun forced on me by liberated Americans.

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Movies Review 2006

2006-08-07T13:27:00.000-07:00

X-3, Superman and Pirates 2 vie for the award of biggest waste of time

“What have I done?”

Even Sir Ian McClellan couldn’t remove the cheese from this line at the end of X-men 3 when his dastardly plans begin to backfire. Half the attraction of a film like X-3 of course is the visuals, and they were great. The story too I found to be a good idea. But the dialogue!! McClellan does a good job with bad dialogue, but the awful script couldn’t help but shine through. It was just not believable that his (less than) rousing speech to the “bad” mutants rallied them to his cause. More believable would have been shouts of “Hey, what’s with the weird cape?” There was enough bad discourse to go round; Jackman/Wolverine got stuck with a pep talk to the younger X-men that would have only looked good in a Star Wars script. It wasn’t an epidemic of badness though, and while not as good as the first two, a very worthy trip to the big screen.

Next up for this boy was Superman. The man of steel started at a disadvantage in that he was never my superhero of choice when I was a kid. But, Brian Singer was at the helm and again, visuals have come a long way so it would be good to see superman do stuff more realistically. The highlight of the film for me, unlike most critics I’ve read, was the space shuttle/jet plan sequence—a rescue to make everyone stand up and cheer. Except for the grounds keepers at the stadium, who then had to run a baseball season after a Boeing had ruined the field.

Spacey was a great Luthor, and Routh was a surprisingly good Superman. But, and here's my real hang-up, Superman has always been the all-American hero, the wholesome icon for boys everywhere to emulate. So having the hero of the rising generation fathering a kid outside of marriage and disappearing to leave their mother to raise them I found unfaithful to the character.

From about halfway through, the film just took a dive the red-caped wonder himself couldn’t pull out of. How does he (relatively) easily lift a continent when he just had so much trouble with a spinning plane?

While X-3 won my personal award for most anticipated, Pirates 2 seemed to command the greatest expectations from the movie-going world in general. With much Ah-Harrring and buckles being swashed, the much-loved characters returned to the big screen and the biggest opening revenues of any film so far this year. What I could not work out was whether each character bought a storyline with them, or if none of them did. Either way, the ensuing tangle of running round the Caribbean in great looking, but surely very warm, costumes confused me no end. “Why” I asked my viewing companions at one point of fabulously choreographed sword-fightery “are they fighting?” And they didn’t know either. It’s all very well having great sequences but I couldn’t figure out what each character was after. Allegiances became cross purposes, enemies formed allegiances, friends sell each other out…and them it all changed back again. And Davey Jones who did not seem happy with his immortality, seemed intent on saving it.

Ty Burr of the Boston Globe summed it up perfectly for me as "...a noisy and lazy stopgap movie that goes absolutely nowhere and takes 2 1/2 hours to get there." For me it would have been far better to do stand alone stories for episodes two and three rather than use two as an overly long and storyless introduction to the third.

Part of the fun of movie going is the going itself. X-3 I saw opening night at Mann’s Chinese Theater in Hollywood and Pirates I saw at the El Capitan where props and costumes from the movie were on display. Superman I saw at the IMAX with 3-D effects added to about 20-minutes of its length (why that’s not a good idea I’ll leave out of this entry). I saw them all with friends and reveled in the atmosphere of overly priced concessions. Had they just been in a regular theater, like my viewing of Pixar’s lacluster summer offering Cars I’d have been really unhappy.

Working to Relax

2006-07-21T16:29:00.000-07:00

It’s surprising how much work has to go in to not doing any work.

Twenty or so Los Angeles types trekked up to a rented house on Lake Arrowhead for the weekend with the express mission of being lazy. And it took some effort.

The work began before we left with SL hunting for where to stay, collecting cash and so forth. E-mails between the gang multiplied exponentially as we got nearer to going, with topics ranging from important things like carpooling and sleeping assignments to more important things like who snores and who was bringing a dictionary. Shopping trips were made for assorted foods, sunscreen and X-box accesories. And all this while we scrambled to get ahead in our various professions so as to justify the time off.

The day of departure I got up earlier than if I were going to work, hardly acceptable behavior for a vacation day. The vehicles were packed with luggage, cheesecake, board games (interested games), TVs, instruments, sleeping bags, and an inflatable raft. We then repacked it all to make room for the people. And off we went into the mountains!

You can’t waste time on video games if the atmosphere isn’t “just right.” And so it was that before relaxing with the joysticks DB and I spent an hour taking apart the movie projector and re-aligning the lenses for maximum clarity.

Relaxing could not have been done peoperly without unpacking, trips for groceries, and vacuuming up the ants by the Jacuzzi, along with myriad other little tasks.

Food doesn’t prepare itself either, and while a bunch of us helped, JB and SL took charge of ribs and curry respectively. I’ve been reliably informed there was also cooked breakfast, but I was engrossed in a game of Catan at the time so missed it. Kudos to whoever did that.

