Crappy Customer Service

Reverb 10 #2

December 2 - Writing.  What do you do each day that doesn't contribute to your writing - and can you eliminate it?

This is a question for those who are serious about taking their blog to a higher level, I suppose.  But who does that anymore?  It's 2010, people.  No one's writing a blog anymore.

I'm damn busy trying to carve out a life for myself, and writing isn't that important to me other than as a way of sorting out my thoughts.  It's all I can do to get through the day without constantly cringing in embarrasment about everything I say and do.  Do you do that to yourself?  And yeah, I cringe about what I write here too. Maybe that's the answer - Shame keeps me from writing more often.

Playing Catch-Up

Having been absent the Internet until school finally ended, I am now ready to power through Reverb 10 and catch up to the present date.

December 1st:  One Word

Encapsulate the year 2010 in one word.  Explain why you're choosing that word.  Now, imagine it's one year from today, what would you like the word to be that captures 2011 for you?

My word for 2010 is Trial.  For some reason, even-numbered years are downers, and years ending in zero are full of crisis management.  I've looked back through my long life and found this to be true for as long as I can remember. 

This year I quit my job with about one month's slack to get a new one.  It was a matter of choosing my life and health over a toxic workplace.   My new job had six months' probation to get through, which I finished last month; let the idea of being fired with no notice hang over you for that long some time. Plus the whole aforementioned school thing.

Mr. W and I are finally recovering financially from my lost salary and a few major house-related purchases that we were forced to make.  Happily, my wages have increased by quite a bit in my new job so I'm hoping that next year's word will be Investing.



There Goes Another Good Tube

Fuck!  As you may have heard, Bloglines is shutting down.  You can go ahead and read the reasons in the article, but all I could read when I went there is money money money money money money aaaannnnd...money.  There isn't any in maintaining an RSS reader.  What if I don't want to go to Facebook or Twitter to read what passes for a blog these days?

To everyone who is still writing a blog out there, no matter how boring or mundane - please, keep going.  I don't tell the people on my blogroll how much I appreciate their posts.  I don't read very much sponsored stuff.  I'm still kicking it old school, peering into people's heads.  The world will degrade a little further if we reduce ourselves to Twitter.

 

Can You Put That Out?

Yech, I'm recovering from a summer cold, extended for a week by the presence of BC forest ashes in the lungs last week.  I had pot-smoke-eyes for three days.  I went around with my upper lip coated in lavender-scented body butter to mitigate the smoky smell.

Smoke is, to me, the worst smell out there.  As a small child I drove my Colt Cigarillo-smoking dad right outdoors with my tirades.  I also occasionally suffer from olfactory hallucinations related to mild migraine - and they are always smoke scented. I am the silent Edmontonian who was relieved when the indoor smoking bylaws were passed.

Don't worry, I'm not an anti-smoking nutjob who shouts at people inside the 5m radius...though that is the result of good restraint.  I keep my many arguments & opinions inside my skull.

Reportage, Anyone?

I just threw The Green Life off my RSS reader.  It's the Sierra Club's blog/style guide to an environmentally friendly existence...or at least it's supposed to be.

First off - the tips they're sharing aren't innovative.  I've been hearing the same ways to green up since the first wave of eco-chic in the late 80's.

And secondly, they pissed me off with their latest entry telling consumers not to buy antimicrobial fabrics.  They are correct about the fact that nanosilver-impregnated fabric loses it's coating in the wash, and bleeds silver particles into the water, which can deposit in wildlife.  OK they got that part.  What I don't like is that they are telling people not to buy ANY antimicrobial fabrics.  Some fabrics are rendered antimicrobial with chitosan, which is made from waste shrimp shells.  No silver in there.  Or how about bamboo charcoal fabrics?  There's an antimicrobial that won't wash out, ever.   

I've disagreed with other articles in The Green Life where they give advice.  Their research is done in a half-assed manner with very little journalism involved.  Is this the future of news gathering?  What about the articles I've read where I don't have the specialized knowledge to decide that the Sierra Club, or anyone else for that matter, are talking out their asses?

Is It Strange To Be A Huge Fan of an Economist?

Mr. W and I are epic viewers but we watch no broadcast news, never mind CNN.  The single, solitary thing we watch on CNN is Fareed Zakaria GPS.  For me to watch any news show is a heroic effort - and I am proud to say I watched all of GPS's first season and I'm ready to dig in for more.  Fareed is interesting, witty, intelligent and rakishly handsome!  He gets all the big cats around the world to have a chat and he doesn't suck up to his guests.  We first saw him on The Daily Show (which doesn't count as news, people) and we think he was the first non-celebrity guest to truly match wits with Jon Stewart.  It's crazy that Mr. W likes him as much as I do (except for the handsome thing). 

We'll See Who Dies First

Lately it seems that I am bombarded by finger-shaking weirdos telling me how diet soda is going to kill me and my family.  So, finger-shaking weirdos, where is your scientific evidence to this effect?  Huh?

What's that?  You don't HAVE any proof that diet soda is dangerous to anything other than tooth enamel?  Well fuck off then!  Fuck right off and let me enjoy my ONE can a day in fucking peace. 

I don't drink coffee and my stomach can't tolerate tea in the early morning.  I don't believe in caffeinating myself up to the ceiling to make up for sleep deprivation, either.  I get 7-8 hours every night.  So, if I like to have ONE Diet Coke in the morning to help me focus on my repetitive job, there is nothing wrong with it. 

I also enjoy soda's palate-cleansing effect, which makes food more enjoyable.  Show me a calorie-free, naturally derived drink with these same properties and I'll embrace it.

What really chaps my ass is when the person shaking their finger in my face about the Diet Coke is a smoker.  There's a real champion debating move, asshole.

Guess What?

Wikipedia is telling us that we're pretty free around here, in fact more free than the US.  That surprised me - I always thought the press was more free down there.  Anyway, I thought I'd pass along the good news.

Suffragette City Part 2.

LOTTERY TICKETS and CIGARETTES.  The opiates of the masses!  The government's tools to keep the clueless of Canada clueless - along with VLTs.  No, not the Very Large Telescope, Video Lottery Terminals.

And they are also the agents of slow queuing in 7-11's all over the nation.  If you're in the store between 8-9 AM or PM, some semi-sober welder will be buying cigarettes and scratch cards in front of you when you're just trying to get some damn hot chocolate.  Trust me it's always a welder - everyone who's worked in a trade can spot another trade a mile away. 

Among the above and buying booze, welders are the provincial government's most important source of income.  I suppose I should be thanking them.

My last thought on the subject is that if you enjoy lottery and cigarettes, why not just light up your money and smoke it?  Saves the rest of us a whole lot of trouble.

True Graphjam Graphs Part 1