Grazing Rites

Sometimes I wonder if I’m the only person who sees an obvious connection between a string of record-setting days of unusual weather and our abuse of the environment. It’s difficult to prove scientifically and even then getting people to understand the explanation would be a challenge but it seems pretty intuitive to me.

You kick mother nature in the teeth and she’s going to fight back. And the thing is it’s actually in our best interest to let her win, for if she loses we all die.

Tsunamis, Category 5 Hurricanes, record low and high temperatures, record rain and snow fall, flooding…these are not random occurrences. It’s a chaotic system  but the are trends. These trying situations need to serve as wake up calls that we’re not doing enough to be environmentally responsible.

So for every time extreme weather inconveniences you consider doing something good for the environment that you wouldn’t normally do and maybe we can declare a ceasefire in this war where everyone loses.

I was over at my mom’s for dinner when she asked me for advice on what university course would help her coworker be more diplomatic. It took quite a bit of explaining to convince her that university isn’t the place for that, at least not in my experience.

I even took Peace & Conflict Studies which you’d think might cover that ground but no.

My humble diplomatic skills come from 9 years in Guest Services. Even as a Gate Attendant I learned how to spin bad news, prioritize complaints, and assert myself.

Spin
At the employee entrance, “sorry this is a service entrance, it’s not cleared for pedestrian traffic, however the main entrance with all the goodies is just half a block away and the whole way is under shade” goes over much better than “you can’t come in this way”

Prioritizing
At the front gate, “I wish I could help you but there’s a large group of people waiting, they can help you in the booth over there though”

Asserting Yourself
At the front gate, “Please get down from there or I’ll have to call Security!“. Now just saying that doesn’t bolster your confidence, actually calling security and getting some jerks tossed on the other hand…

Then in the booth I got to practice negotiating by talking people out of refunds. This was further refined as a Supervisor. Even my time in the office was a forge of difficult phone calls like the man who demanded money for being put on hold. As an Assistant Manager I often was the final word on complaints and staff issues, only in the rarest of circumstances would I defer to the manager.

University may be good to help you learn to refine your arguments by writing papers but learning how to talk to people is trial-and-error, it can’t be taught in a classroom. Most of what I learnt came from that and listening to my superiors - whenever you have a repetative or boring task that doesn’t require your full attention and if you’re lucky enough to be in earshot of your boss or even just someone more senior than you listen to how they solve problems and try to think what you would have done or said in their place, it’s a great mental excercise and helps you understand what your boss and corworkers have to deal with in their unique positions. Also the customer service training I teach can give you a leg up.

So rather than looking for answers in a classroom I would recommend entry-level work with a company that by it’s very nature has to have a focus on customer service. I would not consider government work or banks to be good examples of this because those environments are generally about enforcing policy, not coming up with creative solutions - their hands are generally really tied so it’s a harder place to start as you’re already trying to sell bad news whereas in more flexible environments compromises are possible and thus make difficult situations easier to resolve.

Of course after such experience you may find a bank or government job to be too inflexible as a result. That’s probably a part of why I don’t want to work at either type of job on a permanent basis, the rigid nature of the workplace which is oftern required lends itself towards inflexibility and stagnation.

“You have to control everything and everyone. You don’t provide an atmosphere of trust, you don’t inspire the crew to want to go out of their way for you. You’ve got everybody wound up so tight there’s no joy in anything.” -Riker ‘Chain Of Command’ (TNG)

On Notice (this month)
#1 Jon
#2 Mom

These 3 people caused my phone bill to jump by 44% all by themselves. And the thing that doesn’t make any sense is they should all be aware of and have the number for my FREE phone.

Dead To Me (top 4)
#2 Jon (up from #9)
#4 Mom (up from #5)

This is not something to be proud of people.

I was reading one of the free daily newspapers the other day when an entire page devoted to space exploration caught my eye. Given some of the setbacks NASA’s had to deal with over the last few years I was looking forward to some good news. All it took was the opening line about reviving an old science fiction idea for me to see the problem.

That’s right, they’re looking at building an orbital tether again.

Sigh.

I’m going to show you how bad an idea this is in such a way even my mom will understand and agree (no offense mom but science ain’t your forté).

