Grazing Rites

I have to admit I was sorely uninformed about the whole disappearing bee thing until just recently. First I thought it was just a plot point of the upcoming Stephen King movie. Then there was a brief reference to it in Bee Movie which I chalked up to coincidence. Then Doctor Who said something so it was time to pay Wikipedia a visit. It seems the phenomenon has been observed for some time and doesn’t really have short-range implications for North America.

So maybe it’s a cyclical thing. And even if it’s not North America should be fine, right?

I’m not that naive.

You remove a species from the food chain and you can’t reasonably expect to predict the consequences. Our biosphere is too chaotic a system to have that level of understanding, just look at the butterfly effect.

But this isn’t the first time a species may have faced extinction, and we’re not even sure that’s where this is going. I did get too worked up over the dodo. Well there’s a difference here. The current front runner theories that don’t accept it as cyclical say it could be increased global temperature or higher CO2 levels or both. So it could be our fault. But that’s nothing new either so why has this captured my attention?

Because it’s the first species I’ve encountered in my day-to-day life in plentiful numbers to become at risk. It’s not a obscure concept, it’s in your face. What if I never see another bee? What if I have to explain what a bee was to my son rather than just one day point at one and say “that’s a bee“?

So I’ve tried to be a bit more diligent about energy conservation and not killing lower lifeforms. Sure ants and flies can be annoying but we’d probably miss them.

So I’m on the bus when a guy gets on via the back doors. It really cheeses me off when people do this but I normally just glare at them. Well today a hand clamped down on this guy’s shoulder and he turned around to face a transit security officer who must have hit 6 feet before puberty.

“What are you doing?” security asked.

“I have a ticket” the offender said.

“Why aren’t you using the front doors like everyone else?” asked security.

“There’s a line” said the offender.

“And what is it that makes you better than everyone else?” asked security.

“I didn’t want to wait” said the offender.

“I bet none of these people WANT to wait,” said security “but everyone does so you’re going to get in line like everyone else.”

The offender just stood there.

“You wait in line like everyone else” the security guy repeated. They stared at each other and then the offender relented and got in line.

Car names should better reflect the vehicles they name, don’t you think?

The Infiniti should last the longest (perhaps the Highlander too), the Intrepid and Explorer should be 4X4 offroading jeeps. The Protege should be cutting edge. The Towncar should be subcompact and have the best fuel efficiency in traffic. The Acura should have hypersensitive and accurate GPS and all-digital gauges. Jettas should be fast. Civics should come with a first aid kit and digital camera. The Element should be basic with no features. The Pathfinder should have GPS standard.

Some names are fine as they are care of their vagueness; Passat, Accent, Focus, Accord, and Golf for example.

Jon pitched an interesting idea the other night, apparently he may have the opportunity to go to Vegas in December. Suffice to say I was excited by the notion. Having left GM taking time off in December is much easier now in terms of scheduling and preparation although funds are tighter. So I quickly took a peak at some rates.

Assuming a week-long trip I used the hypothetical dates of the 1st to the 7th. We could do it for $598 CDN per person including flight, hotel, taxes and fees. It’s not quite the sweet deal I got for Orlando last year but it’s pretty close. And that Orlando deal was probably a once-in-a-lifetime steal.

The upgrade options aren’t that bad either, we could stay at the Luxor for about $100 more or the MGM for $250 more.

The Experience, the buffets, the Bellagio fountains…very exiting prospects. Jon will probably want to go to Hoover Dam and if we have a full week or more that would be easy to fit in.

It’s enough to make you want to put some money into savings. I put $5 dollars in, it may seem like nothing but things are a little tight for me at the moment and it’s $5 I wasn’t earning interest on before - granted that interest would only be about a penny a month but still. Look at it this way, if you put $5 away every day from May to November you’d have $1,050 not counting interest.

Okay, that interest, even compounded, only works out to $7.25 but rates are bad right now.

Okay, so it looks like I was half wrong with my first round predictions, let’s see if I can do any better this time.

Round 2
Montreal vs. Philadelphia – Montreal
Pittsburg vs. New York – New York
Detroit vs. Colorado – Detroit
San Jose vs. Dallas – San Jose

Round 3
Montreal vs. New York – Montreal
Detroit vs. San Jose – Detroit

Round 4
Montreal vs. Detroit – Montreal

So I’m now predicting Montreal will win their 25th Stanley Cup in an Original 6 matchup.

