Thursday Already
This article in the Toronto Star gave me a good laugh this morning. It's about weddings. Enjoy.

Mark Haddon's Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Now Playing: BC Bud and classic rock
Topic: From the Library
When I read, it's mostly technical documents, newspapers, computer magazines, and political essays and I often feel bereft of soul. To remedy that, I've begun Crime and Punishment, and am enjoying it so much it almost hurts to read it. Also because the edition I've got is an ancient Penguin which originally cost 95 cents. Books like that smell the best and, despite the somewhat sepia-toned pages I wouldn't think of getting a newer print. I just need a brighter light.

What I did finish was Mark Haddon's The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, discovered during a web search. Somebody I admire raved about it so it had to be read.

The story goes like this: a teenage boy finds his neighbour's dog dead in the front yard and wants to know why this happened. The boy has an organised, complicated way of living with the world; situations arise and accomodations must be made. The thing is, he's incredibly bright with pretty much no emotional coping skills. He understands things about humans and their behaviour but has a clinical approach to feelings. Living with people becomes a bit like participating in some sort of sociological experiment. Which it is. I found some parallels, although the characters are completely different, in Peter Sellars' Chancy in Being There, and more in the character Monk from the tv show. I used to find Monk unwatchable because of his phobias but I've become more empathetic. Chancy broke my heart, as did Christopher, Haddon's young lead. He's a bit like Harry Potter crossed with Adrian Mole in dire need of a joint. That the book is written from the boy's perspective is what makes it so compelling. It's like an exploded parts diagram of life.

I get Christopher. I get that human behaviour and customs don't resonate with him and the only way he can make the world understandable is to break things down into a series of "If-Then-Else" operations and carry on from there. The poignant thing about most humans is their desire to behave logically and their inability to accomplish that on a consistent basis. Humans' lives are largely repetitious, from mundane activities like getting out of bed and readying oneself for the day, eating, travelling, and it's during interactions with others that things get interesting. Christopher hasn't got the wiring to enable him to disregard irrationality in others or to deal with unexpected events or even somebody touching him--it just leads to big freak-outs. The quest for meaning and safety, whether through ritual (counting cars and noting their colours)or through the tangible (like having a special food cupboard) becomes paramount.

Consider the amount of stimulus each person receives during the day, much of it unsolicited and unwanted. Sorting through and interpreting the world's messages in order to make a go of things is hard work and loads of folks either aren't up to it, need assistance in one form or another, or, like Christopher, create their own system. Some people are unable to decipher social cues, and, for example, often can't recognise anger in others or simply don't know how to respond in a given situation. It's akin to being illiterate or being dropped in another country. Christopher's behaviour and ideas make perfect sense given where he is in the world.

What motivates humans to act the way they do? Why isn't having what you want making you happy? Jesus, you just have to look at Paul Martin's face on any given day to guess what he's thinking: I thought this job would be a lot more fun. I've seen the same look on Dubya's mug, too. They're a cautionary tale, the pair of them, reminding us to be careful what we orchestrate.

I'm surprised that humankind has lasted this long, and I don't mean that in a necessarily pejorative way. Our individual approaches to the world are obviously influenced by our experiences in it; even in early childhood you get a glimpse of how things are conducted and for some of us, the trains didn't run on time. There isn't much documentation for being a human and if there is, it's written with the same clarity and ease-of-use as all others.

More Sad Bastards
Mood:  caffeinated
What has happened to make cell phones a good thing? Clearly, they've got portability working for them but phones the size of a box of matches are no less irritating to be around than an army communications phone. It seems like every 2nd person one sees in the world has some kind of phone stuck to their head, oblivious to the serious breaches in their concentration for other activities, like driving. As long as they arrive at their destination, these folks have no qualms about the journey.

I saw one of those idiots last Thursday when I followed behind them on E. 1st Avenue. Guy was driving a pick-up the size of a small pachyderm and I had to honk at him at the 3 way stop at Ontario. It was then that I saw his left elbow smooshed up against the window while he talked and swivelled his head something fierce. Alas, his right leg had evidentally fallen asleep because he couldn't seem to accelerate across the intersection. Traffic was wild; we were the only ones there.

He made another left by Maynard's, negotiating the turn virutally unaided by his right hand, which was waving in the air at one point, so lord knows what other activities he was engaged in. I do thank the cosmos that his next turn was a right onto 4th Avenue because waiting for another lefthand turn wasn't going to be possible. I'd have killed the man first. When I looked in the rearview mirror a few minutes later, he was still on the phone but had now lit a cigarette and was waving that around. It was good for me, too, because I laughed the rest of the way to the Cancer Agency.