Okay, first to explain what they’re planning. They want to build a 1-metre thick cable of carbon nanotubes from the Earth to the International Space Station. They plan to attach an elevator, so help me this is the God’s honest truth, and lift it up with lasers!

Am I the only one who sees the problem here? The way it looks to me is they’ve found a very expensive way to kill you…twice.

And here’s how…

Method 1: Vaporization
First some rudimentary electronics/physics…what happens when you run a wire through a magnetic field?

A current (i.e. electricity) begins to flow through the wire. This is the basis behind most motors and artificially created magnets.

The Earth has an enormous magnetic field and these clowns want to run an enormous wire through it. Now it seems to me and my armchair physics that this would result in an enormous current.

Now what happens when you run a current through something? Well a minor current run through an apple will make it explode. A significant current run through a person would kill them or at least stop their heart.

An enormous current?

Ever seen someone get disintegrated on Star Trek? The way I see it that much current would transfer so much energy that it would cause a phase change. If it didn’t cause the entire elevator to go from solid to gas near instantly it would at least become a liquid, what we commonly refer to as melting.

What if the wire doesn’t conduct electricity? Well I did some research and one of the reasons carbon nanotubes are getting attention these days is because they conduct rather well. I suppose you could insulate it but under the forces and pressure it would be subjected to I doubt any insulation would last very long.

If memory serves there were some experiments several years ago running a tether between two planes, I believe as part of the R&D for mid-air refueling. As I recall the tethers tended to vaporize if they were passing through more than one atmospheric layer.

Method 2: Lightning Attack
Again, let’s start with some basics. What determines the course lightning takes? The path of least resistance. Now the way I see it firing a laser through several layers of atmosphere would create a very clear path of least resistance.

Or think of it like a short circuit, the laser would create a path between several DIFFERENTIALLY CHARGED layers of atmosphere.

Since the lasers would have to be fired from the ground to cause lift (I’m not even sure how THAT would work) energy akin to, if not actually, lightning would follow the path of least resistance (i.e. the path of the laser) to the area of lowest energy (due to entropy) namely the laser emitters on the ground. The lightning would then obliterate the lasers and anything attached to them, possibly the Earth end of the tether.

If the tether base station is hit the ISS, tether, elevator, and poor passengers become space junk. Now NASA admits the orbital altitude of the ISS would need to be increased in order for the tether to be taught so it remains to be seen if the ISS’s orbit would be affected by detaching the tether so rescue in this scenario MAY be possible but I doubt NASA currently has the technology to attempt a rescue before the occupants died of hypothermia or asphyxiation.

Conclusion
So the elevator, the people inside, and possibly the ISS and ground station could be vaporized while the ground station could be subjected to intense lightning strikes on a clear day. I’d book a flight on the VSS fleet if I were eager to get into space because I don’t see this method working without a body count.

Sleep deprived and poorly prepared I decided just to take a cab to the airport. It being crazy early the only traffic we encountered was at the airport. The final hundred meters represented about a third of the time we spent in the taxi.

The experience at the airport was horrendous. The lineup to check in was the longest I’ve seen, full of idiots like the Asian camera crew who kept leaving their bags unattended or the guy we finally got to that must’ve read every page of my passport 8 times before deeming it worthy of entering into the computer as slow as possible.

This wasn’t hunt and peck, this was find a key, tap it, take a break, put the passport down, pick it up, find a key, enter the second letter of the person’s name, take a break… I wanted to climb over the counter and beat him senseless. Most other clerks processed about 4 people in the time it took him to process me.

Then he ran out of luggage tags. It looked to me to be as simple as loading a roll of toilet paper, in the time he took I could take apart, clean, and reassemble a VCR. Heaven help him if he ever runs out of TP, the poor bastard’s likely to slip into a coma. Were he moving any slower he would be traveling back in time.

He needs to die is the point I’m making here.

Once through with him we moved on to discover Vegas has the most limited food selection of any airport I’ve ever been to, and yet the most expensive - what a surprise.

Once on the plane it was smooth sailing all the way home thankfully.