So I got banned from The Huffington Post on the eve of the Pennsylvania primary. I e-mailed them to ask why but thus far I’m left with no response and a theory.

Nora Ephron made a post saying that the primary was nothing more than a referendum on whether white men hate blacks or women more. She said white men would decide the election and they couldn’t be trusted to make an informed decision. So I called her a racist sexist who only sees the worst in people.

How is saying a gender will all behave the same inferior way not sexist? How is ascribing flawed character traits to an entire race not racist? How is saying an entire state will vote based solely on some hierarchy of hatred not seeing the worst in people?

I suspect she took exception to me pointing out these facts and had me banned.

It’s about freaking time. 6 weeks since the last primary. Can you imagine if they stopped the Stanley Cup playoffs for 6 weeks after the second round? I think I’ve taken it well. With no new episodes of 24 the primaries had been doing a decent job filling the entertainment gap. Not that I’m completely without entertainment, Doctor Who has been pretty good this year.

So most polls still have Clinton ahead by 5 or 6 points. Frankly this amazes me. She can’t win the nomination or the general, she’s a proven liar, and has come out against democracy. Obama’s having record turnout at his rallies and consistently raised more money than any other candidate this year. So I guess the question is, are the polls wrong? Are they under-sampling young voters who don’t have land lines?

Clinton has to get something like 65% of the vote to be mathematically viable. Obama getting 35% or more is technically a win but what if he actually won this contest? It could bury Clinton although she might not notice. But current conventional wisdom is that she’ll win this primary by a narrow margin but get put down like a rabid dog in Indiana or North Carolina.

So this one primary might not decide anything. To continue the playoff metaphor it’s like a game 6 with Obama up 3-2, he could bury it but might not. I hope he does, if primary fatigue has begun to set in with me you can imagine how the average voter must feel.

I don’t have any special plans for this primary but I plan to take Tuesday and Wednesday off from work for a variety of reasons.

They are completely retiring the old trolley buses in Vancouver. Coincidently I got the very last run of the very last of these buses. I must say when I saw it coming I was more annoyed than honoured because their capacity is smaller and they’re less comfortable.

30 years old, these buses. Made in Winnipeg of all places. I remember taking these buses with my mom when I was young. Later in life they became problematic as they’re not stroller friendly.

I always thought these buses were from the early 60s, not 1978. Only two years older than me. Damn. And they’re being replaced. Huh.

When these buses first came into service people were listening to Walkmans, then CD players, and now mp3 devices. People used their first cell phones on these buses.

Of course the very next day I’m on one of the new trolleys when someone sits next to me with a Walkman.

2 small pieces of plastic have a little too much plastic on them and my phone rings off the hook forcing me to abandon my family.

It wasn’t all bad though, I got to ride the last run of the last of the old trolleys. I discovered quite a few problems that were easily solved but required my access or specific knowledge to fix. It was busy for awhile but not crippling and just as it seemed as though it would never stop, it did.

Got into a bit of a spat near the end of the day mind you. Someone who had created hours of extra work for me and my team was finding new and inappropriate ways to create more work for us so I had to put my foot down. Hopefully there won’t be any blow back but my requests are humble and no one else has a problem but this one individual who has refused to give any ground for years.

The coalition grows. Like-minded individuals rejoin with an eye to the future and an appreciation of the past. Old traditions, goals, and time-tested philosophies reborn.

You think you’re the only one sometimes, that those days foolishly meant more to you. That nobility was a idealistic myth. That the battles you fought amounted to nothing in the end. But then you find out someone saw things as you did and not just appreciated them but understood them as you did. Then you find a new fight that needs fighting.

A kernel of an idea is floated. A campaign to reclaim and improve lost territory. A likely impossible dream but one now shared.

Hope doesn’t die. The values of service live on. We scatter and regroup. We endure and find a way.

It’s comforting to find out an important part of your life is exactly what you thought it was.

It’s not Point Break 2, but it will do. It’s actually a pretty damn good flick. There are a few suspension of disbelief moments but no challenge for a guy who accepts talking bees and space pigs at face value. The plot is good, appropriately complex, and reasonably unconventional. One thing the movie does poorly is establish character names so pay attention as it becomes important.

The trailers cover a long span of the movie, the point at which you finally get past all the trailer clips - the trailer break if you will - actually comes pretty late in the movie. But the trailers don’t accurately depict the movie. Apparently many people expected it to be like Training Day. Don’t let the poor reviews and mediocre box office performance mislead you though, it’s pleasantly surprising.