This story has nothing to do with phones just driving. I came up the ramp to the parkade's 1st floor and Lexus is backing out of a spot. This floor is reserved for professionals, i.e. oncologists, etc, but not social workers, by the way. Probably not nurses or porters, either, but clearly people to whom I likely owe my life. Lexus is very cautious when they see me despite my obvious use of brakes. It must be terrifying driving something so expensive. The driver gingerly, reluctantly, taps on the gas and crawls toward the downramp at a speed a three-legged dog could outrun, puts on the indicator light because although there's no other way to turn you just can't take chances, can you, especially at the Cancer Agency where it isn't clear who's still got a will to live and you have to share the road with them. When you're driving a vehicle that's so painfully luxurious you think the rest of the world should wait for you. This is akin to the Baby on Board signs that people put in their cars as a safeguard against vehicular catastrophe except that the minivan crowd accomplished more everyday acts of selfishness on the roads. The sign was only out of consideration to others, a way of marking themselves as with containers of hazardous material. "Caution: the person driving this car has had no sleep for months and has a screaming baby with them right now" might have been better. They should let their dog drive.

I kept a suitable distance, waiting until Lexus was comfortably setup in the downramp and then I gave 'er. Jetta produced a satisfying vaROOM and her tires did a little happy dance on the cement sending a few car alarms into cardiac arrest.

A BBC article describes the woes of some cell phone users who can't get their shit together, and it's heartbreaking.

Of course, the day I stand shivering by the side of the road while my beloved Jetta sits fubar, I'll probably wish I had one.

But the printer's only $50!
Here's an article from the BBC about a woman in Georgia who's suing HP for rigging their ink cartridges so that they self-destruct, as it were, before they're truly empty.

I've been refilling my Epson printers' cartridges for years now and naturally I've saved millions of dollars. Mostly what you have to watch for is the sponge inside the cartridge drying out after the safety seals have been removed. Computer chips inside cartridges is not my area of expertise. I buy generic cartridges which don't seem have the chips (the drawback being that the ink indicators may be incorrect).

Nice work going after HP!

Thanks, Paul
Topic: More Quizzing

I'm a Mandarin!

You're an intellectual, and you've worked hard to get where you are now. You're a strong believer in education, and you think many of the world's problems could be solved if people were more informed and more rational. You have no tolerance for sloppy or lazy thinking. It frustrates you when people who are ignorant or dishonest rise to positions of power. You believe that people can make a difference in the world, and you're determined to try.

Talent: 52%
Lifer: 26%
Mandarin: 59%

Take the Talent, Lifer, or Mandarin quiz.

Topic: Moral Politics
For those of us who enjoy taking personality quizzes, here's a link to Moral Politics . Not surprisingly, I'm a Social Democrat, scoring -5 on Moral Order and 2 on Moral Rules. Judging by the Statistics, I'm in a corner by myself with 0.7% of quiz takers scoring as I did.

Off to the library in a short while to collect Please Understand Me II, a book recommended by my friend Trish.

Just for good measure, try this:

While I was at the library, the woman working there told me that I was the first person to say "please" to her, and here it was going on for 5pm. Jesus wept.

Now Playing: RDI
Topic: Charles & Camilla
I might as well come clean and say I'm pleased to hear about the forthcoming marriage of Charles and Camilla, mostly because they've had to wait so bloody long for people to take them seriously. Everybody in the world knew that Diana's selection as Charles' wife was deliberate, and it was her sorry luck to actually fall in love with him.

In 1981, I was in Britain and did not watch the wedding's telecast in it's entireity; I had slept in, slightly disappointing my royalist host. Night before I'd watched the fireworks on tv in a lively pub so I considered my work done.

Here are two different views on the Charles-Diana nuptials from the beautiful city of York, England:

Windsor, and especially the Guildhall area, where Charles and Camilla will become honest people on the 8th of April, will likely be rendered innacessible to residents, with parking and just moving about on foot, actually, becoming a nightmare. Try the #65 bus or leave town for the day.

Friday Report
Welcome!

It's only been in the last two days that I've decided to put a blog together. I have been reading Paul Wells' journal since he started it and now I'm jealous. No. That's not it. I enjoy Wells' blog very much. I think Chantal Hebert should have one, too, but I'm sure she's not a bit interested.

Give me a few hours to get organised and I'll post comments about current events, politics of all sorts, books, film, and social behaviour.

Here's what I'll tell you about me for the time being.

I live with my cat companion, my familiar, in Vancouver, BC.

The rest you'll have to work out for yourselves.