We decided to skip the buffet on our last day in Vegas in favor of a 50s Diner also located in the hotel. Seemed innocuous enough. Then we noticed a DJ. Then a waitress had a microphone. The waiting staff take turns singing period songs like, appropriately enough, New York New York every 10 to 15 minutes. There was a skinny white boy no one took notice of but I kept an eye on him.

Sure enough he was the most impressive of the lot really. There was this old woman, a customer who must’ve been at least a teenager in the 50s who really got into it. It was rather sweet.

I found myself wondering if people go to Vegas to die. Somehow that thought occurred to me without being morbid, it’s hard to explain.

We finally got around to actually going up the tower our hotel was named for and attached to. While in line we were subjected to a 90 second safety video that hadn’t been updated since the place opened (it needed it’s tracking adjusted!) on constant repeat. As well while we’re in line the frame to Mindi’s glasses spontaneously break. If I hadn’t been there when it happened I wouldn’t have thought it possible. Turns out travel insurance doesn’t cover that.

Back to Vegas we hopped on the monorail using our passes from the previous day. The remaining parts of the strip didn’t seem quite as impressive as the things we’d seen the previous day. We caught another fountain show at the Bellagio and headed off to dinner.

On the way we stopped at one of those half-price ticket places Burton had mentioned. The nice side of my brain hoped we could score some cirque tickets, the selfish part of me was glad to see none available. Instead we picked up some tickets to Second City at the Flamingo (that’s right, there’s a place called the Flamingo).

We headed off to dinner at Mindi’s mini-mecca, Wolfgang Puck’s. Apparently he had a TV show or something. The food and service were both outstanding.

Then it was off to Second City, with  another couple fountain shows thrown In for good measure. I must admit I was a little disappointed; they had some funny moments and numerous obligatory Vegas references but they only took 2 or 3 Ask Fors from the audience and didn’t really do much with them.

Granted the audience wasn’t the greatest But part of the problem was they asked individuals rather than the audience at large. You happen to pick a shy, reluctant, or unhappy person and you’re in trouble. And when that did happen they stuck with it rather than moving on. One of the key rules of improv is not to fall in love with an idea because if the idea isn’t working you need to be able to adapt. So I would have to say TheatreSports at Granville Island actually had them beat in the improv department.

One last look at Vegas and it was back to the hotel as we have a depressingly early flight the next day.

Another visit to the buffet for breakfast/lunch and we headed out to explore Vegas in greater detail…it turns out they have more than just The Experience.

We took Burton’s advice and got day passes for the monorail which didn’t quite go as expected. For one thing at the other end of the monorail was another monorail but not connected or included, they justified this by calling it a tram. On the positive side of things Mindi realized that passes weren’t good for the day of purchase but rather good for a 24 hour period beginning at the moment of purchase.

We walked through the MGM Grand which was very nice, we even saw the lions. Then we trekked over to Mandalay Bay, Mindi wanted to see the sharks but she found the price prohibitive. Then came the long walk to the Hard Rock.

Now before I continue and you lambaste me for making my pregnant girlfriend go through this ordeal I want to make it clear that she was the driving force between the rest of the day’s journey.

First we had to pass the army of pimps.

That’s right, saw my first pimp. Basically rows of shady looking characters who don’t speak English line the sidewalk trying to give you cards advertising prostitutes and strippers…”gotta catch em all” takes on a whole new meaning.

It’s not just, presumably Mexican, guys either; 40-something overweight women wearing orange t-shirts advertising strippers are among their number. Thanks but no I don’t want to rent your daughter.

From this depressing example of society on decline we got to walk through several blocks of poorly lit construction. Suffice to say the Personal Assessment of Threats to the Safety of Yours truly (or PATSY) radar was operating at full power.

Once there we met a hyperactive and incredibly insincere hostess named Ashley. She was the embodiment of ‘Aggressively Friendly’, Mark would have loved her. She made a point of getting to know the names of everyone in the party before us, go so far as insisting to shake each person’s hand. Mindi was giving off bad vibes enough to create a protective barrier around herself so she was spared personal contact at first, I wasn’t so lucky.