If you’re worried about possibly doubling up on items there are 3 things we could use multiples of: Socks, Jeans, and Sweatshirts. Also gift receipts would be much appreciated. As well the ball pit idea has run into some snags so it may be an option.

I was thinking the other day of the catch-22 when answering questions about close political contests. Specifically if you’re in a tight race and you say you expect your opponent to do well or put up a strong fight you’re “lowering expectations” or “expectation-setting” for your own performance but on the other hand if you say you expect to win you’re overconfident or out of touch.

When did describing reality become a bad thing?

So the choice is between being a Machiavellian schemer or a cocky elitist. And they wonder why some people get turned off by the political process.

I had an odd dream last night. For some reason I felt like going to a Mormon church. On the way government agents approached me and asked for my help spying on them. I agreed.

After completing my mission I went to Playland to talk to Natalie and the site had been reorganized into a straight line to the left. As we were talking I overheard George call in on the radio about someone assaulting staff. I saw someone matching the description being chased by Sam, I got in their way so Sam could catch up. A scuffle ensued but we took the guy down.

As Sam took the guy away I noticed my wallet was missing. A quick survey of the crowd and I found a couple teenage girls with it. I got my wallet back but the girls got away because I didn’t have a radio to call for backup. The girls made off with the more valuable contents of my wallet.

Make of that what you will.

In case anyone out there was looking for ideas for my son’s first birthday we’ve compiled a small list to help.

-Age appropriate Transformers stuff
-Baby Gate
-Books
-Outdoor toys (i.e. inflatable beach ball, something easily stored)
-Pants & shorts (12 months or larger)
-Small pillow
-Snacktime by Barenaked Ladies
-Socks
-Sweatshirts (18 months or larger)
-Toy chest
-T-shirts (18 months or larger)

Gift Cards
-Chapters
-Gymboree
-Please Mum
-The Children’s Place
-Toys’r'us
-Zellers

Already Spoken For
-Ball Pit
-MegaBlocks

My computer and PDA are both old and sick. Replacing either is about $500.

My DVD burner isn’t working at full speed, in fact it’s operating at about one-quarter speed. Legacy doesn’t run smoothly. The hard drives are getting full. The technology is becoming obsolete; my IDE hard drives need to be replaced with faster and higher capacity SATA drives and my AGP graphics card needs to be replaced with PCI-E. Single-core processors are becoming quaint.

Meanwhile my PDA screen is scratched to hell and the power keeps cutting out. My version of messenger doesn’t work and my web browser can’t handle most sites. Plus I lost the nice leather case I used to keep it in.

I’m all about extracting maximum value from my devices and keeping them running much longer than most people but frustration is beginning to set in.

Now the PC has one big advantage, I know exactly what I want.

Jon wants to go to Europe but his employment situation is in a constant state of flux. I want to go on a road trip. My girlfriend’s dipping into her vacation days due to illness. My mom isn’t able to watch the kid for a week. Extended time in a car seat isn’t my son’s thing. Hundreds of flights are being canceled every day.

It’s like trying to navigate a small asteroid field, many large objects in play each with their own physics (momentum, direction, spin, size, composition, etc.) but also some effecting others. There’s simply too many variables to calculate. And we all know the odds of successfully navigating an asteroid field.

Never tell me the odds.

My current plan is to hold position, blow up the smaller asteroids, navigate around the ones I can and just wait for chaos theory to take hold and a pattern emerge. I’m betting that a hole, a clear path through the field to the other side, will appear and I’ll just have to slam on the hyper drive and get the hell out of dodge.

Is this Star Wars asteroid field metaphor doing anything for you? It seems pretty serviceable to me.

Now the problem is I don’t want to clip an asteroid on the way out. In simpler language I don’t want to screw anyone over, hurt anyone’s feelings, give insufficient notice, or pay too much.

It’s only April so it’s not like it’s time to panic, last year I didn’t have Orlando figured out until May and that was some long-range planning.

Asteroids spontaneously blow up and maybe someone will upgrade my ship with some sort of beam weapon to clear the path or I may just need to wait it out. But you know good ol’ plan-for-worst-case-scenario me, if it gets to September/October/November and there’s nothing on the books I’ll find a way to make something happen - but it will likely require blasting an asteroid or 3.