Dish cleaning is a universal constant that doesn’t stop for vacations. Apart from the evening meals there was an endless supply of snacks and drinks for an endless supply of people needing to nibble and hydrate, so there was a steady stream of people in the kitchen washing, drying and putting away.

All these things taken care of the first day; day two was assigned to be the begining of relaxation, so in the morning we promptly walked miles round the lake.

The Jacuzzi was put to good use, even though we never fully worked out the controls. I found it strange that the windows round the Jacuzzi, which would have allowed a view of the lake and forest, had been largely replaced by a floor-to-ceiling painting of a lake and forest. It was even more disconcerting that it depicted a roaring bear, which is exactly the situation you hope not to encounter when all you have for protection is the shorts you are wearing and a button that turns the jets on or off. I also had my first experience with a sauna. One hundred and ten degrees of body prickling heat and the occasional ladle of water splashed over the hot coals. They say it’s good for your skin which I can neither confirm nor deny as the skin I was wearing when I went in was not the skin I left with.

The one useable pool cue was loving life surrounded as it was by a dozen chalk cubes; like a sheik in his harem. I was soundly thrashed at three games before I gave up.

Then there was the Karaoke in motion that is Dance Dance Revolution. Swap your video game controller for an electronic dance mat and try to keep up with the steps indicated on the screen. No chance, but you certainly burn off some calories.

After a day of time playing games (all hail game of the year, speed scrabble), sitting on the dock of the bay, contorting DB into a shape that would fit him snuggly under the sink for sardines, reading, and talking about how much money was tied up in the Lake’s huge and pamperous houses, it was time to pack it all up, clean the house and go home! Where I for one collapsed in a heap of vacation exhaustion and looked forward to relaxing at the office.

Behind (and possibly swept under) the Red Carpet...

2006-02-07T13:35:00.000-08:00

After four years living in Los Angeles I finaly get to a movie award ceremony. There are multiple awards for the city’s biggest industry at the start of each year and knowing my chances of getting into the Academy’s one was slim, I jumped at the chance to educate myself in the ways of the award show at the fifth annual CAMIE Awards.

Yes, the CAMIEs. The Awards for Character And Morality In Entertainment recognize “uplifting motion pictures that provide a positive influence for good” (unlike all those films that provide a positive influence for bad). There are no nominees, just films that are recognized.

Applause is an important part of any award show. We applaud the presenters each time they introduced the personality, who we also applauded, that would announce the next winner which, of course, warranted applause; the film clips are applauded, so is each recipient as they walk to the stage. After two awards my palms had a constant tingle, after four there were blisters and blood. Only six more to go. It surprises me there are not professional clappers. A man could make a good wage in this town hiring out good clapping stamina.

No award is valid without a recognizable, iconic statuette. The CAMIE statuette is a whimsical girl-in-a-long-flowing-lace-collared-dress. The policy is to give one to the actors, directors, studio and just about everybody else associated with the recognized films. Though you want recognition for your award show through recipients turning up, the “everyone gets one” policy means you don’t actually want them all too make it. The Reading Room had two dozen assorted cast and crew there, each of whom got a turn at the mic to say thanks (my over-clapped palms slid of my hands). With only a few statuettes on hand they were passed round so no one was on camera empty handed. The chances of someone being forgotten were large. In this case it was unfortunate that it was the director that hadn’t spoken when they started to usher people off stage.

The two presenters (who helped prove that that people viewed through a cathode ray tube can be made to look impossibly more beautiful than they actually are) were also given statuettes. I can’t help thinking this was a bad idea. Exclusivity makes the awards desirable, throwing them at people that didn’t really do anything for them (according to the award criteria) is a nice gesture that diminishes the awards value.

There was certainly an air of “so, does anyone know what happens next?” More than once the presenters did a come on, pause, come off. At one point our presenter even had to ask “er, is Michael actually here?” only for a reply to be shouted from the audience that Michael was not actually there but some other, now inferior-feeling minion, was there instead.

If award show legitimacy is determined by what quota of gushy thank yous are given at the shows end, then the CAMIEs are very legitimate, thanking as they did everyone from the printer to the teleprompter person.

The reason for the award itself is valid, and it was good to see wholesome entertainment lauded. And I did indeed, at a boda fide Hollywood event, walk the red carpet (even if, for some inexplicable reason, the red carpet did not lead from the limousine drop off point to the front door of the theater, but from the bottom of the parking lot stairs to a spot 20 feet from the bottom of the parking lot stairs).

The CAMIEs are plenty big enough to be considered a full award show in most respects-—big theater, lots of tuxedos, and enormous gold statues on the stage (even if they were leftovers from a more prestigious award show that used to be held there). The five-year old ceremony is gradually gaining recognition but the fact it started ten minutes late, the presenters hadn’t really been told what to do, and that fact Alan Osmond was a sponsor, leads one to believe it has a ways to go.