I’m probably not doing a very good job conveying just how obnoxious this person was, you probably think I’m being harsh but try to remember the movie Office Space. Remember Jennifer Aniston’s character’s coworker? The keener blonde kid with all the flare? Picture a female version without buttons but on Red Bull. She was so off-putting that when our normal and sincerely friendly waiter came by we were I hope understandably cautious and reserved.

Then the video for YMCA came on at triple volume. Just as I was about to apologize for this bizzaro Hard Rock I noticed a waitress on a table. I looked around the restaurant to find that all the staff had tapped into their inner gay guy from the disco era and was either dancing perfectly to the song or standing on a table and singing. I thought to myself “given the things I’ve heard about Vegas if this is the weirdest it gets, I’m actually getting off pretty easy“.

Then the kitchen staff came out and formed a line. Mindi and I became experts at taking a sip of our drinks when any of the staff got near lest they pull us on top of something. Oddly enough Ashley was not to be found among the revelers.

After finishing our meal we walked back to the strip to watch the fountain show at the Bellagio. I was impressed but strong winds also left me rather damp which I didn’t mind but forced me to become an expert at timing to protect my camera.

We had one mission today; The Experience. Getting up a bit earlier than yesterday we headed straight over to Quark’s for lunch. I was a little disappointed to see only human waiters, Quark’s really let the quality of the help slide. In point of fact our waitress’s English was so broken I found myself wondering if she was in the country legally.

There were Klingons, Andorians, and Borg walking around though but they seemed to be avoiding us - I figure they’re either excellent at spotting and avoiding fan-boys or my Fundamentalist t-shirt scared them off. I had the Hamborger and a phaser drink both of which were great.

After lunch we bought our tickets for the attractions. We picked up a pair of Latinum packages which included all-day access to both simulators, the backstage tour, and a picture on the bridge and one in a Borg chamber for $70 USD each. If that seems a little pricey you can get half priced tickets at retailers on the strip but I wanted to support the attraction by paying full price.

No, you read that right, I willingly paid full price when I could have gotten a discount. Part of the reason is because I tend to think of my US cash as found money; I bought it years ago well below market value. If it doesn’t come out of my bank account I don’t feel the pain so much. I consider it a gift from me in the past.

The museum of the future consisted of a chronology and real props. On our first trip through Mindi started to read ever entry on the chronology, having read the book and being familiar with everything I focused on the props. Thankfully after an era or two Mindi must have realized she’d spend all day reading and gave up on that and joined me at the props. The coolest thing had to be the actual torpedo from the movies that you could actually touch.

The instructions regarding when and where you can take pictures were unclear so we didn’t risk it but later I discovered I could’ve taken my picture with the torpedo…one more reason to go back I guess.

First up was Klingon Encounter which was actually a lot better and more fun than I expected. It was expertly done and even had a coherent plot that made sense - if you want it spoiled go to wikipedia. Geordi’s hair didn’t look quite right though.

Borg Invasion wasn’t as good. While it still ranked above the Terminator ride at Universal Studios, Klingon Encounter has it beat hands down. I think it was designed for the Voyager fan-boy, someone who gets weak in the knees at the sight of a familiar actor, the ship, or the theme song. It almost seemed to have a hokey sentimentality about it. Again they tried to create a cohesive plot that involved the guests but it was less successful in creating a suspension of disbelief.

The actors in the simulators seemed to be giving only about 90%, which anywhere else would be pretty good but for this fan-boy who’d kill for their jobs it didn’t quite cut it. But then my standards are impossibly high.

We went back to the store to kill time before the backstage tour and make what I thought would be some tough choices but it turned out most of the merchandise ruled itself out, mostly for lameness or transportation issues. I wasn’t able to get the shirt for Burton because they had neither the correct size or colour, instead I got us a pair of TOS phaser water guns.

I also picked up an Andorian plush toy for the kid despite my concerns over it’s leather outfit, I suppose worst case it can just stay on a shelf in the kid’s room I guess. I used the toy as a conversation starter  with the Andorian who was very nice and got my picture taken with him.

The backstage tour was great, the tour guide was informative and funny and whereas the actors in the simulators gave 90%, he gave 100%. He made some comments about people blogging away their secrets so I won’t go into much detail here except to say the tour is totally worth it.