I would of course rather it not come to that. I suppose an absolute best case scenario would be Jon, my girlfriend, Josh and I taking a road trip to Vegas, LA, and San Fran. A worst case scenario would be me in Edmonton or Vegas by myself for 3 or 4 days.

One way or another I’m pretty committed to leaving the province for a place with a pool and some rides for at least 3 days before year’s end - I don’t think that’s too much to ask for.

I had an odd dream last night where I somehow forgot Valentine’s Day and no one told me for a month. Then when I woke up I had difficulty remembering what I did for Valentine’s this year but then it came to me. Weird.

I must say I am pleased thus far with the new additions to my team.

I’m still surprised I was able to get a former supervisor of mine. She’s intelligent, capable, experienced and principled, anyone would be fortunate to have her on their team. That said it’s just a matter of time until she tells me something I’ve done is retarded to my face. It’s a frustration I welcome - the first officer with the balls to stand up to the captain…with just cause.

Like Picard picking Riker for not letting Desoto beam down to a hostile situation I’m partly glad to have her on the team because she never knuckled under to me or Mark. Yes-men are fun but a principled person makes you a better leader because you have to earn it every day. Besides any difficulties it may cause will be more than outweighed by the ability she brings to the position and those difficulties will make us all better anyways.

The other new recruit is very eager to contribute. All I have to do is hint at something and she attacks it with gusto.

Now I finally have a team of my own creation, not that the vast majority of the people I inherited weren’t awesome it’s just that now we live or die as a result of my choices - no one else to blame or thank. It may be egotistical but it’s like cutting the strings of the net, time to walk the tightrope without anything else between you and the concrete.

And the fact that all but one of them have some association with my old department makes me giggle. Or chuckle evilly. Depends on the venue.

For some reason passing understanding the media keeps reporting that Mark Penn resigned and/or left the campaign but the sad reality is neither are true.

He did resign his position as Chief Strategist but he is still her top pollster and one of her top advisors.

To say he “resigned from the campaign” or even “resigned his position with the campaign” is at best misleading. You read that and think he’s gone but he’s not. Demoted might be a better word or they could say his portfolio or role was reduced or his duties have been restricted. English may not be the most logical or consistent language but it is dynamic enough to express this distinction.

To say he “left the campaign” is just simply not true. Misinformed at best, intentional bald-faced lying at worst. And this is the media - those responsible for keeping us informed - so for them to be misinformed or misleading is inexcusable. But as I’ve said, keeping the myth of Hillary actually having a chance at getting the nomination alive keeps the news outlets’ pockets lined.

Think about it, without this primary race we’d just have dueling headlines of “Obama makes great speech” and “McCain gets facts wrong again” for months.

What would I blog about? Playoffs, my kid, and work I guess. With over 550 posts under my belt I’m not concerned about material.

Alright, those of you who don’t like hockey can skip this post. Those that do know it’s that time of year again. You may recall my Round 1 predictions last year all came true so let’s see if I can do it again.

Round 1
Montreal vs. Boston – Montreal
Pittsburg vs. Ottawa – Ottawa
Washington vs. Philadelphia – Philadelphia*
New Jersey vs. Rangers – Rangers
Detroit vs. Nashville – Detroit (buy a broom)
San Jose vs. Calgary – Calgary
Minnesota vs. Colorado – Minnesota*
Anaheim vs. Dallas – Dallas (Pronger must die)

Round 2
Montreal vs. Ottawa – Ottawa
Philadelphia vs. Rangers – Rangers
Detroit vs. Calgary – Calgary
Minnesota vs. Dallas – Dallas*

Round 3
Ottawa vs. Rangers – Ottawa
Calgary vs. Dallas – Calgary

Round 4
Ottawa vs. Calgary – Ottawa

* - total guess and what’s more, I don’t really care

The Narrative

The Montreal-Boston series will be great, an old rivalry to remind everyone of past playoff series, for me it will be the games of the early 90s.

The star players of Pittsburg will give Ottawa a run for their money as will Montreal; no part of their long stretch to the cup will be easy unless New York flakes out.

Pronger will get fined or suspended for something dirty and offensive that should end his career but won’t. Burt will score a goal and get a few assists making many Vancouverites happy but Pronger’s cheap play will get Dallas fired up to win.

Detroit will sweep Nashville and run up the score in several games making everyone think it’s an Octopus year but then their recent trend of great regular seasons with bad post-season showings will catch up to them and they’ll lose in the second round to Calgary in a narrow and hotly contested 7-game series – Red will be everyone’s favorite colour.

