Category: Uncategorized

I don’t have much of an opinion on the Kyoto Protocol. It’s certainly a step in the right direction, even if it has its flaws.

However, it’s quickly becoming apparent that Kyoto is turning into a political card trick, a shortcut to being Environmentally Friendly that doesn’t require any more than the absolute minimum of interest in the environment.

Take this article, which raises the point that Canada has large forest areas that could be maintained and used to offset emissions. (For now, let’s not get into the idea that since we have forests, we can pollute more.) There’s just one problem: Forests burn, particularly when you’ve got droughts and insect infestations.

The solution? We’re not going to count the forests any more. They’re not resulting in the math people want, so they’re out of the picture.

Then we’ve got this item about Ontario NDP leader Howard Hampton’s plan for meeting Kyoto targets. And guess what: We can do it without touching your car! We’re going to save the environment, but we’ll make sure your SUVs are still affordable.

Kyoto seems to have fostered the idea that we need to do this much and no more. Meeting Kyoto Targets has become a substitute for environmental action, a set of numbers and formulae that get further removed from reality every time a politician shows he’s willing to take “action”.

It’s like saying you have three smoke detectors in your house, so you don’t need a fire extinguisher in the kitchen; that the dentist said you have great teeth, so you can stop flossing; that your wrist may be broken, but your ankle is fine. It’s Enron accounting, moving numbers around to make them look better without trying to fix them in the first place.

Kyoto is a step in the right direction, but it’s by no means all-encompassing. You want to talk about climate change, well, great. But what about our rivers and lakes? Protecting forests and wilderness? How ’bout we do something about the fact that if I go out biking on a hot summer day, I’m likely to come home coughing?

But it’s become everything to politicians looking to score points from an electorate that’s suddenly concerned about the environment but would rather not make any significant sacrifices. It’s leading to hollow promises based on shallow principles, and the idea that meeting some of the goals of a treaty many nations are ignoring (or similarly paying lip service to) will result in a healthy planet.

It’s not that easy.

I don’t want to turn this blog into one of those horrible, diary-type me-me-me things. I don’t have much dignity, but I’ve got more than that.

However, just let me say, in lieu of posting actual content, that Fate is a cruel, sadistic bitch. You know, in that “I don’t know if I should laugh or cry” sort of way.

Anyway. Regular posting should resume soon-ish. For now, this is coool:

So a while ago, I yielded to peer pressure and got a Facebook account. Feel free to add me or whatever. (Or don’t; it’s really not a big deal, as I’m about to get into)

While it’s kind of a neat idea, and there’s an initial sense of “Hey, cool!”, I don’t think Facebook is entirely for me. I just don’t have that many friends, you see.

I don’t say that in a “oh, pity me!” sort of way. It’s just kind of factual: I never feel like I have much in common with most people. I feel little or no connection with 97% of the people I meet, and I don’t even meet a lot of people; I’m quite socially awkward, and though I can fake a bit of social functionality, the prospect of going to a gathering with more than three or four people I don’t know makes my stomach churn and I just want to go and hide in the dark somewhere. It probably doesn’t help that I have a slight fear of people I do like rejecting me for reasons I can’t adequately explain.

Facebook, to a certain extent, is about reconnecting with old friends, or networking with current ones. The latter seems a bit pointless, since I can just email or phone the people I’m friends with now. Granted, significant portions of the internet are pretty pointless, so it’s not really a big deal. I suppose it’s handy to have a sort of personal forum for having get-togethers and whatnot.

But do I really want to reconnect with people from my past? For the most part, one loses touch with people for a reason: At some point, it just became more effort than it was worth to pick up the phone or send an email. That’s not a lot of effort, either. Many of the people I used to know are just in another world right now: I was friends with them because of circumstances, whether it was history class or university residence. While I don’t have any regrets, and hold very few personal grudges, I also lack the will to pursue many reacquaintances: In my experience, you tend to run out of things to say after the intial round of “Good-to-see-you-what-have-you-been-doing-remember-when…” dies off. Most of those old friendships are a product of circumstances, and there’s not a lot left once those circumstances evaporate. Every now and then someone comes along and you think “Yeah, there’s still a connection”, but I don’t know what the percentage is. It’s not high, I suspect.