Before dinner we got our pictures taken on the bridge and Borg chamber which is an actual set from First Contact. The fellow who took us to get our pictures taken was very pleasant and entertaining and his point that Sisko was the best captain because he became a god was well taken.

Dinner in Quark’s was a whole different story. Same menu but clearly their lunch staff is the B squad. However, ever the nitpicker, I saw numerous missed opportunities. For example our waiter, a nice guy with funny stories, looked like Harry Mudd and the buser was a dead ringer for Jake Sisko but neither seemed to have developed a character despite both doing their jobs very well.

I had a great pasta dish which I really enjoyed which surprised me because usually I hate sun dried tomatoes. Our waiter also hooked us up with a dessert that wasn’t on the menu but the real story of dinner was the drink. I asked the waiter for a suggestion and he recommended the Mini Borg Sphere but cautioned that it should be shared. I manned up and nearly finished it myself.

Note: Not currently blogging in real time.

We took today pretty easy, only wading ankle-deep in Vegas. We had buffet breakfast/lunch at the Courtyard restaurant in the hotel. I thought the food was excellent and for $10 USD, as Calvin would say, you can’t go wrong. We then walked part of the strip eventually making it to The Experience.

Mindi bought a jumper for the baby and I picked up a copy of The Rules Of Acquisition to bone up in preparation for tomorrow. We figured out where the nearest monorail station was and headed back to the hotel for some pool time. The sun set quickly on us so we only spent about half an hour poolside.

Then we loaded up on junk food and settled in to watch the election returns. And what returns! The Democrats taking the House AND the Senate? Maybe we’re not doomed after all.

This was the most physically demanding day of the trip thus far as we had to take a bus to the airport during the worst downpour of the year. Streets were closed due to flooding, we had to run to catch the bus, the bus had some crazy folks on it, and the plane was delayed 2 hours. We made the best of it though, sitting near a ‘talking water fountain’ (stupid idea) I was able to beat another level on Tactical Assault.

The welcome in Vegas was slightly less than encouraging; while the airport was nice the first person I spoke to had a chip on her shoulder the size of our plane. The folks at the Stratosphere were pretty good, funny even; in fact they talked us into upgrading our room for $10/night. Our room is nice, the jacuzzi is very big but the bed is a Queen, not the King we paid for but we don’t mind.

One unfortunate thing is that our TV doesn’t get Comedy Central.

We went to IHOP for a late meal and it wasn’t very good; the eggs were runny, they tried to pass cold, stale toast off as sourdough, and the french toast was also stale.

All told our first impressions of Vegas weren’t very encouraging but our hotel seems pretty sweet.

Lots of walking today; from the Hotel to Pike Market to the Space Needle to the Hotel to The Cheesecake Factory to the Concert to the Hotel.

It rained on us a lot last night and again today which probably lead to a speedier visit to the Space Needle than intended but I didn’t mind. At the market we fed the pigeons and the homeless. The Cheesecake Factory was phenomenal once again although their beef ribs are hit and miss. We fed the homeless again, I designated Mindi Goodwill Ambassador for the trip.

The concert was awesome, one guy was dressed up as Neil from the Heart video and someone else had the dunce cap and shades like Chris wore in the Very videos. There was this creepy overweight lesbian sitting next to me who kept staring at me and barely seemed to enjoy the show, that unfortunately made me a little self conscious and thus cut into my enjoyment a little.

This was the boys first visit to Seattle and I think we showed them how strong a fan base they have on the west coast.

Neil’s even more soft-spoken live.

I would have to say it tied as the third best concert of all time with Hootie. The number 1 and 2 spots belonging to Depeche Mode and BNL respectively. The fact is DM gets higher points for audience participation and BNL a bonus for improv songs. PSB does take the gold in the area of most visually interesting though. The modular boxes made it look like they got the sets from Ikea. Oh, and the black Pet Shop Boy was a bit of a surprise.

During I’m With Stupid they projected images of George Bush and Tony Blair over each other, if you watched carefully they gave Bush a Hitler mustache at one point. I wonder how the Americans felt about that.

Minimal actually spells out the letters of the word in the song, I didn’t know that.