After that the commentators instead will focus on how great an all-Canadian final series would be and they’ll get their wish after being proven so wrong about their Red Wing bandwagoning when our nation’s capital will take it in 7 games. The cost of the clean-up of the resulting celebrations of both cities will be in the millions of dollars and subsequently boost GDP helping Ottawa resist the recession of the United States. Hockey ends up saving their economy from a downturn and all is right with the universe.

What? It could happen. Do you doubt the predictive power of Da CoW Code? Well I guess we’ll find out.

I may have a solution for the Canucks woes and it’s only 6 letters long.

Don Hay.

That is all.

There are certain things I wish to write about but I fear doing so would be unwise.

Like how my former ******** has to **** ** more people than they ever had to under my leadership.

Or how I was able to **** a former **********.

Or how ****** is ********.

Or the whole ******* ******* ****-** in my old **********.

Or the ********* always sending us to the ******** and all but once being wrong.

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Assistant
Department
Department
Eleana
F*ck
Hire
Hire
Hospital
Manager
Nurseline
Pregnant
Supervisor
Up

Twice today I’ve heard Hillary compared to a Dark Lord of the Sith.

An article was talking about how Clinton “tends to the dark side“. The title was misleading as the article was about how she uses more depressing stories in her speeches than the other candidates.

The second occurrence was a friend of mine commenting on her appearance. He argued that she looks worse and worse as the campaign progresses much like Senator Palpatine becoming The Emperor.

Take that Carville.

R.E.M. has a new album out, from the sounds of their interview on The Colbert Report they took a similar approach to this album as they did with Monster so my enthusiasm is somewhat restrained. Had it sounded more like Out Of Time or Automatic For The People I’d be listening to it right now. I’ll probably check out a few tracks but it’s not like it’s a new PSB album.

Long before the heydays of Napster and the iPod I foresaw not just the rise of mp3s but the death of albums. When you can download tracks a la carte I think few people will download entire albums. You get the hits, leave the rest. But what acts of musical genius might you be missing out on? Some of my all-time favorite songs were never released as singles, had I not bought the albums I may have never discovered them.

R.E.M. tracks such as Near Wild Heaven, Texarkana, Half A World Away, Find The River, and Try Not To Breathe come to mind. Near Wild Heaven is one of my favorite, favorite, favorite songs of all time. It’s one of those songs you never skip and cannot go a year without listening to. Songs like Depeche Mode’s One Caress, Pet Shop Boys’ In Denial, or Hootie & The Blowfish’s Not Even The Trees. These are some of these artists’ best work and in a world of mp3s would they show up on the radar?

I think there’s a feeling in some demographics that the singles are somehow the best songs but that is not the case. Singles are the most marketable songs. They have a hook, they’re catchy or funny, they appeal to what certain people believe is the mainstream. At best it’s the dessert but the meat-and-potatoes tracks are often as good or better.

My April Fools Day was pretty good this year. I’d made good progress working off my sick days so I took the first half of the day off. I slept in until 10am, had some Vanilla Rice Krispies while I read the news, played some Lego Star Wars, did some sit-ups, got ready and went to work. Overall not a bad way to start any day - blowing up the Death Star before noon.

This movie seemed to effect people in different ways; some people cried, some people laughed. I was somewhere in the middle. The crying I understand, the laughs are just uninformed. ‘Uninformed’ is being polite, ignorant or stupid would be just as accurate.

Wikipedia calls this “MTV’s first anti-war film” which I take exception to, how can any film about war be both accurate and pro-war? Speaking of which I found some powerful parallels between this film and All Quiet On The Western Front, most notably the soldier returning from war a hero to his family but a monster to himself who must give an impromptu speech that the establishment hopes will increase recruitment.

The message of the film is threefold.

1. The war in Iraq is pointless, poorly run, and self-defeating.

2. The stop-loss program in a war of aggression is morally indefensible and essentially a draft but without the civil uprising.

3. The disconnect between President Bush and reality is wider, deeper, and further reaching than most people think.

The movie deftly avoids the pitfalls of your usual Hollywood fare. The soldier  doesn’t have a girl waiting, the hero doesn’t get the girl, no happy ending. People make real mistakes, have real problems, face real outcomes. People waste time, try things that don’t work. As a result the ending is a little unsatisfying but unlike No Country For Old Men it has a point.

This isn’t a feel-good film but it is intelligent and ruthlessly honest.