I don’t really mean to sound so curmudgeonly. Facebook is an amusing diversion with occasional real benefits, even if it does lead to periodic bouts of “Geez, I have nothing to say to so-and-so.” But ultimately, I think this blog is far more rewarding. Granted, I have no idea who most of my readers are. But I know there’s a handful of people who come back semi-regularly, even though they don’t know me beyond what I write in this space, and every now and then someone finds it interesting enough to link to. That, I think, is more valuable than someone getting in touch with me after 10 years because they saw my profile listed on the net.

See? There was a cheerful moral to the story after all. I love you all, in a totally casual, non-committal, internet kind of way.

Strange, but true: Scientists are planning to defrost 1,000-pound, 30-foot long giant squid in a microwave oven:

[S]cientists at the museum are considering using a giant microwave oven as a possible way to defrost the animal so they can study it.

The mammoth squid could not be left to defrost at room temperature because the process would take days, leaving the outside to rot while the core remained frozen, he said.

“There are certain microwave equivalents that are used by industry, for treating timber and the like, that we could probably fit this thing into,” O’Shea said. “But that is just one option.”

If TV and movies have taught me anything – and I’m not sure they have – it’s that radiation and giant, presumed-deceased creatures of the deep do not mix.

Don’t say I didn’t warn you if this thing gets up, grows 50 or 60 times, and eats Wellington.

Yesterday I ate a sandwich.

Okay, two concessions: First, obviously, that technically qualifies as yesterday‘s big news. Second, and more obviously, is that it’s not really news at all.

But it’s still big news for me, since it was the first real meal I’d eaten in nearly a week. Being sick normally is bad enough, but not being able to eat anything (also not sleeping for, like, three days) is pretty horrible. I know you all pity me.

Things that I have learned recently:

• Do not drink Tropicana apple juice when you have the stomach flu.
• I have a wonderful, caring, and rather bossy girlfriend. (I knew that already, but it bears repeating)
• 300 (the film) is pretty good. Fairly shallow, and the Queen Gorgo subplot was almost offensively cliche, but it’s an entertainingly violent way to kill a couple hours. A far superior adaptation than Sin City, which had all of Miller’s visuals but none of his storytelling.
• I have no desire at all to see Grindhouse. I wish Quentin Tarantino would just get over his childhood fascinations and actually make an original film.
• The Long Blondes’ Someone to Drive You Home is a very good album.
• My incapacitation probably cost me a copy of Buffy Season 8. Second printing for me. (not that it matters)
• Shakespeare just wants to rock.

Back to normal now. Regular, interesting posting to resume this evening or tomorrow.

I realize no postings for a week or so is a great hardship for you, my loyal audience, but there’s nothing I can do about it: I’ve been knocked down by a nasty stomach flu for the last couple days. I shall spare you the details, but take my word for it – it wasn’t very pleasant.

In the mean time, check out this article on Warren Ellis’ Black Summer. That’s the kind of book I want to read.

It’s January 4th and the temperature is 10° celsius. There’s a forecasted high of 13° for Saturday.

That’s pretty fucked up.

Let me tell you about Tuesday, January 2, 2007.

I woke up some time around 6am to the lovely sounds of my cat, Wesley, vomiting. 6am is way too early to get up, so I tried to go back to sleep. But I couldn’t tell where Wesley had puked – it was close enough that it could have been on the bed, a trick he’s performed before (though thankfully not when I was in it). So for the next hour, I tried to sleep, dreadfully afraid to roll over in case I ended up sleeping in a hairball. (thankfully, it ended up being on the floor. I even managed to avoid stepping in it)

Later, while riding the subway home, I saw two midgets. One got on the train and got off one station later, and then another got on a few stops later and also rode just one station south. And here’s the weird thing: They stood in exactly the same spot on the train.

When I got off the subway downtown, the moon was out: It was full, of course.

I’m not prone to superstition and refrains of “good luck” or “bad luck,” but this is entirely too much to be coincidence. To quote a very nice bit of narration from one of my favourite films:

There are stories of coincidence and chance, and intersections and strange things told, and which is which and who only knows? And we generally say, “Well, if that was in a movie, I wouldn’t believe it.” Someone’s so-and-so met someone else’s so-and-so and so on. And it is in the humble opinion of this narrator that strange things happen all the time.

I don’t know what this means at all. But either 2007 is going to be a very good year, or I’m going to be dead by February.

Go to Google.com (Or Google.ca, or, probably, any Google variation)

Click the link to “Preferences.”

Under “Interface Language”, select “Bork Bork Bork.”

Save preferences.

Enjoy wackiness.