During Dreaming Of The Queen they played video of Diana’s funeral procession injecting a somber note into the crowd, obviously because of the reference to her in the song but it still came as a surprise.

The interval definitely threw the crowd, I would have been shocked too had I not seen the set list. But you’d think no opening act would have mitigated their surprise somewhat. I wonder if this format is standard in the UK or just a peculiarity of the band. Either way I think it a good idea as it gives the band and crowd a chance to rest and likely helps secondary revenue.

Neil didn’t use song titles while speaking to the audience except for introducing Flamboyant, probably because the audience wasn’t familiar with it.

Home And Dry: Neil with a guitar looks weird.

It seems West End Girls is the fan favorite. That’s a shame, I would have gone with Always On My Mind. Can you NOT sing and dance to this song?

The Sodom And Gomorrah Show was fun with Neil dressed up as a decorated military officer with a flag hanging out of his pocket.

It seems the crowd didn’t go completely crazy until the last song,Go West. It was fun but any DM song before Exciter gets the same reaction and the crowd’s reaction to Enjoy The Silence (DM’s fan favorite) would send the PSB fans running.

I went a little crazy at the merch table spending a total of $130 USD on 3 t-shirts and the program/booklet. Would I do it all again? No…I’d also get a hat.

A lot of people were curious to hear how this part of the trip went as it could influence their future travel plans. I highly recommend you pay the nominal fee to upgrade to Business Class if you choose this mode of transportation. There’s nothing wrong with Economy/Coach however there is one huge advantage to the upgrade: peace and quiet.

Not to sound elitist but you get higher quality (and subsequently lower volume) traveling companions. All it takes is one obnoxious loud-mouthed American to put a sour note on your trip as unfortunately we experienced this time. I won’t go into details as I’d rather not relive it but perhaps Mindi will blog about it and post a link - could be good to vent the spleen, personally I prefer to forget.

If it wasn’t for that one crazy lady I’d have nothing but nice things to say about the train. Even the border guard / customs agents were charming. So in conclusion I recommend taking the train with the caveat that the romance of meeting new people on the train can be a double-edged sword; you’re more likely to get Jackass than Before Sunrise.

The hotel was a little bit harder to find than anticipated but that was largely because the Seattle map in my PDA had some kind of error that made it unusable. Technology’s great when it works, and makes you walk a few blocks in the wrong direction when it doesn’t.

Note: This is my 150th blog entry.

After Encounters froze on me for the 4th time the other night I got to thinking about possibly having to upgrade my PC for Legacy; the merits and relative costs of RAM, Video Cards, CPUs, and entire machines. Having had ample opportunity to get a feel for the current video card market during my Tactical Assault hunts RAM was definitely looking like the ideal solution for possible problems.

The thing is the technical information that came with my latest PC was very lacking and I didn’t know some critical things about my RAM and motherboard like what MHz it operates at or the maximum capacity per slot. Around 4am I stumbled across crucial.com which ever so thankfully had a utility to scan your motherboard and RAM, and of course try to sell you an upgrade.

So future Legacy players, if the minimum 512MB RAM system requirement has you concerned (or Windows Vista’s 1 GB requirement) I highly recommend this site to shed some light. For example my options for upgrading are 256 MB for $40, 512 MB for $70, or 1 GB for $140. While I like to be frugal if all I have to upgrade is RAM I’ll probably go for the gig out of relief and so I shant need another upgrade for hopefully quite some time thereafter.

The other night I had two strange dreams.

In the first my company was building a branch on the moon and my girlfriend and I were sent to operate the first two installations which happened to share a main office building. I took to calling her ‘Moon Base 2′ and speaking entirely in quotes from the original Transformers movie, she took exception to that and the gag grew old fast but I persisted until she stopped talking to me.

In my other dream I was watching the news when it was reported that scientists had proven that Ashton Kutcher was genetically closer to a monkey than a human.

This blog began with a vivid dream so continuing that tradition I’d like to tell you about my most recent dream…

I was driving around Playland on an inflatable go kart consulting with penguins about the installation of water slides.

I cannot get enough of this show. It’s entertaining, intelligent, funny, and fresh. It makes me think again that I should have gone into business; not as an entrepreneur dear god but as some kind of middle to upper management efficiency expert. Although I suppose what I do now isn’t that far from it.

There was period when I considered it but when the idea of creating a budget that projected the future with no knowledge came up I thought it wasn’t for me. Then this past year I was thrust into the position of placing orders with very little information and not to toot my own horn but our primary supplier said my forecasting was the best, easiest to work with, and most accurate he’s seen in half a decade.

One thing I like about the show versus other ‘reality’ TV is that the brutal honesty isn’t personal, as this is business, and always seems to have a constructive aspect. This isn’t Simon Cowell telling you that you’re a horrible person, this is Canadian; this is either deals being made or helpful advice being offered.

In a way I like the completely unapologetic way the dragons operate as it speaks to a theme of self-knowledge, accountability, and responsibility you may have notice in earlier posts (see topics such as panhandlers and neighbours)

The only time it gets personal is when the pitcher cannot separate comments about the business from comments about themselves and if that’s the case they shouldn’t be in business.

While we’ve decided on a name, Hayley, if it’s a girl the field is still somewhat open if it’s a boy. With the news that it’s going to be another 5 weeks longer than expected before gender is determined I thought I would open the subject for debate.

My primary concern is the identity that a name might or might not imply. Anything too masculine or too feminine is also a concern, as are names that might confuse the child in the realm of ancestry (i.e. Mohamed, Yoshi, or Angus would not seem to be appropriate). Obviously anything that would hint at a profession (i.e. Jeeves, Hunter) is out, and I have provisionally banned the letters A and M (although Aidan is exempt from this restriction), my reasoning is that names beginning with these letters are incredibly prevalent right now as my research indicates. Alexander for example is the 7th most common male first name in the province, Matthew 3rd, and Max 86th.

How to read what follows…
Name - Origin “Meaning” US: #popularity in the states BC: #position in top 100 most common names in BC - direction of popularity.

So here is some information on first names currently being considered…

Julian - Italian. “Jove’s Child”. Female name in medieval England. US: #276 BC: #98 - steady popularity.

Neil - Irish-Scottish. “Champion” US: #234 BC: N/A - declining popularity.

Aidan - Also a female name. US: Very rare, not statistically significant BC: #31 - increasing popularity (largely unknown before 1995).

Middle Names…

Joseph - Hebrew. “The Lord Will Increase” US: #9 BC: #30 - steady popularity.

Louis - German-French. “Famous Warrior” US: #75 BC: N/A - declining popularity.

Jon - Hebrew. (and he calls ME the Jew) US: #157 BC: #57 - declining popularity.

And in case you were curious…

Hayley - English. “Hero” US: #1312 BC: #16 - steady popularity (largely unknown before 1961).

And for fun…

Ray - German-English. “Advice Protector” US: #36 BC: N/A - declining popularity.

Mindi - English. “Sweet” US: #1757 BC: N/A - sharply declining popularity.

For me Julian and Neil are neck and neck with Aidan a very distant third. Likewise Joseph and Louis is a tight battle with Jon thrown in for laughs.

To keep from confusing you completely we’ll save the discussion of female middle names for another time.

Okay the first mission in this era is, I think, designed to drive you clinically insane. As such I offer you my 3-step procedure for kicking it in the teeth. It took me forever to figure all of this out…
1) Turn off vibration. This level is hard enough without the controller trying to violently free itself.
2) “His pattern indicates two-dimensional thinking” Rare is the space combat game that this comment of Spock’s doesn’t apply to. In this case hold down L1 whenever you’re near the Kazon and you’ll fly right over him without difficulty.
3) After winning the second race search out and destroy the capital ships before destroying the last of the fighters. One of them contains the Engineer’s card that DRASTICALLY improves both speed and handling - without this card there is no way in hell you’ll ever beat the mission. So remember to leave at least one fighter to last or else you won’t be able to pick up the card and you’ll be stuck in a race you cannot win.

For the most part the missions in this era are more annoying than fun, get them over with so you can move on.

And since when has Voyager been able to destroy a Tactical Cube with a single sustained phaser blast?